‘Are you saying Jarvis had something to hide,’ she prompted him, ‘and that’s why he couldn’t become an MP?’
‘Partly, but it was more complicated than that. Let’s just say he was trying to repair something that couldn’t be fixed by swanning off to London.’
Helen instantly knew what he meant. ‘His marriage.’
Hilton smiled. ‘Go to the top of the class, pet.’
Chapter Twenty-Three
Tom had almost finished reading the case files when he noticed something was absent from them. The last sighting of Sandra Jarvis in the north-east had been at Newcastle Central railway station, one of the first places to invest in the relatively new, not inexpensive technology of CCTV, because large railway stations had more than their fair share of trouble from drunks and fights between rival football fans. The still from one of the cameras that showed Sandra Jarvis buying a rail ticket was missing from the file, which was odd since it was a crucial piece of evidence.
Tom was then told he had a phone call, which was a surprise, since hardly anybody knew he was at the police HQ.
‘It’s me,’ Helen said, ‘thought you’d still be there.’
‘I’m nearly done,’ he told her.
‘Can you pick me up at the Quayside?’ she asked him. ‘I got that dirt you wanted.’
‘Blimey, that was quick.’
Helen was standing directly under the Tyne Bridge, sheltering from the rain but putting herself in even greater jeopardy from falling bird shit, which was a hazard for anyone walking beneath its girders. He flashed his lights and she quickly jumped in next to him.
‘You’ve gone up in the world,’ she said.
‘Eh?’
‘Your car,’ she remarked on the two-year-old black Renault he’d finally upgraded to.
‘It’s not that flash,’ he said shortly, and drove away.
Helen had grown used to the need to play everything down round here. It seemed the biggest sin in the north-east was to become too big for your boots.
‘I would never accuse you of being flash,’ she said, ‘just, you know, it’s good to seeing you doing well. You deserve it.’
‘What makes you think I’m doing well?’
‘Oh I don’t know,’ she said brightly, ‘perhaps it was the several front page leads in national newspapers a while back, followed by the critically acclaimed non-fiction book of the year.’
‘I don’t remember picking up that award.’
‘You know what I mean!’ She mock-punched him on the shoulder.
‘Have you been drinking?’
‘I have been working,’ she announced grandly and she told him about her drinks with Hilton and everything she had learned about Frank Jarvis..
‘It seems Mrs Jarvis had a major wobble when Frank was about to be selected as a Newcastle MP and he turned down the nomination at the last minute.’
‘He rejected the chance to become an MP?’
‘To save his marriage,’ said Helen. ‘Alan heard rumours of an affair, which he said was highly likely. A lot of young women used to volunteer to help the Labour Party campaign back then. He told me it was because of “women’s lib”. He reckons Jarvis probably had a fling with one of the party’s “dolly birds”.’
‘How refreshingly old school,’ deadpanned Tom.
‘Mrs Jarvis must have found out about it because Frank disappeared for a few days at a critical point then he turned down the nomination.’
‘Wanted to spend more time with his family, eh?’
‘He may have been forced to do that, otherwise someone would have leaked it. This was nearly twenty years ago, when people were a lot less tolerant of that sort of behaviour.’
‘Any idea which “dolly bird” he had an affair with?’
‘I’m afraid not,’ she said, ‘but there was one other thing that will interest you.’
‘Go on.’
‘It seems Mrs Jarvis has always had a bit of a drink problem,’ Helen explained. ‘She has it under control most of the time but during that period she was drinking more heavily than normal and she crashed her car.’
‘Blimey,’ he said, ‘was she done for that?’
‘No charges,’ said Helen.
‘What did she do? Abandon the car and stagger off?’
‘Not exactly. The story goes that she spun off the road and skidded into a wall somewhere out in the sticks. She wasn’t badly hurt and she just stayed there and waited for someone to come along. A police officer attended the scene but when the report was filed it stated the driver was sober and must have skidded on a wet patch in the road.’
‘He covered it up?’
‘That has always been the rumour, because back then Mrs Jarvis was rarely sober.’
‘Bloody hell,’ said Tom, ‘he’s probably Chief Constable by now.’
‘Whoever it was,’ she said, ‘he recognised Jarvis was the coming man and decided it would be sensible to help him out of a big mess.’
‘I keep hearing how incorruptible Jarvis is. I was beginning to believe it and you managed to dispel that myth in about five minutes.’
‘More like an hour and a half – and I wouldn’t say it made him corrupt necessarily.’
‘What would you call it then?’
‘It’s not the same as taking backhanders, is it? He was protecting his wife from arrest and possibly prison. Wouldn’t you do that?’
‘Possibly,’ conceded Tom, ‘but I have no intention of standing for public office.’
‘Brian Hilton said that was one of the problems of our system,’ she replied. ‘He reckons we expect politicians to be morally superior to everyone else but they are just the same as the rest of us.’
‘In my experience they are a lot worse.’
‘Anyway, whatever happened, it must have shaken them both. He dropped out of the running for the safe seat and eventually became leader of the city council. There were no more rumours about affairs and Mrs Jarvis kept the drinking under control, at least in public. Their marriage has been rock solid since then, apparently. Where are we going by the way?’ she asked him.
