by Penny Grubb
‘OK. I won’t say anything.’
There was a pause. ‘Um … are you doing anything tomorrow night? I just wondered … thought at least you deserved a drink after tonight. Or we could go for a meal if you like.’
Annie glanced at her watch. It was already tomorrow by almost two and a half hours. ‘Yeah, thanks, that would be good. I can’t be too late though. I have to be on Orchard Park in the early hours.’
‘You know how to live.’ It wasn’t hard to envisage his face creasing into a smile. She’d imagined it enough.
For a few minutes after the call Annie sat oblivious to her surroundings. Good relations with the police were a must for an effective PI. She’d been right to accept the offer, but … but … a raft of potential complications loomed.
The slam of a car door jolted her back to the present. She sat up and stared. The white van was back. It had slipped into the car-park under the general noise of the city. She watched as the doors opened. Three of them tonight. Yesterday’s two plus a big man; solid; well-dressed. There was something familiar about his appearance, but Annie was sure she didn’t know him. As she watched, he stretched his shoulders, working his arms back and forth, and tossed comments across to the other two.
She lowered the window. Their voices carried easily on the night air. The big man patted his pockets. Annie caught the words, ‘Do us a skin’, and saw a cigarette paper exchange hands. No packages to unload tonight. When the van was locked and cigarettes lit, they all headed for the entrance.
The surrounding streets were quiet. She slid out of the car, locked it and shot across the concrete to the flats. Mrs Earle’s spare key gave her access. She held back until she heard the whine of the lift and then went inside. The indicator over the blank lift doors rose steadily. No pause on six. No pause anywhere. It went all the way to the top.
With Pat’s car outside, she could neither follow them up nor wait to see if they stopped off anywhere on the way back down. That was for another night. As she stepped back into the cool air she paused a moment and tipped her head right back to see to the top of the block. There must be one hell of a view from up there.
CHAPTER 9
ANNIE WOKE THE next morning to a blaze of light through the window. She rolled away from the glare of the sun and shaded her eyes as she turned her head to check the time. Ten o’clock. A late start but she hadn’t been back until after three. She yawned as she got up and went through to the bathroom.
Pat had been in bed when she arrived back so there was a whole swathe of detail her boss was behind on. It was hard to schedule things like keeping Pat up to date. If asked before she arrived, she’d have said the more autonomy she was given the better job she’d do, but the reality came with an unsuspected insecurity and failed to fit the preconceptions that had put her in a busy office with people she could share worries and ideas with. What she had was a boss self-absorbed with a badly broken leg who spent half the day in bed.
She needed to know if any business had been transacted last night outside Mrs Earle’s door. If not, it suggested the van was a nightly visitor and the guys did business on other floors on other nights. Later on, she’d ring Mrs Earle and find out what state the landing was in.
The voice of the guy in Birmingham murmured in her ear. Always double-check. Don’t take your clients’ words for stuff; they have their own agendas.
OK, maybe she’d call round, but she had a full schedule for Milesthorpe today and must be back before Scott showed up so she could change out of her working gear. Dowdy but practical was the only image he’d seen of her so far. Her mind skittered briefly over options. Graphite-check three-quarter trousers and white polo top had a classy touch. She had to forewarn Pat, too, and cringed inwardly at the thought of the heavy-handed comments her boss was likely to make.
As she pulled on her old jeans, she turned her mind to Milesthorpe. Now the body was found, she could go out there. She had one interview lined up already. Colonel Ludgrove, who’d turned out to be Mally Fletcher’s grandfather, surprised her by not insisting on a set time. His military bearing suggested a rigid diary, but maybe Mally’s arrival in his life had wrecked all that.
‘Call in anytime. I’ll be here. Don’t get out much. Parish meeting first Tuesday of the month, nothing much else.’
He’d be no trouble. He was a lonely old man grateful for company, and that military mind would be good on detail. Three of them to deal with, Jennifer had said, and all with a different story. Ludgrove, Tremlow and Kitson, the trio who’d found the body. Annie’s gut feeling was that Ludgrove was the one with the clear head. She’d take special notice of his version.
