And this ‘gift’ is a curse for someone who needs to be taken seriously – because the ability to be taken seriously is about the only asset that a private investigator has.
Oh yes, it’s quite true.
People who would never think of making a personal remark about her name to Jennie Cooper or Jennie Fletcher – ‘Why isn’t your head shaped like a beer keg?’ ‘Shouldn’t your skull come to a sharp point in the middle?’ – feel no compunction at all in pointing out to me (in case I’ve failed to notice) that the name goes with the hair – ‘Or is it vice versa ha, ha, ha!’.
I have reached Carfax Tower, where the drunks from the Salvation Army hostel lie sprawled against the base, already overcome by the cheap cider they habitually drink.
I make a hand signal and turn down onto St Aldate’s. My mental tsunami now all but over, I stop pumping the pedals quite so fast and take a few slow and steadying breaths in preparation for my meeting with my old friend (and ex-lover) Detective Sergeant George Hobson, who appeared, on the telephone, to be rather too willing to meet me.
THREE
As I dismount my bike in front of the Bulldog, I’m still puzzling over the fact that George Hobson is making this rendezvous so easy for me.
Here’s how it works under normal circumstances: I ring him up and ask for a meeting, and he invariably says he’s busy (which, to be fair to him, he probably is). We arrange to meet later – usually the next day (if I’m lucky), or the day after – and we settle on a venue which, for reasons that will soon become very obvious, is always a pub.
The next day – or day after that – I arrive at the said pub (usually the Bulldog, since it is so convenient for St Aldate’s police station), and my first action on entering is to buy George a pint of best bitter.
Then I sit and wait.
It is not until he is halfway down the pint that I diffidently make my request for information. He considers my petition much as a medieval monarch might, and while he is doing so, I buy him a second beer.
At this point, the conversation can go one of two directions. He may say that he doesn’t have the information, or that he has it, but can’t pass it on to me (and given the nature of things, can’t even explain why he can’t pass it on). In this case, as far as he is concerned, the free beer fountain dries up. Or, he may say that he can tell me what it is that I want to know, which is my cue to go to the bar, and order him another pint.
But what’s happening today just isn’t normal. Due to his ready acceptance, I feel like a wild animal following dangled bait which is leading it straight into a trap, though why the Thames Valley Police should want to trap one of the least important creatures of the jungle floor is anybody’s guess.
I secure my bike, with a heavy chain, to the metal bracket outside the Bulldog which, in former times, was there for tethering horses. This chaining up is very necessary, because Oxford is the world capital of bicycle thefts (though no doubt our rival, Cambridge, would claim that particular honour for itself – as, like many younger sisters, it feels the need to try and claim every honour and distinction going!).
Detective Sergeant George Hobson is sitting in the public bar, with a pint in his hand. He hasn’t seen me, and I pause for a moment to study him. He is not a heart-stoppingly handsome man, but he is easily good looking enough to pass most people’s standards for acceptable partners, and, in addition, he is kind, he is generous and he is interesting, and, for a fleeting moment, I wonder why we broke up.
Except that we didn’t break up at all, did we? I remind myself.
I think he loved me, and I’m almost certain he was about to ask me to marry him, which is why, despite the remarkably good sex we generated as a couple, I had to bring it all to an end.
Because I didn’t love him, you see – at least, not in that way. I love him as a friend – I would die for him, if I had to – but I couldn’t force myself to feel an emotion which simply wasn’t there. The truth is, I’ve never been in love with anybody, and I don’t think I ever will be. Maybe if I’d been a Woodend or a Cooper it would have been different, but romantic love is just not in the Redhead genes.
I take a few steps forward, and George becomes aware of my presence. He looks up, smiles, and gestures with a graceful sweep of his right hand that I should sit down opposite him.
‘What’s wrong?’ I say, once we’re at each other’s eye level.
‘Wrong?’ he repeats, in a tone larded with innocence – which I don’t believe for a minute.
