by Tom Trott
The kitchen was done in traditional country style. There were no dirty cups or plates that I could see from my angle, no fancy coffee machine or blender, just a kettle, tea, and sugar. All I could hear was his dog munching away at a bowl of dry food.
After a minute Burke appeared at the top of the stairs wearing the coat. I gave an innocent smile. The casual smile he returned was rusty. He tucked his polo shirt into his jeans as he descended. I instinctively took two steps backwards toward the door. He disappeared into the kitchen.
‘Come on, Maisie. Walkies!’ He tried to whisper it but the sound travelled in the silent cottage. ‘Come on.’
The munching stopped abruptly and he dragged a thoroughly confused grey and white greyhound into the hall. She soon got the idea and sniffed her way eagerly toward the door, and me.
‘Hello,’ I cooed, patting her on the head and itching her ears. Burke grunted.
I noticed then that from the moment he had reached the bottom of the stairs his right hand had never left his outside coat pocket.
I stepped back out, down the path, and onto the road, where Burke and Maisie soon joined me. I followed his lead as he began to perambulate gently down the country lane. The road was still damp from the night, but not icy. He didn’t talk until we had passed my Jag.
‘You said you got my address from Richard Daye, how did he get it?’
‘I didn’t ask, but I suppose he is a detective too.’
‘A good one. How is he?’
‘Not good. He has cancer.’
He shot his first glance at me. ‘I’m sorry to hear that. I always respected Dicky, but smoking the amount he did was damn stupid. I’ve always enjoyed the occasional cigar, but I never allowed it to become a habit.’
‘You knew him quite well then.’
‘He was a few years my junior, although people often mistook us for peers, rather unfairly for him. He was a decent man, perhaps to a fault. What was the name of his sergeant?’ His eyes flashed to mine again.
‘I don’t know, I’m sorry.’
‘It doesn’t matter.’ His right hand finally emerged from his coat pocket. He took gloves from the other pocket and put them on. ‘Did Dicky tell you about me?’ he asked.
‘Are you kidding? You’re a legend.’
‘Am I really?’ He couldn’t hide his smile.
‘Definitely. No one else has managed to have that kind of success over so long a career.’
The smile evaporated. ‘Well, that’s very kind of you. I must admit I know who you are too, Mr Grabarz. I retired before you became involved with the police, but I heard plenty about you through the old boys network. I can’t say I approve of your methods. What was it they used to call you?’
‘A lot of things, I’m sure.’
‘“The police’s dirty habit”, wasn’t that it?’
I gave an embarrassed smile. ‘That’s right.’
We passed the next twenty paces in silence. Cold sun broke through the mesh of bare trees. Dark birds began to caw and flit from branch to bush to frozen ground.
‘Did you ever apply to join the force?’ he asked.
‘No, never.’
‘Why not?’
‘I could give you a few different reasons... about not wanting to be tied down to the rules, or not wanting to put in the effort, or just not being good enough, but the truth is that I find what I do too much fun.’
He frowned again. ‘Police work isn’t about fun, Mr Grabarz.’
‘Exactly.’
He sighed in a dignified style. ‘I can’t guarantee I’ll be inclined to help you, but you’re here so I might as well hear you out. If I decide I want to help you, and can help you, I will.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Don’t thank me yet. Start from the beginning, leave nothing out.’
At this moment we arrived at a wooden post that marked a public footpath. We turned left, off the road, and into woods. Here he let Maisie off her lead and she bounded off through the dirt, using her freedom to run and run. The pair of us slowed to a gentler pace.
‘You’ll appreciate due to the nature of private investigation contracts that there are certain things I cannot tell you.’
‘Sure.’
‘So, omitting certain specifics, it all started with a message from someone, asking me to meet them somewhere at a specific time. Someone I know and respect. It was somewhere quite secluded, not too different from this sort of area. I arrived in my car, their car was there, but it was empty. I could see where they had walked, so I followed their tracks. They led about half a mile over fields to a house, on its own much like yours, where I found their body.’
