Something Hidden: A totally unputdownable murder mystery novel (Andrew Hunter Book 2)

by Kerry Wilkinson

  Steyn was out of breath, rubbing his elbow from where Andrew had pushed him down. ‘Fine. I’m listening.’

  ‘You’re on the site as a senior clinical research fellow and it lists the projects you’ve been involved with, including that you recently headed a study into post-traumatic stress disorder. It’s quite hard to find out anything more about that as you haven’t published yet, but I wonder if the name “Luke Methodist” is buried in there somewhere as someone you met. He told his street friends he was looking for help from someone but the medical records are confidential. Then there’s the fact that you do a little bit of work away from social sciences, teaching an African Studies module on the side. Bit of extra money, I guess, multitalented gentleman like yourself. With your background, there’s probably no one better. Of course, that means you already knew Wendy Boyes before you saw her dead body – she did her first-year elective with you. I wonder if you told the police that.’

  Steyn’s wriggle and coat-fiddling gave Andrew the answer he already suspected.

  ‘That Saturday afternoon, when Sampson’s shop was robbed, he either called you in a panic, or he came to see you. He said he’d come up with a plan to make some quick insurance money but it had gone wrong because the idiots he was working with had stolen the wrong thing. Perhaps you owed him money or a favour? Either way, he wanted you to sort it. You were a lecturer and these two kids had witnessed the robbery in his shop and were now all over the news blabbing about it. Sooner or later, one of them would work out the wrong thing had been taken. What he didn’t realise was that you already knew Wendy, the pretty girl with the wavy black hair who’d been in your module. She’d probably laughed a few times, chatted to her friends, perhaps come to ask you a question or two after the workshops. She’d stuck in your mind.’

  Steyn popped another pill from his pocket, shaking his head furiously.

  ‘Something had to be done quickly. Everyone’s email address and phone number is stored on the internal university database, but that would have left a trail if you’d contacted Wendy from your own phone or email. One way or another, you went to her, asking to meet her and her fiancé, saying you’d seen them on TV. You could have said anything. You wanted their help for a project? Something like that. Meanwhile, you contacted Luke Methodist too – and arranged for everyone to be in the same place at once.’

  Andrew paused for breath, to compose himself, to try to lose the edge of fury that was engulfing him. ‘You might have shot them all but maybe it was Luke who was disturbed and lost it for whatever reason. Maybe it was his Browning, or maybe it was one bought in a pub. We’ll probably never know. Regardless, it was you who arranged it. You then contaminated the scene: an anguished onlooker, who couldn’t control his stomach. “He shot them both” became fact. What was there to check? And why would people bother when it was so obvious? Then the Evans brothers were arrested and everyone assumed they’d organised it anyway.’

  Steyn stood again and Andrew let him. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ he said.

  ‘So I can go to the police and ask their opinion, then?’

  ‘What is it you want? Money? Are you trying to blackmail me?’

  ‘I’ve already taken go-away money once. Never again.’

  ‘What then? If you were going to the police, you’d already be there, not harassing me on a park bench while I eat my sandwiches.’

  Andrew stood, brushing down his front and pulling up his trousers. He’d lost weight, which was hard to do when spending time with Jenny.

  ‘I just want you to know that I know.’

  ‘So what?’ Steyn turned to leave but then twisted back. ‘Perhaps you should ask yourself one thing, Mr Hunter. Andrew Hunter. If this jeweller is as powerful and corrupt as you think, if I’m capable of everything you say, if we can pull all of this off underneath the noses of those around us, what makes you think you’re untouchable?’

  Andrew put his hands in his pockets, ready to head in the opposite direction. He couldn’t force a smile. ‘Because, Professor Steyn, you can’t harm a man who’s already made a deal with the devil.’

  Thirty-Eight

  Three Days Later

  With the slush fest of Valentine’s Day out of the way, spring was coming early to Manchester. Sort of. A lone daffodil had sprouted on the edge of a flowerbed, not far from a fountain that wasn’t working. It was an obvious hard-ass, showing off to its mates that not even the February chill was enough to scare it. Snow? Bring it on. Frost? A big girl’s blouse.

