Witchmoor Edge (20 page)

DS Gibbs finished his orange juice

* * *

Millicent snatched a sandwich and a coffee
and took them up to her office in the Incident Suite, leaving DC
Bright to eat a more leisurely lunch in the canteen. She had no
sooner settled herself at her desk than there began a succession of
callers.

DC Goss came in waving his notebook. "Hot
from the presses," he said. "In fact, so hot it hasn't even been to
the presses yet."

"The syringe?" Millicent demanded eagerly,
and Goss nodded.

"So what do forensic say about it?"

"Very odd," Goss said. "There were no prints
on it but those of Hunter himself, and they were entirely natural
as if he'd used the syringe himself. Thumb print on the plunger and
so on."

"That is odd," Millicent agreed. It had upset
her calculations completely. She hadn't been expecting any
particular prints at all, but the one set she hadn't expected were
those of Hunter."

"Very odd," Millicent repeated. "What had
they to say about the contents?"

"Morphine," Goss said. "There were traces of
other substances but they were too similar to be certain of either
the proportions or the quantity, but they thought the mixture would
have been effective in anything from two or three minutes to about
twenty minutes, depending on dosage."

Millicent leaned back, tapping her fingers
absently on the desk as she tried to make sense of the new
information.

Could Hunter really have given himself a
fatal dose of a dangerous mixture like that? Obviously he had done,
but had he done it knowingly and willingly? In spite of Doctor
Leverett's remarks, he was possibly a drug user himself. At least
he was closely aware of them, so it was very unlikely that this was
a conscious decision or risk. If he was dying of cancer suicide
seemed a possibility, but he had continued to act like an obnoxious
thug to the very end, which didn't seem suicidal. Why had he done
it? And when? His mad driving at quarter past midday on Saturday
suggested a high. So why had he gone to Knowles's to die?

She was still miles away when Lucy Turner and
Tony Gibbs walked in.

"How did you make out with the O'Connor
woman?" Millicent asked.

"On the Saturday she was in the ‘Bulldog’ at
Burley Woodhead from before two until after three," said Gibbs.
"She and Hunter were regulars, the landlord identified them. Her
story is that this was the usual place that she mentioned in the
letter and she went there as arranged to meet Hunter but he didn't
turn up. "

"What does she say about a phone call?"

"Denies there was one." Lucy said.

"And did you believe her?

Lucy hesitated and considered. "I'm not
sure," she said, "but unless Rosie called from home we might have
trouble proving it, even if she was lying."

"Yes," said Millicent. "Well, leave me to
think this one through. All three of you go and get some
lunch."

Goss, Turner and Gibbs trooped out to get
their lunch. One of Millicent's strong points was that she always
thought about the welfare of her troops, as it were, even though
she drove herself hard at times. The army had taught her that
leadership and command are as much about responsibility for others
as delegation to others: both are absolutely essential in the right
mix.

Once on her own, Millicent began to go beyond
considering the various elements of the crime as a detective
solving a puzzle, to an individual deliberately allowing her own
higher self a chance to resolve it. Instead of waiting for a flash
of uncontrolled insight to come of its own accord, she decided that
she would try and induce the kind of trance N'Dibe had induced two
days earlier.

It is, however, easier to decide something
like that than to do it. Dowsing with a pendulum, gazing at a
crystal ball, casting the I-Ching or studying Tarot cards all, in
their different ways, do nothing more than allow the user to tap
into the hologram of what we already know. The question was, which
route to follow.

Millicent decided that she would get all of
these items and try them at home over time, to see which worked
best for her. In the mean time the safest thing to use at Witchmoor
Edge Police Headquarters was nothing at all. She would attempt the
remote viewing she had done with N'Dibe. As she was less likely to
be disturbed in her own office, she went there, telling her
Secretary she was not to be disturbed.

