In Love And Murder, page 25
The results of Mr Gold’s DNA test had come back from the lab, and as Bridget had suspected, they showed that Gold wasn’t the father of Gina’s baby. Despite that, Bridget felt certain that with Ffion’s latest breakthrough, they now knew everything they needed to find the killer. If only they could look at the pieces of the mystery with fresh eyes, it would become obvious how they slotted together to make a whole.
‘Here’s what we know,’ she began, pointing to the first photograph on the board. ‘Gina Hartman, final-year Psychology student at Wadham College.’
The red corkscrew hair and dazzling smile in the photo revealed a young woman just starting to make her way in the world, unaware that her life was destined to be cut tragically short.
‘According to her tutor, Gina was a gifted student, destined for a first-class degree.’
A tragic waste of a young life, Dr Ashley had told Bridget when she’d been to see him in college, and she was in full agreement with that sentiment.
‘Gina was pregnant, but we still have no positive ID for the father,’ she continued. ‘She worked as a journalist for a student newspaper, and was using Nick Damon’s parties not only as a way of earning some cash, but also to investigate wrongdoing among Damon’s guests. She made a secret audio recording during the party, and we know that she was trying to find evidence of corrupt dealings between Nick Damon and Hugh Avery-Blanchard, the MP for Witney.’
‘Former MP,’ interjected Ryan, to some mirth from around the room.
Bridget pointed to the photograph of Nick Damon. ‘It would appear that Nick Damon’s true purpose in holding these parties was to nurture contacts and to gain influence over people like Avery-Blanchard who might have been able to benefit Damon’s business interests in some way. Not only did he provide free drinks and entertainment, including the services of a London-based escort agency, but he appears also to have made secret videos of his guests enjoying those services, so that he could later blackmail them if they refused to help him. At least, that’s what appears to have happened to our hapless ex-MP.’
Bridget paused, before pointing to the photograph of Dr Nathan Frost taken just after he’d been arrested. The man gazed out timidly from the wall, looking thoroughly out of place alongside the images of powerful men that surrounded him.
‘Dr Frost appears – on the face of it – to have been invited to the party because he had influence over a planned building project at Wadham College. Certainly the project was large, and it’s conceivable that Frost’s vote might have been decisive. But Frost is convinced that he was invited to the party in order for Gina’s murder to be pinned on him. At this stage, we can’t rule out that possibility, especially since the video we’ve seen clearly shows the murderer deliberately placing Gina’s body in bed next to him while he slept.’
Next Bridget indicated the photos of the various guests who had been present at the party, drawing particular attention to the round red face of Hugh Avery-Blanchard. ‘Avery-Blanchard’s name, or rather the alias that he used at the party – Apollo – cropped up again when we listened to Gina’s audio recording. Brittany Grainger, Damon’s PA, was clearly heard sending Gina upstairs to take a bottle of champagne to Apollo’s room, just before midnight. We know that Gina was attacked immediately after knocking on the bedroom door, and we learned from interviewing the various escorts who worked at the party that Apollo was Avery-Blanchard’s alias, and that Erika, the escort who spent the night with him couldn’t provide a solid alibi for the time of the murder.’
Bridget moved on next to the photo of the judge, Graham Neville. ‘Mr Justice Neville, the High Court judge, was also present at the party, in the company of…’
‘Josh,’ said Ryan.
‘– Josh, who claims not to have noticed anything unusual about his behaviour during the evening.’
‘Apart from the minor detail of a judge being at a sex party,’ said Ryan with a smirk.
‘We also believe,’ said Bridget, ‘although we have no firm evidence, that Neville threw a trial in order to avoid getting Tyler Dixon, Damon’s driver, convicted of an assault charge.’
Bridget drew a breath. ‘We still don’t know which of these men wore the plague doctor’s mask, although Brittany Grainger claims that he identified himself as the Doctor. She believes he was a guest, but we haven’t been able to identify him from the guest list. It’s possible that he was an uninvited guest – although he must have known the password to be admitted at the gate – or it’s possible that Miss Grainger is covering for someone. The question then is who?’
