by Ernesto Lee
The cheeky little shit is mocking me, and I can feel my temperature rising.
“Just because I’m your father and you think you have something over me, don’t think I won’t kick you around this room. How did you know where to find me?”
There is a short but noticeable pause, and then he smiles and raises his eyebrows.
“I phoned Grandma McMillan. I told her that I was meant to be meeting up with you but that I had lost your phone number.”
Now I am absolutely livid. “You, rang my mother! How the hell did you get her number?”
“Your mother, but technically my grandmother, Sean! And don’t get your knickers in a twist. We met her at your commendation ceremony. She swapped numbers with my mum. We had a lovely old chat about how proud she was of you and how you were working a special case in Tyevale.”
If he wasn’t my son and it wasn’t against the law, I could quite happily throttle Ben right now, but Catherine could be back from Spalding at any time and I am more concerned about getting him out of here.
“Well, Detective Ben, ten out of ten for ingenuity, but now you need to detect your way back to the train station and piss off back to London and wait like I asked you to.”
“Nah, that’s not gonna happen,” he cockily replies. “This case looks like an interesting one and I want in.”
I hadn’t noticed before, but the second copy of the case file is not on the bed where I had left it earlier and I look back to Ben.
“Where the hell is it, Ben? You had no right to go through a classified police case file. I’ve a good mind to have you locked up until this case is over.”
The file is pushed down the back of the sofa and Ben lifts it out and places it onto the coffee table.
“The file is perfectly safe, Sean. You left in on the bed and I was worried that the cleaner might throw it away or look inside. I was doing you a favor. It’s not my fault that it fell on the floor and all the statements fell out. What was I supposed to do?”
“You were supposed to wait in London, that’s what you were bloody well supposed to do,” I reply. “There is no way that I am going to let you interfere in my case, Ben. You need to get the hell out of here before Catherine gets back.”
“Yeh, that would be interesting, Sean. How would you explain my being here to her? Do you think she would see the family resemblance if I pointed it out?”
The cocky little bastard knows that he has me in a corner, but before I can answer again my phone rings and my argument becomes irrelevant. Catherine is fifteen minutes away and is checking where I am. I hang up the call and turn back towards Ben. He knows that he has won this time, but I don’t have any choice.
“Try not to look so smug, Ben. You can travel with me tonight, but there are conditions. This is not a game and you need to understand that what we do in the past can have a major impact on the future. You stick with me and you say nothing, and you do nothing unless I tell you to. Is that understood?”
He nods his agreement and then asks where and when we should meet.
“I haven’t figured that out yet. I’ll call you later with the details. Now get up and make yourself scarce. I don’t want Catherine seeing you. Come on, get the hell out of here!”
“But where should I go?” he splutters. “What am I meant to do with myself until this evening?”
I shrug my shoulders. “Not my problem, Ben. You’re the genius. I’m sure you will work something out. Now get a move on before I change my mind.”
He stands up to leave and is just about to open the door when I call him back. “Hold on, Ben, you can’t travel like that. Wait there a minute. We’re both about the same size. I have just the thing for you.”
I gather up my outfit from last night and stuff the jacket, the bellbottoms, and the wooly turtleneck into a plastic bag.
I hand over the bag and the platform boots to Ben and his chin drops to the floor. “What the hell! You’re not serious are you, Sean?”
“Do you see me laughing, Ben? This is what you are wearing, and it’s not open for negotiation. Now make yourself scarce and keep out of sight until I call you later. Close the door behind you.”
While I had been arguing with Ben, another message had come in from DCI Morgan, ‘I need to speak to you, Sean. Call me as soon as you can’. I tuck the case files under one of my pillows and sit down on the bed to call him. The call connects and after three rings, Kevin Morgan’s familiar voice comes onto the line.
“Sean, thanks for calling me.”
