by Jane Adams
His eyes, on the couple of occasions he had deigned to look at Mike, were light blue, intelligent.
He had given the impression of a man who summed things up very quickly, who had assessed Mike and his companion with a single swift look and decided they were beneath his attention.
Arrogant, Jaques had called him. A sentiment echoed that morning by the prison governor and one Mike felt inclined to be supportive of.
The tape ended and when Mike made no move, this time, to replace it, Fletcher turned to look at him.
‘And?’ he said, gesturing lightly towards the recorder.
‘You made certain claims,’ Mike said. ‘Then you refused to ratify them. Why was that, Mr Fletcher?’
‘Mr, is it?’ Fletcher laughed bitterly. He reached out and picked up the cigarettes Mike had left on the table, shook one free and lit it, pocketed the rest.
‘Words,’ he said. ‘Just so many words. What makes you sure they count for anything?’
Mike regarded him thoughtfully for a moment, then he said, slowly, ‘You don’t strike me as a man who wastes words, Mr Fletcher.’
Fletcher laughed out loud this time. ‘Waste my words,’ he said. ‘That’s a good one, Inspector, that really is.’
Mike felt, rather than saw, Sergeant Price shift irritably at that. He was clearly growing impatient with the whole charade. With Fletcher, sitting there like he’d not a care in the world; with his guv’nor for letting him lead the whole show. He said, ‘Come off it, Fletcher. We’ve not come here to play your games.’
Mike cut him off. ‘You’ve an appeal coming up. I can’t believe your brief’s not advised you to give a little. All these claims you’re making and not a damned thing to back them up.’
‘You think your so-called friends give a shit about you, Fletcher? All they care about is their own hides,’ Price put in. ‘Stood by and let you take the rap, came out squeaky clean in every investigation we ran on them. And you. You sat there day after day, making claims that you could drown the whole damned lot of them, and what did you end up giving us? Not a thing. Not a fucking thing.’
Both Mike and Fletcher turned to look at the younger man. Fletcher continued to sit, regarding him steadily with his calm blue eyes, drawing deeply on the cigarette. Mike could sense that he was ruffled.
He took his lead from Price. ‘Then there’s this famous journal. Supposed to prove your point, wasn’t it? Prove that you were just the pawn taking the blame for the bigger fish? Promised to protect you, had they? What went wrong, Mr Fletcher? Did things get too hot for them so they needed a sacrifice?’
He paused, then asked thoughtfully, ‘Was that what Eric Pearson was meant to be?’
‘That fool!’ Fletcher’s voice was contemptuous. ‘He knew nothing. Just liked to think he did. Wanted to be an insider for once.’ He shook his head as though unable to believe that anyone could be so stupid. ‘A loser, that man. Right from the word go. Only thing he ever did was to father kids on that bitch of a wife of his.’
‘A loser, Fletcher?’ Price questioned. ‘Funny, that, and here’s me thinking it was you ended up inside.’ He paused, turned innocent eyes on Mike. ‘Seems we got it wrong, Inspector. Maybe that was Mr Fletcher’s plan all along, get himself banged up.’ He looked back at Fletcher, who was stubbing out his cigarette on the table edge. ‘Got something good lined up for you when you come out, have they, these friends of yours? Be up for parole in maybe seven, eight more years.’ He leaned over, thumped Fletcher lightly on the shoulder. ‘Still be a young man, won’t you? I mean, not quite ready for your pension.’
‘Don’t you touch me!’
Fletcher had risen to his feet, knocking over his chair, all semblance of calm gone from his features.
The transformation was swift and startling.
‘Sit down, Mr Fletcher,’ Mike said quietly.
‘Something wrong, Fletcher?’ Price jeered. ‘Too old for you, am I?’
Fletcher leapt for him, his face scarlet with rage. Price dodged smoothly, putting the table between them. The two guards outside the door burst in. Mike rose to his feet and shouted for silence.
‘Now sit down!’
Fletcher, reluctant, his breathing deep and heavy, picked up his chair and sat down hard on it.
