Pulse(66)

Why was I the only person who believed that it was murder?





24


‘Anyone fancy a coffee?’ I asked as we exited the courtroom. ‘I’m buying.’

I saw DC Filippos hesitate and look at his boss.

‘We just about have time,’ said the sergeant.

The two of them sat at a table at one end of the vestibule while I collected three cups of coffee from the vending machine in the corner.

‘So you were happy with that verdict,’ I said, sitting down to join them.

It was not a question but a statement.

‘It seemed reasonable in the circumstances,’ said DS Merryweather. ‘There are too many holes in our knowledge to be sure it was suicide.’

I shook my head. ‘It was surely not suicide. I think he was murdered.’

‘He was found in a locked cubicle,’ the detective said with more than a trace of frustration.

‘We heard how the lock was slid open using a cleaner’s mop. Why couldn’t it have been closed in the same way?’ Now that had been a question. No doubt about it. ‘And why would anyone fly all the way from India just to kill himself?’

Another question.

My promise to Grant had clearly been thrown to the wind.

‘People do funny things,’ replied the detective. ‘I knew someone who bought a new house when he had terminal cancer. Cost him a small fortune and then he died just two days after moving in.’

That I could understand. It was called denial.

‘And we don’t know what he’d been doing in the seven days after he got here,’ said DC Filippos. ‘Maybe something happened during that week that made him do it.’

‘Perhaps it was a girl,’ said his boss. ‘Maybe he flew all this way and then was rejected. Enough to drive anyone to suicide.’

‘That’s just wild speculation,’ I said.

‘So is your notion that he was murdered.’

‘But, if you’re right, where’s the girl now? There was enough press coverage. She would have surely come forward.’

‘Not necessarily. The Indian community in this country can be very secretive, especially if he was coming here expecting an arranged marriage and was rejected. The family honour would mean they would all close ranks and say nothing.’

It all sounded very improbable to me, but so did my theory that he’d been murdered.

‘But where did he get the cocaine from?’ I said, all pretence at not asking questions now completely gone.

‘Maybe he brought it with him from India,’ DC Filippos said. ‘After all, it was you that told me about smuggling cocaine through customs by dissolving it in alcohol.’

‘So what happened to the rest of it?’ I asked.

‘Perhaps he’d already taken that beforehand,’ DS Merryweather said, ‘during the week he was here. Maybe this last time he just took too much.’

I wondered if a test on the man’s hair had revealed whether or not he’d had a long-term cocaine habit. It hadn’t been mentioned in court. I looked to see if the pathologist was one of the people still milling around outside the courtroom to ask him, but there was no sign. However, I did spot Rupert Forrester, the racecourse managing director. He was talking with the usher. Probably checking that Cheltenham Racecourse wasn’t to blame for anything.

‘And why aren’t any of the jockeys here as witnesses?’ I asked. ‘They saw Rahul Kumar at Cheltenham races on the day he died. They admit that they were arguing with him in the car park, even if they lied about why.’

‘We have no evidence that they were lying,’ said DS Merryweather.

‘Trust me,’ I said. ‘They were lying. All that nonsense about parking his car in their spaces. If it was true, where’s the car now?’

But, if not his parking, what had the man and the jockeys really been arguing about?

Was it to do with the spot-fixing?

Had Rahul Kumar been an illegal Indian bookmaker who had been trying to set up the ‘fix’?

But, if that was true, why was it still going on after his death?

Maybe he’d been trying to stop it.

‘What sort of private security organisation did Kumar work for?’ I asked.

‘According to his sister, it was a firm in New Delhi,’ said DC Filippos.

‘Didn’t you find out its name?’ I asked.

‘We sent a request to the Indian Police Service but heard nothing.’

‘Shouldn’t the inquest have been adjourned until you found out? Don’t you think it might have been relevant?’

‘No,’ said the detective sergeant decisively, standing up. ‘All these questions are not relevant. The coroner has given his verdict. Rahul Kumar died from misadventure. End of.’

‘Inquests can always be reopened,’ I said.

‘Not after a misadventure verdict, not unless there’s a judicial review by the High Court, and only then if significant new evidence comes to light. It has taken us five long months even to find out who he was, so that’s unlikely.’

Especially if they weren’t going to be looking, I thought.

Dead end. But I wasn’t giving up that easily.

Giving up!

What was I thinking of?

We walked out to the car park.