by Alison Bruce
‘The manager doesn’t want somebody wandering around in the grounds and using bad language, even if it’s only to himself. From Rob’s point of view, he probably wasn’t even aware that he was doing it, but that’s no excuse. He knew I was annoyed. By the time she spoke to me, he’d cleared off further from the house and was keeping his head down.’
‘So you argued?’
‘I was just trying to make him see that it wasn’t a way he should behave. I’m not stupid – I know that when he’s angry, it’s about what’s going on in his head, not about the garden and the residents and all of that. I therefore suggested he took time out and went down by the river – have a walk, clear his head, all of that.’
‘And he’s still down there?’
‘Well, he hasn’t been back. You could go down there and look, I suppose. You might want to check out the pubs, the tow-path.’
‘Are you planning to let him go?’
Colin rubbed the bridge of his nose with the back of his wrist. If he’d been trying to push away the fatigue, he failed. ‘I can’t keep on like this. I want to find some way round it. I can’t lose my customers. But I can’t lose my mate either.’
‘What’s your biggest concern for him?’
‘I don’t know. Some days it’s that he’s going to drink himself to death, and other days it’s that he’s going to do something stupid and get himself arrested.’ Colin threw up his hands. ‘What do I know? These kids dying has had an effect on him, and he’s scared for Charlotte and Matt. As long as nothing happens to them, I think he’ll hang on in there.’
THIRTY-SIX
The nearest two pubs were the Green Dragon and the Pike and Eel. Goodhew checked there first but neither of them had seen Rob Stone. So much for the obvious assumptions. Goodhew walked along the tow path for about twenty minutes, away from the city. And walking at pretty much the same pace that the river flowed.
Goodhew turned round when he was almost opposite the Plough in Fen Ditton. He decided that it was unlikely Stone had walked this far, or if he had, had kept on walking. He was about halfway back when he spotted the figure in the distance sitting in the grass of the river bank.
Goodhew squinted. He saw no sign of fishing rods, or bait boxes. He walked a little further and when the man came into focus he was able to pick out the shape of Rob Stone’s features. Although facing the river, Stone seemed to be staring across it at Stourbridge Common. He didn’t look round as Goodhew approached.
‘They once used to hold the biggest fair in Europe there, did you know that?’ Stone didn’t wait for an answer. ‘Used to be a couple of days and then it grew until it lasted almost a month. It was famous – they probably couldn’t imagine it no longer existing.’ He tilted his head in Goodhew’s direction, not quite looking him in the eye, but almost. ‘What is the point of anything, if nothing lasts forever? Whatever you build crumbles. Whatever you don’t build doesn’t matter.’
‘Mr Stone.’
‘Yeah, yeah, I know. Pointless drunken ramblings.’
There were three empty cans lying next to Stone’s feet. The fourth of the pack was in his hand. He’d arranged the empty ones so they were side by side with the labels positioned at precisely the same angle.
Goodhew guessed this must mean that Rob had been there for more than a few minutes and if that was the case, he must have sat down pretty much as soon as Goodhew had passed the first time.
‘I walked this way a few minutes ago.’
‘Yeah, I saw you. I wasn’t in the mood.’
‘But you are now?’
‘Yeah. No, I can’t be bothered to get up. I can’t be bothered to.’ Stone pushed down the corners of his mouth. ‘I just can’t be bothered.’
‘D’you remember when I came to speak to you at the Carlton Arms? I went outside and shortly afterwards I was attacked.’
‘Yeah, I heard.’
‘Well, two things. Firstly, I don’t remember our conversation before, not clearly, though I know we were talking about Shanie. Secondly, I know you’ve also said you don’t remember seeing anything, so I just wanted to check.’
‘Check, as in catch me out? Or check to see if some memory emerged through my drunkenness? No, when I said I don’t remember, I don’t remember – and if I said I saw nothing, I saw nothing.’
‘Okay, fair enough.’ Goodhew sat down beside Stone and joined him in looking out at the river. ‘But I might remember something if we go back over the last conversation about Shanie.’
