The Forest of Souls

by Carla Banks

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Why? No one else was.’

  The silence lengthened. Jake offered Garrick a cigarette. When Garrick refused, he returned the packet to his pocket without lighting one himself. Garrick took a deep breath.

  ‘That night, she phoned me–Miss Yevanova. We keep in touch, once a week, that’s the agreement. She’s keeping an eye on me.’ His mouth twitched, briefly. ‘Look, if Miss Yevanova says, “Don’t screw up,” believe me, you don’t screw up. But she was–I’ve never heard her like that before, sort of cold and far away. Someone had been talking to her about the war. She didn’t say much, but I could tell she was…you know, remembering. I know it sounds lame, but she’s the only person I’ve got. And I got to thinking that she’s old, and she’s ill, and she’s going to die soon. And…’ He was looking down at the table now, his fingers scraping at something that was stuck on the surface. ‘I don’t want Miss Yevanova to know about this.’

  ‘Do the police know?’

  ‘Yeah. I had to tell them.’ He fell silent, then met Jake’s eyes. ‘I swallowed a load of Valium and washed it down with whisky.’

  ‘You tried to kill yourself?’

  He shook his head. His face was red. ‘No. I didn’t mean to take so much. I took some, and they didn’t work, so I took some more. I just wanted to get the evening out of the way. I must have passed out.’

  That would explain Garrick’s hospital admission the day after the murder. But…he’d been found on his own with a murder victim, the victim’s blood was all over him, and to cap it all, he’d made what looked like a credible suicide attempt, which was as good an admission of guilt as any Jake had ever heard.

  ‘So why did they let you out?’ he said.

  This time, Garrick’s response was less aggressive. ‘You think I expected it? I thought they were just going to dump all over me. But that lawyer Miss Yevanova got for me, she found out that there was someone else there.’

  ‘How do they know that?’ Someone else…Jake’s contacts hadn’t known that, but Norris had suggested premeditation. A wire garrotte wasn’t a weapon of convenience.

  ‘Someone called it in. I called, when I found her. But someone else had done it earlier.’

  ‘From the house?’

  ‘From a mobile. They don’t know who it was.’

  ‘And you don’t have one?’

  ‘Yeah, actually. Only it doesn’t work. I couldn’t pay for it. They’ve taken it anyway.’

  Jake could understand now why the police had let Garrick go. They didn’t want to waste custody time chasing down this caller. But for the first time, Jake found himself seriously considering the possibility that Garrick was in fact an unlucky innocent. Up until that moment, he’d seen Garrick as a probable, if unlikely, murderer. He looked at the young man opposite him–defensive, prickly, awkward and immature. But a killer? Somehow, Jake couldn’t see it. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘I’ll deliver you to Miss Yevanova.’

  Jake’s visit to the Yevanov house was brief. Mrs Barker was expecting them. Her greeting to Garrick was brusque. ‘Miss Yevanova is resting,’ she said. ‘I’ve prepared your room.’ Nick, apparently used to this, hitched his backpack on to his shoulder.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said to Jake, and then, after a second’s hesitation: ‘Sorry if I was a bit…you know.’

  Jake grinned. ‘Being arrested is enough to make anyone a bit “you know”.’

  As he drove back towards town, he was still puzzling over the conundrum that was Nick Garrick. He’d thought that meeting the man would make things a bit clearer; instead, he was more confused than ever.

  Nicholas Garrick dumped his backpack on the bed, and sat down. The room was Spartan–a single bed made up with a blanket and a pillow, a bedside table, a thin grey rug. He could feel the chill creeping along his arms. He checked the radiator. It was hot.

  He’d felt cold since that morning. He tried not to think about it. One of the women at the police station had been concerned, bringing him a woolly jumper as he shivered in the interview room. It hadn’t helped. The cold was deep inside him.

  He felt weary beyond belief. He wanted to lie down and sleep, and maybe when he woke up, it would all be gone. He sat on the floor with his back pressed to the radiator and closed his eyes. The fatigue was like bubbles in his head. Pictures started forming behind his eyelids. His mother was laughing, that bright, nervous laugh she used when his father was angry. And then he could see the lights of the cars, jagged and refracted in the rain and the reflection from the wet road. They were all going too fast–he knew they were going too fast, but they were going to be late. His father’s voice carried its familiar tone of bitter resignation: I should have driven myself.

