Moment of Truth, page 10
‘You got any plans for Christmas?’ Caroline asked Dexter, as they demolished the complimentary basket of bread rolls.
‘Nah, not really. I’m going over to my parents’. My brother and his missus will be there too. Usual fare. You?’
‘Quiet one at home. It’s the first Christmas without Mark’s parents, so he’s not keen on going all-out. Something a bit more muted, I think. You got all your presents bought?’
‘Not yet,’ Dexter replied, looking at the table and blinking a few times. ‘I’ll have to do a last-minute shopping run when we get back.’
‘Amazon’s your friend now, Dex. Take full advantage of next-day delivery. You don’t want to be traipsing round the shops this week. You could order it all now and it’d be waiting for you when you get back.’
Dexter nodded. ‘Yeah. True.’
‘Something else on your mind?’ Caroline asked, after they’d sat in silence for almost another full minute.
‘How do you mean?’ Dexter replied.
‘Just in general. You’ve seemed a bit flat this week. Not quite your usual self.’
Dexter gave a shrug. ‘I’m just knackered, I suppose. Short days and long dark nights. Trying to get Christmas stuff sorted. You know how it is.’
‘We can’t all smile all the time, eh?’ Caroline replied. ‘How you feeling about work? Apart from the Drummond thing, I mean.’
‘Yeah, fine. No probs there.’
‘Feels like a lot of pressure heading up your first murder case, doesn’t it? I remember it well. It’s like you’re the only one in the world who’s responsible for that person’s legacy, not to mention justice for the family. But no matter whose name’s on the front of the file, we’re still the same team. We’ll still get the same results. You know how hard I find it to step back and not get too involved in things. It’s bloody impossible. I’ve never been able to do it. But not for one second have I had a single doubt or second thought about letting you run the show. And I think that says a lot.’
‘Yeah,’ Dexter replied, his voice quiet. ‘Yeah, I’m not worried about any of that. It’s good to be able to step up and get that experience. I really appreciate it.’
Caroline looked at him for a few moments. ‘What’s up then, Dex? You can tell me. I know we’re work colleagues and whatever, but I can also be a friend. I consider all of you my friends. You’ve all given me a lot without even knowing it. You especially.’
Dexter seemed to think about this for a short while. She could tell there was something playing on his mind, and it must be something big. He wasn’t the sort of person to let things bother him — especially not small things. Whatever it was, he was clearly uncomfortable with the prospect of telling her. Her only assumption was that it must be work-related. Otherwise, why wouldn’t he want to open up?
‘Honestly, it’s nothing,’ Dexter said, eventually.
‘It?’ Caroline replied. ‘If it’s an it, it must be something. But listen, if you don’t want to tell me, that’s fine. Whenever you’re ready, I’m here, alright?’
Dexter didn’t respond. He seemed to still be deep in thought.
A few moments later, he opened his mouth to speak, his words quiet and stuttering.
‘The thing is… I just… The other day… I…’
Before Dexter could form a complete sentence, the waiter arrived with their meals. Despite the basket of bread rolls, they were both still hungrier than they’d been in a long time. As the minutes passed and the food on their plates began to disappear, so too did the memory of their conversation.
29
The police station in Sandefjord looked reassuringly like a police station in any British town or city. The familiar red brick building with its high brown windows gave Caroline and Dexter the comfort of familiarity as they arrived for their interview with Karlsen.
They’d rightly — and correctly — expected the Norwegian police to have an officer in attendance, but they were surprised at the addition of an interpreter, having discovered so far that most Norwegian people spoke better English than they did.
That distinction applied equally to Karlsen. Even though they’d spent barely a minute or so in Karlsen’s company, there was no doubting the interpreter was picking up a nice little Christmas bonus for no reason whatsoever.
Karlsen appeared to be an amiable sort of fellow, if a little nervous and confused.
