Death Watch

by Deborah Lucy

  ‘Leigh, I’m a bit busy right now and I’m waiting for a call to come in, so if it’s not urgent can I call you back?’

  ‘You told me to ring you if anything strange happened.’ Her voice was raised and tense. ‘I-I’ve just been into the kitchen and there was a man standing outside, looking at me through the kitchen window. He was holding a lighted match in his hand, just standing staring back at me.’ Leigh was obviously shaken.

  ‘All right, all right. What did he look like?’ Temple asked.

  ‘He was a big bloke, dark stubbly hair, number two I suppose, tattoo on his neck. Grubby looking. He frightened the life out of me,’ she said.

  From Leigh’s description, Temple recognized Georgie Munt.

  ‘Then what did he do?’

  ‘He just stood there, then blew the match out while he was staring at me and then walked off. Didn’t run, just walked off out of the garden.’

  Temple realized that he must have been followed by Munt when he’d gone to get Daisy. He must have been watching him and he’d taken him straight to the front door.

  ‘Make sure you lock everywhere and stay there until I get there. Is Roger with you?’ asked Temple.

  There was silence at the end of the phone.

  ‘Leigh?’

  ‘I’ve chucked him out. I rang him at work. I’ve gathered all his things up and he’s gone … Daisy’s told me that he’s been hitting her. After you dropped her off, I asked her what the matter was. She was so upset that it just tumbled out of her. That’s why she stopped eating. He’s been hitting her.’ Leigh started to cry.

  Temple’s sudden rise of anger brought him to his feet, sending the chair he had been sitting on flying behind him.

  ‘What? And you hadn’t noticed?’ he said angrily, his focus changing from Munt threatening her with a burning match to Roger. ‘For fuck’s sake, Leigh. He’s been hitting her? Where were you?’

  Leigh continued to cry. Conscious that Kelly was still in the office, he resisted the urge to continue the argument.

  ‘Look, I’ve got to free this phone up. I’m coming over now.’

  Kelly looked over at him.

  ‘I’ve just got to sort out some domestics.’ Temple left the office and went out to his car.

  Seething with anger at the two fold assault on his family, Temple drove out of Marlborough Police Station down a congested George Lane, putting his response driver training to use as he forced his way through traffic in his unmarked car. He continued down the A4 and onto the Beckhampton Road at 120mph, one hand on the steering wheel, his other fingering the base of his neck. What sort of bloke hits a nine-year-old girl, he thought. His mobile rang, forcing him to slow down as he wrenched the phone from his pocket.

  ‘Hello? Is that the accounts department?’ the female from Dobson and Byrne asked.

  Temple quickly overcame his confusion at the question. ‘Yes, yes, it is. Do you have something for me?’

  ‘Yes, I managed to find what you need. How much are we talking about?’ she asked.

  ‘Um, about three grand,’ said Temple, just desperate for her to tell him what he needed to know so that he could drive on.

  ‘Well, the person that inquiry was given to at that time was a man by the name of Ian Turner.’

  ‘Was it definitely him?’

  ‘Yes, that’s what it says here, in front of me,’ she replied.

  ‘How can you be so sure?’ asked Temple.

  ‘Because that was the only matrimonial case we took on from Curtis Coleman. He specialized in it, or at least that’s what he liked to deal in. He told us, just matrimonial, nothing else.’

  CHAPTER 34

  TEMPLE TOOK ANOTHER call from Kelly straight afterwards.

  ‘Boss, Special Branch got back to us. Thought they’d passed on the information already. They’ve checked the passenger manifests for BA and the other airlines coming out of Singapore that day and Maxwell’s not shown on any of them. Looks like he did spend his stopover in Singapore. They’ve found him booked into The Stamford Hotel. Check in and check out times correspond with the flight he came in on and his outward journey to Sydney.’

  Temple continued his journey to Beckhampton. The new information forced him to calm down and think more rationally. He needed to get back to the office to start inquiries on Ian Turner but before he could do that, he had to get Leigh and Daisy out of the house, somewhere safe. Just until he’d finished this case. Then he’d take care of them himself; with Roger off the scene it would be easier. At the thought of Roger, his anger surged again.

