Dead in the Water - Tickler Peter (книги онлайн без регистрации TXT) 📗

Mullen was suddenly conscious that there were several members of the St Mark’s congregation standing around, watching with fascination. Rose Wilby and Derek Stanley were both standing on the far side of the road. They must have left shortly before he had and had turned to watch the drama unfold. Mullen tried to ignore them. He glanced at the search warrant in his hand. He made no attempt to read it in detail. He hadn’t ever seen one before, but it could hardly be a fake. Dorkin wouldn’t be stupid enough to do that, especially with so many curious bystanders as witnesses. He handed it back to him. “So what now?”

‘What now?’ involved Mullen handing over his house keys to Dorkin, who passed them over to a pair of uniformed officers standing in the shade of one of the poplar trees which stood in ranks along the front of the church.

‘What now?’ involved Mullen himself being driven to the police station and then having to wait for nearly two hours before a solicitor could be found.

‘What now?’ involved Mullen in doing a lot of thinking.

* * *

Mullen’s solicitor introduced herself as Althea Potter. She was brisk and a little off-hand. She was dressed in white slacks and pale pink blouse. Her blonde bob of hair was still wet and she smelt of chlorine. She looked like a woman who had just had her weekend rudely interrupted.

She asked Mullen a series of questions, made a note of his answers on her notepad and then went to the door. There was a uniformed constable outside. “Tell Inspector Dorkin we are ready,” she said. “And would you mind getting us both a cup of tea. I would also point out that my client hasn’t had lunch either.”

Twenty minutes passed before Dorkin appeared with Fargo. Mullen tried not to give way to his feelings of irritation. No doubt this delaying was a deliberate tactic by Dorkin, but if so the constable who brought in not just cups of tea but also sandwiches was not party to it. Mullen was starting to feel human again.

Fargo did the preliminaries. Then he fell silent and waited for Dorkin who again embarked on a game of silence as he leafed through the folder of papers lying on the table in front of him.

“What the heck is this all about?” Mullen said. Althea Potter touched his arm with her hand, but he had no intention of lying there and being trampled.

Dorkin looked across at him, a jackal-smile on his face. “I’ve got something to show you,” he said.

Fargo conjured up with a flourish a thin large-format book out of the pile of paperwork in front of him and placed it in front of Mullen. Mullen didn’t have to fake surprise. He had never seen the book in his life, as far as he was aware.

“Art isn’t my thing,” he said.

“What about photography?”

Fargo did his conjuror act again and placed three photographs on the table. “Do you recognise these?”

Mullen nodded. “Of course. I took them. When I was working for Janice Atkinson.”

“And who are the people in them?”

“Paul Atkinson and Becca Baines.”

“Good. That was easy wasn’t it? So you took these photos and gave them to Janice?”

“Yes.”

“Did you give her printed copies like these or did you give her digital copies?”

Mullen picked up each photo in turn, examining the back.

“These are some of the prints I gave her. There’s a number in pencil on the back. That was me. I kept the digital files myself.”

“A couple of nights ago, a woman died in a house fire. These photographs were found inside this book under her body.”

For the first time, Mullen felt a surge of panic. “Who was she?”

Dorkin didn’t reply.

The room was surprisingly cool, but Mullen could feel the sweat on his forehead. “Jesus, it wasn’t Becca, was it?” Dorkin was eyeing him steadily.

There was a hiss of anger from Mullen’s right. “Stop messing about, Inspector.” Althea Potter, hitherto silent, stabbed her pen onto her notepad. “My client has come here willingly. He has agreed to cooperate with your investigations. But if you persist, I will advise him to withdraw that cooperation.”

Dorkin’s face twitched. “The dead woman was a Doreen Rankin. She worked for Paul Atkinson.”

Mullen tried to think. So did that mean Janice had shown her husband the photographs? If so, how come Doreen had got them? Was she another lover?

He looked up. Dorkin was shifting in his seat and asking him another question.

“Why did you think that the dead woman might be Becca Baines?”

Mullen tried to think. “I don’t know. The photo I suppose. You said it was a woman . . .” He tailed off. When the hell had he last seen Becca? His brain was porridge.

“Are you and Becca lovers?”

“There’s no need to answer that,” Althea Potter intervened.

Mullen shrugged. “I’ll answer it if the Inspector will answer one of my questions. Was the fire an accident or was it arson?”

Dorkin returned his stare. Then he answered. “The circumstances which gave rise to the fire are uncertain.”

Mullen smiled back. “And the relationship between myself and Becca Baines is also uncertain.”

“Do you have any other questions for my client?” Althea Potter was clearly impatient to rescue what was left of her Sunday.

Dorkin turned to Fargo and nodded. Fargo removed the book and photographs from the table and delved again into his pile of paperwork. This time he produced a see-through evidence bag and placed it in front of Mullen.

“Do you recognise this?”

Mullen picked it up, studied the pills inside the bag and then replaced it on the table. “No.”

“For the record, we found them inside the Cedars, Foxcombe Road, Boars Hill.”

“They must be the professor’s.”

“We’ll check that out.”

“What is in the bag?” Althea Potter’s manner betrayed the fact that she was getting increasingly irritated by every sentence that passed Dorkin’s lips.

“Rohypnol.”

“And what is the relevance of finding rohypnol in my client’s place of residence?”

Dorkin shrugged. “It may not be relevant. I just wanted to check it out.”

“Check it out?” Althea Potter spat the words back at Dorkin one at a time as if they were some unexpectedly sour berries. She had had enough. She began to gather up her papers. “I think my client has answered quite enough questions for now. Unless, of course, you are going to charge him with a crime?”

Mullen should have kept his mouth shut. He knew that even as he opened it. But sometimes common sense makes no sense. “Janice Atkinson had rohypnol in her bloodstream when she died,” he announced.

Dorkin, Fargo and Potter all stared at him.

“As did Chris, who was found floating face down in the river.”

They were all still staring. In silence.

“And just for the record,” Mullen concluded, “I know because the pathologist Charles Speight told me.”

* * *

For a few marvellous seconds, Mullen had been more pleased with himself than he could possibly have imagined. Dorkin’s face, contorted in disbelief, was a joy to behold. But after the high comes the low. And by the time Althea Potter had given him several pieces of her mind and then departed in a swirl of anger, Mullen was realising that what he had said hadn’t been very clever at all. He was also realising that for the second time he was stuck in the Cowley police station a long way from his car, which he had left in what was fast becoming his personal parking space in South Oxford. It would take him an hour or so to walk, he reckoned, as he pushed his way out through the exit doors.

“Hi!”

Rose Wilby was standing a few metres away, leaning against the metal railings and holding a cigarette. She dropped it hastily and ground it out with her foot.

“Bad habit. Don’t tell my mother.”

Mullen stood still. He felt awkward, unsure of his own thoughts and feelings. “Mum’s the word,” he replied, because he didn’t trust himself to say anything more real.