A Normal November: The Freeman Files Series: Book 15

by Ted Tayler

  “I’m sure you’ll clarify matters when you speak to Ralph Robinson and Stan Jones,” said Tom. “I imagine you’re calling on Mrs Fryer, too. I wish you well. Can I leave now?”

  “If I think of anything else, I have your number,” said Luke.

  “I’ve only got your office number,” said Tom Spencer with a grin. “If you give me your mobile number, perhaps we can go for a drink sometime?”

  Luke’s mouth suddenly felt dry. Something else he hadn’t expected.

  “I’m engaged,” said Luke. “We haven’t set a date yet.”

  “Good,” said Tom. “That means there’s still hope.”

  Gus Freeman had arrived at the Old Police Station car park as Luke Sherman was parking his car at Gablecross. Neil wasn’t far behind him, and the other three team members made it upstairs to the office a minute before nine o’clock.

  “Will this outfit be too much for a man in his seventies, guv,?” asked Lydia.

  “It would be too much for many men several years younger, Lydia,” said Gus.

  Gus knew Lydia could never permanently tame her wild, red hair, and today she’d given up the fight. Her multi-coloured summer blouse made him wish he hadn’t left his sunglasses in the Focus. At least the black skirt was a mid-calf length, and her kitten-heeled boots only had a moderate three-inch heel.

  Gus decided they could dispense with a defibrillator when they visited Stan Jones this morning.

  “We’ll get going then,” he said. “Is everyone clear on what they’re doing?”

  “Yes, guv,” said Neil. “I’ve never tried Real Ale this early in the day, but needs must.”

  Gus and Lydia were already on their way to the lift.

  “What are you hoping to learn from these three interviews, guv?” asked Lydia. “I appreciate you asking me to tag along today, but what’s my role?”

  “We’ll play it by ear with Stan Jones,” said Gus. “I want more detail on the man who visited the garage at four o’clock. It might be unwise to discount him as having any involvement in the murder. My initial thoughts were that the killer acted alone, but I’ve been wrong before.”

  “The man and woman could have been accomplices,” said Lydia. “His role was to keep watch, and the girl slashed the bicycle tyre. That’s plausible, but if murder is personal, surely it restricts the number of people involved, doesn’t it? Or is that too simplistic?”

  “One man can be the target for many people who have a motive for getting of him,” said Gus. “We have yet to identify the true motive behind Chaloner’s murder. We only discard people from our investigation once we’ve proved beyond any doubt they weren’t involved.”

  “Are you considering a change of car, guv,” asked Lydia as she opened the Focus’s passenger door.

  “It gets me from A to B, Lydia,” said Gus. “That’s good enough for me for the immediate future. We wouldn’t have time to chat about the case if you were driving. My heart would be in my mouth, which tends to restrict my ability to carry on a conversation.”

  “I wonder how Luke is getting on at Gablecross,” asked Lydia.

  Gus didn’t reply. He was hoping Luke wasn’t counting down the days before he drove to London Road to discuss an impending transfer to the Midlands with Geoff Mercer.

  Gus parked the Focus outside Stan Jones’s terraced house at a quarter past ten. Matt Merchant and his two employees were hard at work in the garage across the road.

  Matt spotted Gus and nodded a tentative greeting. Lydia rang the doorbell on the weathered wooden front door and then waited for the homeowner to answer. The door edged open halfway.

  “What do you want?” asked Stan Jones. “I’m expecting the police any minute. Clear off.”

  “We are the police,” said Lydia. “Here’s my card. Mr Freeman here is my boss.”

  “You had better come in,” said Stan. “You didn’t look like any police officer I’ve met.”

  “Ms Barre is a plain clothes detective,” said Gus, tongue firmly in cheek as Stan led them into a dark, depressing front room.

  Gus had visited hundreds of similar properties over the years. Two-up, two-down had served many families well in Victorian times. If they saw the rest of the property, they would find a kitchen and utility room at the rear, with two bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs. To make up for the lack of a front garden, there would be a long narrow strip of land at the rear useful for many things: a small garden shed, a vegetable plot, and a patch of grass for rare moments of leisure time. Today, it needed to house several bins for waste and recycling.

