“Yes.”
She could sense that he had nodded and when he spoke, she felt the gentle vibration of the sound in his chest.
“Well, according to the Right Honourable Ted Savage, anyway.” He was unable to keep the cynicism from his voice.
Callie had watched as the MP had been taken away in the back of a squad car, still white with shock.
“He says he knew nothing about the first death,” Miller continued. “He hadn’t even recognised the post-mortem photo we put out as being the person who had tried to blackmail him. Apparently, his wife said she had dealt with the problem and he assumed she had paid the boy off. It wasn’t until she called him to help her with the girl’s body because she couldn’t manage to get rid of her on her own that he realised what had happened.”
“Her brother helped too, with the clean-up, but I don’t think he knew she’d killed anyone.”
“No, he didn’t. Jayne Hales worked out their relationship and we picked him up earlier. He’ll get charged with arson and assisting an offender, but probably nothing more serious.”
“And what about Ted?”
Somehow, despite the fact that he had happily taken part in orgies and drug-taking with young men, or in some cases, boys, and had helped his wife cover up the second murder, she still managed to feel concerned for him.
“Well, he’s co-operating fully at the moment.” Miller didn’t seem to have the same feeling. “Although I have no doubt once his brief arrives, we’ll be told his confession was coerced because he was in shock, but I think there’s enough proof to show that he at least helped her move the girl’s body. From that time, if not earlier, he must have been aware of what she’d done, what she was capable of doing. He will have to be charged with being an accessory.”
“He saved my life.”
“Yes, and I haven’t forgotten that.”
“And killing his wife was an accident. She fell down the stairs. He was just trying to stop her from braining me with the frying pan.” Although Callie wasn’t quite sure about that – there had been quite a considerable amount of force behind the push, hadn’t there? More than was strictly necessary, but in the heat of the moment, who can say how much force is necessary?
“And I’m sure it will help reduce his sentence, but I’d bet my house that he’ll still get a custodial sentence. There’s no way round the fact that he knowingly helped his wife dispose of a body, even if she did tell him that she’d killed the girl in self-defence.”
“She told me she just lost it and hadn’t realised she had a kettle in her hand.” But Callie didn’t really believe that. The girl had been a threat to Ted and his precious career and Mrs Savage had removed that threat. Just like she had done with Daniel before her.
“Yes, well, we’ll wait for your statement until whatever drugs she plied you with are out of your system. Don’t want them saying you were off your−”
“Tits.” Jeffries helpfully provided the word.
Callie sat up, suddenly; she hadn’t even noticed he was there, and it seemed that Miller hadn’t either as he quickly released his hold and moved away from her. She could feel a blush starting at her throat and steadily rising to her cheeks, and she could tell that Jeffries had noticed it too, by the way he was grinning.
“Your boyfriend called you on your phone, Doc,” Jeffries said and held out her mobile, which she must have dropped in the house.
“He’s coming over to collect you, take you to the hospital for a blood test, so we know what she gave you.”
“I’m pretty sure it was ketamine, same as body number nine,” she said, trying to sound professional in front of the detective sergeant, but he continued to smirk, loving every minute of both her and his boss’s discomfort.
Epilogue
The papers had been full of the case for weeks it seemed to Callie, and, inevitably, it was the story of the gay politician taking part in sex and drug orgies that dominated the headlines, rather than a man whose wife was prepared to kill anyone who stood in the way of his career.
There were endless discussions of why people in power put themselves in terrible positions, self-destructing so publicly, and every political sex scandal in history was rehashed for the readers and viewers.
“I think she actually drove him to it,” Callie confided in Billy. “She controlled every aspect of his life. She was the one with the power, and we all know what power does.”
They were watching yet another item on the news about Ted’s glittering career and its end.
“Orgies are not the recommended way of taking back control of your life,” Billy said drily. “Neither is killing your wife. Divorce would have been a better idea.”
“She would never have let him get away from her so easily.” Callie smiled. “You have to remember, this was everything she had ever dreamed of – position, status, power – albeit second-hand. She was prepared to kill to keep it. If he’d tried to divorce her, she’d probably have killed him.”
Callie stroked his hand. Since the night he’d come to collect her at the scene of Mrs Savage’s death, he’d seemed a little remote, as if something was on his mind, and she hadn’t had the courage to ask him why. She wondered if Jeffries had said something when he answered the phone, when she was in the back of the ambulance with Miller. She knew the sergeant could be malicious, but somehow, she didn’t think he would have done, after all, there wasn’t anything to tell, was there? It wasn’t like hugging a friend at a time of
