A Killing Karma Page 19

  ‘You clever dog,’ Catt exclaimed. ‘Now you've explained, it makes perfect sense. Wonder why I didn’t hit on it?`’

  ‘Perhaps because, like Gus Oliver and Kris Callender, you expend too many of your energies in the physical.’

  Catt pulled a face. ‘So, have you questioned Caitlin Osborne again?’

  ‘No. Not yet. I thought you might like to be present to hear what she has to say when confronted with what I think happened. It's my belief she must have seen the actual murder. Maybe she'll even admit it and give up the fantasy.’

  ‘So what are we waiting for? Let's get to it.’

  Caitlin Osborne had been released on police bail pending their further inquiries. She was put up in a local hostel.

  ‘So, do you finally believe that I killed my father?’ were the first words with which she greeted their appearance. It seemed so important to her that Casey was gentle as he broke the news to her.

  ‘I'm afraid not, Ms Osborne. We both know it's not true. So how about you listen while I say what really happened?’

  She said nothing, so he began.

  Caitlin Osborne seemed totally deflated by the time Casey had finished telling her what he believed had really happened to her father. He had no more interest in hearing the truth from her; he suspected her delusional mind would refuse to cooperate. Though it might be useful to have his suspicions confirmed, even if the words of a drugged-up and psychotic girl would hold little weight in a court of law.

  'Okay,' he said, once they had left Ms Osborne to her delusions. ‘We'll need some spades and some bodies. Get them together, will you, Catt, while I see about arranging a warrant.’

  Neither exercise took long. They drove to Alice Oliver's house in two cars. She didn't seem surprised to see them arrive mob-handed.

  The new turf took some time to dig up. But when it was finally removed samples of the soil beneath were taken, bagged up and sent to the lab. It should, with luck, reveal traces of Gus Oliver's blood.

  Chapter Eighteen

  'All your husband's women friends told us that Gus never wore condoms.’ Casey directed his comment at Alice Oliver's bowed head. ‘So that when he caught a sexual disease, it was only too likely that he'd pass it on to all the women in his life. Including you, his wife.’ It was, as he had already figured out, their separate sleeping arrangements that had delayed him in coming to what he now believed was the right conclusion. Not forgetting the evidence of Alice Oliver's cleaning woman, Mary Clarke, which he'd finally got her to admit.

  Alice Oliver sat very quiet and still. She neither confirmed nor denied Casey's claim. He hadn't expected her to. But he'd applied to the courts to get her medical files released. And he expected shortly to have the laboratory results from the soil samples they had dug up from her back garden. She must have planned her husband's death all along, ordering the new turf once she'd decided that killing him in the garden would prevent revealing blood spatters in the house. She'd probably hosed down the grass after returning from dumping him in the alley with the help of Mrs Clarke.

  He voiced the last supposition to see her reaction. ‘Did you have help to move him to the alleyway?’

  She looked up, startled at this, but still said nothing.

  Casey mused out loud. ‘You said yourself you have no friends or family. No one to identify your husband's body for you or to hold your hand while you did so. And after killing him on the Friday evening, you hid the body under a tarpaulin and waited till early Monday morning to move him — the time when your loyal cleaning lady, Mrs Clarke, arrived. Did she help you? She struck me as a lady with little love for the male of the species, including Mr Oliver.’

  It seemed the only explanation. But apart from the quick flush that told him he had struck the truth, there was no further reaction. It was clear she had no intention of implicating her obliging cleaner. Maybe, he thought, she'd confess once she knew that her husband's poor sad daughter had claimed the crime as her own, so he told her. 'Caitlin Osborne must have watched you and Mrs Clarke wheel his body out and concocted her own confession. Poor Caitlin. Unloved and unwanted. Maybe she thought her confession would gain her some much wanted attention, even if it was only from the police and the media.’

  Still she said nothing. Casey pressed on. Not without sympathy, he said, ‘Having your husband pass on a sexual disease to you must have been the last straw.’

  She bowed her head at this. By now, she seemed to have accepted that their digging up of her turf and the taking of soil samples would reveal the truth about where her husband had died because she made no attempt to lie but simply told him in a whisper, ‘You're right, Chief Inspector. It was. It was the ultimate humiliation after all the others that he'd made me bear. I swore it would be the last. That was when I decided to kill him and kill him in the most degrading manner possible. Fit punishment, I thought, for all the humiliations he'd heaped on me over the years.’ She raised her head and met his gaze. In a firm voice, she told him, ‘But I did it alone. Quite alone. I had no help as you implied.’

  Surprised but thankful that she had decided to tell them what had really happened, Casey realized he should have got on to the truth before now. He suspected it had been Catt's comment about the Olivers not sleeping together that had led him astray in his thinking. Well, that and Mary Clarke's false testimony about the Monday morning when Oliver's body had been found dumped in the alley. He had lost his open mind about the case somewhere along the way, too, probably owing to the many distractions the commune murders had brought. The separateness of the Olivers' sleeping arrangements must have infected his subconscious and steered him away from suspecting her. But their shadow investigation into the commune murders had eventually turned his thoughts around on the case, the evidence against Dylan Harper being the clincher. Just because one person in a relationship goes astray and sleeps with someone else doesn't mean they're not still sleeping with their regular partner. As he'd finally realized in the Olivers' case.

