by Adam Croft
‘Listen, the money that’s paid to Avalon is one thing. That’s what’ll be down on paper. But there’s a whole lot more floating around in the darkness behind that. Legal fees, administration costs, consultancy services... All bywords they use to mask payments to interested parties. And besides, how difficult do you think it is to hide ten or twenty grand in cash in the middle of a multi-million pound development plan? I’ll tell you — not very.’
Culverhouse leaned forward, meeting McCann’s eyes. ‘What are you saying? There are bungs involved?’
McCann laughed. ‘If there’s a council planning and development meeting, there’s a brown envelope floating about. Trust me on that one. Nothing’s completely above board with those bastards.’
‘Hang on a sec,’ said Culverhouse, frowning. ‘Why are you telling me this? You’re an Avalon shareholder. You make a nice bit of money out of every building contract they get. Why would you want to put that at risk by tipping me off about backroom deals?’
‘Because, Detective Chief Inspector, it’s those backroom deals that mean I’ll be left with a lot less than you think I will. Sure, the development might be worth twenty mil. And seven percent of that is, what, almost one and a half mil. But I only get a dividend on profits. If that profit’s all been eaten up by consultancy fees and administration charges that are being paid out to the main players, how much do you think I’ll be left with? Believe me, I’m a minor player. I have no say in what Avalon do. And I definitely have no say in what happens to the hospital. That was decided a long time ago.’
‘By who?’
‘By the hospital trust and the council. If you want to find the really corrupt bastards, just look at them.’
44
‘That doesn’t really tell us a whole lot more than we already suspected,’ Wendy said when Culverhouse told her about his visit to McCann’s house.
‘No, but it confirms it. And I know what you’re going to say. You’re going to say that we can’t believe a bloody word he says. And usually you’d be right, but I saw it in his eyes. He’s seriously fucked off about it as well. He knows he’s owed more money than he’s going to get out of this, and he knows it isn’t the first time it’s happened.’
Frank Vine laughed. ‘Bloody hell. Gary McCann turns whistleblower. Never thought I’d see the day.’
‘Oh, he’s far from innocent, I’m sure. Might be worth us having a closer look at what else he’s been up to. Feels like he opened up a little too easily for my liking.’ Culverhouse paused for a moment, thinking. ‘I wonder if he’s preparing himself for a plea bargain, getting himself some brownie points.’
Before Culverhouse could say anything else, he was interrupted by his mobile phone ringing. Picking it up, he looked down at the display.
‘Right. Knight, see what you can find out about the hospital trust. Who the directors are, the decision makers, all that. And find out who would’ve been the decision makers on the council’s side. We need to do some digging into these bastards.’
Culverhouse walked into his office, closed the door behind him and pressed the Answer button.
‘Helen,’ he said, quietly.
‘Jack. I got your message.’
He remembered leaving a long, rambling message a few nights ago after one too many whiskies, and he tried his hardest to remember what he’d said. ‘Oh. Right.’
‘Listen, you need to let this go, Jack. We both do. For our sakes and for Emily’s.’
‘I know. I just need to know where she is. I need to see her. It’s... It’s killing me.’
Helen was silent for a few moments. ‘Jack, Emily isn’t with me. She hasn’t been for years.’
He swallowed. ‘What? What do you mean?’
There was a brief pause, and then Helen spoke. ‘When I left, it wasn’t just because of you. It was because of me, too. I couldn’t cope. Not with you, not with her. Not with life in general. When I left the house, I went straight to my parents. I told them... I told them some things that weren’t strictly true. I shouldn’t have done it, but it was the only way I could be free. For myself.’
Jack could feel his jaw clenching. Try to stay calm. Don’t lose your rag. ‘What did you tell them?’
‘I told them you’d been abusive, that I felt scared and threatened. I knew they wouldn’t be rushing to get in contact with you if I said that, and that if you came to them, they’d turn you away. They just wanted the best for me.’
He stayed silent for a few moments, trying to compose himself. It was an immensely hard thing to do. ‘That’s why they wouldn’t take any of my calls. Why they said I shouldn’t try to chase you.’
