Cambridge Blue - Alison Bruce [114]
‘You watch too many old movies. What’s it going to take to tuck you safely back under Marks’ wing?’
If she’d seen the finality in Marks’ dismissal of him, she wouldn’t have even bothered asking that question. In truth, he knew how bad he’d feel if he was left to follow the rest of this case via press reports and snippets of canteen chat.
For the last couple of hours he’d been bloody-minded and unrealistically upbeat about it all, and that had suited him fine, but now, as he stared across towards the Excelsior Clinic, he knew he had to face the reality of his situation. It would take much more than his grandmother’s sympathetic ear or the agreeable diversion of their surroundings to buffer him from the sick and empty feeling currently hollowing out the pit of his stomach.
Once they had finished eating, he excused himself and left. He needed to be alone now, just like he was alone with the mess he’d created for himself. He walked towards the centre of the city, knowing that the hollow feeling wasn’t going to disappear, but somehow hoping that walking past the places where Victoria Nugent and Lorna Spence had died would numb it.
In the end, when he was no closer to achieving any peace with himself, he gave in to the illogical compulsion to hail a cab and drive past every other address connected with the case he was now excluded from.
He sat directly behind the driver, and firmly chose not to engage in any conversation. The roads were almost empty, and the car made unhampered progress back and forth across town, slowing past one destination before transporting him towards the next.
If the driver thought this job was a strange one, he didn’t comment.
Both of the dead women’s flats were pitch black, but numerous lights were on in Richard and Alice Moran’s large house. A security light illuminated the hard standing outside Bryn O’Brien’s workshop, and a single light shone from Jackie Moran’s hallway.
This time the ‘where next?’ question was the easiest to answer. Jackie’s RAV4 hadn’t been parked anywhere near her house, and unless there had been a major new development, Goodhew doubted she was still making her statement. They drove by Parkside station on the off-chance and, once he was certain that her car was nowhere on site, he instructed the driver to head for Old Mile Farm.
FORTY-SIX
Goodhew paid the driver and asked to be dropped at the roadside by the gateway to the farm. The track down to the stables was unlit, but he wanted to walk into the yard unannounced. The moonlight was just sufficient for him to be able to pick out the shape of the post and rails fencing running alongside him, but it still took him several minutes before he came within sight of the parking area.
A tree marked the end of the track and he stopped there while he was still under its shadow. Jackie Moran’s car was parked in the same spot as the last time he’d visited. From where he stood, it looked empty. There was no sign of life from the stables either; not even the sound of horses shuffling their feet.
As he crept across the yard, he paused long enough at her vehicle to confirm that it really was empty, then quietly made for the stable where they’d sat before. Both halves of the door were closed. He felt his way over the bolts, checking that both were locked from the outside. They were, and he was about to check the other loose boxes when he heard her voice behind him. ‘I’m here.’
He spun around but couldn’t see her. She sounded about fifty feet away from him.
‘Put on the floodlights,’ she called.
‘Where?’
‘In the corner, to your right.’
He felt his way to where the shorter side of the L-shaped stable block met the long side and found three switches.
‘It’s the middle one,’ she added, as if she had seen him hesitate.
He turned towards her voice as he flicked it on. Four halogen lamps burst into life, drenching the menage in cold white light.
Jackie lay on a travelling rug spread out in the middle of the arena, supported on her left hand, holding a mug in the other. Gone was her usual stable girl look; instead