“When?”
“It was a Sunday. I remember. Because I’d been to have lunch with Mummy and Daddy and they’d just dropped me back here.”
“Do you remember which Sunday it was, Kelly-Marie?”
“Not last Sunday…” She looked confused as she tried to work it out. Then her face cleared. “It was the Sunday that Ray was going to see Dan Poke from off the television.”
Ray Witchett’s last day on earth.
“I remember,” Kelly-Marie went on, “as I came into the hall that Sunday from saying goodbye to Mummy and Daddy, I saw Viggo coming downstairs. And he looked, I don’t know, like he was doing something wrong…there’s a word…?”
“Furtive?”
“Perhaps. I don’t know that word. Anyway, when I got back up here, I looked out of the window and I saw Viggo walking along the street, down that way. And there was one of those big boxes for rubbish…”
“A skip?”
“Yes. A skip. Like in skipping.” Kelly-Marie smiled, pleased at the notion.
“And you saw Viggo drop something in it?”
“Yes. And I thought it was probably something that was still valuable, because Viggo was always throwing away good stuff. So later in the evening, I went down to the…skip…and I found what he’d dropped. It’d had gone quite deep down the side, but I managed to pull it out.”
“It was a mobile phone?” asked Jude, hardly daring to hope.
She was rewarded with a huge beam and a nod.
“I don’t suppose, Kelly-Marie…that you’ve still got it?”
The beam grew broader as the girl crossed to a drawer and produced from it a brand-new-looking mobile phone. She handed it across to Jude. “I wasn’t sure what to do with it. I know Oxfam take clothes, but I don’t know whether they take mobile phones. I was going to ask Mummy and Daddy, but I forgot.”
Jude looked with disbelief at the phone in her hand. Could it be that she finally held in her hand the evidence she had despaired of ever finding?
She was initially frustrated, because, of course, the phone, sitting in a drawer for over a fortnight, had no power. But fortunately it fitted the same charger as Kelly-Marie’s mobile, so they soon had the handset plugged in and active.
Jude went into the ‘Short Messages’ menu and selected ‘Inbox’. There were two messages. Jude opened the more recent one first, the last communication Viggo had received before he threw the mobile away. It was timed at 15.17 on the Sunday of Dan Poke’s gig at the Crown and Anchor, and couched in the sort of espionage-movie language which held such a fatal attraction for Viggo.
AGENT 217 IS BECOMING A DANGER TO THE PROJECT. LIQUIDATE HIM. KNIFE, NOT GUN. THE MONEY WILL GO INTO THE USUAL ACCOUNT. JETTISON THIS MOBILE. K.
Now perhaps they had some proof.
Thirty-Nine
Then Jude checked the first text message. It had been sent the day before the poisoning in the Crown and Anchor that had started their investigation. It read:
TIME TO ACTIVATE AGENT 217. SCALLOPS PLAN AS DISCUSSED – DELIVERY AT TEN-THIRTY TOMORROW MORNING. RELYING ON YOU TO PERSUADE HIM TO DO IT. K.
So who the hell was ‘K’?
As she walked back to Woodside Cottage, Jude was aware of a huge temptation. The enquiries she and Carole had made so far in this case had been deeply frustrating. They had been reacting to events, to new information. Rarely had they been proactive.
And now Jude had a chance to be just that. She switched on the precious mobile and checked its power. Yes, it had just enough juice from its time on Kelly-Marie’s charger. She summoned up one of K’s text messages and, before she had time to change her mind, keyed in a reply.
THE NET IS CLOSING IN. I AM ON TO YOU.
That should flush him out.
In previous investigations Carole and Jude had had a somewhat unsatisfactory relationship with the police. They had either been warned off or patronized. The impression had certainly been given that the police were quite capable of doing their job on their own, and the last thing they wanted was offers of help from enthusiastic amateurs, particularly from women of a certain age.
But the detective Jude was put on to when she rang the Hollingbury Major Crime Unit was polite and, even more gratifying, interested in what she had to tell him. His name was Detective Inspector Wilson, and he was absolutely up to speed on the investigations into the deaths of Ray Witchett and Viggo. He knew about Copsedown Hall and Kelly-Marie, and he responded instantly to the mention of Derren Hart. “Yes, he’s someone we very definitely want to speak to. He’s gone to ground for the moment, but don’t worry, we’ll track him down.”
Jude felt a little silly. The detective’s knowledgeable manner reminded her that, all the time she and Carole had been stumbling in the dark, the official enquiries had been proceeding, using the full resources of manpower and forensic expertise. Though Detective Inspector Wilson remained polite, she didn’t get the feeling she was telling him anything that he didn’t know.
Until she came to Viggo’s mobile phone. That was a surprise, and it interested him very much. He wanted her to spell out exactly how it had come into her possession. Then he asked where she lived, and said he would be with her in as long as it took. As soon as she ended that call, Jude rang Carole. It was their joint investigation, they should both be present to hand over their findings to the police.
When he arrived, Detective Inspector Wilson was courteous, but didn’t want to hear too much about their theories of the crimes. It was only the mobile that interested him. He asked again how Jude had discovered it. By now feeling rather childish about the text reply she’d sent, she didn’t mention that. But they’d surely find a record of it when they examined the mobile. She was only putting off the inevitable rapping of her knuckles.
Detective Inspector Wilson took the mobile away, with assurances that he’d keep Carole and Jude updated on any new developments on the case. This they did not really believe. They reckoned, if they did hear more, it would be from the news media along with everyone else, rather than in a personalized call from Detective Inspector Wilson.
As a result, after his departure, both Carole and Jude felt extremely flat. They had ridden the roller coaster of the investigation and, now they were so close to the end of the ride, someone else was going to enjoy the fun of the denouement. Rotten life sometimes, being an amateur detective.
They went back to their separate houses. At a loose end, unable to decide what to do next, Jude put a call through to Kelly-Marie. Just to assure the girl how much the police had appreciated her discovery of the mobile phone. And to warn her that they were quite likely to come to question her again.
“Oh, that’s all right,” said the girl. “The policemen were very friendly when they talked to me before.”
“Well, you definitely did the right thing keeping that mobile of Viggo’s.”
“Thank you.” Kelly-Marie sounded disproportionately grateful for the commendation.
“Incidentally, you said you’d forgotten to tell your parents about the mobile. Did you mention to anyone else that you’d got it?”
“No, I don’t think so.” Then she remembered. “Oh, just one person.”
“Who was that?”
“The scarred man.”
“The one who came to see Viggo?”
“Yes. That night, before Viggo died, I told you I was in the kitchen, and he talked to me. He asked if I’d ever seen a mobile of Viggo’s and I told him.”
So Derren Hart knew of the mobile’s existence. Which almost definitely meant that his paymasters did too. An icy chill spread over Jude’s shoulders as she asked, “Did he ask to see it?”
“He did, but then a couple of the other men from the house came into the hall, and he went away.”