(2013) The Catch

by Tom Bale

  ‘No chance.’ Cate said it aloud, as she lay defiantly sideways in bed. Sod the next occupant, whoever he might be. They’d get separate beds.

  The brooding meant she was awake earlier than normal. Enough time for a run, if she wanted. It was only half an hour down to the Hove lawns and back. Burn off that eleven o’clock pastry in advance.

  Yeah, right. Better to go into work early and steal a march on the day. There was a huge backlog of non-urgent emails in her Inbox, all the routine stuff she ignored until it reached critical levels.

  But that plan was thwarted, too. Her phone rang as she was brushing her teeth. Much as she’d like it to be Robbie, finally apologising for last night’s fiasco, there was little chance of him calling at this hour.

  She had a good memory for numbers, and this one wasn’t at all familiar. She answered with a cautious: ‘Hello?’

  ‘Good morning,’ said a cheery, well-spoken male voice. It sounded quite rich and appealing, Cate thought.

  ‘Who is this?’ A wrong number, but maybe I should ask what you look like.

  ‘Detective Sergeant Thomsett of Sussex Police. May I ask who I’m talking to?’

  ‘Uh, Caitlin Scott,’ she said, her voice wobbling on a note of alarm. ‘How did you get my number?’

  Silence for a second or two. Then he said, ‘I’d rather explain that face to face.’

  ****

  Dan left the house at a quarter to eight. It was a still morning, warmer than of late, with only a few wisps of cloud in a sky criss-crossed with slowly dissolving vapour trails. A fresh-washed day, full of promise and opportunity. He ought to have been strolling down Ditchling Road with nothing on his mind but his plans to open a coffee shop and be his own boss.

  Instead he kept reminding himself to savour every precious moment of freedom, but it was impossible while he was fretting about how and when that freedom would be taken away.

  The spectre of incarceration had him pondering Robbie’s advice. Forget it happened. Hank was a nasty bit of work. Nobody would miss him.

  But was that true? Robbie had seemed sure of it, but then Robbie would say whatever it took to convince you to see things his way. Hank might have a partner, although the fact that he’d come on to Cate suggested not. And children, maybe, though it was a fair point that they’d probably be grown up. Older, at least, than Dan was when—

  When the same thing happened to me.

  Eager for a diversion, he pulled out his phone and dialled Robbie’s number. Tough luck if it woke him.

  Robbie answered with a bleary, ‘What?’

  ‘Day off, is it?’

  ‘Gotta go in later.’

  ‘We need to discuss what happened last night.’

  ‘Nothing happened last night. Nothing worth talking about on the phone, if you get my drift?’

  Dan frowned. Surely it was paranoia to believe their call would be monitored by the security services – MI5 or GCHQ or whoever it was?

  Then it occurred to him that Robbie had a far shrewder concern: a fear that Dan was recording the call, trying to entrap him.

  ‘So let’s meet up.’

  ‘Yeah. I’ll ring you later.’

  Dan sighed, put the phone away and continued down the hill. He pictured the country road they’d driven along, now bathed in a soft morning light, farmers and postmen and early commuters making their regular journeys. How soon before a driver, perhaps in the cab of a truck or high on a tractor, spotted something that didn’t look quite right?

  Once found, the body would tell its own tale. Hit and run. A pedestrian knocked down by a vehicle and left to die in a ditch.

  You were driving, Dan. Not me.

  That was undeniable. Even though Robbie had grabbed the wheel, Dan couldn’t prove that, and no one would believe it for a second. So if he was going to hand himself in, it had to be with the certain knowledge that he, and he alone, would be taking responsibility for what had happened.

  As if emerging from a daze, Dan found he had reached the busy Fiveways intersection. He paused, gazing absently at the small parade of shops across the road. An ideal location for his dream cafe, this: an affluent part of Brighton, with plenty of small commercial properties to rent or buy ...

  Except that it was never going to happen. The banks wouldn’t lend to him and neither would Robbie’s mum. Dan’s future had been precarious enough before last night. Now it lay in tatters. Even the most lenient of sentences would put his ambitions beyond reach for ever.

