The Man by the Sea (The Slim Hardy Mystery Series Book 1)

by Jack Benton

  On the screen, Romeo was drinking poison. Slim frowned as the music blasted him with an aural assault of melancholy.

  He had taken up private investigating because it looked easy. For someone used to hunting booby traps, it was no problem at all to uncover affairs and frauds.

  Had he known he would end up investigating a possible triple-murder, he would never have returned Emma’s call.

  Juliet was just waking up from her coma to find Romeo dead. Slim watched with idle fascination as she first burst into tears, and then stabbed herself.

  ‘Crying shame,’ he muttered, as the two families reconciled, and then the credits rolled.

  He was walking toward the bedroom when he noticed a small piece of paper lying on the floor.

  A receipt.

  Handwritten numbers on one side.

  10st1lb. 37g/90ml. 19h.

  Slim gave a slow nod. Frowning, he folded the paper over and went to the table. He opened up his laptop and called up the internet.

  No connection.

  Slim groaned. He picked an unopened letter out of a basket and ripped it open.

  A telephone and internet connection final reminder. The cut-off date was two days ago, and he hadn’t even noticed.

  Slim was yet to join the smartphone generation, but there was a hotel at the end of the street he had passed with a couple of computer terminals in the lobby he was sure he could use without suspicion. If not, perhaps the public library was still open.

  He headed out. As he had hoped, the hotel had free internet, and the terminals were set up in a corner away from the reception desk.

  His searches pulled up a string of PDFs heavy on science terminology, and before long, Slim’s head was spinning from new information as well as drink. It was difficult to be sure if there was any weight to his theory, but it was possible that Ted Douglas had known the same doubts. After all, if Slim was correct, Ted’s failure had shaped everything.

  Lost in a mire of drink, exhaustion, and science, it was only when a police car with its siren wailing raced past outside that Slim realised he was dozing. A moment later, a concierge was tapping him on the shoulder, asking whether, if he had finished, another guest could use the computer.

  With a mumbled apology, Slim collected his things and shuffled out into the night. He leaned against a lamp post and pulled out his old mobile, but after a moment, realised his idiocy. He had let the battery run dead. He had a dozen calls he needed to make, but there was nothing he could do now. In the morning he would try to find an expert to back up his theory.

  Farther up the street, a siren was still wailing, and lights flickered above the rooftops. Slim quickened his pace, and just as he turned the corner into his road, he saw a blurred, running shape coming toward him.

  ‘Slim, thank God,’ Emma gasped, throwing herself into his arms.

  He pushed her away. ‘What?’

  He looked past her shoulder at the fire engine crouched in the middle of the street between two lines of parked cars, like a fat, red locust.

  ‘I needed to see you,’ Emma said. ‘I came round, and saw smoke coming through an open window. I called the fire brigade. Oh God, I thought you were in there.’

  Slim pushed past her. ‘No…’

  Water still cascaded through a broken front window, but the hoses had done their job. No sign remained of the fire besides a triangle of black ash stretching up the wall.

  ‘Hardy, you drunk clown!’ came another shout, then two firemen were holding back Slim’s downstairs neighbour as he shook clenched fists, his face red with anger. ‘Look what you’ve done!’

  A couple of police officers sauntered over, and with a stern word banished the neighbour back behind a ticker line.

  ‘Are you the owner of this flat?’ one asked.

  Slim shook his head. ‘I don’t own it. I’m just the tenant.’

  ‘Not particularly clever to go out with your cooker left on,’ the second said. ‘You’ll need to contact your landlord and have them contact us.’

  Slim rubbed his eyes. ‘What happened?’

  ‘You left a hob on, and those boxes of cereal beside your cooker … looks like they fell over.’ He nodded to Emma. ‘It’s lucky your friend showed up, Mr Hardy. Sorry, madam, I forgot your name?’

  Emma flashed a look of alarm at Slim. If there were a police report, she didn’t want them associated.

  ‘Ah, Kate,’ she said. ‘Kate Mellor.’

