Spanish Inquisition (21 page)

When Tom arrived at Headquarters he did not feel particularly optimistic after being told by Max last night that the case concerning the visiting ADC had been taken out of their jurisdiction. Tom was in two minds about that. It certainly halved their present load, but as the assault had taken place on their patch he did not welcome the prospect of SIB from the UK descending on them and flexing their muscles.

Max had sounded very laid back, and that worried Tom. It was not like his friend to accept highhandedness so calmly. Not only highhandedness, but professional discourtesy in removing Smythe without informing 26 Section. Where was he being taken, and why?

Max had contacted their Regional Commander. All Keith Pinkney had been told was that the relevant paperwork was on its way. And Max had left it at that! Oh yes, Tom was worried. If ever there was a wild goose this was one, and Max would surely pursue it. Over the past few days the fact that he was not yet officially back in command had been forgotten. Tom now remembered and called his team to order to give them the news that the second assault would be investigated by someone else.

‘But it took place here,' objected Beeny. ‘This is
our
area of jurisdiction.'

‘It could be linked to the Norton case,' Olly Simpson pointed out.

‘Is that being taken over, too?' grumbled Beeny.

‘OK, calm down! Major Pinkney is dealing with it. We've plenty on our hands. Heather has returned to the hospital to insist on seeing and interviewing Norton. That woman
must
be persuaded to talk. We're at a standstill until she does.'

‘No, sir, I think we have a strong lead to follow.'

Tom stared at Piercey with suspicion. ‘And what's that?'

With surprising constraint, the maverick sergeant outlined what he had done after Jimmy James had identified the car he had seen on the night Norton had been attacked. He produced a sweat towel in an evidence bag.

‘The DNA on this can be compared with that on Maria's clothes.'

Still taken aback at Piercey's low-key attitude Tom still put forward some objections. ‘That storeman's not a reliable witness. He's changed his mind several times under questioning. The car could have broken down beside the gymnasium and been left to await collection the next day.'

‘It could have, but I swear we're on the way to solving the case.' Piercey's normal optimism was starting to return. ‘I checked out the owner of the hatchback.'

‘And?'

‘Sergeant Dennis Maple. It all ties in, sir.'

‘Ties in how, and with what?'

‘Maple sang the role of Don Jose in the opera. Carmen teases and torments him, flaunts her sexuality, inspires slavish devotion in him. We all saw it as a brilliant portrayal of her role, but what if she was so believable because she wasn't acting? And neither was he?'

‘Oh, come on . . .' Tom began.

‘I'm serious, sir. Maria was like that. Leading you on, then making you jealous. A lot of us got the treatment. She made it very obvious so that the
real
passion going on between them wasn't noticed. Or it was seen more as successful theatrical coupling, nothing more.'

‘Dennis Maple is married with two young children,' put in Connie. ‘I interviewed him briefly the following day. He left the party early with his family. His wife was there and agreed they had allowed the children to stay for an hour at the party, then took them home to bed.'

Piercey turned to her. ‘Did she say she and Dennis then went to bed?'

‘This is all pure speculation,' ruled Tom.

‘Until we get a DNA match,' Piercey insisted.

Olly glanced up from his sketching. ‘His'll be on her Spanish costume because he'll have touched it during the opera. We won't get anywhere with that.'

For a brief moment Piercey looked defeated, then he bounced back. ‘OK, if they took their kids home early after the party what was his hatchback doing outside the gymnasium in the early hours of Sunday?'

‘James is an unreliable witness,' Tom repeated.

‘Not over anything connected with tailoring,' countered Piercey. ‘We've said his brain only works around that subject. You didn't see him last night. He was excited over that sticker on the windscreen. A one-track mind like his would fasten on something like that and make no errors over what he saw.'

There really was a lot in what Piercey said, thought Tom. He knew Dennis Maple only vaguely, not well enough to dismiss this theory out of hand. While watching the opera he had been more intent on how much longer it would go on, but now Piercey had raised the issue Tom acknowledged that the performance passion between Carmen and Don Jose could have been real.