‘Ha, do you think I remember any more than you do? I remember us talking about Shanie but nothing else.’
‘I will need to take a formal statement about how Shanie came to be in the house. But could you at least think about whether anyone saw you leave the Carlton?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Look, try to remember. There were people inside. There was some pool match on and the woman at the bar . . .’
‘No, I don’t remember. Ask them.’
‘Okay, how did you get back home?’
‘I walked – it’s not far.’
‘No, but your daughter Charlotte came looking for you. She must know the quickest way from the pub to your house as well, but you didn’t cross paths?’
Stone smiled; it was accompanied by a short snort of amusement. ‘Well, that’s simple, because Charlotte would go the lit way, while I go up the back alley. She’s sensible, I’m the stupid fucker that comes home with dogshit on my shoes and a head that’s banging so much I don’t know if I’ve been clouted or not. Great.’
‘Well no, it’s not really, is it? At the moment all I have to corroborate your statement is Charlotte’s statement saying where you were. That’s not much help.’
‘I didn’t hit you over the head, you know.’ Rob tried draining the final can even though he’d made a show of draining it just a few moments before. He held it in his hand, crushed the middle of it then folded in the ends and finally concertinaed it so it made a disk about an inch thick. Then he did the same with each of the other three cans, and stood up.
‘I bet you think I’m messing my life up. I am, I know I am – however, I haven’t turned Matt against me.’ Stone spoke slowly at first, as though the thoughts were only revealing themselves to him a moment before he spoke them. ‘Matt is me, Matt is who I was before he was born. He’s got the same anger that was already in me before all of this happened. I don’t have some big chip on my shoulder because I’ve lost Mandy. I’ve always found life a mental struggle. Charlotte, she’s different, she is like her mum. She wants to care and nurture and show everybody that there is something better in the world. And I make that worse.’ Stone’s words emerged uneven, spilling from him in irregular volleys, but the sentences themselves were becoming surprisingly coherent. ‘I lean on her good nature and let her take care of me in the way I don’t take care of myself, and all the while I’m thinking, my god, she deserves so much better. She does, you know. She deserves so many things I can’t give her and so does Matt.
‘Now I’m talking, so that means I’m just a burbling drunk shooting my mouth off. Isn’t that the way we are? Passive aggressive? I’m either offending people or talking garbage and offending them with that. Don’t worry about a lift either. Colin will take me or I’ll walk. Either way I could do a lot worse.’
‘We’re not finished yet, Mr Stone,’ Goodhew told him. ‘Shanie Faulkner, remember?’
‘What about your own injury?’
‘I’m not really interested in that right now.’
Again the snort of laughter. ‘Well, you’re a fucking arsehole then, aren’t you? You’re judging it on how badly you were hurt and how quickly you recovered. Maybe if you’d turned your head a little, or landed badly, or if my Charlotte hadn’t found you, you could be dead or in a right fucking state. Whatever the outcome: same man, same attack.’
‘I wasn’t dismissing it, but my focus is Shanie.’
‘And the other girl, Meg?’
‘Of course.’<
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‘No, no it’s not. I see something in your expression. What’s with you? Both cases should be treated the same, but they’re not.’
Goodhew shook his head.
‘Liar,’ Stone said. Then: ‘Charlotte and Matt think like you.’
‘Think what?’
‘That Shanie wasn’t the type. Never was.’
‘There isn’t a type.’
‘And who taught you that? It’s bollocks. This fucking life crushes me but I’m not the type. If I was, I would have done it. And you? Are you the type?’
Goodhew didn’t answer.
‘No, I didn’t think so. You never met Shanie but you don’t buy the idea that she killed herself: it’s bugging you. You don’t think it was an accident either. You really think someone killed her?’
‘Why would they?’
‘I’m not the fucking detective here, I’m the fucking alcoholic, remember?’ Stone’s uneven speech had gone: both his thoughts and words had suddenly sharpened. ‘But even a fucking alcoholic can work out when his own kids are in the shit. I think the least you can do is hear their concerns.’
