Grief Encounters

by Stuart Pawson

  Dave developed a sudden interest in DIY and soon had Pope swapping hints about property development with him. If it counted as your main dwelling place, we learnt, you could sell without incurring capital gains tax, as long as you kept it down to one per year. He’d worked, he told us, as a roofing contractor, but was now retired due to ill health.

  He’d never heard of Magdalena, never been to Headingley and had only visited Leeds when Manchester City played United, back in God-knows-when. He’d seen the match but not much of the town because he’d kept his head down to dodge the missiles bouncing off the coach windows. On the weekend Magda died he’d drunk himself rat-arsed on Fosters and Blue Mountain Shiraz; a habit he’d developed in the Antipodes.

  It wasn’t a completely wasted journey. We stopped at my favourite truckers’ café just off the M62 and had steak and kidney pie. The café should have died when the motorway opened, but quality sells, and now the clientele are more likely to be pensioners from Blackburn, Burnley or Bradford than lorry drivers on the Liverpool–Hull run. Dave wiped his chin on a napkin and rang his wife, told her he’d eaten.

  ‘So what do you think?’ I asked as he watched me tuck into a portion of apple pie and custard.

  ‘I think that if I ate as much as you do I’d weigh a ton.’

  ‘I burn it off; nervous energy,’ I explained. ‘It’s a curse. I have to keep eating to keep my blood sugar level up. You don’t know how lucky you are, having a weight problem.’

  ‘I think Mr Pope has a cushy carry-on,’ Dave reckoned, coming back to the subject. ‘He’s almost certainly on the pan-crack, sells his house every year or two for a nice profit, after making a few modifications to bring it up to date. Nothing too strenuous, just a bit here and there, while living on the job. I think I could manage that.’

  ‘You couldn’t knock a nail in straight.’

  ‘I can. I got a C in woodwork.’

  ‘Did you? I thought it was religious instruction. C’mon, take me back.’

  In the car I reclined my seat and closed my eyes. Dave said: ‘Blood sugar level troubling you?’

  ‘Something like that,’ I replied. I was thinking about being a roofing contractor in Australia. The weather was hot, but you were on the roof of someone’s bungalow, in the breeze, wearing shorts and stripped to the waist. It sounded fun. Then you come to Lancashire, where the ancient houses are three storeys high and the wind whips across them and eats into your bones like a gnawing rat. It was no contest, medical bills or no medical bills. Didn’t Australia have a National Health Service? I’d check it out, but for now, Georgie Pope was still in the frame.

  Serena, one of my DCs, was in the foyer as we entered, and she fell in step with me as we climbed the stairs.

  ‘Did you go and see the blind lady?’ I asked. She was working on the hold-up, with Jeff Caton.

  Serena smiled as only she can. ‘Yes, boss. And guess what? She says she can recognise the man who pushed her to the ground.’

  ‘Can she? So is she only partially sighted?’

  ‘No, she’s as blind as a bat, but she says she would recognise his voice again.’

  ‘Oh. So what does Jeff say to that?’

  ‘He says it’s worth bearing in mind, but not enough on its own.’

  I hung my jacket behind the door and looked at the fresh pile of paper in my In basket. There was a conspiracy to swamp me in paperwork; I was sure of it. One day, deep inside the pile, there’d be something incriminating. I’d miss it, and the next thing I knew would be the rubber heel boys lifting me off my chair and throwing me out of the front door. It reminded me of the paedophilia, hidden deep in the folders on Superintendent Swainby’s computer.

  Jeff came in and I confessed to him that I’d quizzed Serena about the blind woman. ‘You’re the boss,’ he conceded. ‘Apparently she told Serena that the person who knocked her over shouted “Get out of the effing way” at her in a green voice. Except he didn’t say effing.’

  ‘A green voice?’

  ‘That’s what she reckoned.’

  That thought triggered off images of Wassily Kandinsky and his paintings. He claimed that he saw musical notes as colours. ‘Am I right in believing it’s the gala on Sunday?’ I asked.

  ‘It is,’ he confirmed.

  ‘Crikey. I’d better do some work tonight, then.’

  ‘Are you putting something in again?’

