Текст книги "Vows of Silence "
Автор книги: Susan Hill
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It was quiet. Most of the drives were empty, no one looked from front windows so far as he could tell. People were at work. Anyone could drive or walk up Dulles Avenue, stop, go into a house, come out again ten or twenty minutes later, and do so entirely unobserved.
He neared number 48. A solitary officer was standing on duty at the front door. A car came from the opposite direction, slowed, the driver peering at the house. The red-and-white tape moved slightly as it picked up speed again.
A few yards away Simon saw a Honda Civic parked, a man and woman sitting inside it. As he approached, the passenger door opened. “Super?”
Adam Phillips from the Bevham newspaper. The woman would be a photographer.
Simon went over. He did not believe in being rude and obstructive to the press so long as they kept their side of the bargain.
“Hello, Adam. Nothing going on here, I’m afraid. I’m just taking another look round, now forensics are out of the way, but I doubt I’ll have anything to report.”
“Mind if I come in with you?”
Serrailler gave him a look. “I’ll be doing a briefing at four. I want to catch the local TV and radio news.”
“Anything you can tell me now?”
“Nothing. I would,” Simon said, turning away, “if I could. Sorry. I’m not keeping you in the dark.”
Adam nodded and went back to the car.
But the DCS noted that the pressman did not drive away.
He ducked under the tape. Stood, looking around him. Tarmac drive. A couple of bushes in front of a low brick wall. Neat and tidy. Well-kept woodwork on front door and window frames. The door was open with more tape across.
He went into the communal hall. Again, it was well maintained. Clean. Staircase recently painted. Quiet. Unnervingly quiet.
There was a second uniform at the door of the top flat. Boring job, Serrailler thought. He remembered doing it years ago. Trying to stay alert, thinking of things to think about.
“Sir.”
“Morning. Nothing doing?”
“Not a thing. You going in, sir? It’s not locked.”
“Thanks. Yes, I’m going in.”
The two flights of stairs to the top had rubberised treads so the noise of anyone coming up was slightly deadened. Not completely though. It would depend on the shoes.
The landing smelled faintly of pine cleaning fluid.
Melanie Drew had come up these stairs. Stood on this landing.
Serrailler opened the door. Silence came out of the empty flat, a blank, deathly, oppressive silence.
After a few seconds he went inside.
Any house, any room, in which there has been a recent murder, has its own atmosphere. He had learned that over the years and had experienced it often. There was sometimes a feeling of intense sadness and stillness, of melancholy. And sometimes of fear.
He remembered breaking into a luxury Docklands penthouse, accompanying the brother of a missing man, and the dreadful wave that had all but hit him in the face, the vivid sensation of pent-up violence and evil. They had both felt it, looked at one another and hesitated to go in.
The man had been chained and manacled, hung from a steel beam by leather cuffs and disembowelled. The atmosphere of the flat had lodged itself forever somewhere deep in Simon’s mind.
Now, as he entered the bright, newly furnished flat where Melanie Drew had been shot there was a feeling of absolute emptiness. He went into the living room first. Then the main bedroom. The spare bedroom was full of boxes and packages, most of them labelled www.everythingwedding.com and “Cream lamp and shade” or “Navy towel bale X 2” or “Casserole trio—Blue.”
His footsteps echoed on the polished wood floor.
Forensics had left their mark in the kitchen—chalked body outline, white circles, small stickers. The floor was stained with blood over a wide area, the walls splashed and spattered, as were one leg of the table and the side of a chair. But he had a strange sensation of—nothing. Nothing. No struggle, no fear, no presence at all. The flat might never have been occupied. It gave out no clue, not the slightest hint of who had been here and why.
It was the worst sort of case, the murder with no apparent motive, no witnesses, no public sighting of anything or anyone. Unless there was DNA from a person other than the victim and her husband. It felt cold, sealed, purposeless, empty.
Empty.
“Over 70 per cent of murders are committed by a partner or close family member,” Serrailler said to the waiting constable, who nodded and said “Shall I close the door, sir?”
“Thanks. Do that.”
Outside, he rang the station and the new DS. “Graham? Where’s Craig Drew?”
“Staying with his parents, sir. He left the address as 6 Oak Row, Nether End, Foxbury.”
“Meet me out there in half an hour?”
“Sir.”