  ‘Well, Ms. Mellor here likely saved you a criminal damage charge, Mr Hardy. It looks worse than it is, but it’s still pretty bad. Your kitchen is gutted, but the rest of your place just has smoke damage and now needs mopping up. Your landlord should have building insurance, but I trust you were insured for your contents?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Slim said, having no idea whether or not he was. ‘I appreciate what you did here.’

  ‘And your flat will need a new door,’ a fireman said, coming over. ‘It was locked, so we had to force it.’

  Half an hour later, after promising to show up at the local police station in the morning to complete a fire report, Slim found himself on the pavement outside his building with only Emma for company.

  ‘I don’t know what happened there,’ Emma said. ‘I had a brain freeze. I don’t know where that name came from, but if it gets in the papers that I was seen with you while my husband is in hospital—’

  She looked on the verge of tears. Slim put an arm around her shoulders and gave her a gentle hug.

  ‘It’s okay. I doubt they’ll need a statement. I’m the one in trouble, but thanks to you, it wasn’t as bad as it might have been.’

  Emma shrugged. ‘I just needed a shoulder to cry on, that’s all. I feel so stupid.’

  Slim forced a smile. ‘You feel stupid? Look at me. I nearly burned down my whole building.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  Slim shook. ‘See if the hotel at the end of the street will take my credit card, I guess.’

  Emma pulled out her purse. ‘Listen, I wish I could ask you to stay at mine,’ Emma said, pulling out a couple of crisp fifties. ‘It just wouldn’t look good. Here. I know I still owe you for your work.’

  Slim made a half-hearted attempt to refuse the money, then took it and slipped it into his pocket.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘I appreciate it.’

  Emma had parked her car a little farther up the street, so she gave him a lift back to the hotel. She kissed him on the cheek before he got out, whispering, ‘Be careful, Slim. Try not to drink so much.’

  The hotel staff seemed unconcerned that the man freely using their internet terminals just a couple of hours before was now asking for a room, but five minutes later, Slim, feeling wearier than weary, was emptying out his pockets and pulling off his jeans.

  He slumped back on the bed, hands behind his neck, wondering when his world had begun to unravel, whether it was just this evening when he had left the cooker on and gone out, or whether it had started before that, perhaps when he had taken on the case of Ted Douglas, or perhaps even earlier still, when his wife ran off with a butcher, or even when he took his first drink.

  Now, his world was slipping out from beneath his feet, and he had no way to prevent it.

  He wanted to forget about Ted Douglas and Joanna Bramwell and walk away, but it was too late. His life was linked to theirs in the same way theirs had once been linked to each other. They were bound by an invisible rope, and if he tried to cut free, everything would fall apart.

  The police had told him he could return to his flat in the morning, but it was the last place he wanted to go. Darkness waited for him there. Not for the first time, he looked at the small pile of his belongings he had emptied out of his pockets. And he saw again what he had seen the very first time, and he remembered the fireman’s words.

  He would need a new door. They had been forced to break it down because he had locked it on the way out. Except that he hadn’t locked it, because among the pile of his things, there was n
o key, and now that he thought about it, he quite clearly remembered leaving it on the table beside his disconnected telephone.

  So among the many questions that Slim had, the most important right now was, if he hadn’t locked his front door, who had?

  34

  THE FIREHOSES HAD CAUSED MORE damage than the fire, and Slim found an angry note nailed to the remains of his front door from his downstairs neighbour, demanding the details of Slim’s insurance company.

  Most of the damage had been done in the small kitchen, where the box of Ted’s papers had managed to move itself from the table to become a heap of ashes at the foot of his burned-out cooker.

  His recording equipment was untouched, as was his laptop, although it had taken a drenching and didn’t respond when he tried to switch it on. The keys he had left beside it were gone, as was his flash drive, which he had left plugged in to a USB port.

  Slim was trying to fit a warped phone head back into its cradle when the remains of the front door creaked behind him, and then a voice said, ‘Slim, we need to talk.’

  Arthur looked grey, ten years older than he had at their last meeting.

  ‘You look like you’re having a worse day than me,’ Slim said.

  Arthur just frowned as though he had eaten something bad. ‘It’s time to start believing in ghosts,’ he said.

