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“Like sneaking out at night?”
“Or alcohol in the rooms, that sort of thing. But we had no proof of anything more-”
“Wait a minute.” The pieces had begun to fall into place, all too clearly. Motive, means, opportunity – and the fact that when Kath Warren said we she wasn’t using the royal first person. He stood, leaning over the desk. “Kath, where’s Jason?”
“Oh.” Kath looked round, as if expecting Jason to pop up. “He left early. A family emergency, a sick auntie in Kent. He had to drive down on Saturday as well.”
“Really? That’s very interesting.”
“Why? What are you talking about?” Kath sounded baffled, but she’d shrunk back from him.
Kincaid thought of the subtle relationship cues he had seen between the two of them, and changed tack. “Tell me what happened on Thursday night, Kath. What was Jason doing here?”
“He wasn’t here,” she protested, more firmly than he’d expected.
“How can you be so sure?”
She looked at him, then at Cullen and Bell, who had moved up quietly to flank him on either side, and seemed to come to a decision. “Because I was. And he never came.”
“Was he supposed to?” asked Maura, with surprising sympathy.
Kath swallowed and looked down at her hands, as if avoiding their eyes made her shame easier to bear. “He was supposed to meet me here at half-past ten. I’d told Shawna she could take a couple of hours off to see her boyfriend. But I waited and waited, and Jason never came. So if you’re thinking he had something to do with Laura’s death, you’re wrong.”
Kincaid thought of Laura, making a list of women and checking off names as she discovered what had happened to them; of Laura, dropping Harriet at the sitter’s before ten o’clock, making up a story for Harriet and the sitter, because she meant to investigate something that was not appropriate to discuss with a child, and she didn’t know how long it would take. She had meant to go home that night, after she’d had a look round the shelter office on her own – that’s why she’d left the washing up in the kitchen sink – and she’d meant to go to work the next morning. But she never got to do either.
“Kath,” Kincaid said, “what time did you actually get here on Thursday night?”
“A few minutes after half-past ten. I got held up at home, with the kids.”
Kincaid thought of Jason coming in early, quietly, seeing Laura Novak digging through the files. Perhaps she’d been asking questions already that had made him suspect she knew something, so he moved back into the shadows, watching, and when she left, he had followed her. Or had he gone ahead and waited, knowing she would pass by him on her way home?
What had happened then? Had he ducked into the shelter of the warehouse door, and discovering it unlocked, pulled Laura in when she walked past? Or had he confronted her in the street? Perhaps as they began to argue, he had pushed her against the door, and it had swung open, and a terrible opportunity had presented itself.
You, of all people, should have known, Laura had shouted in the darkness of the warehouse. Jason had known all too well what would happen to women trying to make new lives, if their abusers found them.
Kincaid thought of Jason’s designer clothes, no doubt bought with money earned from others’ misery, and he remembered the way Beverly Brown had flinched away from him when he passed. Kincaid had assumed it was dislike, but perhaps it had been fear. Poor little Mouse, up that night with a fretfully ill child – what else had she seen from her window? And how had Jason lured her to a rendezvous in a deserted graveyard?
He thought of Jason’s easy tears when they’d told him of Beverly’s death, of his casting suspicion on Beverly’s husband by his willing assumption of guilt, and fury coursed through him.
Jason had choked Beverly Brown, as he’d choked Laura, but in Laura’s case he must have hoped he could prevent any co
“We’re going to need Jason’s address, Kath, then we’ll take you straight to the station so that you can make your statement. After all” – his smile held no humor- “we wouldn’t want you making any urgent phone calls.”
Gemma and Fa
Wi
“Wi
“There’s one in the vicarage office.”
“I’ve a copy of Elaine’s photo. Tell Roberta to expect a fax. We can go to the police station-”
“No. I’ve a fax in the church office. We can send it from there,” offered Wi
As they walked from the pub back to the church, their progress slowed by Fa
When they reached the church office, Fa
“Wi
Wi
“I can’t, can I? I know too much to go back, and it was never real. None of it was real.” She wheeled the chair forward of her own accord, and Wi
The tiny office was cramped with Fa
“There’s a speakerphone,” said Wi
Gemma nodded. Wi
“It’s just coming through now, Wi
“Roberta,” said Wi
“Dear God,” whispered Roberta.
“What-”
“I’m sorry, love.” Her voice came through more strongly. “It’s just – I’d never have thought.”
“Do you know her?”
Gemma could hardly breathe.
“It’s Elizabeth Castleman,” said Roberta. “Her parents were parishioners of mine. They were elderly – Elizabeth was a child of their dotage, I suppose. They died, both of them, several years ago, after extended illnesses. Elizabeth looked after them.”
“Roberta, what is it?” prompted Wi
“They were churchgoing people. You know it’s not our place to judge, Wi
“And Elizabeth?” Wi
“She must have been past her midtwenties by the time they died. Like a moth trapped under glass, I always thought her. Pale and futile. Then Mr. Castleman died in his sleep, and a few weeks later Mrs. Castleman fell down the stairs. It often happens that way with elderly couples, even those bound more by habit than fondness. But… I don’t know. I don’t feel comfortable speculating even now.”