Aftershock

Seventy-two

Karen Martin looked at her husband, sitting in his armchair with his lap-top computer open on a low table in front of him. ‘Andy,’ she said, ‘your eyes aren’t getting any younger. Give those contact lenses a break, will you?’

‘I’m sorry, love,’ he replied, folding the monitor down. ‘You’ve been putting up with a lot from me these past few days. I know I’m pushing my luck.’

‘It’s not that. I’m one hundred per cent behind you on this thing that Bob’s asked you to undertake. But you’re beginning to show signs of DUOA syndrome. You’ve been home for two hours and, apart from saying goodnight to Danielle, you’ve been on that thing all that time. For the last half-hour all I’ve been hearing are tuts and sighs. You’re beat, man.’

‘I’m beginning to get cross-eyed,’ Andy admitted. ‘And, by the way, what’s DUOA syndrome?’

‘Disappearing Up Own Arse. You’re going round in ever-decreasing circles.’

‘That’s what happens when you try to find something that’s probably not there, but you want it to be.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Daniel Ballester, the man who’s been credited officially with the murders earlier this year of the artists Stacey Gavin and Zrinka Boras, and of two potential witnesses.’

‘The man who owned the house where Stevie Steele died?’

’Yes. He was murdered there himself by Dražen Boras, Zrinka’s brother, in revenge. Stevie was killed by a booby-trap meant to take out the only two guys who could link Boras and his father with the location.’

‘So what are you after?’

‘Anything that undermines the case against Ballester. I’m damned if I can see it, though.’

‘Maybe you’re losing your touch.’ She held out a hand. ‘Let me see it. I used to be a cop once upon a time, remember? Put your headphones on, listen to some music, and let me see if I can crack it.’

He reached out and gave her the computer. ‘Go on, then. If you get a result I might even let you rejoin the force.’

‘Not in my darkest moment would I do that,’ said Karen, sincerely.

Andy did as he was told. He selected a John Coltrane CD from his collection, fed it into the deck and slipped on his headphones. He leaned back in his chair, and allowed the music to envelop him, watching Karen as she worked, letting his mind drift. .

His eyes glazed as he drifted towards sleep: the figure at the dining-table became blurred, and seemed to take on a different form, taller, slimmer, darker, full-breasted rather than massive, a body he knew as well as his own, someone for whom he had once burned, someone he used to call ‘Lexy’, but only, as his mind heard her say, in her laughing voice, when they were naked.

‘Hey,’ Karen called, attracting his attention through the sound of Coltrane’s mellow sax, jerking him out of slumber. ‘Is it that good?’

‘Sorry?’

‘The music. You were grinning there as if it’s really hitting the spot.’

‘ “Central Park West”,’ he replied, the headphones making him unaware that he was shouting. ‘One of his finest.’

‘You bugger.’ She laughed. ‘I was expecting you to say you were thinking about me.’

She turned back to the lap-top and focused on it once more, with Andy watching her more closely, until gradually the pace of the day began to catch up with him again.

He had no idea how long he had been asleep when she called to him again, but the CD had played itself out, and his ears were clammy from the pressure of the headphones. ‘Andy, wake up,’ she said, as she took them from his head, leaning forward, her formidable bosom close to his face.

He blinked and straightened himself in the chair. ‘Sorry, love,’ he said. ‘You done? I reckon I might as well go to bed. Are you coming?’

‘Eventually, but I want you to look at this first.’ The lap-top was still open on the table.

‘You’ll need to read it to me,’ he told her. ‘I don’t think my eyes can focus on that screen any more.’

‘They will when you see this.’

Instantly, she had his attention. ‘What are you looking at?’ he asked.

‘The post-mortem report on Daniel Ballester.’

‘I’ve looked at it. Death by strangulation, due to hanging with a ligature: no sign of a struggle, but two small marks on the body are consistent with his being subdued by a powerful stun gun.’

‘That’s right, but remember this. The autopsy was performed in Northumbria, where he died. They were looking at him then as a suicide victim, not as a perpetrator.’

‘True.’

‘So they didn’t attach any significance to this, and because there was so much evidence found at the site to confirm Ballester’s guilt, the investigating officers overlooked it too. There’s a sub-section of the report that contains general information on the man’s medical condition. He was a big strong guy, with excellent cardio-vascular fitness, but. . it says that tissue testing, backed up by an indicator in his cornea, showed that he was suffering from Wilson’s disease, and that it was almost certainly undetected.’

‘What the hell is Wilson’s disease?’

‘It’s an inherited disorder, in which the copper levels in the body get out of control. When I was in my teens, one of my neighbours developed it; they caught it in time, and she was okay, but it can be fatal. I remember it because my dad made a bad-taste joke about it. He said that back in the sixties and seventies the whole bloody country had Wilson’s disease. The thing is, I remember the poor woman’s symptoms, and I’ve just done some research on the Internet to confirm them. They included very shaky hands, really strong tremors; that was how they got on to it in the first place.’

‘Go on,’ said Andy, his green eyes shining.

‘You can see what I’m leading up to. Ballester’s supposed to have shot four people. Up close, maybe he could have done that. But there was a fifth victim: Stacey Gavin’s dog, Rusty. That was shot at a distance, while it was running away from the killer. By a man who’d have been struggling to hold the gun steady? I don’t see that. Bottom line, I think you should get somebody else to look at that PM report, but if I’m right, Ballester’s not your man.’