Descent (A Kate Redman Mystery Novella) Read online

  “May we come in, sir?”

  “No. What’s this all about?”

  Kate sighed inwardly. Rather shamefully, she became aware of how thankful she was that Theo’s tall, strong, young presence was there, given how she could see how this interview was going. “I’m afraid I have bad news about your wife, sir.”

  Mr Denver’s dark brown eyes regarded her steadily. “I don’t have a wife,” was what he said eventually.

  There was a moment’s silence. Kate cleared her throat and tried again. “I need to talk to you about Karyn Denver. You are down as her next of kin. Sir, may we please come in?”

  Mr Denver didn’t budge. “She’s not my wife anymore. Whatever she’s done, I’m not interested. She’s nothing to do with me anymore. I haven’t seen her for days.”

  “Sir, please—” was all that Kate managed to get out before the door shut in their faces with what was little less than a slam. Flabbergasted, Kate and Theo looked at one another. Kate raised her hand to the doorbell again.

  “Don’t bother,” said Theo. “He’s not going to listen. Let me try.” He bent down and pushed open the letterbox to shout through. “Mr Denver? Mr Denver? We really do need to talk to you about your – your estranged wife. If you won’t open the door, I’m going to leave you my card and my colleague’s card. Please do get in touch with us or call the station.”

  Silence. The door didn’t open. Kate blew out her cheeks and handed Theo one of her cards, which he dropped with his own into the letterbox.

  They beat a tactical retreat back to the car and sat for a minute, wondering whether the door was going to open or their phones were going to ring. But there was nothing.

  “Weird,” said Theo. “Do you think he was in shock?”

  Kate pursed up her lips. “I suppose it’s possible. Hmm.”

  They waited another five minutes but Thomas Denver did not emerge from the house. Eventually, Theo sighed and started the engine. “We’re wasting our time here. If he wants to know, he knows how to get in touch.”

  “Agreed.” Kate leant her head back against the seat rest as Theo pulled away from the side of the road. All of a sudden, she felt exhausted. She still had reams of paperwork to catch up on, not to mention that bloody interview at silly o’clock the next morning… At least Anderton was going to cook tonight, that was something to be thankful for.

  “Wake me when we get back to the station,” she muttered to Theo and closed her eyes.

  Chapter Four

  Kate drew her car up outside Anderton’s cottage just after eight o’clock that evening. She’d already driven home, showered and changed, fed her cat Merlin and battled her guilt that she was leaving him again for yet another evening. Wearily, she hauled herself from the car, shivered at the cold air, and hurried towards the front door, clutching her overnight bag and a bottle of red wine. The door was slightly ajar and she could hear comforting sounds of music, pans clattering distantly from the kitchen and a welcome blast of centrally heated air. Quickly, she shut the door behind her.

  “Do you know how much heat you’re losing by leaving your door open?” she said to Anderton as she went up and kissed him.

  “I left that for you. I was at a tricky stage with the roast lamb and didn’t want to leave it to answer the door.” Anderton’s thick grey hair was curling in the damp steam of the kitchen.

  Kate bit back the response she wanted to make. So give me a key, then. They weren’t quite at that stage yet. Or were they? She accepted the glass of wine he held out to her and went and sat at the breakfast bar.

  “You look tired.” Anderton shot the roasting pan full of golden, crisping potatoes into the oven with a clang, shut the oven door with his foot and straightened up with a groan. “Busy day?”

  “Yes. You know what it’s like.”

  “I did.” Anderton’s tone was neutral, but Kate still felt a twist of unease. She was keenly aware that Anderton probably felt very left out of things, and she wasn’t sure what the best approach was. Should she talk about work more than she felt she wanted to? Keep him in the loop, keep him feeling as though his contribution still mattered? Or should she shut up about it altogether?

  She took a long sip of wine and sought for a less contentious topic of conversation. “Did you play golf today?”

  Anderton straightened up again from the oven, wiping sweat from his face. His cottage was always warm but the kitchen was approaching tropical levels of heat, what with the oven, the gas burners and even the two candles burning on the dining table. “What’s that?”