Graham Whiteside had been in Lafferton for a little over six months, having joined from the Thames Valley force. Simon did not know him well and had not yet formed a detailed opinion of him. He needed to. Since Nathan Coates had left, he had not sustained a close working relationship with any other CID officer and he felt the lack of it. He was someone who liked to work and plan and think alone, but out in the field he needed a good colleague who was bright, on his wavelength, loyal and reliable. Nathan, now an inspector in Yorkshire, had been that. He and his wife had a son, Serrailler’s godson Joe, and were expecting a second child. He must get up there to see them, but at the moment Yorkshire might as well be the moon.
It was twenty past eleven. Indian summer. The leaves were duller but still thick and barely changing colour. He drove out of Lafferton into the country. Foxbury. Nice village, one of the last with a couple of working farms, some vegetable growing, not much in the way of new building.
Oak Row was on the very edge of it, six cottages together, in the past housing for workers on the adjacent farm. Similar to the first cottage torched by the arsonist in Kent. Serrailler remembered the acrid smell of the burnt-out building, the sight of twisted and blackened beams and rafters. Two people had died there.
But these cottages were whitewashed and spruce. Number 6 was actually two, Numbers 5 and 6, which had been knocked into one. Beyond were freshly ploughed fields leading to a view of Starly Tor.
The garden was colourful with dahlias and chrysanthemums, a rose in late flower. Two cars were parked outside. As Serrailler pulled in behind them he caught a flicker of movement at an upstairs window.
DS Graham Whiteside’s car turned down the lane.
Nine
The back room of the cottage had an old-style sun lounge extending onto the garden. The door was open, the small enclosure hot under its unshaded glass roof. Beyond the long stretch of grass, with flower beds on either side, was a hen run in which half a dozen bantams were scratching around and what had probably been a ferret cage. Over the fence, fields, hedges, trees and Starly Tor.
Craig Drew sat on the wicker sofa, staring out as if looking at the garden and the view, but Serrailler knew he was seeing nothing, that his views were inward, tunnelled and dark. He had thick, tangled curly hair, a narrow face. His eyes were deadened, sunken down into the sockets. He was unshaven. His hands hung between his knees and the nails were bitten down. The DCS had seen him in his wedding photographs, happy, with his arm round Melanie’s waist, wearing a morning suit and silver waistcoat, dark blue cravat. A good-looking, confident young man.
His father had brought them mugs of coffee and a plate of assorted biscuits which were on the rattan table in front of them, pink icing and chocolate coating already melting stickily in the heat. He was a man of fifty who looked twenty years older. His skin was weathered. He looked shrunken inside his open-necked shirt and trousers. He had set down the drinks and gone out again, touching his son on the shoulder as he passed. Two well-trained spaniels stayed close to his heels.
Somewhere in the far distance, a tractor turned the earth, droning steadily into earshot and out of it again.
“I don’t understand this,” Craig Drew said without looking up. “I don’t understand any of it.”
“Mr Drew, I’m sorry to have to come here and question you again. I do know how distressing this is. We want to find out who killed your wife. That’s why I’m here. It’s the only reason. Do you understand that?”
Silence.
“You are not under arrest, you are not under caution. You are free to ask us to go at any time and we will leave. But it is in your own interests to try to answer.”
The young man sighed, a long, desperate, agonising sigh. He wiped his hands over his face, back over his hair. Sat up. He did not look at either Serrailler or the DS, but ahead out of the window, still into nowhere.
“I told the others. Didn’t they write it down?—no, hang on, they taped it. Why don’t you listen to the tape? You’d find it all out from that.”
“I need to ask you some things myself. I have listened to the tape but sometimes things are better understood in a personal interview. And you may have remembered something.”
“I wish to God I had.”
He leaned forward to pick up his mug of coffee but his hand shook so hard that the drink spilled and he set it down again.
“I’d just like you to remember again how your wife seemed that morning. I know it’s painful but it is important. Was everything as usual?”
“She was fine. It was fine. She was—we’d only been married a couple of weeks.”
“I know.”
“She was wishing I didn’t have to go back to work—she had another three days of holiday herself. I was wishing it. We’d have liked to go into Bevham together, there was some stuff she wanted to look at—curtains and c we wanted to have a day like that. But there wasn’t anything else. She was fine. Lovely. My wife was lovely.”
“Did she have a serious relationship immediately before she met you?” Graham Whiteside had barked out the question without warning.
Craig looked at him in bewilderment. “I—she’d had boyfriends. Well, of course she had.”
“No, I mean what I say—a serious relationship?”
“I don’t know. Not just before. She’d broken up with a guy called Neil c but it was months before. I think. I don’t know. You’d have to c” He dropped his head suddenly, stared hard at the floor. His hands were still trembling.