He gave me a brief sideways look.
‘So I went through their pockets and found their keys. I checked their car, there was nothing to tell me why they had asked me there; and then went to their office, there was nothing to tell me there either. So I decided I would head back to the crime scene and call the police.’
‘Quite right too.’
‘I parked in the same place, by their car, and walked over the fields. But when I got to the house the body had vanished, along with any physical evidence.’
He frowned. ‘What was there to begin with?’
‘Blood. Tyre tracks. Murder weapon.’
‘And you gave him a chance to clean it all up.’
‘So it would seem. Then the car was gone when I got back to mine.’
‘It sounds like you need a lawyer, Mr Grabarz, not a detective.’
‘Well I’ll get to that when it comes, right now I’m trying to figure out what happened and why they wanted me there.’
He frowned again. ‘I strongly advise you to call the police. Has the person been reported missing?’
‘They will be soon but leave that to me, I want your thoughts on the crime itself.’
He didn’t reply for a couple of minutes, going over the story in his head, different wrinkles twitching as though his face was being prickled with electricity. I passed the time scratching Maisie’s ears and throwing sticks for her.
‘Surely you would have passed the killer as he went from the house to the car,’ he stated.
‘No, I walked as the crow flies, driving they would have taken a much more circuitous route not visible from either location, but still much quicker than walking.’
‘How long are we talking between the last time you saw the car and finding it was missing?’
‘Forty-five minutes maybe.’
‘And you’re saying it’s a secluded place, so surely there must be two drivers: one to drive the car that left the tracks from the house to the victim’s car and away again, and one to drive the victim’s car away. Unless they towed it.’
‘I guess you’re right.’
‘Did you take any photos?’
‘No.’
He looked appalled. ‘None? Not even the tyre tracks?’
‘They had already begun to fade.’
‘Fade? What do you mean?’
‘In the snow.’
He looked sideways at me. ‘When was this?’
I glanced at my watch. ‘About eight hours ago.’
He smiled. ‘Maybe we are somewhat alike. You don’t like to sit still, I was just the same. Dicky preferred to solve a case without leaving his chair.’
I returned his smile.
‘Where did this happen, if you don’t mind telling me?’
‘Little Fawn Farm.’
He stumbled. Caught, he stopped.
I watched his face. After a few moments he called to Maisie and she came running to him, he put her back on the lead, then his right hand returned to his coat pocket. It stayed there. Finally, he faced me squarely.
‘Is that a true story you told me, or was it all to lull me into that trap?’
I didn’t answer.
He sighed. ‘You’re not working for that boy, are you?’
‘No.’
‘You’re not working for those dirty lawyers of his?’
/> I shook my head.
‘Good.’ He looked around, seemingly out of questions.
‘Why would someone be interested in the case?’ I asked.
‘Why is anyone interested in murder? Why do people watch documentaries on serial killers or read mysteries? Mental perversion. Morbid curiosity.’
‘I meant why would anyone want the case looked into again?’
‘I have no idea, probably some socialist crusade against the always-corrupt police force. Policemen are the most victimised people in this country. More than the blacks, more than poofs or women; they’re all right, they’ve got laws to protect them. Then you’ve got some honest bobby fresh out of training who makes one mistake and he’s the one that goes to jail. The badge doesn’t protect us anymore.’
‘Did you make a mistake on this case?’
‘Definitely not.’ He stepped forward, squaring up, then scoffing at my suggestion, pretending to relax, but still in my face.
‘When you’ve been a detective as long as I have you get a feeling about people,’ he started to explain.
‘A feeling?’
‘That makes it sound unscientific. What it really is is the sum of all your experiences, your subconscious weighing them up, balancing them out like an equation. Things you’ve heard guilty people say before, ways they’ve behaved, and it adds up.’
‘So your subconscious just compared him to all the other child murderers you’d interviewed.’
