Dead in the Water

by Peter Tickler

  Or maybe not, because when Dorkin got to the roundabout he turned right and pushed his way into the Cape of Good Hope pub. Mullen had had a pint there a couple of weeks previously, but it wasn’t his sort of place. He’d be surprised if it was Dorkin’s either, but maybe the detective was just thirsty. Mullen paused, uncertain what to do. What was Dorkin up to? Asking more questions? At this time of night in a busy pub? Or just delaying the moment when he returned home.

  The couple who had been providing cover for Mullen had moved on, heading over Magdalen Bridge. A group of four Chinese — a man and three women — were standing in a huddle discussing something unintelligible. Mullen slipped behind them and felt in his pockets. He still had a packet of cigarettes left, so he lit one up in the pointless hope that it would somehow make him invisible. Across the road, through one of the large stone-framed windows, Dorkin suddenly came into view as he sat down with two pints. He pushed one across the table to a man Mullen didn’t recognise.

  The Chinese group had come to a decision and started to cross the road. Mullen followed them as closely as he dared. He wanted to get a better look at the man with Dorkin, maybe even go into the pub if he could without Dorkin spotting him. Yet if Dorkin did happen to catch sight of him, it wouldn’t be the end of the world. After all, he could just be visiting a favourite haunt.

  Mullen detached himself from the Chinese, who headed up the Cowley Road, and continued smoking his cigarette by the pub door. He’d give it a couple of minutes and then he’d go in and take his chance.

  * * *

  Mullen never did get inside the Cape of Good Hope because Dorkin’s companion appeared in the doorway. He was breathing heavily. He turned round, as if worried that he was being pursued, swore and then shot across the road oblivious of any traffic exiting the Iffley Road. A taxi hooted. The man hurried on, arms flailing, across Cowley Place and onto the southern pavement of Magdalen Bridge. He was heading into the city centre. Mullen tossed his butt onto the ground and followed, but he crossed the Cowley Road taking the anti-clockwise route round onto the northern pavement of Magdalen Bridge, well out of view of Dorkin — or so he hoped.

  Following the man couldn’t have been easier. Along the curve of the High Street, turn right up through the pedestrianised Cornmarket, across Broad Street and into Magdalen Street. The man queued for a Kidlington bus and immediately struck up a conversation with a much younger woman he obviously knew from somewhere. Mullen slipped into the queue behind a pair of French-speaking youths. When the bus arrived, he bought a ticket for Kidlington. The man and woman — she was mid-twenties Mullen reckoned and, to judge from their conversation, his dental nurse — sat together. Mullen moved past them and slumped down in the seat behind. He got out his mobile and pretended to check for emails. Not that he had any emails to check because he hadn’t got round to linking his emails to his smart phone. He really should get a bit smarter with it, he told himself. What was the point of having it otherwise? At least he knew how to use the camera. He knew how to turn off the flash. He knew how to turn off the sound. In sum, he knew how to take a photo of two people talking animatedly to each other without either of them noticing.

  The man got off just north of Summertown. The woman stayed seated, apparently bound for Kidlington. Mullen got off and followed the man at a distance down Victoria Road. The guy seemed too distracted and too lubricated with alcohol to have twigged him, but Mullen couldn’t be sure. The man was halfway along the road when he slowed up. He had been swinging his arms like pistons, but now they dropped to his side and fell still. He pushed open a small gate, but went no further. The houses in Victoria Road are easy money for the local estate agents and the man was hesitating outside a particularly impressive one in Edwardian style. Money and status it said, which made Mullen all the more curious as to why a man like him should have been meeting Dorkin in a pub. He sure as heck wasn’t a low-life informer. Mullen waited. The man, he realised, was being greeted by a woman, his wife presumably, though Mullen knew you should never make such assumptions nowadays. The man made as if to kiss her, but she appeared to duck away. She was talking and gesturing at the same time. An angry wife. An unhappy homecoming. These were reasonable deductions in the circumstances, Mullen told himself. Not that it mattered whether he was right or not because he had no intention of knocking on the door at this time of night. But he did want to know who the man was.

