‘And you?’
‘I just went along with him.’
Faraday reached for his pen, scribbled himself a note: I just went along with him. Back in February this would have served as a perfect description of their fledgling relationship. Six months later nothing had changed.
Jenny was describing the walk now, the pair of them stumbling along the trackside, keeping well clear of the live rail.
Barber interrupted: ‘Did you have any idea where you were going?’
‘None.’
‘Weren’t you … curious? Anxious? Frightened?’
‘Of course I was. I kept asking him what was going on. He just begged me to trust him.’
‘Begged?’
‘Yes, like I say, I’d never seen him like this before.’
After about half an hour, she said, they were approaching the tunnel.
‘I could see it in the moonlight, just this big black hole. I really didn’t want to go in. I told him that.’
‘So what happened?’
‘He had a torch. He said there wasn’t a problem. He’d done the checks and everything. There wouldn’t be a train through for hours. All we were doing was going maybe a hundred metres in. It wouldn’t take long, he said. Then I could go.’
‘So you went in.’
‘Yes. I was terrified. I hated it.’
‘And what did you find?’
‘About a hundred metres in, exactly as he’d said, there was this stuff tucked into a kind of hole in the wall. I didn’t know what it was to begin with. Then he started dragging it all out. There was some chain and some rope, and this long piece of iron. He went down on his hands and knees by the rail. As soon as you get into the tunnel, the live rail switches to the other side of the track, so there wasn’t, you know, any real danger … ’ She broke off, looking down at her hands.
‘Did you ask him what he was up to?’
‘Of course I did.’
‘And?’
‘All he would say was that he’d been up here yesterday, borrowed someone’s car, made sure that everything was ready. I said ready for what but he wouldn’t answer me. I was holding the torch by this point. Mark was down on his hands and knees, digging away at the stones under the rail until he could slide this iron thing in. Then he got up and made me shine the torch on where he was standing.’
‘Why?’
‘He wanted to strip, take his shoes off, all his clothes, everything. He just piled them by the side of the track. Then he wanted me to kiss him.’
‘And did you?’
‘Yes. He was crying again by this time. Then he got down and lay on the rail with his ankles on either end of the iron thing. He told me to tie him up like that.’
‘And did you?’
Jenny’s head came up again. For a long moment she stared at Barber. Then she nodded.
‘Yes,’ she said softly. ‘I did.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I’d twigged what he was up to, what he was doing. It was a kind of accusation. He wanted me to see what I’d done to him, where it had taken him. We’d been so happy, he seemed to be saying. And now this.’
‘And you?’
‘I thought he was mad. I thought he’d finally lost it. And more important than that, I knew I could get him put away.’
‘Sectioned?’
‘Yes. He told me the first train through was at five in the morning. It was only two fifteen, two thirty, something like that. I had loads of time, loads of time. I could get people into the tunnel - you lot, the ambulance, the fire brigade. I could get the current switched off. I could do it all. He’d obviously gone bonkers and here was the evidence.’
After the rope, she said, he’d asked her to wind the chain around his middle. That had taken some time, trying to thread the chain beneath the rail, but she’d done it in the end.
‘And the padlock?’ It was Faraday.
‘That went on last. He did it himself. Shit … ’ She shook her head, shuddered.
‘What happened?’
‘He snapped it shut, then held up the key. I’d still got the torch. I could see his face. He was grinning at me, dangling this key, telling me how much he loved me, how much I meant to him, how good we could have been. He was like a wonky radio. Someone had suddenly tuned him in. He’d suddenly come to life again. He was the old Mark. He started laughing. It was horrible, everything echoing in the tunnel. Then he stopped, just like that. He was staring into the torch. Dead silence. Dead silence. Then he threw the key away. I heard it. I heard it tinkling in the darkness, over beyond the live rail. It was like some really scary movie. Shit … ’
She broke off, covering her face. Michelle fumbled for a tissue, couldn’t find one, then wrapped an encircling arm around her client’s heaving shoulders. Faraday leaned forward with a word of explanation for the tape machines, then called for a break. Everything fits, he thought. Even the location of the key they’d found on the other side of the tracks.
Jenny was looking at him. ‘Don’t,’ she said. ‘I need to finish this.’
‘You’re sure?’
She nodded. Faraday cued the tape machines again, announced the time, gestured for Jenny to carry on. A tiny frown clouded her face as she settled herself. Then she described stumbling back along the track in the darkness with Duley’s torch. As soon as she was out in the fresh air, she’d tried to make a call on her mobile but she couldn’t get a signal. The car must have been a kilometre away at least. She ran and ran, looking for the gate in the fence. Finally, she found it. She tried again with the mobile. Nothing. She got in the car, praying that it didn’t bog in again, drove out of the wood. At the top of the track she turned left, heading south, towards the glow of the city. By the time she got a signal, she’d decided to phone her husband first and not the emergency services.
Faraday wanted to know why.
‘Because … ’ Her face was wet with tears. ‘I wanted to explain.’
‘And what did you say?’
