by David Evans
“Who are you?” an elderly male voice sounded behind the door.
Strong bent down to the letterbox. “We’re police officers,” he said. “We’d like to speak to your grandson, if he’s in.”
“Who?”
“Your grandson, Billy.”
“Billy? There’s no Billy here.”
“If you could just open the door, Mr Wood. We’d just like to make sure you’re okay.”
“Who did you say you were?”
“Police, sir.” Strong held his warrant card up to the glazed part of the door.
Another car drew to a halt behind Strong’s Mondeo, Ormerod turning to look.
Eventually, bolts were slid and the door opened, on a safety chain.
Strong presented his card again. “Good to see you acting so safely, Mr Wood. Now, can you tell me when you last saw your grandson?”
“That would be William,” the old man answered. He shook his head. “I haven’t seen William for years.”
A woman in a district nurse’s uniform walked up the path. “Everything alright?” she asked. The expression on her face told Strong she wouldn’t suffer fools lightly.
He held out his identity again. “Police,” he said. We’re looking to speak to William Pollock who we understand is Mr Wood’s grandson and lives here.”
“Mr Wood has dementia,” she responded. “I visit regularly but I haven’t seen that waste of space for a few days now.”
“Mr Wood seems confused. I just wondered if you could check the house for us?”
She studied Strong for a moment.
“Are you my daughter?” the old man asked. He’d been ignored on the doorstep.
“I’m Lizzie,” the nurse said, stepping forward and gently taking hold of the man’s arm. “You remember me? I’ve come to change your dressings.”
She led the man back inside, giving a slight nod of acknowledgement to Strong as she passed.
A minute later. she reappeared. “No sign of Billy,” she said. “I don’t think he’s been here since I last visited yesterday morning.”
“Thanks,” Strong said.
As they walked back down the path, Ormerod said, “The allotments?”
“The allotments,” Strong confirmed.
* * *
Susan picked Sammy up from her office on the stroke of midday. Bright sunlight dazzled her on the drive south to Wakefield. A frosty start had given way to a crisp winter’s day.
“So where exactly are we going, Suz?”
“Dewsbury Road, near St Michael’s.”
“The church?”
“Near there.”
“Don’t give anything away, then.”
They were silent for a while as Susan drove along the M1. Eventually, Sammy spoke again. “So did you see Bob, or have you spoken to him?”
“He wasn’t in.” Susan wasn’t in the mood for much conversation.
Finally they drove down Dewsbury Road, past the shop where Mark Thompson’s body was found. Just past a big Morrison’s supermarket, Susan turned in to a side road on the left and parked up.
Sammy looked up and down the street full of red brick terraced houses. “Does he live in one of these?” she asked.
“No.”
“Good, because I was going to suggest we turn the car round for a quick getaway.” Sammy’s attempt to lighten the mood failed.
“Come on,” Susan said, already out of the car.
Sammy quickly followed and the car was locked. They walked back to the main road and Susan made to cross.
“Where exactly are we going?” Sammy struggled to keep up.
On the other side of the road, Susan walked to a gate in the picket fence that bounded allotment land.
“Oh,” Sammy said, “Are we cutting through? Because you could have parked on the road on the other side.”
Suddenly Susan stopped. “Look Sammy, this is it. This is where I need to check out. Now I don’t get a good feeling about this but please … do me a favour and stop talking.”
Sammy was taken aback. She held up her hands and mouthed, ‘Okay.’
The allotments were deserted apart from one old man on a plot near the road lifting some leeks. He paid the two no attention as Susan led the way down a path towards the middle of site. They passed by various greenhouses, sheds and water butts, heading towards an overgrown plot near the far side. A timber shed with a felt roof stood at one side of it.
As they neared, Susan saw a man and a woman working on an allotment near to the road at the top end. Again, they were oblivious to the two women. Susan paused. “This is where Danny told me I’d find him,” she said in hushed tones.
Sammy looked surprised. “In an old shed?” she whispered.
Susan put her finger to her lips and approached the door to the shed. The padlock was unlocked. “Hello?” she called. “Are you in there? I’d like to talk to you.”
There was no answer.
“Hello?” she repeated and took a step forward.
* * *
Strong drove the few minutes from Mr Wood’s house to the allotments where the old man had a plot. He’d coordinated with Stainmore and Darby to park on Dewsbury Road and make their way in from the opposite side. According to Glover, Pollock’s grandfather’s allotment was about one third of the way down the site, more or less central.
He pulled the car off the street and on to the track that ran down the middle of the allotments, Ormerod sitting alongside. They came to a halt and got out. A man and a woman looked up from a nearby plot where they were harvesting some cabbages.
“You can’t leave it there,” the man said.
Strong held up a hand. ‘Police,’ he mouthed and showed his card.
The gardeners paused in their work, now more interested in the police presence on their field than the brassicas.
Strong led the way down the path towards an overgrown plot he thought was the one described. He could see Stainmore and Darby enter through the gate off Dewsbury Road, and walk towards them. About fifty yards away from his target, he stopped. Two women were by the old shed to one side of the allotment, one dark-haired, the other, blonde and shorter. They appeared to be in their twenties. He looked hard at their profiles. No, it can’t be?
