DS01 - Presumed Dead

by Shirley Wells

  “What did they want?” He nodded in the direction the patrol car had taken.

  “You don’t know? Then what—?” She looked at him, eyes swimming in pools of moisture. “They came to tell me about—” Her teeth were chattering. “They’ve found a body and they think it might be Mum. I have to prepare myself for bad news.”

  “Oh, Christ, Holly. I didn’t know that. Where?”

  “Dawson’s Clough. At Matthew Jackson’s former home.”

  Under that new bloody patio. Not so new now, of course. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes. Yes, I’m fine.” She wasn’t. Her eyes were moist, her voice breaking at every word. “So how come you’re here?” she asked again.

  Dylan had raced to Devon, too shocked to feel upset or angry, just ready to shake Holly Champion until her teeth rattled. Ready to haul her off and have her arrested for murder.

  No, that wasn’t strictly accurate. He’d been ready to convince her that self-defence was her best option.

  But now, looking at her—

  “Jackson,” he said simply.

  “What about him?”

  “You know he’s been murdered?” He watched her closely, saw the last spots of colour drain from her face. “You didn’t know, did you?”

  Holly shook her head. “They didn’t tell me. They just said I should be prepared for bad news and that someone would visit later.”

  She looked young and very vulnerable. Her emotions were under control, for the moment, but Dylan guessed she could fall apart at any moment. Wearing jeans and bright red shoes with the usual ridiculous heels, she reminded him of a child tottering around in her mother’s footwear.

  “Do you want to walk?” he asked, and she nodded.

  Like a robot, she went back to her home. By the time Dylan had taken his overcoat from the car, she’d changed her shoes and locked up.

  She slipped her arm through his and they headed for the beach.

  “Who killed him?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. I thought…”

  She waited for him to finish, then realisation dawned. “You thought it was me?” Her voice rose. “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? You thought I’d—what? Taken time off work? Travelled to France to find Matthew Jackson? Murdered him? Are you completely mad?”

  “It crossed my mind. You’re the only person I’ve spoken to, Holly. The only person who wanted him dead.”

  “Obviously not!” She snatched back her arm and shoved both hands in her pockets. Her pace increased, and Dylan’s legs began to ache from the effort of walking on the pebbles as he kept up with her.

  Then he saw the tears, one on each cheek, racing to her chin. They weren’t tears for Jackson, or for Dylan’s incorrect assumption.

  “Holly!” He grabbed her arm. “I’m so very sorry about your mother.”

  She nodded but didn’t look as if she trusted herself to speak. Several more tears ran down her cheeks, and Dylan pulled her close.

  “I don’t know how you could have thought I had anything to do with that man’s murder,” she said, when she was more in control.

  “Sorry.”

  But if not Holly, then who the hell had put a knife into Jackson?

  Or perhaps Frank had got it wrong. Perhaps they’d been talking about someone else and Frank had assumed—No, Frank wasn’t stupid.

  “I do want to thank you for finding out what happened to Mum,” Holly said.

  “I’m only sorry it’s such awful news.”

  “I suppose I always knew it would be.” She brushed her tears away. “Okay, perhaps I’d harboured a tiny hope that she’d spent the last thirteen years with amnesia, but deep down, I knew she was dead. In a way, it’s a consolation to know she died happy. She didn’t abandon me, I knew she hadn’t. She died while believing she could buy me a horse.”

  Her voice cracked at the end and Dylan patted her arm.

  “She did.”

  “Why the hell did she trust a man like Jackson?”

  “Because she loved him.”

  “It makes her sound naive and stupid—she wasn’t, you know. She wasn’t the type to talk about money, either. She won a raffle once. The prize was small—only about fifty pounds—and I can still remember her telling me not to mention it to anyone. ‘It’s our business, not theirs,’ she said.”

  “Winning fifty pounds is one thing. Winning a couple of million is vastly different. The excitement, the shock, the disbelief—it would be a lot for anyone to cope with.” It was a problem Dylan wouldn’t mind having, though.

  “I suppose so.” Holly kicked out at a few pebbles.

  Given the excitement, and the fact that she’d been drugged, not to mention the alcohol consumption, Dylan thought Anita had done well to keep the news to herself for so long.