  He pulled up outside the house and knocked on the door. There was no answer. He opened the letter box and shouted through it. There was no one in. With a rising sense of panic, he rang Leigh’s mobile. She answered.

  ‘Leigh, where the fuck are you?’ he asked, relieved to hear her voice.

  ‘I’m over at the pub.’

  ‘I told you to stay put.’

  Temple drove round to The Flying Bull. He found Leigh sitting inside at a table, near the open doors to the garden.

  ‘What are you doing round here?’ he said quietly, trying desperately to keep his temper under control.

  ‘Giving Daisy her tea as a treat, trying to be normal.’ Leigh nodded outside to where Daisy was sat on a swing.

  ‘I told you to stay indoors until I came round.’

  ‘I didn’t want to be indoors. We’re safe here. There’s people about.’ Her eyes were red and her voice shaky. Temple’s rage found him standing by the table, unable to sit down.

  ‘And where’s he gone?’ Temple asked, referring to Roger, his jaw tightly suppressing his instinct to shout the words. As he spoke, he looked out at Daisy in the garden.

  ‘He’s gone.’

  ‘No, where is he, I said? I want him nicked.’

  ‘I don’t know where he’s gone. I don’t care. I don’t want to see him again, he makes me feel sick. When I phoned him and told him what Daisy had said, he didn’t even argue the toss, the bastard.’

  ‘If I see him, Leigh, I’ll kill him. So, what’s been going on? What did Daisy say?’ demanded Temple, trying to keep his voice low.

  ‘She said that he’d slapped the back of her head a couple of times and on her legs. She said that he hurt her and she’d cried. Thing is, I’d seen some marks on her legs and asked her what she’d done.’ Leigh could no longer meet Temple’s gaze. Looking out at Daisy, she knew she’d let her down badly. ‘I didn’t for a minute think that he would touch her and she wouldn’t say what had happened. Why couldn’t she tell me?’

  ‘She did tell you. Eventually. Just makes me sick she was so worried that she stopped eating. She stopped eating, Leigh. They were going to send her to a shrink, for fuck’s sake.’ He looked back at Daisy who was still on a swing. His guts knotted as he suppressed other thoughts. ‘Are you sure that’s all he’s done to her?’ asked Temple, barely able to say the words.

  ‘You can’t think…?’ Leigh looked up at him.

  ‘I don’t know what to think, who knows what’s been happening. You were fucking clueless …’ He stopped speaking as he looked at her. He wanted to shake her, ask her what was she thinking letting Roger move in. But he knew the answer to that – she had wanted to hurt him as he had hurt her.

  She looked back at him, tears brimming in her eyes. ‘I feel sick. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry …’ Her voice trailed off.

  Temple tried to curb his anger towards Leigh. They shouldn’t be in the pub, they should be at home where he could shout and vent his pent up anger like anyone else would. The surroundings felt as though they were closing in around him. He was feeling attacked from all sides, as his heart pounded, sending adrenalin coursing through his body. He knew he had to calm down, he had to think.

  ‘Look, where are you going to stay tonight? You can’t go back home, I can’t leave you there now.’

  ‘We’ll be all right.’ Leigh sniffed into a tissue, feeling the weight of guilt and her own self-loathing at having brou
ght Daisy into contact with Roger. The situation removed the sense of righteous indignation she had felt towards Temple since she was sure he had slept with another woman. Her guilt told her she had failed to keep Daisy safe through her wish to hurt him. She’d just wanted him to know how it felt. She suddenly knew she hadn’t loved Roger and had played a silly game and hurt Daisy and herself in the process. The revelation about Roger made her suddenly question everything about herself.

  ‘Look, here’s my credit card,’ said Temple, putting it on the table in front of them. ‘Book into The Bell Hotel tonight, for a couple of nights. Tell Daisy it’s some kind of adventure. I’m committed on a job at the moment and I need to know you’re both safe.’

  ‘I’ll just call 999 if I get any trouble,’ said Leigh.

