Isaac had formed his opinion as to who was responsible for both murders, but the evidence, at best, was flimsy and would not hold up. A confession was necessary, and for that pressure would need to be applied.
He was not willing to apply that pressure until he was confident of a conviction.
‘I apologise, but I have every right,’ Isaac said.
‘I’ll accept your apology, but for the record: Mavis Richardson was old, her health was indicative of her age, she suffered a heart attack, and last, but by no means least, the pathologist knew of her importance. Full tests were carried out, looking for the slightest hint of an induced death. Nothing was found.’
‘Exhuming her would be pointless?’ Isaac asked.
‘Pointless, unless you like paperwork.’
‘Are you certain that Gertrude Richardson died of natural causes?’
‘DCI, you’re clutching at straws. Did you see her son?’
‘Not closely.’
‘Well, I did, as did Gertrude Richardson. It almost turned my stomach, but the woman stood there and looked. Wendy Gladstone could not take it either. What do you think a mother would feel after being confronted with the thirty-year-old corpse of her long-lost son?’
‘And her dying?’
‘The woman was eighty-seven and reclusive. She barely ate and was very frail. It was a good job Wendy Gladstone was with her when she died. Otherwise, she may have become a thirty-year-old corpse herself.’
‘Montague Grenfell?’
‘He fell down the stairs and broke his neck.’
‘Is it possible to ascertain whether he slipped or was pushed?’
‘You’ve read my report?’
‘Yes.’
‘I don’t believe there is any ambiguity, do you?’
‘Not as to the cause of death, but you did not specify that he had been pushed.’
‘It’s in the report. The footprints at the top indicated a scuffle. Whether he had been pushed or not is not clear. I left the report open-ended.’
***
Isaac, realising that he may have just been wasting Gordon Windsor’s time, returned to the office. He knew what the issue was: it was that as the senior investigating officer he was increasingly confined to Challis Street. He enjoyed the cut and thrust out in the field, probing, asking questions when they were not welcomed, receiving answers, sometimes truthfully given, sometimes not. And in this case, a lot of the answers were just that, not truthful.
The children of Michael and Mary Solomon had brought in a hitherto unknown element. Bridget was checking out the son, while Wendy conducted some more investigations into Deidre.
Larry had enjoyed the photo gallery of Deidre on the agency’s website – draped across a bed, showing what the lucky client was to receive. Wendy just saw it as lewd, but it was not for her to comment, and she was certainly not a prude. The prices for a half-hour, two hours, a full day seemed excessive to her, but the woman they had met said that she catered to the well-heeled, and in the case of Montague Grenfell, well-aged.
Wendy had submitted her expenses for the meal at the Saatchi Gallery on her return. Isaac had duly signed his approval, but he knew his DCS would hit the roof. The economy drive throughout the force was gaining momentum, and Isaac knew that once their current murder case, cases, were concluded, he would be asked to make cuts.
Isaac wanted more people for his department, not fewer. He saw it as ironic that there were financial cuts to be made, yet the consultants brought in from outside to oversee the exercise were paid excessively.
Isaac had studied economics at university, and the amount of money allocated for the purpose of saving money would have been better spent elsewhere: an extra person to ease the burden carried by Wendy and Larry, someone to deal with his paperwork.
His relationship with Katrina Smith was going well. He knew that it was a momentary passion, as did she, but neither felt any great disappointment. Both of them were still young, especially Katrina.
They met when they could, spent nights at his flat, but she was busy working in London, discussing her future, and Isaac was burning the midnight oil on the current murder investigation. He only hoped that there were to be no more deaths.
He had put forward a cogent case to his DCS for more staff, only to receive a terse reply.
‘Economy drive. There’s not much I can do about it. Wrap up this case, and I’ll see what I can do.’
Which to Isaac meant one thing: no additional help now, and when the heat is off, then why do you want more.
Not that he could blame his DCS. He had had a rough time when Commissioner Shaw, a man who had guided his career, accepted a peerage. His replacement, a cheerless man, had not taken a shine to the DCS.
Isaac, down at New Scotland Yard the day of his first speech to the people in the building, had listened intently to the new commissioner, Alwyn Davies, had said: ‘…open-door policy, always open to suggestions. If you want to come and see me, be direct. I have no time for the inept and the ingratiating. Results are what I want.’
It had been meant to inspire the assembled personnel, and although they had clapped, few believed what they had heard. Clichéd comments were all very well, but that was what they were, clichéd.
In the six months since taking over, Commissioner Davies had become disliked by most in the Met. He had proven himself to be a singularly unfriendly man, and those who had taken up the offer to knock on his door had invariably been met with a rebuff. Most of them had retreated, tails between their legs.
It had been the same for DCS Goddard until he had got the measure of the man, and the former commissioner Charles Shaw had found him a place on a government
