by Jo Bannister
“The school play,” said Jackson, showing the photocopy. “That was one of his triumphs at Norbold. I thought it would be nice to ask fellow actors for their memories of him.”
“Oh—yes, okay.”
“I’ve talked to Ernest Burtonshaw. And you. What about Ariel?”
Despite the shock, Woods smiled, remembering. “That was a brave bit of casting. I don’t think anyone’s ever thought of Ariel as a girl’s part. But Alice was superb. She dusted talcum powder through her hair and put something sparkly in her slap, and she looked absolutely like some kind of elemental.”
“I imagine she’ll remember him.”
“Oh yes…”
There was something about the way he said it, and then didn’t say anything more, that set bells ringing in Jackson’s synapses. As if Woods had stumbled over a trip wire attached to the journalist’s toe. “Tom?”
“Nothing,” said the student quickly. “I was just … thinking…”
Jackson regarded him levelly. What it was Tom Woods was thinking he clearly didn’t want to share. That didn’t mean he couldn’t be persuaded to. “Did they keep in touch after they left Norbold Quays? Jerome and Alice. Were they, in fact, a bit of a number?”
It was a complete shot in the dark. Nothing anyone had said suggested as much. But if true, it opened up a shedload of possibilities. And if it wasn’t, Woods would probably know and say so, and save Jackson a lot of time and effort.
Tom Woods remained circumspect. “No harm to you, Mr. Jackson, but it’s not my place to comment on something like that to the Norbold News. Especially if—now—Jerome’s dead. Certainly they were friends. We were all friends.”
“That’s not the sort of friendship I’m talking about,” said Jackson quietly, “and you know it.”
The rugby player flushed. “You should ask…” Again he ended the sentence without finishing it.
“I should ask Alice?”
“Yes. No! Look, it’s difficult. You know who her father is, don’t you?” Jackson nodded. “And Jerome was…”
“Jerome was black.”
If he’d been that forthright with someone of his own generation, they’d have hemmed and hawed and said there were lots of reasons, because racism was something they abhorred in principle but suspected they might still harbor in practice. Tom Woods’s generation had come out the far side of political correctness. They were much more confident of their antiracist credentials.
“Well spotted,” said Woods tartly. “Which wouldn’t have mattered if she’d been just about anybody else. If her father had been anybody else.”
“He didn’t like the idea?”
Woods looked at the reporter sharply. “No, he didn’t like the idea. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was, he’s the kind of man who doesn’t just settle for disapproval. We’re not talking Spencer Tracy and Sidney Poitier here—if he’d found out about them, he’d have … done … something…” His expression changed as the words distilled the thoughts. His voice came hollow. “And now Jerome’s dead. Don’t tell me that’s a coincidence.”
Jackson gave a little shrug. “There’s no question about who killed him. There were only the two of them in there.”
“What does that prove?” demanded Jerome’s friend. “People get killed in prison because someone on the outside wants them dead. People on the outside get killed because someone inside wants them dead. Mickey Argyle is not just bad, he’s powerful. He has a long reach. You want a story, Mr. Jackson, you find out how Alice’s father could have set a maniac on her black boyfriend.”
CHAPTER 20
NOT FOR THE FIRST time, Hazel Best thanked whatever gods watched over her that she’d found lodgings in town rather than taken the easy route of bunking in the station house. At least in the back bedroom of Mrs. Poliakov’s Villa Biala she could avoid policemen without it looking as if she was avoiding policemen.
She lay on her bed for ten minutes, listening to Mrs. Poliakov cleaning—the redoubtable Polish woman devoted great time and energy to household duties, although she had no talent for them—and looking over the rooftops to the uppermost branches of the trees in the park. It wasn’t the kind of view that tourists would flock for, but Hazel had always found it both pleasant and calming. It was the main reason she put up with Mrs. Poliakov’s cooking.
Then she got up and went out again. She had fences to mend with Gabriel Ash, if he’d let her in.
