He went to find the kitchen and left her there, unembarrassed in her own grief. If Bill Aston had gone out last night after midnight, taking the dogs with him, she would not have thought it unusual; and if she had slept through till morning, possibly gone to look for him in his room and found him not there, she could have imagined him up early, taking a stroll, nothing sinister or alarming there.
The tea was ready in the pot when Margaret, red-eyed, came into the room. “I do want to see him, now. You must take me to see him.”
On his feet, Resnick tried the beginnings of a smile. “Let’s have a cup of this, why don’t we? I’ll call the hospital, then drive you over. All right? Margaret, is that okay?”
She stood, staring at him, lost between table and door. How long till it was ever okay again?
Twenty-two
Eleven forty-four: cigarette smoke hung like a gray-blue cloud from the center of the windowless room. Enlarged photographs of Aston’s body had been tacked to the wall. Color. Black and white. High, to the right, a picture which had been taken eighteen months before, Bill Aston at the retirement party for a colleague, champagne glass held aloft, dinner-jacket and tie, smiling and alive.
At right angles to these, a blown-up map showed the precise spot on the Embankment where the body had been found; a second map, larger scale, delineated the parameters of the area-the deep southerly curve of the river, forming an almost perfect U between Trent Bridge and the old Wilford viaduct, the Memorial Gardens and flat, open recreation grounds which led up to the predominantly council-owned Meadows residential area in the north; south, the civic blandness of County Hall and then more open ground, playing fields and schools. Farther along, a fully detailed map of the city and its surroundings had been marked with Aston’s home, the office where he had been based, the local authority accommodation where the Snape inquiry had been carried out. On the far side of the photographs, also attached to the wall, were the two white boards on which the principal lines of inquiry would be followed and marked. A pair of linked video monitors had been set up at the rear; two computers, one of them on line with the national Home Office computer, stood ready to access and disseminate information.
Copies of the pathologist’s initial report had been handed out to those present: multiple fractures of the cranial cavity, severe damage to the upper and lower jaw, the mandible and orbit walls, rupturing of the blood vessels to the brain and consequent internal hemorrhaging. Damage to Aston’s hands and bruising to the forearms suggested that he had put up a considerable struggle and had made a determined, finally desperate effort to defend himself.
Skelton stood near the front of the room in close conversation with Resnick and the DCI in charge of uniforms. A little to one side, Reg Cossall, thick gray hair brushed back, inevitable cigarette burning from the curve of his hand, spoke in slow undertones to the inspector from the Support Department, emphasizing every sentence with a jab of his finger towards the man’s chest. Skelton, more alive than Resnick had observed him for months, wearing a double-breasted suit that Resnick had never seen, glanced quickly down at his neatly written notes before slipping them from sight; as soon as this was over he would go directly to the media briefing below. A last word to Resnick and he turned away; two steps forward and the heavy hum and burr of voices around him rose, then died.
Briefly, he introduced Harry Payne, the inspector from the Support Department, fifteen of whose officers would be responsible for the initial close search, and Jane Prescott, the sergeant who would be liaising between the investigation and Force Intelligence. He introduced DC Khan as Bill Aston’s assistant on the Snape inquiry, and finally the two civilian computer operators. Everyone else knew everyone else, pretty much.
Skelton cleared his throat. “I don’t need to tell you a fellow officer has been killed. One of us.” Nods of agreement, murmurs of assent, and anger from all around. Skelton waited before going on. “Many of you knew Bill Aston; some of you, like myself, worked with him. He was a good officer. The old school. Decent. Fair. Scrupulous in everything that he did. After all of his years of service, Bill was due to retire at the end of this year. And now this.”
Once again, the litany of voices as though in church. Skelton orchestrating them, call and response.
“We all know what happened in the early hours of this morning. You’ve all seen the photographs, read the report, some of you were present at the scene where Bill Aston’s body was found. This was a callous, brutal attack and I know that you all feel as shocked as I do. And I know that what you all want is to get whoever did this, person or persons, banged up behind bars as soon as possible. We want a result and we want it fast. We want it for Bill Aston’s widow … and before whoever was responsible for this can act again.”
Skelton waited for the volley of sound, fierce and emphatic, to subside. He wanted every face turned towards him, everyone’s attention exclusively on what he had to say.
“Before we set to work, I want us to be clear-there are dangers here. The last thing we can afford to do is rush headlong into this and let feelings, however strong, get the better of judgment. Nobody. None of you is going off at half-cock on this. It’s too important.” Skelton’s voice clear now, no longer loud, no longer needing to be: silence around him in the room. “What we can’t afford is to bring in the right person, the right people, and then not be able to make it stick. So we’re thorough, exact, we work through channels, we check, and then we double-check. And then when we’ve caught the bastard, he stays caught.”
Acclamation. Skelton waited a moment longer before stepping aside. “Charlie?”
As Resnick began speaking, he moved across until he was positioned in front of the maps of the Trent. “The most likely scenario so far is that this was a random, unpremeditated attack, carried out for gain. Whatever he had on him at the time. They could have seen Bill as an affluent enough looking bloke, not so young, out on his own with a couple of little dogs. No threat there.” Resnick pointed up at one of the maps. “Bill parked his car here, opposite the Memorial Gardens and walked, as far as we can tell, in this direction here, along the Embankment towards the bridge. When he couldn’t sleep, this was something he did quite a bit, nothing unusual about it at all. We’re presuming that whoever it was that attacked him saw him wandering alone, presumably nobody else around, and marked him down as an easy target. He was set upon here, close by these trees, and his wallet was found here, not far from the body, cash and credit cards gone.” Resnick paused and looked around the room. “Margaret Aston says the most he would have been likely to have had with him was thirty or forty pounds.”
“Bastards!” somebody said, loud and pronounced.
“Thanks, Charlie.” It was Skelton’s turn again. “Right. To specifics. Reg, anything and everything that happened on the Embankment between one and four, anyone who set foot, anything that breathed, that’s your bailiwick.” Cossall shuffled a foot and gave the floor a half-smile. “So, supervision of house-to-house, that’s down to you. All those places along Victoria Embankment, they can’t all have been tucked up with their Ovaltine, anyone who heard anything, saw anyone, we have to know. And we’ll be appealing for anyone who drove along that way after midnight, any late-night fishermen, joggers, whatever, to come forward. Anyone using the pub on his side of the bridge, especially around last orders, or walking back into the city from the Trent Bridge Inn. We’ll be using local radio, television news, the Post. Whatever information we get, once it’s been processed, Reg, you and your team, get it prioritized, followed through.
“Charlie, your team, I want you to go in close. Forensics, anything found at the immediate scene, give us as exact a picture as you can of what actually happened. And the twenty-four hours leading up to the attack, we want to know where Bill went, who he spoke to, what he did. Cover ourselves, just in case. If we have to look farther afield, that’s where we’ll start.”