Chapter Seventeen

A tired and frustrated Robin and Pru got back to Abbotston an hour after their expected arrival time. A pile up on the southbound M40—at a long stretch between junctions—had caused them to divert, only to get snarled up in traffic after an accident had happened on the diversion route.

As the pair entered the incident room, Danielle immediately offered to make them both a mug of tea, while Ben broke open a packet of biscuits he'd had stashed away. He brought them over, with the air of a rescue dog bringing sustenance.

"You lot are treasures." Robin grabbed a biscuit before the offer got rescinded. "Custard creams, as well. The best. Give us a few minutes, then we'll all get up to speed."

Once he felt confident of speaking coherently and he'd checked Pru was likewise, Robin got the team's attention. "Long story short, Hanley may have caused his mother's fall but he's no longer a person of interest for Mark's murder. We're pursuing a new line of enquiry." He paused, unable to hide a grin. "I'm sounding like a telly copper. The next part's a bit straight out of a script too. We came up with the idea that Suzy may have been faking her illness."

A ripple of nods and "Guessed that" ran round the team.

"We were all confident that you'd have a good reason behind what you asked us to root out," Ben said. "We'd have done it anyway, even if it had been odder still."

Robin, temporarily unmanned by the confidence his team showed in him—his tiredness must have been affecting him in surprising ways—made his way over to the incident board so he could pull himself together. He tapped on Harry Foakes's name. "We fell on our feet with this guy. I'd say his role in the cover-up has been weighing on him, so it didn't take much to get him to confirm it. Pru, want to update people on that interview?"

The sergeant went into her usual, highly efficient precis of the discussion, picking out the salient points and ending with, "So, whatever Mark's actual role in Suzy's death, we want to know whether that's the key to his murder."

"First things first," Robin said. "Foakes's alibi. Any news on that, Ben?"

He'd asked that particular constable to deal with the issue because he could increasingly be relied on for subtlety, something Ashok wasn't quite on top of, yet.

"Yes, sir." Ben had his notes to hand. "I've been in touch with both his wife and parents-in-law. I did my best to assure them it was merely routine in such cases, but I'm not sure any of them believed me. Not like Foakes was a close friend of the deceased and the excuse I gave—that he'd been a key witness about Suzy's illness—didn't seem to cut much ice."

"He's going to cop some stick when he gets home, I suspect," Pru said, with a grin.

Robin grunted. "I wouldn't want to be in his shoes, but if that's all he gets, he can't complain. What did they say, Ben?"

"That what he told you checks out. He was at the in-laws' house all day, getting increasingly sozzled."

"Thanks. I've got to say I had no real hope it would turn out he'd been away for an hour on some pretence." Shame that the suspects in this case whom he didn't like could prove where they were and the ones he did like couldn't. "Which all means that we need to turn our attention back to Justin and Izzy Packer."

"On the principle that they think he delayed the ambulance arriving?" Ben asked. "Did they mention something about that when we interviewed them? My memory of that day's all a bit fuzzy because of the food poisoning. Last time I use that new takeaway."

Robin thought for a moment. "I think they said they wished Suzy had called for an ambulance sooner."

Ben nodded. "One thing, sir. There was no car at the Packers' house. If they don't drive, how could they have moved the Yaris?"

"Don't drive doesn't mean can't drive, young Benjamin." Robin, grinning, wagged his finger. "They may have elected not to have a car now, but they could have had one in the past and both of them might have passed their tests when younger. We know they're not your stereotypical off-grid type. One of them could have cycled to Kings Ride Woods but driven away, utilising that bike rack. And they'd be likelier to know about that being on the Yaris than a relative stranger."

Ben conceded the point with a nod.

"Do we get them in for questioning now, sir?" Ashok asked.

Robin had been wrestling with that question ever since he and Pru had emerged from the traffic jam. "I'm inclined to sleep on it and get them in tomorrow. We can leave ringing them until first thing so they don't have this evening to plan anything they haven't already planned, story-wise."

Danielle raised her hand, timidly. "Do you think there's a risk they'll do a runner?"

