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‘No,’ she answered tearfully. ‘He usually called me twice or more a day just to say hello. No particular reason. I think he worried I’d get bored if he didn’t.’
‘But he didn’t seem worried about anything?’ Sean persisted.
‘No,’ she insisted.
‘Didn’t mention anything at all?’
‘No,’ she repeated. ‘What could he be worried about?’
‘He was the CEO of Fairfield’s Bank, yes?’ Sean asked.
‘So?’
‘Not exactly the most popular people in the world right now – bankers,’ he reminded her.
‘I understand that,’ she assured him, ‘and I know this madman used that as some type of twisted justification to commit murder, but Paul was a good man. He believed in responsible banking. He was as interested in making extra pounds and pennies for ordinary people as he was millions for multinationals.’
Sean couldn’t help but roll his eyes around his salubrious surroundings. ‘I’m sure that’s true,’ he said as tactfully as he knew how, ‘but from the outside he would have looked like just another wealthy banker.’
‘From the outside,’ she pointed out. ‘This monster knew nothing about Paul. He gave away thousands to charity. I used to joke that he’d give away everything we had if I’d allow him – make us homeless.’
‘Why?’ Sean asked, not sure where his questions would take him, but asking anyway. ‘Did he feel guilty about his wealth for some reason?’
‘No,’ she bit. ‘Why should he? Why should we? We’ve worked hard for everything we have. We both have. But there’ll always be jealous people who would rather just take what we have than earn it for themselves.’
Sean imagined her and her dead husband’s backgrounds – wealthy families sending them to the best schools and the best universities, feeding them in to the network of the privileged to ensure they’d be groomed for the top jobs. He swallowed his resentment.
‘So you think your husband was killed by someone who is jealous of him?’ he asked.
‘Of course he was,’ Mrs Elkins insisted. ‘What else could it be?’
‘Do you have someone in mind?’ he encouraged her. ‘Someone you know was jealous of your husband?’
‘No.’ She shook her head and pulled her daughter closer. ‘We don’t know anyone who could possibly do anything like this. Paul was killed by a stranger – a bitter, jealous stranger.’
‘And work?’ Sean persisted. ‘Was there anyone he’d been having trouble with at work?’
‘Look.’ She closed her eyes and tried to compose herself. ‘Paul was a very senior executive. It would be unrealistic to think there wasn’t a degree of professional jealousy, but nothing that would lead to this.’
‘You’d be surprised,’ Sean told her. ‘Jealously can make people do terrible things.’
‘And it has,’ she agreed, ‘but not by someone we know. Paul was liked. He was a good man. He cared about other people – including the people he worked with. No one would have hurt him. My God,’ Mrs Elkins suddenly said as she began to sob heavily. Her friend quickly took some tissues from a box on the table in front of her and handed them to her. ‘I’m already talking about him in the past tense.’ Her daughter’s sobbing also intensified as Sean looked on; the need to escape to the sanctuary of the street was beginning to overwhelm him. He breathed in deeply and steadied himself.
‘What about someone else?’ he asked. ‘Someone who worked at the house maybe?’
‘No,’ she insisted, shaking her head again. ‘We only have the cleaners, and Rosemary who helps out with the children, and Simon the gardener, but no one else and they all loved Paul. He looked after them well.’
‘Was he having any trouble at work,’ he pressed, ‘from an unhappy customer – any threatening phone calls or letters – emails?’
‘Not that he told me of,’ she assured him. ‘I mean, when things were at their worst, when the banking crisis thing first started, there were threats to the bank, but nothing Paul seemed worried about. He didn’t mention anything specific. But he never talked about work at home. Maybe the bank can tell you more – I’m not sure, but this all seems a bit pointless. He was taken by an insane murdering animal, not a jealous colleague or bitter employee, and if you don’t catch him he’ll do it again,’ she warned them. ‘He’s as good as said he will.’
Sean and Donnelly looked at each other for a long few seconds before looking back at Mrs Elkins.
‘I think we have everything we need for now,’ Donnelly intervened. ‘A Family Liaison Officer from Special Investigations will come to see you later, and rest assured we’ll be in touch as soon as we find out anything. In the meantime, if you think of anything, anything at all, just tell the Family Liaison Officer.’
