Grief Encounters

by Stuart Pawson

  But tonight it was a woman called Teri. That’s what she’d told Swainby her name was. I lay naked on the bed, the duvet on the floor and the window open, willing her to go away, wishing she’d stay, cursing her for leaving, laughing when she comes back. She smiles at me and I have the falling dream again, waking with a start when I hit the bottom, somewhere on Jupiter. When the collared doves start cooing, monotonous as a Philip Glass record stuck in the groove, I get up and have a shower.

  ‘You’re early, Charlie,’ the desk sergeant greeted me as I walked into the nick.

  ‘Can’t sleep, this weather,’ I replied. That, and it’s a good time to do some work, before the hurly-burly of the day begins. I’m on the first rung of the stairs when he calls me back.

  ‘Charlie…’

  ‘Yes, Arthur.’ I turned, smiling, hoping it’s a joke. I feel in need of a joke. A day that starts with a good joke is like a day on holiday.

  ‘There’s this woman,’ he begins, and my brain runs through the repertoire to see if I’ve heard it. ‘She’s in the cells. Bumped her car in the early hours and she’s OPL.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘She’s distraught. Her name’s Gillian Birchall. Reckons she was set up, somehow. Any chance of you having a word with her?’

  It isn’t a joke. ‘Me?’ I said. ‘Nothing to do with me, Arthur. Has the doctor seen her?’

  ‘Yes. No problems there. She’s forty-five. Your age.’

  ‘And a bit. So what’s so special about this one?’ Claiming that your drinks were spiked is a standard defence against drink-driving charges. It rarely works.

  ‘Well for a start, she’s headmistress of that fancy private school in Oldfield. St Somebody’s.’

  ‘So she should have known better. How much over was she?’

  ‘Fifteen micrograms. Apparently yesterday was her birthday and a boyfriend that she didn’t know very well took her out for a meal. He drove. Afterwards he took her home and she invited him in for a coffee. He didn’t stay very long, but when he went outside his car had been stolen. He then persuaded her to run him home, back to Heckley, and on her way back to Oldfield she says she was driven off the road by a Range Rover.’

  ‘Bang to rights, Arthur,’ I said. ‘Sad and unfortunate, but that’s the law. Did the Range Rover stop?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘There you go, then. She was out with the girls, got pickled, drove off the road. Tough luck. Twelve months’ ban, £200 fine, loss of credibility. Is that her fancy Honda in the visitor’s spot?’

  ‘Mmm.’

  ‘In that case, her insurance premium will double, too. That’ll learn her.’

  The day shift sergeant had arrived and had listened to most of the conversation. ‘What’s her level now?’ he asked. Arthur told him that she was down to 35 micrograms and could probably go home in about another hour. He wandered off to take a look at the only prisoner we had.

  ‘She said her boyfriend drove a Mazda RX8 and reported it stolen at about ten minutes to midnight,’ Arthur told me. ‘I’ve checked, and there wasn’t a car like that reported stolen last night or any other night. Not for over a week.’

  ‘Because she’s a lying toad. You’re going soft in the head, Arthur.’

  ‘I know, Charlie, but my granddaughter goes to that school, and Miss Birchall works wonders with them. We went to the end-of-term plays that the kids put on, and they were marvellous. She’s a brilliant teacher. This could ruin her. I don’t think she’s making it up.’

  ‘So why didn’t you just cook the figure on the Alcometer?’

  ‘Because the doc was here. I sounded him out but he came on all holier-than-thou.’

  I was wavering, not wanting to be involved. I didn’t like the thought of diverting resources, namely my time, to protect a foolish woman who’d flouted the drink-driving law. When I applied Dave’s Gaitskell House test – would I do this if she lived in the Gaitskell House tower block – the answer was a resounding ‘no’.

  The day shift sarge came back. ‘She’d like a black coffee,’ he said, then, to me: ‘She’s a good-looking woman, Charlie. Would you like to take it to her?’

  I shook my head in disbelief at my own folly. ‘You know how to manipulate a vulnerable single man,’ I said. ‘Give me the key, Arthur, and twenty pence for the machine, please.’

  ‘It’s not locked,’ he replied. ‘And the coffee’s your treat.’

