by Ray Clark
Eager to rid the place of the musty smell, he managed to force a window open.
Anthony dropped his holdall on the floor and pulled out a packet of digestive biscuits he’d bought at a small store about a mile away when asking for directions. As he put the biscuits down they actually rolled away from him, toward the window. It was then that he noticed the bed was propped up on bricks.
“Jesus Christ, what the hell is this place?” Anthony was distraught to think of the life he had lived for the last few years. More money than he could ever spend, a beautiful home, staying in the best hotels anywhere in the world.
Everything had ceased with the flick of a switch. But with whose fucking finger? He’d only spoken to Michael once, five weeks previously. There had been no mention of things going wrong then. No one had called Anthony since.
He stood up, fuming. He needed to find out what was happening. The reason was almost certainly connected to the hit and run involving David Hunter. All the newspapers on his front doormat attested to that.
Something had come to light. Someone knew about it. It was either one of the others, or all three, and they were trying to sort the matter, or fit him up. But for what: why register his death and clean him out completely if they were fitting him up for something?
The only other option was that an outsider had stumbled across something. Instead of going to the police, maybe he had done his homework, figured out who they were and how much they were worth, and decided on a nice bit of blackmail. Maybe he or she had started with Anthony, intending to wipe out the rest of them in order.
One thing he was pretty sure about, the police were not yet involved, or they had no knowledge of their activities, otherwise they’d all be locked up by now.
Frustrated, Anthony left the hotel and headed someplace private so that he could make phone calls. Half an hour later he found himself in the big open space of Beckett Park.
Seated on a bench he made the first of those calls to Michael Foreman, which went to voicemail. The same thing happened when he tried to call James Henshaw and Zoe Harrison.
Anthony felt like death. Were they ignoring him? Or had something really happened to them? Was the net closing in after all?
Instead of being the first, maybe he was the last.
There was only one person left to call, Rosie Henshaw. She could be a little unpredictable but he would have to call her – see what she knew.
After a hesitation he called her mobile, which also went to voicemail. Seeing as James was the only member of the group who was married with children, life for him was somewhat traditional and he had a landline.
Anthony called that. After eight rings, a somewhat fractured Rosie finally answered.
“Hello?”
“Rosie?”
“Palmer? Where the hell have you been, you four-eyed, spineless, murdering parasite?”
“Pardon?”
“Deaf as well, are we?”
“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about, Rosie?”
“You know bloody well what I’m talking about.”
“Have you been drinking?”
“You’ll need one by the time I’ve finished with you – if only to numb the pain.”
“Put James on, Rosie.”
“I wish I could.”
“Why? Where is he?”
“You tell me. Last I heard he was in Brussels.”
Anthony thought on his feet. “Oh, for the meeting.”
“Oh, so you actually know something about it, then?”
“We all did.”
“Michael Foreman must have suffered amnesia, then, because that beached whale didn’t have a clue what I was talking about.”
“When was that?” asked Anthony.
He thought the line had gone dead but then he realised Rosie was talking to someone else. The conversation was muffled. She must have had her hand over the receiver.
“About five weeks ago,” she replied, when she finally came back to him. “Anyway, let’s cut the bullshit, Palmer, because I know damned well that James was not in Brussels. He never even went there in the first place.”
“So where is he now?”
“What do you think I am, a clairvoyant? The last I saw of him was when he walked out of here to take a trip to Brussels with, supposedly, you lot. That was weeks ago. The police told me he’d never even left the country.”
“The police?” questioned Anthony, nearly fainting. “You involved the police?”
“I didn’t have to. They’ve continually been knocking at my door and asking me questions to which I have no answers.”
“About what?”
“What do you think, you cretin?”
“I’m not thinking anything,” replied Anthony, “I’m asking.”
“Does the name David Hunter mean anything to you?”
Anthony didn’t reply. His mind was too busy thinking of the implications.
“Cat got your tongue, Palmer? Well, let me tell you how it stands right now, shall I? They know all about the hit and run in Burley in Wharfedale, in which you lot, including my husband, almost certainly played a part. They’ve been all over my house, and taken everything they thought was connected to that accident. They’ve studied all the airports. But, I’ll give credit where it’s due, you guys are brilliant at covering your tracks, because they can’t find a damned thing, including you.”
When Anthony made no reply to that outburst, Rosie asked him if he was still there.
“Yes.”
“So go on, then, where are you?”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea to tell you.”
“Nothing new there, then. Any idea what it’s like for me and the kids, Palmer?” Rosie didn’t give him the chance to reply. “No, you wouldn’t have, would you? You’ve never had kids. They cry themselves to sleep every night wondering where their father is, and if he’s ever coming back. What the hell am I supposed to tell them? That everything is okay and Daddy will be back soon? Trouble is, if what they say is true, I don’t want him back. You lot killed a man and his wife in cold blood and left them to rot. You all cleared off while the heat died down. I don’t know what that makes you but I don’t want any part of it, and I don’t want my kids near it, either.”
