Her mood lifts on McMaster not leaving a message. It drops just as quick when her mobile shrieks to life. She glares at the screen, ‘caller ID blocked,’ and answers the call.
‘Hello sweetie. How are you? I thought since you’d helped me out so well I’d return the favour.’ McMaster’s sleazy salutation.
‘Sorry. Can I call you back? I was just going out.’
‘You’re not going anywhere, right? We have an arrangement to consider. I’ll be there in half an hour. If you’re not there, you can expect to find a summons dropped through your letter box on your return.’
Rose recognises she will gain no advantage by leaving. McMaster would find her at work the next day or the next week. He wouldn’t give up. All she can do is play along and hope that the ‘arrangement’ will not elevate to a woman’s worst fear. Never has Rose needed to rely on self-defence measures, but now, with panic intensifying, she tapes a large bread knife under the kitchen table. She can’t imagine using it, but its presence will be akin to a protective talisman.
‘Smoke?’
‘No thanks.’ Rose trembles.
‘Come on. It’ll do you good. You’ve never smoked anything like this.’ McMaster drops an envelope onto the kitchen table. ‘Business opportunity. Everyone who drinks enjoys a good smoke. And this is the best. You could make a heap – and it’ll encourage me to tear up this traffic report.’ He pulls the report, complete with summons, from his pocket.
Rose’s face falls into disarray. Agreeing to any kind of arrangement will cement her obligation to McMaster. She struggles against the principles of right and wrong, as she had in her early teens when facing young love’s elations and traumas. Her mind floods with memories of the school library where an older male approached her. She’d secretly adored the out of bounds school teacher – twenty-six-years-old and married, and one who ignored the old Berlin Wall standing between teachers and students. In the aisle indexed Geography, he’d leant over her shoulder and whispered, ‘Meet me here after class. 4.00 p.m.’
Rose spent the rest of the afternoon confused – as she is now. If I get involved with dope, I’m sunk forever. If I let him file the report, what happens? A speeding fine? Big deal. He wouldn’t dare say anything about the theft; how would he explain that? That could be my ace.
Along with her enforced parental detachment, distance has also diluted the few close friendships founded in Jesmond. Rose has no one to whom she can share her problem, and she daren’t discuss the dilemma with work colleagues because admitting theft would end her career. She has only one choice: an independent third party. Anonymous. Her approach akin to a couple taking their fractured marriage to a church counsellor.
She plucks Olivia Watts’ card from her handbag. Jabs the number into her mobile. Presses ‘send’. Pokes ‘end’. Drives her thumbs into her forehead. Nerves. Two minutes’ later she redials: ‘Hello. You met me at the bottle shop and left your card. It’s Rose Hernandez. Could we have a chat – not on the phone – it’s important. Something I hope you can help me with.’
They meet outside Cheltenham’s HSBC and exchange a limp handshake before scrambling through the lunchtime rush to Wetherspoon’s pub. Olivia takes the lead and flops into a booth. Her experience in dealing with women – striking up discussions, taking part in debates, and conducting fully-fledged interrogations – doesn’t find a starting point with Hernandez. She goes with the obvious: ‘You even look worried. What is it?’
Rose stalls. ‘Remember how you replied to my blog; the one where I wrote about not trusting coppers?’
Olivia’s brow crunches into a corrugated road. ‘No. I don’t mind admitting my posts, but how do you know it was me?’
‘I’m not stupid. Sorry, didn’t mean it in that way. I’m not angry. When you gave me a business card I was surprised to see that you were an investigator. Truth is, I thought you were a girls’ girl trying to make a move on me.’
Olivia smiles, hoping to not telegraph that the thought had crossed her mind. For all she knows, Rose might reciprocate, but professionalism must rise above lascivious desire.
Rose continues: ‘Anyway, I thought it was quite ingenious the way you’d placed the question mark in the middle of your business name. The only time I’ve seen something similar is the exclamation mark attached to Yahoo! So, I was curious, because it registered that I’d recently seen a question mark in another identity. I scrolled through my blog pages and there you were – couldn’t have been anyone else: ‘WH?I’ At the time, I thought it was a person who couldn’t spell, or that they just wanted attract attention to the disjointed word. On deciphering the letters, I came up with you.’