  “It seems the only thing she did wrong,” Holly said, “was to trust a man like Matthew Jackson.” She drew a long, shuddering breath, her bottom lip quivered, and she burst into noisy tears.

  Dylan held her close as the wind gusted and threatened to knock them from their feet. High above them, the gulls shrieked at the injustice of life.

  “And damn it.” She wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her coat. “I am glad that bastard’s dead. He killed my mother for money. That’s all. Just money.”

  Two a half million wasn’t just money, but Dylan didn’t say so.

  “He robbed my mother of her money, and he robbed me of my childhood. Because of him, I had to live with bloody awful Aunt Joyce.”

  Dylan smiled at the description and Holly laughed.

  “Well, she is bloody awful. How Len puts up with her, I’ll never know. She’s mean, spiteful, miserable and—God, I know I’m supposed to be grateful to her, she reminds me on a daily basis, but I would rather have been left to walk the bloody streets!”

  The laughter turned to tears and, once again, Dylan held her until she was more composed.

  “I’m a wreck. Sorry, Dylan.”

  “You’ll be fine.”

  “Yes, you’re right.” She didn’t sound confident.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  “Dylan!” Bev shouted. “You’re on the telly again!”

  Somewhat reluctantly, as he was busy sorting through old Arsenal programmes with Luke, Dylan went into the marital lounge. He was in time to see his photo—looking slightly chubby, he couldn’t help noticing—on the small screen.

  “Fame and fortune, eh?” he joked, and she laughed.

  “Fame, certainly. Perhaps the fortune will follow.”

  “Unlikely.”

  The screen was now showing a very frightened-looking Francois Jackson being taken into custody.

  “What will happen to her, Dylan?”

  “I don’t know. She’s claiming self-defence so, assuming she’s got a damn good lawyer, she shouldn’t fare too badly.”

  Dylan wondered if it had been self-defence. Francois was claiming that, after Dylan’s visit to the family home, Jackson had confessed to killing Anita Champion for her lottery ticket. According to Francois, he was a foul-tempered man prone to violence. Funny that no one had mentioned such a trait to Dylan. He had allegedly threatened Francois at knifepoint with the same fate as Anita if she so much as breathed a word of his story to anyone. She’d been terrified, she claimed, a fight had ensued and she had accidentally killed him.

  Dylan wasn’t sure he believed her story. It was easy to stab someone on TV and in Hollywood blockbusters. In real life it was extremely difficult to kill someone with a knife, and almost impossible to do it accidentally.

  But Dylan had no sympathy for Jackson. Good luck to her.

  “Will you have to go back to France?” Bev asked.

  “I might be called as a witness. It depends on how things go, I suppose.”

  The story ended and the weather report came on.

  “I’m proud of you, Dylan.” Bev lowered the sound on the TV. “Luke is, too. We’ve got our own real-live hero.”

  Dylan didn’t know how to answ
er that. He was no hero. Far from it. He’d been lucky in finding out what had happened to Anita Champion. Lucky that, even in death, she’d shown herself to be a creature of habit. Lucky that his brain remembered seemingly unimportant details, like Geoff telling him how Anita had always, but always, bought a lottery ticket and ten cigarettes, and how that particular week, she’d bought her cigarettes in Manchester. Dylan had known that, along with the cigarettes, she would have bought a lottery ticket. As someone determined to grab everything she could from life, she would have dreamed long and hard about the fun a lottery win would have brought. How could she have gone home that night when she’d been enjoying the most exciting time of her life? A lottery win. Unbelievable. A horse for Holly…

  It was good to have his wife call him a hero, though. Far better than a drunkard and a loser.

  “I never doubted you.” Bev changed channels and settled down to the soap of the moment.

  It seemed to Dylan that she’d doubted him constantly, but he didn’t argue. Instead, he left her to her programme and went back to Luke in the kitchen.

  “Will you be a policeman again now, Dad?”

  “No.” Once you were an outcast, that was it. There was no way back in. Dylan didn’t mind. In fact, he’d quite enjoyed being his own boss for a while. “I think I’ll be a proper private investigator. Dylan Scott, P.I. It has a good ring to it, doesn’t it?”

