Deadly Zeal

by Jean Chapman

  DEADLY

  ZEAL

  JEAN CHAPMAN

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 1

  ‘Do you realize,’ Liz Makepeace whispered from the business-side of the bar, ‘that we have a poacher, a publican, a painter and a professor on our team?’

  Helen Jefferson, off duty, in a multi-green dress like a Hockney tree print, turned to look around the packed but silent public bar of The Trap. ‘Well,’ she whispered back, ‘your John’s the publican, my Paul’s the painter, old Alan Hoskins is, or hopefully was, the poacher, so does that mean –’ she nodded to the other member of their team, Michael Bliss, a relative newcomer in the area, ‘– is a professor?’

  Liz nodded. ‘So I understand. Had a bad car accident, retired here and turned what was just a bric-a-brac shop in the village into a good antique shop, and he trades on the internet.’

  ‘What was he a professor of?’ she asked, only to be shushed by those nearest the bar.

  ‘Can you repeat the question?’ A call from the far table of contestants.

  ‘Don’t know,’ Liz mouthed to Helen, ‘something to do with the arts, I think.’

  ‘Can everyone please keep quiet?’ John Cannon turned and, catching his partner’s lips moving, scowled disapprovingly at her.

  ‘What was the full name of the American president who resigned and the name of the scandal that caused him to resign?’ The question master repeated the question, adding that this was the last one of the political section.

  There were ten teams in this opening round of the Fenland Interpub Quiz, four members in each team. There was much whispering, shaking of heads and finger pointing with varying degrees of certainty before this answer was written down. John Cannon nodded as the professor wrote down ‘Watergate’ but shrugged when he added ‘Richard Milhous Nixon’.

  ‘The next category is sport.’

  There were quite a few cries of relief at this announcement.

  ‘Again there are five questions.’

  ‘How … many … more … questions?’ The sentence sounded as if the speaker had a mouthful of food and there was a full stop after each word.

  ‘Five questions, and there is just one more category after sport, so ten questions in all, Timmy,’ the retired primary school headmaster and question master obliged.

  ‘You’re not answering them so why worry?’

  The gibe was cheap and unnecessary. There was always one insensitive joker in the pack who liked the sound of his own voice, John Cannon thought, as he glanced over to where Timmy sat next to Niall Riley, his father. A local baker who must be retiring age, Niall Riley had jerked himself upright and now sat tense as a coiled spring.

  Cannon tutted as this joker who had arrived with the team from The Stump’s Shadow in Boston added, ‘He wouldn’t get too many right by the look of ’im.’

  ‘Can we have best of order and some quiet, please,’ Cannon called loudly in his most officious landlord manner.

  ‘Come on, boy, we’re going.’ Niall Riley rose, pushing a half-drunk pint away, and waited while his middle-aged son, looking bemused but as amiable as ever, linked arms with him and informed all and sundry that he was ‘going home to my mother’.

  ‘She’ll tuck you up in your little wooden bed,’ the same man scoffed.

  Timmy turned and beamed at him. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘My mother loves me.’

  ‘We all love you, Timmy,’ another local called.

  The joker’s loud sneering laughter now made Paul Jefferson spin round in his seat. ‘Don’t say another word, sunshine,’ he advised, but Riley had already disengaged himself from his son and asked a friend to take Timmy to wait outside. ‘I’ll just get you some crisps, son,’ he told Timmy, and seeing him out swept round and back towards his tormentor.

  ‘Now there’ll be trouble,’ Liz muttered. ‘Riley’s so protective of his boy, he won’t stand for this.’

  ‘You have a problem?’ Riley demanded, stumbling over chairs and feet in his haste to reach and confront their tormentor.

  ‘No, mate, seems it’s you ’as got the problem, big time, I’d say,’ and as the irate father reached him, he rose from his seat. He looked enormous under the low-beamed ceiling.

  ‘I’ve taken on people like you all my son’s life,’ Riley said, looking like an enraged little terrier who doesn’t know its own size, snapping at a great black bear. ‘I’d sooner have one loving son like mine to a thousand such as you. You great oaf!!’

  Cannon was on his feet and on his way to Riley’s side, Paul with him.

  ‘My son’ll be loved and care for, while you –’ Riley was leaning forward fairly spitting the words up into the face of the man who towered about him ‘– you’ll be an unloved bully. I pity you, you know that! I pity you.’

  ‘Save your pity for yourself, you need it,’ the joker sneered.

  There were cries of outrage from all around the bar now.

  Cannon had his hand on Riley’s shoulder, as he seemed about to launch himself at the huge man. Riley tried to push him away as the joker waved a clenched fist under his nose, inviting him to, ‘Just give me an excuse.’

  ‘Take your son home,’ Cannon advised, and from the corner of his eye he saw Liz hand two packets of crisps over to Paul, who in turn scrunched them into Riley’s hands and took his stance alongside Cannon. The two tall men were completely shielding Riley from his opponent.

  ‘Reckon I could take you two, no problem,’ the joker declared.

  ‘I presume you’re drunk; no one could be so objectionable if he were sober,’ Paul said.