Price made a show of straightening his tie, then seated himself again on the table edge. Mike waved the officers away.
‘Now let’s begin again,’ he said. ‘In your interview, March third 1994, you claimed to have been witness to a murder.’
‘I wasn’t a bloody witness. I never said I was fucking there.’
Mike raised an eyebrow. ‘You led us to believe, Mr Fletcher, that you witnessed this event.’
Fletcher reached into his pocket for the cigarettes and lit another one.
‘I never claimed to be a bloody witness,’ he affirmed once more.
Mike nodded, as though weighing this up. ‘Accessory, then,’ he said, making an elaborate note on the pad he had on the table top.
Fletcher stared at him.
‘Perhaps you’d like to tell me about it, then. This murder you may or may not have seen. I have all day, Mr Fletcher, and if that’s not enough time I can come back again.’
Fletcher stared at him, then turned his gaze on some spot in the corner of the room, blew a long stream of smoke from between pursed lips.
‘I have nothing to say,’ he declared.
Mike ignored him.
‘Then,’ he said, ‘when we’ve finished with that, we’ll move on to the small matter of procurement, a few points I want to review. For my own satisfaction, you understand. A few minor things I’d like you to tell me about.’
He paused, noting the look of distaste that curled Fletcher’s lips.
‘In detail, of course, Mr Fletcher,’ he said. ‘In as much detail as you can give. We wouldn’t want to miss anything, now would we?’
He settled back in his chair as though preparing for a long wait.
Fletcher gave him a long, cold look. ‘Go to hell,’ he said.
* * *
Price was gnawing on the side of his thumb, worrying at a bit of loose skin. He’d maintained a studied silence all the time they had taken to leave the prison compound and for the car to climb back up the long hill on to the cliff. Only when they had topped the rise and the view opened out before them once more did he speak.
‘Any chance of stopping for some lunch, guv?’
Mike grinned. ‘Hangover gone now, has it?’ His grin broadened as he saw the offended look that swept across Price’s features. ‘Bound to be somewhere,’ he said placatingly. Then, ‘Well, what did you make of him?’
Price glanced at Mike, frowning slightly. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Likes to think he’s cool. In control of things, but, you ask me, he’s scared shitless about something.’
Mike nodded. His own impression had been similar. In the three hours they had spent with Fletcher the man had said very little. Had recovered from his outburst and settled for fielding Mike’s questions. Fencing questions with questions with almost political skill. Or simply smoking, silently, staring into space as though Mike and the sergeant no longer existed for him.
Despite that, though, Mike was certain that their presence had unnerved him. That Price’s little jibe about rewards that might await Fletcher at the end of his sentence had, maybe, not been so far from the truth.
‘Scared of what?’ he asked. The question was rhetorical.
‘His so-called friends, I suppose. But what I don’t get, guv, is why all the half-hints and misinformation he fed to our lot if he wanted his friends to protect him? And, if he figured they’d sold him out, why not just drop them all in the shit for real instead of just creating bad feeling all round and generally queering his pitch both ends up?’ Mike laughed briefly and shrugged. ‘Trying to keep both sides in play, I suppose,’ he said. ‘And in the end, he won neither.’
Mike frowned. And then there had been that comment made just before they le
ft. Possibly the most fruitful thing to have come out of the entire morning: Northeast of Otley. Five miles. A turn off the main road on to a dirt track that led to a derelict farmhouse, the land owned now by one of the big frozen food combines and the house deserted.
Fletcher had talked about a well. . .
‘I think we’ll take a little detour on the way back,’ he said. ‘Via Otley. See if we can find that place he talked about.’ Price grinned and settled back more comfortably in his seat.
‘Nice pub out that way, sir. Miller’s Arms, serves hot food all day and a damned good pint.’
‘Otley it is, then,’ Mike nodded. ‘Otley it is.’
* * *
Ellie had caught sight of Johanna Pearson walking between the aisles of frozen food and had hurried to the end of the delicatessen and out of view. It was a shock when she saw her again, this time walking straight towards her, pushing a trolley slowly between the rows of canned goods, her face a study of concentration.
