A Murderous Mind Page 21

  It was a drunken joke. But he didn’t see it that way.

  He reminded me that none of us is innocent, that we all spend a lifetime seeking to balance the books one way or another.

  I asked him what he planned to do. Who he planned to kill. I thought it would jolt him out of his mood. He’s a pig to be with when he gets morose and worse than that, he never knows when to give it best and go home.

  What would you do if you thought I’d killed someone, he asked me and I told him I didn’t know. I assumed I’d call the police.

  Assumed, he said. And laughed at me. Said I was always one for sitting on the fence.

  No one knows what they’ll do until they’re faced with a choice, I told him. It would depend on the circumstances. A best friend is someone who helps you hide the bodies – another joke; another bad one, I’m afraid. He didn’t laugh. He just asked me, straight out if I was a good friend, like it was a test.

  What have you done, I asked him and he seemed to shake off the mood. Said he had to get home, he was consulting all the next day and needed to get some sleep.

  I’ve just come back from Martia’s funeral. The family were devastated as you’d imagine. Tom was there. I hadn’t realized he knew Martia, but of course, they both sat on the Wallace committee a couple of years back. Two ends of the advocacy spectrum. Tom so involved with the mental health of the young and Martia with the treatment of the old. I know that her one regret was that she never had children of her own but she said that Gina’s were like her own. Gina looked very frail, this is such a blow, I doubt she’ll survive long now. The loss of husband and now sister will finish her.

  My God, Tess thought. Fincher knew about Reece. Suspected at least and here was a link. Both of them to Martia Richter.

  She knew that it was nothing concrete, nothing solid, nothing as Fincher had said himself, but a drunken conversation. It wasn’t proof. But it was something.

  ‘Nat, do we have a current number for Sally Styles? Martia Richter’s niece?’

  ‘Well, we have a number and we have what might be a current address, I’m sure we can …’

  Tess took the form from Nat and began to dial.

  ‘What have you found?’ Nat asked.

  Tess pushed the journal across the desk for her to read. ‘Maybe a tiny chink in the armour,’ she said.

  FORTY-EIGHT

  Sally Styles was a small and greying blonde with soft blue eyes. She was dressed in tailored trousers and a neat white blouse beneath a heather-coloured cardigan. It should, Tess thought, have looked twee, but somehow she just looked understated and right. A woman comfortable with herself.

  She was sixty years old, Tess recalled from her notes.

  ‘This is my aunt. It was taken a few months before she was murdered,’ Sally told her, handing over a picture that showed a woman who looked like an older version of the one sitting across from Tess. ‘She and my mother were incredibly close and aunt Martia was very precious to us all.’

  ‘You look a lot like her.’

  Sally nodded. ‘There was only two years gap between my mother and my aunt and they were often taken for twins. I was named Sarah after my mother, but the name transmuted into Sally when I was a very little thing and it never reverted. You know how these things are?’

  Tess nodded. ‘And you found your aunt.’

  ‘I found my aunt and I’m glad it was me. My mother would never have survived the experience. Her heart was bad and as it was I think Martia’s death hastened her end. She couldn’t believe anyone would do that to such a kind soul. Martia was a good soul. She never did a scrap of harm to anyone.’

  Sally paused and looked directly at Tess. ‘And are you any closer to finding him?’

  ‘I can’t really tell you that. I’m sorry.’

  ‘I’ll take that as a yes.’ Sally took a deep, unsteady breath. ‘I hope he burns for it,’ she said bitterly. ‘It’s what he deserves.’

  Tess paused allowing silence to fall between them and then she said, ‘I have a couple of names to run by you, ask if you knew either of them.’

  ‘The killer?’

  ‘People who knew your aunt but whose names didn’t come up in the previous enquiry. New evidence that’s just come to light.’

