‘No,’ Bonnington protested. ‘I thought they were nice photos.’
‘Nice enough to print them off?’
‘No.’
‘How do you explain this then?’ Mariner put down the doctored photograph. We can prove that it was printed on your printer at ten twenty-five pm on March the twentieth. Remember what you were doing then?’
‘No, but I was probably at home.’ An edge had crept into his voice. Mariner was beginning to needle him.
‘Alone?’
‘Yes. All right, all right!’
‘All right what?’ Mariner asked, with a surge of relief.
‘I printed it off. I don’t remember when, but I printed off a picture.’
At last! Mariner wanted to crow; instead, he asked, ‘What for?’
‘Nothing, I just did!’
Finally, they were getting to him.
‘But what did you do with it, Martin, when you’d printed it off?’
‘Nothing! I - It -’
‘What?’
‘It turned me on.’ Bonnington had blushed crimson. ‘It reminded me of that evening and it was a turn-on. I printed it off and I masturbated.’
‘That’s it?’ said Mariner.
‘That’s it,’ said Bonnington.
‘Jesus,’ Mariner sighed with disappointment. ‘Did you talk about anything else when Lucy came to thank you?’
‘I can’t remember. I probably asked her something banal, like whether she was enjoying married life, and she probably said yes. I think I must have asked her when we could expect the patter of tiny feet.’
‘And what did she say?’
‘I can’t really remember. That she and Will weren’t planning a family.’
‘When was this?’
‘How the hell would I know? A few months ago. It was just a neighbourly conversation, that’s all. I wasn’t threatening in any way.’
‘But you knew that they weren’t having children.’
‘Yes, but -’
‘So is that why you started sending Lucy items through the post?’
‘What kind of things?’
Mariner threw a selection down on the table.
‘I didn’t send those. I don’t even know what that is.’ Bonnington picked up the Clear Blue test and examined it closely.
‘I think you know exactly what that is, and, having found out that Will Jarrett doesn’t want children, you arranged for these things to be sent so that he and Lucy would fall out about it.’
‘I really don’t know what you’re talking about.’
Bonnington fixed Mariner with a steady gaze. ‘I didn’t know that Will didn’t want children; only that they weren’t planning to have any.’
‘We have more than enough here to charge you with harassing Lucy Jarrett, you know. It really would help your case if you started to come clean about it.’
‘I haven’t been harassing her.’ By now, Bonnington was looking increasingly desperate, flicking his gaze between Mariner and Millie.
‘What’s the anniversary?’ Mariner asked.
‘What?’
‘Fifth of April. Does it relate to when you first met Lucy, when you first started going out, or first saw her and lusted after her?’
‘That date means absolutely nothing to me.’
Mariner picked up the box of dead flowers in its new polythene wrapper, and threw it on to the table. ‘So I suppose you’re going to say that you don’t know anything about these either.’
‘Yes, because it’s the truth!’
‘And this?’ Mariner put down the fake florist’s label.
Bonnington peered at the message. ‘That’s not very nice,’ he said.
‘So why was it on your computer?’ Mariner asked.
‘I have no idea.’
‘Your mysterious hacker again?’
But Bonnington only shrugged. They were hitting a brick wall again.
Feeling drained, Mariner suspended the interview and he and Millie got up and walked out. They needed to regroup. Up in CID Tony Knox and Charlie Glover waited expectantly.
‘He’s good,’ Millie told them. ‘He’s just playing the wronged innocent and denying everything.’
‘Though he can’t offer much in the way of explanation either,’ said Mariner. ‘Are we any further forward with Nina Silvero?’
‘Nothing so far,’ Knox said. ‘We’ve checked with all the family and friends, but no one in the Silvero camp knows Lucy Jarrett, and no one in her camp knows Nina Silvero, except for what they’ve heard or read in the news. And none of them except Lucy, and Will to a lesser degree, knows Martin Bonnington. It just doesn’t make sense.’
‘We still haven’t identified the mystery visitor to Nina Silvero’s house that night,’ said Mariner. ‘We need to find something that places Bonnington at Nina Silvero’s house. Get forensics to go over the kitchen again for prints or fibres that we might be able to tie to Bonnington.’
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
There was another possible association that hadn’t yet been explored. With reluctance, Mariner picked up the phone and called Jack Coleman.