You’d have to ask her, Serrailler filled in for himself silently. He was furious with Whiteside, but he let him run with his style of questioning.
“Why did you have to go back to work before her?”
“I said. She had a few more days owing.”
“That wasn’t my question. Why did youhave to go back? Surely you could have arranged more time off, as well?”
“All right,” Serrailler said sharply, “I think it’s quite clear.”
The sergeant gave him a sour look and reached for another biscuit.
“Craig,” said Simon gently, “I know you have been over and over this in your mind but I do need to ask you again c is there anyone who would have had the slightest reason to harm your wife? Anyone from the past, the neighbourhood—from some time ago even? Had she ever mentioned being afraid of anyone?”
He shook his head, still looking down.
“What about your neighbours in the house? Do you know who lives in the other flats?”
Craig was silent for a long time. Then he looked up slowly. He seemed to have been miles away. To have been deeply asleep. He looked as if he did not know who the men were, where he was, what had happened.
But he said, “No. There’s an older couple in the ground floor. I don’t know their name.”
“Brian and Audrey Purkiss.” The DS had his notebook and flipped over a page. “That them?”
Craig shook his head.
“You don’t know? Not even the name? Isn’t it on their doorbell? Haven’t you noticed that? How long ago did you buy the flat?” He was battering the young man with questions, they were coming at him like rapid fire.
Serrailler jumped in again. “We’ve talked to your neighbours. No one was at home that afternoon. Brian and Audrey Purkiss were away. The house was empty. But whoever came in and went up to your flat, either had the security number to open the front door by the keypad or rang the apartment bell. And Melanie either let him in from upstairs or she came down to let him in.”
“She wouldn’t,” Craig said, at the same time as the sergeant said, “Or her. Him or her.”
Serrailler ignored him. “Craig?”
“Who would she open the door for?” Craig said.
“Well, a friend. Her sister? Or stepsister? There must be plenty of people she would be happy to have come up to the flat.”
“Yes, but c of course there were—but not anyone who would kill her. Not anyone with a gun.”
“She wouldn’t know, would she? She wouldn’t know that the person ringing the doorbell had a gun.”
He shook his head again.
“I’d like you to go on thinking back c we need to know the slightest thing that might come to your mind as seeming relevant. Or odd.”
“What sort of thing?”
“Something she may have said. A person she may have mentioned. Or it might be an incident she referred to.”
“I don’t know.”
“Keep thinking, Craig.”
“Where’s your office?” Whiteside asked.
“Ship Street.”
“There all that afternoon, were you?”
“Most of it. I’ve told them this.”
“You haven’t told me. Were you there all afternoon?”
Craig Drew looked across at Serrailler now, like a child looking to a parent to rescue him.
“Craig, please understand that we need to know everything—if only to get it out of the way. Did you have lunch in your office?”
“Yes. I went out to Dino’s, the café in the next street. I got a sandwich and a coffee. I bought a banana as well if you want to know. I took them back and ate at my desk.”
“Anyone else there with you?” Whiteside asked.
“Yes. Three—no, four of us. We generally stay in the office over lunch c occasionally someone is out showing a client round a property c Stephen was. The rest of us were in.”
“Later on?”
“I caught up—I’d been away from the office, I’d missed what had been sold, what had come on c you have to keep up. Your own properties, other people’s c”
“All afternoon? You’re telling us you were there allafternoon?”
Why the aggression? Serrailler wondered. Why was Whiteside treating Craig Drew like a prime suspect? There were times for belligerent questioning. This was not one of those.
“No. I went out to meet a client—to show a property. It was on the new estate at Ciderholes.”
“What’s his name?”
“She—it was a Miss Bradford c”
“And Miss Bradford will confirm this?”
“I don’t know c I suppose so c I don’t know what happened.”
“Happened?”
“She didn’t show. I went there and waited half an hour and she didn’t turn up. I couldn’t get hold of her on the phone, so I went back to the office—it was getting on for half past five then. I just picked up my bike—I cycle to work—and went home.”
“How did you get to Ciderholes?”
“I borrowed one of the cars—we have a couple of company cars. I couldn’t cycle all that way and back, and anyway, it doesn’t look professional.”
“I bet. Funny this Miss Bedford—”
“Bradford.”
“Ah yes, Miss Bradford—sounds like she might be going for Miss UK, doesn’t it? Funny she didn’t show, didn’t leave a message, you couldn’t get hold of her. Odd that. Don’t you think?”
