Breaking Point

by Frank Smith

Fletcher spoke through a mouthful of egg and sausage. ‘No, I bloody didn’t,’ he growled, ‘and I’ve told you time and time again, Shirl, I don’t like to be called Gerald. I never have liked it from the time I was a kid. It’s Gerry!’

  ‘You’ll get the hiccups if you talk with your mouth full,’ his sister told him. She set a plate in front of her husband, who looked at it and said, ‘What the hell is this, Shirl?’

  ‘What’s it look like? It’s scrambled eggs, that’s what it is, Bernie. There’s three eggs in that lot, and there’s toast.’

  ‘So where’s the bacon and sausages?’

  ‘Where do you think? If I’d known Gerald – Gerry – was coming, I’d’ve gone to the shops yesterday, but I didn’t know, did I? You said yourself, last night, that he hadn’t had much to eat all day yesterday, so I reckon he deserves it. Besides, he’s my brother and a guest in this house.’

  ‘For God’s sake, woman, he’s not a guest in anybody’s house; he’s a bloody fugitive from the law, and what you’re doing is called aiding and abetting, and you can go to gaol for that, so the sooner he’s out of the house the better.’

  Fletcher emptied his mouth and jabbed a fork in Bernie’s direction. ‘Neither one of us would be in trouble if you’d kept your thieving hands off that camera and kept your gob shut,’ he said. ‘It’s because of you I’m on the run, so you owe me, Bernie.’

  Bernie scowled as he poked at his scrambled eggs. ‘You can’t stay here anyway,’ he said stubbornly. ‘The police have been round looking for you once already, and they’ll be back. They’ll expect you to come here.’

  ‘Then you’ll just have to make sure they don’t find me, won’t you, Bernie? So shut up and let me get on with my breakfast before it goes cold.’ He shoved his mug across the table toward his sister. ‘Tea’s cold as well,’ he complained. ‘Put the kettle on, Shirl, and make another pot. And make sure it comes to the boil this time.’

  Tregalles drove with the windows wide open, but even that did little to get rid of the smell. It was in his clothes, his hair, his mouth, his nose, and it wasn’t going to go away until he’d showered, scrubbed and cleaned his teeth and changed. He hated autopsies, and he could never understand how anyone could ever get used to it, let alone make a career out of it.

  This one had been particularly bad. His spirits had risen when Starkie remarked that the body was in fairly good condition, considering how long it had been in the water. ‘Water’s cold this time of year,’ he said. ‘Slows things down quite a bit.’

  But the sergeant’s hopes soon faded. The skin was like slime, peeling off at the touch, and Tregalles had come close to losing his breakfast as the pathologist began to cut and probe. He could sympathize with the poor fisherman who’d first hooked the body in the river. They said he’d been taken to hospital suffering from shock. Tregalles wondered if the man would ever go fishing again.

  ‘Age would be about right for your man, and he didn’t fall into the river accidentally,’ Starkie said as he unravelled nylon rope from around the hands, feet and waist. ‘And I doubt very much if he drowned. Forensic will be taking a closer look at it, but it looks to me as if there was a weight attached to the end of this rope, and it came loose. No telling how far he drifted after that. As to how he died, I wouldn’t be too surprised to find that this broken neck had something to do with it.

  ‘Prints are out of the question, of course. Teeth haven’t been attended to in years, by the look of them, but if he ever did go to a dentist, they shouldn’t have any trouble identifying him.’ Starkie had gone on to say that two of the man’s fingers had been broken at some time in the past, and his right leg was half an inch shorter than the left due to a poorly set break below the knee.

  ‘Probably done about eight to ten years ago,’ he said, ‘and whoever did it should be shot. I hope to God it wasn’t done in this hospital.’

  But it was Starkie’s next words that had caused Tregalles’s heart to sink. The casual tone was gone as the pathologist said, ‘I think you should take a closer look at this, Tregalles. Unless I’m very much mistaken, this man was tortured before someone broke his neck and finished him off.’

  Tortured! The last thing Tregalles wanted to do was move closer, but Starkie had insisted. ‘This man was burned,’ he told the sergeant. ‘Right through to the bone. It looks to me as if someone used a blowtorch on him. There, see? Scorch marks on the bones.’ Starkie straightened up and took off his glasses to face Tregalles across the table.

