‘Clever?’ Anik asked.
‘Well, the explosion made the carriage leave the rails, making it invisible to my track monitoring equipment. The equipment is very accurate but it can only “see” a train if its wheels are in contact with the tracks.’
‘So . . .’ Anik mused. ‘The robbers would have to have known that?’
‘Every trainspotter in England knows that. It’s common enough knowledge.’
Anik couldn’t see Jim’s face, but it had gone from rosy cheeked to deathly white; he’d started sweating and struggling to control his breathing.
‘Was there any aspect of the robbery that did require insider information?’
Jim closed his eyes in silent panic. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I’m not suggesting you had anything to do with it at all, Jim,’ Anik assured him. ‘We know that you were privy to the normal running schedule of the mail train, but we also know that the schedule changed on the night the train was robbed ‒ and you wouldn’t have been told about that till the last minute.’
‘I might have been on the front line, but I was always the last to know anything.’
As he headed towards a panic attack, Jim knew he’d not be able to hide it; he knew he’d have to disguise it as something else. He brought the trowel down hard and fast onto the back of his hand. He yelled in pain and sat his bottom down into the fresh pile of soil he’d just dug. Anik raced over.
‘Sit still. Crikey, you’re as white as a sheet. Don’t panic, Jim, you’re OK. Try to control your breathing.’ Anik covered the cut on the back of Jim’s hand with a hanky, so that the seeping blood didn’t make him feel worse. ‘When you’re ready, we’re going to go into the kitchen and run this under the cold tap. Then we’ll see what the damage is. OK?’
Jim nodded, slowed his breathing, calmed himself down and Anik could see the colour gradually returning to his cheeks.
As Anik hunted for the first-aid kit in the bathroom upstairs, Jim’s hand was slowly going numb under the cold water from the kitchen tap. Diluted blood ran down between his fingers and into the white porcelain sink, but Jim was miles away, recalling the steamy nights he’d shared with Connie in the signal box. It was the most daring thing he’d ever done and she was the most wonderful woman he’d ever known. He could still feel her hot breath on his neck as she perched on the side bench, her legs wrapped tight around his waist, panting in time with him. Her hands caressed the top of his bare buttocks poking out from beneath his white Y-fronts and her nails dug into his skin as she urged him into her. He had never in his life, before or since, felt so desired. Jim’s wife, Jean, who he loved dearly, was the opposite of Connie. She was steady, loving and exactly the sort of woman Jim’s friends and family would have put him with.
Jim had had no clue why Connie allowed him to love her for those few short weeks back in 1995, but he had just been eternally grateful for the time they shared. He hung his head in heartbreaking pain. That was a lie. He knew exactly why Connie had allowed him to love her. She’d asked so many questions about his job: about how he knew where the train was on the tracks at any given moment; about the trackside alarm systems. She’d flattered him and been impressed by all of his ‘oh, so important’ responsibilities – she’d told him how such a complicated job turned her on and he’d fallen for it. Jim didn’t care. He, honest to God, did not care a jot. Connie had made him feel like he could take on the world. She’d been his beautiful secret and that’s how she’d stay until the day he died.
Jim knew nothing for certain, but if Connie had been using him for information, that would make him the inside man Anik was asking about. How lucky he was to have been used by someone so wonderful and so lovely – any man would be jealous. And any man would have done exactly the same.
*
John Maynard almost coughed up a lung when Ridley asked him about the building work he’d done for Dolly Rawlins at The Grange. He squeezed every last ounce of air from his body, spat into the bin, gasped a huge lungful of stale air, sat back in his seat, and took an extra-large drag of his cigarette before answering.
‘That happens every time I think about Dolly bleedin’ Rawlins, that does. Always paid me too little, too late. Paid me just enough to keep me happy though ‒ knew exactly what she was doing, looking back. I gave her the benefit of the doubt for far too long. I thought, Cashflow’s hard on a job this size. She’ll come good. Never did. She drip-fed me just enough cash so that I couldn’t walk away. I should have known she was skint.’
John paused to finish the remaining quarter of his cigarette in one single drag. He then got up and headed into the kitchen.
Laura looked at Ridley and the sickly colour of her face said it all.