For a surreal moment she thought the dog had answered the door. The explanation was much more prosaic. It wasn’t closed properly, so it opened when she reached for the knocker; the dog just happened to be in the hall at the time.
The unsettling thing about Gabriel Ash’s world, she thought, was that it existed just on the cusp of sanity, where in an unguarded moment a normal person might cross the line without noticing. It was important not to allow herself to be drawn into the fantasy, to keep one eye firmly fixed on what she knew to be real. He was a man with a dog; that was all. He talked to it because he’d no one else to talk to. But it was just a dog—an intelligent dog, a dog that benefitted from its owner’s undivided attention, but still just a dog. It didn’t answer doors. It didn’t smile a welcome, or glance an invitation to the kitchen, and when it barked, just once, it wasn’t calling anyone; it was just reacting to the appearance of an intruder.
Despite knowing all this, Hazel didn’t feel remotely threatened by the barking dog in the hall, and she did go into the kitchen and sit down.
A moment later Ash appeared with a book in his hand. He glanced at her as if she’d popped across the road for a paper, not stormed out forty-eight hours earlier with a volley of parting shots that were, if memory served her right—and she was horribly afraid it did—both insulting and offensive. “I’m reading Othello,” he said by way of a greeting.
“Er—good,” she said. “Gabriel, I owe you an apology.”
He looked up blankly. “Yes?”
“I was very rude to you. And I jumped down your throat when you didn’t deserve it. All I can say in my own defense is, I was suffering from divided loyalties. But I am sorry.”
He had a way of focusing on what most people considered unimportant details. “Was?”
Hazel drew a deep breath and nodded. “I still consider myself part of the police family, but it seems no one else feels the same way. I went into Meadowvale this morning and found my bag metaphorically packed and waiting on the stairs.”
Ash’s eyes widened. “They’ve sacked you?”
“Suspended me.” It wasn’t much of an amendment, but Hazel felt it necessary to make it. She flicked him a smile that came and went in a moment. “On full pay.”
“Oh, that’s all right, then.” But the words were ironic—his eyes were appalled. He knew what it meant to her. He also knew what had provoked it. She’d supported him. She’d listened to him and supported him. “Hazel, I’m so sorry.…”
“Don’t be.” The smile lasted longer this time, bright and brittle. “In a way it simplifies things. I thought we could all be sufficiently professional about what happened to get on with our work until there’s some kind of a resolution. But that was naïve. This is just too huge.”
“So … what will you do?”
She put out her hand for the book. “I’ll read Othello, too.”
Ash didn’t surrender the volume. His expression was somber, concerned. “Hazel—don’t give the impression you’re working against them. Fountain and the rest of Meadowvale. If it turns out we’re right about the rotten apples, they just might, in time, forgive you for raising the suspicion. They’ll never forgive you for trying to prove it.”
“Then sod them,” she snarled. “I didn’t join the police in order to make other police officers happy. I joined—sorry to sound so pious—to help the vast majority of the population who aren’t police officers. And no one’s going to convince me that the public interest is served by protecting officers who are lazy, stupid, or corrupt.”
Hazel heard he
rself, heard the anger in her own voice, and made a conscious effort to lower her tone. “Sorry. It’s just that, for a while there, I wondered if it might be worth backing off for the sake of a quiet life. I suppose I’m rather ashamed of that.”
“You have nothing to be ashamed of,” Ash retorted firmly. “You’ve shown real courage. But now it’s time to keep your head down. You don’t need to rub their faces in the fact that you were not only bright enough to see that something was amiss at Meadowvale when no one else was but also brave enough to do something about it. IPCC will work out what Sergeant Murchison did, whether it was an honest mistake or something worse, and whether anyone else was involved. They don’t need any more help from you.”
“IPCC won’t have…” Realizing she couldn’t finish the sentence without giving offense, Hazel let it hang. Immediately, though, she knew it was too late. She hadn’t known Ash very long, but already she knew he had a talent for hearing not only what had been said but also what had nearly been said.
