by John Dean
‘What’s more,’ said Gallagher, flicking through some papers on the bureau. ‘There’s nothing here either. We’ve got a little desk like this at home and it’s crammed with personal things, but this guy? It’s like he’s a non-person.’
Both officers looked up as a forensics officer clumped down the stairs and entered the living room.
‘Anything?’ asked Gallagher hopefully.
‘Not really.’
Gallagher nodded gloomily and the forensics officer walked out into the hallway and left the cottage.
‘Maybe this is a waste of time,’ said the sergeant. ‘Maybe we’re looking for a connection that doesn’t exist. Maybe it’s a good old fashioned loony out to kill the first person he sees. Wrong time, wrong place.’
‘You’re the second person to have said that today.’
‘There you are then.’
‘And you’re both wrong.’
‘Ah.’
‘This feels deliberate,’ said the inspector, replacing the book on the shelf and walking over to stare out of the window. ‘Someone was out to get Trevor Meredith.’
‘I don’t suppose that you have any evidence to support the theory, by any chance?’
‘Don’t complicate things.’
Gallagher surveyed the back of the inspector’s head for a moment: in the year since he had reluctantly forsaken his beloved London to set up home with his fiancée in Levton Bridge, the sergeant had struggled to come to terms with much about his existence in the northern hills. At times, the silence of the hills themselves threatened to stifle the life out of Matty Gallagher after the bustle of the Capital – he sometimes thought that he would kill to hear a car horn in the middle of the night – but the thing which most exercised his mind was the difficulty he experienced in reading Jack Harris. Wondering now if the inspector was joking – everyone knew that Harris was perfectly capable of cutting corners – the sergeant eyed the DCI uncertainly.
The inspector walked over to sit on the settee. Feeling strangely weary, he remembered that he had not eaten anything for hours apart from a chocolate bar up on the moors. Maybe, he thought, looking over at the sergeant, who had now returned his attention to the bureau, a curry might not be a bad idea after all. It was time the inspector bought a pint for the sergeant.
‘So where do we go now then?’ asked Gallagher, lifting up some of the papers before letting them drop haphazardly: several floated on to the carpet. ‘We’ve got nothing here.’
‘Let’s go through what we do have then.’
‘That shouldn’t take long,’ said the sergeant, settling down in one of the armchairs and flicking through his notebook. ‘Trevor Meredith, forty-two, forty-three next month. Manager, and also a director, of Levton Bridge Dog Sanctuary, a not-for-profit company largely dependent on grants and donations.’
‘I gave them fifty quid when I got Scoot there,’ nodded Harris, gesturing to his dog, whose ears pricked when he heard his name.
‘Then you will know that it’s hardly the kind of place where murderous tensions run high. And nothing we hear about Meredith makes me think anything else. If he did have a secret life, he sure as hell kept it well hidden.’
‘I imagine that’s why it was a secret life.’
‘You know what I mean.’
‘What else do we know about Meredith?’
‘Precious little. He came to Levton Bridge ten years ago – looks like he moved here when he got the manager’s job,’ said the sergeant, flicking over a page of his notebook. ‘Here it is – he started work on October the ninth, 1999. He was made a director three years ago. A reward for loyal service – they’d had four managers in three years before that because the pay was so poor and they were delighted that he had stayed.’
‘Where had been before he came here?’
‘The staff reckon he’d been travelling for a few years.’
‘Travelling where?’
Gallagher looked up as Butterfield walked into the room.
‘Ask the lady yourself,’ he said.
‘They didn’t know,’ said the constable, sitting down in the only vacant armchair and stretching out her legs. ‘One of them reckoned it might have been Europe.’
‘It’s a big place,’ said Harris. ‘Couldn’t they be any more specific?’
‘Not sure anyone was interested, guv.’
‘Doesn’t that strike you as odd?’ said Harris.
‘You know what this place does to people.’
‘Yeah,’ said Gallagher with a sly smile. ‘Half of them get nose bleeds going to Roxham. I pass them sprawled out on the roadside when I drive home. It’s a truly pitiful sight. I stop to help them but what can you do?’
