by Adam Carter
“Who’s asking?”
“Me, silly.”
That threw him as well, which was good.
“And who are you?”
Thompson rolled her eyes. “Could I just speak with him please?”
“You a cop? If you’re a cop, show me your badge.”
“Maybe I’m a reporter.”
“You’re not a reporter. Have you been shot?”
Thompson winced. “You’re very observant. Could I speak with Arnold now? I don’t want to draw too much attention to you.”
The man seemed in two minds of what to do. Thompson had decided to be nice to him, which generally threw people off. She did it occasionally, always in the line of duty, or if she was chatting someone up, and it always paid off. The man eventually said, “Wait here,” and closed the door on her. Thompson waited, and after hearing a heated exchange from the other side of the door, found someone else standing before her. This time it was indeed Arnold Arcady. He was thirty years old, with short dark hair and a winning conman’s smile. He had tried to dress casual, but couldn’t quite lose the work trousers and shoes, although Thompson gave him points for trying to dress down. He was also a good head taller than Thompson, something she really wasn’t all that used to.
“What?” he snapped. “Who are you?”
“My name’s Jen. I stopped by your house earlier and the police shot me. Go fig.”
Most people upon hearing that news would have slammed the door in her face and made a run for it. Arcady only narrowed his eyes. He was a clever one, she reasoned, and had already pegged her as not being his family’s killer. “Why were you there?” he asked.
“Doesn’t matter. I was looking for you actually. I’m sorry about what happened.”
The first flicker of emotion passed across his face, and she admired him his resolve. Knowing his life was in danger, he had forced away his remorse, but the mention of his family’s murder had at last got to him.
“Is there somewhere we can talk?” Thompson asked. “I’m really not trying to hurt you, Arcady.” Which was a lie, since she was trying to fit him up for murder, but that technically wasn’t trying to hurt him. Not physically anyway.
“Do you know who killed my family?” he asked, deadpan.
“No. But I’m trying to find out. And I need your help.”
He hesitated, glanced behind him, probably to that other man; likely because of their argument a moment earlier. The other guy clearly didn’t want Arcady to put himself at risk; his family were dead and there was nothing he could do to bring them back. But it wasn’t his family that had been killed, it was Arcady’s. And Arcady needed to find out who had killed them, and why.
“Meet me in the Stag, five minutes.” And he closed the door in her face.
Thompson blinked, not truly having expected that answer, and wandered back to the car.
“And?” Lin asked as she sat back down and rooted through the carrier bag to see whether there was any more food.
“His family’s been dead five minutes and I’ve managed to sling a date with him. You going to eat that Mars bar, Sue? I’m starved.”
CHAPTER FIVE
The Stag and Hounds was just around the corner from where they were parked, and Thompson arrived before Arcady. There was every chance he wouldn’t show at all, that he was even now making a run for it in the opposite direction, and she could hardly have blamed him. The sad truth to the matter however was that if they had any chance of finding the real killers they would have to start trusting one another.
The pub was neither small nor large, and wasn’t badly decorated either. There was a long bar which snaked around the place so that you were never very far from it, and her policewoman’s instinct plotted the most direct course to the toilets and rear exit without her even thinking about it. There were several groups of people currently in the pub, although none of them looked suspicious or particularly threatening; two old men drinking pints beside the fruit machine, a young couple tucked away in a corner, a family close to the front door. In this last group there was a guy who had probably turned eighteen that day, and he was celebrating with a whole pint of his own sitting there in front of him. A man who was presumably his father sat opposite, laughing about something, and Thompson felt a sudden pang of regret in her life.
She had spent her eighteenth birthday completely off her face with alcohol, licking whipped cream off the naked bodies of two prostitutes Dan had hired. She had been incredibly sick the following day: Thompson was lactose intolerant, but then Dan couldn’t have known that. Her father hadn’t even realised she was eighteen until she was two months into it.
She realised she had been standing by the door for too long and moved farther into the pub. No cold stares greeted her, although the two old men by the fruit machine were indeed eyeing her strangely. She guessed they were in here every day and were wondering why they had never seen her before. She bought a pint of Guinness from the barman, who was an affable sort with a sharp wit, and headed alone to the back where she took a seat. Someone had been kind enough to leave a newspaper behind and she leafed through it, searching first for any news about Arcady.
The paper didn’t reveal much, just that there had been a triple murder and that there were no suspects as yet. The paper didn’t say there weren’t any suspects, it just said the police were investigating a line of enquiry, but Thompson knew precisely what that meant. There was a brief mention of a woman fleeing the scene, that she had been shot as she got into a car, but nothing else. Thompson suddenly became self-conscious of her shoulder wound and cast her eyes about the pub once more. No one was paying her any attention, and she was no longer in direct line of sight of the two old men; but she could not help wonder whether they had been eyeing her because they had read the newspaper and seen the bullet wound. Thompson was so used to depending upon people’s baser natures that she had assumed they were just two men eyeing her up. Now she was worried there had been far more to it than that.