‘And that’s it?’ she asked. ‘Paul is murdered – a brief visit from the police and we’re supposed to just get on with our lives?’
‘No,’ Sean warned her. ‘I’m sorry, but this is just the beginning. It won’t be over until we find the man who did this.’
Mrs Elkins looked to the ceiling before taking a more conciliatory tone. ‘I’m sorry. I’ve been unreasonable. It’s just I can’t believe this has actually happened. It all seems so impossible.’
‘No need to apologize,’ Sean assured her, getting to his feet. ‘You’ve suffered a terrible shock. Best thing I can do for you now is find the man who did this.’ He pulled a business card out and placed it on the table in front of her. ‘Call me if you need anything – any time. Don’t get up. We’ll see ourselves out.’
Donnelly pushed himself off the sofa and followed Sean out of the room towards the front door, with Mendham following close behind. ‘Any idea when you’ll get your Family Liaison Officer here? I don’t fancy being stuck here long,’ he asked.
‘They’ll be here when they’re here,’ Sean reprimanded him.
‘Cheer up, son,’ Donnelly told him. ‘It’s not all car chases and kicking down doors. Sometimes we have to earn our meagre wages.’
‘You won’t be here too long,’ Sean assured him as he opened the front door and walked into the street without turning to see Mendham’s frustrated gestures at being abandoned.
‘What now?’ Donnelly asked.
‘You said there were witnesses,’ Sean reminded him. ‘We might as well speak to them seeing as how we’re already here.’
‘Aye,’ Donnelly agreed. ‘So which one do you want to see − the housekeeper or the yummy mummy?’
‘I’ll take the mum.’
‘That figures. Name’s Angela Haitink. Number eighteen.’
‘Thanks,’ Sean told him and headed off without saying more. A few seconds later he was standing on the steps of a five-storey white Georgian house with a black door so shiny it made his reflection vibrate when he used the ornate chrome knocker.
Interviewing witnesses was never something he’d enjoyed. He always milked them for everything and anything they were worth, but he found their inaccuracies and hesitancy frustrating and annoying. He reminded himself not to treat Angela Haitink as a suspect. After almost a minute the door was answered by a tall, slim woman in her mid-thirties, with short blonde hair in a ponytail, wearing a designer tracksuit and trainers that he guessed would cost him a week’s wages. Her similarity to the mothers of the children taken by Douglas Allen reminded him of the impending trial he’d almost forgotten about in the fury of a new case.
‘Yes,’ she asked, her accent exactly what he expected. ‘Can I help you with something?’ She looked him up and down as if he was an unwanted salesman.
He opened his warrant card and waited for a change in her expression that never came. ‘Angela Haitink?’ he asked. She nodded yes. ‘Detective Inspector Corrigan. I’m investigating the murder of Paul Elkins. I understand you witnessed his abduction?’
She glanced at her sports watch, her expression finally changing to one of concern. ‘Do we have to do this right now? I’m afraid I’m running a little late.’
He swallowed his resentment. ‘It is rather important,’ he told her. ‘A man has been killed. One of your neighbours.’
She looked up and down the street before speaking again. ‘Of course. I’m sorry. Please come in.’ She stepped aside and allowed him to enter, heading for the kitchen after closing the door – Sean following, taking in the opulent surroundings. ‘It was a terrible thing,’ she told him without sounding genuinely concerned. ‘We’re all in a state of shock. I even knew the poor man, for God’s sake.’
‘You knew him?’
‘Well, I mean I said hello to him occasionally and I think my husband knew him a little better, but really – in a street like this. I just assumed he was being robbed, but then he bundled him into the back of a white van and drove away with him … I mean – my God.’
‘So you called 999?’
‘I had to – I mean, I had to do something.’
‘You did the right thing,’ he encouraged her, reminding himself to go softly.
‘I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. That’s when I phoned the police, but by the time they got here he was long gone and then I saw the news and found out that he’d been murdered – live on the Internet. Terrible. Just terrible.’
‘Which is why I need you to remember everything you saw,’ he told her as warmly as he could, ‘to help us catch the man who did this as quickly as possible.’
