Private London

Chapter 81

Di James jiggled some keys in her hands.

They were the spare keys to the optician’s, a scant hundred yards from where the shop’s owner had been blown into pieces.

‘I’m not sure I should be doing this,’ she said.

Kirsty Webb bit on her lower lip. It was a big ask and she knew that. Going outside the official channels in an investigation was not looked on kindly. The police force was like the army. You had to work together as a team. That was drummed into you every bit as hard at Hendon as it was in any army boot camp.

‘Far as anyone knows, there is no connection between the body in Stoke Mandeville morgue and the recently deceased optician,’ Kirsty said finally.

‘Except we know there is.’

‘You phone it in… and it’s out of our hands.’

‘I know that, too.’

‘There could be some serious kudos going round with this collar if we make it.’

‘And some serious shit either way.’

Kirsty nodded. ‘Risk and reward.’

The Buckinghamshire-based detective tossed the keys in the air and clutched them in her fist.

‘The sisterhood doing it for themselves?’ she said.

Kirsty shrugged. ‘Something like that.’

DI James stepped over to the shop’s door. ‘Come on, then, Alice,’ she said. ‘Let’s go down the rabbit hole.’

She slotted the Chubb key in the lock and turned it. She depressed the door handle and opened the door.

‘Just the one lock?’ Kirsty asked, surprised.

‘This is Chesham,’ said DI James. ‘We don’t have crime in Chesham.’

‘I wouldn’t bet on it,’ said Kirsty Webb.

It didn’t take long to process the shop. A couple of desks, a couple of cupboards, a big filing cabinet with patients’ records, duplicated no doubt in electronic form on the computer.

They had split up. DI James took the front office and reception area and Kirsty Webb checked the back office and examination room.

Half an hour later Kirsty came out to the front, still wearing latex gloves, and looked at her new colleague who was sitting behind the reception desk reading an office diary. ‘Anything?’ she asked.

DI James looked up from the A4-sized book. ‘Chappel kept an office diary. He used it for personal stuff too.’

‘Don’t tell me. He’s made a confession. Death by gas barbecue. It was an elaborate suicide.’

DI James flashed a brief smile and shook her head. ‘If only. It would make our jobs a lot easier if people did the decent thing like that.’

‘People did the decent thing, we’d be out of a job, Natalie.’

‘And that’s the truth. But what we have got here is a list of his guests for the barbecuing he was planning.’

‘And?’

‘Among others we have one of the doctors who signed off on the brain-death certification for Colin Harris, a Dr Sarah Wilde, and the surgeon who performed the subsequent heart transplant, Mister Alistair Lloyd.’

‘One of the people on that list knew that Chappel was planning a barbecue, could have tampered with the gas regulator. Set a leak so that when he switched it on it would explode? Is that what you’re thinking?’

‘Could be. Forensics are working on what’s left of the barbecue. It may show that the regulator was tampered with.’ She shrugged. ‘It may not.’

‘I guess those two from the hospital are worth checking out. See where they were prior to the arranged meeting time. See if they had opportunity.’

‘It’s not the opportunity that I am puzzled by,’ said Natalie James.

Kirsty waited for her to finish the thought.

‘It’s the motive.’