  ‘I’ve seen bodies that were charred to the bone after being in a fire,’ he said tightly, ‘but this . . .’ He paused to draw a deep breath before going on, ‘this was deliberate, and it’s enough to make me wonder if we made the right decision when we abolished capital punishment.’

  The pathologist looked grim as he put his glasses on again and bent once more to his task. ‘Whoever did this,’ he said softly, ‘has no feeling and no conscience, so be warned, Tregalles. I don’t know what this case is all about, but I can tell you that you are dealing with a very sick individual, and the sooner you can put him away, the better it will be for all concerned.’

  Who were these people and what were they up to that they’d felt it necessary to go to such lengths? Tregalles wondered as he left the hospital. And if Doyle had been tortured, had Newman encountered the same fate? Tregalles had never met Mickey Doyle, but he’d built up a picture of the man in his mind, and he couldn’t repress a shudder when he thought of what had happened to him.

  Assuming, of course, that it was Mickey Doyle lying there on the metal slab.

  As Starkie had said, proving whether or not the body was that of Doyle shouldn’t be hard if the man had ever been to a dentist in recent years, but it might be quicker to talk to Doyle’s elderly neighbour and cat-sitter, Mary Turnbull.

  Tregalles picked up the phone and thumbed in his home number. He normally avoided making calls when he was on the move, but he was willing to make an exception this time. This was an emergency.

  ‘Put the coffee on, will you, love?’ he said when Audrey answered. ‘I’m on my way home right now, and I’m going to need it. And I hope you haven’t got any ladies in for elevenses, because I’m going to be bollock-naked when I come through that kitchen door and go upstairs for a shower.’

  It was two o’clock in the afternoon by the time Tregalles arrived back at the office ‘So, how did you get on with Mrs Turnbull?’ Ormside asked as Tregalles poured himself his fifth cup of coffee of the day. ‘Is the man they pulled out of the river Mickey Doyle?’

  Tregalles nodded. ‘When I asked her if she knew if Doyle had broken any bones in the past, she knew right away that we’d found a body. Poor old dear started to cry. I think she was really fond of him. Anyway, she told me about how he limped because of the way his leg had been set so poorly years ago, and she told me exactly how and when he’d broken his fingers, so I don’t think there’s any doubt that it’s Doyle.

  ‘I’ve been on to the local water authority to see if they can give us any idea of where the body might have gone in,’ Ormside said, ‘but I’m not holding my breath. They say they’ll give it a try, but they don’t hold out much hope. The river is high at this time of year, and it’s running fast, so there’s no telling how far the body drifted down river after the weights came off.’

  Tregalles sipped his coffee. He couldn’t get the picture of the body in the mortuary out of his mind. ‘Anything on Fletcher?’ he asked. ‘Any more phone calls?’

  ‘Not a peep since that one yesterday morning. And he hasn’t called his wife or Bernie Green, at least not directly. But that doesn’t mean to say he hasn’t been in touch in some other way.’

  Tregalles looked at his watch. ‘I think I’ll call round on Bernie again before I go home,’ he said. ‘You never know, he might let something slip. I see Lyons is here today as well. What’s he doing?’

  Ormside grunted. ‘Trying to show us how keen he is, I expect,’ he said. ‘I told him he wouldn’t be paid,
but he said he knew that. Why?’

  Tregalles shrugged. ‘Thought I might take him with me. Show there’s no hard feelings. He’s not a bad lad; just needs a bit of ginger up his arse to keep him on his toes, that’s all. So, unless you need him . . .?’

  Ormside shook his head. ‘Better than having him moping around here,’ he said with feeling, ‘so he’s all yours.’

  Bernie Green opened the door to the length of the safety chain, and peered through the narrow opening. ‘I might have known it was you,’ he grumbled, ‘and you can leave off leaning on the bell for a start. What do you want?’

  ‘Catch you in the middle of something, did we, Bernie?’ Tregalles asked. ‘Took you long enough to come to the door. I was thinking something might have happened to you and we might have to break in.’

  ‘I was in the bog if you must know,’ said Bernie. ‘So what do you want?’

