by Neil White
The officer looked towards the magistrates and spoke clearly. ‘Absolutely none.’
Joe had what he wanted. The officer had made a mistake and then stood his ground, turning a possible mistake into a cast-iron certainty. Joe wanted to get through the rest of the case quickly, to leave the intoxilyser clock in the minds of the magistrates.
He didn’t call his client to the witness box. He had what he wanted and it would just give the prosecutor a chance to ask awkward questions, looking for a slip.
The expert did the rest. Blinded everyone with how the machines can sometimes be wrong, giving plenty of examples, even though they were mainly examples of where he’d blinded other courts. But the clock was the clincher.
‘Does the machine have a set period in which the second breath sample must be given?’ Joe asked.
‘Yes,’ the expert said. ‘The machine purges itself and then counts down. If the sample isn’t provided in time, the machine times out.’
‘And what is that set period?’
‘Three minutes.’
‘Not two minutes?’ Joe said.
‘No, three minutes. I have the operators’ manual in my briefcase if you need it confirming, but it counts down from three minutes, not two.’
‘And if it counted down from two minutes?’
‘The machine wasn’t working properly.’
There it was. The prosecutor hunched forward over his file, thinking how to deal with the problem, but there was nothing he could do. There was no expert for the prosecution, and why would there be? The prosecution case was that Joe’s client was telling lies about how much he’d had to drink, and backed up by bad driving and alcohol on his breath, it was a good one to make.
Until a police officer had made a simple and honest mistake, and Joe was ready to exploit and magnify it just because his client was wealthy enough.
His client walked out of court with the air of a man who had almost been the victim of a gross injustice. Joe hoped that at least when his client was alone later that day he would reflect that he’d got lucky, nothing more, but Joe doubted that.
Joe watched him go, his wife holding his hand, the expert witness walking with them.
He turned to the prosecutor and said, ‘Sorry about that.’
‘Sorry? What for?’
‘You know what I mean.’
‘Don’t be, Joe. I’d have done the same. That’s the game.’ He collected his paperwork and his laptop and followed Joe’s client out of the courtroom.
Joe followed more slowly. By the time the courtroom door closed, there was no one left on the corridor. Joe went to the window and looked out over the city centre, or at least the sliver of it that he could see, the view ahead along the glass fronts of designers stores, the taxis and traffic of Deansgate further up. He thought back to the police station again, to Mark Proctor. Ellie’s death was the reason he’d become a lawyer. Helping wealthy clients avoid road traffic laws was just about paying the bills.
He pulled his phone from his pocket and took some breaths to calm himself. He’d written Proctor’s number on a scrap of paper.
Proctor answered on the third ring. ‘Yeah?’
‘It’s Joe Parker from Honeywells, your solicitor from last night.’
A pause, and then, ‘Oh, hiya. What do you want?’
‘I need you to come into the office, just so that we can get your story straight for when you go back to the police station.’
There was another pause, and Joe fought the impulse to fill the silence. He had to sound casual.
‘Yeah, okay then. What time?’
‘We can do either three or four o’clock. Which suits you?’
‘Three,’ he said.
Joe thanked him and hung up.
He tapped his phone in his hand as he remembered his promise to himself. He’d made it at the time and reminded himself of it whenever he thought about Ellie. It was one he intended to keep and had dreamed of getting the chance.
The promise? To kill the man who murdered his sister.
Ten
Sam looked at Charlotte in surprise. ‘Henry Mason was wanted for the murder we were already working?’ he said. ‘And now he’s been killed? What is it, some kind of gang feud? Look at this house, the area. Remember his clothes. He doesn’t seem the type.’
‘He was hanging around in a park after dark, a few miles from home,’ Charlotte said. ‘That isn’t normal behaviour. He was up to something. We need to find out what.’
‘And what the connection is with a dead teacher.’
‘Exactly,’ Charlotte said. ‘Let’s see if there’s anyone in.’
As they both got out of the car, they put on their jackets. The day was warm, but if they were breaking bad news, it didn’t seem right to be casual. Sam was in a white shirt, a blue tie against the charcoal grey of his suit. The heat made his collar damp.
They approached the door slowly, putting off the moment when they changed someone’s life for ever. The house looked silent as they got close, with no bright flickers from the television or signs of movement.
They exchanged quick glances before Sam rapped on the door. He looked around. There was no one watching. They were in an unmarked car and they could have passed for salespeople or religious doorsteppers.
‘I’ll speak to a neighbour, see if anyone else lives here,’ Charlotte said.
Sam stepped back and looked up at the house. ‘There’s a dead man in a park around ten miles from here, connected to another dead man. What about the occupants here? There might be more inside. We’ve got grounds to force the door.’