‘Yes.’
‘So when you left she was just thirty-five miles away?’ He couldn’t believe it, could hardly even get his head around this new piece of information. ‘How long was she with them for?’
There was a pause. ‘She’s still with them, Jack.’
He could feel his heart thudding in his chest. All those years, all that time spent wondering where she was…
He took a deep breath before saying, ‘I’m going over there.’
‘No, you can’t.’
‘Try and stop me, Helen. I’ve waited long enough for this. I need—’
‘No, I mean you can’t because they’ve moved. They don’t live in that house any more.’
‘Where do they live?’ he asked, calmly.
‘Not far.’
He shook his head as he pressed his fingers into his eye sockets, trying to push back the confusion. ‘How the hell did you manage it? Thirty-five miles, for fuck’s sake. How the hell did I not bump into her?’
‘Because you didn’t try to find her, Jack,’ came the quiet reply. ‘You didn’t try. I knew that if you really wanted to, you could find her. And that if it got to that stage then you probably deserved to find her, because it would have shown that you actually, finally cared enough to go out of your way for us. But it took you eight and a half years, Jack. Why do you think I was so angry when I came back? What do you think it was like to find out how little you cared?’
He let out a huge breath. ‘I did care, Helen. I do. I still do. Why do you think I’ve had people running around Spain trying to find you?’
‘Listen,’ Helen said, ignoring his question. ‘Every Thursday and Friday she goes skateboarding at the skate park near where they live. She’s there in the evenings, usually from about eight o’clock until ten. She’ll be there tonight and tomorrow. Jack, don’t go wading in. Please. But I know you want to see her, to see that she’s alright. Promise me you’ll keep your distance.’
He could feel his breath catching in his throat. He decided to say nothing about the fact that she was spending evenings out in a skate park on her own at her young age. He didn’t know whether he wanted to laugh, cry, or be sick. Perhaps all three. ‘How long ago did you last see her?’ he asked, his voice almost cracking.
Helen was silent for a few moments. ‘Too long.’
Once he’d managed to steel himself enough to leave his office and re-enter the major incident room, Culverhouse made his way across to the door on his unsteady legs, flinging the door open in his usual brash style.
‘Right. Sorry about that,’ he said, trying to sound as normal as possible. Where were we?’
‘Mildenheath Hospital Trust,’ Wendy said, standing in the middle of the room with a look on her face that said everything had changed. ‘The board of directors. Three guesses as to who’s the highest ranking medical specialist on the board, the person who’d have the most sway over the decision to close the hospital or not.’
‘Go on.’
She sighed. ‘One Julian Mills.’
45
‘It seems pretty fucking clear to me,’ Culverhouse said, the veins starting to appear across his forehead. ‘You’d expect the senior consultants to be the ones who’d want the hospital to stay standing, so imagine the sway he’d have by speaking out in favour of knocking it down.’
‘But it doesn’t quite make sen
se,’ Wendy said. ‘Why would he? Like you said, you’d imagine that he’d be completely against the plans. He’d stand out like a sore thumb if he went against that stereotype.’
Culverhouse stood with his hands on his hips, trying to stop himself getting any angrier. ‘He’s a clever man, Knight. He knows that all he needs to do is admit to some of the benefits of merging care services, the cash-strapped NHS, all that bollocks. Or even just put forward arguments in favour of keeping the hospital open, while making those arguments majorly flawed, so they’re shot down in flames by the “opposition”. There are a hundred and one ways of doing it. It goes on all the time.’
‘Why don’t we have a closer look at his financial records?’ Debbie Weston suggested.
‘Worth a shot,’ Wendy said, turning to her, ‘but it’s unlikely to show anything. This’ll all be done under the radar somehow. Cash, gifts, favours in kind. They’re not going to be that blatant about it, that’s for sure.’ She glanced at her watch. Shit. She hadn’t realised how late it had got. Xav would be at the restaurant shortly.
