"Tom?"
He looked up. "Sorry. What did you say?"
"Apparently she'd been crying. Any idea why that might be?"
"You should probably be asking Alice rather than me, don't you think?"
"I did," she said, glancing away and out of the window. "I'm not going to sugar coat this for you, Tom. Alice isn't helping herself."
He chose not to comment. Besides, what could he say? It was news to him that Alice had seen her ex-husband that day. He was angry at her now. He still couldn't entertain the idea she had anything to do with his death but, evidently, she chose not to mention the visit. Why would she do that? Was she afraid of how he might react?
"The second witness, the one who saw her leaving the house," Tamara said. Tom looked up. "He… says he's seen Alice there a number of times recently—"
"To pick up and drop off Saf—"
"On several occasions without her daughter."
A wave of emotion passed over him. It was the strangest sensation; one he wouldn't be able to describe.
"What are you saying?"
"I'm not saying anything, Tom. We have a warrant to sequester Alice's telephone records and will also be contacting her employer to ascertain her work schedule. She lied to me about where she was when Adrian Gage was murdered, Tom." He met her eye. "The thing is, if she didn't kill him, why the lie?"
"You have more, don't you?"
Tamara sat forward, placing her elbows on the table and forming a tent with her fingers before her mouth. "Trace evidence was present under the victim's fingernails."
Tom felt a pang in his chest.
"Fibres, not skin cells. We took a number of items from Alice's… from your home," she said steadily. "You know how this works. The lab will try to match those fibres to clothing owned and worn by the suspect. Did Alice happen to be wearing a blue jumper—"
"On the day Gage was stabbed?" he asked. Tamara nodded. He could answer that question. "I don't know what she was wearing." Tamara's eyes narrowed. "Honestly. She was getting out of the shower when I got home."
Tamara made a note. "And what time was that?" She looked up, sensing his reticence. "Tom? What time was that?"
"Six-thirty, seven… something like that. I didn't realise I'd be needing to give a statement."
Tamara put her pen down. "I'm sorry, Tom. Off the record… maybe you should take a moment to consider what you should do next."
"How do you mean?"
"Maybe consider whether now is a good time to put a bit of space between yourself and Alice."
"Are you serious?"
"I'm speaking as a friend, not as your boss. It might be better for her as well."
"How do you figure that?"
"The evidence is leading to her door, and if she's going to be cleared of any involvement, then the perception has to be right."
"I would never risk prejudicing the investigation—"
Tamara shook her head, holding up both hands to ask him to slow down. "And I'm not saying you would, but it's perception. If Alice has done nothing wrong, and there may well be a simple explanation to cover all of this, then she'll be cleared. It just wouldn't look good for our chief sus—" She stopped herself from finishing the comment, instead placing her palms flat on the desk. "It won't look good, her living with a senior detective working out of this station—"
"When she's cleared," Tom said. "True."
He stood up, making a beeline for the door.
"Tom. You know I have no choice but to play it this way." He stopped with one hand on the door, turning back to face her. "You would have played it exactly the same way and deep down you know it."
"Did you find the murder weapon, either in the house or nearby?"
Tamara picked up her coffee and sipped at it. "No. We think it might have been a knife from the kitchen. Suggestive of an impulsive action rather than a premeditated act."
He nodded, drumming his fingers on the door jamb, and left without another word. He caught her watching him as he crossed the ops room.
"Eric. Come on," he said, striding towards the door. The detective constable jumped out of his seat. "We have to swing by the pathologist's office and then go to see a man about a planning application."
Chapter Eighteen
The skies were clearing now which was often the way on the north Norfolk coast. The day starts off with a hint of promise but one that can swiftly be forgotten depending on the prevailing winds. When they reached the pathologist's office, the mist was burning off and retreating from the coastline. Now, nearing the middle of the day, heading for the registered address of Daniel Crowe, the sun was sitting high and the warmth of early summer made its presence known.
The same could not be said for the pathologist's laboratory. Dr Tim Paxton was busy, summoning them to the morgue rather than his office. For obvious reasons the rooms were kept at a cool temperature, despite the cadavers being stored in refrigeration chambers. The more he thought about Dr Paxton's analysis of Mary Beckett, he couldn't help but think the information given was more pertinent than he currently realised. But not because of the cause of death.
"The victim suffered a brain haemorrhage, undoubtedly resulting from the rather obvious blow to the head," Dr Paxton said, reading from his notes and peering over the rim of his glasses at Tom. "My x-rays show evidence of only a single blow to the left temporal bone, located to the side of the head which caused the depressed fracture."
He passed a clipboard to Tom, folding over the sheet at the top so he could see a photocopy of a generic human skull. The doctor had marked where the wound
