Small Mercies

by Small Mercies (epub)

  ‘I don’t want to press you if you’re finding this too distressing, Jonny,’ Annie said. ‘But would you feel up to answering a few more questions about Darren? The more information we have at this stage, the easier it’ll be for us to discover who was responsible for this.’

  Garfield’s expression was sceptical. ‘You reckon? You solve every murder then?’

  ‘There’s very little chance of whoever did this not being caught. The more information we have during the earliest stages of the investigation the better.’

  ‘You’ve seen his nan and grandad? Don’t suppose they told you much.’

  ‘We’ve seen them, yes,’ Annie said. ‘But we need to know about Darren’s recent life. Where he was living, what he was doing for work if anything, who his friends and associates were.’

  ‘I don’t know how much I can tell you,’ Garfield said. ‘Like I say, we weren’t that close these days.’

  ‘You’ve seen him more recently than anyone else we’ve spoken to,’ Zoe pointed out. ‘Do you know where he was living?’

  ‘Somewhere in town. I don’t know exactly.’

  ‘He never invited you back?’ Annie said.

  ‘What? Like for coffee? He wasn’t trying to pull me.’

  ‘You’ve no idea of the area he lived in?’ Annie didn’t believe this for a second. ‘What about work? What did he do?’

  ‘Like all of us, I guess. Whatever he could to get by.’

  ‘Such as?’

  Garfield shifted uncomfortably in his chair, as if aware how unconvincing his responses sounded. ‘Last time we spoke about it he was working as a kitchen porter in some cafe in town.’

  ‘You know which cafe?’ Annie allowed a note of scepticism to creep into her tone. ‘Or was that another thing he didn’t bother to discuss?’

  Garfield was silent for a moment. ‘Yeah, he told me.’ He gave them the name of what Annie knew to be a fairly upmarket cafe-bar in the city centre.

  ‘But he never told you where he lived?’

  ‘I— No, not exactly.’

  ‘What about friends? Who did he mix with apart from you?’

  ‘I don’t know. We were friends from the old days. He’d got a whole new bunch of mates now.’

  ‘Any names you can give us?’

  ‘Not really.’ Garfield paused. ‘He mentioned someone called Andy. Andy something.’

  ‘Andy something.’ Annie had ceased hiding her disbelief. ‘I presume he never gave you any idea where Andy something might be living. Or how we might track him down.’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Not really.’ Annie leaned forward. ‘You know what I think, Jonny. I think you’re lying through your teeth.’

  Garfield looked as if he’d been physically struck. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘You know exactly what I mean. All this nonsense about not knowing where Darren lived, not knowing anything about his friends. Pretending that you didn’t know who we were talking about, then claiming you last saw him a couple of weeks ago. You’ve given us nothing but bullshit since we arrived, Jonny. What is it you’re trying to hide?’

  ‘I’m not trying to hide anything.’

  ‘You’re certainly not succeeding. I can read you like a Sun headline, Jonny, and you’re making about as much sense.’ She leaned forward and stared directly into his eyes. ‘Who are you afraid of, Jonny?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ He sounded now like a truculent teenager.

  ‘You know full well. When we got out of the car earlier, you looked scared to death. You’re the only person I’ve ever met who was relieved to discover I was a police officer. So who else were you expecting?’

  ‘No one. Nothing. I mean, you just startled me when you got out of the car.’

  ‘What do you know about Darren, Jonny? What can you tell us that’ll help us find the people responsible for this?’

  ‘People?’ Garfield spoke and then seemed to bite back the words, as if he’d said too much.

  ‘Or person,’ Annie said. ‘You think it might have been more than one person?’

  ‘No, I mean, you said—’

  He was definitely rattled now, she could tell. Experience told her that this might just make him clam up more. Whatever Garfield was afraid of, he found it more frightening than any threat she might offer. They were more likely to make progress by allowing him to clamber back onto safe ground, hoping he might let his guard down as he relaxed. She gave Zoe an almost imperceptible nod.

  ‘When you last saw him,’ Zoe said, in her best emollient tone, ‘did Darren seem worried or anxious?’

