Bad Tidings

by Nick Oldham

  ‘I’m actually just having my Christmas dinner . . . but, hey, what the hell, it’s only an M&S meal for one. I can zap it back in the microwave. Come in.’ She stood back and let him walk past her. She was still dressed in her sleeping attire, a long towelling dressing gown tied tightly over her nightdress and a pair of fluffy, tatty slippers.

  Henry thanked her and entered the lounge of the house, which was situated in Blackpool’s north shore on the boundary with Bispham. It was a careworn semi in need of a lot of TLC.

  She had been watching TV with a tray balanced on her knees, on which was her plated-up microwaveable turkey dinner for one. She moved past Henry and picked up the tray, giving him a sidelong glance. ‘I really pushed out the boat this year . . . it’s usually a Tesco one.’ She went into the kitchen.

  Henry felt a slight jolt within him. Nothing connected with the investigation, but something that stabbed at his own failings as a man and husband. He had an inner vision of the countless Christmas Days that Kate had been forced to endure without him because of ‘work commitments’. He knew she had often prepared meals of proper turkey, slaved over a hot stove, only for them to go to waste, but at the time it hadn’t meant anything much to Henry, not being home at Christmas. Kate had always laughed it off. He swallowed dryly.

  And here he was again, working on 25 December. His mouth went tight in self-loathing.

  Mrs Peters emerged from the kitchen and Henry smiled again, noting that under the drabness of her unkempt appearance, she was very attractive. ‘Obviously I don’t know why you’re here, but I guess it’s about David. Can I offer you a brew?’

  ‘That would be great. Tea? Just milk.’

  ‘Coming up. I’ll go back in here’ – she pointed to the kitchen – ‘and you can have a minute or two doing what detectives do – snoop. I don’t mind.’

  Henry chuckled and said, ‘Only on TV.’ But when she disappeared, he snooped, taking in the room, the fixtures and fittings, the framed photographs on the fireplace, one of which was of her and her dead husband. Henry picked it up and studied it, wondering how happy she thought they’d been at the time.

  ‘Don’t know why I keep it there.’

  Henry spun guiltily as she came back in from the kitchen, bearing two mugs of tea, handing one across to him.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  She screwed up her face and sat on the settee, pondering the question. ‘Dunno,’ she frowned. ‘I thought we were OK-ish. Not ab-fab, if you know what I mean, just pretty standard. Dull, unremarkable, rubbed along all right, mostly, tolerated each other. Clearly he thought I was a boring cow. Two kids – who, incidentally, I haven’t seen for six months – then, Wham!’

  Henry took a seat on an armchair.

  ‘He’s having a sordid affair and then he’s murdered. Double-wham, actually. I’m still not sure I can believe either. He wasn’t exactly a Romeo, but mind you, that bitch isn’t exactly Angelina Jolie – but hey! These things happen.’ She sounded sad, resigned and, despite using the word ‘bitch’, not resentful.

  ‘You think the two are connected, the affair and the murder?’

  ‘It’d make sense, but I doubt it. Her husband isn’t a killer.’

  ‘What about you?’

  ‘If I’d found out about the affair, maybe I would’ve been.’ She looked slyly at Henry. ‘Is that why you’re here? Has some evidence come to light that says I’m the killer?’

  ‘Now you’re teasing me,’ Henry chided. ‘No is the answer to that, but I am investigating David’s murder.’

  ‘Isn’t there a link to another murder – a woman in Blackburn?’

  ‘You know about that?’

  ‘I got told – and asked a lot of questions.’

  ‘Do you think he knew the woman?’

  ‘I don’t know. I didn’t know her . . . that said, it seemed I didn’t know very much about him at all.’

  Henry nodded sagely, not wanting to say anything trite, like ‘No one ever really knows someone else,’ just to sympathize with her. He looked at her, saw a lost soul.

  ‘So no ideas?’

  ‘No – and don’t think I haven’t thought about it.’

  ‘How would you describe your husband?’

  ‘Dour, intelligent enough, not especially creative . . . just a bloke, bit of a country bumpkin in some ways.’

