Darkness Looking Back, The (6 page)

'No, Sarge. I haven't.' This time the excitement was pouring out of Stirling unchecked. 'Go on, James. Can you tell us anything else? Like a name?'

Paxton cleared his mind. 'He's not dead . . . Someone's telling me it's — er, Owen? No, Warren. Billy just came in again. He's laughing for some reason.'

What's so funny?
he asked. But out of the ether came — nothing. Except the sound of Gardner's voice.

'Write it down, Andy. Who knows, it may prove useful.'

Stirling looked away. The DS was plainly mocking him for something, but Paxton couldn't figure it out.

'Look, do you want me to check these ones?' he asked, gesturing at the stack of romances. 'They were probably the last things she was reading.'

'Don't worry about it,' said Gardner. 'If you've been getting those kind of signals off kids' books, God only knows what one of
those
would do. Frankly I'm not interested in finding out.' He summarily checked his watch. 'Are we about ready to go?'

'You're sure it was Warren?' Stirling was watching Paxton again, disappointment marked in the quietness of his voice.

'I'm never sure of anything I'm told, Andy. Except that I've been told.'

Stirling shrugged. 'Well, thanks for trying.' And Paxton knew that he'd lost him. Stirling would never again be so willing to believe. This was Paxton's only, shining chance to persuade the DC to trust his ability, and somehow he'd cocked up. Stirling would forgive him anything but making him look stupid, again.

'You coming, Andy?'

Stirling glanced at Gardner. 'Yeah, lock the place up. But I'm not coming back to base just yet — I've got a few things to do first.' A look over his shoulder seemed to include Paxton in his plans.

It was only when Paxton stepped outside and felt his spine lengthen that he truly realised how much the atmosphere of the house had been pressing on him. He remembered the feelings as he'd approached, and shivered.

'I know it's only midday, but after that I've got a sudden craving for a whisky.'

Stirling looked at him askance. 'I thought you weren't much of a drinker.'

'I'm not, but
she
must have been. Couldn't you smell it? The whole time we were in there, the air was just reeking of Scotch.'

Stirling had stopped walking. 'I couldn't smell anything.'

'It was her. If I hadn't known any better, I'd have thought she drank herself to death.' He said it wryly, half-joking, but Stirling was staring at him as if he'd just started gargling Old Icelandic.

'Andy, what is it? I deal with dead people all the time, and
you're
giving me the creeps.'

Stirling looked embarrassed, as if he didn't know how to start.

'Are you coming back with me, Mr Paxton?' Gardner was calling from the driver's seat.

'Just a minute!' Stirling called back. He turned back to Paxton, serious. 'What did Graeme Kirkpatrick tell you about the crime? Did he tell you Helen McCowan's manner of death?'

Paxton's confusion only increased. 'He said she was bashed with a kettle. Wasn't she?'

'Not just a kettle. We also found her in a pool of Scotch. The bottle could have dropped when she was attacked, but it looks like it was smashed over her head.'

'Shit.'

Stirling looked uncomfortable, sticking his hands in his pockets. 'Well done,' he said eventually. 'The cleaners went through the place yesterday. Either you've got a nose like a bloodhound, or . . .'

'Still haven't convinced you, have I?'

'I don't know, James. I really don't. Thing is, you got the name of the lover wrong.'

'You know who he is? You mean this was all just a test?'

Stirling's discomfort heightened at Paxton's obvious sense of betrayal. 'I was hoping you'd pass. It was Gardner's idea.'

Gardner was tapping his fingers on the steering wheel behind the windscreen. Stirling ignored him. 'John Blundell — he's the DS who came out — he ran into him. Rob, I'm talking about. Rob was supposed to meet Helen McCowan for lunch. He came round and stumbled straight into the SOCOs. He was horribly upset.'

'Oh hell. Poor guy.' Having pulled Lena away from a similar situation, Paxton knew how the man must have felt.

'Yeah, well. As you can see, he definitely wasn't called Warren. And before you ask —'

Paxton had already taken a breath.

'His surname is Reid.'

'Hey, Andy, you got any work to do? Gee, I'm glad I haven't!' Gardner was leaning an arm out the window.

'All right! Better let you go.' Stirling nodded quickly at the car and moved on down the drive towards his own vehicle.

'Sorry I wasn't more help, Andy.' Paxton meant it.

'That's all right. If we were always perfect, we might turn out like
him
.' He glanced at Gardner, who was now gazing out at the street.

Paxton grinned. 'See you later.'

But as he got in the passenger's seat next to Gardner, he felt the depression return. During the drive home, he endured the other man's jibes without saying a word. Paxton didn't feel in the least like talking. Above all else, his nostrils were still burning with the sharp scent of whisky.