‘I told him everything. I told him Mark was in the tunnel. I told him he was tied to the line. I told him he was mad. I told him we could get him off our backs, that it was all over, that everything would be fine again. I said there wasn’t a shrink in the country who wouldn’t lock him up and throw the key away.’
‘And Andy?’
‘Andy said I was hysterical. He told me to come home. He said not to call anyone. If I did, he said I’d never see the kids again.’
‘And you?’
‘I -’ She gulped. ‘- Believed him. I knew I had to get home. It wasn’t even three. I had a couple of hours at least. What does it take to stop a train? A phone call.’
She drove back to Portsmouth. When she got home Andy was still up.
‘He said he’d known about Mark all along. He said he thought it would just burn itself out but lately he’d realised that wasn’t going to happen. He said the man was crazy. And he said Peter Barnaby was wrong.’
‘Like how?’
‘Like Mark would definitely be sectioned but that he’d be out again before long. And then everything would kick off, just like before. Andy knows about this stuff. He deals with these people all the time. I’m telling you, he knows.’
‘What else did he say?’
‘He told me I was in the shit because of what I’d done. I’d already helped someone try to commit suicide. I’d go to court for that, maybe go to prison.’
‘You believed him?’
‘Yes. Then I asked him what we were going to do. I remember he was looking at me. Then he shook his head. Nothing, he said.’
‘Nothing?’
‘Nothing. I told him Mark would die and he just nodded. Then he said it was up to me. If I wanted a life, if I wanted my kids, if I wanted us to start all over, get it together, be friends again, try really hard, then we had the chance. But if Mark was still around, if they got him out of that tunnel, then it was all over.’
‘He said that?’
‘Yes.’
<
br /> ‘And you?’
‘I just … I just … ’ She shook her head again, covered her face with her hands. ‘I just … oh Christ … oh God … help me … help me please … ’
Barber moved to stop the tape but Faraday caught her eye and shook his head. There was a moment of total silence. Then, for the last time, Jenny’s head came up.
‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘I killed that man.’
Faraday organised the meeting in Barrie’s office. Barber was there, and the two DSs from the Incident Room, and Jerry Proctor appeared seconds before Barrie made a start, asking Faraday to summarise developments.
For the time being, Faraday explained, Jenny Mitchell had been arrested on suspicion of aiding another to commit suicide. After discussions with the Crown Prosecution Service, a formal charge would doubtless follow but the immediate priority was a decision over her husband. Andy Mitchell, on his wife’s evidence, had played a key part in Duley’s death.
Barrie wanted to know more about Jenny Mitchell.
‘Why didn’t she tell us earlier? Get it off her chest?’
‘Because her husband told her she’d be complicit. He’d spelled out the probability of a criminal charge. He’d told her she’d be looking at a heavy sentence. She’d be lucky to see her kids grow up.’
‘She’s right.’ He nodded. ‘Assisting suicide carries fourteen years. So how come she coughs it all now?’
‘Because she knows the marriage won’t work. Regardless. ’
‘She blames herself for that?’
‘Partly. I think she’s horrified, too, by what happened that night with Andy. She’d never seen that in him. She’d never believed he could be so … ’ Faraday shrugged. ‘ … Ruthless.’
‘But she went along with it.’
‘She did, sir.’
‘So what does that make her?’
‘Guilty. Which is why she opened up. There wasn’t a problem. She just gave it to us. All we had to do was listen.’
‘Sure. I understand that. But why now?’
‘Because we turned up. And because … ’ Faraday broke off, not knowing quite how much weight to put on the other factor.
‘There’s something else?’ Barrie was getting impatient.
‘Yes, sir. She told me she got a little parcel a couple of days ago. It had been sent to the wrong address. Turned up late.’
‘What was it?’
‘An audio cassette. Duley must have posted it on the Sunday, before he turned up at her mum’s flat. There was a piece of Bach on it. Part of the St Matthew Passion. She says she’s been playing it ever since.’
‘And so … ?’
Faraday gazed at him a moment, then shrugged, gesturing round.
‘And so here we are, sir.’ He smiled thinly. ‘Case closed.’
Winter was tucked up at home in Blake House when his mobile rang. It took him several seconds to place the voice. The woman from the undertakers, he thought.
‘Sue,’ he said. ‘You’ve got some news for me.’
‘I have. It’s about your Mr Reid.’
She talked for perhaps a minute. Winter reached for a pen, scribbled himself a note on the back of the Daily Telegraph. By the time he concluded the call, he was out in the kitchen, hunting for the Scotch. He poured himself three fingers, caught his image in the big mirror back in the living room, raised the glass in a toast, then stepped out onto the balcony. A group of partygoers were locked together in a riotous conga, weaving along the promenade beside the harbour. He beamed down at them, gave them a little wave. Then he got his mobile out again, thumbed one of the stored numbers. It answered almost at once.
‘Jake, son?’ he said cheerfully. ‘We need another meet.’
Twenty-three
Sunday, 24 July 2005, 09.45
Jake Tarrant was already at the cemetery. Winter spotted the red Fiat from the back of his cab and told the driver to pull up alongside. Tarrant was sitting behind the wheel, absorbed in the sports pages of the News of the World. Only when Winter tapped on the window did he bother looking up.