  ‘If they’re dry in time. It wouldn’t be the same without my contributions.’

  I made a coffee, took it into my office and dialled a number. I was about to put the phone down when Len Atkins answered.

  ‘It’s DI Priest from Heckley CID, Mr Atkins,’ I said. When I was sure he remembered who I was I went on: ‘Did Magdalena ever mention anyone in Australia that she knew?’

  He said: ‘No, never.’

  ‘Did she ever express a desire to go there?’

  ‘No, not to me.’

  ‘Did Angela ever mention it? Did she ever threaten to join her dad in Oz, anything like that?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘OK, Mr Atkins. Thanks for your time. I’ll keep you informed.’

  Next I rang ex-DCS Colin Swainby. ‘It’s Charlie Priest,’ I began. ‘Just a quick question. Did the young woman – Teri, was it – did she have a knowledge of computers? Not just a bit on how to use them. Did she know about software and viruses, that sort of thing?’

  ‘No, I doubt it. She was a hairdresser, once upon a time, and eventually owned a small chain of beauty salons. I doubt if she knew one end of one from the other.’

  ‘Ne’er mind,’ I said, ‘it was just a thought.’

  ‘Except…’ he began.

  ‘Except what?’ I encouraged.

  ‘Except…I think her husband might have been au fait with them. He was something in IT, she told me. That’s computers, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. It is.’

  ‘What have you found out, Charlie? Could someone have put those images on my hard disk?’

  ‘According to my information, yes they could, using something called a Trojan horse virus. It would be undetectable.’

  ‘So that’s it, then. The husband…’

  ‘It’s a strong possibility.’

  Swainby started to laugh. I thought he was choking, at first, then I realised he was laughing. It was an admission that he’d been well and truly caught. ‘That’s perfect,’ he said. ‘Just perfect. He stitched me up, good and proper.’

  ‘It’s probably illegal,’ I said. ‘There are laws about these things.’

  ‘No, I’ll take my medicine, Charlie. At least I’ll have something to tell people, now. Those I want to tell. She told me they were separated, but obviously he didn’t think so. Thanks for your trouble, Charlie. I feel better about it, now, knowing that there’s a plausible explanation.’

  ‘Enjoy your retirement.’

  ‘I think I will.’

  Having Swainby off my back rejuvenated me, and for once I didn’t hang about in the office. I collected the frames for my pictures from the PC who made them and went home. They always look better with a frame, no matter how simple. I fitted them loosely and studied the finished works for about ten minutes while I ate a bowl of tinned pears. The organiser of the gala had rung me to confirm I’d be entering, and had asked what the pictures would be called, for the programme. I usually say: ‘Untitled One and Untitled Two,’ but he asked me to call them something more interesting.

  Dylan was singing on the music system, all about his ‘Visions of Johanna’. The paintings lacked something, I decided. A motif, or a cipher, to lift them, provide a theme, and link them together. The words of the song provided it. I scratched a hint of an electricity pylon into the still-wet paint of one of the pictures and painted a short row of them, green on red, on the second one. That was it. They were finished. Titles: The Ghost of Electricity, One and Two. Being metaphysical is easy once you realise it’s ninety per cent balderdash.

  I was sealing the backs of the pictures with mask
ing tape when it came to me. Synaesthesia. That’s the medical condition of seeing colours associated with sounds. I rang Jeff Caton and spelt it out to him before it fled from my memory again. He said he’d check it out on the Internet.

  The Magdalena enquiry wouldn’t go away. We looked for the tattooist but drew a blank, and started tracking down the student population who lived in the vicinity. This meant talking to their landlords and asking for a forwarding address, which would be the parents in the majority of cases. Most of the landlords were helpful, some were downright liars who were abusing the system. Not a few of the students had told their parents they were staying on for a variety of reasons, but were nowhere to be found. The ones we did locate were scattered far and wide. We forwarded pictures of Magda to the local forces and asked them to do the interview. It was a waste of time: one of the most distinctive characters of my era had become the Invisible Woman.

  So we went national, and my drawing of her was shown on Crimewatch. Nineteen people rang in to say they’d seen her, of whom sixteen were evenly spread throughout the country but three were in a cluster around Pontefract. We were in business, or so we thought.