‘Whenever I ring you up and ask for a business meeting, you hum and hah and tell me how difficult it’s going to be for you to find the time.’
‘And it always is – because, as you know, I have a heavy workload,’ he protests.
‘On this occasion, however, you said, without even thinking about it, that you could see me right away.’
‘So you happened to catch me at a good time, Jennie. Don’t be suspicious – be grateful!’
‘Also, even when you get here first, you always wait for me to buy the drinks but …’
‘That’s not fair,’ he says. ‘I’m not the kind of man who sponges drinks off a friend.’
‘Maybe not,’ I agree, ‘but you certainly seem to do a very good impression of one.’
‘The reason I allow you to buy me drinks is that I know it will be your clients – the ones who pay your expenses – who have to cough up,’ he says firmly
‘And yet, this time, even though you will have assumed I’m meeting you on a client’s behalf, you’ve still bought your own drink,’ I reply.
He shrugs, unconvincingly. ‘That was absent-minded of me. I won’t make the same mistake again. I promise you that.’
I am still waiting for the trap to spring. I can almost feel the rope tightening around my ankle, ready to whip me up high into the air.
And then I notice what he’s got under the table.
‘What’s in the bag?’ I ask.
He shuffles his feet, slightly. ‘What bag?’
‘The bag you’re now attempting to hide between your own leg and the table leg?’
He looks down. ‘Oh, that bag.’
‘There’s something in it that you think might help me, isn’t there?’
‘Could be,’ he admits.
‘Which is very strange,’ I muse, ‘because I haven’t told you yet what kind of help it is that I want.’
‘You said on the phone you were investigating Grace Stockton’s murder,’ he says.
I shake my head firmly. ‘No, I didn’t.’ I pause. ‘I went out of my way not to say that.’
‘So I made a lucky guess,’ he suggests, unconvincingly.
‘Do you want to know what I think?’ I ask.
He pulls a face – as if that’s going to put me off.
‘No, I don’t really want to know,’ he says, ‘but I imagine you’re going to tell me anyway.’
Too bloody right, I am!
‘I think the Thames Valley Police are much keener on me investigating this murder than I am myself,’ I tell him, ‘but whoever it is who pulls your strings has told you to make sure it’s not that obvious.’
‘You surely don’t think …’ he begins.
‘You see, they can’t bring themselves to admit they need me. Of course, it’s all right, as far as they’re concerned, for them to help me out – it’s only charitable to help somebody who was once one of their own. But for them to accept openly that they need the help of a one-woman band with a scruffy office on the Iffley Road – well, that’s swallowing enough pride to pack a double-decker bus with.’
‘Maybe you’re right,’ he admits glumly.
‘Julia Pemberton must have Ken Macintosh wrapped around her little finger,’ I say.
‘He’s an old friend of her parents, but DCI Macintosh is only a small part of this,’ George says.
‘Then where’s the real pressure coming from?’ I ask.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Where’s the real pressure coming f
rom, George?’ I repeat, sternly this time, like a school matron who suspects one of her schoolboy patients of ejecting his semen onto the nice clean sanatorium sheets.
‘The Home Office,’ he mumbles.
‘What was that you said?’
‘Have you gone deaf? I said the bloody Home Office.’
‘And why should the Home Office be interested in a purely domestic murder that happened over three years ago?’
‘Dr Pemberton is a highly respected scientist, you know. She moves in all the top circles. I know for a fact that she’s had dinner with the Prime Minister on at least two occasions.’
I’m not convinced – not even for a second. I drum my fingers impatiently on the table.
‘Why?’ I repeat.
George grins shamefacedly. ‘The way I hear it, Dr Pemberton is bonking one of the junior ministers.’
Interesting! I wonder which came first – the chicken or the egg. Was she having an affair with the minister when she realized she could use him to put pressure on the police? Or did she decide that the best way to get the minister to pressurize the police was to have an affair with him? Based on our one meeting, I wouldn’t dismiss either of those possibilities.
