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  ‘How is she doing?’ Jo asked.

  ‘Bit tetchy, but then that’s nothing abnormal, under the circumstances,’ the nurse said and then hurried away, off to her next patient.

  ‘Hello?’ Jo called as she went into the house. ‘It’s Dr Hughes,’ she announced loudly and went up the stairs to the bedroom.

  ‘Another visitor?’ June said grumpily as Jo entered the room. ‘It’s like Piccadilly Circus in here.’

  ‘I’ve just come to check you are all right.’

  ‘Everyone’s always asking me if I’m all right. Of course I’m not all right,’ she replied testily. ‘I’m dying – or had you forgotten?’

  She really was in a bad mood.

  ‘I’m very glad you’ve agreed to let the nursing team help.’

  ‘Fat lot of good they are.’

  A very bad mood.

  ‘Are you in any pain?’ Jo tried again, realising that this might be the cause.

  ‘What’s it to you? Thanks to you stopping me from ending it all last week, there are strict rules on how much medication I can have in case I take another overdose. God forbid that I should die a day or two early. You are all determined that I should suffer for every last minute allotted to me by that bugger, God.’

  She was definitely in pain. Jo looked round the room and picked up the red folder containing all June’s care notes. Every health professional visiting her at home made notes in the file, and even the hospital notes should be in there, or at least a summary, so that everyone knew exactly what had been done and there would be no confusion. It listed all June’s current medication including the dose of painkillers.

  ‘That woman who was just here.’

  ‘The nurse,’ Jo filled in for her.

  ‘Yes, her. She said I couldn’t have any more pills, that there’s a limit to how many I can have and they will bring them in every other day. But I’m still in pain.’

  Jo looked at the medication list that the hospital had prescribed. Of course, given June’s recent history of a suicide attempt they were quite right to limit her drugs to make sure that she didn’t do anything like that again, but equally, the fact that she was still in pain did make it almost seem as if she was being punished for it. It was unfair because she did have terminal cancer, and a right to be as pain free as possible. Jo mulled over all the possibilities and then wrote in the notes that she was increasing the dosage and also adding a new drug to the list, for use when needed. She told June what she had done and added,

  ‘I’ll drop a prescription off at the pharmacy and get the evening nurse to bring you the new tablets. I’ve only prescribed a few but you can use them when the pain gets too much and the nurse can let me know when you need more. If your pain remains bad, I’ll see about putting up a syringe driver. You can adjust the dosage yourself with that, up to a limit, of course,’ Jo was glad that June smiled at this.

  ‘Thank you, Doctor.’ June seemed really grateful and flopped back against her pillows, looking very tired.

  ‘I’ll leave you to rest now, June.’ It looked as if she was almost asleep already as Jo quietly left the room.

  A brief internet search before evening surgery had told Jo the name of the rental agency handling the flat underneath Giles Townsend’s. In a short break between patients she phoned them, pretending she had a delivery for the previous tenant and needed to know where to deliver it. She wasn’t surprised when they refused to give her any in- formation or a forwarding address, particularly as she didn’t know the tenant’s name. The knowledge that the agency wouldn’t tell her anything wasn’t in itself helpful because she still didn’t know if they were telling her nothing because of data protection or because they didn’t actually know where their tenant had gone.

  Once surgery was over, Jo had two choices: to see whether Pen- ny remembered anything about the woman who comforted her, or to go door to door asking if any of the neighbours had any information about her. Jo checked the time. It was after six in the evening so the neighbours were likely to be home making dinner. Which remind- ed Jo that she hadn’t eaten yet. She looked out of the window. It was dark and the rain which had been threatening all day was now a steady downpour. Not the sort of evening to go door to door. So, Penny it was and she reached for her phone.

  But it seemed that all Penny could remember was that the woman had been overweight and said her name was Paula. Which was at least a start, although a surname would have been better. Why didn’t peo- ple introduce themselves properly? Although ‘Hello, what a terrible shock you’ve had, I’m Miss Paula Ponsonby-Whatever,’ might have been a bit strange under the circumstances. All in all, she had got ab- solutely nothing useful.