  It was later, when Mrs Oliver had been cautioned, removed to the police station and her formal statement taken and signed, that Casey and Catt allowed themselves a few moments of relaxation.

  ‘So what put you on to the answer?’ Catt asked as he sat down.

  'I suppose it was the commune inquiry and the fact that Dylan had contracted a disease and tried to conceal just when he caught it,’ Casey replied. ‘And then Mrs Clarke struck me as too adamant in her evidence. It was clear she had had no liking for Oliver. I wondered what she was hiding. It made me think. These two cases have been entwined in my head for days, going around and around and tying me in knots for so long that it took me longer than I liked to get around to the “what if?” scenario on our official case. What if, I finally thought, someone in our official investigation had done something similar? Only instead of muddying the waters about when they had caught a particular disease, they made it seem as if they hadn't been in a position to catch the disease at all, hence the separate A KILLING KARMA ON AMAZON.FRA KILLING KARMA ON AMAZON.FR. Now that Alice Oliver has made her statement Mrs Clarke has admitted that they had indeed shared a bedroom. They only moved Oliver's clothes and other belongings to one of the spare rooms once Mrs Oliver had killed him. Doubtless DNA tests on the bedding will confirm it. Anyway, once I asked myself that question, others followed: which of the women in the case would be most keen to conceal such a shameful thing — the promiscuous women who were Oliver's lovers, or his reserved wife who had put up with his infidelities for years? As Mrs Oliver said, it was a humiliation too far.’

  Casey propped himself on the corner of his desk and said, ‘By the way, ThomCatt, I've got a little present for. you.’ He put his hand in his jacket pocket and pulled out a packet of Durex. He kept his face straight as he added, ‘You can never be too careful. Especially given your lifestyle.’

  ‘Touché, boss.’ Catt twitched the packet from Casey's fingers. ‘Always grateful for contributions to my love life. And, after these two cases, I might even
use them.’

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  A KILLING KARMA

  Enjoying a week's well-earned holiday, DCI 'Will' Casey's peace is shattered by a call from his mother. Two dead bodies have been found at the Fenland commune where his hippie parents, Moon and Star, live.

  On arrival, Casey learns that neither death has been reported — not surprising, when it emerges that the body of the first victim was found lying on top of their crushed cannabis plants and had already been buries for two months.. And the body of the second victim was lying on a board and trestles in an outhouse, surrounded by candles and showing signs of violence.

  The commune members seem to expect Casey to sort out their little problem without calling in the local constabulary — an expectation too far, in Casey's book. He is determined that, for once in their lives, his parents are going to take responsibility for their own actions.

  As if that's not enough, Casey is also called upon to solve a very unpleasant murder on his own patch of King’s Langley: this time a John Doe found dead in a dark alley. With the help of his knowing sergeant, Thomas Catt, and his assorted contacts, Casey must try to get to the bottom of both official and unofficial cases. Neither proves easy.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  About the Author

  TITLES BY GERALDINE EVANS

  Rafferty and Llewellyn procedural series

  Dead Before Morning

  Down Among the Dead Men

  Death Line

  The Hanging Tree

  Absolute Poison

  Dying For You

  Bad Blood

  Love Lies Bleeding

  Blood on the Bones

  A Thrust to the Vitals

  Death Dues

  All the Lonely People

  Death Dance

  Deadly Reunion

  Kith and Kill

  Casey and Catt procedural series

  Up in Flames

  A Killing Karma

  Standalones

  Reluctant Queen: Historical Novel About the Little Sister of Henry VIII

  The Egg Factory: International Crime and Mystery Suspense

  Land of Dreams: Romantic Novel

  REVIEW FOR A KILLING KARMA

  'Another solid procedural leavened with a dash of quirky characters.’ KIRKUS REVIEWS

  REVIEWS FOR GERALDINE EVANS’ OTHER NOVELS

  UP IN FLAMES #1 in the Casey & Catt procedural series

  'Well researched. Intriguing plot. Good pace. Excellent characterisation and wry humour make this a very enjoyable read. Highly recommended.' MYSTERY WOMEN (NOW MYSTERY PEOPLE)

  DYING FOR YOU

  ‘Evans brings wit and insight to this tale of looking for love in all the wrong places.’

  STARRED REVIEW FROM KIRKUS

  ‘It’s bad enough being suspected of a double murder, worse still when it’s your alter ego being pursued and it’s the pits when you are the policeman in charge of supposedly catching yourself. I thoroughly enjoyed Dying For You, the sixth in the series. A lot of humour is injected in Rafferty’s narrative. He’s got himself in an impossible situation and one wonders what can go wrong next. I savoured this book and am keen to read the rest in the series asap.’