Olivia welcomes the break. ‘Well done. I’d never thought of the correlation between the two, but the way you put it – well, it’s obvious. I might change my blog identity because it could create problems if the wrong person uses your uncanny powers of deduction.
‘Okay, I’m a PI. Before this, I’d served seven years in the police, finishing as a DS. I responded to your blog because I agree with you. I have my own experiences of shonky police members. Fortunately, there’s only a few, but the shame is, it tarnishes the whole constabulary – the bad apple in the barrel syndrome.’
Rose holds her drink to her lips. Doesn’t sip. Doesn’t breathe. Cocooned in hibernation, she collects her thoughts. And then spills them: ‘I’ve met one of the bad apples. It’s a long story – I’ll give you the condensed version. I got pulled over on the A44. My fault; I was over the limit, but not by much. The officer, in plain clothes, took my details and said he’ll have to consider whether my offence is serious enough to report. I didn’t hear anything for a week until he walked into my work. Told me to give him a couple of bottles – Dewar’s – and he’ll forget about the report.
‘I’m sorry I have to mention this, but I have to be up front. I’ve been done for theft, just a minor shoplift. Sorry, I suppose to you that no theft is minor, but this was just a top. I’m on probation now, so I was terrified of being breached. I gave him two bottles of Scotch. I thought that would be the end of it, but he fronted a week later and put it on me again, this time saying he’ll report the matter of the two stolen bottles – even though he pressured me.
‘And now, just earlier, he gave me this package, pre-bagged tobacco – grass, I suppose – and told me to sell it to my customers. How the hell do I do that and get away with it? I don’t want to, but I’m scared of what will happen if I don’t.’
‘Shit!’ Olivia lets fly the tame expletive. Sits deep in thought. ‘Okay. Who is he?’
‘I don’t know. He’s never said. He showed ID when he first pulled me over, but I was too panicked to look properly. I think he intentionally held his thumb over the name, although I did see ‘Detective Inspector’. It only came to me much later to question why an officer of that rank would target someone for a minor traffic infringement.’
‘That’s a shame. Can’t do much without a name, and we can’t be sure that the ID was legit. When’s he going to see you about this package? You have to sell it all within a certain time? Is there an arrangement to contact him?’ Olivia is so concerned by an officer using a woman’s licence as a dating agency recommendation, that she forgets the interrogator’s rule: one question at a time.
‘He didn’t say anything about a next step. I suppose that protects him, doesn’t it? – so no one can confront him.’
Olivia checks her watch. ‘Um, I can’t hang around on the off-chance he’ll front tomorrow, the next day or whenever. What I can do, and it won’t be expensive, is have a tech install a camera behind the register. It’ll have a ten-hour recording capacity. You only need change or reset the SD card each morning. As for the package, what’s the cost of each bag?’
‘Twenty quid. Means I’ll owe him two hundred for the lot.’
‘Okay. Here’s what we’ll do. Give me two; I’ll give you £40. I’ll seal it in th
is bag and type up a declaration that we’ve made the exchange for investigatory purposes. Later on, I’ll lodge it with a trusted police member. For the moment, lay the bags on the table so I can photograph them. That’ll cover us both.
‘Don’t even try to sell any. You don’t know if it could be a set-up. When the guy returns, you hand him the cash. He’ll be glad to get anything, all dealers are the same. Try to set up a meeting. But don’t get into long discussions or make things difficult for yourself. Tell him you’ve been too nervous to approach too many customers. If you can, try to take control and tell him that once you’ve done this there’ll be no more.’
‘I already said that about the Scotch. He doesn’t listen. He’s too demanding.’
‘Trust me,’ says Olivia, with little conviction. ‘The position he’s in, he won’t take the speeding or the theft any further. I’ll have my guy, Hamilton, drop in tomorrow and set up the cam. In the meantime, if the creep does drop in, call or message me.’
