early hours and driving fast, that could be reduced to two hours thirty either way.
She looked back at the reports.
Dan Schofield had travelled up by car to Newcastle earlier that day and met up with his brother and two sisters, various and sundry aunts and uncles and cousins, all congregating to help celebrate his father's sixtieth birthday. His parents' house in Heaton was too small to take even the immediate family, and Dan had booked into the Holiday Inn, a room for himself and Christine, though, as he explained, making apologies on her behalf, Christine had come down with really bad stomach pains just that morning-something she'd eaten, most likely-sends her love and best wishes.
After drinks at the house, eighteen people had sat down at eight sharp to dinner in a hotel restaurant close to the city centre. Somewhere between ten and ten thirty, some dozen or so, Dan Schofield included, had moved into the bar and carried on drinking. At around half past eleven, some of the younger ones had decided to make a real night of it and headed out clubbing. And it was at this point that accounts began to vary: According to Dan's brother, Peter, who'd been one of the prime movers, Dan had been up for it and had certainly come along, although after a while-you know what clubs are like-they'd lost sight of one another, so Peter couldn't say what time Dan might have left. Dan's younger sister, however, re- membered him as being less than keen: 'Just a quick one and I'm off back to the hotel, catch some beauty sleep, leave this clubbing to you kids.'
Christine Foley and her daughter had been killed between two and four in the morning. If Dan Schofield had got back to his hotel by, say, twelve thirty, by pulling out all the stops, he could have been in Nottingham by three.
How long did it take to smother a four-year-old with a pillow, stab a grown woman to death?
He could have been back in his Newcastle hotel, back in his room, by six. Six thirty, latest. Between eight thirty and nine, he had called round at his parents' house to say his good-byes. 'We'll come up and see you soon,' his mother quoted him as saying, 'the three of us.'
Lynn pushed back her chair, closed her eyes, tried to conjure back the man she'd spoken to by the canal, trim, controlled, so genuine-sounding when he spoke of his feelings for Christine Foley and her daughter. She wondered at what stage in his relationship with Christine he had begun to see the possibility of it as something else? At which point had he started thinking, scheming, undermining, possibly, a relationship that was already on its way out? Whatever was going on between himself and Christine, that had nothing to do with her breaking up with Tony, no bearing on it at all.
Lynn found that hard to believe.
But could she believe that Schofield, rather than lose what he had manoeuvred himself to gain, would commit murder? Cold, calculating murder at that?
She tried to imagine the scene in which Christine had tried to explain to him, as nicely as she could, mindful of his feelings, that maybe they'd been a bit hasty, living together so soon after she and Tony had split up. Perhaps if they took a break from one another, just for a little while, so she could get her head round things…
She tried to picture Dan Schofield's reaction, what he might say or do if all of his calm and reasoned arguments came to nothing.
'If I can't fucking have you, no other bastard will!'
Would he say that? Would he snap?
Could he act upon those words?
Luckily, it wasn't for her to decide. Enough that she could establish motive, possible cause, the logistics of opportunity. Enough to put Schofield's alibi under further scrutiny, bring him back in for questioning. The ultimate decision, guilty or not guilty, was not up to her.
Lynn passed on her findings to the SIO in charge of the case and, later that afternoon, sat down with him and four of his detectives, talking through the whys and wherefores; Lynn careful not to overplay her hand and give any of the other officers cause to be resentful. She was on her way back from this session when she saw Stuart Daines in the corridor near her office door.
'Lurking?' Lynn said.
'Not at all.'
'Hardly accidental.'
'I've been waiting for you to call.'
'What about?'
'Your witness, you remember? Andreea Florescu.'
'What about her?'
'You were arranging for us to go and see her.'
'I've been busy.'
'So I hear.'
'So you hear?'
'Some kind of break in that double murder, mother and daughter.'
'How did you-'
Daines treated her to his disarming smile. 'What is it? Ear to the ground? Ear to the wall? Either way, I've found it pays. In-formation-you never know when it's going to come in useful.'
'And that's what you're hoping to get from Andreea? Information?'
'Hopefully.'
'That might or might not be useful?'
The smile changed to something more sympathetic, caring. 'Look, I appreciate what you've told me, about her being nervous and everything. I wouldn't be pushing this if I didn't think it might lead somewhere, believe me.'
'All right,' Lynn said, 'but I can't contact her directly. It has to be through a friend. It may take a couple of days to set up.'
'That's fine. I'll keep my diary flexible and wait for your call.' He hesitated. 'Kelvin Pearce-nothing there, I suppose?'
'You know damn well there isn't,' Lynn said. 'And if there were, you'd've probably heard before me.'
Daines was chuckling as he walked away.
Back at her desk, Lynn found herself wondering exactly who Daines's contacts were, how high they ran, whom he might have spoken to in order to find out about the twist in the Bestwood investigation so soon.
And why so interested in her and what she was doing? Was it because she was his conduit to Andreea and he had a vested interest in knowing where the witnesses in the Zoukas case were? Or was there something else? Some other link in the chain, another brick in the tower he was constantly building and rebuilding? And to what effect, what cause?
After only a little hesitation, she looked up the number she had for Andreea's friend, Alexander Bucur, and began to dial.
Eighteen
Two more days. The temperature rose, then fell back down. There were portents of storms, banks of cloud shouldering in from the Atlantic. Background checks into Howard Brent's business affairs led nowhere, and when his car was pulled over for the second time in three days, he made an official complaint about police intimidation. Kelvin Pearce seemed to have disappeared from the face of the earth. Brought in for questioning, Dan Schofield retreated behind a series of denials, braced by several terse no comments and an increasing reliance on his solicitor to intervene. Staff at the hotel where he'd stayed, friends and relatives were all being questioned again. Billy Alston's low-level drug dealing had indeed, it transpired, depended on an arrangement with a Derby-based dealer named Richie-Richie, not Ritchie-and there had been words exchanged between them, Richie telling Alston he'd put a bullet in his brain if he held out on him again. Telling him in front of half a dozen witnesses, three of whom, surprisingly, were apparently willing to say so under oath. Richie himself, however, was proving difficult to find. According to one report, he was in Glasgow, visiting an old girlfriend; according to another, he was in the Chapeltown area of Leeds.