Sam was about to aim a kick at the area around the lock when there was a sound nearby. He stopped and looked up. A man in a dark blue suit was coming from the house next door. He stopped when he saw Sam and Charlotte.
‘Everything all right?’ the man said.
Sam pulled out his identification. It was time for a change of plan. ‘DC Parker, Manchester Police. Does Henry Mason live here?’
‘Yes, he does. Is he in trouble?’
‘Does anyone else live here?’ Sam said, ignoring the question.
‘His wife, Claire, and their two sons. Or at least they did.’
‘What do you mean?’
The man looked around and then walked towards them. ‘There was a screaming row last week,’ he said, leaning in before raising his hand in apology. ‘We’re not nosy, you understand, but it was hard to miss it. The night was warm and our windows were open. Theirs too.’ The man frowned. ‘Is everything all right?’
‘I don’t suppose you have a key?’ Sam said.
‘No, I don’t, but I know where they keep one: under the pot at the back. The alarm password is 1234. They told us in case the alarm goes off when they’re away.’
‘Thank you, Sam said. ‘Sorry to keep you.’
‘It’s all right. Just being neighbourly. If you need anything else, just call. You know where I live.’
Charlotte went to get the keys that were hidden where most people hide them as the neighbour took his time in deciding to set off, until his curiosity was beaten by his need to be somewhere else.
When Charlotte came back to the front of the house, she was holding a set of keys. ‘Thank God for good neighbours,’ she said, as she tried a few. When she found the right one, she took a deep breath and went inside. There was the frantic beep of the alarm until Sam pressed in the numbers. Then there was silence.
They were in a wide hallway with stairs ahead, the floor wood-lined, modern and shiny. There was a living room to one side. Sam pushed at the door. It opened onto a room that seemed almost golden: light brown carpet and yellow striped wallpaper. The sofa and chairs echoed the stripes, with gold trim on the cushions. A chandelier hung from the ceiling, but the ceiling was low so Sam had to dodge it as he moved across the room. He didn’t want to touch anything in case he made it less than pristine.
A set of doors led to a dining room, the table shiny dark wood, with glasses set on coas
ters and napkins folded inside.
‘Intense,’ Charlotte said. ‘And there are children in the house.’ She pointed to photographs on the mantel over the fire.
They were studio shots of two young boys, nervous smiles under dark fringes, their best shirts worn for the occasion. There was just one happy family picture, taken on holiday, Sam presumed, the whole family grouped around a restaurant table. Henry Mason was in a red T-shirt, his tan deep, the muscles on his arms taut, his hair deep black. He was the man on the video from the florist’s. The woman in the picture had blonde hair that was pinned back by sunglasses, her smile bright and wide.
‘It must be an effort to keep it like this,’ Sam said.
‘Appearances matter, it seems,’ Charlotte said. ‘We need to check upstairs, to make sure we’ve no more dead bodies.’
Sam went first, walking slowly upwards, unsure what they would find. The stairs and landing were like downstairs, neat and clean with a tall vase with dried flowers at the top of the stairs and family photographs on the walls.
He took a pen from his pocket and held his breath as he used it to push open the door to the first room, so that he wouldn’t remove any forensic traces. It creaked open into a boy’s room, action toys in a box in the corner. It was empty.
‘Nothing here,’ Sam said.
‘No, here neither,’ Charlotte said, looking into another child’s bedroom before pushing open the bathroom door with her foot.
They faced each other as they stood in front of the door to the main bedroom. Sam used his pen again to push open the door. It swished along the pile of the carpet as it opened, revealing an ornate metal bedframe with a silky bed cover. There were photographs on a dresser and a large wardrobe, but there was no one inside.
‘At least the body count has stayed low,’ Sam said.
‘I’ll take this room,’ Charlotte said. ‘If there’s a lady of the house, the contents of her drawers might make you blush.’
‘Thank you for sparing them,’ Sam said. ‘I’ll have a look around downstairs.’
He listened to Charlotte opening drawers as he went downstairs and into the living room. Whenever someone is killed, secrets and private lives are revealed.
Sam went straight towards an oak bureau in the corner of the room. It was three drawers deep, with cupboards on either side. The top drawer was filled with placemats and napkin rings. It was the drawer below that held the document envelopes. He peered inside. Bank statements, bills, papers relating to the house, like insurance and mortgage details.
He checked the mortgage documents first. The first one was a letter from the building society: they were behind on their payments.
Sam rifled through the bank statements. They were ordered but they told the same story: things were not going well financially.
Charlotte came back into the room.
‘Anything unusual?’ Sam said, looking around.
‘No, nothing. And you’d have been fine up there. The vibrator count was low.’
‘Less fun down here,’ Sam said. ‘There’s money trouble. I wonder if he went to the wrong kind of person for help.’
