Dead Weight

by Frank Smith

  ‘Misunderstanding?’ Tregalles said as they moved inside. ‘I don’t think so, Doctor Wheeler. You lied to us and you could be charged with obstruction, so whatever your explanation, it had better be a good one.’ He pulled one of the metal chairs from the end of a row, and thrust it at Wheeler. He pushed another chair in Molly’s direction, then sat down himself.

  The doctor looked pained. ‘I didn’t have much choice,’ he said, ‘not with Maria there. I mean, it’s not as if I’ve done anyone any harm, is it?’

  ‘You lied to us, which is an offence,’ Tregalles said. ‘Wasted police time, which is also an offence; interfered with an investigation into the disappearance of Justine Delgado … Would you like me to go on, Doctor?’

  Wheeler shook his head impatiently. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘but it would have been hard to explain with Maria there. She might not have understood—’

  ‘Might not have understood why you were out there waiting for Justine shortly after getting out of Maria’s bed?’ Molly cut in coldly.

  ‘It wasn’t like that,’ Wheeler snapped.

  ‘Then tell us what it was like,’ Tregalles said. ‘Tell us why you were stalking her. How long has this been going on?’

  Wheeler pulled back as if he’d been stung. ‘I was not stalking her,’ he said. ‘I was hoping to catch her on her way to mass to … well, to apologize.’

  ‘For …?’

  Wheeler shifted uncomfortably in his seat. ‘It’s … it’s embarrassing,’ he said sheepishly. ‘I mean, I really thought … well, the truth of the matter is, when I drove Justine home the first time, she gave me a sort of peck on the cheek when she thanked me and said how much she appreciated the ride, so when she did it again the second time, I thought … well, I kissed her back, and …’

  ‘And what?’ Tregalles demanded harshly.

  Wheeler glanced at Molly, then looked away. ‘I didn’t mean anything by it,’ he said, ‘but there she was in the car, close, leaning over me, and I got a bit carried away.’ Wheeler turned his attention to Tregalles and said, ‘You know how it is? These things happen, don’t they?’

  ‘Not to me, they don’t,’ the sergeant snapped. ‘You groped her, didn’t you?’

  ‘I wouldn’t call it that,’ Wheeler protested. ‘I mean, it was just a bit of fun, and—’

  ‘To you, perhaps, but not to her. What did Justine do?’

  ‘She punched me,’ he said. ‘Hard. Made my nose bleed.’

  ‘When was this?’ Tregalles asked.

  ‘A couple of weeks ago.’ Wheeler sat up straighter in his chair. ‘I’ve been trying to get hold of her to apologize,’ he said, ‘but she wouldn’t answer my phone calls, so I went over there on Sunday because I knew she always went to mass at nine, but she didn’t show.’

  ‘To apologize?’ Tregalles said. ‘Or to teach her a lesson? Teach her that she couldn’t do that to you and get away with it?’

  Wheeler was shaking his head. ‘No, no, it wasn’t like that,’ he said. ‘I really did want to apologize. Honestly, I swear. I didn’t mean her any harm.’

  ‘But apologizing wasn’t the only reason you were there, was it, Doctor?’ Molly said. ‘You were scared to death that she would say something to Maria. So, how far were you prepared to go to make sure she didn’t tell her friend?’

  ‘Honest to God, I just wanted to talk to her,’ said Wheeler. ‘Maria had told me how religious Justine was, so I thought that might work in my favour if I asked her to forgive me. Really, that’s all I intended to do, but, as I said, she didn’t show.’ He looked at each of them in turn. ‘That’s it,’ he said, ‘I’ve told you everything, so can I go now?’

  Tregalles shook his head. ‘It doesn’t work that way,’ he said. ‘You’re coming with us to Charter Lane to make a formal statement.’

  ‘Just one question,’ said Molly. ‘Why did you use Gary’s van and not your own car?’

  ‘Oh, that,’ said Wheeler. ‘I thought if Justine spotted my car, she might take off before I could talk to her. But the main reason was because my car takes too much petrol, so I thought I might as well use Gary’s. He’d never miss it.’

