‘How’d Jenni find out about that?’ asked Doyle.
‘Good point.’ Burton’s brow furrowed. ‘Maybe Rebecca left her notes lying around . . . or she could’ve let something slip in therapy . . .’
‘P’raps she said summat to one of her sixth-form students — couldn’t resist boasting about her Big Idea — an’ they blabbed . . . talked about it an’ Harte overheard.’
‘It could’ve happened like you say, sarge. But somehow or other Jenni got an inkling she was just a means to an end for Rebecca . . .’
‘How’d it work wi’ Pickering, then? I mean, her an’ Jenni Harte . . . if they weren’t . . . in a relationship?’ Noakes was genuinely puzzled by the dynamic between the two women.
‘Jenni must have found out about Jayne and Leo Cartwright,’ Burton replied. ‘Probably around the same time she worked out Rebecca was two-timing her with other people.’ Her tone regretful, she added, ‘Jenni’s good at making folk open up . . . the kind of person folk confide in.’
‘So she — what? — brainwashed her or summat . . .’
‘I’d say Jenni worked on Jayne’s feelings, sarge.’ Burton nodded vigorously. ‘Yes . . . she saw that Jayne was suggestible and stoked her jealousy of Rebecca . . . wound her up to the point where Jayne finally lost control.’
‘So . . . was Pickering one of Harte’s patients too?’ Noakes whipped out an out-sized handkerchief and bad-temperedly swabbed his sweating face.
Burton thought intensely. ‘Hard to say,’ she said finally. ‘Maybe she was seeing her unofficially, like Rebecca . . . Or maybe she just befriended her for her own ends.’
‘Bloody cold customer,’ Noakes said. Then, ‘Hey, d’you reckon the two of ’em staged that business at the funeral? Y’know . . . when Pickering started screaming at Thelma an’ Shirley ’bout them being a pair of bitches an’ having it in for Shawcross . . .’
‘I have to say, that looked genuine,’ Burton answered slowly. ‘Jayne was genuinely distressed, and then Jenni Harte stepped in before it got out of hand.’
‘Mebbe the guilt was getting to her,’ Noakes opined sagely, ‘an’ Harte had to shut her down pronto before she got hysterical an’ landed ’em both in it.’
‘Yes,’ Burton agreed, ‘I think it was something like that . . . assuming Jayne had murdered Loraine by that point too. The funeral must have brought it all to a head somehow . . .’
‘How could she have done it . . . I mean, killed her own aunt like that . . . ?’ Doyle looked distinctly pale about the gills.
‘You want to toughen up, lad,’ said Noakes trenchantly. ‘It’s more’n likely family in most cases.’
‘Loraine was an impulse kill,’ the DI put in. ‘I would say unplanned.’ The pale features looked almost haggard, but he was increasingly master of the situation. ‘Jayne must have felt the net was closing in . . . that her aunt was mistrustful of her and Jenni. And she panicked.’ Voice shadowed, he added, ‘I slipped up badly there . . . focused on Maureen Stanley as the source of Loraine’s distress when all the time it was Jayne she was starting to doubt.’
‘Yeah, Loraine was a threat . . . who knew what the old biddy might’ve let slip,’ Noakes was increasingly taken by the scenario. ‘So Pickering pinched the atropine an’ . . . bingo!’ The DS mimed plunging a hypodermic into his arm.
‘You don’t believe Loraine was down to Jenni then, sir?’ Doyle’s expression clearly showed that he was struggling to see the gentle therapist, with her heart-shaped face and self-deprecating manner, as some kind of spree killer.
‘It’s possible, Doyle.’ Markham gave the query due consideration. ‘But Jayne was a healthcare assistant . . . It would’ve been straightforward for her to access the drugs store . . . whereas a therapist might’ve faced awkward questions . . .’ He loosened his tie as if, like Noakes’s, it suddenly felt too tight. The effect in Markham’s case was one of elegant dishevelment, whereas his sergeant bore a strong resemblance to the variety-hall ‘Dad’ on a saucy seaside postcard. Burton half expected her fellow DS to tie knots in the corners of his massive hankie and drape it over his head as a new fashion for summer headgear in CID . . .
Blissfully unaware of his colleague’s sartorial appraisal, Noakes continued to thrash out the facts to his own satisfaction.
‘So Jenni didn’t do for Shawcross and Elford then, guv?’ He contemplated his stubby fingers, splayed on the table in front of him like so many chipolatas on a butcher’s slab.
‘No,’ Markham replied. ‘She was alibied for both murders by Tariq, remember? Working on a research paper when Rebecca was killed and consulting with him the morning that Elford died.’
‘Could he have covered for her, guv — Tariq, I mean? Said she was with him when she wasn’t . . . An’ then he had second thoughts about the alibis, so they had to shut him up.’
Markham saw the handsome young Asian in his mind’s eye. ‘Tariq was the honourable type. No way would he have lied to the police.’
‘Isn’t it more likely Tariq contacted Jenni after he ran into Leo Cartwright at the sports centre? He must have challenged her about those references in the synopsis to Rebecca’s book,’ Burton interposed, tripping over the words in her vehemence.
‘Yes, I believe that’s what happened, Kate.’ The DI spoke with increasing conviction. ‘That memorable image jumped out at Tariq—’
‘The tangerine an’ golf ball—’ Noakes chipped in excitedly.
‘Jaffa orange and tumour,’ Burton amended with a long-suffering air.
‘Near as makes no difference . . . Anyway,’ her fellow DS declared with a flourish, ‘he pegged it as one of Harte’s poetic thingybobs right off an’ guessed
