‘Where are you going with Lou?’
He could’ve thrown a dart at the whiteboards, blindfolded, for all the good it would do him. ‘Do you know what, I have absolutely no idea. None whatsoever.’
‘You’ll get there,’ said Jane. She had moved closer to him and was squeezing his hand, out of view of prying eyes. ‘You always do.’
‘Just dropping my dog off at home, then I’ll be back’ had been a little white lie for the benefit of the Devon team. The rest of the regional task force had known exactly where he was going and it was his lunch hour, after all, if anyone was going to get all jobsworth about it.
Charlesworth was still on the prowl, although Dixon had managed to slip out of the security door when someone else had been coming in.
The tide was rolling in, but there was still enough beach, Monty out of the car in a flash and off down the steps before Dixon had even closed the back door of the Land Rover.
The water was lapping against the sea wall at Burnham but there was still bare sand to be had to the north, towards the lighthouse. Monty had gone that way anyway, never overly keen on getting his paws wet. Nobody about either, which was a bonus. There was usually a scream from at least one dog walker when they saw a large white Staffie charging down the steps.
A cold and wet day in late January, the only thing keeping Dixon’s hands warm was the bag of chips. Lashings of salt and vinegar; grease and carbohydrate to keep his blood sugar levels up.
Three dead, and one spared because he had dementia.
The killer a woman.
The pace accelerating, the visit to George Sampson coming the evening after the second press conference, and no doubt there’d be more to come.
If she’d stopped at number one, she would, quite literally, have got away with murder. Thomas Fowler, murdered almost two months ago in his care home, buried without anyone even realising there had been foul play.
Old, so it was to be expected.
Dixon would have a quiet word with the doctor who had certified Fowler’s cause of death, when this was all over. Or maybe it would be better coming from the coroner? Either way, someone needed to give his backside a bloody good kicking.
Never even touched Fowler’s body. ‘Nothing obvious. I’ll put “old age”,’ with a dismissive shrug. Signed the certificate, left it on the bedside table and was in and out in under five minutes, according to the duty manager at the care home.
The duty doctor who’d gone to see Deirdre Baxter hadn’t been much better, although he had waited for uniformed officers to arrive.
Dixon lobbed Monty’s tennis ball along the sand, watching it roll down towards the water that was gradually filling up the muddy channel, the dog showing no interest in it whatsoever. Maybe this tennis ball launcher Jane had bought wasn’t such a waste of time after all? At least he could pick up the ball without touching it. Always useful when you’re eating your lunch at the same time, he thought, tucking the plastic thrower under his arm, the tennis ball safely in the cup, dripping mud and slime as he walked.
Jane was being a pain about her maternity leave. If she left it any longer she wouldn’t get her full entitlement. There had been no argument this time when Dixon had told her she was running the incident room, so that was progress, perhaps, although Deborah Potter had just raised her eyebrows when Dixon discreetly enquired how Jane’s last pregnancy risk assessment had gone.
He was getting quite good at interpreting what Jane meant when she said something, though, which was making life a little easier.
‘We’ll take it a day at a time,’ actually meant: If you think I’m going on maternity leave while there’s a serial killer out there targeting old people in their own homes, then you can piss off.
Life would be so much easier if people said what they really meant; there’d be nothing to interpret.
Or misinterpret.
He turned for the steps and started to run, Monty running alongside him, thinking it was a game.
Chapter Fifteen
Five missed calls and several text messages. One from Louise – where are you – in the middle of several from Jane asking much the same thing, but with the odd expletive thrown in for good measure.
Dixon was standing on the doorstep of Lucerne House, waiting for someone to come and let him in, Monty standing on the driver’s seat of the Land Rover, his front paws up on the steering wheel, getting sand everywhere. Dixon had rung the doorbell twice and was tapping out a reply to Jane. It was either that or ring the bell again.
There are two bags of recycling on the bed in the spare room at Michael Allam’s flat in Sidmouth. They need to be at Express Park when I get back pls Nx
Get back from where?
Shepton Mallet
Jane was typing another message, he could tell that from the speech bubble, something along the lines of what the bloody hell are you doing in Shepton Mallet, probably, but the duty manager was opening the front door now, so Dixon dropped his phone into his inside jacket pocket.
‘I need to see George Sampson again, please.’
‘Er, yes, that’s fine,’ replied Tammy, quizzically. ‘He’s in his room, if you wouldn’t mind signing in. You pinched the visitors’ book, though, so you’ll have to make do with that.’
Dixon had asked for the leather-bound visitors’ book the day before, and it had been replaced by sheets of paper on a clipboard. ‘Sorry about that,’ he said. ‘I’m guessing the dining room’s empty at this time of day?’
‘They’ll all be back in their rooms by now.’
‘Then if I could have him seated at a table for four, that would be ideal. And I’ll need you and one other person as well.’
Tammy hesitated, turning away then back before thinking better of asking the obvious question. ‘It’s through there,’ she said, pointing to an open door at the bottom of the stairs. ‘I’ll go and get him. And one other person?’
‘Yes, please.’
It had the look of a school dining room, tables and chairs evenly spaced out, a tray of salt and pepper pots on a sideboard; a pile of board games on the large windowsill overlooking the front garden. Something with pastry and gravy had been lunch, judging by the splodges on the table, and the crumbs. It didn’t smell half bad, either.
A woman wearing an apron was spraying, wiping down and laying the tables, ready for the evening meal.
