by Ewart Hutton
Why had she been instructed to push Trevor Vaughan out of the closet?
10
I worked on the assumption that Monica wouldn’t live at the walk-up. She would have another life. A house in a nice suburb, or a swanky apartment in a new complex in the regenerated Docklands. If I got to Cardiff early enough I could catch her before she reached sanctuary in her fortress.
It was after one o’clock in the morning, I was belting round the Brecon bypass, when I remembered Sally. Our appointment for breakfast. All the possibilities that rippled out from there. I groaned out loud, and pulled into a lay-by.
‘Sally, it’s Glyn …’
‘You’re calling to ask me if I like champagne because you’ve booked us into a place that does smoked salmon and New York bagels?’
‘I wish I was, but I’m not going to be able to make it. I’m out chasing the bad guys.’
‘Where are you?’
‘I can’t tell you.’
‘Can’t tell me or won’t tell me?’
‘Can’t tell you.’
I felt the silence and pictured her sitting in that kitchen surrounded by cold stainless steel.
‘Sally … ?’
‘I’m still here.’
‘I’m really sorry.’
‘We haven’t got very far, have we, Glyn?’
‘I’ll make it up to you.’ I suddenly knew that I had to be decisive. ‘Take tonight off, I’ll take you out to dinner.’
She laughed. ‘Okay.’
I remembered my confrontation in The Fleece. ‘I’d better warn you, I’m not very popular in town at the moment.’
She laughed again. ‘From what I’ve heard on the grapevine, you never were.’
I was parked outside Monica’s by two thirty. It was a grey, sluggish night, not quite drizzling, and no wind disturbing the discarded fast-food packaging in the gutters and on the pavements. I set the alarm on my mobile phone and tipped my seat back, reckoning I was safe sleeping until five o’clock.
I was awakened by a tapping on the window. I opened my eyes into the harsh beam of a torch. I squinted away from the glare. ‘Would you put your window down please, sir?’ asked the uniform cop holding it.
I complied. ‘Good evening, officer,’ I said politely.
He ignored me and ran the torch over my face and the inside of the car.
‘I was just trying to catch up on some sleep.’
‘Have you been drinking, sir?’
‘No,’ I answered truthfully. I didn’t bother explaining that I had been prevented by a vigilante pack.
‘Is this your car?’
Bang … There goes incognito. I opened my warrant card. He peered down to inspect it. ‘Sergeant Capaldi?’
‘Can we keep this between ourselves?’
‘You’re a long way from your new home, Sarge.’ He had recognized my name, and obviously knew my history.
‘I don’t want to blow a surveillance gig here.’
He took out his notebook. ‘You’re a celebrity, Sergeant. We’ve had a request from Carmarthen to log and report if you ever show up in Cardiff.’
I smiled winningly up at him. ‘You don’t have to do everything they tell you, do you?’
He leered back maliciously. ‘Is that how you got to be where you are today, Sarge?’
The only consolation was that they were not going to wake Jack Galbraith up at four thirty in the morning to tell him that I was on the loose in Cardiff. I could tuck it away into my malfeasance sack and forget about it until the time came to invent excuses.
When I woke, the early risers were on the move, heading off to work, a couple of crazy people jogging, dogs being walked, a milk float gliding past. The street lights and the grey pre-dawn light combined to make the place feel even grubbier. This was my town, I reminded myself; I should feel happy to be back. Instead, I felt tired and gritty, with a taste like raw soot in the back of my throat.
I was parked outside the stair tower that led up to Monica’s flat. No one was going to get up those stairs without me seeing them first. Even if she recognized my car, there wasn’t much evasive action that she could take. I was fairly certain that this was the only access, and I was in control of the pass.
She turned up just after seven, earlier than I had expected, in a silver Mercedes. The driver double-parked on the opposite side of the road from me, and she got out of the passenger’s side. A blue wool scarf was wrapped and knotted around her neck over an expensive camel coat with the collar turned up at the back. Her eyes locked on to me.
