by Robert Innes
Blake pulled his ID out of his pocket and held it up as the woman approached. She looked familiar. “Detective Sergeant Blake Harte. Who are you?”
“I ain’t telling you nothin’,” she spat. “Where’s Keith? What have you done with him? Or James? Where’s my boy?”
Blake remembered her now. “You’re Caroline, aren’t you? Wife of Keith Pennine and mother of…” he stopped, realising that she clearly had no idea about what they had found in the cellar. Before he could say anything else, the door to the cellar opened, and two men in white coats carried a zipped up body bag out.
Caroline’s eyes widened. “Who’s in there?”
Blake tried to move her away, but she seemed to take this as confirmation that something terrible had happened. Before anyone could stop her, she had pulled the zip down on the body bag and was staring straight at the cold lifeless face of her son.
“Caroline, come away. Let’s go inside,” Blake said to her, but instead, Caroline threw her head back and wailed like a wounded animal. Blake hurriedly indicated to the forensics team to take the body away as Patil led Caroline away from them. As Blake walked back into the cellar again, all they could hear was Caroline howling in anguish, demanding to see her son and ask what had happened.
“Try and get the results to me as quick as you can, Sharon,” Blake said. “I don’t know what the hell has gone on here in the past twenty-four hours, but I’m going to find out, and I’m going to find out quickly.”
By the time Patil had managed to calm Caroline down enough to the point where she was able to talk to Blake, Angel had rung ahead and said that he wanted Woolf to be as thoroughly involved with the investigation as possible, especially as it was now looking like a murder enquiry, much to Blake’s annoyance. This meant that the interview could not take place until he finally roared into the yard of the house in his silver sports car where Blake was waiting for him. Blake rolled his eyes as the engine of the car died down in front of him. Even though the sun was still perfectly bright in the sky, Woolf had apparently felt the need to raise the headlights on his car, which were on hoods that seemed to sink into the bonnet. Blake had never been one to be impressed by flashy sports cars. He saw them as impractical, as well as too expensive, and the fact that Woolf was the one driving enthralled him even less.
Woolf stepped out of the car and strode towards him. “Harte, what the hell is going on? Angel says you found James Pennine strung up from the ceiling? Suicide?”
“We don’t know yet,” Blake replied as Woolf walked right past him and towards the house. “And there’s still no sign of Keith anywhere. We’ve got Caroline Pennine though. She’s inside. She’s just found out her son is dead though, Alec, so we need to go gentle with her.”
Woolf turned round, with a disdainful expression on his face. “I don’t need to be told how to interview, Harte. She’s only got herself to blame, getting mixed up with the likes of Pennine.”
Blake jogged to overtake him as he went to open the door to the house and put his hand on the door handle before Woolf could march in. “All the same,” he said firmly. “We’re not going to get anything out of her at this stage, treating her like a suspect. So, like I say. We go gentle with her.”
Woolf sighed and shook his head. “You’ve heard of the term ‘good cop, bad cop’?”
“Of course.”
Woolf moved Blake’s hand aside. “Guess which part you’ll be playing.” Before Blake could answer, Woolf had pushed past him and entered the house. Blake exhaled to calm himself, his fingernails digging into his palms through his clenched fist.
“Urgh,” exclaimed Woolf loudly once he was inside, clearly experiencing the smell of the place for the first time. Annoyed as he was, Blake could hardly blame him. The whole house had a strong odour that was a mix of ancient cooking fat and damp mould. The carpets were caked with muck to the point where the original colour was indiscernible, and the walls had an unpleasant brown tinge to them.
They walked into the kitchen, which was no better. There was an almost ceiling high pile of washing up on the side, most of which was covered in green and black mould. Flies were everywhere, and the rubbish bin in the corner had long since over spilt its load, the contents leaking out onto the floor, accompanied by multiple bin liners in a similar state. Blake glanced at Woolf, who had an expression of pure disgust as he glared at Caroline, who was sat at the kitchen table with a small bottle of vodka in her hands.
