by Ed James
‘Why didn’t you just break up with her?’
‘Because I loved her. Don’t you see? She was mine. Micah had stolen her from me. If he was out of the picture, she’d come back to me! And I didn’t mean to kill Micah. I just wanted to talk to him, get him to back off.’
‘If you turn up to a “talk” with a knife, son, you’ve got to want to use it.’
‘He left me no choice. Said Minnie and he were going to the same college, going to live together. That was our dream! He even stole that from me!’
‘So you killed him?’
‘Immediately. No messing around.’
The room was deadly silent, just the sound of the lawyer cracking his knuckles.
‘Then what?’
‘The next night, I approached Minnie, but… She guessed what I’d done, and she said she was going to the cops. So I strangled her. I didn’t mean to, but… It just happened.’
Fenchurch raised his eyebrows. Killing once seemed to be the hard part, crossing that line. But after you’ve done it once, well. The sky was the limit. ‘And you framed Kent for her murder.’
‘I didn’t actually have to do much. All the seeds I’d planted led you to him. Kent was convicted for her murder, but he had an alibi for Micah’s, so it stayed open. If it wasn’t for that, this whole thing would be okay.’
‘Why did you give Kent an alibi for Hermione’s murder? Why did you stand up in court and get him off?’
‘I had no choice. Liam coerced me into giving it. He had a video of me helping Kent into his flat. It showed how I bumped into him on my way home, coming out of the pub.’
‘And you’d just killed her?’
Barney nodded.
‘Then Liam passed the info to Dalton Unwin, who got an appeal fast-tracked. Kent was released on bail.’
‘I know. And I tried to use that as cover. Tried to get you to think it was Clive Taylor.’
‘You’re too clever by half, son.’ Fenchurch let out a deep breath. ‘I appreciate your honesty. We’ll back it all up, of course, but I think Francine Wiley and Clive Taylor will thank you for what you’ve just told me. They’ll be able to grieve for their children.’ He held Barney’s gaze for a long while. ‘But you need to tell us where you’ve taken James Kent.’
Barney held his gaze for even longer. ‘Do I?’
Francine Wiley didn’t seem to have received much closure from the telling of the tale. She sat there holding her husband’s hand, a steady stream of tears flowing down her cheek. ‘Thank you.’
Tom Wiley lay in the bed next to her. Still in a coma, still unaware of the closure of his quest.
Fenchurch looked over at Loftus, clinging on to his cap like a life raft, then at the door.
Loftus cleared his throat. ‘We’ll, ah, leave you to it. You’ve got my number and that of DCI Fenchurch. Please, call us if you need to. Any time, day or night.’
‘Okay.’ Francine didn’t look over from her husband.
Fenchurch held the door for Loftus, then followed him out into the corridor.
Two bored-as-hell officers now. Might be overkill, but at least nothing was going to happen to Tom Wiley while the other went to the toilet.
That was the part Fenchurch loved most about policing. Serving justice, and giving that closure to grieving relatives. They could get on with their lives now. Most of the questions were answered.
While Clive Taylor was getting the closure he thought he’d lost, James Kent’s mother didn’t even have a body.
Loftus looked round as they walked. ‘You’re actually filling Al Docherty’s shoes nicely.’
Fenchurch didn’t respond. Didn’t dignify it.
‘I think it’s possible that, on reflection, maybe DCIs do need to remain a little more involved in cases.’
Fenchurch stopped in the corridor. ‘Whatever you think you’re buying with these words, I’m not selling.’
‘I’m just giving an honest reflection.’
‘No, you’re trying to deflect blame for a shoddy conviction.’
‘Simon, I’m on your side.’
‘No, Julian, the only side you’re on is your own.’
Loftus barked out a laugh. ‘I don’t know what game you think you’re playing here, Chief Inspector, but my only crime was trusting my subordinates too much. I should’ve dug deep into the case.’
‘You think an error of omission rather than commission explains what happened?’
‘It’s the truth.’ Loftus stood there, fiddling with his cap. ‘Look, if you can handle matters discreetly and, say, give credit to me for my unwavering impartiality and support during this case, then I would owe you. Many times over.’
Fenchurch folded his arms. ‘Don’t know about you, sir, but I need to find a Transit van with a dead body inside.’
Epilogue
The sun was climbing to its peak, but hung low against the bright blue sky, without a cloud. Not long to go until the shortest day, and Christmas just beyond it, and it felt like months since Friday’s downpour. A morning that wasn’t so much crisp as frozen as it neared noon.
Fenchurch stood on the dark, muddy beach at Bermondsey, and tightened his coat, though the buttons were hard to do up with thick gloves on. He had to shield his eyes to watch the action.
The crane sat on the other side of the low sea wall, the gears grinding hard as the mechanism wound back and jerked the van through fresh surf towards their feet.
A ripple of applause passed through the small crowd surrounding the crane, and the operator seemed to soak up the applause with the wave of a calm cricketer rather than the wanton glee of a goalscoring footballer.
The crane powered down and the grey Transit sat on the beach with water sluicing out of the doors.
Fenchurch looked over at Barney Richardson. ‘This better be where he is.’
He didn’t get a response from the kid, who was shivering. He was flanked by two burly uniforms, but somehow they couldn’t find a sufficiently warm coat for him. Shame.
