No one moves.
‘Which leaves us,’ says Quinn, ‘with rather a lot of questions.’
He takes two strides to the flip chart and flicks over the top sheet. He was clearly in the office even earlier than I thought. I spot a smile curl Ev’s lips and see her nudge Baxter and mouth, ‘Here’s one I prepared earlier.’
QUESTIONS
1 WHY DIDN’T THE SWANNS CALL 999, IF NOT BEFORE THE SHOOTING, THEN AFTER?
NB 35 MIN DELAY BETWEEN WITNESS 999 CALL AND UNIFORM ATTENDING – PLENTY OF TIME FOR THEM TO CALL 999 THEMSELVES
2 WHY DID RS CHANGE HIS CLOTHES? (FOUND IN WASHING MACHINE)
3 HOW DID RS GET THE GUN FROM THE SAFE IN THE CELLAR WITHOUT INTRUDER NOTICING? (SEE FLOOR PLAN)
WAS THE GUN NOT IN THE SAFE? ← WHY NOT SAY THAT UPFRONT?
4 IF THE INTRUDER WAS THREATENING SWANN HOW DID HE END UP WITH HIS BACK TO THE WALL?
Quinn turns and looks round the room. ‘Me and the boss interviewed Swann last night, but we didn’t get a satisfactory answer to any of these questions. As soon as we pressed him on the gun he clammed up and asked for a lawyer.’
Quinn’s clearly getting a head of steam on this, and he has a point – more than a point. But we can’t afford tunnel vision. But before I can say anything, Chloe Sargent pre-empts me. She’s the one on secondment from PVP. Petite and blonde and soft-spoken, but bright too, and a lot tougher than she looks. She’d have to be, not just in PVP, but working this job at all, with a surname like that.
‘I know it looks bad,’ she says. ‘I mean, none of us would act the way the Swanns did. But they aren’t police officers. They’re an old couple, in the dark, with a stranger in the house.’
‘They’re a bit odd too, if you ask me,’ says Ev, backing her up. ‘At least, based on what I saw last night. And very private. I bet they don’t get many visitors.’
‘Right,’ says Sargent. ‘I can easily see someone like Mr Swann panicking in those circumstances, but then it all goes wrong – the gun goes off and he panics again and makes things worse by trying to cover it up.’
I like the way she thinks. It’s almost like having Somer here. Almost.
‘There’s no way of knowing, DC Sargent,’ I say, seeing her blush slightly that I know her name. ‘And I have to say I’m as sceptical as DS Quinn right now. But – and this is important, people – even if the Swanns are their own worst enemy, it’s still quite possible they’re telling the truth, even if not the whole of it. As DC Sargent said, they’re elderly people in an isolated house with someone they don’t know – possibly armed – in their kitchen.’
‘You sound like a defence barrister,’ says Ev drily.
I turn to her. ‘Exactly. And that’s how we need to think. Unless and until.’
OK, I know, I do say that quite a lot. Ev’s not the only one trying not to smile.
I nod to Quinn. ‘Sorry, Sergeant. I interrupted.’
He looks up, checks his tablet. ‘Right, yeah, so, next up, Mrs Swann. She was interviewed at the scene by DC Everett, and basically claimed she was upstairs the whole time. But when Ev asked her why she’d stuck the old boy’s jim-jams in the wash she pulled a sicky, so we had her taken to the JR. Better safe than sorry blah blah blah.’
He turns to Ev. ‘Anything to add on that score?’
‘I rang the ward just now and they kept her in for observation,’ says Ev. ‘Not for the first time, by all accounts – apparently she’s been in there at least four times in the last eighteen months, though they were a bit cagey about telling me why without authorization. But I’ll check in again later and see if she’s up to talking. Though given the way she reacted last night, it might be best to send someone other than me. As in, a man with a badge. The bigger the better.’ She stops, smiles. ‘I mean the badge, obvs.’
There’s a flurry of laughter and Gis is grinning, but Quinn’s still playing it absolutely straight.
‘Right,’ he says. ‘So in terms of next steps, the PM is this morning, and we’re hoping for initial results on the forensics early this afternoon, and we also need to talk to the –’
OK, I think, time for me to intervene. To Gis’s immense credit, his face is completely impassive, but he knows as well as I do that we’re now straying well on to his turf.
‘Thank you, DS Quinn,’ I say, getting to my feet. ‘That was an excellent summary. DS Gislingham will now allocate tasks for today.’
I don’t wait around to referee the next bit. I have things to do, and Gis has been managing Quinn for months; it’s down to him now.
* * *
‘Ah, Ichabod Crane, I presume,’ says Colin Boddie, surveying the corpse. The body has been stripped and laid out on the table, but there’s only a scatter of teeth and skull fragments where his head should be. The recovered brain matter is on the trolley, a gravelly bright-red sludge in a gleaming stainless-steel basin.
The CSI technician glances up from the other end of the table. ‘You do know Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horseman are two different people, right?’
‘Yes, yes, I know,’ says Boddie tetchily, flushing a little under his mask. ‘Don’t be so literal, Giddings. It’s just a little light humour to start the day.’ He pulls on his gloves and gives the technician a heavy look. ‘One for that Instagram account of yours.’
Now it’s the CSI’s turn to flush – they’ve been posting Boddie’s special brand of mortuary humour on @overheardinthemorgue for months, but they didn’t realize Boddie knew.
‘So,’ says Boddie briskly, logging that as a win, ‘shall we get started?’
* * *
When Gis divvies up the tasks, Ev gets Gantry Manor. She gets Hansen too, who immediately offers to drive – an offer she politely but firmly refuses. She made the mistake of going to Eynsham with Baxter once and it was Country & Western all the way. Hansen looks more like an R & B man to her, but you can’t be too careful, not in such a confined space.
It’s a fine, clear morning, and with the trees on the turn it should be a pretty drive, as well as a useful chance to get to know Hansen a bit better. He was at Cowley for a couple of years before transferring to CID, but their paths never crossed and she knows nothing about him beyond that. She spent the odd idle moment trying to work out what his backstory might be, given neither his accent nor surname gave much of a clue, then overheard someone in the canteen one day mention that though he was born and brought up in Bristol, his father is Swedish and his mother Vietnamese. Which explains the glossy black hair, the blue eyes and the amazing bone structure. Ev’s also pretty sure he’s gay, but until he mentions it, she won’t be.
He certainly doesn’t mention it in the car, but in the half-hour they spend together she finds him funny, thoughtful and – praise the Lord – a cat-lover (which has never yet failed her as an indicator of decency in the male half of the human race). He obviously knows what he’s doing professionally too, judging by the one or two questions he asks about Gis’s briefing. So far, so good. It’s not that she had a problem with Asante, but one thing you could never accuse him of was being a team player.
When they pull up outside Gantry Manor there’s crime-scene tape across the gate and a young PC fending off a couple of journalists. But that’s alclass="underline" both the weather and the location are on their side – it’s too far and too chilly for casual nosey parkers.
They leave the car on the side of the lane and make their way up to the house. Three uniformed officers in high-vis jackets are doing a fingertip search of the garden, supervised by a visibly tetchy Barnetson, his nose red with the cold, who tells them in terse tones that it has been, thus far, ‘a complete waste of bloody time’.