No Time to Die_a thrilling CSI mystery Page 22

  Only when she emerged from the tent into the brightness of the daylight did she see a second shell casing twinkling in the sun just ahead of the van’s front tyre. More work to do. She sighed and reached for the camera. Thankfully, most of the shells were just outside the back entrance to the tearoom, so James and Duffy would collect them.

  After she had photographed and packaged it, she made a call to DI Taylor, to have the vehicle and the body recovered. The press were still there, snapping away at anything they thought might add mystery to their front pages tomorrow.

  James and Duffy had finished with their body and had gone off to swab some blood from the far end of the triangle, and then gone to photograph around the front of the teashop and recover more blood from there too. Sweat glistened on Ros’s forehead, and blood had dripped from her fingertips. One of those days.

  The last thing was to hand her exhibits over to Taylor’s nominated exhibits man and get the hell out of here.

  — Three —

  He’d only ever seen one of them before. He’d been at a burglary at an Asian house. They’d taken to hiding their jewellery there. It was a good place to hide things; no one would think to look there.

  But he was certain. And now he was more than a little afraid.

  Eddie squatted down facing the end of the Ottoman double bed. He clicked on his torch and shone it at the hole between the mattress and the base; it was a hole plenty wide enough to slide a hand into, which you’d need to do if you were going to lift the mattress for access to the storage space beneath.

  He cleared his throat, and then he remembered Blake Crosby’s body – the one with the bullet hole in the back. The one caused by a gun. The gun they had not yet recovered.

  For all he knew that very same gun was pointing at him right now.

  Eddie whispered, ‘If I promise that you are completely safe, will you come out?’

  No reply.

  Eddie licked his lips. ‘Please,’ he said. ‘I won’t harm you. I’ll make sure you’re safe. Angela?’

  Nothing.

  Eddie stood and faced a decision. Ring for back-up or take a shot – ooh, he thought, wrong choice of word – and lift the mattress, and see what was inside. If she was in there, she would be scared shitless, and how would the poor woman react to seeing a load of coppers prancing around her bedroom? And if she wasn’t in there, how would he react to a roomful of coppers taking the piss out of him? He decided to be stupid and stepped up to the mattress. He grimaced and then reached down and lifted it up.

  He stood back, and what he saw almost broke his heart.

  She was a naked ball of grief. She peered at him through eyes that squinted in the brightness, through eyes that rippled with tears, one almost swollen closed. She had drawn her knees up, her fists curled beneath her chin seemed to clasp something silver. It wasn’t a gun, though; it looked like a brooch to Eddie. Her chin trembled, and her mouth moved, but he couldn’t hear any words.

  He knelt at the foot of the bed and tried hard to keep his own eyes dry. It was difficult. ‘Angela,’ he whispered, ‘my name’s Eddie. I’m going to help you, okay?’

  Inside his mind, he struggled on several planes: keep stable. The last thing a distraught person needs is another distraught person. But remember, she’s a killer too, she’s scared, easily panicked and easily provoked; and she may be injured more seriously than you can see from here. And whatever you think, think this: she’s been to a hell you could never imagine; she is the victim here, not some bastard Crosby.

  He opened her wardrobe, brought out jeans and a top. Then he went to her chest of drawers and found a bra and pants. He hated this; it felt to him as though he was adding to her grief, not only by going through her private things, but just by being here – a male in her very feminine world, a world hung out to dry by males. He hated himself and wondered if Ros would be better. Well, of course she would, he thought. But if you invite someone else in here now, the girl would blow her stack.

  And then he went into the bathroom and brought out a bath towel, trying to think of some way she could keep her dignity.

  Eddie returned to the bed. She hadn’t moved. ‘Angela,’ he tried again, holding out his hand, ‘I’m not going to hurt you. I’m here to help you. Come out, please, let me help you.’

  ‘He raped me.’ Her voice was a ragged flower trampled underfoot.

  Eddie closed his eyes, fought the tears. ‘I know, sweet,’ he said, and he heard the wobble in his own voice, cleared his throat. ‘I’m going to get you some help.’