  “Did you play golf today?”

  “Not today.” Anderton dropped the lid of a saucepan with a curse and a clang as he burnt his finger. “Bugger. Listen, Kate, I’m right in the middle of it here. Go and sit in the living room, and I’ll get things under control and we can relax.”

  “All right.” Kate obediently picked up her wine glass and made her way through to the cosy little front room, where the wood-burning stove was glowing and the curtains were drawn against the winter night.

  “Oh, by the way—” Anderton’s shout stopped her. “Have a look at the local paper. There’s something in there I think you’d like to see.”

  Curious, Kate picked it up from the living room coffee table. Anderton had marked the page he’d been talking about with a yellow Post-It note. Kate opened it to that page, glanced over it and saw the article. Charlie’s Home-Grown Success, was the headline. Kate read on, with a slowly dawning smile. The article featured Charlie Petworth, a man that Kate had once frequently arrested, when he’d been a homeless alcoholic and petty thief. Now, Charlie had obviously turned over a new leaf. Sober and with his gardening business back up and running, it seemed from the article that Charlie had won an award for his pioneering mentoring scheme, offering training and support to young ex-offenders who wanted to learn garden design.

  “I thought that would please you,” said Anderton, coming into the room and looking rather hot and dishevelled.

  “It pleases me immensely,” Kate said, grinning. “I’m so glad for Charlie. I always knew he had it in him.”

  “Yes, it’s good news. He can’t have been out of prison long.”

  They sat down to eat shortly after that and for a while, there was nothing but the sound of contented chewing, wine sipping and the mellow vocals of Ella Fitzgerald coming from the entertainment station in the corner of the room.

  Kate put her knife and fork neatly together in the middle of her plate and thanked Anderton sincerely. “That was lovely. It’s so nice to come home to a cooked meal.” After a moment, she realised what she’d said and hastily amended, “I mean, it’s lovely to come here to a cooked meal. Thank you.”

  Anderton said nothing but smiled. Kate, covering her confusion, told him of her early start. “A nine o’clock in the morning meeting! Even you weren’t that bad.”

  “That’s DCI Weaver for you,” said Anderton drily. “She’s nothing if not efficient.” He looked as though he were about to say more but thought better of it. Kate had a sudden, paranoid flash of intuition that he’d slept with her – with Nicola. She had no evidence for it, but what had that ever mattered? She knew Anderton had had something of a reputation, which made her present situation slightly more uncomfortable than it perhaps could have been.

  The moment passed and Kate and Anderton finished their wine and loaded the dishwasher and cuddled in front of the wood-burner and eventually made their way up to bed. It was an evening just like the others that had preceded it, save for those two moments of awkwardness and anxiety for Kate. Don’t think about it, she commanded herself, as she lay in the crook of Anderton’s arm, listening to his breathing behind her flatten out into sleep. Luckily, she was so tired herself that it was easy to think of nothing at all – just to fall forward into thankful unconsciousness.

  *

  “So, how was it?” Chloe asked
cautiously the next morning at nine forty-five am, as Kate slumped down opposite her into her chair.

  Kate rolled her eyes. “Crap. A whole lot of corporate flim-flam about being a team member and doing things by the book. I got the idea I was being warned not to go out on a limb or take a punt on things off my own bat.”

  Chloe grinned. “Your reputation clearly precedes you.”

  “So it damn well should.” Kate wondered whether to mention the other bone of contention – the various hints and insinuations that Nicola Weaver had made on the subject of Anderton – all the while being just subtle enough for Kate not to be able to react negatively – or indeed, react at all. Kate had simply sat, trying to smile blandly whilst under the table she dug her fingernails into the palms of her hands. She regarded them now, little reddened half-moons dug into the flesh of her palm.

  Chloe was occupied with something else, and Kate decided not to mention it. She had another paranoid flash that perhaps Nicola was speaking for the entire team in having a dig at Kate and Anderton’s relationship. Perhaps they all disapproved? Perhaps they thought she and Anderton had been together for ages, keeping it quiet for years?

