‘Eddy disintegrated. There is no other word complete enough to explain what happened to him. He dissolved into the morass that was grief and loss and emptiness, and when he finally climbed his painful way back out again, it was as though that man of certainty he had been was a mere shadow of a memory.
‘He wrote to me. He said, “I have lost all purpose. I am empty, a vessel that has been spilled out on to the ground.” But he found something to fill that space and I’m not saying it was a good thing, just that this is what he did, and if I’d known all of it then I might have intervened. As it was, I knew Eddy now had something that was driving him, something that made it worth him getting up in the morning, and I told myself that it was his research. We joked about his treasure hunts and about what he’d do if he found his millions buried in some muddy field. If I’d known the truth, I think I would have acted.’
‘You think?’
‘I don’t know. That’s just it. I really, really don’t know. I only realized what Eddy was doing in the few weeks before he died.’
‘And you discovered that he’d been persecuting the man he believed was responsible for his daughter’s death.’
‘Yes, I discovered that.’
‘How?’ Naomi asked. She shifted position in the too comfortable armchair. The fire was warm and the quiet room conducive to sleep. She wanted to maintain the very opposite of that. The cup she was holding rattled in the saucer and she steadied it carefully. ‘Did he tell you?’
‘No, the dead man’s son, Gavin Symonds, followed the same trail you’ve done.’
‘Gavin Symonds? What does he look like?’
‘Brown hair. He had his hair cut short when I met him. Just a bit too short. It made his jaw look very heavy for his face, just like his father’s was. He’s five ten, maybe. Just a bit under the six foot mark, anyway, and not heavily built, but he looks as though he knows his way around a gym. Why?’
‘Because someone claiming to be a nephew of Eddy’s has turned up. He calls himself Gavin Thame.’
‘Ah. And the description fits?’
‘Can I show you a picture?’
‘Please do.’
Naomi heard Alec get his phone and scroll through the images. ‘Here. Is this Gavin Symonds?’
‘Yes, I do believe it is. The hair’s grown and he has a bit of five o’clock shadow in this picture, but otherwise, I’d have to say yes.’
‘Thank you,’ Alec said. ‘That clears up a lot of questions. Why did he come to you?’
‘He found out somewhere that I’d been the officer in charge of the investigation, that at one point I’d taken his father in for questioning. He turned up here one day with a bag full of . . . evidence, he called it. Birthday cards and Christmas cards. News clippings, presents all wrapped up in tissue and ribbon. Gavin had opened some. His father had stopped after the first few years, but he’d kept everything and he’d left a suicide note, which the police had found after he killed himself, but which Gavin had seen too, confessing that he’d been drunk on the night those young people died, had been driving too fast and had come up behind them on the bend.
‘Apparently the driver swerved to try and get out of the way – accelerated, Symonds thought – somehow rolled the car and then hit the tree. He told his son that he thinks he clipped the back end of the other car; and he probably did, because there was glass from a headlamp found at the scene.’
‘Wasn’t it compared to the car Symonds was driving?’
‘Of course, but that was it, you see. Symonds wasn’t driving his own car. It was his wife’s car. He dumped it somewhere and walked for a bit and then got a taxi and went and had another drink. Then he got his own vehicle and drove back out to the scene. By then our lot had arrived, and the ambulance, so he turned around and headed for home and that’s when he was picked up. But the timing seemed to be wrong and he was in an undamaged car, so there was nothing to tie him to the crash.’
‘But you did.’
‘Yes, I did. You know when something nags at you? Something you can’t put your finger on but it nags and festers until you have to take notice of it?’
Naomi laughed softly.
‘Oh yes,’ Alec said. ‘We all know that feeling.’
‘And then James Symonds killed himself by driving into a wall. He drank a skinful first. His GP had been treating him for depression and his marriage had broken up some time before. Cause of death was obvious and so was the evidence of suicide. Case closed.’
‘Except that Gavin knew there was more to it.’