Ffion raised a hand. ‘It might not have been a man wearing the plague doctor’s outfit. We can’t say for sure whether it was a man or a woman who killed Gina.’
‘It might not have been a guest,’ said Jake. ‘It might have been Tyler Dixon. He had a clear motive to kill Gina, if he found out that she’d been sleeping with another man.’
‘What about the creepy lawyer, Mr Gold?’ asked Andy. ‘We know that he sent the video to the MP as a threat. Might he have been trying to stop Gina from carrying out her investigations?’
‘We know that he went to interrogate Poppy immediately before Miranda was strangled,’ said Ryan. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if he did all Damon’s dirty work.’
‘All right, all right,’ said Bridget, trying to restore a sense of order to the incident room. The fact was, they had far too much information before them. It was difficult to find a path through all the competing facts. She pointed once again to the photo of Nick Damon. The man’s tanned, grinning face exuded an infuriating confidence that made her want to punch his nose.
‘We mustn’t forget the man at the centre of this web. Nick Damon, owner of Damon Developments and about a dozen other companies. We know that he manipulates people to get what he wants, but we don’t have a shred of evidence to pin on him. Damon’s too smart for that. He uses men like Tyler Dixon and Mr Gold to throw muscle around and threaten people, while he stays back, keeping himself above the fray. He generously hands out gifts to his friends, then collects favours in return. Is there any possibility he might have murdered Gina for some reason?’
‘To stop her investigating his parties,’ said Jake.
‘And he could easily have dressed up in this plague doctor’s outfit to conceal his identity,’ said Ryan.
‘We only have Brittany’s word that the plague doctor was one of the guests,’ said Ffion. ‘She might simply have been lying about this mysterious Doctor. And we know that Brittany sent Gina upstairs. She could have known that Damon was waiting there to strangle her.’
‘Damon has no alibi for the time of Miranda’s murder either,’ said Bridget. ‘And we know that Mr Gold was definitely in the college at the time of her death. In fact, he was with Poppy very shortly before Miranda phoned me to say she’d guessed who killed Gina.’
‘Where was Brittany that morning?’ asked Ffion.
‘Out shopping in Oxford,’ said Jake, shifting uncomfortably in his chair.
‘So any of them might have killed Miranda,’ said Bridget despairingly. ‘This is getting us nowhere.’
She really needed to close this case as a matter of urgency. Grayson had cut her some slack, but with two dead students and no conclusive result, his patience would be wearing thin. And Bridget knew that this afternoon she would have to return to Wadham College to meet Miranda’s parents. She would have to stand before them and tell them that she had no clear idea who had taken their daughter’s life.
The memory of meeting Gina’s grieving parents in college flashed before her and she recalled their quiet dignity in the face of tragic death. She thought of the cold morgue, and of Gina’s marble skin and red curls, preserved in lifeless beauty. And she remembered how the warden of the college and Gina’s tutor had gone out of their way to make the parents comfortable and to smooth their visit.
She thought again of Miranda’s room in Front Quad, and of Frost’s upstairs room that overlooked it. And now at last she guessed who the father of Gina’s unborn child might be.
‘Come on,’ she said aloud. ‘I think I know who did it, and why.’
30
Frost started awake from his sleep, his forehead burning with fever, his stomach convulsing with pain as if iron bands were clamping tightly around it. His bedclothes were drenched with sweat. But he threw them aside, rising from the clammy bed with a sense of resolution unlike any he had felt before.
He had remembered!
At last, the elusive memory he had sought for so long and which told him what he needed to know had come back to him.
The voice of the plague doctor, speaking to him as he handed over the glass of champagne.
‘Here, you look like you could use another drink.’
Such kind words, yet just like the man’s mask, they served only to cloak the treacherous viper lurking behind them.
He knew that voice! And now he knew who had committed the terrible crime of strangling Gina, and who had sought to incriminate him as the perpetrator.