  ‘I— Well, yes, he might have been. He didn’t seem quite his usual self.’

  ‘And how would you describe his usual self?’ Zoe said.

  ‘I don’t know, exactly. You know, sort of relaxed…’

  ‘Happy-go-lucky?’

  ‘Yeah, I suppose.’ Garfield’s tone suggested he’d never heard the expression before. ‘Things didn’t usually worry him.’

  ‘But this time you thought he seemed anxious?’

  ‘A bit. As if there was something troubling him.’

  ‘He didn’t give you any idea what?’

  There was another silence. Annie felt Garfield wanted to tell them something, to unburden himself, but couldn’t find a way to do it. Or perhaps, she added to herself, a safe way to do it. ‘No, not really. Like I say, it was just a feeling. Maybe I was wrong, or maybe it wasn’t anything important.’

  ‘What did you talk about?’ Zoe said. ‘The last time you met, I mean.’

  ‘I don’t know. What do you talk about with your mates?’

  ‘Not the same things you do, I’m guessing.’ Zoe smiled. ‘You must be able to remember some of it?’

  ‘The usual stuff, I suppose. Football. That kind of thing.’

  Zoe gestured to the banner on the wall. ‘You both supported County?’

  ‘Yeah, for what it’s worth. We’d both been at the match the previous Saturday. They’d been crap so we talked about that. That’s probably what we spent a lot of the evening talking about.’

  Annie could see Garfield was regaining some of his fluency now he felt on safer territory. Given the chance, he’d spout this kind of bollocks all day long.

  ‘Did you go to the match together?’ Zoe said.

  Another pause. ‘No. We did sometimes run into each other, but I hadn’t seen him that Saturday.’

  ‘So you talked about football. And what else?’

  ‘I don’t know. Some crap film he’d seen, maybe. And he had some story about work. Some customer who’d been behaving like an arsehole. It was just that sort of stuff.’

  ‘And a couple of weeks later, or maybe less,’ Annie said, ‘he winds up dead. Any idea why that might have been, Jonny?’

  ‘I don’t know—’

  ‘You don’t know much, really, do you, Jonny? Do you know any reason why someone might have wanted to kill Darren? Any enemies? People he’d got on the wrong side of? People he owed money to?’

  Garfield looked up at her, and she could tell he’d had to stop himself from responding. ‘I don’t know. He never talked about anything like that.’

  ‘But?’

  ‘It’s how we live, isn’t it? People like us. I do better than most. I do better than Darren did. But it’s all hand to mouth. It’s not difficult to end up in debt to the wrong people. Maybe that’s what happened to Darren.’

  It made sense, but Annie still didn’t think Garfield was telling the truth, or at least not the whole truth. There was a lot more he wasn’t telling them. ‘Any idea who he might have been in debt to?’

  ‘Like I say, he didn’t say anything. But that might have been it.’

  ‘And that’s all you can tell us, is it? That he might have been in debt, but you’ve no real reason to think that and no idea who he might have been in debt to? Doesn’t get us very far, Jonny.’

  ‘I’m trying to help—’

  Garfield
flinched as Annie jabbed a finger in his direction. ‘You’ve not given us an ounce of help since we arrived here, Jonny. The only piece of solid information you’ve given us is where Darren worked, assuming even that’s true. You really expect me to believe you know literally nothing else about his life? You don’t know where he lives. You don’t know any of his friends. You don’t know anything about his life, except that he meets up with you for a beer now and then. For Christ’s sake, Jonny, the two of you went back years. Don’t you want to help us find his killer?’ Annie could feel her irritation spilling over. Other than learning who the victim was, they were getting precisely nowhere.

  ‘I’m telling you everything I can.’

  ‘What’s the problem?’ Zoe said, gently. ‘What are you frightened of?’

  ‘I’m not afraid of anything. I’m just telling you as much as I can.’

  Zoe rose and walked over to stand beside Garfield. She placed a hand gently on his shoulder. ‘We’re not idiots, Jonny. You’re scared to death of something. Or someone. If you tell us what or who, we can maybe help. That’s our job.’