But whichever it is, it’s delightful news, because it means I will be given a lot of leeway in my investigation, and should I choose to cut a few corners – which is not unknown, entre nous – it will probably be ignored by the people who could otherwise make my life very difficult.
‘Well, who’s getting the drinks, George?’ I ask.
‘What?’ he says, in the sort of tone you might expect if I’d asked him to explain gravity – in Mongolian – while juggling with fiery torches.
‘Whose round is it?’ I elucidate. I put two fingers to my forehead, to indicate I am in deep thought. ‘Now let me see, I’ve bought the last one thousand six hundred and forty-two, so I think it must be you.’
He rises reluctantly to his feet.
‘What do you want then?’ he says.
Like he doesn’t know!
‘A gin and tonic,’ I say. ‘Better make the gin Beefeater.’
‘Isn’t that the most expensive one?’
I’m loving this. I really am.
‘Yes, it certainly is the most expensive one,’ I agree, ‘but I’m sure the Thames Valley Police can take the financial strain. In fact, given their vast resources, why don’t you make it a double?’
Once we have our drinks sitting enticingly in front of us, George Hobson begins his narrative.
‘The first we knew about it was when her husband – Derek Stockton – reported her missing. He’d been lecturing in the United States, and he’d been expecting her to meet him at Heathrow Airport. When she wasn’t there, he rang home and got no reply. That’s when he decided he’d hire a car.’
I take a sip of my G&T. Somehow the knowledge that the Thames Valley Police is paying for it makes it taste even better than usual.
‘You’ve had all this stuff checked, have you?’ I say.
‘What makes you ask that?’
I shake my head disbelievingly. ‘Come on, George, stop playing games,’ I say. ‘You know full well why I’m asking – it’s because when a wife gets killed, it’s more often than not the husband who’s killed her.’
‘I’m glad to see your time in the Force wasn’t completely wasted,’ George says, to cover his embarrassment at having been caught out. ‘Yes, we did check it all. We checked that he hired the car at Heathrow and that he arrived there on the plane from Boston.’
‘But did you also check to make sure that he didn’t—’
‘Fly across here and kill his wife, then fly back to the States, wait a day or so, then fly into Heathrow again?’
‘Yes.’
‘We most certainly did. And we discovered that on the three days before he flew back to England, he gave a lecture every day.’
Oh well, there’s one easy option gone.
‘Carry on,’ I say.
‘He rang us at four thirty in the afternoon. He said that he’d arrived home and—’
‘Does that fit with the time he hired the car?’
‘What a nasty suspicious mind you have,’ George says. ‘Yes, it does fit in – more or less.’
‘More or less?’
George shrugs. ‘It depends on the traffic. If he’d been lucky and had a clear run, he might have got home an hour earlier. If he’d hit any congestion, he could have been delayed for anything up to a couple of hours.’
‘I see. Tell me about the telephone call.’
‘I can do better than that,’ George says, reaching into the bag he’s brought with him. ‘I’ve got a transcript.’ He takes out a thick manila folder, and opens it at a place he’s bookmarked. ‘Shall I read it to you?’
‘Why not? You’ve got such a beautiful reading voice.’
‘Sarcastic bitch,’ George says, almost under his breath. He clears his throat. ‘Are you sitting comfortably?’
I say nothing.
‘Are you sitting comfortably?’ he repeats.
‘Yes, I’m sitting comfortably. I’ve never been more comfortable in my entire bloody life!’
‘Good! Then I’ll begin.’
Stockton: This is Dr Derek Stockton of Crocksworth Manor. I want to report my wife missing.
Desk Sergeant: When did she go missing, sir?
Stockton: I can’t say exactly. I only got home ten minutes ago. I’ve been away on a lecture tour, but …
Desk Sergeant: Have you considered the possibility that she might just have popped out to the shops, sir.