Sitting back in her armchair with the office
door locked and her eyes closed, she scrunched up her muscles in
turn and let them relax. With deep breathing relaxing was easy, but
visualising was not quite so straightforward in broad daylight. She
broke off the pulled down the blind, and then relaxed again. This
time she was able to see the narrow valley and follow the path up
to the portal to other worlds where the guardian stood waiting.

Without realising she was doing it, she
consulted the guardian. He, she or it led her through the gate to a
quiet, chapel-like room, calm and still, where the whole problem
might be considered. On a wall of the silent room, as on a TV
screen, there flickered images. Suddenly she saw clearly how the
crime might have been committed. The death of Simon Hunter and the
various side problems seemed to be no problem, though proving any
of them undoubtedly would be.

Millicent relaxed calmly back to the gate,
thanked her own higher self and counted to three, as N'Dibe had
taught her. As she sat there in the dimly lit office she reflected
on the new experience. What she had done was, at one level, no more
than concentrate on the problem. She had read somewhere that the
human brain is so powerful and underused that the problem does not
exist which could not be solved if sufficient concentration was
directed at solving it. At another level she had controlled her
involuntary psychism and produced an insight to order.

She opened the blind again and, on the way
back to the incident room, collected another cup of coffee.

Millicent waited quietly in the incident room
until her team drifted back from lunch, sipping her coffee and
thinking about the crime, the probable solution and how she might
prove her ideas. As Lucy came back into the Incident Suite, she
called her over.

"Lucy," she said, "I want you to get in touch
with BT and check the numbers called from KHS Investments on Friday
the 10th."

"What needle might I be looking for in that
particular haystack?"

"It's possible that Hunter called Rosie
O'Connor, not the other way round. If he did, he probably phoned
from the office."

"You mean that's what Shields overheard?"

"Right. Though I think he may have overheard
Hunter saying he wouldn't meet her in the usual place."

"I don't get it," Lucy said. "She went to the
usual place. Why do that if she knew he wouldn't be there?"

"That is a very good question. It suggests to
me - assuming she did know he wouldn't be there - that she had a
good reason why people should think she didn't know. Now run along
and do that checking. Have BT email or fax the record of all calls
made between twelve and three for a start. And on your way out, ask
DS Gibbs to look in."

Tony Gibbs came in immediately.

"I want you to get a search warrant and go
over Knowles's garage," Millicent said.

"What, for the warrant application, do you
hope to find?"

"A blunt instrument."

"Eh?" Gibbs looked puzzled.

"Hunter was alive when he drove to Knowles's
house at twelve thirtyish," Millicent said. "He was dead when
Shields and Leverett found him at the picnic site at two. Between
twelve thirty and two, while he was still alive, he got a blow on
the head with something hard and heavy."

"And you think that the something hard and
heavy is still in Knowles's garage."

"If were very lucky we'll find it," said
Millicent. "And if we're very sharp, we'll recognise it when we do
find it."

"Okay, I'll apply for the warrant."

"And you're in charge of the operation, but I
think I'll join the search party, though I'll just stand there and
look and think."

It was as Millicent had said. She drove
herself and pulled in behind the car driven by Tommy Hammond, in
which there were also DS Gibbs, DC Goss and DC Bright.

Gibbs rang the doorbell. Bernard Knowles was
still at KHS Investments in Bradford, of course, but he showed the
search warrant to Mrs. Knowles and she let them into the
garage.

"I don't know what you think you'll find
there," she said. "I'd have let you search without a warrant,
because there's hardly anything there."

Gibbs wasn't sure what he thought he'd find
there either, but he wisely said nothing.

The garage was roomy: almost but not quite a
double. It was clean and well kept and, as the Saab was outside on
the drive, almost empty. There was a workbench and drawers at the
rear, in front of a window overlooking the back garden. Next to the
bench was a trolley jack on wheels. There were a few tools in the
cupboards, the drawer held only a few fuses and bulbs. The floor of
the garage had been painted with concrete floor paint in the last
year or two and the car had dropped very little oil since.
Millicent wandered in.

