by Anita Waller
‘She’s a member of our church, our fundraising group and our choir. I therefore meet up with her quite a lot.’
‘In here?’ Tessa indicated the confines of the vestry with a wave of her hand.
‘No, I don’t think so.’
Hannah wrote rapidly, making notes of his words, but also of his body language. He was nervous.
Tessa nodded, and temporarily shelved the vestry issue. ‘So where did you see her?’
‘In the church and in the church hall.’
‘Was she alone or with others? Emily perhaps?’
‘Occasionally alone, but usually with Emily or any of the choir members.’
‘Why?’
‘Why what?’
‘You don’t have anything to do with the choir. Isn’t that the remit for Annabel Knight? When I spoke to her she indicated she trained the choir.’
‘I’ve always got something that needs attention in here,’ he said. ‘And it pleases me to hear them. It’s better to do paperwork with a choir singing in the background.’
‘Reverend Barksworth, did you go to our mobile headquarters at the school and give a DNA sample?’
He looked startled. ‘No, I didn’t. Why would I? I’ve done nothing wrong.’
‘It doesn’t matter, we’ll take one now.’
He tried to protest but Hannah was waiting patiently for him to open his mouth for her to access his inside cheek.
‘Thank you, vicar,’ Tessa said. ‘The tests are used for elimination purposes.’
He looked at his watch and then at Marsden. ‘DI Marsden, I really do have to go back to my wife.’
‘We’ve almost finished, vicar. In fact, I think I’ve only one more question. I expect you to answer it truthfully, but taking your career into consideration, I’m sure you will be honest. Have you ever had sex with Orla French?’
Way to go, boss, Hannah thought, say it like it is. She watched as Steve Barksworth’s face turned red, then he stood and turned his back on them as he looked out of the vestry window.
There was silence, and Tessa held up a hand to indicate she didn’t want Hannah to speak.
They waited.
It seemed like forever as they watched the man of God battle with his conscience; both women knew that was happening. His face had told the story.
Finally he turned to face them. ‘Yes.’
Marsden’s eyes never left him. She was aware of Hannah taking notes, aware of the utter stillness in the room following the one word Steve had spoken, yet Tessa held back, waiting to see if he would say anything else.
When it seemed he wasn’t going to expand on what he had said, Tessa spoke. ‘Did you kill her?’
He sank down onto his chair, and covered his face with his hands. ‘Of course I didn’t kill her.’ His words were muffled. ‘I loved her.’
He asked Annabel Knight to come in and sit with his wife while he went into Chesterfield to police headquarters. He explained he had to give a statement, but gave no further details.
Annabel watched as the police car pulled away, and gave a small smile before setting off towards the vicarage. Did he really think he could fool her? He was lucky that policewoman hadn’t asked her the direct question of was your vicar screwing the pretty blonde chorister, because she might have had to answer honestly.
21
Steve Barksworth arrived back at the vicarage to find Annabel watching an old episode of Silent Witness.
‘Thank you, Annabel,’ he said, his voice raw with emotion. ‘Have you said anything?’
‘To your wife?’ she asked.
‘No, but she did ask where you had disappeared to. I told her it was parish business. They’ve not arrested you then.’
‘Clearly not,’ he snapped. ‘I haven’t actually committed any crime.’
‘Legally, I suspect you’re right,’ she said, her own anger bubbling to the surface and reflecting in her voice. She could have spent the night at home with her husband. ‘But morally, ethically, that’s another thing altogether, isn’t it. You have a wife, Steve. I’ve seen you and Orla together…’
The look of alarm on his face spoke volumes.
‘Oh, don’t worry, I didn’t say anything. But somebody obviously has, so I can’t be the only one who knows about it. And when the police do ask me the direct question I will answer honestly. That young girl was a virgin, Steve, and you took advantage of her.’
He sank down onto the settee and stared at the television screen without seeing it. When DI Marsden solved this, it would become a court case. He would be called as a witness and the whole sordid mess would be in the public domain. He doubted he would keep his job; he hoped he would keep Ruby.