“Won’t have all the information?” he said, finishing the sentence for her. “Why not? You’ve told them everything you know.”
“Yes. But…” This time she took a deep breath and said it. “I believe that you heard and saw pretty much what you say you heard and saw. They won’t.”
“They won’t?” He thought about it, got a picture of himself as others saw him, and nodded ruefully. “Ah. Rambles With Dogs.”
“And that’ll be the end of it”—she nodded fiercely—“if I leave it to the IPCC. Donald Murchison will get a slap on the wrist. They may think he made an honest mistake. They may think something else but be unable to prove it. He’ll get a slap on the wrist, you’ll be written off as an unreliable witness, and I’ll get a note in my file saying I’m a troublemaker. And that’s three injustices. Maybe you don’t mind what people say about you, but I do. I’m not going to wait patiently to hear whether I’ll be trusted with a responsible job ever again.”
Ash looked worried. “What are you going to do?”
“Try to put it together.” Until she said the words, Hazel hadn’t realized the idea was anywhere in her head. But as soon as they were out she knew it was the right thing to do. “We’ve got a lot of the pieces already. What Jerome said to you. What you heard and saw later that night. What Saturday said about Trucker and Barclay. If Argyle wanted Jerome dead, he could have sent Trucker to get Barclay riled up and got Donald Murchison to do the rest. Murchison knew how to kill the CCTV so there’d be no record of it. All we’re short of is a motive. If we had that, IPCC would know it wasn’t just bad luck.”
A terrible thought struck Ash. “You’re not going to ask him? Go to Mickey Argyle and ask him?”
Hazel had to think for a moment but then dismissed the idea. “No, of course not.” It would have been a mistake. Not because she was afraid of him, although she was, but because he wouldn’t tell her anything—and he would then know she was on his trail. That would be both dangerous and counterproductive. She could prove nothing if he locked her in a room with one of his thugs. “Our tutors always used to say, ‘Try not to ask questions until you’ve at least some idea what the answers should be.’”
“Who else could you ask? Someone at Meadowvale?” The look she gave him was answer enough. “What about the local paper?”
“That reporter—Jackson.” Her voice sharpened with sudden possibility. “He seemed to know a fair bit about Argyle, didn’t he? And he knows that he’s involved—he saw his heavies snatch you off the street. Okay. I’ll call the News.”
“Wait.” For the first time in their acquaintance Ash reached out and touched her—laid his hand on top of hers as she pulled out her phone. The strength in his long, bony fingers surprised her. “Think about this.”
“Think about it?” she echoed, startled. “I’ve thought about nothing else for nearly a week! I haven’t slept for thinking about it. If I think any more about it, I’ll go mad. It’s time to do something.”
“Thinking about it might cost you sleep, but it won’t make you mad.” He spoke as one who’d done the experiment. “Doing something may very well get you hurt. It could get you killed. If there was a conspiracy to murder Jerome Cardy, and if you draw attention to yourself, those responsible may decide it would be safer to silence you than to let you rattle on.”
“‘Draw attention to myself’? Gabriel, that boat’s sailed! They’re sticking pins in little Hazel dolls all over Meadowvale! Everybody knows what I’ve done, everybody has an opinion. Pandora’s box is wide open, it’s too late to start stuffing things back in. And do you know, I’m not sure I would if I could? Covering up awkward facts is not what I joined the police to do. Let them out—let them all out where the air can get at them! Do you know what was left at the bottom of Pandora’s box when all the evils of the world had escaped?”
“Hope,” murmured Gabriel Ash.
“Exactly.”
“You think, if you can prove you’re right, you can wipe the slate clean.”
“I don’t know. But I know this. When you’re in too far to turn back, through is the only way out.”
