by Bud Craig
“Great.”
“Anyway, Ellen wants me to join her band on the world tour,” she said, sounding a little breathless, “you know, play keyboards, do backing vocals, even sing a couple of numbers.”
“Wow.”
She re-arranged the papers on her desk before she said any more.
“I just wondered how you felt about it.”
That wasn’t the question I was expecting.
“How I feel about it? Well, it’s brilliant, isn’t it?”
She took a deep breath.
“So you don’t mind?”
“No, I...”
“I’ll be away for months.”
We looked at one another.
“I’ll miss you,” I said, “course I will, but it’s what you want to do.”
“Yes, but it’s a bit daunting.”
I smiled at her. Most things people want to do are daunting, I thought.
“For someone with your talent it’ll be a piece of piss.”
“Thanks.”
Marti grinned, suddenly looking years younger. Then she moved her papers around again. She was about to speak then fell silent.
“I was just wondering what’s gonna happen to us,” she said eventually.
We made eye contact for a moment then looked away again.
“Us as a couple rather than individuals?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said. “I was thinking maybe this was a good time to, you know, think about whether we have a future together...”
“Or not?”
I put into words what I thought was on her mind. She sighed, whether with relief that she’d brought what had been bothering her out in the open or with sadness I couldn’t say. I looked out of the window behind Marti, which afforded a view of Salford Quays. I had no idea if Marti and Yvonne had chosen their office with this in mind, but it was certainly impressive. And it distracted me briefly from thinking about what Marti was saying.
“We don’t have to decide now but...” she said.
But what, I wondered? I would need time to mull over what Marti was saying. It would take a while to get used to the idea, because, whatever she said, I knew the decision had been made.
* * *
“Well, mam, here I am again,” I said.
A wind blew over Weaste cemetery, ruffling my hair. I straightened my tie, checking the crease in the trousers of my suit. I always obeyed what I thought would be my mam’s dress code for these visits. She had never got used to casual clothes.
“A lot’s been happening,” I went on. “That always seems to be the case. I’ve been thinking about you. More than usual, I mean. Ever since I met Debbie again.”
Debbie was one of the chosen few: people my mam actually liked.
“I was going out with her when you died,” I said. “It was quite a year. Two general elections. Harold Wilson won them both. Now people would say ‘Harold who?’”
Forty years ago, I said to myself. All that time without my mother.
“Then when Ed Richards told me about his father dying when he was thirteen,” I continued, “that also reminded me of you.”
There was a parallel with my own experience that had made me empathise with Ed.
“I think when Marti goes off on this world tour that’ll be it for us,” I explained. “How do I feel about it? Sad, I’d say. Yes, definitely sad.”
It was easy to tell I wasn’t happy by the fact that Cocktail Time was my current choice of bedtime reading. I’d gone back to re-reading PG Wodehouse yet again to bring a smile to my face.
“I’ll cope though, Mam, no need to worry.”
I looked round at the gravestones, hundreds of them, all with their story to tell – if only they could talk. The peace of the place was comforting somehow, as was the thought that I could confide in my mother. I’d never been able to when she was alive. Maybe, had she not had a fatal stroke when I was eighteen, we might have developed a more equal, trusting relationship. Like the one I now had with my dad.
“Then there’s the question of Jimmy Gallagher. What do you think of that, mam? You used to feel sorry for Jimmy; you said he always seemed so hopeless.”
It’s a long way from hopeless to killing someone, I thought.
“I’m struggling with this one, mam, I have to admit. There’s so much information, so many possible theories. That’s all they are, theories.”
I sighed loud enough to be heard by any passer-by. Luckily I was the only person here.
“Oh, and Louise is having trouble with her second husband.”
Why was I telling her this? I knew what she’d say: ‘Serves her bloody right, Gus. She wouldn’t recognise a good man if he jumped up and bit her on the nose. I tell you something, if my son’s not good enough for her, she can sod off.’
“And so say all of us,” I said, wondering whether Brad would sod off.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Just after I got home from the cemetery my phone rang.
“Hi, Gus, it’s Debbie.”
The last person I had been expecting.
“I’m sorry not to have been in touch sooner, too much going on. I’m staying with a friend in the Peak District at the moment, but I’ll be back home some time tomorrow.”
“Right.”
“Maybe we could meet up some time.”
“Good idea.”
We spent a frustrating few minutes trying to find a time and date when we could meet. It wasn’t as if my life were one long round of wall to wall excitement, but there was always something to do.
“Actually, Gus,” said Debbie eventually, “I’m planning a final walk tomorrow while my friend’s at work. I don’t suppose you’ll be free to join me, will you?”
Just what I needed to cheer me up.
“Don’t worry if it’s too short notice,” she added.
“No, no, I can manage that.”
“Bring a picnic,” she said.
* * *
The next morning about half eleven found me walking in the Peak District with Debbie by my side. I’d got off the train in Hope, Derbyshire where she had greeted me with a hug, telling me how glad she was I had been able to make it. Can’t be bad, I said to myself. As we began to climb Mam Tor she asked about my Scillies trip.
