by Dane Cobain
He smiled sadly, finished his second pint and wiped the foamy residue from his upper lip on a napkin, then scrunched it into a ball and dropped it inside the glass. He looked around, but the place was almost empty. If anyone was watching him, they were doing a good job of hiding it. He scraped backwards on his chair and stood up, then swung his backpack onto his shoulder and headed towards the gate. He was travelling with hand luggage only, partly for convenience and partly because he hadn’t wanted to risk going home to fill a suitcase. It was a good job he’d planned ahead and stashed his passport and a change of clothes.
They called his gate number as he approached the labyrinthine maze of terminals, stiles and fast-track lanes. Someone ran over his foot with a trundle case. He cursed and glanced across at them, but they were already twenty feet away and rapidly accelerating. He checked the screens again and made his way towards the gate. He was about halfway there when a heavy hand descended on his shoulder and spun him around where he stood.
“What the hell?” Townsend began, but that was as far as he got. Detective Inspector Jack Cholmondeley cut him off by clicking a cuff around his wrists. He cuffed the other hand and then pushed the man against the wall. The early morning travellers barely noticed, forming a natural conduit around them, but a sleepy-looking little boy lagged behind his family to take a photograph.
“Tom Townsend,” Cholmondeley growled, his deep voice barely registering amidst the hubbub of the terminal. “I’ve been looking for you. You’re nicked, sunshine. I’m arresting you for kidnapping, false imprisonment and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.”
* * *
Later that day, Jayne Lipton sat down with Gary Mogford. They were in one of the station’s poky interrogation rooms with Jayne on one side of the table and Mogford and Groves on the other.
Detective Inspector Jack Cholmondeley was on the other side of a two-way mirror, drinking a cup of coffee and watching the interview progress towards its slow but inevitable conclusion. Cholmondeley was a pragmatist. While he had every faith in Leipfold’s deductions, actually proving it in a court of law was something else entirely. He needed a confession, and even a confession might not be enough without some proper evidence to accompany it.
But Sergeant Mogford was on the case, and Cholmondeley knew he had the best sixth sense on the force. If anyone was going to get Lipton to talk or to gather enough evidence to make a conviction, it would be Gary Mogford, the tough cop with a burning sense of justice.
Lipton’s interview drew slowly to a close, but it was clear from Mogford’s bad mood and the smile on her face, as well as from Cholmondeley’s own observations, that she’d given nothing away.
She even refused a lawyer, Cholmondeley thought. Said she didn’t need one. But she’s guilty, all right.
Sergeant Mogford led Lipton to the reception area and explained that while they had enough to charge her, they’d struggle to make it stick.
“But make no mistake,” Mogford said. “We’re keeping an eye on you. This investigation is far from complete. Stick around so we can find you when we need you. And hey, if you’re as innocent as you say you are, you won’t mind helping us out with our enquiries.”
Jayne smiled enigmatically but said nothing, and Mogford handed her over to Groves for processing. Groves, whose shift was officially over, had already changed into a pair of black jeans and a Primark blouse, but she smiled and murmured an acknowledgement before leading Lipton away into custody.
Cholmondeley watched them go and then headed to his office for a private phone call, one that he couldn’t risk anyone overhearing. He locked the door after entering the room, then closed the blinds over the big bay windows that looked out on the corridor. With any luck, his colleagues would think he was finally catching up on his paperwork or reading those mythical emails he’d heard so much about.
He picked up his second phone and hit the speed dial. Leipfold answered on the second ring.
* * *
Leipfold was in his office when the phone rang, with The Tribune across his desk and a pen in his hand. He’d already filled out four clues on Alan Phelps’s daily puzzle, and he thought he had an answer for the fifth. He answered the call and put the phone on speakerphone, then continued to answer the clues while he spoke to Jack Cholmondeley.
“I’m listening,” Leipfold said. “What’s up?”
“We’ve got Tom Townsend,” Cholmondeley replied.
“Great,” Leipfold said. “And?”
“Jayne Lipton has been released. We didn’t have enough to hold her.”
“Keep looking,” Leipfold said. “The evidence is there, somewhere. You’ll find it.”
“Maybe,” Cholmondeley murmured. “But what if you’re wrong?”
“I’m not wrong,” Leipfold insisted. Cholmondeley believed him, and he whistled softly to himself. On the other end of the phone line, Leipfold winced and erased one of his answers.
“Listen,” Cholmondeley said, “you made a convincing argument and I can’t fault you for that. But I’m going to need more than just conjecture to get something to stick. If I can’t press charges, the case isn’t over. Throw me a bone here. Please, for old time’s sake. Help me to find some proof so we can prosecute.”
“Will you pay me?” Leipfold asked.
Cholmondeley sighed. They’d had this conversation a dozen times throughout the years and always with the same result. “No deal,” Cholmondeley said. “I would if I could, but I can’t.”
“It’s not allowed,” Leipfold replied. “I get it. And so you want me to work for free, for the common good.”
“That’s right.”
