Free Over the Edge by Stuart Pawson Page B

mountaineer?’
    ‘Ex-mountaineer,’ Dave corrected. ‘His mountaineering days are over.’
     
    I visited the scene briefly on Sunday morning then spent the rest of the day in the office. It’s all about teams and lists, and it was my job to manage them. We cleared the incident room of the stuff left over from the previous case: wiped the computers clean; took the maps and diagrams off the walls; and started to fill them with new stuff. I opened a diary and murder log and my admin officer, drafted in from HQ, supervised the creation of a property book, message book, job sheets, daily duty lists and correspondence file. An action allocator, statement reader and exhibits officer were appointed.
    One team looked into the victim’s background for any likely suspects; another into his family connections. We looked at the MO – which was fruitless as this was a first – listened to various theories from members of the public and did a house-to-house. All this was routine, laid down in the manual. The only bit of creative thinking was to have somebody look into the Wallenberg connection, if there was one.
    Monday morning we had a briefing and update meeting. The detective super who lorded under thetitle of senior investigating officer gave a pep talk to the troops, saying that this was a high-profile case involving a media celebrity, so we had to be on our best behaviour, thanked them for working the weekend and handed over to the investigating detective: moi.
    The post-mortem findings revealed nothing relevant. It looked as if Krabbe had come straight home from the lecture and met his death after parking his car in the car barn, as the estate agents like to call the sheltered parking place that passes for a garage.
    ‘…and he drove a TVR Tasmin,’ I was told.
    ‘Wow!’ somebody exclaimed. ‘Nought to 60 in 6.2 seconds.’
    Sometimes I wonder if I’m employing a bunch of petrol heads. I said: ‘Let’s keep it relevant, please. What’s next?’
    Suspects. Most of all, we need suspects. The team looking into Krabbe’s background had unearthed the fact that he’d lost a companion on Everest. What was the full story, someone asked? Had Krabbe done enough to try save him?
    ‘Good point,’ I said. ‘Climbing’s a close-knit community and the dead man no doubt had friends and family. Krabbe talked about him…I’ve forgotten his name…’
    ‘Jeremy Quigley.’
    ‘Thanks. Jeremy Quigley. Krabbe talked abouthim in the warmest of terms at the lecture on Saturday. He sounded genuinely moved about it.’
    ‘Guilty conscience?’
    ‘Could be. Stay with it. Who was looking into his family?’ One of my DCs stood up and opened his notebook. ‘What have you found, Robert?’ I asked.
    ‘Something fairly interesting. First of all, he’s only lived back in Heckley for about six months, since he bought the apartment in the block where he was found. His parents are still alive, in their eighties and living up in the Isle of Arran.’
    ‘Presumably they were informed.’
    ‘Yes. All dealt with. Krabbe has never married but he’s had a series of relationships, mainly with women climbers. Two were Austrian girls and one New Zealander. But the longest, and most interesting, was with Sonia Thornton.’
    ‘The runner?’ Sonia Thornton had been Yorkshires golden girl a few years ago. She’d come second in the London marathon and had a string of high-profile successes at various distances. Apart from that, she was attractive and articulate, and the media loved her. Sonia was hot favourite to win the Olympic 5,000 Metres in Atlanta until, two days before the team flew out, she injured a leg in a car crash and her athletics career came to an end.
    ‘The one and only. Apparently they were a couple from about 1989 right up to the accident, in 1996, although they spent a great deal of the time apartbecause of their various commitments. He was off climbing and she trained in Arizona for much of the year. They kept the