  At home later that evening, having given up trying to trace the elusive tenant, for the time being at least, Jo settled down at her laptop to see if she could find any information to support her theory that all the crimes against lawyers were connected. First, she Googled John Dixon. There were a lot of John Dixons. Fortunately, only one was married to the daughter of a hard-line American evangelist and busi- nessman and had recently collapsed in a gay sauna. The latest news told her that he was still in intensive care with his family holding a vigil at his bedside, his father-in-law having flown in from the States to be at his daughter’s side. What Jo wouldn’t give to be a fly on the wall. She could only imagine the conversations that were going on. She idly wondered if she might know anyone at the hospital so that she could get the gossip, but she couldn’t think of anyone. The club where he had collapsed was pictured and there was an interview with a rather hard- faced woman who managed it. She denied all responsibility and said that clients were warned not to use the facilities if they suffered from high blood pressure or had a heart condition and there were prominent signs in the basement area where the hot tubs, saunas and steam rooms were located, reminding them of this. From the information available, it certainly did look like this was just an accident, a stroke or heart attack brought on by the heat. Perhaps John Dixon wasn’t part of the pattern? But he had been left in a difficult position like the others, so that even if he survived, he would have a lot of explaining to do. To his father-in-law if not his wife.

  She was getting nowhere and it was still raining, so Jo called the next person on her mental to-do list, Kate.

  ‘I’m struggling to find connections between the lawyers,’ she told her friend, ‘and it came to me that if there was a complaint against Giles, would it have gone to the SRA where John Dixon worked? Might it even have been dealt with by him?’

  ‘Genius!’ was Kate’s reply and she promised to get onto it in the morning. ‘Can you get me the dates Townsend was working for that firm where your Mum’s friend said he’d had to leave because of a com- plaint?’ she continued, ‘and I’ll find out if Dixon worked there then and if he worked in complaints at the time.’

  Having got the dates for Kate quite easily from a news website that had helpfully listed his work history, along with a lot of carefully worded intimations about how he had died, Jo felt elated. A positive result would give them their first connection, other than that all the victims were connected with the law.

  Chapter 15

  Armed with the news from Kate that John Dixon had worked in the ethics department of the SRA for just under two years, which might or might not have been long enough for him to have been there when the complaint against Giles was made, and that he was indeed one of those who handled complaints against solicitors, Jo had arranged to have coffee with Miller. She had no idea how Kate had managed to get the information but assumed that she had a friend who worked somewhere in the organisation. Knowing Kate, it was probably an ex-boyfriend. Kate always seemed to remain friends with her exes, with the exception of the colleague of Jo’s who had turned out to be a bit of a stalker and who had only desisted when she threatened legal action against him. Jo wasn’t on speaking terms with any of her exes. She didn’t know what that said about either her or Kate; it was just the way it was.

  Even tho
ugh it was a damp Saturday morning, she knew that with an ongoing major investigation, Miller was likely to be working. There was no way she wanted to have this conversation in front of Bob Jef- fries after the reception she had got the last time, so she had suggested they meet in a coffee bar by the pier. The place was closer to the po- lice station than to Jo’s flat and, despite having an umbrella, the per- sistent dampness in the air meant that her hair was unusually frizzy by the time she arrived. As she sat in the window, sipping her latte and waiting for Miller, she tried to flatten the frizz as best she could. She stopped as soon as she saw him hurrying along the pavement towards the café, collar turned up against the drizzle, but no umbrella to keep his head dry.

  ‘Sorry I’m late,’ Miller apologised as soon as he came through the door, taking off his coat and giving it a shake before hanging it over the back of his chair. He had barely sat down when the waitress ap- peared to take his order of a double espresso and a pain au chocolat. He looked at her to see if she wanted to order anything more, but she shook her head.

  ‘I’ve only just had breakfast,’ she explained. He looked at his watch.

  ‘It’s my day off,’ Jo explained. ‘I’m allowed to have a lie-in.’

