Monday 30 October 2023, 6.15 p.m.
CHARLIE
‘All right, so what the fuck do I do?’ Charlie cupped her hand around her phone and her mouth. She was in the corridor outside the canteen, having called DS Sam Kombothekra. Finding somewhere more private to speak would have taken too long.
‘Go in and … Wait, let me think,’ said Sam. ‘Yeah. Interrupt them, pull Simon out. Tell him about Marianne Upton’s murder and let him go back into the room with it in his arsenal, ready to produce it in whatever way he thinks’ll get the most out of Jemma Stelling. Or not produce it, if he thinks …’ Whatever he said next was inaudible. ‘I don’t know. My brain hasn’t caught up yet. Give me a second. The main thing is, don’t just steam in and tell them both that Marianne Upton has been killed.’
‘Obviously. Why do you think I rang you?’
‘I think I might want to be there when Jemma hears the news, actually. Assuming she doesn’t already know Marianne’s dead. I want to see the look on her face when she’s told.’
‘Great minds suspect alike,’ Charlie said. ‘She’s killed her, hasn’t she? And we’re her alibi. Nice, neat, middle-class JemmaStelling. You should see her, Sam: beautiful, glossy hair. Slightly horsey face, attractive in a sturdy way – capable-looking. Like, she’d have the best-stocked first-aid kit. She’s every inch the lovely, middle-class mum – and like all scumbags who think they’re untouchable, she came here to boast. She thinks she’s in the clear because she had police eyes on her at the exact time Marianne was killed. She wants to taunt us, rub it in our faces – “I am a murderer, no, really, I am.” Coming as close to confessing as she can, feeling safe enough to get off on the thrill of the risk she’s taking.’ Charlie sighed. ‘You’re absolutely sure Marianne Upton was murdered between 5.10 and 5.30?’
‘I am,’ said Sam. ‘Or rather, I will be once I’ve checked. But, yeah, basically I am. Her husband Gareth – Jemma’s dad – was on a Zoom that started at five and was supposed to finish at six. Important work meeting, loads of people from all over the world involved. Marianne showed up in the background and spoke to Gareth. Ten past five, he says that was, and luckily the Zoom was recorded, so we’ll be able to watch it and see for ourselves. Then at 5.20, she rang Gareth on his mobile. She had time to say only a few words: “I’m just by the car. I don’t suppose you could bring me out my—” And that was it. He heard her make a funny sound, then the phone went dead. He decided it was probably nothing, told himself she’d just lost reception – where they park their cars, you often can’t get a signal. He tried to convince himself all was well, thinking Marianne would either ring back, or decide she didn’t need whatever it was she’d forgotten after all, or come back to house and get it. Then at 5.25, worried about the strange noise she’d made and having failed to convince himself all was well, Gareth abandoned the Zoom meeting and went out to the garden. He found Marianne lying dead next to her car, face down. Stabbed in the back multiple times.’
‘Perfect timing on Jemma Stelling’s part,’ said Charlie. ‘What if her helper and doer-of-dirty-work for her murder plan was her dad? Could Gareth Upton have killed Marianne himself at 5.25, immediately before he saw her dead next to her car? Perhaps he omitted that crucial detail from his story.’
‘He was wearing the same clothes when uniforms arrived as he’d been wearing all day and in his Zoom meeting,’ Sam told her. ‘Not a trace of blood on them.’
‘Couldn’t he have got changed twice? In and out of his murder outfit?’
‘No time. Uniforms were at the scene at 5.30, less than four minutes after he rang for help at 5.27. Even if he could have quickly got changed, there wouldn’t have been time for him to wash. There’d have been blood on him, and there was none. He also didn’t have time to hide his murder outfit, as you call it, or dispose of the murder weapon, any of that.’
‘Right,’ said Charlie. Then someone else must have played the role of helper. ‘Jemma Stelling got here just before five,’ she told Sam. ‘She was with me in reception from then until 5.25, when I handed her over to Simon.’
‘She’s out of the running, then.’ Sam sounded disappointed. ‘Spilling to Sleatham St Andrew is half an hour minimum. Late afternoon, it’s closer to an hour. She can’t have done it.’
‘Sam, she got someone to do it for her. Obviously. That’s what all this confession bullshit has been about. She’s counting on us not being able to prove who her helper was, or that she had one, or prove anything against her at all.’
‘I’m hopeful we’ll solve this one,’ said Sam. As well as being his team’s only true gentleman, he was also its chief optimist. ‘If anyone can get the truth out of her, Simon will.’
‘You’re kidding, aren’t you? In the good old days, absolutely, but he’s currently a wreck who can barely put one foot in frontof the other.’ Tears prickled Charlie’s eyes. ‘It doesn’t help that you’re pretending you’re totally fine with the Lincolnshire move, Sam. He knows that’s crap, and he hates being lied to, even if you’re only doing it to make him feel better.’
‘Charlie, I can’t discuss that now. Listen, don’t pull Simon out of the interview. Let him finish it. I’m going to leave Sellers and Gibbs holding the fort here with Gareth Upton and the uniforms, and I’ll come back. Don’t let Jemma Stelling leave the building. I want to talk to her myself.’
‘I’ll tell her the skipper of Simon’s team wants to hear her story first hand,’ said Charlie. ‘She’ll love the idea of getting proper attention from the head-est of honchos. I’m telling you, she’s giving the performance of her life here today.’
‘Barbarism,’ came a voice from behind.
Charlie turned and found DI Giles Proust standing nearly close enough for her to inhale his breath – something she had no wish to do. She stepped back.
‘“Head-est of honchos”,’ he intoned. ‘Lax, Sergeant. Lax.’
‘You’re having a go at me for my choice of expression? I’m talking to Sam, not the Queen. I mean, the King,’ Charlie corrected herself, preparing to be savaged for monarch amnesia.
‘Laxness leads to barbarism.’ Proust stood straight as a pencil, legs together, arms by his sides. ‘Has led to it, I should say. And now we’re unprepared.’
Charlie nearly asked, ‘For what?’, but caught herself in time. There was no need to encourage him to stick around and take up more of her time and attention.
‘How long can we expect to carry on doing it and getting away with it?’ he asked, glancing up at the ceiling. ‘Defiling the English language, defiling our institutions, defiling the values and concepts we’ve relied on for centuries?’
‘Sir, I really need to—’
‘Don’t worry, Sergeant. You’ll soon be rid of me.’
Promise? How soon?
‘There’s a war being waged against me and my kind. You, Sergeant, have been recruited, without your knowledge or permission, by the other side.’
