by Jane Adams
* * *
‘Step forward, Master Jordan. The court will hear you.’
Matthew Jordan got unsteadily from his seat and walked the length of the courtroom. His footsteps sounded overloud on the wooden floor and the tap-scrape-tap of his walking cane echoed around the chamber.
‘I come to speak for the defendant,’ Matthew Jordan said. His voice shook and his old eyes watered with emotion. ‘I know her to be innocent, my lords. Katherine would do no harm. All her life has been spent in the care of others, she is a good woman, a God-fearing woman, and with the last breath in my body I will defend her name.’
His voice cracked and Judge Hale looked at him with concern.
‘Master Jordan,’ he said, ‘the accused resided in your house these past seven years. She is a kinswoman?’
‘Yes, she is. She kept house for me. Her father placed Katherine in my care and now, now I feel that I have failed her.’
‘No one accuses you of neglect, Master Jordan, but you understand the charges which this court has brought? The seriousness of them. I would caution you, sir, that in choosing to defend this woman, you might also find yourself condemned.’
Matthew Jordan leaned heavily on his walking cane, the old man frail and alone in the hostile courtroom, but he looked boldly at Judge Hale.
‘Sir, my life has been long and for all of it I have done my utmost to serve truth. I will not go to my grave knowing that I turned my back on one I have always counted friend. As God will be my witness, sir,’ his voice once more breaking with emotion, ‘as the good God is my witness, I will hold to Katherine’s innocence until the day I die.’
Judge Hale regarded the old man sternly. ‘I hear you, Master Jordan,’ he said, ‘but I ask you to consider your words and this woman’s claim on your loyalty. Think of your family, of your friends, of the consequences that may come from your defence of something that all natural and God-given law sees as indefensible.’
‘If I believed for one instant that these claims made against my kinswoman had a shred of credence, sir, then I would desist at once and let Katherine meet any fate that the court decides. But, in the name of God, I cannot stand by and see such wrong being committed against an innocent soul. I am an old man and I go to meet my Maker soon enough. I will not die with such a stain on my soul as would be left by my silence.’
Judge Hale nodded. ‘Then so be it,’ he said. ‘And God’s will be done.’
Chapter Fifty-five
The phone was ringing when Ray arrived back at the cottage. It was Helen Jones and she was very distressed.
‘They came and searched the flat,’ she said. ‘They didn’t find anything, there was nothing for them to find, but they warned me. Said I’d been accused of supplying drugs. But I haven’t done anything. I’ve done nothing.’
Ray promised he would go straight over. He took Sarah with him and this time his driving rivalled hers.
The flat was in complete disarray and Helen was doing her best to clean up. Her eyes were red with crying.
‘Where’s Ian?’ Ray asked her.
‘At his friend’s. Took him there after they’d gone. They’ve been really good but God knows what they think of me.’
Sarah had her coat off and was ready to pitch in and help. ‘Do your lot always leave such a bloody mess?’ she demanded of Ray.
‘You’re not police then?’ Helen asked. ‘Didn’t think you had the look.’
Sarah shook her head. ‘I’m an archivist,’ she said.
‘A what?’
‘Bit like a librarian, but I look after historical stuff at the records office.’
‘Oh. Look, you don’t have to do that,’ Helen protested as Sarah began to pick things up from the floor.
‘Oh yes, I do. Can’t let your little boy come home to this, he’s seen enough already and you can’t do it all on your own. I expect it took more than one of them to get it this way.’
‘There were five of them,’ Helen said. ‘Trampling through my home, tearing everything about. It was worse than last time, somehow. I just got so angry I didn’t know what to say to them. They didn’t find anything, there was nothing to find, but they took the rest of the list I was putting together for you. Tried to make out it was some list of people I was selling to.’
‘Hmm,’ Ray said. ‘We’ll have to see what response that shakes up. Who led the search?’
‘Some sergeant called Enwright. Reminded me of Halshaw. As he went out he told me I’d been lucky this time, but I should keep out of other people’s business or I might not be so lucky next time.’