Ellie began to move away. The last thing she wanted right now was some sort of confrontation with Johanna.
Then Johanna Pearson looked up. Her face registered recognition and, to Ellie’s dismay, she began to walk towards her.
‘Good morning, Ellie,’ Johanna said.
‘Er, good morning,’ Ellie managed.
She glanced away, embarrassed, began to move on, but Johanna had hold of her arm.
‘Please,’ she said, ‘don’t rush away from me. I’d like to talk.’
Talk! Ellie stared, as though Johanna had suggested something incredible. She glanced around, suddenly afraid they might be seen, then squared her shoulders angrily.
‘All right,’ she said. ‘But I really don’t think we have anything to say to each other.’
‘Are you afraid of me, Ellie?’ Johanna asked her.
‘Of course I’m not!’ Ellie burst out, her voice carrying more anger than conviction.
Johanna nodded slowly. ‘Come, then,’ she said, and led the way towards the supermarket restaurant.
* * *
‘How can you go on living with him, knowing what he did?’ asked Ellie, once they were seated at a table.
‘He didn’t do it.’ Johanna paused and glared at her. ‘I know Eric. We grew up together, he was the first and only man I ever wanted. Eric did nothing.’
She leaned across the table and seized Ellie’s hand. ‘Help me, Ellie. You’re well liked. Well respected, and people will listen to you. Help me to tell people that they’re wrong about Eric.’
Ellie gazed back at her. ‘I can’t,’ she managed to whisper. ‘I can’t do anything, Johanna. You must see that.’ She shook her head vehemently. ‘I don’t have any influence, Johanna. We just want to live quietly. Just get on with our lives.’
‘And you think I don’t? You think I like what’s happening to my marriage? To my children?’
‘No! No, of course I don’t, but I don’t see . . .’ Johanna rose to leave, apparently having said all she planned to say. Then she turned back to look at Ellie.
‘I know you, Eleanor Masouk. You might remember that. I saw you in the public gallery at your father’s trial.’ She paused, noticing Ellie’s pallor. The blood draining even from her lips.
‘Eric pointed you out to me,’ she went on. ‘We sat through the whole thing, Eric and I. The whole thing. I remember, I even felt sorry for you.’
Ellie stared at Johanna’s back as she walked away, feeling the life she had built over the last few years crashing about her.
* * *
Wednesday 1 p.m.
Jaques had come to hate the telephone. He avoided taking calls, avoided answering it himself, created excuses until he was certain that others were noticing his distaste and wondering about it.
This time, the phone was ringing as he walked through the front door. He called out to his wife, hoping that she would get to it first, but she shouted back to him, ‘Get that for me, will you? I’m seeing to the oven.’
Jaques stood for three more rings, hoping that whoever it was would ring off, or that his wife had the answerphone set.
Instinctively, he knew who it was. Fear and disgust coiled themselves in the pit of his stomach and bit hard.
‘Did you hear me, love? Can you get that?’ his wife called to him again.
Angrily, Jaques snatched at the receiver. ‘Yes!’
‘You took your time.’
‘Just say what you have to say and piss off.’
‘Language, Jaques. And after you let us down so badly.’
‘I did what I could.’
‘Did you, Jaques? Did you really? But they found it, and now they’ve got his face splashed all over the TV and papers. You’re getting sloppy.’
‘Go to hell.’
He slammed the phone back down on to its cradle and stood staring at it. Almost at once it began to ring again.
‘I heard that DI Croft went out to see Fletcher this morning.’
‘What about it?’
‘You could have blocked it. Delayed it at least.’
‘And arouse his suspicions! He’s no fool.’
‘Which is why he shouldn’t be allowed access to Fletcher.’
There was a brief pause, then the voice said, ‘My friends tell me that Fletcher hasn’t been himself at all since the visit. That he’s having an attack of conscience, maybe.’
‘He won’t talk,’ Jaques said with more conviction than he felt.
