by Chris Simms
Seeing her eyes beginning to wander, he cut off his reply, claiming he'd had enough of work. Instead he asked her how the diving was going.
Immediately Charlotte perked up. Taking a large gulp from the ice-cold bottle of Seybrew, she began telling him how great it had been gliding along the bottom of the pool, listening to the rumble of bubbles as they flooded over her ears. Even as Tom sat back, content just to watch his wife describe something that so obviously delighted her, office issues were pinging up in his head like emails arriving on a computer.
After a few more beers they ambled back along the softly lit path to their bungalow. Inside the air conditioning was gently humming and Charlotte headed straight for the bedroom. Tom paused at the desk in the dining room and sat down to write out some reminders for himself the next day. A few minutes later Charlotte called out, 'Are you coming to bed?'
'Yeah, in a second, 'Tom replied. But the stress he was under had obliterated any desire for sex and he knew he was deliberately delaying. Anxiety flickered in his stomach. The thought of slipping into bed next to her had only ever created a primal urge welling up inside him. Until now. He leaned forward and pressed his forehead against the desk in frustration. What was happening to him? By the time he wandered through to the bedroom his wife was already asleep.
While Sean took Charlotte out on her first open-water dive the next day, Tom carried out a fruitless search for a printer who could help them. 'What about America? What's the score over there?' Tom asked Ges.
'I've got an email back from a firm in San Francisco. They do wraps for a lot of film promotions round Hollywood. It looks promising – I'll forward it on to you. Thing is, with the time differences, they're opening up just as we're going home: and I've got to take my mum to hospital this evening.'
Tom didn't hesitate. 'Put everything on email, I'll contact them myself. So when can I ring them?'
There was silence as Ges worked out the time difference. 'Nine in the morning for them is nine in the evening for you.'
Great, thought Tom; there goes my night with Charlotte. 'OK,I'll call them as soon as they open. How's other stuff? Have we signed up any more merchandise promotions?'
'Julie's chasing Kellogg's. Oh, and there's something come through for Ian from X-treme, a chewing gum company. They're doing a special limited edition flavour for the Games. Free samples with a handout for a holiday competition at Piccadilly station. I'll put it in the crate on your desk.'
'Crate?'
'Yeah. Your inbox isn't big enough.'
Tom tried to laugh.
Charlotte got back after lunch, ecstatic about the dive. 'It was like being in a big aquarium, Tom. All those fish you see in pet shops – striped ones, luminous blue ones, they're all out there. Shoals of them. And there were Moray eels, poking their heads out of crevices in the coral, doing a weird opening and shutting thing with their lower jaw. Like that politician off the telly. You know, Gordon someone.'
Only hearing her last comment, Tom turned away from the sea and looked at her. 'Gordon Brown?'
'Yeah, that's him.'
'What's he got to do with your dive?'
'Nothing. It's the Moray...' her enthusiasm abruptly vanished. 'Oh, never mind, you've obviously got more important things on your mind. Office stuff, by any chance?'
Tom chose to ignore the mocking tone of her voice. 'We need to speak to a printer in San Francisco. Thing is, they only open when it's nighttime here, so we need to eat early this evening. I have to get on to them as soon as possible.'
'Fine,' said Charlotte, picking up a magazine and walking off towards a sun lounger on the deserted beach.
Tom called the San Francisco printer the moment it reached nine. A receptionist dealt with him at first, before putting him through to the voicemail of the new business director. Reluctantly Tom left a message, then sat by the phone listening to guests come and go in the foyer outside. Just before midnight his mobile went and he eagerly picked it up.
'Tom Benwell? Al Nevitt here. I understand you got some urgent business to discuss. How can I help you?'
Tom sat back in the seat, relieved to be speaking with someone who sounded so friendly. Al worked quickly and efficiently, reporting back within the hour that, with payment in advance, they could take care of both jobs within days.
