Lydia noticed Gus was resting his eyes on the way back to the office. She wouldn’t dare accuse him of nodding off, but while she was alone with her thoughts, she tried to make a list of genuine suspects for Marion Reeve’s killer. As she drew up alongside Blessing Umeh’s car in the Old Police Station car park forty minutes after leaving Brunel Road, she had to admit defeat.
Gus opened his eyes as Lydia switched off the engine.
“Is it safe to look now?” asked Gus.
“Cheeky,” said Lydia. “I was very careful driving back, honest.”
“Upstairs then,” said Gus. “Let’s hear what Luke uncovered.”
They travelled up in the lift, and the first words they heard were from Neil Davis.
“Heaven knows where that leaves us,” he said.
“Problem, Neil?” asked Gus.
“Graham Street, guv,” said Neil, “He suffered a heart attack during the night. The hospital isn’t sure he’s going to make it.”
“Where did they take him?” asked Gus.
“The main Salisbury hospital, out at Odstock, guv,” said Neil.
“How old is he?” asked Lydia.
“Early seventies,” said Neil. “Street had no underlying health problems before last night. He didn’t even know the name of his GP. A lady friend called the ambulance at around one o’clock.”
“Was he doing something strenuous?” asked Alex.
“The poor man,” said Blessing.
“If Street doesn’t survive, it will make solving the Marion Reeves' case that much harder, won’t it, guv?” said Luke.
“Just when I thought it was as tough as it could get,” said Gus. “Get hold of Stephanie Reeves, Luke. Can you arrange for me to speak to her tomorrow, please?”
“She works as a teaching assistant at a local primary in Downton, Luke,” said Lydia. “We learned that from Theo Reeves this morning.”
“Stephanie can take time off work,” said Gus. “I don’t do evenings.”
The team could tell Gus wasn’t in the best of moods. It was time to keep their heads down and wait until the storm blew over.
Gus grabbed the phone and called the Avon and Somerset Police HQ at Portishead.
Reception kept Gus on hold for several minutes, which didn’t improve matters, but eventually, they connected him to DI Matt Price.
“Matt, it’s Gus Freeman here. Congratulations on your promotion. Well-deserved, I’m sure. Yes, I expect it is a surprise to hear from me. I came out of retirement several months ago to work with a Crime Review Team. They’re rough around the edges, but I’m doing my best with them. Look, I’m sure you recall the Marion Reeves case out at Wilton? Yes, a messy business. We’ve got the murder file in our office, and I spoke to Theo Reeves, the victim’s husband, this morning. The murder file lists a mobile phone as being among the contents of Marion’s handbag. What work got carried out on that phone? We can’t find any details of her call history.”
Everyone in the room listened in on the conversation. The pause while Gus listened to Matt Price’s explanation seemed to last forever.
“Who handled the items from inside the Lexus, Matt?” asked Gus. “Hold on, do you mind if I put you on speakerphone?”
“No problem, Gus,” said Matt Price. “We were at Bourne Hill nick when we got the call to attend an incident at Churchfields. Billie Wightman drove us to the end of Churchfields Road, where it joins Stephenson Road. We reached the outer cordon at twenty past twelve. Uniformed officers were already on scene and following standard protocols as far as possible. For the young uniforms on-site that day, it was the first major incident they had attended. Sergeant Phil Youngman ran the show. He’d arrived with a female PC a few minutes before noon and soon realised they needed extra pairs of hands to secure the crime scene. Phil’s reinforcements cordoned off access to Stephenson Road and evacuated as many personnel as possible from the nearby units. You can imagine how many people that was; it was chaotic. Forensics and the police surgeon had beaten Billie and me to Churchfields by a matter of minutes. We were at least one hundred yards from the white tent Crime Scene Investigators erected over the victim’s car. Even from that poor vantage point, Billie muttered that she thought there were far too many bodies milling around. She yelled at a PC wandering around with a roll of crime scene tape to get us booked in and escorted to the business end of operations.”
“How good a job had Phil Youngman, as First Officer Attending, done in securing the crime scene and preserving evidence?” asked Gus.
“Phil Youngman must have been at Bourne Hill when you worked there, Gus,” said Matt Price. “He was a safe pair of hands and had been in the job for years. Phil would never fly higher than a Sergeant, but you could always rely on him to put in a solid performance.”
“Mister Dependable, yes,” said Gus. “If anyone dropped the ball on this, it was unlikely to be Phil. Did an experienced forensics team attend the murder scene?”
“The Scene of Crime Examiner that day was Warren Baker. Thirty years’ experience.”
“I don’t think I ever met him. Had he been at Bourne Hill long?”
“Baker moved back to Salisbury from Southampton early in 2010. He was born in Bemerton, went to university in Winchester, and then joined the forensics team at Southampton. Warren has continued to live in Salisbury throughout his career. He married a local girl from Bemerton. They never had kids, and the scuttlebutt around the nick was that they had a certain circle of friends. Neither of them was easy to get to know.”
“A certain