‘That’s a threat in anyone’s language,’ Sarah commented. ‘You think this might be Walters’ doing?’
Ray nodded. ‘You said there were five of them,’ he said. ‘Do you think the others were in on it?’
Helen thought about it, then shook her head. ‘They were all uniform,’ she said, ‘and I got the feeling they were just as put out by the way the sergeant was behaving. I’d guess they really thought I might be dealing or at least a user.’
‘That would make sense,’ Ray said thoughtfully. He wandered off to survey the damage in the rest of the flat, then came back into the living room. ‘I’ll make some tea, shall I? Then we’ll give you a hand to straighten this lot up and then we’ll talk.’
Helen nodded. ‘Thanks,’ she said.
It took more than an hour to restore some semblance of order, then they sat down together at the kitchen table and Ray made more tea.
‘It’s my fault,’ he told her. ‘I provoked Walters and I guess this is his response.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Helen said.
Gently, Ray filled her in on what he had found out and what he suspected about Frank being responsible for his injuries.
‘So he lied to me,’ she said. ‘He fucking lied to me. And he did this to you? Oh God.’
‘It’s all right, love. I’m past being bitter about it. Wouldn’t do much good, would it, and Frank’s the one that’s dead. He tried to protect you, love. I think Frank must have realized straight away that he’d got the wrong man and I think Halshaw must have put two and two together very quickly.’
‘But why did he do it? He knew there was nothing going on with me and Halshaw. The man was a bastard, I had nothing to do with him. Oh God, he must have been so scared.’
‘I don’t know what pushed him over the edge. Maybe we never will know but afterwards, I think that Halshaw must have cornered Frank and then introduced him to Walters. And yes, he must have been scared. He’d committed a serious assault on a serving officer. He was in deep.’
‘And Walters took advantage of that. I’m sorry, Ray. I am so sorry. Frank wasn’t a violent man, not really, but he was a weak one I suppose, and Halshaw wouldn’t leave him alone. He couldn’t have been thinking straight.’
Ray said, ‘If Frank was drinking in Middleton, what pub would he use?’
She thought about it. ‘The Mill, probably, or maybe the Full Moon. They’re both along the towpath.’
‘He didn’t have a mobile phone?’
‘Frank? No, he said they cost too much. Look, I’m sorry I dragged you both over here. I was just so gutted. I’m going to get out for a few days, Frank’s mum says I can stay there for a bit.’
‘We’ll give you a lift over,’ Ray told her.
She went off to get Ian. Sarah gave Ray a quizzical look. ‘Phones?’ she asked.
‘I think Frank wanted out that night. I think he might have called Walters and demanded a meeting. There has to have been some reason for him trekking all the way to Middleton. If he called Walters he’d probably have done it from the pub. If the payphone in either of the pubs records a call to Walters, that would be enough to establish a link.’
‘And reopen the investigation?’
‘It would be a start,’ Ray said.
* * *
‘The thing I want to know,’ Ray said as they drove home, ‘is why Halshaw wanted me dragged into this.’
; ‘Remorse?’ Sarah suggested.
‘Not Halshaw.’
‘Maybe he wanted revenge. Maybe Walters didn’t cut him in on his little business deal.’
‘That’s more like it. I think I should talk to him again.’
‘That means another trip up there?’ Sarah asked. ‘I don’t like this, Ray. You’re playing against people who don’t have any scruples.’
‘I’ve been doing that for years.’
Sarah laughed uneasily. ‘Yes, but you were getting paid for it then.’
There was a message on the answerphone when Ray got back. A DCI Bentham asking him to call and giving the number. Ray recognized the Manchester code.
‘Halshaw?’ Sarah asked.
Ray shrugged, he dialled and asked for DCI Bentham. It was about Halshaw. The man had been found dead at his home. They were assuming suicide at this stage, a combination of sleeping pills and alcohol.
‘He left a note,’ Bentham said. ‘With your name on the envelope. We traced you through your phone number. It was written on a sugar bag and slipped inside the envelope.’
He was obviously puzzled by this. ‘I didn’t have any paper,’ Ray told him.
