jigsaw fit around that. At least that is what Mark Carter believed they did. Fit you up because it was easier than unearthing the truth.
He jerked his middle finger up at the camera lens and mouthed a word that didn’t need a lip reader to translate.
Henry’s morning had been hectic. Up at six thirty after a fitful night’s sleep exacerbated by severe indigestion: note — order chicken curry in future because that never made him feel bad. He had showered speedily and was walking into the station just after seven, trying to focus his mind on the day ahead.
He met Rik Dean in Rik’s office just off the main CID office, where they sat down over a strong filter coffee and bacon sandwiches to organize the hours that lay ahead. They worked on to-do lists, wanting to miss nothing, and get the inquiry into Natalie Philips’s murder kick-started. Henry was aware that some of the momentum had been lost already because he’d got involved in yesterday’s motorway mayhem. He wanted to pick up speed and get a well-briefed team out there knocking on doors, making people who knew Natalie feel very uncomfortable. He knew how crucial the first seventy-two hours of a murder investigation were — and that had now been whittled down to forty-eight hours.
By nine he had screamed and bawled at too many people. Not something the ‘old’ Henry had been prone to do, but since Kate died he’d discovered he was far less patient with people who dragged their feet. Anyway, it seemed to work that morning and something resembling a murder inquiry was coming together. Search and forensic teams were at the scene outside the crematorium, six pairs of detectives were responding to various ‘actions’ that had been generated and house-to-house enquiries were underway in the area around the crematorium.
There was a slight problem in that the location of the murder was actually just over the border in another division, but Henry wasn’t too concerned about it. Natalie was a Blackpool girl and it was more than likely her death was associated with people she knew in Blackpool, so Henry had decided to run the job from the resort.
He was desperate to find the last person to see Natalie alive and his early theory was that it was probably somebody in Blackpool. At the back of his mind, he hoped it wasn’t Mark Carter.
Henry sat back and stretched. Everything ached. Joints cracked and creaked. He felt his age and he scoffed contemptuously at whoever said the fifties were the new thirties.
Next task was to get the Murder Incident Room — MIR — up and running with the necessary staff in it and to get the murder book up to date.
The phone on Rik’s desk rang. The DI scooped it up. ‘Right, thanks, yeah… in an interview room… if he tries to leg it, arrest him… uh-huh… murder… be down, say five minutes. Cheers.’ Rik hung up and looked across the desk at Henry. ‘Well would you credit it?’
‘Mark Carter?’ Henry guessed as though he could read Rik’s mind. He hadn’t mentioned the phone call he’d got from Mark.
Rik nodded. ‘You a mind reader or something?’
The boy was almost eighteen now, old enough to be interviewed without any parent or other responsible adult being present. Not that he had a parent or anyone else that was interested in his welfare. No father, dead mother, jailed older brother, dead sister; Mark was pretty much alone in the world.
‘Good of you to come in willingly, Mark,’ Henry said.
‘There was a choice?’
‘Ultimately, no.’
Mark shrugged. ‘So here I am.’
‘We want to talk about you and Natalie, as you know.’
‘So you said yesterday.’
‘Why did you run?’
‘Because, Henry, you always bring me bad news. You always fuck with my mind and it’s always best to avoid you.’
‘Yet you rang me?’
Rik gave Henry a puzzled sideways glance.
‘Only because you’d have nicked me if I hadn’t — and because I have nothing to hide.’
‘You and Natalie went out together?’ Henry asked.
‘A bit.’
‘Tell me about it.’
‘Nowt to tell. We went out for while, then we split.’
‘Mutual decision?’
‘Are they ever?’
‘I thought you were smitten with Katie Bretherton.’
Mark screwed up his face. ‘Not now. It’s all over.’
Henry studied Mark, seeing a much older, time-scarred lad than the one he’d first met. He was spotty now, had acne, was sprouting hair all over, looked unwashed and frankly a bit of a mess.
‘What do you do other than work at KFC?’
‘College.’
‘Doing what?’
‘Astrophysics,’ he laughed bitterly. Henry waited, then Mark relented. ‘A course in motor vehicle technology.’
‘Oh, good lad.’
‘Yeah, right. I’m going to be a grease monkey. Ho-di-hey!’ He set his face hard at Henry. ‘What about Natalie?’
‘You tell me.’
‘We went out, we split up.’
‘Did she dump you?’
Mark blinked and Henry thought, yes… another person either leaving or dumping him. Not one person has stayed with him, poor sod. Mark nodded.
‘Why?’
‘Duh — because I wanted a steady relationship and she didn’t. She was a bike and liked being ridden — or didn’t you know that?’
‘A bike as in…?’
‘Shagged left right and centre,’ he said crossly, his body language leaking a touch of rage.
‘So you screwed her too?’ Rik Dean piped up at this point, leaning forward on the table. Up to then he’d sat silent, just shot Henry the occasional quizzical look.
Mark’s mouth snapped shut. His head rotated slowly to Rik, his eyes dead.
‘We need to know,’ Henry said. And they did, because the results of the post-mortem had also shown that Natalie had had sexual intercourse sometime leading up to her death. Samples had been taken, and, together with other samples taken from her skin, underneath her fingernails, and from other orifices, were now with the Forensic Science lab for analysis. But that process would take some time. Even if Henry could sweet talk an official fast- track, it would be at least two weeks before any results came back, even with a tailwind. Henry thought for a moment, then made his decision. ‘This interview needs to be taped, Mark. We’ll need to take various samples from you and at this point the best thing for you would be to get the duty solicitor. Costs nothing.’
‘You’re locking me up?’
‘Tell me when you last saw Natalie.’
‘Yesterday, just before lunch.’
‘When did you last have sex with her?’
‘Yesterday, just before lunch.’
‘Shit,’ Henry sighed. ‘Did you kill her?’
Mark shook his head and Henry believed him, but this was only based on his previous knowledge and opinion of Mark, like a ‘halo effect’. But Henry did not want to miss the chance of nailing a killer just because he thought he was too nice to do it. He had to deal with Mark straight down the line and give him no favours. This was the best thing for Mark, too, although Henry doubted if he would see it that way.
‘Mark, you’re under arrest on suspicion of murdering Natalie Philips.’ Henry then cautioned him.
Mark’s blood drained from his face. He shook his head in disbelief, then said, ‘Now you know why I ran. I
