The Cyclist

by Tim Sullivan

  'Yeah, like I said,' she replied.

  ‘But not Andy’s role in all of it,’ he said. He picked up the piece of paper Mackenzie had brought in, and looked at it for a few moments, as if it was the first time he'd seen it. He then gave it to Ottey who, after a few seconds, looked a little surprised. She looked up at Jean, as she put the paper back on the table.

  'What?' said Jean.

  'I have a copy of your phone records here, and Andy's. Also, Andy's hours for the last month, at South West Plumbing,' said Cross.

  'So?'

  'Andy wasn't with you that night.’

  ‘Yes he was. I just told you that and so did he,' she protested.

  'Let me rephrase that. He was there, but not till later. Much later. He was on a night shift.'

  'What are you talking about?'

  'Your phone records show that you placed seven calls to him from your mobile, between eight forty-nine and ten fifty-three, when he eventually picked up.' He looked at her for a reaction. But there was none. ‘He wasn't there when Alex died. Your argument with Alex escalated. He was furious that you agreed that Debbie should have an abortion, as she was planning. And he blamed you. That's why he'd come to the house in the first place – to tell you she was planning an abortion and to ask for your help. You refused. What happened? Why did you hit him?'

  'It was self-defence,' she said.

  'How?'

  'He came for me. He lunged at me. It was self-defence,' she repeated.

  'I don't think he came for you. I think you may have thought that,' said Cross.

  'What are you talking about? He threw himself at me,’ she said.

  'I think we both know what happened and I think you know this, having had the time to think about it. You were arguing; he moved towards you – maybe to make a point, maybe to plead with you to see sense, and he lost his balance. He was wearing bicycle cleats. Very easy to lose your balance wearing those. I know that, because I tried them once without success, it has to be said, and anyway I decided that taking cycling seriously wasn't for me. It wasn't without its attractions, but I didn't really see the point. I'm very much an A to B cyclist. The journey has to have a point. A utilitarian cyclist, I suppose you could call it.’ He stopped. She was looking at him like he was mad. He was accusing her of killing someone, and was banging on about cycling. 'You may or may not have thought he was coming for you, but in any event, you hit him, as you say, with the ashtray and he fell, cracking his head, fatally, in the process. Those, I think, are the only two truthful things about your version of events.'

  He paused, giving her the opportunity to say something, contradict him, even. She turned to her solicitor for some sort of help, but none was forthcoming.

  'It must've been awful. You panicked. Couldn't get hold of Andy. You had to sit there with a corpse in your room till he got home. But then he sorted it out, didn't he? As he always does.'

  Chapter 29

  Jean was eventually charged with manslaughter, on the instructions of the CPS. Andy was charged with perverting the course of justice and preventing the lawful and decent burial of Alex. The team were going over to the pub to celebrate. Cross, of course, didn't join them. Carson came into his office with Ottey and three glasses of single malt whisky. He gave one to Ottey and the other to Cross who, as usual, left it on the desk untouched. Ottey didn't know why Carson bothered with this new ritual, but again put it down to his having watched too many American cop shows on TV. She had convinced herself that he probably didn't even like whisky, but possibly only because the thought amused her. She'd seen him in the office open his bottom drawer, pull out the bottle of Scotch, get two glasses in the other hand – it had to be one hand – with a gunslinger's dexterity and pour a thumb each for himself and whoever he was trying to impress. If he wanted to get down and dirty he would dispense with the glasses and grab the nearest two coffee mugs – for more gritty effect, she thought. Depending whether he was in an episode of Midsomer Murders or The Shield.

  In truth, when Cross came up with a turnaround in a case like this, Carson always wanted a debrief. He genuinely thought at times, though he would never say it to George, that he was learning at the feet of a master. Odd, eccentric and infuriating, but a master of detection nonetheless.

  'So come on. What was the clue? What made you go in that direction?' he asked, like some sort of superfan.

  'He didn't display any signs of anxiety for himself, only when Jean was mentioned. He's spent years apologising for her. Like the other day at the restaurant. Despite everything, he loves her. It still could have been him, but we'd been working on the principle that they were each other's alibis. Checking the phone records, his worksheet would have been done earlier, but hadn't because of this. So it was worth checking. But it was the reason Alex had gone there in the first place. Why go there at all? It had to be because Debbie didn't want the baby and he either thought Jean, as her mother, could persuade her...'

  'He obviously didn't know her that well,' said Ottey.

