Preface to Murder Read online

  There was no answer, and she was about to try phoning Annabel’s mobile, when she heard the barking of a small dog. She looked up and saw Annabel returning from a walk.

  ‘Inspector Hart, what brings you here?’ Annabel was dressed as before, in long overcoat and boots. Her dog, a Jack Russell terrier with smooth white and brown fur and very muddy legs, trotted through the open gate to sniff at Bridget with great interest. When he looked as if he was about to jump up and plant his paws on Bridget’s coat, Annabel tugged on his lead. ‘Down, Oscar.’ The dog obeyed immediately, looking abashed. ‘I’m so sorry. I’ve just taken him for a walk down the lane and around the field and there’s been so much rain recently it’s all very muddy down there. Oscar can’t help but get covered in it.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Bridget, eyeing Annabel’s muddy boots.

  ‘Just a moment,’ said Annabel, as if she’d only just remembered something. She reached into a deep coat pocket and pulled out a small plastic bag knotted at the top. Although Bridget applauded responsible dog owners who cleaned up after their pets, she preferred not to see the results. Annabel popped the poop bag into a grey wheelie bin and turned back to Bridget. ‘Did Diane send you?’

  ‘In a manner of speaking,’ said Bridget. ‘Do you mind if we go inside?’

  ‘Oh, no. Of course not.’

  Annabel fished a key from another pocket and opened the door. ‘Would you like to wait in the sitting room? I’ll just shut Oscar and his muddy paws in the kitchen.’

  Freed from his leash, the dog darted enthusiastically through the door at the end of the hallway and Annabel went to deal with him while Bridget let herself into the front room. The dog’s dirty feet would be the least of Annabel’s worries once Bridget had broken the news to her of her sister’s untimely death.

  The sitting room was furnished in a homely style, maybe a little outdated, but comfortable and cheerful. A bookcase in one of the alcoves next to the fireplace was stacked with well-thumbed paperbacks, their spines cracked. Bridget recognised some bestselling thriller and crime writers, as well as a generous helping of classics including Dickens, Austen and Hardy. A Deadly Race: How Western Governments Collude in Sales of Arms to the Middle East was nowhere to be seen, but the coffee table was strewn with old copies of Gardeners’ World and Your Dog magazines.

  Assorted photographs in wooden frames adorned the mantelpiece. One holiday snapshot showed the two sisters looking relaxed and happy in wide-brimmed straw hats, somewhere hot and sunny. Another picture was of Annabel and her husband on their wedding day – not a formal shot captured by a professional photographer, but one snapped on a pocket camera, the couple waving at their friends just before stepping into a Volkswagen Beetle decorated with balloons and ribbons. But there was no sign of a man’s presence in the house. No coat or shoes in the hallway, only Annabel’s brightly-coloured hats and scarfs hanging on pegs, and a pair of pink wellies caked in mud.

  Bridget perched on the edge of a sofa draped with a patchwork quilt thick with white dog hairs. The bright yellows, reds and blues of the quilt seemed to encapsulate the feel of the room – ramshackle and patched together with mismatched accessories. Curtains, rugs and cushions were all joyously uncoordinated. If it wasn’t for the fact that she had the worst news in the world to break to Annabel, Bridget would have felt much more at ease here than she had in Diane’s meticulously styled and coordinated house.

  When Annabel reappeared, she had removed her overcoat and changed out of her walking boots into a pair of slippers. Bridget waited until she was seated in an armchair before breaking the news as gently as she could.

  For a moment Annabel said nothing, but threw her hand across her mouth in stunned disbelief. ‘Are you sure?’ she asked at last. ‘It was my sister?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Bridget. ‘Although we will need a family member to make a formal identification.’ She wondered if Annabel would be in a fit state to identify the body herself.

  Annabel stood up, then rushed from the room uttering an incoherent cry. Bridget followed her into the hallway, but Annabel had locked herself in a downstairs cloakroom. Through the door Bridget could hear the sounds of sobbing.

  When Annabel emerged some ten minutes later, her eyes were red and puffy, her face blotchy. She held a scrunched-up roll of toilet paper in her hands.