  Mullen waited for the two of them to disappear inside and for the door to slam. He wandered along the pavement until he was in front of the house. There was a blue Audi A4 parked on the forecourt. He pulled out his phone and photographed the registration plate. As for the house number, that was easy enough to memorise. He hovered outside. The front curtains were drawn. What now? Maybe he would return next morning and follow him to work. Mullen was reviewing his options when a noise made him turn. A young man came out of the neighbouring house, slamming the door. He was thin and on edge. He immediately lit up a cigarette. That was one option. Ask him. Why not? Mullen got out his remaining packet and extricated a cigarette.

  “Excuse me, mate,” he said. “Can you spare a light?”

  The youth looked at him as if he had been asked if he knew the quickest route to Timbuktu. Mullen held the cigarette up, a man miming the act of smoking. The youth shrugged and handed over his box of matches. Mullen lit his cigarette, choked violently like a schoolboy having a first smoke behind the bike sheds and handed the box back.

  “You know who lives here?” He tried to make it casual and unimportant.

  “He’s my neighbour. Of course I do.”

  “I thought I recognised him. Not that Richard Dawkins fellow is he?”

  The youth laughed as if that was the funniest thing he had heard all week. “Why should I tell you? And who the hell are you anyway?”

  Mullen had been half expecting the response. In the youth’s shoes, he would have said exactly the same. Mullen put his hand into his pocket and pulled out the cigarette packet again. And added a twenty pound note. There was no point in skimping.

  He held them up, out of reach of the youth. “Who is he and what does he do? I can always ask someone else.”

  The youth was tempted, Mullen could see that. The money would buy him something a bit more exciting to smoke than tobacco if that was what he liked. Mullen was pretty sure he did like.

  The youth held out his hand. “You first.”

  Mullen hesitated, and then handed over the cigarettes. The youth checked the packet and thrust them into his back pocket.

  “First name: Alexander.” The youth held out his hand again.

  Mullen held out the £20 note.

  The youth took a final pull on his cigarette before tossing the butt onto the pavement. Then he took the note and looked at it intently, as if suspicious that it might have been printed that morning in Mullen’s backroom. Then he began to rip it up. One, two, three. He let the pieces flutter to the ground. “I don’t sell out my neighbours, dickhead.” He stared Mullen full in the face. It was a challenge, full of stupid bravado. Mullen knew he could flatten him with one blow, but what good would that do either of them? Actually, at some level he admired the cocky bugger for standing up to him.

  The youth sneered, pleased with his performance and Mullen’s feebleness. Then he retreated inside his front door. Mullen heard the lock click into place and the rattle of the security chain. Not so confident after all.

  Mullen stayed where he was, sucking in a lungful of smoke. It was the second cigarette he had smoked that evening and the second since he had left the army nearly three years previously, but oddly enough it felt a bit of a let-down. He didn’t miss the nicotine rush any more. Coffee was a different matter: he couldn’t live without the buzz of caffeine at least three times a day. But fags had never held him in their thrall. Smoking had been something he had done while drinking a pint, nothing more. He tossed the butt towards the youth’s door. It was petty, he knew, but if he got a telling off from his mum or dad in the morni
ng, it would serve the cocky punk right.

  Mullen wasn’t done yet. He had had an idea. As ideas went, he couldn’t see much wrong with it. He checked up and down the pavement: not a dicky bird. There was no sign of activity from either the youth’s house or that of the man he had been stalking. The curtains were drawn in both front rooms. There were no twitching fingers to be seen and no curious faces peering out. Both houses had their recycling bins facing each other, as if by mutual agreement, down the side of their houses. Mullen padded quickly over to the one by his quarry’s house and opened it. He peered into the shadows and then plunged his hand down. It was like the bran tub of childhood fetes. When he pulled his hand out, he had in his fingers a sheaf of papers. These included several envelopes and letters discarded without any attempt to tear or shred them. Which was careless, Mullen reckoned. But how many people bothered to shred their post, despite all the scare stories about ID theft? Mullen flicked through his haul and was reassured. He closed the bin’s lid quietly and headed off up the road. He had lost twenty quid and his last packet of fags. He had had his chain pulled by a spotty sixth-former. But in other respects it had been a successful evening. All he had to do was catch two buses home.