‘Step outside if you need to,’ Ridley whispered.
John’s home wasn’t small, but it was unfinished. From the outside, it was a four-storey, terraced town house in the good end of Aylesbury; inside, it was a building site. The room they stood in was currently being used as a lounge and, they speculated, a bedroom. The potential for this property was endless, but John was well past being able to do the work. Laura indicated to Ridley that she’d be OK to stay, just as John returned with a beer and a fresh packet of cigarettes. He was dressed in grey joggers, worn thin at the knees and at the crotch, a black T-shirt with tiny holes all over it, and black socks. He smelt of deodorant, but it couldn’t hide the stench of the unwashed body underneath.
‘Did Dolly Rawlins pay you in the end, Mr Maynard?’ Ridley enquired.
John smirked and glanced at Laura when he spoke. ‘Connie paid me. If you get my meaning.’
Ridley responded, so that Laura didn’t have to. ‘I think DS Wade got your meaning, yes.’
‘It’s an absolute fact, DI . . .?’
‘DCI Ridley.’
‘It’s an absolute fact, DCI Ridley, that women fancy men who have physical jobs, like builders. Connie came out of The Grange on the very first day I was there, immaculate except for a tiny cobweb in her hair, holding a tap or a pipe or something, I can’t recall. “This just come off in me ’and. It’s from the sauna.” Girly little Liverpool accent she had.’
John laughed and rearranged his balls before he sat back down. Ridley got to the point before Laura passed out.
‘What happened after the train robbery, Mr Maynard?’
‘The coppers searched my building yard and my house. They even poked about in my pond, if you can believe that. But that robbery wasn’t done by anyone from round here. It was a bunch of outside fellas. They’d have had a barge or something, ’cos over land would have been impossible. Remote controlled maybe, so they could be miles away just in case it got seen. Or maybe they sank the money in waterproof bags, using weights, and came back for it later. That’s what I would have done. I’m a bit of an engineer at heart, see ‒ building and engineering go hand in hand and I can do both. So, yeah, I’d have put the cash into waterproof bags and sunk it. Could have stayed there for years, no bother. You should talk to Warren at the Dog and Gun. He’s been here for centuries ‒ knows everyone and everything. He’ll have some ideas for you, an’ all.’
Ridley asked for John’s opinion on a few more subjects, such as Norma and the other women from The Grange, but he had nothing useful to add.
Outside John’s house, Laura gasped at the clean air, as though there wasn’t going to be enough for her and Ridley to share.
‘I’m really sorry, sir. I can’t believe that Connie Stephens, that carbon copy of Marilyn Monroe, would let that touch her. Did you see his fingernails?’
‘Call Anik,’ Ridley said as he unlocked the car. ‘Tell him to meet us for lunch in the Dog and Gun.’
He dropped into the driver’s seat and lowered his own and Laura’s windows before she got in, to create a through-draught of fresh air for her.
‘And I’ll tell you what, sir,’ Laura continued as she fastened her seatbelt. ‘Women do like men who have physical jobs, but we also quite like personal hygiene . .
. Oh, thanks for opening the windows.’
*
Across in Taunton, Jack headed along Hazel Lane towards The Grange B & B. As he got close, the front door opened and a stunning, slender, 40-something, bleached blonde woman exited to water the plants on the front doorstep. Connie still looked like a glamour model. She wore far more make-up than in the 20-year-old photo of her on the evidence board, and comfy shoes instead of heels but, my God, she was still a head-turner. And she still had her figure. Jack tried not to look but she was side-on to him, so there was no chance of that.
The Grange B & B was one of five in a row, all connected, all displaying a three-star plaque. Jack speculated that each B & B probably had three or four bedrooms. The Grange had a handwritten sign outside boasting ‘Bed & Brekfast’, which made him smile. He knew that Connie had no education to speak of, so he found this misspelling strangely endearing.
There was a large expanse of grass in front of this long row of buildings, with benches and picnic tables randomly scattered about, all approximately facing the bottom of the hill, from where you could just about see the start of the Blackdown Hills – an official ‘Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty’.