They wanted him to go up, or if not, offered to have Bentham come to him. Ray said he’d drive up to them.
‘Are you going to tell Helen?’ Sarah asked.
‘Not yet, when I know what’s going on then I will. I’m glad she’s not at the flat though.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know. I just don’t trust Walters.’
* * *
The following morning Ray left early. He had called George from a payphone on the way to ask about the phone records from the two pubs and tell him about Halshaw.
‘I never took him for the suicidal type,’ George commented.
‘Is there one?’
‘No suspicion of foul play?’
‘Not that they mentioned. But they didn’t tell me a lot. I’m eager to know what Halshaw wrote in that note.’
Driving up the motorway, Ray found that he was thinking a lot about Kitty. How did Kitty feel when she heard the news of Matthew’s death? If she heard the news. It seemed such a waste that these two, who cared so much for each other despite the great difference in age, should not have become more than friends.
His own feelings for Kitty were so confused. The attraction he felt for her memory or ghost or whatever it was she had left behind, was so strong that it embarrassed him even to think about it. A short while ago, Ray thought, he would have been willing to make the cottage his permanent home. Now, he knew that if he was to have any future life with Sarah, this was an impossibility. So what was he to do with the place? If he sold, would Kitty be there for the new owners, to impinge upon their lives as she had upon Mathilda’s and then on his?
The police station was not far from Halshaw’s house. DCI Bentham was a youngish man — for the rank — with a direct manner that Ray immediately liked. He took Ray through to one of the interview rooms and apologized for the fact that only machine tea was available.
‘It’s good of you to come, Mr Flowers.’
‘DI Flowers,’ Ray corrected him, showing his ID. ‘I’m taking early retirement, but at the moment I’m only on sick leave.’
‘I see,’ Bentham said as though things began to fall into place. ‘Well, I hope retirement goes a bit better for you than it did for Guy Halshaw.’
‘I should have made it plain last night that we were ex-colleagues,’ Ray apologized. ‘But I was a bit shocked. I’d only seen him the other day and I’d never have thought he was headed for the pill bottle.’
‘I don’t know that you can ever tell. Why did you come to see him? Was he a friend?’
‘No, no he wasn’t. As I say, an ex-colleague and even then not close. He’d sent me something and I wanted to know why.’ He took the clipping from his pocket and laid it on the table. ‘The date is the day I was injured.’
‘Your hands and face?’ Bentham asked. ‘I did wonder when you mentioned sick leave.’ He read the clipping. ‘Was he claiming that this Frank Jones was involved?’ he asked.
‘Exactly the conclusion I came to. So I came to ask him, but he wasn’t telling. Seemed he’d changed his mind.’
‘The suicide note,’ Bentham said, producing a document bag from a folder lying on the desk. Ray noticed another one holding the envelope and sugar bag. He passed the note to Ray. ‘Mean anything?’
Ray nodded. ‘It might do,’ he said. ‘Walters was Halshaw’s boss before he transferred.’
‘Ah,’ Bentham mused, as though that too filled in a few gaps. ‘Didn’t get on with him?’
‘I’m not sure,’ Ray hedged, ‘but I understand there was a little friction.’
Bentham nodded as though satisfied. ‘Well, I’m sorry to have dragged you all the way up here for that, but we have to check things out. I’ve got to admit it’s the first time we had a sugar pack in a suicide note. You’d really got some of the younger officers going. We’d a probationer convinced it was some kind of code.’
Ray shook his head. ‘Really I just didn’t have any paper,’ he said again.
* * *
‘And that was it,’ he told Sarah, calling her from the car park at the police station. ‘They’ve decided it was a simple suicide. Retirement that didn’t work out, his family breaking up and now this quarrel that Bentham’s decided he had with his superiors. It all adds up and it’s tidied up the paperwork.’
‘And you didn’t enlighten them?’
‘Lord, no. I wanted to get home this week. Has George called?’
‘Not yet. Has he got your mobile number? What time do you think you’ll be back?’