‘Fair enough.’
‘And don’t throw “fair enough” at me and think that’s the end of it.’ And before Goodhew could respond, Stone demanded, ‘Did you have Lego when you were a kid?’
‘Yes, I did.’
‘I had a whole box of it. I had names for the different pieces, like “eighters” and “flat fours”. I even didn’t need to check if I had a “see-through twelve-er”, I just knew. Didn’t matter how many times I tipped it out or churned it over, I knew what was there.’
Goodhew nodded; he knew too.
‘That’s Charlotte and Matt, and everything connected with these deaths. They’ve stored every thought, question and discussion. Without examining the whole box of Lego, how do you know what you can build from it?’
THIRTY-SEVEN
When Goodhew woke the next morning, he knew it was early. The room was too grey for 5 a.m. but the traffic was too quiet for six. He lay on his back, staring straight up at the indistinct shape of his ceiling lampshade, aware of the things he hadn’t done. He hadn’t taken Rob Stone’s statement – nor spoken to Matt and Charlotte, as he’d eventually promised.
Instincts. He’d made a promise to himself to listen to them, and right now that was vital. He needed to clear his thoughts, not muddy them further, and to achieve that he needed time on his own.
He made himself some coffee and sat on the floor with his back against the battered leather settee. His jukebox played quietly, its valves humming almost as loudly as Goodhew’s brain. He cupped the mug in both hands and it was almost cold by the time he started to drink.
As far as he could remember, he’d been about twelve when his interest in understanding people and fascination with crime had crystallized into the desire to become a detective. The job was always full of surprises.
But Lego? He hadn’t seen that one coming. Nor Rob Stone’s sudden and eloquent outpouring. Bryn would undoubtedly come up with some convoluted analogy between alcohol and the fuel supply in a carburettor: too little and it spluttered and didn’t respond, too much and it flooded and wouldn’t work at all. Something like that anyway.
For a few minutes he allowed himself to wonder at Bryn’s apparently simple take on life, and the depths of thought that Bryn’s views sometimes revealed. Then, once in a while, he’d make a throwaway remark that was equally illuminating. A dazzling smile and rampant curls. The words flashed back into Goodhew’s consciousness and in his mind’s eye, the image he held of Charlotte took on a new clarity. Suddenly every feature, from the curve of her cheek and brightness in her eyes, through to the sound of her voice as she’d tried to revive him, felt as though they’d communicated far more than he’d first realized.
This was no good. He tried to ignore any further random thoughts of Charlotte but, despite his best efforts, she refused to entirely leave his mind.
Damn Bryn.
Goodhew made a mental note to give his friend a call then pushed himself back to considering the Lego he himself had owned as a child. He’d kept his in a dark blue translucent plastic tub that had started life in the 1960s as either a futuristic umbrella stand or a groovy kitchen bin. It had been relegated to toy storage and could hold so much Lego that Goodhew had never managed to fill it up past the halfway mark.
Rob Stone was right; he too had known exactly which pieces he possessed, but he also knew that the only efficient way to put them together was to tip them into a heap in the middle of the floor.
Goodhew asked himself about his current options. One was to accept that both Shanie and Meg had committed suicide. Marks was the boss and had years more experience. Goodhew trusted him. The first option, then, was to trust Marks’s judgement and let it go. But that didn’t sit right: the picture was hanging together, but he was sure that whatever was holding it in place wasn’t enough to withstand too much shaking.
Linked suicides, or murder?
The whole problem, with both the case and the Lego analogy, was a lack of all the necessary pieces.
And, put like that, it was suddenly simple.
Grab all the pieces, spread them out, and then see what they made.
And, just like that, the doubt, the lethargy, the feelings of floundering in virtual darkness all vanished. He was on his feet, killing the power to the jukebox, grabbing his phone and jacket, and heading out the door.
It was 6.25 a.m. First stop, Sergeant Sheen’s Red Book.