  By now, Kate was biting her nails. She looked across at Olbeck’s office. She and Olbeck hadn’t yet really had a chance to talk about Anderton. She knew that he – Olbeck – knew, and she knew they’d have to address the elephant in the room at some point, but when? God knew Olbeck had enough on his plate at the moment…

  Pushing the thought aside, Kate sat up and reached for her notebook. She was due at the post mortem of Karyn Denver this afternoon, and there was still the interview with Karyn Denver’s friend to be undertaken. Kate found herself wondering if Thomas Denver had emerged from his house yet – or even rung the station to be told the bad news. She frowned, thinking. Grief could do funny things to people, yes, but his reaction had been right at the extreme end. She’s not my wife, she’s nothing to do with me…

  Calls were slowly trickling in to the incident room after Rav had arranged for the placement of incident boards at various points around Blackdown Woods. Probably most of the callers would have little of value to impart, but you never knew…

  Kate made another attempt to contact Thomas Denver, which proved futile. Then she tracked down the contact number for Louise White – ah, that was the friend’s name – and rang it. It was answered by a man, who confirmed he was Louise White’s husband. Kate didn’t mention why she was calling but she could hear a faint hoarseness in his voice that could have denoted grief. Or perhaps he just had a cold. Kate arranged to meet both the Whites at their home that afternoon. She’d call in on the way back from the pathology labs.

  *

  After lunch, Kate made her way to the station car park. For once it was sunny, but it was still bitingly cold. Kate pulled her scarf further over her face as she hurried towards her car and had a fleeting thought that she might try out a balaclava, except she’d probably then be mistaken for a terrorist. As she drove away, she twisted the dial of the car heater up to full.

  Andrew Stanton was conducting the post mortem and Kate was quite glad. She knew he liked to work mainly in silence, punctuating the quiet with the odd, terse observation. This gave Kate a chance to sit down and catch her breath, to think about the rest of the working day ahead and what she should be doing. She looked at the body of Karyn Denver with practised dispassion. The woman had been superficially pretty, so Kate could see, with long, wavy blonde hair, dark roots showing through at the scalp. A closer examination showed a face rather long and slightly too equine for true beauty. Heavy hips and chunky thighs. But then, thought Kate charitably, nobody looked their best on the autopsy table.

  She’d attended enough post mortems by now not to be squeamish. Even so, she never approached the situation with insouciance; it never became commonplace. She sat patiently, averting her eyes from the particularly grotesque bits, pondering the death of Karyn Denver and wondering what the conclusion would be.

  At length, Andrew finished stitching, pulled the green cover over the corpse and straightened up with an audible groan.

  “Hard on the back, your job,” commented Kate.

  “Tell me about it. You should see the money I spend on physiotherapists.” Andrew balled up his gloves, threw them in the hazardous waste bin and turned to the sink to wash his hands. “Obviously I’ll have the full report over to you in a matter of days, but I can tell you now that, like I first thought, the cause of death was traumatic brain injury, most likely caused by a fall.”

  “Right,” said Kate, unsurprised. “Anything else?”

  “She has compound fractures of the arms, legs and ribcage. Again, totally in line with what you’d expect in someone who’s fallen – what would it be from the top of the Blackdown gorge? Fifty feet?”

  Kate sighed. “Any signs of drugs? Alcohol?” She got up, picking up her bag. “I mean, anything that might point to it being an accident or a suicide?”

  “What, as opposed to something else?” Andrew finished drying his hands and turned to face Kate. “No obvious signs of intoxication, no alcohol in the stomach. You’ll have to wait for the blood tests to see if anything shows up but, off hand, I’d say no.”

  “Hmm.” Kate looked back at the shrouded figure. “Anything that – that might indicate somebody else had a hand in her falling?”

  Andrew smiled. “Well, I didn’t find a bloody great handprint on her face or the middle of her back, let’s say. I suppose, if you were clutching at straws, there’s a very, very faint chance that she could have been hit over the head with something and thrown over the side. The impact injuries could have then covered the original trauma.” Kate opened her mouth to respond, and Andrew added “But, seriously, Kate. You wouldn’t get it to stand up in court. Not on its own.”

