by Ann Troup
Matt took the card and gave her a wry smile. Since the minute he’d met Sophie he hadn’t heard her utter a sensible sentence yet. ‘The very minute.’ he said.
The young DC nodded, a pensive frown creasing her brow. It looked as if she was about to say something, but seemed to think better of it before turning on her low heels and striding off.
For the second time in two days Matt had ended up sitting vigil at someone’s hospital bedside. Even incoherent, half asleep and rambling, Sophie was more pleasant company that Lena had been. Wherever Sophie had been for the last two days at least she wasn’t going to dump some horrendous revelation on him like Lena had. Even at that moment Matt wasn’t sure he had fully taken in what Lena had told him. They had dangled his father from the end of a rope because two silly girls had made a mistake and caused the death of their friend – and in their panic they had framed it as a murder. He’d talked to Lionel White about it the night before in an attempt to make sense of it, despite finding it odd that the kindness of a stranger had made it so much easier to talk about. The old man had been fascinated and had admitted himself that he’d always thought John Bastin an unlikely killer, something which Matt had been gratified to hear from at least one of his father’s contemporaries. White had told Matt that he had lived on the square all his life, and Matt had found it odd that he didn’t remember him. Most of the people from his childhood had been larger than life and twice as mouthy, but a man like Lionel had a quietness and a refinement that made him a peripheral sort of character. Lionel White was the pile of stuff on the stairs that you ceased to see after a while because you had walked past it so often. The fact that he didn’t have a place in Matt’s memory made sense when he thought of it that way. Lionel had been an interesting source of information though, filling in lots of gaps in Matt’s research that had been nigh on impossible before. So much of what Matt had needed to know had to be of an anecdotal source; when you were the son of a convicted killer people weren’t always keen to share their memories with you for fear you had inherited the murder gene and would turn on them at any moment. Lionel had no such qualms and had gossiped away quite happily whilst consuming copious quantities of pungent Earl Grey tea.
Matt had been interested to learn that years before there had been some suspicion that Lena Campion had been having an affair with Frank Morris – her own husband had been paying his debt to society at the time, having been detained at her Majesty’s pleasure. Lionel had even speculated that Sam might be the product of that affair, though he didn’t assert it as a fact. It made Matt squirm to think that Edie didn’t know, and could easily have slipped into a relationship with an unknown half-brother. In fact it made him more than squirm, and if he chose to dwell on it could have made him extremely angry. The outcomes of all these secrets and lies were already painful enough to bear.
It had been an interesting evening indeed, especially when they had jointly concluded that if Lena and Dolly had been responsible for Sally Pollett’s death, and the consensus was that Matt’s father was innocent, someone was still responsible for the other four deaths. Between them they had reviewed the known evidence, and Matt had been flattered by Lionel’s assertion that he was impressed by Matt’s knowledge of the murders. It had been nice to have his efforts acknowledged, though he was embarrassed to admit it even to himself. By the end of the evening, they had both concluded that Frank Morris was still the most likely candidate. Sadly, despite his extensive knowledge of the square and its recent social history, Lionel had been unable to shed any light on what might have happened to Frank.
They had parted on good terms, with Lionel expressing a wish to see Matt’s collection, and Matt extending the offer of showing him ‘any time’. The only frisson of discomfort had occurred as Lionel was showing him out and Matt had casually mentioned that he believed Dickie Morris was still alive. Lionel had looked genuinely shocked at this, and had explained that he and Dickie had once been bosom friends in the dim and distant past. In a moment of pity for the old guy Matt had told him where Dickie was staying. The only problem was, he regretted saying it, and for the life of him couldn’t work out why.