  And the lights–splashes of red in the rain in front, wavering white and orange in his mirror and on the other side, and the high sides of the trucks as he tried to read the signs. Where do you think you’re going? Judith, whose idea was this?

  But the lights were in the wrong place. That’s all he could remember. The lights were in the wrong place. And then it was all very quiet. He could remember the blood, and his father’s eyes staring from his ruined face. You stupid fool.

  The blood. Nick’s eyes opened. It had been cold and gelatinous against his fingers. He wiped his hands on his trousers then looked down, expecting to see the thick, black smears. But the police had taken those trousers. They’d taken all his clothes.

  The journalist had asked. Will they? he’d said. Find anything else? And he’d studied Nick with cool, dispassionate eyes.

  You were not at fault. That’s what they’d told him after the accident, after the investigation. The car had come over the central barrier–there was nothing Nick could have done to avoid it. You stupid fool.

  He shook his head, trying to disentangle the threads in his mind. It had been easier at the house. It had been quiet there. He had been quiet. He had been able to think. You just need some time to be quiet, Miss Yevanova had said. The heat of the radiator was burning him, but he still felt cold.

  There was a peremptory rap at the door, and Mrs Barker stuck her head in. ‘The professor is home. He wants you in his study.’

  The Professor. Nick looked at the woman’s disapproving face. ‘I don’t want to see him.’

  Her mouth became a thin line. ‘While you’re a guest in his house, I suggest you do what he says.’

  ‘I’m a guest in Miss Yevanova’s house,’ he said. ‘I’ll see her when she’s ready for me.’

  She looked at him for a moment longer, then withdrew, slamming the door shut behind her. Wearily, Nick pulled himself to his feet and began taking his things out of his backpack. He wanted to get himself sorted out before Miss Yevanova saw him.

  As Jake drove back, the traffic was building up for the rush hour, and it was after five by the time he got into town. He’d intended to go back to his flat and write his column, but he’d had a call from Cass. ‘I’ve got something for you,’ she’d said. ‘You’ll want to see this. I can’t talk. I’ll meet you at that bar in town. Six thirty.’ She meant the bar where they used to meet in the early days of their relationship.

  He wouldn’t have time to go home. He put his car in one of the multi-storeys, and found a snack bar where he had a tasteless sandwich and a cup of indifferent, tepid coffee. It was just after six when he got to the rendezvous. The room was dim, with a flagged floor and rough wooden tables. The after-work crowd was assembling, and the air tasted of smoke, sweat and perfume.

  The tables were filling up. Jake went to the bar where a couple of men were leaning. As he approached, one of them glanced round, making a quick, automatic check of the room. He was a heavy-set man with close-cropped hair and Jake recognized him. It was DS Mick Burnley, one of the officers Cass had named as working on the case. Jake went and stood beside him at the bar. ‘All right, mate?’

  Burnley’s eyes swivelled sideways to observe Jake. He was halfway down a pint, and was watching the TV where a girl dressed in a few
whispers of thread writhed to the ground and offered her mouth to the camera. ‘Denbigh,’ he said. ‘Yeah, I’m good. You?’

  Jake caught the eye of the girl who was serving behind the bar. ‘Becks, and the same again here.’ He indicated Burnley’s glass.

  Burnley seemed happy enough to see him. He stayed at the bar and the two men exchanged small talk while they waited for the drinks. Burnley nodded Jake’s attention in the direction of the screen. A silk-smooth bottom was wiggling at the camera now. ‘Any closer,’ Burnley said, ‘and we’ll get a back view of her teeth.’ He settled against the bar to enjoy the show.

  Jake laughed, and leaned against the bar beside Burnley where he could keep a discreet eye on the door. He didn’t mind watching sexy women dancing, but it all got a bit samey after a while. He preferred such displays to be up close and personal. Burnley drained his glass and reached for the one that Jake had bought him. ‘Cheers,’ he said.

  Jake brought himself back to the present. ‘Busy?’ he asked.

