The Man Who Played Trains: The gripping new thriller from the author of Playpits Park

by Richard Whittle

CHAPTER

  TWENTY-TWO

  ‘SO LET’S START at the beginning, shall we, Mr Spargo? Tell me why you went to the basement.’

  Detective Inspector Quinn was in his late forties and surly and lean. What his head lacked in hair his eyebrows made up for, they were wide and bushy and stuck out like fur wings. Spargo sat opposite him at a table in a bleak, ill-furnished room. On a chair in the corner sat a younger man whose name Spargo couldn’t remember. A man who had brought tea.

  ‘I told you already. To check I’d locked the door.’

  ‘Do you always do that so late at night?’

  ‘No. As I told you, I’d been to the airport. I had a few drinks with a friend and took a taxi home. I was worried I had left the basement door unlocked. I had been there earlier, you see. I had been there for some books.’

  ‘So you had been drinking.’

  ‘That’s what I said.’

  ‘And you found the door unlocked?’

  ‘I told you that earlier.’

  ‘Mr Spargo, you may well have told someone else but you didn’t tell me. It would help if you answered my questions.’

  Spargo nodded. He had been through this before, first with the uniformed men who answered his call, and then on the way to this place. He struggled to keep a clear head. It had been a long day and was promising to be an even longer night. The four beers at the airport really hadn’t helped.

  ‘Mr Spargo? Concentrate please. You found the door unlocked?’

  ‘I did. There are two keys. I keep one wedged behind the meter box fixed to the outside wall near the basement door. I had the other key with me. I keep it in the house.’

  ‘Why did you have the key with you if the door was unlocked?’

  Spargo muttered ‘Christ!’ to himself. What was it with the man? Or was it himself, was he was trying hard enough? Doing well in the circumstances. Probably.

  ‘I didn’t know it was unlocked. That was why I went to it. In case I found it unlocked I took a key with me so I could lock it. I was surprised to find it unlocked.’

  ‘I don’t see why you were surprised. You took a key with you, so you must have half-expected it to be unlocked.’

  ‘I’m not sure I see the point of your question.’

  ‘What happened to the key you keep behind the meter box?’

  ‘Why, isn’t it there?’

  ‘I don’t know. You tell me. Why did you take a key with you if there another one so close by?’

  ‘It was raining. It was dark.’

  ‘You said the security light was on.’

  ‘The security light is on the front corner of the house. It doesn’t light the back garden.’

  ‘You told me the lights from your house windows lit the back garden.’

  ‘They do, but they don’t light the basement bit. Anyway, everything was wet. It was easier for me to take the key from the house. I didn’t want to grope around in the dark for the other one.’

  ‘Why didn’t you take a torch with you?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘A torch, Mr Spargo.’

  ‘I didn’t need one.’

  To Spargo it all made sense. Why it didn’t to Quinn, he had no idea. Up to then he had thought all detectives argued as logically as Mitchell, but this man seemed to ask questions regardless of their usefulness. He had another try at the tea they had brought him. It was still too hot to drink. Quinn asked more questions but Spargo didn’t hear them.

  The younger man spoke for the first time.

  ‘Mr Spargo… John… we realise you have had a shock, we do understand that. But you must be aware we need answers. Tell us again. Go through your actions and take your time. You went to the airport to meet a friend, Grant Murphy. You came home by taxi. You arrived there at midnight and went into your house – ’

  ‘More like eleven-thirty.’

  ‘– you decided to check the basement because you thought you might have left the door unlocked. You went out in the rain. You said you turned the handle – ’

  ‘The knob. It’s a knob.’

  ‘– the knob. You said it was unlocked. Was there a key in the lock?’

  It was the first sensible question he’d been asked. He hesitated before answering.

  ‘I’m not sure.’ Quinn went to speak but the younger man raised a hand to stop him. Spargo continued:

  ‘If the key had been in the lock I’d probably have felt it when I grasped the door knob. The key gets in the way when you turn the knob.’

  ‘This is important, Mr Spargo. We are trying to establish how someone got into your basement. Either you left the door unlocked, which you admit is a possibility, or else they used the key you keep behind the meter box. How did they know it was there, is it obvious?’

