by Penny Grubb
Annie’s instinct was to believe both sides, but that left a gaping chasm in the middle where the two truths would not mesh. The only explanation was that Yates had targeted the wrong man. And yet Brittany was right when she said the witness couldn’t have missed the publicity of the trial. Yates’s descriptions were too detailed for any real victim not to know them and surely there was more motivation to come forward if the wrong man was in the dock.
Michael Walker was not in the dock, he was dead. Annie pulled herself up. It bothered her that she kept thinking of this the wrong way round.
‘Sorry, how much?’ She was jolted out of her reverie by the total now showing on the cash register. Either the pink wine or the honey mustard chicken cost a sight more than she’d anticipated.
As she’d said to Brittany, trauma could have been the reason for the victim not to come forward to save Joshua Yates, but why wouldn’t the woman come forward, even if anonymously, to say that Yates had targeted the wrong man?
Wouldn’t or couldn’t? She played with uncomfortable thoughts all the way home. If Yates’s story were true, but Michael Walker wasn’t the perpetrator, then perhaps the victim couldn’t come forward because her story was live and her enslavement continued.
Just as Annie unlocked the outer door to the shared house where she rented a flat, her phone sang out. The screen told her it was Jennifer, so she sat on the stairs, bags balanced beside her, and took the call.
‘Sorry, I can’t do Sunday,’ Jennifer said. ‘We’ve been called in for overtime. There’s a flap on at the prison.’
‘No sweat.’ Annie smiled to herself. It was a measure of how much Jennifer had come to trust her that she mentioned anything about her work. A year ago, she might have said she had to work an extra shift but no more than that. ‘How about Monday evening? I’m planning to cook honey mustard chicken.’
‘Uh … yes, that sounds lovely.’
After she’d ended the call, Annie had to laugh at the illconcealed surprise in Jennifer’s tone. I’m planning to cook… She wondered if she could pull it off. Jennifer would be on the alert for some subterfuge. A serving dish was a must now. And some of that garlic bread that went in the oven for ten minutes. That would provide authentic cooking smells and the fan would mask the sound of the microwave.
Her phone beeped a new message as she pushed her way into the flat. She dumped her carrier bags on the coffee table, seeing that two new voicemails had arrived while she’d been speaking to Jennifer, and wondered what made people ring at the same time.
The first was Brittany Booth.
‘Joshua won’t see you. He’s annoyed that you asked. He wants me to drop the case, but of course I won’t. I’m determined to see justice done and I won’t see him sent to an institution like he’s a madman. He’s worried for me. That’s the sort of person he is. You mustn’t ask to see him again. I’ll get in touch next week.’
The tone was imperious, chiding Annie as though she’d done wrong. It irritated her, but she was relieved Brittany had chosen not to drop the case. The staccato tone could have been interpreted to mean that Joshua Yates did not want anyone digging too deeply into his story, with its gruesome detail and no hard facts, but Annie knew better than to read too much into a second-hand account.
The other message was Nicole Perks, saying much the same. Charlotte Liversedge didn’t want to see her either, but Nicole’s tone, unlike Brittany’s, was not at all accusatory.
‘I’m sorry to mess you about. I’ll try again, but she’s upset. She’ll come round. I’m sure she will.’
Three people had turned her down in the space of a few minutes, but that was how these things went. As she pulled the honey mustard chicken free of its carrier bag and took it to cram into the freezer compartment, she wondered if Yates had been as vehement in not wanting to see her as Brittany’s message implied, and if so, why? It was all very noble of him to declare, as he had in court, that it must be for the woman’s conscience to say whether or not she came forward, but that suggested a level of empathy between two people who knew each other. Could he know her as well as that and still have targeted the wrong man? She wasn’t too worried about Charlotte refusing to see her, but she might have another go at Brittany, because surely Yates himself was the key to this.
Realistically now it looked as though progress on this case from either side rested on next week’s meal with Jennifer.
