Ahead of the Game

by JD Kirk

  A learned survival instinct, no doubt.

  “They’re all like that at the start, though,” the teacher continued. She was facing Sinead, but she wasn’t seeing her. Not really. She was looking through her, through the wall at her back, through time itself, and all its wasted years. “It’s all flowers and picnics at the start. People change, though. They realise that the thing they thought they wanted isn’t the thing they actually want.”

  “Not always, Lana,” Sinead said. She reached across the table and put her hand on top of the other woman’s. “Not all men are like that. There are good ones. Far more good ones than bad ones. No one has any right to hurt you. Not a friend, not a stranger, and certainly not your husband.”

  The teacher’s lips thinned. She chewed at her gums, stopping herself voicing something she had been conditioned not to say.

  She pointed to the door. “Are you two…?”

  Sinead nodded. “We get married next weekend.”

  “Oh! Congratulations!”

  “Thank you.”

  “I’m really happy for you, Sinead. I really am!”

  She really wasn’t. She may have been a good teacher, but her acting was shite.

  “Thanks,” Sinead said again.

  “You’re both so young,” Lana said through a smile that may as well have been made of plastic. “I mean… That’s not a bad thing. Necessarily. It’s… God. I’m very happy for you. You make a lovely couple.”

  “Thank you,” Sinead said, for the third—and hopefully final—time. She watched as Lana’s eyes filled with water, which the teacher tried to subtly wipe away before it could be noticed. “Are you OK, Mrs Lennon? Lana, I mean,” she asked.

  “Fine. God. It’s fine. I’m fine,” she replied, her throat tight and her voice hoarse. “It’s just… Time goes so fast, doesn’t it? Just seems like yesterday that you were sitting in my class, and now… Here we are. It all just goes so bloody fast.”

  “It does,” Sinead confirmed. “All just seems like yesterday to me, too. I still remember you quizzing me about Sunset Song.”

  “You never did read that book, did you?” Lana asked.

  Sinead shook her head. “Absolutely not,” she confessed. “Couldn’t get through the first page. Still, I thought I was pretty convincing.”

  “You really weren’t.” Lana laughed. “But I have to give you full marks for effort.”

  “I wish you’d done that at the time, then. I might’ve got a higher pass mark!” Sinead told her. “Good times, though.”

  Lana’s smile, which had been gradually warming into something more lifelike, was suddenly struggling to stay in place.

  “Yes. Well,” she said. “I’m sure you didn’t bring me here to reminisce.”

  “No. Much as I’d like that, I’m afraid not,” Sinead confirmed.

  “You want to talk about my relationship with Fergus.”

  “We do, yes.” Sinead smiled sadly, and this time it wasn’t mirrored back. “And, I’m afraid it concerns your husband, too.”

  “Shite,” Logan spat, reading Tyler’s message.

  “No joy, then, sir?” asked DS Khaled.

  They were still lurking outside Clyde Bennet’s workshop, hoping his van might come trundling round the corner. There was no saying he’d done a runner yet. He might just have nipped out for lunch, or to visit a client. He didn’t know the finger of suspicion was pointing at him, so hopefully, he was still somewhere nearby.

  “No. She doesn’t know where he is,” Logan said, shoving his phone into his pocket. He gave the handle of the main door a rattle, then tried lifting the roll-up shutter beside it. Neither one budged.

  “Uniform’s keeping their eyes peeled for his van. With a bit of luck, that’ll turn up soon.”

  Logan grunted an acknowledgement. Down in the central belt, finding the van would’ve been much easier. There were far more ANPR cameras dotted around, and hundreds of polis cars driving around. Getting a ping on a number plate usually took next to no time.

  Up here though, there was a distinct lack of Automatic Number Plate Recognition equipment, which slowed things down considerably.

  Hamza regarded the building beside them. “Reckon we can get a search warrant to get in?”

  “Aye. Maybe,” Logan said.

  “The text messages are pretty damning. And it could be argued that he threatened the victim’s life,” Hamza pointed out. “Actually, did we check if he has a record?”