  ‘What about the year leading up to his death? Was there anything unusual about it, did anything unusual happen? Did he change at all?’

  ‘No, seemed the same old self . . . but it wasn’t a great year. A bit distant, more than usual. Now whether that was because he was seeing Stella . . . fuck, Stella,’ she sneered. ‘What a name! Tart’s name.’ She became thoughtful, then said, ‘Maybe he had changed . . . we were both a bit too insulated from each other . . . drifted apart.’

  ‘How long had you been married?’

  ‘Best part of twenty years . . . we sort of met at college.’

  ‘Do you think he kept secrets from you?’

  ‘What, other than the sordid affair? Probably. Don’t all men?’

  ‘Not necessarily.’

  ‘I’ve just been to have a quick look at the place where David’s body was found,’ Henry said. ‘Does that mean anything to you? Is there any reason you can think of as to why he should’ve ended up there? Is there any significance to it?’

  She shook her head. ‘Been asked that before. I gave a detailed statement.’

  ‘I know. I’ve read it. I’m sorry if I’m covering old ground’ – actually, he wasn’t – ‘but sometimes things come back to people and other things start to have meanings that weren’t there before. And, of course, I’ve taken charge of the investigation, so it’s important for me to get a handle on it.’

  ‘On Christmas Day?’

  Henry’s eyes roved quickly around the room. It was decorated in a desultory way, as if there was no heart or feeling behind the hanging baubles or the weary-looking Christmas tree. Nor was there any sign of presents, or wrapping paper. He guessed she was a lonely woman who lived in a grey world. He smiled at her. ‘Good point . . . sorry to disturb you, but at least you know that we’re still investigating your husband’s death. It won’t necessarily bring you good cheer, but I hope it reassures you.’

  ‘Do you think you’ll get whoever did it?’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘You sound confident.’

  ‘That’s because I am.’ And, he thought smugly to himself, Because I’m friggin’ good at it.

  There was nothing to report from Jerry Tope, other than more grumblings about his spoiled Christmas, but he let Henry know he was still working on the backgrounds of the two victims to see where their paths might have crossed in the past, if at all. He said he was having problems accessing the national database to cross-check the MOs with any similar murders elsewhere in the country. He moaned that he had been forced to revert to Google, which was throwing up a lot of dross. There was nothing of interest on the missing person front, either. He finished by asking when he could go home.

  Henry checked his watch, his mind swilling with ghosts of Christmases ruined.

  ‘Finish what you’re doing but leave it at a point where you can pick it up straight away when you come back in, and go home. I apologize for dragging you in, so go and have a nice rest of the day with Marina’ – that was Tope’s mono-browed, moustachioed wife – ‘and be in bright and early on the twenty-seventh.’

  Henry thought he could actually feel the wafts of disbelief as Tope’s eyelids fluttered rapidly.

  ‘You certain, Henry? You mean I can actually have Boxing Day off?’

  ‘Yeah, go for it,’ Henry said, ignoring the cheeky irony. ‘Have you got some special home-made wine ready?’

  ‘Oh, yeah.’ Tope suddenly became enthusiastic. He was a purveyor of home brewing and wine making. ‘A special nettle wine. Been laid down for six months. Lovely.’

  Henry blanched, but said, ‘Go – enjoy, see you day after tomorrow.’
r />   ‘Oh, did you discover anything interesting?’

  ‘Nah, bit of a waste, really.’

  Henry ended the call and checked the time. Three p.m. and the day was already beginning to draw in, dark winter clouds thickening across the sky, spats of icy rain starting to blob down on the car windscreen. He called up Rik Dean, who answered this time and gave Henry a succinct account of his day, which was also quite fruitless. Henry told him to go home, too, and come back in on the 27th when they would start to pull together a murder squad of some description.

  Henry then sat in his car, mulling. More than anything he wanted to see Alison again today, especially since things had progressed in their relationship – and though he knew it was very base of him, he was eager to jump into bed with her and consummate the event. He couldn’t quite see how that was going to happen, at least not today.

  His mother was awake and she watched him enter the room through watery, almost sightless eyes. Leanne was still by the bed, a grim expression on her face. Henry gave her a reassuring wink, then said to his mother, ‘Hi, Mum, how you doing?’