Annie pulled the crumpled letter from her pocket and smoothed it out. Her invitation to judge a fancy-dress mythical warriors competition. It might have some interest as a new experience, but it would mean getting up close to a crowd of ponies with their ever-ready weapons of iron-clad feet and snapping teeth. She felt along the top of the cork board that hung beside the TV and found the oversized red pin that rested there. It was a process she termed ‘red-pinning’ to fix a reminder to the board using this. The pin itself had been a present from her aunt. Too fancy to throw away, but of no practical use that Annie had ever worked out. As a means of holding things to the cork board, it was inefficient and unwieldy. Its sole advantage was that it stood out as a reminder, getting in her way when she leant across to turn the plugs on or off. She paused. Red-pinning was for important stuff. Why not just ring now?
As she reached for the phone, she answered her own question. It was too late in the day. The woman might be in. Far better to give her refusal to an answer-phone that couldn’t waste her time in pushing for a change of mind. She’d call up during the day tomorrow when the house would be empty. Her memories of the livery yard were of constant noise and bustle during all daylight hours.
Action scheduled, she put the red pin back on top of the board, shoved the letter in a drawer and turned her mind to the important issues. She cleared a place on her small settee and sat down, fidgeting at the uncomfortable feel of anonymous stuff under the cushions. One day soon she would have a clear out. The evening sun shone through the window, highlighting the columns of dust that sparkled in the air. In one corner, a stack of borrowed DVDs had slid in an untidy avalanche to tangle with the wires from the TV. One of those would provide all the entertainment she needed for tonight, but first she intended getting a head start on her latest bit of a case. Ron Long’s patience would run out soon, but before then she would take a trip out into the country at his expense and gaze at an isolated property, cast an eye over the place the Longs were taking so much trouble to check out, see if anything of their hidden agenda showed.
To make things run smoothly, she should go out there as an expected visitor, rather than cold calling the people at the farm. She flipped through her notebook to find the number for the marquee hire company.
‘Hello. I’m ringing on behalf of a client. We’re organizing an event and I’m making enquiries about marquees.’
‘What size were you after, flower? And how soon’s your event?’
‘Fairly big.’ Annie thought back to the photographs of the Morgans’ daughter’s wedding. ‘Sixty odd.’
The man at the end of the phone laughed. ‘That’s not big, love. You can lose sixty-odd in one of our cosies.’
‘What do you call big?’
‘We can have the whole of Hull under canvas for you if you want.’
Annie laughed. ‘OK, not that big. But before I take things further, I’d like to talk to someone who’s used you for a wedding. You have a marquee out Sunk Island way and I’m in that area next week, so I wondered if I’d be able to call in.’
‘Oh right, yeah, I know where you mean. Yeah, it’s been up a while, that one. So it’s had a bit of hammer. You wouldn’t normally have it up as long as they have. They look brand spanking new when they go up, and they stay that way if you don’t keep them up weeks somewhere that gets battered right off the Humber. I’ll have to ring them, of course, but it shouldn’t be no bother. When d’you want to go?’
‘I can fit in with them. But did you say it’s still up? I’d have thought you’d have had it down by now.’
‘Yeah
, you’d think. But it’s still there.’
His tone alerted Annie that he wasn’t happy about it. He took her details and promised to get back to her.
There was something slightly odd about the marquee still being up, and about the hint of prickliness in the man’s tone when she’d queried it.
Ten minutes later he rang back.
‘I’m real sorry, love, but they don’t want anyone round. I can find you someone else no bother, but I can’t send you to the one you saw. I can only give out their details with their say-so. Data protection and all that.’
‘No worries,’ said Annie. ‘I’ll drive out there and take a look from the road. I know where it is. That’s where I saw your board.’
‘I wish you wouldn’t. They was adamant. They’ve a lot on and they don’t want strangers prying.’
Annie sat back after she’d ended the call and thought through what the man had said. No reason Tim and Tracey Morgan should invite strangers into their home, but the vehemence with which they’d denied her access had clearly rattled the man.