  “I did. He doesn’t,” Logan said. “Which I have to say, I found surprising.”

  “Did you look and see if there are any notes on him on the database?”

  Logan was eyeing up the front door of the warehouse, only half-listening. It was a heavy, solid bugger of a thing. A kick—even from feet his size—was unlikely to budge it.

  “What? Oh. No,” he said, turning away from the workshop entrance. “Meant to, but time ran away. Run a check when we’re back in the office, will you? Anything historical will probably have fallen away by now, but worth a look.”

  “Will do, sir.”

  Logan nodded, then threw a glance over his shoulder at the door, like he might be able to catch it unawares. Annoyingly, it hadn’t budged.

  A few good wallops with an enforcer battering ram would wipe the smug look off the bloody thing’s face—metaphorically speaking—but he didn’t have one handy, and he was probably in enough trouble with the Detective Superintendent as it was.

  “Shite,” he said, for the second time in as many minutes. “I’m meant to phone Mitchell.”

  “Want me to step away, sir?” Hamza asked.

  Logan tutted. “I said I’m meant to phone her, son. I didn’t say I was going to.”

  Hamza smirked. “Ah. Right. Gotcha.”

  “You got your speech sorted yet?”

  “Speech?” The DS frowned, then the penny dropped. “Oh. The Best Man speech? Aye. I’ve done it. Wrote it ages ago. It’s just fifteen minutes of relentless piss-taking, really.”

  Logan flinched. Hamza picked up on the meaning behind it right away.

  “Ten minutes?” he said. Then, when Logan continued to look doubtful, “Five minutes?”

  “I always think five minutes is about right,” the DCI told him. “People don’t want to sit listening to us wittering on, do they?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, sir. A lot of people I’ve spoken to say the speeches are their favourite bit.”

  That wasn’t what Logan had been hoping to hear. “Do they?” he grunted. “Who’ve you been asking, like?”

  “Everyone. Tyler’s family, his friends from school. Sinead, obviously. People he trained with. I want to do a good job, so I thought it was important to do my homework. I’ve got hours of material. Literally hours.”

  Logan stared at him in mute horror for several seconds, then quietly said, “Fuck.”

  “Sorry, sir?

  “Nothing. Doesn’t matter. Do your fifteen minutes, son. I’m sure everyone will love it.”

  “You think? Not too long? I wouldn’t want people getting bored.”

  “The existence of DC Neish may be many things, Detective Sergeant. I don’t think boring is one of them. You say what you want to say about him. Take as long as you need.”

  “No, you’re right. Cheers, sir. I will.”

  “Good lad,” Logan told him. “But, obviously, don’t go over twenty minutes, or I’ll punch you to the ground, myself.”

  “Understood,” Hamza said. He nodded at the building beside them. “Want me to get cracking on that warrant?”

  “Aye. May as well. Got a feeling the bastard’s not going to show face anytime soon.”

  Logan’s phone rang. He winced, dreading whose name would be on the screen, then relaxed when he saw whose it was.

  “Ben. You’re still in one piece, then?” he asked. “I heard you’d put on one of your performances.”

  “Aye. Worked a treat, as always,” Ben confirmed. “But, we just had a call, Jack. It’s Ross Lyndsay, Ferg
us Forsyth’s flatmate.”

  “What about him?”

  Logan listened as Ben recited the information he’d been given about the call.

  “OK. That is interesting,” he remarked, once the DI had finished. “Uniform there yet?”

  “Not yet. They’re en route, though.”

  “Right. Good. Get onto them and tell them not to go in, and tell Lyndsay not to touch anything, either. In fact, tell him to go wait outside,” Logan instructed. He made a hand-gesture indicating DS Khaled should end the call he was just starting to make. “Hamza and I are on our way.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Lana Lennon sat in silence, the tiny flitting movements of her eyes the only outward sign of the processing that was currently happening inside her head.

  She hadn’t believed them when they’d said that Clyde knew about the affair. “How could he?” she’d asked. “He’d have said something. He’d have blown his top.”

  “There were texts,” Sinead had told her, but this had only made her even more sceptical.

