‘What’s up?’ he asked, puzzled at how annoyed she looked. When he sat down, she closed the door and gestured at the evidence bag. Through the clear plastic he saw his own name handwritten on the front of the envelope.
‘Would you care to explain the meaning of this?’ Suzanne asked, in the sort of voice that almost made Pat wonder if she was messing with him.
‘Well, I would, if I had any idea what it is,’ he replied, picking it up and examining it. It wasn’t sealed, and when he lifted the envelope’s flap a flash of bright pink appeared. Puzzled, he pulled out a large Valentine’s card – a rather tacky teddy bear clutching a bunch of roses and heart-shaped balloons. Inside there was a message: TO PAT, YOU MAKE ME MELT LIKE CHOCOLATE. BE MY VALENTINE? LOVE FROM A SECRET ADMIRER XXX
He snorted. ‘Is this some kind of joke? Hardly the time or place. Why’s it in an evidence bag?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Patrick, are you insane? Of course it’s not a joke,’ Suzanne snapped back at him. ‘Strong’s team found it in Wendy’s locker.’
She paused to let the realisation sink in.
Patrick gazed speechless at the card, the words inscribed in Wendy’s neat round handwriting.
‘Oh no,’ he said eventually, unable to prevent tears springing into his eyes. He cleared his throat noisily. ‘Oh God.’
‘Is there something you’d like to tell me, Patrick?’
Pat had never heard her use such a frosty voice. When he looked at her, despite the curled hair and still made-up face, she was almost unrecognisable from the relaxed woman who had sat at his dinner table just hours before, laughing and chatting . . . oh, he thought, apart from that awkward little spat she and Gill had had . . . What had that been about? Not that it mattered in the slightest now.
He shook his head. ‘Absolutely not. I had no idea she felt like that towards me. If I’d known, I’d have assigned her to a different team. I’m not an idiot.’
Was it true, he asked himself, that he’d had no idea? If he was honest, he had suspected it for some time. Wendy’s eagerness to please – the same bloody eagerness that had doubtless got her killed – the way her big brown eyes became more puppyish when she gazed at him . . .
He pinched the bridge of his nose to try to regain control of his expression. ‘Poor kid,’ he said. ‘That poor kid.’
‘You sure you had no idea?’
Patrick felt himself getting riled. ‘The clue’s in the words “secret admirer”, Suzanne.’
Tension bristled in the air between them. There was silence for a few moments, broken only by the sound of an early morning cleaner banging a hoover into the corners of the corridor outside.
‘OK. Rather unfortunate timing, that’s all. What are you going to do now?’
Patrick ran his hand through his hair. He hated it when Suzanne was cold with him – although that was currently the least of his problems. ‘I need to get out of here. I’m going to take Carmella and go and speak to that bodyguard guy, Kerry Mangan. Barrett gave me his name – sounds a bit shady. I’m not overly optimistic he’ll know anything, but it’s worth following up.’
Suzanne nodded. She wasn’t smiling, but her voice was softer and she held his gaze. ‘Right. You do that. Let DCI Strong’s team figure out who Wendy was going to meet last night – you need to distance yourself from that for now, OK?’
He shook his head. ‘Wendy called me last night, told me she’d made contact with . . . Well, that’s as far as she got before I cut her off. But she must have meant she’d made contact with somebody connected to Operation Urchin. That’s who she was going to meet. And either that person killed her, or the guy who killed Rose and Jessica found out and stopped her.’
Suzanne’s expression changed straight back to icy. ‘You spoke to her? Last night?’
He hung his head.
Suzanne exhaled. ‘OK. Listen. You need to pass this information on to Strong. Let her deal with it. You’re too emotionally involved. Let Vanessa handle that side of the investigation – and you concentrate on our two teenage victims. Unless you think it’s too much for you. I could let Winkler—’
‘No! No way.’ He could feel his cheeks burning. ‘This is my case.’
As he said this he heard a whisper of doubt. This investigation was ridiculously over-complicated, what with Patrick concentrating on the teenagers, Winkler on Nancy Marr and now Strong taking the lead with Wendy. Maybe he should step back, let Winkler take over; simplify everything.
But the way his stomach clenched as this thought raced through his head told him he could never allow that to happen.
Without a word, Patrick got up to walk out of the office. He was shaking with anger and emotion.
‘Pat?’ Suzanne called, just as he was going through the door.
‘Yeah?’ He didn’t turn around.
‘Thanks for your hospitality last night. Please thank Gill for a lovely dinner.’
He snorted. ‘It should never have happened, not in the middle of an investigation, and you know it. Wendy might still be alive if I hadn’t been too busy greeting guests to talk to her properly. But I didn’t listen to her, and now she’s dead.’
It was only later, leaning on a wall outside in the car park trying to gather his thoughts, that something occurred to him through the maelstrom of emotion whirling around in his head: could Suzanne be jealous that Wendy had had a crush on him?
He immediately dismissed the thought as ridiculous and narcissistic. Taking a few long drags of his e-cigarette, his resolution hardened. He understood the protocol, knew why the investigation into Wendy’s death had to be kept separate. But he was convinced the same man had killed all three victims – and possibly Nancy Marr, though he was still unsure about that. If he had to tread on Strong’s toes in order to catch that person, so be it. Justice was more important than protocol. And if he committed career suicide but found the killer, it would be worth it.
Chapter 35
Day 11 – Winkler
The Mervyn Hammond PR Agency was situated a long way from Winkler’s patch, in a converted warehouse set in a quiet street between Clerkenwell and Farringdon, surrounded by media companies and Internet start-ups. Winkler hated it around here. All those fucking hipsters, with their ludicrous facial hair and ridiculous trousers. Apparently there was a café near here that sold nothing but breakfast cereal, and the morons who dwelled in these parts were happy to shell out over three quid a pop. Three quid a Coco Pop, he thought, deciding he had to get that joke into a conversation at some point.
He looked sideways at Gareth Batey, deciding the younger cop wasn’t bright enough to appreciate his humour. They were parked outside the office, a little way down the road, in Winkler’s white Audi. The engine ran, filling the car with warm air.
‘I’m really not sure about doing this,’ Gareth said, for about the tenth time. ‘Shouldn’t we be doing something to help catch Wendy’s murderer?’
Every time Gareth mentioned what had happened to Wendy his eyes misted over, making Winkler wonder if the detective sergeant had been carrying a torch for the dead DC. Perhaps Wendy had been Gareth’s ideal woman. That would be another reason for Gareth to hate Lennon. Maybe he should hint that he’d actually seen Lennon and Wendy together . . . really get his rival into trouble. The guv had been stomping round like a rhino with piles ever since that Valentine’s card was found in Wendy’s locker, and Winkler was pretty sure it wasn’t just because one of the team had been murdered. Laughland was jealous! Of course, he felt sorry for Wendy, poor dead cow, but apart from that it was too delicious for words.