“Why is she drinking?” Woolf snapped.
“I tried to make her a cup of tea,” Patil said, entering from behind. “But could you make a cuppa in this kitchen?”
“You should have arrested her and brought her to the station,” Woolf argued. “That’s what I would have done.”
“Arrested her for what?” Blake hissed. “Being a bad housekeeper? We’ve got nothing to charge her with.”
Woolf muttered something in reply, then sat down at the table, wincing as he pulled the blackened chair out. Blake sat down beside him, and watched Caroline for a few moments before clearing his throat.
She seemed to barely acknowledge their presence, merely staring right through them. Blake wondered what exactly was going on in her head.
“Caroline?” he prompted gently. “How are you feeling?”
She did not reply. Instead, she took a generous swig of her vodka.
“I don’t think that’s going to help, do you?” Blake asked her. “Can I just take it from you while we talk?”
Caroline laughed bitterly, before taking an even bigger swig. When the bottle was half empty, she slammed it on the table and pushed it towards Blake, who took it and placed it behind him.
“How am I feeling?” Caroline repeated, her voice slurring slightly. “Just great. Absolutely fantastic. How do ya think I feel? I mean you’re supposed to be coppers ain’t ya? Deal with this all the time. Y’know how I’m feeling. My son’s dead.”
“Where’s Keith?” Woolf asked, sitting with his arms crossed, without a modicum of sympathy. “Don’t tell us you don’t know where he is.”
“I don’t,” Caroline muttered. “I ain’t seen him since yesterday.”
“When was that?” Blake asked her, throwing a warning look at Woolf.
Caroline put her head in her hands. “When he went to pick up James from work. That was the last time I saw either of ‘em. Far as I knew, it was just a normal day.”
“And what did you do after that?”
“I went to work,” Caroline replied. “I work nights at the care home in Clackton.”
Woolf snorted. “They leave you in charge of the elderly? Wow.”
Caroline scoffed at him, but did not reply, something Blake could not help but commend her for. “We’ve been after Keith and James for a while, Caroline,” he said, clasping his hands together. “As I’m sure you’re aware.”
“Yeah,” Caroline spat. “Wouldn’t leave us alone. Could never pin anything on ‘em though, could ya?”
“We’ve got you living at another property,” Blake continued. “So, what’s this place?”
Caroline shrugged. “Just somewhere we were planning on moving too. We were gonna do the place up. We got it cheap.”
“I’m not surprised,” Woolf retorted waspishly. “I wouldn’t pay a dime for this dump.”
“Nah, well you wouldn’t, would ya?” Caroline replied. “We can’t all afford posh sports cars, ya know. Some of us have to work ‘ard for what we have.”
“So, the drug dealing business isn’t what it once was then?” Woolf asked lightly. “I remember a time when guys like Keith would be sunning it up in a villa in Spain somewhere with what they took from it. You guys must have been pretty crappy at it.”
“Look,” Caroline snapped. “I dunno where Keith is, and my son is lyin’ dead in a mortuary somewhere. I wanna see him! I wanna see my boy.”
“And you will,” Blake replied. “But in the past twenty-four hours, your husband has pulled off the best vanishing trick I’ve ever se
en and as for James, well…” He glanced at Woolf and then Patil, who was stood silently in the corner of the room. “Did he ever seem depressed to you? Was there ever any sign, anything you can think of that suggested to you that he was considering suicide?”
Caroline’s eyes filled with tears again and she shook her head. “No.”
“What about the amount of drugs he was taking? That can sometimes -”
“My James didn’t take drugs, what you on about?”
Blake sighed. “Caroline, we found marks on his arms. There’s strong evidence that he was frequently injecting.”
“What, you think he was some sort of smackhead? You’re worse at this than I thought,” Caroline scoffed.
“Then how do you explain the injection marks on his arm?” Blake pressed.
Caroline sighed in exasperation, then stood up and walked across the kitchen to a drawer in the sideboard. She pulled out a box from it and threw it on to the table. Blake and Woolf stared at it in surprise.