  And without the business there was little prospect of owning property, of getting married. Everything had rested on Dan and Hayley striking out on their own.

  But it didn’t have to be this way. Did it?

  He stared at the shops, a row of recycling bins lined up outside the Co-op; at the cars queuing impatiently at the lights, the drone of their engines like white noise. There was a definite moment when he felt the tension ease, and he understood that in the depths of his primitive subconscious mind, programmed over millennia for survival against the harshest of odds, a crucial decision had been made and would not be reversed.

  He wasn’t going to take the punishment on Robbie’s behalf.

  He wasn’t going to own up to the crime.

  CHAPTER 13

  Robbie would have gone back to sleep but for the text he received while he was playing stress counsellor to Dan. It said: Jimmys in cab 2 gatwck 4 day at haydock & overnite. Cum c me pleeese! Xx

  Bree.

  Robbie sighed. His head said no, he had better things to do. Another hour’s sleep, a decent breakfast to soak up last night’s booze, and then some actual work. He had calls to make, clients to sweet-talk, a new property to view somewhere near Lewes.

  He was still lying there, debating it, when she texted again: Like NOW hun. Im wet 4 u xxx

  At which point another part of his anatomy made the decision for him. He tried to argue against it, because it wouldn’t just be sex. There was a power play at work here. He’d been guilty of indulging her, especially while he was trying to rustle up the three grand to pay O’Brien. But now that cash was back where it belonged, stashed in his floor safe, so he had no reason to waste time with Bree and her stupid bloody schemes.

  But it was no good. On matters like this, rational thought was no match for his libido. He shot back a text: 20 mins. Stay wet. Then dragged himself out of bed to answer the call from his bladder, his mood lifted by a glimpse of sunshine through the blinds: the first morning in ages which hadn’t begun with mist or rain. Maybe it was an omen.

  ****

  In the bathroom Robbie made a snap decision not to shave. Two days’ growth: it made him look a little more wild and dangerous. And if it scratched Bree’s baby-soft skin and left incriminating burns on her inner thighs, well, so be it.

  He knew she was crazy for him, which he thought was entirely appropriate. His wariness stemmed from the fact that she was probably also a bit crazy, full stop.

  Still, there was no denying that nature had been kind to Robbie. He was a shade below six feet, weighed twelve stone, could wear his dark hair either swept back or artistically mussed up – each to fairly devastating effect. He had clear blue eyes and good cheekbones and teeth that were small and neat and brilliantly white. Add to that a quick wit and an easy line in charm and you had a package that had undoubtedly smoothed his path through life.

  He didn’t feel gratitude, particularly, or guilt. If he was lucky, so be it. Some people were lucky. Some weren’t.

  And we’re back to Dan, he thought. Poor sod, losing his parents, lumbered with a kid brother and an ageing aunt. Not to mention that mouthy bitch of a girlfriend ...

  ****

  Breakfast was coffee and a fistful of Frosties: without milk, because the last carton was sitting empty on the counter. Jed had finished it and neglected to buy more. The absence festered while Robbie crunched the dry, sugary cereal and brushed the crumbs from his hands.

  He waited till he was ready to leave – suited and boote
d because he’d have to go to work after he’d seen Bree – and knocked sharply on the door to the flat’s second bedroom.

  ‘Wha’?’ came a voice from within.

  Robbie gripped the handle, hesitated a moment, then thrust the door open. He never quite knew what he would find when he ventured into Jed’s room – it made him feel like he was the parent of a wayward teenage boy.

  The sight that greeted him today was about average: lots of empty cans and bottles, discarded fast-food cartons, several screwed-up balls of aluminium foil and the bottom section of a plastic lemonade bottle that still held what appeared to be a little dirty liquid.

  Jed Armstrong was submerged in a pile of clothes and tatty old blankets which he’d brought with him when he moved in, and which for no obvious reason he favoured over Robbie’s Siberian Goosedown duvets. Jed was a Geordie of indeterminate age and background. Robbie put him in his thirties, or maybe forties, but he could just as easily have been a twenty-something who’d lived a very hard life.

