Dead Weight

by Frank Smith

  ‘Bit of a comedown, isn’t it?’ Tregalles said as they walked past the second car, an eight-year-old Renault Clio, to take a close look at the van beside it. ‘Oh, yes, this is it,’ he declared. ‘Rust along the bottom, and there’s the scrape next to the tail light. Let’s go and see what this Gary Mullen has to say for himself.’

  They mounted the wooden steps leading up to the front door and Molly rang the bell. From inside they heard someone yell, ‘Somebody get that. I’m busy.’

  The woman who opened the door was older than Tregalles had expected. At least ten years older than Maria Navarro. Dressed in an old shirt, jeans and a pair of well-worn Birkenstocks on bare feet, the woman looked as if she had been working hard. Her fair hair was pulled back and tied with a bit of cloth, and there was a faint sheen of perspiration on the broad brow above pale blue eyes. Molly’s own eyes moved to the woman’s hands. Capable hands, nails neatly trimmed and, like her toenails, varnished and clear, and there was a faint pale circle on the third finger of her left hand.

  Holding up his warrant card, Tregalles introduced himself and Molly. ‘And you are …?’ he asked.

  ‘Linda Carr,’ the woman said cautiously. ‘What’s this about?’

  ‘We’d like a word with Gary Mullen,’ Tregalles said. ‘Is he in?’

  The woman nodded. ‘He’s upstairs in his—’ She stopped. ‘Tregalles,’ she said slowly. ‘You’re the one Maria told us about, aren’t you? You’re looking for Justine, right? Are you sure it’s Gary you want?’

  ‘Mind if we come in?’ Tregalles stepped forward as he spoke, leaving the woman little choice but to step back. ‘Perhaps you could call Gary,’ he said as Molly followed him in, ‘but no need to be specific. Just tell him he has visitors. Or we could go up,’ he suggested when the woman hesitated.

  ‘No, no need for that,’ she said tartly. ‘I’ll get him down.’ She walked back down the hall and climbed partway up the stairs and stopped. ‘Gary?’ she called. ‘Someone to see you. Come on down.’ She listened for a moment, then came back down the stairs.

  ‘He’ll be down in a minute,’ she said. Then, ‘There’s nobody in the front room. You can use it if you like?’

  Tregalles shook his head. ‘This will be fine,’ he assured her. ‘And don’t let us keep you. We’ll just wait for Gary to come down.’

  Linda Carr seemed unwilling to leave. ‘Is there any news about Justine?’ she asked.

  ‘You know her?’ Tregalles countered.

  ‘She’s been here a few times, but I don’t really know her. It’s just … well, I mean, people don’t just disappear like that, do they? Not on their own. So something must have happened to her. Maria’s been really worried about her. They come from the same place, you know.’

  ‘When you say Justine has been here a few times, how often would that be?’ asked Molly.

  Linda shook her head. ‘I don’t know, exactly,’ she said. ‘Three, maybe four times that I know of, but she may have been here at other times when I wasn’t here.’

  ‘You work at the hospital, do you?’

  Linda nodded. ‘Twelve years now,’ she said. ‘I’m a registered nurse.’ She flicked her head towards the stairs. ‘Gary’s supposed to be training to be a nurse.’

  Molly raised an eyebrow. ‘Supposed to be?’

  Linda Carr lowered her voice. ‘He’s young and still likes to burn the candle at both ends, and you can’t do that if you’re really serious about the work.’

  A young man appeared at the top of the stairs: pudgy, pale, round face, dark hair and the beginnings of a stubbly beard. ‘This them?’ he asked Linda when he reached the bottom.

  ‘Detective Sergeant Tregalles and DS Forsythe,’ Tregalles said, holding up his warrant card once more. ‘Mr Mullen?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Mullen said warily. ‘What’s this about?’

  Tregalles looked at Linda Carr and said, ‘Thank you for your help, I think we can take it from here.’

  ‘Take what from here?” Mullen asked truculently as Linda moved off down the hall. ‘I haven’t done anything wrong.’

  ‘No one said you have,’ Tregalles said mildly. ‘But we would like to ask you a few questions. Is that your van outside? The Ford Transit?’

  Mullen’s eyes flicked from Tregalles to Molly and back again. ‘Yeah,’ he said cautiously. ‘What of it?’