  EUROCRIME

  THE HANGING TREE

  ‘Great book! A wonderfully entertaining read. All the clues are there, set out honestly and fairly, yet the identity of the killer still comes as a surprise. I got one of those "of course - I should have known!" moments at the denouement. Crime writing at its best.’

  JAMES GRACIE

  ABSOLUTE POISON

  ‘Well, this was a real find. Geraldine Evans knows how to make a character leap off the pages at you.’ LIZZIE HAYES, MYSTERY WOMEN

  ‘An ingeniously constructed plot, deft dialogue, well-drawn characters, and a few humorous touches, make this an enjoyably intriguing read.’ EMILY MELTON, BOOKLIST

  About the Author

  Geraldine Evans has had twenty novels published, eighteen of them by traditional publishers (Macmillan and St Martin’s Press, amongst others). Her popular Rafferty & Llewellyn police procedurals were her first series. A Killing Karma is the second novel in her Casey & Catt procedural series.

  Her other publications include one historical novel, a contemporary medical thriller, a romance and articles on a variety of subjects, including, Historical Biography, Historical Places, Writing, Astrology, Palmistry and other New Age subjects. She has also written a dramatization of Dead Before Morning, the first book in her Rafferty series and a sitcom, Jamjars, set in a vehicle repair workshop, which is awaiting offers. (Cockney rhyming slang: Jamjars = cars).

  Geraldine is a Londoner of Irish extraction, but now lives in Norfolk, England, where she moved in 2000.

  You can learn more about Geraldine Evans and her novels at:

  http://www.geraldineevans.com

  You can read her Blog at: Geraldine Evans' Blog

  Geraldine Evans’ Other Novels on Kindle

  Rafferty & Llewellyn procedural series

  Dead Before Morning #1

  Amazon UK: http://amzn.to/114K3eh

  Amazon US: http://amzn.to/ToGN88

  Detective Inspector Joseph Rafferty is investigating his first murder since his promotion. What a shame the victim is a girl with no ID, no face and no clothes, found in a place she had no business being – a private psychiatric hospital. With everyone denying knowing anything about the victim, Rafferty has his work cut out, so he could do without his Ma setting him another little problem: that of getting his cousin ‘Jailhouse Jack’ out of the cells. Although he has no shortage of suspects, proof is not so plentiful. It is only when he remembers his forgotten promise to get his cousin out of clink that Rafferty gets the first glimmer that leads to the solution to the case.

  Down Among the Dead Men #2

  Amazon UK: http://amzn.to/U5LmTs

  Amazon US: http://amzn.to/10C2SmT

  When beautiful Barbara Longman is found dead in a meadow, uprooted wild flowers strewn about her and, in her hand, a single marigold, Inspector Joe Rafferty at first believes the murder may be the work of the serial killer over the county border in Suffolk. But then he meets the victim’s family – and, after liaising with the Suffolk CID, he rapidly comes to believe that the killing is the work of a copycat… one much closer to home, someone among the descendants of the long-dead wealthy family patriarch, Maximillian Shore. Everyone, it seems, had a motive: Henry the grieving widower; the victim’s brother-in-law, Charles Shore, the ruthless tycoon; Henry’s first wife, the Bohemian Anne, who has lost the custody of Maxie, her teenage son, to the saintly Barbara. Even the long-dead patriarch, Maximillian Shore, seems, to Rafferty, to have some involvement in the murder, though how, or why, Rafferty doesn’t understand until he finally grasps the truth behind the reasons
for the killing. A truth sad and dreadful and which had been evident from the start, if only he had had the eyes to see.

  Death Line #3

  Amazon UK: http://amzn.to/10BPdfL

  Amazon US: http://amzn.to/TM7qV2

  Trailer: http://bit.ly/TXlc31

  Jasper Moon, internationally renowned ‘Seer to the Stars’, had signally failed to foresee his own future. He is found dead on his consulting-room floor, his skull crushed with a crystal ball and, all, around him, his office in chaos.

  Meanwhile, Ma Rafferty does some star-gazing of her own and is sure she can predict Detective Inspector Joe Rafferty’s future.— by the simple expedient of organizing it herself. She is still engaged on her crusade to get Rafferty married off to a good Catholic girl with child-bearing hips. But Rafferty has a cunning plan to sabotage her machinations. Only trouble is, he needs Sergeant Llewellyn’s cooperation and he isn’t sure he’s going to get it.

  During their murder investigations, Inspector Rafferty and Sergeant Llewellyn discover a highly incriminating video concealed in Moon’s flat, a video which, if made public, could wreck more than one life. Was the famous astrologer really a nasty sexual predator? Gradually, connections begin to emerge between Moon and others in the small Essex town of Elmhurst. But how is Rafferty to solve the case when all of his suspects have seemingly unbreakable alibis?