  ‘I can’t trust them to look after you,’ he said as he looked back at her, unable to hide his feelings as anger rose up in him again. Temple knew how thin resources were in the more rural parts of the county and he didn’t want to leave his family at the mercy of how fast a response car could get to them should Munt put a match to the house. ‘I’m not asking, Leigh. I need to look after you both.’

  He pushed his credit card towards her. She looked back at him and the tears spilled from her eyes. She gave in. She could see his anger towards her in his eyes, he’d never looked at her like that before.

  ‘Come on,’ he coaxed, ‘let’s go home and get some stuff together and I’ll take you down there, book you both in.’

  After collecting some things and putting them in a case, Temple drove them down to Devizes and into the car park of The Bell Hotel. Dating back to the sixteenth century, The Bell as it was locally known, dominated the Market Place. Although there was parking outside, they went in through the rear entrance to the reception where Temple booked them a double room. Temple’s anger continued to bubble and was tempered only by Daisy’s presence.

  He felt an overwhelming urge to shake Leigh and ask her how she could have let Roger near her. His gut knotted at the thought of Daisy being so frightened of Roger, but he also knew that he wasn’t blameless. If they hadn’t separated, it wouldn’t have happened. He knew he’d really hurt her and tit-for-tat, she’d hurt him back. On top of that, he had also put them all in danger; doing his job had now also left them vulnerable to Munt.

  Before he left, Leigh moved forward to kiss him on the cheek by way of seeking some sign of forgiveness. She leant against him, wanting him to draw her into him. He’d have given anything in the last few months to be this close to her and wrap his arms around her again but right then, he found it hard to have her near him. He pushed her gently back to arm’s length. He looked into her tearful eyes.

  ‘I’ll try and get back to see you later,’ he said quietly, ‘and find out if all he did was hit her.’

  CHAPTER 35

  TEMPLE USED THE drive back to Marlborough Station to calm down. He rang the PNC bureau and asked them to run the details of Ian Turner through the computer.

  ‘Got a breaking and entering thirty years ago and an indecency twenty-eight years ago, against a female. There’s an alias too, Ian John Taylor. I can also confirm there is no DNA for him on the national database.’

  Temple questioned the operator again until he was happy that this was the Ian Turner to pursue. He also asked for an ‘of interest’ marker to be put against him. There was an address in Croydon, a flat. Temple wrote the information up on the whiteboard and left the office. In doing so, he bumped into Sophie Twiner.

  ‘Just the man I was looking for,’ said Sophie as she saw Temple coming through the door in the front office foyer.

  ‘Sorry, Sophie, I can’t stop, I’m off to Croydon.’

  ‘Oh. Well, can I come with you?’ she asked.

  ‘No, this is business,’ Temple replied.

  She looked at her watch; it was 6 p.m. She followed him out to his car.

  ‘Perhaps we’ll catch up when I come back,’ he offered. She took her opportunity when he pressed his key fob. Opening the passenger door, she got inside.

  ‘I tell you what. I’ll take a few hours off and come with you. I could get an insight into an inquiry, perhaps do a piece for you?’ she said.

  ‘I don’t think so. I really do need to move, if you don’t mind. I’m not in the mood for this.’ Expecting her to get out of the car, she instead pulled the seat belt round her.

  ‘I’m not taking no for an answer,’ she said and pushed the seat belt firmly into the catch and looked at him. ‘Get a move on then.’

  ‘Sophie, get out,’ instructed Temple, programming his sat nav with a post code.

  ‘No, I won’t.’ She sat, facing forward.

  Annoyed, he pulled his car out of the parking space and down onto George Lane. With a clear run, he put his foot on the accelerator and stopped hard at the junction. If he meant to scare her, he failed; his reaction only excited her.

  ‘Please get out,’ he said forcefully.

  ‘I’m not going anywhere except with you,’ she said, fixing his gaze.

  He drove on, irritated at her insistence and knowing that he could hardly physically manhandle her out of the car without the possibility of her lodging a complaint against him. The journey continued in silence, Temple not quite sure what he was going to do with her.