Stockton: We live in the middle of the countryside, and the nearest shop is at least three miles away.
Sergeant: Does your wife have a car, sir?
Stockton: Yes, she does, and it’s still in the garage. As a matter of fact, I was expecting her to use it to pick me up at the airport.
Desk Sergeant: Ah!
George stops reading and lowers the transcript. ‘And you can take that look off your face right now, Jennie,’ he says.
‘What look?’
‘The look that says, “God, aren’t uniformed desk sergeants just about the thickest of the thick?” He may sound thick in retrospect – but that’s only because we now know for certain that Mrs Stockton is dead. What you have to do is put yourself in his place back then. As far as he was concerned, the odds were that the caller was unduly concerned or just wanted to waste police time. I could quote you a dozen calls made by absolute nutters which are almost carbon copies of this.’
‘Fair enough,’ I concede, because I know he’s right.
‘Now where was I?’ he asks.
‘Desk Sergeant: “Ah!”’ I remind him.
‘That’s it.’
Desk Sergeant: Ah!
Stockton: What’s that supposed to mean?
Desk Sergeant: I was wondering if perhaps you and your wife might have had an argument before you left or while you were away.
Stockton: We most certainly did not.
Desk Sergeant: The problem is, sir, that even if she has gone missing, we can’t do anything until forty-eight hours has elapsed.
Stockton: But forty-eight hours has elapsed.
Desk Sergeant: With all due respect, sir, you can’t possibly say that, what with you having been away and all.
Stockton: The plants in the garden are wilting for lack of water, and the cats met me on the doorstep, howling for food. My wife would never see the cats go hungry.
Desk Sergeant: Maybe if you could get your neighbours to confirm that she hasn’t been seen …
Stockton: There are no neighbours, you bloody fool. As I’ve already explained to you, we live in the middle of the bloody countryside.
Desk Sergeant: Listen, sir, you’ll get nowhere with that attitude, so my advice to you …
George closes the file with a dramatic finality that points to only one conclusion.
‘I take it Stockton hung up,’ I say.
‘Just so.
’
‘So what did he do then?’
‘What do you think he did then?’
What would I have done in his position?
‘I think he rang everybody he knew who might possibly have some influence with the police,’ I say.
‘That’s exactly what he did, and when you’re a senior professor at one of the greatest universities in the world, you’re just bound to have some very influential friends, aren’t you?’
‘So you were there within the hour?’ I hazard.
‘Not quite that quickly,’ George replied. He glances around him to make sure no one of any importance is listening, then continues, ‘The chief constable is not exactly strong in the backbone department, but even he has some pride, and he held out until morning.’
‘And were you involved at this point in the inquiry?’
‘Oh yes. As a matter of fact, it was entirely my show. In the absence of any signs of foul play, you see, no one in authority saw any need to waste the time of any of the big hitters, so they put a humble detective sergeant in charge of the investigation.’
‘They put a humble detective sergeant in charge?’ I say. ‘I thought you just told me that you were in charge.’
George grimaces. ‘Ha, ha, ha!’ he says. ‘You’re so funny you really should be on the stage.’ He pauses. ‘There’s one leaving town at five o’clock. Make sure you’ve got a seat.’
The last time I heard that particular joke I was seven years old and in Walton Street Primary School playground, and I smile at it now just as I would smile at the sudden reappearance of any old friend.
FOUR
16th April, 1972
George Hobson arrived at Crocksworth Manor just as the birds were relaxing in the trees after their strenuous dawn chorus.
The first thing that struck him about the place was its isolation, for not only was it over half a mile from any other building, but it was at the end of a rough cart track which ran from the country lane to the front of the manor – and then stopped dead.
‘So there’s no chance of any passing traffic having seen anything, then,’ he said to himself.
The second thing he noted was that even if the Stockton family had inherited the property, the amount of money that had been spent on what were obviously recent renovations would be enough to make a humble detective sergeant’s eyes water.
Daughters of Darkness Page 3