  Stan sat in his chair by the window. Gus and Lydia perched on a worn sofa. When the uniformed officers sat here during the house-to-house, they would have accepted that Stan had a decent view of the garage from that chair. When he told them he saw an Afro-Caribbean man, between twenty-five and thirty years of age, peering through the window, it wouldn’t have seemed odd.

  Those interviews took place on Tuesday evening. The heavy velour curtains would have been closed, and the overhead light switched on. The TV may well have been on in the corner to Gus’s right, illuminating the room, even if Stan had muted the sound.

  This morning, in early September, with the curtains drawn back as far as they would go, the street on this side was still in shadow. The living room was dark, and the grey net curtains at the window didn’t improve matters. At four o’clock on a wet November afternoon, Stan Jones might have been mistaken. Not about the ethnicity of the person he saw, but the age range.

  “We’d like to run through the statement you made to the police two years ago,” said Gus. “Do you remember what that related to, Mr Jones?”

  “I’d forgotten about it until someone rang me the other day,” said Stan. “He reminded me that I spoke to a young person in uniform and then a detective. It was when Mr Chaloner died across the road. Nothing like that had ever happened in this neighbourhood. Jeanie and I moved here when we got married, raised our son, and even after cancer took her from me too soon, I’d never felt in any danger.”

  “Murder is rare,” said Gus. “You told the police you saw a man looking through the garage window at four o’clock. How could you be sure of the time?”

  “I was watching the horse racing on the box, and the four o’clock at Newcastle had just got underway.”

  “Had you backed a runner?” asked Gus.

  Stan’s laugh quickly became a harsh cough.

  “Not on my pension,”

  “What made you look out of the window?”

  “A sudden movement. A black bloke was jumping up and down over the road. He was trying to see inside the garage.”

  “Had you been sat there all afternoon?” asked Gus.

  “I’ve got nowhere else to be,” said Stan. “These arthritic hips of mine are worse in cold, damp weather.”

  “Why were you so certain he was in his twenties?” asked Lydia.

  “Is that what I said?” asked Stan.

  “You described his clothing as dark, and he looked to be between twenty-five and thirty,” said Gus.

  “Everyone dresses alike, don’t they? I reckon he wore jeans, trainers, and a dark jacket like they all do. It was raining, and he was only there for a minute or two. He had dreadlocks under the striped hat he wore; I remember that. When he jumped up the last time, his hat almost fell off. He was fixing that when the headlights of the car blinded me for a few seconds. A girl picked him up. He ran across the road and got in the passenger side. She stopped there, just past my window. By the time I got out of this chair to see anything, they were gone.”

  “What made you think it was a girl?” asked Lydia.

  “Long dark hair, that’s what I saw,” said Stan.

  “She stopped the car past your window,” said Lydia. “So. the only time you saw her was while she slowed after her headlights blinded you?”

  “A few seconds at most,” said Gus. “Maybe the driver didn’t own a striped beanie.”

  “You’ve lost me,” said Stan. />
  “The driver could have been another Afro-Caribbean man,” said Lydia.

  CHAPTER 9

  Gus wondered whether this case was taking another unexpected twist.

  Instead of getting Stan Jones to add to their knowledge about the mystery four o’clock visitor, they could have discovered that Stan’s eyesight might be unreliable.

  To compound that problem, Stan might have opened a new line of enquiry. Why were two Afro-Caribbean males interested in what was going on at Chaloner’s garage?

  Lydia realised Gus was miles away, and Stan Jones was staring out of the window.

  “Do you do a lot of people watching?” she asked.

  “It passes the time of day,” said Stan.

  “It’s half-past ten,” said Lydia. “Do you fancy a coffee or a cup of tea?”

  Stan went to get out of his chair, but Lydia stopped him.

  “You sit and chat with Mr Freeman,” she said. “I’m a plain clothes detective. If I couldn’t find what I need in your kitchen, I wouldn’t be much use, would I?”