  “Yeah.” Luke grinned. “When I’m older, I can be your sidekick. They always have sidekicks who come to the rescue in the nick of time.”

  “They do.”

  They carried on sorting out the old Arsenal souvenirs—Luke could remember each and every game—until Bev joined them in the kitchen. She made Dylan coffee and sat at the table with them.

  “Holly Champion is really pretty, isn’t she?” she said.

  “She’s not a patch on her mother.” Realising that sounded bad, he tried to make amends. “I mean, yes, she’s lovely. Very pretty. Nice with it, too. But her mother was something else. She was gorgeous.”

  “A pity she didn’t have a personality to match.”

  The sharp comment had Dylan looking at her in surprise. He realised belatedly he’d made a serious error. He should have said that, although Anita was gorgeous, she couldn’t hold a candle to Bev.

  Living with a woman, he decided, was on a par with running across a minefield. They were an alien breed.

  “She liked to have fun, that’s all.” As ever, he had to jump to Anita’s defence.

  “So what about Holly?” Bev asked. “Will you keep in touch?”

  “I don’t know. Probably not.”

  They had kept in touch, and probably would until all this died down, but then there would be no need.

  Confirmation had come through that the body found at Jackson’s old home was indeed that of Anita Champion. No one had been surprised.

  Dylan had taken Holly to Dawson’s Clough, shown her around and introduced her to a few people. The most remarkable meeting, perhaps, had been with Ian Champion.

  At first, Holly had refused to see him, but she’d relented just hours before they’d planned to leave Lancashire.

  “I don’t think I’ll manage to be civil towards him,” she’d said and Dylan understood that.

  Within half an hour of arriving at the Champions’ home, however, she had been drinking tea and bouncing young Chloe on her knee.

  “You’ll phone to let us know you’ve got home safely?” Ian had asked her as they were leaving. “And you’ll come back soon, won’t you?”

  “I will.”

  People never failed to surprise Dylan.

  “He’s all the family I’ve got now,” Holly had said.

  That wasn’t strictly accurate, of course. She still had her aunt and uncle, Joyce and Len. Dylan had to confess, though, that in her position he would do his best to forget those particular relatives, too.

  What she didn’t know was that her natural father was dead. When he and Frank had first met Jackson, Dylan had known the bloke reminded him of someone. It was his frown—the same expression that sometimes marred Holly’s features. It wasn’t Dylan’s place to mention this, though. Besides, he had no proof, and some things were best left alone.

  “Have you spoken to your Mum?” Bev asked.

  “Not yet, no.”

  Dylan had switched his phone to silent as he didn’t want anything intruding on his time with Luke, but he’d felt it vibrate at an incoming call a couple of times.

  “I have. Their plane was an hour late, but they landed okay and were about to sit down to dinner in the best restaurant in Athens.”

  Dylan smiled at that, but he couldn’t help wondering about the man brave enough to venture to Greece with his mother. Richard, according to his mum, was fun and adventurous. He hadn’t hesitated when she’d suggested the two of them should go and paint Athens red.

  More than anything, Dylan hoped the man lived up to expectations and the two became soul mates. A man in his mother’s life would be bliss. She would be far too busy for anything more than a weekly phone call to Dylan. Sheer bliss.

  “What’s he like, this Richard?” he asked.

  “I only saw him briefly, but I liked him. He’s perfect for your mum. Quite handsome for his age, too.”

  “How old is he?”

  “Sixty-two.”

  It wouldn’t matter if he was as old as Methuselah. He’d spirited Vicky Scott to Greece and that was good enough for Dylan.

  His phone vibrated again and this time, a quick glance told Dylan that it was an unknown number. Curious, he answered it.

  “I’m sorry to bother you, Mr. Scott, but Frank Willoughby gave me your number. My name’s Rob Hunt, and it’s about my daughter. She’ll be twenty-two now. She vanished two years ago. You may have seen it in the papers. She set off for work one Friday morning and never came home again.”

  “What was her name?”

  “Samantha Hunt.”

  The name meant nothing to Dylan. “And you’re calling me because—?”