  ‘It’s eleven thirty. That’s not a lie-in, that’s spending the day in bed.’ He smiled to take the sting out of his words. ‘Some of us have been up working since the crack of dawn.’

  ‘Don’t tell me, you even made Lizzie breakfast in bed before you left home.’ Jo was trying to keep the conversation friendly but a cloud came over his face at the mention of his wife.

  ‘What?’ she asked. ‘Is Lizzie okay?’ ‘I think so,’ he replied.

  Jo kept quiet and waited. She knew he would say more and she wanted to give him time.

  ‘It’s not been easy, her moods have been all over the place.’ Which was understandable given that she was bipolar and off her meds for the duration of the pregnancy. Jo could only applaud Lizzie’s determi- nation to do her best for their much-wanted and long-awaited child, but the risks of damage to the foetus from the medication were slight compared to the risks to Lizzie of being off them.

  ‘It seems that everything I do or say is wrong. It’s almost like she hates me.’ Jo patted his arm in what she hoped was a purely support- ive way. ‘Anyway, she’s decided to go and stay with her sister who understands what she needs, unlike me.’ He finished with just a trace of self-pity and bitterness.

  At that moment, the waitress returned with his coffee and pastry and Jo sat back and waited until she had gone before saying anything. ‘Lizzie will be back, you know. Her sister will get on her nerves eventually and she’ll come back.’

  ‘I’m not sure I want her back,’ he said with a sigh. ‘At least not just yet.’

  Jo tried not to look shocked.

  ‘Don’t get me wrong. I still love her, it’s just that I don’t really like living with her. Not when she’s so, so unpredictable. No, scratch that. I hate living with her when she’s like this, seeing her suffering.’ He wiped his face with his hands. ‘How can you love someone so much and hate being with them at the same time?’

  ‘Quite easily. But you know that you will have your old Lizzie back. You just have to be patient and realise that it’s quite understandable that you feel this way right now.’ Jo concentrated on keeping her voice neutral.

  ‘No, it isn’t.’ He shook his head. ‘It’s her that’s going through the worst of it. I can at least escape during the day, go to work.’ He sighed, and Jo knew that being at work didn’t stop him worrying about Lizzie. ‘Anyway, enough about me. What did you want to see me about?’

  With an effort, Jo thought back to the reason she had asked him to meet her.

  ‘Oh, yes. John Dixon. Works at the Solicitors Regulation Authority investigating complaints against solicitors.’

  ‘So you said yesterday.’

  ‘And I think he worked there when a complaint was made against Giles Townsend.’

  Miller leant forward, interested. ‘Who made the complaint?’

  ‘Someone from the practice where he was working at the time complained that he had sexually harassed them. Tunbridge Wells Ad- vocacy and Law, I think it was called.’

  Miller was looking less interested now. ‘Not recently then?’

  ‘A couple of years back, I know. But he was at it again here.’ ‘At what?’

  ‘Sexual harassment. That’s why the receptionist, Penny, was told to deliver papers to him at home and given a key to let herself in.’

  He was still looking puzzled.

  ‘It was his thing.’ She lowered her voice. ‘He’d arrange for an office junior, female, young, pretty or whatever to deliver papers to his home and then greet the poor person dressed only in a loosely tied robe that would conveniently fall open.’

  Miller sighed.

  ‘I can’t believe he was that stupid or that his partner, Bartlett, let it carry on, not after…’

  He looked as if he was about to say more but then shook his head. ‘Anyway,’ he continued. ‘I checked with the Met. They’re not treating John Dixon’s collapse as anything suspicious. It seems probable that his blood pressure dropped from being in the sauna and he fainted.’ Jo looked puzzled.

  ‘What?’ he asked.

  ‘Well, if it was just a hypotensive episode, or vasovagal attack, his blood pressure would have come up as soon as he was lying on the floor. Why is he still in hospital?’

  Miller shrugged and bit into his pastry, uninterested in the medical details.