Tom held up a fist in silent triumph – at last the worst of their disaster was over. He put the phone down and wandered out into the reception. The area was lit by a small lamp behind the desk and another in the corner. A couple of moths were buzzing lazily around them, watched hungrily by a smattering of geckos on the walls. The elderly night porter was sitting behind the desk, a book open on his lap. Looking at the clock, Tom was surprised to see it was the early hours of the morning. He stepped round to the customer's side of the desk, a smile on his face. Lifting an imaginary bottle to his lips, Tom said, 'A beer, please?'
'Biere?' the man replied. 'Oui.' He unlocked the fridge to his right and took out a bottle of Seybrew then prised off the lid with the opener mounted on the wall.
'Merci,' answered Tom, before giving his bungalow number and walking through the open doors and into a night lit so brightly by the moon that he cast a dark shadow across the silvery lawn. He sat down on the grass, rotating his shoulders to ease the ache in his neck. Then, almost reverently, he shut his eyes and raised the chilled bottle to his lips. As he tilted his head back, he wished every sip could taste as magical as the first.
Opening his eyes, he saw the night sky above him shimmering with an immense spray of stars. They twinkled with such intensity it seemed strange to Tom they weren't making any noise. Instead the canopy just hung there, incredibly vibrant yet utterly quiet.
He lay back and stared upwards, making out layer upon layer of stars, misty washes of faint ones lying behind brighter clusters, mind-numbing distances between them. He had never, apart from a few vague memories of childhood camping holidays, seen a sky like it. A sense of profoundness filled him and he felt on the verge of some revelation: as if the heavens themselves were about to speak. But the sky just carried on sparkling, as it had done since the dawn of time and as it would do for long after he was reduced to mere particles of dust.
After a while he began to try and spot which clusters of stars might form signs of the zodiac or other constellations he had heard about. Thinking back to those camping holidays he recalled that the only thing he could ever spot was the saucepan-shaped grouping of seven stars known as The Plough.
After shuffling round through three hundred and sixty degrees he eventually located it. The constellation was much lower in the sky than he expected and standing on its end. Of course, thought Tom, reasoning that being far nearer to the equator must have a bearing on the constellation's relative position in the sky. He began walking across the lawn, taking a shortcut through the palm trees for his bungalow. As he stepped between the first two trunks a web enveloped his head. It felt strong enough to trap a large bird. He stopped in his tracks, realizing that the owner of the structure couldn't be far away. Carefully he stepped backwards, relieved to feel the sticky strands slowly springing away from his face. Only when he was fully clear did he dare to look up, slowly making out the spider's black silhouette hanging like a bad omen against the glittering sky.
Sucking his teeth, Sly leaned forward in the chair in front of his widescreen TV. 'Seriously, they were trying to ram me off the fucking road. One of those big Range Rovers you see on the motorways. Souped to fuck because it caught me in no time.'
Dan nodded away.
'So this pig is trying to slam me into the wall all the way along Wilmslow Road. We get to a sharp bend and I see that they've only got a stinger set up ahead. Two vans, filth everywhere. I take the gap between these two traffic islands at sixty, car nearly flips, just get it under control and shoot down the side of this pub. Now I'm on a little narrow road, dark as fuck. It's only a dead fucking end. This Range Rover is still coming at me, so I smash the Audi into a post, jump out, fli
ck him a V and sprint off down the path. End up on the banks of this river, lungs bursting, this pig still after me. Like being chased by the fucking Terminator. I run halfway over the bridge, climb up and shout at him, “Fuck you and fuck your mum.” Then I jumped.' He sat back and crossed his arms.
'Nah,' said Dan. 'That's how you got away? You jumped in the river?'
Sly nodded. 'I knew he didn't have the bottle to go after me. And I had my Helly Hansen on. It trapped the air like a life jacket. I just bobbed off down the river.'
'Where the fuck to?'
'Dunno. I floated for a while watching the cop-copter flying around with its searchlight on in totally the wrong place. Climbed out after a bit, walked over a few fields to this estate, wired a shitty old Astra and drove home.'