  Burnley pulled a face. ‘We’re helping out with a murder enquiry,’ he said, ‘for a load of hicks in Derby. Now they’ve let their prime suspect go. Probably smacked his bottom for being a bad lad and told him not to do it again.’ He brooded over his drink.

  Burnley had brought the subject up. This was good. This was better than good. ‘Helen Kovacs?’ he said.

  Burnley gave him a quick look. ‘You know something?’

  Jake shook his head. ‘Only what’s been in the paper.’ He needed to be careful here. Burnley might present the stereotype of the red-neck, but he used it to conceal a shrewd mind. ‘You reckon he did it then? The caretaker?’ He thought about Nick Garrick as he had seen him earlier, demolishing a huge fry-up, then suddenly losing his appetite as he talked about his parents’ death; Garrick rising angrily to Sophia Yevanova’s defence; Garrick hitching his backpack on to his shoulder, resigned to Mrs Barker’s frosty reception. Jake couldn’t make up his mind about Nick Garrick.

  Burnley looked at his beer, swilling it round his glass. A couple of girls came through the door, dressed for a Mediterranean summer. His eyes followed them as they crossed towards the bar. ‘What you’ve got to remember,’ he said, ‘is that most times murder is the simplest crime of the lot. If you find a dead body with someone covered in blood and going apeshit, then the chances are you’ve got the whole story, or all you need.’

  Jake was keeping his eye on the door. If he saw Cass approaching, he was going to have to intercept her. He didn’t want Burnley to see them together. ‘So why did they let him out?’

  Burnley shrugged. ‘He came up with an alibi of sorts–it doesn’t amount to much. And there’s a few loose ends. They’ll get him.’

  ‘Why would he kill her?’ Jake was aware of Burnley looking at him with sudden suspicion. ‘He didn’t know her or anything, did he?’

  ‘I thought you weren’t doing a story,’ Burnley said.

  ‘I’m not. But I’m interested. I’m interested in anything to do with Garrick-Smith.’ He had, in fact, had an idea for an article he thought he could sell.

  Burnley’s eyes narrowed as he thought this over. ‘There’s a husband,’ he said. ‘First place they looked. I was there when they interviewed him–he lives over near Moss Side. He was at home all evening with the kids and one of his mates–he talked to Kovacs on the phone just before it happened.’

  ‘Boyfriend?’ Kovacs had separated from her husband.

  Before Burnley could answer, Cass came through the door. She saw Jake and started across, then saw Burnley and her eyes widened in alarm. Jake jerked his head to indicate a table over to the left, outside Burnley’s line of sight.

  Burnley was looking at him with deepening suspicion. ‘You serious about this? Look, mate, if you want all this info, you go to the press office. Or we can come to an arrangement, you know? I’m not mithered either way, but I’m not doing your job for you.’ He put his empty glass down on the bar. ‘Right. I’m off.’

  ‘Okay,’ Jake said. ‘An arrangement. I’ll be in touch.’

  Burnley grinned, and headed for the door. Jake let out his breath. He had been afraid Burnley was going to order another and settle down to a night’s serious drinking. He waited until the other man had gone, then went across to the table where Cass was making herself conspicuous by holding a magazine up in front of her face.

  ‘What the fuck is Mick Burnley doing here?’ she hissed, keeping the magazine in place. ‘He’s a mate of Stuart’s.’ Her boyfriend.

  ‘Having a drink. Relax, he’s gone.’

  She lowered the magazine slowly and looked round the bar as if she was expecting Burnley, or another of his team to be lurking in one of the dark corners. ‘Okay,’ she said, sitting up straighter and smiling at him. ‘I knew you’d have time to meet before you left.’

  He frowned. ‘I thought you’d got something I had to see?’

  She looked at him from under her lashes. ‘Oh, I’ve always got that.’ Registering his lack of response, she sighed. ‘Okay. Wait until you see this–’ She reached into her bag and pulled out a sheaf of papers.

  He took them, keeping his eyes on her face, then looked to see what it was. ‘Christ, Cass…’ She’d copied the Kovacs file for him. Presumably all the papers relating to the case that were held in Manchester were now in his possession. ‘You could get into big trouble.’