Max had been silent until now, but offered his opinion. ‘If it had been instant, overwhelming attraction at the auditions, Maple could have made her pregnant. He would certainly have a need for it to be terminated. A strong enough need to persuade her with violence.'

‘There's one more point,' said Piercey, struggling to control his natural arrogance. ‘You asked me to think of any incident which might have inspired someone to set me up by using my Audi to pick Norton up that night, and by planting her mobile in it. I racked my brain for something in my professional capacity and drew a blank, but now we have this info about Dennis Maple I think I know what drove him to implicate me and it points to the strong probability that he fully intended to beat her up that night.'

‘Go on,' said Tom.

‘It was during the interval on Friday night's performance of
Carmen
. I donned the elaborate picador's costume, then I spotted Maria in the wings looking extremely tense. I went over and tried to reassure her. She just stared at me as if she had no idea who I was. Her behaviour bothered me, so I put my arms round her, told her she was superlative tonight. The best so far.

‘Next minute, Maple grabbed me by the shoulders and dragged me backstage. He then launched into a spiel about my morals, my reputation; stuff about no woman being safe when I was around.' Piercey's face flushed with revived anger. ‘There was a lot more. He didn't mince words.'

He let out his breath slowly before adding, ‘When I could get a word in I saw the chorus was assembling ready for curtain up, and I had to join them. But I couldn't walk away like a dog with his tail between his legs, so I told him I was free to pursue any woman I fancied. “OK, I might love 'em and leave 'em” I added, “but I'm not married and I've never fathered any bastards like some I've come across.”'

There was a significant silence from the whole team after that statement.

Eventually, Max said, ‘So all we have is the identification of that hatchback by an unreliable witness, and a conversation between a suspect and the man who's presently standing accused of the crime; a conversation nobody else heard. As Olly pointed out, Maple's DNA will be on Norton's Spanish costume anyway. Nothing to incriminate him there. We could possibly lift his prints off Phil's Audi, but it's doubtful if a complete one would be conveniently clear enough for our purposes. Even then it would only prove Maple had been in that vehicle
at some time
, not that he had assaulted a woman in it.'

Piercey fired up swiftly. ‘We have Staff Andrews' witness statement in which he says he saw Maria jump in my car, then he watched some kind of violent behaviour taking place in it up by the copse.'

‘You should be aware of the problems with that,' Tom put in heavily. ‘Staff Andrews didn't see who was at the wheel. Neither did Private James who witnessed your arrival at the Mess, but only saw the vehicle being backed out and driven off ten minutes later. In his statement he says he assumed you had gone to your room to change from the “fancy dress outfit” then went out again. No help there.'

‘We can't ignore this,' Connie protested. ‘It makes such sense of what we know. Yes, it's circumstantial but I believe Jimmy James
would
recognize that hatchback, because of the sticker. Phil's right. That man's brain lights up like a beacon over anything connected to his main focus in life.

‘Our initial round of interviews centred on everyone involved with the opera. We naturally concentrated on single males who had stayed late at the party and were known to have flirted with Norton throughout. As I said just now, I conducted an interview with Dennis Maple in his quarter. He and his family were packing for a trip to Holland starting early the next morning. His wife was present when he told me they had left the party before midnight because the children were tired. His wife agreed, and the rest of the interview revolved around their observations on Norton's relations with the rest of the cast. There was nothing to suggest he could be implicated. However, I now recall that Christine Maple agreed to his account of what they had done that night after he said, “Isn't that right, darling?”.'

‘You think he challenged her to lie for him?' asked Max.

‘No, not that, but he could have been consolidating his alibi.'

‘Which he did,' snapped Piercey.

Connie ignored that. ‘It would be interesting to know whether they still share a bedroom. If he's been having an affair with Norton, separate rooms would make it easy for him.'