‘I’m off to meet Ian Bradshaw. He’s been doing some digging into Lonely Lane for me,’ then he added, ‘but don’t worry, I’ll drop you back first.’
‘I’m not in any hurry.’ Delving deeper into a good story with Ian and Tom was infinitely preferable to returning to her empty flat and worrying about the men out to get her.
‘Okay,’ he told her, ‘then you can ride shotgun. Thanks, Helen.’
‘What for?’
‘For finding the dirt. I knew there’d be something. There’s always something.’
Chapter Twenty-Four
It was hard to meet anywhere in the north-east in the evenings apart from in pubs. Nowhere else was open. Ian Bradshaw was already waiting for Tom at one of his watering holes on the outskirts of Durham city. The detective seemed pleased to see Helen again and they spent a few moments catching up with one another before they got down to business. Like Tom, Bradshaw hadn’t seen Helen since the Sean Donnellan case, aside from a few moments at Mary Collier’s funeral. Bradshaw proceeded to brief them about Lonely Lane and the negligent attitude of the time-serving police sergeant.
‘So Richard Bell was not exaggerating,’ said Tom, ‘the place really is a magnet for nutters and perverts. It makes me think that anyone could have murdered Rebecca.’
‘Not necessarily,’ Bradshaw told him. ‘Rebecca was killed two years ago and there have been no murders before it or since.’
‘Maybe the guy is just lying low,’ offered Tom.
‘And maybe you’re clutching at straws because you’re working for Bell’s family.’
Helen decided to interrupt before the two men became fractious. ‘Why is it called Lonely Lane?’
‘It dates back many years,’ Tom said. ‘Married ladies used to meet their lovers there if they were feeling lonely … meaning they wanted sex. Even years ago the place was synonymous with adultery.’
‘Oh, I almost forgot.’ Helen fished a photocopied article from her handbag and handed it to Tom. It was from her newspaper’s archive and showed a man arriving at court for sentencing.
‘What’s this?’
‘A case primarily about money laundering and tax evasion. There were all sorts of scams involving VAT avoidance and phantom employees on the payroll in pubs all over the city. This guy was sent down for a couple of years for cheating the system.’ She pointed at the picture of a gloomy man heading into court. ‘He took the full rap himself, even though he couldn’t have gained much directly compared to the owners and licensees, all of whom were seemingly unconnected. Their only common link was this man, who they all employed as a consulting accountant. The CPS was unable to build a strong enough case against any of the licensees individually and they were probably relatively blameless.’
‘Because they were front men,’ Tom said.
‘Exactly.’
‘So who was the real beneficiary of this fraud?’
‘No one could prove it but the word on the street is they were all pubs controlled by Jimmy McCree. Licences were withdrawn and six pubs closed down. One of them was the Highwayman.’
‘So Councillor Jarvis’s daughter was working in one of big Jimmy McCree’s pubs,’ said Tom, ‘and she probably never even knew it.’
‘I don’t suppose the councillor knew it either,’ said Helen.
‘But did Jimmy McCree?’ asked Tom. ‘That’s the million-dollar question.’
‘He had to,’ said Bradshaw. ‘He must be permanently worried about undercover cops infiltrating his empire. Everyone who works for him would be vetted, even casual bar staff.’
‘McCree has been cosying up to local politicians lately,’ said Helen.
‘Then hold that thought,’ said Tom, ‘it could lead us somewhere. McCree is linked to Joe Lynch, who is Frank Jarvis’s successor as leader of the city council and Frank’s daughter worked for him, albeit indirectly. That could of course just be a coincidence.’
‘The north-east is a small world,’ Bradshaw reminded him.
‘Did you get anywhere with Sandra’s university pals?’ asked Tom.
‘I looked up a few but they all stuck to their original script. In her first term, Sandra Jarvis was a nice, kind, personable soul but when she came back after the Christmas break she seemed different. She was withdrawn and sullen, she missed lectures and tutorials and stopped going out with friends but she never gave a reason for this.’
‘No word about drugs?’ Tom asked.
‘Not a dickie bird,’ said Bradshaw, ‘but there was one thing that isn’t in our case files – unless you found it today in Newcastle.’
‘What?’
‘Her other job.’
‘What other job?’
‘One of her mates told me Sandra volunteered at a centre that helps vulnerable kids. It was the first I’d heard of this, so I assumed Newcastle were looking into it as it’s on their patch.’
‘There’s nothing in the case files,’ said Tom, ‘believe me, I read every bloody word. It took me all afternoon.’
‘How could that have been missed?’ asked Bradshaw.
‘Cock-up or conspiracy?’ wondered Tom.
‘That’s what we need to find out. Apparently Sandra wanted to work with young offenders when she graduated.’
‘Rather her than me,’ said Tom. ‘Where did she volunteer?’
‘Her friend reckons a number of places but she’d been helping out at one for troubled teenagers most recently.’ He checked his notebook for the name. ‘Meadowlands.’
‘Why do these places always have such idyllic-sounding names?’ asked Tom. ‘Bet it’s a hell-hole.’