‘He did, or thought he did. He arrived here very distressed and I believe the distress was genuine. I made him a cup of tea and I listened. I thought I owed him that. There didn’t seem to be anyone else willing to listen. His mother, he said, didn’t want to know. She’d got herself a new man and a new life, but I think what really got to him was that he now understood something.’
‘What was that?’ Naomi asked. ‘No, no more tea for me, thank you.’
‘Well, he said his father changed. Went from being a good dad and his best friend to being a stranger, and he said that it happened almost overnight. Gavin was eight years old when the accident happened and Karen and her friends were killed. He didn’t understand why his parents started rowing but he remembered the police coming round and his dad being angry, and then, he said, things started to settle down a bit . . . and then it all fell apart. James Symonds became the opposite of what he’d been. The drinking got worse, and he became violent towards Gavin’s mother and towards Gavin. He remembered the arguments developing, with his mother accusing his dad of having an affair. The little gifts Eddy sent in his daughter’s name could well have seemed like that, I suppose. But the upshot was that Gavin saw Eddy as being responsible for ruining his parents’ marriage, his childhood and ultimately taking his father’s life.’
‘That’s a lot of anger,’ Naomi said.
‘It is indeed. I tried to make him see reason, but he became angry and I had to ask him to leave. I said I’d call the police if he came back again but I don’t think he cared. In fact, I think the only thing that stopped him coming back is that I couldn’t tell him any more. My official involvement ended twenty years ago. I’d had no contact with his father after that.’
‘Did he know you’d stayed in touch with Eddy?’
Ex-DI Bradford laughed mirthlessly. ‘Oh, no. I’ve learnt over the years to be careful of what people know and don’t know. I expressed surprise and shock and left it at that. Truthfully, Eddy’s contact with me was sporadic. At first he was phoning most days and then most weeks. After the inquest it tailed off but then from time to time he’d get in touch. About eighteen months before he died he visited. Twice. He said he’d found something new about the case. I told him it was no longer a case and he said he knew for certain now that James Symonds had changed cars that night. That Symonds had actually admitted as much. He wanted me to get it all looked into but I had to tell him the chances of that happening were minimal. So he said he’d have to see to it himself, and he never called again.
‘I let the matter go. Then I read about James Symonds’ death in the local papers and I called my old friend and colleague DI Blezzard and told him a little of what I knew. Just in case.’
‘In case?’
‘In case of something, I wasn’t sure what. I just had this terrible feeling that things hadn’t ended with Symonds’ death or with Eddy’s.’
‘You said you suspected him right from the start. That you had a feeling?’
‘I did. The patrol car that stopped him did a breath test and then a blood test when they got him back. He was rambling, they said, as though he already had a story worked out about how he’d been in the pub and would be home late and his wife would be mad. They said he kept repeating that over and over again.
‘I saw him later that same night and he was still at it. I asked him if he’d seen the crash. I didn’t say what crash or where. He said no, he hadn’t seen the car, which you might
think is a reasonable assumption. It could have been any kind of vehicle, but a car is a reasonable guess. But then he started talking about what a bad bend that was and how there were too many trees. Only matter of time before someone swerved off the road and hit a tree.’
‘And he couldn’t have seen any of that when he came back?’
‘No. We’d got an officer on point and a car pulled across one lane with the blues on. You couldn’t have seen past that. I spoke to him several times after but he said he couldn’t remember anything about that night except that he’d been drinking and had forgotten how to get home. And that’s the story he stuck to. We examined his car, of course.’
‘And the wife’s car?’
‘Reported missing that same evening. By the wife. It turned up a couple of weeks later, parked up in a side road about four miles from where they lived. By that time things had gone off the boil and we’d no way of proving that the damage done had happened on the night of the accident, especially as by that time some little toerag had broken off both wing mirrors and smashed the other headlight.’
‘Convenient,’ Alec commented.
‘Quite. But,’ DI Bradford sighed, ‘who knows? Who knows indeed.’