Sitting here now by Sophie’s bed, watching her doze, the semantics of the past felt so unimportant. He’d heard that three people had died in that fire, and this kid could have been a fourth. Why it should matter to him so much he didn’t know, except he’d had a rotten lonely childhood too and had felt just as much adrift as she did. The army had saved him but it wasn’t an option for Sophie and maybe he and Edie were all she had. Two disjointed, fucked-up, middle-aged people weren’t much of a port in Sophie’s particular storm, but they were better than nothing. It seemed that fate had brought them all together, and it wasn’t the done thing to argue with fate if it had decided you had a family after all.
***
Alice was perturbed. As expected her two coherent witnesses had told her nothing. They had been released from the hospital after being patched up for minor scratches, and been shitting themselves in her presence because the reason they had been tardy during the evacuation was due to the fact that they had been too bloody stoned to react. So far all enquiries into unusual behaviour before the fire from any residents of the square had yielded nothing. Anyone that might know something was unlikely to talk, and anyone else was just going to make it up on the spot. The fact that the fire had been set deliberately was in no doubt and they didn’t need the investigator to tell them that, but what they did need was some explanation for why it had been set. That would only come from carefully sifting through the debris of both the fire itself, and the devastation it had caused to the residents of the square. Sam Campion was still AWOL, and he was their number one person of interest, given that he owned the building where the fire had started. If they could find him they might have somewhere to start, but all Alice had so far were the grainy images of the CCTV that had filmed him walking away from a road traffic accident. He would turn up eventually no doubt, but given what she’d heard so far that day, it wouldn’t surprise her if he arrived in a body bag. One of their more willing informants had volunteered the information that Sam had fallen foul of a certain Mr Pascoe and that it had something to do with the diamonds that had turned up after their fifteen year sojourn. According to her superior officer the same diamonds that had caused Edie Byrne to be brought in for questioning the day before. Alice’s perturbation was brewing from the fact that Edie Byrne had been released without charge and hadn’t been seen since, and that a body had been discovered in the remains of the burnt-out kitchen in the house that she had given as her place of residence. Logic might dictate that Edie and the body were one and the same person, but preliminary findings were clearly stating that they were not. The body was male, had several broken bones that didn’t appear to be fractures caused by the heat and, being only partially burned, had informed the pathologist that it had been in that house for a very, very long time. Rather gruesomely Alice had been told that the body in Number 17 appeared to have been mummified, not deliberately, but by the passage of time and dry air. The remains had been found in a cupboard, which was the house’s original larder built with preservation in mind. According to the fire investigator, the larder had been hidden behind a dresser, the larder door nailed shut and covered with wallpaper until the fire had consumed the best part of the dresser and revealed it. The flames had eaten through the door and lapped at the body, barely touching the bricks and slate shelves of the larder itself. The body had cured over the years like a Serrano ham and by the time the team got to it had resembled a grisly, over-cooked pig roast. The only smell it had ever produced was when the fire had been subdued and it betrayed its presence with the acrid stench of burnt bacon.
Alice’s frustration, which outweighed her perturbation a hundred times, was that she could do nothing about any of it. The task she had been set in the investigation was to gather witness statements (hah!) and sift through the paperwork to find out who owned, rented, lived, worked, resided or otherwise
had a vested interest in the damaged properties. It was a shame that a fine-toothed comb and a short handled broom weren’t part of standard police issue; she might have found them both extremely useful.
Chapter Twenty-Two
‘What the fuck did you think you were playing at? Didn’t it cross your mind that they’d be crawling all over a house with two dead bodies trapped in a basement and the whole place stinking of petrol?’ Johnno was referring to the police and he was shouting.
Sam unscrewed the cap on the bottle of cheap whisky and poured himself a generous measure, less a few fingers and more a fist. He took a gulp before answering, wondering if he had underestimated Johnno’s intelligence. ‘It doesn’t really matter what they find as long as it doesn’t point back to me.’
‘You own the bloody building!’
Sam looked at his glass, regarding the pale glow of the liquid and the way that it clung to the glass, almost like oil. He took another gulp and grimaced, baring his teeth for a second as the heat of it hit his gut. ‘True, but you poured the petrol.’
