Imposition (DI Gardener 5)

“Any of her and Robbie together?” Reilly asked.

“Only a couple, and I’d say they weren’t recent.”

“Another contradiction to the quality of their relationship,” said Gardener. “Sean and I heard a similar story at the stables today. Emma, is there anything on the computer connecting him to the house?”

“The only thing I noticed was a gig guide: a list of all his bookings, where he was on which date, how much he was paid, what commission he paid out – not to mention tax, and what he was left with.”

“So it was a ledger,” said Gardener. “Could have been done by him.”

“I’m not sure,” said Longstaff. “I could only find one password. Surely there’d be two if two people used the machine?”

“They could have used the same one, instead of switching users,” said Sharp.

“Not likely, though, is it,” said Cragg. “It’s not the impression I get of Robbie Carter. I reckon secrecy is his middle name.”

“Maybe he had his own machine,” offered Gardener. “Most people these days have more than one.” He made a note on the whiteboard. “If he has, I want it.”

“What about her social media status?” Patrick Edwards asked.

“She had accounts on them all,” replied Emma. “Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. It’s going to take me ages to trawl through that lot.”

“Just keep going, Emma,” said Gardener, “but get help. Ask the HOLMES lads, they’re pretty good with that sort of thing.”

Gardener was about to move on when Patrick Edwards drew his attention. He nodded.

Edwards turned to Longstaff. “Did you notice if she was friends with Robbie or any of them?”

She raised her finger to gesture a good point had been made. “I never checked.”

Gardener sorted through the printed documents on the table in front of him, locating the one that covered the alarm. It didn’t really tell him anything new, apart from the fact that it was set at one-forty-five and the first detection of movement was after two o’clock.

He mentioned it to the team. “If the burglar had been hiding somewhere, would he have waited for half an hour after Robbie had left the house before making an appearance?”

“No,” said Sharp.

“You’d want out first chance you got,” said Reilly.

“Unless he hadn’t turned the place over properly,” offered Rawson. “Maybe he hadn’t been at it long when Robbie came home. He hid while the coast was clear and then carried on.”

“Too risky,” said Gates. “Most burglars would bolt at the first sign of trouble, especially if he’d witnessed anything untoward happening between the Carters.”

“So where did he hide?” asked Gardener. “We’ve seen the house, it’s not that big.”

“Okay,” said Anderson. “Let’s assume it was exactly as the boss had said: Robbie gets home early, they argue about something, it turns violent and the burglar witnesses everything from his hidey hole.”

“Which would be another good reason to find him,” said Gardener.

“But if he was downstairs, he won’t have witnessed anything,” said Rawson. “Especially as we think the violence was upstairs.”

“Maybe the place wasn’t burgled, then,” offered Gates. “Maybe the argument between him and his wife got heated, turned to violence, he came down and trashed the place and then disappeared.”

“All good points,” said Cragg. “But it doesn’t allow for the fact that someone was hiding downstairs. Robbie Carter would surely have found him.”

“You’d have thought so,” said Anderson. “Because we know that someone was moving around in the house while Robbie was in here talking to you.”

Gardener keyed in on that. “What about the footage on his phone – anyone checked that?”

One of the HOLMES team said he’d run it through the computers but it was too dark to see anything. The more they tried to enhance