In everyone’s eyes he would be the one to blame, that was obvious. He was older than Orla, double her age. But had nobody seen her glances, the winks as she said something outrageous, the flirtatious smiles, the low-cut tops she wore all through the summer? He had, and he had responded.
His mind went back to the first time they made love, that night in the vestry when everybody had gone home. She had made the first move, almost as if she had planned it carefully. He had tried to explain to her that it was out of the question, but her smile lit up the room as she said it was going to happen.
And it did.
They talked afterwards, and she had confessed to him that she wasn’t a virgin, but she had only done it once, and that was so that she would know what she was doing when it came to making love with him. He loved her open attitude, her frank honesty.
Steve was vaguely aware that Annabel had put on her coat, and as she said goodnight, she paused in the doorway.
‘Go to Ruby, Steve. I’m sure she’ll still be awake. Tell her, don’t tell her, it’s your decision, but I’m guessing at some point everybody will know.’
He stood and followed her from the room. ‘Thank you for tonight, Annabel. I’m going to have to tell Ruby, I know that.’
She wished him goodnight, and left the vicarage, reflecting on how much easier life had been in the Reverend Brewster days, when all he did was take the Sunday service and bury people.
Steve poured himself a brandy, and sipped at it, dreading the moment when it would be finished. He held the cut-glass goblet to the light, saw there were dregs still in it and tipped them into his mouth. He took the glass into the kitchen then opened the bedroom door.
‘Are you awake?’ he whispered.
‘Of course,’ Ruby answered. ‘Did you really think I would be asleep with my husband heaven only knows where?’
His heart sank. ‘Well, I’m home, sweetheart. Do you need anything?’
‘You.’
He hesitated. ‘And I need you, my love, but there’s something I have to tell you.’
‘Orla French,’ she said quietly.
‘You knew?’
‘It’s my body that’s giving up, Steve, not my brain. I had to pray you hadn’t killed her. It seems my prayers have been answered as you’re back here with me. You’ve been with the police, I take it?’
‘Yes. They wanted to know what my relationship with her was, and whether or not I had killed her.’
Ruby turned her eyes towards him. ‘Orla went missing, and presumably died, on the night you went to the Cathedral in Sheffield to meet the new bishop. I’d already worked that out. It’s why you’re still here, Steve. If you hadn’t got such a strong alibi – and how much stronger can it be than a bishop vouching for you – I would have told that DI everything. I know you didn’t kill Orla, but I also know you had sex with her. Don’t deny it, it’s not fitting that a man of the cloth should tell lies.’
‘There’ll be no more lies,’ he acknowledged. ‘We did have sex, several times, and in a way I loved her. But it wasn’t anything like the way I love you, it was more enjoying being with her. I’m so sorry, Ruby, and if you don’t want to be with me any longer, I’ll understand. I won’t be happy, but what happens next is your call.’
She turned over in bed, clearly in pai
n, and lay with her back to him. ‘That’s a big decision, Steve, but plan on sleeping in the spare room from now on.’ She reached out and switched off the lamp.
Steve stared at her for a moment, then left the room, closing the door gently behind him.
22
Ewan pulled up outside the Connection office, watched by three pairs of eyes. He wasn’t aware of them; his mind was on the previous evening. The meal with Doris had been special. They had many shared interests and they laughed and talked constantly. It had taken all his willpower not to ask questions about their trip. Now he hoped to get answers.
He locked the car and walked across to the door. Doris opened it for him.
‘Thank you,’ he said, giving a mock bow. ‘That’s the sort of service women should offer.’
‘Oh, and we do, at all times,’ Mouse said. ‘It’s in our genes.’
Kat burst out laughing. ‘Well said, Mouse, well said. It’s a pity nobody believes you. Ewan, would you like to go through to my office. We’re ready for you.’