“What’s the common good ever done for me?” Leipfold laughed. “Sorry, that’s a job for a copper. You’re on your own. Besides, business is booming.”
“I thought it might be,” Cholmondeley said. “I saw the story in The Tribune. Thanks for nothing.”
“I solved the case,” Leipfold reminded him.
“Yeah,” Cholmondeley growled. “You solved it, and now it’s down to me to prove it. I’d better go. Things to do.”
Leipfold grunted and put the phone down, then glanced down again at the crossword. He’d answered a dozen more clues without even noticing. He took a swig of his coffee and checked his timer, then looked over to the right at the clipping he’d pulled from the front page of the newspaper. His own bemused face stared back at him with Maile O’Hara half a step behind him. With the story breaking the night before they went to print, The Tribune had neither the time nor the resources to send a photographer, so Maile had snapped a shot on her mobile phone and emailed it over. Now it was on the same front cover that was sitting on kitchen tables and poking through letterboxes all over the city.
His phone rang again, and he stiffened to attention as he answered the call and held the phone to his ear. “Hello?” he said.
“Mr. Leipfold?” the caller replied. “I saw you in the paper. I have a case for you.”
“So does half the bloody city,” Leipfold said. “You’re going to have to wait your turn, I’m afraid. Looks like I’m all booked up for the next three weeks. You’ll have to drop me an email and take a place in the queue.”
“But this is an emergency!”
“It always is,” Leipfold replied. He sighed. “Drop me that email and I’ll see what we can do.”
Leipfold put the phone down and looked back at his crossword. Eighteen minutes and counting – one of his worst times ever – and he still had a third of the grid left to finish. He stared at the clue for nineteen down and stuck the end of the pen in his mouth. Then the phone rang again.
Leipfold swore. He slammed the pen down and then answered the call.
* * *
Eleanor Thompson looked terrible. She hadn’t slept, she hadn’t washed, and she seemed to have aged ten years in a single night. Her face, which still held a few traces of make-up, all smudged and blurred like a Dali painting, looked sagged and worn, like she held the whole world on her shoulders. In many ways, she did.
The old woman was sitting in one of the white-walled detention rooms at the police station. Her spokesperson, a lawyer she’d hired with the last of her dwindling cash reserves, sat to her right, while Detective Inspector Jack Cholmondeley and Sergeant Gary Mogford sat opposite, staring her down across the table. They sat in silence for a moment, looking shrewdly across at each other.
Sergeant Mogford broke the silence. “I’d like to remind you all that this interview is being recorded,” he said. “The time is six fifteen PM on Thursday February second. Detective Inspector Jack Cholmondeley and myself, Sergeant Gary Mogford, are present on behalf of the police force. We’re joined by the suspect, Ms. Eleanor Thompson, and her legal representative, Mr. Howard Taylor.”
Mogford turned to look at Cholmondeley, who nodded his head imperceptibly. He had the ghost of a smile in the corners of his lips, but his eyes were as serious as ever.
“Ms. Thompson,” Mogford said, “I’m going to ask you one last time to tell us the truth. Come clean and get yourself a plea deal. Tell us what happened.”
“Nothing happened,” she snapped. Cholmondeley watched her eyes as they flicked to her left, a tell-tale sign of a lie as she accessed her brain’s creative hemisphere. The policeman knew a dozen armchair detectives – one of them called James Leipfold – who swore by the technique, but he wasn’t so sure. It was a clue, but not one to be trusted. Nevertheless, it worked more often than not.
“My client has told you everything she can,” the lawyer said, holding up a hand to silence her before she said something else, something that could incriminate her if they reviewed the tapes at a later date. “Gentlemen, you know the law. You can’t make her stay here forever. Either charge her with something or let us go.”
“Very well,” Mogford replied. “Then you leave us no choice. We’ll see you in court. Eleanor Thompson, you’re under arrest for conspiracy to commit murder. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence. Do you understand me?”
Eleanor Thompson whispered something to her lawyer, who nodded in affirmation and whispered something back to her. Then she glared at the two men on the other side of the table and said, “So be it.”
* * *
The following day, after cashing the vital first cheques from some of the agency’s new clients, James Leipfold paid a visit to Bateman’s Motors. The boss wasn’t in when he got there, so Leipfold bullied the staff until they caved and gave him a call.
“I work Saturdays,” Leipfold grumbled. “Why the hell doesn’t he?”
Leipfold was well aware that Bateman made more money than him, but the idea of a day off was something alien. It turned out that Bateman had been at a restaurant with his wife and kids. His receptionist caught him on his mobile as he was settling up the bill. He agreed, reluctantly, to stop by on his way back home.
He was in a bad mood by the time that he arrived, but he greeted Leipfold politely and led him through to his office in a frosty silence.
“This better be good,” he said, sitting down heavily in his leather chair.
Leipfold stayed standing. It gave him a height advantage, and it also gave him a position of power like an animal asserting its dominance.
“I want Camilla back,” he said.
Big, bald Greg Bateman stared at him. “Who’s Camilla?” he asked.
