by Ernesto Lee
“That’s good timing, Sean. I was just about to call you. You were right about the Partington-Brown family plot at St. Benedict’s. It’s a bit run down and overgrown, but thankfully I didn’t need to get down and dirty to clear the weeds away. The church verger was kind enough to dig out the records for me. Beatrice died on January 12th, 1974 and she was buried less than a week later on January 16th.”
“The inquest was the day before, on January 15th,” I tell Catherine. “This all seems way too fast to me – sudden and unexplained death, an inquest, and a burial in less than a week. Come on, let’s go and wake Sir David up.”
On the way to Colevale, Catherine smiles and comments on my appearance.
“Good move getting cleaned up, boss. There is no way that Lady Muck, would allow you in looking like a down-and-out. You might even get a few extra smiles out of her today.”
“Somehow I doubt that, Cath. I don’t think she is going to be particularly pleased with us turning up unannounced. Let me lead again but keep an eye on them for any unusual reactions.”
Cath does her usual eyebrow raising at my comment, then turns back to face the road.
“Is this going to be another one of your pushing the boundaries informal chats? If it is, please just be careful how far you push it. Particularly with Sir David. Let’s not forget the man is in his nineties, Sean. What’s your plan?”
I briefly refer to my notes and then I tuck my notebook away in my jacket pocket.
“I’m thinking a two-pronged attack today, Cath. I want to start with Sir David and find out why he was so keen to get his wife in the ground so fast. Then I want to have a go at Eddie. Your job, Cath, is to keep control of the Rottweiler.”
“Thanks, boss. That sounds almost as fun as nosing around in an overgrown family burial plot. You’re giving me all the good jobs today. It’s not my birthday, you know.”
“It’s just as well it’s not,” I reply. “I doubt very much that Joanna will be wheeling out any cake today. Right, we’re here – get your game face on, DC Swain.”
As soon as we pull up onto the graveled driveway opposite the house, the curtains in one of the upper bedroom windows starts twitching and I tell Cath that we have been spotted.
“Well, there goes the element of surprise. What’s the betting that the lady of the house will be at the door before we get halfway up the steps?”
Cath turns off the engine and opens her door. “That’s not great odds, Sean, but let’s go and find out, shall we?”
Surprisingly, by the time we reach the top of the stairs, the door is still closed and after waiting for another few seconds, I reach forward to ring the bell. With no response after another thirty seconds, I ring the bell for a second time and then I nudge Cath.
“Maybe you should have taken that bet after all, Cath. You could have been on a nice little earner.”
“Yeh, because of course you would have paid me … not! What are they playing at? Someone is definitely at home. Try again and if they don’t answer, let’s check around the back.”
I ring the bell once again and for added measure Cath also taps on the door with her car keys.
“Ms. Partington-Brown, this is Detective Constable Swain and Detective Sergeant McMillan. We were here yesterday. Open the door please. We have a few more questions for you.”
Behind the door, there is the sound of glass or ceramic breaking and I tell Cath to be quiet. When the door still doesn’t open, I knock on it again.
“Open the door please. There are a few questions that we need to ask that could really help us in the search for Lucy.”
After another short pause, there is a faint but nervous reply, followed by the sound of a security chain sliding into place.
“My wife is not at home, come back tomorrow please.”
Cath touches my hand and suggests that it might be better to come back when Joanna is at home.
“I’m not sure we should be talking to Eddie Wells on his own, boss. Remember what happened when we tried that with Terry Fletcher?”
I remember it only too well, but I also remember how the case turned out in the end. We may not get another chance to speak to Eddie without Joanna or a lawyer present and I am not prepared to let this chance slip through my fingers.
Despite her look of concern, I tell Cath to keep Eddie talking and then I make my way to the back of the house.
Traditionally, the rear doors, or the tradesman’s entrance, in these big country houses were always kept unlocked during the day to allow the servants and tradesmen to come and go freely. Even without servants, these traditions die hard and, in his panic or nervousness at our arrival, Eddie has forgotten to lock the door and I quietly let myself in and make my way to the front of the house.
Shards of ceramic from a broken vase litter the hallway floor and Eddie has his faced pushed up against the front door. I can hear Catherine trying to reassure him that there is nothing to worry about, but he has his hands pressed firmly across his ears to block out her words.
In 1972, it looked like Eddie might have some kind of learning or behavioral problem, but with the onset of old age, this current behavior could be an indicator of some kind of dementia or other mentally debilitating condition. With this in mind, I decide to take Cath’s advice. Unfortunately, when I turn to leave, my shoe presses down on a large piece of the broken vase.
As the shard breaks in two, the cracking of the ceramic on the tiled floor is enough to startle Eddie and he launches himself in my direction.
“Get out, get out! You shouldn’t be in here. I can’t speak to you.”
I brace myself for his body to slam into mine, but at the last second, he stops just inches away from me. His face is red and contorted with anger and both his fists are clenched tight by his side, but I know already that any immediate threat has subsided.
“Just calm down, Eddie. Nobody is here to hurt you. I just wanted to make sure that you were okay. I’m going to leave now. Is that okay?”