  ‘I already do,’ Slim answered. ‘Yesterday I very nearly became one.’

  Arthur didn’t smile. He pulled up a chair and sat down grimfaced among the wreckage of Slim’s flat, an image that was so absurd it brought a smile to Slim’s face.

  ‘What’s so funny?’

  Slim shrugged. ‘Everything.’

  ‘I don’t think it’s a laughing matter.’

  ‘You think what you like. If I don’t laugh, I’ll probably commit suicide. My life literally couldn’t get worse unless someone shoots me in the balls. What did you find out?’

  ‘The DNA test on the forensic sample we took from Joanna’s grave came back. It’s not her, Slim.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The DNA is an almost perfect match to a girl called Nellie Taylor, reported missing in Manchester in May, 1982. She had all the traits of a wasted life: a drug problem, brushes with the law, time spent working as a prostitute. She was officially pronounced dead in September 1990, but that’s not our problem.’

  ‘I can’t believe it. The body in that grave doesn’t belong to Joanna Bramwell.’

  ‘She could be alive and well and walking the streets.’

  ‘With a rising headcount under her belt. And you know what? I think I know why.’

  Arthur looked genuinely surprised. ‘How?’

  ‘For once I got lucky. But I need to speak to a professional to be sure. In the meantime, if Joanna Bramwell really is out there, we need to find her. You need to organise a manhunt.’

  Arthur shook his head. ‘On three closed cases and a car accident? No way I’ll get authorization.’

  ‘And two counts of arson. Ted Douglas’s car and my flat.’

  Arthur looked down. ‘We need to talk about that.’

  ‘Please don’t say you believe I started it?’

  ‘You’re an idiot, but I think even that’s past you. Take a look at these.’ Arthur held out his phone. ‘Crime scene photos. See this chair? It’s lying on the floor. I talked to the firemen who were first into your flat, and they told me it was propped up against your bedroom door. They couldn’t be sure if it was blocking the handle or not. They said it might have fallen that way after the fire started, knocked by the shockwave when your cooker exploded.’

  ‘So what they think is that I blocked my own bedroom door before I went out, leaving the cooker switched on and locking the door behind me?’

  ‘That’s about it. Unfortunately, being drunk at the time gives you little leeway for reasoning with them.’

  ‘I wasn’t that drunk.’

  ‘Goddamn it, Slim, you stink even now. Can’t you sort yourself out?’

  ‘I was getting there when Emma Douglas called.’

  ‘Emma?’

  ‘She needed to know if her husband was cheating. I did what I was asked. No, the bastard wasn’t cheating. He was reading exorcism rites to his dead lost love. Only she’s not actually dead, but she is extremely upset with what he did, to the tune of three dead women and a few close calls, including mine.’ He looked up, tears blurring his vision. ‘How can I not drink, Arthur?’

  ’I found one,’ Arthur said.

  ‘One what?’

  ‘One of the porters on duty that night in the morgue when Joanna Bramwell’s body was brought in. You fancy some fresh air? I think it’s time we got you out of here.’

  Slim rested his head in his hands and rubbed his temples with his palms. ‘Do I have a choice?’

  ‘You know you don’t. My car’s outside.’

  35

  THEY DROVE IN SILENCE. Slim guessed that Arthur was growing weary of the case, a reflection of his own thoughts. They shared a collective fear of what they were uncovering, and Slim felt certain he could have told Arthur to turn back and the police chief would have done so without a word. Now that it seemed likely Joanna Bramwell was alive, Slim wasn’t sure he wanted to find her. What kind of a monster the years had made her become ... he wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

  ‘Three men were on duty that night,’ Arthur said as they drove. ‘The coroner, and two porters. The coroner died of heart failure in 2002. Both porters are still alive, but one was old even then, and is now in a care home in Liverpool, suffering from late stage dementia. The other, Paul Edgar, at that time a trainee, now does factory shift work. I tracked him down through our employee database, and he agreed to speak to us.’

  ‘He just agreed?’

