by Keith Dixon
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
I DIDN’T TELL LAURA that the telephone call worried me. It was the villain’s attempt to get some kind of respect for his actions. But there was no way to acknowledge them publicly, with the result that he could end up feeling even more hurt. This was a downward psychological spiral we couldn’t afford. If Tara was still alive, there was no telling what he might do to her just to make his point. There might be an ear delivered in the post, or a finger ... I had to do something to get closer to this madman. If I couldn’t catch him, I might as well give up this line of work. After all, I’d never again work on a case where I knew the people involved so intimately. If I couldn’t solve this, I couldn’t solve anything and didn’t deserve to be in business.
At least I had a plan. But as usual I wasn’t allowed to put it in place without something else getting in the way first.
The next morning my mobile phone rang and a woman’s voice asked if I were the private detective looking into Tara Brand’s murder. She was a friend of Tara’s who’d got my number from the receptionist at Brands. Melissa Ball sounded efficient, intelligent and keen to talk. She lived in Knutsford and agreed to meet me in one of the coffee shops nestled between the estate agents and charity shops that crowded against each other on its main street.
Knowing the new Tara, I guessed at the kind of woman who would be her friend, and when I entered the coffee shop I picked her out immediately—hyper-well-dressed in a black polo-neck and cream jacket, blonde hair pulled back into a pony-tail, good make-up and finely-detailed nail manicure. The perfect Cheshire-set hostess with a husband probably working in finance in the middle of Manchester and a second home either in Spain or Tuscany. Tara would have liked the world Melissa moved in, and would have been dazzled by the freedom represented by so much disposable wealth. Melissa, on the other hand, would have liked Tara’s independence and her willingness to run her own life.
I was ready for all this. What I wasn’t ready for was the anger.
‘Mr Dyke,’ she said, shaking my hand. ‘Well it’s about time someone took this seriously. Before you settle in I’d like to show you something.’
She stood up and walked towards the door I’d just come through. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘It’s down here.’
We went out on to the street again, a row of dark Victorian buildings that bent over each other to keep daylight at bay. She strode purposefully ahead, her blonde pony-tail bobbing rhythmically. We walked for twenty yards and then she stopped in front of another café and looked into its large window. I followed her gaze. The café was not much different from the others—a counter selling cakes and eccentric sandwiches made from Italian bread, an old-fashioned till that popped up square tickets when you hit a key, and behind the counter a hissing coffee machine made from lots of shiny metal. Further back were immense picture windows and a raised section where people sat at round tables and looked out on to a complex garden. Melissa Ball pointed.
‘That table, there,’ she said. ‘That’s where we’d meet. That’s where my last memory of Tara is. Very ordinary, isn’t it? So can you tell me how something as ordinary as this can be turned into something tragic, something awful, and no one seem to care two hoots? What the hell’s going on? Why aren’t I seeing nightly bulletins on the news? Why aren’t I reading reports every day in the local papers?’
‘Police investigations are long and dull,’ I said. ‘Nothing happens for a long time, then someone’s arrested.’
She folded her arms and squinted up at me, used to being in charge and getting the answers she wanted. ‘So where do you come in? I understand you’re a private investigator being paid for by Tara’s firm. What does that have to do with the official investigation?’
‘Very little. I’m following my own line of enquiry.’
‘And by complete chance I call you out of the blue because I want to talk. I’m very impressed by the depth and intuition shown by your detective work.’
‘My methods are my own. But I usually get my man.’
She threw up her hands. ‘Well that’s very reassuring—a small-time investigator who thinks he’s a Mountie.’ She turned and walked back to the place where we’d met. Once inside she ordered a cappuccino and I asked for water. She seemed to have calmed down.
‘As you can tell, I’m not happy,’ she said. ‘It’s the first time I’ve had anything to do with the police, and I’m not impressed. I might become more involved with our local people if this is the general standard one can expect.’
‘You know Tara well.’
She gave me a look that could have withered granite. ‘I suppose you could say we were best friends. In fact I’m probably her only real friend. She has lots of acquaintances, but I don’t believe she speaks to them in the same way she speaks to me.’
‘Where did you meet?’
‘We both took part in a charity walk five years ago, in Kent. We got on well and stayed in touch. When my husband was transferred up here, we started to meet regularly. Tara is very good once she trusts someone. She always organises our meetings. It’s as though she needs someone outside of work to talk to and keep her sane.’
‘Is that all you do—meet and have lunch?’
‘We play squash occasionally, but she developed a bad back and it’s difficult with timetabling. In the end it seems easier to meet and gossip over a pannini and latte. You know how it is as you get older, Mr Dyke. The simple pleasures and the routine are enough to keep you going.’
‘You seem rather young to be falling into routine.’
‘Bless your little Mountie heart. I admit that I get a lot from my meetings with Tara. She leads a far more exciting life than I do. Yes I’m married to a nice man who’s happy for me to drive a fast car and decorate the living room when I feel like it, but it’s not exactly independence.’