  * * *

  The mystery man’s name was Charles Speight. The envelopes recovered from the bin in Victoria Road were addressed variously to him, a Mrs Rachel Speight and a Jane Speight — a daughter presumably. Back in Boars Hill, Mullen made himself a mug of strong tea and opened up his laptop. It didn’t take long searching the internet to identify Charles Speight in greater detail. He was a pathologist, privately educated at a school that even Mullen had heard of, and he had a string of letters after his name. There were several references to him in the Oxford Mail and Oxford Times, all of which indicated that he worked closely with the Thames Valley police in cases involving violent death. There were even a couple of photographs of him which, despite their formality, tied in with the rather agitated figure Mullen had first seen in the pub.

  Mullen sipped his tea and wondered. Why had Speight and Dorkin met in a pub, out of hours and well away from their normal places of work? Was it Speight who had examined Chris? The newspapers hadn’t said as much. Probably at this stage the police wouldn’t release the information. But it seemed to Mullen a pretty good bet that he had. And if he had and if that was why he and Dorkin had met up, how come Speight had looked so on edge? Or had they been talking about Janice? Less than twenty-four hours after her death? Unless they were great buddies — and to Mullen it looked like they were anything but — why would they be meeting in a pub? And why had Speight stormed out of the pub so quickly and unhappily? The only way to find out would be to ask him, Mullen concluded, though that would surely get him into a whole shit heap of trouble if Speight went and bleated to Dorkin. Which he surely would, Mullen told himself, unless of course Speight had nothing to hide and nothing to feel guilty about.

  Mullen pushed away his half-drunk mug of tea, conscious of a return of the pain at the back of his head, thumping like a bass drum. He had to speak to Speight. That was the bottom line. The only outstanding questions were how, when and where? He hoped the answers would become clear after a decent night’s sleep.

  Chapter 6

  Mullen’s mobile rang while he was asleep. He was back in the army, in Ben’s bedroom. He had just opened the door. Ben was sitting at his small table with the red, blue and white angle-poise lamp his parents had brought him on their last visit. He had been so pleased with it. And then Ben had turned round. “Hello, mate,” he said. Which was pretty odd because he didn’t have a mouth to say anything with. There was just a huge black hole in his face. His nose had disappeared into it too. Only his eyes remained and they were closed. That was when the fire alarm had sounded right behind Mullen’s head, except in reality it was his mobile phone.

  For several seconds Mullen didn’t move. Then he sat up and realised his pyjamas were drenched with sweat. He picked up the phone. It was a number he didn’t recognise. It was 7.45 a.m. Who on earth rings people up at that hour of the day? He looked at the number for several seconds and then he powered the phone off. He took off his pyjamas, tossed them on the rug and got back into bed, pulling the duvet over his head.

  He didn’t get back to sleep. He lay there pretending to himself that he was asleep, because if he was he wouldn’t have to do or think anything. Maybe at one point he almost did drift off into a half-doze. Or maybe not. Perhaps he would have stayed there all morning or even all day. It wouldn’t have been the first time. But there was a heavy knocking on the door. That was what a brass knocker did — gave the visitor a chance to make a lot of noise. Mullen pulled on a pair of pants and his brown towelling dressing gown, before stumping down the stairs as the knocking reached a third crescendo.

  “All right, hold your horses whoever you are!” Mullen shouted the welcome as he struggled to undo the bolts at the top and bottom of the door. Nothing seemed to be working right this morning. The chances were it was either the police again or — most likely, Mullen reckoned — Becca Baines, all primed to give him an ear-bashing because he had passed her name on to Dorkin and the police had hauled her into the station. But what alternative had he had?

  Mullen wrenched the door open. He was wrong. The person banging the knocker as if his life depended on it was Derek Stanley. He was smartly dressed as usual — pale blue chinos, yellow and white striped shirt and linen jacket — but he seemed on edge. Behind and below him, one delicate foot on the bottom step, stood Margaret Wilby, dressed in a blend of light blues — blouse and slacks, cardigan and sandals.

