‘Yeah . . . Svengali,’ concurred Noakes, rolling the word round his mouth as though he liked the sound of it.
‘Whatever binds them together may be impossible to break.’
‘Sidney’s given us forty-eight hours, guv. After that, it’s the Bletherer an’ we all know what that means . . .’
Out of nowhere, a lurid blue streak darted across the window. Such was the tension in the room that Burton barely registered the lightning flash.
The DI felt a great wave of affection flood him as he contemplated the other three. For all the disparity between them in age and character, they reminded him of eager children.
‘We could invite them to the station as witnesses,’ he said. ‘They’re likely to be anxious . . . off balance . . . keen to know what we’ve found out.’ He sighed. ‘But it means showing our hand . . . most likely for no return.’
‘What about Chris Burt?’ Doyle said suddenly.
‘Go on, Constable.’
‘Well, we thought he was scared, boss — like he might have been threatened to keep his mouth shut . . .’
‘By Jenni or Jayne?’
‘It could’ve happened like that . . . if he was traipsing around the surgery in that funny sly way he has—’
‘An’ one of ’em caught him . . . when he saw summat he shouldn’t have seen.’ Noakes took up the narrative with relish. ‘Mebbe found ’em in a clinch . . .’
‘You’re in penny dreadful territory now, Noakes.’
The DS was not to be discouraged. ‘Well, mebbe nowt sexual,’ he conceded. ‘But he could’ve seen Shawcross going into Harte’s office or summat like that . . . so they told him to keep it zipped or else.’
Support came from an unlikely quarter.
‘You may be onto something there, sarge,’ Burton said. ‘Who knows what titbits Burt may have picked up . . . or overheard . . .’
Noakes’s pug-like physiognomy was transformed by a glow of delight. He positively preened, as Markham told Olivia later.
He wondered which of the two women might have threatened the hapless caretaker.
Jenni. It had to be her, he thought. The steel magnolia.
‘Let’s have Mr Burt in,’ he told them. ‘And make sure Sidney gets to hear about it.’
Noakes’s grin was so wide it almost split his craggy face.
‘It’ll be a pleasure, boss,’ he said.
* * *
There was a rap at the door and one of the civilian staff who covered CID at weekends came in.
‘Hello, Joyce, what can we do for you?’
‘There’s been a report of arson over at the community centre, Inspector. Just been called in.’
‘Is it serious?’
‘Simon McLeish is over there and says not, sir.’
The DI’s broad shoulders sagged with relief. The chief of Bromgrove’s Fire Investigation Team was a safe pair of hands. Someone to be relied on.
‘Thanks, Joyce.’ The woman bustled away.
He got to his feet and the others followed suit.
‘We need to speak to Chris Burt now,’ he declared.
A great fear for the caretaker had suddenly taken possession of him.
Silently, Markham cursed himself. Burt was the unknown quantity in all of this — the hidden variable. Who was to say how that vulnerable soul might react to the trauma of the last week? They should have got him into some sort of protective custody at the very least . . .
None of the DI’s inner turmoil showed on his face, which was hard as chiselled granite.
‘We’ll take your car, Noakes,’ he said calmly.
As they piled out of the office, lightning forked again, illuminating the little group in an unearthly light.
It seemed like an omen.
15. Resolution
The rain had started up again and thunder fulminated in the distance, but Kate Burton felt oddly relaxed, cocooned in the car with Markham sat beside Noakes in the front and Doyle in the back next to her.
‘Sodding climate change,’ Noakes muttered, glowering through the windscreen. ‘Enough to make me an eco-thingy.’
Burton smiled to herself. At that moment, she felt oddly at peace with all the world. Even Noakes. A phrase from English GCSE — Romeo and Juliet — came to her suddenly. A lightning before death. Something to do with people being inexplicably happy right before they die. Somehow it summed up her strange feeling of contentment and weightlessness as the climax of the investigation drew nearer. Times like this, she wouldn’t swap her job for anything in the world.
Doyle’s mind was working along more prosaic lines. ‘I still don’t get it,’ he said.
‘Get what?’ Noakes squinted balefully at them in his wing mirror.
‘Stealing those appointment books . . .’
The DC had more than a touch of OCD, Burton reflected, but his habit of wrestling with knotty details would make him a fine detective.
‘I mean,’ he went on, ‘we hadn’t twigged the diaries were important . . . and even if something did put us on to them, Jenni could’ve made up a story . . .’
‘Didn’t want to risk it,’ Burton said thoughtfully. In the darkness of the vehicle, she frowned. ‘She and Jayne couldn’t be sure we’d take Peter Elford’s “suicide” at face value. They must have been afraid we’d start digging . . . and then who knows what we might have turned up . . . Actually,’ she admitted humbly, ‘I should have impounded the diaries straight away.’
‘Don’t blame yourself, Kate,’ Markham said. ‘We found Mr Elford on Wednesday . . . the break-in was later that night, remember? So they moved quickly.’
‘Even so, sir.’ Her voice was small. ‘I feel stupid for being taken in by Jenni Harte. She brought me tea and I just thought, what a nice thing to do . . . when she was probably doing a recce to find out what we knew . . .