Harris looked as if he was about to remonstrate with his sergeant: Gallagher’s disparaging comments about life in the hills had often been known to irritate people. Harris knew this only too well, having fielded several complaints from irate townsfolk and eventually, following acerbic comments from Supt Curtis, the inspector had found himself warning his sergeant to be more sensitive – but only half-heartedly. Jack Harris appreciated from personal experience how claustrophobic life could be in the division’s hill communities.
Escaping such realities was the reason that, as a young man, Harris had joined the army, to leave behind bad influences and to explore the world beyond the dark horizon of the North Pennines. Even when he left the army after more than a decade’s service, Harris had opted to start his police career to the south, in Manchester, rather than return to Levton Bridge. Eventually, however, the pull of the hills had proved too strong, as he had always known it would, and he had applied for a transfer to his home town. For all his powerful desire to return, Jack Harris had not done so without reservations: he knew that a place where everyone knew everyone’s business could be wearing. Which was why he did not challenge Gallagher’s comment now.
‘Surely,’ said Harris, suddenly aware that the others were looking at him for some kind of response, ‘we must be able to find something. What about his CV, there must be something in there?’
‘What CV?’ asked Butterfield. ‘I went through every file at the dog sanctuary and there isn’t any sign of a CV. His personnel docket in the filing cabinet was empty. No letters, no reports, no nothing. It’s like Trevor Meredith did not exist before he came to Levton Bridge.’
‘Yeah,’ said Gallagher, holding up a sheet of paper. ‘We know how much he paid the gas board but we know virtually nothing about Trevor Meredith the man.’
‘What do we know about the girlfriend? She pop out of thin air as well?’
‘No, there’s plenty on Jasmine Riley,’ said Gallagher, glancing down at his notes. ‘She lived with her mum in Chester while she trained as a legal clerk. Left home when she got a job in Levton Bridge, working at the solicitors in the market-place. Arrived a couple of months after Meredith turfed up.’
‘Now there’s a coincidence. She knew Meredith before she came here?’
‘Seems not,’ said Butterfield. ‘The staff at the sanctuary reckon that they met at a party. They had been together ever since.’
‘Yeah,’ nodded Gallagher, glancing round the room. ‘Her mum said they were going to get married next Spring. Jasmine moved in here not long ago.’
Harris walked over to the window again.
‘So,’ he said, ‘if they were making all those plans, why on earth were they getting out this morning in such a hurry? And why were they travelling separately?’
‘Your guess,’ shrugged Gallagher.
Harris walked back over to the bookcase and reached out for the volume he had been studying earlier: a history of blood sports.
‘I keep coming back to the dog fighting,’ he said. ‘I’ve got this idea that Trevor Meredith decided to do a bit of freelance investigation.’
‘Well, he was damned foolhardy if he was,’ said Gallagher. ‘Those guys can be pretty mean. They’d kill you as easy as….’
The sergeant’s voice tailed off.
‘Indeed,’ said Harris.
Idly, the inspector flicked through the book, giving an exclamation when a piece of paper fluttered on to the floor. Reaching down, he turned it over and read the mobile phone number written on it in what he assumed to be Meredith’s hand, neat and tidy like the man. After showing them the piece of paper, and receiving blank looks, Harris started to dial the number.
‘Are you sure that’s wise?’ said Gallagher dubiously. ‘I mean, what if it’s—?’
Harris waved the protest away and listened for only a fleeting moment then hurriedly hit the cancel button. He looked at the piece of paper in bemusement.
‘Now why,’ he asked softly, ‘would a man who wasn’t even late with his gas bill, have the phone number of Gerry Radford?’
‘Who he?’ asked Gallagher.
‘One of Manchester gangland’s finest. He and I go way back.’
‘Brilliant,’ breathed Butterfield, eyes gleaming as they always did when Jack Harris talked about his experiences with major league criminals: it was, the young detective had always thought, what you joined the police for.
‘So,’ asked Harris thoughtfully, ‘on whose side was Trevor Meredith, do we reckon?’