Was the guy in the car just a cab driver?
She ducked her head down and said something into the car. I had my answer. I should have realized. Whether he was a lover or a professional minder, she wouldn’t have taken the chance of running the gauntlet of potential stalkers or deranged former clients without protection.
We got out of our cars together, the driver and I, fixing Mexican stand-off stares on each other. He was young, but a big guy, with a dirty blond ponytail and heavy stubble on his face, black jeans and a loose light jacket that would be useful for concealing tools without encumbering his movements.
I held up my warrant card. ‘I’m a cop,’ I shouted across the road at him.
He glanced at Monica. She had obviously neglected to tell him that. He turned back to face me down. ‘Miss Trent wants to get into her place.’
I smiled affably. ‘And Miss Trent shall. I just need to speak to her.’ I gestured towards the stairs. ‘It won’t take long. Up there, or in my car, whatever suits her.’
‘Miss Trent only sees people by appointment.’
‘You’ll be obstructing a police investigation,’ I warned him pleasantly.
‘There is no investigation.’ Monica spoke for the first time.
A man in a bus driver’s uniform walked past, eyeing us curiously, smelling a situation. ‘I’ll talk to you in your car,’ I offered another compromise.
Monica came round to the driver and put her hand through his left arm. He took it as a cue, and they started crossing the street towards me. I backed away from them to block the entrance to the stairs. They stopped in front of me.
‘You’ll be done for assaulting a cop,’ I told the driver. ‘There’s a special kind of pain that goes with that.’
Monica shook her head. ‘I know people in this town. Lloyd will be defending me from an off-duty policeman, off his patch, who was trying to extort a free fuck.’
I let my deflation show.
‘I’ll pay you again,’ I said despairingly.
‘There’s nothing more to tell you.’
‘Please think about it,’ I wheedled, moving dejectedly to the side to let them past, showing them the equivalent of baboon-ass submission. But making sure to give them not quite enough room. Making Lloyd have to nudge me contemptuously to the side to clear the space. I shuffled abjectly, and he let his guard come down in the conquest moment.
I swung for his ponytail with both hands. He read it coming, but I was too quick to leave him with any other reaction than shock and surprise. I grabbed the ponytail and ran with it, turning to spin him, feeling the live weight as he gyred off balance, the scream as his scalp took the strain of momentum and bodyweight. Somewhere in the moment, I heard Monica scream as well.
‘Don’t ever push me out of the fucking way again!’ I yelled down into his face as I dragged him across the pavement. I was travelling beyond reason, high with it, a feeling that was arcing between elation and terror. At last I was doing something real for the cause that was figure-headed by Magda, and bolstered by my frustration.
I punched down hard into his solar plexus to give him something else to think about while I shook my handcuffs out of their pocket. He doubled up with a grunt that tailed off into a gargle as his breakfast returned to his tonsils. I snapped the cuffs shut around one of his wrists, wrapped them round a post that carried a waiting limited sign, and let go of his hair as I secured his other wrist.
I backed away,
bent at the waist, sucking in air. I felt light-headed and fought down nausea. A large drop of blood appeared on the pavement. I touched my cheek and my fingers came away wet. I straightened up. Monica was glaring at me, breathing hard, her hands still locked into claws. I hadn’t felt her rake me.
I knew that I had to run with the crazy-man dynamic before sanity returned.
I pointed at her. ‘I just wanted to talk to you,’ I yelled, still breathless. ‘I just wanted the explanation that you owe me. And now look at it –’ I pointed at Lloyd, slumped up against the pole, gagging into the gutter, and the small circle of onlookers. ‘This is not good for business, Monica. Your boyfriend cuffed to a pole, his car double-parked, causing an obstruction …’
‘Turn him loose,’ she said, catching her breath, still defiant.
‘Fuck it, Monica, I’ve had enough. I’m leaving you to deal with this shit.’ I walked away from her. ‘Call your friends in high places to sort it out.’