  She shook her head. ‘You’re going to lock me away.’

  ‘No. I’m going to get you some help.’

  ‘You think I shot him.’ Her voice grew in strength, almost vehement as she stared at him unblinking, tears rolling down her face.

  ‘I think you had every right to…’ And then he stopped himself. ‘Come on, we can sort all that out later. Let’s get you some help first.’ He held out his hand again.

  She stared at him for a long time, and then she began to move, slowly, stiffly, first her legs and then her arms. Eddie spread the towel over her as she came nearer and found he was crying.

  He daren’t leave her in the room to dress by herself in case she jumped out of the window. All these things came to him, including one important question: Now what? Hospital? Police Station?

  Got to be hospital; who knows what that bastard did to her.

  So, he stayed in the room, facing her, but looking at the floor as she dressed, slowly, with sobs, in the clothes he’d gathered for her.

  ‘Okay,’ she said at last.

  Eddie looked up, cleared his throat again.

  He wondered if it was the sadness in his eyes, maybe it was the pity she saw there, that caused her to burst into fresh waves of sobbing, and Eddie couldn’t stop himself from closing in on her and holding her in his arms as she wept into his shoulder. She was utterly rigid with fear at his touch, and it took a long time before she yielded and softened, and almost relaxed, and Eddie was grateful that she had. He felt honoured that she seemed to trust him after what she’d been through.

  ‘I didn’t kill him,’ she said.

  ‘It’s okay, Angela–’

  ‘I didn’t kill him!’

  He pulled away and looked down into her reddened face.

  ‘I said it wasn’t me.’

  And those were the words that changed Eddie’s life.

  All the evidence he found at the scene, all the theories, everything – everything – pointed to her. Yet he believed her implicitly. How could he not? She was at her most vulnerable, the most vulnerable a person could ever be, and he could see she wasn’t lying.

  ‘Come with me,’ he said.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘You can’t stay here, Angela.’

  ‘Charlie,’ she whispered. ‘Call me Charlie.’

  He smiled briefly at her, ‘Charlie, then.’

  ‘Are you arresting me?’

  He shook his head. ‘No. No one’s arresting you.’

  ‘But you’re taking me to a police station, right?’

  ‘No, I think–’

  She was shaking her head. ‘No hospital, either.’ Her eyes shone. ‘I couldn’t go to those places. I mean it…I would have to…’ She held her arms across her chest, thumbs digging in. ‘So what, then? Everyone thinks–’

  ‘I’ll explain it to them; I’ll sort it out.’ And he wondered just how the hell he was going to do that. The evidence said she was 100 percent guilty, no chance of error, no chance of parole.

  ‘You can’t, can you?’

  ‘I’ll find a way.’ And then he looked at her, close up, in her face. ‘Do you trust me?’

  ‘Yes,’ she whispered.

  ‘You can’t stay here, Charlie. I’m taking you somewhere safe.’

  There really was only one place he could take her.

  If he took her to the hospital, they would both be questioned, and before they’d finished treating her and examining he
r, the police would arrive and she’d be taken into custody as a murder suspect. It was the right and proper thing to do, of course. It would ensure she was fit, had no lasting physical injuries, and it would ensure she had the chance to put across her version of events and prove her innocence.

  All well and good. But it did nothing for her mental well-being.

  And as for the proof thing, Eddie knew she didn’t kill Crosby. He just knew it. All he had to do was prove it, because he was damned sure Charlie couldn’t prove it by herself. They would eventually pulverise her into admitting it; forcing her to look at the evidence they presented to her – and really, the evidence said she did it.

  It was growing dark as he loaded all the exhibits into his van, and meanwhile, Charlie sat on the steps wrapped in her dressing gown to keep warm and cried for the loss of Panda. Over the next few hours, Angela Charles would do a lot of crying.

  Eddie closed and locked the house and then helped her down to the van, got her seated and started the engine. ‘There’s one proviso,’ he said.

  She looked across at him.