“Vicky told me a bit about it of course,” she said. “Weird about that woman pretending to be her, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah. There have been developments since then,” I said, breathing heavily. “God, I’ll be knackered by the time we get to the top.”
She grinned at me.
“You’re getting soft in your old age. It’ll be worth it for the views.”
I puffed louder, feeling an ache at the back of my knees.
“I’ll take your word for it.”
I explained about the arrest of Francine Ingleby and the involvement of Eliott McIntyre.
“Does this help you with sorting out who killed Tim Greenhoff?” she asked.
“Not really,” I gasped. “Nothing does if I’m honest.”
For all that I didn’t want to talk about the murder investigation, I had to acknowledge that people were fascinated by crime. Debbie, I could tell, thought being involved in that kind of thing made me more interesting.
“You seem to have reached an impasse,” she said.
“Yes,” I sighed, resisting the urge to say, ‘tell me something I don’t know’.
“What do you reckon you’re going to do next?”
“Go over what I’ve already done,” I said with a question mark in my voice.
“And then do it again?” she asked.
I looked at her, not quite getting it.
“Eh?”
“Why not go and see everybody you’ve spoken to already?”
“It’s as good an idea as any,” I replied.
And I might just turn up something that would break the case, I thought. Plus, I had nothing else to suggest. We stopped talking for a while as we devoted what energy we had left to reaching the summit
of the hill.
“Is your girlfriend a walker?” asked Debbie as we admired the view from Mam Tor.
A hang glider soared over us as we looked towards Kinder Scout.
“No, she says she’s allergic to the countryside,” I said. “I keep telling her how much she’s missing.”
“She certainly is. This is stunning.”
“Anyway,” I said. “She’s not my girlfriend anymore.”
This was the first time I’d put it into words, except at my mother’s graveside.
“Oh?”
“It’s a long story,” I said, knowing that was the sort of thing people said when they didn’t want to explain something.
“Right.”
The idea of Marti and I splitting up just added to my sense of dissatisfaction with life. I was getting nowhere with the investigation. My social work career earned me a crust and occasionally gave me a sense of achievement. On the other hand, it messed with my emotions and left me believing that most human problems were just intractable.
One reason for coming out today – apart from feeling flattered to be asked and enjoying walking – was to get away from things for a while. And I was enjoying Debbie’s company more than I did in the old days, when I was overawed by a girl whose dad had a car and who sounded all her aitches. Now I no longer was that desperate adolescent longing to make an impression.
* * *
“Who’d have thought we’d be here after all these years?” said Debbie when we stopped for a picnic about halfway round the walk.
“Yeah, it does seem strange.”
“To think we’ve both been married, had kids and all that,” she added, unpacking her rucksack and taking out a sandwich box. “Do you still see your ex?” she asked.
“Just lately I’ve seen too much of her.”
“How come?”
I began to tell her about the trouble with Brad.
“God,” said Debbie, “he sounds a nasty piece of work.”
You said it, Debbie.
“Anyway, me and my son and daughter came up with an idea that might scupper the lovely Brad.”
Debbie drank some water as I took a plastic bottle from my rucksack and poured wine into a cup.
“Go on,” she said, “tell me about this idea.”
“Right. We wanted to give Brad the impression that Louise was somewhere he couldn’t get hold of her.”
“And?”
“My sister, Terri lives in Australia and sent Louise some postcards of Sydney,” I explained, “Louise wrote on them, sent them back to Terri and she put them in the post. I got one, so did Rachel and Danny. The fourth went to Brad.”
“What a clever idea.”
“In Brad’s card she was to say something like she had to get away for a while and she was sorry it didn’t work out between them.”
“I see,” she said, “you know, Gus, your life seems very complicated. I always thought of you as a pretty straightforward kind of guy.”
“I used to be,” I said with a hint of regret in my voice. “Still am if only people would let me.”
She looked at me with a smile.
“Well, I promise not to complicate things any further,” she said, lightly touching my hand. “Unless you want me to of course.”
Our eyes met for a moment.
“I’ll let you know,” I said.
* * *
“Oh, it’s you,” said Andrea Greenhoff, as she opened her door to me two days later, dressed to kill even at nine in the morning.
I had begun to act on Debbie’s suggestion to see a few people for the second time. As I arrived at Andrea’s house, I noticed a For Sale sign. It was boom time for estate agents in Salford, it seemed. A bright red sports car was parked outside. The ‘14’ on the number plate told me it was brand new. I took a closer look and saw it was a Peugeot, but it was as unlike mine as you could imagine. I recalled Tim complaining loudly about having to make do with a five-year-old car. He would never get the benefit of driving something really flash, I thought sadly.
“Yes,” I said.
“And what does the private detective want this time?”
She folded her arms as she spoke, screwing her mouth up as though issuing a challenge.