  “Texts? From Clyde? Clyde never sent texts!” she’d insisted.

  They’d produced the printouts then. Laid bare the exchange between her husband and her lover. There had been a moment of disbelief, several seconds of denial, and then the silent processing had started.

  Sinead and Tyler watched her, saying nothing, letting her reach whatever conclusion she needed to get to on her own. The shock was real—she’d had no idea that Clyde had known about the affair. Both detectives would’ve staked their careers on that.

  “It doesn’t… I mean…” Lana began, then she shut down again for another few moments, her internal processing resuming.

  “We appreciate it must be a shock for you,” Tyler told her.

  “A shock? Yes. Yes, it’s a shock, alright.” She sounded numb. Muted. Her eyes were wide open, though, and Tyler couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen her blink. “I didn’t… I spoke to him after he sent that message. He seemed fine. We went to bed together.”

  “Went to bed?” Sinead asked, seeking clarification.

  Lana did blink then, taken aback by the insinuation. “Oh. God. No, not like that. It’s been months since we last tried… Clyde has problems maintaining—” She shook her head, annoyed by her own over-sharing. “I don’t mean we were intimate, I just mean we both went to bed around the same time. There was no drama. No shouting. If he’s angry about something, he’s not one to hide it.”

  “Maybe he was playing it cool,” Tyler said. “If he was planning to kill Fergus the next day, he wouldn’t have wanted you knowing that he knew about the affair.”

  Lana was quick to shake her head. “He can’t hide things. Not like that. If something’s bothering him, I can tell. The way he talks, or the things he says, or… or the way he moves. If he’s annoyed, if I’ve done something to bother him, then I can tell. Even if he denies it. I can tell. He’s quite transparent, really.”

  “Most of them are,” Sinead said, earning herself a little dunt under the table from Tyler’s knee. “So, as far as you were concerned, Clyde had no idea about the affair that night?”

  “None. I mean…” Lana gestured to the printouts. “Clearly he did, but… God.” She brought a knuckle to her mouth and chewed on the skin, her eyes filling with tears. “Why would he hide it? If he knew, why would he hide it, unless he was going to kill him?” She buried her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking. “Oh, God. It was me, wasn’t it? It was my fault? If he hadn’t been with me, if we hadn’t been together…”

  “You shouldn’t blame yourself, Lana,” Sinead soothed. “You couldn’t have known he’d react like this.”

  “Yes. I should’ve. Of course, I should’ve. It’s what he does. Flies off the handle. His temper, he… he can’t control it. He just… He lashes out. He can’t find the words, so he lashes out. It’s instinctive. He doesn’t even know he’s doing it sometimes,” Lana said. She was babbling now, unable to stop the words coming even if she’d tried. “You can see it in his face, that moment when he realises what he’s done. That he’s gone too far.”

  “He hit you,” Sinead said. It wasn’t a question, and Lana didn’t waste their time by bothering to answer it.

  “He’d cry, sometimes, then. Afterwards. He’d break down and cry.” She shook her head, and all those blinks she’d been holding back came one after the other. “And… I’d hold him,” she whispered. “I’d comfort him. I’d… fucking… apologise to him. I’d apologise to him. I’d tell him it was OK. Tell him he wasn’t a bad person. Tell him it was my fault, that I’d try harder, that he shouldn’t blame himself.”

  Lana was collapsing before their eyes. Not literally. Not physically. Emotionally, though, she was crumbling away. Becoming rocks, then rubble, then dust to be carried off on the breeze, until there was no trace left of the person she’d been.

  She bit the skin around her thumbnail again, and this time drew blood.

  “And… and I brought someone else into that. I knew what he was, how he behaved, what he might do, and I got someone else involved! It’s my fault. Fergus is dead. He’s dead, and it’s all my fault!”

  “Again, Mrs Lennon, it isn’t,” Tyler told her. “Whoever killed Fergus—whether it was your husband, or someone else—that’s on them. Not you. You’re not to blame. Not for any of this. We’ve seen the texts. Fergus went into the relationship with his eyes open. He knew you were married. You made that clear. He pursued you, despite that. He was the one who really pushed for the relationship, not you.”