  Kate knew that. She sighed and thanked Andrew.

  “My pleasure. How are you, anyway?” As always, once the examination was over, Andrew’s manner switched back to his normal warmth and charm, which reminded Kate of why she liked him.

  They chatted pleasantly for a moment, a little incongruously, Kate thought, given the presence of the dead body in the room with them. But then, Andrew probably barely noticed things like that anymore. After a few minutes’ conversation, and after asking after his wife and son, Kate bid Andrew farewell and made her way back out to the car.

  She spent a few minutes transcribing the essence of what Andrew had told her. She was starting to think that this case wasn’t going anywhere. From the sounds of it, Karyn Denver had been out for a run and for some reason had slipped and fallen over the edge of the gorge. A tragic accident; no more. Kate pondered for a moment, put away her notebook, and started the car. She wondered whether she was keen to write off this case as non-suspicious because it would then mean she’d have to spend less time reporting to Nicola the Efficient. But then, what about the next case? Sighing again, Kate put the car into gear and drove away.

  Chapter Five

  Louise White and her husband lived in a much bigger house than the one Kate and Theo had visited yesterday. It was detached, built of Bath stone – a handsome Edwardian building with the original stained glass panels in the front door and the bare, spiky branches of a climbing rose entwined on a trellis on the front wall. There was enough room in the driveway behind a large black four-wheel-drive for Kate to park her much smaller car.

  A man Kate assumed to be Mr White answered the door. He was a good-looking man in his forties, with curly dark hair and a strong jawline. He looked serious but not unduly upset. Louise White, when Kate came across her in the living room, looked ravaged. There was no other word for it. Even as Kate was shaking hands, Louise began to cry, tears streaming down her face.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she burst out, pressing a disintegrating tissue to her eyes. “It’s still such a shock; I don’t think I’ll ever get over the shock. I still can’t believe it.�
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  Mr White, who had introduced himself as Paul, lifted a box of tissues from the sideboard and handed them to his wife. He made a move as if to put his arms around her but in the next moment, Louise had sat back on the sofa, as if all the strength had left her legs.

  “I’m really very sorry,” said Kate. She discreetly got out her notebook and pen. “I just wondered, if you’re feeling up to it, if you could tell me a little bit about Karyn. It could help the investigation if I could just get a bit of background and it sounds as though you were pretty close. Am I right?”

  Louise nodded, eyes downcast. Tears welled up again and spilled over. “How did – how did she die?”

  Kate took a moment to answer. “I can’t yet confirm that, Mrs White. I’m sorry. It may be that Karyn’s death was nothing more than a tragic accident, but it’s still too early in the day to say that. That’s why I’m hoping you can help me.”

  “Yes. Yes, I understand. What is it that you want to know?”

  Kate clicked her pen. “Have you been friends for long?”

  Louise wiped her eyes again and sat up a little, clearly pulling herself together. “I suppose so. About three years – three or four years, I forget exactly. We – Karyn and I – met at a running club. We’re both keen runners, and we were both training for the Abbeyford half marathon.”

  Kate knew that half marathon, having once had to train for it herself. Luckily, although it hadn’t seemed so at the time, she was able to get out of running the actual race itself by reason of being stabbed nearly to death by a maddened killer.

  Shaking off those thoughts, she concentrated on what Louise was telling her. “Karyn moved down here from London about the same time as we did, so we had that in common too. She was so nice, so warm, you know, just a really nice person to be around.”

  There was more in this vein, the usual polishing-up of the recently deceased by their friends and loved ones. Understandable, but not particularly illuminating. Kate listened, nodded, and made a few notes. She watched Louise gradually become less upset and more animated, as she talked about her friend. Kate noticed Paul White watching his wife and there was something about his expression, the merest hint, that set her wondering what he was thinking. Did he look – angry? Or was that too emphatic a word? Had he been jealous of the obviously close friendship between his wife and Karyn Denver? Or was Kate just imagining things? She scribbled a ‘P?’ on her notebook, just to jog her memory if anything else came up.