Blood Relative Read online

  More hours went by. In the afternoon Samira Khan appeared, dressed for work this time. She saw the newspaper lying on the bench beside me, raised an eyebrow and just said, ‘Ahh …’

  ‘How do they know all this?’ I asked, pointing at the spread.

  ‘There’s always someone in any police station who can’t wait to call up a newspaper and make easy money. I would say the police leak like sieves, except that they’re worse than that. A sieve has no choice in the matter. But some of these people do it deliberately.’

  I put the paper down and asked, ‘So what’s happened to Mariana?’

  ‘She was seen by a psychiatrist this morning. He determined she was not yet fit to be interviewed.’

  ‘So can I see her?’

  ‘I’m afraid the answer is no. But I am working with Mr Iqbal to see what will happen as and when you are released. It is a very delicate situation. On the one hand you are Mrs Crookham’s husband, so you should be allowed supervised visits. But on the other you are potentially an important witness in the case and so it is possible that the judge may forbid any contact between the two of you.’

  ‘But if she can’t even answer police questions, how could she say anything to me that would affect the case? I just want to see her, let her know that I’m thinking of her. Give her a hug. Is that so wrong?’

  Khan looked at me thoughtfully. ‘I hope you don’t mind me saying this,’ she said, ‘but I do not understand your attitude. Your wife is accused of murdering your brother. Yet all your sympathy seems to be for her. Surely your family, your blood, comes first?’

  ‘Well, yes, I suppose … but … what can I say? Andy’s gone. There’s nothing anyone can do for him. Meanwhile, Mariana’s being accused of killing him and no one seems to be thinking about any other possibility. But there has to be one. She couldn’t have done it …’

  ‘You have to face up to the facts,’ Khan said, so gently that I just brushed her words aside. I was still thinking about her question, trying to work out the answer for myself as much as for her.

  ‘I know this sounds terrible, but I maybe can live without Andy more easily than without Mariana,’ I said. ‘I mean, we had a pretty screwed-up family. My dad died young. My mum wasn’t the easiest woman in the world to live with. Still isn’t. We were, I don’t know … complicated.’

  ‘I think all families are pretty complicated in their different ways, don’t you?’

  ‘I suppose. But even so … do you know the worst thing of all? I haven’t cried for Andy. I mean, my brother is dead, and the truth is, I’m just not feeling it like I should.’

  ‘That is probably just shock,’ Khan said, resting a hand on my shoulder. ‘You have been through a very traumatic experience. It will take time for your mind to process everything. It’s natural.’

  ‘I hope so, because I feel pretty bloody heartless right now. All I know is, I just want to see my wife.’

  Khan sat quietly, letting me know in her silence that there was nothing she could do.

  ‘So what about me, then?’ I asked.

  ‘The police must very soon charge you, or release you. I think that, too, is about to be decided. Yeats wants to interview you again.’

  Five minutes later I was led away down a corridor and into another grey room.

  ‘I’m sorry to keep you,’ said Chief Inspector Yeats, ushering us to our chairs. ‘But I think you’ll agree that it’s been worth the wait.’

  9

  Yeats’ attitude had changed in the fifteen hours or so since I’d last seen him. He looked tired – I doubt he’d got any more sleep than I had last night – but fundamentally relaxed. He was a man who’d done his job and got a result.

  ‘I have good news, Mr Crookham,’ he said. ‘Your phone records match the account you gave me last night and the Norrises were both able to confirm your presence at their house. You can have your clothes back, too. There were a few very small traces of blood on one of the sleeves of your jacket, but that was entirely consistent with transfer from your wife’s dress when you guided her across the room. Your prints are not on the kitchen knife, which appears to have been the murder weapon. There is therefore no reason to suppose you were involved in your brother’s death.’

  ‘So my client is free to go,’ said Samira Khan.

  ‘Well, I’d appreciate it if he’d answer a few more questions first. And before Ms Khan objects, let me be frank with you, Mr Crookham.’

  Yeats shifted forward, resting his elbows on the table: ‘The evidence against your wife is overwhelming. You must know that.’

  ‘No, I don’t know that! And I don’t know anything about any other explanation for what happened, because you’ve not even tried to find one.’

  ‘For the last time, Mr Crookham, the basic facts of the case are not in dispute. To be honest with you, we’ve done our job as police officers: this is one more for the clear-up stats. But I will admit I’m not happy about the absence of a motive. I don’t know why Mariana Crookham killed her brother-in-law, and it niggles me.’

  ‘I’ll bet it niggles. Your only suspect had no reason whatever to commit the crime. But maybe someone else did.’

  ‘There is no “someone else”, Mr Crookham. The sooner you understand that, the better. So …’ Yeats looked down at his notes, frowned as he ran his eyes over a page and then asked, ‘Your brother was a journalist, correct?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘How did that affect your relationship?’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘You had a lot of celebrity clients. Did you ever discuss them with your brother?’

  ‘No, absolutely not. I don’t discuss my clients with anyone, nor does Mariana. When we design a home for someone, we become privy to a lot of personal secrets. I know things about the people I work for that would make instant front-page headlines. So my brother was the last person I’d tell stories to.’