"I don't see a blunt instrument, unless you
mean that jack handle," Gibbs said to her.

"I wonder why the jack has two handles,"
Millicent remarked. "And why the one that doesn't fit has a name on
it."

It didn’t have a name on it, but it did have
the initials SK and it was too long and too square to fit
properly.

"Pity didn’t have the initials SH," Gibbs
said.

"Put it in an evidence bag and pass it on to
forensic," Millicent instructed. "SK could be Shirley Knowles. We
know nothing about where she lived before she was married, but her
things would have gone with her to her new house when she
married."

"Would she have had something like a jack,
though?" Gibbs asked.

Tommy Hammond looked up from the drawers he
was checking.

"Using things like jacks or screw drivers and
doing car or household repairs isn't something sexual," he said
"Admittedly more men than women tend to do jobs like that, but what
really counts is some kind of aptitude or ability. I wouldn't get
oil under my fingernails doing something like that and, as for DIY,
you can do it yourself! But my current girlfriend: she's a looker,
but she's really good at practical things."

"Shirley Hunter is a nurse," Millicent
remarked. "She must be fairly practical."

"Well, we'll see what forensic make of it,"
Gibbs said, putting the jack handle in a plastic bag. "Can we go
now you've found a blunt instrument?" He added grinning.

"No point in staying, is there?" Millicent
replied solemnly. "Get that thing to forensic as soon as you get
back to HQ. Draw lots on the way home to see who does it."

* * *

"You were right," Lucy said. "I searched a
haystack of phone calls and found the needle. Somebody called Rosie
O'Connor's number from KHS Investments at 14.14 on the 10th and
they talked for nearly a quarter of an hour. Like you said, that'll
be the call Shields overheard."

Millicent was back in her office and Lucy was
looking pleased with herself, as well she might.

"It begins to fit,"
Millicent said. "I'll talk to that young lady again myself and ask
her why she lied. I also want to know when they did meet and
why
she
kept an
appointment she knew
he
wouldn't keep."

Lucy looked up sharply as she added, "Though
I think I know."

She got to her feet. "Come on, we'll visit
Miss O'Connor before we go home," she said and grabbed her handbag
and car keys. "Take your own car as well, then you can drive
straight home."

* * *

Rosie O'Connor let them into a flat that had
been tidied up somewhat. She'd washed up, done the ironing and
vacuumed the carpet and the mail had either been answered or, at
the very least, tidied away. Rosie had tidied herself up as well.
She was wearing a crisp looking blouse and clean jeans. Lucy looked
her over and decided she had quite a nice figure too.

"Now," Millicent said. "You told Detective
Sergeant Turner that you didn't speak to Simon Hunter on Friday the
tenth."

"I didn't actually. She asked me whether I
rang Simon. I said I didn't, which is true. He phoned me."

"You're splitting hairs. You could have told
us you spoke to him."

"Look," Rosie said. "This has been a pretty
dismal two years. I dried out in a clinic and then lost my job ..."
She paused, looking near to tears. "And here I was, still making a
fool of myself over this man. Surely you don't wonder that I don't
want to let you know how stupid I was, if I could avoid it."

"Somebody murdered Hunter by giving him an
overdose of morphine. I don't think you realise how potentially
dangerous your position is."

Rosie smiled wanly. "It's probably a good
thing for me that someone did kill him or I'd still be making a
fool of myself. I was sort of in love with him, even after
everything."

"You talked for fifteen minutes or so,"
Millicent said. "What did you talk about?"

"I wanted him to meet me in that pub in
Woodhead, but he wouldn't."

"What was the stuff you had for him?"

"I had some heroin for him. I'm on prescribed
methadone myself and drying out, but he uses still. Or he did until
someone murdered him. I don't know for a fact that he shoots, but
he gets through a steady trickle."

"So where did you meet him to give it to
him?" Millicent asked.

For a moment it looked as if Rosie might deny
the meeting altogether, and it would have been almost impossible to
prove.