  ‘Doing a bit of tidying up, then, were you, Bernie? What were you hiding this time? New camera to replace the one we took off you, was it? Mind if we come in?’

  ‘Yes I do mind. And my brief told me I don’t have to talk to you without him present, so you can sod off.’

  ‘Just wanted to know if you’ve heard from your brother-in-law, Bernie. Have you?’

  ‘No I haven’t.’ Bernie began to close the door but Tregalles’s foot was in the way. ‘Mind if we have a look round the yard, then?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes I do bloody mind! I told you, I’m not talking to you and you can’t come in here or in my yard without a warrant, so get your foot out of the door.’ For all his bluster, Tregalles could see that the man was nervous to the point where he was sweating, and he wondered why. But Bernie was right. He couldn’t force the issue without a warrant.

  Tregalles sighed heavily. ‘I’d hate to see you and your wife go down as accessories to murder,’ he said. ‘Are you really prepared to spend the next few years in prison for protecting a killer?’

  ‘I told you I don’t know anything about that,’ Bernie said. ‘Just because he shifted the bloke’s van doesn’t mean he killed him.’

  ‘Oh, not that one, Bernie,’ Tregalles said. ‘This is another one. Didn’t Gerry mention it? Must have slipped his mind. Mickey Doyle is the name. Somebody – probably Gerry – broke Doyle’s neck before dropping him in the river with weights on. Just happens that Doyle was seen talking to Newman not long before they both disappeared, and we suspect that Newman might have gone the same way. Just hasn’t come up yet, but he will. Oh, yes, and we have Gerry’s prints, as well as those of his mate, on the van we pulled out of the quarry where he dumped it.’

  Tregalles turned to indicate Lyons. ‘See that black eye?’ he said. ‘Your brother-in-law did that, Bernie, so he’s also wanted for assaulting a policeman and evading arrest. You might keep that in mind if Gerry should happen to get in touch. You will let us know if that happens, won’t you? I’ll leave you my card. You might need it sooner than you think.’

  Seventeen

  Upstairs, standing to one side of the window in the front bedroom, Gerry Fletcher eased the curtain aside just enough to watch the two detectives go to their car. But they didn’t get in immediately. Instead, they walked along to the entrance to the yard next door to the house, and one of them – the tall skinny one with the bruise on his face where he’d hit him – hoisted himself up to look over the wooden gate. He hung there for a moment, then dropped back and shook his head.

  Looking for the bike, Gerry surmised. It was hidden well enough, but not if they came back with a warrant and really searched the place. He watched as the two men returned to the car and drove away, and was about to turn away when something familiar caught his eye. He squeezed his eyes shut and looked again.

  There was no mistake.

  He moved swiftly to the head of the stairs. ‘Bernie!’ he yelled. ‘I need your binoculars.’

  Bernie appeared at the bottom of the stairs. ‘Never mind binoculars,’ he grated. ‘I want you out of here before they come back with a warrant.’

  Fletcher almost leapt down the stairs to push Bernie aside. ‘Shirley?’ he bellowed. ‘I need binoculars. Where the hell are they?’

  Shirley appeared from the kitchen. ‘What do you want them—’ she began, but was cut off by her brother.

  ‘For Christ’s sake, just get the bloody binoculars, Shirl. When I say I need them, I don’t mean next bloody week; I mean I need them now!’

  ‘No need to go on like that,’ said Shirley placidly. ‘You only have to ask. Now, where are they, Bernie? You had them last.’

  ‘Never mind the sodding binoculars,’ Bernie yelped. ‘He’s wanted for murder, for Christ’s sake, and I don’t want him in my house!’

  ‘I remember now, they’re in the sideboard,’ Shirley said. ‘Ah, yes, here they are, Gerald.’

  ‘For Christ’s sake, woman,’ Bernie bellowed, ‘didn’t you hear what I said? He’s wanted for murder! That was the police at the door.’

  ‘And you believed them?’ his wife said derisively. ‘They were just winding you up, hoping you’d let them in. But you know as well as I do that Gerry could never kill anyone. Now, could you, Gerry?’ she said turning to her brother.

  ‘’Course I couldn’t, Shirl,’ he snorted. ‘Now, just give me the bloody binoculars and shut up the both of you.’