  'That's true,' Cross replied. 'Or he wanted to express his anger at Jean.'

  'Well, good result as ever. Cheers,' said Carson, raising his glass to Cross, then, realising his mistake, to Ottey. He downed the drink and got up. 'Good work; mañana,' he said and left. Ottey got up herself, and poured Cross' whiskey into her glass. He looked at her.

  'I'm going to chuck it. Don't worry. Mother of two, dear. Homework and dinner to be done. Problems listened to and solved, or just arguments to be had and resolved,' she reassured him.

  'Have the interview transcripts been done?' he asked.

  'Probably not all of them. Why?'

  'I just want to go over some things.'

  'Can't it wait?'

  'No.'

  'Well, if they're not done, you could always work off the tapes. If you're that desperate.'

  She left and found Mackenzie packing up for the day.

  'What's he doing?' Mackenzie asked.

  'Crossing all the t's and dotting all the i's,' Ottey replied.

  'Have we missed something?'

  'Oh you can be sure about that,' said Ottey, smiling.

  She was smiling a little less when she got a call from Cross at six forty-five the next morning.

  'I need an excavation team,' he said.

  'What?' she replied.

  'I need an excavation team.'

  'Where are you?'

  'At the office, he replied.

  'Have you been there all night?' she asked.

  'Yes. Can you call Carson for me?' he asked.

  'Why can't you call him?'

  'Because the chances of him getting me a forensic excavation team when, one, he thinks the case is closed, which it is by the way...'

  'Then what do you need an excavation team for?' she asked.

  '…and two,' he said, completely ignoring her, 'he still hasn't forgiven me for calling him at five the other morning.'

  She agreed to make the call and meet Cross at the dump site. She had no problem calling Carson. Her only regret was not to have been there to see his face. Hearing that, despite the fact that the case was closed, Cross was now asking for an excavation team would, without question, send him into a cheek-inflating, blood-vessel-bursting paroxysm of frustration. This would be compounded by the fact that she was unable to explain the purpose of Cross' request. When it came to it, there was such a long silence on the other end of the phone that she thought he must've either cut the call off, or just fallen back to sleep.

  Ottey got the girls off to school and went straight to the garages. The first person she saw was Morgan, the contractor. 'Good morning,' she said.

  'Well, it was till you lot showed up,' he replied.

  A large white tent had been erected over the demolished remains of the garage where Alex's body had been found. Cross was standing outside, observing. As were several people on the balconies of the flats overlooking, including Cross' witness, smoking as usual and watering her plants.

  'Ho
w was last night?' Ottey asked Cross.

  'What do you mean?' he said, puzzled.

  'It was Thursday; your dad was giving his first talk. Didn't you go?'

  'Of course not,' he replied.

  'Why?' she said, surprised.

  'Because I'd already heard it several times. I didn't need to hear it again, and anyway I was working.'

  'I can't believe you didn't go.'

  'At the risk of repeating myself, I'd already heard the talk, several times.'

  'That's not the point. You should've gone to support him. He would've really appreciated that.'

  'If he'd wanted me to go there, he would've asked. But he didn't.'

  She was about to continue when Carson arrived.

  'Would someone mind telling me why we are here, at the scene of a crime, no not even a crime scene, a dump site which was involved in a crime we have already solved?'

  'Because I think we're about to find it is also a crime scene,' Cross replied.

  'What?'

  'Why did they burn Robbie's clothes?' Cross asked.

  'I don't know. Who the hell is Robbie?'

  'Jean's first husband. Debbie said that Andy and her mother burnt her father's clothes after he left. She remembers the smell of petrol. She remembers her mother being very angry, and she's always assumed that she was angry about her father leaving them. But why did he leave his clothes? Why didn't he take everything with him?'

  'Maybe he was coming back and she did it to piss him off. Or he left in a rush,' said Carson.

  'Both possible, but both equally as unlikely,' Cross replied. 'I've had a sense of unease...'

  'Do you mean a gut instinct?' Ottey asked mischievously, knowing how dismissive he was of them.

  'I do not. I mean a sense of unease, brought on by the discovery that Andy and Robert…' He turned to Carson, as if he believed his boss needed everything explaining to him, several times. '…Jean's first husband, were brothers and that he'd brought up his brother's daughter as his own. I checked hospital records, and around the time before Robert disappeared, Jean was in casualty several times with bruising to her face and other injuries consistent with domestic abuse. Then I began to wonder why they hadn't got married, even though Andy referred to Jean as his wife. But you can't get married if you haven't been divorced. But no-one would know, as her name hadn't changed. It was still Mrs Swinton.'