“My bike,” Leipfold growled. “I told you to look after her.”
“Gotcha,” Bateman said. “Thing is, pal, I’ve already accepted an offer.”
“Cancel the deal,” Leipfold said. He shrugged. “She’s my bike and I want her back.”
“She’s not yours anymore.”
Leipfold smashed his fist against the desk and then waved it under Bateman’s nose. “I don’t care what you have to do,” he said. “You’ll do what it takes. I know things about you, Mr. Bateman.”
“Are you threatening me, Mr. Leipfold?”
“Yes,” Leipfold said, “I am. I’ll pay you back in full, plus ten percent interest. I can give you half now and the remaining payments every month for the next five months. In return, you make a quick profit while helping a friend.”
“You’re not my friend.”
“I will be,” Leipfold replied, “if you want me to keep your name out of the press and the police reports. Do we have a deal?”
Leipfold spat in the palm of his hand and held it out, like his father used to do with his crooked friends when they struck up scams over a pint in the Rose & Crown. Greg Bateman stared at him moodily, then shook his head in amazement and took Leipfold’s hand. They shook, both men trying to crush the other, and then Bateman wiped his hand against the seat of his trousers.
Bateman called his receptionist on the intercom and asked them to bring Camilla’s keys, then hurried Leipfold through the paperwork. Leipfold was happy to sign it, but only after he’d looked it over and arranged to keep a photocopy. Bateman barely noticed when Leipfold handed over the money.
“Will that be all?” he asked, once the deal was done. “Some of us have a life to live. I wouldn’t want to keep you any longer.”
Leipfold smiled and held the keys up in his hand. “There’s just one more thing,” he said. “Any chance of a full tank to go with it?”
* * *
Leipfold allowed himself a grin, knowing no one could see it behind his visor. It felt good to be back on Camilla, like spending the night in the arms of a woman that he’d known, loved, lost and loved again. His senses were alive, and the feel of the bike beneath him as he cruised the streets at random gave him a warm rush of dopamine that tickled his brain’s reward centres.
It had only been a couple of weeks since he’d said goodbye to Camilla, but it had taken her loss for him to realise how vital she was to his investigations. No one took him seriously when he arrived on foot or in the back of a taxi, but a motorbike…well, that was one way to leave an impression.
It was raining, but not as badly as it had been on the night that Donna Thompson died, and the weather was already starting to feel a little warmer. Spring was on its way, but Leipfold couldn’t shake the feeling that something bad was about to happen.
Leipfold hit a left and then a right, marvelling at the way that the bike gripped the roads, even in the rain. He suspected that Bateman had made a few improvements, and he made a mental note to ask the man what else was new. It was a pleasure to drive, and it let his mind wander.
He was thinking about a quote he’d heard: “A quiet life is just a lie that you buy from the newspapers.” He rolled it over in his head and realised it was something Marie Rieirson had said in Driven.
“So much for the quiet life,” he murmured. “People only want a quiet life when they’re driven to it. Give me an adventure anytime.”
He hit another left and started whistling a tune to himself. There would be more adventures, and he knew he’d never settle for normal. Life was for living. But that was for another day.
He revved the engine and took a right through an amber light. The rain fell a little harder and bounced off his helmet and his leathers.
He smiled again beneath the visor and drove off into the night.
* * *
On the following Monday, the sun rose on a different city. Two people were dead, two were behind bars, and Leipfold maintained that Lipton needed locking up, too.
“And they can throw away the bloody key,” he snarled, gratefully accepting the stack of papers and the cardboard c
up of coffee that Maile was holding out to him.
“Maybe they’d do just that if we helped them to find a little evidence,” Maile said, clearing some space on his desk so she could sit down on it.
“Maybe,” Leipfold replied, “but we’ve got bigger fish to fry. The phone’s been ringing off the hook.”
“I can imagine. I checked the stats on your website. They peaked last night at thirty times the normal rate. I’m getting you out there on social media while people are still talking about the story.”
Leipfold frowned. “What do I need with social media?” he asked.
“Clients,” Maile replied. “Maybe not now, not while they’re still rolling in, but later. In the future.”
“Perhaps,” he conceded. “I could use the money.”
“It’ll come.”
“It’s already coming,” Leipfold said. “I’m asking for deposits up front. My diary’s filling up fast. I’m going to need a little help.”
“I can’t work for free forever,” Maile replied.
“That’s not what I meant,” he said, gesturing for her to lean in a little closer. He could smell her perfume, and it seemed alien in his self-confessed shithole of an office.
Leipfold slid a small stack of paper across the desk to her. “Take a look at this,” he said. “It’s a contract. I want you to join me properly. I want you to make it official.”
“Are you serious?” Maile asked. In some ways, the offer surprised her. In others, she’d seen it coming ever since they started work on the Thompson case. “And you’re going to pay me?”
Leipfold nodded. “Not a salary,” he said. “Not yet, at least. Minimum wage with five days a week guaranteed and time and a half when you work out of hours. If the last few weeks are anything to go by, you’ll be doing a lot of that.”