Naomi sat thoughtfully, listening to the cheerful crackle of the fire, questions still bubbling into her head. ‘Did Eddy ever talk about his family, apart from Karen?’
‘Occasionally. Family was a sore point. There was a brother – Guy, I think he was called – but they parted company a long time before. He got a local girl in trouble then didn’t step up. She was engaged, I believe, to someone else, and Eddy said he advised her to keep quiet about Guy, to get married and keep it to herself. Eddy was a much younger man then and I’m not sure the older Eddy would have felt the same. He trusted less, had lost a lot of the compassion I think he had back in the day. His moral compass tightened on the pin, as my father used to say. Tightened and rusted fast. He said that his brother had emigrated and once hinted that he and Martha had paid him to go away, but I don’t know any details. I know he kept in contact with the woman and her new husband and they had a little girl. She was born the same year as Karen.’
‘Her name was Susan,’ Naomi said.
‘Yes,’ Bradford sounded surprised. ‘I believe it was.’
TWENTY-SIX
Alec called Blezzard when they got back to their car but was told he was out at an incident. He left a message, annoyed with himself for not having got Blezzard’s mobile. Sergeant Dean answered at the second ring and Alec gave him the news.
‘Right. Good. I’m sure Susan will be relieved. Look, got to go. We’re at an incident. Give me a call when you get back to the B&B.’
‘Will do,’ Alec said. He rang off, oddly disturbed by the invitation to make contact. ‘What’s going on there?’ he wondered aloud.
‘What’s going on anywhere? If I’d sat by that fire any longer you’d have been covering me with a blanket and leaving me there.’
Alec laughed. ‘Well, we’re a little less in the dark than a couple of hours ago. I suppose that’s something to be grateful for.’
Arriving back at the B&B it was immediately obvious that something was seriously wrong. A police car was parked outside The Lamb, Kevin’s car just behind it, even though Alec knew he should have been at work. Bethan came out to meet them.
‘Have you heard? Isn’t it terrible?’
‘Heard what?’ Alec’s brain immediately made connections. The incident Blezzard and Dean were attending. ‘Is Susan all right?’
‘Well, as all right as you’d expect, I suppose.’
Alec decided to short-circuit the explanations. He helped Naomi out of the car and they headed next door to The Lamb. A female police officer sat with Susan and glared suspiciously at Alec. ‘We are closed, sir.’
‘It’s all right,’ Susan said, then dissolved into sobs. It was left to Kevin to fill in the details.
‘She called me at work. The police were here and she couldn’t get through to you – Bethan said you’d gone off somewhere first thing – so she called me at work and sounded so upset I came right over.’ He took a deep breath, realizing that he wasn’t making much sense. ‘The police came to tell her they’d found a car in a ditch. It had been on fire, and at first they thought it was an accident and the petrol tank had gone up or something.’ He paused. ‘You know Susan’s ex? Brian?’
‘Only by reputation.’
‘Well, it’s his car. The fire brigade had put it out and they could just make out the number plate, but Alec, there was a body inside. Brian was in the car.’
‘Are they sure it’s him?’
‘Who else would it be? He’s not at home, the neighbours say he went out late last night and hasn’t been home since. It’s got to be him.’
‘They must be fairly sure,’ Naomi said quietly, ‘for them to have come and told Susan.’
‘True,’ Alec agreed. ‘Kevin, where is the car?’
‘You’re going out there?’
‘Sergeant Dean said to call him when we got back. Likelihood is, he and Blezzard are still on scene. Can you give me directions?’
‘You want me to come with you?’ Kevin asked hopefully.
‘No, best not. I’m pushing the boundaries of professional courtesy as it is. Look after Naomi for me, help her get back next door if she wants to go.’
‘Thanks,’ Naomi said sarcastically, no keener on staying to face Susan’s obvious grief and confusion than Alec was. ‘OK, look, I’ll fill Kevin and Susan in on what we’ve found out and we’d better call Mr Cole too. He’ll need to know in case this Gavin tries to see him again. He’s not turned up here again?’