“No. It happens. We get time-wasters.”
“Ah, I see. So this is what she was? This invisible woman?”
Simon Serrailler had never in his senior police career shown up a junior officer in front of a member of the public. He tried not to do so even in front of colleagues, though occasionally it was necessary. But he came as close as he ever had by nearly giving Graham Whiteside a dressing-down now, in front of Craig Drew and Craig’s father who had come to offer them more coffee and to hover in the doorway when they refused.
Craig looked across at his father. He had tears in his eyes. His face was flushed. But above all he looked bewildered. He did not understand why he was being harangued, what the questions meant, what he had done wrong.
Nothing, the DCS wanted to say, you have done nothing wrong at all. Because he believed it. Craig Drew had not killed his wife. If there had been any doubt in Simon’s mind earlier—and it had been a shadow of a doubt only—there was none now. Craig Drew was not a killer.
He got up. For a moment, Whiteside remained seated, eating yet another biscuit.
“We’ll leave it there, Craig. Thank you for your cooperation and I’m only sorry we had to come. You understand that we may need to ask you further questions when any information comes to light? If we have any news at all I will contact you of course. We have a photograph of your wife and there’s a poster going up as we speak. You may find that upsetting but it could help us a lot. People think when they see a poster, they remember things and they often come forward.”
“You’ve got to do it,” Craig Drew said clumsily. “You’ve got to. I know that.”
“Thanks. Thank you for the coffee. Oh, and if you need to talk to me or there’s anything you think might be useful, this is my card, these are my phone numbers, work and mobile. Don’t think twice about contacting me.”
Whiteside’s hand was reaching to the biscuit plate, but on seeing Serrailler’s glare, he pulled it reluctantly back and followed him out of the cottage.
Ten
They had arranged this afternoon together over a month ago. Lizzie finished school at three on a Thursday, Helen had booked the day off.
She spent the morning sorting out her clothes. She ended with three piles: what she never wore, what she occasionally wore and what she often wore. Eventually, there were three bags for the charity shop, one for the clothes recycling bin, one for the drycleaner’s. The rest, brushed and rehung, went back into the wardrobe where a large new space waited promisingly.
She met Elizabeth at the school gates, for the first time in goodness knew how many years, and they drove into Bevham. Three hours and many carrier bags later, they were back in Lafferton and having coffee and toasted teacakes at the new brasserie in the Lanes.
For the entire time, Helen had managed to keep the conversation on clothes and shoes with brief mentions of university entrance and the girl who was doggedly pursuing Tom.
The brasserie was quiet. It had been an immediate hit with local shoppers, office workers, young people, women meeting up for lunch, busy from the first coffee servings at ten thirty through to a lot of afternoon teas. It would be busy again after seven. Now, only a few people were drinking at the bar. They had got a table on the dais in the window which had a view down the Lanes towards the cathedral, and Helen was feeling pleased—pleased to be with her daughter, pleased with her purchases, pleased.
“Right. Spill the beans,” Lizzie said, spooning up the froth from her cappuccino.
“What beans?”
“Well, something’s happened. Come on.”
No point in stalling. Lizzie knew her too well. Lizzie had been the first one to say, “You liked him, didn’t you? It worked out, didn’t it?” a couple of minutes after Helen had stepped in through the door after her first evening out with Phil. “Good,” she had kept saying. “Good,” as she had heard more.
She had also come home the next day and announced that a friend whose brother was at the school where Phil taught pronounced him “Decent” and “Not dumb.”
“Don’t get excited. This is so daft I’m not sure he was serious.”
“ Whatis?”
“He’s asked me to go with him to the Jug Fair!”
“Oh. My. God. You are joking!”
“Apparently not. Since he rang again ten minutes later to say he hadn’t been. Joking that is.”
“Actually c I think it’s rather sweet. In fact, definitely it is. You can eat candyfloss together and hold hands on the ghost train and he can win you one of those pink rabbits with goofy teeth on the duck shooting.”
“Thanks a bunch.”
“You are going, aren’t you?”
Helen had asked herself the same question several times, without coming up with a final answer. It was not the Jug Fair. That would be fine. A fair was a fair, whoever you went with, and if she couldn’t enjoy herself at one she was a lost cause. But she sensed that if she went with Phil, she would be taking a definite step over a line between a single friendly outing and c
And whatever she had signed up on the Internet for.
“Mum?”