  Andrew had his own handful of flowers, some sort of orange and white lilies which Jenny shrugged at, saying they looked ‘flowery’. Her level of botanical expertise was up there with his.

  Fiona Methodist had been silently standing next to him but now she crouched until she was on her knees and then sat on the dewy grass with her legs outstretched, resting her back against a thick stone slab.

  ‘Is it wet?’ Andrew asked.

  Fiona was all pointy elbows and knees again, her dark hair bundled underneath the same purple bobble hat she’d been wearing when they first met. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Will you at least take my coat?’

  ‘What will you wear?’

  Andrew slipped out of his thick woollen coat and handed it over. ‘I’ve got a jumper on, I’ll live. You look like you’re going to freeze.’

  For a moment, he thought she was going to argue, but then she took it, slipping her slender arms inside, without removing her own thin jacket. She pulled it tightly closed and breathed out. There was no plume of steam: spring really was on the way!

  Andrew nodded, indicating the cemetery around them. ‘How often do you come here?’ He rubbed his hands together, not wanting to admit he was chilly.

  ‘A few times a week. It depends on the weather. There’s not much you can do when it’s lashing down, which is most days.’

  ‘How have you been?’

  ‘All right. I got taken on by an employment agency. They know my last name but none of the clients do. When I go to a new place, I tell them I’m Fiona and everyone gets on with it. The girl at the agency has a dad in the army. She sort of knows what it’s like, not completely, but…’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘It’s not much money but it’s better than nothing. I’m still in that flat but if I can keep getting work, then I might be able to find somewhere else.’

  ‘Good for you.’

  She tugged her hat down a little further and then dug her hands into the pockets of his coat. ‘You’ll think I’m weird, but I like it here. It’s really peaceful.’

  Andrew stood still, listening. He didn’t spend a lot of time in graveyards but couldn’t argue. Aside from a dog barking somewhere in the distance, a gentle breeze, and the faint sound of cars, there was nothing except their voices.

  ‘The police told me this is what Dad’s grave had to be like,’ she whispered, her words almost lost to the rustle of the trees.

  Andrew stared down towards where she was resting her head, a completely blank gravestone that looked as if it was there holding the spot for when somebody important passed away. Everybody who died was important to somebody, of course, even a person who killed an innocent young couple.

  ‘They said people would desecrate it,’ she added. ‘It was either have him buried in a different area of the country, have him cremated, or this. I didn’t like the idea of burning the body, it seems so… final.’

  Andrew let the moment hang before telling her why he’d called. ‘I’ve got some bad news for you, Fiona.’

  She didn’t move her head from the stone, but she did close her eyes, breathing in through her nose. ‘It wasn’t him.’

  ‘I wish I could tell you for sure that’s true but I can’t.’

  She turned to face him, peering straight up, showing the whites of her eyes. ‘I know he didn’t shoot them.’

  Andrew pointed to the spot on the ground next to her. ‘May I?’

  She nodded, so he sli
pped onto the grass beside her, resting his back against the empty headstone. He had no idea what the etiquette in this type of situation was supposed to be but if it was good enough for Luke’s daughter, then it was good enough for him. The dew on the grass soaked straight through his trousers but he ignored it, listening to the silence.

  ‘I’m never going to be able to tell you whether your father shot Owen and Wendy. He might have done, but, even if he did, it was because he was under pressure from somebody else.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘I can’t tell you that. You wouldn’t know the person anyway. I wish there was a way I could let the world know but it’s not going to happen.’

  ‘I’d like to know.’

  They sat in silence for a few moments. Andrew gazed towards the horizon, where Beetham Tower soared into the sky. Somewhere near the top was the apartment he’d bought with his go-away money. He’d not heard from Keira since she’d stormed out of there on Valentine’s night, but neither had he heard from her father. Was that the last of the Chapman family? Or would Edgar take his revenge at some point when Andrew wasn’t expecting it? For now, all he could do was continue with his life.

