‘I’m sorry, sir. Nut (or the time being.’
‘That’s ridiculous, Sergeant. We have to be able to share information.’
Caudwcll shook her head. The two stared at each other for a moment. Fry noticed that Caudwell hardly seemed to blink. Maybe she’d had her eyes stitched open to make her more frightening.
I’ll have to have a word with your chief/ said Tailby. ‘This needs sorting out at a higher level. We need access to information.’
‘Well, we’ll see/ said Caudwcll. ‘It may not be something we want to share. But that’s not my decision. In any case, we don’t know what Easton was doing in your area. We last heard
O V
of him in Nottinghamshire/
‘At the aircraft museum at Lcadcnhall, said Fry.
Caudwell looked at her (or the first time. She smiled, and her dimples made white holes in her cheeks. In the background, Nash was smiling, too. But he had no dimples, only a brutal haircut and eyes that strayed a little too close together.
‘Ah/ said Caudwcll. ‘I see you know a little already/
‘I presume it was your people who had been to Leadcnhall before us/
‘Since Nick Easton failed to keep in contact, we’ve been trying to trace his movements/ Caudwcll turned back to the senior officers. ‘What progress have you made on the cause of death?’ she said.
‘A small, sharp knife or scalpel, something of that kind/ said Hitchens. ‘And we don’t know that he was actually killed in this area. We think he was already dead when he was left by the side oi the road, and we don’t yet know where his body had been brought from/
‘Forensics?’
‘Apart from the fatal wound, there were no traces on the body that couldn’t be accounted for at the scene. There were some dirt stains on his suit that contained engine oil, and that’s our only hope of identifying the vehicle he was carried in. It seems likely that his body was wrapped in something that left no traces a plastic sheet, something of that nature. We found
2S1
a bag, but it had been emptied. The snowplough had obliterated any traces of tyre marks.’
J J
‘Presumably Easton had a car?’ said Tailby.
‘A black Ford Focus.’ Caudwcll gave the registration number.
‘We’ll have all the car parks and usual dumping spots checked. And we’ll ask Nottinghamshire to do the same.’
‘There is one other place we think he visited after Leaderihall,’ said Fry. ‘We have a possible witness here in Edendale who says a man answering Easton’s description visited her house on Monday.’
Caudwell leaned forward with interest. ‘Name?’
‘Mrs Grace Lukasz.’
The MDP sergeant smiled so broadly that even the dimples disappeared into the creases under her eyes. ‘You have no idea’, she said, ‘howr much that helps.’
Caudwell produced a sheet of paper, which she handed to DCI Tailby. He glanced at it and passed it to Hitchcns.
‘You might like to check whether the other names on that list mean anything, too,’ said Caudwell. ‘Then perhaps we can have another meeting, and we’ll talk about sharing information.’
Fry watched Caudwell and Nash leave to check themselves into a local hotel.
‘Can I see the list, please, sir?’ she said.
Hitchens gave it to her, and Fry looked through the names. The list felt like a direct challenge, and she had an overwhelming desire to find out as much information as she could about all the people on it before she met Caudwell again. She could see the MDP were a problem, without a doubt. Anyone who was allocated to work with them would be on difficult ground. It would be like throwing someone to the wolves.
o
Ben Cooper had been trying to persuade Fry that Alison Morrissey’s story was connected to the Snowman enquiry, and yet when the evidence wras presented to him, it came as a surprise. Subconsciously, perhaps, he had been convinced that the connections he was makinp were imaginary, that he had
O O J ‘
been making them up because he wanted a reason to continue
252
the McTcague investigation. But Fry hat) no reason for making these things up.
‘So what do you say to that, Ben?’ she asked.
‘It was after Easton’s visit that Zygmunt Lukasz started his journal/
‘Journal? What’s this?’
‘According to his son, Zygmunt is writing his account of the crash of Sugar Uncle Victor,’ said Cooper.
‘Oh, that.’
‘Dianc, don’t you think it’s time we conceded the possibility that the two things arc connected?’ he said.
Fry stared at him for a moment. ‘What are you saying, Ben? Do you think Alison Morrissey might have keen involved in the death of Nick Easton?’