Doris had decided not to be in on the discussion, and moved to her own desk in reception. Ewan looked a little surprised, but made no comment.
He followed Kat and Mouse through into the office, and Kat made coffees for all of them. She knew she was putting off the point when they would have to destroy his hopes.
Eventually they settled, and Mouse spoke. ‘On Monday Doris and I went to see a man we believed was the best contender out of the two possible ones, for being your son. We did a brief background check on the second one, but there were no links to you. The first one, however, had a mother called Helen, was born on the birthdate you gave us, and lived in Scarborough, a further link.’
Ewan smiled.
Mouse took a deep breath. ‘We went to see him at work, after deciding it might be better to keep it away from his home life until he said it was okay. He is CEO of a manufacturing company, and we were lucky to get an appointment, but we did. Here comes the difficult part, Ewan.’
Ewan’s face changed. The optimism disappeared at some speed, along with his smile. ‘He doesn’t want to know?’
‘No, it’s not that. He can’t be your son. Yes, he is the baby Helen was carrying when you were together, but you didn’t father him. This is probably why she left; not because she didn’t want marriage, but because she didn’t know if the baby was yours or this other man’s. I believe if the baby had been indisputably yours, she would have come back to you, but the baby was mixed race.’
She pushed the picture of Michael Fairfax across the desk, and waited.
He stared at it, then picked it up. Finally he spoke. ‘This doesn’t make sense. Remember the friend of Helen’s? Carla Blake? When the baby was a couple of months old, she went to see Helen. The next time I rang her she told me about it, said the baby was my double, had lovely blonde hair. There’s no way on earth this man ever had blonde hair. No way at all. In fact, she had a photograph, one taken with her holding the baby, that Helen sent on to her. I never saw it, but maybe she still has it. You spoke to this man?’ He tapped the picture on the desk.
‘We did. And he admitted to being Helen’s son, and always hoping his father would come for him. I think he was disappointed to learn our client was white British, and therefore couldn’t possibly be the man he had hoped to meet.’
There was silence in the office. Ewan was clearly thinking things through. ‘Did he say if his mother was still alive?’
‘She is.’ Mouse hesitated, but said nothing further.
‘Can you trace her? And maybe Carla Blake may still have that photo, we don’t tend to destroy photos, do we. I don’t want this to be the end, because there’s something not right here. Why would Carla tell me the baby was white, if it was mixed race? It would have got me off her back, no more phone calls, if it had indeed been somebody else’s baby, but she clearly saw it was mine. Please… don’t stop. There’s something not right about this.’
‘Of course we’ll try to track Carla. She lived in Sheffield?’
‘She did. I don’t know which part of the city though. Her boyfriend was called Luke, and I know they were engaged, but I’ve no idea if they married. She asked me to stop ringing, so I did. That phone number I gave you was her mother’s telephone, she lived at home then. And that’s about as much as I know.’
Mouse nodded. ‘We’ll do our best, Ewan. Carla is roughly your age, and there’s no guarantee that she is still alive, but we’ll try to find her. It does give rise to the question though, if that man we saw isn’t Michael Fairfax, who is he? Until we get proof that the baby was not of mixed race, we can’t really pursue that, but believe me, we will if we can get that photo.’
‘You’re not going to contact Helen?’
‘No. It would be morally wrong, wouldn’t it. I know she will know things we don’t know, but it sounds as though she lived a life of secrets. You have to prepare yourself for the possibility, Ewan, that we may never know the full story. But be assured, if this man is Michael Fairfax, he has no genetic common ground with you.’
Ewan stood. ‘I trust you. I’ll leave it in your hands. Do you mind if I go? I need time out, I think.’
He disappeared through the door, they heard soft words as he spoke to Doris, and then the shop doorbell pinged as he left.
Doris joined them. ‘He didn’t take it well?’
‘Something’s not right, Nan,’ Mouse said. ‘Ewan says there is a picture of Michael as a baby and he is clearly not of mixed race. So who did we meet on Monday? We need a brainstorming session followed by a laptop session.’
