Alternative outcome

by Peter Rowlands

  “Have another drink. Have a tonic water.”

  I laughed. “I wish you didn’t live in Cornwall.”

  “I’m very glad I do.” She grinned indignantly at me.

  “Ha! Not quite what I meant.”

  “I know what you meant, Mr Stanhope.” Abruptly she leaned forward. “Don’t take too much notice of what I say, Mike. I don’t really know what the fuck I’m doing, to be honest. I think I’ve slipped a cog somewhere here.”

  I leaned forward myself, and accidentally brushed her hand on the table. It was like an electric shock, and we both recoiled slightly, looking at each other with surprise.

  I said, “You seem to me like someone who usually knows her own mind.”

  She looked uncertainly at me. “That’s what I thought, too.”

  We sat in silence for a moment, then I stood up. “It was nice to see you.”

  “Thank you for dropping by, Mr Stanhope.” She stood up to rejoin a couple of her colleagues who were still there, then more quietly said, “Drive safely.”

  1988

  Hawkins adjusted his field glasses to focus on the farmhouse. Rain pattered relentlessly on the grass around him: more rain, endless rain.

  Striped police cars stood clustered in the farmyard, their blue lights flashing. Officers in high-visibility jackets moved cautiously about the scene – talking, huddling, evaluating. Some were busy erecting an exclusion fence round the farm. The white-clad forensics team went cautiously about their business.

  The van, a rusty long-wheelbase Transit, stood in the middle of the farmyard, already with its own inner cordon around it. The fluorescent tape hung limply in the rain.

  He wondered who was injured. The radio reports hadn’t given out a name. He hoped it was Target, the stupid fucker. That foolish, needless bullet had turned them all from robbers into murderers. But he himself had been long gone by the time shots were fired at the farm. While the others had been arguing about the dispersal of the loot, he’d simply driven off in his rented car, empty-handed. It had been laughably easy.

  Someone had talked. It was the only explanation. Ten minutes after he left, the police had swooped. He’d narrowly missed passing them on the farm road. What that someone didn’t know, or hadn’t mentioned to the police, was where they’d switched vehicles. That was what he’d counted on. Seven miles away, their original van stood intact in a deserted barn – along with the boxes he’d hidden at the front of the body. Perks of being the driver.

  It had taken him under five minutes to transfer them to the boot of his car, then he drove into a new housing estate a mile away and parked at the end of an unfinished road: out of sight, and out of reach of any road blocks or other surveillance. And waited.

  In the morning he’d joined a gaggle of press and mawkish onlookers at the nearest high point in sight of the farm. If you were hiding, the best place to do it was in plain sight.

  He looked at his watch. All he had to do now was collect Wendy and Sasha.

  And hide the spoils.

  Chapter 18

  Back at my desk, I tried to focus on work, but my mind kept drifting back to the previous evening in Birmingham. Clearly there was a spark between Ashley and me, but how could I engineer another meeting with her? Even if I could, where would it lead? I couldn’t imagine. Yet the tantalising promise of our exchange was drowning out all other thoughts.

  As a distraction, I reviewed my limited progress with the search for the Markham family. My visit to Altrincham hadn’t really yielded much, though it did seem to confirm that they had vanished overnight. What I needed now was a more organised strategy for discovering why.

  I was aware of various web sites offering advice on finding missing persons, but the options were so diverse that it was hard to know where to begin. Then I remembered the Park Writing Group. They’d assembled a bundle of what they called Writers’ resource goodies, but I’d never asked for a copy. I felt sure it would help.

  I’d signed up to the group while I was writing my book, hoping for helpful feedback. They met periodically in a flat in one of the Victorian mansion blocks overlooking Battersea Park. I hadn’t attended a meeting for months, but according to their web site, one was scheduled for later this week. I clicked the link to attend.

  * * *

  The writing group session proved challenging. There was a prolonged conversation about self-publishing, which most members regarded as an admission of defeat, and I skated round my decision to go down that route myself. “I’m thinking about it,” I said cautiously.

  I knew that Eric, who owned the flat and ran the group, would be against it. He was a slim man in his fifties with a vigorous head of pepper-and-salt grey hair, a prematurely lined face and a world-weary aura. He regarded himself as an expert on the book trade, and now commented, “You realise that once you do self-publish, no real-world publisher will look at your book?”

  However, Amelia, a round woman in her fifties with long, slightly unkempt blond hair, put in, “That’s not strictly true, Eric. If an online book goes viral, a big publisher will sometimes pick it up.”

  “But how often does that happen? No, the traditional route still has to be the best way to go.”

  I asked about the Writers’ resource goodies, and Eric pulled a photocopied pamphlet from a drawer. “This should be your bible,” he said.

  Thankfully, the meeting broke up earlier than usual, and by 9.30 I found myself out on the street.

  “Fancy a quick drink?” It was Amelia, who had followed me down.

  This was a first. I glanced curiously at her. “Why not? I can never understand why Eric insists on these dry sessions.”

  “I think at one time one of the group members was an alcoholic, so he introduced that rule.”