  ‘And can’t you ask them about my aunt? Not that I mind, but wouldn’t the more direct approach be—’

  ‘One is dead. One can’t be contacted yet.’ It was a white lie, but it would do, she thought. It was almost true. She couldn’t go up to Tom Reece and ask him anything directly. Not yet. Fields had told her she had to hold fire. All they had was a random entry in a dead man’s journal; a record of a conversation Reece could easily deny recalling or suggest had never taken place.

  ‘And their names?’

  ‘Doctor Reginald Fincher and Doctor Tom Reece. Did your aunt mention either of them?’

  Sally frowned, searching her memory. ‘She may have done. She served on a lot of committees, volunteered for all manner of things. She knew a lot of people. The crematorium was packed out, there were people standing outside in the rain. The funeral director had to prop the doors open so they could hear the service.’

  ‘I think Tom Reece might have been on a committee with her. The Wallace board? Does that ring any bells?’

  Sally had begun to shake her head, then she stopped and frowned. ‘The Wallace … oh.’

  ‘Something?’ Tess asked.

  ‘Oh dear. I’m not sure.’ For the first time Sally looked less than self-possessed.

  ‘Mrs Styles. Sally. It might seem like a tiny thing but it might be important.’

  ‘Of course. Look, my aunt had some pretty … decided views. If she took to you she’d be the most loving and loyal friend you could ever hope for. If she took against you, which she didn’t do very often, it was quite a different matter. She’d be cordial and decent, of course. She often had to work with people she didn’t really care for, but—’

  ‘But?’

  ‘But it was the day we went out for tea. I told the original investigation about the man she didn’t like.’

  ‘I assumed that was a stranger?’

  ‘Well, so did I until you mentioned Wallace. It was what she said. “That damned man from the Wallace. What’s he doing here?” Then she glared a bit and carried on the conversation she was having.”

  ‘The man from the Wallace. You’re sure?’

  ‘Inspector, those last hours with my aunt are engraved on my brain. She was worried, scared even in the days before she died. I said we should go to the police and she said to report what! I didn’t realize she actually knew the man she was talking about. She never said she knew him. She just talked about someone that bothered her, disturbed her. If she’d said she knew who he was—’

  ‘I don’t know if it would have made a difference,’ Tess said. ‘It would have still just have been a feeling. I don’t think there was anything you could have done.’

  Because no one would have believed her, Tess thought to herself. It would have been just the fears of some elderly and – who knows – less than compos mentis woman, making an accusation against a man that most regarded as above suspicion.

  ‘There was nothing you could have done,’ she said quietly. ‘But maybe we can do something now.’

  She shouldn’t have said that, Tess thought. But she couldn’t help herself. She saw the light in Sally Styles’s eyes. The fervour, the desperation for justice – or revenge.

  ‘I’ll go through all of my aunts old papers,’ she said. ‘See if there’s anything about the Wallace committee or Tom Reece or, who was the other one, Reginald Fincher.’

  ‘Sally, I have to warn you. This can go no further than the two of us—’ ‘You think I’d risk saying or doing anything that might prevent that bastard getting what he deserves? I’ll speak to no one about this. I can promise you that.’

  Tess thanked her and then left. Driving back she wondered if she should also have told Sally Styles to watch her back. Or was that just
paranoia on her part?

  After the death of Reg Fincher, Tess wasn’t so sure.

  FORTY-NINE

  As often happens with major investigations, everything went quiet for a few days. Tess’s colleagues made no progress, just generated more material. And on the other side of the fence, Nathan and Gregory’s watching brief brought nothing new.

  Tom Reece went to work, spent time with his family, had the occasional drink with friends. Ate out with his wife and talked politics with colleagues in the Student Union café.

  Then one night Nathan got a call. There had been a break in Tom Reece’s routine.

  Nathan parked his car down the road and walked slowly to where Gregory had been keeping watch. Their employee who’d been on duty that evening had handed off just after he’d called Nathan.

  ‘He let himself into the flat. Top floor, entrance via the fire escape,’ Gregory told him. ‘He’s been in there for about an hour.’