  Dave and I made the drive and spoke to the Ponte Three. One had a stall in the market selling pet food and the woman she’d seen on television was a regular customer, buying food for a dog and a parrot, but she hadn’t been in for at least a fortnight. Number two had seen her in town, whilst shopping, but couldn’t add anything to that. Number three was a bus driver. The woman, he told us, caught his bus once per week into Pontefract to do her shopping. She got on and off at Little Smeaton, but he hadn’t seen her for a couple of weeks. Buses to and from Little Smeaton were about as regular as solar eclipses, so it looked as if she’d changed her routine. We hotfooted to the village.

  The first door we knocked at and showed the drawing elicited a shake of the head. The second and third pointed down the main street, the fourth one said: ‘Next house down.’

  Dave knocked and we waited, looking up at the windows, peering round the side of the house, listening for noises. The grass in the lawn was just a little too long, the windows grubby and a vase of flowers in the downstairs window was long past its best. It was beginning to look as if we’d found Magdalena’s last place of residence.

  I knocked again while Dave walked round the back to see if any windows were open. Breaking the door down seemed unnecessary but we needed to be inside.

  ‘I wonder if any of the neighbours have a key,’ I said.

  ‘I doubt it,’ Dave replied.

  ‘Haven’t you one of those sneaky little implements in your pocket that will unfasten any lock devised by man?’ I asked.

  ‘You’ve been watching too much TV.’

  ‘Let’s talk to the immediate neighbours,’ I suggested. ‘See what they can tell us.’

  ‘If this were one of the Gaitskell Heights flats you’d have had the door kicked in by now.’

  ‘No, I wouldn’t.’ I lifted the brass knocker one last time and rat-tat-tatted it against the door while Dave leant on the bell-push.

  A voice inside said: ‘All right, all right, I’m coming.’

  I looked at Dave and we pulled approving faces at each other. A bolt slid back, a key turned and the door opened. Dave had delved into his pocket for his ID and he was already holding it at arm’s length as the woman appeared before us.

  ‘I’m DC Sparkington and this is…’ His words trailed off. She was about sixty, with a pleasant, rounded face and greying hair that hung in a thick ponytail down the front of the dressing gown she was wearing, almost all the way to her waist. She could have been Magda’s sister.

  ‘…DI Priest,’ I said, finishing Dave’s introduction and producing my own ID. ‘Heckley CID. We’re sorry to trouble you but do you mind if we come in for a talk?’

  We should have known it was too good to be true. Her son was a session musician in America, and he’d had a contract in New York so she’d flown out to spend two weeks with him, doing the shows. We’d awakened her from twelve hours’ jetlag-induced sleep. I told her about Magdalena and why we were there, but she couldn’t help us. We had a cup of tea with her, proffered our thanks and apologies, and drove back to Heckley.

  ‘Ask the local forces to talk to the other sixteen?’ Dave suggested as he pulled into the yard.

  ‘Can’t think of anything else, squire,’ I replied, ‘unless you fancy driving the length and breadth of the land and talking to them yourself.’

  ‘No, we’ll let them do it. What about the serious crime whatsit at Bramshill?’

  ‘I’ve asked Brendan to prepare a résumé for them.’

  ‘Sorry Chas. I’m not trying to tell you your job.’

  I gave him a sideways look as I released my seatbelt. ‘That’s OK, David. You keep me on my toes.’

  Jeff Caton was itching to speak to me. ‘It’s looking good, Charlie,’ he enthused, in my office a few minutes later. ‘Apparently this synaesthesia is a pukka-gen complaint, except it’s not a complaint at all. Mrs Dolan – the blind lady – assures me she can pick him out from his voice. She said he has a green voice, with a bit of brown round the edges.’

  ‘What colour voice did she say you have?’ I asked.

  ‘I didn’t ask.’

  ‘Come off it. What did she say?’

  ‘Um, I’m not telling you.’

  ‘Go on. I won’t laugh.’

  ‘She said I’m pink.’

  ‘Ah ah! That’s what I’d have said. So what’s happening?’