Over by the van, Tammy was all suited up. Two of her team opened the rear door and let out a final surge of water.
A body toppled to the damp sand with a wet slap.
Fenchurch didn’t even need to get any closer to recognise James Kent.
Fenchurch focused on Barney. ‘Thank you for giving his mother some closure.’ He still had a million questions.
Barney looked at him and Fenchurch could see the terror in his eyes. He’d thought he was smarter than everyone, that his plan would win and that he could survive everything. A Friday night in the holding cells at Leman Street were easy enough, but he’d not banked on a Saturday night on remand at Belmarsh after an early-morning court hearing. He gave Fenchurch a nod in response. Despite a string of murders, Barney was no hard man.
Dimitri Younis would eat him for breakfast.
‘I just want to know why you had to kill Kent, Barney. As well as Micah and Hermione, and Damon.’ Fenchurch left out Tom Wiley, mainly because he was still in the coma and not likely to ever be capable of giving a witness statement. ‘Why?’
Barney looked away, tears streaming down his cheeks. ‘Because he started this whole thing when he reported Minnie for plagiarising that essay.’
‘She’d done wrong. He was just doing his job.’
‘You weren’t in those classes. Kent had a thing for her. Every lesson, he’d just… It was pathetic, leering over her. And she told him where to go. Kept doing it. And was going to report him, when this happened. And I can promise you, half of that class were copying essays. He just chose to pick on Minnie because she’d spurned him.’ He sniffed. ‘And if he hadn’t reported her, she wouldn’t have gone on that course, and she wouldn’t have met Micah. I had no choice in any of it.’
Fenchurch stared hard at him. Such a trivial reason to end four lives. To ruin four years of James Kent’s life, then to kill him in such a brutal way. And Francine Wiley was still in that limbo of having lost her husband, but not yet knowing how much of h
im would survive. But at least Barney was being honest. ‘We all have choices, son.’
The uniforms led Barney away towards their own waiting Transit. A short trip to Belmarsh, where he’d remain for twenty-odd years.
Fenchurch sucked in the cold winter air and stood there, trying to accept some sort of closure to things. He spotted Loftus approaching out of the corner of his eye, shivering like Barney, but armed with his usual shit-eating grin.
Fenchurch’s phone chirped in his pocket. He glanced down at the screen. A text from Abi:
Stopped at Sainsbury’s in Basingstoke for a cup of tea. Be home soon X
Typical of her to not stop at the motorway services, but to instead head into a town and the familiar anonymity of a supermarket.
Fenchurch glanced at his watch. Christ, he had less than two hours to get their house straight.
The chilli was bubbling on the hob, a slow enough cook to get the flavour to soak through the beans and the meat. Fenchurch dropped in a final square of dark chocolate, the ingredient that made the dish taste so good. Well, as much as the long squirt of tomato ketchup did.
He filled the kettle and set it on to boil for the rice, already carefully measured out with salt and a splash of oil.
Fenchurch opened a can of beer from the fridge, one of the six acting as a wall to stop the chilling bottles of Abi’s rosé from rolling around too much. He tasted a wave of citrusy hops over the meaty cooking smells, but the act of opening the can reminded him of his first beer with his old man as a sixteen-year-old. In those days, the ring pulls came away from the lid and whatever cheap lager his old man was drinking back then had a rancid malty flavour that he could still taste thirty years later. He’d struggled to drink that can, but he swore to get used to it so he could be a man. Such bollocks. A while later, he realised it was just bad beer.
He poured the can into a pint glass and sucked in the foam, assessing his cleaning work.
Yeah, the kitchen didn’t look like a forty-five-year-old workaholic had spent three days on his own living out of takeaway cartons.
A car door slammed down on the street.
Fenchurch walked over to the kitchen window and peered out. Sure enough, Abi’s car was there. She got out, but didn’t look up, just shook her head as she walked round to the back seat to let Baby Al out.
No sign of Chloe.
The flat door opened with a thud and heavy footsteps thundered through. Chloe stood in the kitchen doorway, staring at his beer. ‘Got one of those for me?’
Fenchurch frowned at her. ‘You okay, love?’
‘No.’ She raced over and hugged him tight, less a twenty-two-year-old graduate, and more a little girl again. His little girl.
Fenchurch held her tight. He knew the instinct to be protected like that, knew how it lasted deep into your twenties. ‘What’s up?’
She just stayed there, holding on for dear life. Tears lined her cheeks. ‘Dad, I think Mum’s having an affair.’
Afterword
Thanks for buying and reading this book, I hope you enjoyed it.
This is a series I’ve finished fourth times now, I think.
First, after the second book, then the third, then the fifth, then finally the sixth. Now, I think I’ll do at least another two after this one. I mean, it’d be rude to leave you on that cliffhanger, wouldn’t it?
Subscribe to my mailing list for news on the next books, including the eighth Fenchurch, A Hill To Die On, and the possible Leman Street spin-off.
I wrote this book while I was suffering from Atrial Fibrillation (heart arrhythmia) and I’m due in a week today to get it fixed. Only time will tell if that works, but thank you for getting me to the seventh in the series!
Thanks again,
Ed James
Scottish Borders, November 2020
FENCHURCH WILL RETURN IN
A HILL TO DIE ON
June 2021
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