  ‘Would you like to know a secret?’ he asked.

  ‘About my dad?’

  ‘About me.’

  ‘Oh… okay.’

  ‘Everybody tells you that hate is a negative emotion, that it builds within you and makes you do horrible things. I’ve hated someone for the past nine years, longer than that, really. I’ve loved this girl for what feels like my entire life and her dad hasn’t just pulled us apart once, he’s done it twice – just because he could. Some of it was my fault and I know I made mistakes – but I also know that if he wasn’t there, then we’d be together now.’

  ‘And you hate him?’

  ‘I know it’s a strong word. You’ve been through a lot and dealt with it but you’re still young. Young people throw around words like hate all the time. “I hate you”, “If you don’t get down here this minute, then I’m going to kill you”. The meaning of the words gets lost to such a degree that you can tell someone you’re going to kill them, and it’s like saying you’ve eaten the last chocolate biscuit. You shrug it off and life goes on.’

  ‘Me and my old friends used to say we hated each other all the time. We’d fall out and then be mates again a week later.’

  ‘Exactly, because really hating someone is much more than saying the word. I know he hates me too but that’s a large part of what’s kept me going for the past eight or nine years. It could have been negative but it wasn’t at all. It was what kept me getting up every day. He gave me money to leave his daughter alone, so, because I couldn’t have her, I had to force myself to do something worthwhile with the money instead. I enjoyed that seething rage every morning.’

  Fiona didn’t reply instantly. Andrew didn’t know if what he’d said had scared her off, it probably should have done, but she was a tough girl. Sometimes it was easier to tell truths to a stranger.

  ‘Does this mean you don’t feel hate any longer?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t know what I feel now… but it’s different. I had my second chance and it’s gone again. I think I’ve been spending all these years hoping that opportunity would come along and, now it’s passed, I can try to move on with my life.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘I don’t know yet. My point is that I don’t want you spending the next however many years hating some person you don’t even know, just because I’ve given you a name. It might drive you, motivate you, make you want to get up, but it’ll get you in the end – just like all those happy-clappy hippy types always say it will.’

  Fiona took a deep breath through her nose and blew it out through her mouth. ‘Does that mean the person is going to get away with it?’

  ‘It’s been dealt with.’

  ‘How? Who by?’

  ‘You’re going to have to trust me.’

  Andrew reached around the stone and put a hand on Fiona’s arm. Even through the material of his coat, she felt so frail. With no parents to look after her, she was a young girl who had to fight the world all by herself. ‘Even if I trust you,’ she said, ‘it’s not going to bring him back.’

  ‘No it won’t.’

  He sat next to her for a while, absorbing the tranquillity, not moving until Fiona was ready to leave. Andrew walked her to the gate that led towards the main road. He offered her a lift home but she insisted she’d walk, so he refused to take his jacket. It was too big for her but, if nothing else, it’d keep her warm on the way back to the city centre. He told her to call him if she ever had a problem, knowing she wouldn’t. Fiona was going to create a better life for herself, still believing her father was innocent, even though nobody would ever be able to tell her that for sure. Sometimes a person’s truth was more powerful than the actuality. If they believed it enough, then it was true for them, so who cared what anyone else thought.

  Andrew watched her walk away and then headed back to the car, slotting into the driver’s seat as Jenny put down a copy of the Manchester Morning Herald.

  ‘Sorry for being a while,’ he said.

  ‘Did she take it okay?’

  ‘Relatively speaking. She’ll be fine.’

  ‘Did you tell her the truth about Sampson and Steyn?’

  ‘Sometimes the truth is best forgotten, like with Edie Watkins. Not everyone gets a happy ending.’

  ‘So you’re not going to tell Edie’s mum where the cats went?’

  ‘No.’