A tall wooden signpost indicated that the Blackdown Hills were a twenty-minute drive, the village was a ten-minute drive, and the ruins of an old fort were a steep, ten-minute walk. And beneath the three directional wooden arrows, carved into the vertical wooden signpost was a cock and balls. Jack frowned. Even in such a beautiful place kids were still dickheads.
The front door opened wider and an elephant of a woman stepped outside.
‘I’m off to the shops. Need anything?’
‘We’re out of butter,’ the bleached blonde answered, ‘and get some more pens for the bedrooms. Why does everyone nick the pens?’
The women shared a knowing chortle, before ‘elephant woman’ squeezed herself into a Fiat Punto and drove away. The bleached blonde shouted after her.
‘Ta-ra, Connie! See you at five!’
Jack stopped in his tracks. Shit! He’d just watched his interviewee drive away.
He sat down on one of the benches and got out his mobile to check the time; just gone midday. He opened Google Maps, typed in his Aunt Fran’s address and discovered that she was no more than a twenty-minute taxi ride straight up the M5, in Burnham-on-Sea. Jack requested his Uber and waited.
He looked across at the Blackdown Hills and remembered how he and Charlie had walked the hills when he was in his early teens. Of course, they’d walked the Exmouth end, where the hills met the south coast, so all of this part was, in fact, completely new to him. But it felt the same.
Even though Dartmoor National Park had been right on their doorstep in Totnes, Charlie liked Jack to explore different places and see different things.
‘Everywhere and everyone has its own beauty, Jack,’ Charlie would say. ‘You gotta find your spot.’
Charlie loved the Blackdown Hills, because they had a tranquillity to them, whereas Jack always preferred the rugged, unpredictable wildness of Dartmoor. But, right at this moment, he loved these hills and the memories they held, and he didn’t want to leave.
CHAPTER 11
Frances Stanley didn’t recognise Jack when she opened her front door to him; she’d only ever seen him as a small boy, not this impressive-looking young man who stood in front of her now. As she looked at him, not knowing who he was, she thought he dressed younger than his years, but that he carried it off perfectly – he was too smart to be selling something, too casual to be a copper, too young to be a Jehovah’s Witness. Fran simply stared, unable to guess who Jack was or what he wanted.
‘Aunt Fran? It’s Jack.’
He would have liked his Aunt Fran’s face to instinctively relax at this point, to smile and to seem pleased to see him, but that didn’t happen. Instead, Fran’s face tensed, and it was only when she realised she must be coming across as cold and hard that she forced a smile.
‘Jack, lad! Come in. Come in.’ They gave each other an awkward hug as he passed her and entered the hallway. ‘Why didn’t you say you were coming? I’ve not tidied. And, look at me! I’m in my scruffs.’
‘It was a last-minute thing, sorry. I didn’t know I was going to be in the area until it was too late to let you know.’
Fran led the way into the kitchen, where she set about making some tea and searching for biscuits. She had to wash mugs from the overflowing sink as there were no clean ones. She rinsed them under the cold water and rubbed the inside with her fingers until the old tea stains had gone; then she dried them on a dirty, part-burnt tea towel that was obviously also used to take things out of the oven. When Fran opened the fridge to get the milk, a waft of onions filled the room and Jack just knew that the milk would taste of the same smell. He couldn’t take his eyes off Fran. Her hair was dry and brittle from years of perming and bleaching. Her face was weather-worn, leathery, with smoker’s wrinkles round her mouth.
Is this what Trudie would look like now? he wondered. Shit, I hope not!
All the while Jack was staring, Fran was making three mugs of tea and excusing her messy house. The front door opened silently and then loudly slammed shut. Seconds later, a skinny, unshaven black man walked in with the Racing Post under his arm and a cigarette in his mouth. The third mug was obviously for him.
Fran launched into an introduction before the man could ask.
‘Clay, this is my nephew, Jack.’
The men smiled at each other and shook hands. Clay was missing a couple of teeth in his lower jaw, but it didn’t seem to be something he was bothered by. He kissed Fran on the forehead and sat down heavily at the small, sky-blue Formica kitchen set, dropping his paper, cigarettes and lighter on the table. It was only now that Jack noticed there were two dining chairs ‒ which was fine by him, as sitting down in this house didn’t really appeal.
