‘You can’t keep beating yourself up over it.’ But she was. He could tell. Not knowing what else to say, Mariner laid his upturned hand on the seat beside her. When she put hers in it, he squeezed, gently. It seemed to help. It did wonders for him.
Curiously, a marked patrol car was already stationed outside Jenner, Mason and Partners and, walking into the small office block, Mariner and Anna stepped into a scene of utter devastation. Desk and filing cabinet doors were thrown open, papers strewn everywhere, and the word ‘fuck’ was spray-painted across one wall.
‘We’ve been burgled,’ Jenner said, unnecessarily. ‘Kids, I suppose. Had too much to drink.’ He gestured towards the empty lager cans that littered the floor.
‘What about your alarm system?’ Mariner asked.
Jenner looked sheepish. ‘We had been having some problems with it.’
‘Anything reported missing?’ Mariner asked one of the uniformed officers.
‘It’s difficult to tell yet, sir.’ One look at the mess justified the vague reply. Whatever had become of the predicted paperless office?
‘We need to find some letters that had been left here,’ Mariner said. ‘They’re in a bundle, tied with string, all addressed to a Malcolm Barham and were originally in an old shoebox. Let me know if you come across them.’
‘We’ll keep a look out, sir.’ It was the most they could do, but Mariner didn’t hold out much hope. Someone else had got there first.
‘I can’t believe it,’ said Anna. They were back in the car.
‘I don’t understand how anyone else could have known about those letters, and if they knew about them, why wait until now to get hold of them. Did you tell anyone else about them, where they were?’
‘No. To be honest, I’d forgotten myself until last night.’
Last night, when she’d thought her flat had been broken into, that something had moved. Nothing had been taken, but what if something had been left behind? Christ.
‘Where’s the disk now?’ Mariner asked.
‘At the flat.’
‘We need to put it somewhere more secure.’
‘Like where?’
‘A safety-deposit box would do it.’
Mariner returned to Anna’s flat with her to collect the disk. It took a matter of seconds to transfer the contents of the folder to her handbag, but Mariner insisted on coming with her right into the kitchen while she did it.
‘And you’re sure this everything?’ he asked. ‘You’ve got the disk and the hard copy documents, there’s nothing else?’
‘Yes.’
‘Okay, so we’ll put it all in the safety-deposit box. Don’t leave anything behind.’
‘No. Okay.’ Anna didn’t quite see the need for the running commentary, and thought it strange that he was almost shouting. He was being weird.
The bank she used was one of the larger city centre branches, within walking distance of her flat, via Victoria Square. Although normally slow, Mariner’s warrant card hurried things along and in a matter of half an hour Anna was the proud owner of a credit card style key to her own safety-deposit box. Mariner had insisted on an instant access arrangement, too. He wasn’t going to be kept around waiting to get hold of evidence when the need arose.
For Anna the whole process only served to fuel the growing feeling that she was caught up in some second-rate spy thriller, and she was a little alarmed at how seriously Mariner seemed to be taking everything. He’d slipped into a different, ultra-professional persona, taking complete control of the situation. With anyone else she would have kicked against it, but somehow Mariner made it feel exciting.
His insistence then on accompanying her to collect Jamie from the centre seemed to be taking things a bit far, but it seemed to keep him happy, so Anna went along with it.
Jamie was touchingly pleased to see Anna, but getting him into Mariner’s car was a different matter and he pulled back violently. ‘No black mouth, no black mouth.’ Then Mariner saw what Jamie had seen. The e-fits lay ignored on the back seat and Jamie had recognised them. Scooping them up before Anna noticed, Mariner stalled. ‘I’ll be back in a minute, wait here.’
Inside the day centre, Mariner showed the pictures to Francine. ‘Ever seen these people before?’
‘Yes, he looks like the social worker who came to talk to us about Jamie.’
It confirmed what Mariner had already suspected.
Someone was on to Anna, too. But returning to the car, he said nothing. The last thing he wanted to do was to scare her witless.