Dan held up a fist and they pressed their knuckles together. 'Safe, man. They're gonna love hearing that one in the Athenaeum.'
The prospect of making an impression with Manchester City's firm thrilled Sly. 'So what's on the list tonight?'
'Mercs,' Dan answered, getting up.
They had got out on to the Mancunian Way when Sly said, 'Let's go back to Didsbury. I want to check on that Audi address again. If his insurance company are any good he might already have a replacement one.'
Dan kept looking at the road in front. 'You sure after last time?'
Sly nodded, enjoying the feeling of recklessness. 'The pigs won't still be there. Besides which, the Audi guy owes me.'
'How?'
'I had to chuck my Rockports away after that swim. That guy is going to pay for them with his car.'
'You developing a vendetta against this guy? Remember Sly, this is business.'
Sly just chuckled.
As the car passed in front of Tom Benwell's house both men saw the driveway was empty.
'No one home,' Dan stated, starting to accelerate away.
Sly held up a hand. 'Pull in. It could be in his garage.'
'Since when did we start breaking into garages?'
'Since tonight. Now fucking pull in.'
Sly walked up the driveway and round the side of the garage. Cupping a hand over the end of the torch, he turned it on and held it against the window, but a tarpaulin or something similar was shoved up against the glass, obstructing his view in. Sly's eyes narrowed with irritation as he went round to the front of the garage and examined the lock. Nothing a decent screwdriver wouldn't take care of, he thought.
Chapter 5
31 October 2002
Jon's mind drifted back to the previous night, when he had stood on Tom's empty driveway. He still couldn't believe that several months had passed since Tom's Audi had reversed out of the same driveway and he'd chased it through Didsbury. The fact that the little shit had escaped him still caused an angry throbbing in Jon's head. He knew that he shouldn't dwell on his failure, but he had been so close to catching the thief. So close.
He sighed, thinking about the Sunday evening when they'd called in at Tom's office and disturbed the shifty-looking bloke with the thick glasses. Creepy George. He decided to drive back to the office later and see if the man knew what was going on.
A sudden gust whipped raindrops against the incident room's window and Jon blinked at the noise, his reverie broken. It was his least favourite time of year – the remnants of autumn still littered the city and the clean, hard cold of winter hadn't yet set in.
Turning round, he stepped out from behind his desk and said, 'Outside Enquiry Team. Door to door enquiries for the street. Anyone unusual seen entering or leaving the victim's house that morning, any strange cars parked on the road. You know the score. I'll take the neighbour – the one who shares a driveway with the victim's house. She mentioned some stuff to me yesterday, so I'll follow it up.'
He glanced at a notebook before continuing. 'We also need to statement her friends and associates. With the exception of the three other band members, we'll hold off taking fingerprints and DNA swabs, unless forensics come up with something specific. First thing is to interview and eliminate the other three band members. Probable scenario here is that the victim willingly let her killer into the house, so it seems she knew him. All the band members were at her house that evening – in fact they were the last people to see her alive. According to Phil Wainwright, they all left together. What we need to ascertain is this: did any of them return to her house later? Either Phil, her ex, or maybe one of the other two if she had something going on the side with them. One other thing Phil Wainwright mentioned was that Polly had been receiving the occasional call on her mobile which she was being very secretive about.' He turned to the office manager. 'Have we got her phone records yet?'
'Arriving today, Boss.'
It was going to take a while to get used to being called that. 'Right, any thoughts or questions so far?'
There were plenty of frowns from members of the Outside Enquiry Team as everyone looked at their notes. Finally a young officer spoke up. 'Who was she going to go travelling with? A woman in her early twenties – she probably wasn't setting off on her own.'
'Good point. Everyone put that question down on the list. Right, back here for four thirty.'
He shut his notebook so the pages slapped together and everyone jumped to their feet.