  ‘You presume …’ The joker assumed a prissy tone, turned to the company, repeating, ‘He presumes.’

  ‘Aye,’ Alan Hoskins shouted, nodding towards Helen, ‘and his missus is a police chief inspector so think on.’

  ‘Thanks, Alan,’ Helen muttered, but thrust into the spotlight she said calmly and briefly, ‘I’d advise you to sit down and be quiet,’ adding as the aggressor’s lips curled and he looked her up and down, ‘And my powers are the same off duty as on.’

  Her comments emboldened others to urge the man, in a variety of different ways, to sit down and shut up.

  ‘See Mr Riley out to his boy,’ Cannon prompted Paul. There was some argument, for it was Riley now who definitely did not want to back down.

  ‘No one pokes fun at my boy and gets away with it,’ he protested, but by simply not allowing him to pass he was eventually edged towards the door and persuaded to join his son. All the time Cannon kept a weather-eye on the aggressor, remembering so many moments in his former Met days when such men either went berserk regardless of consequences, or stepped back to smoulder and wait for another chance for revenge – usually on someone more vulnerable.

  It seemed Liz, Cannon’s working partner in the Met and here in their Lincolnshire pub, had recognized the moment too as she reached over to collect and clink together a few empty glasses from
the counter. The sound was loud in the still-tense atmosphere and, he thought, could either signal a return to normality, or the bell for round one. Then someone else, whether by design or accident, clinked a glass in another part of the room. The man swept around like an aggressive animal distracted from its prey, grunted, made a swinging threatening gesture towards all and sundry with his fist, then turned and went back to his seat, muttering that he’d been in better pubs. No one had the stupidity to contradict him.

  Cannon signalled to the question master, who cleared his throat and continued.

  The rest of the quiz was quickly over, for the spirit and enjoyment had gone out of it. Prompted by Cannon, the question master announced that there would be a fifteen-minute interval before teams swapped papers and marked each other’s answers.

  ‘By which time,’ Cannon announced, ‘as we are running a little late, it will be after closing time, so if we could make it last orders now, ladies and gentlemen, please.’

  A good section of the assembly rose as one and made for the bar, and Paul, as he had often done in the past, came behind the counter to help as some ordered more than one drink and a few ordered brandy chasers to calm their nerves and keep them going until the end of the evening.

  Papers exchanged and marked, The Trap won by two points. No one else had got the full name of Richard Nixon.

  The Stump’s Shadow’s team and their supporters, including the joker, were among the first to leave.

  ‘Bloody good riddance,’ someone from another team called. ‘Let’s hope that particular “gentleman” is not around for the next round.’

  ‘So say all of us,’ Paul called back.

  ‘Aye, up The Trap and good night, Chief Inspector,’ Hoskins said, on his way out to pick up his bike and cycle away to his lonely cottage on The Fens.

  ‘Good night, Mr Hoskins,’ Helen said, ‘you old …’

  ‘Bugger,’ he suggested as the doors swung to after him.

  ‘Going to stay and have a cup of tea with us?’ Cannon said when only Paul, feeding the last of the glasses into the sterilizer, and Helen, remained.

  ‘Better not,’ Paul said. ‘Know we’ve got Helen’s mum babysitting but mustn’t take advantage. She takes it all so seriously – hovers over the child like a guardian angel.’

  ‘We’ll be over during the week,’ Helen promised.

  John saw them out, walking with them to the side car park, waving as they gave him a brief parting salute on the hooter.

  Normally he would have stood and enjoyed the peace, the solitude, the brilliance of the stars, the smell of the sea, the contrast to the busy evening, but tonight it had been soured. The quiz was an annual event organized after the height of the holiday season was over, when it was more peaceful on The Fens. He gave a humph of ironic laughter and walked slowly to the back porch and into the pub’s kitchen where Liz had everything ready for their nightly brew of tea.

  She had loosened her long blonde hair so it fell free over her shoulders; this and what he called the nightly tea ceremony she put on were usually like signals that passed him through to their private world. He watched her use the strainer to pour tea from the teapot into the china cups and saucers; any other time of the day it was mugs and teabags but this was a soothing kind of wind-down, the sounds and smells, the excellence of loose tea – and Liz’s loose hair. It was special for him.

  ‘That could have been nasty tonight,’ she said, still holding on to his cup and saucer. He reached for it. ‘Timmy always reminds me of a family I knew as a child. They had two sons, one special needs like Timmy, loving, affectionate, always smiling, the other a really bright boy – but he never smiled.’

  ‘Two extremes,’ Cannon concluded, but Liz was not done with the memory as they sat sipping their tea.

  ‘I remember Dad took me to a swimming gala, and the older boy, he’d be about ten then, was in it. He won his race and helped win the relay race. I remember feeling proud just because I lived near him. His parents were there but all their time and attention was for the son who sat between them. I remember they were running a little toy car up and down his legs and arms to amuse him. He was about four. The older boy – wish I could remember his name – was presented with two little cups …’ Liz looked up, her eyes still full of regret for the long-ago injustice as she shook her head and added. ‘I saw him leave his two prizes behind a door as he followed his parents and brother out. We exchanged looks, and I knew he did not want me to say anything. Strange how vividly one remembers some things.’