  Garfield had visibly flinched at her touch. ‘I’ve told you everything I can.’

  Zoe looked back at Annie, who nodded. They’d worked together for long enough to have this routine off pat. Their version of good cop, bad cop. But it wasn’t going to work for them today, Annie thought. If Garfield didn’t want to confide in them, there wasn’t much they could do. They could drag him back to the office and make everything more formal, but he’d just clam up still further. But it was worth pushing it as far as they could. If nothing else, Garfield would know that, when he was ready to talk, someone would be wanting to listen.

  ‘Jonny,’ Zoe said softly. ‘Are you afraid of whoever killed Darren? Do you think they’re coming for you next?’

  Annie could see Garfield’s body tense. ‘Don’t be stupid. I’ve no idea who killed Darren. I don’t know why he was killed. Why would I be worried about that?’

  ‘You tell us,’ Annie said. ‘You seem very frightened of something.’

  ‘I’ve got you here. That’s the only thing that’s worrying me.’

  ‘If you think you’re in danger,’ Zoe said, ‘you need to tell us. We can give you protection. We can help you. Just tell us who it is.’

  Garfield had closed his eyes, with the air of a child about to explode into a tantrum. ‘There isn’t anybody. I’m not afraid of anyone. I’ve just told you everything I can. Can’t you understand that?’

  Annie rose. ‘You think it’ll help you if you tell us nothing. But trust us, Jonny, that’s not how it works. If someone’s threatening you, they won’t care whether you told us anything or not. They just won’t trust you. If they are as dangerous as you seem to think…’ She left the sentence hanging. ‘I’ll leave you a business card, Jonny. If you decide you want to talk, just call me. Any time. Believe me, if you’re in some kind of trouble, it’s the only way out.’

  Garfield shook his head. ‘You’ve really no idea, have you?’

  ‘No idea about what, Jonny?’

  ‘About what life’s like for people like me. Or Darren.’

  ‘You could try telling us.’

  ‘I’ve nothing to tell you. There’s nothing you can do for people like me.’

  ‘If you say so, Jonny. But when you’re ready to talk, just call me.’ Annie placed the business card carefully on the coffee table. Garfield might throw it away as soon as they’d left the house, but she suspected somehow that he wouldn’t. ‘Come on, Zoe. We’ll leave Jonny for the moment. He seems to be expecting some other visitors.’ She turned her gaze back towards Garfield. ‘We’ll be back, though, Jonny. I just hope we’re not too late.’

  Chapter Twenty

  As Annie turned the corner, she saw a black BMW parked under the streetlamp outside the cottage she shared with Sheena Pearson. She slowed her own car, immediately on her guard for anything untoward. As she drew closer she realised that the car was one of the unmarked vehicles belonging to the force. Jennings had confirmed earlier that a security operation was to stay in place for the time being and Sheena would be provided with as much protection as possible.

  As she pulled up behind it, the driver and passenger doors opened and two uniformed officers emerged. She climbed out to meet them. ‘Evening, boys. How’s it going?’

  It was clear that one of the officers had no idea who she was, but the other grinned and nodded. ‘Evening. It’s been very quiet, I’m glad to say.’ He turned to his baffled-looking colleague. ‘DI Delamere. She lives here.’

  It took the other officer a moment to process this. ‘Oh, right. Yes, of course.’ It was evident that, as usual in the force, Annie’s reputation preceded her.

  ‘Are you two scheduled to be here all night?’

  The first officer shook his head. ‘Afraid not. We just don’t have the resources. Chief Inspector Cowley asked us to hang around until you returned, but we’ll have to head off shortly. We’ve arranged for a patrol car to come past every half-hour or so, and we’re geared up to respond urgently to any requests for help, but that’s about as much as we can do.’

  Annie knew only too well the pressures the force was under, and she suspected Alan Cowley had already stretched his resources to the limits in allowing the two officers to remain here. Jonny Garfield had probably been right about one thing. If the police couldn’t offer decent protection to a public figure like Sheena, they were never going to be able to do much for the likes of Garfield. ‘Thanks for your efforts, anyway. Hope it’s not been too boring.’