Outside, Catherine would have clearly heard the commotion and she is now banging on the front door and calling to me to find out what is going on. This new commotion startles Eddie again and he rushes back to the front door to check that it is still locked.
“Eddie, listen to me. She’s not going to come in. You have my word.” Then I call out to Catherine, “Everything is okay, Cath. Give me five minutes please and I will be coming back out.”
Reassured, Eddie turns back to face me, and I ask him if everything is okay.
He nods and then unlocks the front door, “You need to go now. I’m not supposed to be talking to you.”
I know I need to leave, but I take a chance and ask him if there is something that he wants to tell me about Lucy’s disappearance.
“Anything you tell us will be completely confidential, Eddie. We can arrange to take you into a police station if you would feel more comfortable. Would you feel safer if we could do that for you?”
His face goes red again and he is now visibly sweating.
“I can’t talk to you. I’m not allowed. You have to go.”
“But you want to talk to us? Is that what you mean, Eddie? Do you know what happened to Lucy?”
From behind the door, Catherine shouts that I need to get out, but the warning is too late and just a few seconds later the door opens a few inches until it is stopped by the security chain. Joanna is furious and shouts to Eddie to remove the chain. Once inside she wastes no time in expressing her displeasure and orders me to leave.
“This is highly irregular, Sergeant McMillan. I will be calling your senior officer to express my displeasure. You had absolutely no right to enter our property without any warning or invitation.”
“My apologies, Ms. Partington-Brown, we had been hoping that you would all be home, and I only entered the house to check on the well-being of Mr. Wells. He sounded a bit distressed when we arrived.”
Until now her focus had been completely on me, but now she focuses on her husband.
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“What have you been saying?”
He looks absolutely terrified of her and is unable to answer before she tells him to wait upstairs and then asks me to leave again.
“If you wish to speak with us again, I would appreciate some prior notification, Sergeant. Now, if you don’t mind, my father is waiting for me to help him from the car.”
She watches us all the way to the car and only goes to help her father when she is sure that we are not coming back.
Nearly a minute passes before either of us speaks and then it is Cath that breaks the silence.
“Well, that didn’t quite go to plan, boss. What the hell happened in there?”
“We need to speak to him alone, Cath,” I reply. “He knows what happened to Lucy. I’m sure of it.”
“So, let’s get him into a station with a solicitor present. I can get onto it right away.”
I shrug my shoulders and tell Cath not to do anything yet.
“I think he might have dementia or Alzheimer’s. There is definitely something going on in his head. He was completely trying to block you out and when I scared him, he rushed at me like a madman. I thought he was going to flatten me. We need to tread carefully with him.”
“So, what then?” Catherine asks me. “You want to make an appointment to come back to speak with them all together?”
“Yes, do that Cath. What time are we meeting Father Beale tomorrow?”
Cath checks her notes and confirms that the meeting is at 11 am.
“We can head straight to the PBs after that meeting. How about I set it up for 2 pm? That should give us enough time.”
“Yep, sounds perfect, Cath. Let’s get back to the hotel. It’s been a long day already. I need to gather my thoughts and unwind in the gym.”
The rest of the day follows the same pattern as yesterday. I spend an hour in the gym followed by a review of my notes and planning for my next trip back to 1972, and then I meet Cath for dinner at eight-thirty.
We discuss our theories and tactics for tomorrow over a bottle of red wine. Cath quite rightly is still concerned about pushing Eddie, Joanna, and Sir David too hard without having legal representation present, but I’m not ready to take things to a more formal level yet. To do so, would alert them to the fact that my suspicions are turning in their direction and I think that this would close the door on cooperation completely.
Despite her concerns, she agrees to play it my way and after a gin and tonic, Cath wishes me a good night and heads upstairs to her room.
Two minutes later and satisfied that she is not coming back downstairs, I stand up and order myself a double Jameson at the bar. The guy at the other end of the bar with his hoodie pulled low down over his face has been nursing his pint and watching us for the last hour. Cath might not have noticed him, but I certainly did, and I have been waiting for Cath to leave so that I can speak to him.
“I thought I bloody told you to get the train back to London.”
Ben drops his hoodie and gives me half a smile.
“Would you believe me if I told you that I missed the train?”
I lower my voice so that we can’t be overheard by the barman and I pull Ben’s barstool closer towards me.
“You need to go back to that B&B that you’re staying in and you need to let me get on with my job, Ben. This is not a game. I want you on the first train back to London in the morning. Do you understand me?”
“You can’t tell me what to do, Sean. It makes no difference anyway. I can follow you back to 1972 from my bed in London as easily as I can follow you from here. I just want to help.”
I push his stool back and take a drink from my glass.
“You can help me by listening to what I am saying. What we do, what I do I mean, is dangerous, not just in the past, but right here and now, Ben. This is not some TV show or a video game where you can get extra lives when you die. These are real criminals and when you get hurt in real life, you stay hurt.
“Go home and I promise, once this case is over, we can meet and talk properly about how you can help me in the future.”
He drinks the last few sips of his pint and then stands up.
“I hope you’re not bullshitting me again, Sean. I trusted you before and then you did your best to avoid me. I’ll message you in the morning to let you know I have left.”