THIRTY-EIGHT
Police stations of any size were never deserted. Maybe the front desk would be briefly unattended or the corridors silent at various times, but there would always be someone somewhere in the building. Goodhew moved quickly and with purpose. He reached Sheen’s desk without crossing paths with anyone.
At first glance, Sheen’s method of information-gathering seemed erratic and incomprehensible, but Goodhew had seen enough of the multi-coloured arrow-happy diagrams to know that nothing would appear on a page without having a connection – no matter however disparate the information appeared. Sometimes just following the arrows led to the answer; other times it only helped when Sheen provided the translation.
Goodhew turned on Sheen’s computer and searched for any details Sheen had logged that cross-referenced with suspected teen suicides, Brimley Close or the Carlton Arms. Then he took down one box-file at a time and began rifling through the physical files. Each time he found a page of interest he slid it out carefully, photographed it with his phone then slipped it back in exactly the same place.
He needed to be both accurate and fast, but each time he checked the clock the hands had jumped forward another handful of minutes. The building would be filling from seven, and absolutely anyone who knew Sheen would smell a rat if someone other than Sheen was seen anywhere near his files.
The absolute deadline would be the arrival of Sheen himself at 7.30.
Twice he heard sounds in the corridor and ducked under Sheen’s desk. No one appeared; thankfully, Sheen had been moved to pretty much the most secluded spot in the station.
Goodhew replaced the last file, switched off the PC and made it into the corridor just as the big hand jerked its way on to 7.25. He checked through the banisters on the second-floor landing: Sheen was crossing the first-floor landing and heading up, so Goodhew hurried to the other end of the second floor and left by the public entrance.
The Kite is an area of Cambridge named for its shape, and Goodhew cut through the back streets from Parkside Station at the Kite’s southern tip to Maids Causeway on the northern edge.
Many of the large houses were still family homes, or had been split into flats but were residential nonetheless. Braeside sat between two of these houses, and from the outside appeared to be the home of a slightly poorer – or possibly more eccentric – relation. In fact, the building was home to several health-related resources, including a chiropractor and more recently an osteopath. Goodhew was
looking for Elizabeth Martin, the psychotherapist whose treatment room was situated on the first floor. He looked up at the half-lowered bamboo blind with the half-closed curtain behind; no visible lights, no sign of movement.
He’d come on the off-chance, planning to leave a note if Miss Martin wasn’t available. He had a pen but was rummaging through his pockets for any piece of paper more substantial than a grocery receipt, when he became aware of someone close behind him.
‘The curious detective,’ she said.
And he looked round to see Elizabeth Martin herself eyeing him. She was a woman in her mid-fifties, with grey-flecked blond hair and a passion for knitwear. Skirt, top, scarf; all knitted. Even her boots had a roll-over top that looked knitted too.
Beach holidays must be tricky.
‘Curious? As in nosy?’ he enquired.
‘And slightly odd.’ Unless he was imagining it, there was mild humour in her tone.
‘Thanks.’
She pulled a bunch of keys from her bag and used the largest to open the front door. A second, newer one, opened a door beyond, which led to stairs and the floor above. ‘I have an hour before my first client – will that be long enough?’
‘I should explain why I’m here.’
‘Bit difficult if you don’t. Go up then, explain while I make coffee.’
‘I don’t need one, thanks.’
She followed him up the stairs. ‘To which you hope I’ll say I won’t bother either, so you get the most out of your hour – but if I don’t start with a coffee you won’t get anything from me at all. D’you want one now?’
He decided he did, and in less than five minutes they were seated in her consulting room. It was like he imagined a session might be, with herself in the more upright chair with the wooden arms and high back, while he sat in a lower softer chair, upholstered in a soft green velvet and positioned within easy reach of a large box of tissues.
He had already explained the bare bones of his enquiry while the kettle boiled and now she sat with her pen poised over her notebook as if he was about to give the answers to her rather than the other way around. Maybe she needed to hold the pen and pad in order to think. ‘Epidemics of suicide?’ she murmured. ‘You could just read a book, you know.’