  ‘Because you didn’t trust him?’

  ‘Because it wouldn’t have been fair. Stories were his business. I couldn’t expect him to make an exception for me. It would be like a friend of yours confiding that he’d committed a crime. Would you keep that secret?’

  Yeats shrugged: ‘Point taken. So you kept things from him. Do you think he kept things from you?’

  ‘I imagine so. He never liked talking about his work until it was safely in the paper.’

  ‘So he might have been working on an investigation and you’d never know about it?’

  ‘Of course. We weren’t that close. It’s not like we spoke every day, or even every week. I didn’t know most of what he was doing.’

  ‘I see …’ Yeats leaned forward again. ‘So he could have been investigating your wife and you wouldn’t necessarily have been aware of it?’

  ‘What?’ The question had caught me totally by surprise. ‘Why would he want to investigate Mariana? What is there to investigate? And who would ever want to know?’

  ‘Quite a few people, judging by today’s papers …’

  ‘Only because … because of what’s happened. There’d be no reason to investigate her, as you put it, without that. In any case, Andy wouldn’t do that. He was a pretty ruthless bastard when it came to getting a good story. But he wouldn’t betray his own brother.’

  ‘What if he wasn’t trying to betray his brother? What if he was trying to save him?’

  ‘Save me from what? I’m sorry, but what on earth are you talking about?’

  ‘How well do you know your wife, Mr Crookham?’

  I had to make myself pause and take a deep breath to stop myself losing my temper. ‘We’ve not spent more than a dozen nights apart in the past six years. We work together every day. I know everything about her.’

  ‘So you’ve met her family, then?’

  ‘She’s estranged from them. Her father left home when she was very young and she doesn’t speak to her mother any more.’

  ‘That’s what she told you, anyway.’

  ‘What do you mean
? Are you trying to suggest she was lying?’

  The moment I said it, I was struck by the appalling possibility that he might be right. I’d spent all night creating an image of Mariana. Now the first faint cracks were appearing before my mind’s eye.

  ‘Well, where did your wife grow up?’ said Yeats.

  This at least I could answer: ‘In East Berlin. Her mother took her to the West after the Wall came down, but she was an Ossi, an East German, for the first few years of her life. I used to tease her about it. I called her my Ossi Darling.’

  ‘Adorable,’ said Yeats drily. ‘And what was her surname when you met?’

  ‘Slavik.’

  ‘And her date of birth?’

  ‘Well, she was thirty on the 14th of June – you work it out.’

  ‘There’s no need. Your brother did … when he was trying, and failing, to find her birth certificate. It’s all on his laptop, which we found in his car. Very organized, your brother. He had a special folder, just for your Mariana: internet links, research data, pictures – all carefully filed in the right place. You should take a look at it all one day. You might get quite a surprise.’

  The image cracked a little more.

  ‘What are you trying to tell me?’

  ‘That I have reason to believe your brother uncovered information that could have caused your wife a great deal of embarrassment. He went to Berlin: did you know that?’

  I couldn’t keep the surprise from my face. Andy and I weren’t the closest brothers on earth. But given that I was married to a German, who had been born in Berlin, you’d think he’d have told me that he was going to her home town. Unless the whole point was that he didn’t want me or her to know.

  I tried to bluff it out: ‘Are you sure about that?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ Yeats replied. ‘There are numerous references to his visit in his notes as well as confirmations of his flight and hotel bookings among his emails. We’ve checked them too, of course.’

  ‘All right then: no, I don’t remember him mentioning that. Maybe he was planning to tell me last night …’

  Yeats nodded. ‘Maybe he was. Maybe that’s what upset your wife – that he was on to her.’

  ‘On to her how? Don’t tell me he’d got some dirt on her because I don’t believe it. Not unless you can show me something specific, with evidence, written in those notes of his.’

  ‘No, I can’t do that.’ Yeats admitted. ‘There’s a lot of stuff on there, but most of it’s dead-ends and questions.’

  ‘So he hadn’t really found anything at all?’

  ‘Nothing definitive,’ Yeats agreed, ‘but I think that just made him even more curious. Because he should have found something, shouldn’t he? Think about it. No matter how obscure we are, we all leave a trail as we go through life. But with your wife, it’s like she was invisible. He’d got one possible lead, a photograph … but even that didn’t have a positive ID and he doesn’t seem to have followed it up successfully.’

  ‘So are you going to do that?’

  This time Yeats’ smile looked genuinely amused. ‘Go on a wild goose chase to Germany, for a murder we’ve already solved? No, that wouldn’t be an appropriate use of police resources. Not the way our budget’s being cut. But let me put this hypothesis to you, Mr Crookham. Suppose your brother had finally discovered something big about your wife, a real breakthrough in the case. I know what that’s like. It’s a very exciting feeling. And suppose he hadn’t had time to log it in his computer. Or it was something he was keeping private, locked away in his head. In any event, he finds himself at your house, alone with your wife, and this discovery is banging around in his brain. So he can’t resist. He asks your wife a question, or he puts an allegation to her. Because that’s what he does. It’s his job. And this discovery, whatever it is, comes as a huge shock to your wife. It makes her feel as though her whole world, everything she’s worked for, is about to fall apart. So she panics. Maybe the balance of her mind is disturbed. But anyway, she …’

  ‘She launches a savage attack on my brother with the knife that just happens to be lying within easy reach. Is that it?’ I asked.