  Gillian Birchall wasn’t at her best, but she looked OK. Her mascara had run and her eyes were red, but the figure was well-proportioned and she had no carbuncles or other serious disfigurements. She was wearing a blue dress that showed her knees and had draped the blanket she’d been given over her shoulders. Her shoes were sensible granny’s lace-ups with scuffed toes, and didn’t go with the dress.

  ‘My name’s Charlie Priest,’ I told her after I’d rapped my knuckles against the cell door and pushed it open. She took the coffee from me and whispered a thank you.

  ‘I’m a detective inspector. The sergeant has told me your story,’ I went on, ‘but I’d like to hear it from you. I warn you, though, that if it’s just a fanciful attempt to justify your behaviour, I shall be mightily displeased.’ I savoured the moment. It’s not often one has the chance to chastise a headmistress. I sat on the plastic chair. She was on the edge of the bed.

  ‘It’s not a fanciful tale,’ she replied. ‘I’m convinced I was set up.’

  ‘Tell me about it.’

  He was called Richard and was polite, handsome and quite sophisticated. He’d had a public school education, was an NS and had a GSOH. It was only the third time she’d met him, but when he learnt she had a birthday coming he’d insisted on taking her out for a meal. They’d dined well, at the Wool Exchange, and her story was more or less as Arthur had related it to me.

  ‘I don’t socialise much,’ she confessed. ‘I work hard and most of my friends are married. I was rather pleased to be invited out by a respectable, attentive male who wasn’t football mad and didn’t appear to have any hang-ups. Especially when he said he’d drive.’

  ‘How much did you have to drink?’ I asked.

  ‘More than I ought. Normally I only ever have the odd glass of wine. He bought a bottle of an Australian Shiraz, of which I think I had more than half, and after that we each had two orange juices. I suspect there was a vodka or perhaps something more sinister in mine. He assured me it was straight orange juice, but they went down extraordinarily well.’

  ‘Did he order them from a waiter?’

  ‘No, he went to the bar for them.’

  ‘Is that all you had?’

  ‘Not quite. At my house I poured us both a small brandy.’

  ‘It sounds as if you pushed the boat out.’

  ‘I know. I’ve had a few problems lately with a certain section of the school governors. It was a nice change to let my hair down. I thought: what the heck. I was enjoying myself and school’s out, so a hangover was a small price to pay.’

  ‘Weren’t you suspicious of him at all? Or of his intentions?’

  ‘It crossed my mind. We had a quick coffee at my house, and the brandy, and I was expecting him to…well, you know…make a move. Suggest staying the night, or something. But he finished his drink and announced that he had to be on the seven-twenty train to London this morning, and better be off. On one hand it got me out of an awkward situation, on the other, I felt just a small tweak of disappointment. It would have been nice to be asked.’ She smiled at the confession and sniffed.

  I could imagine the scene. She’d give him a goodnight kiss, which would develop into an embrace, and her principles would start to wobble like a trick cyclist in a crosswind. I’m forty-five, she’d think to herself, and I’m missing out. My life is slipping by. She might even plan what she’d write in her diary: My birthday; got laid.

  ‘So what happened then?’ I asked.

  ‘His car had gone. We saw that from the doorway. He had a quick look around and then came back in. He phoned the
police and reported it missing and tried for a taxi. They said they’d be half an hour, so he persuaded me to take him home. He said the wine would have worn off by then. He needed to be in London for a ten o’clock meeting, otherwise it would cost him thousands. Stupidly, I fell for it.’

  ‘Did he use your phone?’ I asked.

  ‘No, his mobile.’

  ‘And you only heard one side of the conversation?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where did you drop him off?’

  ‘Outside the gates of one of those riverside developments in Heckley. He watched me drive away. Whether he went inside or not I don’t know.’

  ‘And then what happened?’

  ‘I was going down the hill, towards the Five Lane Ends Road crossroads and there were these headlights behind me. Suddenly I didn’t feel sober any more. I felt decidedly squiffy. It was a 4x4 and it came up behind me, dazzling me. I slowed down because I thought it might be the police. Near the crossroads it suddenly shot past, pulled in front and braked hard. I hit the back of it and swerved off the road, into the ditch. He just drove on.’