“Well, of course I’m going,” she said, wiping butter from her mouth. “And I’m having another espresso too.’
Eleven
He was excited. He went to bed with the sick feeling of excitement he had had as a small boy on Christmas Eve. He had woken with the same thump in his gut as he remembered what day it was.
The perfect weather went on and on. The huge moons. The misty dawns. Hot days. Chill set in after six.
They were out at the grounds on the Clandine estate, fifteen miles to the west of Lafferton. Always were for the last shoot of the season. The woodland setting, the hill behind, the drop to the lake, everything was perfect. The hospitality was second to none. The sponsors were generous. But it was more than that. Everything came together at the last shoot. For him, it was more than a day out, a good lunch. He set out to win. He always set out to win. He had set out to win from the first time he shot at clays.
*
He was there early. They were still setting up. It was an English sporting layout of eight ten-bird stands and a hundred-bird team flush off the newly installed high tower. The best you could hope for. The birds would simulate high pheasant, very high pheasant, crossing pigeon, flushing partridge and various others incoming and going. There was no challenge like it.
People working for the sponsors were stretching a banner between two posts. The catering marquee was up. Land Rovers full of girls and cutlery baskets drove across the field.
He went back to the car. Stood leaning on the bonnet, looking, looking, checking the atmosphere, the sight line, the backdrop, looking, looking. Getting his eye in.
A couple of members drew up beside him. He nodded. Went back to looking, looking. In a minute, he would walk from the tower, a hundred yards, out and back. Looking. He swung his arms. Turned his head from side to side. Keep loose. Keep flexible. Keep easy.
He used a 32-inch over-under. The same he had used for the past three years. The years he had won.
He began to walk away from the car. Pace evenly towards the tower, looking, looking. Swinging his arms.
But he was careful to go into the marquee afterwards, get a breakfast bap, hot bacon and mushrooms, from the smiling blonde girls, take it to a group table, talk, laugh, socialise. He didn’t want to be labelled a loner. Loners weren’t liked. Not trusted.
Not loners with guns.
He bit into the soft fresh bread and the salt bacon taste made the juices run inside his mouth.
“Champion again this year, then?” Roger Barratt said, clapping him on the shoulder.
He swallowed. Shook his head. “Someone else’s turn. I reckon I’ve had mine.”
They all laughed. He hadn’t taken anyone in.
They were looping back the sides of the marquee already. It was going to be hot. Clear. Blue sky. Shooting to the north-east. Perfect.
He walked out, easy, relaxed, calm. Confident.
Twelve
“Raffles!”
But the dog was at the door before him, quivering. Phil Russell laughed as he unhooked the lead and put his hand on the door handle. Paused. The retriever looked at him, frozen, knowing but hardly daring to admit that, yes, he was home, yes, they were going on a walk. Yes!
Phil opened the door.
During term, Phil took the dog with him on a two-mile run every morning. A neighbour came and walked him again after lunch. But it was this occasional late-afternoon outing man and dog enjoyed most of all, into the car and off into the country beyond Lafferton. It kept them both sane.
Now, he turned onto the main road and east towards Durnwell. The river ran this way. The bank was fringed with pollarded willows.
He had come here a couple of times a week for years, with Raffles and with his previous dog. Once he had grown used to life without Sheila, Phil had enjoyed his own company. In any case, he saw enough people during the working day. Nothing was different.
Everything was different.
He stood for a while on top of a slope overlooking the river and threw the ball. He was training Raffles to the gun. The dog raced and dived, retrieved and returned, and it was only when he began to slow down on the way back with the ball in his mouth, panting with pleasure and tiredness, that Phil sat down on the grass. Raffles lay companionably beside him, the wet ball tucked beneath his chin. It had been another hot day. The midges seethed over the water.
Everything was different.
He did not know if he believed in a coup de foudre. It had taken him months to be sure of his feelings for Sheila, though once he was sure marriage had been the next and easy step. It was only in the last year that he had entertained the idea of looking for someone again and he had usually pushed it straight out of mind.
It had been the thought of winter that had troubled him, winter alone, now that Hugh was in Africa and Tom so wrapped up in his acting. Phil had resources. There was much that he could enjoy. Winter was the time for pheasant-shooting. But “alone” had begun to read “lonely.” The thought would not leave him.
He had walked into the pub to meet Helen Creedy hoping to have a friendly drink and to find a companion for the theatre from time to time. Helen Creedy. He had seen her and known, in a way he had never known anything since Sheila, that she would be important. Would change his life. Would c
Stop. He watched as a heron flapped up from the water and flew away, legs dangling, ungainly in the air as it was graceful at rest.
