The house was small and neat; a decent starter home for a young family. Tom was invited into a tiny lounge, which barely had room for an armchair, sofa and a TV.
‘I understand you and Richard were close,’ said Tom.
‘Not really.’
‘But you were best man at his wedding.’
‘Someone had to be. I wouldn’t say I was any closer to Richard than a number of blokes who went to college with him. We hung out in the same group of friends, went out drinking together but I barely saw him after university. A couple of years after graduating, he called me up, told me he was getting married and wanted me to be best man.’
‘Were you surprised?’
‘At the best man bit? Yes, but not about the getting married part.’
‘Why do you say that? Seems a bit young these days.’
‘It was logical. He already had everything he wanted.’
‘So it wasn’t just because he was in love with the girl?’
‘Who said he was in love with her.’ Birkett looked a little uncomfortable then. ‘Look, I’ve nothing against Annie but I wouldn’t say it was a normal romance, it was more—’
‘A meeting of minds,’ offered Tom sarcastically, ‘or a marriage of convenience?’
‘When he married Annie he got the full package: the woman with the brains and the career, the job with her old man’s firm; her dad already got them a big house. I think he bought into all of it, that’s all. I think he married Annie because he didn’t want to jeopardise things.’
‘Are you saying he didn’t love her?’
‘I have no idea if he loved her or not. I’m saying he married the boss’s daughter. The rest of us were out there trying to get a leg-up in our first jobs, paying off student debts, renting tiny rooms in crappy, shared houses. He already had everything. On the rare occasions we did get together it was a bit jarring. He was living in a different world, driving a brand new car with golf clubs in the boot, eating in restaurants I wouldn’t dream of going to. He was way ahead of us and it was all so effortless.’
‘I see. So tell me about this other girl at college,’ Tom said, ‘Amy, the one who called the police when he hit her.’
‘Oh that,’ Mark said as if it was no big deal. ‘Well I guess it all came up in court, so it’s no secret. In our first year Richard was an absolute hound. He had a different girl every week, or as near as. Most of us were lucky to get one a term but with Richard it was easy. He had the looks, he had the patter, women just fell for him but he never showed any inclination to stop rutting around,’ Birkett smiled grimly, ‘until he met Amy.’
‘Then he changed?’
‘We were in our second year by then. We’d moved out of halls and were sharing a grotty place on the edge of town. We threw a house-warming and she showed up with her mate.’
‘Is that how he met her?’
Birkett nodded. ‘She was a fresher and didn’t know anyone but I tell you every bloke in that room stopped what he was doing when she walked in.’
‘Good-looking?’
‘Stunning.’
‘So every guy wanted her but Richard was the one who started going out with her?’
‘Predictably so – and to be fair to him he did carry on seeing her. This wasn’t a one-night thing for once.’
‘How long were they in a relationship?’
Birkett shrugged. ‘Six months or so, but back in college that’s a lifetime.’
‘So what went wrong?’
‘Who knows, but one day Amy suddenly called it off.’
‘And you don’t know why?’
‘Who can tell for sure what goes through a young girl’s head? I got his side of it, of course. He was devastated. He thought they were a permanent item. Apparently she didn’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘He said she wasn’t ready for it. Amy was too young and wanted to see the world and other people. She was a bit of a free spirit and Richard was quite old-fashioned in some ways, which is a bit of contradiction when you consider what he was like in his first year.’
‘What happened?’
‘He tried to get her back,’ said Birkett, ‘and failed.’
‘And took it badly?’
‘He lost the plot and a lot of his pride along the way. I don’t think he had ever been rejected by a girl before in his life,’ Birkett said with some satisfaction, ‘and he had no frame of reference. He just couldn’t accept or deal with it, let alone move on. Lord knows we tried to persuade him to forget her but he just couldn’t or wouldn’t.’
‘So she called the police on him?’
‘That was a while later. He made a fool of himself on more than one occasion before they reached that point.’
‘Go on.’
‘He’d wait outside the lecture hall so he could intercept her and hassle her; he’d turn up at her house at all hours. She told him to leave her alone but he wouldn’t, he even threatened some guy he saw her with and challenged him to a fight. It was all a bit pathetic if I’m honest. We were embarrassed for him.’
‘And it clearly didn’t win her round.’
‘No,’ he said, ‘but she did sleep with him once.’
‘What?’
‘He’d calmed down a bit, hadn’t seen her for a while and we happened to be out at the same club as her. She was with her mates, celebrating her birthday and they had a big heart-to-heart in the corner.’ He put his palms up as if to illustrate how crazy that sounded. ‘What can I say? Emotions run high when you’re that age but whatever was said, he spent the night with her. The next morning he seemed to think they were back on again but that wasn’t her understanding. I think she looked upon it as break-up sex, a way to end it all amicably or possibly it was just a bit of drunken fun on her birthday. You’d have to ask her.’
‘Maybe I will,’ said Tom. ‘Was that when he lost it?’
‘Soon after,’ said Birkett, ‘when he found out she’d shagged somebody else. Then he lost it big style,’ confirmed Birkett, ‘shouting at her in the street, calling her names …’
‘What kind of names?’
