The Scribbler

by Iain Maitland

  Halom looked from one to the other. Then bent his head down again and coughed into his handkerchief. Gayther could see globs of white spittle, one left smeared below Halom’s bottom lip. Halom looked up sourly at them before speaking. “Wait here,” he said, pushing the door to. “This is not an invitation to come in. Stay there.”

  Gayther watched through the frosted glass, Halom’s shape seeming to sway from side to side as he moved further away.

  “What are your thoughts, guvnor?” Carrie asked quietly. “Would he have the strength to have killed Lodge?”

  Gayther shook his head and put his finger to his lips. “Well, he’s coughing and spitting a lot … maybe for show … who knows?”

  A wait, as if Halom might have slipped out the back and away, but then finally he was back, opening the door, pulling his dressing gown tighter around him and flicking through the pages of a pocket diary. “October … October … what was it … the fifth?”

  “The first,” replied Gayther, correcting him. He saw Carrie’s expression but ignored it.

  “Here,” said Halom, holding out the opened diary. “See for yourself.”

  Gayther took the diary as Halom started another coughing fit. Skimmed down one side, then the top of the other and saw the date, the first, and the word ‘Bingo’ and the letters ‘GCP, GY, 6-10’ in the small space. “GCP?” he asked.

  “Greys Caravan Park, Great Yarmouth. I do a cabaret Friday nights, bingo when I’m needed … if someone’s off sick … are you satisfied?” Halom coughed again, struggling for breath.

  “Is there much demand for that in a caravan park at this time of year?” Gayther asked.

  “The locals turn out for it,” Halom answered.

  Gayther nodded at him. “Do you do the bingo a lot? Do they just call you in when someone’s off sick?”

  Halom nodded back, “Now and then. Once or twice a month if someone phones in ill.”

  Are you still working?” he added, gesturing towards Halom’s handkerchief. “What with … everything?”

  Halom looked back at him, anger on his face.

  “Not this week, no, nor last week, not until I’ve got rid of this bloody cough.” He hacked again. “Next week, hopefully. Is that it, then, are we done?” He looked from Gayther to Carrie and back again.

  Carrie spoke up, “Yes, but we couldn’t help but notice, on the way in, your tyres … did you know three of them are below the legal tread?”

  Halom turned his angry gaze towards her and she held it, thinking that deep down this was an angry man with a quick temper.

  “You’ll need to get those sorted before you drive it again.”

  Halom looked at her dismissively. But he said nothing and, after a moment or two, he turned back to Gayther and repeated himself, “Are we done?”

  Gayther nodded his confirmation.

  “Don’t come back.” Halom stepped back and shut the door in their faces.

  Gayther smiled quietly to himself as he turned to Carrie and they walked away.

  * * *

  “Well, it’s not him then, is it?” Carrie half-stated, half-asked, as they drove away back through Wickham Market towards the A12.

  “Why’s that then, Carrie?” Gayther answered as he accelerated the car through the town square.

  “Well, he’s not well … on his last legs by the look of it … and he was at the caravan park that night, he’d have witnesses to that.”

  Gayther searched in the door well for a half-eaten packet of polos he thought he’d left there. He rummaged a bit more without success. Then he tutted to himself and turned to Carrie.

  “He doesn’t look good, I’ll give you that. But … it may not be more than a really bad cough. Man flu and all that. Men do suffer badly, you know. More than women. It’s worse than childbirth, I’m told.” She did not pick up on his teasing comment.

  “More like cancer to me, guv. One of my uncles was like that towards the end … the lung cancer had spread. If he is dying, would he … well, would he be bothered enough to go to all the trouble of killing a witness even if he were up to it physically? It would hardly be top of his bucket list.”

  “There’s the ailing mother, Carrie. Getting older herself. He might want to stay alive for as long as he can for her … and to protect his name … her name … if he died before her.”

  “Yes, but still …” Carrie turned away, looking out of the car window across the fields.