Chapter Twenty-one
What Mariner did do, was to go and try to convince Jack Coleman that some protection for Anna was essential. ‘I believe she could be in danger, sir.’
‘From whom?’ Nothing if not grammatically correct, Coleman.
‘I’m not absolutely sure yet.’
On the face of it, this story sounded considerably more contrived than the Crosby effort and, understandably, Coleman was reticent. ‘Not much in the way of evidence for all this, other than the circumstantial, is there Tom?’
‘Not apart from the fact that Miss Barham’s parents and brother have already been killed sir, no.’ He could see Coleman searching his face for sarcasm, but Mariner was a picture of innocence.
‘We don’t know for certain that her parents were murdered though, do we?’ Coleman reminded him.
‘Their car had damage to the rear, consistent with being shunted from behind. I think Malcolm Barham was forced off the road into the canal. It probably wouldn’t have taken much.
According to Ann—Miss Barham her father was not a confident driver. It wouldn’t have taken much to unnerve him.’
‘Even so…’
‘And I’m not saying that they intended killing him, just giving him a fright. “We know where you live and where you go” sort of thing.’
‘So you’re saying that they were followed? Unless the attacker knew that the Barhams were taking that route. It’s not a very popular one.’
‘It was with Jamie Barham. He was obsessed with radio transmission masts. He would have made them-go that way.
Anyone could have known that,’ Mariner persevered. ‘The pharmaceutical angle ties in with the way Eddie Barham died, too. Who else would have access to pure grade diamorphine, but a drug company that legally trades in the stuff day in, day out? I’m pretty sure that Anna Barham’s flat has been bugged, too.’
‘What??’
‘She called me yesterday because she thought her flat had been broken into, something had been moved, but nothing taken. She dismissed it as paranoia. Then shortly after we had a discussion about them, some letters were stolen from her solicitor. It’s a lot of trouble for someone to go to.’
‘Do you want to do a sweep of the flat?’ Coleman asked, beginning at last to take notice.
Mariner shook his head. ‘I’ve thought about that. If we did uncover a listening device, whoever planted it will know that we’re on to them. I’ve kept my suspicions from Anna too, because I don’t want her to start behaving differently and give out the same message. I don’t think there’s anything else to be learned from it, so we may as well let sleeping bugs lie.’
‘So what do you want to do?’
‘Talk to Andrew Todd. He works for Bowes Dorrinton and has been in recent contact with Eddie Barham. He should be able to clear it up one way or the other.
Meanwhile I would feel safer if we posted someone outside An… Miss Barham’s flat until I’ve spoken to him. If Todd can come up with a satisfactory explanation, we’ll call them off. All I’m asking is a couple of days, sir.’
Coleman seemed to consider for a moment, although experience told Mariner that he had already made up his mind. ‘All right then,’ he said at last. ‘Just until you’ve spoken to Todd. Where does he live?’
‘Northumberland. That’s where the pharmaceutical company Bowes Dorrinton is based. I’ll speak to the force up there and try to arrange a meeting with Todd for tomorrow.’
‘Yes sir.’
‘Well don’t go living it up at the Hyatt on police expenses, not if we’re providing Anna Barham with a twenty-four-hour watch as well.’
‘I’m not sure that there is a Hyatt in that part of the country, sir.’
Coleman walked him to the door, so Mariner knew there was more. ‘You seem to be on easy first name terms with Anna Barham,’ he observed. So he’d noticed the earlier slip of the tongue.
‘I’ve had to work closely with her, sir. It’s been necessary to the investigation, but the relationship is entirely professional.’ Unless you count what’s going on in my head.
‘Just make sure it stays that way, Tom.’
‘Yes sir.’
‘At least until the case is closed.’
Coleman’s remarks made Mariner think. Perhaps it was time to back off a bit. He phoned Anna. ‘We’re posting a man outside your house,’ he said, trying to make it sound like the most natural thing in the world.
‘This is getting scary.’
‘Not at all. It’s just a precaution, my boss’s idea,’ Mariner lied. ‘But it’s important that you try to carry on as normal.’