  ‘I’ve had a word with CPS,’ he told me, ‘and they’ve spoken with Rodway and Clark’s solicitors. They think we’re mad and would be laughed out of court.’

  ‘Which is what we want them to think.’

  ‘Exactly. They’re happy to go ahead, if it’s all done properly, and I’ve fixed it up for eleven a.m. Monday morning, if that’s OK?’

  ‘It’s fine by me, but let’s discuss the best way of doing it.’

  We decided to run it like a normal identity parade, with extra safeguards. We’d supply four voices, the defence could provide another four if they wished, and we’d make it up to a dozen by inviting two in off the street, like we used to do. I went with Jeff to see Mrs Dolan and she was delighted that we were taking notice of her at last. I told her about Kandinsky and she said that Jimi Hendrix was a synaesthete, too. Apparently his Purple Haze was so-named because that’s what he saw when he played the chords. She was a small, attractive woman, with a happy smile that radiated warmth you could almost feel, and lived in a specially adapted ground-floor flat in a sheltered complex near the town centre. She worked part-time at the supermarket, and found her way there and home again with only the help of a white stick. Although she’d been roughly handled and knocked to the ground she thought blundering into the robbery was a hoot.

  That night ex-DCS Swainby rang me at home. He didn’t apologise for the late hour but he did introduce himself as Colin Swainby, which was a first.

  ‘What’s the problem?’ I asked, thinking I’d seen and heard the last of him.

  ‘He’s not satisfied, Charlie,’ he began. ‘He’s not satisfied with losing me my job – the bastard’s twisting the knife, now.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘I just had a phone call from the deputy editor of Britain 2000. He wanted to know if it was true that I’d resigned to escape prosecution for having indecent images on my computer. He said they’d be running an article next week but wanted to offer me the chance to give my side of the story.’

  Britain 2000 is a weekly rag that usually promotes raving right-wing views, but isn’t averse to taking a swing at the police when it suits them, and everybody, just everybody, hates a paedophile. Castration is Britain 2000’s way of dealing with that little problem.

  ‘That’s big of him. I don’t suppose he said where the story came from.’

  ‘I asked, but he wouldn’t say. A source, that’s all.’

  ‘I’m not sure how I can help, Mr Swai
nby,’ I said. I’d done what I could and as far as I was concerned he was on his own. I believed him, but he’d been the ruin of many an officer’s career, including plenty of innocent ones. Now he knew how it felt. ‘Your first step is probably to take out an injunction against them publishing.’

  ‘I will, first thing in the morning, but it will only be an interim. I was just wondering if you had any other suggestions.’

  ‘Confess to the affair,’ I told him, ‘and lay it on about the jealous husband and his knowledge of IT. That’s about all you can do, I’d say. Some will believe you and some won’t. You won’t come out of it lily white, but nobody cares about extra-marital affairs, these days. These days you’re the odd-man-out if you’re not having one. Call it damage limitation.’

  ‘And what if they took it to court? In today’s climate nobody would believe me and they’d be free to print what they wanted. I could face prosecution. If it went to the CPS they’d be over-eager to appear fair and even-handed. They’d love to put me in the dock.’

  ‘Yeah, you’re right. In that case, boss, all I can suggest is having a word with the NARPO rep and asking them to recommend a solicitor.’

  ‘I’m not a member.’

  ‘Well you’d better join.’

  ‘I suppose so. I’ll keep you informed.’

  Thanks a bunch, I thought, as I replaced the receiver. For once, I’d have preferred being kept in the dark, and I hoped I’d heard the last of him. I’d enough to worry about without taking on his problems.

  ‘Do you remember old Leach’s dog?’ Tristan Foyle asked, laughing so much he almost spilt his drink.

  ‘You mean the first time or the second?’ Richard Wentbridge wondered.

  ‘Oh, God, not the dog again,’ his wife protested.

  ‘I’d forgotten all about the first time,’ Tristan said. ‘That was somebody else’s show, though. Not ours.’

  They were seated in an alcove at the Wool Exchange restaurant, favoured haunt of Heckley’s wealthy locals, visiting pop stars and footballers, and the TV crews that proliferate in the southern Dales. They’d dined well, paid the bill and Richard had asked a waiter to order a taxi for them.