Under a Silent Moon: A Novel (7 page)

After a moment she got control of herself again. “Yes,” she said. Not meaning it.

“Will you be okay?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“I’ll see you later? And you can ring me anytime.”

She said goodbye and rang off, just in time for the tears to overwhelm her again.

07:52

The Op Nettle MIR was buzzing, full of people, and it wasn’t even eight.

The press packet for the briefing was the first item on Lou’s agenda. The media officer had started preparing it yesterday, had obtained photographs of Polly Leuchars and her car, written up a statement. First thing this morning the color copiers on the command floor would be churning it out for the press conference.

Back in the Incident Room, the first bit of news from forensics was a pile of fingerprint idents.

“Right, what have we got?” Lou asked, flipping through the pages. Jason was peering over her shoulder. He had on some very subtle aftershave. God, what was the matter with her? It wasn’t as though she needed any distractions.

The first three pages were fingerprints taken from Yonder Cottage. Fingerprints identified were those of Polly Leuchars (all over the house), Felicity Maitland (downstairs only, including the downstairs bathroom), Flora Maitland (all over the house). Several other sets, some recent. And three clear prints made in blood, indicating someone present in the house when Polly was already dead or dying.

“Oh, crap!” Lou said, reading the final sentence again.

“Well, at least we know it’s definitely connected,” Lou said.

A few pages further on, mention of shoe marks, badly smudged, at Yonder Cottage, a small size, indicating a child or a woman.

A few pages further on, fingerprints taken from inside Polly Leuchars’s car, which had been parked, locked, in the driveway to the cottage.

“Prints belonging to the victim, Nigel Maitland, and three unidentified sets. That’s a bit odd, don’t you think?”

“Is it?” Jason replied.

“Well, how many different sets do you think would be in your car?”

Jason thought for a moment, his skin flushing. “Well, quite a few. I had the car fixed a couple of weeks ago. Could have been several mechanics working on it, right?”

“Hmm, fair point, I guess.” Lou made a note; someone would have to check the car’s service history, get a list of people who were insured to drive it. “Wonder why Nigel’s prints are in there? He has better cars to drive than hers.”

“Maybe it was in the way and he moved it.”

“Maybe.” Next report, forwarded from Andy Hamilton—the prints from inside the kitchen of the Fletcher-Normans: two sets, his and hers. No others.

“We need Brian to wake up,” Lou said.

“The phone data is coming through,” Jason said. “I need to start work on that.”

“Will it take long?”

“You’re a hard taskmaster.”

When she looked up he was giving her a smile. Cheeky.

“Damn right I am. You’d better get busy before I start thinking up penalties for slacking.”

07:57

Detective Superintendent Gordon Buchanan had descended like the Lord Almighty from the command floor to attend Lou’s second briefing.

A small man, he made up for his lack of stature with a personality that demanded full attention, rewarded it with hearty good wishes, and punished the lack of it with a merciless bellowing that put the fear of God into all those unfortunate enough to find themselves on the receiving end. Lou had worked for him on a previous case, had been lucky enough to spot something that should have been glaringly obvious but which everyone else had missed. She took it to her colleagues first, who were grateful that she’d not taken the matter straight to Buchanan himself. They’d worked through the case, but somehow Buchanan had got wind of what had happened and had had a soft spot for her ever since. He valued hard work and bright intelligence, and she was there ready to dish out both in spades.

In addition, she wasn’t half-bad-looking either, and as everyone knew, Gordon Buchanan liked his ladies.

He sat at the front, facing the room, a reminder that there would be hell on a stick if anyone made any unfortunate cock-up, and that if things went well there might be future glory for whoever made the vital breakthrough that helped bring Polly Leuchars’s killer to justice.

Lou was supposed to have offered some sort of prebriefing briefing for him, but she had been too busy. As she strode into the room ahead of everyone else she mouthed an apology. Buchanan pointedly looked at his watch as though things were running behind schedule and he was a very busy man, but Lou was on time and she knew it. Her priority was the investigation, in any case, not sucking up to the boss.

“Sir,” she said, “thanks for coming. I appreciate it.”

“Not at all,” he said, melting. For someone with such a lot of front, he was very easily buttered up. “How’s it going?”

“Rather well, I think,” Lou said, “but it’s very early days.”

“Thanks for your voice mail last night. I’m afraid you’re going to get the other case too, by the look of it. However, I’ve managed to get you a couple more DCs, for now.”

Andy Hamilton was sitting behind Buchanan, chatting happily to Ali Whitmore, one of the DCs who’d been working on the Fletcher-Norman case yesterday. Who was the other one?

Lou had a PowerPoint presentation that Jason had knocked together for her with bullet points which had already emerged from the investigation.

“Right, thanks, everyone, let’s get on with it,” she said.

First slide, the Op Nettle title slide.

“Okay, we’ve got the initial pathology report back which tells us that Polly was killed between midnight and two, no later than that. Priority for me is to trace her exact movements on the evening before she died. Andy, can you give us an update on the Fletcher-Normans?”

Andy coughed to make sure he had everyone’s full attention. “Right. Well, I understand we’re working on the possibility of the cases being linked. If you weren’t here yesterday, come and see me and I can give you an update after the briefing. To summarize: Barbara Fletcher-Norman was found around the same time as Polly. She was in her car at the bottom of Ambleside Quarry. We’re still waiting on the full PM report, which should be later today. Patrol reported that when they went to give the death message to Brian Fletcher-Norman, there was blood in the kitchen of Hayselden Barn, as if someone had washed their hands in the sink. The Barn’s been sealed since then, but until now we’ve not had the powers to go in. However, the CSI report from Yonder Cottage shows Barbara Fletcher-Norman’s bloody fingerprints in the kitchen and the hallway. She was in the cottage when Polly was dead or dying, and so we have a suspect, albeit a dead one.”