After days of glorious weather, it was pouring with rain. Tarrant wound down the window.
‘Morning,’ he said.
‘Are you going to let me in or what?’
‘Depends.’ His gaze held Winter’s for a couple of seconds, then a grin creased his face and he leaned over and released the lock on the other door.
Winter settled his bulk in the passenger seat. Rain was dripping off his nose. Tarrant studied him for a moment or two, then turned down the radio.
‘What’s this about? Only this is supposed to be my day off.’
Winter didn’t answer. An elderly woman was shuffling towards them from the bus stop. She was carrying a jam jar with a small posy of flowers. She turned in at the cemetery gates and made her way down towards the gloomy neo-Gothic chapel that dominated the acres of surrounding graves. Winter had always hated this place. On days like today, under a leaden grey sky, it was the perfect embodiment of everything he found depressing. The puddled drive. The lines of crumbling gravestones. The sodden turf. The dripping trees. Even the crem, thought Winter, would be better than this.
‘I’ve been thinking, son,’ he said at last.
‘Yeah?’
‘Yeah. You remember what you told me the other night? Our little chat? About Givens?’
Tarrant nodded. ‘I was pissed,’ he said.
‘Of course you were, son.’ Winter patted him on the knee. ‘That’s why I took you seriously. Made a few enquiries. Like you do.’
‘I’m not with you.’
‘The bodies in the fridge. The ones you popped bits of Givens into. You remember all that?’
Tarrant didn’t answer. He folded the paper and reached for the ignition key.
‘What are you doing, son?’
‘I’m going home. I don’t have to listen to this shit.’
‘No?’
‘No.’ He looked across at Winter. ‘I don’t know what you’re up to but, if you want the truth, I’m not really interested anymore. You play games, Mr W. You’re a clever bloke. You make me laugh sometimes. If you want to arrest me, help yourself. I’ll deny everything. Otherwise -’ He shrugged. ‘- Fuck off.’
‘Who said anything about arresting you?’
‘No one. But why else would you be here? Come for a chat, have you?’ He nodded at the paper. ‘Politics, is it? Cricket?’
Winter laughed. He wanted them both to take a little walk.
‘Where?’
‘Into there.’ Winter nodded at the cemetery gates.
‘Why?’
‘Come with me and you’ll find out.’
Tarrant had an umbrella in the back of the car. With some reluctance, he opened it, sheltering Winter as they made their way into the cemetery. Beyond the chapel, Winter could see the old woman, bent over a headstone. She must be drenched, he thought, stuck out in the rain like that.
At the end of the drive, past the chapel, the scatter of headstones began to thin. Finally, close to the encircling stone wall, they found evidence of recent digging. Winter stepped off the path and poked at a smear of yellow earth with the toe of his shoe.
‘Apparently they let everything settle before they bother with a headstone. Takes months.’ He turned to Tarrant. ‘I never knew that. Did you?’
‘Yeah.’ Tarrant was staring at the oblong of turf that marked the new grave. ‘Who’s in there, then?’
‘Bloke called Herbert Reid. One of your lot.’
‘He was down for the crem.’
‘I know, son. But it seems there was a bit of a domestic about the funeral arrangements. His son and daughter wanted the crem but his missus wasn’t having it. When she found out, she went potty, phoned the undertaker, insisted her husband deserved better. Apparently it took a month to sort out. His missus won.’
‘And he’s in there?’
‘As of the week before last. And not just him, son, eh?’ Winter grinned at him. He’d aban
doned the shelter of the umbrella by now and was standing in the rain, his face tilted up, oblivious to the spreading dark stain on his shirt.
Tarrant said nothing, staring at the unmarked grave.
‘You’re taking the piss, aren’t you?’ he muttered at last. ‘This is Mr W.’s idea of a joke.’
‘No, son. It’s not.’
‘What do you want then? Money?’
‘You haven’t got any money.’
‘Yes, we have. We’ve got a hundred and eighty-five grand.’
‘That’s not your money. That’s Givens’.’
‘You can have half of it.’
‘I don’t want half of it. I don’t want any of it.’ Winter was looking hurt. ‘Do you think I’m that cheap? That easy?’
‘What then? What do you want?’
‘Nothing, really. Except to point out that you got it wrong. People think we’re stupid sometimes, thick. Fact is, old son, we’re not.’ He nodded down at the muddied turf. ‘It would take us an hour or so to have Herbert Reid out of there. Then another two days for a result on the DNA inside. Red bag, wasn’t it? I wonder which bit of Givens would blow it for you? Just think about it, eh? And don’t ever take us for fucking granted.’
Winter turned on his heel and began to walk back towards the gates. Tarrant watched him for a moment, undecided, then set off in pursuit. Winter had got to the chapel by the time he caught up.
‘You can have all the money,’ he said. ‘Every fucking penny.’
‘Thanks.’
‘I mean it.’
‘I’m sure you do.’ Winter stopped. ‘From anyone else that would be seriously out of order. You, son?’ He patted him on the shoulder. ‘I’ll do you a favour and put it down to inexperience. There are some seriously nasty people in this city. You’re not one of them.’
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