  So there it was, thought Molly as she entered her flat and dropped her keys on the hall table. Case closed. At least, that’s what it amounted to as far as they were concerned. Paget had broken the news to them on their return from the hospital. Tregalles had protested loudly, but, as Paget said, it wasn’t open for discussion. Move on, he’d said. But it wasn’t that easy. How long, she wondered, would it be before she stopped scanning the missing person reports or running a quick check on HOLMES 2?

  She shrugged out of her coat and jacket and hung them up. She stood for a moment, inhaling and exhaling rhythmically, while stretching sinuously like a cat. It was hard to imagine, but she had a whole weekend to herself. She could do what she liked, so she would have to give that serious thought while she made dinner. Italian tonight, and she’d picked up a bottle of wine on the way home to go with it.

  She switched on her computer on her way to the kitchen, returning a few minutes later to see if she had any messages. Receiving mail. Just spam, she thought. She’d been getting more and more of it lately, and she was about to turn away when a word caught her eye. Two words, actually: Hong Kong!

  Molly dropped into the chair and clicked on the message.

  PART 2

  THIRTEEN

  Wednesday, 9 May

  Twenty minutes till midnight. Close enough, thought George Holland as he took a last look around the yard. The overhead lights were on – not that they would deter anyone who was determined to climb the wall to search through the bins in the hope of salvaging something of value. They did, regularly, and George couldn’t see the harm in it. If something had been tossed away that someone else could use, why not let them take it? Wasn’t that what recycling was all about? As far as he was concerned, the best thing about the yard lights was that they saved the scavengers from stumbling about in the dark and injuring themselves.

  The rest of the evening crew had already gone. They’d worked hard tonight, shifting more than a ton of materials into boxes, bins and special containers, so he’d let them go early. He took one last glance around the yard, checked that the big gates were secure, then left by the side gate, locking it behind him.

  George paused to stretch and look up at the sky. It was a clear night; the moon had yet to rise, but the stars were pinpricks of light in the night sky. He inhaled deeply, then let his breath out slowly. Funny how different it felt. The yard was just as open to the stars, but somehow it was different on this side of the high brick wall of Broadminster’s recycling depot.

  The rest of the crew had cars or bikes, but George walked to and from work, a ten-minute stroll down River Road, and on a night like this it was good to be out.

  Headlights appeared at the bottom of the hill, and George could hear the heavy beat of throbbing music attempting to compete with the roar of the engine of the fast accelerating car coming like a rocket up the middle of the road. Arms were waving through open windows and voices screamed in time with the mind-numbing beat. Teenagers on a drunken joyride.

  George stopped in the shadow of the wall. You never knew what kids would do – they could be out of their minds on drugs – so he stood still and hoped they wouldn’t notice him. They were almost past, when suddenly one of the voices rose, not singing now but screaming! He looked back and saw a car had come round the corner at the top of the hill, and was coming fast down the centre of the road! George squeezed his eyes shut, clenched his fists and waited for the crash. Tyres screamed in protest; a horn blared. George opened his eyes to see the second car had swerved and was bearing down on him. Blinded by the headlights, he flattened himself against the wall. Something brushed against his coat … He opened his eyes in time to see the car bounce off the wall ten feet beyond him. He watched, paralyzed with fear, as the driver fought to gain control. The car zigzagged back and forth across the road before it finally straightene
d out. George expected it to stop; expected the driver to get out to see if he was all right. But it didn’t stop. Instead, it picked up speed and kept on going down the hill to disappear around the corner at the bottom. He looked back up the hill. The other car was gone. Wouldn’t you know it? He was almost killed, and that carload of idiots had made it without a scratch!

  He stood there shaking. If ever he wished he had a mobile phone, now was the time. His daughter had been after him to get one for years, but he’d always said he didn’t need one. His legs were shaking, and it took him a couple of minutes of deep breathing before he could trust them not to give way beneath him. He’d call the police when he got home. He might have been scared shitless, but at least he’d kept his wits about him, and he could tell them the make and more or less the model of the car. And he could give them the number plate – not all of it, but enough for them to trace the bastard who had almost killed him.