STIRLING HOPED HE hadn't shown it to Paxton, but his failure to come up with conclusive evidence was a huge kick in the teeth. He told himself the big kicker was Gardner, having yet another reason to crow over him. In his gut he knew the disappointment was also in Paxton himself. He liked the man; they were friends. Even when Paxton's tendency to overreach himself irritated the hell out of him. He'd tried to suspend disbelief and give Paxton a chance to prove him wrong, but he hadn't. Paxton was deluding himself, and it pained him. A memory from his childhood bobbed to the surface — his grandmother, the same one who sent the unwanted books when Alzheimer's started digging its claws into her mind. She'd begun calling him Harry, the name of her dead brother. But the dead didn't come back.

Stirling paused at the foot of the drive, looking back up at the house. There was nobody there. Not to be crude, but it was as silent as the grave. He just about shat his pants when a voice spoke.

'Did you know Helen?'

Stirling swung to see a man behind him, with hair well on the downward slide to grey, and an expression that suggested the news of the murder might have had something to do with it. Neatly he turned the question round.

'It seems
everybody
knew Helen. Hard to believe such a popular woman could have been murdered.'

'I read it in the papers this morning, and I still couldn't believe it. She had so much life.'

He had a soft voice and an almost scholarly manner. Stirling guessed he was one of the neighbours. It was the sort of area where the elderly lived cheek by jowl with student fats that crammed five people into three rooms, or twice that number on weekends. 'So how did you know her?' he asked.

The man looked at his feet, seeming embarrassed. However, the impression of a shared loss made it easier to talk. 'I met her at the library. She asked me for some help choosing one day, and I quite often saw her after that. We chatted a lot.'

He smiled then, a sweet smile of pleasure at the memory, though it lasted barely half a second before the pain crept back in.

'So you were friends?'

'Yes, you could say we were friends.' The man gave a rueful shake of his head at his own bad manners. 'I should introduce myself.' Shyly he held out a hand, with another sweet smile. 'Warren Lucas.'

Just for a moment Stirling's smile went to stone.

'SHE WAS AMAZING. The library was never a quiet place with her around, I can tell you that.' Warren gave a sad laugh, staring down into his coffee. 'Brought me out of
my
shell. She was one of a kind.'

Stirling, remembering the whisky, the library, the dead husband and the two current men friends, couldn't help but agree. They were now sitting in Helen's favourite café, a short walk from her house, where she and Warren often went together. Warren had initially been alarmed to find Stirling was a cop, but was now lost in his own world, resigned to everything but her death.

'What I can't work out is
why
. Why the hell would anyone want to kill Helen?'

They should have a special alphabet for homicide detectives,
Stirling thought.
The Y always comes first. Then comes the X . . .

To be fair, he couldn't see Warren giving anyone the bash. Although he wasn't, as Stirling had first assumed, a librarian himself, it was almost as bad. He'd been a quality controller for some engineering company; Stirling's eyes had glazed over after about thirty seconds and he hadn't quite caught all the details. Apparently Warren had retired about two years before, and was living a quiet and happy life on his savings devouring the Tom Clancy and Wilbur Smith shelves at the Grey Lynn library. Or had been, up till now.

'Have you found any leads so far?'

Stirling gave it a moment's thought. 'I'm not really able to discuss that, I'm afraid.'

Warren looked uncomfortable at the reminder. The thought of being a suspect hadn't occurred to him before, but it obviously had now.

'Did you ever meet a bloke called Rob?' Stirling asked him.

'No.' Warren looked puzzled.

Stirling dropped it, shrugging as if it meant nothing. He couldn't help feeling relieved. 'So, you came here often with Helen?'

'About once a week. It was our ritual on Wednesdays.'

Here was Parsifale, one of a million cafés in the Grey Lynn/ Ponsonby area, more or less trendy, more or less expensive, more or less crowded. Its coffee was as good as one might expect from the suburb that boasted the highest gay, hip urban professional and pretentious wanker population in the country, and it was just a shame that Stirling was here on business, or he'd have been making the closer acquaintance of the gateaux in the glass cabinet. Sitting opposite Warren, who was listlessly stirring his coffee, he'd have felt as much of a pig as if he'd hauled up to Dunkin' Donuts with his lights flashing.

'Did you by any chance give her a
Harry Potter
book?' Stirling kept the question just as casual.

Warren looked thoroughly spooked. 'How on earth did you know that?'

Holy shit
, thought Stirling numbly.
Fuck me
. He wanted to shake his head in wonder, but he shrugged again, as if the confirmation hadn't tipped his world ever so slightly sideways. 'We have ways.'

No sense in throwing the game too soon. For all he knew, he was speaking to the killer. However, he doubted it. The man jumped a mile when a figure loomed over his shoulder.

'Don't you like my coffee? That's good coffee, I made it specially for you, and you're not drinking it!' He was a wiry little Asian man, about fifty, with an expression of mock outrage. He waved his hands, eyes crinkling in good-natured exasperation as he looked at Stirling. 'Next time I'm not giving him dessert.'