‘You’d better hope he doesn’t, for your sake and for his. And for your Inspector Croft.’
Jaques’ wife had come through from the kitchen. She stood in the doorway, regarding his obvious distress.
Jaques took a deep breath and tried to regain some composure.
‘I’ll speak with you later,’ he said. ‘We’ll sort the whole thing out then.’
He replaced the phone gently and forced a smile to his lips.
‘Work,’ he said. ‘Only just come off bloody duty for a quick lunch and they still won’t let me be.’
Chapter Twenty-Three
Wednesday 2 p.m.
There was more heat in the day than Mike had expected. The rain had come and gone while they had been at Netisbrough and by the time the two of them reached Otley the sun had burned the rest of the cloud away, leaving only blue heat and the damp rich smell of wet greenness flooding into the car through the open windows.
The farm had taken time to find, set back off a side road and surrounded by well-grown trees and unpruned hedges.
Mike pulled the car to a stop in what had once been the back yard of the house. The warm damp hit him as he got out of the car. The air was very still. The scent of earth, rotting wood, and the last of the flowers left in the overgrown beds rose up around them.
‘Shame to see places like this when there are folks needing homes,’ Price said unexpectedly. ‘I mean to say, guv, the house looks sound enough, seems stupid not to sell it or at least rent it out.’
Mike nodded thoughtfully. He crossed the yard and pushed his way through the dense undergrowth, making for the line of broken-down fencing just visible behind the mass of nettles and rambling roses.
He swore softly as the thorns bit through his shirt sleeves, and brushed irritably at the cuckoo spit and spilt pollen that clung to his clothes.
Beyond the fence were flat fields. Broad swathes of land, densely planted. The same on the other side — they’d seen that driving up — and probably out at the back, too. Featureless flat lands, made for the use of combines and mass market needs, and here, this little house and its garden, a lost island in the middle of it all. Neglected and left to rot.
Mike glanced around him at the ragged undergrowth. He could make out the lines of borders and narrow pathways, just wide enough to give access to the beds.
If there was a well here, where would it be? Close to the house?
He went back to where Price was pacing about the yard, poking at things with a long garden cane he’d found and glancing about him with
an air of dissatisfied curiosity.
‘A well,’ Mike asked him. ‘Where would they dig a well in a place like this?’
‘You’re asking me? Christ, guv, where I come from we’ve got hot and cold running and full gas central heating.’
Mike laughed. ‘So, take a guess.’
‘Be close to the house,’ Price said, looking around. ‘You’d not want to be carrying water far.’
‘But there’s nothing in the yard . . . What’s that?’ He pointed to the small outbuilding at the side of the house.
‘Outside loo, one of the old kind with a hole in the bench and a bucket underneath.’ He grinned at Mike’s look of distaste. ‘It took a while to get indoor plumbing round here. I had an aunt out this way, they only got theirs in the mid-seventies. Till then it was the loo seat, the bucket and the dilly cart.’
‘The what?’
Price grinned again. ‘Dilly cart, we used to call it. Came round to collect the . . . er . . . waste once a week or so. I remember when I was a kid and used to stay with her. It stank to high heaven when the dilly cart came.’ He laughed, shaking his head and clearly remembering with the perverse pleasure that comes with knowing something is long gone. ‘It’s not likely the well would be close to the outhouse, is it?’
He had a point.
Mike glanced around once more but was reluctant to investigate further. Already, in his mind, this was scenes of crime territory. He wasn’t happy about poking around like some half-trained flatfoot.
‘Well, sir?’ Price asked him, clearly bored now and ready to eat.
‘Lunch,’ Mike said, to Price’s evident relief. ‘That place you were telling me about. Then we’ll get back to base, talk to Jaques and see if we can get some men out here.’
Price nodded, then grinned wryly. ‘Nice, that,’ he said. ‘Spot of gardening on a hot summer afternoon.’
‘I’ll make sure they bring the deck chairs,’ Mike said, mirthlessly.
* * *
Wednesday 10 p.m.