Quick as a flash he began to dress, stumbling into his trousers and pulling on his shirt, still creased from the day before. He rushed downstairs to grab his shoes and bicycle clips. Shrugging a coat over his shoulders he wheeled his bicycle from its place in the hallway out through the front door. Then, pedalling furiously, he set off down the road, pushing recklessly across a line of oncoming cars that tooted their horns at him as he made a sharp right turn.
Down the long steep slope of Headington Hill he cycled, propelling the heavy metal bike as fast as he dared, feeling the cold wind tugging at him, as if it sought to hold him back. But nothing could stop him now. Like Nietzsche’s Übermensch – or Superman, to the uneducated – he had chosen his own destiny, and was about to claim it.
At the foot of the hill a bus lurched out in front of him, but he mounted the pavement, waving his arms to shoo a pedestrian out of his way. Then, with a thud, he was back on the road, pedalling out across the busy roundabout of the Plain, weaving his way between cars and other cyclists in the direction of Wadham.
Despite the icy wind that whipped his face, despite the burning of his fever, despite the honking of irate drivers, he felt free and happy for the first time since he could remember. I am invincible, he thought to himself, as he turned right at the traffic lights into Longwall Street. Left he turned at the next junction, into New College Lane, picking up speed on his final approach to Wadham.
On arrival at the college, he dumped his bike in the lodge, ignoring the complaints of the porter, and hurried inside. He made his way immediately to Dr Ashley’s room in Front Quad, and hammered loudly on the door with his fist.
‘Come in,’ said a voice in surprise.
Frost opened the door and pushed it wide. There, sitting behind his desk and affecting a look of startled innocence, was his quarry.
‘I suppose you thought you’d got away with it,’ said Frost. ‘You murdered Gina, you set me up as prime suspect, and then you killed Miranda when she heard your voice and realised that you were at the party.’
The object of his hatred – his nemesis – regarded him with a cold and calculating look, just as repulsive as the mask he had worn on the night of the murder.
‘You’d better come in, then,’ said Dr Ashley at last. ‘Close the door behind you.’
31
There was no time to wait for backup. Bridget leapt into the front seat of Jake’s Subaru, while Ffion and Ryan piled into the back.
‘Strap in tight,’ said Jake, sticking the car into gear, his right foot already to the floor.
The car pulled out of its place in the Kidlington car park with a screech of rubber, engine roaring, rev counter pushing towards the red. It sped off down the Oxford Road as fast as Jake could safely manage before crossing the ring road and entering North Oxford.
‘Can you be certain it’s him, ma’am?’ asked Ryan from the back of the car.
‘A DNA test will prove it one way or the other,’ said Bridget, ‘but we’ve eliminated every other man connected with this investigation. If none of the party guests, nor Damon nor any member of his staff was the father of Gina’s child, then it was almost certainly someone she knew at college. And since Miranda and Poppy insisted that Gina didn’t have a boyfriend, that only leaves –’
‘– her tutor,’ filled in Ffion. ‘It certainly fits. If Gina told Dr Ashley about her pregnancy and then he discovered that she was sleeping with Tyler Dixon, he might have become enraged with jealousy.’
‘Why kill her at the party, though?’ asked Ryan. ‘Why do it there?’
‘Perhaps he didn’t plan to kill her,’ said Bridget. ‘Perhaps he just went along to keep an eye on her. Gina had already told him about the parties, and she might even have told him the password. Suppose he donned a disguise and followed her to the house in order to keep watch over her, or to persuade her to come back with him. He might have taken the Rohypnol with the intention of giving it to her if she refused to cooperate. But instead, he saw her and Tyler having sex in Tyler’s car next to the gatehouse.’
‘Just like Tyler kept telling us,’ said Jake.
‘Then, after other guests started to arrive, he went inside, inventing an alias to give to Brittany.’
‘The Doctor,’ mused Ffion. ‘Alluding to his plague doctor disguise, and also to the fact that he holds a PhD in Psychology.’