“It’s my pleasure, sir. There’s really not much to report, though, at this stage. We met the surviving family members early this morning, but so far we have …”
“Sean, hold on please,” Morgan interrupts. “I’m not looking for a case update. I need you to get yourself back here tomorrow morning for a couple of hours. The boys from Anti-corruption have a question in relation to the Network case that they want to ask you about. I’m sure it’s something and nothing but come into the office at 10 tomorrow morning so that we can clear it up and let you get back to work.”
When Anti-corruption is involved there is no such thing as something and nothing, but policy will have dictated that Morgan can’t tell me very much prior to the meeting.
“Should I be worried, sir?” I ask him.
“Not at all, Sean. Just a storm in a teacup, I should imagine. Ten tomorrow morning, lad. Don’t keep AC waiting. I will meet you when you get here.”
This is Morgan’s way of telling me that the conversation is over. A second later, the call drops, and I am left to guess what the hell I am going to be asked about tomorrow. I am weighing up the pros and cons of calling him back when the decision is taken out of my hands by a knock on the door.
Without waiting for an invitation, Catherine walks into my room and sits down where Ben had been sitting just a few minutes ago.
“Wow! This cushion is nice and warm, Sean. I hope you haven’t been shining it with your ass and watching daytime TV all day while I’ve been working?”
“Nope, I just got back here myself, Cath. How did you get on in Spalding? Any problems with the local plod?”
“All good, boss,” she replies. “A flash of my badge and a flick of the hair was enough to have those boys eating out of my hand.”
“So, go on then, what did you find out?”
“Well, you were right about the finances – or should I say lack of finances. Joanna doesn’t appear ever to have worked and has no discernible income and Sir David stopped drawing his parliamentary salary in 1976. Since then the only regular payments either of them seem to have received are the basic state pension.”
“So pretty much penniless then?” I ask her.
“No, far from it actually. Both of their bank accounts are extremely healthy. Your hunch about Eddie Wells was spot on. I made a few calls and had a search done on the land registry. On March 20th, 1972, less than a week after Lucy went missing, Eddie sold his farm and all his land apart from a few hectares. Two days later on March 22nd, he made two large cash deposits into ... yep, you’ve guessed it … into Joanna and Sir David’s bank accounts.”
“How large, Cath?”
“Two hundred thousand pounds into Sir David’s account and five hundred and forty thousand pounds into Joanna’s account.”
“Bloody hell, that must have been a fortune in 1972!”
Cath smiles at me and checks her notes. “I checked up on the current value using an online inflation calculator. If it’s right, then we are talking about the equivalent of nearly seven million quid today, Sean.”
“Bloody hell! Of course, this doesn’t necessarily mean that they killed Lucy, but it does almost certainly answer the question of why Joanna ended up marrying a dribbling halfwit.”
It also almost certainly gives me the answer to how Sir David managed to get the loan sharks off his back.
“That’s not everything, Sean,” Cath says. “You remember how Joanna reacted to your question about the house?”
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br /> “Yes, of course. How could I forget?”
“Well, it turns out that it was more than just family pride. Joanna has more reason than most to be protective of the property. On August 23rd, 1972, Sir David transferred the title deeds for the house and all his land at Colevale into Joanna’s name. She owns the entire estate, one-hundred percent.”
“This just doesn’t add up, Cath. Why would he do that? He was still a relatively young man and a serving member of parliament in 1972. It doesn’t make any sense.”
“I was trying to make sense of it myself on the way back here, boss, but the only things that seem to make any sense are that Sir David was in debt and Joanna persuaded Eddie to help, or that Eddie was being blackmailed by Joanna over something. Both scenarios are full of holes, though. Why blackmail Eddie and then marry him? Joanna already had the money before the wedding and why did Sir David transfer everything to Joanna? Was it him that was being blackmailed?”
Cath doesn’t know how close she might be to the truth, but I can’t tell her what I know just yet. I nod and tell her that I’m as confused as she is and then I ask about the inquest and autopsy reports.