And then there was Mrs Becke, the woman who shrieked at Terry Martin on the film. Mrs Becke was her prime target.
Interviewing your witnesses in the right order could save a lot of time. She remembered the case studies they’d been shown, how the wrong order could lead to repeat visits or the wrong direction altogether.
‘But how do you know in advance?’ she’d asked.
‘You don’t necessarily,’ had been the reply. ‘But keep it in mind. What can one witness tell you that you might want to quiz another one about?’
Mrs Becke, a woman with something to hide who’d hated Terry Martin, had a handle on his real reasons for being in Milesthorpe, but how would she react to Annie’s approach? Had Terry’s death neatly concealed indiscretions that she wouldn’t want raked up?
It was an accident, Annie told herself. He fell. She glanced at the closed door through which loud snores rasped and considered waiting for Pat to emerge, but Pat had a hospital appointment later today. She’d be distracted over that and if Annie were to wait until she was up and about, she wouldn’t get to Milesthorpe until well into the afternoon, whereas if she got herself on the road now, she’d be back in good time to be ready for six o’clock when Scott was due to call. Not, of course, that she had any intention of planning her day around him.
The journey out to Milesthorpe was a repeat of last night’s but without the tension. On impulse she turned off before reaching the village and headed for the cliff road to see what signs were left of last night’s activity.
She twisted the car round the narrow lanes, their verges high with grasses. Feathery flowers shimmered in a haze that hadn’t obscured oncoming headlights in the dark but that now lined the bends in the road like an impenetrable wall. Progress was slow, the journey to reach the cliff top longer than before.
It all seemed deserted. She pulled the car off the road and got out. At once the sea breeze hit and made her huddle into her thin jacket. Was this the right place? The rough grassland looked the same, the swish of waves a backdrop to the rush of the wind. But no building. She picked her way across the uneven ground until the square shape eased its way into view. She’d thought it a quirk of the darkness that it couldn’t be seen from the road, but it genuinely nestled into the ground invisible from prying eyes.
She was alone. The tapes she’d seen flapping last night were gone. So they’d done all they needed to do already. Annie picked her way over the uneven tussocks of grass until she could see the walled enclosure that must once have housed Balham’s sheep and before that maybe military vehicles. She imagined khaki-clad soldiers on old-fashioned motor bikes skidding on muddy ground as they delivered sealed packages to rotund men with handlebar moustaches, men like Colonel Ludgrove in his youth.
A single door led from the enclosure into the building. She slid down the grassy slope and tiptoed across the yard, although there was no one to hear her footsteps even if they’d been audible over the breeze and the crash of the waves. Annie approached the door and pulled it wide to allow in some daylight.
Terry Martin’s film had made this seem a walled corridor, but it wasn’t. Raised animal stalls with a few broken timbers lined either side. The concrete was cracked and broken. Green fingers of lichen and moss stretched slimy tendrils down the walls. Even after such a hot dry summer the constant spray from the sea kept t
he building damp. At the far end another door faced her; the blank wood seemed to watch as the daylight crept in, daring her to approach.
She had no business to be here; no need to be here, but a compulsion drew her inside and along the narrow path between the concrete stalls. This would be where Terry Martin had put the camera down, and there where he’d bent over the door struggling with the key in the lock. Where had he got that key? Why had he come here? What had he expected to find? Not a rotting body, that was for sure. Annie looked at the solid panel in front of her; far stouter wood than the outer door, less exposed to the elements. Praying it wouldn’t open, she turned the handle and pushed. It held firm. She breathed a sigh of relief and turned to leave.
She’d seen the place in the film as far as she was able. It snipped off a stray end. Closure of some sort, though it had never been part of her case. This was where the line lay. This was Jennifer and Scott’s territory.
Hurrying back out, she found herself looking round to be sure she wasn’t watched, then she climbed the grassy slope up from the walled yard, retraced her steps to the car and headed for Milesthorpe.
