by Ford, P. F.
‘They told me you guys had wanted to start a fight,’ said Coulter, ‘but there was no need for that. I only sent the boys down there because I heard they fed the homeless people down there. I just wanted to see if they could identify the guy I was looking for.’
‘They were supposed to drag him back here, weren’t they? So you help yourself to one of his kidneys?’ asked Norman.
‘If they saw him they were just supposed to give him a mobile phone with my number programmed into it. They were to tell him I would pay him a lot of money for a kidney. The phone was so he could call me and negotiate.’
‘And did he?’ asked Norman.
‘Surely he would have more sense than to trust someone like you and a bogus surgeon,’ said Slater.
‘You really think so?’ asked Coulter. ‘Don’t be so naive. Everyone has their price.’
‘So you were actively looking for this guy?’ asked Norman. ‘How would you know if it was the right one this time?’
‘Tattoo on the upper arm. Lots of the SAS lads have their blood group tattooed there.’
‘What about the guy you killed and dumped in a lay-by on the bypass at Tinton?’ asked Norman. ‘What happened there? I guess you thought he was your guy, but just to make sure, you hacked his sleeves off. Then, when you found no tattoos, your goons beat the shit out of him in frustration. Or were they trying to find out where the real guy was and they just got a little bit too rough?’
‘When was this?’ asked Coulter.
‘The night after your heavies came to the church hall.’
‘I wasn’t looking by then. The guy I was looking for – Ryan – had already called me that morning. I told you – that’s why we gave him the mobile phone.’
‘So your guys got a phone to him that night we saw them?’ asked Slater.
‘He was outside when they left.’
‘But why would he take the phone from them?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Coulter. ‘Maybe Morgan told him how much I was prepared to pay for the right kidney. Like I said, everyone has a price. I’m just waiting for him to let me know when he’s coming in. He was supposed to be here yesterday but there’s been a delay for some reason.’
‘Maybe he got cold feet and changed his mind,’ suggested Norman.
‘No, I don’t think so,’ said Coulter, confidently. ‘He’s a warrior, a man of honour. He’ll be here.’
Slater exchanged a glance with Norman. If Coulter knew Ryan was dead, he was a very good actor. He had been blowing holes in their theory right from the start, and if he really didn’t know Ryan was dead, that theory was about to sink without trace.
‘Err, I wouldn’t be too confident about him turning up, Stan,’ said Norman.
‘Of course he’ll turn up. He’s special forces. He was my son Bobby’s best mate. He’ll turn up.’
Coulter’s confidence suddenly seemed to disappear as he took in the two faces opposite him. ‘What? You know something, don’t you?’ he asked, beginning to panic. ‘What’s happened? Where is he?’
‘Are you sure you don’t know?’ asked Norman.
Coulter was close to hysteria now, and he jumped to his feet. ‘Of course I don’t bloody know!’ He banged on the desk with his fists. ‘You tell me where he is!’
‘He’s dead, Stan,’ said Norman, quietly.
‘Dead? He can’t be dead! He promised me he was coming!’ Coulter sank back down into his chair, but then he had an idea. ‘But if he’s dead, we can still have a kidney, we can have both of them! We need to be quick though, they don’t last long.’
‘It’s too late,’ said Slater. ‘He died about thirty-six hours ago now.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me sooner?’ asked Coulter, hysterically. ‘We could have done something.’
‘He had already been dead twenty-four hours when he was found,’ said Norman. ‘There was nothing that could be done.’
Coulter was distraught. ‘Who did this?’ he demanded. ‘Someone’s condemned my son to death because of this. Who did it? I’m gonna kill ’em.’
‘His sleeves had been cut off, just like the last guy,’ said Norman. ‘We thought it must have been you checking his blood group.’
‘Me? You think I killed him? Why would I kill the only man who could save my son’s life?’
‘We figured he’d gone back on his word and you’d hunted him down.’
‘We had a deal. He was going to make a million quid. It was what he wanted to start a new life. Even if it was true and he had backed out, why would I kill him?’