  She led the way to an unglamorous pub on the edge of a high-rise estate just off Battersea Park Road. She looked around the bar critically. “Always wondered what this place was like. Now I know.” I had the impression she wasn’t planning an imminent return visit.

  Over a double gin and tonic she observed, “You shouldn’t be put off by Eric’s view of self-publishing. You could wait forever to get an agent to pick up the bait. Ask yourself which is better: a dozen sales online today, or zero sales in two years’ time, and a sense of your own worthiness?”

  “Maybe you’re right.”

  “Trust me, you’re speaking to one who knows. I’ve published three novels online, and sold several hundred copies so far. It won’t make me rich, but at least I know there are a few people out there who want to read what I’ve written.” She hesitated. “People who don’t spew self-satisfied claptrap about them.”

  I laughed. It wasn’t all claptrap; I’d learned a lot from the reading group members, most of whom were simply doing their best with a difficult pursuit. But I could see her point.

  “But you’ve never told the group about it?”

  “Obviously not. You can imagine what they would say.”

  “But you’ve proved them wrong. Self-publishing can work.”

  She shook her head. “Conventional publishers would be crying into their beer if they only sold a few hundred copies of their books. Eric knows that. I haven’t proved they’re wrong – I’ve just demonstrated that there’s another way.”

  I looked at her with new curiosity. “So what are your books about? Are they the same as the stuff you’ve read out to the group?”

  “No, they’re fantasy romance. Can’t see the group taking to that, can you? But they’re rooted in the real world.”

  I smiled at her. “I wouldn’t have put you down for that genre.”

  “Well, there you go.”

  We chatted about this for a while, then the conversation ranged over the other members of the group. She commented, “Harry and Fran wouldn’t have any problem with self-publishing, I bet you.”

  Harry was about twenty-five, and all I knew about him was that he came from Chadwell Heath. In some ways he seemed the group’s unlikeliest member, but
his occasional observations were usually astute. Fran was a brisk mother of three (she liked to characterise herself in exactly those terms) who lived in Putney, and was an unashamed fan of “chick lit”.

  I demurred, but Amelia leaned forward confidentially. “Harry has already bought your book online. A few weeks ago he told me he’d downloaded it.”

  I looked at her in surprise. “So you knew I’d self-published it?”

  She grinned. “Well, I wasn’t going to broadcast the fact unless you did.”

  I smiled broadly at her. “I appreciate that.” Then I thought about it for a moment. “Harry didn’t mention it this evening either.”

  “We’re all terrified of what Eric’s going to say.”

  We parted company around 10.30 and I headed for home. Unfortunately, another unpleasant shock awaited me there. When I reached the kitchen I found the back door swinging open on its hinges and the lock completely smashed. Christ – what now?

  What now, I soon found, was that my laptop computer and tablet had been stolen. I felt like crying. I’d been carefully taking them with me everywhere I went, but this evening’s excursion had seemed too trivial to require this measure, and I’d let down my guard.

  I seemed to be in the middle of an unrelenting onslaught, and I didn’t know how to stop it.

  Chapter 19

  “Dave? It’s Mike Stanhope.” I spoke hesitantly. I wasn’t sure how he would react to my call.

  “Stanhope – there’s a name to conjure with. I thought you must be dead.”

  Immediately I felt a stab of guilt. This man was supposed to be my friend, yet I had no idea when I had last contacted him. Trying to strike a matching note of levity, I said, “Nice to speak to you too.”

  I’d met DI Dave Matthews years ago in connection with a story I was covering, and unexpectedly we’d hit it off. Over the next few years we’d spent more than a few boozy evenings in the pub, and occasionally, when I needed off-the-record updates, he had proved surprisingly forthcoming. I never really understood why.

  Yet once I’d stopped writing investigative articles, I’d also stopped contacting him. How cynical did that make me? Cautiously I said, “Dave, d’you fancy a drink?”

  Initially he sounded surprised, but then he said, “Yeah, why not? That place in Norbury?”

  It was our old drinking haunt, and he was already sitting at the bar counter when I walked in – a thickset man in his early forties with light coloured hair, heavy jowls and a ruddy complexion. He looked more or less unchanged from the last time I’d seen him, and he gave me a quizzical smile. He gestured to the adjacent bar stool, sliding a pint over to me. “I didn’t think we’d be doing this again somehow.”

  I smiled at him in turn. I felt unexpectedly pleased to see him. It was hard to explain the chemistry that could work between people as different as we were, but I now realised I’d missed our evenings together. He seemed to relish talking to someone outside the force, and I’d found it fascinating to hear his surprisingly frank accounts of some of the cases he worked on.

  I said, “I enjoyed working with you back then, but I don’t know.” I took a sip of beer. “I’m not sure I was cut out to be an undercover hack.”

  “You underrate yourself, my friend. You were very focused.” He paused, perhaps searching for a better term. “Very driven.”

  “Huh. I don’t know about driven. All I know is there was too much stress.”

  “You don’t need to tell me about stress, mate. It’s what I do every day. Stress is my middle name.”

  “Sorry, what I said probably sounded tactless.” I took a deep breath. “I really valued your help when I needed it.”

  He gave me an appraising look. “Something tells me you want more help now.”