  He was a friend of a friend of a guy Robbie sometimes drank with: another of those haphazard social collisions that, as with the location manager, had led to an unexpected and not entirely positive outcome. In this case Jed had been in need of a place to crash, Robbie had plenty of space, and it transpired that Jed could pay his keep in cash or in kind: herbs or pills or powders, in a seemingly inexhaustible supply.

  At first it had seemed like the perfect arrangement, but four months in and Robbie was having his doubts. For one thing, Jed wasn’t supposed to keep his stash on the premises – or at least no more than could be deemed for personal use. Robbie was far from confident that Jed had adhered to this rule. Adhering to rules wasn’t Jed’s thing.

  ‘Time is it?’ he growled.

  ‘Uh, ten to eight.’

  ‘Is there a fucking fire, Robert?’

  Robbie chuckled, but it didn’t come out right. ‘Nah, it’s just we’re out of milk, and you were gonna—’

  ‘You woke us up for that? Jeezus Christ, man, you want me to bang on your fucking door at four in the morning to tell you I’ve wiped my arse on the last sheet of bog roll?’

  Jed twisted round, squinting out from the covers like some kind of nocturnal creature leery of surveillance. ‘I see you’re all tarted up for a day at the office, so you’ll be on the way out now, will you?’

  Robbie could hardly deny it. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Well, tell you what then, Rob. Grab some milk while you’re gone, will ya? ’Cause some twat just woke us to say we’re clean out.’

  Cackling, he vanished beneath the blankets.

  ****

  Robbie stomped out, distracting himself with the question of where to get Dan’s car fixed. Perhaps he could enlist Jed’s help to find a suitable place. At the same time there was an alternative plan brewing – a plan that Dan wasn’t going to like one bit.

  The flat came with a parking space at the rear of the building. Robbie’s motor was a BMW 335i Coupe, bought new four years ago when his profit-share from Compton’s was still healthy enough to sustain such extravagance. Last year he’d counted on trading up to something hotter still, but Mommie Dearest had quashed that idea. It meant he’d had to take it for an MOT, which in his eyes was a humiliation.

  He got in the car, started her up and checked his look in the mirror: eyes clear and bright and clever. He smiled: Life is good. The two and a half grand he owed to various people was sitting in the safe, but now his wallet contained five hundred quid that he hadn’t expected to see again. A bonus, right?

  And Hank the Wank was probably still lying in the ditch. Fox food.

  Driving into the sunshine, Robbie felt the first proper stirring in his groin and knew that he’d done the right thing in answering Bree’s call. Sometimes you had to put everything else to one side and just listen to what the big feller in your pants was telling you.

  CHAPTER 14

  The detective wanted to see her as soon as was convenient. Cate was about to suggest meeting him at work, until she thought of the questions that his presence might prompt from her colleagues. Instead she gave him her home address, then called the office to say she’d forgotten to mention a doctor’s appointment.

  Thomsett hadn’t supplied any further information on the phone, and Cate made her brain hurt trying to figure out what he wanted. Something related to the business with Hank O’Brien seemed the likeliest answer. Hadn’t he warned them that this wasn’t the end of the matter?

  She knew that Robbie’s actions had been underhand, and he’d certainly breached the terms of the property-management agreement with O’Brien, but Cate couldn’t see why a detective would be particularly interested. Unless Hank had dressed up his grievance in more serious terms – alleging fraud, perhaps?

  Or assault. After all, she had punched him in the face.

  She considered calling her mother, but decided that it made no sense to spill the beans – and provoke her mum’s wrath – until she knew precisely how much trouble she was in.

  Instead she began to assess her case for self-defence. The problem was that she’d need to involve Dan and Robbie as witnesses, but doing so would expose the lie that they were merely strangers who had come to her aid. Suddenly Hank would appear to be the victim of a full-blown conspiracy. And any half-decent barrister would take her apart.

  One stupid favour for her brother and now she was looking at a criminal conviction; maybe a prison term. At the very least, her career would be finished.

  Cate found herself picturing her own disgrace and ruin, while Martin and Janine frolicked gaily over sunlit meadows with their beautiful bundle of joy ...