  ‘Can you tell me where you were between the hours of eight and ten last Sunday morning?’

  ‘I was here,’ said Mullen. ‘Sleeping it off, if you must know. There was a wedding party going on at the Three Crowns on Saturday night. Nobody seemed to care about who was ordering, so me and some of my mates crashed it. Don’t know what they were serving, but it had a hell of a kick to it, because I don’t remember anything much until Linda came in Sunday afternoon and started pouring coffee into me.’

  ‘Do you remember what time you left the party?’ asked Molly.

  ‘I told you, I don’t remember much of anything until—’

  ‘Yes, we heard that,’ Molly broke in, ‘but we would still like to know where you were and what you were doing between the hours of eight and ten last Sunday morning. And “I don’t remember” is not the answer we are looking for, so perhaps you could try harder, Mr Mullen.’

  ‘But I don’t remember!’ Mullen protested. ‘I don’t even remember driving ho—’ He stopped, squeezed his eyes shut and said, ‘Oh, shit!’ He opened them again. ‘So that’s what this is about,’ he said with an air of resignation. ‘But I got home all right. I mean, I know I probably shouldn’t have been driving, but there’s almost no one on the road at that time in the morning, so—’

  ‘So you do remember what time it was when you drove home?’ Tregalles broke in.

  ‘Well, yeah … sort of. I’m not sure, but it wasn’t anywhere near what you said: eight and ten? No way. More like midnight or maybe one? Check with some of the others here in the house. They were complaining about me waking them up when I came in.’ He grinned weakly. ‘I sort of fell up the stairs. They’ll tell you.’

  ‘So how do you explain the fact that your van was parked near the corner of Edge Hill Road and Lorrimer Drive between the hours of eight and ten last Sunday morning?’

  ‘Couldn’t have been my van,’ said Mullen defiantly. ‘You’ve got the wrong one. There’s thousands of vans like mine out there.’

  ‘There are a few,’ Tregalles agreed, ‘but not with the same band of rust along the bottom of the doors and a damaged panel by the tail light. So, I’ll ask you again: what were you doing there?’

  Mullen closed his eyes and clenched his fists. ‘I keep telling you, I wasn’t bloody there! I was here in my room, sleeping off one of the worst hangovers I’ve ever had. We shouldn’t have tried to finish off the wine, but the others were swigging it down, and there was so much there it seemed a shame to waste it.’ He put his hands to his head. ‘My head hurts just thinking about it.’

  ‘All right,’ Tregalles said, ‘then tell me who can verify that you were here?’

  Mullen stared at him. ‘I told you, I was in my bloody room!’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘I mean, the others heard me come in. They knew I’d had a bit too much to drink, so no one was going to come into my room. At least, not until Linda came in to make sure I was all right, and that was sometime in the afternoon. She’ll tell you I was still suffering.’

  ‘Who else has access to your van?’

  ‘No one.’ Mullen said.

  ‘Anyone else have a spare set of keys?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do you leave a spare set where someone else could find them and use them?’

  ‘Of course I don’t. Do you think I’m daft? It’s not much of a van, but it’s all I’ve got, so I’m not going to leave keys lying about, am I?’

  ‘Then I come back to my first question,’ Tregalles said. ‘If you are the only one with keys to the van, and the van was parked on Edge Hill Road for roughly an hour last Sunday morning, what were you doing th
ere?’

  Mullen threw up his hands. ‘I’ve had enough of this,’ he said. ‘I’m going back upstairs and you can let yourselves out.’

  Tregalles took one of Sophie’s still photographs from his pocket. ‘Before you go, take a look at this and tell me that’s not your van. And then we’ll go outside and see which one of us is right.’

  ‘I don’t need to go outside, because I know it’s not mine,’ Mullen said stubbornly. He looked at the picture, then shoved it back at Tregalles. ‘And that’s not me, either. I don’t know who it is, but it’s not me.’

  ‘In that case, I think we should continue this conversation down at the station,’ Tregalles said. ‘And we will need to impound the van, of course.’

  ‘I don’t believe this.’ Mullen put both hands to his head. ‘Why won’t you believe me? I haven’t done anything, for Christ’s sake!’