‘Right,’ said Bridget. ‘And then, to his amazement, he found one of his colleagues, Dr Frost, at the party. He seized his chance, slipping Frost the drugged drink, so that he went upstairs to sleep, and then he confronted Gina in the hallway.’
‘You shouldn’t be here!’ repeated Ffion. ‘The words make perfect sense now.’
‘He must have seen Gina go upstairs carrying the champagne,’ continued Bridget, ‘followed her up, and attacked her. He dragged her into Frost’s room, strangled her to death, and then placed the body in the bed, knowing that Frost would be unable to provide a convincing explanation for how he’d ended up there with the body of a student from his own college. He was the perfect fall guy.’
‘Except that Dr Ashley had no idea about the hidden camera that recorded a video of the whole murder,’ said Ryan.
‘Right. Although unbeknown to him he was rescued by Mr Gold who deleted the video in order to cover up the fact that he and Damon had been secretly recording their guests’ activities. But then later, Miranda must have bumped into him in college and heard his voice. She realised she’d heard him speaking at the party, and guessed that he might be Gina’s killer. Presumably Dr Ashley noticed her, followed her back to her room, and strangled her. He was right under our noses the whole time.’
It was so often the case, mused Bridget. The truth was obvious once you’d sifted away all the distractions and false trails.
‘We’re nearly there, ma’am,’ interrupted Jake from the driving seat.
‘Okay,’ said Bridget. ‘Let’s find him quickly and bring him in with the minimum of fuss. I don’t want to create another big scene.’
*
‘So, you finally worked it out,’ sneered Dr Ashley, leaning back in his chair. ‘I thought you were never going to remember anything about that night.’
‘That’s what you hoped,’ said Frost. ‘But you’re a psychologist. You must know the marvels that the human brain is capable of.’
‘Hmm, yes, even yours it would appear. You know, I quizzed you quite thoroughly that time when I sat next to you at evensong. I thought that if I sat right next to you, and you heard my voice, and that still didn’t stir any recollections, then I was home and dry.’
‘But you weren’t, were you?’ said Frost. ‘Miranda Gardiner recognised your voice, and she guessed the truth. That’s why you killed her.’
‘Yes,’ said Dr Ashley. ‘And that’s why I’m going to have to kill you too.’
‘You wouldn’t dare!’ said Frost, aghast. ‘How could you possibly get away with a third murder?’
‘I’ve managed two already. I’m pretty sure I’ll think of something. Perhaps if you were to attack me, for example. Then I’d be forced to defend myself, wouldn’t I? Yes, perhaps you came here acting like a lunatic, threatening violence. Everyone knows that you’ve been off your head this past week. Most people believe you killed Gina. And you don’t have an alibi for when Miranda was strangled either. Yes, I don’t think it would be very difficult to convince everyone that you’re a psychotic killer. I guess you’d need to have access to some kind of weapon, wouldn’t you? That way I could justify using the force necessary to break your neck.’
Dr Ashley’s eyes roamed around the room. Frost looked too, wondering what kind of instrument an Oxford don might keep in his room that could hold lethal potential.
They both saw it at the same instant. An iron poker leaning against the fireplace. A black metal rod, about eighteen inches in length, with a loop at one end and a wicked spike at the other.
Dr Ashley let out an animal snarl and got up from his chair. The young man was fast and strong, and darted towards the fire iron with the desperation of a man who had nothing to lose.
But Frost had nothing to lose either, and everything to gain. Not only his innocence to prove, and his freedom to keep, but finally a chance to save his soul.
Only a week ago he had been willing to sell his soul to a devil, a man who treated human lives as commodities to be bartered and traded. And for what? A night out at a sordid party in a country house. How cheaply he had valued himself!
Not now, though. Brought face to face with his own ruin, he had risen from the ashes, ready to redeem himself through action and make his own moral rules as he chose. No longer would he hide himself away in dusty libraries, timidly shunning the material world. He would dare to take what was rightfully his, becoming the legendary Übermensch and doing what Nietzsche had urged us all to do – to unleash human potential to its full, uniting artistic creativity with the ruthlessness of the warrior.