Stop.
Helen Creedy. What? He tried words in his head, watching the letters move about and come together, words like Enjoy. Friend. Pretty. Fun. Intelligent. Good. Talk.
Like Gentle. Sympathetic.
Like Company. Good listener.
Like Attracted.
Love.
Stop.
What was love? He had loved Sheila. Of course he had, though love had changed every year, as love did. Early love. Surprised love. Warm love. Protective. Married. Parent. Everyday. Companionable. Happy. Frightened. Anguished. Desolate. Bereaved love. Grief.
He loved Hugh and Tom. That was different.
What was this now? Attraction. Liking. Enjoyment. Pleasure.
Love?
The shadows were lengthening. The cloud of midges thickened and jazzed closer to the surface of the water.
Marriage.
Company. Like friendly. Relief.
Marriage. Partnership.
Love.
He stood up and offered to throw the ball again but Raffles wandered away.
Love.
He had rung Helen to ask her to the Jug Fair, an impulse, for fun. She had laughed. Agreed. For fun.
The Cocktail Partywas at the Bevham Rep next week.
“I haven’t seen a T.S. Eliot play for years.”
“They don’t do them much.”
“Like Christopher Fry, out of fashion. Pity.”
“And John Whiting.”
“I loved John Whiting! No one has ever heard of him now.”
“ The Cocktail Partythen?”
“Yes please.”
Love?
Something was different. Something. He thought about Helen as he drove home, with Raffles asleep on the back seat.
Love?
He was bewildered. Something which had begun in a half-hearted way, something he had dared himself to do, had turned him inside out and he had no experience, no knowledge, no emotional resources to draw on for help. He felt churned up, with anxiety, confusion, regret even at having started this in the first place.
He had not wanted complication, he had wanted someone to enjoy the theatre with now and again.
The theatre and all the fun of the fair.
Thirteen
“Are you telling us you don’t have any suspects at all?”
Serrailler had never felt there was anything to be gained by lying to the press though he had occasionally asked them to conceal a truth for a good reason.
“Yes.”
“The husband’s not in the frame then?”
“No.”
“Are illegal firearms a growing problem in Lafferton now?”
“Not especially. On the other hand, illegal firearms are a growing problem throughout the country.”
“And it was definitely a handgun that was used? Do you know what type?”
“Yes, but I’m saying no more yet. Right, that’s it for now. I’ll let you know the moment we have any further news and, meanwhile, your cooperation is appreciated. Please try and keep the murder of Melanie Drew up there—someone has got to know something, or to have seen or heard something. We want to jog their memories. Thanks a lot.”
As he left the briefing room, Serrailler caught a glimpse of Graham Whiteside pushing his way through the media pack towards one of the reporters from Bevham who sometimes sold info on to the nationals.
“Will someone ask DS Whiteside to see me in my office?”
“Sir.”
As he went up to the CID room, he was planning what he would say. Whiteside would not like it. But he got no further. A DS came fast up the stairs.
“Sir, there’s been a shooting at a house in May Road. Man holding woman hostage. Call just came in.”
“Let’s go.”
She drove. Serrailler used his phone. By the time they were out of the station car park, an armed response vehicle was en route.
“What do we know?”
“A passer-by heard shouting from the house—then a scream. One shot. Man came to the window waving what looked like a gun. He had his arm round a woman’s neck. Then he dragged her back. That was it.”
“Any names?”
“No, sir.”
“Who lives in the house?”
“Rented property, owned by Mr Theo Monaides.”
“He owns a lot of property round there. Tenants?”
“A Joanne Watson. Been there for a couple of months.”
“Alone?”
“They’re still checking. Monaides’ office says yes, alone, but a neighbour says a man has been seen coming and going.”
The car went round a corner on what felt like two wheels. Serrailler made a face. But the DS was a highly trained police driver. She spun expertly out into the main road and overtook two buses. The DCS closed his eyes.
There was the usual circus when they reached May Road, half a dozen streets away from the house in which Melanie Drew had been killed. Outside a semi, in the middle of the street, the press were already hovering, kept back behind the tape.
“Neighbours haven’t been backwards in picking up the phone,” Serrailler said as he got out of the car.
Three uniform were holding the fort and the sergeant looked relieved to see Serrailler.
“You SIO, sir? We’ve had no further sighting, no more gunshots—if it was a gunshot.”