‘You were trying to grab him so you could knock him out and steal a kidney,’ suggested Slater, ‘but it went wrong and he died.’
Coulter was purple with rage now, and he was screaming. ‘If we’d killed him we would have brought the body back here and taken both kidneys, wouldn’t we, you bloody idiot?’
Alerted by all the noise, Coulter’s two heavies had rushed to the conservatory and the door suddenly burst open as they arrived.
‘Are you okay, boss?’
‘Get these two idiots out of here,’ snarled Coulter.
‘How did we get that so wrong?’ asked Norman, as Slater drove away from Coulter’s house.
‘You believed him, too?’
‘I don’t think you could fake all that grief,’ said Norman, ‘and like he said, why the hell would he kill Ryan and leave the kidneys?’
‘So you think we got it all wrong?’
‘I think we got it wrong about the murderer,’ admitted Norman.
‘So what’s going on then?’ asked Slater.
‘I thought Coulter, was the key to this. I was convinced, but now I’m not sure. If it’s not about finding a kidney for his son, what the hell is it about? I mean, what other reason could anyone have for cutting the sleeves off their victims?’
The drove on in silence for a short while before Slater spoke.
‘Maybe we’re just looking at it the wrong way round. What if someone was trying to stop Coulter’s son having a transplant?’
Norman thought about this new idea.
‘I dunno,’ he said. ‘How would that work? If you wanted to stop the transplant, why not just tell the authorities? Or if you want to kill people, why not kill the surgeon? No surgeon, no transplant, right?’
‘But there’s always another surgeon, isn’t there?’ argued Slater. ‘And could you be sure the authorities would act? I get the impression Coulter would be used to dealing with that sort of stuff, and he’s probably got a plan B anyway. No, when the patient has a rare blood group, the odds of finding a donor are miniscule. It’s a miracle they found one in the first place. What better way to wreck the plan than kill the donor?’
‘But what’s the motive?’ asked Norman.
‘To make Coulter suffer,’ said Slater, ‘and I think it worked, don’t you?’
Norman thought about this a bit longer. ‘Shit,’ he said, finally. ‘If we’ve got to start working our way through a list of the people who would want to get even with Coulter, we’ve got one hell of a long job in front of us. There must be hundreds . . .’
It was after one o’clock when they got back to Slater’s house, and Jane Jolly was still there.
‘Are you okay?’ asked Norman. ‘You’re supposed to finish at twelve.’
‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘I’ve been waiting for you two to get back.’
‘How’s Jenny?’ asked Slater. ‘She was pretty upset when I told her about Ryan this morning.’
‘She’s fine. We had a long chat earlier. I think she needed someone to talk to. She’s been through a lot, poor girl. Ryan was just the latest in a long run of misfortune.’
‘That’s what I thought,’ said Slater, ‘but I’ve been waiting until she’s ready to talk. I didn’t want to force her to tell me, you know?’
‘I think you’ll find she will talk to you, if you give her time, but she doesn’t want to be a burden,’ said Jolly.
‘She isn’t a burden.’
> ‘Then you should make sure she understands that,’ said Jolly. ‘She does trust you, she’s just not ready to tell you, yet.’
‘Where is she now?’ he asked.
‘Upstairs, sleeping. She’s going to need a lot of it.’
‘Do you think I should go up?’
‘No, she’s fine, leave her there for now. I’ve got something you need to see. I was doing some online research for myself this morning, and I came across something quite interesting. I printed it out for you, one copy each.’
She gave each of them six printed pages. ‘Here you are,’ she said. ‘You settle down and read these. I’ll make you a cup of tea before I go.’
Chapter Sixty
It was just before 7 p.m. when Slater, Norman, and a small slip of a girl with spiky hair walked into the church hall.
‘What’s this, another volunteer?’ asked Diane as they walked into the kitchen.
‘This is Naomi,’ said Norman. ‘She wanted to know what we do here, so I thought there’s no better way of finding out than by actually getting your hands dirty, right?’
