A fizz of anxiety filled her ears. “Well, I . . . um, well . . .”
“Elise?”
“Sorry, boss. It’s just . . . just a bit unexpected.”
She heard him sigh on the other end of the line. “You told me not to write you off, Elise. I’m not. I need you.”
Thirty-nine
THURSDAY, AUGUST 29, 2019
Elise
Elise had had little sleep after the late-night call.
Especially after Caro filled in the gaps in McBride’s cagey explanation of his SIO’s absence.
“Is Hugh ill?’ Elise had asked immediately.
“Not exactly. Look, Elise, the wedding’s off,” Caro said. “The jogger has jogged on. . . .”
Elise wasn’t able to speak for a moment. She was back in the restaurant, her thighs cramping with the effort of holding it together.
“Elise? Are you okay? Look, I only heard tonight. Honest.”
“Don’t worry. I’m fine.” Her voice was scratchy but she thought she’d got away with it.
She stayed up talking to Caro about the case, reading the files, and making notes until the early hours and then tossed and turned until the alarm went off. It was the first time in months she’d heard its shriek and she startled, then lay looking up at the ceiling, counting the seconds until it went off again.
When she arrived early for work at Southfold police station, she stood outside the redbrick building for ten minutes, tugging her jacket down, steeling herself, until Caro appeared and propelled her up the stairs. She had to sit in the end cubicle in the ladies’ to catch her breath when she reached her floor. Put on a bit of lipstick she found at the bottom of her workbag, watching her trembling hand in the mirror and practicing what she’d say to them all until she wasn’t able to put it off any longer.
The incident room went quiet when she walked in.
“Here she is,” one of her old team sang out, “riding to the rescue. How are you doing, boss?”
“Good, thanks,” she said, and perched on a desk to disguise her shaking legs. “How about you? Missed me?”
Everybody laughed but they were looking at her weird hair, her clothes hanging off her thin shoulders, taking it all in. Like they’d been taught.
“Right, where are we?” she said.
“Shall we start with the pathologist’s preliminary report?” Caro took up the baton. “Charlie Perry died from a heart attack. He had severe narrowing of his coronary arteries, which is hardly surprising—he was mid-seventies, had been a heavy smoker until ten years ago, and apparently drank like a fish. If he hadn’t been hit with a heavy metal weapon after death, we’d probably just be reading his obit in the local paper. But he was viciously attacked and his body was moved.”
“So two questions we need answers to,” Elise addressed the room, trying to keep her voice level. “First, given what happened afterwards, did he just drop dead from natural causes? Or was he put under extreme pressure—literally, frightened to death? And if so, who by? As Caro says, something horrible happened in that cellar.”
There was silence. Had she gone in too heavy? She was still an unknown quantity to the local officers. “And the second,” she went on, “who hits a corpse?”
“Someone who didn’t know he was already dead?” a voice called from her far left. She turned gratefully but couldn’t put a name to the face. Was it someone new or someone she’d forgotten? Just keep going.
“Yes . . . or maybe someone frustrated that he’d died?” Elise could hear the tremor in her voice. “The blow was so violent, it shattered his skull—perhaps it was delivered by someone who’d wanted Charlie Perry alive? Or wanted to kill him themselves? Who had a motive? Was it lust, loathing, love, or loot?”
“Could be loot,” another of the Southfold officers said. “He owed a lot of money—his overdraft at the bank was in the thousands.”
Young, female, heavy eyebrows. Elise tried to memorize her face. She should have asked Caro for a list of names.
“Banks don’t usually bash heads in,” Caro said, rolling her eyes.
“How about locally? Are there debts?” Elise asked.
“Tradesmen mainly,” DC Eyebrows held her ground. “For work on the house. I’ve spoken to three or four firms but they’re not owed huge amounts. I haven’t found anyone going under because of him.”
“Okay, keep looking. What else?” Elise said.
“My money’s on lust. The wife and/or her lover,” Caro said, pointing to the photos on the whiteboard. There was a good one of Pauline Perry. One from her modeling portfolio, no doubt. “We’re told Pauline was regularly having sex with Bram O’Dowd in the caravan a few meters from where Charlie was found.”