  ‘Not at all obvious,’ Spargo said. ‘But there’s another way. They might have used the one I kept in the house, the one I took with me to the basement.’

  Quinn frowned. ‘How could that be?’

  ‘I have a deadlock on the front door. You have to turn the key twice –’

  Quinn interrupted. ‘I know what a deadlock is.’

  The younger man held up his hand again. Quinn stayed open-mouthed.

  ‘So you have to turn the front door key twice,’ the younger man said. ‘Go on…’

  ‘I’m careful when I go out. I always double-lock the front door. A few times lately – three times, I think – I have returned home and only had to turn it once. Also the alarm’s not working, I spent a week in Spain and when I got back it had a fault. That was the first time I noticed the door lock thing.’

  ‘And you didn’t report it?’

  ‘Would you have been interested if I had? I checked the house. Everything was as I’d left it.’

  Quinn again: ‘Are you saying someone’s been in your house?’

  ‘That’s what I thought at the time. The first time it happened I assumed it was my daughter, Jez. Jessica. She has a key. But it wasn’t her. I asked.’

  ‘Dr Jessica Spargo?’ the younger man said. ‘She’s your daughter?’

  ‘You know her?’

  ‘I do. Please continue. You opened the basement door and you went in. Then what?’

  ‘Fell in, more like. As I said, it was raining. I assumed the door was locked so when it opened I fell in. Then I couldn’t find the light switch.’

  ‘But you found it.’

  ‘After three or four tries.’

  Quinn said, ‘It’s your basement. Are you telling me you don’t know where the light switch is?’

  ‘It’s on the wrong wall, it’s on the hinge side of the door. I have to open the door and then walk around it. Because I fell in I was disoriented. But even before I found the light I knew something was wrong.’

  ‘Intuition,’ Quinn said.

  The raised hand again, this time accompanied by a disapproving look.

  ‘You knew?’

  ‘The place sounded wrong. Also, it usually smells musty, there’s a bit of damp. You were there, you know what it smelled like, it wasn’t nice. Then I found the light switch.’

  ‘Then what?’ Quinn asked.

  The image was burnt on Spargo’s mind so clearly he didn’t know where to begin. The room had been trashed. His stacks of archive boxes lay like felled columns, their contents, mostly folders and papers, were spewed across the floor. He thought he saw bare feet protruding from under the scattered paper, and thinking he was simply tired from his drive he rubbed his eyes. Stepping closer he saw that not only were the feel real, they were attached to bluish, bloodless legs. Stupidly – he knew that now – he had pushed aside boxes to see what else there was. Revealed a face so swollen it seemed to have been inflated with a tyre pump.

  ‘You know what I saw,’ he said.

  Quinn again: ‘You disturbed the scene.’

  ‘I had to see if the man was dead.’

  It was a lie. He remembered how it was, how the torso and head were covered by fallen files. One of the fluorescent tubes was old and ha
d taken an age to reach full brightness, flickering ghostly light as he’d pushed boxes aside. He had wanted to see who it was, rather than see if he was dead.

  ‘You had to see if the man was dead,’ Quinn repeated. ‘Really?’

  Spargo continued, staring at Quinn.

  ‘If his head was on one side of the room and his body on the other, I’d have known that for sure. I did what I should do, I checked for signs of life. Obviously you have been trained to tell if a man is dead by inspecting his feet.’ He saw the younger man smile. ‘When I cleared the files from his face I knew he was dead. I left the room immediately.’

  He was remembering now, remembering clearly. At first he’d thought the boxes had been felled in a fight. The more he thought about it the more he knew it was unlikely a man with a wire around his neck could do much to defend himself. Kicked out, then. Kicked out a lot. Felled piles of boxes.

  Bodies weren’t new to him. In the Zambian mines he’d seen horrific accidents. This was different, this death was deliberate. In his basement he’d managed to control his stomach but he was having trouble now.

  ‘Are you alright?’ the younger man asked.

  Spargo nodded. ‘It’s hot in here. Do you know who he is? The victim?’

  He didn’t particularly want to know, didn’t really care. Hoped that by asking questions it would demonstrate a willingness to help.

  ‘We don’t yet know. Are you absolutely sure you’ve never seen him before?’