‘What about phone records? If we can find a direct link between Julian Mills and someone on the inside, that might open up a new line of enquiry.’
Steve Wing chipped in. ‘But what would that actually prove? It just shows that he knows another bloke’s phone number. What are we actually accusing him of?’
‘Any number of things, Steve,’ Culverhouse said, rounding on him. ‘Corruption, illegal payments, potentially even fraud. Or how about that poor bloody woman lying in a coma in hospital?’
‘We don’t know he’s involved in that, though,’ Steve said, suddenly sounding unsure of himself.
‘Oh come on, Steve. Join the dots. Julian Mills is on the board of directors for the Mildenheath Hospital Trust. The same hospital they’re trying to get knocked down so they can build a housing estate worth twenty million quid. A housing estate that’s being built by a company whose shareholders include the dodgiest fucker south of the North Pole. And this whole charade was being investigated by a woman who’s randomly attacked — and almost murdered — on her own doorstep. Not only that, but she’s currently in the loving care of the specialist brain injury unit at guess-which-hospital, being looked after by guess-which-consultant.’
‘Yeah, and that’s exactly what I mean,’ Steve said, standing up. ‘Isn’t that all just a bit too convenient? Why have her put in that hospital? Why not just finish her off? Why hasn’t he finished her off yet, if he’s got all the means at his disposal?’
‘Steve, look at the facts,’ said Culverhouse. ‘The attacker was disturbed. That’s why Tanya Henderson didn’t die. It’s sheer luck — or bad luck, however you look at it — that it’s her local hospital that has a specialist brain injury unit. But it’s hardly a coincidence — it’s the hospital Julian Mills works at, and the reason she discovered the whole scandal was because she lives locally, so she was bound to be sent there. I bet Mills thought all his Christmases had come at once when she got admitted.’
‘And who was it who suggested putting her into an induced coma?’ Wendy added. ‘The nurse said herself that in her opinion, Tanya should’ve been kept out of a coma, or at least brought round sooner. With Tanya Henderson unconscious, he had her exactly where he needed her. Maybe he was planning to keep her in a coma until this whole deal had been signed off, I don’t know. Maybe she was going to take an unfortunate turn for the worse in the middle of the night at some point. Maybe he was half banking on her waking up and not remembering a thing. Who knows? He didn’t plan it to work out this way, so he was playing it by ear as much as the rest were. And it’s hardly surprising he re-induced the coma as soon as she started mumbling about Pevensey Park.’
‘Would it be fair to say that you agree with me then, Detective Sergeant Knight?’ Culverhouse asked, his hands still on his hips.
‘Hey, I’m just throwing the theories out there. There’s nothing we can prove,’ replied Wendy, shrugging.
‘No, but we don’t have much choice, do we? Tanya Henderson is lying in that hospital bed being looked after by a man who’s potentially involved in the reasons for her being there in the first place. If we’re right, he’ll want her dead.’
Wendy looked at her watch again. Xav would definitely be at the restaurant by now. He was always slightly early. ‘Guv, I don’t think you’re wrong on this. Far from it. But we have a pretty major problem — there’s no evidence. We can’t just go wading in, throwing about accusations. And I’m sure Julian Mills won’t just be taking bungs in his joint bank account. It’ll be far more complex than that. We’ve got no way of proving it.’
Culverhouse smiled. ‘We don’t need to prove it.’
46
As far as Xav could tell, each of the songs being played in the restaurant sounded identical. They were all the same sort of traditional faux-Italian songs, middle-aged crooners singing the usual numbers: Volare; Mambo Italiano; Arrivederci, Roma. He tapped the bottom of his wine glass gently on the table in time to the music, watching the purplish liquid dance around the bowl of the glass, leaving a clear trail behind it.
He was only on his second glass of wine. The first had been because he was slightly nervous, plus he knew Wendy was likely to be late. She had a big case she was working on — that was fair enough — but dinner tonight had been her idea, and he had expected her to at least stick to that. Maybe he’d been right all along; maybe this wasn’t something worth pursuing. But he’d bought the bottle of wine now, so he was going to at least give her the time that it took for him to drink it before he did anything daft.