‘The reason I popped in was to chat about Jimmy Nunn,’ Jack started. ‘If you don’t mind, just talk to me, say anything, regardless of how small or insignificant it might seem.’
Fran put the three teas on the table, together with the milk carton and a sugar bowl which had a teaspoon already buried deep. Then she opened the kitchen window and picked up Clay’s cigarettes and lighter. Clay grabbed the teaspoon from the sugar bowl and it lifted a solid lump of wet sugar up with it. He dissolved that into his tea before scooping up another spoonful of sugar. The motion of him stirring made the table rock just enough to create a tiny wave of tea inside each mug, that lapped over the edge with each rotation. He then put the wet teaspoon back into the sugar.
Fran took a couple of drags before she started talking.
‘Your mum came to live with us when you were about eight months old. We’d just had our first and our second was on the way.’
‘Two babies,’ Clay echoed, rolling his eyes. ‘Full house.’
‘Jimmy’d gone without any warning,’ Fran continued. ‘Trudie had nowhere to live and no money. She didn’t even try to sort herself out, instead she just knocked on my door. We did our best, Jack, but . . .’
Fran dipped the end of her cigarette into a water-filled cereal bowl and then flicked the butt through the open window into the back garden.
‘The babies had the spare bedroom and Trudie was on the sofa,’ Clay added.
Jack was warming to him. Each time Fran made an emotive comment, he repeated it from a practical perspective, as though he was translating into ‘man speak’.
‘Your mum was . . .’ She looked from Jack to Clay. ‘What’s the word, Clay?’
‘Needy. Not a very confident girl.’
‘Trudie needed to be taken care of and when Jimmy left her, she fell apart. She started drinking too much, going out too much and leaving you here with us too much. It wasn’t fair.’
Clay scraped his chair back and lit one of his cigarettes; he then stood next to Fran and smoked by the window. He was a good foot taller than Fran and half her width; they were an odd-looking couple, but
the strength of their relationship was clear.
Clay looked straight into Jack’s eyes as he spoke, making absolutely certain that he understood.
‘Your mum was abusive to my Fran. She was rude, shouting ‒ even hit her once.’ Jack was clearly shocked and Fran bowed her head, as if in shame. ‘He asked, love, so I’m telling him.’ Clay directed his words at Jack again. ‘Your mum’s drinking got out of control and she became depressed. We were looking after three kids under one year old, and Trudie ‒ emotionally and financially.’
Fran took over. ‘Then she got sick. She had a tumour on the brain ‒ you knew that, didn’t you?’ Jack did. Penny had told him when he was old enough to understand. ‘It was over and done with very fast. She didn’t suffer for long. You were ten months old and we had to make a decision. We couldn’t afford to look after everyone.’
Jack smiled. He wasn’t here to make his aunt feel bad.
‘I have great parents, Aunt Fran. You don’t need to worry about me.’
‘I’m so sorry for those first five years of your life, though, Jack.’ Fran spoke with genuine feeling. ‘If we could have kept you and done right by you, we would have. Do you remember it?’
Jack could remember moments from his childhood in unfamiliar places, so he assumed them to be from his time in foster care. Some memories were bad, some were OK. His first pleasant memory certainly had Penny and Charlie in it. He didn’t have memories of anything horrific, although he did recall being hit on several occasions. Mostly he remembered care as being a dull and soulless time ‒ spending most days on his own, dreaming of the exciting things he was going to do when he grew up.
‘Sounds like you did better without your dad,’ Fran suggested. ‘Jimmy Nunn was a lot of hard work for no reward. He was always letting your mum down. I don’t know where he is now, Jack, and, if I did, I’m not sure I’d tell you. My sister loved you with all her heart, she just wasn’t cut out to be a single mum – but Jimmy . . . Jimmy didn’t love anyone but himself.’
*
The food at the Dog and Gun was lousy. Ridley had very wisely chosen a ham and cheese toastie with chips, whereas Laura had mistakenly gone for something that needed actual cooking. Her burger was inedible, but fortunately Anik had the constitution of an ox and so finished off hers as well as his own.
Buried - DC Jack Warr Series 01 (2020) Page 10