  “A cup of tea for me. Miss, two sugars, please,” said Stan.

  The conversation brought Gus out of his reverie.

  “Stan was looking out of the window, guv,” hinted Lydia as she headed for the kitchen.

  Gus latched on to what she was driving at.

  “Were you sat in your chair in the morning on the day Richard Chaloner died?”

  “I expect so,” said Stan.

  “Harry Simpkins told us there was an argument on the forecourt, close to eleven o’clock. Does that ring a bell?”

  “That would have been Eddie Dolman,” said Stan. “He’s an argumentative beggar.”

  “What does Eddie do for a living, Stan? Any ideas?” asked Gus, fully alert now.

  “A painter and decorator ever since he left school,” said Stan. “Eddie comes from Pinehurst.”

  “The same as Richard Chaloner,” said Gus. “Perhaps they were at school together.”

  “I heard they spent a lot of time together, especially when they were younger,” said Stan.

  Lydia returned with two coffees and a cup of tea.

  “Did you see much of the argument?” asked Gus.

  “I saw it, but I didn’t hear what they said,” said Stan. “Eddie seemed het up over something, but Richard kept his cool, as always. After several minutes, Eddie got in his van and sped off up the street. I haven’t seen him since.”

  “Where do you eat your lunch, Stan?” asked Lydia.

  “I bring it in here on a tray and watch Bargain Hunt, then the news. I don’t always watch the whole bulletin if it’s boring or if the first race on the other channel is about to start.”

  “So, it’s possible you were sitting here between one and two in the afternoon?” asked Lydia.

  “I might have needed the loo,” said Stan. “But I would have been here most of the time.”

  “Do you know Mrs Fryer, one of your neighbours?” asked Gus.

  “Of course I know her. Cath got on famously with my Jeanie.”

  “Cath tells us a young man was standing on the pavement outside her house when she got home from work. Did you see anybody?”

  “I can’t say I did. Mind you, Cath’s house is a few doors away, towards Manchester Road. I wouldn’t have seen him unless he walked ten or fifteen yards this way or crossed the street.”

  “Has your son called on you lately, Stan?” asked Gus.

  “He’s a busy man, Mr Freeman,” said Stan. “He’ll drop by when he needs a free bed for the night.”

  “Where does he live?” asked Gus.

  “I don’t have an address for him I’m certain of,” said Stan. “He rented flats in Swindon after he left home, places that were cheap and near the firm where he worked. Then he changed jobs without a word to us and went truck driving. The further he could get away from this town, the better.”

  “Why Stan?” asked Lydia.

  “You haven’t met him, have you?” said Stan.

  “We heard about the accident,” said Gus.

  “That was part of it,” said Stan. “He didn’t want to watch his mother suffer was another.”

  “Where’s the firm based he works for now?” asked Gus.

  “He’s an independent trucker,” said Stan. “My lad has his own tractor unit. He’ll hitch it to whatever needs transporting to anywhere for anybody. All he’s interested in is getting on the open road and away from people.”

  “You’re telling us Stan doesn’t have a fixed address,” said Gus. “He’ll sleep in his cab or book into a hotel or motel, in whichever part of the continent he’s in.”

  Stan nodded.

  “This is his home address for official stuff,” said Stan. “He drops in every few months to pick up his post. I asked him to give me a forwarding address, but he shrugged and said there was no point. He was never in one place long enough to put down roots.”

  “Stan hasn’t married then?” asked Lydia.

  “That was the other reason Stan started trucking and moved as far away as he could,” said Stan. “She broke his heart.”

  “The relationship ended,” said Lydia. “That must have been dreadful for both of you. Was your wife still alive?”

  “Jeanie passed in 2005, but she was ill for a long while before that. Stan moved away from Swindon after he started driving the lorries. He’d had a miserable childhood despite the love we gave him. Kids at school bullied and taunted him. As he grew older and started work, the scarring from the accident faded a little, and Stan grew a beard to hide the worst of it. He met Tara when he was working nights at the factory. A quiet thing she was, but they got on. Stan asked her to marry him, and she said yes. He saved for an engagement ring, and they set a date. I’ll never forget the look on Jeanie’s face when Stan told her the news. Jeanie was determined to stay with us long enough to see them get married.”