‘I don’t know how much you’ve been told about why we’re here, Mr Karlsen,’ Dexter said, ‘but we wanted to speak with you about an incident that happened in Oakham, Rutland, earlier this week. We believe you were visiting the area, is that correct?’
‘Yes, that’s right.’
‘Why was that?’
Karlsen seemed even more confused at this question. ‘I visit the UK regularly. I have friends in the area, and I’m interested in the history.’
‘And you had two nights in Oakham, is that correct?’
‘Yes, that’s right.’
‘Did you stay with friends?’
‘No, I stayed in a hotel. This time I came only to explore Rutland and the history. I had a few days of vacation from work, and I wanted to use them.’
‘Do you live alone here?’
‘Yes. I was married, but now I’m divorced and I live alone. I try to use my spare time travelling or doing things I want to do. Because now I can.’
Dexter smiled reflexively. ‘I don’t blame you,’ he said.
Beside him, Caroline was leafing through some documentation the Norwegian police had provided, comparing them with her own notes on Karlsen. It didn’t take her long before a heavy realisation began to dawn. She looked again at the documents in front of her, and again at her notes.
‘Oh no,’ she whispered quietly to herself, pleased no-one else had heard.
She waited for a gap in the conversation, then gently placed a hand on Dexter’s arm.
‘DS Antoine, could I have a quick moment with you outside the room please?’
30
‘Did the Norwegian police send any documentation to you via email at all?’ Caroline asked Dexter as they stood in the corridor outside the interview room at Sandefjord police station.
‘I don’t think so. It was all done over the phone. Why’s that?’
‘Look at his name,’ Caroline replied, showing her one of the documents she’d been reading a few moments ago.
‘What about it? Am I missing something?’
‘Øyvind Andreas Karlsen, Dex. With a line through the O on Øyvind. He didn’t cross out his name in the visitors book at the castle. The O with a line through it is his first initial. It’s a Norwegian O.’
Dexter closed his eyes as Caroline watched his shoulders slump.
‘Jesus Christ,’ he whispered, before taking a couple of steps further down the corridor away from her. A few moments later, he turned round. ‘But that doesn’t mean he’s got nothing to do with the murder.’
‘True, but it’s a pretty big mark of suspicion that no longer exists. Apart from looking a bit odd, the only reason we took an interest in him was the assumption that Andreas Karlsen was a pseudonym.’
Dexter shook his head. ‘It still doesn’t explain everything. In fact, I don’t think it explains anything.’
‘It makes him far less suspicious,’ Caroline replied.
‘I’m not sure it does. It just leaves another question unanswered. The answer might still be that he’s guilty as anything. It doesn’t mean everything else no longer fits. It does.’
‘Not enough to chase it, Dex.’
‘I’m not chasing,’ Dexter replied, with more volume than was usual for him. Spotting Caroline’s raised eyebrows, he repeated himself more quietly. ‘I’m not chasing. I just don’t think this lets him off the hook. So he wrote his real name. And what? We’re still presuming that is his real name, by the way, and that the Norwegian authorities haven’t kept up the charade by allowing us to come over here and ask questions to a guy, keeping us under the illusion that is his name. Whether he has an O before his name or not, and whether he draws a line through it or not, doesn’t make it any more or less real.’
‘And if he hadn’t drawn a line through it, would we still have flown to Norway to speak to him?’ Caroline asked.
Dexter was silent. That told them both everything they needed to know.
31
As Caroline walked into work the next morning, it felt almost as if her brief trip to Norway had never happened. It was more like an uncomfortable dream than anything. That feeling didn’t last long, though, as she acknowledged her expected summons to Chief Superintendent Derek Arnold’s office.
She’d always found Arnold to be firm but fair — a man who liked to keep an eye on things, but appreciated that Caroline’s unconventional approach tended to yield results. And as far as he and his role were concerned, results were what mattered most. Today, though, there was no sign of amiability on Arnold’s face. This was a man who looked thoroughly peed off.
