Altered Life

by Keith Dixon

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  I’D BEEN BANGED up for almost twenty-four hours. I had no cash, no change of clothes, little self-respect and was suffering from the aftermath of institutional food. I’d let Howard brow-beat me into talking about Evans and I wasn’t proud of that, though God knows I didn’t owe Evans anything. Worse, I’d involved Laura in some of the messier aspects of private investigative work and probably implicated her in concealing evidence of a crime. Way to go, I told myself.

  Despite these misgivings, I phoned Laura and asked her to pick me up from the station. Half an hour later she arrived and smiled grimly as she leaned over to open the passenger door. It was dusk, and in a fanciful moment the weather had decided to burn the edges of the sky red; her face glowed as it caught the last of the light.

  ‘Where to, Beefy?’

  ‘Home,’ I said, and she pointed her Saab convertible and drove like a bullet out of the car-park.

  ‘Howard doesn’t like you very much,’ she said after a while.

  ‘What did he say to you?’

  ‘He told me about the fingerprints at the Brands’ house and what the implications were for you.’

  I glanced at her. ‘He’s trying to strongarm us.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘We’re embarrassing him so he’s trying to frighten us off.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘He didn’t have anything on me, he’s just frustrated.’

  ‘I know, Sam. It’s all right, I’m not frightened off. I understand what’s going on here. Howard’s trying to clear the decks and keep us out of the way. When I say “us” I mean you of course.’

  ‘That’s what I thought.’

  ‘As long as we’re not breaking the law I’m willing to carry on with your investigation.’

  ‘That’s all right then.’

  She drove for a few miles in silence, handling the car as if she were stroking a big cat, with a calm attention to detail. Outside, the dark Cheshire countryside flickered past, hiding its secrets behind high hedges and a sense of its own superiority. I thought how far my relationship with Laura had changed. I was almost at the point where I considered her a friend. Where once I’d seen an efficient businesswoman with a drive to achieve, now I saw a young woman who hid her vulnerability beneath a show of calm professionalism. I was beginning to see that I could depend on her, which wasn’t something I’d done with many people. I felt myself relaxing into the leather passenger seat.

  ‘You don’t talk much, do you?’ she said eventually. ‘Nothing to get off your chest?’

  ‘I’m a seething mass of internal passions,’ I said. ‘But I keep them hidden so they don’t get in the way. In fact I shouldn’t tell you this, but I’ve been accused of playing the tough guy to keep people at arm’s length.’

  She thought about this with the air of a Buddhist considering one of the four fundamental truths. ‘You don’t play at being tough,’ she said. ‘I think you’re the real deal. With fries.’

  ‘Thanks. I’m touched.’

  ‘So what do we do now? Have you eaten? We could go somewhere.’

  ‘I’m OK. The one thing the British justice system does is keep you fed. It’s procedure.’

  Another pause for thinking. I was beginning to enjoy this leisurely conversation, and I was beginning to enjoy being in Laura’s company.She said, ‘I’ve been thinking about this whole thing.’

  ‘I would hope so.’

  ‘You’re going through a lot of hassle at the moment, with no guarantee of a pay day at the end. If you want to give it up I’d understand. Brannigans are beavering away in the office every day—they’ve been given their own room.’

  ‘That must be interesting for you.’

  ‘They’re going through the accounts like train-spotters, writing down mysterious numbers and talking to each other in code. Do they go to special detective school to learn that?’

  ‘It’s a secret wing of the accountants association—special forces division. Their motto is, He who adds, wins.’

  She looked sideways at me.

  ‘You could sack them,’ I said, ‘now that Evans is out of the way. I take it he is out of the way?’

  ‘We haven’t heard from him. I don’t know if Howard has any plans to charge him with fraud on the company. I suppose there has to be an investigation and so forth. I hope they hang, draw and quarter the little bastard.’

  ‘In answer to your question, I don’t want to quit. First, I’m having way too much fun. Then there’s the glamorous life style to consider. There’s also the fact that I’m starting to get huffy. I’ve been knocked out, locked up twice and humiliated in public. Howard is pulling my chain and people keep talking to me as if I’m a moron.’

  Laura smiled. ‘I just love it when a Yorkshireman expresses vulnerability. It’s like sunshine on a rainy day. So what are you going to do? Do you have any leads?’

  ‘A couple.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘It’s not quantity, it’s quality.’

  ‘So you speak detective too.’

  ‘My dad used to tell me stories when I were a lad. He spent nearly all his life down the pit or at the local workingman’s club, but he knew hundreds of stories. Things that had happened to someone he knew, or someone’s cousin, or to the friend of a friend. God knows where they came from.’

  Laura looked at me but said nothing.

  I said, ‘None of them were true stories. He had an active imagination and he just made them up to make us laugh. It’s the same thing here. So far I’ve heard lots of stories from people. Their ideas about what was going on with Rory, with Tara, with the company. But they’re only stories. I’m still nowhere near the truth.’

  ‘I get the impression you’re worried.’

  ‘I am. Rory’s dead and Tara’s missing and probably dead by now. And we don’t know why any of it has happened. So the murderer can take his time covering his tracks and tidying up any loose ends.’

  ‘That means you.’

  ‘Right enough,’ I said. ‘But not just me.’