Angels and Apostles

by Tony Hutchinson

  ‘That’s why I can’t stay long,’ Ed said.

  Sam said she would give him a lift back when they had finished their drinks.

  She sipped her wine, giving an approving nod to the excellence of the Burgundy. ‘So what’s he said?’

  ‘Enough for a novel,’ Ed told her. ‘We’ve got a shed-load to do tomorrow. Get him moved and passed onto somebody else to interview. He’s fine with that now but he’s given us so much already you’ll need a full team on it. The Skinners are finished.’

  Ed picked up his pint and swallowed a couple of mouthfuls.

  ‘There’s enough to start rounding people up as soon as the staff’s sorted but it’ll need plenty of planning.’

  Sam said she would get on it, said he had done well to get so much out of him. She didn’t tell him she’d seen Ray Reynolds that morning. Twice. Twenty minutes after she’d walked out of the coffee shop she’d returned to give him back his pen.

  ‘Wait there,’ Sam said, standing up. ‘I’m going to see if they’ve got a room here tonight.’

  Ed looked up. ‘Why? I don’t think...’

  Sam bent down and put her hands on the table. ‘You’re not the one who has to drive home tonight, back across in the morning and then back to Seaton again.

  ‘I drove back last night but why? Just to spare Sue? I know she gives you a load of shit about me but forgetting one drunken snog there’s nothing going on so grow a pair and tell her, instead of expecting me to trail backwards and forwards across the country just to save you some earache at home.’

  She pushed herself away from the table, turned on her heels and headed to reception.

  Ed glanced at the other customers scattered around the lounge. They all looked like they’d been happily married for years and they had all cast eyes in one direction at Sam’s raised voice. They hadn’t missed a word.

  Ed could look embarrassed or front it out. He chose the latter. He shrugged his shoulders and smiled at his new found audience. They all looked away.

  Sam walked back in, grinned at the barman dressed in black who nodded and smiled, and sat down.

  ‘Sorted,’ she said.

  ‘I’m surprised the job will sanction this place,’ Ed told her. ‘Must cost an arm and a leg.’

  ‘It won’t and it has,’ Sam was still grinning. ‘I’ll pay. I’m not bothered. I’ve got a room with a balcony and a view of the lake.’

  Sam leaned forward. She whispered but the words still seemed loud and he was worried others could hear, even if Sam was back to business.

  ‘Does Harry know anything about the murders of Scott, Pritchard, van Dijk or Billy Skinner?’

  Ed matched her, keeping his voice low. ‘He says not.’

  ‘You believe him?’

  Ed answered without hesitation. ‘I do. He’s told me about murders going back years, told me the name of the owner of the boat who takes the Skinners out to sea when they need to dump a body.’

  Ed leaned across the table, their noses almost touching.

  ‘He’s scared and out for revenge after Dean. I don’t think he’s lying.’

  They both sat back in their chairs and finished their drinks in silence.

  As they stood up Ed was tempted to wave to the watchers but thought better of it.

  Outside they sat in Sam’s car, engine running, heater on full.

  Sam lit a cigarette. ‘If Pullman isn’t giving us anything to progress our murders, then tomorrow I’ve arranged for him to be passed onto Organised Crime.’

  Ed nodded. It was the right move.

  Harry knew nothing about the executions of Scott, Pritchard, and van Dijk, no idea who killed Billy Skinner, and no idea who torched his pub.

  ‘Which brings us back to Ray Reynolds and Cat,’ Sam said. ‘Not torching the pub, but the rest.’

  She put the car into gear and pulled away, thinking about Reynolds.

  As she drove up the small incline into the White Lion car park she warned Ed not to get into a session with Harry.

  ‘We don’t want him pissed and shouting his mouth off in a small Lakeland pub,’ she said.

  Ed made the Scouts’ sign, opened the door and stepped out.

  Sam put her hand on the passenger seat and peered up at him.

  ‘I’ll get Organised Crime here by 8am for Harry. I’ll pick you up at 8.15. Play your cards right and I might treat you to breakfast.’

  She pulled the door shut and drove away.

  Sometimes you just had to wait.

  Thursday 18th December

  Sam pushed her knife into one of the perfectly cooked Eggs Benedict. Ed put brown sauce around the Lakeland Full English.