  He intended to make the two-hour journey without stopping and Sophie grew restless as a result. Turning the heater on, she shifted in her seat. From her position, she could observe Temple comfortably, in profile. His quietness and distant stance towards her only made her more determined to make him warm towards her. Her boredom at his lack of attention drew her to touch the glove compartment. Temple’s silence finally gave way.

  ‘Don’t …’ he said. The tone of his voice made her stop. She sat back in her seat.

  ‘What do you keep in there, then?’ she asked.

  ‘Just police stuff. Not for public consumption,’ he replied.

  He glanced sideways at her, irritated. He should have thrown her out in George Lane, she was a fucking nuisance.

  She shifted in her seat. Temple watched her from the corner of his eye. She looked back at him and his eyes returned to the road.

  ‘What can you tell me about ‘the Fyfield Down murder’ case? Operation Acre, isn’t it?’ she said slowly, looking at Temple.

  He looked at her. She knew she had his interest.

  ‘I’ve been doing my research.’ She was pleased with herself. ‘You found her body, didn’t you? She was dead, naked on her bed, surrounded by pills, wasn’t she? By the time they found you, her face had been eaten by maggots.’ She looked at him, knowing her words were provocative.

  Temple remained silent.

  ‘The pills turned out to be contaminated, didn’t they? The PM was able to establish that she had them jammed into her mouth and down her throat before being strangled. Have you never been tempted to get to the bottom of it?’

  Had he been tempted to get to the bottom of it? She continued.

  ‘Didn’t you have contact with the suspect or something like that? They’ve never convicted anyone, have they?’ She looked at him, waiting for him to answer.

  The trouble with crap journalists is that they were depleted of human sensitivity and emotional intelligence. Temple knew the drill; say or do something that would provoke a response, particularly if it wasn’t true.

  ‘And this is why you’re here? To get “my story”?’ It suddenly made sense to him; her presence at the hospital – she said she’d done her research. He’d been set up.

  ‘It’s an interesting case – as a boy you find your mother dead, murdered and now you’re a cop. Come on, you must have a theory.’

  ‘Yes, I’ve got a theory,’ he said, looking at her, angry at her approach. He’d been all over what was left of the original file, copied it and kept it with him. He’d traced some of his mother’s old friends and spoken to them, taken statements from some and followed up on any leads they gave. Some had been more forthcoming than others. He e
ven had a hypothesis but he wasn’t going to give Sophie Twiner any of that. ‘My theory, as you put it, is that thirty-five years ago, they did things differently. The investigation into the death of someone who society considered to be a drug taking, non-tax-paying drop-out who associated with a lot of other druggy non-tax paying drop-outs wasn’t exactly a priority. Free living hippy types weren’t exactly popular back then. A year later came the ‘Battle of the Beanfield’, the clash between police and more free-loading, establishment-hating hippy types. There was one unidentified suspect from my mother’s murder and all that remains is a poorly put together file and exhibit bags that have been lost in the mists of time.’

  Sophie continued.

  ‘What about the officers who worked on it, what do they think?’

  ‘Most of the team who worked on it thirty-five years ago are dead, life expectancy after the job thirty years ago wasn’t that great. You retired, got your pension and within five to seven years, you were dead. That is, with one exception, the original senior investigating officer ex-Detective Superintendent Roy Filer.’

  ‘And? Go and see him.’

  ‘When I last saw him five years ago, he was in a care home with dementia. He’d picked up the job two months before retirement. He couldn’t remember his own name, let alone what happened with the case.’

  ‘Why did you leave it that late to see him?’

  ‘I didn’t. I caught up with him years ago before that, in a pub. I did most of the talking. Trouble is, ex-detectives will talk to you for hours about a good case, one where they got a conviction. When the case doesn’t go so well, they clam up. Don’t want to talk about it.’

  ‘So, did you see who it was – any idea who it could have been?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I suppose in some respects you were lucky, lucky you weren’t murdered too.’

  It was something he’d wondered about endlessly since. That and what if he’d gone back just that bit earlier he might have stopped it happening, or what if his presence would have put the attacker off altogether. Endless what ifs. Why had he been left alive? Why?