‘I may not have interviewed any child murderers before but I had met plenty of bad kids. He was a wrong’un, no doubt in my mind. What does he care anyway, he got parole didn’t he?’
I went to speak but he got in first:
‘Look, the boy was found at the crime scene, with the bodies, his fingerprints were all over the gun, it matched ballistics, he knew where it was kept, he knew how to load it, how to fire it, he’d even used it before. Plus he had a bad record at school. Social services knew about him too, the real scandal is how they left this boy with his family so that he could go on and kill them. But no one is interested in looking into that are they?’
I went to speak again, but again he jumped in:
‘I don’t know what those lawyers of his were thinking, letting him plead not guilty. I reckon they talked him into it, they wanted the case to stay in the papers, to build publicity for them. They did it for free, you know, what does that tell you? Besides, he admitted it in prison anyway.’ He was developing more wrinkles the longer he talked, by now he looked like a desperate scrotum.
I went through the motions of trying to speak. Yet again I was cut off:
‘So there you have it, case closed. You tell me why anyone would want it looked into again. Who hired you?’
I got through the first half-second of a frown.
‘What does it matter, they’re dead, right?’ He shrugged. ‘Who was it?’
‘No one connected to the farm, I promise.’
‘Truth be told, you don’t even know it has anything to do with that case. They might just have wanted somewhere quiet to meet.’
‘It’s a definite possibility,’ I deadpanned.
He sighed. ‘I see.’ The hand dropped from his pocket. ‘Well, before you leave, I think you owe me some honest answers.’
‘I’ll do my best.’
He took a moment to think of the most pressing question before he asked. ‘Am I a legend?’
I looked down instinctively. ‘Not that I’m aware of.’
‘Had you ever heard of me before?’
‘No.’
‘Was anything you told me true?’
I thought for a moment. ‘What I do is more fun than police work.’
He nodded for at least two minutes, running his tongue over his teeth as he did it. At last he gave a final nod.
‘I’m going to continue walking my dog now, I think you can find your way from here.’
5
Unfinished Business
It had gone ten by the time I drove from Firle to Brighton, to the seafront, to the marina, and into the underground car park of my building. I pulled into my allotted space and rode the gentle steel elevator to the fifth floor, just below the penthouse.
My flat was a three-bedroom, modernist, white and glass bachelor pad that I hadn’t had time to decorate. I hadn’t even had time to convert the other bedrooms into anything useful. Instead I spent my evenings paying Deliveroo to carry food up four floors from the restaurants below and slobbing out in front of my massive telly. I was starting to put on weight. More melancholy times I spent staring out over the rippling blue sea, either from the cold of the balcony, or from the warm safety of the glass doors. The place had an incredible view of the wind turbines on the horizon. Down to the left, and slightly behind, were the jetties and moored pleasure boats. The view had been constructed at such an angle as to hide entirely the industrial estate that is the marina proper.
The building was always quiet, most of the flats either unsold or sold to foreign investors and those in desperate need of a second home. One time there had been a party in the penthouse, the rest of the time not even footsteps. Very few real humans lived in the building, and none on the top floors.
Excluding my brief nap outside Daye’s, I hadn’t slept in twenty-four hours so I hid from the morning sun in my darkened bedroom. I got naked and slipped between the sheets. Since around the time I had moved into this building my body had started rejecting sleep like a transplanted organ. Some call this insomnia, but my problem I called “sleep bulimia”. I could fall asleep, but I was thrown back into consciousness not five minutes later. I couldn’t keep it down. This would continue all night. People say that if you’re tired enough you’ll sleep. It is true: your body will sleep enough to keep you alive. But not enough to keep you sane. When faced with prolonged sleep deprivation your brain will shut down one section at a time, like those birds who sleep one half of their body. This is an unpleasant experience, and dangerous if you’re driving. The only solution I had found was to render myself unconscious by more traditional means.
I reached for the bottle of eighty percent raki I kept by the bed. Three swigs was usually enough.
