‘You’re probably right, Mr West,’ Tom countered. ‘Unfortunately at least half the people I’ve had to arrest for murder have said the same thing. It is a well-known fact that when we have a murder, in sixty-three per cent of the cases it is the partner who did it.’
Tom turned and walked away, got in the car and heaved a sigh of relief that it was over. They had brought in the book with the hope that they could get fingerprints from it that would be Isaac’s, in case a body appeared on the scene.
The briefing was good, most of the officers present contributed in some way to the reports, and Tom felt pleased. The next step was to go through the journal once it had been processed for fingerprints, and to see what Carla could tell them from the grave.
Tom and Holly headed for the canteen for lunch, neither of them wanting to go out. They needed to know if the knife was connected to the Tina Jackson murder, and results were expected any time.
They finished the crossword together, then Tom said they should go back to his office. ‘I’ve asked for a rush job on the journal, we need to know that Graham Andrews’ fingerprints aren’t on it, that he’s seen nothing of what his wife wrote about. Then I want you to dedicate as long as it takes to going through it. Forget everything else for the moment, find me some secrets. That little book wouldn’t have been hidden in a rabbit if it didn’t contain stuff she didn’t want hubby to know.’
‘No problem. I’m looking forward to that, to getting to know her a bit better. It seems to me we know a lot about Lorraine but precious little about Carla. Maybe this is going to tell us why they were shot, even if it doesn’t tell us who the shooter was.’
‘Let’s hope so. Pass me your tray and we’ll go. It might stop this lot talking about us.’
The knife results came in first. There was dog saliva. Mabel wasn’t thought to be a suspect. The blood belonged to Tina Jackson, the knife matched the wounds beyond any shadow of a doubt and there were fingerprints, most slightly smudged by the actions of the dog and his mistress, but there was a clear palm print and a clear middle fingerprint, presumed to be from holding the knife in a downward swing. The prints were being rushed through the system, but as yet they couldn’t put a name to them.
‘Shit, shit, shit,’ were Tom’s first words after reading the report. He read it through again, not wanting to have missed any part of it. The knife was a kitchen knife, sold in any supermarket, common, could have been bought any time in the last ten years. Impossible to trace.
He sat back in his chair, and allowed his thoughts to drift. If Lorraine’s affair with Beth was somehow the reason behind the two women being shot, that couldn’t be linked in any way to the Tina Jackson murder. They knew each other, but not as friends, only acquaintances. Lorraine, Carla and Janice were the trio of friends, and Tom couldn’t for the life of him see any link to Tina.
Lorraine’s affair with Beth was known only to Lorraine and Janice – and Beth. He sat upright at that thought. ‘You’re being stupid,’ he growled, hoping nobody out in the main office could hear him. ‘It wouldn’t make any sense for Beth to spill the beans. She was getting what she wanted without ruffling any feathers.’
Janice. What if she had told someone else, but thought it best to keep quiet about it. Chinese whispers could be killers; maybe they had been in this case.
Tom pulled a piece of paper from his printer, and wrote down the random thoughts careering through his mind. His circles and lines kept going back to Janice. She was the one with the knowledge. If that knowledge had been passed on, however innocently…
His door opened and Holly walked in. ‘Report’s back on the journal. Only Carla’s prints, so Graham knew nothing about it, and she obviously didn’t want him to see it. Fingers crossed, Tom. This could be the break we’ve been looking for. They’re sending it to us in five minutes, so I’ve taken time out from everything else. Let’s hope there’s a reason she hid this book from him.’ Holly peered at the paper on Tom’s desk. ‘What’s that? Resembles a Picasso.’
‘It’s my thoughts. Whichever way I look at this, I head back to Janice Marshall. She’s there the morning of the murders, she’s with Lorraine the night before the murders, she’s on holiday with Lorraine when she meets Beth, she’s the one who gave us the information about the affair, she’s always bloody there!’
They both turned as the door opened once again, and a young man holding tightly to the journal handed it over.
Holly thanked him, and he disappeared as fast as he could, as if overawed by the job entrusted to him. She turned back to Tom. ‘I’ll leave you to Janice, and crack on with this. See you later.’
Always bloody there, he thought, Janice Marshall, always bloody there.
23
Only a fellow stationery addict would understand how she felt about finally getting the journal into her hands without having to wear gloves, Holly reflected. She hoped nobody was looking as she stroked the front cover, ran her fingers over the indentation of the word ‘Believe’, then ran a fingertip along the gold on the edge of every page.
Finally she opened it. On the creamy-yellow first page was the one word ‘Carla’, nothing else. Before starting to read anything, Holly flicked through to see how Carla had laid it out, and she had simply worked through using dates as headings, no pausing other than one blank line between each entry; she had simply written her life down one day at a time. And she had coloured that life by changing pens for the entries: blue, red, green, purple, brown, lime green. So many colours, a pretty journal.
Today I kissed another man, the first time since I met Graham.
This was Carla’s first entry in the journal, written in red ink and followed by little hearts and stars. And then followed by the name Ben Craig.
Seeing the name convinced Holly more than any forensic tests that Graham Andrews hadn’t known of the existence of this journal. If he had, Ben Craig’s life would be over.
I can’t allow it to happen again, Ben is twelve years younger than me, but it was so nice. He is a gentle man, and I really like him, but I can never see him outside of work.
Carla had then drawn a little face with tears running down the cheeks, followed by more hearts. Holly had a sense that although this seemed to be the start of something between Carla and Ben, they had already set up a relationship of sorts. That momentous kiss had sealed something.
They had learned about each other over that counter… Holly’s mind flipped to the scene of Carla and Lorraine against that same counter, holding hands and dead. No wonder Ben had panicked when he couldn’t get into the bookies. Holly suspected that any other punter would have assumed the shop wasn’t ready to open, and simply gone home to wait until later, but Ben had been the one wanting to get in to see Carla. He knew something was wrong because he knew Carla.
There were several more entries where Ben was mentioned, and Holly got an impression of happiness that she had seen him, and sorrow that other than sitting on the wall outside the shop sharing a coffee, there was no forward movement in the relationship. Carla mentioned taking a phone call from Graham – she called it a Graham stalker call – while enjoying a five-minute break with Ben, and she talked of how angry she had been that he had interrupted her time with the man she was growing increasingly fond of. The entry was in green ink where she had written