  Tregalles sighed and shook his head as if weary of the conversation.

  Molly stepped forward. ‘The choice is yours, of course, Mr Mullen,’ she said, keeping her voice calm and level, ‘but it really comes down to this: you can cooperate with us here, or we will have to take you in for further questioning. So, since you are convinced that this is not your van in the picture, l suggest we go outside and compare it with the van itself. If you’re right, you have nothing to worry about.’

  Mullen eyed her suspiciously. ‘I was here all day,’ he said. ‘I’m not lying.’ He spoke earnestly as if he felt that if he could convince Molly, they might both go away.

  ‘Then let’s go and prove it,’ Molly said. She opened the door. ‘Do you have the keys with you?’

  Mullen gave a grudging nod, then sidled past Tregalles and allowed Molly to shepherd him out of the house.

  ‘Who does the Porsche belong to?’ Tregalles asked as they passed the car.

  ‘Oh, that’s Paul’s car,’ Mullen said. ‘His father gave it to him. The family’s got pots of money.’

  ‘So why is he staying here?’ Tregalles asked. ‘I thought you were all staying here because it’s one way of keeping your living expenses down.’

  ‘The family has money,’ Mullen said, emphasizing the word, ‘but Paul doesn’t. His old man gave him the car, but that was it. As far as his father is concerned, Paul has to make it on his own. He has the car but it sits idle most of the time because he can’t afford the petrol.’

  They came to a halt in front of the van. Tregalles handed the picture to Mullen and said, ‘Right. Take a good look at this, then compare it with the van, and show me where we’re wrong. We’ll wait.’

  Three minutes later, a shaken Gary Mullen handed the picture back to Tregalles. ‘It–it’s the same van,’ he said huskily,’ but I swear that isn’t me. And why would I be there anyway?’

  ‘You know Justine Delgado?’ Molly asked.

  ‘Maria’s friend?’ he said. ‘The one who went missing, right? So what’s that got to do with me?’

  ‘Do you know where she lives?’

  Mullen shook his head. ‘I only met her once, and that was here. I was just going out when she came to call for Maria. Maria introduced us as I was leaving.’

  ‘Do you know who she works for and what she does?’

  ‘Yeah, Maria told us. She’s a nanny for some MP’s kid.’

  ‘Is that all you know about her?’

  Mullen shrugged. ‘I know she’s been missing since Sunday, and Maria’s been worried about her, but that’s—’ He broke off to stare at each of them in turn. ‘You think I had something to with that?’ His voice rose. ‘Is that what this is all about?’ He snatched the picture back from Tregalles and stared at it. His already pale face turned even paler, and he looked as if he were about to burst into tears. He appealed to Molly. ‘Please, come back in the house and talk to the others. They heard me come in; they know the state I was in. I was out cold most of the day.’

  ‘The keys, please,’ said Tregalles.

  Mullen started to reach for them, then stopped. ‘What do you want them for?’ he asked.

  ‘We need to take a look inside.’

  ‘Don’t see why you need to. I can tell you there’s nothing there. What do you expect to find anyway?’

  ‘Possibly evidence relating to the abduction of Justine Delgado,’ Tregalles said. His voice hardened. ‘Now, stop messing us about and give me the keys!’

  The clock on the mantelpiece was striking the half hour as Molly let herself into the flat. Eight thirty, and all she wanted to do was flop into a chair and put her feet up. At least she didn’t have to prepare a meal. She’d intended to pick up a takeaway from the Mumbai Lotus on the way home, but once she was inside, the food had smelled so good she’d changed her mind and treated herself to a sit-down meal instead.

  Molly took off her coat and kicked off her shoes. She was tired, and she would have liked nothing better than to forget about work for a while, but she couldn’t. Like an endless tape, the events of the day kept playing over and over again inside her head.

  They had gone back to the house where Molly had met Maria Navarro, and all but one of the other members of the small community. The missing member was Brigit Lystrom, another student nurse, who was on the four-till-midnight shift.

  Maria said that she and Brigit were both working the same shift on Easter Sunday, so they had left the house together just after six thirty that morning, and Gary’s van was parked in the middle of the driveway. She said that one of the doors was open, so she closed it before going on to work. ‘We heard Gary come in earlier,’ she told them, ‘so I wasn’t surprised to find the van where it was. He’s done that before.’

