Or, rather, he was going to watch Gareth do it. Winkler had a horror of touching stuff that had belonged to old people. He couldn’t bear the smelclass="underline" boiled beef and mothballs and cat wee. The thought of their wrinkly hands fingering it gave him the heebie-jeebies. Gareth wouldn’t mind. This was the sort of stuff he excelled at.
George Marr had called ahead to let the storage centre know the police were coming. Winkler flashed his badge at the stocky black bloke at reception and made his way to the room where Nancy’s stuff was stored, Gareth trailing behind, checking his phone as he walked.
‘Anything interesting?’ Winkler asked. ‘Hot date?’
‘No. I’ve been waiting to hear back from Peter Bell about the key card that Rose Sharp’s murderer used to get into the hotel room.’
Winkler slowed his step. ‘And?’
‘Still nothing. It’s so frustrating.’
‘Never mind. Sounds like you’re doing a good job anyway, Gareth. Reckon you’ll make an excellent DI when the time comes.’
The look of pleasure that came onto Gareth’s face reminded Winkler of his mum’s cat when you stroked it. Poor old Gareth didn’t get stroked very often. Winkler turned away and smiled to himself.
‘Well, here we are,’ he said, a moment later. ‘All Nancy Marr’s worldly goods. Better get started.’
Nancy’s possessions were collected into a dozen brown cardboard boxes, with ‘Small Box’, ‘Medium Box’ or ‘Big Box’ stamped on the side. George had stuck a handwritten label on each one. Winkler examined them in turn. ‘Kitchen stuff’. George had no doubt taken the best knives and any pots and pans that weren’t old and rusty. ‘Knick-knacks’, which was written on two of the boxes. Winkler remembered that Mrs Marr had a large collection of porcelain frogs and hedgehogs, along with a number of brass statuettes that gathered around the electric fire like little sentries. ‘Keepsakes’. ‘Personal items’. ‘Paperwork’. ‘Books and records’. ‘Misc.’.
‘Go through the paperwork first,’ Winkler said, taking a seat while Gareth crouched on the floor and removed a lid from a Medium Box.
‘What am I looking for?’
Winkler shrugged. ‘Anything interesting. Something that shows she was in debt or struggling to pay her bills. Letters from friends – maybe she wrote to one of her pals to say she was worried about someone lurking around. Maybe we’ll strike lucky and there’ll be a diary.’
As Gareth sorted through the papers, quickly glancing at each sheet before setting it aside, Winkler ate the chicken sandwich he’d brought with him.
‘Makes you think, doesn’t it?’ he said with his mouth full.
‘What does?’ So far, all Gareth had found were lots of bills (all paid, no red ones), a pension book, a number of letters from twenty or thirty years ago and Nancy’s driving licence.
‘Well, it’s sad, to think about what gets left behind when someone dies. A load of junk, mostly. And ungrateful kids who just care about their inheritance, what there is of it. What impression did Nancy Marr make on the world? What was her legacy?’
Gareth looked up and Winkler held his eye.
‘That’s what’s important, isn’t it? Making the most of your life; making an impression. So that people remember you and care that you’re not around anymore.’
Gareth nodded thoughtfully, clearly thinking about his own legacy.
‘The really sad thing is that the person who Nancy Marr made the biggest impression on was the person who murdered her.’
After finding nothing among the paperwork, Gareth went through the keepsakes and then the personal items – framed family photographs, an engraved Bible, some very unattractive brooches. George had obviously appropriated any jewellery of value.
‘This is a waste of time,’ Gareth said, sitting back and rubbing his knees, which were dusty from the floor of the storage room.
‘I agree. But we might as well have a look through the last box, eh?’
Gareth pulled the lid off the large box marked ‘Misc.’. This one contained stuff that, as far as Winkler could see, should have been sent straight to the tip. A tatty-looking cuddly rabbit; a children’s book called Chips the Magic Hamster; an old hat; an ancient golliwog; and a teddy bear. Gareth pulled an A4 folder out of the box and some loose photos fluttered to the floor. Winkler picked one up. It had a date on the back: July 1967. Mrs Marr had her arms around a bloke with long hair and a big grin on his face. She’d been quite a looker in her day. Nice boobs.
He admired the photo as Gareth continued to look through the folder. He was lost in a reverie about the sixties, free love and hippie chicks when he heard Gareth saying, ‘Boss? Boss? Look at this.’
He held up a photograph, A4 sized. It was signed, ‘To Nancy. With all my best wishes, Mervyn Hammond xx’.
Winkler jumped off his seat and snatched the photo out of Gareth’s hand.
‘Bloody hell,’ he said.
Gareth’s eyes shone with excitement. ‘This is a connection to the other case. At last.’
‘Mervyn bloody Hammond. What’s she doing with a signed photo of him? Hey, what are you doing?’
‘Phoning DI Lennon.’
Winkler snatched the phone out of Gareth’s hand. ‘Wait a minute. Let’s think about this. Mervyn Hammond probably sends out hundreds of signed photos every year. I bet most of the people who like him are old ladies like Nancy.’ He tapped the photo. ‘I reckon this is a coincidence. It will just cause a distraction. And then who’ll get the blame if Lennon wastes days looking at Hammond, eh? It won’t be Patrick, and it sure as hell won’t be me.’
Gareth’s brow creased with doubt.
‘On the other hand, if Hammond has got something to do with it, who’ll get all the credit? Lennon. And while Suzanne and the press are – literally and metaphorically – sucking him off for being the big hero, do you think he’ll say, “Actually, it was all down to a bright young officer called Gareth Batey”? Will he hell.’
Gareth cringed at Winkler’s choice of words, but nodded. He was clearly torn. ‘So what do you think we should do?’
Winkler put his arm around Gareth’s shoulder. ‘Tell you what, why don’t you and me look into it, discreetly, and if we find any more evidence that points to Hammond, we’ll hand it over to Lennon; officially tie the two operations together, but make sure everyone knows it was your hard work that gave us a break. And if we don’t find anything, we won’t have wasted anyone’s time but our own. I mean, it’s not like we have any other hot leads to pursue on this side of the investigation. Make sense?’
Gareth hesitated. ‘I guess. It probably is just a coincidence.’
‘I’m sure it is. But if it isn’t, think how good you’ll look. Solving a multiple murder while you’re still a sergeant? A case involving one of the most powerful men in Britain? You’ll be famous, Gareth. And there won’t be anything Lennon can do to take the credit.’
Chapter 30
Day 9 – Patrick
Patrick beckoned for Carmella to follow him into the major incident room and walked up to the boards where Rose’s and Jessica’s pictures were displayed. He took a whiteboard eraser and rubbed out Shawn’s name from the list of suspects, adding it to the column containing the names of potential witnesses.
Carmella perched on the edge of a desk. ‘So his alibi checks out?’ She sounded disappointed.
Patrick nodded. ‘I just got off the phone with Lana Vincent. She confirms that she and Shawn spent the night together on the seventh and she also gave him an alibi for the fourth – said they were on the phone for hours that evening, when Shawn said he was home playing Minecraft. She was extremely nervous, kept asking me to reassure her about confidentiality. She’s terrified of the press and her boyfriend finding out.’