Ben leaves and I turn my stool back to face the barman, pushing my empty glass across the counter.
“You’d better give me another one of these. I think I’m going to need it.
Back in my room, my outfit is hanging neatly on the back of the door. The shoes, though, have dried mud on them from the carnival field, so I wash them off in the bathroom sink and then leave them to dry whilst I get ready. Ten minutes later and content that my look is identical to last night, I put on the shoes and lie down on my bed. Tonight, the image of the O’Hanlon brothers and the carnival is clear in my head and, with my head spinning from the whisky and wine, travel comes easily.
The Past – Tuesday, 14th March, 1972
I get my bearings and am shocked to realize that I have arrived outside the carnival just in time to see Lucy walking away with Father Beale. It’s already past 11 pm and if my recollection of my last trip is correct, this means I have less than ten minutes to steal the car and to get myself in position before they disappear with Eddie and Joanna.
Opposite the entrance, ‘I’m Gonna Run Away from You’ by Tammy Lynn is playing on the stereo of the Ford Cortina. The guys leaning against the wall are too busy wolf-whistling and calling out to any girls passing by to notice me as I edge closer to the car. It is only when I pull open the driver’s side door that one of them objects and walks towards me.
“Oy! I think you’ve got the wrong car, pal.”
By this time, I am already in the driver’s seat and fumbling with the gears trying to find reverse.
Alerted by their friend, the whole group of guys and some other onlookers are now rushing towards me and just as I find reverse gear and speed backwards onto the road, a full can of beer flies through the open passenger side window and painfully catches me in the side of my head. The force of the can leaves me momentarily stunned and for a second the car stops in the middle of the road. Conscious that I am going to get caught and lynched by an angry mob if I don’t do something quickly, I find first gear and floor the accelerator. The sudden burst of forward acceleration causes my pursuers to scatter left and right to avoid being knocked down. As I pass them, a few of the braver individuals continue to chase me and hurl missiles, but within fifty or sixty yards they also give up when they realize that I am not going to stop.
Clear of the crowd, I touch the side of my head. There is a small gash and some minor swelling, but the injury is superficial, and my main concern now is to find Lucy and the gang. I turn onto the road out of Tyevale and speed up when I see the tail lights of what must be Eddie’s car fading into the distance. I pass the tree where I had hidden with Ben last night, and my heart sinks when I see him standing behind it.
He runs out onto the road behind me and starts waving in an attempt to get my attention. I can’t stop. If I stop now I will surely lose them for a second time. I watch in my rear-view mirror and eventually he gives up and I see him turn and start walking back into Tyevale. I feel guilty for not stopping, but at the same time I am annoyed that he has defied me again.
Then something else occurs to me, something that I have never had to deal with before. By coming here alone tonight, is it possible that I have only changed my own timeline and not Ben’s? Could his timeline have played out exactly as before? Usually, I only have myself to consider. If I’m right, then Ben is walking right back into the arms of Sergeant Cuttler, who will now be on the scene responding to the theft of a Ford Cortina.
Common decency is telling me to go back and get Ben, but the tail lights of a car are now in sight up ahead. What’s the worst that can happen to him anyway? Death by turtleneck strangulation and waking up again in his warm
bed. I can think of a lot of worse things. Despite my earlier desire to put things right, I put Ben out of my mind and concentrate on the lights ahead.
Ten minutes outside of Tyevale we reach the turn-off sign to Colevale, but Eddie’s car keeps going and after another five minutes of driving it slows down and takes a right turn onto an unlit dirt track. Reluctantly, I turn off my headlights so that they don’t realize I am following them, and I precariously navigate the track using Eddie’s tail lights as a guide.
It seems that Eddie is familiar with where he is going and so I assume that we must be going to his farm.
Shortly afterwards, my suspicion is confirmed when I pass a handmade sign for Meadow Farm and the lights of a farmhouse come into view a short distance ahead. I can’t risk following them into the farmyard, so I stop the car on the track and move towards the house on foot.
Just in front of the house there is a drystone wall and I crouch down behind it. All four of them are standing next to Eddie’s car and once again the girls are berating Eddie and Father Beale.
“What are you afraid of, Eddie? Are you afraid that there might be ghosts or witches? So, what if there are? That’s what we have James for. He can throw his holy water at them, isn’t that right, Father?”
“I think this has gone too far, Lucy,” Father James replies. “Please take me home, Eddie. You have my word that I won’t say anything about what happened tonight.”
From my hiding place, I can’t see, but from Joanna’s reaction, Eddie must have agreed with Father James.
“Don’t you dare move, Eddie Wells. Both of you are coming with us, or I swear to God, we are going to the police and the bishop. Don’t think we’re bluffing either. We will tell them everything. About how you assaulted Lucy, Eddie, and about how you have been sleeping with her, James. Eddie go and get a lantern.”
I can hear a key turning in a lock and the creak of a door as it opens. Less than a minute later, the area in front of the house and the top of the wall is bathed in a warm orange glow. The four of them move away from the house and as the light starts to fade I hop over the wall and follow them into a wooded area at the edge of one of the farm fields.