A Narrow Margin of Error (10 page)

He made his way to one side of the bank, where a single silver birch tree grew. It was still barely twenty feet tall, and looked
delicate
and lace-like against the more prosaic native species. But then, he’d only planted it here, what, six years ago?

He’d needed something beautiful to honour his ladies, and the tree he’d spotted at Yarnton Nurseries had looked just the thing. The metallic sheen of its trunk and branches seemed to echo the theme of the silver rill. Its romantic, slightly ethereal appearance would, he knew, have pleased all of the ladies here – especially, perhaps, Gillian, who had liked to think of herself as a bit of a gypsy.

‘Hello, ladies,’ he said softly, as he made his way to the grassy bank, and sat down, a few yards from the tree. ‘I know it’s been a long time since I visited, but I haven’t forgotten you. I’ll never do that, you know that.’

Overhead, a pair of nesting robins flittered about in agitation, but Tom barely noticed them.

‘I hope you haven’t been arguing amongst yourselves,’ he admonished, patting the grassy earth beneath him. ‘You ladies need to play nice.’ He sighed heavily. ‘Especially since you might be getting a new friend for company.’

He shivered suddenly, and hunched forward.

He shook his head.

No, that wouldn’t really have to happen, would it?

He didn’t think so, but then, he’d always thought that before. And he had sensed a new kind of intimacy between his Hillary and that bastard, Steven Crayle. Something new, something that hadn’t been there before.

‘No,’ he said out loud. She wasn’t like these others. He glanced around the copse, and then up through the lace-like leaves of the silver birch. Hillary was the one. This time, he’d got it right. He was sure he had.

It couldn’t all go wrong again. He wouldn’t let it.

But he still felt a suffocating kind of dread clawing at the back of his throat which made him feel vaguely nauseous, and his fingers clawed compulsively at the grassy turf underneath his hand, lodging soil underneath his fingernails.

When Hillary returned to her office from seeing Steven off in the car park, she caught up on her paperwork, which was never designed to put her in a good mood. Then, once that chore was over, she called her contact in Narcotics, and explained the circumstances surrounding her latest cold case. And although he didn’t give her the runaround, as his colleague had done with Vivienne, and definitely didn’t treat her to the same amount of scorn, the results were pretty much the same.

‘The trouble is, Hill,’ her old pal told her, ‘twelve years ago might have been back in the Stone Age as far as designer drugs are concerned. From what you tell me, your vic had been snorting something pretty recent for the time, probably home-made and brewed up locally. And being Oxford, do you know how many ex-biochem majors there always are just milling around and more than ready and willing to pay the old tuition fees by making up some kind of makeshift buzz?’

‘I wouldn’t like to hazard a guess,’ she said with a shudder.

‘Exactly. Whoever made the drug your vic had in his system
was probably only in operation for a couple of years at most, before earning their degree and moving on. Then you’ve got the problem that it’s almost impossible to pin down the exact
components
from a slight trace from an ME report, and without the “signature” of the drug, there’s no way we can compare it with other cases of around the same age. Even then…’

‘OK, OK, I get the picture,’ Hillary said with a sigh. ‘Any chance you can look back in your records from around that time and see if any significant arrests were made? You must have had a few more likely lads and lasses who were probably behind whatever the current craze was. If I can just track down who supplied the gear, it’ll give me a starting point at least.’

Her friend snorted derisively. ‘Do you know the facts and figures involved here?’ he asked with a weary laugh.

Hillary didn’t, but had a sinking feeling she was about to find out.

‘To begin with, the vast majority of drug designers and peddlers for a close-knit and targeted clientele are never caught in the first place. Very few know who they are, and even less are willing to grass on them if they’re caught in possession. And of those pushers we do nab, the crafty sods usually hold such a small amount of gear at any one time, the CPS are reluctant to take up court time by prosecuting them at all. When you factor in plea bargaining and what-have-you, the likelihood of the perp you want even being in the system at all is … well … think up a metaphor of your choice.’

Hillary sighed. ‘OK. Well, thanks for the time.’

‘Hey, Hill, I don’t mind, I’m just sorry I can’t toss you any crumbs. But if you do stumble across any drugs link in the case, be sure to punt it my way. I could do with a good collar or two. My guv’nor is beginning to look at me a bit sideways, know what I mean?’

