Verbatim

by Andrew Hill

  Rather dejectedly Carol made her way back to her own car and started to drive in the direction of Didcot Road but, on an impulse, made her way instead to the house she and Rob had formerly lived in. Along the road where Rob was run down there was a convenient parking place, Carol took advantage of it. She watched the traffic coming and going, saw buses on the same route that Rob had taken that fatal day and soon the tears flowed like they had never flowed before. It might not have been a sensible thing for Carol to do but she felt she had to do it and, once the tears had subsided, she immediately began to feel more positive and started up the car to drive home. It seemed to her as though there was nothing she could do the police had not already done but there was one other thing.

  Along a short and narrow road off one of the busy shopping streets in Oxford stands a dark green wooden door with the number 14 written on it with a brass plaque announcing that this was the office of the Farrar Detective Agency. Carol pushed on the doorbell and after a moment a buzzer sounded and the door unlocked. She entered and was confronted immediately by a slightly musty smell, walls with plain and ageing wallpaper and the floor covered by an old carpet. Carol wandered why entrances were always so poorly kept. It’s your first impression of a company and isn’t one that will do them any favours. Carol plodded her way up the staircase to the first floor where there was a door marked Reception. She knocked on it and a woman’s voice invited her in. There was a complete change of atmosphere once in the office proper, modern clean office furniture, light coloured walls with some tasteful paintings hanging on them and a new carpet looking as though it was regularly cleaned, this was a great improvement on the staircase. After asking to speak to an investigator Carol was shown into the next office where she met Christine Farrar, a woman in her thirties. Christine Farrar is a former police officer who wanted the extra freedom being a private detective would give.

  “What can I do for you?” said Christine, who spoke in a voice most unlike the officious voice of a police officer. She seemed friendly enough and looked as though she could handle herself in a crisis should it be necessary.

  “It’s rather a long story and goes back quite a long time,” replied Carol.

  “Well, start at the beginning and as was once famously said, keep going until you come to the end then stop.”

  Carol related the story to Christine who sat patiently and listened. It didn’t take all that long as Carol kept herself to the essential facts as she saw them. When Carol did reach the end and stopped Christine just sat there and said nothing for a few moments then spoke, “This business is now so cold that unless something happens completely unexpectedly there is probably little you can do. As you suspect the death may have been deliberate there must have been a motive, so why would anybody want to kill your husband?”

  “I really don’t know,” said Carol, who went on to explain what Rob had done for a living. Christine interrupted her, “If your husband was a court usher in a magistrates’ court isn’t it possible that someone who had been convicted in his court might hold it against the him even though he would have had no say on the question of guilt or innocence?”

  This was something which Carol had never previously considered and as far as she knew neither had the police. To be honest Carol didn’t think it was at all likely and Mrs Farrar was clutching at straws.

  “How can I find that out?” asked Carol.

  “It would be very difficult although there will be records of all the cases that your husband was court usher there almost certainly wouldn’t be a record of his name only of the magistrate and, if he had been a court usher for a good many years as you say he had, it would be a very long list of people and if, as you say, it may have been a man dressed as a woman that would double the list as we would have to investigate men and women.

  This was all rather disappointing for Carol, though she was intelligent enough to understand that unless new evidence comes along out of the blue then there was probably very little that could be done. Their conversation concluded with these words from Christine: “If I think of anything that might be worth investigating I’ll let you know.”

  Carol knew that Farrar Private Investigations would almost certainly not take the matter any further and thanked Christine for her trouble. Carol left the office descending the dingy staircase she had ascended a few minutes earlier and on the whole was none the wiser. She left Mrs Farrah to whatever detection she was capable of doing. That may have sounded a little disparaging but it is hard to see what any private detective can do after all these years that Carol couldn’t do herself.

  There are of course the witnesses. How certain were they that this was a man dressed as a woman? Finding any of these witnesses seventeen years after the event might prove impossible but one of them had a name which Carol had never forgotten it was Josiah Trump, and what seemed remarkable to Carol this day and age is that such a person was listed in the telephone book and before long Carol was knocking on the front door of a house in a former council estate now run by a housing association. This estate was not the pride of Oxford it once was. It had looked good but was now left without proper maintenance. A large proportion of its occupants would be out of work and no doubt living on benefits, most of the front gardens were left unattended with long grass or loose paving, damaged walls and large unsightly waste bins which are the blight of many a street especially when, as in this case, the council for one reason or another had simply not collected the bins this week. Carol looked around the street as she waited for the door to be answered thinking to herself how fortunate she has been to have the ability to write and make money but she knows to her cost that money is not the only thing that matters in life, which is what has brought her to this address. The sound of the latchkey being operated from the inside drew her attention back to the task in hand. The door opened. An elderly man, probably somewhere in his eighties, stood before her, Carol was the first to speak, “Hello, my name’s Carol Wilson I’m looking for Josiah Trump.”