Kat smiled. ‘I’m up for the first part of that, count me out for the second part. Do we need doughnuts?’
The box of doughnuts sat in the middle of the table, and Mouse had a piece of paper in front of her.
‘Nice to write occasionally, instead of typing.’ She headed up the page with the words Michael Fairfax, then underlined it. ‘Any initial thoughts?’
‘Gut feeling says he wasn’t Michael, but if he wasn’t, who was he and why the impersonation? And why are there no photographs of him anywhere?’ Doris frowned. ‘Do we go back?’
‘I think we do,’ Mouse said. ‘But I think we do it differently this time. We don’t let him know we’re coming. I would like to do a surveillance session on his home. We can either get there early and see who comes out to go to work, or we can go mid-afternoon and wait for him to return home. Which do you prefer, Nan?’
‘Early morning. We’re not hanging around twiddling our thumbs then. If we leave home around half past five, that will give us time to find a decent place to park where we can see what’s happening. He’ll certainly be in work by half past nine at the latest, I would think. Then we can decide what to do next.’
‘Okay,’ Mouse said. ‘You good for tomorrow?’
‘I am. Kat, you clear for being here?’
‘I am. I might bring Martha though. I’m missing her.’
‘Good idea,’ Doris said. ‘Mouse, you want me to start searching out Carla Blake?’
‘Please, Nan. If she does still have that photograph from fifty years ago, it will be a big help.’
‘Mouse, you got a plan?’
Mouse shrugged. ‘I do, but it’s a bit hit and miss. I’m basically going to tear the Internet apart looking for Michael Fairfax; not his name, his face. If the person we saw isn’t him, and I don’t think he was, there must be a reason for that. The real Michael Fairfax doesn’t want to be found, and we were royally fobbed off on Monday. We accepted everything at face value, but Ewan didn’t, and as our client we owe him a full investigation into this. Let’s get to it.’
It took Doris two hours to find Carla Blake, now married to Luke Newton and living in Chesterfield.
‘Gotcha!’
Mouse lifted her head. ‘You’ve found her?’
‘I believe so, if all the stars and moons are aligned and in the right order. I’ve tracked her life, and I’m as sure as I can be that it’s her. I also h
ave a telephone number… Do we ring or go visit her? If we ring she might clam up.’
‘I agree. I think we need a visit. No word to Ewan yet though, we don’t want him to have foreknowledge of this. It may come to nothing.’
Doris gave a slight dip of her head, and sent documents to the printer.
Mouse was feeling frustrated. How could such a successful company have no pictures or information about its CEO? The only item she had seen was that he was the CEO. She had tried newspapers, magazines, everything in which he could possibly be featured, but it almost seemed like a complete blackout on the man.
She gave up with a sigh. ‘Nothing. He’s like the bloody Scarlet Pimpernel.’
23
Kat finished the piece of work on blood groups and everything related to it, and saved it to the relevant folder. It briefly occurred to her that she was getting better at this computer malarkey – not so much at the research side, but the general management of the work they had to do was almost second nature to her now, and she felt both Mouse and Doris trusted her to get it right.
It came as something of a shock when the shop bell pinged, and she looked up. A young woman stood in the doorway and Kat smiled at her. ‘Can I help you?’
‘I… er… don’t know. Do you do advice?’
‘We do,’ Kat said with a smile. The woman looked unsure of herself, and Kat moved around the counter. ‘Come in, and tell me what you need.’
The dark-haired woman, who looked to be in her late teens or possibly early twenties, gave a brief glance out of the door. ‘Can my partner come in? He brought me here.’
‘Of course. He can’t stand out in the cold.’
She waved and a few seconds later was joined by a young man who looked about the same age.
‘Okay,’ Kat said. ‘Let’s start with names.’ She moved across to Doris’s desk and took out a client form.
The young couple moved around the reception desk, and sat on the two chairs facing Kat.