She gave a derisory laugh. ‘What’s normal?’
‘Just try to do the things you would usually do at the weekend.’
‘What about you?’ she asked.
Mariner had already decided not to tell her about his plans regarding Andrew Todd. If she was under scrutiny, the less she knew the better. ‘It’s my weekend off,’ he said, casually.
‘Oh.’
He thought he sensed disappointment, but perhaps he was flattering himself. ‘I’ll speak to you early next week. And try to relax, okay?’ Patronising git, he thought as he put down the phone.
Immediately the connection was severed, Mariner dialled the STD code for Northumberland, followed by the Bowes Dorrinton number, and asked to speak to Andrew Todd. The receptionist had apparently never heard of Todd and asked Mariner to wait one moment.
There followed a pause of considerably more than one moment, during which Mariner was treated to the whole of ‘Autumn’ from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. Three months gone, just like that. Eventually a man’s voice came on the line. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Todd no longer works for this company,’ he said, coolly.
‘When did he—?’ but Mariner was talking to himself.
First sign of madness he thought, wryly. So Andrew Todd had left the company. What, Mariner wondered, had precipitated his departure? Whatever had occurred, he was still being protected. If Mariner tried phoning back he would doubtless get profuse apologies that the line had been cut off, but he wasn’t going to join in with that farce.
Knox wasn’t around so Mariner had to enlist the help of PC Hunter to get hold of Eddie Barham’s last phone bill. It was a simple enough task to trace Andrew Todd’s home address from the data already collected relating to Eddie Barham’s phone calls. There was only one Northumberland number on the list. Todd may not be employed by Bowes Dorrinton now, but he still apparently resided in Chapel Dene, the town where the pharmaceutical company was located. This established, Mariner made a courtesy call to a DI Dennis Weightman, a detective on the local force, and briefly outlined his plans, as he was required to do. It would also help for Weightman to be put in the picture in case Mariner needed back-up.
‘I can contact Mr Todd and set up a meeting for you, if you like, man?’ Weightman volunteered straight away in a dense Geordie accent.
But Mariner declined the offer. ‘Thanks, but I’d rather not give him time to prepare.’ Or to leave town.
Chapel Dene, a sleepy market town, tucked away in the remote world north of the Pennines seemed an unlikely home to a multinational pharmaceutical company. To get there meant a potentially tiresome journey up the M6, but for once Mariner relished the prospect of the long uninterrupted drive. Borrowing a pool Mondeo to give him the benefit of a CD player, he threw in some CDs of Bob Marley and The Stranglers, along with his boots and a fleece jacket. It was unthinkable to venture up to that part of the world without them.
Holidays with his mother as a small child had been simple and economical, motoring round in a succession of dubious vehicles, staying in youth hostels and walking in the countryside, taking in the occasional folk festival along the way. That basic pleasure had stayed with him, though his goals had become ever more ambitious. Over successive summers in his youth he’d tackled the best of Britain’s long distance footpaths: the coast-to-coast, Offa’s Dyke, The Ridge way. It was what had helped him to get a grip on his life again. Amongst the best times of his life had been weekends spent hitchhiking out of the city, walking all day before getting pissed or laid, and on some happy occasions both. 1981 had been the year of the Pennine Way, England’s last wilderness. Mariner had pounded the wild and rugged, sparsely populated route often alone with only the sheep for company. Pure heaven.
Since then the amount of traffic on the roads had more than doubled and tonight the traffic going north on Europe’s busiest stretch of motorway was bumper to bumper. By the time Mariner was on to anything resembling open road it was late evening. He checked in, in accordance with Coleman’s wishes, at the cheap and cheerless Travelodge off the A66 at Penrith. Thanks to a major agricultural event in the town that weekend, all they could offer him was a double room. It was relatively quiet, but Mariner lay awake anyway, wishing he had someone to share the double bed with, preferably Anna Barham.
Coleman was right. He had spent a lot of time with Anna and Jamie and whether he cared to admit it or not, he was becoming emotionally involved. Greta would have been proud of him.