A waiter floated over to the table. ‘Can I get you anything at all, sir? Some bread and olives, perhaps?’
Xav went to wave him away, but then had a change of heart. ‘Yeah, yeah some bread and olives would be lovely. Thanks.’ He might as well get some food out of this, he thought.
He chastised himself for being too quick to jump to conclusions. She’d suggested the dinner, so there was no way she wasn’t going to turn up. There might have been a breakthrough in the case, for all he knew. After all, some things were more important than dinner, but she only needed to let him know. Sure, he would’ve been disappointed — gutted, even — but at least he would have known, and he would have understood. Being sat on your own in a romantic restaurant was hardly a brilliant way to spend the evening, even if there was wine and food.
The waiter smiled at him as he placed the bread and olives on the table. It was a smile of pity, a smile that said I’m sure she’ll turn up soon and Let me know if you want to sneak out the fire door at the same time.
The bread was still warm, and it smelled delicious. He took a bite, savouring the flavour, then washed it down with another mouthful of wine. If nothing else, he was enjoying the food and the drink, but he couldn’t deny there was something missing.
He glanced at his watch. Eight-thirty. That was plenty late enough for him to be justified in calling her for an update, he thought. He took his phone out of his pocket and called her.
Wendy cursed at the unusually heavy traffic as she made her way along the high street, heading out of town towards the hospital. The roadworks for the new bypass were causing havoc in this area of town, especially when she really needed to get somewhere quickly. If Culverhouse had been here, he would’ve had the siren slapped on the roof and he’d be bombing down the wrong side of the road, overtaking the lot of them. But, being single-crewed and leading the way with Steve, Debbie, and Ryan in the car behind, she couldn’t afford to be quite so maverick. However, a little bit of ‘improvisation’ wouldn’t go amiss.
Approaching a roundabout, she got into the left-hand lane — a left-turn-only lane — and undertook a line of cars waiting patiently to enter the roundabout. Straddling the white lines, she managed to nip in front of a van that was going straight on, cutting into its lane and upsetting the driver, who responded with a long hard honk on the horn and a few choice hand gestures. Wendy raised her own hand in apology
and kept her eyes on the road in front of her.
Her phone rang in the coin tray next to her and, glancing down, she could just about make out Xav’s name flashing up on the screen.
‘Damnit, Xav,’ she said to herself, knowing she couldn’t answer while she was driving. The hospital was only a mile away now. She’d call him when she got there.
After the seventh or eighth ring, the call went through to voicemail. He had no intention of leaving a voicemail. After all, what would he say? If she wasn’t here, she wasn’t here. She couldn’t enjoy the ambience or eat a meal through her answerphone.
He didn’t know whether to feel angry or disappointed. He felt a mixture of both.
He’d heard it a number of times — don’t get into a relationship with a police officer. And although he’d always known what they meant, he’d also hoped it wouldn’t matter. He thought things might be different with him, different with Wendy. In many ways, she wasn’t the same as a lot of the others. But in some ways, it seemed, she was.
‘Any luck?’ the waiter said, approaching his table.
Xav looked down at his phone.
‘No. No luck.’
47
Jack Culverhouse had his pedal to the metal, too, although he wasn’t heading in the direction of Mildenheath Hospital. He’d told the others he wanted to head over on his own as he had to quickly do something first. Once they’d left, he’d got in his car and started off towards the town Helen’s parents lived in.
The drive seemed to happen on autopilot, a thousand and one thoughts flitting around in his head as he tried to keep his emotions in check. There was still something at the back of his mind that told him this wasn’t really happening, that Helen had lied again or fed him another red herring, but none of that mattered. All that mattered was that there was a possibility, a small chance, a tiny ray of hope. If he was willing to get on a flight to Spain because someone he’d never heard of reckoned he’d spotted someone who might have looked a bit like Emily, then he was perfectly happy to make the short drive up the road to a skate park.