  “You found him.” Was the reply in a rather quiet and frail voice. Despite the frailty of his voice and his general looks he seemed able to stand well enough without the aid of a stick or frame. Carol could see through into the hall which was in complete contrast to the street. The hall carpet seemed fairly new the walls were covered with tasteful wallpaper, which also seemed quite new, the furniture was clean and polished, this was a house lived in by someone who was determined keep their own little patch of ground in good order even though he could do nothing about the state of the street outside. Carol wondered whether he was the sort of person who these days would even consider going out at night, many old people are afraid to do so but these episodes in her mind were not the reason for her visit.

  Carol asked if he was the same Josiah Trump who had witnessed a road accident some seventeen years earlier in which a man had been killed. He confirmed he was. After a brief conversation the elderly Mr Trump said that at the time he thought it was a man dressed as a woman and he told the police so.

  “I can always tell a man from a woman even when the one is doing their best to look like the other. So they never found him, I’m sorry it must be very hard for you,” said Josiah.

  By now Carol and Josiah were sitting at the dining table in Mr Trump’s kitchen. This kitchen was as immaculately kept as the rest of his house appeared to be. He spoke about that awful day as though it was only yesterday, “I was going to see my cousin who lived just a few doors away from where it all happened, we’d known each other all our lives and she was a very good friend to me, sadly she died a few years ago. The bus came to a stop. I, your husband and several others got off and I just began to walk up the road without crossing it and saw the car start up. I saw exactly what happened and I’m not going to repeat it to you I’m sure you would find it too distressing. For months and months after that I had bad dreams about it I even had to go to the doctor’s, all they could do was give me drugs. I didn’t th
ink they were doing me any good at all so I stopped taking them. The bad dreams became rarer and rarer but they have never completely left me. What he did to me that rainy afternoon will be with me for the rest of my life which has been long but may not be for much longer but it’s nothing compared to the effect it must have had on you.

  Mrs Wilson wanted to know whether Josiah could remember anything at all after all these years that might be of value, she knew this was really a pointless question likely to reveal nothing but felt that it had to be asked.

  “He had green eyes,” replied Josiah. This was a great revelation to Carol who had never known that but she also knew that it didn’t necessarily mean that the man was green eyed because if he really wanted to disguise himself he could have worn coloured contact lenses but it was a lead. There the conversation ended.

  Could this man really have had such a good look at the driver that he could see for certain the colour of his eyes? Could a reflection have given a false impression of the colour? This didn’t quite seem credible to Carol once she’d had the time to give it a little thought, nevertheless it was worth remembering. It is, however, extremely unlikely that the driver would still be living in or near Oxford assuming that he actually did live in Oxford at the time.

  Carol felt rather upset and worried whether or not her visit would start the nightmares for Josiah all over again and whether her efforts as a private detective were worth it if they’re going to have this sort of effect on innocent people, in any event, after much thought, she drew the conclusion that her private investigator skills were not as good as those of her fictional creation and the time she has spent, though not wasted, was not getting her any closer to the truth but had at least satisfied the need to do something. Now she must move on once more.

  * * *

  “Mrs S Jeffers, Lattimore Farm, Wittenbury.” Was the name and address attached to an armchair which Grant was about to deliver. He stopped the van outside the house, alighted, walked up to the front door and pushed the bell which was answered by Susan Jeffers herself. She had never seen Grant before and was not a witness to the incident so his face meant nothing to her. He meant little to her and she meant little to him as the name of the owner of the car he once stole was of no consequence to him at the time though he may have read it in the local newspaper but had long and since forgotten it. Before moving on to his next delivery he took a breather, grabbed his mobile phone and selected Carol Green from the list.

  On returning home Carol was feeling in a much more positive mood. She had switched her mobile phone off while talking to Josiah Trump and, as is often the case, she had forgotten to turn it back on again when she left. She took the phone out of her handbag and placed it on the kitchen table noticing it wasn’t on and thought, “If anyone has phoned and it was important they’ll have left a message and if not they’ll phone again so what does it matter?” She switched it on and sure enough there was the message from Grant which he had left when leaving Susan Jeffers’ house, inviting Carol around to his flat that evening for a meal. Carol called him back but only received the voice mail on his mobile and concluded he must have been out and about in the van. She left a message accepting the invitation. It wasn’t long before her phone rang and it was Grant confirming that he had received the message and that Carol could come any time after six.

  8

  Two days pass, Josh makes a telephone call from his mobile. It is answered by an unmistakable, deep gravelly voice saying, ‘Jim Salter’. Josh introduces himself and says that he has some information about Gordon Grant and promptly gives Salter Grant’s date and place of birth.