  Sam had been in the restaurant earlier, sweet-talked the host into giving her a table in the window with a view of Ullswater.

  Harry and Ed had just wanted coffee at 7.30am. The Organised Crime Unit were early and Harry was keen to get away.

  ‘Too quiet here for me Ed,’ he had said. ‘Too much time to dwell.’

  ‘They’ll have to relocate him to a city not the sticks,’ Ed said now, chewing a small piece of the spicy Cumberland sausage. ‘Put him somewhere like this and he’ll swing back to Seaton St George quicker than a boomerang.’

  They had both seen people relocated who, for all sorts of reasons, decided living under threat in your home town was better than living anonymously where you were completely alone. Not everybody had it in them to adapt.

  ‘I don’t know whether I could do it, wherever they put me,’ Sam said.

  The waiter topped up her coffee.

  ‘What’s on the agenda today then?’ Ed asked. ‘A nice walk and a pub lunch by a roaring fire?’

  Sam dabbed the corner of her mouth with the starched napkin. ‘As nice as that sounds, I want to go and see Ray Reynolds. I put it off yesterday because of Harry, but I want him boxing off today.’

  Ed sliced through a mushroom.

  ‘You have an interview strategy sorted?’ he asked without moving his eyes from the plate.

  I might have, Sam thought.

  ‘We’ll sort it in the car on the way back across. For now enjoy your breakfast.’

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Ed and Sam squeezed past the Jaguar on the bungalow’s driveway, ten years old but still with a showroom shine.

  Ray Reynolds, in blue cords and grey cable sweater, polishing the paintwork around the offside headlight, straightened as he heard their footsteps.

  ‘Alright Ed,’ he said, rubbing his fingers against the muslin cloth. ‘To what do I owe this honour?’

  ‘Ray. You remember Sam?’

  ‘Of course.’ He walked past the bonnet, shook Ed’s hand, then Sam’s. Nothing in the handshake indicated he’d seen Sam yesterday.

  ‘Come in, come in. I was just about to make a brew.’

  ‘Car’s looking well,’ Sam said.

  ‘Thank you,’ pride in Reynolds’ voice. ‘Bought it when I retired. Still as good as new.’

  ‘Sam’s our resident petrol head,’ Ed said, as they followed Reynolds into the glass porch, three empty terracotta plant pots on the floor.

  ‘What do you drive then Sam?’ Reynolds asked, bending down to swap his shoes for slippers.

  ‘Audi A5, 3 litre Quattro.’

  ‘Very nice.’

  ‘And what do you grow?’ Sam said, nodding towards the pots. ‘Tomatoes?’

  ‘Very perceptive,’ Reynolds smiled.

  He led them through a small hall into the sitting room.

  ‘Please take a seat. Tea?’

  ‘We’re fine,’ Sam said, ‘but don’t let us stop you.’

  Reynolds left as Sam settled into the armchair opposite the settee.

  The room was not what she expected from a widower: carpet, surfaces and windows all spotless, the pleasant smell of fading air freshener and furniture polish mixed with a hint of tobacco like a subtle musky aftershave.

  Now who’s being sexist Sam?

  At either end of the windowsill were two fr
amed photographs, both black and white: one, a young Ray Reynolds and his bride, the other, a class photograph from his police training school days.

  ‘You sure you don’t want one,’ a shout from the kitchen, the noise of tea-making in the background.

  ‘We’re fine thanks,’ Ed said.

  Reynolds walked back into the room carrying a red mug of the ‘Keep Calm Carry On’ variety and a white plate with six Club biscuits. He sat next to Ed, opposite Sam.

  ‘So,’ he said, raising the mug to his lips. ‘I take it this is not a social call saying as neither of you have been here in your life.’

  Sam looked at him as he sipped on the tea. ‘It’s not a social call although I would have been much more comfortable if it had been.’

  Reynolds leaned forward, put the mug on a coaster on the coffee table, and sank back into the settee. Sam looked at the copy of the Telegraph on the table, open to the crossword, the same pen across the half-finished grid.

  ‘Spare me all the pink and fluffy stuff Sam,’ he said. ‘I come from a time when the job got done without consideration for all that emotional intelligence shite.’