  They stood in silence, standing in deep shadow on the opposite side of the road a little way down from the flat Reece had entered. Council cuts meant that the lights went out in the side roads just after midnight and Nathan blessed the austerity measures now that made their surveillance job that bit easier.

  In another fifteen minutes the lights went out and a figure passed out through the back yard and into the road. Tom Reece drove away.

  They waited another fifteen minutes and then crossed the road.

  It took only a brief time for Nathan to pick the lock and they stood, listening to the near silence of a sleeping house.

  Naomi was still wrapped in her dressing gown but Alec had pulled on some clothes. He padded round the flat in bare feet, making tea and soothing a puzzled Napoleon who didn’t expect his people to have visitors at two in the morning.

  Nathan passed his smart phone to Alec who flicked through the images he had taken. The flash had washed some of the colours and the images looked pale and thin and lacking contrast but their content was clear enough.

  ‘In a drawer in a sideboard,’ Nathan said. ‘There’s a dozen boxes, some contain a lock of hair. There’s a ring, a poetry book. Other bits and pieces. Only other thing that looked out of place was the walking stick by the front door. The door has a half dozen locks on it, but he seems to have been less inclined to add security to the fire escape. There’s an old Yale and a padlock. Nothing difficult to deal with.’

  ‘He probably didn’t want to draw too much attention to the external door, Naomi guessed. You think these are souvenirs.’

  ‘I’d guess so. I’d also guess that he never touched anything in the flat with bare hands. There was nothing there to tie it to Tom Reece.’

  ‘So, what do we do now? There has to be a way of using this.’

  ‘So, we could make sure the evidence was there, call your friend Tess. Anonymously, of course.’

  ‘We could, but Tom Reece could suggest that anything of his found there was mere chance. That everything in the drawer was picked up by a collector of random objects. No doubt some of these items could be tied to his victims, others seem more random and he could spin the entire thing to make himself look like a potential victim,’ Naomi said. ‘I doubt there’s any evidence of him renting the flat. He could argue, very logically that whoever did rent the flat was probably the killer but there was no way you could imply that was him.’

  ‘We need to think carefully about this,’ Gregory agreed. ‘But at the same time, we have to share what we know. And I’m all in favour of creating a direct link.’

  ‘By planting what?’

  ‘That’s something we need to consider,’ Gregory agreed.

  ‘In the meantime we maintain a watch on the man. And we think about our options. Putting the flat out of reach might scare him into backing off, at least. While we gather more evidence. While the police gather more evidence.’

  ‘He may just find himself another bolt hole.’

  ‘And we’ll be watching him.’

  ‘For how long? Surveillance takes resources. Do you have those resources?’

  ‘We can carry on for a while,’ Nathan told her.

  ‘But not forever. There has to be a better way. Something decisive. For everyone’s sake.’

  ‘Agreed, but for tonight, that’s all we can offer. Naomi, what evidence would be decisive? We need your expertise here. Yours and Alec’s.’

  ‘You’re talking DNA, fingerprints, blood. Something forensic that can’t have got there by another person bringing it on. Anything other than that and he could attribute it to a random act or a threat or a theft,’ Alec said.

  ‘The chances are that it’s already there. If he’s spent time in that room, he’ll have shed hair, maybe touched something without his gloves, maybe even cut himself. There’ll be something. But if it’s small and insignificant … it has to be found. Naturally. As part of a normal investigation.’

  ‘Well, I think we should tip off Tess’s team anyway,’ Gregory said. ‘Put the pressure on by taking away his bolt hole and his stash. It might give them what they need to take a closer look.’

  ‘And it might do nothing except warn Reece that someone is on to him and there are only a limited number of people who might suspect him. Who are we putting in his line of fire?’

  ‘No one, if we’re careful.’

  ‘And if our guard drops,’ Naomi argued. ‘Gregory, this is a patient man. No one can stay on alert forever. We know he’s a killer. Tess and her colleagues suspect as much, but it’s all about the burden of proof.’