  The doorbell cut through her misery. She opened the front door and took an involuntary step back. The detective was tall and dark-haired, with strong features, rich brown eyes and the sort of winning smile that conveyed an intelligent, easygoing manner. What with that gorgeous voice, she could imagine him presenting an upmarket property show on daytime TV: Today’s couple are from Swindon, and they have a budget of six hundred thousand pounds ...

  ‘Miss Scott?’

  ‘Uh, yes. Caitlin. Well, Cate, actually.’

  ‘Right. And is this Hove, Actually?’

  Her brain was so scrambled that by the time she got the reference it was too late to laugh. Feeling like a halfwit, she heard herself say, ‘No, we’re still in Brighton here.’

  He nodded, holding his warrant card at chest height. ‘Lame joke. I’m DS Guy Thomsett. This is my colleague, DC Bill Avery.’

  He indicated a heavyset man with a mop of russet-coloured hair, trudging up the hill from a badly parked Renault Saloon. Avery had a pink, blotchy complexion, a misshapen nose and a decidedly unfriendly scowl.

  ‘Bugger to park round here,’ he muttered in a soft Yorkshire accent.

  ‘You get used to it,’ Cate said, wishing there was some way she could invite Thomsett into the house while leaving his subordinate on the pavement.

  As she led them into the living room, she couldn’t help glancing at the spot where Martin had kicked over her wine. Thank God it had been white and not red: they might have thought it was blood.

  Thomsett, she noticed, was nearly as tall as Martin, but not lanky or awkward with it. He took a seat at one end of the sofa, and as Cate sat at the other end she spotted flecks of grey in his hair. Same as Martin, but it suited him better. She put him in his mid-to-late thirties.

  Avery, who was perhaps five years older and a good deal shorter, chose to stand almost directly in front of her, his arms crossed, the muscles bulging beneath his crumpled suit. A rugby player in his spare time, or a boxer.

  ‘We’re here in connection with a man named Hank O’Brien.’ Thomsett was watching her intently enough to see her flinch. ‘May I ask how well you know him?’

  ‘Hardly at all.’ The detectives gave her a second or two to elaborate, but Cate knew how that game was played and did nothing to fill the silence.

  Avery’s scowl intensified. ‘When did y
ou last see him?’

  ‘Yesterday evening.’

  ‘And where was this?’

  ‘At a pub. The Horse and Hounds, near Partridge Green. I had a meeting with him.’

  He exchanged a glance with Thomsett. ‘Concerning?’

  ‘A property rental,’ Cate said. ‘My mother owns Compton Property Services.’

  ‘I know it.’ Now Thomsett looked sombre. ‘We found your number on his phone. He texted you at ten-oh-four.’

  ‘Yes, to say he was running late. He was supposed to meet at—’ She frowned. ‘What do you mean, you found my number?’

  ‘I have some bad news, I’m afraid. I have to inform you that Hank O’Brien is dead.’

  Cate stared at Thomsett in astonishment. This time it barely registered how closely both men were studying her reaction.

  ‘How? Did he have a heart attack or something?’

  ‘No. He was knocked down and killed on the B2135, approximately two-thirds of a mile from the pub.’

  ****

  Bree Tyler was the epitome of a trophy wife. Aged twenty-seven, a former swimwear and lingerie model, she was tall and lithe and perfectly honed. Hailing from Whitehawk, one of the city’s most notorious estates, she was so proud of having outgrown her humble origins that, far from concealing the fact, she broadcast it to practically everyone she met.

  Her husband, Jimmy, was more than twice her age. Short and thin with a big pot-belly, his hair slicked back like a 1950s greaser, he was an old-fashioned East Ender who talked like he’d just stepped out of a low-budget British crime movie, one of those films where everyone says: ‘It’s all gorn fahking pear-shaped.’

  Robbie had no idea what Jimmy did for a living: Bree was worryingly vague about it. All she could say was that he spent his days at the horses or the dogs, mostly but not always in southern England. Whether gambling was his main source of income, or whether he used the gambling to launder money from elsewhere, Robbie frankly preferred not to know. But on the days when Jimmy travelled further afield, Bree liked nothing more than to summon Robbie for a horizontal workout.