‘And Tara has that?’
‘Independence in a practical way, of course. But also in a spiritual or philosophical way. Let’s face it, she does more or less what she damn well pleases. I didn’t know Rory that well, but from what I hear he deserved everything he got.’
‘He was married to your best friend.’
She made a gesture with her mouth that was a metaphorical shrug.
‘Doesn’t make him a nice man.’ She looked at me coolly over the top of her fat white coffee cup.
‘If I can be personal for a moment,’ I said. ‘you seem very angry. In my experience people with that kind of anger are frustrated that they haven’t been able to do something. It burns them up inside that they had a chance, an opportunity, but wasted it. What’s getting at you, Melissa?’
‘You’re more shrewd than you look,’ she said. ‘You come along with your wrinkled leather jacket and your ‘Ah were this’ and ‘Ah were that’, but you’re not so dumb, are you? Well in answer to your question, I think Tara was having an affair.’
I looked at her for a long moment and she looked right back without blinking.
‘Do you have a name?’ I said.
‘No. She almost came right out once and told me what was going on, but she never quite made it. I didn’t want to push it because—well, because I’ve been in that situation myself and I know when it’s best to keep quiet. If she wanted to talk she had people she could use.’
‘Can you tell me anything about this man? Was it up here or down in Kent? Was it still going on or had it ended?’
‘If I could be more helpful, I would be. I’m afraid I don’t know any more than I’ve already said.’
‘If you did, would you tell me?’
She took out a packet of cigarettes and lit one without offering them to me. She blew out a stream of smoke before answering. ‘I don’t believe in this not speaking ill of the dead nonsense,’ she said. ‘Not that I believe that Tara is dead. She’s my friend and I’m more sorry than you’ll know that I didn’t pay more attention. But there’s no point in trying to hide what was going on for the sake of appearances—that’s just ridiculous.’
‘You make
a strong case.’
‘You have to have people whole or not have them at all.’
‘Have you got any idea who might have wanted to kidnap Tara—or kill Rory, for that matter?’
She stared past me through the window and into the street. ‘Don’t think I haven’t been over and over it in my mind. Going through everyone we knew, everyone she might have mentioned, any hint she might have dropped. But Tara is strange like that—she gives the impression of intimacy but you never really get through. She has all the social tricks when she wants. She can ask questions and encourage you to witter on, but she never gives much away herself. It’s almost as though she wants you as a friend to fulfil the functions that friends do—but she doesn’t need you, the real you. I suppose she uses me, if you want to think of it like that.’
‘I’m sure you’re more than someone she uses,’ I said.
‘Why? What could you possibly know about it?’
I hesitated. To say anything about my marriage to Tara seemed irrelevant to what Melissa was feeling.
‘There you go,’ she said. ‘You can’t say anything, can you? If I want to believe that Tara uses me, then that’s something I have to deal with. Don’t try to comfort me when you don’t know what you’re talking about.’
She tapped her cigarette on an ashtray that had miraculously appeared at her elbow. I poured out the last of my expensive bottled water and drank it down. It seemed to me that Melissa was happy to hold on to this anger for the time being. Perhaps it replaced the loss and pain that she would otherwise be feeling. Tara had probably been the only person who gave her some hope for escape.
‘How was Tara when you last saw her?’
‘Happy. Very happy. Things were going well for her. New business was coming in. Brands was doing well.’ She hesitated for a split-second.
‘And what else?’
‘I don’t know—she was more alive than even she usually was. There was more energy. More eye-contact, more excitement. She didn’t say anything, but I knew something was going to happen. Something good. She was worked up, excited. I asked her what was going on but she wouldn’t say. Except she was quite cutting about Rory, which was different. I don’t think they were getting on particularly well in the last few months, but she usually defended him. This time she took chunks out of him, like a shark smelling blood. It was all done as though in fun, you know, being a bit scathing about hubby—but I thought this time she meant it.’
‘What did she say?’
‘I can’t remember. It was two months ago. But I came away thinking she was different. She seemed to have let go of Rory, if you know what I mean. He wasn’t quite as important any more.’
‘You sound like you approved.’
‘Do I?’ she said. ‘Well, Mr Dyke, the thought of someone getting out of this rat-race is always exciting, isn’t it? We all want to break out from time to time, if only to see what it’s like on the other side of the fence.’
We looked at each other for a moment. She was doing her best to let me see the emptiness of her own life. The fact that someone she knew had tried to fly free and had possibly been murdered as a result wasn’t lost on her. A life of long afternoons stretched ahead.
I broke the silence. ‘I’ve heard that Rory was having affairs as well. Did Tara say anything about that?’
Melissa Ball delicately wiped the corners of her mouth with a fat ivory cloth napkin, and smiled for the first time.
‘Well now,’ she said. ‘You’d have to talk to the people he worked with, wouldn’t you?’