Just then, the woman with the dark hair pulled the shed door open. There was a gap of a few seconds before she stumbled backwards, her hands covering her mouth. Her companion moved past her to look inside the shed then looked back to her friend.
By their body language, Strong knew instantly something was wrong. “Susan! Sammy!” he shouted. “Step away from the shed!”
They looked towards him, surprised expressions taking over from the shocked ones of a second earlier.
“It’s …,” Susan hesitated.
Sammy grabbed her friend’s arm and pulled her back to the path as Stainmore and Darby broke into sprints.
Strong reached the shed first. “Just stay there,” he said to Susan and Sammy, holding up a hand.
He turned by the side of the building. The door was still ajar and bright sunlight streamed in. He took a step forward and opened the door further.
Immediately in front and to the side there was a collection of old tools and plant pots, netting and other garden paraphernalia, all draped in a lace of spiders’ webs. Towards the rear of the shed, a space had been cleared for a chair, some blankets and a cushion. On top of the blankets lay the prone body of a man.
He was in no doubt the man was dead. A sleeve had been rolled up and a needle was sticking out from the crook of the elbow. The flesh was white.
Ormerod peered around him. “What a waste,” he said.
Strong turned and glared over the DC’s shoulder at Susan and Sammy who appeared distraught. “But how the Hell did those two know to come here?” he said quietly to Ormerod.
Stainmore and Darby arrived. “Don’t go in there,” he said to them. “Call it in and get Forensics down here.”
Ormerod had already walked a few paces away, mo
bile phone to his ear.
“In the meantime …” Strong approached the two women, “I’d like you two to go back to the station and make a statement.”
Stainmore stood by her boss’s side.
“But before you do,” Strong went on, “What in God’s name were you doing here?”
“I … I need to get back,” Sammy stuttered.
“Look,” Susan said, calmer now, “Sammy only came with me so I wasn’t on my own. She didn’t know what I’d come to do. She didn’t even know where we were going until we got here.”
“That’s true.” Sammy looked pleadingly.
“What had you come here to do?” Strong persisted.
“I would have come to you but I wanted to check this out, to make sure it was genuine,” Susan replied.
Strong shook his head. “I’m sorry Sammy, but the two of you are going to have to go to Wood Street. You’ll need to be formally interviewed.”
Susan pointed back to Dewsbury Road. “But my car’s parked over there.”
“DC Darby can drive you to Wood Street. You do need to make that statement.”
In the distance, sirens could be heard. The couple with the cabbages had left their plot and come nearer.
“Luke,” Strong addressed Ormerod who’d re-joined them, “Have a word with those two. See what they can tell you about this plot and our friend in there. And then get them out of here. When uniform arrive, we’re going to have to close these allotments off for the rest of the day.”
Sammy had recovered some composure. “I’ll need to call the office,” she said. “I can’t just disappear for lunch and not come back.”
“All right,” Strong agreed. “But tell them you’re unwell or something.”
58
It was mid-afternoon by the time Strong and Stainmore took their seats in the interview room where Susan had been waiting since she’d arrived a couple of hours earlier.
Strong had left the allotments a hive of activity; SOCOs in white coveralls investigating the old shed, uniforms at both entrances keeping nosy gardeners from entering. The black ambulance had arrived just before he left, waiting patiently for the order to collect the body.
Before Strong returned to Wood Street, Ormerod had briefed him about his conversation with the couple on the nearby allotment. They’d confirmed the plot where the body was found was indeed that of George Woods. He’d worked it for decades. But the association were looking to re-allocate it because of his failing health and inability to look after it properly. A year or two back his grandson, Bill Pollock had helped out but he’d lost interest. They had seen him use the shed from time to time but gave him a wide berth. “Didn’t want to get involved,” Ormerod had quoted.
Strong raised his brows. “I can believe that,” he said sarcastically.
Ormerod remained at the allotments to liaise with Forensics and speak to any of the holders they could identify.
In the interview room, Strong flipped open a pad ready to note what he was about to be told.
“Okay Susan,” he began, “In your own words, how did you come to be at that allotment this afternoon?”
She leaned forward on the table that separated them. “This is going to sound strange but you remember when Bob and I came across you the other week when you’d just found the body of Mark Thompson?”
“Right.”
“Do you remember a kid on a bike? About twelve with a baseball cap on back to front?”
“I do, as it happens. Bike too small for him.”
“That’s him. Well, you know I’m helping Bob on his story to mark the twentieth anniversary of the Claire Hobson case – I’m doing it as part of my coursework.”
Strong nodded and jotted a few notes down.
“As well as that, I thought I’d help Bob out again and get a bit more background on Mark Thompson.” She paused a second. “So I went back to the shop to speak to the woman who found the body and when I came out of the shop this kid approached me.”
“The lad on the bike?”
“Yes.” Susan then told him what the boy eventually told her and how the man he thought responsible for Thompson’s murder used the shed to do drugs.