  Thursday, 10 May

  The call was logged in at 06:19. A fisherman by the name of Alan Hughes said there was a car in the river near an abandoned boathouse below River Road. The PC who took the call was having trouble finding the location on the map until Hughes told him to look for a small road leading from River Road to the boathouse, and ended by saying, ‘It’s more or less opposite the recycling depot.’

  That rang a bell. The PC recalled a report he’d received just after midnight from a man who said he’d come close to being killed outside the recycling depot when a car swerved to avoid a head-on collision with another car full of hooligans. He asked Hughes to stay there, and said he would have someone there within ten minutes.

  Hughes, a man in his late sixties, and in good shape for his age, had climbed the hill and was waiting on River Road for them when the patrol car arrived and PCs Perry and Lancaster got out. ‘You can see for yourselves where the car went over,’ he told them. ‘It looks like it got partway down the track, then got too close to the edge, and the ground gave way. The car rolled and finished up in the river. It’s hard to see it because the water’s not all that clear, but you can see where it went in, and I found one of the doors and some bits and pieces on the side of the hill when I was climbing up here.’

  Hughes pointed to the door as they made their way down the hill, and was about to continue on down when Lancaster shouted, ‘Hey! Look over there!’ They followed the line of his pointing finger, then all three men began to scramble crabwise across the face of the hill to where a body lay partly concealed by bushes. Lancaster, the younger and more agile of the three, reached the body first – a boy, seventeen or eighteen perhaps, dressed in torn jeans, sweatshirt, socks and one shoe. His hair and face were covered in dried blood, and there was more blood and dirt on his sweatshirt. The young policemen checked for a pulse, then snatched his hand away as if he’d been stung. ‘He’s alive, for Christ’s sake!’ he croaked hoarsely. ‘We need an ambulance.’

  The ambulance arrived twelve minutes later, but it took the combined efforts of the police and the medics almost half an hour to get the injured youth wrapped warmly, strapped on to a stretcher and carried to the waiting ambulance. When they checked his pockets for ID, they found nothing except thirteen pounds and change, together with a clear plastic envelope containing half a dozen tablets, concealed in the waistband pocket of his jeans.

  ‘Ecstasy,’ the older of the two medics declared, and added it to the rest of the information on his clipboard.

  More police arrived. The entire area was cordoned off, and two men in a boat probed the water with poles until they determined that the car was resting right side up some thirty feet from shore. ‘The top is about four feet under water, but the current’s strong, so we can’t do anything without divers.’

  ‘Not going in to work this morning, then, Ron?’ Vera Styles asked her husband innocently as he came out of the bathroom. She looked pointedly at her watch. ‘A bit hung-over, are we, after last night’s bash at Harry’s?’ Try as she might, she couldn’t keep the smile out of her voice.

  Ron Styles shook his head. ‘I think the steak was a bit off,’ he said. ‘I don’t think Harry had the barbecue hot enough. Or it could have been the sauce.’

  ‘Sauce as in drink, maybe?’

  He scowled. Vera didn’t like Harry, which was why she hadn’t gone with him last night. She hadn’t wanted him to go either, but Harry was a mate he’d known since school, so he said he was going whether she wanted to come or not, and now she was giving him a hard time. ‘So we had a few beers,’ he muttered as he brushed past.

  Vera followed him down the stairs. ‘Well, don’t expect me to phone your boss and lie for you,’ she said. ‘You can do that yourself. Anyway, if you’re feeling so bad, why did you get up and get dressed?’

  ‘I have to take the car in,’ he said tersely.

  ‘Why? What’s the matter with it? It was all right yesterday.’

  ‘It … it’s the brakes. I think they’re losing fluid. It could be dangerous, so I’m taking it in this morning.’ Brakes should be a safe excuse, he thought, praying silently that Vera wouldn’t go out to the garage to take a look for herself.

  ‘Well, I suppose,’ Vera said grudgingly. ‘You going into work after you take it in to Tony’s?’