Hillary laughed, acknowledged that she did, and hung up. Her boss too was beginning to look at her sideways, but almost certainly not for the same reason as her friend’s was. At least, she
hoped not. Her pal’s guv’nor was built like a brick outhouse and he had a personality to match.

She glanced at her watch, saw it was barely three, and decided it was too early to just do fill-in work until clocking-off time. She was restless to get back out and about and if it meant wandering into unpaid overtime, too bad.

She grabbed her coat and stuck her head into the small communal office just across the way. Her eyes fell on Sam Pickles, who must have finished his afternoon classes at uni early.

‘Sam. I’m just going to question one of the original flatmates in the Thompson case. Feel up for it?’

Sam grinned, his freckles standing out against the flush of pleasure that crossed his face. ‘Yes, guv.’

‘We’ll take your car,’ she said, pretending not to notice the flash of relief that crept into his expression. ‘Get Hargreaves’s
particulars
, and meet me in the car park.’

Hillary knew Swindon only in the vaguest of terms, but they had little difficulty in finding Barry Hargreaves’s home address. They were trying his place of residence first, since Vivienne’s research had shown that Hargreaves had just very recently been made redundant from his position in a large accountancy firm, and thus was more likely to be at home.

His house turned out to be a fairly new build, in the
mock-Tudor
style in a cul-de-sac of six similar builds, in a leafy and pleasant suburb of the town. It wasn’t her cup of tea, but she could well see why a construction worker of humble origins would have seen it as a definite step up from a council house on an estate.

‘Leaving building work to take an Oxford degree certainly paid off for him, didn’t it?’ Hillary mused, as Sam parked up his precious Mini outside a set of wide wooden gates. A short gravel drive, and the requisite rose garden in front of the big main windows, fronted the house.

‘Nice, guv,’ Sam agreed.

A tall, thin woman, with greying fair hair swept back in a
ponytail answered the door. She was wearing navy-blue slacks and a white-and-blue striped jumper. She had large, rather boiled-gooseberry pale-grey eyes, and was make-up free.

‘Yes?’ she asked, a shade peremptorily.

Hillary and Sam showed their IDs, which made the eyes pop just that bit more. ‘We’re hoping to have a word with Mr Barry Hargreaves. Is he in?’

‘Barry? You want to talk to my Barry? Why, what’s up? There’s nothing funny been going on at the firm, has there?’ she asked nervously.

Hillary wondered why Barry Hargreaves’s wife should instantly jump to that conclusion. Were there rumours going around about embezzlement? Had her husband left under a cloud? Hillary had assumed that Barry Hargreaves’s redundancy had been as a result of the mournful state of the economy and the seemingly never-ending recession, but perhaps there was more to it than that.

‘Nothing of that kind, Mrs Hargreaves,’ she reassured her quietly. ‘Is your husband at home?’ she pressed.

‘Oh. Oh, yes, you’d better come in, then. Through to the study – first door on the left. Barry’s working on his CV again.’

Hillary nodded and followed the woman into a hall rather similar to Darla Pitt’s, in that it seemed largely lacking in
character
and carefully colour-coordinated in neutral shades.

The older woman knocked on a door and looked in nervously. ‘Barry, there’s some police people here to see you,’ she hissed.

Hillary hid a grimace. Although she was slowly getting used to not being a DI anymore, she didn’t particularly relish being called ‘police people’.

‘What? Are you sure?’ a baritone voice rumbled back. In answer, his wife simply stepped back and looked at Hillary and Sam.

Hillary went in first.

‘Would you like some tea or coffee?’ the tall woman asked tentatively.

Hillary smiled and shook her head. ‘No, thank you, Mrs Hargreaves, we’re fine.’

From behind a small desk with a laptop lying open on top of it, a burly man got to his feet. His hair – what was left of it – was that grizzled steel-grey kind that looked a bit like a scouring pad. His face was round and red, no doubt as a result of years of outdoor work. He was barrel-chested, and had a beer belly, but his eyes were the sort that most people would describe as ‘twinkling’ and of a startling blue in colour.

‘Hello. Police?’ he asked, his voice sounding more curious than worried.