  ‘Not as far as I know.’

  Quinn grunted. ‘What kind of an answer is that?’

  ‘He wasn’t that recognisable.’ Spargo glanced at his watch, and then looked at it again as if he didn’t believe the time. It was six hours since he called the police. ‘Did he have anything on him?’ he asked. ‘In his clothes, I mean.’

  ‘You saw his clothes?’

  ‘No. I assumed you would have found them by now.’

  ‘You mean in your basement? Why did you think his clothes might be there?’

  ‘I assumed they would be. I thought it was sexual.’

  Quinn adjusted himself in his chair. ‘Sexual, Mr Spargo?’

  ‘Well, what was I supposed to think? I thought he’d gone there with someone. I thought that a naked man – ’

  ‘Yes, Mr Spargo,’ the younger man said with no trace of amusement. ‘A dead, naked man. In your basement…’

  Mid-morning the police let him go and he took a taxi home. He realised, as he approached his house, that he had made a mistake and redirected the driver.

  ‘They’ve taken over the house and blocked off the street,’ Spargo told Jez as she opened her front door.

  ‘Who has? What house?’

  He went to her kitchen, sat down on one of her tall stools and told her the whole story. She sat speechless. Said nothing at all the whole time.

  ‘Don’t you think you should have called a lawyer?’ she said finally. ‘Didn’t they suggest it?’

  ‘I don’t need one. They’re just making enquiries. I simply told them what I did and what I found. It must have happened while I was at the airport with Murphy. When they establish the time of death they will know I had nothing to do with it. Anyway, I don’t suppose my solicitor would have welcomed driving from Inverness to Edinburgh in the middle of the night.’

  ‘I’ve said for years you should get someone local. Anyway, the police would have found you one.’

  ‘I’m a witness.’

  ‘You must be their only suspect.’

  ‘They released me, so presumably they believe me.’

  He didn’t quite catch what she said. Didn’t want to know.

  At five o’clock Quinn called Spargo’s mobile and asked where he was.

  ‘My daughter’s flat,’ he said. He wanted to add that seeing as how Lothian and Borders police had taken over his house, it was the only place he could go. Sanctuary, of sorts.

  ‘I need to see you. I’ve got something to show you.’

  Jez was in the room with him and was gesturing, pointing to the phone. He ignored her she prised it from his hands, pressed a button and put it on speaker so she could hear.

  ‘Show me what?’ Spargo asked.

  Quinn’s voice rasped from the speaker. ‘Photographs,’ Mr Spargo. I need you here now.’

  Jez shook her head and pointed at the floor. Spargo frowned at her, trying to work out the words she was mouthing. Finally he got it.

  ‘I’m at my daughter’s. It would be better for me if you came here.’

  Quinn paused. ‘It’s not at all convenient. Oh, very well, just this time. Give me the address.’

  Quinn arrived alone. He placed a slim leather folder on Jez’s breakfast bar, unzipped it and took out a handful of photographs he passed to Spargo, holding them carefully so Jez couldn’t see them. Spargo glanced at each one of them. Wished they were black and white and not colour.

  ‘Look at them properly,’ Quinn said. ‘It’s not as if you haven’t seen it for real. The body’s been tidied up. The face is more natural.’

  Spargo concentrated on the first photo, the head and shoulders of a man around thirty years old. The wire had been removed from the neck but a purple gash remained. The face was chalky white, and back to what Spargo assumed was its normal size. He stared at it, trying to work out how they got shots at that angle with the stainless steel slab behind. Did they have a camera on the mortuary ceiling? Did they climb above the corpse on a stepladder or did they tilt it up for the camera? He tried to make out the background, whether it was the floor or the wall.

  ‘Mr Spargo?’

  ‘Yes… no… I’ve never seen him before.’

  ‘As far as you know,’ Quinn said dryly.

  ‘Do you know who it is yet?’ Jez asked.

  ‘We’re working on it.’

  Jez grunted. ‘So that’s a no?’

  ‘It’s a no, Miss – ’

  ‘It’s not Miss anybody. It’s Jez Spargo. Doctor Jez Spargo.’

