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Not one word had passed between her and Bryant since they’d got back in the car.
Stacey had sent her the link to the article written by Monty Dunhill that mentioned Sandra Deakin, along with his address in Bromsgrove, but she hadn’t yet even looked at it.
Still on her mind was the image of Meera Mahmood, surrounded by her daughters as they tried to come to terms with their loss.
‘Need to get prepared, guv,’ Bryant said as they approached a traffic island.
She accepted the prompt and took out her phone. She read the article that Stacey had included.
‘Bloody hell, this guy doesn’t pull any punches,’ she said, bringing both herself and Bryant back to the investigation. ‘This article is filled with contempt for what he calls the frauds and charlatans that give genuine sensitives a bad name. Wanna guess what he does for a living?’
‘If I say psychic does that make me gifted too?’
‘Probably more lucky than gifted. But yes, you are correct.’
‘Do you think Monty Dunhill is the M in Sandra’s diary?’
‘Not sure, but the fact he’s written an article with such venom, and that our first victim’s name is in said article, makes him worth talking to,’ she said as Bryant started to slow the car.
He turned onto a redbrick drive of a detached property on Herbert Austin Drive in the Marlbrook area of the district. Properties on the Lord Austin Estate sold for upwards of a million and enjoyed exclusive access to the communal 26 acres of land, tennis courts, six-tee golf course and children’s adventure playground.
‘Guv, we are definitely in the wrong business,’ Bryant said, guiding the car to a stop outside one of the bay windows.
A man opened the front door dressed in sky-blue trousers, white shirt, dickie bow and white deck shoes. His hair was jet black but the smattering of grey in his moustache wasn’t in agreement.
He was flanked by two Great Danes that reached his waist.
‘Mr Dunhill?’ she asked, taking out her ID.
‘I am he – please come in,’ he said, taking only a cursory glance at her warrant card.
The dogs faithfully followed their owner into the lounge, a formal space fashioned of dark wood and variations of cream furnishings.
Kim sat where he had pointed, which gave her a clear view of his photo wall.
Each photo was exactly the same size, all in gold frames and hung in a grid-type pattern.
He watched her eagerly. Waiting for her to acknowledge his wall of fame.
She turned towards him. ‘Mr Dunhill, we’re here to talk about Sandra Deakin.’
Disappointment and then irritation flitted across his face. Kim guessed immediately this was a man that liked to be feted, admired, envied. Unfortunately, she had never been impressed by celebrities. They had no bearing on her life or her job.
‘Well of course you are,’ he said, recovering quickly as a Great Dane placed itself at his feet. The other lay in front of the fire. ‘I wouldn’t be much of a psychic if I hadn’t been expecting that.’
‘Quite,’ Kim said, unsure what supernatural ability was needed given they were in the same profession and therefore it was fair to assume their paths might have crossed.
‘You wrote quite a scathing article a while back. Her name was mentioned.’
‘And I stand by that. Dead or alive makes no difference to the fact she was a fraud.’
Kim said nothing.
He continued. ‘Please let me be clear: I despise people who make a laughing stock of our profession. They invite the doubters and the sceptics, who then come sniffing round us all for a scandal to fill their seedy little newspapers and clickbait articles. These charlatans give us all a bad name, doing these stage shows and television programmes. It makes a mockery of those of us with a genuine gift. Real psychics don’t whore themselves out for after-dinner entertainment.’
‘I’ll assume you feel the same way about phone psychics?’ she asked.
‘They are the soil on which the worms slither, Inspector. There is no worse kind of fraud than the people behind a psychic hotline.’
