‘I’m sorry.’
‘There’s no need to be. It was a blessed relief. He had Huntington’s, you see.’
‘That’s a degenerative disease, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, it’s a genetic disorder. John inherited it from his mother. The first symptoms started when he was in his early thirties. At first it was just little things – being clumsy, forgetting things. He tried to make a joke of it, but we both knew it was bound to get worse. Ian encouraged him to get a diagnosis and after that he just went downhill really quickly. During the final few months, he was completely bed-ridden and I had to nurse him. Eventually he wasn’t even able to speak and had problems swallowing and breathing. In the end, death came as a release.’
‘I can understand that,’ said Bridget. ‘You don’t have any children?’
‘We might have done, but after John was diagnosed, we decided not to. There’s a fifty-percent chance of the Huntington’s gene being passed on, you see, and we didn’t want to take that risk.’ Tears were once again welling up in Annabel’s eyes. ‘Now I wish we had. I lost my husband, and now I’ve lost my sister too. Oscar’s all I have left.’ She hugged the dog tightly against her chest.
Bridget finished her tea and put the mug back on the coffee table beside a gardening magazine. ‘Do you have any idea who might have sent the death threat to Diane?’ she asked gently. ‘Did you discuss it with her?’
‘Diane refused to talk about it. She was convinced it was just some crank. But I was worried. Diane wasn’t afraid to write about topics that annoyed certain people in powerful positions. Her academic work was one thing, but her book will bring those matters to the attention of a much wider audience.’
‘Yes, I can see that,’ said Bridget. ‘I’ll need you to give me the contact details for Daniel and Ian, if you don’t mind.’
‘Of course,’ said Annabel, wiping her tears away. ‘But do you mind if I speak to them first? I think this news would be better coming from me.’
Bridget had no objection to Annabel contacting Diane’s son and ex-husband. If fact it was a welcome relief and would make her job much easier when she did speak to them if they were already prepared.
Annabel looked as if she was about to cry again. ‘My sister was a good person, Inspector,’ she said. ‘She wasn’t always an easy person to like’ – at this, Bridget felt Annabel’s eyes boring into hers and she shifted uncomfortably – ‘but she was my sister and we were very close. She supported me through some difficult times, especially after my husband died. You will find out who killed her, won’t you?’
4
Bridget knew that before she could begin the job of assembling her team and getting on with solving the murder, she was going to have to face Chief Superintendent Alex Grayson. There was even a risk that Grayson wouldn’t want her to head up the investigation, given the mess she’d made of preventing Diane Gilbert’s death in the first place. She braced herself for an onslaught as she entered his glass-walled office, aware that Jake and the other members of the department were all watching closely, although doing an excellent job of appearing not to. Surveillance training could be a double-edged sword.
The Chief Super sat in his high-backed swivel chair, tapping a fountain pen on the surface of his immaculate desk. It was always a bad sign when he held a pen in his hand. And an empty desk also spelled trouble.
‘Sir, you wanted to see me,’ said Bridget, determined not to let him have the first word.
‘Sit down,’ said Grayson, rotating the pen in his hand to indicate the chair in front of his desk.
Bridget perched on the edge of the chair, sitting bolt upright in an attempt to bolster her stature by a much-needed extra inch. A photo of Grayson holding up a golfing trophy looked back at her from the desktop. Neither the Grayson in the photograph nor the one in real life was smiling.
‘Please explain to me, DI Hart,’ said the Chief calmly, ‘how Diane Gilbert could possibly have been murdered on our watch.’
She noted with a glimmer of hope that he’d said “our watch” and not “your watch”, but she didn’t fool herself into imagining that Grayson would readily accept any of the blame for this fiasco himself. Nor did she want the hapless Sam and Scott to be made into scapegoats, assuming that they had told her the whole truth about what took place. Bridget didn’t play games or office politics. If she had to shoulder responsibility for the failure of the operation, then she would. But she wouldn’t go down without a fight.
‘Sir, I can categorically state that when Detective Sergeant Jake Derwent and I left Diane Gilbert at home on Thursday evening, there were no intruders in the house or grounds of the property. The back door and ground floor windows were all securely locked, and we heard her locking the front door as we left the house. The gardens and garage were searched, and the officers on duty overnight have stated that no one entered or left the premises while they were on duty.’
‘Well, someone clearly got in and out,’ said Grayson. ‘How do you account for that?’
Bridget swallowed, knowing that she had no satisfactory answer to the question. ‘They broke in through the back door of the house, but we don’t yet know how they gained entry to the grounds. The scene of crime officers are investigating whether someone could have climbed over the rear garden wall.’ She didn’t add that she and Vik had already taken a look and seen no signs of any disturbance.
The fountain pen tapped rhythmically against the