“Insulin?” Blake said, his eyebrows raised. “He was diabetic?”
Caroline sat back down and stared back at him levelly. “The doctors advised him to put it in his arm, he was so skinny.” She leant forwards and spoke slowly as if Blake was extremely stupid. “You need a fatty area to put the needle. His arms were about the flabbiest part of him, so that’s where he put it.”
Blake stared silently at the insulin box on the table, his mind whirring. There was no doubt in his mind now that James had been murdered. He would have to wait for Sharon’s forensic report on the body, before he jumped to too many conclusions, but if the cause of death was, as they suspected, a drugs overdose, then it left Blake with more questions than answers as to what exactly the relationship was between James and the drugs that he and his father were known to be supplying to addicts in the local area.
“What about Keith?” Woolf asked, in a tone that he did not quite believe what Caroline was telling them. “You telling me that he was as clean as a whistle too?”
Caroline shuffled uncomfortably in her seat. “I dunno, do I?”
Blake leant forwards in his seat. “I think you do, Caroline.”
“I ain’t telling you nothing,” Caroline replied, pulling a strand of hair out of her eyes, more as a nervous tick than a necessary action.
“Where is he?” Woolf asked, in a low and dangerous voice. “I promise you, it is best for everyone, including you, if you just tell us.” He leant forwards and spoke slowly. “Where is your husband?”
Caroline held her own, leaning towards him in a mocking manner. “I don’t know. Now, I wanna see my son.”
As Patil drove Caroline to identify her son’s body, Blake leant against the wall of the house, inhaling on his ecig. It was doing nothing to lessen his cravings. An open packet of cigarettes appeared in front of him.
“Just have one,” Woolf implored. “I can tell you want to. The odd one won’t hurt you, trust me.”
Blake stared at the packet for a few seconds before sighing and taking one. Woolf lit it with his clipper lighter before snapping it shut with a dramatic flourish, puffing away on his own. “Well, I dunno, Harte. This whole thing smells funny to me. A car that vanishes, a drugged up waster hanging himself…” He turned towards Blake, who had gone to interrupt him. “Don’t tell me you believe any of that crap she was coming out with, Harte. I saw this sort of thing every day back home. Families pretending that they weren’t all screw ups. She’s probably out of her mind on something herself, or coming down of it. You’re too trusting, Harte.”
Blake blew out the smoke, regretting every inhale. “Let’s just say for a minute, that she’s telling the truth, and all those marks on his arms were just from his insulin jabs, that means that if Sharon does find something else in his system, then it wasn’t meant to be there. It makes no sense.”
“Exactly,” Woolf replied triumphantly. “It makes no sense at all, which is why it’s a load of crap. If a suspect tells you something that doesn’t make sense, then it isn’t true. I learnt that many years ago. I’d have thought you would too.”
“So by that logic, we’re lying about the car disappearing in that tunnel?” Blake retorted. “Because that sure as hell doesn’t make any sense. And Keith is somewhere out there.” He wandered towards the open door of the cellar and stepped inside. “And somehow, that car trick and the fact that we’ve got a hung body in a locked cellar who definitely didn’t die from what we’re supposed to think he did, leads to here.” He looked around the cellar, deep in thought.
“Angel wants us on the same page, Harte,” Woolf said sternly from the doorway as Blake paced around the cellar, the sound of the heels from his shoes on the wooden planks on the floor echoing around them. “We can’t work together if I’m the only one working with facts instead of fantasy. If we’re gonna crack this thing, then I need you with me.”
“You can’t force pieces that don’t go together to fit,” Blake replied quietly as he looked around the cellar.
“Not everything is straight out of a Conan Doyle novel, Harte. Anyway, I’ve been thinking about that crazy crap with the car last night.”
Blake raised a disdainful eyebrow. “Oh yes?”
“All we saw was the back lights of the Pennines’ car, right?”
“Right.”