"Good point." Robin could tell she wasn't used to producing anything like a challenge to a superior officer. "I'd say there's not a great risk if they haven't already upped sticks. It's possible they could have gone to ground since Ben and I saw them and we haven't noticed the fact, but we've not done anything to spook them, have we? All our attention's been aimed northwards."

There'd been nothing much in the local media, either, apart from a few snitty remarks about lack of progress, but Mr. Cowdrey had dealt with those in his usual effective manner.

"If we make it tomorrow afternoon," Pru said, "we'll have the best chance of laying our hands on some supporting evidence, no matter how circumstantial. Suzy's phone records from the time she went into hospital, maybe?"

"It won't hurt to get on that trail. If we're right, we'll be needing them for the CPS. At present our level of concrete evidence is pretty well nothing." Robin was acutely aware that the Crown Prosecution Service would have their guts for garters if their case was based on nothing but speculation. "Ben, was there anything at Tumulus Gardens that could help us?"

"Not a scrap, sir. I kept an eye out for anything to do with Suzy, but there was nothing over and above what you'd expect." Ben shrugged. "He seems to have cleared out most of her stuff, although that's what a lot of people do when they're bereaved."

"Well, any bright ideas between now and when the Packers come in will be much appreciated. I don't know about you lot but I'm shattered. If I interviewed anyone now it would be a wasted opportunity, and I want us all to be on top form for that encounter. I'm hoping that what happened with Foakes happens again and that they realise the game is up, fold, and tell all." Robin yawned mightily. "Let's do anything that can't be left until tomorrow and come to the rest fresh in the morning."

He could have added that not only was he extremely tired, but he was in desperate need of a warm, comforting cuddle from his warm, comforting Adam and a lick from a bouncing, daft Hamish.

Pru, who was stifling a yawn herself, said, "Deferring until tomorrow works best for me too. This new hypothesis hangs together now but I want to sleep on it. Always a risk we'll wake tomorrow and one of us will have spotted a hole in our thinking large enough to drive a bus through."

Which was absolutely sensible and depressingly accurate. Come morning, the Packers might have become the least viable suspects and they'd be back to square one.

Thursday morning, halfway through a week that already felt interminable, Adam was awake before his husband, so he crept out of bed and across the floor, trying not to rouse him. His alarm wasn't due for another few minutes, and they could be precious, sleep-wise. Robin had been dog-tired when he'd got home Wednesday evening, grabbing a kiss and something to eat before flopping on the settee. He'd refused to discuss the journey back from Birmingham, vowing he'd never again travel on the M40, but had wanted to discuss the progress they'd made and the new hypothesis the team was working on. This was not merely because Adam had been the catalyst for the leap forward.

"We're all at the excited stage and at risk of missing some obvious hole in the logic. You're independent so the chances are, Adam, you'll spot it and, better still, you'll have no hesitation in pointing it out."

Adam had listened, asked questioned, and followed the logic, but he hadn't spotted anything obvious, apart from the lack of evidence. Even now, when he'd had the chance to sleep on it, he still couldn't think of anything that would bring Robin's house of cards down. And given how reliable Adam's unconscious tended to be at working on a problem, doing what his dad used to call "going through the card index of the mind while you're out like a light," then surely there was nothing obvious to be rooted out.

As Adam returned to the bedroom to get a hoodie to put on top of his pyjamas, he found Robin yawning and stretching.

"Sorry. Did I wake you?"

"I don't think so." Robin turned off his phone alarm. "The room was empty when I came to. No worries if you did wake me, because I haven't the time to lie around here today and there's no incentive if you're not available to lie here with me."

Adam ruffled his husband's hair. "As soon as your case is settled, we'll book a stay-in-bed morning. Send Hamish to one of our mums for a treat."

"Deal." Robin stretched again. "I'm glad I decided not to do the interviews late yesterday, because I feel almost human this morning, whereas last night I was like the walking dead."

"You certainly look and sound perkier today."

"A shower, a mug of tea, and a couple of slices of toast inside me and I'll be perkier still."

"I'll go down, let himself out, and get the kettle on. You'll probably get an extra lick from Hamish this morning because he noticed the state you were in yesterday." The Newfoundland had been particularly attentive and loving, to the extent of hauling his favourite blanket into the lounge and laying it at Robin's feet.