‘Of course. But I wouldn’t want anyone to find out I’ve spoken to the police. I mean, what if the killer found out? He could come after me.’
‘He won’t,’ Sean tried to reassure her, resisting the temptation to roll his eyes. ‘We don’t think organized crime’s involved here. This one’s not the type to go after witnesses.’
‘You don’t think?’
‘No. I don’t. But we can keep your identity secret, even if you end up giving evidence in court.’ He could have kicked himself as soon as he said it.
‘In court?’ she almost shouted. ‘I don’t think I could give evidence in court.’
How he missed southeast London. He would have arrested her for obstructing an investigation by now and dragged her back to Peckham nick to be interviewed there. ‘It’ll probably never come to it,’ he lied, ‘but you do need to tell me what you saw.’ She appeared unconvinced. ‘I’m sorry,’ he eventually told her. ‘You really have no choice, but there’s nothing to worry about.’ Still she said nothing, as if she was still considering the options she didn’t have. ‘Why don’t you start by showing me where you were when you saw Mr Elkins being attacked?’
‘I was in my bedroom,’ she told him, but made no move towards it.
Why were people always so much more bashful about showing their bedrooms than any other room? he wondered – as if it was the one room that betrayed our personal life more than any other.
‘Don’t worry,’ he tried to joke. ‘If it’s in a mess I promise not to tell anyone.’
‘No it’s not that,’ she stumbled a little. ‘Please. Follow me. It’s on the second floor.’
She led him to the stairs and up to the second-floor master bedroom that looked about the size of Sean’s entire ground floor. He followed her to the window that overlooked the street below and they both peered down on the quiet road.
‘It’s usually like this,’ she told him. ‘Quiet and private.’
‘So did you notice the white van parked up before the attack? It must have stood out a little.’
‘I did notice it,’ she admitted, ‘but it didn’t bother me. There’s always tradesmen of one type or another in the street.’
‘Did you notice how long it was there for?’
‘I … I really couldn’t say.’
‘When did you first notice it?’
‘Again, I’m … I’m not sure.’
‘Well, what were you doing?’
‘Goodness. So many questions.’
He realized he was moving too quickly and tried to back off a little. ‘What I mean is … try and think back to what you were doing the first time you saw the van. What drew your attention to it?’
‘Nothing particularly … just, nothing.’
‘Were you here – by this window?’
‘No. No I don’t think I was, actually.’
‘Then where? Outside? Inside?’
Her eyes began to flicker with recollection. ‘Neither. I was neither.’
‘Excuse me?’ he asked, his turn to be confused.
‘I was at the front door, which was open for some reason.’ He let her think for a few seconds. ‘I remember. I’d just taken delivery of a parcel, something I’d ordered online, some new sheets for the children’s beds, so that would have been almost exactly five. Yeah, definitely, because Marie, our nanny, had already picked the kids up from school and was giving them tea when the parcel arrived.’
‘Good,’ Sean told her. ‘Was there anybody by the van or in it?’
‘No,’ she told him flatly. ‘Definitely no one by it and if there was someone in it, which I’m sure there was now, I couldn’t see. It had those darkened, tinted windows.’
‘Was the window down maybe?’
‘No. I don’t think so.’
‘Perhaps it was down slightly,’ he suggested, ‘to let smoke from a cigarette out, or maybe you heard a radio playing inside.’
‘No. No. Nothing. It was lifeless.’
‘So when was the next time you saw it?’
‘When the poor man was being dragged into it.’
‘And when was that?’
‘Just before I called the police – seconds before.’
Sean recalled the time the case file said the 999 call was made at – just after six pm. ‘What did you see? Tell me everything you saw.’
‘Well, I was here, close to the window, checking the housekeeper had cleaned properly, she doesn’t always, and some movement outside, on the other side of the street, caught my eye.’
‘That’s where the van was?’ Sean interrupted. ‘On the other side of the street?’
‘Yes,’ she told him, ‘otherwise I probably wouldn’t have noticed anything.’
‘Go on.’
‘So I looked out of the window and saw one man almost lying on the floor while this other man wearing a ski-mask was leaning over him, beating him about the head with this little black bat thing.’
‘How many times?’