‘Whore, slut, that kind of thing.’
‘When did she call the police?’
‘When he finally hit her.’
‘When you say hit …’
‘He says it was a slap,’ said Birkett, ‘she said it was worse than that. Either way he was completely out of order and when he’d sobered up he knew it.’
‘What did the police do?’
‘Cautioned him.’
‘Did that have an effect?’
‘I think it shocked him back into the real world. They warned him to stay away from her and the college authorities got involved. He was that close to being kicked out.’ He showed Tom a small gap between his thumb and forefinger. ‘These days he probably would have been, for hitting a girl, but this was back in the eighties and I don’t think they knew what to do with him. The university wanted it to go away, to be honest.’
‘Did he get back on the straight and narrow?’
‘He barely went to any lectures for weeks and he was drinking a lot; and I do mean a lot. We used to go out and get rat-arsed like all students do but this was way more. We tried to get him off it and back into his old routine but in the end we left him to it.’
‘So what happened?’
He looked a bit sheepish. ‘We gave up on him but she didn’t.’
‘Who?’
‘Annie Bell,’ he said, ‘or Annie Taylor, as she was back then.’
‘So she already knew him at that point?’
‘Annie was in our year. He’d known her from day one but she was just about the only girl he didn’t shag.’
‘Not interested?’
‘She was,’ said Birkett, ‘he wasn’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘Didn’t fancy her, I suppose.’
‘Yet he ended up married to her.’
‘Stranger things have happened.’
‘So how did they
go from him not fancying her to becoming a couple?’
‘I came home one day and she was sitting in the kitchen with him. He looked like shit and she had obviously been giving him a long talking-to. I left them to it but whatever she said to Richard, it worked. I hardly ever saw him without her again after that.’
‘But how? I still don’t fully understand this.’
‘Well nor do I really, but she managed to do what nobody else could do back then and she got his arse back in gear. She must have pointed out he was chucking his whole life away and he finally got the message. Then she helped him.’
‘With what?’
‘Everything. They started studying together in the library and he began to catch up on his uni work. He attended lectures and tutorials and avoided being chucked off his course. She’d turn up at the house with groceries or food she’d cooked for him and even started doing his washing. Honestly, it was like they were already married by the time we started our finals.’
‘And he wasn’t rutting around anymore?’
‘Not back then, unless he was very good at hiding it – but we found out just how good at the trial, didn’t we?’
‘Was that all there was to it? Annie sorted out the mess he’d made for himself so he stuck with her?’
Birkett shrugged. ‘It’s my best guess but, honestly, who knows what goes on between two people? I’m not sure how I can really help you.’
‘You’ve been a help,’ Tom assured him.
‘Look, I agreed to see you because you’re helping Richard but I told you we weren’t really that close. He’s never been down here and he only met my wife once, at his wedding.’
‘Not the best at keeping in touch, was he?’
‘You could say that,’ he admitted. ‘I know life gets in the way and everything but we made a big effort that day, stayed in a hotel, bought them a nice gift, but I barely saw him afterwards.’
‘Any reason for that?’
‘We didn’t have a falling-out. I just got the impression he didn’t need an old mate from uni and his equally penniless girlfriend hanging around.’
‘You don’t think Annie had anything to do with it, do you?’
‘The murder?’ Birkett was shocked.
Tom shook his head. ‘No; Richard not bothering to stay in touch with you.’
‘I never had a problem with her. I reckon we just weren’t part of his world.’
‘Okay, well I guess we’re done then.’ Birkett followed him to the door and Tom made his final question sound like an afterthought. ‘So, what do you think about this Rebecca Holt killing? Did he do it?’
‘You clearly think he didn’t, or you wouldn’t be here.’
‘I’m keeping an open mind. I’ve barely scratched the surface yet.’
‘I think Richard is an uncomplicated man who knows what he wants,’ said Birkett, ‘and usually gets it, but when he doesn’t he can lose the plot. I saw what happened with Amy. As to whether he actually did it, I have no idea.’
‘You wouldn’t vouch for him?’
‘How could I?’ said Birkett as he walked Tom to the front door and opened it onto the unfinished street.
‘I persuaded my wife to buy this place,’ he said. ‘She wanted an old townhouse but I told her we’d get more value for money round here, if we bought a newbuild, off-plan.’ He sounded desolate.
‘Well you probably will,’ Tom assured him, ‘once it’s finished.’
‘Finished?’ he said and he looked at Tom as if he was mad, ‘Does this look new to you?’ And it was not until he’d asked that question that Tom fully noticed his surroundings. A handful of weeds trying to grow through cracks in the pavement was the first clue. Then he realised some of the brickwork on the unfinished houses looked faded and battered by the weather.
‘No, it doesn’t,’ Tom admitted.
‘And do you see any work going on? We’ve been here two years,’ Birkett told him, ‘and they haven’t laid a brick in twelve months.’
‘What happened?’
‘Developers ran out of money.’ He surveyed the cul-de-sac with a renewed sense of disbelief.
‘Is there any chance that anyone else could …?’