  ‘You have to promise me you won’t do anything stupid.’

  She stared.

  ‘I mean, you won’t try to commit suicide. You have to promise me that. I know you’re upset, and you have every right to be; but if I’m going to help you, I want your word.’

  She seemed to give it some thought, but eventually nodded, ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘I promise. But if I end up with the police,’ she said, ‘I will kill myself, I couldn’t go through…’

  The journey was half an hour old before anyone spoke. She said, ‘You haven’t asked me.’

  ‘Haven’t asked you what?’

  ‘You told the men that I’d killed someone. I heard you. He used the toilet, and he went down stairs and you told them I’d killed someone. But you haven’t asked me how he died.’

  ‘I trust you. That’s why I didn’t ask you. I also didn’t ask you if you had a gun hidden somewhere, because I trust you.’

  ‘I didn’t kill him,’ she said. ‘But I’m glad he’s dead.’

  ‘So am I.’

  Twenty minutes later, it was almost fully dark, and Eddie pulled the van up alongside a single-storey cottage. ‘We’re here.’

  ‘Where’s here?’

  ‘My house.’ He looked across at her, ‘You’ll be safe here, I promise.’

  And then she began to cry again.

  Eddie unlocked the front door, flicked on the lights and went back to help her out of the van.

  ‘I thought you were going to take me to the police station.’

  ‘I told you to trust me, Charlie. I said I believed you, and I do.’

  He settled her down in the lounge, all the blinds closed. He showed her the small bedroom where she’d be sleeping; he showed her the kitchen and watched her as she looked at the sharp knives on a magnetic block on the wall. He apologised for the mess because he was ashamed – even though he defended his right to live like a slob, it couldn’t have been very pleasant for her to see a week’s worth of washing up, and his dirty underwear thrown across the floor. ‘Oh,’ he added, ‘I have a teaspoon thief. Sorry.’

  She looked around hastily, ‘You share this place with someone?’

  ‘No, no.’ He smiled. ‘I mean, I can never find a bloody teaspoon. There’s no one else here. Okay?’

  He showed her the bathroom, got out clean towels and a spare toothbrush for her but said, ‘I don’t want you to bathe yet, and please don’t take a shower yet either.’

  ‘Why?’

  He hesitated. ‘I’m going out for an hour. Two at the most.’

  ‘Where are you going–’

  ‘I have to go back to work and drop off the exhibits I got from your house.’

  She looked petrified.

  ‘Hey,’ he soothed, ‘I’ve stuck by my word. I wouldn’t bring you here to my home and then turn you in, would I?’

  She looked at the floor.

  ‘Just, don’t shower yet ’til I’ve figured out what to do, okay?’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘You know where the coffee and the tea are. I don’t recommend the milk, though. But help yourself to any food you want. Check it’s in date first.’ He smiled. But she didn’t. She still looked petrified, all twitches and nerves, as though the slightest sound would either give her a heart attack or would see her embedded in the ceiling.

  ‘Do you like my hair,’ she said timidly, ‘the colour, I mean?’

  He shrugged. ‘Yeah, looks good to me.’ He stood and headed for the door.

  ‘I wanted it pink.’

  ‘Cool. Back soon.’

  Eddie rushed into the office with an armful of exhibits. He threw them on the desk and fired up the computer, aiming to get through it fast and then get some serious thinking done.

  What he had done was stupid. It could get him fired; not that he was especially bothered about the job. Like he’d said to Westmoreland, he was quite happy just being a bum. What he wouldn’t be quite so keen on was a prison cell. Perverting the course of justice carried with it a healthy penalty, as did aiding and abetting a criminal – as yet unproven, well, at least conclusively. She was still technically only a suspect. A very good one at that, he granted, but still just a suspect. Innocent until proven guilty and all that bollocks, he thought. She was guilty as hell in their eyes. No question. Crosby raped her, she killed him. Manslaughter at least. Ten years. Murder at most. Fifteen years.