“There is a 24-hour turnaround time on those, boss. I’ve asked the coroner’s office to courier them up to us. Hopefully they should be with us sometime tomorrow.”
Cath has had a good day and the delay in getting the reports from the coroner is not a big issue. Cath is also keen to hear my news and I take her through my meeting with the Oxfam cougar. For the most part, my news is unsurprising and concurs with what we know already from the case files. Like me, though, she is surprised when I mention how Joanna dropped her friends just a few days after Lucy’s disappearance.
“Wow! That’s not normal behavior, Sean. We need to get back up there and turn the thumbscrews on that bitch!”
“Yes, well, let’s not jump the gun, Cath. I’m sure you would like nothing more than to get medieval on the lady of the manor, but we still have other leads to explore. They are not going anywhere anytime soon.
Let’s get something concrete before we go charging in with all guns blazing. Any luck with contact details for Father Beale?”
“Yes, sorry, I nearly forgot. We are meeting him tomorrow morning at 11 o’clock at Beckhampton Church. He has a christening at twelve-thirty, but we should have enough time to ask him our questions.”
I tell Catherine about my call to DCI Morgan and ask her to change the meeting with Father Beale to the following day.
“Sorry, Cath. Morgan was insistent that it needs to be tomorrow morning. Obviously, he doesn’t want Anti-corruption hanging around the office for longer than is required.”
“Bloody hell, Sean, I hope it’s nothing serious. You don’t want to get on the wrong side of the Anti-corruption boys. Do you think it might be something to do with Clive Douglas? That slippery bastard would say anything to save his own neck.”
To be perfectly honest, I have no idea what it could be about. I took down a whole network of extremely powerful people. It could be to do with any one of them. The fact, though, that it involves the Anti-corruption team suggests that there might have been an allegation made specifically against me, but I don’t want to worry Cath unnecessarily.
“I’m sure it’s just a routine follow-up. Morgan didn’t sound too concerned when I spoke to him.”
“Well, whatever it is, I’ll drive you there tomorrow. There’s probably not much I can do here without you anyway. While you’re in with Morgan, I can drop into the Coroner’s Office and chase up our reports.”
“Thanks, Cath, I appreciate it. Why don’t you take a break now for the rest of the day? It’s after three now anyway and you must be tired from the driving. I’m going to hit the gym for an hour. Let’s meet up around seven for dinner.”
Cath looks pleased at my suggestion and nods her approval. “Sounds perfect, my back is absolutely killing me. I’m going to grab a long soak in a hot bath. Thanks, boss.”
By 6 pm, I have finished my work out and have spent another couple of hours going through the case file again to see if I might have missed something. Everything is exactly as I would expect, and nothing jumps out at me until I read through the original investigating officer’s case summary again. It’s not the contents, though, that get my attention; it’s the name and the signature at the bottom of the summary: ‘Detective Inspector Alan Cuttler’.
The surname is quite unusual, but at the same time is vaguely familiar. I mull it over for a few seconds and then it comes to me. I flip through my pocketbook for the notes I made after my first trip back to 1972. Staring back at me are the names, Donald Cuttler, Landlord, the Tyevale Arms, and Henry Cuttler, Police Sergeant. This must be more than just mere coincidence and whilst it is not unusual to have family members serving in the same force, and nor does it necessarily imply anything suspicious – it does make me think about something else. Who was it that attacked me when I confronted the loan sharks? What was it he said to me? I close my eyes to picture the scene and to concentrate on his voice.
“I think that’s good advice, son. Walk away and keep your nose out of what doesn’t concern you. Be a good lad and move along.”
“Be a good lad and move along.”
This sounds a lot like something a cop would say, and the realization hits me like a ton of bricks.
Jesus Christ, it was Sergeant Cuttler, I’m sure of it. But why on earth would he be protecting a pair of loan sharks? Just when I think I might be on the right track, something like this comes along to make me think again. Tonight, I am planning to go back to March 14th,1972, the night of Lucy’s disappearance, and it should have been relatively straightforward for me to observe unnoticed. Now I need to avoid the local copper or face having to explain why I don’t have a broken nose and black eyes.