  “Ha. I didn’t mean to be so transparent.”

  “So long as we know the rest of the drinks are on you.”

  I paused, working out where to begin. “It’s about Allied Northern Stockholders. I’m sure you remember them.”

  “I could hardly forget, could I? Biggest fuck-up in many a long day. I worked with the northern task force for weeks on that case. We were trying to nail those two brothers, Janni and Tommy Noble. But what did we get out of it in the end? Fuck all.”

  “Right. Well, the other day I bumped into Janni Noble by chance. I’d never met him before. Then a day or two later Tommy phoned me up out of the blue. Bit of a coincidence, I thought. And since then I’ve had two break-ins at my house. The latest one was last night. My computer has been stolen.”

  He was watching me closely. “And there’s more?”

  “Well, you might think this is a bit of a stretch, but a week or two back my web site was hacked. My web man says someone might have been trying to steal information about me, or from me.”

  “I’m sorry to hear all this, mate. But you surely don’t think these three things are all connected?”

  I shrugged. “I wouldn’t have, but the break-ins seem so methodical, so intentional. It’s more like being targeted than being burgled. I wondered if these guys think I have something they want from me – some kind of evidence against them or something.” I paused. “And I got to thinking that maybe the web site hack was the same people attacking me from a different angle. It does fit, in a way.”

  I could almost hear Dave processing this for a moment. Finally he said, “But you published that article anonymously, didn’t you?”

  “That’s right.” This hadn’t been my choice; it was magazine policy to use pen names on anything controversial. It was a layer of protection for the writer – or so they reasoned it.

  I added, “Obviously Tommy Noble knows who I am, but Janni Noble isn’t supposed to. I’m just wondering if he somehow found out.”

  “So you think either or both of them could be gunning for you?”

  “Well possibly, though I don’t see what good it would do them.”

  Dave cleared his throat. “Look, I don’t know whether this will make you feel better or worse, but people on my team went through that article of yours at the time. To be honest, they couldn’t really find anything in it to contribute to our case. It was background information, that’s all. Hearsay and conjecture, but no real substance.”

  I was silent for a moment, reflecting on this easy dismissal of my work. But then again, wasn’t this exactly what I hoped he would say? I couldn’t have it both ways.

  I said, “Huh. Well, might as well tell it like it is.”

  At the end of the evening Dave agreed to try to find out the latest on the Noble brothers, and let me know if anything he discovered seemed to fit in with my theory. “But I have to say I doubt it,” he added.

  * * *

  My next task was to replace my laptop computer. Somehow I felt I’d said goodbye forever to the one that had been stolen, and the police seemed to concur with that view. I needed a new one, and I could only hope my home insurance would pay for it.

  I headed for the computer superstore on Purley Way in Croydon, where I was dismayed to find that few modern laptops seemed to have a DVD drive built in. I ended up paying more than I could afford for the laptop itself, and more again for a separate DVD drive. I bought a new tablet, too – the cheapest I could find.

  All I had to do now was find and load all my software and data, then sort out my passwords and get things back to something like normality: a dispiriting task that seemed to take hours.

  It was two days later when Dave rang me back.

  “Got a minute? I might as well fill you in on what I’ve picked up about the Nobles.”

  “Brilliant.”

  “This is how it looks to me. We were more or less certain that they were in the trafficking scheme together, but we could never find any real evidence against Janni.”

  “OK, I’m with you so far.”

  “Tommy was a different case. We had evidence that he was involved in the scheme hands-on, so we arrested him. But it all started to come unstuck, and the next thing we know, he’s skipped
bail and disappeared. We found out later that he’d managed to make his way back to Albania. He simply hung out there and kept his head down.”

  I waited.

  “Well, basically the case fell apart. People who we thought would start talking suddenly clammed up, and in the end we had to drop it. So the warrant on Tommy was rescinded, and the bad guys lived happily ever after.”

  “Do you think Janni put the frighteners on the witnesses?”

  “No, that was an odd thing. I was told they genuinely didn’t seem to want to see him go down.”

  I thought through the implications of this. “But you reckon there might be something more recent that could have stirred up the brothers? Something that would get them taking an interest in me?”

  “Well, I’m hearing that Tommy is back in the country, with an almighty grudge against his brother. That could possibly be relevant.”

  “How come?”

  “Well Tommy’s been working all this time on the family farm in Albania, or whatever he does over there, while Janni has been building up a big new business empire in the North West. So now Tommy wants to muscle in on it. But apparently he was always a bit of a loose cannon, and Janni was more than happy to get shot of him. Now he’d prefer to let him stew in his own juice.”

  “You’ve got good information.”

  “Just the kind of stuff we pick up all the time by keeping our ears open.”

  “So …?”

  “OK, well let’s suppose that Tommy reckons he could still put his hands on some sort of evidence that would implicate Janni in the trafficking. That would be a bit of leverage, wouldn’t it? A way of prising his way into the new business.”

  “But surely he couldn’t give up Janni without also implicating himself?”

  “Well, I can’t read his mind.”

  “Anyway, what do you mean by evidence? What sort of evidence?”

  “No idea, but we wondered if it could be photographs. Something like that?”