  ‘I’m not surprised you remembered that!’ Cannon exclaimed. ‘Wrong, very wrong, to exclude the other boy to that extent. What happened to the family?’

  Liz shook her head again. ‘We moved just after that, so I never knew.’

  ‘Well, Timmy is an only child so it’s all different,’ Cannon said.

  ‘I suppose it was just Niall Riley’s reaction, the single-minded devotion to the boy, that reminded me of those parents.’

  ‘I heard someone say the big chap’s been banned from more than one pub in the area and he’s not long taken to going in The Stump,’ Cannon said. ‘I might have a word with the landlord in the morning, see what he knows about him. Sod’s law that our next round is at The Stump!’

  ‘Hmm,’ Liz mused, ‘I wonder if he goes home and takes it out on his wife and children, if he has any. He’s the type.’

  ‘There’s usually some spin-off from such incidents – some casualty,’ Cannon said.

  Chapter 2

  Casualties seemed everywhere the next morning. On the television news a gas explosion and a collapsed block of flats in the north, a bad pile-up on the M25 – and a flattened rabbit on the road where Cannon climbed over to head for the beach and his habitual early-morning run. He had set off in long-sleeved sweatshirt and joggers, but shorts and sunglasses would have been more appropriate as the autumn sun rose with what seemed like abnormal heat.

  Perhaps because of the unpleasantness the night before, and his intention to ring the landlord of The Stump as soon as he got back, he had run faster and further than usual, deciding how he would phrase his questions about the big man. He was now well beyond Paul and Helen Jefferson’s beachside home. He thought of calling. He and Paul still needed to agree on an advertising programme for the New Year, when they intended to begin a new venture. Together they would run painting holidays, with Paul, well-known watercolourist, providing the tuition and John and Liz providing accommodation in their recently converted stable block.

  He smiled as he looked towards the roof of the bungalow where Paul had returned some years ago to care for his ageing mother, and where Cannon had later thought Paul would end his days as a bachelor. Then Police Inspector Helen Moore had come along, now Chief Inspector Helen Jefferson, back on duty after maternity leave.

  Cannon had found himself to be inordinately proud when Paul named his son for Cannon. John Paul Jefferson was now eighteen months old.

  He turned to run back along the sea’s edge, still wondering if he had time to call on Paul. Then he was diverted by the sight of three dogs in the distance, racing at top speed towards him with no one else in sight.

  They headed so directly for him, he began to wonder if the dogs, a collie and two Alsatians, were going to attack him. They came on, the collie just ahead, and as it got nearer he could see its mouth gaped and its sides heaved with the effort of running. Its eyes looked glazed with terror. The Alsatians were chasing the collie with intention.

  Cannon was not going to let this happen; no one and nothing was going to be a victim if he could help it. As the Alsatians reached him, he yelled at the top of his voice: ‘Leave! Leave! Leave it!’

  The result was that the chasing dogs split and ran either side of him, but as they came together on the far side they brushed shoulders and one fell. Immediately the other turned back and, for a moment, Cannon thought it was attacking its fellow, but then he realized that the two were merely playing, rough and growling tumble, but playin
g. Meanwhile the collie was nearly out of sight, and still running as if the hounds of hell were at its shoulder.

  ‘Come on, where do you two belong?’ His voice and approach distracted their attention. They shook themselves and stood, tongues lolling, panting, as he consulted their collars. ‘Blackburn,’ he said. ‘You’re a long way from home, and neither of you are very old, I’d say. I guess you two are on holiday, so back the way you came, I think. Come on!’ he ordered and after seeming to consider the options, they fell in with him, jogging alongside as if they did it every day of their lives.

  After fifteen minutes or so he came in sight of the usual spot where he turned from the beach, went up through the dunes and fields to the back of The Trap. He was speculating what might be the best course of action with regard to these dogs when he saw someone, a man, running towards him. He wondered if he had come from the caravan park a mile or so away, though Cannon thought it had already closed for the winter. The man waved urgently, and as they all neared each other the dogs picked up his scent and tore to him, wagging their tails, jumping up.

  The man stood and waited for Cannon, calming the dogs, not fussing them, a tenseness in his manner alerting Cannon to something more that was troubling him.

  ‘The collie ran on,’ Cannon told him.

  The man frowned, shook his head, staggered a little as he stooped to clip a double lead on to the dogs.

  Cannon judged he was young, in his twenties, half his own age. ‘Is the collie yours as well?’ he asked.

  The man shook his head again. ‘No, I …’ He turned aside, retched several times, staggered and would have fallen had Cannon not caught his arm. ‘Sorry,’ he said when the spasm was over.

  ‘What’s happened?’ Cannon asked, and as the man’s knees threatened to give way, he supported him to where the sand was dry and sat him down, crouching next to him. The dogs flopped companionably down beside both of them. Cannon quickly realized it was not rest the man need for his agitation increased and his colour worsened as he sat. This man was in shock.

  ‘Now, what’s happened, Mr Sutton?’ Cannon asked and was startled by the alarm in the other’s eyes.

  ‘How did you know my name?’ he asked.