There was a little murmur from the people in the room.

“Thanks,” Lou said. “Les, did you get back to Dr. Francis about the seat belt?”

Les peered round Andy Hamilton. “Yeah. She had half fallen out of it when she was hanging upside down, but it was in place. I’m off back to the hospital in a minute for the rest of the PM.”

“When can we get CSI into the Barn—do we know?”

“Later today. Simon Hughes is going to be the senior.”

Lou had all but forgotten that Buchanan was there; this was one of her favorite bits of the job, bringing everything together, prioritizing, making sure that things got done and nothing was left out.

“Okay. Our priority for today is to find out what the connection was between Polly Leuchars and the Fletcher-Normans. How’s Miranda getting on with the Maitlands—anyone know?”

Jane Phelps said, “She’s still there. There seems to be plenty of people paying visits to the farm. Nigel Maitland claims he was out all day, came home late, last saw Polly a few days ago. He won’t say anything else without his solicitor.”

“And the daughter?”

“She seems to be the most sensible one in the house, shame she doesn’t live there.”

Lou thought for a moment. “We should talk to her properly, I think. Get to know her a bit.” She looked around for a suitable person, aware that allocating tasks was something she should trust to her sergeant—old habits were dying hard. “Andy, can you take that for me?”

He looked up in surprise. Did he think he’d done his bit?

“I’ve got meetings—I was going to brief the CSIs, sort out the Fletcher-Normans.”

He was trying it on, Lou thought. She took a deep breath. “Nevertheless, since you’re going to be across the road from the farm most of the day, I’d appreciate it if you’d take a moment to talk to Flora.”

“Jane’s going to be at the farm all day.”

An embarrassed hush descended on the briefing room and for a moment they all faded into the background, even Buchanan, until it was just her and Andy, facing each other. It reminded her of the last confrontation they’d had, when she’d been in tears and he’d been tender, gentle with her, pleading. She hadn’t backed down then, either.

There was a cough and Ali Whitmore raised a hand. “Ma’am, I’d like to take that one, if I can? I’ve worked on Nigel Maitland before, so I might be able to bring something to that line of inquiry . . . if it would help?”

Andy kept up the hard stare but didn’t say anything else. It was tempting to push him to take the job but he’d been thrown a lifeline by Whitmore. Really, that had been embarrassing and unprofessional. He should have known better, and the room was charged with excitement now, as if they’d all enjoyed the little argument.

“That would be really helpful, Ali, thank you. Which brings us neatly on to intel,” Lou said briskly. “Barry—anything useful?”

“We should be getting some stuff in this morning. One thing that did stand out for me, though, is that on the list of the farm employees is one Mr. Connor Petrie. He’s showing as a casual farmhand-slash-groom. Been there since March.”

“Connor Petrie?” Lou echoed.

“One of the younger Petries. Son of Gavin Petrie and Emma Payswick, charming couple that they are.”

Lou smiled. “Well, at least this one seems to have a job. But, Ali, can you find out how Mr. Petrie came to be employed by Nigel Maitland? That seems like an odd combination. You might need to put in a request for more intel. Anyone else interesting on the list, Barry?”

He shook his head. “They’ve got a cleaner for the farmhouse, comes twice a week, various people who work with Nigel on the farm side of it, mostly casuals, but nobody jumps out. We’re working our way through them.”

She had one eye on the clock—half an hour to go until she was in front of the press.

“Jane, how are we doing with the phones?”

“We don’t have Polly’s phone—wasn’t in the cottage—but we’ve got Felicity’s and Nigel’s, although from the casual way he handed it over I would imagine it’s clean. I don’t know about the ones from the Barn, though.”

“Andy?”

He looked pissed off. “I’ll get back to you on that one. Leave it with me.”

“I will,” Lou said. “I want billings and cellsite for both their mobiles. Landline billing too.”

“I’ve already applied for billings from the farm,” Jane said.

“Thanks, Jane. Can you make sure Jason’s down as the appointed analyst?”

“I’ve done that.”

“Great. Where are we up to? I’m conscious of the time, so any urgent questions?”

She scanned the room, looking for hands, for confusion in the faces, and her eyes stopped when she got to Jason. He was looking right back at her, attentive, interested. That was a good sign, at least.

08:21

08:58

“Andy,” Lou said.

He was disappearing out of the briefing room, quicker to his feet than any of the others. He froze when he heard his name.

“My office.”

She went back to the MIR next door, hoping he was following but determined not to look back at the arrogant piece of shit.

He came in behind her and closed the door. He didn’t move to sit and she didn’t request it. Instead they stood facing each other, the space in the small office made still smaller by his bulk. Even though she was wearing heels, he towered over her.

She waited for a moment, composing herself and wondering how on earth she was going to do this, and at the same time as being angry with him—
furious—
she realized that this was the closest they’d been since everything had happened and she could feel the warmth from his body, and her body was reacting to it in spite of herself.

“I’m sorry,” he said, unprompted. “It was unprofessional.”

“Yes,” she said. “It was.”

He started to say something else, then stopped.

“What?” she said. “Say it.”