  “And the diary entry, Carrie,” he went on, “couple of things there. If you did kill someone, I think you’d want to cover your tracks. He could have made that entry before or at any time after in case someone came knocking. He could even have scribbled it in as he walked back to the door to show us the diary.”

  Carrie said nothing, and just carried on watching the world go by. Something was troubling her, about Halom and his mother, but she couldn’t quite think what it was.

  Gayther continued, “And he said he worked there Friday nights regularly, bingo when needed. So, I noticed he had noted the cabaret down in the diary for four days later. If you did it every week, week in, week out, would you do that? Would someone make a note ahead of going to church every Sunday? Or that you swam at the local leisure centre, Monday, Wednesday and Friday? No, it’s just routine. You don’t need to make a note of it. You know your own habits.”

  Carrie nodded, but she reckoned it was all just too unlikely.

  “And answer me this, Carrie,” Gayther said, sensing her frustration, “if he got called in on the day, because someone phoned in sick, or texted or whatever, would he rush straight to his diary and make a note of it? Would you? Of course not. A diary like that is for doctor’s or dentist’s appointments, a nephew’s birthday, stuff like that. Not to note something you were doing that very day. It’s not like you’d forget.”

  She turned towards him, as Gayther drove the car back on to the A12. “If you didn’t believe him, why didn’t you press further, ask him more questions?”

  “Because, as it stands, he’ll simply take our visit as being routine. He’s used to dealing with the police, petty crimes and stuff, and us turning up out of the blue about stolen goods. If I pressed him, even hinted at The Scribbler, we’d spook him. As it is, he’s given us a fact that we can check easily. At some point, in the next day or two, I’ll ask you to run up to the caravan park, take Cotton or the other one with you, just to double-check that out.”

  “If he worked that night as he said?” she asked.

  “Or not.”

  “And if he didn’t?”

  “If he said he did and he didn’t … then he lied … why? … we’ll want to know … maybe he was at the care home killing Lodge after all.”

  10. WEDNESDAY 14 NOVEMBER, LUNCHTIME

  “Challis then, guv. The moment of truth. What are the chances it’s him? Or is this a wild goose chase after all?” Carrie sat in the passenger seat of Gayther’s car, sipping at an Americano from a local petrol station. She took the lid off the paper cup, blowing on the black liquid to cool it.

  Gayther sat drinking his latte, watching the builder’s yard, the Challis & Sons Ltd sign above, on an industrial estate just outside Saxmundham in Suffolk. He shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine, Carrie. Finding out exactly where he was on the evening of the first of October should rule him in or out, though.”

  “What time do you expect them to arrive, guv?”

  Gayther moved his cup from his left to his right hand and then checked the watch on his left wrist.

  “The woman in there …” he gestured towards the yard, “… said they were due back just after lunch to pick up some parts. Someone should appear soon. Whether it’s Challis or the sons. Another fifteen minutes, maybe a bit longer.”

  “Won’t she alert them to us, guv?”

  He shook his head. “Shouldn’t do. I think you’ll find she thinks I’m a customer … not a policeman.”

  Carrie looked at him doubtfully, but didn’t say anything.

  Gaythe
r looked around. “Is there anything bleaker than an industrial estate on an overcast and drizzly day?”

  “Round here? Kessingland beach is pretty grim with the wind whipping in. Spent the night there once as a teenager, a group of us in a tent. Hard to peg a tent on a shingly beach. It got in a tangle and blew away and we ended up chasing it into the sea. One of the dads picked us up at 2.00am. And, um, anywhere up and down this stretch of coast with the dark mornings and dark nights. All a bit spooky. The beach by the Sizewell power station would be my bleakest place.”

  “Lit only by the light of its radioactive detritus washing out to sea,” Gayther smiled as he finished the dregs of his coffee and crushed his coffee cup, squeezing it down the side of his seat.

  “You need cup holders, guv. Between the seats. We could put our cups in them. Newer cars have them, you know.”

  “Maybe, Carrie, maybe. There’s a bit of life left in this one yet. The body’s a bit old and battered, but the engine still has some go in it. There’s plenty of oomph under the bonnet.”