‘No, I don’t think so,’ Kevin said. ‘What have you found out about him?’
Alec took his leave. Glancing back from the door he saw Naomi, her arm through Kevin’s, going to sit down beside Susan. The policewoman stood and looked suspiciously in his direction. Kevin’s route in his head, he retrieved the car, avoided Bethan’s questions as best he could and left, realizing as he did that the course would take him past Eddy’s house.
A half mile past the cottage and he saw the police activity. He pulled in and made the belated phone call to Sergeant Dean.
‘Where are you?’ Dean asked.
‘Green car, just down the road. Want me to wave? I thought I’d better get a visa before I tried to cross the lines.’
He heard Dean laugh and then speak to someone he guessed was Blezzard. ‘Drive down and park up behind the black car at the farm gate,’ Dean told him. ‘Stop there and I’ll come and get you.’
Alec did as he was told, taking in the scene. Scientific support in their light-blue coveralls could be seen on the verge and down in the ditch. Uniformed officers stood around, some diverting traffic, others waiting for when they could move into the scene and liaise with the CSI. Blezzard leaned against the black car which Alec recognized as Sergeant Dean’s.
Alec parked.
The land flattened out, the vastness of the levels obvious. The road was raised a little above the land and wide ditches flanked either side, a reminder that this was once marsh, pimpled with little islands on which the early settlers had made their homes. That salt sea tang Naomi talked about was perceptible here, even to Alec.
‘The farm, across there.’ Blezzard pointed. ‘They saw the fire, realized it must be a car and called out the fire brigade. I figure whoever set the fire expected the whole lot to be burned through.’
‘Kevin says you got the number plate.’
‘Lucky, that. Whoever set the fire didn’t reckon on the ditch being half full of water. Back end went up, front end was scorched, but Mother Nature was ahead of the fire brigade.’
‘And the body? You’re sure it’s Brian?’
‘Sure as we can be until we let the coroner loose on him. He’s crispy but still recognizable. Lucky for us, our fire starter wasn’t that efficient.’
‘Eddy’s place is just back there.’ Alec pointed.
&nb
sp; ‘So it is.’
‘Has anyone taken a look?’
‘You could say we’ve been a little tied up here.’
‘Right, but maybe . . .’
Blezzard sighed, but his mouth twitched in a half smile. ‘Look, I’ll tell you what you can do. You can give me a lift back to The Lamb and I’ll stop off with you at Edward Thame’s cottage. If there’s anything to see then we’ll get someone over to see it better. That do? Now, I’ve just had a very interesting conversation with an old colleague of mine. It seems that we’ve now got a solid ID on this Gavin. Not Eddy’s nephew, then?’
‘It seems not.’ Alec tried not to feel put out that Bradford had called ahead and spoiled the impact.
‘So, tell me,’ Blezzard said. ‘What was this Gavin Symonds doing and what the hell did that old fool Eddy Thame think he was playing about at?’
Another hour and CSI released the scene to uniform. The body had been extricated from the car and the private ambulance had come to take him away. Alec had seen the body as they’d laid it in the gurney – contorted and twisted but the flesh not completely burned away. Half of the face had been pressed tight against the window, and the window had lain against the mud and wetness of the ditch side. It was strange, Alec thought, and more than a little disturbing, to witness that change from burnt to almost recognizable flesh.
‘You must be very certain it’s him. To have told Susan that her ex was dead, I mean.’
‘We told her that his car had been found, that there had been a fire and a body inside. She made that connection for herself.’
‘But you still told her about the car?’
‘This is a rural area, Alec. People know one another, people talk. If we’d not told her she’d have found out by the time the lunchtime customers arrived. The Lamb is a pub, if you didn’t notice. Pubs are hotbeds of gossip and local knowledge. We thought it was better coming from us.’
Reasonable, Alec thought. They watched the ambulance drive away and the tow truck take up its position. Earlier, it had lifted the car partly free of the mud to allow access for the CSI.
Blood Ties Page 18