He shakes his head. ‘No way. It was covered in spiders’ webs and crap. No one had moved it for months. And Vicky can’t have been in that cellar more than three weeks tops.’
And he’s right. Of course he is. It would have been a miracle if the food and water we found had lasted even that long.
‘Could you bring a chair down from the kitchen?’
He slides a glance at Harper. ‘Well, I could, boss, but I don’t think he could, if you catch my drift.’
‘I don’t think we need to submit my client to further humiliation by videotape, do you?’ says the lawyer loudly. ‘Assuming you have no objection, I’m going to take him back to the Council care home your actions have condemned him to.’
We stand and watch as she and the doctor help Harper back up the stairs, and then listen as their footsteps retreat down the hall and the door bangs behind them.
‘I keep telling myself he was about to go into a home anyway,’ says Somer, biting her lip. I know what she means.
‘If it wasn’t Harper who locked her in,’ says Baxter eventually, ‘the only other possibility is Walsh. OK, we know he didn’t rape Vicky, but he could easily have sussed she was here. He admitted hearing that noise upstairs, didn’t he – and yes, he claims he thought it was a cat but what if that was just a lie? What if he realized what Vicky was up to and decided to get rid of her – permanently? And he’d probably have got away with it too – what with the DNA from the kid and the old man in the state he’s in. Everything would have pointed to Harper.’
‘What do you think, Somer?’
She pulls a tissue from her pocket and starts to wipe her hands free of grime. ‘If Walsh really did work out what Vicky was up to, he had one hell of a motive to get rid of her. Her and the child. Walsh said as much: he and his sister expect to get Harper’s money when he dies. I can’t see him wanting to share it with some grubby little teenage con artist.’ She makes a face. ‘Which is exactly how he would describe her, incidentally.’
‘And you think he’s capable of locking them in? Knowing full well what that would mean?’
She sticks the tissue back in her pocket. ‘Yes, sir, I do. There’s something cold-blooded about him. I don’t think it’s an accident he lives alone.’
Baxter’s clearly chuffed she agrees with him so conclusively. ‘And Walsh is deffo devious enough to remember to wipe the bolt afterwards.’
I’m not about to argue with that one, either.
‘In any case,’ says Baxter, ‘if it wasn’t Walsh, then who? There isn’t anyone else. No one else has anything remotely close to a motive. Never mind opportunity.’
I take a deep breath. ‘OK. Go to Vine Lodge and arrest Vicky. Attempted fraud.’
Baxter nods. ‘And Walsh?’
‘We know when Vicky was found and we know she can’t have been there much more than three weeks. Let’s find out where Walsh was in that time.’
***
‘Where’s Fawley?’
Somer looks up from her desk, surprised that Quinn should choose her to ask, given how many other people he could have picked on.
‘In with the Super. I think he was wondering where you were.’ Because you’ve been AWOL most of the last two days. And because you look like shit. But she doesn’t actually say that bit.
Quinn rubs the back of his neck. ‘Yeah, well, you know. Tough case.’
The door swings open and Woods, the custody sergeant, appears, scanning the room until he catches sight of Quinn and beckons him over. Somer sees the two of them confer, and then watches Quinn go quickly over to Gislingham. She can tell from their faces something’s up. Whatever mess you’ve got yourself into, she thinks, I hope you’re not dragging Gislingham down with you. She likes Gislingham, and he doesn’t deserve to pay for Quinn’s mistakes.
She gets up and walks over towards them, then pretends to be looking for something on the desk two bays down. Their voices are low, but she can hear what they’re saying.
‘She must have something,’ says Gislingham. ‘Credit card? Passport? Driving licence, then – we know she drives.’
‘Woods says not,’ says Quinn. ‘He ought to know.’
Gislingham turns to his computer. ‘OK, let’s do a driving licence check.’
He types, then stares at the screen, chewing the end of his pen. Then he frowns and tries something else.
Then he turns to look up at Quinn.
‘Shit,’ he says.
***
Having briefed Harrison on where we’ve got to, I head back to the incident room. The place is humming with activity. Baxter is at the front, talking while he writes on a whiteboard.
DONALD WALSH
VICKY NEALE
Motive
Money – Harper’s estate, sexual?
Means
Fit enough to commit crime / reach bolt
Opportunity
Known visitor to house with access to cellar
Alibi ??
HANNAH GARDINER
Motive
Sexual Predator ? ? ?
Means
Access To:
Car cover etc
Possible murder weapons
Fit enough to move body/climb into loft unaided
Opportunity
Known visitor to house with access to loft/shed
Could have met Hannah on the street
Alibi ??
‘Any luck on his whereabouts for the three weeks in question?’ Baxter is saying.
‘We’re checking CCTV and traffic cams on the route between Frampton Road and Banbury,’ says one of the DCs. ‘But it’s a big job. It’s going to take time.’
‘What about for 24th June 2015?’
‘I’m still waiting to hear,’ says Somer from her desk. ‘The timetable has him teaching from 10.30 that morning, which would make getting to Wittenham and back virtually impossible. I did ask them to check if he could have been off sick that day, but when we started homing in on Gardiner I didn’t chase it up. Sorry.’
‘But Banbury CID are keeping an eye on him?’
‘Yes – they’re on the case. They know we’ll be heading up there as soon as we have enough evidence to bring him in.’
Baxter turns from the board now and sees me. ‘OK, boss?’
‘What are you doing?’
‘Working up the case on Walsh. Like you said.’
‘I said to check his alibi for Vicky. I didn’t say anything about Hannah.’
Somer glances at Baxter, then at me. ‘It seemed the next logical step, sir. If Harper couldn’t get on to a chair to open the cellar door there’s no way on earth he could have got that car cover up into the loft, even if it was two years ago. You had enough trouble and you’re thirty years younger and someone was holding the steps.’ She’s blushing slightly.
‘And like I said,’ interjects Baxter, ‘who else is there? Walsh is the only one with both means and opportunity.’
I walk up to the board and stare at what Baxter’s written under ‘Motive’.
‘We talked about it before, sir,’ he says. ‘How Walsh could have been using that house to prey on women. There’s the stash of porn – no one’s explained that, have they?’
‘He’s right, boss,’ says Everett. ‘If it’s not Harper’s, it has to be Walsh’s.’
‘Hannah’s murder could easily have been sexually motivated, sir.’ Somer again. ‘We’ve no way of knowing how long she was in the house. He could have kept her there for days. And she was naked, as well as tied up.’
I turn to look at them. ‘And all that time, Vicky was upstairs on the top floor, completely oblivious?’
Part of me wants to believe it, but we’d be in such wild regions of coincidence there’d be signs up saying ‘Here be dragons’.