Yes and about five, Ray told her. He was smiling when he left the car park and headed back towards the motorway. It had taken a little persuasion, but Bentham had copied the note for him. It contained only one sentence.
Ask Walters what he was doing the night Frank died.
Matthew had been dead for three days before anyone told her, it had taken that long for his nephew to be granted access.
‘I knew that he was ill. I thank you, Master Stone, for bringing this news yourself. It is kind. My sympathies are with you.’
Thomas Stone hesitated, then he said quietly, ‘His last words were for you, I thought you should know that. He said, “Let there be flowers for Katherine”. It was as if he knew that he would die that day. That afternoon we left him to sleep and when we went to wake him, he was already gone. I know he cared deeply for you.’
She tried to thank him, but could not speak. Thomas Stone seemed to understand, and just nodded, satisfied that he had done his duty to his uncle. ‘I must take my leave now, mistress,’ he said, ‘I wish you good day.’
She watched him go and heard the jailer bar the door. Tears filled her eyes and she felt the sobs rise in her throat. ‘Oh dear God, take care of him. Oh dear sweet Lord, please keep him safe.’
Finally, she had lost everything and the only compensation she could find was that Matthew had not lived to see her hanged.
* * *
Ray was just pulling off the motorway when George phoned him. Ray hated using the hands-free set, the microphone always flummoxed him, but George’s news made up for any amount of inconvenience.
‘The Mill,’ George said. ‘The call was made from there at ten fifteen that night.’
Despite his misgivings about the use of mobiles, Ray filled George Mahoney in on the details of Guy Halshaw’s note.
‘Is it enough?’ he asked.
‘Enough to get things moving,’ George assured him.
Ray went to see Walters. His reception, after last time, was a little cool.
‘Halshaw’s dead,’ he said.
‘Yes, I’ve not long had a call. Suicide, they said.’
‘That’s what it looks like. They tell you he left a note? Mentioned you.’
Walters sighed. ‘Get to the point, Ray.’
‘Supposing,’ Ray said,
‘just supposing that someone in the force, someone with influence, hired Frank Jones as their informant, and suppose, for a moment, that they used what he told them to put pressure on the dealers.’
‘What kind of pressure,’ Walters asked him.
‘The kind that says you pay me enough and I’ll turn a blind eye when the merchandise arrives. I won’t crash the distribution, or at least, I’ll make sure most of it goes through. Just the odd seizure here and there to keep the public happy.’
‘I thought you’d got something useful to say.’
Ray ignored him. ‘What if Frank Jones wanted out? What if Frank Jones didn’t want to be involved in the first place? What if whoever pushed Frank into the information game did so because they knew Frank was guilty of some other crime? Something he didn’t want known because it would put him inside for a long time.’
‘Like attacking you? Come on, Ray. You weren’t the intended victim, Halshaw was. They wanted a witness out of the way before the Pierce thing came to court.’
‘Then why not pay someone a couple of grand to put a bullet in his brain? That would sort him once and for all. A few burns, a stay in hospital, what would that do? Court cases can be adjourned until witnesses are well enough to testify. Prisoners can stay on remand for as long as it takes. No, this wasn’t drugs, this was personal.’
‘So? If you’re right, if Frank Jones took it into his head to get his own back on Halshaw for fucking his wife, you think he’d mistake you for Guy?’
‘I don’t flatter myself,’ Ray said. ‘But you think about it. I was standing next to Halshaw’s car. I’m the same height, same build if you ignore the belly, same colour hair and I’m standing with my back to you. Frank would be in a hurry, panicked, scared of what he was about to do and when I turned around and he realized I wasn’t Guy Halshaw it’s a bit late to stop. My face felt as though it was being eaten off the bone, but I can remember the way this man moved. It’s about all I can remember clearly and I’ve spent a lot of time going through it. He just stood there. There were seconds when he didn’t try to run, didn’t move. Just stood there shuffling his feet as though he couldn’t figure out what to do next. Any stupid bugger would have known that he had to run. But no. He’s got the wrong man and he doesn’t know what to do about it.’