“So obviously, he just turned his back lights off, then hit the gas and put on speed. He must have been out of that tunnel before I managed to get my headlights back on. All we must have seen was the dust he left behind after he had zipped off ahead. Then of course we stopped when we left the tunnel, all confused, and he just kept on driving. It was just our brains playing tricks on us.”
Blake stared at him in disbelief. “That wasn’t what happened, there wasn’t time for him to speed off without us seeing him. And anyway, a car like that, surely we’d have heard his engine roaring more if he ‘zipped ahead’ as you put it. And, while we’re on the subject, you said your headlights were smashed when we ran into the back of him. That’s exactly what you said.”
“So?”
“So, how did you turn them back on?”
“Obviously, they weren’t smashed,” Woolf replied, shrugging. “We just thought they were when they went out. I got them back on, that’s the main thing. Pennine is lucky. If he’d done any damage to that baby, he’d have more than just his son’s funeral to pay for. I’ll wait for you in the car. Don’t be long, Angel’s waiting.”
Blake nodded vaguely as Woolf left him alone in the cellar. For a few more minutes, Blake wandered around the room, trying to find anything that could give him a clue, ultimately finding nothing. But then, as he was walking back to the car, the details of the interview with Caroline flying around his head, he frowned.
“How did Caroline know you had a sports car?” he asked as he sat down in the passenger seat.
“Huh?” Woolf grunted, as he started the car.
“When she said to you ‘we can’t all afford posh sports cars.’ How did she know? Have you two met before?”
Woolf stared at Blake for a moment, before his face fell, rolling his eyes. “You’re just making this stuff up now, aren’t you Harte? Obviously, she saw me arriving through the kitchen window.”
“You couldn’t see anything out of those windows,” Blake retorted, but Woolf cut him off.
“Gimmie a break, Harte.” He reversed quickly out of the yard and spun round to face the road. “Just focus on finding Keith Pennine so we can put this whole thing to bed.”
“Right,” murmured Blake. “I will.”
As they drove back to Harmschapel in silence, Blake’s mind was anything but quiet. Something was not right, and he was beginning to wonder if whatever it was could be a lot closer than he had first realised.
10
When Blake arrived home that evening, Harrison was waiting for him. Blake was immediately struck when he walked through the front door by how clean the house was. He was then greeted with the unmistakable aroma of pasta, pesto
and bacon. Cooking was not one of Harrison’s strong points, but he even he was capable of making Blake’s favourite comfort food.
“Hey,” Harrison said, as Blake walked into the kitchen. He was grating a big block of cheese into a bowl. “I thought you might be hungry.”
It was the first time the two of them had spoken since their argument.
“It smells amazing,” Blake replied, smiling. “Thanks. Are we okay?”
Harrison didn’t say anything, he just pulled the wooden spoon out of the saucepan containing the pasta and pesto, and placed it in Blake’s mouth. Blake laughed over the spoon. “Nice. I’ve taught you well.”
Harrison shrugged. “It’s not that hard. And yes, we’re fine. I’m sorry I acted like such a child.”
Blake placed his arms around him and pulled him in. “You didn’t. I’m sorry too.”
They kissed, and the argument seemed to become a thing that had happened years ago. They were just in danger of forgetting about eating altogether when Blake felt his phone vibrating in his pocket. “Sorry,” he mumbled, pulling away. He looked at the screen, praying that it was not someone from the station. “It’s Sally. I can ring her back later, it’s fine.” He went to pull Harrison in again, but found the wooden spoon blocking them; Harrison grinning teasingly.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “Answer it. I’ve still got to put the garlic bread in. I’ll shout you when dinner’s ready.” He whacked Blake sharply on the backside with the spoon.
“Ow!” Blake exclaimed, rubbing the place where the spoon had hit. He then raised an eyebrow. “And yet…”
Harrison laughed. “Get out of here.”
Blake grinned at him and then ran upstairs, answering the phone. “Sally Ann Matthews, as I live and breath.”
“Hello, my darling,” replied his best friend. “It’s been a while. Are you at home?
Blake walked into his bedroom and threw himself on the bed. “Too long. How are you?”