Daisy in Chains(66)
‘Still feels like quite a task for one person,’ says Latimer. ‘Are we looking for someone with considerable physical strength?’
‘That would certainly be an advantage, but what strikes me is the slick nature of it. Think about it.’
She mimes the hammer blow again, bringing her imaginary weapon down hard on Broon’s head. Hardly has it made contact before she moves on, arm swinging back again, smiting down on Odi.
Pete can’t help flinching.
‘And now I step back, I put my hammer down and pick up my knife. I take hold of his hair in my left hand, I’m right-handed, by the way, and with my right, I slash deep into his throat. My first slash is pretty deep, would almost certainly have killed him, but even so I slash again, and again, making sure. When I’m confident I can leave him, I move on to my next victim.’
She sidesteps left, taking up position at Odi’s head.
‘Is it just me?’ Latimer mumbles.
Pete steps back, away from the intercom microphone. ‘No, she always does this. Totally freaked us out at first. Apparently she directs the pantomime every year at her children’s primary school.’
‘Fuck me, bet that’s something to see.’
‘The female victim was almost certainly conscious at this stage.’ Mukerji hasn’t finished. ‘Dizzy, in pain, weak, but knowing she’s under threat. She wasn’t found where she was sleeping, was she?’
Pete thinks back to the scene that met him just before dawn. Broon hadn’t moved, was still tucked up in his sleeping bag. Odi, on the other hand, wasn’t by his side.
‘We think she managed to crawl away a couple of feet before she had the same treatment as Broon,’ Pete says.
‘This victim is active.’ Mukerji takes two slow deliberate steps away from the gurney, her eyes fixed on something only she can see. ‘While her partner is being killed, she is dragging herself away, but I go after her.’
‘Should have brought popcorn,’ Latimer mutters.
‘I catch her, take her hair in one hand and bring down the knife.’ Mukerji mimes as she talks. ‘Two slashes and it’s over. I can steal away.’
She backs up, leaving imaginary Odi on the ground, sidestepping around real Odi on the gurney. ‘No defence wounds. No sign of a struggle, other than her failed attempt to escape. Nothing under the fingernails. My job is done. It could hardly have gone more smoothly. I slip away, into the night.’
Latimer clears his throat. ‘Thank you, Dr Mukerji, that was very—’
‘Helpful,’ interrupts Pete.
Chapter 58
PROPERTY OF AVON AND SOMERSET POLICE. Ref: 544/45.2 Hamish Wolfe.
Chapter 59
THE ARTIFICIAL CHRISTMAS tree in the interview room is looking the worse for wear. Someone has been pulling the nylon threads so that now, with two more days to go, it has the look of a tree blighted by serious disease or nuclear winter.
Pete sits, as he’s been told to do, as he’s been doing for nearly fifteen minutes, and tells himself that he will wait two minutes longer and that is it. He has things to be getting on with. He reaches out for the Christmas tree and starts plucking it of nylon needles.
The door opens and Latimer, back from showing Maggie to her car, comes in. ‘Wouldn’t tell me where she’s going. Don’t suppose she mentioned it to you?’
Pete shakes his head. He has no idea what Maggie is up to. When she’d finished giving her statement – as one of the last people to see Broon and Odi alive, she’d naturally been one of the first they had to speak to – he’d offered to put a car outside her house for the day. She’d told him it would be a waste of time. She wasn’t going to be there.
‘Pete, I need to ask you this.’ Latimer leans back against the door. ‘Did you speak to those two characters, Odi and Broon, about the Wolfe investigation? In the last couple of days?’
Pete looks down at the carpet tiles. ‘Who says I did?’
‘Maggie Rose does. She’s been talking to people in the square, market traders, street cleaners. You were seen talking to the two of them last Thursday.’
Pete sighs. ‘Maggie herself told me about a possible sighting of someone going into Rill Cavern not long after the last victim disappeared. Odi and Broon were the witnesses in question. I had no choice but to follow it up.’
‘And?’
He looks up. ‘Waste of time. Broon was inebriated, Odi was denying she knew anything. I gave up after five minutes and, to answer your next question, I didn’t tell Maggie about it at the time. In spite of what she likes to pretend, she and I are not working together and I don’t owe her any information.’
Latimer gives an understanding nod. Then, ‘Pete, I’m going to ask you to give her a wide berth for a week or two, maybe longer.’
‘Come again?’ Pete gets to his feet, still holding on to the tree.
‘I know you’ve been getting a bit chummy with her, and I wasn’t happy in the first place, not since there’s been a chance of her taking on Wolfe’s case, but after what happened last night, it really can’t be a good idea for one of the lead detectives on a murder case to be cosying up to—’
‘To what, exactly?’