  “Hope we didn’t wake you up, Mr Mullen?” she said.

  “Can I help?”

  “Why don’t you go and make yourself decent,” she said, advancing until she was millimetres from him.

  Mullen retreated. He could see no option.

  She sniffed. “Maybe even have a quick shower,” she said. “We are not in a rush.”

  * * *

  By the time Mullen had taken a super-quick shower, thrown some clothes on and got downstairs again, his two visitors had made themselves comfortable in the large kitchen with mugs of tea.

  “One for you too,” Margaret Wilby said, pointing to a mug on the table in front of an empty chair. Mullen sat down. The two of them were positioned opposite him, neat and stern, appraising him and finding him wanting. Shades of the Apprentice programme on TV. Mullen had watched it occasionally and been fascinated by the ridiculous nastiness of it all. In this case Margaret Wilby was the Lord Sugar figure while Derek Stanley was one of his minions, ready to add his two pennyworth when asked, but otherwise eminently forgettable.

  “We were wondering how your investigations were going, Mr Mullen.”

  “Into Chris’s death, you mean?”

  “Of course.”

  Mullen picked up his mug and took a sip. He continued to hold it in both hands, a barrier against the woman’s inquisition. “I only discuss the progress of the investigation with the person who hired me. In this case, your daughter.”

  “As you know, Mr Mullen, several people in the church contributed to your fee.”

  “Did you, Mrs Wilby? My impression was that you disapproved.”

  Margaret Wilby’s lips pressed tight in irritation. Disapproval seemed to be part of her DNA.

  “I contributed,” said Derek Stanley, giving a reason for his presence.

  Mullen stood up. “Even so, I’m still not discussing the case with you, not without Rose being present. Now, if you don’t mind I’m going to make myself some toast. I’ve not eaten yet.”

  Mullen located two slices of wholemeal bread from the larder, put them in the toaster and removed marmalade and soya spread from the fridge. There was silence as he worked away, smearing his pieces of toast and then cutting them diagonally into triangles. Then he returned to the table and started eating as if they were no longer there. But if he hoped they would get the message and go, it didn’t work.

  “It’
s such a shame about Janice.” Margaret Wilby spoke in the same tone of voice that she very likely used when discussing the weather. “Such a shame it rained today.”

  Mullen took another bite and refused to make eye contact.

  “Actually,” Stanley interrupted, “maybe in retrospect it’s a good thing.”

  This time Mullen did look up. “What on earth do you mean by that?” He felt, he suddenly realised, very defensive about Janice Atkinson. She had come to him in need and he had at some level failed her. He had done what she had paid him to do, yet he had done nothing more. Guilt clung to him, which made it impossible for him to sit there quietly while a jerk like Derek Stanley spouted stuff like that.

  “Janice and Chris.” Stanley shrugged and allowed his face to do the talking. Enough said. Work it out for yourself, Mr Private Investigator.

  “You’re telling me Janice and Chris had an affair?”

  “That is a blunt way of putting it, Mr Mullen.” Margaret Wilby was taking back control. Or maybe she had been in control all along and Stanley was part of it — her tame stooge. “Chris was a very charming man. A bit of a rogue too, but what woman doesn’t like a charming rogue? Poor Janice, with her marriage in tatters, was very susceptible to him. Of course, I don’t know the precise nature of their relationship, but my impression is that she was making rather a fool of herself.”

  Mullen considered this as he finished the third quarter of his toast and took another slug of tea. “When you say her marriage was in tatters, are you saying you knew Paul Atkinson was having an affair?”

  “Not at all. What I meant was that it was perfectly obvious from the way they behaved in public, from what they said and didn’t say, that their relationship had entered rocky waters. And it was perfectly obvious too that Janice liked Chris. Dangerously so.”

  “So what exactly is your point?”

  “I would have thought that was obvious.”

  Mullen was getting to like her less every time she opened her mouth. But hidden somewhere amid the unpleasantness was information about Chris that might be relevant — if it was true. “Humour me, Mrs Wilby.”