I add DI Alan Cuttler’s name to my notes and then I add all three names to the list of possible suspects or persons of interest.
Next, I call Ben. He picks up within two rings and is keen to find out what is happening.
“Go on then, what’s the plan, Sean?”
“All in good time, Ben. Where are you now?” I reply.
“I found a cheap bed and breakfast place at the end of town. It’s a bit grotty, but it will do for now. So, come on, what’s the plan?”
“Sunday, March 12th, 1972 – that’s two days before the main event. I want you to meet me at the entrance to the O’Hanlon Brothers Carnival at 4 pm and I want you there on time. Do you understand me, Ben? I can’t have any screw-ups on this.”
“I promise, Sean. I will be there on time. You can trust me.” His voice is eager and keen to please.
“Good, now get onto Google and look up some pictures of Tyevale and the O’Hanlon Carnival from 1972 to use as your dream stimulus. The carnival is right on the edge of town. You can’t miss it. Don’t mess this up, Ben. I’m only going to give you one chance.”
“Sean, stop stressing, mate. I’ve got it. O’Hanlon Carnival, 4 pm on March 12th,1972. I will be there.”
I’m enjoying winding him up and am smiling to myself, knowing that I am sending him to the wrong day entirely. It’s just too dangerous, though, to have Ben tagging along with me on such an important day.
“Okay, one last thing, do something with your hair and make sure you wear the outfit I gave you. I don’t want you sticking out like a bull-dog’s bollocks. Good luck, Ben. I’ll see you in 1972.”
He tries to ask me another question, but I deliberately hang up and head down to the bar to wait for Catherine. She will be keen to ask me about our next steps, but that really all depends on what I find out tonight. While I wait for her, I order myself a double Jameson whiskey and idly leaf through a copy of the Tyevale Evening News at the bar. The main headline is about the former US first lady, Barbara Bush, who has passed away at the age of ninety-two. I am so engrossed in the story that I don’t notice that Catherine has joined me.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea, Sean?”
“
Oh, hi, Cath. Sorry, what was that?”
She points to my whiskey and frowns. “You have a meeting with DCI Morgan and Anti-corruption in the morning. Probably best to have a clear head, don’t you think?”
Cath is undoubtedly right, but without a few drinks or some other stimulus, I will struggle to sleep tonight. I pushed myself hard in the gym, but I don’t feel tired in the slightest. I’m going to need a few more drinks and whatever I do drink tonight, I should have more than enough time for it wear off before my meeting at 10 tomorrow morning.
“Thanks for your concern, Cath. I’m just going to have one more, then straight after dinner I’m going to get an early night. How was your bath?”
“Well, not that you’re really interested, but it was fine. Thanks for asking.”
I really should know by now that Cath is far too smart to be so easily deflected and asking about her bath was a lame attempt at doing just that.
“Are you worried about tomorrow, boss? Any idea yet what it might be about?”
“I really have no idea, Cath. There are so many suspects in the Network case that it could involve any one of them. No doubt I will find out in the morning. Come on, let’s eat. I’m bloody starving.”
We take a table in the restaurant and for the next ninety minutes discuss our theories about the case and each of the suspects. My mind, though, is elsewhere throughout most of the conversation. Thankfully, Cath puts it down to the uncertainty of my morning meeting and doesn’t make a big thing of it. She does, however, show her annoyance when I order a third double whiskey.
“Boss, you need to make that your last one. Those boys from AC are no joke. I know you, Sean. You’re putting on a brave face for me, but I know that you’re worried. Finish that one, then get that early night you mentioned. If we set off around six-thirty, we should be there easily before nine. The traffic should be light enough early on, but better to be safe than sorry.”
“What would I do without you, Cath? You’re like my sister, my mum, my gran, and my partner all rolled into one. Come on, I’m done, now.”