  ‘Is that you, Henry?’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘Where have you been?’

  ‘Working, Mum.’

  She looked at Leanne. ‘Sweetie, can I have a moment with your dad?’

  Leanne rose and left the room, grimacing. She touched Henry’s arm on the way out. He settled into her vacated chair and asked, ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘Grim,’ she gasped, and lay her head back on the plumped-up pillows.

  ‘What do you know?’ he asked her.

  ‘Everything . . . my heart stopped, didn’t it?’

  ‘It did, so they zapped you and restarted it. Simple. Like jump-starting a car.’

  She took a long breath. ‘Don’t let them do that again, Henry.’

  His throat instantly went dry and dread skittered through him, suddenly making him feel very weak. ‘What d’you mean, Mum?’

  ‘Henry.’ She reached out blindly for him and he took her hand. ‘I’ve passed the ninety mark, outlived your father by fifteen years – and most of the people I’ve ever known. I’m lucky. I’ve never been really ill and I don’t want to start being a burden on anyone . . . no, shush. I know what would happen. I’m not stupid. I knew I was OK last time . . . this time I know I won’t be. I’m tired. My body’s had enough and I’d rather go out on top than as a root vegetable.’

  ‘Mum!’

  ‘That said, if I get better – great, but I won’t. So if the ticker packs up again, do not let them restart it. Hear me?’

  Henry stared mutely at their interlocked hands.

  ‘Promise me.’

  ‘OK,’ he muttered, not certain if he would or wouldn’t.

  The subsequent discussion with Leanne was very tense and tearful as Henry brought her into the picture about DNR. It ended with a long hug that made Henry feel quite good, actually. The last few months had been quite fraught with Leanne, especially after she had ended up back home after a disastrous break-up which had been followed by using the house, in Henry’s words, as ‘a knocking shop’, as a series of boyfriends came and went – and always went if Henry was about, hence the friction.

  They had patched things up, more or less, and ironically it seemed that his mother’s ill-health had helped things between them.

  Henry wondered briefly about the living arrangements at his house in Blackpool.

  With Lisa there on and off, Leanne a permanent fixture, and his other daughter Jenny on the way up from Bristol (she would want to spend time there with her aunt and little sister, no doubt), and if Alison came and went, he would be completely surrounded by women again, as he had been all his life. He partly pined for a son and often worried why his issue hadn’t ‘manned-up’.

  But that train had long gone, not even worth thinking about.

  And as much as female relatives annoyed the crap out of him, he had a bit of a warm glow to think they were all going to be back in one place.

  Plus Alison: an addition who had been met with much hostility from Leanne, but who had recently moved into the toleration phase, if not quite acceptance. He did worry about how Leanne might react to the news of the engagement, though. It would probably set her back.

  ‘Chaos,’ he thought and shook his head at the prospect.

  Leanne looked up at him with moist eyes and said, ‘What are you thinking about?’

  ‘Life, death and the universe,’ he said philosophically and smiled. ‘Let’s just see how it all pans out, eh?’

  ‘Hey.’

  ‘Hey you,’ Alison replied.

  Henry was walking down a hospital corridor, mobile phone attached to his ear, having called Alison on the landline at the Tawny Owl. The mobile phone signal out there in the wilds was iffy at best.

  ‘How’s it going?’ he asked lamely.

  ‘Good. We’re about to open for the afternoon-stroke-evening. The locals are already queued up outside and the dining room’s fully booked until eight, which means we’ll get through about eighty covers all told. Forty quid a head, plus drinks . . . it’s a living. What’s happening with you?’

  ‘Mum’s awake.’ He told Alison of the DNR conversation he’d just had with Leanne, which brought from her noises of genuine sympathy.

  She asked what his next move was. ‘I really want to be up there with you,’ he moaned, ‘but I’m going to stay here for the rest of the afternoon. Jenny’s imminent and I’d like to see her. And I still need to speak to Lisa, because it’ll be me and her who make the final DNR decision. When mum’s bedded down for the night, I’ll come up.’