‘So you reckon you could’ve kept your cool do you, when they were asking you why two women were tied up in a house that you own?’
‘But they wouldn’t have been tied up by then would they? The heat would have melted the cable ties and they’d have just been your typical crispy critters, all gnarled up. Accidental death, mate.’
Johnno rolled his eyes. ‘Oh yeah, simple as that, because the police are fobbed off that easily. Shit Sam, you’ve fucked us all over! I’ve always done your dirty work, no questions asked, but you’ve never forced me to murder innocent people – fuck’s sake Sam, no one cares if a scumbag gets turned over, but women and kids?’ Johnno shook his head in disbelief as if accusing Sam of breaking some mutated code of honour amongst thieves.
Sam laughed ‘It’s all semantics now anyway. I’m fucked whatever I do – that bitch lied about the diamonds, and Pascoe will have my head on a spike either way.’
‘Both our heads.’ Johnno said with a grunt. ‘So, this her gaff is it? Nice place.’
Sam cast his eyes around the empty kitchen with its bespoke units and central island. ‘If you like this sort of middle class schlock.’
‘She must be in for a fair bit of cash, it being sold and all – where’s the husband then?’
Sam slid a letter across the worktop. ‘Living it up down under by the looks of it, her kid lives out there. Nice bloke, wants her gone “out of his life” by the time he gets back, apparently his solicitor will be in touch about dividing up the spoils.’
‘So who owns this place now?’
Sam shrugged and drained his glass. ‘No fucking idea but according to this the sale doesn’t complete for another week so unless the estate agent decides to call in for a sneaky piss we should be all right.’ he said, stabbing at another letter.
‘You do know that tampering with mail is an offence?’ Johnno said, his tongue literally in his cheek.
Sam ignored him and poured another drink. ‘Did you get everything I asked for?’
‘Course I fucking did, I wouldn’t have been dicking about in that house if I hadn’t, would I?’
‘And you’re sure you dealt with our mutual friend? The police can’t do fuck all without a witness.’
Johnno sniggered. ‘The only way he’ll be talking to the police is via a fucking medium. Shame about Suse though, she was a good earner she was.’
‘Well maybe you should have thought about that before you smashed her face in and left her in a burning house. Not like it matters, we won’t be going back. Besides, what’s the difference about who died? A minute ago you were bleating about it, who do you think you are bud, God?’ Sam sneered.
‘Fuck off Sam, you know it’s different – we owned Suse, and that twat Garvey owed us. Anyway it weren’t like I had a lot of choice mate – fucking fire bobbies were banging on the door getting everyone out and Suse started screaming. If I’d have let her go you wouldn’t have got your gear would you?’
It was true enough, and right now Sam’s “emergency” rations were more important than a whore’s life. He had to laugh really, if Suse had known that she was sitting on £250,000 in cash every time she fucked a man… well, it was funny if you thought about it. ‘Got to love a divan bed – all that storage.’ he said, an indifferent smirk lifting the corners of his mouth. ‘So you left it like the two of them were in a clinch yeah?’
‘Yeah, lumped him on the bed with her – not sure the filth will buy it though, Andy was small time scum, do anything for fifty quid, even torch a house for you. They ain’t going to believe that he paid a ton to fuck a whore.’
‘Whatever.’ Sam said – he didn’t care what they thought; guesswork wasn’t evidence. Bodies were evidence. ‘Makes no fucking difference to us what they think, we’ll be long gone.’
‘So what are you going to do about our other little problem?’ Johnno said, raising his eyes towards the ceiling.
‘We wouldn’t have one if you weren’t such a dick.’ Sam said, his voice laden with weariness. If Johnno had a brain he’d be dangerous.
‘It was a bit fucking pressured Sam, I can’t say I’d exactly thought it through. She was just fucking lying there on the stairs half out of it – I just threw her over me shoulder and scooted out the front door. At least I remembered to tie her fucking hands at the back!’