✽✽✽
Waking up still drunk is a depressing experience. I had managed to grab about five hours sleep when my phone buzzed and whirred on the bedside table. It was Thalia.
‘What?’ I groaned, trying to blink away the last of the fug.
‘How have you just woken up? It’s gone three!’
‘What?’ I repeated. My voice was raw.
She huffed. ‘You need to do a surveillance job this afternoon.’
‘What surveillance job?’
‘For Mrs Swan. The woman from last night. Her wife is getting mysterious phone calls. Remember?’
‘Of course I remember,’ I lied.
She groaned sceptically. ‘You fired Charlie, so it’s just you, me, and Stephanie.’
‘Great, get Stephanie to do it.’
‘She’s ill.’
‘Fine, you do it.’
‘I’m covering Stephanie’s job. And doing associate work for assistant pay, yet again.’
It came to me. ‘Hold on, I thought we were just doing a background check, finding out who the guy was.’
‘We are, but all we have is the car registration and it’s not in his name, it’s owned by a company.’
‘What company?’
‘Some overseas operation with a name that means nothing; “Secure Investments”, “Safe Investments”, something like that.’
‘Uh-huh,’ I drawled, ‘none of this explains the surveillance job.’
‘Well...’ she patronised, ‘because I, the assistant, am secretly the best detective in our agency I have greased one of my council contacts to run the registration through the parking database and they have a residents parking permit for the car.’
I left an empty space where a compliment could have gone. ‘Which zone?’
‘U, St Luke’s. You’re lucky
: it’s one of the smallest.’
I climbed grudgingly out of bed and wrapped up the conversation with assurances that she would be remunerated appropriately for covering Stephanie’s assignment. Thalia loved doing real detective work, as much as she moaned, and would be itching to replace Charlie. There was no one better than her at digital detection, tracing breadcrumb bytes to their source, but I felt an obligation to a dead friend to keep her out of harm’s way. I also felt I would not so much be gaining a great associate as losing a great assistant.
I took a cold shower, threw on jeans and a hoodie, sank a pint of orange juice and a bottle of iced coffee, then rode the elevator back down the five floors to my Jag. Normally for a surveillance job I’d use one of our less conspicuous cars but in St Luke’s Terrace the Jag would probably stick out less.
St Luke’s is on the east side of Brighton so it only took a few minutes to get there. The area is ill-defined as the roads around St Luke’s Church, its associated schools, and swimming pool; just north of Queen’s Park. Looking at the council website’s parking permit map the area could be reasonably split into three neighbourhoods: the four and five-bedroom palaces of prime location St Luke’s Terrace (plus a couple of adjoining roads); the respectable three-bedroom houses between Dawson Terrace and Evelyn Terrace; and the two-up two-downs between Rochester Street and Hendon Street.
The winter sun was already setting, so I prowled quickly along St Luke’s Terrace but couldn’t see the white Audi. I circled round the adjoining roads, but couldn’t see it there either, so one-by-one I crawled along the roads between Dawson and Evelyn Terraces; and just to be thorough, the tiny roads between Rochester and Hendon Streets. The car was nowhere to be seen, but it was only half past four, most people were still enjoying their first workday of the new year. I headed back to St Luke’s Terrace.
I kept a disabled badge in the glove compartment, the only way to park regularly in Brighton & Hove, and found a tight space outside a house opposite the swimming pool. I decided to wander down to Queen’s Park and return in an hour when our Mr X might be back from work.
It was a crisp day and would be bitterly cold when the last sun died. As I walked past the church I spotted the white tower known as the Pepper Pot catching the pink light of the sky. It is about three storeys high and was built for the owner of Queen’s Park as part of his estate, but by this date nobody knows why; its mark left, but meaning forgotten. It’s been used as an observation tower, and artist’s studio, and somewhere to print the now defunct Brighton Daily Mail. They only call it the Pepper Pot because of its shape. But anyway, you can read about that separately. It was as I was staring up at the tower that I realised how hungry I was. I calculated that I hadn’t eaten in at least some time.