  She shrugged. ‘Pleased?’

  He wasn’t. He didn’t want her taking this kind of risk–he didn’t need these details. He’d already got what he wanted from Norris, from Burnley and from Garrick himself. ‘You shouldn’t have done it.’

  ‘Oh, I know you’ll be careful with it,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t do it again, okay? It isn’t worth it.’

  He bought her a glass of wine, resisting her pressure to get a bottle. The conversation–something that normally flowed with no trouble–was halting. ‘What’s wrong?’ she said in the end.

  ‘Sorry.’ He tried to focus. ‘I’ve got the trip on my mind.’ But the truth was, he was disturbed that she’d go to these lengths to engineer a meeting. He was touched by the gesture, but he didn’t want her taking risks on his behalf. She would now see him as under an obligation to her, an obligation he hadn’t asked for and hadn’t wanted.

  He could feel the pressure of time passing, of unfinished tasks lining up and clamouring for his attention. He wanted to be on his own–he had things he wanted to think through and the noise in the bar and Cass’s chat was distracting. It was after eight–he needed to get back.

  She was pissed off when he told her. She’d created the sense of obligation he was trying to resist–she’d put her job on the line to get him something she thought he wanted. Against his better judgement, he agreed to meet her the following evening. He walked her to her car and gave her a quick kiss. ‘Thanks for this,’ he said, indicating the folder. ‘See you tomorrow.’ He walked to his own car and headed back to his flat.

  The feeling of weariness that had dogged him since he had left Nick at the Yevanov house dropped away as he sat down at his desk. He opened the envelope Cass had given him, and spread out the contents. As he skimmed the papers, his eyes snagged on details of the postmortem report that he really didn’t want to read: contusions of the lower lip…petechial haemorrhages…blue-grey discolouration of the face indicating incomplete application of the ligature…petechia on the surface of the heart and oedema in the lungs which suggests the deceased was trying to breathe and couldn’t…

  The killing had been brutal. Whoever did it must have held the dying woman on the end of the wire while she struggled for air.

  There was a report from the scenes of crime team, and various witness statements, including one from Sophia Yevanova’s son, Antoni. Jake read this one more carefully. Yevanov was divorced, with no children. He apparently had a bit of a reputation as a womanizer. The police had dug out details of an affair with a colleague in Brussels, and some university gossip about his relationship with Kov
acs, which he denied categorically. His denial was supported by his secretary, who had dismissed the rumours. There didn’t seem to be anything to back it up, but it was interesting to see the way the police mind worked. Yevanov had been at home the night of Kovacs’ death, working in his study for the earlier part of the evening. His mother had been taken ill later, and he’d sat with her until around midnight.

  What would Sophia Yevanova do if the investigation switched focus from her protégé to her son? Was there any reason why Yevanov would have been secretive if he had been having an affair with Helen Kovacs? She was separated, he was single. He might not want it to become the source of gossip round the university, but it would hardly have been a motive for murder.

  There was also the husband’s statement. Daniel Kovacs claimed that the separation from his wife was amicable, despite evidence of wrangling over the house, and over custody of the children. However, he had been at home with his kids the night his wife was killed. This was supported by his twelve-year-old son, Finn, and by one of his workmates who had called in around eight. Helen Kovacs had rung the house shortly after seven and left a message on the answering machine. He had called her back, using his mobile, and they’d had a brief conversation which, Kovacs admitted, had been none too friendly. Then he’d had a beer with his friend, watched TV with his son, and gone to bed early.

  Jake lit a cigarette and sat back in his chair, summing up the information he’d gleaned from the papers. The husband, the obvious suspect, had been at home, with witnesses, and so had Antoni Yevanov, who may or may not have been involved with Helen Kovacs. Nick had been on the premises, but had no identifiable motive for attacking her, unless he’d succumbed to some kind of psychosis.

  Maybe Kovacs had had a lover who had followed her to the isolated house and garrotted her in a fit of jealous rage…It sounded unlikely. Maybe an intruder had come to the house…armed with a garrotte on the off-chance that he might be caught? Hardly. The scene flashed through Jake’s mind in all its farcical inappropriateness: Would you mind turning your back on me while I put this round your neck…?