  He wasn’t going to Tony’s, but he didn’t intend to tell Vera that. Almost anywhere but Tony’s in fact. Tony would want to know every last detail, and he’d share the information freely with anyone who came into his garage. Besides, Tony didn’t do bodywork.

  ‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘I’ll see what I feel like.’

  ‘So, how long will it be in the shop? Brakes shouldn’t take long, should they? I need to go shopping this afternoon.’

  ‘Depends how busy he is.’ God! He wished she’d shut up.

  ‘Do you want some breakfast before you go?’

  ‘Don’t feel like eating,’ he said. ‘Anyway, time’s getting on, so I’d better be off.’

  The front doorbell rang. They could see a shadow through the frosted glass at the end of the hall.

  ‘See who that is, Ron,’ Vera said. ‘I don’t want to go to the door looking like this.’

  He walked to the door and opened it. ‘Mr Styles?’ The uniformed policeman was big. Pleasant-faced, but big! ‘Mr Ronald Styles?’ he said. Ron nodded. ‘Tell me, sir, do you own a six-year-old Volvo, registration number …?’

  There was a sudden roaring in his ears and he didn’t hear the rest.

  It was almost eleven o’clock by the time the regional dive team arrived and were satisfied that all precautions had been taken before they entered the water. Once there, it took only a few minutes to establish that there were three bodies trapped in the car. One, apparently the driver, later identified as eighteen-year-old Gerry Slater, had become entangled in the airbag in his struggle to get out through the window. In the passenger seat was sixteen-year-old Debbie Woodruff, trapped when her seat had come forward to jam her legs beneath the dash. And behind the driver’s seat, face down on the floor, was fifteen-year-old Barbara Hodge, with what appeared to be a broken neck. None of the three had been wearing seatbelts, although whether they would have saved anyone was open to question.

  Paget, who had been monitoring the situation since his arrival at work that morning, decided to visit the scene himself, and he was there when the divers arrived. There was no indication that a crime had been committed, but there was a report of a near head-on collision, and if that was what had forced this car full of teenagers off the road, there would be an investigation.

  ‘From what we’re told by the man who says he was almost killed last night, and the tyre tracks on the road, it looks as if the car coming up the hill swerved to avoid a head-on with the car coming down,’ one of the white-suited men explained to Paget. ‘And the only option he had was to take the opening to the track leading down to the old Broadminster Rowing Club boathouse. Trouble is, the track is in poor shape, and it’s in even worse shape now, because the car took out a chunk of it when it went over.’ />
  Carved out of the hillside, the gravelled track seemed solid enough to begin with as Paget started down, but he hadn’t gone far before he saw potholes and cracks where tufts of grass had broken through, and the outer edge was crumbling in several places. It was probably safe enough for a car driven slowly, but at high speed? There was no way! He paused to look at where the front wheel had slipped over the edge and the car had rolled.

  A trail of debris marked its path before plunging into the river: a blanket, maps, first-aid kit, a cushion, papers caught in bushes, an umbrella, tools, sunglasses, a plastic container half full of windscreen washer, and the rear door from the passenger’s side of the car.

  One of the white-suited men approached Paget when he reached the bottom. ‘Lucky this didn’t go into the water with the car,’ the man said. ‘Saved you a bit of time and trouble.’ He handed Paget a log book identifying the owner of the vehicle as Dr Lydia Bryant, who lived on Falcon Ridge, an affluent area of Broadminster.

  So, unless one of the teenagers was a member of the Bryant family, the car was probably stolen, and when Paget called back to the station to check, he was told that Dr Bryant had reported her fifteen-year-old Audi A4 stolen from the driveway outside her home. The report was logged in at three minutes past nine that morning, but she said the car could have been stolen at any time after eight o’clock the previous evening. ‘It was locked, and I didn’t hear anything,’ she’d said, ‘so I didn’t know it had been taken until I went out this morning.’

  When Paget was asked if Dr Bryant should be notified that her car had been found, he said, ‘No. Let’s wait until the car is out before we notify her.’