“Look, Rosie,” protested Anthony, “let me try to explain.”
She cut him off. “Don’t bother. It’ll simply be a pack of lies. Save those for the police. You know something, Anthony Palmer – if that even is your real name – you’ve never had anyone to think about but yourself. None of you have. Well that’s okay, it’s going to come in handy while you’re still trying to hide from the police. And they will find you, you shitehawk, because they’ve also put a trace on my phone.”
The connection died.
Chapter Twenty-seven
By the time the team had assembled in the incident room late in the evening, Gardener had updated the whiteboards with the information that had filtered in throughout the day. Sitting on tables at the side of the room were hot drinks, and snacks provided by a local bakery that Reilly was on good terms with.
Gardener addressed his team. “Thanks for coming. I realise it’s been a trying day and we may not have covered much ground, but hopefully we’ll add something further to the boards. I held a press conference about an hour ago.”
That brought a chorus of noise. Everyone knew he hated the press, and why.
Gardener continued, “Has anyone gleaned anything from the witness statements?”
Bob Anderson and Frank Thornton had worked together; Anderson spoke up: “Nothing that we don’t already know.”
“One of the women who works in Waterstones noticed Michael Foreman on Butts Court around ten o’clock,” said Thornton. “She’d popped out the back for a quick smoke and she saw him staggering away, toward the town centre. He had his hands around his face at that point.”
“She didn’t see anything else – anyone else?”
“No. Even though we know he’d been dum
ped,” added Anderson, “she didn’t see a vehicle.”
“I’m working on that, sir,” said Paul Benson. “After I’d finished speaking to Millie Johnson I drove back to the area and listed all the buildings and companies, so that we can prepare a list and work through it, and speak to more people, assuming CCTV doesn’t reveal anything.”
“I’m sure it will, Paul, good work. Did Millie Johnson have anything to add?”
“No. She’d been out to meet a friend for morning coffee. A lady named Stella Dent. After that, they’d both browsed the shelves in Waterstones before setting off in different directions. Millie Johnson never noticed anything when she passed Short Street, but saw him stagger around the corner when she was window-shopping. So what she said ties in with what everyone else is saying, but she couldn’t add anything new.”
“Have we interviewed Stella Dent?”
“Yes,” replied Benson. “She confirmed what Millie Johnson had said about meeting up but saw nothing.”
Usual frustrating stuff, thought Gardener. Something major happens and, even when there are a number of people milling around, no one sees anything.
“Patrick, please tell me you have something positive?”
Edwards resembled a rabbit caught in the headlights. He had a cup of tea in one hand and a half-eaten sausage roll in the other; the remainder was currently in his mouth.
“Does your mother not feed you, son?” asked Reilly.
“You’re a fine one to talk,” replied Rawson. “You’re like a human trash can.”
“There’s too much waste in this country,” said Reilly. “I’m doing my bit to help.”
“What?” replied Thornton. “By storing it all in your stomach?”
Edwards had finished chewing and came to Reilly’s rescue. “Got a registration, sir: LA20 PUR.”
“Who owns it?”
“You’re not going to like this. It’s on a long-term loan to an Alfie Price.”
Gardener rolled his eyes; here we go again. “Was it rented locally?”
“Yes, in Leeds.”
“And you’ve visited the lease company, checked it out, seen all the paperwork?”
“Yes, but it was all done via computer and the photo ID was no one I recognised. It certainly wasn’t any of them up on the board there.”
“Did you get an address?”
“Yes. Apparently it’s registered to a guest staying at The Old Swan Hotel in Harrogate but when I called them they’d never heard of the man. There were no records to backup the fact that he either was – or is – staying there. Apparently he told Hertz that he lived in London but he was up here on business for six months, so that’s how long he needed the vehicle.”
Gardener sighed, almost laughing. These guys were unreal.
“What about the London address?”
“A block of flats,” replied Patrick. “I’ve checked the electoral roll against the paperwork. The address is real but the person isn’t.”
“Surely there’s a paperwork trail,” said Sharp. “What about the guy who does live there, has he received anything yet?”
“Still on it,” said Patrick.
“Stick with it, Patrick, but don’t waste a lot of time on it. I’m pretty sure it’s not going anywhere.” Gardener had to admit it was a clever connection. “Where did the vehicle go from Butts Court, do we know?”
“Yes. As Mr Reilly suggested–”
“Mr Reilly, now, is it?” laughed Colin Sharp.
“Hold your horses, son,” said Reilly. “This wee young man will go far, he has respect.”
“Respect my arse, he just doesn’t know you as well as we do,” added Rawson.
“Okay, lads,” said Gardener, “go easy on him, he has provided the snacks.” He waved his arm in Patrick’s direction for him to continue.
Reilly smiled, raised his fingers to his eyes and then pointed at Rawson.
“It continued up Short Street, right onto Upper Basinghall Street and then left onto The Headrow.”
“Which we suspected. Have we registered it with ANPR?”
“Yes, sir. Already done. I’m hoping to check the pings and all the CCTV cameras in the morning.”