  Jenny passed the paper to Andrew, with the front page uppermost that he’d already spent the morning poring over. ‘Good.’

  ‘You were right about Owen and Wendy reminding me of myself and Keira,’ Andrew said. ‘Ever since it happened, it had been at the back of my mind that they were a couple wanting to get married when they were young. Every time I saw their names on the news, I replaced them with ours.’

  She pointed to the front page. ‘Are you ever going to tell me what you did?’

  ‘Perhaps it’s just karma or a massive coincidence.’

  Jenny picked up the paper, holding it up for him to see the front page. ‘“Uni professor and local jeweller in child porn arrest”? That’s a coincidence?’

  ‘What do you think I did? Planted it on their hard drives myself?’

  Jenny didn’t respond. The truth was something he had no plans to share. He had his own demons and, somewhere in her past, she had hers.

  I’m not a psycho.

  Perhaps they’d be honest with each other in the future.

  Before she could say anything further, Andrew’s phone started to ring – Aunt Gem. This time, there were no jokes or threats to ignore.

  ‘Hello,’ he said, knowing straight away from her tone that she was in full gossip mode. He mouthed the word ‘Gem’ to Jenny.

  ‘I’m not disturbing you, am I, darling?’

  ‘No, I’m okay for a bit.’

  ‘I’ve only just heard the news. It’s so awful, dear. I wanted to call to hear your voice.’

  ‘The front page of the Herald?’

  ‘No, it’s Reg from bingo. He just called, properly shaken up.’

  ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘It’s his friend’s son. You remember that Kevin lad who came round to look at my ’lectrics?’

  She mentioned it as if he was an old friend who’d done her a favour.

  ‘I remember.’

  ‘It’s just terrible. His father’s devastated, so he was on to Reg, then Reg is an old softie at heart, so he got himself all worked up and called me, now I’m calling you. I know I shouldn’t have, but…’

  ‘Gem, it’s fine. I don’t mind you calling me. What happened?’

  ‘No one knows. The men are there now trying to figure it all out. Reg heard it was an electrical fire, so maybe you were right about him after all.’

  Andrew’s ears prickled with danger. ‘There was a fire?’

  ‘That�
��s why Reg was so shaken up – he was going on about how it could happen to anyone. One minute you’re asleep in your bed, the next, whoosh!, you’re off to meet your maker. Poor Kevin. It was only the other day he was round here admiring my teapots, now… well… I just feel for his father.’

  Thirty-Nine

  Buzzzzzzzzzzzzz-Buzzzzzzzzzzzzz-Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

  Andrew pressed the button attached to the gatepost at the front of Thomas Braithwaite’s house. There’d been a pile-up on the M60 and he’d spent more than four hours driving from Manchester, not knowing if he was doing the sensible thing. By the time he’d arrived, it was dark and cold again, with the moon dousing everything in an unnerving white-blue glow.

  The gate didn’t open but Andrew could hear footsteps bounding along the path. Iwan was swaggering towards him, shoes still shining, suit still clinging. He stopped on the other side of the gate, accent more pronounced than Andrew had ever heard it, toying with him.

  ‘Who is it?’ Iwan said.

  ‘You know who it is, let me in.’

  ‘Mr Braithwaite’s having dinner with his family. He’d like to be left alone.’

  ‘Open the gates.’

  ‘Believe it or not, I don’t answer to you.’

  ‘I’ll climb if I have to.’

  ‘Go for it. Watch out for the spikes on top.’

  Andrew peered up, knowing he had no chance. There were no horizontal bars for him to haul himself up on and he’d never been a good climber anyway. Even if he did get near the top, he still had the spikes to negotiate.

  Iwan started to walk away, knees slightly bent, legs wide. He was laughing loudly until Andrew bellowed his name for the third time. He ambled back towards the gate, standing a metre away from Andrew, the thick vertical metal posts between them.

  ‘You shouldn’t have come here in the first place. I could see it in you when you buzzed the first time: a wet, pathetic drip of a man.’