Strong finished writing and exhaled loudly.
“So rather than bring this information to me, you thought you’d go investigating on your own?” he said.
“It wasn’t like that, I told you …”
“After all that happened last year.”
She straightened up and looked straight at him. “You can’t compare this with last year. I told you, I wanted to see if this added up, then I was going to tell you.”
“And what if he’d been alive in that shed? Drug-addled with a knife. God knows, there would have been any number of gardening tools he could have attacked you with. And the only people around would have been an old man, probably deaf as a post, about a hundred yards away down near the road, or an elderly couple in the opposite direction. Christ, Susan …”
“Okay, okay, I know.”
There was an awkward silence for a moment before Strong broke it. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have gone off like that.”
“No, you were right. It was stupid.”
Strong looked at her for a second then said, “So tell me about this kid?”
59
Gary Monk couldn’t help brooding on what he’d seen scribbled on Stainmore’s pad. He couldn’t make sense of it. Then there was the change in his mum. He studied her closely; she had become quieter, more insular since Strong and Stainmore had visited that second time, supposedly to bring his father’s shirt back. All that story about SOCO research didn’t ring true to him. He’d asked several of his colleagues about it and they’d never heard anything.
And then there was the repeat of the home interview. Nobody had ever been asked to do that but, there again, none of them had a good word to say about HR either.
But what about those doodles? Why was there another character noted only by a question mark on that chart? Stainmore obviously thought they were linked somehow. He’d have to choose his time, but he needed to delve a little into what had changed with his mum as well.
That opportunity presented itself several days after his unofficial visit to the CID Room. He woke around two in the afternoon following the last of his current batch of night shifts. At first he thought he was dreaming. The gentle sobbing seemed to be part of some dark vision behind his eyelids. But no, as he opened his eyes, the sound was definitely a reality. It was coming from his mother’s bedroom through the wall from his own. He listened for a short while then got up and padded his way to her bedroom door.
He gave a gentle knock. “Mum? Is everything alright?”
There were sniffling sounds before she replied in stuttering words, “I’m fine, love. Honestly.”
“You don’t sound it.”
“Make me some tea,” she said, “I’ll be down in a minute.”
He walked downstairs and switched on the kettle. A few minutes later, his mother appeared, eyes puffy and red.
“Is it Dad?” he asked. “Because I miss him too.”
She shook her head. “I know.”
He squeezed the tea bag out of the mugs and added milk for the pair of them and handed one to her. He looked at her for a moment then decided he had to ask. “Is it to do with the detectives’ visits?”
She looked sharply at him “Why do you say that?”
“Mum, I know you. Something’s not been right since that second visit. The one when they brought Dad’s shirt back.”
She put her mug down and stood by the window looking out over the back garden. “You know he really loved you, don’t you?”
Gary was puzzled. “Dad? Of course I know.” He stood behind her with his hands on her shoulders. “Mum, what is it? What’s really the matter? You can tell me.”
She bowed her head then turned to face him. “Sit down, Gary.”
“Mum?”
“Please, Son.”
&
nbsp; Slowly Gary lowered himself into a kitchen chair.
“This isn’t easy for me to say.”
“Just tell me.”
“Your Dad …” Tears welled in her eyes. “He wasn’t your biological father.”
Gary felt a burning sensation in his throat. He was unable to speak for a second. “How? I mean, when …? What?” he eventually managed.
Tears ran down Annabel’s cheeks. “I only just found that out … when they brought back your father’s … your Dad’s shirt.”
He’d suspected something serious and somewhere at the back of his mind, he probably had considered this possibility. But now, having heard it spoken out loud … and by his mother … it was … he couldn’t take it in.
He stood up and shook his head, pacing the small kitchen. “No, no, no! This can’t be.” He stopped and faced her, anger in his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” was all she could manage.
“Sorry?” Gary waved his arms around. “But, who…? You must have known.”
“I didn’t. I honestly thought your father …”
“No. No, you must have had a clue.” He was shaking his head. “I mean, who else did you sleep with?”
That remark sparked an incensed reaction. “I did not sleep with anyone,” she said slowly and deliberately. “I loved your father.”
“So what am I? An immaculate conception?”
She looked down, unable to face her son. “I was attacked,” she finally said in a quiet voice.
“What?”
She looked up into Gary’s face, inner strength coming from somewhere. “I was attacked,” she repeated.
The enormity of what he’d just heard threatened to overwhelm him. Gary had to find somewhere quiet, away from all the noise. Not just the traffic noise but the noise in his head.
He was sitting in his car in a field entrance on a country road high up on the moors. The wind was whistling around the car, but apart from that, all was peaceful. No other vehicles had passed by. He looked out over the wild desolate landscape. Heavy clouds threatened from the west. His vision blurred as tears welled in his eyes. How could he make sense of this? He was the product of a rape. There was no pre-programmed emotion to tell you how to cope with that. And the only reason he’d found out; in fact the only reason his mother found out was because of his joining the police. Ironic really, he joins the force to uphold law and order and immediately discovers an unlawful past. That, after all, can be the only reason all this has come to light.