‘D’you honestly see Shawcross having a wing ding with them crones — Macdonald an’ Bolton? Pur-lease.’
‘Maybe it was a sixth-form student.’ But Burton sounded defeated.
‘You’re quite right, Kate. We need to keep an open mind,’ Markham said, noting her dejected posture.
She visibly brightened at his approval, the basset hound chirpiness reasserting itself. Silly bint, thought Noakes. It’s like watching Crufts . . . in a minute she’ll sit up and beg.
‘We could get Leo Cartwright back in, boss.’ Doyle was anxious to have his twopenn’orth. ‘Didn’t Cartwright say he’d seen Tariq down the squash courts at the sports centre? What if Cartwright knows more than he’s saying?’
Markham recalled Cartwright’s interest in Rebecca Shawcross’s missing novel. Suddenly, he heard Matthew Sullivan’s voice. ‘I caught him having a root round her workstation the other day . . . said he was looking for some manuscript or other.’ What if that manuscript had turned up?
‘It’s nine o’clock now,’ the DI said. ‘Saturday tomorrow.’ Four murders in a week, he thought, his heart in his boots. The DCI would be peppering. ‘Let’s get Cartwright in first thing tomorrow and press him hard. If Rebecca was having therapy,’ he caught Noakes’s jaundiced eye, ‘or pursuing a clandestine sexual relationship, his insights could help us.’
‘D’you reckon he’s been holding back, boss?’
‘I wouldn’t be at all surprised, Doyle.’ Markham sighed. ‘Maybe out of misplaced loyalty . . . or maybe he’s got his own agenda . . . But it’s end game now, so we go in hard.’
‘We could lift him tonight, boss.’ Doyle was eager.
‘Your zeal is most commendable, Constable. But we’re all shattered. Besides,’ he tried not to groan, ‘there’ll be the DCI first thing tomorrow and I don’t want to do anything precipitate until I see the lie of the land.’
Which, translated, meant he needed to gauge the feasibility of fending off Sidney with more BS courtesy of Chris Carstairs. He’d be lucky if the DCI didn’t insist on Chris Burt’s immediate detention. The caretaker was the ideal candidate from his superior’s point of view, being mere plankton as opposed to a big fish of the civic ecosystem.
God, what a night!
‘We’re getting closer,’ he said quietly. ‘The net’s closing in. Maybe with Cartwright we’ll find something to bait the trap.’
* * *
Unsurprisingly, Markham slept badly.
Six a.m. saw him at the little breakfast bar sipping black coffee while Olivia made toast.
‘You were tossing and turning all night, Gil,’ she said sympathetically. ‘Bad dreams?’
‘Noakes said something about Incas and Aztecs burying their dead upright. I kept seeing a seated mummy in a cave . . . someone was unwrapping the bandages . . . It had Tariq Azhar’s face . . .’
‘That’s Horizon for you,’ she said lightly putting a plate of thickly buttered wholemeal in front of him.
‘Tomorrow’s World, actually.’ He grimaced. ‘Noakes is full of surprises these days . . . But I just couldn’t get that image out of my head.’
‘You liked Tariq,’ his girlfriend said.
‘Yes, I did.’
‘Didn’t you say he was in a relationship with someone at the centre?’
‘That was Noakes’s theory . . . he figured Tariq had something going with the other therapist Jenni Harte . . . But I think they were just very good friends.’ Suddenly he put his toast down, all appetite gone.
‘What is it, Gil?’
‘I have to break his death to her later today. The centre’s shut, obviously, but she’ll need to know . . . being the one who was closest to him.’
‘What about family?’
‘One brother in America and parents in Pakistan.’ He sighed heavily. ‘They’ve been notified . . . the brother’s a professor at Johns Hopkins, but his wife has some form of leukaemia, so it may be a week or more before he can coordinate the travel arrangements. But then,’ he concluded sadly, ‘Tariq isn’t going anywhere.’
‘What’s the plan for today?’ Olivia asked softly.
‘Sidney first . . . followed by an interview with Leo Cartwright . . . then we’ll likely have another crack at Chris Burt . . .’
Olivia laughed mirthlessly. ‘I suppose Sidney’ll have you waterboarding the caretaker.’
‘Well, he’s not the only one to favour Guantanamo-style tactics . . . Noakesy’s keen to pin it on Burt too.’ He grinned. ‘Not often he and Sidney see eye to eye, but in this case . . .’
‘What do you think, Gil?’
‘No, I don’t believe it’s Burt. He’s got Asperger’s for one thing . . . and for another, he just doesn’t look like a killer to me.’ Markham toyed with his toast. ‘I think he may have his suspicions, though . . .’
‘You mean, he may know who the murderer is?’
‘Yep.’ He chewed unenthusiastically before swallowing more coffee. ‘But something tells me he’s been warned off . . . Doyle noticed it too . . .’
‘How’s Doyle doing these days?’ Olivia liked the boyish DC.
‘Enthusiastic as ever and enjoying the law degree, I believe.’
‘What about his love life?’
Markham chuckled. ‘Seems to be on an even keel . . . Obviously Noakes is on hand with appropriate advice.’
‘CID’s very own agony uncle.’ His girlfriend was clearly tickled by the thought. Then she became serious once more. ‘D’you think Leo knows something too?’
‘There may be something . . . some detail . . .’ Markham struggled to formulate his thoughts. ‘Something he knows but doesn’t realize is significant . . .’
‘A clue to the murderer’s identity?’
‘Yes.’
Olivia stared into her mug of black coffee as though its depths held an answer to the riddle.
‘And you’ve ruled out the doctor — Phil Carmichael’s stepbrother?’
‘Doctor Troughton — or, as Noakes calls him, “Doctor Troutface”? Carmichael’s suicide gave him a motive alright and he’d confronted Rebecca, but I don’t think he