  ‘And it was a Range Rover?’

  ‘I think so. I remember seeing the little green Land Rover badge as I hit it, but it was quite a swish vehicle, not one of those that looks as if it’s made out of Meccano.’

  ‘Who called the police?’

  ‘I don’t know. I phoned the AA but the police came first, and here I am.’ She gestured with her arms. ‘God, what a mess.’

  I could imagine how she felt. The arresting officer would have treated her with practised disdain as he breathalysed her and brought her to the nick. Then it would have been a blood test and the taking of fingerprints and DNA samples. Mugshots would have been fired off, standing in front of the same wall as a long procession of killers, rapists and burglars. She’d have had her rights thrown at her and been questioned about her lifestyle until she felt like someone in a Kafka novel. Or like a criminal. And now she was in a tiled cell with a bunk along one wall and a stainless steel toilet in the corner, and I was her one hope of redemption.

  ‘You need a solicitor,’ I said. ‘You’re bailed to appear in court one day next week, but he can ask for an adjournment. Has it all been explained to you?’

  ‘Yes, Inspector. Ad nauseam.’

  ‘Meanwhile, I’ll have someone try to find this Richard. See what he’s all about. No Mazda RX8 was reported stolen last night. Can you definitely say that his car was a Mazda?’

  ‘Definitely. I admired it. Truth is, I’m a bit of a petrol head. It was an RX8 all right.’

  ‘Well that should make him easy to trace. Is his wine glass still standing unwashed on your kitchen table?’

  ‘Um, I imagine so. And his coffee mug.’

  ‘Good. Pick them up carefully and put them somewhere safe. Then, if necessary, we can check his fingerprints. I’m afraid I haven’t anybody to send over at the moment.’ And, of course, it gave me an excuse to renew our acquaintance at a later date.

  ‘Do you think he spiked my drinks, Inspector?’

  ‘Only with alcohol. Rohypnol, the date rape drug, is a bit of a myth. As far as I know there’s never been a proven case of its use in this country. The preferred drug of the date rapist is alcohol. Some of those Australian wines are quite strong, and you were mixing them.’ I thought for a few seconds, then said: ‘You mentioned something about having trouble with the school governors. What’s that all about?’

  ‘Oh, you may have read about it in the papers. We have the usual fundamentalists on the panel and they want creationism to be taught as an alternative to evolution. I’ve said over my dead body.’

  ‘Intelligent design?’

  ‘And that.’

  ‘Good for you. Do you think they could be behind this? Wanting to discredit you?’

  ‘Not really. They’re a couple of old dears, but are still living in the seventeenth century.’

  But, I thought, they could have friends, be members of a church that had strong views about these things. Strong enough to take violent action. I hoped that Christian fundamentalists weren’t behind it. I’d have prayed they weren’t behind it if it hadn’t seemed so hypocritical.

  I said: ‘Fair enough. Finish your coffee and then you can leave. The car’s outside so it must be driveable. Sorry I can’t be more helpful but that’s how it goes.’

  She said: ‘Well, thanks for listening to me. I’d never felt so lonely until you came in. I’m very grateful.’

  I smiled at her. ‘That’s all right,’ I said. ‘I’m a sucker for women with runny mascara.’

  She wiped under her eyes with her fingers. ‘Uh! I hardly ever wear it. So do you believe me?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ I told her. ‘I believe you. Those are very sensible driving shoes you’re wearing, but I can’t see you going on a special date in them.’

  She lifted her feet to look at them, toes pointed inwards, and gave me the nearest thing to a smile she’d managed all night. I waved a goodbye and stood up to leave. At the door I said: ‘One last question, Miss Birchall. Where did you first meet this Richard?’

  ‘Oh God,’ she said, putting her hand to her head. ‘Yet another embarrassment. I was hoping you wouldn’t ask that.’

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The top-of-the-range Rover 75 in Ted Goss’s garage was almost certainly the one he was seated in when the compromising photo was taken, so I had a SOCO go over it for samples. We’d keep them on file for future reference, if required. The coroner had declared his death a suicide, but he was an MP and there were the inevitable questions asked about his dealings, both financial and political. For some strange reason they’d kept off the sexual possibilities, but the press would have a feeding frenzy if they ever saw the photo. Fortunately only Edwin Turner and I knew of it. And, of course, the photographer.

