There was nothing more trying than a stakeout in the dark. Staying alert was a bitch. You couldn’t show a light, obviously. Paula had taken to listening to audio books, her phone thrust deep in a trouser pocket to hide any tell-tale glow. But she could only put one earphone in at a time, because she had to listen out for any suspicious noises. It made John le Carré’s tenterhooks a little less gripping.
It had been worse when she still smoked. The agony of going without a cigarette for hours and having to stay awake without a nicotine hit was probably a breach of the human rights regulations relating to torture. At least with a vape, she could risk the occasional pop. And Mark Conway’s bedroom had the additional advantage of an en suite loo, thus overcoming the biggest problem for women officers on stakeout.
Just after one, a set of headlights came up the road and swung in at the gate. ‘Base to all units,’ Paula said into her radio. ‘Be aware. Vehicle approaching.’ Assorted responses came over the air.
It wasn’t a Porsche. It wasn’t even a four-by-four. It was a dark BMW saloon, the details difficult to establish because the headlights were blazing. A figure emerged from the passenger’s side and crossed in front of the headlights.
Paula used up all of her swear words before Rutherford even arrived at the front door. She was reprising them under her breath as she ran down the stairs and elbowed aside the PC who was dithering behind the front door. She yanked the door open and hissed, ‘Move the car, sir. We’re running dark here. We don’t want to put the frighteners on Conway. Please. Tell your driver, round the back.’
Rutherford shifted his weight forward as if to argue the point but as he moved, the spill of light from the car headlights illuminated her face and whatever he saw there changed his mind. He looked over his shoulder and shouted, ‘Maxwell, take it round the back and kill the lights.’ He glared at Paula. ‘Do I get to come in now?’
She stepped back to let him enter. ‘We’ve moved our vehicles into the garage. We’ve done everything we can to make the place look clean.’
They squared up in the hallway, Rutherford standing over her, right on the edge of too close. ‘What makes you think he’ll come back?’
‘Because he hasn’t done a runner yet. He’s confident he’s in the clear. If he thought there was any possibility of him being charged with these murders, he’s got the resources to get away. Even though we’ve got his passport tagged. We’ve kept his name out of the investigation. So far, social media’s clean. Stacey’s got all sorts of alerts out to warn us if the word gets out.’
‘And that’s good enough for you?’
‘Always has been in the past. Stacey is amazing.’
‘And a law unto herself, if what I hear is true.’
Paula shrugged. ‘I’m not interested in the gossip of envious inferiors. As far as I’m concerned, whenever we’ve relied on Stacey’s evidence in court, there’s been no suggestion of her crossing a line.’
He harrumphed. ‘Builders call it back-filling. Believe me, I’m going to be taking a close look at DC Chen’s work product going forward. But right now we need to be sure what we’re doing here. Mark Conway is a successful businessman, a public figure in this community. He’s also on the board of Bradfield Victoria FC. How certain are you that he’s your man? Could it not be the cousin? The cousin and the priest together? I’ve been looking at the file and I think you’re being precipitate here.’
‘We’ve got the eye-witness testimony of Sister Mary Patrick.’
‘Who will almost certainly be facing serious charges herself. Had it occurred to you she might be trying to finagle a deal for herself because of her “cooperation”?’ He made the quotation-mark sign in the air which always provoked feelings of violence in Paula.
‘I didn’t prompt her. She was the one who brought Conway into the conversation. She knew him well enough to recognise him. She said he always wore his football shirts when he was visiting his cousin. She’s impressive, sir. Even if her reputation is trashed by then, she’ll be a striking figure in the box. We’re waiting for forensics on the Skoda and also on Conway’s football shirts. If it turns out Conway’s DNA is all over the car, it’ll be hard to argue it was driven by Martinu on those visits to Temple Fields.’
‘And that’s another thing,’ he continued, almost as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘These DNA tests on invisible stains? What in the name of the wee man is that all about? Have you been reading science fiction? Or the Beano?’
Paula swallowed her anger at being treated with so little respect. ‘Dr O’Farrelly mentioned to Sergeant Ambrose a new technique for finding DNA from bloodstains after the visible stain has been washed out. She told him it only worked if non-biological detergent had been used. Because he’s a good detective, Sergeant Ambrose noticed the suspect’s laundry detergent was non-bio. He put that together with the knowledge that Lyle Tate had a nosebleed on the night he died and thought it was worth a punt to see whether there was any DNA left on one of Conway’s shirts. It’s what we’re meant to do, sir. Form hypotheses based on what we do know and test them.’ Her voice was tight, her words clipped.
‘Nosebleed? Where are you getting that from? I didn’t see anything about a nosebleed in the post mortem report.’
Paula took a deep breath. ‘That’s because it’s not in the post mortem report. It formed part of the