  Spargo put the photos on the table and Jez picked them up. Held her breath as she studied each one. Then she looked at Quinn and shook her head. ‘I don’t know who it is either. I hope you’re not thinking my father had anything to do with this.’ She turned to Spargo. ‘Did you tell him about Gran?’

  Spargo shook his head. ‘It’s hardly relevant.’

  ‘God, Dad!’ She faced Quinn squarely. ‘My grandmother was beaten to death last month in Kilcreg. The officer dealing with the case is Detective Sergeant Mitchell. That’s Northern Constabulary.’

  Quinn looked from her to Spargo and back again. ‘Spargo…’ he muttered, ‘Morag Spargo.’ I knew I’d heard that name somewhere. Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘As I said, I didn’t think it was relevant. Do you think there’s a link?’

  With sagging shoulders Quinn seemed to collapse in on himself. It was as if whatever weight he carried on his shoulders had increased tenfold.

  ‘To be honest with you Miss… Doctor… I have absolutely no idea.’

  ‘Not a happy bunny,’ Jez said when Quinn left. ‘We’ve just destroyed any case he might have had. As I said, he had only one suspect.’

  Spargo wagged a finger at the table where the photos had been. ‘Did he really think I could do a thing like that?’

  ‘He thought you knew the dead man.’

  ‘And killed him in my own house? Not the brightest thing to have done.’

  ‘You had an argument. You lost your cool.’

  ‘You watch too much television. So tell me why he was naked.’

  ‘I would have thought that was obvious. You said you thought it was sexual, you even said that to Quinn. You didn’t want the police comparing fibres and DNA so you took the man’s clothes and you dumped them. You dumped yours as well. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen that jacket you’re wearing for a while.’

  He stared hard at her. ‘Good god! That really is not funny. The police took the clothes I was wearing. Sometimes I worry about you.’

&n
bsp; She smiled. ‘I’m simply telling you what went through Quinn’s mind.’

  ‘And now it doesn’t?’

  ‘Even he must think the probability of you murdering your own mother and then killing this man is close to zero.’

  ‘Stupid of me not to tell him about it before.’

  ‘You had other things on your mind. Couldn’t see the wood for the trees.’

  ‘Couldn’t even see the trees. Still can’t, to be honest. I can’t go home. Don’t want to. I need to book into somewhere for a couple of days. What’s that place near the old fire station like? Know anyone who’s stayed there?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous! You’ll stay here. That’s if you can cope with the folding bed.’

  The thought of staying with her hadn’t entered his head. Even if it had, he wouldn’t have suggested it.

  ‘It’s not fair on you,’ he said. ‘I’ll try the hotel.’

  ‘You’ll stay here. That’s on the strict understanding it really is for no more than a couple of days.’

  The door to Dr Jessica’s flat opened. Midge sunk low in his seat. Through the car windscreen he saw two figures silhouetted in the doorway, Dr Jessica and the back of a man Midge was sure he’d not seen there before – until he turned and descended the steps. He blanched as he recognised Quinn, the man who put brother Robbie away. He sunk lower still, managing to get most of his body jammed under the steering wheel, down near the pedals.

  He stayed while a car door slammed, an engine started up and a car drove away. Then he stayed there even longer in case Quinn actually knew he was there and was trying to fool him by pretending he’d left. Slowly and painfully Midge unwound himself and looked around. Saw no sign of Quinn.

  Quinn was old, he couldn’t be far off retirement. At that age some of them were scared of doing something stupid, being dismissed and putting their pension at risk. They slowed down, did as little as possible or nothing at all. But not Quinn. Quinn had always behaved like a Rottweiler. And as he got older he seemed to get worse.

  So why had he been to see Dr Jessica? Had she complained she was being followed, being watched? If that was why Quinn was there then surely she would have been given him the number or make of his car? If so, Quinn would have walked straight to him.

  Sure the visit by Quinn was something Mr Luis needed to know about, Midge fiddled with his phone, typing text: Spargo woman’s flat raided by fuzz. He read it twice and then deleted it – it wouldn’t do to use the name Spargo on the phone. Nor was there any point mentioning Quinn, because Mr Luis wouldn’t know who the hell he was. He retyped the message: CID called at the flat.