Chris looked up from his vegetable-chopping. ‘Hi Naomi, you’re very welcome. Any friend of Norm’s is a friend of ours.
‘Come on in, Naomi,’ said Diane. ‘There’s plenty to do. Are you any good at peeling potatoes?’
‘Sure,’ said Naomi. ‘Where do I start?’
It was nine thirty by the time all the guests had gone and the five remaining workers sat down to eat.
‘That was such terrible news about Ryan,’ said Diane. ‘Does anyone know what happened?’
‘Apparently he was stabbed in the back and then dumped in the same lay-by where they found Doddsy,’ said Norman. ‘Only Doddsy’s body was left in the road where he was easy to spot. Ryan’s body was hidden away behind the trees at the back of the lay-by.’
‘I don’t understand,’ said Chris. ‘Is that relevant? What do the police say?’
‘Oh they won’t actually tell us anything,’ said Norman, ‘but it looks like they think it’s just some random killing. They don’t seem to give a damn about homeless people, so I doubt they’re going to make much of an effort to find out what really happened.’
‘So they don’t think it’s the same person responsible?’ asked Chris.
‘They think Morgan’s death was an accident of his own making, and Doddsy was a hit-and-run,’ said Slater.
‘What about Ryan’s death?’ asked Diane.
‘Random killing,’ said Norman.
‘They’re not linking Ryan’s death with Doddsy’s?’ asked Chris.
‘Why would they?’ asked Slater.
‘Err, well, they were found in the same place,’ said Chris. ‘What did you mean about the body being hidden? Surely that’s what any murderer would do with a body, isn’t it?’
‘Not necessarily,’ said Norman. ‘It’s often the case that the murderer just wants to flee the scene and get as far away as possible. Dumping Ryan and Doddsy out in the lay-by smacks of planning.’
‘I thought you said Doddsy was a hit-and-run accident,’ said Diane.
‘The police are saying it’s a hit-and-run. We think he was run down alright, but it was no accident. And it didn’t happen in the lay-by. He was run down somewhere else and then dumped in the lay-by.’
‘It’s a bit of a coincidence, two bodies being found there,’ said Chris.
‘That’s not the only coincidence,’ said Slater.
‘You mean the sleeves?’
‘Oh, you know about that?’ asked Norman.
‘It was on the radio earlier,’ said Chris, hastily, ‘in a news report.’
Slater and Norman exchanged a glance and there was an awkward silence, broken by Diane. ‘What do you think of these two detectives, Naomi? Don’t you think they’re clever, working to solve a case on their own.’
Naomi smiled. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘it’s a pity the police won’t take the deaths as seriously. I’m sure someone thinks they’ve got away with three murders.’
‘You really think so?’ asked Chris.
‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘Someone thinks they’ve got away with it.’
‘Gosh, I wonder who it is?’ said Diane.
‘It can be the most unlikely people,’ said Norman.
‘I suppose if it was Agatha Christie, it would be the butler?’ suggested Chris.
‘Yeah,’ said Norman, ‘or maybe the vicar?’
Chris dropped his knife, but quickly picked it up and tried to carry on as if nothing had happened. It seemed he had become all fingers and thumbs, so he placed his knife and fork on his plate.
‘No,’ said Diane, laughing. ‘It can’t be the vicar, he’s a paragon of virtue . . .’
She stopped speaking as she realised no one else was laughing. She looked at her husband, but he was staring down at his plate. ‘Chris? What’s the matter? What–’
‘Shall we tell her, Chris?’ asked Slater. ‘Or do you want to?’
Diane looked shocked, but still her husband stared down at his plate.
‘Have you ever met his mother?’ Norman asked Diane.
‘No, she died of cancer when he was very young,’ she said. ‘I never got the chance to meet her.’
‘She did die when he was very young, but she didn’t die of cancer,’ explained Norman. ‘She was an innocent victim who was gunned down in a bank raid. She just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. That was thirty-five years ago. The gang that raided the bank were caught and put away for armed robbery, but the woman who they killed had left a son, and for a fortnight he sat and watched his mother on a life support machine until she eventually passed away.’