  “What happened?” asked Lydia.

  “We stood in the registry office, waiting, for over an hour,” said Stan. “Tara’s family was there. It was only Tara and her father who were missing. She couldn’t go through with it. Stan was devastated. He couldn’t understand what he’d done wrong. The scars on his hand and face hadn’t horrified Tara. They’d been seeing one another for two years. That was the start of it. Jeanie went downhill; she gave up the fight. I couldn’t help her, nor could I help Stan. He started going on longer trips across Europe and not coming here so often. The only time he stayed with me for more than a couple of days was after Jeanie died.”

  “How did you contact him?” asked Gus.

  “What do you mean?” asked Stan.

  “You told us you don’t have an address for him. And he spent far longer periods away from Swindon than in the past. So how did he learn his mother had died?”

  “It beats me, Mr Freeman,” said Stan. “I was in such a state when Jeanie went that it never registered. Stan turned up three or four days after she died and stayed with me until after the funeral. I put a notice in the Advertiser. Maybe he kept in touch that way.”

  “Have you seen your son this year, Stan?” asked Lydia.

  “I must have done, Miss, but don’t ask when it was. April perhaps, he likes the Spring.”

  That made sense thought Gus. It was a popular time of year for official documentation.

  So, young Stan got jilted at the altar. An unpleasant experience for a young man who had already suffered more than enough.

  “You could have done with Stan being at home when the police were on your doorstep every couple of days, Stan,” said Gus.

  “I never saw hide nor hair of him after Easter that year, Mr Freeman,” said Stan. “It must have been Christmas before his trucking brought him this way again. He leaves his truck in a lorry park on the outskirts and catches a bus into the town centre. Then, when he’s ready, he finds his way back here and sleeps in his old bedroom. I always ask him to stay with me for longer, but he says he needs to keep working.”

  “Thank
s for the coffee, Stan,” said Gus. “We need to visit someone else now. You’ve been a great help. We’ve wanted to name that man arguing with Richard for two years. It’s a shame nobody asked you before. As for the two people in the car, the information you added today could prove useful.”

  Stan Jones followed them to the door and watched Gus and Lydia drive away. He closed the door, and as he returned to his chair, he opened a drawer on the dresser next to the television. Why he’d kept the wedding invitation, he couldn’t fathom. Stan wondered what had happened to Tara Laing. She’d never got in touch afterwards in person. Just a sympathy card in the post after Jeanie passed.

  Stan sighed and resumed his place next to the window. Things hadn’t been the same since Saturday, the eighth of November 2003. If things had been different, he could have had grandchildren running around in this house by now if Stan and Tara had stayed in Swindon.

  “Eddie Dolman, guv,” said Lydia as they drove towards Ralph Robinson’s address. “At last, we’ve got a genuine lead to follow. How many blokes can there be with dreadlocks in Swindon? Surely, they shouldn’t be that hard to find. Why would they be interested in the garage, anyway?”

  “I haven’t got a clue,” said Gus. “It’s something to look at this afternoon after we get back to the office. I want to stop before we reach Farnborough Road to call Alex. Now we know the name of the man with the van, we needn’t dig into the memberships of those organisations.”

  “It will be good to get confirmation, guv,” said Lydia, “and our two friends from the afternoon visit could turn up on those lists too,”

  “I can’t see them being into folk music or real ale, Lydia,” said Gus.

  “Perhaps there’s another connection, guv.”

  As they approached Coate Water, Gus parked in a lay by and called the office. He passed the details to Alex of their conversation with Stan Jones.

  Gus was preparing to drive to Ralph Robinson’s house when his phone rang.

  “Luke,” he said. “Everything okay? How was it with Tom Spencer? A waste of time?”

  “Not in the slightest, guv,” said Luke. “It was most revealing. Are you with Ralph Robinson yet?”