‘Sit down, Caroline,’ he said, barely able to look at her. ‘I think you’ve probably got a fair idea as to why I called you in here.’
Caroline said nothing for a moment or two while she tried to choose the right words. ‘Yes,’ she said eventually. ‘And I can completely see how it looks from where you’re sitting. But I’d appreciate the chance to explain things from my perspective, if I may, sir.’
‘I’d very much like it if you did,’ Arnold replied, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms.
‘As you know, in the process of reviewing CCTV footage from the castle, we discovered a man who’d visited the castle twice and who we considered to have been acting suspiciously. Crucially, the second time he visited the castle was just a couple of hours before Clive Thornton was murdered. Through the castle’s guestbook, we discovered his identity and made some enquiries. It turns out he was from Norway. Around the same time, we also discovered Clive Thornton had been involved in a potential hydropower contract in Norway, which had been worth a huge sum of money but had subsequently fallen through. We felt we had reason to believe Karlsen, the Norwegian, might have been in the country under an assumed identity, and we were exploring the possibility that these aspects might have been linked and would provide an explanation for what happened to Clive Thornton.’
‘When you say you had reason to believe Karlsen was here under an assumed identity, you mean you’d jumped to the conclusion this was some sort of Scandinavian James Bond conspiracy theory, long before you’d even thought to check the Norwegian alphabet.’
‘That was a regrettable oversight, sir, but even if we had spotted it, it wouldn’t have automatically taken Karlsen out of the frame.’
‘No, but it would have saved a precious chunk of the operational budget, which you instead chose to waste on flights and hotels. An operational budget which, let me remind you, is extremely stretched as it is.’
Caroline clenched her teeth. It had been Arnold who had suggested she and Dexter visit Karlsen in Norway. He either had a very short memory, or he was deliberately trying to dodge responsibility. Either way, Caroline knew it would do her no good to argue back.
‘I understand, sir. And I can only apologise.’
Arnold let out a harrumph. ‘Apologies don’t change budgets, Caroline. I can tell you I speak from experience on that one. You’ve wasted resources, you’ve wasted time, and you’ve risked public embarrassment. We’re extremely lucky this story hasn’t leaked out into the press as it is. How do you think they’d handle this little twist in the tale?’
Caroline knew the level of public hysteria that occurred when even the smallest inconvenience happened locally. She was sure the good people of Rutland wouldn’t react well to discovering they’d not only managed to keep a local murder from the press, but that they’d wasted public money on a pointless trip to Norway.
She accepted there might come a point where she’d need to appeal for eyewitnesses or anyone who had information that could help. That was a possibility in all murder cases. But where they were confident of getting a result without that assistance, there were a lot of benefits to letting sleeping dogs lie. Public awareness was not always a good thing, and on occasion it could even muddy the waters further.
‘Sir, I can’t change what’s already happened,’ she said, addressing the Chief Superintendent’s question and ignoring her building rage at his shirking of responsibility. ‘It was a misjudgement. In any case, even though we’ve ascertained that Karlsen probably wasn’t using a pseudonym, it doesn’t mean he wasn’t involved. There are further links we’re looking into, and between you and me, I expect we’ll find more. From where I am, something isn’t quite sitting right.’
‘Must be all that pickled herring you ate on your little trip away. I don’t suppose I need to remind you that I’ve already had to bust a gut to have additional funding allocated to your department? You’ve only had your new lad with you a matter of days. We can’t afford to waste another penny. How’s he getting on?’
Caroline felt her eyebrows rise and her breathing stop as she tried to think of a diplomatic way to word her response.
‘Uh, well it’s still early days,’ she said eventually.
‘Every day counts, Caroline. You don’t need me to tell you that. I need you to focus on getting him up to speed immediately. Yesterday. It’s a hell of a time to be adding a new member to the team, right in the middle of an investigation.’
