Chapter 23 #2
“Graham Mercer. He oversaw the area; he knew about The Holding. I also suspect that there were financial irregularities with The Holding as well; something doesn’t sit right with their accounts, which would implicate Amanda.” I’d thrown the grenade; now I needed to see how it would explode.
“Which gives Smith motive to kill Amanda and Micky, if they were about to draw attention to it, but there’s no evidence to say Smith was paying off the police.” Wrigley sounded less affronted than I’d predicted.
And he was right. There wasn’t any evidence, just suspicion.
“It could be nothing to do with his son.” I said it more for my benefit than his. “This could just be about the finances. Then why was Amanda looking into Lily’s conviction?”
“Maybe she was just being hopeful, Mia. Maybe she was trying to make up for abandoning her daughter or not protecting her when she was a child. She talked Micky Mulligan into helping her. People like having a cause to fight for; it gives them meaning.” I heard him take a drink of something.
“Go and check out Andrew Smith’s house. Has anyone looked for the path he’d have taken to get from his house to the park? ”
“I’ll walk it myself when we go to his house. His car’s not nearby. He was wearing his coat which I find weird. Why would you be trying to stay warm if you weren’t planning to live?” I headed over to Vinny who was looking at the rope that had been recovered. “Why that park?”
“See what the postmortem shows. I can see you’ve got questions. Call me when you’re at Smith’s house.” He hung up, distracted by something else.
I was easily distracted by the rope that had been bagged by forensics. It was cream and clean looking, thin and different to ordinary DIY rope.
“You’re looking at eleven-millimetre static kernmantle rope,” Rhodri, one of Jenna’s team said to Vinny, glancing at me. “It’s not your average thing to have hanging round the house.”
“Kernmantle rope’s used by the emergency services and search and rescue teams,” Vinny said, suddenly a fountain of all knowledge.
“This is the stuff you’d use for rescue rather than climbing as its low stretch.” Rhodri pointed at it. “It’s not uncommon but not something you’d have in your shed, unless you were into that sort of thing.”
I glanced at Vinny, catching his eye. It was a rope firefighters used. “Let’s go and have a look in Andrew Smith’s shed.”
Andrew Smith’s front door was unlocked, the curtains still drawn and his car on the drive. The front room was the same as it’d been the previous day, the same dints in the cushions that we’d left behind. Nothing had changed.
The kitchen had been used the night before; a pot left to soak in the sink, a cup that needed to be washed next to it because there was no dishwasher.
The fridge was devoid of alcohol, the cupboards full of preserves and pickles, labels written in the handwriting that I was familiar with.
None of the alcohol in his lounge had been touched, although a clean whisky glass had been left out.
We checked through each room, rapid searches through drawers and wardrobes with gloved hands, looking for something, we just didn’t know what. There was no paperwork or proudly hung certificates with Stefan’s name on and for all we knew, Stefan had been fabricated by Andrew Smith as a diversion.
“Garden?” Vinny pointed to the back door. “Seems it’s where you’ve been having lots of fun recently.”
“If only it had been in my own garden.” I peered out at Smith’s. It was full of raised beds and a couple of greenhouses, nothing to the scale of Roselea but impressively tidy all the same. “Don’t you think he’d have waited for the harvest?”
“Maybe.” Vinny turned the key in the back door lock. “I’d assume this house already belongs to The Holding?”
“We’ll no doubt be finding out. Let’s see if we can find that rope.”
We searched the greenhouses and shed, finding nothing other than the same garden twine that we’d uncovered in the kitchen drawers and sunroom, where there were tomato and chilli plants growing.
“No note. He left his door unlocked. Pyjamas were neatly folded on his bed but his bed was unmade. Did he get up in the middle of the night and make a decision to end it?” I opened one last drawer in the shed finding it immaculately tidy.
“I would’ve thought he’d have stayed up, plucking up the courage and drinking.
He hasn’t touched a drop – the bottles in the lounge hadn’t been touched but he’d thought about it. ”
“But he’s chosen not to drink. He’s gone to bed, locked up for the night.