  There was a moment’s silence.

  Both thought of much the same joke, give or take.

  Neither of them said it.

  “So, Challis, guvnor. Run me through your thoughts on this one please before he arrives … hopefully.” Carrie finished her coffee, put the lid back on and rested the empty cup by her feet.

  “Okay,” said Gayther, reaching for the file between the seats, “Challis was a plumber, is now a builder with his two sons. He used to drink in some of the pubs where The Scribbler met his victims. Maybe more. Was named by three or four people who saw an appeal on local TV. He had alibis for some of the murders, three of them, but not others. Nothing from forensics.”

  “The alibis, guv, who provided them?”

  “Hold on.” Gayther flicked through papers in the file, back and forth, until he found what he was looking for. “For two of them, little old ladies for whom he was doing odd jobs in the evening for cash in hand … installing a washing machine for one, unblocking a drain for another and, for the last one, an old boy, he was fitting a new cistern that night.”

  “Friends or relatives, guv?”

  Gayther shook his head, “No, apparently not, no personal connections.”

  “Did Challis work alone?”

  “He had a young lad with him at the time, Stephen Gill, who fetched and carried. An apprentice in all but name. But there was no mention that he was there for any of these cash-in-hand jobs. He had left by the time of the investigation, went off to college somewhere. He was interviewed but had nothing to say of relevance. We don’t seem to have the complete notes on that, though.”

  “Could they have been mistaken, the old folk? Maybe got confused and got the dates wrong?”

  “One old lady wasn’t sure … they were interviewed weeks later, of course. Said it has been a Monday or a Wednesday night because Coronation Street was on the telly at the time he came round. She then went with the Monday, which was the night in question, and said Challis was there for about an hour after the programme ended. If it was that night, Challis would not have had time to get to Norwich to the bar to meet … hold on … MacGowan.”

  “And the other ones?”

  “Well, this is interesting, Carrie. Digging through the notes, one of the old dears and the old fellow named the days correctly for the respective murders, but both seemed to base their recollection on receiving receipts through the post from Challis, weeks later and dated for the appropriate night.”

  “So, you’re thinking—” Carrie said.

  “For those two,” Gayther interrupted, “Challis could genuinely have been fixing a drain and a cistern. Equally, he could have been out killing and then, to cover his tracks, issued receipts for the work he’d done the night before or the night after and wrote the wrong date on both of them.”

  “But not for the first old woman?”

  “There’s nothing in the notes, but who knows? Maybe he did but she never mentioned it. All three of them were in their late seventies or early eighties. I doubt many of them could distinguish one same-old day from another.” Gayther was silent for a moment, lost in his thoughts.

  “So, no one at the time picked up on this receipt thing?”

  “No, it just caught my eye as they were mentioned in passing in two statements. If he were doing cash-in-hand jobs, why would he give them receipts – and weeks after he’d done the work? Odd that. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, of course. When you’re so close to something you don’t always see the wood for the trees.”

  “And, since then, there’s been nothing on Challis on the database?”

  “No, but there’s this business with the son, Toby, and the burglary near Dunwich and the lawyer from London wanting everything deleted from the files. DNA and all. That’s so odd, as well. For just a big Suffolk lad. I’d like to have had that DNA to see if there’s any sort of match, familial or otherwise, somewhere down the line … take another look at this photo of them, Carrie. Father and sons. I took it again from their website.”

  Carrie took the A4 sheet of paper offered to her by Gayther and looked down at the three men standing, proud and upright, with arms folded, in front of the Challis & Sons Ltd sign at the yard.

  “Thing is, Carrie, you can see from old man Challis in the middle …” Gayther pointed to the photograph, “… well, there’s that look again, isn’t there? Lean. Not an ounce of fat. Same as Burgess and Halom … and these big lads, Toby on the left, Alex on the right, well, you’d not want to pick a fight with those big buggers. They don’t look like him. The mother must have been a colossus.”