“I wondered if I could have a word with you,” I answered.
“You’ve got a cheek.”
She adjusted her stance, staring straight at me. Still the challenge was there.
“People say that.”
There was no point in being too apologetic, I decided. If she sent me packing, I’d cope. Up to now she had shown no sign of doing so. I waited.
“Come in,” she said eventually. “I’ll be glad of the company if I’m honest.”
That last remark took me aback. I didn’t respond, thinking I’d let her explain in her own time. She led me into the living room, where once again I was struck by the unnatural tidiness. Had nobody been in here since my last visit?
“Will said you’d been off work,” I said.
We sat in matching armchairs. Andrea sighed and looked blankly around the room.
“That’s right. Finding it all a bit much.”
“I’m not surprised.”
“I went back for a couple of weeks, trying to get back to normal, you know. But there is no normal anymore.”
There never was, I said to myself. What was I expecting from Andrea? Surely not a pearl of wisdom that would help me crack the case – that would have been wishful thinking – but something remotely useful would be nice. It was time I took control, I thought, and steered the conversation in the direction I needed it to go.
“Do you still think Jimmy Gallagher killed your husband?”
“Yeah, I suppose so. You know, Gus, at the end of the day it doesn’t matter who killed Tim. He’s still dead. I just wanna...I just want it to be over and done with.”
So did I, in the sense that I wanted to have solved the mystery of who killed Tim and to have got my friend out of prison. Would it ever be all over for Andrea? She would always be the woman whose husband got murdered.
“You weren’t exactly honest about Tim were you?” I asked. “When I first came to see you, I mean.”
She twisted her hands together and swallowed nervously.
“In what way?”
“You made out he was a saint,” I explained. “I know he was a serial adulterer and you were obsessively jealous. Not that I blame you.”
She stiffened, as though holding in some great burden.
“Have you any idea how humiliating this is?” she said. “Having everyone know the details of your private life. Fuck! Yes, OK, Tim would shag anything that moved but I loved the bastard.”
This release of emotion seemed to flood the room. Her shoulders slowly slumped as the anger left her.
“Me and Tim understood one another,” she said. “We both went into jobs that didn’t suit us. I thought teaching would be safe and secure. It was what I felt I needed at the time.”
Did Andrea want to make some kind of point? Or was she just glad of a chance to talk about Tim?
“I’m not sure why Tim went into social work. He did social anthropology at university. He was fascinated by different cultures, how people define stuff like madness, how we treat anyone who’s different.”
“All that’s important.”
“Yeah, but you know better than me the average social worker doesn’t have time to worry about philosophical nuances.”
I remembered what Tim had said about his hatred for social work.
“We both came to realise we basically wanted a nice lifestyle,” she went on. “He was always looking for ways to make a fast buck. He did that for me as much as himself.”
She was near to tears now.
“He never quite managed it. The poor sod was worth more to me dead than alive.”
She closed her eyes, tensing her muscles as though trying to contain some powerful emotion.
“I’ve got to get away, Gus, I’ve just got to. As soon
as the life insurance pays out, I’m gonna take the money and run.”
It was only after I got back home that I wondered about Andrea’s new car. There was something not right about it but, true to form, I couldn’t work out what.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“I did some digging into Frank Richards,” said Steve, the next day on my living room settee.
He had just arrived from Dolgellau en route to another golf course. The next day he would be playing a round in the Abbeydale club near Sheffield. Rather him than me, I thought, much as I liked Sheffield.
“Did you come up with any surprises?”
He sipped his tea and bit into a digestive biscuit.
“No. There doesn’t seem much doubt that it was suicide,” Steve went on. “The rope he hung himself with was what killed him. No evidence the body had been moved. He’d had a skinful, but wouldn’t you if you were gonna end it all?”
I didn’t want to think about that.
“In theory somebody could have put him up there and kicked the chair away,” Steve continued, “but it’s unlikely.”
Was this another blind alley, I wondered? It was always unlikely to bring any concrete results, but I still was disappointed. Would I ever get anywhere?
“The investigating officer came away with a positive impression of Caitlin,” said Steve.
“Yeah?”
“She was shocked but not surprised, that was how he put it. You know, she was aware he had mental health issues but maybe didn’t realise how serious they were. She felt guilty, thought she should have tried harder to get him to accept help.”
“Sad really,” I said.
“She was worried about the effect on Frank’s son apparently,” Steve said. “He was only a lad at the time.”
That didn’t square with what Ed Richards had said. Maybe Caitlin had said what was expected of her. That hardly made her a murderer.
“That line of inquiry’s a dead end then,” said Steve. “Where do we go from here, Gus?”
I began to wonder if it were worth pursuing the question of where exactly Caitlin was at the time of Tim Greenhoff’s death.
“I still want to find out if Caitlin was in Blackburn at the relevant time. It doesn’t look like there’s anything in Ed Richards’s allegations, but if Caitlin was lying about her whereabouts...”