By now it was mid-afternoon, the station quieter, the CIU briefing room very quiet. Smith and Jones had gone home to mow their lawns or whatever it was the two men did on their weekends. Ellen Destry and Scobie Sutton were itemising and logging into evidence the contents of Ludmilla Wishart’s little woven bag before it was all sent to the lab. Challis was drumming his fingers, waiting for Pam Murphy to arrive.
She drifted in finally, looking stiff and tight to Challis’s eyes, as if holding powerful emotions in check. He raised his eyebrows at her. She shook her head and took her seat.
He started the briefing. ‘As you know, we’ve arrested the head planner, Groot. The thing is, both he and the husband had motive, both were in the vicinity, both acted strangely. So let’s compare them. Ellen?’
She stirred. ‘The husband had a history of following his wife around. On Wednesday afternoon he was acting true to form-mad and obsessive though it might seem to us. And he knew how weird it would seem to an outsider, so he covered it up. It was a “normal” day, so to speak. When we pinpoint what wasn’t normal about that day, we find Groot.’
Challis nodded. He turned to Pam Murphy, who was chewing the inside of her cheek, staring fixedly at the surface of the table, barely in the room. Was she thinking he’d made a terrible mistake in arresting Groot? ‘Pam? You don’t think Groot did it?’
She blinked. ‘What? I mean, sorry, I was trying to see it from his point of view.’
It was a quick recovery-and a lie. Her mind had been miles away. He couldn’t waste time on her. Crossing to the whiteboard, he scrawled Groot’s name at the top. ‘What do we know about this guy?’
‘He was at the scene,’ Ellen said. ‘He lied about it, but later admitted it.’
‘There’s also physical evidence showing he was there,’ Sutton said. ‘CCTV footage of him following her the day she was murdered.’
‘I’m thinking what he might argue in court,’ Challis said, grabbing the back of a chair in his habitual way. ‘He was railroaded by us. He was confused. He got his times and dates wrong. Yes, he was at the site of the murder-but at another time and for work-related reasons. He didn’t confront Ludmilla Wishart about anything. The police bullied him and he was confused.’
‘He was taking bribes,’ Sutton said. ‘Ludmilla Wishart found out and was going to expose him. He had motive.’
‘Do we have proof that he was taking bribes? The Ebelings will deny paying him. He can claim it was a beat-up, that Ludmilla was mistaken, or acting maliciously. As for the money, he won it on the horses.’
‘So we make sure he can’t argue these things in court,’ Ellen said. ‘We dig deeper into his past: financial records, friends, family and acquaintances, his work history, phone records, witnesses who can place him with the Ebelings or with other people who might have benefited from council tip-offs over the past few years.’
‘A huge job,’ muttered Sutton.
They sat in thoughtful gloom for a while. ‘Is this guy clever?’ Challis asked. ‘He makes a partial admission, a plausible admission, one that reflects badly on him, thinking we’ll see it as the truth, that he couldn’t be guilty of the greater crime?’
‘Much like the husband,’ Ellen pointed out.
‘Or they’re both telling the truth,’ Sutton said.
‘But what do we think?’
‘Groot did it,’ Ellen said. ‘We know he’s a bit of a bully, and finally he went that one step further.’
‘I agree,’ Sutton said.
Pam Murphy was miles away again.
Then there was a snap like a muted pistol shot and Murphy was looking in dismay at the two halves of her pencil. She swallowed, went red, said ‘Sorry,’ and slammed out of the room. Challis cocked an eyebrow at Ellen, who shrugged.
‘We need hard evidence that Groot was taking bribes and that Ludmilla knew about it,’ Challis continued. ‘Otherwise Groot’s barrister will attack the victim in court: Ludmilla Wishart was given to making crazy claims about her workmates, she was the one taking bribes to finance her lazy husband’s lifestyle, she had a secret lover, and so on. Or he’ll claim she was mugged-and how do we know that didn’t happen?’
He walked around the long table to peer down at the murdered woman’s MP3 player and woven bag. ‘But would a mugger toss this away?’
‘Unlikely,’ Sutton said, unfolding his long legs in a rearrangement of bony angles.
‘I’m trying to see it through Groot’s eyes,’ Challis said. ‘He kills her, then, to make it look like a mugging gone wrong, he pockets her cash and her phone and dumps the rest of her stuff down on the beach. But why not take her MP3 player as well? Wouldn’t that reinforce the notion that she was mugged?’
Ellen shrugged. ‘He was in a hurry. He took the obvious things. He didn’t bother to open that little bag, probably thought it had her sunglasses in it.’
‘Feasible,’ said Challis doubtfully.
He pulled latex gloves from his pocket, said ‘Glove up, Ells,’ and held the MP3 player before his nose. ‘How do you work one of these?’
‘You obviously don’t have a teenage daughter,’ Ellen said, with a snap of her glove.
They sat side by side; Challis felt a jolt of desire when their shoulders touched. She was subtly scented: not only her shampoo and soap but also an underlay of skin and hair. But she was all business, murmuring, ‘Let’s see,’ headphones plugged into her ears. He felt a twinge of disappointment; then, marvellously, she leaned against him, and he thought: To hell with what Sutton thinks.
They watched the glow of the little screen, the menus flickering from category to sub-category, category to sub-category, as Ellen worked her way through the contents. Suddenly she froze and removed the headphones: ‘She used it to record notes to herself.’
‘What kind of notes?’
‘Listen,’ she said, plugging him in.