  The nearest Mazda dealer was in Huddersfield, and only nine RX8s were registered to owners who lived in Heckley, just one of whom was called Richard. Richard Wentbridge lived at the Flour Mill, Hunter’s Valley, on the soft, southern edge of town. Gillian Birchall had blushed like a navvy at an ante-natal clinic when she confessed that she’d met her Richard at a speed-dating agency. Now where have I heard that before? I thought. The Flour Mill had been just that a hundred years ago, but now it was a desirable residence suitable for a captain of industry, a cancer surgeon or a TV weather girl. I drove by, now and again, and saw the Mazda and a brand-new Series 1 BMW on the drive a couple of times, but no people.

  Philip, the other early starter when the York and Durham was raided back in 1978, was now assistant manager at their Burnley branch. Brendan and George went to interview him and reported that he was married with two grown-up children and lived a lifestyle appropriate to his earnings. He remembered Gail fondly, said he fancied her like mad back then, and was heartbroken when she left. He didn’t realise she’d been fired. They told him that she wasn’t doing too well and he said he might try to contact her.

  We tracked down a few more students and a couple of them recognised Magdalena but had nothing to offer about who her friends were. The hole-in-the-wall gang were interviewed again and leant on fairly heavily, but none of them had any idea where Ennis might be living. Crimewatch showed a 25-year-old photograph of him and a computerised morph of what he might look like today. Thirty-two people phoned in, and during the following week every sighting was traced and eliminated. We showed his photo at Doncaster, Sheffield and Belle Vue dog tracks, but only received shakes of the head. We’d have been better employed showing it to the dogs. Their wagging tails would have told us if they were hiding anything.

  Gillian Birchall’s case was adjourned on the grounds that there might be mitigating circumstances and I received a postcard at the nick showing canoeists disturbing the reflections on Lake Louise, near Banff, and signed with a G. Then the breakthrough came.

  ‘DI Priest,’ I said into the phone. It was Thursday afternoon, my feet were on the desk and I was about to go home early for once.
The sun was shining again after a couple of days of showers, and my grass desperately needed cutting.

  ‘Oh, hello, could I speak to DI Priest, please?’ The voice was nervous, and sounded like a schoolboy.

  ‘This is DI Priest. How can I help you?’

  ‘Oh, hello. This is the Blue Sky Trust. We’re a multi-ethnic, non-religious, non-sectarian charity that works with ex-offenders; trying to help them re-integrate with society.’

  ‘Uh uh.’ I swung my feet back onto the floor.

  ‘I’m assistant to the regional coordinator, standing in for him while he’s on holiday.’

  ‘Ye-es.’

  ‘Well, earlier today I took a call from a man called Peter Ennis. He sounded desperate, wanted our help.’

  I sat up, swept the papers on my desk aside and grabbed a pen. ‘Go on.’

  ‘So I told him we were understaffed at the moment but if he’d come back in a week’s time we’d arrange an appointment. I started to make a file out for him, on the computer, but then I saw that there was already one there, presumably done by my boss. It didn’t have much on it. It just said: “If makes contact tell him that a DI Priest, Heckley CID, is trying to find him”. So that’s what I’m doing.’

  I thought about explaining that he was supposed to warn Ennis that I was after him, not the other way round, but decided not to. He was probably on work experience during his uni’s recess, and finding it difficult in the big, wide, bewildering world.

  ‘Cheers,’ I said, airily, as if I couldn’t care less. ‘He left a couple of rather good oil paintings behind when he was released, and we want to get them to him. Do you have a forwarding address?’

  ‘Primrose House, Primrose Avenue, off Lumb Lane, Bradford. It’s a squat. There’s no postcode, I’m afraid.’

  ‘We’ll find it. Thanks for your help.’ I put the phone down, picked it up again to confirm that the connection was broken then punched the air. ‘Yes!’ I shouted. ‘Yes!’

  Dave and Maggie saw my jubilation and came to investigate. ‘That’s his address,’ I told them. ‘Ennis’s. Also known as the Pope. Ring Bradford, Dave. Tell them we’re a-coming.’