XVI
A lay-by cut into the roadside verge provides an uninterrupted view of Ashton Hill. Angry shadows of giant elms and straggly willows fall over the rental van as morning traffic zooms along the adjacent road. The driver twiddles the radio to calming music as McMaster swings from his drive onto the A44.
Confident of a free reign, he turns the van out of the lay-by and into McMaster’s drive where he pulls on white overalls, high-vis yellow safety vest, and yellow helmet. He stands fluorescent-orange safety cones behind the van and removes a chainsaw, bar lube, trunk wedges and a four-litre tin of two-stroke fuel.
From the twenty-two tree guard of honour, he selects the third from the front gate. Estimates its height using a formula spouted by a television gardening guru: ‘Take your best guess and then double it.’ The precaution means nothing, for this operator has no regard for consequential damage. Quite the opposite.
The trunk’s circumference measures four feet – a tough challenge for the stolen Husqvarna eighteen-inch bar with tungsten tipped chain. Camouflaged by the morning shade, the chainsaw’s piercing shriek will soon radiate its presence to all within a two-kilometre radius.
He tugs the start rope in rapid motions as he would yank unruly weeds from the earth. A cloud of oily smoke billows from the tiny exhaust outlet, followed by the 120cc motor’s throaty gurgle. The engine splutters excess fuel and spent carbon as it revs to the high-pitched squawk of a model airplane enthusiast’s balsa wood baby circling overhead.
Into the trunk he slices a huge ‘V’ – facing straight into the driveway. From the opposite side, he cuts downwards, holding tight as the saw bucks through the chunky bark. He panics as the tree creaks like a rusty barn door. It sways in protest. He buzzes a quick slash into the widening crevice, causing the tree to groan and crash to the ground, straight across McMaster’s driveway. Part one accomplished.
After completing a task, he prefers to recuperate with a smoke or coffee. He craves approval and accomplishment that he never received at school. Here though, he cannot risk leaving a sign of his presence. Eighteen months’ earlier a patch of phlegm and spittle convicted an associate for his part in a service station robbery. DNA. Follows you everywhere. Drop a hair? Sprung. Spot of blood? Might as well plead guilty. Cotton bud? A globule of sickly, cholesterol-laden earwax could earn you a stretch in Her Majesty’s big house.
He moves to the next tree, cuts another ‘V’ notch and continues to slice through its trunk. Again, the saw protests, spitting chips and sawdust at his feet. This time he stops short, leaving the tree standing with a huge yawning yellow mouth. He rushes the equipment back to the van and steps out of the overalls. Throws them in the back. Ties a black windcheater around his waist to complement the black polo shirt and black track pants.
He retrieves the orange safety cones and returns the van to the lay-by where he scoffs two jam rolls and drowns them with a bottle of Coke. He crunches two bags of Salt and Vinegar potato crisps into his jacket and returns to the property. It could be a long wait.
The afternoon is comfortable. Calm. Many times he has loitered, waiting for the right moment to exact vengeance on those who’d deceived him. He would usually mix with pub patrons, down a few pints, grab a meal if necessary, and exchange banter with locals. The target toe-rag would swagger into the pub, scull a couple of pints and within half an hour, dart to the toilet. He would dawdle behind, and safeguarded by a crony covering the door, would pummel his adversary to within seconds of unconsciousness. It is the proven means of obtaining information and debt recovery. A few extra punches to the lower stomach sees his foe pleading for mercy. Result? Another faithful devotee. Today, McMaster will have no opportunity to beg for mercy.
After lying in wait for nine hours he considers giving up. His temper has rocketed into the red zone with thoughts of McMaster held back on overtime or having got lucky at the pub and now enjoying a round of nocturnal entertainment. He is thirsty; he’s scoffed all the crisps – his only sustenance since the morning rolls, and is now busting for a major toilet break. He could construct a ‘bushman’s dunny’ of the type seen in Australian camping magazines; but he is a step ahead because he knows that a white jacketed forensic scientist would later examine his huge Pringle-infused turd. DNA. Follows you everywhere.
