Death at Rainbow Cottage by Jo Allen (book club books txt) 📗

at all why Phil would want to harm Len Pierce. I’m not aware of any connection. They don’t move in the same circles.’

‘Phil’s a doctor, though. Like Giles Butler. They could have met.’ Chris flipped open his iPad and flicked through document after document until he found the one he wanted. ‘Go back to the PM report. Len’s medical records indicate that he had specialist treatment for some form of dermatitis. I imagine he’ll have had that up at the hospital. What’s Phil’s area of specialism?’

‘He works up at the fracture clinic, I think. There has to be a possibility their paths crossed.’ Jude pulled his notebook towards him and wrote down: check out PG, as though by writing it, it would magically be accomplished without him having to go through the strain. ‘See if Giles Butler knew him, as well. Though I’ll be honest with you. I can see Phil punching someone in the face if he disagreed with them, but I can’t see him sneaking round the countryside at night with a knife, still less lurking in a churchyard when he knew he was about to pick up his wife from drinks with a bunch of detectives.’

‘Bluff and double bluff.’ Ashleigh, he saw, was giving Doddsy a sympathetic look. ‘Do you know Phil well, Doddsy?’

‘No better than anyone else. Bumped into him a couple of times. Nice enough guy.’ But that had been before he’d got involved with Tyrone. If he were to bump into Phil now his reception would be a lot less cordial. ‘I’m seeing Tyrone later on.’

‘Ah, I’d forgotten. You’re supposed to be off this afternoon. For God’s sake don’t hang on here too long. We all need a break.’ Jude sighed. ‘I’d better talk to Phil, then. Chris. You get someone to follow up on whether Lenny or Giles Butler had ever met Phil. Then we’ll see.’

Chris sat back and stuck his pen behind one ear, hands behind his head. ‘I think I’d also like to take another look at Giles Butler.’

‘Why’s that? Did anything come back for the forensics on the car?’

‘Nothing that doesn’t tie in exactly with what he said. If he’d killed Len you’d expect there to have been blood in the car, either from Giles’ clothing or from the knife, assuming he took it with him to dispose of it. There’s no trace. But I’m not happy with that.’ He paused. ‘Not the forensic side. I’m not questioning that. I’m just not convinced that entirely clears the good doctor.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yes. If we leave aside Gracie Pepper for now, there was always the motive with Giles, wasn’t there? He had a reason to kill Len. It might not have been a good one, but it was always there. He was the one who was hiding the affair. He was the one who was lying to his wife. Lenny wasn’t open about it and he didn’t talk about his private business, but nor did he hide it.’

‘Oh, I see.’ Ashleigh sat forward, intently. ‘Supposing — just supposing — Len wanted to get serious and Giles didn’t.’

‘That’s what I’m thinking. I was reading back through his witness statement. All that stuff about his reputation, his standing in the community.’

‘His wife and kids.’ Doddsy was more sympathetic than the others. Coming out wasn’t always easy. People judged you for it, one way or another. Sometimes they made you into a hero when all you’d done was be yourself, an action as false in its way as making you a villain. ‘I get that. It’s hard to explain.’

‘Yep. And I accept that it’s a possibility,’ Jude agreed. ‘But if Giles is the killer, that doesn’t explain how he managed to get the knife, and any blood-stained clothing, from the murder scene down to the bin in King Street.’

‘We don’t yet know if it’s the knife. Though I’ll be astonished if it isn’t, and if it isn’t we still have to find that murder weapon, or explain how he disposed of it, and it doesn’t account for the absence of any forensic evidence on the car.’

‘Yeah. That’s the problem. Leave it with me,’ Chris said, with a shake of the head, ‘and I’ll sort it.’

The meeting broke up. Jude and Doddsy headed back along the corridor to the office they shared. ‘Jude. You don’t seriously suspect Phil, do you?’

‘I have an open mind.’ Jude always said that, even when it was clear his thinking was going in a particular direction. There had to be evidence and there had to be good evidence. There was nothing, Doddsy reminded himself, comforted, that firmly linked Phil to the scene of Len’s murder and there was no known motive for the death of Gracie Pepper. Even if Gracie turned out to be gay, and even if Phil had objections to homosexuals in general, surely if he was to target someone it would be Doddsy himself. ‘Let’s see what else comes up.’

Doddsy reached for his coat. ‘I’m off.’ He wasn’t normally precious about his time off, but it wasn’t that often that he and both Tyrone found themselves not working on a bright afternoon. For the first time in his life he found himself with a real reason not to volunteer to be the one who stayed on. He had plenty of credit in the bank on that score, and no guilt.

He’d logged out of his computer and cleared his desk before the meeting, knowing the way life had of catching you by the heels on the way out, and someone had left an envelope on there for him. White, a third A4 size, typically bulk-bought office stationery. By post, a typed label that said, in bold capitals, PERSONAL. He picked it up. The postmark was smudged.

‘One thing you might want to do,’ Jude went on, opening a folder and flicking through it, ‘is ask Tyrone if he’s heard anything about