I was checking my cheek in the vanity mirror, staunching the blood from the two rents her fingernails had made, when she tapped on my side window. She just nodded when she caught my attention, her face harsh. I gestured for her to come round to the passenger’s seat.
‘You were nice to me before,’ I said as she climbed in.
‘You were a paying customer then.’
‘You’ve got a problem, Monica.’ She didn’t flicker. ‘You backed up the alibi because you thought that it couldn’t be safer. Five honky farm boys, as straight as they come. As safe as vouching for Jesus.’
‘Get to the point.’
‘It’s four honky farm boys now, Monica.’
She turned her head and looked at me coldly.
‘Trevor Vaughan, the one you told me you thought was gay, is dead.’
‘How?’
‘He hung himself.’
She looked away and shook her head. I let her finish her internal dialogue.
‘Who told you to bring up the gay thing?’
She looked back at me. ‘They both did.’
She still wasn’t doing names. I didn’t push it. ‘They gave you the story?’
She nodded slowly. ‘They gave me the names. I was to mention that Paul was out of it, and that Trevor didn’t want to play. If they pressed me on that point, I was to say that I thought he was gay.’
‘Did anyone press?’
She shook her head. ‘No one was particularly interested.’
‘What about the rest of them? How were you supposed to describe their behaviour?’
‘Uncomplicatedly pissed.’
‘Did they tell you why you were supposed to use those particular details?’
‘No. I didn’t ask. I just assumed they wanted me to drop in something that was off-the-wall, but verifiable.’ We were both silent for a moment. ‘Have you got what you want now?’ she asked.
‘Not quite.’
She glanced into the rear-view mirror. Checking out Lloyd. ‘What more?’
‘I want information on who they moved on to. After you.’
She nodded, digesting this. She took a chunky address book out of her handbag, and turned her back on me. When she swung round again she handed me a loose leaf of paper. A name and address.
‘Understand this: it didn’t come from me.’ She opened the door, but then stopped and turned back towards me. ‘I want one favour from you in return.’
‘What’s that?’
‘If you ever manage to turn this thing around, I want prior warning. I want to be able to walk in and retract my statement before people come knocking.’
‘You could always do it now.’
What she gave me then was as close to a smile as we came to that day. ‘Fuck off, Sergeant Capaldi.’
I gave Monica the key to the handcuffs. Weighing it up, I reckoned that taking the flak for their loss was preferable to trying to release an angry Lloyd. He looked like the kind of guy who might just be ready for another round of testosterone-crazed diplomacy. I couldn’t face it. I had had my berserker moment, and now I was just knackered.
I drove for a couple of blocks and stopped to recuperate. I was shaking. The reaction to the quick-release hormone surge was making me shivery, and my insides felt like they were twisted into an irresolvable cat’s-cradle web.
I waited out the shakes and the dizziness before I checked out the piece of paper that Monica had given me.
Alexandrina Borgia.
As a professional name it was corny but effective. It cut straight to the promise of exotica and cruelty. I got my road map out to check the address. It surprised me. I had expected somewhere closer to civilization. Instead, it was a hamlet up in the hills between Monmouth and Chepstow. No telephone number.
I tried to get a hook on Alexandrina Borgia. If she was prepared to do the things that Monica had put off limits, the chances were that she had slipped most of the way down the hill. Too old for the select trade? A junkie?
I was out of practice. I had spent too much time sucking the same air as the Women’s Institute. How was I going to charm a depraved, junkie hooker into my confidence?
The call from Jack Galbraith came through early enough for me to realize that he had made it one of his priorities.
‘Where are you, Capaldi?’ The absence of a profanity made the question even more ominous.
I was heading for the Usk turn-off. ‘Almost in Dinas, sir,’ I lied.
‘What were you doing in Cardiff last night?’
‘I was on my own time, sir.’
‘I didn’t ask that.’
I let the silence swell. There was nothing lighting up on my excuses board.
‘Capaldi, I asked you a fucking question.’
I decided to take a chance and see where the truth led me. ‘I was seeing a prostitute, sir.’