Still, short of running back out the door there was nothing much she could do about it, so she moved onto the puzzles and drew a pen from her inside pocket so she could attempt the cryptic crossword. It was about time newspapers got into the habit of offering a different puzzle, but then Thompson couldn’t see that ever happening. Crosswords were such a staple of newspapers it would be sacrilege to have them replaced.
She had become so absorbed in the crossword that she did not notice when Arcady appeared. In fact she only realised he was even there when a second Guinness was plopped onto the table before her. She looked up, pen tugging the edge of her lip, as Arcady took a seat opposite her with his own pint of something else on draught.
“Not conscious, please,” she said.
“What?”
“Six letters.”
“Oh.”
Thompson concentrated on the paper again, although her eyes were really peering intently at Arcady to see how he would react.
“Asleep,” he said.
“Ah.” She filled it in and tossed the paper aside. Arcady was calm, too calm for her liking. That meant he was in control of this situation. Perhaps he had called the police on her, perhaps he had talked to his friend, and they had called the police on her and Arcady was only here because he was stalling her for when they arrived. But she had a feeling he would not do that. She had a feeling he knew precisely who had killed his family, but had no intention of telling the police. And the only reason she could think of for his doing that was because he intended to go after them himself.
Ordinarily Thompson would not have had any problem with that, but she needed to know who had done it and why. If this was revenge for the murder he had committed, if Arcady then went after someone they could well retaliate themselves. This could get very out of hand very quickly and the last thing DCI Sanders wanted was a bloodbath on his hands. WetFish took out the bad guys, they didn’t need members of the public lending their unsolicited hands.
“Thanks for the drink,” she said, finishing of
f her original pint and setting aside the empty glass. “So, who killed your family?”
“You tell me.”
She shrugged as she started her second Guinness. “Not me.”
“No?”
“Farris. The woman you killed. You get any threats over that?”
“You seem to know something about me,” Arcady said slowly. “But you don’t seem to remember I was found not guilty by the courts.”
“Being found not guilty doesn’t mean you’re innocent, Arcady. So,” she said stonily, meeting his eyes, “I’ll ask again. Who killed your family?”
They stared at one another in silence for several long moments. The stalemate was broken by a woman coming over to take away Thompson’s empty glass, and they both feigned a smile at her to show there was no tension at the table. Once she was gone the smiles vanished.
“All right,” Thompson said at last. “Who’s that guy you’re shacked up with?” She took a sip of her drink, decided Arcady hadn’t spiked it.
“Eric?”
“You tell me.”
Arcady made a show of sighing, or perhaps it wasn’t a show. “Eric Hodgson. He’s a friend. One of the only ones who stuck by me through the trial. You know, it’s funny. Even now I’ve been found innocent I’m still thought of as a criminal. There are so many people who look at me as though I got my just desserts with my family being killed. Can you believe that?”
“Fancy that.”
“You’re cold, Jen. You were in my house, you must have seen my kids. Doesn’t the sight of two butchered children affect you at all?”
Thompson looked away. She had not seen his children dead, and perhaps she would not be acting so harsh with him if she had. Seeing his wife was bad enough, but over the years she had grown too used to such sights. It was a sad fact that WetFish had hammered her mind so badly that it wasn’t disturbing any more to see this type of thing. It was just an average day at the office.
“Do you have children?” Arcady asked.
“No.”
“Well when you do, maybe you’ll understand why your line of questioning stinks, Detective.”
Thompson’s mind was so far from the pub that it took her a few moments to realise what he had said. “Detective?”
“Sure. Take ten years to deny it.”
“What makes you think I’m a detective?”
“Listen, over the last year I’ve spent enough time with the filth to know the stink of one. And you’re a cop, Jen, no doubt about that. I’m just wondering what you were doing in my house.”
“Looking for you.”
“Why?”
“Maybe because I wanted to talk. You still stand to lose a lot, you know. Just because you were cleared of murder, doesn’t mean you’re not still up on charges of embezzlement.”
“Honey, if I can get off a murder charge embezzlement’s nothing. I’m sitting here in a pub with you aren’t I?”
“So you admit you killed Farris?”
“Of course I killed Farris. You know that, don’t play stupid with me. But we’re not here about that girl are we?”
Thompson was somewhat surprised by his openness. If she had just been released from a murder charge she wasn’t so certain she would brag to a police officer that she had indeed been guilty. “If you thought I was a cop,” she said, “why agree to meet me? What do you hope to get out of this?”
“You want to find out who killed my family? Strangely enough so do I. I don’t know what you were doing at my house, but I’m thinking you were there against orders. That means you don’t care too much about rules. And if I’m going to stand any chance at finding the killer, I’m going to need someone who doesn’t much care about rules.”
“Ah, you want to partner with me.”
“I want to find who killed my family.”
There was something odd about Arcady. He wasn’t what Thompson had expected. She had seen men wracked with grief before, had seen grown men break down in tears over the deaths of their loved ones. Even those of strong resolve, trying to keep themselves together for the sake of their family of the investigation had held a strong semblance of emotion behind their eyes. But there was no actual grief within Arnold Arcady. Anger, yes; hate, certainly. But no grief. There was sadness, but Thompson had always found a distinct difference between sadness and grief.
