‘Maybe.’
‘Maybe? Is that all you’ve got to say about it? Maybe?’ Irritability had kicked in. Holden knew it, but felt unable to control it. Irritability was never far from the surface these days.
The traffic in front of them suddenly awoke from its torpor. Fox released the handbrake and moved forward, and as if the traffic and his own thought processes were linked, the words began to flow. ‘It would be hard to prove, even if he did do it. And if he did do it, was it to kill her or maybe to help her? Maybe she’d been complaining about being in pain, and he got the idea into his head that he could give her some morphine to ease the pain.’
‘So where did he get the morphine? Isn’t it more likely the morphine came from Sunnymede, and was put into her flask there?’
‘I thought we were concentrating on David,’ Fox said quietly. He was not a butterfly when it came to analysing a case, or indeed anything else. ‘I thought we were constructing a scenario in which he killed his grandmother accidentally or otherwise. Personally, I don’t see him as a killer, but maybe we shouldn’t underestimate him. I watched a programme on telly about it once. People with Asperger’s can be very bright and capable.’
Holden shut her eyes again, and allowed Fox to concentrate on turning right, off the main road. She agreed with him. David as killer was possible, but not probable. And where would David have got morphine from? Or, indeed, Jim or Maureen?
The smell of fresh coffee hit Holden as she walked into the staff room. Both Lawson and Wilson looked round, matching grins on their faces. Either there was something going on between them or they were after somet
hing.
‘Coffee, Guv? Coffee, Sergeant?’
‘You’re not trying to soften me up, are you, Constables? Because if so I’d rather drink the dregs from the washing up.’
‘Fran Sinclair bought it.’ Wilson said. ‘Specially!’
‘I think,’ Lawson added, raising her eyes as she spoke, ‘that she’s taken a bit of a shine to you, Guv.’
There was a silence then, very short, in truth, but a silence nonetheless. Holden’s sexual orientation was understood, but never openly discussed by her team, and Lawson’s sudden teasing was a step further than ever before. The young constable had a brief moment of panic, that it was maybe a step too far. She felt her cheeks flush and waited for a reprimand.
Holden, however, merely shrugged, and the silence softened as she did so. ‘Whatever, Constable. I’ll take my coffee black, unless Fran has splashed out and purchased cream for us.’
It took another minute for them to settle. Fox, Lawson and Wilson perched with their coffees on the rather worn armchairs round the low table, and waited for Holden to start.
‘I’ve been thinking,’ Holden said eventually. ‘Has anyone checked Greenleaf’s emails?’
‘I took a look at the office PC yesterday,’ Wilson said. ‘But it didn’t look as though he had any personal files there.’
‘Does he not have a laptop?’
‘I haven’t seen one.’
Holden frowned at Wilson, and then turned towards the others.
‘We searched his flat very thoroughly,’ Lawson said defensively. She and Wilson had spent some time doing so the previous afternoon, and she was pretty damn sure that if there had been a laptop there, they would have found it.
‘What about his cottage?’
‘I didn’t notice one there,’ Lawson admitted, which she was beginning to realize was odd.
‘Not everyone has a laptop,’ Fox said firmly, thinking of himself. ‘Not everyone feels the need.’
‘But he must have had one!’ Wilson blurted this out, more forcibly than he intended, and Fox coloured in anger. Sometimes, quite often in fact, he felt Wilson and Lawson didn’t give him the respect he deserved, but at that moment Wilson was oblivious to everything except his own brainwave. ‘He’s got a wireless router in the cottage! On a little table in the corner of the living room. Why would he have that if he didn’t have a computer?’
‘Right,’ Holden cut in. She wasn’t oblivious to the tensions that were surfacing, but she didn’t actually care about them either, at least not in comparison with finding Greenleaf’s killer. ‘So let’s get on and find it! If it’s hidden, maybe there’s something on it he wouldn’t want us to see.’ She paused, and sipped at her coffee. There was something else she wanted to raise, something that she had noticed the night before as she had pored over the paperwork in her kitchen. ‘Lawson. Wilson. Last night I was reading through your report of your visit to Greenleaf’s cottage. There’s something odd about it, you know.’
She sipped again at her coffee, savouring it. It really was rather good. She must remember to ask Fran what it was.
‘What do you mean, Guv?’ Wilson was conscious that it was he who had drafted the report.
‘There was the neighbour you spoke to at the end. The one with a beard whose name you failed to record. He talked about the building work, and according to your report he said that it had been as quiet as the grave the last few weeks.’ Holden had been studying her coffee as she spoke, but now she looked up at her two constables. ‘Are you sure that is what he said? I mean, you must be sure, mustn’t you, given that that is what you wrote down.’
‘That is what he said,’ Wilson said. He tried to sound definite, but there was a note of uncertainty in his voice.