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Detective Sergeant Reilly was peering into the top drawer of the bedside cabinet. He pulled out five ten-pound notes. “Not what people will want us to believe, I’m sure.”
Gardener had received a call from the desk sergeant about an hour and a half previously. Because Mike Atherton’s report was so detailed, Gardener saved time by calling his own team in immediately. Following a meeting with Atherton and a brief inspection of the bedroom, the SIO had issued a number of fast track actions.
Despite time having passed from the initial reporting of the murder, he had decided to apply The Golden Hour principle that the offender may still be in the area. It would only need two of his team to do a house-to-house to talk to possible witnesses, so the rest he sent off around the town.
“What time did Cragg say that Robbie Carter reported the crime?” Gardener asked Atherton, checking his own watch: six o’clock.
“Around two o’clock.”
“And the place had already been burgled. He found his wife on the floor, dying or dead. He didn’t seem to know which.”
“I’m finding that hard to believe,” replied Reilly, “but not as hard as the fact that he didn’t call an ambulance immediately.”
“That’s what I was thinking. How long would it take him to get to the police station?”
Reilly shook his head. “Ten minutes if he drove.”
“I’m not happy, Sean. He gets home around half-past-one – from wherever – finds the place upside down, his wife either dying or dead. He doesn’t call an ambulance. Instead, he goes straight to the police station.” Gardener stopped talking, staring at Reilly. “But it appears that he sets the alarm before he goes. Why does he do that?”
“Shock?” offered Reilly. “Grief, maybe: it can make you do funny things.”
“I realise everyone reacts differently, but isn’t there a basic instinct that kicks in, where for just one second, you don’t believe she’s dead: where you think that you might just be able to save her no matter what, no matter how much the evidence says otherwise? You would still call that ambulance first. Why didn’t he?”
Gardener’s thoughts were with his late wife, Sarah, and that fateful night in the centre of Leeds, when she’d taken a bullet. He hadn’t been able to save her but he’d made sure an ambulance was called immediately.
“I’m sure we’ll get the chance to ask him.”
Glancing around the room, Gardener noticed a number of photographs of Jane Carter with a variety of different horses, and only one of her and her husband. At least he figured that was who it was judging by the description Cragg had given them.
He strolled over and picked up one, studying it.
“While Robbie Carter was reporting it to Cragg, his phone went off and relayed some pictures of a burglar in the house, from the alarm system.”
“Which suggests the burglar had been somewhere on the premises the whole time,” said Reilly, stepping out of the bedroom, staring into the corner of the landing, pointing to a motion sensor.
Gardener followed his line of vision but couldn’t see any cameras.
“Maybe,” said Gardener. “But where was the burglar when the motion sensors were set off: up here? There are no signs of a struggle.”
“No sign in the bedroom, either.”
Gardener walked back into the bedroom, his scene suit rustling as he did so. He pointed to a chair. “That’s the only thing that has moved recently. Look closer at the floor, you can see imprints of where it used to stand.”
Reilly did so. “Not enough to suggest a fight. And there’s money still in the top drawer of that cabinet.”
“This alarm business is bugging me. Why did he set the alarm when his wife was in the house – dying?”
“You think he might be in on this?”
“Wouldn’t be the first, would he?”
“Insurance scam?”
“Let’s see when we talk to him. See if we can figure out his body language.”
Gardener turned back onto the landing and walked into the bathroom, to the mess on the floor. Overall, the space was clean and tidy, as was the shower cubicle. On the window ledge he saw toothpaste, brushes, soap in a dish, and a facecloth neatly folded. A bottle of bleach stood at the side of the toilet.
Gardener pulled up the toilet seat to peer inside – clean water.
