The woman who answered the door after shutting off the burglar alarm was tall, athletic and in her mid-thirties. She wore a flowing long skirt, a loose blouse and a red puffiness to her eyes. She looked them up and down, pausing at the bandage on Mac’s ear, before fixing her eyes on their warrant cards. Mac noticed a bloating to her midsection and realised she was pregnant.
‘Metropolitan Police,’ Cooper said. ‘This is Detective Chief Inspector McDevitt, and I am Detective Constable Cooper. Would you be—?’
‘Where’s Karl?’ she asked.
Katie had expected the police to return from his shop with him. But she couldn’t see a police car on the street. Or Karl.
‘Can we do this inside?’
Was he at the station, giving a statement? ‘I thought he’d be with you—’
‘If we could, inside, please?’
Puzzled, she turned and led them into the house. She grabbed her coat from the hallway hook as she went.
In the living room, there were two armchairs and a two-seater sofa. For a reason she couldn’t define, Katie didn’t want the men to sit together, so she took the sofa. In the middle so nobody could sit next to her. She clutched her coat on her lap.
‘So where is he? Did you talk to him? Is he at the police station or something?’
From TV, she knew that detective chief inspectors were the people who ran crime investigations: older, rugged men, like this one; the stars of the TV shows who did the clever thinking and unmasking of villains. A higher rank than detective constables, who were younger and fitter to provide eye candy for the viewers, and more suited to searching rooms and chasing suspects. So, she expected the DCI to sit before her, to show her that he was the guy in charge, and the young DC would stand by him, like a servant, watching an instructor at work. But to her surprise the DC took an armchair, and the DCI remained standing. After that, she didn’t know what to expect from this conversation.
The DCI’s gaze roamed the room and landed on the largest picture on the wall. She and Karl on their wedding day, standing next to the fancy 1963 Volkswagen Beetle that her father had hired and had painted like Herbie, The Love Bug, because of her childhood love of the movie; a picture she enjoyed pointing out to all visitors, except, for some reason she didn’t like the policeman staring at it. She already knew she didn’t like this man, although she wasn’t sure why yet.
The DC said: ‘Is your husband Karl Seabury? Does he live here?’
That only increased her puzzlement. Karl was in the picture, and she had already mentioned his name, and the detectives were here because of her phone call. What were they playing at? ‘Haven’t you been to his shop? Have you not spoken to him?’
With his back to her, his eyes all over the picture, the DCI said: ‘What makes you think we would have?’
‘He’s at his shop. I told the police that. Have you not been there?’
The DC said: ‘You called the police because your husband thinks he might be in danger. Tell us about that, please.’
‘No,’ she snapped. ‘Why are you here? I sent the police to his shop. Did you not get the right message? Where is my husband?’
‘Oh, we’ve been to his shop,’ the DCI said, turning to face her finally. The way he said it gave her a sinking feeling. Something wasn’t right.
‘Is he not there? I don’t – don’t understand.’
But her sinking feeling said she certainly did. They had been to the shop, and Karl hadn’t been there. But where was he? Where had he gone?
‘Is he hurt? Tell me. He wasn’t at the shop, was he? And he’s not answering his phone. What’s going on?’
‘We hoped you could tell us that,’ the creepy DCI said. ‘You’re right, he’s not at his shop. We were hoping you’d know where he is.’
That sinking feeling intensified, joined by a throbbing in her temple. Something had happened, she realised. Something that explained why Karl hadn’t answered his phone. Something that necessitated the presence of detectives here instead of uniformed police. ‘What’s happened? Is my husband hurt?’
The DCI ignored the question and asked: ‘Why is your burglar alarm turned on while you’re at home?’
‘What? That’s not important. Why are you here? I know it’s not about my call to the police. It’s about something that’s happened at Karl’s shop. Now you two are scaring me, so you’d better tell me what’s going on.’
The DCI dropped a hand onto the younger man’s shoulder, and they swapped places without a word. He crossed his legs and leaned back, as if this was his own house, the chair his own favourite. She wanted to scream for answers, but something about this man’s demeanour made her stay silent. He oozed a bloated confidence that was not just down to his high police rank.
‘This woman you say your husband told you he picked up last night. Where was this?’
So, they knew everything. But that only made her understand things less. ‘Near Wilmington. Look, what’s going on?’
The young DC looked like he’d just been smacked. She didn’t like it. Something about Wilmington had clearly made a connection in his brain that shocked him. But what? And why? He looked at his boss, but the DCI didn’t take his eyes off her.
Until the DC chipped in and asked: ‘Was the woman called Elizabeth Grafton?’ That got him a stern glance from his boss.
‘I don’t know. Liz. He called her Liz.’
‘Was the husband Ronald Grafton?’
‘I don’t know. Look, please, tell me what you think is going on.’
The DCI held up a hand to prevent his subordinate from speaking again, and said: ‘We found a dead man in your husband’s shop.’
Her heart seemed to judder.
‘It’s not your husband, don’t worry.’
Raw shock subsided as quickly as it had bubbled up, but it was replaced by molten anger. The bastard had paused, deliberately, to frighten her.
‘Your husband should be at his shop, but he isn’t. Instead, a man is lying dead there. Can we search your house?’
She didn’t know what to say, what to think. Karl was missing and there was a dead man at the shop? Who? Why? ‘Search for what?’ she snapped. ‘My husband might be hurt, and you—’
‘We don’t know until we find it. Can my man here search your shed? We need a warrant if we don’t get permission.’
She rubbed her face as it sank in. She could barely think straight. A man dead in the shop. Karl missing.
‘We need to do that search. It would be easier if we didn’t have to get a warrant.’
Suddenly her brain started to make sense of everything. Karl had been right all along. His worries had been justified. Someone had come for him at the shop this morning. There had been an attack, but Karl had killed the man in self-defence and fled the scene. Police responding to her worried call had arrived at the shop to find a shock. God, why had she doubted him? Why hadn’t she read his genuine worry?
‘Mrs Seabury?’ the DC said. She jerked back to the present and saw the DCI raise a hand to interrupt the younger detective.
‘This must be all wrong,’ she said. She could feel tears welling up, and she rubbed her eyes before they could escape. She felt so guilty. Karl had been right all along, and she hadn’t believed him. Now he was in trouble, and she could have prevented it… somehow. ‘I – I can’t… do you think my husband killed a man?’
‘We know he owns a van and has a Samsung mobile phone. We found both. But does he have access to another vehicle, and does he have another phone?’
She stood up. ‘Why? You think he’s on the run as a murderer. Now you listen to me. There’s no way that—’