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Chapter 9

Devlin stopped her as she returned to the office. ‘You seen Lambert today?’

‘Just left him, why?’

‘I wanted to go through the CCTV footage with him.’

‘Well, you can go through it with me first,’ said Matilda. She liked the new DC, but on occasions he was a little too keen to show off his worth.

‘Not much to show unfortunately. No cameras face the front of the building. There is a camera in the apartment’s foyer. I edited all the frames which I thought of interest, and went through them with the concierge. Everyone is accounted for during the twenty-four hour period.’

Matilda frowned. They hadn’t expected anything but it was still a disappointment. ‘I don’t think you need to bother DCI Lambert with no news, do you?’

Devlin looked momentarily crestfallen. ‘No, Sarge.’

She took pity on him. ‘I need a name checked. Noel Whitfield.’ She handed him the piece of paper with the case name on it. ‘I need all details on this case. Thirty minutes?’

Devlin nodded as he rushed back to his desk.

She updated the file as she waited for Devlin. She thought about the adulterous barrister, and his panicked response to their investigation. She would have liked it to have been a sign of a guilty conscience, a way of distracting them from their investigation, but feared it was just a sign of the kind of man he was. They’d just informed him that his long-term lover had been brutally murdered, and his main concern was protecting himself.

‘Interesting case,’ said Devlin, returning with a case file twenty minutes later. ‘Serious cock-up by CPS in my opinion.’

‘Give me the highlights,’ said Matilda.

‘Whitfield, aged thirty, was charged with attempted murder. He’d broken in, and had been waiting in the residence of the alleged victim, Andrew Haynes. Haynes’ girlfriend, Rebecca Pritty, was present at the time. Whitfield was alleged to have tied both victims to two separate radiators in Haynes’ bedroom. He made the girlfriend watch as he tortured Haynes, and left him to die after repeatedly stabbing him in the torso.’

‘He survived?’

‘If you can call it surviving. Permanently disabled.’

‘And the girlfriend watched all this.’

‘She was Whitfield’s ex. He made her watch, no disguise, quite clear motive. He left her at the scene. Fortunately, a neighbour heard their screams early on and they got Haynes to hospital in time.’

‘What happened in court?’ asked Matilda, thinking she already knew the answer.

‘Whitfield was represented by a Mr…’ Devlin looked at his notes.

‘Charles Robinson?’

Devlin tilted his head. ‘Yes. Robinson found a number of discrepancies in the evidence gathering. The judge reluctantly declared there was no case to answer. Gave CPS a complete dressing down.’

‘What about Whitfield since?’

‘He was sectioned for a time but was released. He’s been clean since. Last known address is over in Finchley.’

‘And Haynes?’

‘He went into psychiatric care for a time. Girlfriend left him. Last we know of him he’s living with his brother in an estate in Tottenham.’

‘Good summary, Devlin.’

Devlin couldn’t hide his pleasure, a broad smile filling his face. ‘Is it worth pursuing?’

‘We’ll have to tick the boxes now just in case. Sounds like an isolated incident to me. Try to locate Whitfield but don’t approach him without speaking to me. I’ll run it past Lambert.’

She read through the files Devlin had printed, looking for any discrepancies he may have missed, but came up blank. It took a great leap to link the Whitfield case with Sackville. Unless there was a clear link between him and either of the Sackvilles then it was difficult to see the cases being related unless it was pure coincidence.

She logged into The System, and ran differing routines matching the Sackvilles, Whitfield and Haynes, but no link was evident. She decided to wait until Devlin located Whitfield. It was too tenuous a link to bother pursuing at present.

She took lunch in the canteen, finding a small spot which overlooked the river. She glanced at the newspaper in front of her as she took mouthfuls of jacket potato but couldn’t concentrate on the text. She kept replaying the case in her head. She’d thought so much about it in the last few hours, that it was as if she’d witnessed the incident. She had her own video of what happened in her head, and it followed what Eustace Sackville had told Lambert. A lone intruder, forcing the woman to cuff her husband then being cuffed herself. She pictured the man cutting Moira Sackville, could hear the sound of the knife tearing at her flesh.

Matilda understood this way of thinking was dangerous. For all they knew at present, Eustace’s description of events could have been a fabrication. They had yet to rule him out as a suspect. It was feasible that he was the one responsible for Moira’s death. That he had tied her up and had somehow managed to inflict the cuff marks on his own wrists as a defence. It was possible the scene Matilda was replaying in her mind was a lie.

She thought about the lawyer, Charles Robinson and his affair with Moira Sackville. Again, images played in her head like memories. Secret rendezvous, the bedroom games which had so appalled Prue McKenzie. She tried to picture Robinson as the intruder but couldn’t visualise it. He’d left a poor first impression on her but he was too much of a coward to have killed Moira. The way he’d tried to distance himself from her murder, offering a former client to distract them from him. Even the way he talked, the practised confidence, the silky charisma. He was like a chimera, – but again, they couldn’t rule him out. She had to shake the images of the murder from her head, and follow the facts.

‘Don’t mind, do you?’ DC Donald Walker took a seat opposite her. ‘How goes it Sergeant?’

Walker had been a member of her team for over two years. Last year they had both competed for a vacant sergeant position. Matilda was sure Walker had never forgiven her for winning.

‘What do you want, Walker?’

‘Just checking how your work with Lambert is going. Is he treating you right?’

Matilda sighed, deciding to get straight to the point. ‘Is this to do with the sergeant test again?’

Walker fidgeted in his chair, picked at his infuriatingly manicured beard. ‘We all know how you got that position, Kennedy.’

Matilda smiled. She’d attained the position through sheer hard work and results. Walker’s tendency to open his mouth before thinking was one of the reasons he’d yet to be promoted. She adopted her most patronising tone, knowing it would get to Walker. ‘Look, Don, I can’t help it that I was deemed to be the most suitable for the position. Maybe next time, yeah?’ She rolled her eyes upwards, enjoying Walker’s discomfort.

Walker nodded his head a few times. ‘You should have taken me up on my offer that time, you wouldn’t be speaking to me like that if you had.’

Matilda stared hard at the man. He was referring to the last Christmas party where he’d had too many mulled wines and had made a fumbled pass at her. ‘You were lucky I didn’t report you then. I’d watch what I said, if I were you.’

‘Oh, fuck off, Kennedy,’ he whispered through gritted teeth.

Matilda took a bite of her congealed jacket potato, and looked down at her paper.

Walker waited a beat and eventually took the hint.

She watched him leave in her peripheral vision, not lifting her head until she was sure he’d left the canteen. She tensed her arm, noting her hand was trembling. She should report him. She’d heard whispers from a couple of other female officers that the Christmas party was not an isolated incident, but she had to be careful. However progressive the Met presented itself, it was still male dominated. Complaints of sexual harassment were treated seriously, but there was always the risk of being ostracised. The worst he’d done to her was make a silly pass, which hadn’t bothered her that much. It was not enough to take it further, but she couldn’t help thinking that his behaviour might escalate, if not with her then with someone else.

Lambert called, distracting her. They agreed to meet at Lordship Lane in two hours. She returned to the office, and was about to start researching Charles Robinson when a booming voice called to her from the other end of the room.

‘Sergeant Kennedy. My office. Now,’ said Tillman.