  ‘Shall I put the kettle on?’ asked Bridget.

  Annabel nodded dumbly and Bridget went to the kitchen in search of tea, milk and sugar. As soon as she opened the kitchen door, Oscar dashed out. Bridget didn’t try to stop him. The dog would be a comfort to Annabel, muddy paws and all.

  Teabags and sugar were on the counter by the kettle and Bridget found some colourful, mis-matched mugs on the draining board. When she returned to the living room bearing two mugs of strong, heavily sugared tea, Annabel was hugging the dog to her like a child, her face buried in the soft fur on the top of his head.

  Bridget placed the tea on the table and resumed her place on the sofa.

  After a minute Annabel recovered her poise enough to speak. ‘How did Diane die?’

  ‘We’re not sure at the moment,’ said Bridget. ‘There was evidence of a break-in at the back door, so we’re treating her death as suspicious.’

  ‘Murder?’ Annabel breathed the word as if not daring to speak it aloud.

  ‘I’m afraid we’ll have to wait for the post-mortem report before we can say with any certainty.’ Bridget knew how much grieving relatives craved answers to help them make sense of their loss, but she knew too of the dangers of jumping to conclusions or engaging in speculation. She would say nothing about the pinprick until she knew her facts. ‘Did Diane suffer from any medical conditions, such as high blood pressure or heart problems?’ It was still possible that the shock of discovering an intruder in her house had caused Diane to suffer a cardiac arrest.

  Annabel shook her head. ‘Diane? No. She was always fit as a fiddle. She hardly suffered a day’s illness in her life.’

  Annabel seemed to be getting over her initial shock and Bridget gauged that it was safe to ask a few more questions. ‘Are you aware that your sister recently received a death threat?’

  Annabel’s face fell. ‘Yes, of course, she showed me the letter. She wouldn’t have done anything about it, if it wasn’t for me. She didn’t think it was worth taking seriously but I told her not to be so stupid. I don’t think she would have listened to me alone, but Jennifer, her publisher, and Grant, her agent, both agreed with me, so that’s when she took it to the police.’ She cast her eyes down at the dog. ‘Not that that did any good. She still ended up dead.’ Her shoulders began to tremble again.

  ‘I’m truly sorry about that,’ said Bridget, ‘and I can assure you that I will do everything in my power to find out what happened to your sister. Besides yourself, is there anyone else we need to inform about her death?’

  Annabel put a hand to her forehead. ‘God, what am I thinking of! It must be the shock, making me so forgetful. Diane has a son in London. His name is Daniel. He’ll need to be told, and Ian too.’

  ‘Ian?’

  ‘Ian Dunn, Diane’s ex-husband. He lives in Oxford. He’s a consultant at the John Radcliffe hospital.’

  ‘I see. What sort of relationship did Diane have with her ex-husband?’

  Annabel frowned at the suggestion implicit in the question. ‘Oh, don’t start imagining that Ian might have killed Diane. He’s a good man and their relationship was perfectly amicable. He and Diane divorced around ten years ago, and he remarried a few years back.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Bridget. ‘But I do have to ask these questions. What about Daniel? Did he get on well with his mother? He lives in London, you say?’

  ‘He’s grown up. But he still sees – saw – Diane regularly.’

  ‘Will anyone else need to be notified?’

  ‘University colleagues, I suppose. But no other family. Our parents passed away some years ago.’

  ‘And what about you?’ asked Bridget, glanci
ng up at the wedding photograph on the mantelpiece. ‘Is there anyone who can provide you with some emotional support?’

  Annabel’s gaze followed Bridget’s, then returned to the dog sitting on her lap. ‘It’s just me and Oscar now,’ she said, patting the dog’s side. The animal’s ears twitched at the mention of his name. ‘John died five years ago.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘There’s no need to be. It was a blessed relief. He had Huntington’s, you see.’