All of this aligns with what the units saw that checked up on his overnight.
At some point, he’s got out of bed, got dressed, left the house and walked down his road and into the park to end his life, only he’d not taken the rope from here. ” Vinny headed back inside.
“Unless he used all of the rope. But why would he have the rope anyway? It’s not commonly used in gardening.” A knock at the front door told me that forensics had turned up, probably to collect the pot that was soaking in the sink to see if its contents would match what was in Smith’s stomach.
I followed Vinny inside, looking in the small food waste bin on the kitchen worktop.
It hadn’t yet been emptied and looked like it contained some of what was watered down in the pot.
The CSIs toddled through, finding us first. I pointed out the waste bin and mentioned the whisky glass, but there was little else.
We’d uncovered no paperwork or even a place that looked like it could be stored there.
“Wrigley mentioned checking Smith’s pockets to see if he had his house keys. There’s a set on the cabinet in the hall, but he could’ve taken some with him.” I headed through to the entrance hall, the keys still there. “Why would you leave your house at night and not take your keys?”
“Because you didn’t need to worry about someone breaking in? Or because you were in a rush or preoccupied?” Vinny opened the front door and stepped outside. “Maybe he left the house to meet someone.”
“His son. He wanted to see his son, that was obvious.” I closed the door, happy to leave forensics to it. I needed a coffee and something to line my stomach for the post-mortem later.
“Which brings us full circle and back to Stefan, although Jenna did say she thought there was a second set of footprints that were smaller, more likely to be female.” Vinny said, unlocking his car.
Which brought me back to Lily.
It was starting to feel as if I’d spent most of the last twenty-four hours chasing Lily Mayhew. Vinny and I headed to Damien Fairburn’s house, Vinny spending more time looking at cars he could see rather than his own driving.
He rang the intercom, managing to stop his mouth from saying anything inappropriate about the house or the two cars parked on the substantial driveway.
The gates closed behind us, and Damien Fairburn was waiting at the door before we got to it, looking as affable as he had each of the previous times I’d met him.
“DS McAllister, good to see you again.” He held out his hand for me to shake. “And this is?”
“DS Vinny Leigh.” Vinny shook his hand, his shoulders extending by another inch.
“We’re looking for Lily and wondered if she was with you?” I wasn’t in the mood for small talk.
Damien shook his head. “I haven’t heard from Lily for a few days. I think she’s next due later this week, but I’ll be in London. Is she okay?”
“She said she spoke to you yesterday and suggested she stay with you. Is that not correct, Mr Fairburn?” I said, my stomach contracting.
“That isn’t correct. She has stayed before so it isn’t improbable that I’d suggest that, but not yesterday. I’m happy for you to check my phone to confirm.” He dug his phone out of his pocket, unlocked it, pressed a couple of buttons and passed it to me.
I scrolled through his recent calls for the last couple of days; Lily’s name wasn’t there.
“Are you friendly with Lily?” Vinny asked him.
“It depends what you mean by ‘friendly’, Detective Leigh. We were more than garden designer and client, but I’m not sure we were at the friends stage.
There’s a power dynamic when you’re paying someone and that wasn’t something I was comfortable with.
I was kind to her, and maybe she thinks we’re closer to friends, but if she did, it wasn’t a problem.
” He wasn’t setting off any alarms or raising any red flags. Maybe he was one of the okay guys.
“You weren’t in a relationship?” Vinny pushed.
“Only a professional one where she did a splendid job on my gardens. Do you want me to try and call her?”
I nodded. “That could be useful.”
He rang her, phone on loudspeaker. It went straight through to voicemail, like it had already done for me.
“Hey, Lil, when you get this give me a call. I just want to check in on you, and we have interest from another magazine for a feature.” He ended the recording. “If she calls back, I’ll try and find out where she is and get in touch with you.”
“Thank you.” I passed him a card with my details on. “We appreciate your time.” Then I dragged Vinny off his property before he could ask him for a ride in one of Damien’s cars.