  “I’ve seen you in the papers and on the telly. I want you to find my Samantha for me.”

  “It’s not that—”

  “I know, but as I say, I’ve been talking to Frank. He’s a good friend of mine and he said that, if anyone can find her, you can, Mr. Scott. I’ll pay whatever it takes.”

  “It’s not about the money.” Dylan could understand the man’s pain, though, and, after all the hype on TV, he wasn’t surprised that people believed he could work miracles. “Where do you live? Where did Samantha live?”

  “She lived with me in Dawson’s Clough.”

  “Can I call you tomorrow, Mr. Hunt?” Dylan asked. “I’ll need to ask a lot of questions before I decide whether I can help or not.”

  “Yes, of course. Thank you. I’ll look forward to your call.”

  As Dylan snapped his phone shut, he hoped Rob Hunt wasn’t reduced to buying his clothes from Oxfam.

  “What was all that about?” Bev asked.

  “A man’s daughter went missing a couple of years ago. He’s a friend of Frank’s and he wants my help.”

  “And will you help?”

  Dylan shrugged. “I expect so.”

  “Of course you will.” She reached across the table and squeezed his arm. “I’m so proud of you, Dylan!”

  He basked in another moment of glory.

  It was beginning to feel like old times, he thought with satisfaction. Luke went to bed at about nine o’clock, and then Dylan and Bev sat at the kitchen table and chatted about Anita Champion, about Lancashire, about Bev’s pupils and Luke’s schoolwork.

  Dylan’s phone vibrated, and this time, it was Frank.

  “I’ve just spoken to your friend Rob Hunt,” Dylan greeted him.

  “Great. Thanks for that. He’s a good bloke.”

  “I haven’t agreed to anything yet, though.”

  “That’s okay. Anyway, that’s not why I’m calling. Sorry it’s late, but I’ve only just h
eard.”

  “About what?”

  “About the murder enquiry that’s been launched by Lancashire Constabulary.”

  “What?”

  “Alan Cheyney. Remember the bloke who hanged himself at his angling shop?”

  “Of course I remember him. But it was suicide. They were sure of it.”

  “They were,” Frank agreed, “but Cheyney’s brother wasn’t. He wouldn’t let it rest, and he kept on at them about Cheyney’s mobile phone. You see, he’d called him on it and chatted to him just before four that afternoon. Shortly after that, Cheyney supposedly hanged himself.”

  “So?”

  “So they didn’t find his phone with him, and Cheyney’s brother insisted it would have been there. In the end, probably to shut him up, they got the phone records checked. You’ll know how long that takes. Anyway—get this—Cheyney’s phone made a call from the centre of Manchester around ten o’clock that night.”

  “Bloody hell! A walking phone, eh?”

  For Bill Thornton’s sake, Dylan was pleased. Bill had known his friend was made of sterner stuff. “Any suspects?”

  “Funny you should ask,” Frank said. “Cheyney was in debt, right? He owed his bank and he was way behind with his rent. He owed his landlord, our good friend Terry Armstrong, several thousand pounds.”

  Dylan knew that. “Yeah, but even Armstrong wouldn’t kill a bloke for that.”

  “True. But he’d be mighty pissed off. He’d send a couple of his heavies round to remind him the money was due.”

  He’d certainly do that. A few cuts and bruises, a couple of cracked ribs—Bill Thornton had believed his friend had been beaten up by thugs who thought he had money on him. It was far more likely that Armstrong’s men were responsible for Cheyney’s stay in hospital.

  “But murder? No, Frank, I don’t buy it.”

  “Ah, but wait till you hear this. The lovely Mrs. Armstrong has come forward—frightened for her life apparently—willing to testify against her husband on condition the witness protection program works its magic.”

  “You’re kidding me.”

  “Nope. She claims Armstrong’s gone crazy. Christ, I could have told her that. The bastard’s always been crazy.” Frank chuckled at that. “It all started, she claims, when she met Cheyney at the golf club. He spilt his drink over her and Armstrong’s mates saw her laughing with him. They took the piss out of Armstrong—said he couldn’t keep his women, stuff like that. The next thing, Cheyney’s dead.”