‘The kids there are some of the more challenging ones: young girls who got into drugs or prostitution, some of them have been abused by their own family members. Awful stuff, and all before the age of sixteen.’
‘Do you think we might be able to speak to the girls there?’ asked Helen.
‘That’s going to be tricky,’ Bradshaw told her, ‘reporters dealing with vulnerable young people.’
‘I’m not a reporter, Ian,’ Tom reminded him, ‘I’ve been hired by the police to provide expert analysis.’
‘Fair enough,’ conceded the detective.
‘That wasn’t the only thing not in the case files,’ Tom said. ‘The photograph of Sandra Jarvis buying her ticket at the train station is missing.’
‘You mean it’s been removed?’
‘I don’t know, possibly.’
‘Like you said, cock-up or conspiracy? It’s probably just fallen out of the file. I’ll ask them to find it for us.’
Despite his frustration at the lack of clear progress in either case, Tom felt energised somehow. He realised it was because he was no longer digging into the Sandra Jarvis or Rebecca Holt cases on his own. He was part of a team again; the same team that had blown the lid off the Sean Donnellan and Michelle Summers cases, and their work had already begun to bear fruit. Ian had uncovered the sordid truth about Lonely Lane, following one brief chat with a police sergeant, then he had discovered Sandra’s link to the Meadowlands care home. Helen meanwhile had found the reason for the closure of the Highwayman pub then given Tom an intriguing story about Frank Jarvis’s private life. Tom felt as if he was moving three times faster now they were both on board.
‘What are you looking so smug about?’ asked Helen.
‘Nothing,’ he said.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The foreman made Tom wear a hard hat and high-visibility vest in matching canary yellow before he would let him onto the site that morning. Freddie Holt was waiting for him there. He was standing on a large gantry erected on the edge of a former brewery which was being levelled for redevelopment.
‘You’re the journalist,’ observed Holt, but he was not interested in handshakes or pleasantries. Instead he said, ‘Take a look at this. What do you see?’
Tom Carney surveyed the huge expanse of land before him. Aside from rubble poking out of the mud where the brewery once stood, there wasn’t much to see. ‘A derelict site.’
Freddie Holt sighed, ‘Is that all?’
Tom was beginning to get the picture but he felt no great desire to humour the older man. ‘A graveyard,’ he offered facetiously, ‘the wreckage of a once proud industry.’
‘Opportunity!’ the businessman corrected him. ‘That’s what I see – but then I have a vision.’
‘What kind of vision?’
‘Give me one year,’ Holt said, as if it was within Tom’s power to do so, ‘and I will transform this wasteland into a thriving retail park with shops, cafés, restaurants and a multi-screen cinema and you know what that means?’
‘Profits?’
‘Jobs!’ He gave Tom a disappointed look. ‘Hundreds of them for local people.’
‘Yeah but they’re not real jobs, are they?’ countered Tom. ‘They’re McJobs.’
‘What?’ The businessman either didn’t understand the phrase or chose not to.
‘McJobs,’ explained Tom, ‘you know,’ and he mimicked an unenthusiastic tone, ‘as in, Do you want fries with that?’ then reverted to his normal voice. ‘A McJob – low skill, low pay, no prospects, might as well work for McDonald’s.’
‘Bullshit.’ Holt scowled but he didn’t offer a contradictory argument.
‘Sorry to rain on your parade,’ Tom said, ‘but some of us don’t buy it.’
‘When I look at this site I don’t see the demise of a proud industry,’ Holt was animated now, ‘I see an uncompetitive factory brought low by greedy unions and swept away by economic forces because of their unreasonable demands.’
‘You’re not fond of them, are you?’ asked Tom. ‘The unions. I’ve heard the stories.’
‘What stories?’
‘The men you use never go on strike,’ Tom said. ‘There must be a reason for that.’
Freddie Holt eyed Tom suspiciously. ‘My secretary sa
id you wanted to write an article about me,’ he said, ‘but I won’t contribute to a hatchet-job, if that’s what you’re planning.’
‘I won’t be writing anything bad about your development,’ Tom assured him.
‘You’d better not be.’
‘I’m here to talk to you about Rebecca.’
‘What?’ The businessman was furious. ‘You said …’
‘I know what I said to your secretary and I’m sorry, but I didn’t think you’d see me if I told her the truth.’
‘Well you were right about that,’ said Holt. ‘Now see if you can guess what I’m going to do next.’
‘Throw me out presumably, which is fine if you want Richard Bell to be released.’
‘Released? What are you talking about? The bastard got life and I hope he rots in there.’
‘He’s doing life alright, but on the flimsiest of evidence. His family have asked me to look into his case to see if it can be overturned.’
‘And you expect me to help you?’ Holt’s face was reddening.
Tom shook his head. ‘No, I expect you to convince me otherwise. I’ve told them I’ll keep an open mind. If you can persuade me he’s guilty then I’ll leave him in there, as you say, to rot.’
Holt frowned suspiciously. ‘Why should I believe that?’
‘No reason, but you speaking to me is not going to secure Richard Bell’s release and it may just prevent it.’
Behind Dead Eyes Page 18