colleagues? Or was he so important to the firm that he was untouchable, that whatever he did, they were happy to turn a blind eye?
‘Stuart and I need to talk. Soon, if you don’t mind.’
‘I’m sorry, Mr Kind, but I cannot help. Stuart isn’t due back until next week, and if he’s not answering his home phone or his mobile…’
‘Does he often blip off the radar screen like this?’
‘You have met Stuart, Mr Kind?’
‘Twice.’
‘Then you will realise he is his own man.’
‘Look, my sister and I are worried. I’m at Crag Gill right now. The power lines seem to be down and he appears to have left his house unlocked.’
A discreet cough. Possibly the closest Doshi ever came to expressing shock-horror.
‘Unlocked, you say?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I…um…I tried the front door.’
Best not to admit to a solicitor that he’d spent the past hour trespassing.
‘I used my sister’s keys to lock the door and secure the house.’
Or at least he would do, the minute he walked out of this empty place.
‘That’s good of you.’
‘It doesn’t explain what has happened to Stuart Wagg.’
‘He loves walking, Mr Kind, he’s probably on his way home even as we speak.’
‘And the fact he left his house open to any Tom, Dick or Harry in the middle of a power cut?’
‘I don’t always lock my own front door, Mr Kind.’
‘So, you think there’s no cause for concern?’
‘I am sure there is a straightforward explanation. Thank you, though, for letting us know. Good afternoon.’
The phone was put down. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. Doshi wasn’t a lawyer for nothing. Not knowing what to do for the best, Daniel decided to trust to instinct.
Time to call Hannah Scarlett.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Was it significant, Wanda Saffell’s name cropping up in the Bethany Friend inquiry? In conversation with Maggie, Hannah played it down. The young DC’s enthusiasm was one of her virtues, but no sense in jumping to conclusions. Cumbria was a small world, albeit so diverse that anyone could be forgiven for forgetting. The local population was tiny, once you stripped out seasonal workers and tourists who came from all four corners of the globe. For the wife of a suspected murder victim to be interviewed in relation to the unexplained death, six years ago, of a work colleague barely registered on the Richter scale of coincidence.
But you never knew. Wanda intrigued Hannah. The sight of Arlo Denstone, drenched with red wine at the New Year party, remained as vivid in her memory as the stain on his white jacket. Wanda had a temper, and she lacked restraint. She’d had too much to drink that night, and seemed at the end of her tether. But it didn’t mean she had anything to do with Bethany’s death. The brutal shock of having a husband roasted alive was enough to drive anyone to distraction.
‘I’ll pay her a visit.’
‘She has this little business in Ambleside, can’t be more than a mile away from your new house.’ Maggie thrust a scribbled note into her hand. ‘Here’s the address.’
‘Thanks. I’m having breakfast with Fern Larter tomorrow. She can brief me on Wanda.’
‘I don’t like the sound of her.’ Maggie folded her arms as she pronounced judgement. She was a sturdy young woman, from a family who had farmed in the Lakes for five generations, and were the sort of people who believed that there was no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing. She didn’t have much time for shades of grey. Or for posh women who printed obscure volumes of poetry. For all her diligence, she’d need a more flexible mindset if she wanted to shin up the greasy pole. ‘Her witness statement is only a page long, but she comes over as heartless. And she must be in the frame for her husband’s murder.’
‘Assuming he was murdered. Let’s not run ahead of ourselves before the coroner has had his say. Let alone the CPS. Wanda is a grieving widow, we’d better not forget that.’
Maggie’s jaw was set firm. Like most of the foot soldiers in the force, she suspected the Crown Prosecution Service of devoting its time and energy to thinking up reasons not to prosecute.
‘A black widow, maybe.’
‘We’ll see.’ Hannah slapped Maggie on the shoulder, a gesture of encouragement to counterbalance her caution. ‘In the meantime, well done.’
Hannah asked the admin assistant to set up a meeting with Wanda while she attended a New Year sermon from Lauren. The ACC’s theme was that the CID had to change with the times and she went on and on like an automated phone system. Press one for inclusive policing. Press two for a critique of gender stereotyping. Her latest big idea was a weekend conference for senior detectives at ‘a top secret location’ which would turn out to be some dreary hotel in the Yorkshire Dales. The ACC droned on
‘We wanted to make a statement,’ Lauren announced, though India’s tanned flesh was the only statement Greg and most of the others were interested in. ‘This appointment is a tangible sign of our commitment to effective and targeted communication with local communities.’
‘My aim is simple,’ India trilled. ‘To support the fantastic job my new colleagues do in making the Lake District an area that is not only safer, but feels safer. Our business is not just to cut crime, but to manage the public’s perception of crime.’
So that was all right, then.
‘CID?’ Les Bryant demanded when they repaired to the bar at the end of the shift for a quick drink and communal moan. ‘Criminal Investigation in Decline, if you ask me. In my day, you’d fill a page of a notebook writing up a sudden death. Now you have to produce
‘Why do you think they didn’t send me back to uniform?’ Greg Wharf asked, wiping the froth from his pint from his mouth. ‘That’s where you get a decent work/life balance.’
‘You’d never have dreamt-’ Les began, before breaking into a violent sneeze.
‘No wonder the CID is advertising so many vacancies.’
The pair had already formed a double act, Hannah thought, as she sipped her lemonade. The Disgruntled Detectives. But she guessed Ben Kind would have agreed. Fewer cops aspired to be a chief inspector these days, simply because of the long hours. Rest days routinely cancelled, duty rotas and shifts changed at short notice. Performance targets were poisoning police work. The government had created three thousand new offences in the past decade, to prove they were dealing with crime. So stupid kids had to be ‘sanctioned’ for offences such as being in possession of an egg with intent to throw it. Detective work was skewed towards statistics, and away from time-consuming stuff like burglary and rape. Officers were nailed to their desks, filling out forms to satisfy the