  ‘Rather that way than the other,’ the first officer said. ‘Anything else we can do before we disappear?’

  ‘Thanks, but we should be okay now. Or if we’re not you’ll soon hear from us.’

  ‘Bit of a lonely spot,’ the second officer observed.

  ‘Thanks for reminding me.’

  The cottage was actually only a couple of miles from the centre of Chesterfield, giving Annie an easy drive to police HQ while allowing Sheena to access the direct London trains. The nearest village, with a couple of decent pubs and a small scattering of shops, was only a fifteen-minute walk away. Even so, the cottage felt as if it could easily be a long way from anywhere. At this time in the evening, with the dark thickening, no other lights were visible and there were no other signs of human life. Normally, that was precisely what Annie loved about the place. Today, it felt as if they’d chosen to thumb their noses at the fates.

  She waited while the two police officers climbed into the car and pulled out back towards the main road, then she turned her own car into the driveway. After a moment’s thought, she backed out again and left her car parked across the front of the drive, where the police vehicle had been. That would make it easier for them to make a quick exit if necessary, with no risk of being boxed into the drive.

  Christ, she thought, do I really need to be thinking like this?

  Some of it was almost second nature, of course, the kind of caution that’s drilled into you as a serving police officer. Just basic common sense. But for the moment she was going to have to exercise even greater caution. You tended always to assume it wouldn’t happen to you. But it nearly had happened to Sheena twice in as many days.

  She walked back to the front door and dug out her keys, finding herself now constantly glancing back over her shoulder. The front garden was relatively small, with nowhere for anyone to hide, other than a line of thick shrubbery along one boundary. The rear garden was more of a concern. It was potentially accessible from the woodland at the rear, and offered a number of places – thick bushes, a dense hedge and a row of trees at the far end – where an assailant could potentially be concealed.

  The house itself was reasonably secure, and Sheena had further tightened up security when concern had initially surfaced about potential threats to MPs. They’d fitted CCTV around the property, installed an improved alarm system and installed security windows and doors on the ground floor of the house.


  No doubt they’d tighten it up still further now. Sheena herself hated it. She hated the sense of being imprisoned in her own home. She hated the way these developments had inevitably distanced her even further from her constituents. Ironically, her contact with the protestors had been one of her few unplanned meetings with her constituents in recent months. Her surgeries now were appointment-only, and all local meetings were carefully vetted in advance.

  Annie opened the door and stepped inside. ‘Sheena?’ She’d phoned before leaving to say she was on her way, but she didn’t want her to suffer a moment’s anxiety about who had entered the house.

  ‘In the kitchen.’

  Annie followed the sound of Sheena’s voice into the farmhouse kitchen at the front of the cottage. Sheena was standing in front of the Aga, in the process of tasting what smelled like some kind of chicken casserole.

  ‘You should have left that to me,’ Annie said. ‘You’re only just out of hospital.’

  ‘It’s just displacement activity. Gives me something to think about other than that there’s someone out there trying to kill me.’ Sheena gestured behind her towards the large kitchen table. ‘There’s a bottle of wine opened. To cook with, you understand.’

  ‘Did you put some in the casserole as well?’

  ‘Very funny. Now you’re here you might as well at least make yourself useful and pour us a glass.’

  Annie did as she was told, placing one of the filled glasses beside Sheena on the corner of the Aga. She took a sip of her own. ‘Sorry I’m so late back. We got stuck waiting to interview this guy, and then I made the mistake of going back into the office to drop Zoe off. Ran into the Assistant Chief, who clearly wanted to talk.’

  ‘About me?’

  ‘Partly. He’d already had the official line from Stuart Jennings and from Andy Dwyer, the guy in charge of the case, but I think he was looking for an inside track.’

  ‘And did you give him one?’

  ‘I told him what I knew. Not sure it was anything he didn’t know already. I reckon he was just checking that Stuart and Andy were really on top of things.’

  ‘Is he any good, this Andy Dwyer? You reckon he’ll get whoever’s behind this?’