  ‘That’s a degenerative disease, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, it’s a genetic disorder. John inherited it from his mother. The first symptoms started when he was in his early thirties. At first it was just little things – being clumsy, forgetting things. He tried to make a joke of it, but we both knew it was bound to get worse. Ian encouraged him to get a diagnosis and after that he just went downhill really quickly. During the final few months, he was completely bed-ridden and I had to nurse him. Eventually he wasn’t even able to speak and had problems swallowing and breathing. In the end, death came as a release.’

  ‘I can understand that,’ said Bridget. ‘You don’t have any children?’

  ‘We might have done, but after John was diagnosed, we decided not to. There’s a fifty-percent chance of the Huntington’s gene being passed on, you see, and we didn’t want to take that risk.’ Tears were once again welling up in Annabel’s eyes. ‘Now I wish we had. I lost my husband, and now I’ve lost my sister too. Oscar’s all I have left.’ She hugged the dog tightly against her chest.

  Bridget finished her tea and put the mug back on the coffee table beside a gardening magazine. ‘Do you have any idea who might have sent the death threat to Diane?’ she asked gently. ‘Did you discuss it with her?’

  ‘Diane refused to talk about it. She was convinced it was just some crank. But I was worried. Diane wasn’t afraid to write about topics that annoyed certain people in powerful positions. Her academic work was one thing, but her book will bring those matters to the attention of a much wider audience.’

  ‘Yes, I can see that,’ said Bridget. ‘I’ll need you to give me the contact details for Daniel and Ian, if you don’t mind.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Annabel, wiping her tears away. ‘But do you mind if I speak to them first? I think this news would be better coming from me.’

  Bridget had no objection to Annabel contacting Diane’s son and ex-husband. If fact it was a welcome relief and would make her job much easier when she did speak to them if they were already prepared.

  Annabel looked as if she was about to cry again. ‘My sister was a good person, Inspector,’ she said. ‘She wasn’t always an easy person to like’ – at this, Bridget felt Annabel’s eyes boring into hers and she shifted uncomfortably – ‘but she was my sister and we were very close. She supported me through some difficult times, especially after my husband died. You will find out who killed her, won’t you?’

  4

  Bridget knew that before she could begin the job of assembling her team and getting on with solving the murder, she was going to have to face Chief Superintendent Alex Grayson. There was even a risk that Grayson wouldn’t want her to head up the investigation, given the mess she’d made of preventing Diane Gilbert’s death in the first place. She braced herself for an onslaught as she entered his glass-walled office, aware that Jake and the other members of the department were all watching closely, although doing an excellent job of appearing not to. Surveillance training could be a double-edged sword.

  The Chief Super sat in his high-backed swivel chair, tapping a fountain pen on the surface of his immaculate desk. It was always a bad sign when he held a pen in his hand. And an empty desk also spelled trouble.

  ‘Sir, you wanted to see me,’ said Bridget, determined not to let him have the first word.

  ‘Sit down,’ said Grayson, rotating the pen in his hand to indicate the chair in front of his desk.

  Bridget perched on the edge of the chair, sitting bolt upright in an attempt to bolster her stature by a much-needed extra inch. A photo of Grayson holding up a golfing trophy looked back at her from the desktop. Neither the Grayson in the photograph nor the one in real life was smiling.

  ‘Please explain to me, DI Hart,’ said the Chief calmly, ‘how Diane Gilbert could possibly have been murdered on our watch.’

  She noted with a glimmer of hope that he’d said “our watch” and not “your watch”, but she didn’t fool herself into imagining that Grayson would readily accept any of the blame for this fiasco himself. Nor did she want the hapless Sam and Scott to be made into scapegoats, assuming that they had told her the whole truth about what took place. Bridget didn’t play games or office politics. If she had to shoulder responsibility for the failure of the operation, then she would. But she wouldn’t go down without a fight.

  ‘Sir, I can categorically state that when Detective Sergeant Jake Derwent and I left Diane Gilbert at home on Thursday evening, there were no intruders in the house or grounds of the property. The back door and ground floor windows were all securely locked, and we heard her locking the front door as we left the house. The gardens and garage were searched, and the officers on duty overnight have stated that no one entered or left the premises while they were on duty.’