‘How’s it going?’
‘We’ve picked up a Martin Bonnington. There’s some overlap with another case we’re working on and Bonnington has come up for both. But all we’ve got on him for Nina Silvero is a single fingerprint, and that’s not watertight. I just wondered if it was a name you recognised, especially from the Hughes time? Bonnington would have been in his late teens when it happened. A friend of the family perhaps, a mate of George’s?’
‘It doesn’t ring any bells,’ Coleman mused. ‘What’s he like?’
Mariner described Bonnington as best he could, but it still didn’t mean much to Coleman. ‘He doesn’t much sound like one of Georgie’s friends,’ he remarked.
‘You didn’t mention that you were there the night Billy Hughes died,’ Mariner said.
‘It’s not something I’m proud of,’ Coleman admitted.
‘That was why you felt you had to support Nina.’
‘I felt guilty.’
‘Why?’ Mariner said. ‘You didn’t do anything wrong. You were following instructions from a senior officer.’
‘I felt guilty because I thanked God when Ronnie Silvero died. I was relieved that an impossible decision had been taken out of my hands. You don’t have to disclose at an inquest, but if it had gone to trial I would have been called as a witness for the prosecution. I would have had to stand up in court in front of Ronnie and Nina and tell the truth; that mistakes were made that night and it was Ronnie Silvero who made them.’
‘I’ve read your report,’ Mariner said.
‘We never should have left that boy in the cell hand-cuffed, and he didn’t deserve the level of restraint that was imposed. Sure, he was a live wire, but he wasn’t violent, not in the way that officers tried to say, and not in the way that some of them are.’
‘So the Hughes family were justified in their complaints.’
‘If I’d been in their position, I’d have felt exactly the same way.’
Mariner ended the call with a vague promise that he would get out to see Coleman soon, but he wasn’t sure how soon he’d be keeping it.
Mariner was anxious to get down to the interview suite to have another go at Bonnington soon, before he got too comfortable, but when he looked up Millie was standing in the doorway, Tony Knox at her shoulder. ‘Something you need to hear, boss,’ she said. ‘Line two.’ Stepping forward, she pressed a couple of buttons on Mariner’s phone. ‘Dr Chohan?’ she said. ‘Please could you tell Inspector Mariner what you’ve told me?’
A woman’s voice, precise but heavily accented, came over the speaker phone, introducing its owner as Lucy Jarrett’s GP.
‘Lucy came in to see me earlier in the week,’ she said. ‘She’s been feeling ill for some time and described a range of symptoms including nausea, occasional vomiting, headaches and tiredness. She told me she had been under some stress and that she’d been getting some nuisance phone calls and that you were involved. She gave me your constable’s name. From her symptoms I thought we could be looking at anything from stress-related illness to glandular fever so I sent off some blood samples as a precaution. The results have come back and I thought I should get in touch with you. This is going to sound a little far-fetched, but it looks as if she’s being poisoned.’
Glancing up, Mariner saw the fear in Millie’s eyes. ‘Do you have any idea what with?’ he asked.
‘The samples are being further analysed,’ said Dr Chohan. ‘And I’ve flagged them up as top priority, so we should know quite soon, but meanwhile I would like to get Lucy into hospital so that we can monitor her food intake and her condition and run some more tests. I’m making an emergency referral to the Queen Elizabeth.’
‘Would you like one of my officers to escort her there?’ Mariner offered, holding Millie’s gaze.
‘Until we find out what’s going on, I think that would be most helpful.’
‘Thank you, Dr Chohan. We’ll keep in touch.’ Mariner ended the call.
‘I can’t believe I didn’t see it!’ Millie shook her head in disbelief. ‘She was obviously ill, she looks terrible.’
‘This isn’t your fault.’ Mariner was firm. ‘None of us had any way of knowing about this.’
‘Will she be all right?’ Millie asked.
‘Well, until we know what we’re dealing with it’s hard to say, but the important thing is that now we know. I want you to pick up Lucy, take her to the QE and stay with her. Until we’ve identified what is poisoning her, she needs to be kept isolated. I’ll speak to the DCI and get the toxicology specialists into Hill Crest and the health centre. Both locations will have to be sealed off, again until we can identify the source. Rachel Hordern told us that over the last year her mother had been suffering ill health and exactly the same symptoms: nausea, vomiting and tiredness.’