* * *
Nye Jackson drove back to Norbold, his lips shaping silently Othello’s closing speech. The boy hadn’t been raving, and neither had Gabriel Ash. Jerome Cardy had made the same mistake as Othello, and he’d found a way of telling his cell mate without the policeman at the door noticing. He’d been a smart boy—at least in most respects. He’d also taken a gamble—that Ash would remember what he said and pass it on to someone who might make sense of it. Most people who knew Ash wouldn’t have thought it a gamble worth taking. But Jerome hadn’t had many options, so he worked with what he had.
Jackson parked in his accustomed spot behind the boot factory, on a bit of waste ground handy for the newspaper’s back door. As he locked the car the words were dancing in his head. Then must you speak of one … He hadn’t remembered the lines exactly. He’d used his phone to look them up on the Internet. And there it was: the reason Jerome had to die. What he’d done that was so terrible another man wanted to kill him for it.… Of one that loved not wisely, but too well. Jerome Cardy, talented actor, promising law student, and black, had fallen in love with Mickey Argyle’s younger daughter.
Jackson had been a reporter for too long to think that all he had to do was write the story and justice would be served. The toughest libel laws in the world made it possible for a dishonest man to sue an honest newspaper for reporting the truth and walk away with millions. But Jackson knew what had happened now, and he knew what to do about it. First talk to his editor. Then talk to Dave Gorman and Johnny Fountain. And while they were investigating there was nothing to stop him putting some of what he’d learned on record. He could write about Jerome Cardy without risk of prejudice. Remind people of his outstanding school career, and that memorable production of The Tempest where he shared the acting honors with the girl who played Ariel.
He was thinking along these lines, and resisting the urge to skip, as he crossed the rough tarmac of the back alley.
He almost got there. Another three strides and he’d have been safe in the News building, at least for now. Of course, the car that hit him didn’t come out of nowhere—they never do. But he didn’t see it coming, certainly not in time to avoid it, not even in time to recognize it. It swept him up like a sudden tornado, threw him into the air, and flung him down on the back steps of the Norbold News.
CHAPTER 21
ASH SAW HAZEL’S face change as she talked on—or rather, listened to—her phone. Age crept up on her. So he knew it wasn’t good news.
When she’d finished, she quietly put the phone away and turned to meet his troubled gaze. “Nye Jackson’s dead.”
At first, for more than a few seconds, Ash thought he’d misheard. “Sorry—he’s … what?”
“He’s dead, Gabriel.” Her voice was flat, the calm of the professional at delivering bad news, but her eyes were shocked and appalled and filling with tears. “H
e was run down by a car in Tanner’s Alley about an hour ago. He was dead before they got him to A&E.”
There were probably forty thousand cars in and around Norbold. Most of them would not be large and black. In spite of which, Ash felt he’d seen it happen. “Not an accident.” It wasn’t even really a question.
Hazel shrugged helplessly. “No one saw. There’s a security camera over the back door at the News offices, but it missed what happened. Just caught a corner of the roof as it sped off. A big estate, they thought. Black. No registration.”
No, thought Ash. Entry-level blagging for men who worked for Mickey Argyle would include the field of view of every CCTV in town. Finally he said, “It was Mickey Argyle. You know that, don’t you?”
Hazel nodded. Her head felt like someone else’s. “I imagine so. Why?”
“Because he interfered when Argyle sent for me.” Guilt thickened Ash’s voice.
It may also have clouded his judgment. Hazel wasn’t convinced. “His people didn’t hurt you—why should they hurt Nye? You might, if you were that sort of man, kill the eyewitness to a murder. You don’t kill someone who saw you drop litter.”
He saw her point. It wasn’t a proportionate response. Whatever it was that Jackson prevented, all he actually saw was a man being helped into a car and then helped out of it. Nothing Argyle could do to Nye Jackson was as smart as nothing at all. Any attack on him would have elevated a minor incident into a major one; killing him told the world that the reporter was on to something big. Norbold’s last surviving godfather had no reason to draw attention to himself like that. “Then why?”
Hazel was trying to think. “Where did he go when he left us?”
“Back to his office to talk to his editor.”
“That was on Friday. What’s he been doing since?”