Heather Rayne tied back her hair in a loose ponytail and began wiping down the beech worktops in her kitchen. The IT training sessions she ran for Kellogg's in Manchester didn't start until late morning on a Thursday so she liked to use the couple of free hours to give her house a quick clean.
As she opened the microwave up and began scrubbing away at the spatters of dried baked bean sauce on its sides, she considered her next Cancer Relief marathon. It wasn't due for another two months and her training regime was going very well. Now the evenings were darker she had to rely on the treadmills at the gym; but when there weren't any other people waiting for the machine, she could happily notch up twenty kilometres.
Mopping the kitchen floor, a thought suddenly occurred to her. She could use her Thursday mornings to get in a decent road run. But that, she reflected, would mean doing all her cleaning in the evenings. Heather didn't like upsets in her weekly routine. When they had moved the meetings in her local Conservative club to a Thursday it had really irritated her; not least because it meant recording ER and watching it on a Sunday instead.
Now in her bedroom she gathered up the assortment of shoes scattered in the corner. All but her knee-high leather boots went on the rack under the window. The boots were carried over to the wardrobe and placed inside, beneath the black PVC costume hanging there. She wiped a smear of dried saliva from its hem, smiling at the memories of when she had last worn it and looking forward to the next time it would make an appearance.
She glanced at her watch as if the wait shouldn't be a long one, and the chimes of her front door bell rang out.
Opening up, she looked at the suited man standing there. He moved the briefcase to his other hand and said, 'Miss Rayne?'
At Berrybridge Road, Jon parked in the space nearest to number fifteen. Avoiding the puddles of rain dotting the driveway, he noticed the crime scene tape had been repositioned so that the neighbour had full access to her front door. Parked across the driveway with its front bumper pressed up against the tape was a Subaru Impreza.
Jon knocked on the front door and a man with a shaved head and shiny black leather jacket answered. He took one glance at Jon and shouted back into the house, 'Sue, it's for you.'
The man stepped past without a word and Jon could smell his furtiveness. The woman appeared in the doorway, arms folded.
Jon opened with a smile. 'I hope it wasn't too much trouble yesterday.'
'No,' she conceded reluctantly.
'Could I ask you a few questions about your neighbour – Polly Mather?'
'I knew this would happen,' she complained, stepping backwards to let him in.
The layout of the house was the mirror image of Polly's. In the kitchen piles of baby clothes were stacked o
n the table and an ironing board was set up in the corner. She motioned for him to sit.
Getting out his notebook, Jon looked at a pair of pixie-sized socks. 'How old's little Liam?'
Guessing correctly that his interest was feigned, she answered abruptly. 'Year and a bit. Can we get this done? He's due awake in another half hour. I haven't even started this bastard pile.' She placed a T-shirt on the ironing board, picked up the iron and pressed it with a hiss into the material.
Jon dropped his grin, knowing she would see that as fake too. 'OK, how was Polly as a neighbour?'
'Bloody noisy. Too much music. Late at night, in the mornings – didn't matter when. But I suppose it doesn't, when you're on stuff.'
'Stuff?'
'I don't know. Pills and that, I should think.'
'What makes you say that?'
'Well, look at her for a start. No one arrives home in the early hours and keeps going through 'til morning if they're not.'
'She'd do this on her own?'
'I wish. She'd bring back all sorts. Those band members, clubber types like her. All sorts. She must have bloody handed out invites round town.'
Jon groaned inwardly. The investigation looked like it might run and run after all. 'How about the day before yesterday? It appears she'd had a few round that evening.'
'That wasn't too bad. They kept the music down. I heard the front door shut at around midnight. The ones she was in the band with.'
'You saw them leave?'
'No – heard them. Liam woke up wanting a bottle. His room overlooks the street.' Another hiss as she ran the iron over a tiny sweatshirt.
'How many voices did you hear?'
'Three, maybe four. More than two, anyway.'
'How about the next morning? Did you see or hear anyone leave her house?'
'No.'
'When I was here, you were just getting back from somewhere. What time had you gone out?'