  Sam blushed. ‘Very well. As you know we are investigating the death of Jeremy Scott.’

  ‘Is that why you’re sitting opposite me?’ Reynolds’ eyes glared. ‘Recreate the interview set-up?’

  There was no friendly smile.

  ‘You were the interviewing officer when Scott was arrested for offences of child sexual abuse,’ Sam said.

  Reynolds sighed loudly. ‘And your point is?’

  ‘Just looking for confirmation to start with.’

  ‘Well you obviously know, otherwise you wouldn’t be here,’ Reynolds picked up the mug, sipped and waited.

  Sam said: ‘Do you know Archibald Leach, also known as Cat?’

  Reynolds stood, walked to the fire-surround, and picked up a pack of cigarettes. He lit one but didn’t offer them around.

  ‘This is going to take a long time if you propose asking me about everybody I met in my police career.’

  ‘When did you last see Cat?’ Sam said, keeping her voice neutral. She wasn’t going to allow Reynolds to get under her skin, but she intended to get under his.

  ‘Monday morning,’ Reynolds answered. ‘He’d been staying here for a few weeks. Left Monday about half-nine to go back home. I remember because it was the day of the pensioners’ party. You were there Ed.’

  He drew on his cigarette. ‘Is there a point to all this?’

  ‘If you just bear with us,’ Sam said.

  Reynolds blew smoke down his nose, stared at Sam.

  ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘Ed rates you and I’ve seen how you come across well on the TV. I’m sure you’ll get promoted again but sometimes you’ve got to forget all the shite coming from the latest management fools masquerading as detectives and just ask the questions.’

  He stubbed out his half smoked cigarette in the metal ashtray on the fireplace and reached for another. He pointed the open packet towards Sam.

  ‘Thanks.’

  Sam took one and reached for her lighter.

  ‘There you are, you’re starting to build your rapport,’ Reynolds said, sitting down next to Ed. ‘Just forget about the PEACE interviewing model or whatever they call it now. What was it back in the day?’

  He drew on the cigarette and blew out smoke.

  ‘Prepare and plan, Engage and explain, Account, Closure and Evaluate. PEACE. Load of bollocks. Sometimes you’ve just got to come out and ask the question.’

  He’s treating this like a game. Or a lesson.

  ‘Bollocks? You still remember the pneumonic for it,’ she said.

  She watched Reynolds, his stiffening forearms a spotlight on the rising anger he was trying to hide from his face.

  ‘What was the purpose of Cat’s visit?’ Sam asked, lighting up.

  Reynolds leaned against the arm of the sofa and crossed his legs. ‘He’s terminally ill,’ he told her. ‘Cancer. A bloody shame really. He’s riddled with it. Just like me.’

  Ed snapped his neck towards Reynolds. Sam’s mouth dropped.

  ‘Only it seems he gets to check out before I do,’ Reynolds’ tone had never changed.

  ‘I’m sorry I had no idea,’ Sam said, thrown and scrambling.

  Reynolds pulled on the cigarette and looked at the glowing end, thin smoke winding upwards.

  ‘As I said, save the pink and fluffy stuff. I’ve had a good life, a good wife too. She passed. Two years ago.’

  Another deep draw and a tap into the ashtray.

  ‘All the scum contribute nothing and end up running around for years while good people like my wife and Cat die too young,’ Reynolds putting feeling into it now. ‘No justice in the world.’

  He turned to look towards the window and smiled at the photograph.

  ‘We had so many plans for retirement,’ he said, almost as if he was talking to himself, or maybe his wife. ‘She had to put up with all sorts over the years...the callouts, the late nights, the cancelled family get-togethers. I always promised I’d make it up in retirement. The two of us planned to take up yachting. Five years in and along comes the cancer.’

  Reynolds’ voice was starting to break, a thin mist over his eyes, but he held it together.

  Another draw and the cigarette, half smoked like the last, stubbed in the glass ramekin dish by his feet.

  ‘We couldn’t have kids,’ his laugh was short, ironic. ‘My fault. Low sperm count but she never blamed me. I’m not sure why I’m telling you this’

  Reynolds reached for the tea with a shaking hand and stared into the mug.