  It seemed to just occur to Lana then that the detectives had pored over all of the private, intimate messages that she and Fergus had sent to each other. Her cheeks stung red, and the shame of it lowered her gaze to the table.

  For a long time, she said nothing. She thought about it—the twitching of her lips and the slight intakes of breath suggesting words were about to come—but she remained silent for a full minute or more before finally settling on what she wanted to say.

  “I was flattered, I suppose. I mean, I’m hardly a catch, am I? Not so much ‘past my best’ as ‘never likely to get there,’” she lamented. “And he was so young. So full of life. And funny! God, but he was funny. He made everyone laugh, right from day one. Usually, when someone new starts, it’s awkward for a bit. You know? You try to make them comfortable, but it takes a while for them to settle in. To find their place.”

  “But not him?” Sinead asked.

  Lana smiled and shook her head. “No. No, you’d have thought he’d worked there all his life. He just… fit, you know? There was no awkwardness. None. He just turned up one day, and it was like he’d always been there. And when I first spoke to him, it was like… I knew him. Like I’d known him forever. There was none of that uncomfortable stuff when you don’t know what to say to someone. It was just… easy. Familiar.”

  “Would you say you hit it off right away, then?” Tyler asked.

  “Oh, yes. Immediately,” Lana said. “But, then again, he hit it off with everyone right away. Some of the younger teachers—women—you could see they were interested. Of course they were, he was… Not handsome, exactly. That’s not quite right. Beautiful. He was beautiful.”

  More tears made their way down her cheeks, but more through awe than grief, like she was marvelling at some life-affirming sunrise, or getting her first glimpse of the Northern Lights.

  “He was just so vibrant. And kind. He radiated kindness. That’s why the kids all loved him. He had time for all of them. And he was so good with Bennet.”

  “Bennet?” said Tyler, glancing down at the printed notes Sinead had brought into the interview.

  “My son. He hated sports. PE was his least favourite subject. He used to be a bit overweight, but Fergus changed all that,” Lana explained.

  “How did he do that?” asked Sinead.

  “He put together a training schedule for him for outside school hours,” Lana said. “They even went running together, sometimes.
Bennet really looked up to him. He was like a big brother.” She crumbled again then, her hand shaking as she brought it to her mouth. “And I’ve barely spoken to him since we heard. God. He must be so upset, and I’ve been so wrapped up in myself that I’ve barely said a word to him.”

  “Did Bennet know anything about your relationship?” Tyler asked. “You and Fergus, I mean.”

  “No!” she retorted, visibly horrified by the suggestion. “No, he had no idea. No, definitely not.”

  “You did think the same about your husband,” Sinead gently reminded her, but Lana stood firm.

  “No. He didn’t know. He couldn’t have. We were very careful to keep things secret.”

  “Copsand knew,” Sinead said. “Mrs Robertson, I mean. Or, she suspected enough to point us towards you, anyway.”

  Terror flashed across Lana’s face, but it was closely followed by the realisation that it didn’t really matter now. The worst possible outcome—by some margin—had already happened.

  “Not Bennet, though. Bennet didn’t know,” she said, trying to convince herself as much as the detectives. Perhaps, even more so. “He couldn’t have known. He couldn’t have.”

  A look passed between Tyler and Sinead, so brief and subtle that Lana missed it completely.

  “How would he have felt if he had found out?” Tyler asked. “Would he have been angry, do you think?”

  “Angry? No. He’d have been bloody delighted!” Lana told him. “He was always on at me to leave Clyde. And… We were talking about it. Fergus and I. We were making plans to go. Together. With Bennet. The three of us. We’d have had to tell Bennet then, obviously, but I think… I think he would’ve been happy.” She sniffed, rolled her eyes in embarrassment as the tears began to fall again, then managed to croak out a final, “I think we all would’ve,” before her voice betrayed her completely.

  She reached for her tea, which was now barely lukewarm, and hid behind her cup for a while as she struggled to compose herself.