Caroline bit her tongue. She’d been asking Arnold for months to come good on his promise of an extra team member, and it was only after Operation Titan had got into full swing that he’d finally delivered.
‘Yes, sir,’ she said, gritting her teeth. ‘I’ll keep you updated.’
32
By the time Caroline got back to the incident room, Dexter had already launched into his morning briefing.
She stepped into the room quietly and made her way to the back, where she perched on a desk as she watched him in action.
‘In short,’ he said, ‘we’re certainly not discounting Karlsen. There are still links we need to explain. But I think we need to cast our net wider. There are a few things which still aren’t quite falling into place. The interview with Toni Scott didn’t reveal a huge amount, but we think there’s more to be had there. Even if she and Clive weren’t life partners, she definitely knew a lot about his psychological makeup. That might give us a key that unlocks a new door somewhere along the line. Don’t forget, we can always discount information that isn’t relevant. But we can’t do that if we don’t find it in the first place, and even worse, we won’t find the stuff that is relevant. So let’s make sure we scoop the lot up, then get sieving. Any questions at this stage?’
Elijah Drummond put his hand up.
‘Elijah.’
‘Should we use a colander first, to drain all the big bits before we move onto a sieve?’
Dexter detected the slightest hint of a chuckle from Sara.
‘No, I’m not sure that’s necessary. Or funny. There are three angles I’d like us to look at primarily,’ he said, returning to the rest of the team. ‘The first is the break-in at the Thorntons’ house. What spooked the intruders? Why didn’t they take anything? Why didn’t Susan Thornton want more to be done? It doesn’t fit with the usual pattern of victims of break-ins, even if nothing was taken. It does happen, but it’s not common, so I think bearing everything else in mind it’s worth looking into further. The second is the Norwegian hydroelectric deal Clive was working on. We need to find out what exactly went wrong, what the consequences were, who lost out and who blamed Clive for that happening. Is it a big enough motive? Was there any point in wanting him dead? Thirdly, I think it’s worth looking into Clive’s charity links. We know he was actively involved in fundraising and voluntary work during his career, and remained so in retirement. Charities can be complicated pieces of machinery, and there are large sums of money floating around, not to mention a lot of people trying to do the right thing by vulnerable people. That could be ripe for some form of wrongdoing that’d lead to a motive for murder. And yes, I’m aware I’m speculating here, but we don’t have a whole lot else to go on right now. We need to get our heads down and crack on with this.’
Dexter watched as Elijah leaned over to Sara and murmured — just loudly enough for him to hear, ‘Oh, I was hoping to go home and have the day off, actually.’
Dexter rolled his tongue around in his mouth as he felt his blood pressure rising. Whichever way he turned, whatever he did or said, Elijah Drummond was getting right on his tits.
33
A few minutes after the morning briefing ended, Caroline invited Elijah into her office for a quick word. Although Operation Titan was officially Dexter’s, he and Elijah Drummond were both Detective Sergeants, and Caroline had detected a friendly warning from Dexter might not go down quite as well as a word from a senior officer. She’d detected Elijah’s lack of respect for Dexter early on in his secondment, and she felt that now was the time to nip it in the bud — in the most official way possible.
‘Ma’am,’ Elijah said as he entered the office and closed the door behind him.
‘Don’t worry, I won’t keep you long,’ Caroline said as she rounded her desk and sat down behind it. ‘I just wanted a quick word, as I’ve noticed there have been one or two comments and moments that haven’t gone down well over the past few days.’
‘Sorry, ma’am. What sort of comments and moments?’ Elijah asked, as if this was the first time he’d ever heard either of those two words.
‘For one, the comment you made towards the end of DS Antoine’s morning briefing a short while ago,’ she replied, her voice a little louder and more forceful than before. ‘I was standing right behind you, and I could see full well that DS Antoine heard it from the front of the room as well. Off the back of your snarky comment about sieves and colanders, I thought someone should break it to you that it didn’t exactly go down well.’