Before eight the following morning, with a Little Chef ‘Breakfast Special’ congealing to form a leaden mass in the pit of his stomach, Mariner drove over bleak moorland, following the route described to him over the phone by Dennis Weightman. His memories of the area were of the lush greens of summer, backed by the extravagant trill of the curlew. Now, in February, the countryside was bleak and cold, still in the grip of winter, skeletal trees standing stark against a milky white sky, rooted in the muted greys and browns of dormant vegetation. Even the sheep were down from the hills for the winter and would not be back up again for weeks. Despite this there was something uniquely restful about the vast emptiness and the smooth undulating skyline of the moors.
High Bank turned out to be an inhospitable, ramshackle stonewalled farm, a little way out of the town and set up on the hillside under a cowl of windswept beeches.
Progressing slowly towards it along a rough unmetalled track, pitted with potholes that intermittently scraped the Mondeo’s undercarriage, Mariner wished he hadn’t worn a suit. He was going to look like the man from the MAFF.
He parked up outside a rusting five-bar gate and was just unfastening its frayed nylon cord to step into the yard, when, from nowhere, bounded a huge long-haired Alsatian, snarling and barking, and intent on tearing him to shreds.
Shit! Mariner jumped back, banging the gate shut again as the beast leapt at him. He heard shouting, and from behind a stone barn emerged a small woman of pensionable age, wearing mud-spattered Wellingtons and a dark anorak.
Mariner half expected to see a twelve-bore nestling in the crook of her arm, but she carried nothing more threatening than a galvanised metal bucket.
The dog had quieted obediently to a low warning growl, but the woman made no attempt to call it off, instead coming right over to the gate where Mariner stood, his palms sweating and heartbeat gradually slowing to normal.
‘What canna do for you?’ She squinted warily at him.
Mariner took out his warrant card, struggling to keep a steady hand. ‘Mrs Todd? I’m Detective Inspector Tom Mariner, West Midlands Police.’
‘You’re a long way from home,’ she observed.
But, despite the remark, Mariner got the impression that she wasn’t all that surprised to see him. ‘I wanted to speak to your husband. Is he
here?’
Close to, her face was ruddy from exposure to the elements, and small dark eyes regarded him warily. ‘You’d better come in.’ Mariner pushed open the gate with more than a little apprehension, but the Alsatian seemed content to grumble at him from a distance. ‘Don’t mind him.’ Mrs Todd ordered, brusquely.
The farm was as cluttered and dilapidated inside as it was out. Removing her boots, Mrs Todd took Mariner through a working kitchen and into a musty smelling lounge, crowded with ageing furniture, and randomly piled with books and half-completed knitting projects, its sofa already half taken up by a large complacent-looking tortoiseshell cat. Shooing away the animal, Mrs Todd cleared a space for Mariner to sit down, on a garish crocheted afghan, and grudgingly offered him tea. Mariner accepted, hoping it would have a dual effect on the raging thirst the aberrant cooked breakfast had given him, and his now ragged nerves. Heart and stomach sank in unison when minutes later, along with the tea, came a chunk of weighty-looking fruit loaf.
‘I baked it myself. I hope you’ve got room for it,’ she challenged, and Mariner wondered if this was his penalty for disturbing them. ‘My husband will be down,’ she added, and left him alone with the disgruntled feline.
Andrew Todd would have been tall at one time, but now his shoulders were bent, a weight of anxiety pressing down on them. His eyes swept the room nervously, never resting on anything for more than a few seconds. After introducing himself, he perched on the edge of the seat opposite Mariner, hands on his knees and fingers drumming relentlessly.
‘How can I help you, Inspector?’
Mariner saw no merit in bush-beating. ‘Mr Todd, I’m investigating the murder of a journalist, Eddie Barham.’
Emitting a groan, Todd closed his eyes, his horror genuine and absolute. ‘So it’s true. I hoped that there had been some mistake.’
Chris Collett - [Tom Mariner 01] Page 25