CHAPTER EIGHT
The two farmers in the pick-up saw the black car’s lights cutting through the night long before the vehicle came into view. Still sitting in the passenger seat, Harry Galbraith reached for his notebook in the glove compartment.
‘About ruddy time,’ he said. ‘Thought we weren’t going to see owt tonight. Have a look at its registration number as it goes past, lad.’
As the car finally appeared round the corner, its headlights illuminated the pick-up truck, dazzling the farmers for a few seconds. The vehicle came to a halt thirty metres away.
‘Do you think they saw us?’ asked Soames anxiously.
The car’s headlights went out.
‘I reckon that answers yer question,’ said Harry.
‘I told you we shouldn’t have done this without the polis.’
Harry Galbraith did not reply but his look betrayed his own anxiety. Two men got out of the car and started to walk towards the pick-up. Their shapes in the gloom suggested to the farmers that both were heavily built. The strangers took up stations either side of the vehicle and the one on the passenger side, a shaven-headed man, put his head down to the window as Harry Galbraith struggled frantically to wind it up.
‘And what might you be doing here?’ asked the man in a quiet voice as he placed a hand on the window to prevent it being wound any further.
‘We’re from Levton Bridge Farmwatch,’ replied Harry, trying to sound calm. ‘We’re working with the polis.’
‘Are you now?’ The man gave a thin smile. ‘And what exactly do you do for the police?’
‘We take the registration numbers of vehicles passing through the valley and pass them on,’ said Harry.
‘And why would you do that?’
‘We’re trying to stop rural crime.’
‘Well there’s a thing,’ said the man, glancing across the roof at his friend with a grin that revealed yellowing teeth. ‘Ain’t that public spirited?’
The other man made no reply.
‘Well now,’ said the shaven-headed man, looking back into the car, his voice suddenly hard-edged. ‘It seems that we have a problem because myself and my business associate here would rather that you did not report our registration number to the police.’
‘All cars get reported,’ said Harry pompously, gaining in confidence a little and ignoring his friend’s gestures to say nothing. ‘You ain’t got nothing to worry about if you ain’t up to no bother.’
‘Which is unfortunate,’ said the man, ‘because we are.’
Harry stared at him, unsure as to what to say. The shaven-headed man took advantage of his confusion, reached into the car and grabbed the farmer’s notebook.
‘ ’Ere,’ said Harry, ‘give that back!’
The man’s reply was to snap out a fist which caught the old man on the side of the face. As Harry reeled in shock, Soames glanced out of his window and saw a flash of metal as a knife appeared in the accomplice’s hand.
‘Bloody hell!’ he exclaimed, turned on the pick-up’s engine and slammed the vehicle into gear.
The pick-up lurched forward, sending the two assailants staggering backwards, the wing mirror clipping the shaven-headed man’s elbow as the vehicle shot out of the field entrance. Soames glanced in his rear-view mirror to see the man give an enraged bellow and, clutching his arm, start running back to his car followed by his accomplice.
‘Are they after us?’ asked Harry anxiously, rubbing the side of his head and glancing down at his hand to see flecks of blood.
‘I told you this were a daft idea,’ said Soames, ramming his foot on to the accelerator, sending the vehicle careering down the road.
‘Won’t this thing go any faster?’ shouted Harry as the vehicle rocked and swayed on reaching 45 m.p.h. He glanced through the side mirror and saw the other car’s headlights flashing repeatedly as the vehicle set off in pursuit. ‘They’re after us.’
‘I’m doing my best,’ exclaimed Soames, hurling the vehicle round a corner, the wheels screeching as they slipped on the damp Tarmac.
Turning round, Harry Galbraith saw the black car appear round the bend, closing rapidly as it gathered speed.
‘Come on, come on!’ he exclaimed, fear in his voice as the headlights dazzled the farmers when the car drew close.
‘What were that?’ cried Soames in alarm as they heard a loud metallic sound when something struck the back of the vehicle.
‘Jesus! He’s firing at us! He’s got a gun!’