‘Buy the place and finish the work?’ asked Birkett. ‘It would be cheaper to start afresh somewhere else than pick this mess up. There are properties here that have had the wind and rain battering them for months. You’d have to knock them down and start all over again. No one is going to do that.’
‘Won’t your insurance company …?’
‘They say I have a structurally sound house and they did not insure the surrounding infrastructure for me. They are only interested if I get burgled, experience subsidence, the house collapses or it burns down and, if it does catch fire, they pretty much implied I would be their first suspect,’ he concluded, ‘just in case I were to get any ideas.’
‘That’s awful.’
‘We’re trapped here,’ Birkett said. ‘I am paying a mortgage every month on a house that is literally worth nothing. Who is ever going to buy it from me when this is what they see when they draw back the curtains? There’s nobody else living in this street. We thought it would be a nice place to bring up kids but it’s a building site. My wife cries herself to sleep every night.’ He smiled grimly. ‘We are here to stay. Unless we win the lottery.’
It was dark and getting late by the time Tom finally returned home. He’d stopped at a pub for a pint and some food. He hadn’t felt like cooking and wanted some quiet time to re-read his notes and try to draw some conclusions about his client. If anything, Richard Bell looked guiltier than ever.
He walked wearily up the darkened driveway and a burly figure suddenly stepped from the shadows.
‘Jesus Christ!’ yelled Tom as he flinched from the sudden movement and stepped quickly back.
The man came fully into focus then.
‘Where the bloody hell have you been?’ demanded an exasperated DS Bradshaw.
Chapter Fifteen
‘What were you doing hiding in the shadows like that?’ demanded Tom as he handed Bradshaw a bottle of beer. ‘I nearly had a bloody heart attack.’
‘I wasn’t hiding,’ protested Bradshaw, ‘I was about to try your door bell for the umpteenth time when you came walking up the drive. You should get one of those security lights installed that come on when someone reaches your front door.’
‘Good idea, I’ll do that in my spare time,’ he said dryly so that Bradshaw would notice the chaos in his living room.
‘I heard you were doing a place up,’ said Bradshaw. ‘Big job is it?’
Tom ignored the question. ‘How did you find me?’
‘I’m a detective.’
‘Alright then, why did you find me?’
‘Because I needed a word.’
‘I remember the last time you had a word,’ Tom told him, ‘there were a fair number of them, in fact. You called me an arrogant, treacherous idiot as I recall.’
‘Did I?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then I should never have called you an idiot,’ Bradshaw said reasonably. ‘I take that bit back. I’ve always thought you were very intelligent.’
‘For an arrogant traitor,’ said Tom. ‘Look, Ian, what exactly do you want?’
‘Have you heard of Frank Jarvis?’
‘The politician? Of course,’ said Tom, ‘I heard him on the radio recently talking about his missing daughter.’
‘Well, pin back your lugholes then, because I’ve got a tale to tell.’
It didn’t take long before the two men became embroiled in an argument. The detective began positively enough, explaining that Councillor Jarvis had asked for help to find his daughter. ‘We think a fresh pair of eyes is what is needed here,’ he said then he handed Tom a picture of Sandra Jarvis. The ten-by-eight colour photograph showed a pretty young blonde girl with green eyes. Her face was serious, as if she wasn’t expecting the camera’s presence and resented its intrusion.
T
om listened silently while Bradshaw continued, ‘Sandra was a model pupil at school, and left for university with a seemingly bright future ahead of her. But in her second term she completely changed. She missed lectures, shunned her friends and became sullen, moody and introspective, apparently. Then she disappeared during the reading week.’
Bradshaw appealed to Tom’s better nature then and asked him to put his feelings about the falling-out with Durham Constabulary to one side. ‘We would like you to do what you do best: unravel a mystery. You would be helping a suffering father in the process. There’s a fund the force uses to pay for outside experts so we could put you on the payroll. What do you think?’
‘You’ve got to be kidding,’ said Tom. ‘I mean, seriously?’
‘I’m not kidding.’
‘After the crap you lot put me through?’
‘What crap?’
‘Mmm, let’s see.’ And Tom pretended to think for a moment. ‘I’ve been ostracised by the police contacts I need in order to have any kind of career in journalism, which renders me pretty much unemployable in that profession and this region …’
‘Well, can you blame them?’
‘… I have been verbally abused by detectives I’ve investigated for corruption then threatened with violence by those same men …’
‘O’Brien didn’t threaten you, Tom.’
‘Detective Sergeant O’Brien told me he was going to kill me …’
‘It’s a figure of speech. He didn’t mean it.’
‘I was hauled into your DCI’s office and, instead of being congratulated for uncovering serious malpractice within this force, Kane closed ranks, backed his own men and threatened me with arrest for obstruction …’
‘He has to stand by his men,’ Bradshaw protested, ‘unless there is concrete evidence, which you couldn’t provide!’
‘… Plus, I’ve been stopped three times for speeding in the past two months …’
‘Were you speeding?’
‘That’s not the point!’
‘I think it is.’
‘Not when I haven’t been pulled over once in the preceding ten years!’
‘Well,’ said Bradshaw weakly, ‘we’ve been having a bit of a clampdown on speeding.’
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