  Back upstairs, Fletcher adjusted the binoculars, parted the curtains just enough to allow him to see clearly, then stepped back to avoid being seen himself as he focussed on a car some distance away on the other side of the street. It was an older car and a familiar one, and someone was sitting in the driver’s seat. There was too much light on the windscreen to make out who was behind the wheel, but only one man drove a car like that.

  He sat down on the bed. How the hell did they find out that he was here? How could they possibly know?

  The answer, he told himself, was they didn’t know. At least they didn’t know he was inside or they would have probably kicked the door in and come for him by now. They were watching the house because they knew it was one of the few places he could go. And they’d have someone watching Rose as well in case he was stupid enough to go back there. Rose could take care of herself, but he hoped it wasn’t Luka who was watching her. Gerry couldn’t suppress a shiver as he thought of the cold-eyed man who rarely spoke, but you only had to look at him to know you wouldn’t want to cross him. Luka gave him the creeps. He was probably the one who’d done for Doyle. Breaking a man’s neck and dropping him in the river sounded like Luka’s style, but he couldn’t have done it alone. Someone must have helped him; probably Slater.

  Thank God he’d had the sense to run yesterday. He’d been stupid to call the farm; even more stupid to think that they would help him, but he hadn’t realized that until it was almost too late.

  He’d been surprised, even pleased, when Roper had put Slater on. ‘I’ve been helping the old man, here, by doing a bit of ploughing for him,’ Slater told him, ‘but I’ll come and pick you up. Just tell me where you are. And don’t worry, Gerry, we’ll take care of you.’

  Yeah, right! Those words had a whole different meaning now.

  He’d remained where he’d told Slater he would be for the first half hour or so, but decided to cross the street to stand beneath an awning when it started to rain. There, he pretended to be interested in the stamps and coins displayed in the window rather than in the reflected image of the street.

  He remembered how thankful he’d felt when he saw the van pull in on the other side of the street, and watched Slater get out.

  He hadn’t sensed any danger as he left the shelter of the awning and stood at the kerb waiting to cross. He saw a gap in the traffic and was about to step off when he saw movement in the van. Someone was in the back; someone who had poked their head over the back of the driver’s seat to take a quick look up and down the street. All Fletcher had seen was the back of the head, but it was enough to send a chill down his spine.

  Luka!

  Sitting the
re now on the side of the bed, Gerry remembered the fear that had gripped him when it had finally dawned on him that he had become a liability, and they’d sent Luka to take care of him.

  Fighting the urge to run, he’d put his head down and joined the steady stream of shoppers and walked away. He’d kept walking until he was well away from the area, finally taking shelter in a small shop in Albert Road. It was a poky old place, selling wools and linens and the like, but it was surely one of the last places they would think of to look for him.

  He’d told the shop assistant that his wife had said she would meet him there. There was no one else in the shop, so he’d spent half an hour there before saying his wife must have been held up, and he’d better go out and look for her.

  He’d made his way to where he’d left the bike in a narrow service lane behind a row of shops in Church Street. He was thankful he’d had the forethought to throw the plastic tarp over the bike before leaving it, not just because it had kept the rain off, but because both Slater and Luka would have recognized it instantly and waited for him to appear.

  Even so, he’d spent close to twenty minutes huddled in a doorway, watching the street and the alley before he’d managed to get up the courage to go for it.

  He’d avoided the main roads leaving the town, skirting Worcester and continuing on north until he got to Bridgnorth, where he’d turned west. The tank was barely a quarter full, he had no money, and the last place he wanted to be was Broadminster, but he was tired and he was hungry, and he had no choice. If he could get to his sister’s house, she’d let him stay there to rest up for a couple of days, and she’d lend him money. Bernie would object, but he knew how to get around Shirley, so to hell with Bernie.

  But now the bastards were out there, waiting, watching the house, and he had to get away. He was tempted to take another look, but decided not to; Slater might be watching with binoculars as well.

  Bernie was waiting for him when he came down the stairs. ‘You might fool your sister,’ he said coldly, ‘but you’re wanted for murder. That’s what they said, and I know they weren’t bluffing. Who is this Doyle? They said his neck was broken and he’d been dumped in the river.’