Robin rubbed his knuckles across Adam's hand. "I don't know what I'd do without you two. I come home feeling like crap, and when you've worked your magic I sometimes think I could take over the world."

"Please don't. I'm not sure I could live with a dictator." Adam headed for the door. "Save your efforts for being mustard in that interview room."

Robin snorted. "I'll do my best. I'm increasingly convinced that we've come to the right conclusion, but I can't help worrying about the lack of evidence. If you can find any in the teapot, put it to one side for me."

"If I could, I would."

As Adam fiddled about in the kitchen and waited for Hamish to finish in the garden, he puzzled over the matter of proving a murder when proof was so hard to come by. Not his problem, really, but what affected Robin naturally affected him. Anyway, it was always fun to tackle somebody else's issues, rather than your own. By the time Robin appeared, not only was breakfast ready but Adam had a couple of ideas to air.

"Feel free to tell me either to bugger off or to stop the whole ‘stating the bleeding obvious' lark with this." He poured their morning cuppas. "Have you got any interactions between Mark and his in-laws that sound dodgy? A punch-up at the wake or whatever?"

"Not that anybody's reported to us, and I've a feeling they would if there'd been fisticuffs at the graveside. Christine Probert would have been all over it, for starters." Robin, lips pursed, buttered a slice of toast. "Hold on a minute, though. Izzy Packer told us she'd met Mark at some farm shop last autumn and he'd been surprisingly sweet and sympathetic with her. I guess we could explore that, because it might indicate he'd known then that Suzy's illness was imaginary."

"So, he'd have already realised they couldn't have prevented her having treatment?"

"Exactly. There may well have been more to that conversation than they admitted, because Izzy did say she'd got upset. I think she then moved the interview on to the topic of Mark himself, how he'd fallen out with his brother, so she may have been deflecting us. Now, wait a minute"—Robin waved his toast—"I'm sure she said Mark had been talking about how everyone always gave their sympathy to the person who was ill and didn't bother with the family around them. The story was supposed to also refer to a miscarriage she'd had—how it was his child as well as hers but people seemed to forget that. He might have been referring to her supposed illness."

Adam nodded. "And if Suzy relished the sympathy she got when she miscarried, she might have wanted to replicate it."

"Which led her ultimately into the fake diagnosis stuff? Could be."

"I'm sorry this idea's not particularly concrete."

"It's a start, though. At the moment I'll take all I can get." That appeared to include another couple of slices of toast and a banana, which Robin loaded onto his plate.

Adam, taking his husband's hearty appetite as a positive sign, said, "Then you can have this too. Again, it's not a lot and you've probably already thought of it. When you ring 999, isn't that call itself recorded and not merely the time and date?"

Robin tapped his forehead, sending a shower of toast crumbs flying. "Well, that shows you how knackered am I. Pru too, because it's the kind of detail she'd usually have jumped on. If we pin down the time and compare that to when Suzy was texting, we might have a clearer idea of what went on that evening. If I wasn't all buttery and jammy I'd give you a kiss."

"Keep it for later." Adam blew him one in return. "Actually, I was thinking that you could listen to what Mark said when he rang for the ambulance. Hasn't that kind of evidence been used to catch people out? I appreciate that if he did let something slip it couldn't have been anything so obvious that the operator would have become suspicious and made a note. But he might have made a remark that only has significance in light of your new theory."

"You, my genius boy, deserve more than one kiss." Before Robin could expand on the offer, Hamish jumped up, stuck his paws in his dad's lap, and thrust his head forward, evidently expecting his reward. "No, not you this time." Robin tickled the dog behind his ear. "I meant the other handsome, clever boy in my life. I'm lucky to have you both."

Adam smiled. "Leave the mush for later too, for when I can appreciate it. I don't want to arrive at school all teary-eyed."

Robin squeezed Adam's hand. "I don't want to go into a key interview in a state, either. I shall stiffen my upper lip rather than soften it for a snog."

"I'll do the same. I won't forget I'm on a promise, though."

"Quite right, too." Robin took another bite of toast. "You're on lots of promises. I'll deliver on every one."

Adam grinned and then took a swift drink of tea. He'd have to make sure he wiped any hints of lasciviousness off his gob before he arrived at school too. Otherwise, what would the parents say?