The Beckes’ house looked both familiar and strange. She recognized it from Terry Martin’s film, but the few seconds’ footage hadn’t shown that this was one house in a terraced row. In the sunlight, it looked ordinary; had lost the sinister gloss the memory of the film had given it in Annie’s mind.
A careful glance as she cruised past showed two figures in a downstairs room, one a bulky, broad-shouldered man, the other a slimmer female outline. She pulled up beyond the house to wait and see if one of them left. Her rear-view mirror framed the Beckes’ front door. The scene in front showed her the south end of Milesthorpe. She studied the view down the hill.
Two large houses stood back from the road. She struggled to orientate them in her mind, to fit them with the view from the other side of the village. Milesthorpe was where she must work to follow in Terry Martin’s footsteps. In her mind for these few weeks she had to know it as well as though she’d lived here for years. Had she seen these two houses from another angle or not? Yes, she decided, but they’d looked far grander with imposing front doors and fancy stonework. From here they were a motley collection of add-ons and out-buildings. They stood with their backs to her, yet this was the main road. Why would anyone build a house with its back to the road?
Her gaze moved further down the hill to a patchwork of fields where horses, made small by distance, shuffled about with heads down cropping the grass. Odd silvery lines crossed the big fields. Some peculiarity of the light maybe. Concrete buildings like prison blocks edged the north end of the paddocks. A figure emerged leading two more horses that were decanted into the fields and immediately put their heads down to graze.
All very Pony Club … the kids’ network drives everything. Jennifer’s words.
That would be the hub of it down there. That would be the place to find out more about Terry Martin’s activities at Milesthorpe Show if she needed to. She reached to the glove compartment for a pair of binoculars to train on the wooden board at the head of the driveway.
Milesthorpe Riding School and Livery Yard. Prop: Ms Christina Hain.
Curious to know what she’d seen criss-crossing the grassy stretches, she swept the binoculars across the paddocks, but still couldn’t tell. The glistening lines twinkled and swayed and looked even more like Christmas tinsel through the magnification of the lenses. The sharp flashes of reflected sunlight from the silvery surfaces stung her eyes.
A movement from the mirror caught Annie’s attention and she looked back at the Beckes’ house. A large man strode down the path and headed for a car parked further up the street. Its lights winked at him as he unlocked its doors. Annie watched closely and was as sure as she could be that this was the man Terry had filmed with Mrs Becke at Milesthorpe Show. There was nothing surreptitious about his exit. He surely was Mr Becke and not the secret lover.
As the car disappeared round the bend at the top of the road, Annie climbed out and made her way back to the house. She hadn’t decided on her opening gambit, wanting to see the woman’s face, to judge her expression as she set eyes on Annie for the first time. She might try the straightforward, Hi, Mrs Becke. I’m a private detective working for … or the less formal, Hi, my name’s Annie. I understand you knew Terry Martin….
The door stood open. As Annie came close enough to see in, she made out Mrs Becke moving around a large kitchen table pulling plates and cups together as she swished a cloth that streaked the table top inadequately. Mrs Becke was thin, early thirties maybe, with lifeless dark hair.
Annie sensed hostility but no surprise as the woman looked up and saw her in the doorway. As she opened her mouth to introduce herself she saw a hard shell form around her intended interviewee; a shell she would never breach if she didn’t make an immediate dent. She threw away the words that were on her tongue and said, ‘Christ, I’d forgotten the village grapevine. You’re expecting me, aren’t you, Mrs Becke? I guess I should apologize for being late.’
The woman fought against a smile, but couldn’t quite suppress it. ‘Look, who are you? Why are you prying about that Martin prat?’
‘I’m working for his parents. They don’t think so badly of him, though they’re probably the only ones.’
A glimmer of surprise. Mrs Becke’s eyes narrowed as she tried to weigh up her visitor.