‘But why would his fingerprint be found in blood at another murder scene?’ she said. ‘They might be in money trouble, but people like this always are. Their life is all about how other people see them, a family to be admired. Affording it is something else entirely.’
Sam was about to start looking at entries for a month earlier, any purchases or cashpoint withdrawals that might put him near the other murder, when a car sped into the cul-de-sac, braking sharply on the driveway.
Charlotte raised her eyebrows. Someone had passed on the news that they were at the house.
A car door slammed. Angry footsteps were followed by the front door opening so quickly that it banged on the wall in the hallway. The woman from the photograph burst in. She didn’t look as radiant as she did in the pictures. Her hair was shorter and her eyes flared with anger.
‘Who the hell are you, in my house?’ she said.
Sam pulled out his identification. ‘I’m DC Parker, Greater Manchester Police, and this is DC Turner. Claire Mason, I presume.’
‘What’s he done now?’
‘Henry?’
‘Who else?’
‘Please sit down, Mrs Mason,’ Sam said, his voice softer.
‘No, I won’t sit down. Tell me what the hell is going on.’
Sam stepped forward and took hold of her hand. He looked her in the eyes and gave a smile loaded with regret. ‘No, please sit down.’
That’s when she knew.
Claire Mason slumped onto the sofa, her hand trembling in front of her mouth. Charlotte sat next to her and held her other hand.
Claire stared straight ahead. She hadn’t asked any questions, even though Sam could tell that she was full of them. Eventually, she looked up at Sam and said, ‘How?’
Sam gave her a regretful smile and said softly, ‘We’ve found a man in a park near Stalybridge, murdered. We think it’s your husband.’
‘What, so you might be wrong?’
Sam didn’t answer. There was a chance they might be, but they didn’t think so. The clothes matched the footage from the florist and so did the pictures in the house.
Claire wailed and put her head in her hands. Sam and Charlotte waited once more, until she looked up and said, ‘What was he doing in Stalybridge?’
‘It looked like he was meeting someone,’ Sam said. ‘Do you know anything about a meeting?’
‘Meeting someone? Who?’
‘That’s what we’re trying to find out,’ Sam said. ‘Does he know anyone in that area?’
‘No. He works on the other side of Manchester,’ she said. ‘That’s where his showroom is, near the airport.’ A pause and then, ‘Why do you think he was meeting someone?’
Sam swallowed. This was the hard part. Any chance of his memory being fondly held was about to end and Claire’s life would become about bewilderment, but they had to get the answers. A delay in a murder case can allow forensic evidence to be scrubbed away.
‘He was carrying flowers,’ Sam said. ‘We’ve got footage of him buying them and they were found at the scene.’
‘Flowers?’
Sam nodded.
Claire started to shake her head, anguish replaced by disbelief. ‘Why would he have flowers?’
‘Mrs Mason, do you know whether your husband was seeing someone else, or planning to see someone else?’
‘No, of course not,’ she said, anger taking over. ‘Why would he? No, not Henry.’
Charlotte leaned forwards. ‘Mrs Mason, we are going to have to look through everything. We need to find out more about Henry’s lifestyle. We need computers, phones, anything.’
Claire seemed as if she was about to object, but she nodded eventually and slumped back on the sofa.
The family liaison officer would arrive shortly, because the hard job of telling their sons would come next. Then they would go about the task of disassembling Henry’s life, to find that secret he was hiding from his wife, the secret that eventually cost him his life.
Eleven
Joe drummed his fingers on the green leather inlay on his desk. Legal texts dominated one wall, a collection of law reports he never looked at but were there to impress his clients.
His office was laid out like an Edwardian drawing room, with richly coloured wallpaper and a wooden fireplace. There was a more sympathetic meeting room on the ground floor, with a low table and comfortable chairs, a box of toys in one corner for those times when the whole family came along, but he didn’t want this client to feel comfortable. He wanted to unsettle him. The room was silent, apart from the regular tick of the clock. It helped him focus.
His phone flashed red. He paused for a moment, wondering if he was doing the right thing. But he had waited so long for this.
He answered, listened to the message and said, ‘Show him up.’ Then he called Gina. ‘Could you come to my room in five minutes. I
’ve got a client I want you to meet.’
Joe took a deep breath as he listened to the clomp of Mark Proctor’s footsteps along the landing. His door opened slowly.
Joe stood up and said, ‘Come in, Mark. I can call you Mark?’ There was a slight tremble to his voice. He sounded like he was trying too hard.
As he came into the room, Proctor looked around cautiously, as though he was expecting someone else to be there. His tongue flicked onto his lip and he wiped the palms of his hands onto the front of his black jumper. He smelled of cigarettes.