‘Hence how he managed to leave his house again in the early hours to meet his lover.' Tom glanced at Max. ‘I think we'd be justified in bringing him in for an explanation of why his vehicle was seen near the Sergeants' Mess ninety minutes after he claimed to have returned home from the theatre.'

Max nodded. ‘And Connie should follow up on her earlier interview by visiting Christine Maple when she's at home alone.'

As Tom made to agree his mobile rang and he saw the caller was Heather. News from the hospital!

‘Has Norton agreed to talk?' he asked briskly.

‘No, sir, I'm afraid she's done another runner.'

‘
What?
'

They gave her breakfast, but when they went to collect the tray the bed was empty and some clothes are missing. The rest of her stuff is still in the locker. They made a token search, then the flower seller by the main entrance said she saw a taxi collect a young woman who looked ill and distressed.'

‘How long ago?'

‘She couldn't be sure, but I'd say it must have been Norton.'

‘OK, report back here as soon as.'

Disconnecting, Tom broke the news, adding in his personal frustration, ‘She's set on killing herself one way or another, silly bitch!'

‘Do we put her details back on the system?' asked Beeny.

‘I don't think that's necessary,' Max replied thoughtfully. ‘She's left the bulk of her things at the hospital where she knows they'll be safely stored until she needs them. When Connie and I visited her the only words she uttered were
I want to come back
. I promised to arrange her transfer but I was thwarted in that by her doctors. I reckon she's taken the plunge and is on her way to the base.'

Almost as he finished speaking his own mobile rang. He listened for several moments, then looked at Tom and repeated what he had been told.

‘The guard at the main gate has just called the Medical Centre to say Corporal Maria Norton has arrived by taxi in a state of near collapse, and an ambulance is needed.'

Beeny had been sent to bring Dennis Maple in for questioning, and Tom told Piercey to go to the Mess and stay there until contacted. There was unspoken acceptance that Max should go to the Medical Centre where Maria Norton would again be a patient of his future wife. He took Connie with him, so Olly Simpson was delegated to track down Christine Maple for some delicate questioning.

Max was glad to learn that Duncan MacPherson was at a regional meeting, which meant Clare was in sole charge until her partner returned in the afternoon. She was completely professional, as was Max, as they discussed the young corporal's return.

‘I've informed the doctor who was handling her case that she's here under medical supervision, and asked for her details to be sent over,' Clare said after greeting them. Then to Max, ‘I want to make it clear that there's no question of a Redcap sitting outside the ward. My patient is in a delicate physical state and mentally distressed. She has just terminated a pregnancy. Whatever the circumstances surrounding that, it's a traumatic event in a woman's life and I won't have her treated as a criminal.'

Max smiled. ‘We're SIB not the KGB. She's returned of her own free will, so there's no likelihood of her going AWOL, and I believe there's no possibility of another assault on her, as we previously feared. Has she given you a reason for her actions?'

Clare shook her head. ‘I doubt you'll get much from her. She asked to make a phone call, but I told her she must wait until you've had a chance to talk to her. She clammed up then.'

‘How long can we stay?' asked Connie.

‘For as long as you can stand her silence. I'm sure I don't need to tell you you mustn't threaten her in any way.'

Connie took that badly. ‘Ma'am, I'm a woman, not a bully. I have some notion of what she's been through over the past two weeks.'

‘Of course,' agreed Clare in softer tones. ‘It's just that she seems to me to be a victim several times over. In my profession I view things differently.'

She walked from her consulting room along the corridor to the ward at the end of it, opened the door, and led them to where the patient lay. Max thought she looked worse than ever, with red-rimmed eyes and chalk white skin between the lingering bruises.

‘Go away!' she said in a voice husky from weeping. ‘You said you'd get me back here, and you lied.'

Clare answered that. ‘I explained to you that Doctor Breck refused to allow you to leave. Captain Rydal tried his best to have you transferred. I suggest you now cooperate with him so that everything can be straightened out and you can begin to recover. It's time you did.'