This must be Barbara’s room. How strange, that they had separate rooms! And yet, why wouldn’t they? When you had five bedrooms to choose from, and visitors only infrequently, why not spread out a bit more? This room was in a curious amount of disarray, the wardrobe doors open, revealing clothes draped over hangers and in piles on the floor. The bed was made, but a large rectangular indentation was on the plain white duvet as though someone had been packing a heavy case and had only just removed it.
She turned off the light and took the bag back downstairs. On a whim, she took the envelope addressed to Barbara Fletcher-Norman, Hayselden Barn, Morden, away with her. Barbara was never going to read it, so Taryn decided she should read it instead. It might help her understand this woman after all, might help her get some answers about why she had always been so unkind.
30 October 2013
Dearest Bunny,
I hope this letter finds you well and happy? I must admit the tone of your last worried me a little. I understand that what you feel for Liam at the moment surpasses what you feel for Brian, but you have to try and keep things discreet for the time being or else you might end up with nothing. Goodness knows we all know what Brian’s like when he’s cornered! Do you remember that time in Rome when you told him we all wanted to leave early? He was just unbearable.
Darling girl, don’t do anything rash—I know Liam has been putting pressure on you to leave, but really, there’s no need. I’m sure he can wait just a little while longer, until you are sorted out financially and ready to make your move. You never know, if Brian is seeing the stable girl as you suspect then he might be happy with the arrangement!
All is well here. Andrew is finding the commute very hard again—I am trying to persuade him to try for more part-time hours, but it’s a big ask. We will see what they say. I live in fear of the hospital calling to say he has had another heart attack.
All for now, Bunny, dear, write soon and we will talk at the weekend,
Love from your
Lorna
X
* * *
5X5X5 INTELLIGENCE REPORT
From: Karen ASLETT—Source Coordinator
To: DCI Louisa SMITH
Subject: Nigel MAITLAND—Connor PETRIE—Harry McDONNELL
Date: 02/11/12
Grading B / 2 / 4
Connor PETRIE has been working at Hermitage Farm for a few months as a groom. Nigel MAITLAND gave him a job as a favor to Harry McDONNELL, whose wife is Emma PAYSWICK’s (Connor’s mother) best friend.
* * *
* * *
5X5X5 INTELLIGENCE REPORT
From: Karen ASLETT—Source Coordinator
To: DCI Louisa SMITH
Subject: Nigel MAITLAND—Connor PETRIE—Harry McDONNELL
Date: 02/11/12
Grading B / 2 / 4
Connor PETRIE has been working at Hermitage Farm for a few months as a groom.
Nigel MAITLAND also has PETRIE doing other small jobs for him in relation to the criminal association with the McDONNELL brothers. This includes running messages between MAITLAND and the McDONNELLs, as PETRIE sees them at home.
* * *
18:18
By the time Flora got back to Hermitage Farm, it was almost dark. The halogen lamps that lit up the main farmyard showed the yard was glossy in the way that meant it was turning to ice. It would be slick as a skating rink tonight.
She drove through the yard and up into the secluded turning circle in front of the farmhouse. Most of the lights appeared to be on inside.
The kitchen was warm and steamed up from whatever had been in the Aga for the past few hours; Felicity was sitting at the dining table with one of her cronies, an empty bottle of wine and a half-full one on the table between them. Her mother’s cheeks were red, as were her eyes.
“Hello, Mum,” Flora said, bending to kiss the fiery cheek.
“Flora, dear. Check the roast for me, would you? Of course, I never knew what to think”—this last directed at the elderly woman in the pink tracksuit seated across the table.
“Well, she was always a bit of an unknown quantity, for all you knew her mother,” said the visitor, and Flora knew that they were talking about Polly. She opened the Aga door and inspected the meat. It looked decidedly pink. Taking a pair of oven gloves, she moved the joint up to the hotter part of the oven.