Chapter 6
Converted buildings, for the most part residential, lined the streets. Flats and bedsits nestled around small print shops with thick glass in their front bay windows, and upmarket clinics offering alternatives to conventional medicine. The imposing Victorian architecture frayed at the edges, where the long terraces tapered off into run-down houses and shops with mismatched paintwork and leaky gutters. Conversions creatively called flats squeezed the necessities of living into tiny spaces.
By Sunday evening, Annie was bored with the uneven walls of the space she called home. She’d done the paperwork she felt inclined to do; watched the DVDs she fancied watching, and had flicked through the TV guide without finding anything to spark her interest.
She grabbed her thin jacket from the back of the door, shoved some money in her pocket and headed out.
After the excesses of Friday night, all she wanted was good beer and bright surroundings, somewhere to relax and drain tensions away. She walked briskly, turning off the main thoroughfare that led to the town centre, and followed the course of the river Hull. Dark buildings grew from the roadside, without benefit of gardens or greenery, in an area caught between an industrial past generated by the loading and unloading of thousands of ships and a potential future of expensive riverside apartments. With deliberately heightened awareness, she skirted an old cemetery, unafraid of the dead, but wary of anyone living who chose to lurk there at this hour.
Cutting her ties with Pat and Barbara would mean moving away, having to get to know a new city. That wasn’t a problem. Exploring new territory held excitement and adventure. But no doubt she would miss this place with its contradictions and unexpected corners of history. Her target tonight was an unassuming building that straddled the corner at the convergence of several roads.
When she’d first stumbled on it some years before, late one night, and seen the word Whalebone spelt out in dark letters above the street, she’d tried the door without much hope, assuming it to be no more than a relic of a long-dead trade waiting for demolition or conversion. But the door had opened on to a bright space, buzzing with talk, and busy with photographs and pictures tracking 200 years of history. Better still, she’d found an enthusiasm for good beer that extended to a micro-brewery on the premises. It was a long walk from home but quite handy for the office and had become something of a sanctuary for her. A place to reflect, to be anonymous amongst a cheerful crowd.
She took her beer to one end of the narrow space that curved round the bar and sat back to watch the leisurely groups of Sunday drinkers. Her shoulders relaxed as she sipped the wellkept ale, anonymity cushioning her from the need to interact with anyone.
Then the far door swung open and Scott Kerridge walked in with his new fiancée, Kate. At once, her shoulders tightened and her face prickled with the knowledge her shell was about to be breached. She tracked the couple’s steps as they headed for the bar. What chance they wouldn’t spot her? Slim, although they might go to the far corner round the curve of the room. Her best hope was to slope out now through the other door. She sat up preparatory to rising, but then stopped. Why the hell should she leave a good pint just to avoid Scott Kerridge?
She and Scott had conducted an on-off relationship almost from the moment she arrived in Hull. Jennifer had originally introduced them. PC Kerridge, her senior colleague, the guy with the nice smile. He and Annie had fallen into bed pretty quickly, but that was the only part of their liaison that ever really worked. Scott wanted a serious relationship; to settle down and get a semi with a garage, a couple of kids. He tried not to hate Annie’s job, but couldn’t hide his feelings and couldn’t stop trying to ease her away from it.
During the five years they had devoured each other physically, whilst finding little other common ground, both she and Scott had dallied with other partners, Annie just for the companionship of someone who didn’t take life so seriously; Scott seeking a soul mate to share his life. And now he seemed to have found one. Kate was a stocky woman, Annie’s age, a detective constable from West Yorkshire who had transferred in to Hull and now worked with both Jennifer and Scott.
Annie would have liked Kate in another context, but Kate had taken against her from the start, insisting upon seeing her as a rival for Scott’s affections. Left to her, Annie knew she could have quashed Kate’s fears and probably made a friend of her, but Scott’s heavy-handed attempts simply stoked Kate’s jealousy.