  “Hang on, guv,” Carrie replied, looking over to the builder’s yard and then back across at him. “Isn’t that them in the van over there? … I’ll check the number.”

  Gayther looked over as the van came to a halt and the father got out of the driver’s side and one of the sons exited from the passenger side.

  He watched as Challis, the father, turned and looked towards him and Carrie, reached back into the van and came out with a sledgehammer. Challis started walking purposefully towards Gayther’s car, before breaking into a run.

  * * *

  “Who the fucking hell are you?” Challis stood aggressively by Gayther’s car, bending down towards the car window so his face was only inches from Gayther’s.

  Gayther looked back blankly at him through the glass. It seemed to enrage Challis further. He moved the hammer from one hand to the other and then spoke again, full of anger.

  “Who are you and what do you want?” Challis put the sledgehammer down and reached to pull open Gayther’s door.

  Carrie, anticipating the move, pressed a button to lock the car doors.

  Gayther spoke in a measured tone. “I am DI Gayther and this is my colleague … George … Carrie. We’d like to ask where you were between the hours of six and nine pm on the first of October.”

  Carrie looked at the man, who seemed to be in such a terrible rage.

  “Why don’t you fuck off? This is just state harassment again. Police. Tax enquiry. VAT inspection. Speeding tickets. You’ve not left us alone for months. I’m not talking to any of you any more without a solicitor. So, you can just fuck off and request a meeting in writing.”

  Gayther nodded and spoke clearly and firmly, “We’ll do just that for you, Mr Challis.”

  As Challis picked up the sledgehammer to walk away, he turned back towards Gayther and looked him in the eye.

  Carrie thought for one awful moment that Challis was going to lift the sledgehammer with both hands and slam it into the car windscreen, shattering the glass. Instead he spoke, this time in a lower, more threatening voice.

  “You smarmy bastards are all the same. You’ve not left us alone since … my boy makes one single mistake … one mistake, that’s all … and you’re all over us. Harassment. Victimisation. That’s what this is.”

  Gayther maintained eye contact and spoke in a louder, firmer voice – but still pol
ite. “Tell me where you were between six and nine pm on the first of October and that’s it, over. We’ll go away and leave you in peace.”

  Challis stood still for a minute, searching for words, thought Carrie – although he looked as likely to explode as anything else.

  “If … you … don’t … fuck off right now, I’m going to put this sledgehammer through your fucking windscreen … understand?”

  Gayther nodded as he started the car and began to reverse it away from Challis.

  As he did so, Challis walked alongside the car shouting. “I’ve got your car number; I’m reporting this to your Chief Constable. I know who that is. Wicks.”

  Gayther continued to reverse the car, gradually gaining speed, until Challis stopped walking, but then he shouted after them, “And don’t fucking come back if you know what’s good for you.”

  Ten, twenty yards further on and Gayther stopped the car, then started to make a three-point turn.

  Carrie glanced across at Gayther and noticed he was sweating.

  “Well, that was an over-reaction,” she said. “What rattled his cage so hard?”

  Gayther swung the car back in his second manoeuvre as he answered, “Piss and wind, Carrie. He’s blustering and bullying because he’s covering up … he has something to hide, simple as that. I doubt it’s just his son. Not with that level of anger.”

  She nodded, “Could he be being harassed? Police? Taxman and all of that?”

  Gayther noted her worried face. He smiled at her.

  “This isn’t Russia, Carrie. There’s no state surveillance, not at this level anyway. If … if … it’s all true, what he says, it’s just coincidence. But I don’t believe it.” He thought and then added, “We can’t harass people anyway … we don’t have the resources.”

  “Should we have arrested him then, for threatening behaviour, taken him in for questioning? That would have got the truth out of him.”

  Gayther stopped as he was doing the third part of his three-point turn. “No, there’s no way he’d have talked voluntarily, and with his son there it would have all blown up out of proportion … it would have ended in an undignified pushing and shoving match. Anyway, I want this all low-key for now. And besides, there’s a more important question I want answering.”