The woman’s voice dropped to a coarse whisper: “Of course, you know that she swung both ways, don’t you?”
“Swung both ways?” echoed Felicity, aghast.
Flora would have smiled if the situation hadn’t been quite so grim.
“You mean she—she liked gels?”
Flora stood, and of course the visitor looked from her to Felicity and back again. Her short hair, inevitable jeans and T-shirt, lack of makeup, and lack of a boyfriend had not gone unremarked upon in the village. Although not yet within Felicity’s earshot.
“Where’s Dad, Mum?”
Felicity looked up, her eyes unfocused. “Hmm? Oh. In the garage, I think.”
Outside, the wind had picked up again. A sleety drizzle had started and Flora pulled her jacket around her chest, folding her arms to keep the wind from blowing it open again. Right around the side of the house, a former barn was used as a garage housing Nigel Maitland’s collection of vehicles. When he wasn’t in the farm office, or visiting “associates” in London, he was most likely to be found here.
The side door to the barn was unlocked, the fluorescent lights bright within. At the far end of the barn, the old tack room had been converted into a second office—one that most of the “associates” were never invited to. If Felicity wanted him when he was in the garage, she usually phoned his mobile.
“Dad?” Flora called out from the doorway, knowing full well that he would have reacted when he heard the door open at the far end of the barn.
“In here,” he called back. That was her permission to approach.
He had a laptop open on a desk that was cluttered with paperwork. She didn’t look too closely, knew better than to be nosy where her father was concerned. It was one of the reasons why she was admitted where few others were.
The ladder to the hayloft, in the roof space above them, was down. Normally it was stowed away out of sight. In the loft, on a specially reinforced floor, was a second safe—a much larger one than the small safe holding paperwork and his wife’s jewelry, which was to be found in the main house. Flora didn’t know what it contained, didn’t want to know, but for a brief moment she thought of Andy Hamilton and wondered what he would give to view what was inside.
Pictures of the family and various horses lined the walls, and a Pirelli calendar, two years out of date.
At the bottom of June—the page that never seemed to get turned over—was a scrawled list of names and phone numbers. One of the names on the list was “Flora,” but the mobile number listed next to it wasn’t hers. In fact, it was the combination to the safe. He’d told her that, one afternoon, out of the blue. He’d said that one day, if anything happened to him, she might need it. She had been surprised that he had trusted her with something as important as the contents of his safe, but thinking about it afterward Flora realized that he didn’t have anyone else. Who could he tell? Not Felicity, who was flaky at her best and downright unstable at her worst. Certainly not Connor Petrie. Despite the amount of time he spent on the farm, Flora didn’t trust him, and she suspected Nigel didn’t either. What the hell he was doing working here at all was anyone’s guess. Nigel must owe someone a bloody big favor, she thought.
Against one wall, next to an oil-filled radiator that was on full blast, was an old threadbare sofa. Nigel waved toward it. “Want something to drink?”
“No thanks. I’m not staying long.”
A bottle of ten-year-old Benromach single-malt came out of the bottom of the filing cabinet, and a tumbler on Nigel’s desk was half-filled. He drank from it as though preparing himself for something.
“So, Flora-Dora. What’s ne
w?”
She’d not been called that in years. What was that about? Suddenly overfriendly, trying to catch her off guard? He regarded her with those bright, electric-blue eyes. Polly had once told her that she’d thought he was wearing colored contact lenses. But they really were that color. Flora’s were brown, like her mother’s.
Flora wished she hadn’t bothered coming. “Is there something specific you wanted to see me about? Because if there isn’t, I’d rather go home.”
Nigel drank some more, watched her, clearly deciding his next move. “Have the police interviewed you yet?”
She nodded.
“And?”
“And what? Do they think I killed Polly? Probably. I couldn’t give a fuck anymore to be honest.”
“You should have phoned me. I could have got Joe for you.”