  ‘So much for being the big man,’ a flash of self-loathing not pity on his face. ‘No lead in this pencil.’

  Sam could feel his pain, empathise with it. She was a widow. All that time working towards retirement and then, whoosh. Everything blown away.

  But Sam had to move from emotion to question. ‘We’ll need to go and see Cat. I’ve got some questions for him.’

  She flicked ash in the ashtray by her chair.

  ‘You’ll be lucky.’ Reynolds smiling now, reaching for the iPad on the coffee table.

  ‘Cat knew it was over,’ he said. ‘He wanted to do it at a time and in a manner of his choosing.’

  Reynolds swiped a finger across the screen and passed the tablet to Sam.

  Local yachtsman feared drowned.

  The headline was from the website of a local newspaper in the Hamble area.

  ‘We said our goodbyes on Monday morning,’ Reynolds was speaking as Sam read. ‘Cat drove back home and rang me first thing Tuesday.’

  Sam was trying to take in the words on the screen.

  A local man, 59 years old, is feared drowned after his yacht was discovered adrift on The Solent near the entrance to The Needles on Tuesday morning. He had last been seen sailing alone out of Buckler’s Hard Yacht Harbour some hours earlier.

  ‘The sea was his life’s hobby,’ Reynolds said. ‘Even used to take underprivileged kids sailing with him.’

  Sam’s eyes stayed on the screen. Buckler’s Hard, where ships were once built for Nelson’s navy, was a tranquil setting on the Beaulieu River and a marina where she and Tristram loved to berth. She’d told him many times if they ever bought a boat of their own Buckler’s Hard would be her home.

  The coastguard was alerted to a VHF radio distress call at 11.25am. The RNLI attended and found the boat empty but with no apparent problems. A search is still underway.

  Reynolds had been watching her read.

  ‘They might find him eventually but he jumped,’ he said now. ‘Better than waiting to die, the way Cat saw it. As for me, well...’

  Reynolds looked suddenly like a man drowning in loss.

  He lit another cigarette and spoke again.

  ‘I was just like you back in the day,’ he said. ‘People rated me like Ed rates you, told me how good you were the other day at the pensioners’ party.’

  ‘Why then?’ Sam
asked him. ‘Why take the law into your own hands? I don’t understand.’

  Reynolds studied her, a game player once more, moving the pieces.

  ‘Who says I have?’ he said. ‘What do you think? I wanted to use my last few weeks righting some wrongs, wanted justice for some long ago victims?’

  Reynolds caught Sam staring at his thick, black hair.

  ‘I didn’t want chemo,’ he said, blowing out smoke. ‘Seen too many go through it. Might have got me some time but at what cost? Four days a week feeling shit getting it done, next day wiped out, one good day and then the last day’s shit because you know it’s all starting again tomorrow. No thanks.’

  He worked on the cigarette and let more smoke join the rest turning the air in the room toxic.

  ‘So what do you think you’ve got?’ Reynolds a man used to being in control, wanting to know what Sam knew.

  Ed was finding it hard to look at him. He heard Sam answer.

  ‘As well as Jeremy Scott we’re looking into the death of Julius Pritchard who was snatched from the street,’ she said. ‘He was in the company of a man who looks like Cat.’

  ‘Looks like or was?’ Reynolds’ smile was sly, teasing.

  ‘Looks like.’

  ‘Not good enough then is it?’ Reynolds let the smile grow and got to his feet.

  Ed remained in his seat, the smoke making his eyes ache.

  ‘Let’s cut through the bullshit,’ Sam said, her eyes locked on Reynolds’, her expression a challenge.

  Is this direct enough for you?

  Reynolds sat, controlled again. He leaned forward, stubbed out the cigarette, and unwrapped a mint biscuit.

  ‘A bit oppressive Sam,’ he said. ‘It’s not the late seventies now you know. Were you still in nappies then?’

  He bit into the biscuit.

  Sam sat. Silent. Waiting.

  ‘That was a time when policewomen made the tea and looked after lost kids,’ Reynolds said. ‘Before they got big ideas.’

  Sam ignored the jibe.

  ‘There are a number of things connecting you to these crimes.’

  ‘I’m all ears,’ Reynolds said, popping the last of the chocolate biscuit into his mouth.