  At this point, one of the forensic team came out of the tent and showed them a photo on his camera. At the bottom of the hole they were digging, there was part of a skeleton – an arm and a hand.

  'Is that a body?' asked Carson.

  'If I'm right, it's Robbie Swinton,' said Cross.

  'Fuuuck,' said Carson.

  'You can't declare someone dead without informing the authorities that he's missing. Which would then bring up a load of questions it would be better not to have to face,' Cross went on.

  'So...?' asked Carson, trying to make it sound like he was trying to figure out where Cross was going, even though he was clueless.

  'Robbie was killed by his brother Andy, to protect Jean and her baby,' Cross went on. Carson turned to him. 'Their baby, in point of fact,' Cross concluded.

  'What?' said Carson, who was beginning to wish he'd just had a coffee and gone straight to the office.

  'I think we'll find that Andy Swinton is Debbie's father. It's why he's so protective of her. Treats her like his own. Because she is his. I had my suspicions, but it wasn't till his asthma attack in custody that I began to think it was a real possibility.' He paused, as he thought both Ottey and Carson needed a moment to take this all in and process it. 'I think, on balance, they probably told Robbie the truth about the child's paternity. The child he had brought up for four years, believing it to be his own, and it was too much for him. The entire marriage was a sham. If they'd told him the truth right at the beginning, maybe this wouldn't have happened. I think there was a fight and Andy killed him. Jean has covered for him for the last twelve years, and now it was his turn to cover for her. You can understand it, I suppose. He hadn't paid for his brother's death, so he was determined, if they were found out, to pay for Alex's. Even though he hadn't done it.'

  'Okay,' said Ottey. ‘I get all of that. But how did you know he was here? Robbie?'

  'Because the witness on the balcony,' – they all looked up and there she was, watching them, and she gave them a wave – 'told me the history of the garages. A couple of car mechanics used to work out of the garages till about twenty years ago, and one of them had an inspection pit. One of the mechanics was a friend of her mother's. She remembers the pit really well. After the garages closed the kids used to play in the pit. The garage with the pit being the garage belonging to Jean's father. But then I remembered that the inspection pit was no longer there. Why would you go to all the trouble of filling the pit up? You’d just leave it, wouldn’t you? Unless you had something to hide in it. Like a body.’

  He then turned and walked away. He was quite exhausted. Not just because he'd been up for thirty-six hours, but because cases like this really took it out of him. Part of his drive to solve cases was an inbuilt intolerance of things being wrong. He had to get them sorted out before he could relax. It wasn't so much about justice, as a need for things to be right. To be just as they should be. Until they were, he found it appallingly stressful. So, more than feeling vindicated, or successful, he just felt immensely relieved, plain and simple.

  THE END

  Thanks for reading THE CYCLIST. I hope you enjoyed it. The third volume of DS Cross mysteries is already in the works.

  THE PATIENT will be published at the beginning of 2021.

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  About the Author

  Tim Sullivan is an acclaimed screenwriter, whose credits include A HANDFUL OF DUST, starring Kristen Scott Thomas, WHERE ANGELS FEAR TO TREAD, starring Helen Mirren and Helena Bonham Carter, JACK AND SARAH (which he also directed) starring Richard E Grant, Judi Dench and Ian McKellen and LETTERS TO JULIET, with Amanda Seyfried. He is also a Television director whose credits include SHERLOCK HOLMES and COLD FEET. He has written extensively in Hollywood in both live action and animation, working with Ron Howard, Scott Rudin and with Jeffrey Katzenberg on the fourth SHREK movie. He has now embarked on a series of crime novels featuring the eccentric and socially-awkward, but brilliantly persistent DS George Cross. The CYCLIST is in the second in the DS Cross Mystery series. Tim lives in North London with his wife Rachel Purnell, the Emmy award-winning producer of THE BAREFOOT CONTESSA and PIONEER WOMAN.

  Acknowledgments

  As ever thanks to James Maw my editor. Sandy Crole for his meticulous notes. Bob Bryan. My niece Phoebe for her pictures of Clifton Suspension Bridge. Tim Phillips for his cover photography, the first of hopefully many. Rachel for everything - hopefully when she sees this she’ll understand that I actually do work upstairs.