“I didn’t think I needed a solicitor, thanks,” Flora said. “Especially not that little turd.”
Nigel fished through the papers on his desk and found a small box full of business cards. He rooted through it and handed one over to her. “Keep this handy. You never know. Whatever your opinion of him, he’s good at his job.”
Giovanni Lorenzo, known to his close friends as Joe, had been Nigel Maitland’s solicitor for the last twenty years. Flora personally found him uncomfortably familiar and always thought he wore too much aftershave, which meant that in confined spaces, like interview rooms, people rarely wanted to keep him there for long.
“So have they got you pegged as a suspect?” Flora asked, although she already knew the answer. The police didn’t bother with friendly chats with her father anymore—they would only interview him if they were ready with a caution, and enough evidence to back it up. Of course, Joe wasn’t paid a fortune for nothing, and he’d always managed to get Nigel out of any sticky situation that he’d failed to avoid.
“If I’m a suspect, I’m in big trouble. It’s all about the wording. To them, we’re ‘nominals.’ Know what that means?”
Flora shook her head.
“We’re in their system, in connection with this particular case. We’re a number to them. The minute they start to refer to us as ‘suspects’ it means they’re about to make an arrest, no more talking nicely—it all gets very official. So for the time being, let’s be happy that we’re nominals and not suspects. In any case, they’re probably building up a nice meaty case against me. Trouble for them is, I didn’t do it.”
He poured another tumbler of whiskey.
“Where were you?” he said, his voice rough from the whiskey. “The night Polly died. Have you got an alibi?”
She thought back, trying to remember what she was doing. She remembered the next day clearly enough . . .
“It was Halloween night, wasn’t it?” she said at last. “Mum phoned me up about six. I painted. Went to bed. Woke up, painted some more, and got your phone call. So—no alibi.”
Nigel grimaced. “Me neither. At least not one that I’d be prepared to share with the fucking police.”
“You were out, then?”
Nigel nodded. “With some friends. But they wouldn’t thank me for mentioning their names, and in any case I was back here at midnight. Crawled into bed about two. Your mother was snoring her head off, as usual. If I’d known I was going to need an alibi I’d have shaken her awake.”
“Would they believe her as an alibi anyway?”
He snorted. “Probably not. She doesn’t come across as entirely lucid at the best of times.”
Flora raised a smile at this, just for a moment, and then remembered where she was and who she was talking to, and let it die on her lips. “Was there anything else?”
He looked sad for a moment, if that was even possible. “Flora,” he said. “I know things have been . . . awkward. But I want you to know that if anything kicks off, I’m still your father—”
“What’s going to kick off? What do you mean?”
“I don’t mean anything in particular. I just think we should present a united front.”
That was bloody typical, Flora thought. She felt the anger rise up to meet the misery she’d been feeling all day. But there was nothing she could say to him, of course, because he was entirely right. They were in this together, for better or worse—the Maitlands against the force of the law. Just as it had always been. Except this time she was right at the heart of it, instead of watching from the sidelines.
18:24
Andy Hamilton was waiting for Flora outside 14 Waterside Gardens, even though he knew she wasn’t there. Doing as he was told, because Lou had asked him to keep an eye on Flora while they got the warrant together. Andy was pretty much convinced they were all barking up the wrong tree—it was going to turn out to be Barbara Fletcher-Norman, of course it was.
Phoning Lou for an update, no answer—no answer to the text he sent her, either. Not work, just checking she was okay. Mildly flirtatious. When he’d seen her in her office, the first day of the case, he had seen that same gleam in her eye and had thought that he was in with a chance. She still wanted him. She would fight it, but in the end he would win.
Now he wasn’t so sure. Briefly he wondered if she had found someone else, and then quickly dismissed the idea. She was too busy here, didn’t have time to meet anyone outside the job—and there was nobody else on this case that he could see her being interested in. Ali Whitmore? More likely to want to go home to his slippers than wind up in bed with an energetic girl like Lou. That weird American analyst? More keen to go home to his PC and fiddle with his webcam, probably. That left Sam Hollands. Andy smirked a little at the thought—that was something he’d pay to see. Pay even more to join in with.