“That’s something positive, we might strike lucky. But it still doesn’t tell us who is behind it all. So far we have one dead body in the shape of Michael Foreman. With the others all still missing it could literally be any one of them.”
“But we do have mention of somewhere new,” said Sharp. “Harrogate.”
“Good point,” said Gardener, noting it down on the whiteboards. “We need to monitor this and see if Harrogate comes up anywhere else in conversation.”
“As for who’s behind it, they’ve all got motive,” said Reilly. “They’re all involved in the death of David and Ann Marie Hunter. It must have been a pretty stressful time for them all. Wouldn’t take much for one of them to crack.”
“You’d have thought they’d stayed tight after something like that,” added Benson.
“They obviously have,” said Reilly, “but maybe time and stress have shown up the cracks. All that money, people get greedy. Maybe one of them has decided he wants it all for himself.”
“Or wants a bigger share than any of the others,” said Rawson.
“Or one of them has been siphoning a bit off without the others knowing,” offered Benson.
“And now they’ve found out,” said Gardener.
“Or it could be someone else,” added Gates.
“We’ve all been talking about the possibility of it being one of the two men,” said Gardener. “There are women involved.”
“Ah, yes,” said Anderson, “we can’t rule out Zoe Harrison.”
“I wasn’t thinking specifically about her,” replied Gardener, “James Henshaw was married. His wife may well have had enough of his double life.”
“What possible reason?” asked Longstaff. “She’s still got the house, and presumably a fair amount of money. Maybe that’s all she needs.”
“Perhaps she’s not actually bothered about her husband,” said Gates, “especially after what he’s done.”
Gardener nodded. “It could be any number of reasons but at the moment we just don’t know enough. We still have a lot of blanks to fill in. Returning to the DPA team, have they all been out of the country and now they’re back, or have they been here all along? Is it possible that someone else put all the pieces together a lot earlier than we have and held them hostage somewhere, and now he or she is releasing them one by one?”
Gardener’s questions were halted by a knock on the door. Desk sergeant Dave Williams dropped in holding a piece of A4 paper. “This just came in, sir. A man called Jonathan Drake called in to register a complaint. He was attacked on Butts Court, shortly before ten thirty this morning by a man who was driving a green 4x4. He doesn’t know what make, nor did he catch the registration, but it’s a bit too much of a coincidence.”
Rawson stood up. “I’m on it.”
Chapter Twenty-eight
Anthony was laid on the bed in the guest house, totally bollocksed. He’d never had such a trying day in his life.
After Rosie had cut the connection, the first thing Anthony did was remove the SIM card from the phone and put it in his pocket. He then threw the phone in a bin. Only later, when he was on the bus going into the centre of Leeds did he realise how stupid it was to have done that.
Once in Leeds he bought another pay-as-you-go phone with about twenty pounds of credit. Returning to Beckett Park he discovered his other phone was not where he’d left it. No surprise there, then. Some skank would have it somewhere – not that it would do him much good, but it might help Anthony, especially if the police had a method by which to trace it.
He’d returned to the guest house about half an hour previously, exhausted but with no appetite. His brain however, had been on overdrive. A complete jumble of thoughts about who was doing what: where the hell where they all, and what would happen now the police were involved
? How much did they know? Sleep was completely out of the question. That would almost certainly lead to nightmares about him being chased by clowns – it always did.
Anthony sat up and rubbed his eyes. He jumped out of bed and crossed the room, switched on the travel kettle and made tea for himself. His stomach growled. He checked the biscuits. The few that were left would have to do.
With the tea made, Anthony sat down on the end of the bed, staring out of the darkened window. According to Rosie, everyone was missing and the police knew everything. So what to do and where to go from here would take some serious thinking.
Chapter Twenty-nine
“When did Jonathan Drake make the call?” asked Gardener.
“Just now,” replied Williams. “I took it myself.”
“Is he badly hurt?”
“Don’t think so, sounds like it’s just his pride.”
“And you said we’d send someone round?”
“As soon as we could.”
“Where does he live?”
“The flats near the university, about ten minutes away.”
“Okay,” said Gardener, eager to gain vital evidence but preferring instead to finish the incident room meeting.
“Dave, I appreciate your enthusiasm but if Jonathan Drake has just made the call he’ll be happy to wait for us, so at least let’s finish up here.”
Rawson nodded and sat back down.
Gardener chose the subject of the airports next because he knew that Dave Rawson and Colin Sharp had worked in tandem.
“So far, sir, we’ve concentrated on Leeds Bradford,” said Colin Sharp. “But we’re no further on because we know that none of the names we have left the country. The situation is still the same.”
“It was a long shot,” said Gardener.
“We have requested that they try and find as much footage of the CCTV since the night of the hit and run but it’s a massive job,” said Rawson.
“We pretty much did the same with Humberside, and Robin Hood airports,” said Bob Anderson. “We’re going back tomorrow to go through what they’ve found but as Dave says, it’s a massive job.”