  ‘You don’t have to. I’ll be exhausted, and so will you.’

  ‘In which case you’ll be unable to fend off my advances . . . and I’d like to make some.’

  Alison giggled. ‘OK, look forward to it. What about your work, though?’

  ‘Sacking it for the day, unless something really compelling turns up.’

  They exchanged a few lovey-dovey words and ended the call.

  The remainder of the afternoon was spent by his mother’s bedside. Jenny, his eldest, did arrive, weary and bedraggled from her long journey up from the south-east, but still looking particularly beautiful to Henry. His first child, still very, very special. There were lots of hugs and kisses and tears, then she went to freshen up at Henry’s house, promising to return to the hospital later.

  One person who failed to appear was Lisa. Henry called her a few times but got no answer.

  Only as he walked along another hospital corridor did he have a lurching thought. Here he was, waiting for someone to be reported missing from home who could be the possible victim of a kidnapper/killer, yet he’d never considered that Lisa, his own kid sister, fitted the profile of the previous two victims. She was about the right age – being quite a bit younger than Henry – and had been born in Hyndburn.

  He flicked open his phone and called Rik Dean, her ex-fiancé. ‘Have you heard anything from Lisa yet?’ Henry asked.

  ‘Should I have?’ he said, a hurt tone in the words.

  ‘No, maybe not,’ Henry conceded. ‘That said, I haven’t heard anything either and I’ve been calling her all day. I’m getting a bit concerned.’

  Rik uttered a cynical harumph. ‘She’s ditzy and it’s not unlike her to do something like this. I mean, she’s hardly likely to be our killer’s next victim . . . is she?’ Rik’s voice changed on the last two words as the penny slotted home.

  ‘Life is full of coincidences,’ Henry said, ‘and I doubt whether she is the next victim, but from a welfare point of view I’d like to know she’s OK. She has been pretty cut up about you two splitting,’ he fibbed a little.

  ‘It was her freaking fault. Why’s she blubbering?’ Rik demanded.

  ‘Uh – dunno . . . Look, do you know who the guy is she’s . . . er . . . seeing?’ It was a delicate question. Henry had never enquired, didn’t really want to know if he was honest.

  ‘I do.�
� Henry could almost hear Rik’s teeth gnashing.

  Henry waited, nothing came. ‘Well, bloody tell me. He might know where she is.’

  ‘Peregrine Astley-Barnes,’ Rik said primly.

  Henry registered the name. ‘As in Astley-Barnes the jewellers?’

  ‘One and the same.’

  ‘The millionaire jewellers?’

  ‘Henry – you’re twisting the knife here.’

  ‘Sorry, mate.’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind, but she met the stuck-up bastard through her work and then we bought our engagement ring from him.’

  Henry was glad Rik couldn’t see his grin. The Astley-Barnes family, Henry knew, were diamond retailers, at the very high end of that particular market. They had four stores in Lancashire, two on the coast, two inland, and others in Manchester, Chester and York. They were the kinds of stores with security guards and doors that locked you in – or out – of the shops with thick, unbreakable, plate-glass windows.

  ‘You bought an engagement ring from them? How much does an inspector earn these days?’

  ‘Crippled me,’ Rik admitted. ‘I wouldn’t mind but she’d already started seeing the twat, so I don’t know why she let me go through with the purchase.’ Lisa made intricate silver jewellery, very exquisite, and sold it through shops like the Astley-Barneses’.

  ‘You got a number for him?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Rik said ominously. ‘And car details and bank details . . .’

  ‘Stop right there. I haven’t heard that,’ Henry said. ‘If you’re going to get yourself in data protection shit, I don’t want to know. Just give me the guy’s number.’

  As much security as the Astley-Barnes family had, it did not make them immune to becoming the victims of crime. Armed robberies at their shops were infrequent, but when they did happen they were usually very violent affairs resulting in severe beatings for the staff and oodles of rocks being stolen. Nor were the family completely safe in their own homes. Henry had once dealt with what is known as a Tiger Kidnapping, when a member of the family was held hostage while other family members were forced to open up the shops and hand over diamonds, otherwise there would be serious bloodshed.