If he didn’t find Flora he might get another chat with the nurse he’d seen here yesterday, Flora’s very attractive downstairs neighbor. She must be a nurse, he thought—they wore the navy-blue uniforms, didn’t they? They were the ones in charge—and the thought of it was curiously arousing.
He frowned. There was something not quite right about 14 Waterside Gardens, and for a moment he couldn’t quite place what it was. Flora’s flat was in darkness, the curtains drawn, and downstairs . . . downstairs the front door to flat one was slightly ajar.
He got out of the car and walked up to the house, standing for a moment at the bottom of the steps, looking up to the front door. It wasn’t open by much, just enough to tilt it slightly into shadow, which is what had attracted his attention.
He climbed the steps and stood listening. He should call it in. He should get backup. Maybe she’d been burgled—or maybe she was lying in a pool of blood in the hallway, like Polly.
He gave the door a little push, letting it swing soundlessly into the hall. He could see down a long corridor into a kitchen at the bottom. A light was on, but no sign of anyone inside.
“Police! Anyone in here?” he called. Alarm bells were ringing so loudly in his head he thought they must be audible halfway up the street, but still he stepped inside. This was wrong, all wrong. He kept telling himself that he had legitimate concerns for the welfare of the occupant, and yet he didn’t want to call out again, didn’t want her to know he was in here.
Holding his breath, he walked down the corridor into the kitchen. On the table a copy of today’s Eden Evening Standard was open to page two, the continuation of an article about Polly’s murder. There was a picture of Yonder Cottage with that PC—whatever his name was—standing gamely guarding the driveway.
He hadn’t heard her, but suddenly she was behind him.
He spun round to see her standing close to him, those blue eyes regarding him. Beyond his surprise at how he had managed to find himself in this woman’s kitchen came the sudden shot of desire. She wasn’t wearing the uniform this time but somehow she looked even more sure of herself: a skirt, short, showing tanned, well-toned legs and sharp sandals with a killer heel. Her white shirt was open at the neck, showing cleavage.
“You took your time,” she said.
Andy felt his skin color. “Sorry—what
?”
She smiled at him, taking a step closer. “You’ve been sitting outside in that car for over half an hour. And you know as well as I do that Flora isn’t home. Therefore you must be waiting for me. What do you want, then?”
He couldn’t think of anything to say.
She put one hand on his chest, sliding under the fabric of his suit jacket and over his cotton shirt, her fingers pressing into the skin underneath. Her other hand joined in and she pushed the jacket off his shoulders, letting it fall onto the kitchen table.
She brought her face close to his, so that he could feel her breath on his cheek. He was about to take a step back, ask what the fuck she thought she was doing, when he felt her hand run down the front of his trousers, curving around the hardness of his erection. Her grip on him was strong, and deliberate. Jesus!
He stumbled back, knocking into the table, staring at her in shock.
“Next time, I expect more from you than this,” she said.
“I’m—I’m sorry?” He had no idea why he was apologizing. What she’d done was pretty much sexual assault—even if he had been about to kiss her.
She laughed at his expression, turned at the kitchen door, and gave him an amused little smile. “Shut the door behind you on your way out, Inspector.”
For a moment he stood there, dazed, wondering what the hell just happened. Then he retrieved his jacket from the table and did as he was told.
19:14
Flora was lying on Taryn’s spare bed, scrunched up into a tight ball. Downstairs, Sky Sports was on and Chris was sitting in front of it. Tabby was at the hospital, still. Maybe if Flora was asleep by the time she got home, they wouldn’t have to talk about it.
If only she could stop thinking, just for a moment, she might be able to sleep. Still, every thought led back to Polly.