Soames threw the pick-up round a sharp left-hand bend, battling frantically with the steering wheel as the vehicle bounced off the grass verge. Glancing in the mirror again, he saw the black car fail to take the corner properly and skid, one of its headlights being extinguished amid a shower of glass as the front of the vehicle delivered a glancing blow to a drystone wall. The black car juddered to a halt and stood motionless for a few seconds. Seizing his opportunity, Soames rammed his foot even harder on to the pick-up’s accelerator and sent the vehicle rocking and rolling into the night.
‘It’s never gone this fast!’ he cried, as the speedometer climbed above 65 m.p.h. and he battled to control the shaking vehicle.
Harry suddenly pointed to his left, to a gap in the wall just before the road crossed a small humpbacked bridge.
‘Theer!’ he shouted. ‘Put the lights out and go theer!’
Plunged into darkness, the pick-up shot through an opening in a wall and on to a bumpy side track. For a few moments, Soames wrestled with the steering wheel as the pick-up entered a small sparsely wooded copse and he tried to steer it between the trees, struggling to see in the darkness. The vehicle lurched violently as it cannoned off one of the trees, a rending sound indicating that the bumper had been torn off. Galbraith looked across his friend and saw, back on the road running parallel, the single headlight of the black car pass by and continue along the main road. Soames gritted his teeth and kept the pick-up careering through the woodland, grimacing as it clipped another tree, the impact threatening to wrench the steering wheel from his shaking hands. With a sudden glistening of water, a stream appeared in front of them and Dennis Soames hit the brakes.
‘No, go o’er it!’ cried Harry Galbraith. ‘Go o’er! They’ll not be able to follow us!’
Soames nodded and gunned the engine again. For a second or two, it seemed as if the juddering vehicle would stall in the stream then it somehow found grip, its tyres spinning on the wet rocks before the vehicle emerged on the far side. Soames hit the brakes and the pick-up slewed to a halt, its wheel sinking into muddy grass. For a few moments, neither man spoke then Harry Galbraith clapped his friend on the shoulder.
‘Well done, lad!’ he said. ‘You should be one of them theer Grand Prix drivers.’
‘I reckon I should be more t
han that, Harry,’ beamed Soames. ‘See, I remembered his registration number!’
‘Bye, Jack Harris will be pleased with you, Dennis lad.’
And together they sat and listened to the pounding of their hearts in the silence of the night.
‘Come on,’ said Harris wearily, glancing at his watch and walking out of Meredith’s living room into the narrow hallway. ‘Not sure we can do much more tonight and I’ve got a nice bottle of Scotch waiting for me back home.’
‘And I might just make that late curry,’ said Gallagher, reaching over the back of the sofa for his overcoat and glancing at Butterfield. ‘Fancy it, Alison?
‘Don’t you want to get back to Roxham?’
‘No point. Julie’s on nights again. She’s still on A&E. Besides, I really could murder a curry.’
‘Yeah, so could I,’ said Butterfield. ‘Hey, if you want to have a couple of jars, you can kip on my floor again.’
‘See how I go.’ Gallagher looked at the inspector. ‘You coming, guv?’
He expected the usual bland refusal but, this time, Jack Harris hesitated.
‘I am sure Scoot would appreciate a bit of chicken,’ said the sergeant, seizing his chance. ‘I could ask Mother Teresa to sort it for you.’
Butterfield looked at him with a perplexed expression on her face and mouthed the words, ‘Mother Teresa?’
‘Tell you later,’ said a grinning Gallagher. ‘What about it then, guv?’
The inspector nodded.
‘Aye, go on then,’ he said, heading for the front door. ‘Why not?’ Bout time we did something like this. Curtis is always banging on about team spirit.’
Gallagher beamed.
‘Oh, while I remember,’ said the inspector, reaching for the front-door handle. ‘Did anyone get hold of the Farmwatch lads?’
‘Damn,’ exclaimed Gallagher, clapping a hand to his mouth. ‘Completely forgot to tell them that, what with the goings-on at the King’s Head and things here, uniform could not spare anyone for tonight.’
Harris stared at him.