In any other circumstances Sam would have taken umbrage at the criticism, but Johnno was right, it seemed he’d underestimated Edie too. ‘You’re sure the girl didn’t get out too?’
‘Fucking certain.’ he said it with a certain edge to his voice, as if he wished he wasn’t.
‘Don’t sweat it bud, she might not even be yours.’
‘Never fucking know now will I? Anyway, what’s the plan?’
That was it, Johnno’s moment of regret was as fleeting as Sam’s moments of conscience. Whatever a conscience was, he’d never stopped to worry about whether he had one or not. ‘We fake her suicide, leave her here – poor grieving divorcee tops herself.’
‘How?’
Sam thought about it for a moment, about everything Edie had put him through by interfering in his business, by turning up at all. If it weren’t for her he’d be living his life as always, having a cuppa at his mum’s and being Pascoe’s best pal again. The whisky tasted worse with every mouthful, but it was serving its purpose and soothing his thoughts.
‘Well?’ Johnno demanded.
Sam looked around the kitchen once more, then wandered through to the hallway. After a moment he pointed up towards a bannister that ran along the large landing. ‘Get a rope and I’ll hang the bitch.’
Chapter Twenty-Three
Matt’s hand was shaking as he stared at Alice Hale’s card and tried to punch her number into his phone, stabbing at the buttons with fingers fat with fear. Sophie had woken up and spilled her guts, and not just into the cardboard bowl a nurse had provided. All Matt could think about was that three bodies had been found and that one of them was Edie’s.
The call went straight to voicemail and a tinny voice advised him to call 999 if he was experiencing an emergency. He was, but not the kind that the police would recognise. He left a message telling DC Hale what Sophie had told him, hung up and wondered who he should try next. Would a 999 call send anyone searching for Sam Campion? He doubted it, the crime had already been committed and the perpetrator would be long gone. Alice Hale would call him back, she was bound to, and in the meantime he had thought of a way he might be able to help her out. Leaving an extremely agitated Sophie with an equally agitated nurse and his paltry reassurance that he would find Edie and “sort it out” he made his way out of the ward and down towards reception. Lena Campion had to be in this place somewhere if they had kept her in.
Ward eighteen, bay two, bed three. He found her behind a half drawn curtain, propped up against her pillows and loudly complaining to the woman in the next bed about the quality of the tea. She spotted him just as she was
telling her captive audience how a decent cuppa should be made, apparently it involved a warmed pot and loose leaves. Far be it for him to point it out to her, but the woman in the next bed was completely oblivious. In fact she looked to be unconscious and if it wasn’t for the fact that she was hooked up to a machine tracking her vital signs, he might have assumed that Lena had bored her to death.
He made his way to the end of Lena’s bed. She looked mildly surprised to see him. ‘Hello Mrs Campion, how are you?’ he asked, offering the question more out of politeness than concern. At that moment he couldn’t have cared less if she was loitering outside death’s door.
‘I could say better for seeing you, but I’d be lying. What do you want, boy?’
Her use of that word had become intensely annoying. Matt was no boy and sometimes felt that he never had been. ‘I came to ask you where I might find Sam.’
She shrugged. ‘Search me, I haven’t heard hide nor hair of him. The nurses have been trying to ring him since yesterday and the bugger hasn’t picked up once. What’s it to you anyway?’
Matt was not about to tell her anything that might trigger a tirade, or hysterics. ‘I take it you’ve heard about the fire?’
‘Heard about it? I’ve been bloody living and breathing it, watching the news all night and not one solitary bugger will tell me about my house. They keep me in here because they’re worried about me heart, then nearly kill me with the stress of all this!’
‘As far as I know your house is fine, next door was affected, but not yours. It’s just that I haven’t seen Edie since before it started and I wondered if she might be with Sam?’
His question hung in the air as if suspended there by the ticking of the ward clock. Lena’s face was frozen with either worry or shock, he couldn’t tell which.