Hillary held out her ID, and explained who they were and what they did.

‘Cold cases? This’ll be about Rowan, then?’ Hargreaves said with a nod. ‘Just a minute – let me shut this down.’ He fiddled with the laptop, saying over his shoulder, ‘Please, take a seat and get comfortable. I won’t be a mo.’

The study had obviously been a second reception room, and housed two comfortable-looking armchairs, a window seat and a fireplace that had probably never been meant to work.

Hillary chose a chair, whilst Sam went to the window seat and opened his notebook.

‘OK, all done,’ Barry Hargreaves said, closing the lid of the laptop and moving to the chair opposite Hillary. He cast a quick look at Sam, noting that his words were being taken down, but again, didn’t look particularly alarmed about it.

Hillary decided to do some gentle probing first.

‘Your wife seemed to think we were here about embezzlement at your former place of work, sir,’ she said softly.

Barry looked at her, one of his caterpillar-like, bushy grey eyebrows going up, before he laughed – a deep, rumbling
belly-laugh
.

‘Oh that’s just Mary. Don’t pay no notice. If worrying or pessimism was an Olympic sport she’d have gold medals lining the walls. When I was laid off, she was convinced there was
something sinister behind it. There wasn’t, of course – just that I was last in so I was first out when the work started drying up. And, of course, now she’s convinced we’ll have to sell the house and move back to her mother’s or some such. I keep telling her, with my qualifications I’ll be employed again by the end of next month, but she won’t have it. She’s always been the same. I find it best not to argue with her and just let her get on with it. She’ll be happy enough and settle down once I’ve got another job.’

He spoke with a kind of loving exasperation that bespoke many years of patient marriage.

Hillary decided to leave it for now. But she made a mental note to herself to get Vivienne to contact Hargreaves’s employers and just make sure that everything was as he’d have them believe.

‘So Rowan, huh?’ Hargreaves said, leaning forward a little in the chair and letting his big beefy hands fall lankly between his slightly spread knees. ‘Been a while since I thought about him, to be honest.’

Hillary looked at the big man thoughtfully. With the other housemates she’d taken a more softly-softly approach. Perhaps now was the time to change tactics a bit.

‘You are aware, I’m sure, that the original investigator, Inspector Gorman, regarded you as his chief suspect, Mr Hargreaves?’ she said, careful to keep her voice flat and just a touch hard.

‘Because of that rumour about the twins, you mean?’ Hargreaves surprised her somewhat by immediately taking the bull by the horns. At least there was going to be no beating around the bush here, with coy denials and waffle.

Of all the people living in that house, only Darla – as the injured and put-upon girlfriend – and this man had anything approaching a significant motive. That had been obvious from just a casual reading of Gorman’s notes.

‘Natasha and Romola, yes,’ Hillary agreed. ‘They were both fifteen at the time of Rowan’s death, I believe?’

‘That’s right.’

‘And they used to come and see you regularly whilst you were at Oxford.’

‘Yeah. Well, it’s not as if Swindon’s at the other end of the world, is it? Not even an hour away by train, and they liked to get away from the eagle eye of their mum and whoop it up around town on their own. Like I said, Mary’s a bit of a worrier, and she tended to keep them on a short leash. Coming to see me gave them a much-needed bit of freedom, didn’t it?’ he pointed out.

Hillary shifted a little on her seat. It all sounded so very
reasonable
and laid-back. But surely it couldn’t be that simple.

‘But Inspector Gorman found out that both of the girls had been intimate with the victim,’ she pointed out. ‘That must have made you angry, Mr Hargreaves. Apart from anything else, that made it statutory rape. Why did you never press charges?’

Barry Hargreaves shook his head. ‘No, no, you don’t get it. It never happened. Rowan had this reputation, see, as a bit of a … well … what should we say to be polite, like?’

Hillary barely smiled. ‘Yes, we’ve been learning a lot about the victim’s personality, sir. I think we can take it for granted that he was something of a sexual athlete and predator.’

‘Exactly. I know for a fact he had women of all sorts going in and out of that room of his. And men too, it wouldn’t surprise me. Trannies, you name it.’

‘So the thought of a man like that taking advantage of your twin girls must have made you see red,’ she insisted.