Shadow Over Edmund Street by Suzanne Frankham (best e reader for android .txt) 📗

‘What about the time he arrived?’

‘His wife said she doesn’t wear a watch to bed. In my opinion he told her what time he arrived.’

‘It could have been later, then. Time enough to do the deed. Marion you’ve made my day. Where’s Jerry? He needs to check the route between the Auckland house and the Coromandel house. See if there’s any CCTV or anything from traffic to help us. You never know.’

* Alex called the Super at seven the next morning. Arranged an urgent meeting, laid it out in black and white, told him to expect an attack. Not a direct one. The Super collapsed in his chair.

‘Alex, Alex, give me an easy time for once. Its only seven months till I retire.’

‘Mac, I don’t often cause you trouble,’ Alex retorted.

‘No, you don’t, but when you do …’ His back slumped as his head dropped forward. ‘I have to say it’s the damnedest connection though, isn’t it? In all my time, I don’t think I’ve ever come across anything quite like this. What you’re going to do with it, I don’t know.’ He levered himself out of his chair, walked over to the window, stared at the bank of clouds threatening rain. ‘It’s meant to be sunny today. Did you hear the forecast?’

Alex joined him at the window, watched the pigeons gathered in the court below. An old man in a long black overcoat sat on a bench feeding them bread. ‘You’ll let me know if he says anything to you? Anything about the police handling of the case? Complaints? This man is clever, very clever. If we’re going to get him, we have to know how he thinks.’

‘Get him for what, Alex? Good grief. This man was a leading barrister, a brilliant QC and if I remember correctly, the youngest person ever to be appointed a judge. I shouldn’t need to tell you this, Alex, but you don’t move one inch, and I mean one inch, without a mountain of proof. You don’t go near the judge again without talking to me first.’

* Marion had taken one look at Alex’s face and decided they needed cheering up. Lunch at her favourite Japanese hole in the wall. Jerry had snorted. ‘Marion, those Japanese men are little. Do you know how much I eat?’ Marion had ignored him, and now he was polishing off a katsudon and drinking green tea like he did it every day of his life.

Marion glared at him. ‘Do you always moan about everything?’ It was unlike her to let her irritation show.

Jerry stopped for a second, his chopsticks balancing in mid-air, a clump of rice spilling over the edge, landing in his lap. The three of them watched, spellbound, as the grains fell.

‘Are you okay, Mar?’ he asked brushing the rice off his lap onto the floor.

‘It’s time you grew up, Jerry.’

Alex and Jerry exchanged a glance. ‘Whatever for, Mar? Whatever for?’

‘What we need,’ said Alex, ‘is a break in this case. Something new.’

‘New information? From where?’ asked Marion, her gloom still there. ‘We’ve talked to everyone.’

Alex turned to the waitress to ask for the bill, felt his shoulder protest, the pain shoot along his shoulder blade and up the side of his neck, a leftover from the beating he’d taken all those years ago. He realised they’d missed someone.

‘There’s one person we haven’t talked to yet.’

‘Who?’ they both asked.

‘The doctor. We haven’t talked to Edwina’s doctor. While we’re at it, Jerry, we mightn’t be able to find the coroner’s report for Trudi Nyss, but we sure as hell can find the death certificate.’

Jerry nodded. ‘Give me a minute. Can’t let this lovely food go to waste now, can I?’ He grinned at Marion.

* They were quiet when they got back from lunch. Marion was poring over Edwina’s file while Jerry was on the computer.

The darkness that had gripped Alex all day, lingered. The futility of knocking his head against a brick wall. He sat staring into space, running through the last day of

Edwina’s life.

‘Here. Got it!’ said Jerry. ‘Dr John Harkness signed the death certificate of a Miss Trudi Nyss, aged twelve years. Death by accidental injury causing a brain lesion.’

Marion, who was sitting at her desk began to laugh, crumpled into hysterics. The two men stared. Marion, calm capable Marion, never behaved like this.

‘Marion? What's the matter?’ Alex asked.

It took a while for Marion to bring herself under control, wipe her eyes. Without looking at Alex, she shoved Edwina’s file over to him and pointed to a line at the top of page one. Family doctor, Robert Harkness.

Jerry bent over, read it. ‘Well, well, well. Bound to be the son. What did I say, right at the beginning? There’s something bloody incestuous about this case. Two, sometimes three generations of people glued together in the one place. I haven’t given up on a pile of bodies at the bottom of the garden.’

Marion ignored him, found the number for Dr Robert Harkness and rang the surgery. Within a few minutes she was put through to the doctor, both men leaning in, crowding her, listening to her end of the conversation.

She put down the phone, sighed, buried her head in her hands. ‘Robert will see us tomorrow at eight-thirty, before the surgery opens, but his father is dead. Died last year.’

‘It’s over,’ Alex said. ‘We’re one year too late.’ He thumped the table with his fist.

‘Fuck!’ Jerry slammed the door behind him as he left. They could hear him making his way down the corridor. The continual stream of swearing getting fainter, the further he went.

* The next morning Alex and Marion went to meet Dr Robert Harkness. Jerry had refused to go. ‘What’s the use?’ he’d said. ‘I don’t think I can take another minute on this case having my nose rubbed in it.’ The other two had to agree.

It was a stunning morning. The clouds had cleared the night before, giving the city a pink