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Well it’s totally absurd. I just don’t believe it.’

  ‘Do you have a better explanation, Mr Crookham?’

  I said nothing. Yeats looked at me.

  ‘I didn’t think so. Well, thank you for your help, anyway. You are free to go now. Your clothes and personal effects are still at the lab, but they will be returned to you in due course. Your brother’s clothes will be needed as evidence, but we’ll be returning his effects and his computer once we’ve taken a copy of the hard drive. Given the state of your mother’s health, can I take it that we should send everything to you?’

  ‘Yes, I’ll be responsible for it all.’

  ‘I thought you might. Now, I don’t know how aware you are of the media interest in this case, but you won’t want to be leaving through the front door. The vultures are starting to gather and you don’t want to be talking to them. Far too easy to say the wrong thing.’

  Samira Khan spoke up, ‘Why don’t I read a statement explaining that no charges have been brought against my client and respectfully requesting the media to allow him some peace and quiet at this difficult time?’

  Yeats nodded: ‘While you’re doing that, we’ll get Mr Crookham out through the back and away before anyone’s got time to react. And here’s my card.’ He passed it across the table towards me: ‘If you think of anything that might be useful to the investigation, or come across any relevant information, you can call me at any time … if Ms Khan has no objection.’

  ‘I would advise my client to speak to me first,’ she said. ‘But no, I don’t object.’

  Ten minutes later I sneaked out of the police station. I was a free man again. But Mariana was still in there, still a prisoner until someone, somehow, came to set her free.

  10

  They gave me back my belongings when I left the police station. The moment I switched my phone on it started going crazy, pinging and beeping with a flood of incoming emails, texts and voicemails. Half a minute later, I’d switched it off again. I wasn’t even close to being ready to deal with other people’s reactions to all this. I was having a hard enough time making sense of my own.

  A police officer drove me back to the house. He watched over me as I gingerly made my way round the edge of the living room, unable, despite myself, to take my eyes off the dark stains of Andy’s blood that seemed to cover so much of the walls, floor and furniture. I filled an overnight bag, though I did not know where exactly I would be, or for how long. Then I got in the Range Rover and made my way back into town.

  I’d worked out a basic ‘To Do’ list when I was in the nick. I wanted to sit somewhere quiet and dark and just try to deal with Andy’s death, Mariana’s arrest and my own inability to understand either. But there wasn’t going to be any chance of that. Like it or not, the next few hours were going to be spent running errands.

  First stop was the office where Samira’s boss, Mr Iqbal, was based.

  ‘I take it your wife will not be applying for legal aid, Mr Crookham,’ said Iqbal, opening our conversation. He was a small, unprepossessing figure, just running to fat, with a few strands of hair stuck to his balding scalp.

  ‘No, just send the bills to me,’ I said, doing my best to sound like an important, revenue-generating client who needed to be taken seriously. ‘And whatever it takes, whatever it costs, I don’t care. I want her to get the best defence. I don’t give a toss what the police say, I can’t believe she could have done this … Not Mariana … It’s not possible …’

  Iqbal perched his chin upon steepled fingers, examined me for a second and then said, ‘I understand, Mr Crookham. Your feelings are very natural at a time like this. You have my deepest sympathy and condolences for the loss of your brother. And I am sure that we will consider every possible option when we enter a plea on your wife’s beha
lf.’

  That was not what I had wanted, or expected, to hear.

  ‘Why do you need to consider “every possible option”? Just say she’s not guilty. Job done.’

  Iqbal shrugged. ‘I’m afraid it’s not that simple, Mr Crookham. I am sure that the police have already told you that the weight of evidence against your wife is really quite overwhelming. When this is coupled with the absence of evidence suggesting the involvement of anyone else …’ He sighed: ‘Well, let us just say that this may not be a case in which the fundamental facts of the matter are in dispute.’

  ‘So you’re just giving up?’

  He frowned. ‘Not at all, not at all! There are many other options we can pursue. As you know, your wife has been in a very disturbed condition since you found her. We await proper psychiatric evaluation, but there may well be mitigating circumstances that might lessen the severity of any sentence that she receives.’

  ‘I can’t believe you’re talking about sentences already,’ I said.

  Another shrug: ‘One must be realistic.’

  ‘Well, can you at least tell me how Mariana is and when I will be able to see her? Has she asked after me at all? Maybe she can tell you what really happened in there … she could describe someone, perhaps …’

  ‘Ah, so many questions …’ said Iqbal, with a sigh.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘No, no, not at all, Mr Crookham. Your anxiety is perfectly understandable. I will therefore try to deal with your questions one by one. You asked first about your wife’s current state. I have to tell you that she is now a little more responsive. She is still very delicate, very confused, but she can answer a few simple questions …’

  ‘What has she said?’

  Iqbal spread his hands in supplication: ‘Please, Mr Crookham, I am her lawyer. I am bound by client confidentiality.’