‘So, if this is Nina’s killer, is he likely to try to finish the job?’ Millie asked, wide eyed. ‘Is Lucy in any immediate danger?’
‘Obviously we can’t take any chances,’ Mariner said. ‘But the whole thing about this is that it’s slow and drawn out. Nina Silvero received her flowers a whole year before she was eventually murdered. This is not just about killing, it’s about suffering.’
‘But if they know we’re on to them the killer might feel under pressure to finish this one off sooner,’ Knox pointed out.
‘Like I said,’ Mariner repeated, ‘we’re not taking any chances. We’ll post an officer on Lucy’s door.’
‘Where does this leave us with Bonnington?’ said Knox.
‘He’s not off the hook yet. Until we know what we’re dealing with we don’t know how the poison has been administered, or who would have the opportunity to do it.’
‘It must bring Will back into the picture though,’ Millie said.
‘Do we know where he is?’
‘He’s away, but - No, wait, Lucy said he was coming back yesterday. He must be home by now.’
Lifting his jacket from the hook, Mariner spoke to Knox. ‘Time we had a chat with him.’
Lucy looked dazed and ill when Millie picked her up from the health centre late on Thursday morning. The place was in uproar as the toxicology team had arrived and was in the process of sealing off the building. Millie caught a glimpse of Paula Kirkwood looking anxious and harassed, carrying boxloads of files to where they were to be shipped to temporary accommodation, in a different part of the building. But she broke off for long enough to come over to Lucy. ‘You take care of yourself and get well,’ she said, giving her a hug.
‘There’s an irony for you,’ Lucy joked weakly, as she and Millie walked out past the health centre sign.
‘At least now we know why you’ve been feeling so lousy,’ Millie said. ‘And the doctors can work on making you better.’
The staff having been forewarned by Dr Chohan, the check-in at the hospital was quick and efficient and saw Lucy settled in isolation on a side ward adjacent to the infectious diseases department.
‘What about Will?’ she said, arranging her belongings in the bedside cupboard. ‘I need to call him, let him know.’
‘It’s all right,’ Millie reassured her. ‘Someone’s going round to see him.’ Millie saw the look on her face. ‘We have to, Lucy, this has become too serious.’
‘But he wouldn’t do this to me.’
Millie came to sit beside her. ‘Lucy, think about it. Isn’t it strange that you’ve been feeling ill and Will hasn’t?’
‘But that could be because he’s barely home,’ Lucy pointed out.
She had a point and Millie didn’t want to distress her further, so she simply nodded affirmation. ‘Where do you do your shopping, Lucy?’
‘Sainsbury’s Selly Oak usually.’
‘Do you ever bump into Martin Bonnington there?’
‘Yes, I have done from time to time.’ Lucy looked up, her attention caught by the woman in uniform who had just taken up a position outside the door.
‘There’s going to be a police officer keeping an eye on you,’ Millie told her.
Lucy scraped her fingers through her hair. ‘Oh, God, this is unreal. Why would anyone do this? I haven’t hurt anyone.’
Millie put an arm around her shoulders. ‘I know.’
Before going out to pick up Will Jarrett, Mariner updated DCI Sharp on this latest development.
‘Is there any chance that this is more than just Lucy Jarrett?’ she was asking.
‘We’ve no reason to think so at this stage,’ said Mariner. ‘The men in white suits are going to her home and workplace to gather evidence. We should know more in a few hours.’
The forensic team had waited on Hill Crest until Mariner and Knox arrived.
Banging on the door, even though it was midday, they apparently roused Will Jarrett from his bed. Dazed, scruffy and unshaven, he was, though, still undeniably handsome.
‘Jesus, what’s going on?’ He blinked towards the motley collection of people on his drive. He squinted at Mariner. ‘Do I know you?’
‘We’d like you to come with us to answer a few questions, Mr Jarrett,’ Mariner said, brandishing his warrant card. ‘And, while we do, the forensic team is going to need to search your house and take away some samples.’
‘What?’
‘We’ll need the keys to your van, and you need to come with us to the station. Your wife is being poisoned, Mr Jarrett. But perhaps you already knew that.’
Twenty minutes later, Jarrett was dressed and in the back of a car being driven by Tony Knox, while Mariner occupied the front passenger seat.