The Jackdaw. Luke Delaney

Donnelly,’ Donnelly told him without producing his identification, ‘from the same.’

      The other detective seemed to immediately relax. ‘Am I glad to see you,’ he whispered. ‘I was told you’d be taking this one over. Babysitting the family of a murder victim isn’t exactly my thing. DC Jonnie Mendham, by the way. You’d better come in.’ He stepped aside and allowed them to enter before closing the door and continuing to talk in a whisper. ‘They’re all gathered in the living room,’ Mendham explained. ‘Mrs Elkins and her two kids, Jack and Evie. There’s also a friend of Mrs Elkins here too, Trudy Bevens – a shoulder to cry on and all that.’

      ‘Fine,’ Sean acknowledged as he and Donnelly followed Mendham towards the living room and the desperate sadness he knew he’d find inside.

      ‘Any idea how long it’ll be before you send someone to take over from me?’ Mendham’s voice held a slight pleading note. ‘I’m not trained for this family liaison stuff.’

      ‘Soon enough,’ Sean answered carelessly. ‘Until then just keep a watch out for reporters and make sure they don’t speak to anyone they don’t know on the phone. Remind them details of the investigations are confidential and not to be shared even with family and close friends until I say it’s OK.’

      ‘No problem,’ Mendham agreed in a whisper. ‘Just get me out of this mausoleum.’ He opened the living-room door before Sean could reply and raised his voice to its normal volume. ‘Mrs Elkins,’ he addressed the attractive woman in her late forties who remained seated as she looked up at them – her appearance still immaculate despite the circumstances, her ash blonde hair framing her tanned face and piercing blue eyes that had reddened somewhat with crying.

      ‘Yes,’ she answered as strongly as she could, her voice wavering somewhat.

      ‘This is Detective Inspector Corrigan and Detective Sergeant Donnelly from our Special Investigations Unit,’ Mendham explained. ‘They’ll be taking over the investigation.’

      ‘Why?’ she asked in a slightly clipped accent.

      ‘It’s the way things work,’ Sean spoke to her for the first time as he scanned the other faces in the room – a weeping girl of no more than eleven or twelve who sat close to her mother wrapped in a protective arm, a stoical-looking boy probably about fourteen and Mrs Elkins’s tearful friend. ‘Most serious and unusual cases get passed on to us. We have a certain amount of experience in dealing with investigations like this.’

      ‘I wasn’t aware that anything like this had ever happened before,’ she questioned him.

      ‘It hasn’t,’ he agreed. ‘I meant experience in dealing with things that are a little out of the ordinary.’

      ‘A little out of the ordinary,’ she repeated, looking at him blankly. ‘My husband’s dead. Murdered by some lunatic.’

      ‘And we’re very sorry for your loss,’ Donnelly intervened. ‘We’re here because we’re best equipped to find whoever did this and bring them to justice, but we need to ask some questions. Maybe it would be better if the children weren’t here for that.’

      ‘No,’ she snapped back. ‘We stay together. I’m not about to let them out of my sight. Not until you’ve caught this madman.’

      ‘Fair enough.’ Donnelly didn’t argue. ‘I reckon I’d be the same. Do you mind if we sit down?’

      ‘Sorry,’ she apologized. ‘Of course not. Please.’

      They both sat on the same large sofa opposite Mrs Elkins and her daughter, Sean glad of the large size of the room – just the thought of being trapped in a small room with this many grieving people was enough to make him feel claustrophobic.

      ‘I appreciate this must be very difficult,’ Sean tried to say the things she no doubt expected him to say, ‘but our questions really can’t wait.’

      ‘I understand,’ she assured him. ‘Ask what you need to. Let’s just get it over with.’

      ‘What time did your husband leave for work yesterday?’ Sean asked.

      ‘Not long after seven,’ she answered. ‘His usual time.’

      ‘A hard-working man.’ Donnelly tried to ease the tension.

      ‘You don’t get to where Paul was working nine to five,’ she told them. ‘It takes dedication and sacrifice.’

      ‘Yet he was abducted at about five pm – in the street outside,’ Sean reminded her. ‘So he didn’t always work late?’

      ‘No,’ she agreed, slightly defensively. ‘Not always, but most days. Does it matter?’

      Did you know he’d finished work early? Sean asked the killer silent questions. Did you somehow know?

      ‘Did he call you at all during the day?’ he asked, more to try to establish a rhythm of questions and answers than hoping to discover anything useful, ‘or contact you somehow?’

      ‘He called me a couple of times,’ she answered. ‘Once in the morning and again early afternoon – to let me know he was about to leave work.’ She suddenly choked up, her tears contagious amongst the other women while the boy looked on blankly. Was the boy somehow involved? Sean asked himself, before deciding he was most likely still in shock. The tears would come later. ‘It was the last time I ever got to speak to him,’ she managed to say.

      ‘Why call twice?’ Sean asked, trying to remember the last time he’d called his wife Kate more than once a day just for the sake of it. ‘Was something troubling him?’

      ‘No,’ she answered tearfully. ‘He usually called me twice or more a day just to say hello. No particular reason. I think he worried I’d get bored if he didn’t.’

      ‘But he didn’t seem worried about anything?’ Sean persisted.

      ‘No,’ she insisted.

      ‘Didn’t mention anything at all?’

      ‘No,’ she repeated. ‘What could he be worried about?’

      ‘He was the CEO of Fairfield’s Bank, yes?’ Sean asked.

      ‘So?’

      ‘Not exactly the most popular people in the world right now – bankers,’ he reminded her.

      ‘I understand that,’ she assured him, ‘and I know this madman used that as some type of twisted justification to commit murder, but Paul was a good man. He believed in responsible banking. He was as interested in making extra pounds and pennies for ordinary people as he was millions for multinationals.’

      Sean couldn’t help but roll his eyes around his salubrious surroundings. ‘I’m sure that’s true,’ he said as tactfully as he knew how, ‘but from the outside he would have looked like just another wealthy banker.’

      ‘From the outside,’ she pointed out. ‘This monster knew nothing about Paul. He gave away thousands to charity. I used to joke that he’d give away everything we had if I’d allow him – make us homeless.’

      ‘Why?’ Sean asked, not sure where his questions would take him, but asking anyway. ‘Did he feel guilty about his wealth for some reason?’

      ‘No,’ she bit. ‘Why should he? Why should we? We’ve worked hard for everything we have. We both have. But there’ll always be jealous people who would rather just take what we have than earn it for themselves.’

      Sean imagined her and her dead husband’s backgrounds – wealthy families sending them to the best schools and the best universities, feeding them in to the network of the privileged to ensure they’d be groomed for the top jobs. He swallowed his resentment.

      ‘So you think your husband was killed by someone who is jealous of him?’ he asked.

      ‘Of