  ‘We?’ Tregalles queried. ‘You said, “We heard Gary come in”?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Maria said calmly. ‘We have our own rooms, but Paul and I sleep together in my room.’

  ‘What about the keys? Were they still in the van?’

  Maria shrugged. ‘I didn’t look,’ she said. ‘The door was hanging open, so I just pushed it shut as I went by.’

  When Molly asked how she and Brigit had travelled to work, Maria said they’d cycled. ‘Gary has his van, of course, and Chandra has his little car, but the rest of us have bikes – even Paul. That fancy car out there, the Porsche, is his, but he’s been biking to work because the car is so expensive to run.’

  Paul Wheeler had red hair, an infectious grin and an easy-going manner. As far as image was concerned, Molly thought, he’d do very well as a doctor. He told them that, as he’d had the Sunday and Monday off, he’d gone back to bed when Maria left for work on Sunday morning. Chandra Lali, another Foundation doctor, had had the weekend off as well, but he’d left the house on Friday evening to visit relatives in Birmingham.

  ‘So, Linda and I were the only two people in the house that morning,’ Wheeler explained. ‘I’d had a tough week, so I thought I’d catch up on some sleep, but I’d forgotten that Sunday morning is when Linda does her washing, cleaning and vacuuming. Her room is downstairs at the back, and our bedroom is upstairs at the front, but this old place isn’t exactly soundproof, so I finally gave up and got up around ten.’

  ‘Just you and Linda?’ Tregalles queried. ‘What about Gary?’

  ‘Well, yes, that’s right, he was here – dead to the world, I should imagine, judging by the way he looked when he finally staggered out that afternoon.’

  When he was asked if he had gone outside at any time, Paul said, ‘Yes, I did. I went out to check the petrol gauge in the car. Maria and I were planning to go over to Ludlow for lunch on the Monday, and I wanted to make sure I had enough in the tank.’

  ‘What time was this?’

  ‘When I went out? Ten, ten thirty. I’m not sure exactly. Why?’

  ‘Was Mullen’s van out there?’

  Wheeler hesitated. ‘Why are you so interested in Gary’s van?’ he asked. ‘Did something happen on his way home from the pub?’

  ‘Where, exactly, was the van?’ Tregalles asked, ignoring Wheeler’s question.

  ‘I
n the middle of the driveway where Gary left it. At least he hadn’t left it running like he did the last time. And it’s a good thing we’re in a dead-end lane and very few people come down here, because the keys were still in it, and anyone could have taken it. Not that it’s worth taking, but still … Anyway, I shifted it on to the grass and left the keys on the hall table.’

  Tregalles had gone on to ask Wheeler about Justine. Did he know her? Yes, he said, he’d met her several times when Maria had brought her to the house. In fact, he’d driven her home once to save her the walk. But, as for knowing anything else about her, he said all he knew was what Maria had told him, and what he had seen about her disappearance in the papers and on TV.

  Tregalles had switched back to Mullen. Had Wheeler seen him that morning? How did he know he was in his room? And could Mullen have been faking? Wheeler admitted he hadn’t actually seen Gary until later in the day. ‘But believe me,’ he said, ‘Gary wasn’t faking; he was in rough shape.’

  Chandra Lali, tall, lean-faced and very thin, confirmed that he had been away in Birmingham on the long weekend, so he knew nothing about what had gone on while he was away. He said he had met Justine only once, but he’d made it very clear to Molly and Tregalles that he took little interest in what the others did.

  ‘I like my privacy,’ he told them, ‘and just because we live under the same roof does not mean that we have to share each other’s company or activities. They have their lives; I have mine.’

  Bedside manner zero, Molly remembered thinking. Lali’s only comment about Gary Mullen was that he couldn’t understand why the hospital allowed him to remain in the training programme, when he was so plainly unsuited for the job.

  Molly’s mouth was dry. She’d ordered the hot and spicy Lamb Biryani, a dish she’d had a number of times before, but someone in the kitchen must have spiked the sauce with extra-hot chilli peppers, because it had made her eyes water, and now it was repeating. She went to the kitchen and ran the water until it was very cold, then sipped it, holding it in her mouth for a few seconds before swallowing. It helped … but not much.