  ‘You’d have to ask his doctors. Maybe he banged his head when he fell, or had a heart attack afterwards or something.’

  ‘Mmm.’ Jo gave it some thought, ‘Was he on any medication, do you know? For his blood pressure perhaps?’

  ‘I have no idea. Look, the only thing you need to know is that he wasn’t attacked or anything. This was entirely due to natural causes.’

  ‘Yes but you thought that about both Giles Townsend and Adrian Cole until they found other factors that changed your mind.’

  He couldn’t argue with that. Jo desperately wanted to brush some of the crumbs off his suit, but restrained herself.

  ‘What did Cole’s wife have to say about moving his body?’

  ‘Flatly denied it,’ Miller replied. ‘Well, she would do, wouldn’t she?’ He took a huge bite of his pastry, and then continued with his mouth full. ‘CSIs say he was definitely transported in the passenger footwell of his car. There was a pool of water there and other bodily fluids.’

  ‘If she drove him there in his car, how did she get home? And I know he wasn’t a very big man, but could she have moved him?’

  ‘I don’t know how big she was, but she probably had help anyway. She needed someone to drive her home as you pointed out. Tunbridge Wells are checking CCTV and ANPR cameras to see if they can trace the journey, it’s probably the most exciting thing to happen there in centuries.’

  Jo was sure that wasn’t true but she was glad they had the time, and the manpower, to investigate how Cole’s body was moved.

  ‘Why do you think she did it?’

  ‘She admits that they were going through a rocky patch,’ Miller counted the points off on his fingers. ‘She’d filed for divorce and she had good reason to want to embarrass Wendlesham, or rather his wife.’

  ‘Oh?’ Jo sat up. ‘What was that?’

  ‘Cole sent a bunch of emails before he died, which the firm tried to erase but fortunately for us and unfortunately for them he had them backed them up in the Cloud.’ Miller tried to look as if he knew what the Cloud was, but failed. ‘In the emails he confessed to shagging cli- ents and colleagues, including juniors and, in particular, to a passion- ate affair with Mrs Wendlesham.’

  ‘Lady Wendlesham,’ Jo automatically corrected him.

  ‘Lady Wendlesham.’ Miller corrected himself. ‘And that was why Sir Geoffrey came haring back home from his holiday, that and because Cole also admitted to some insider dealing, for both himse
lf and others, and using privileged information on clients. Not only did he back-up that email, he sent copies to the Serious Fraud Office. That’s going to keep them busy for years.’

  ‘And you think his wife dumped him there because of his affair with Lady Wendlesham?’

  ‘Yes. Kent do too.’ Miller looked a little uncomfortable. ‘Our the- ory is that his wife found him dead when she got back from her girls’ night out at about three in the morning.’

  It was news to Jo that Mrs Cole had been out, but she let Miller continue with his evidence-free reconstruction of the events leading up to Cole being found in the pool.

  ‘She knew about the emails and him getting sacked but might not have read them or known the details but when she found his phone she took the opportunity to read all the emails.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘It was fingerprint protected, all she needed was his thumb to open the phone.’

  ‘And where was the phone found?’

  ‘With his clothes by the hot tub at his home, it was wiped clean, so no prints on it.’

  ‘But she didn’t tidy away the evidence that he died at home? Just left the clothes and phone next to the pool for the police to find a few days later?’

  ‘Maybe she didn’t think that we’d investigate it this thoroughly.

  Just write it off as a suicide in the pool and leave it at that.’

  He didn’t add that it would have been if Jo hadn’t asked for the further tests.

  ‘And she dumps the body in Sir Geoffrey’s pool because she wants to get back at him for driving her husband to suicide?’

  ‘Yes, I know it’s a little far-fetched, but if she knew there was going to be an investigation and her life is going to be hell she might de- cide to make quite sure Wendlesham has maximum embarrassment as well..’

  ‘Surely it would be in her best interest to let Sir Geoffrey handle it all, keep her head down and keep out of it as much as possible. She might even be able to keep some of the money that way, but moving the body? That immediately puts some of the focus on her.’