This time it was Galbraith who went silent. ‘Why?’ he asked after the pause, his tone an octave lower.
So far the truth was working. I decided not to push it. ‘For some relief, sir.’
‘I didn’t mean that. I meant, why Cardiff?’ I heard it then; he sounded flustered. Had I actually got Jack Galbraith embarrassed?
‘I don’t know where else to go, sir. I haven’t found any outlets up here for …’ I played out the hesitation ‘. . . you know … Release.’
‘For Christ’s sake, Capaldi! That was a long way to go for some fucking relief,’ he boomed, and it sounded like I had just used up this year’s quota of sympathy and understanding. ‘Isn’t there anything a bit closer? A shepherdess or something like that?’
‘Shepherdesses are pretty thin on the ground, sir, and they tend to end up with shepherds.’
He grunted. ‘Okay, whatever. But in future keep out of Cardiff – they’re still embarrassed to see you around there. I’m supposed to have you safely corralled. I don’t want them on my back telling me that you’ve slipped your leash.’
‘No, sir,’ I concurred meekly. ‘I promise you it won’t happen again. In future, I’ll –’
‘Capaldi, I don’t want to know about your sex life,’ he cut in over me.
‘No, sir.’
‘While you’re on: we’ve had the pathologist’s report on this farmer, Vaughan, and he seems to be okay with suicide. Is that your take on it?’
‘I don’t think there’s any doubt that he did the act himself, sir.’
He groaned. ‘Why do I always hear a “but” with you, Capaldi?’
‘There’s no suicide note. No message to his parents. I don’t know him or his friends well enough, but, from what I can gather, there were no prior attempts and no talk of suicide. He was also wearing a pair of young girl’s panties.’
‘I saw that in the report.’
‘I think that there could be something significant in that, sir.’
‘You’re still talking hunch, aren’t you, Capaldi?’
‘There’s something not right in his death, sir. Coming so soon after the incident with the girl. And another one of the group has gone AWOL
from the Army.’
‘Hunch?’ He repeated the question.
‘Yes, sir.’ I sighed.
‘Talk to the women.’
‘Sir?’ I didn’t hide my surprise.
‘I didn’t tell you that. You’re on Morgan’s patch – you stretch this too far and I can’t protect you. But push the wives and the girlfriends, they’re the ones who usually have to tidy away the smelly stuff.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ I said.
But he had gone. His advice already nonattributable.
This was good grass country, richer than anything around Dinas: rolling hilltops, thorn hedges and beech trees. A big sky, high cumulus clouds blowing up from the Bristol Channel. A cold, clear winter’s day, with long shadows, and a sense, in a dog’s muted bark, that sound in this season could travel a lot further than it should be capable of.
The hamlet was little more than a bend in the road that had accumulated a few houses and a defunct chapel. No pub, no Post Office to ask directions in. No people. No red-light district.
Had Monica set me up?
I drove on and got lucky. A row of bungalows with a WRVS van parked outside. The driver, a woman in her late forties, was returning from one of the bungalows with an empty tray. She looked at me suspiciously.
I showed her the address that Monica had given me. She squinted at it. ‘That’s Mrs Morris’s place.’
‘Will I find Alexandrina Borgia there as well?’ I asked casually, testing to see whether her trade name was known locally.
She smiled, and it wasn’t entirely friendly. ‘I think someone’s been having you on.’ But she did give me directions.
The tarmac drive to the house was a new creation, lined with horse-chestnut saplings, with paddocks to either side, behind post-and-rail ranch-style fencing. I drove into a circular area in front of a stone-barn conversion. A fenced yard fronted a stable block on the far side of the barn.
I parked and walked up to the central glazed threshing bay and rang the doorbell. I glanced around. The CCTV camera here was tucked in under the eaves, more discreet than Monica’s. Through the glass I took in a big double-height space with oak-plank floors, a nice Persian rug, and the back of a big, colourful, but tastefully upholstered, chesterfield sofa. This place was definitely more House & Garden than ill repute.