‘They need more than the official enquiry gave them,’ Annie went on. ‘A bit of background about why he was in Milesthorpe that night. I know pretty much what sort of guy he was but I’m not out to paint the colour into every gory detail that’ll make things worse for them. I just want the bare facts. Where was he those last two days? He left home on Sunday afternoon and the next they heard was a call on Tuesday evening to say he’d died.’
Mrs Becke still hovered on the brink of hostility but she seemed to relax a little. ‘Just those last two days?’ she murmured, as she carried a cafetière to the sink.
Whatever Terry Martin had unearthed, Annie read, it hadn’t happened in those last two days. But if she wanted to get anything useful from this woman, she needed her relaxed and ready to talk, not tight and hostile. She took the chance of pushing things one way or the other. ‘I don’t suppose the village grapevine’s good enough to tell you how I like my coffee, is it, Mrs Becke?’
The woman turned on her with a look of incredulity. For a second Annie thought she’d blown it, then Mrs Becke laughed. ‘You’re a cheeky cow, aren’t you? Oh well, I could do with another cup myself. And for Chris’sakes call me Heather. You make me feel ancient with Mrs Becke. You’re Annie, aren’t you? And you’re wasting your time with me. I barely saw anything of him the week before he died.’
As Heather Becke brought two cups of coffee to the table and sat down, Annie said, ‘You know Terry Martin did reports for the local press?’
‘He told me he could get me in the nationals. Stupid little prat. I told him I’d had all the publicity I needed. And he was six months too late anyway.’
‘Publicity about what?’
Heather Becke pushed herself up from the table and went to rummage in a cupboard. ‘There.’ She threw a creased news-cutting on the table.
Annie opened it out. Heather and the man she’d seen leaving the house stared out at her, awkwardly posed, each with a hand pointing back indicating something about the muddy patch they stood on. It was a double-spread … planning dispute … prosperous village of Milesthorpe … Annie glanced at the by-line. Not Terry Martin.
Heather sat back with her coffee, no sign of tension now. Whatever Terry Martin had unearthed about her, it had nothing to do with this story. ‘It’s all sorted now,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t get shot of my ex until we’d cleared it all and sorted the money on the house.’
If Terry Martin’s theories had any substance this new marriage wasn’t very stable. Annie turned back to the page in front of her and skim read enough to get at the nub of the dispute. It hung
on whether a narrow watercourse at the bottom of the Beckes’ garden was manmade or natural.
‘Beckes split over brook,’ she murmured. Quite a snappy headline it turned out. The newspaper on the table majored on Mrs Becke as hapless victim, kept tied to her ex by a heartless local council, desperate to be properly free to live happily ever after with ‘the true love of her life’. Annie wondered if the secret lover pre or post-dated the story.
‘Split over brook? Yeah, he said something stupid like that.’
In her mind, Annie painted the detail of Terry Martin’s motivation. He’d come across the story of the Beckes late in the day and he’d been furious. Here was a story that had had a double-page spread in one of the Sundays and he’d missed it. Here on his own doorstep. He’d done his best to revive it, trying to interest Heather in a follow-up but by then she’d got what she wanted.
‘What did he say when you said you weren’t interested in a follow-up?’
‘He pestered for a while, then he went away. Then of course I found the little toerag had been following—’
Heather stopped abruptly. Annie was sure the picture of Heather on Terry Martin’s film of Milesthorpe Show was of her with her husband and Heather hadn’t appeared anywhere else on the film other than when she caught him snooping outside her house. She chose her words to be deliberately ambiguous. ‘Yeah, I know. I saw some of the pictures he took. Like I say, I’m not bothered about that side of things. I’ve got to try and paint him like he wasn’t a devious little sap for his mother’s sake. All I’ve got so far is he couldn’t keep his nose out of anyone else’s business.’
‘I’ll say. Uh … what sort of pictures did you see? There was nothing to make anything of in the ones he showed me.’
‘No, nothing much. Nothing to make anything of, like you say. You and a guy standing talking, that’s all.’