  “This is very useful,” said Salter, who went on, “have you found out the name of the IT company he supposedly ran?” Josh replies in the negative and then asks Salter if he has any news for him. Salter confirms that Grant has been working for the same department store in Oxford for eighteen months, but he has so far been unable to find out where he previously worked but thinks he should have that information by the end of the week. There the telephone conversation is concluded.

  Salter goes about his business while Josh goes about his, which is to practice the French horn, and in the afternoon attend a rehearsal with a brass ensemble ready for a concert being given at lunchtime the following week at St-Martin-in-the-Fields in Trafalgar Square.

  During the morning of the concert Josh receives a text message on his mobile from Salter asking him to phone him or come and see him that afternoon. After the concert Josh is quick to leave and makes his way to Ealing and Salter’s Office. The journey seems to Josh to take longer than usual but he eventually finds himself sitting opposite Jim Salter once more.

  Salter is the sort of man who gives nothing away in his facial expressions or his voice, Josh cannot tell whether the news is good or bad but presumes the news must be of some importance otherwise he wouldn’t have been summoned to Salter’s office.

  “I can tell you that no one by the name of Gordon Grant was born in the city of Hull on the date that you gave me.” Is Salter’s opening comment.

  “So he’s lying,” says Josh.

  Salter explains that he isn’t necessarily lying if his family moved to Hull while he was in his infancy and he has no memory of living anywhere else then in ordinary conversation he might give someone the impression that he was born there without actually stating that he was.

  “However,” continues Salter, “sometimes people who change their name use a name that they will easily remember, there were several people with the Christian name of Grant whose mother’s maiden name was Grant, a colleague in Hull is checking these out.” Salter tells Josh that he has checked with the University of Hull and although they have had quite a number of students over the years by the name of Gordon Grant none of them appear to be the person we’re looking for as none of them had studied the subjects that our Gordon Grant claims to have studied.

  “Don’t draw any quick conclusions about any of this. Records can be misleading or incomplete or just plain wrong and people can change their names for completely legitimate reasons and one more thing, I have been unable to trace anyone called Gordon Grant who ran an IT company.”

  “Me neither,” says Josh.

  “So you’ve been looking as well have you. Well there’s no harm in that but if you find anything out you must let me know straight away.”

  And with that the second meeting between Josh and Jim Salter was terminated.

  * * *

  We are in an office above a shop both of which have seen better days. The shop is a newsagent, the office is that of a private investigator, a woman in her fifties by the name of Lorna Wilberforce. The office is clean and tidy but the furniture is old and looks as though it belongs in the 1950s except for the computer and modern looking telephone, the latter of which rings and is answered Lorna, one of the comparatively small number of private investigators in the city of Hull. At the other end of the line one of Lorna’s operatives, a much younger woman, says that the University of Hull had a student by the name of Grant Webster whose mother’s maiden name was Grant and whose father’s name was Gordon. The young operative informed Lorna she has investigated Grant Webster and discovered that both his parents had, in the intervening years, passed on.

  Her visit to the Webster household went something like this:

  “That was ten or so years ago,” said a now middle-aged woman. She was a little younger than Grant, who she’d formerly considered to be her elder brother, but it has been so long since hearing anything about him that she has long since regarded herself as an only child. “From time to time,” she went on, “I think about him and what may have become of him. Do you know where he lives?”

  “Not personally,” replied the young private eye, “but my client in London has the address of the person I’m enquiring about. We don’t yet know if he and your brother are definitely the same person.”

  “I see.”
<
br />   “If it is the same person would you want to be told his address so that you could make contact?”

  “I’m not sure that I would. You see my parents stopped talking about him as though he never existed and I stopped talking about him as well. I think it affected them far more than they ever admitted. They may have thought of me as being their only child though it’s hard for parents to think that way. My mother died first and a few months later my father died. I don’t think he had any reason to live once mum had gone. I don’t mean to suggest that he took his own life only that he died of a broken heart. I believe that can happen, it has no reason to keep on beating and so it just stops. I would never let myself get into such a state even if any or all of my children left and never contacted me again.”

  “What about other members of your family have they ever tried to find him?”

  “Not as far as I am aware. We read about him in the Hull Daily Mail. A young former university student from here had been jailed for burglary and theft down in London. It was a complete surprise to us, we knew nothing about it. We found who his solicitors were and wrote to him via them but we never got a reply, perhaps he never received it. When I first got onto the Internet I did try to search for him but there was no joy, it was as if he’d just vanished from the planet.

  “It’s as though he didn’t want anything more to do with us. He moved down to London and kept in touch for a while. We lost contact and have heard absolutely nothing about him since. At one time I went down to London to see if I could find him but I soon found out just how big a city it is. I came back to Hull with nothing.”

  Sally, that was the young operative’s name by the way, asked if they had a photograph of Grant as an adult.

  She disappeared up the stairs for a few minutes to search for the photograph. Shortly she returned with an album.