  And that’s what made him do what he did. She was innocent, and he couldn’t let justice take its course because sometimes the course of justice was so long-winded, so easily derailed, so easily corrupted; and her mental state was fragile enough without putting her through a mill and then spitting her into a cell.

  All he had to do was prove her innocence and then miraculously “find” her. Easy!

  Jeffery closed his office door.

  Eddie looked around. ‘Where’s Ros?’ he asked.

  ‘Came back to the office, filed her stuff and left. You know you’re on overtime, don’t you?’

  ‘No shit. You sent me to do a quick job and you knew I’d be ages.’

  Jeffery smiled. ‘Well, thanks for doing it, anyway, appreciate it.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah.’

  Jeffery walked over to Eddie’s desk. ‘Get much?’

  ‘Yes, I got much. I got Crosby’s fingerprints. Well, I think they’re his fingerprints.’

  ‘Great! Where?’

  ‘He lured a girl from Angela’s work with a bunch of flowers he’d bought for Angela, and she drove them up to her house. He followed.’

  ‘Sneaky. So, where’s Angela now?’

  Eddie shrugged. ‘No idea,’ he said. ‘Hey, did all the exhibits from Blake Crosby’s scene go to the lab?’

  ‘No, not all of them. No need.’

  ‘Which ones didn’t go?’

  ‘Well, the tox and histology from the PM went, but stuff like plucked hair didn’t. The soil samples didn’t… Why do you ask?’

  ‘My theory,’ he said, ‘I’ve just been mulling things over, you know.’

  Jeffery sat on the desk, clasped his hands. ‘And?’

  ‘What if someone else killed Crosby?’

  ‘Don’t see how that’s possible.’

  ‘Did you send off the blood sample from the tree?’

  ‘Why would I? It’s another 300 quid for no good reason.’

  Eddie closed his eyes. He breathed deeply through his nostrils and tried to keep his warming temper under control. ‘I just…I just think maybe there’s an outside chance that the victim may have fled, and there might have been someone else up in the tree.’

  Jeffery laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Nice one. Get finished and go home and sleep.’

  ‘Jeffery. Please, just put it through.’

  ‘Why? It’s a done deal.’

  ‘It’s nowhere near fucking done.’ He sighed. ‘Sorry. But, please, just put it through.’

  ‘Yo
u think the same person who propped the white skirt against the tree using the blood-stained branch is the same person who was raped?’

  ‘I don’t know, that’s–’

  ‘I wondered if your theory would hold water. So, I submitted the swabs from the branch along with the swabs from marker four.’

  ‘And?’

  He shrugged. ‘They’re a match. Whoever was raped propped that skirt there as bait.’

  Eddie looked confused. That couldn’t be right. If the killer used Charlie’s skirt as bait, then he must have propped it there. Not Charlie.

  ‘Goodnight.’ Jeffery got up and walked.

  ‘Hold on, hold on a mo.’ Eddie was out of his seat and standing at Jeffery’s side in a second. ‘I know it doesn’t make much sense right now; but please, I’m convinced I’ve fucked up somehow. Please, Jeffery, send off the blood from the tree.’

  ‘Listen, Eddie. Much as I think you’re an arsehole, you do have a good nose for this sort of thing. I had a forensic strategy meeting with Westmoreland yesterday, and yours was the only reasonable conclusion we came to, and the results bear it out. You did well. You should be happy.’

  Now Eddie was getting angry. ‘First,’ he said, ‘if I have a nose for this kind of thing, why the fuck won’t you listen to my nose now?’

  Jeffery took a small step backward. The humour had vanished from his eyes, the joviality melted with Eddie’s change in demeanour.

  ‘And second, I found the tatters of the white skirt at Angela’s house. It means she was the last person to handle that stick – and her hands would have been bloody, that’s why there was a match between the blood on that stick and the blood at marker four.’

  Jeffery looked at the carpet.

  ‘But the blood up the tree could belong to someone else. And while ever there’s a “could” in the equation, you can’t call the rape victim a murderer. You can’t say for sure that Angela killed the bastard!’

  ‘But–’

  ‘It’s called reasonable doubt.’