Now they turned with drinks in hand, looking for somewhere to sit. Watching the double-take, the tightening of stance, the narrowing of eyes, Annie resented that she was made to feel selfconscious, but it was absurd to ignore them so she looked up and gave a half-wave and semi-smile.
Kate wrinkled her nose as though she smelt something nasty. Scott mouthed, ‘Hi,’ and gave her a proper smile. She wished he wouldn’t. It was his smile that reminded her how good they could be together.
Kate stalked to a table at the far side of the room. Scott gave Annie a hunted glance and followed. Annie watched from the corner of her eye the tense, teeth-gritted exchange between them that culminated in Kate tipping her head back and emptying her glass in one go. Annie saw the suppressed flinch that showed whatever she’d ordered had had a kick in it. Scott was left to flounder over his pint. He hated being rushed over his beer. Annie made a point of turning her head away so as not to add to their discomfort. Her own beer had lost the power to relax her.
A movement caught her eye. Kate was marching off to the Ladies leaving Scott staring morosely into a full glass. As she disappeared through the door, he stood up and came towards Annie.
‘Hi. You OK?’ he said.
‘Fine. You?’
‘Yeah.’ He pulled a face, taking quick look over his shoulder. ‘I don’t know why she’s like this around you.’
‘It’s not rocket science, Scott. And you won’t help things if she comes out and finds you talking to me.’
‘Yeah, I know. I just wanted to give you this.’ He put the full pint down in front of her. ‘I’m not tipping it down my throat just because she won’t stay here for five minutes.’
‘Maybe I should go.’
‘That’s hardly fair. You were here first. You meeting someone?’
‘No, just relaxing, getting rid of life’s tensions, you know.’
‘That’s what I told Kate. I mean, you weren’t to know we’d be here.’
‘Scott, you’re not helping by telling me this stuff. Just go back and… Uh … too late.’
Kate had come out of the Ladies and stopped dead when she saw Scott talking to Annie. Annie resigned herself to becoming the centre of a scene to entertain the punters. Kate would berate her and Scott would flap and make hopeless, inflammatory interjections like, ‘Annie’s not like that, Kate…’ Annie had a sinking feeling that it would end in a fist fight one day that would lose Kate her job.
Maybe Kate had similar thoughts. Her face suffused with rage, s
he stalked past with a growled, ‘Outside, now!’ to Scott, and marched from the bar.
Annie blew out a sigh as she saw anger rush to Scott’s face. Kate’s comment had been loud enough to draw interest from others in the room. ‘Go on,’ she urged him. ‘Go after her. Don’t make things worse.’
‘She’s no right to speak to me like that. Who does she think she is?’
‘Yeah, well, you go and tell her that. For Chris’sakes don’t leave her hanging about outside while you’re talking to me.’
‘Might do her good to have to hang about a bit.’
‘Scott, go after her. If you want to have a fight, have a fight, but leave me out of it.’
‘I’ve a good mind to stay and finish my beer, first.’
‘In that case, I’m going. You can drink mine, too.’
She made to stand up, but he put his hand on her shoulder to stop her. ‘Sit down, Annie. I’ll go. I’m sorry about all this.’
‘No problem. You go and repair the damage.’
She smiled at him as he turned to go. He smiled back. Again she wished he wouldn’t, as their eyes met and gazes locked for just a fraction too long.
Once Scott had gone, interest from the others in the bar waned and Annie was able to sit back and regain the composure she’d lost. She didn’t hurry over her two pints. It was more than she’d planned to drink, but that was no penance when the beer was this good.
When she stood up to leave, she found herself slightly lightheaded. Darkness was closing in on the city. She hadn’t meant to stay this late, and yawned expansively as she headed up the road.
‘Hi, Annie.’ A voice pulled her up.
She looked at Scott, standing in the shadow of a doorway, his voice not slurred but with a hint of a drink too many. She made no effort to hide the exasperation in her tone. ‘How long have you been there?’
‘Not long. I had a couple in a bar down the road. Didn’t want to disturb your peace.’
‘Where’s Kate?’