  ‘Well, someone clearly got in and out,’ said Grayson. ‘How do you account for that?’

  Bridget swallowed, knowing that she had no satisfactory answer to the question. ‘They broke in through the back door of the house, but we don’t yet know how they gained entry to the grounds. The scene of crime officers are investigating whether someone could have climbed over the rear garden wall.’ She didn’t add that she and Vik had already taken a look and seen no signs of any disturbance.

  The fountain pen tapped rhythmically against the desk. ‘Is that likely?’

  ‘It’s a possibility.’

  ‘In that case, why wasn’t someone assigned to watch over the rear of the property?’

  ‘Sir, with respect, I only had two officers available. They were stationed at the front of the house. How was I supposed to cover the rear entrance with the resources I had been given?’

  Bridget knew that she was stepping into dangerous territory by invoking resources and budgets. This was firmly Grayson’s area of responsibility.

  Tap. Tap. Tap. ‘We don’t have unlimited resources to babysit every person who says something controversial and puts themselves at risk. Whatever the Deputy Commissioner might think.’

  This was the closest the Chief had come to taking Bridget’s side. But her relief was short-lived. Grayson closed his fist hard around the fountain pen. ‘Having said that, this was a monumental cock-up of the first order. The murderer sent a letter in black and white saying what they intended to do, and still we failed to stop them. You can consider yourself very fortunate that you have only me to answer to, and not the Deputy Commissioner. Now, the two officers who were on duty outside the victim’s house last night have been suspended while an enquiry is made into their conduct during this operation. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t also suspend you and assign Baxter to lead the murder investigation.’

  ‘Sir? You can’t do that!’ Bridget was dismayed to learn that Sam and Scott had been suspended from duty. Her gut feeling told her they had been telling the truth about what happened. But the prospect that she might also be suspended was even more alarming. Taking her off the case now and putting her arch rival within the department, DI Greg Baxter, in charge of clearing her name was an appalling prospect.

  ‘Can’t I?’ The tone of Grayson’s question conveyed a clear warning.

  Bridget knew that telling her boss what he could or couldn’t do was likely to put her head on the block. But her sense of injustice seemed determined to ride roughshod over her common sense. ‘It’s just not fair, sir. I have a right to lead this murder enquiry.’

  Grayson’s already furrowed brow darkened further. He raised the pen and jabbed it in the air. ‘Let me make this clear, DI Hart. You
have absolutely no rights here whatsoever.’

  ‘An obligation, then, sir. I owe it to the victim and her family to find out who did this. And I’m the person best placed to lead this investigation.’

  ‘Or the one least likely to take an objective view of the situation.’

  Grayson raised his hand to stop her saying anything more. He stared up at the ceiling tiles, tapping the pen gently against his desk while he mulled over his decision. It didn’t take him long. Grayson was never a man plagued by doubt. ‘Well, Inspector Hart, you spectacularly failed to stop Diane Gilbert from being murdered, so you can bloody well make up for it by finding out who killed her. Consider this a penance, not a reward.’

  The fountain pen had survived its ordeal and so had Bridget. ‘Thank you, sir,’ she said, relieved that she wasn’t about to be reassigned to policing petty crime on the Blackbird Leys estate in East Oxford. But she knew that her future hung in the balance. If this went badly, her career might be in jeopardy.

  ‘Tread carefully,’ warned Grayson. ‘No more mistakes. And given the nature of this book of hers, I want to be informed immediately if there is any hint that Diane Gilbert’s death may be linked to matters of national security.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Of course, sir.’ Bridget rose gratefully to her feet. ‘You’ll be the first to know.’

  5

  Bridget left Grayson’s office taking care to close the door softly behind her. Everyone in the department seemed suddenly to be very busy, staring intently at their screens, flipping pages of the reports that lay open before them, dashing off urgently to make tea or use the bathroom. Bridget felt a spotlight shining on her, even though not a single face turned her way. They must surely have heard Grayson’s angry tirade. She made her way to her desk, then refusing to bow to her humiliation, immediately stood up again.