  Arthur looked pained. ‘I had to apply a little pressure. If what we believe is true, he could be facing prison time. I told him I would guarantee protection from prosecution if he came clean about what happened that night.’

  ‘And he agreed to that?’

  Arthur nodded but didn’t say anything for a long time. Finally, he said, ‘Mick died over this. Mick was a good friend.’

  Arthur drove them to Barklees, a small town about an hour from Carnwell. After entering the town limits, he checked his car’s navigation system, then took them to a shabby block of flats with a view of the distant Pennines. Everything about the area suggested the poverty line was rarely out of view, and Slim wrinkled his nose with distaste as he got out of the car.

  ‘Nice area,’ he said. ‘I might come house hunting as soon as I’m served my eviction notice.’

  ‘It’s this one,’ Arthur said. ‘Third floor.’

  The concrete steps felt heavy underfoot, and the stairwell stank of vomit and stale cider. Slim felt an overwhelming sense of foreboding even before their knock went unanswered. They looked at each other across a door of scratched and faded paint, a number hanging loose and a letterbox crammed with circulars.

  ‘You sure this is the right place?’

  ‘I did a tap on his phone number. This is his address. I’m certain of it.’

  After getting no answer for a couple of minutes, they knocked on the flat next door and were greeted by a sour-faced woman who spoke with a cigarette hanging from her mouth, as though she had forgotten it was there.

  ‘You after Edgar? What are you, debt collectors? You know he ain’t got anything in there of value, don’t you?’

  ‘We’re police,’ Arthur said, flashing his badge. The woman noticeably straightened.

  ‘Well, he’ll likely be sleeping. He works nights at Farnwich Foods.’

  ‘When did you last see him?’

  The woman shrugged. ‘Week? We’re not friends.’ She didn’t elaborate.

  ‘Does he usually forget to collect his mail?’

  The woman shrugged again. ‘He’s a cranky old sod. Lets it pile up to keep the cold callers away. But he’s in there, all right.’

  From somewhere back in the flat, a child’s
cry of anger was accompanied by a crash as something fell over. The woman gave the two men an apologetic look, then headed inside. Arthur saved her a moment of awkwardness by closing the door for her.

  ‘Let’s take a look,’ Arthur said, bending down to pull the stuffed flyers out of the letterbox. When it was clear, he lifted the flap and peered inside. ‘Paul Edgar? Are you in there? Are you—’

  His words cut off abruptly, and he looked up at Slim. His mouth wrinkled as though chewing over ideas that refused to organise themselves into speech. As Arthur held Slim’s gaze, he turned the handle and the door swung inward. As the hall was revealed, leading to a little living room with the curtains closed, Slim saw what Arthur had seen.

  A pair of legs poked out from behind an upturned table. The stench of drying blood came on pungently, making Slim cover his nose and mouth.

  ‘I smelled it before I saw it,’ Arthur explained. ‘Don’t touch anything, Slim. This is a crime scene now.’

  They made their way inside, Arthur going first, Slim standing where Arthur told him to stand, moving forward only when Arthur told him to do so.

  The body of a man in his late fifties lay face up, his mouth still open in an expression of horror, dead eyes wide, staring skyward. Drying blood plumed around him, dark and oily, in stark contrast to his pale face, as though all the colour had drained out. Both wrists had been cut, and a thin hacksaw lay near one hand.

  ‘Suicide,’ Arthur said. ‘Too clean to be a murder.’

  ‘How will you explain our presence here?’ Slim asked. ‘This won’t look good on us.’

  Arthur shook his head. ‘I’ll think of something,’ he said. ‘I know a few guys in this district. I’ll make a few calls, see if I can pull some strings.’

  ‘What are you doing?’ Slim said, as Arthur scooped up a handful of papers from an adjacent desktop and began riffling through them.

  Arthur grimaced. ‘I’m removing evidence. He left us something, Slim. I’m not sure what it is … oh my, holy heaven and God. Look.’

  He held out a sepia photograph of the naked upper body of a woman lying on a table looking up at the camera. Slim’s first reaction was that she was beautiful. Curls of hair haloed around her, and striking eyebrows framed wide, inquisitive eyes.