“Did you expect them to die?” she asked. “Was that why you weren’t at home when it happened?”
Arcady rose so sharply that several people looked over to them. Thompson purposefully did not react, and Arcady stood there seething. Anger, yes, and sadness, remorse ... but still not that much grief.
“You have no idea how close I am to calling the police on you right now,” he whispered through gritted teeth.
She did not point out that she was the police. He seemed to have figured out all by himself that she shouldn’t have been at his house last night so decided not to push him. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s been a bad day.”
“Yeah,” he said, slowly sinking back into his chair. “You and me both.”
Thompson regarded him then. She liked to believe that his anger was clouding his grief, that he was not allowing himself to feel anything other than revenge. She had seen it in enough people before to know it was possible. However, there was something else with Arcady. Even if he was clouding the grief, there was something she just couldn’t quite put her finger on.
“I need a name to go on,” she said. “I can take that name and get out your hair. I’ll call you if I get anything.”
“That would be good,” he said icily. “We wouldn’t have to see each other again.”
“So. A name.”
“Hillman. Phillip Hillman. He was at the trial, was related somehow to the girl I killed. He vowed to get me back, said he’d burn my house down to get to me. Hillman would be a good place to start.”
Thompson knew Lin had done all the background checks prior to their approaching the house the previous night, although she had never mentioned Hillman. Either Arcady was lying, or Lin hadn’t done her research too well. Either way, it was time to head back to the car and see what they could find.
“I’ll be in touch,” Thompson said, draining her pint as she rose from the table. “Thanks for the drink, Arnold.”
“Won’t make a habit of it.”
On her way past the bar, Thompson noted the young woman who had cleared the table earlier was watching her out the corner of her eye. Maybe she didn’t like strangers, maybe Arcady was a regular and she didn’t like to see him upset, maybe the girl just liked what she saw. Thompson did not know, but there were no police waiting for her when she stepped out of the pub, so that was a good sign. One step at a time, Thompson decided. One step at a time and hopefully by the end they could return to the bunker and hand the DCI a report. Then they could away brush this messy affair for all time.
Shoving her hands insider her jacket’s pockets, Thompson kept her head low and headed back for the car. Sometimes she was glad she didn’t have a family, but today she was just happy she was never going to have any kids. She never wanted to be put through what Arcady had to have been going through right now. Whether he chose to show it or not.
CHAPTER SIX
There was something in Thompson’s tone Lin didn’t like, but the woman had only a few hours earlier been shot, so she decided to let her off her crankiness. Phillip Hillman was indeed a viable suspect, Lin had said when Thompson brought the name to her attention. She also reminded Thompson she had mentioned as much prior to their going to the house the night before, but Thompson had dismissed the information as unnecessary to the mission at hand. Lin liked Thompson, she really did, but she had worked with officers like her before. Thompson was the kind of person who wanted to be in the thick of the action as soon as possible and did not stop to do her research beforehand. She was more than willing to learn on the job, but in Lin’s experience that got people killed. It had certainly got Thompson shot, and that should have been
a wake-up call for her. Thompson, however, seemed destined to just blunder on through life regardless of what it threw at her.
It did not take much effort to track Hillman down. He wasn’t at home, and from what they knew of him that meant he would either be at a football match, down the pub or at the gym. Hillman’s team wasn’t playing at that moment, so after Foster had come out of Hillman’s local pub with a shake of her head, they had headed off to the gym. Lin had no experience in gymnasia, had never seen the point in working out in front of so many other people. Keeping fit was one thing, but gymnasia to her mind were all about vanity. The bunker had a gym, and she used it occasionally, but only when she needed to think about something or work through a particularly stressful day. She had even met Thompson in there one time, who had shown her how some of the equipment worked; until that moment Lin had only ever used the running machine. Since that day also, Lin had only ever used the running machine.
The perfection of fitness for the female form, it did not surprise Lin at all that Thompson had her own equipment at home, although what did surprise her was that Foster seemed to know her way around. The short, slightly overweight woman with absolutely no muscle or stamina was not someone Lin would have associated with keeping fit. Foster rolled her eyes when Lin raised this point, as tactfully as she could.
“Where else,” Foster had said, “are you gonna find the hottest men, Lin?”
It was far more information than Lin had ever wanted regarding Foster, although she reflected that perhaps Foster’s lifestyle wasn’t so bad. Lin had been so engrossed in her work she had only had one relationship since joining WetFish over a year ago, and that had been a one-night-stand with a colleague which made for awkward conversation back at the office. WetFish took so much of Lin’s time, of her life, that she wondered how she had even had a life beforehand.
It only required two of them to head into the gym, and since she was the most recognisable, having been shot and all, Lin suggested Thompson remain in the car to keep an eye out for trouble. She had expected an argument, but Thompson had grudgingly nodded assent. After all, if she started using the gym equipment she was liable to reopen her wounds, and if she didn’t manage to kill herself she would bring unwanted attention down upon them all.