Warren looked flustered. 'Oh. Sorry, it's not the coffee. It's fine. I'm just — I've had some bad news, I'm sorry.'

The man's face immediately became paternal. 'Oh, I'm very sorry to hear that.' He glanced at Stirling and back again. 'Is it your girlfriend? She's not here today.'

'Yes.' Warren's automatic reaction was to look back down at his cup.

Stirling took it for him. 'You might have read it in the paper this morning. The local woman killed in her house.' He nodded towards the folded
Herald
on a neighbouring table. The man's eyes opened as wide as his mouth.

'No! No, that's awful!' Recovering, the café owner gave Warren a look of deep sympathy. 'I'm really, really sorry to hear that,' he repeated. 'Such a horrible thing to happen. Are you okay?'

Stirling liked him for that. No questions, except for Warren's welfare.

'I'll be fine,' said Warren, with a tired smile. 'Don't you worry about me.'

The man waved over the young assistant behind the counter, who had been watching the events curiously in between making coffees.

'Nathan! Put some muffins in a bag. You like quiche?' He fired the question at Warren.

'Oh, no, there's no need . . .'

'And some quiche,' he told Nathan. 'On the house. This gentleman's friend was the lady who was killed — the one in the paper.'

The young man's eyes widened too. 'Oh jeez, that's awful. Coming right up.' He jumped to fill up a brown bag with muffins, then another with pastries.

'It's okay, you don't have to do that, honestly . . .'

'Are you eating properly?' the Asian man interrupted. 'Look at you, you have not been eating. You ever need some food, you come here. You promise me?'

Finally Warren gave him a grateful look. 'Thank you,' he said quietly. 'Thank you very much.'

'What's your name?' Stirling asked.

The little man looked surprised. 'Arthur.'

'Arthur who?'

'Arthur Wong.'

'Or around here,
Never
Wong . . .'

'You be quiet, young man! I'll give you a clip round the ear!'

Smiling, Nathan set two bulging bags of food in front of Warren, thoughtfully placed in a large fat box. He patted the grieving man on the shoulder, unmistakable sympathy in his eyes. 'Anything you need, just give us a call, mate.'

Warren thanked him again, clearly embarrassed. He obviously wasn't used to being the centre of attention. That had been Helen's job.

When they left, Stirling was making notes in his brain, reminding himself to follow up with Arthur Wong later. He and Nathan had obviously seen the happy couple often. Would they also have seen Rob, or had Helen been more careful? It really hadn't been a delicate question to ask in front of Warren. All too painfully he remembered Ian Hiscocks's response to a similar enquiry.

Then a thought waved a frantic hand in front of his eyes. Stirling quickly took Warren's address and contact details, and as soon as he was out of earshot reached for the phone in his pocket, flipping through his notebook for Rob Reid. He'd almost expected the voice on the end to be pre-recorded when Reid finally picked up.

'Yeah?'

The man didn't sound happy. No one did these days, thought Stirling. Least of all himself.

'Detective Constable Stirling here, Mr Reid.'

'Oh. Hello.' The Scotsman sounded more awake.

'Sorry to disturb you, but can I just ask you one quick question? Have you heard of a man called Warren?'

There was a long pause while Rob tried to sort it out. His mind was probably fuddled by something other than grief. Finally the answer came, the one Stirling had been expecting.

'Well, not since I left Scotland. There was an English fella at work for a wee while . . .'

'No, that's all right, Mr Reid.'

'Why is that?'

'Oh, no particular reason. We've just got to go through a whole list of acquaintances, eliminating whoever we can.'

'Awwww . . .' Understanding began to creep through Rob's voice. It sounded like he was grinning. 'Wait a minute. Was that another bloke she was seeing?'

'Er — what gives you that idea, Mr Reid?'

'Sly old bint! I wouldn't put it past her. She got around, she did. Should have known I wasn't her only one.'

'It doesn't bother you?'

'Nah! She'd put in the hard yards. She was entitled to her bit o' fun.' He let out another amused chuckle.

'She sounds like quite a character.'

'Och, she was, she was that. Are you making any progress then?' The man's voice sounded almost plaintive.

'I think so. I'll let you know what happens.'

'Thank you, sir, I'd appreciate that. Oh! By the way, that necklace I told you about wasn't a cross after all, it was a kind of wavy thing, like kind of a scalloped pattern, you know. I was
looking
at a cross, but she told me she already had one.'

'Thanks, Mr Reid. I wouldn't worry about it. Righto. Take care.' Stirling clicked off.

Slowly he slipped the phone back into his pocket. The picture he was getting was developing like an horrific scene-of-crime photo. And so was the terrible feeling in the root of his brain.