As he strains against nature’s urge, a pair of white halogen headlights turns off the road and bounce into the driveway like courting fireflies. And then they stop… suspended in time… shining over the fallen tree. His target pulls up in the perfect position.
McMaster sits in his car. Awestruck. What the fuck? We had a storm or something? How the hell would one of these fall? A blue hue seeps from the car; the familiar backlight of a phone keypad.
The anxious vengeance-seeker swings into action and pumps a hand saw through the pre-cut trunk, heaving to and fro with the speed of an illegal logger. The trunk creaks; he belts the saw faster and faster, to and fro, to and fro, faster and faster, while the trunk heaves and groans until it collapses like a spent jigolo. He smiles. Birds flutter. McMaster’s terrified glare shoots out of the open car door. The huge tree crashes onto the roof, crushing it and snapping the door from its hinges. Glass shatters. Pine needles and splinters fly in rhythm to crunching metal and snapping branches – a concerto piercing the evening’s silence. And McMaster’s ears.
The antagonist has only moments to flee. With saw in hand, he approaches the car where McMaster lays sandwiched between the crumpled roof and flattened seats. One leg splays in a physiologically unnatural angle. Spatters of blood decorate the passenger window.
Part two. Check.
How’s that for a deal, copper bastard. Only the night’s silence prevents him vocalising his venom. No one tries it on with me, least of all a fat bastard trying to take advantage of an old widow. He smiles and takes a diagonal path across the property to his van.
And then the adjacent property’s porch light flicks on.
As the crash shakes the ground, Gillian jerks to attention in her small Fiat sedan. She scans the road for mangled cars or trucks. The east and west horizons are bare. From the darkened roadside, a black outline glides across the road, into the lay-by, and then throws some items into the back of a van. Logic connects him with the thunderous noise she heard moments earlier. Too late now, she curses, as the van drives off. Why didn’t I jot down its number?
Intuition. A private detective’s life is built upon suspicion: suspect everything and be prepared. It follows that a van without occupants in a darkened lay-by must be suspicious, unless a secret humping is bouncing about the mattressed cargo area.
Gillian tries to gain a better vantage point from which to view McMaster’s home. There is no clear sighting from where she stands; the house is in darkness. It remains so after she crosses the road and observes the property from the front fence. She edges toward the driveway, sharing the darkness for fear of being spotted by McMaster. From bar girl to stalker.
Gillian has done her utmost to get close to McMaster. The Knight’s Arms though, was a no through road. She could not risk dedicated socialising at work – she has to be everybody’s dream. Sell more drinks that way, her boss tutored. Although not an employee, she is still expected to perform as do other staff, and that means returning a profit.
She harbours the pain of having broken the unwritten creed: Don’t mix work with pleasure. Gillian has a job to do, but she’s allowed her heart to rule her head. She sees in McMaster qualities that very few others, including his estranged wife, ever see. He embodies a single-focused determination contrasted by soft sincerity. Only days earlier, McMaster took her hand as a gesture of thanks for the bonus shot of Dewar’s. His warmth flowed through her like a blood transfusion. Yes, she should have withdrawn her hand. She couldn’t. Desire conquered rational judgement. Her eyes said what her lips couldn’t: I want you.
McMaster responded with an offer to dinner. The rain cheque is uncashed.
Gillian recognises that she now has a problem. Am I watching his house to get info for Thornton, or am I watching out of jealousy?
Two steps into the driveway, Gillian reels at the root of the pandemonium. She runs along the stones, almost tripping in shock on seeing the mammoth tree compressing McMaster’s car into the driveway. Snapped branches and dense, spindly foliage scratch her arms and legs, hampering access to the vehicle. She strips small branches from the trunk. Cuts her fingers. A faint gurgle reverberates from inside the car. She crawls under one branch and over another in a prickly version of a funfair mud run. Through the shattered rear window, she makes out the crude outline of McMaster, who, by a spontaneous act of self-preservation, had shrunk into the driver’s side footwell, straddled the console and forced his head and shoulders down to the passenger floor. The roof sandwiches him.
Clock Face of Ills Page 11