He looked across at Chris. ‘That must have been really hard, to lose your mum that young. What were you then, five?’
‘Six,’ whispered Chris. ‘I was six when she died.’
‘The guy who had the sawn-off shotgun was called Coulter,’ continued Norman. ‘He had a son called Stanley. Stan was part of his father’s gang, and he assumed control when his father was put away. He had big ideas, and he now makes a very tidy living from some very dodgy dealings, but he’s clever enough to keep just out of reach of the law.
‘Stan Coulter had three sons. One joined the army and was killed in Afghanistan, one’s his right-hand man, and the youngest is in a private hospital just a few miles away from here. He’s got a terminal kidney condition. His only hope is a transplant, and because he has a rare blood group, his only real hope was a guy called Ryan.’
Diane looked at Slater at the mention of Ryan’s name.
‘Yeah, that Ryan,’ confirmed Slater. ‘He had the same blood group, so the chances were he would have been a near-perfect tissue match for a transplant. He was going to do it, too, except Chris got to him before they could perform the operation. The thing with organs like kidneys is that they don’t survive for long in a dead body. Starved of oxygen, they soon die and become useless. Because Ryan’s body had been hidden, he’d been dead twenty-four hours before he was found. It was plenty of time to make sure the kidneys were no use to anyone.’
Diane looked from face to face, looking baffled. ‘But this is crazy. Chris wouldn’t do anything like this. Tell them, Chris!’
But Chris said nothing. He just continued to stare at his plate.
‘But he’s never out of my sight,’ she said.
‘What about those parishioners he’s been visiting at night?’ asked Norman. ‘You said one family called the night Ryan died. We checked your phone for incoming calls. The only call was from Ryan.’
She still couldn’t make sense of what they were saying. ‘Yes, but-’
‘Have any of those dead people had funerals, Diane?’ asked Slater. ‘Naomi checked recent local deaths. Apart from an elderly Sikh, the only deaths have been Morgan, Doddsy, and Ryan. Chris was seeing off the dead, but not in the way you thought.’
‘But why would he kill Morgan and Doddsy, if Ryan was the one?’
‘I thin
k Morgan was an accident,’ said Slater, ‘but only in the sense that he shouldn’t have been in the skip. That was Ryan’s skip, where he slept. He only let Morgan stay there that night because he was so ill he needed shelter.’
‘Yeah, Morgan died for nothing,’ said Norman. ‘Just like Chris’s mum. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time.’
‘But why Doddsy?’
‘It took us a while to figure that one,’ said Slater. ‘But then we thought about how jealous Chris was when Doddsy flirted with you. We think he was a bit of an opportunist victim. With us looking at SAS and army links to Morgan’s death, it was easy to fit Doddsy in. The sleeves were cut off to add to the suspicion this was about blood group tattoos.
‘Chris was actually setting us a trail that led to Stan Coulter, and we followed it all the way. It was only when we confronted Coulter that we realised it didn’t add up. That’s when he had a little bit of luck. We have a lady who’s part of our team. She’s had some bad luck that’s really tested her faith and she’s been looking for someone to talk to. We suggested Chris. The thing is, Jane’s not one to rush in without checking someone out first. She looked up Chris online. She’s really thorough. She found the story about his mother’s murder and Coulter’s father being the shooter.’
‘After that, we saw everything in a whole new light,’ Norman finished, ‘and suddenly things started to add up. Like how Chris is always out comforting someone when these guys die.’
‘And you’d have to be the killer to know about the sleeves,’ said Slater. ‘Someone at Tinton police station thought like us, and although she couldn’t do much, she made sure that little detail was never revealed publicly.’
‘Now he’s going to have to watch his son fade away, just like I watched my mother die,’ spat Chris, suddenly awakened from his trance.
‘But you killed three people,’ said Diane. ‘How could you do that? What did they ever do to you?’
‘Do you think it was easy?’ he said. ‘Killing innocent people? I’m a vicar for God’s sake. I feed the homeless. I care for them because no one else seems to even notice them.’