  A sense of gloom settled on the four of them and Gregory and Nathan left shortly after.

  ‘So, what now,’ Alec said.

  ‘We wait and we think and we try to work out a way of tripping him up and we hope he makes a mistake before he kills again. Just like Joe Jackson was doing.’

  FIFTY

  For two more days they had watched and waited. The media interest had faded a little, the numbers of journalists around the university decreasing as it became plain the investigation was stalling. The eleventh day review, usual in major cases that had stalled, was approaching fast and as Tess stood at the end of the road, looking at the solitary patrol car and the handful of news people and the forlorn flapping of crime scene tape she felt something close to despair.

  The student flats had been reopened, though the floor on which Leanne had died was still unoccupied and the university was talking about taking down the internal walls and turning it into a study hall, filling it with computers and tables. Tess doubted anyone would want to live there but she guessed they might just about get away with converting it.

  The police presence would remain for a few more days, but slowly even that would be tailed off and already there were more students around, returning from their flight and attempting to catch up with abandoned studies.

  In time this would become an almost legendary event. Old alumni would whisper about it. ‘Do you remember when that girl died?’ and they would shudder and gossip about an event safely passed and feel that they had been in some way tested by it, even though most of them had stood on the periphery and never known Leanne and her friends.

  Leanne’s name would be forgotten by most. She would become forever just ‘the girl that was murdered’, the act overtaking the individual on the scale of importance because that was what happened. That was the way memory worked.

  ‘It’s a sad business,’ a voice said and Tess turned and her stomach flipped. Beside her stood Dr Tom Reece.

  He was obviously on his way to teach, he carried a leather satchel over one shoulder and an armful of books.

  Tess struggled for an appropriate response, remembering almost belatedly that he should not even be aware that he was a suspect.

  ‘It’s always a terrible business,’ she managed. ‘When one person thinks it’s all right to take the life of another.’

  ‘And yet, it happens all the time all over the world. It’s such a part of the human condition.’

  ‘Which doe
sn’t mean I don’t want to do something about it,’ Tess snapped.

  ‘I didn’t mean to upset you.’ He shuffled his books and held out a hand. ‘Tom Reece,’ he said. ‘I don’t think we’ve actually met. I’ve been encouraging those affected to seek counselling. We have excellent services here on campus.’

  Tess almost recoiled but she steeled herself and took the man’s hand. ‘So I’ve heard,’ she said. ‘In fact, I’ve been reading about you lately?’

  ‘Oh, one of my books?’

  ‘No, actually, one of Reg Fincher’s journals. You were once friends, I understand.’

  ‘Indeed we were.’

  He didn’t even blink, she thought.

  ‘Reg and I knew each other for years. I heard he had a heart attack?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘It wasn’t a heart attack. It wasn’t natural causes.’

  ‘Not? – Look, you must come and have a coffee and tell me all about it.’

  Tess shook her head. ‘The investigation is ongoing,’ she said firmly. ‘And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go. It looks like you’re due somewhere too.’

  ‘A lecture in about half an hour. Well, goodbye, Inspector. It’s good to meet you.’

  Tess watched him walk away. You cold bastard, she thought. You fucking cold-hearted bastard.

  FIFTY-ONE

  ‘He’s shown no sign of going back to the flat,’ Gregory said. ‘I think we should call it in. Not wait around any longer. Fact is, Nathan, we don’t have the manpower or resources to keep this up. Naomi’s right. Time is foreclosing on us at a rate of bloody knots.’

  Nathan nodded. ‘I know,’ he agreed. ‘OK, how do you want to play this?’

  ‘Anonymous call, make sure it’s being acted upon, then we stand our people down. That’s all we can do.’

  Reluctantly, Nathan nodded. ‘We’d better tell Naomi,’ he said, ‘and then we should ensure that Harry and Patrick are brought up to speed. I’ve been thinking we might warn the Goldmans?’