by E C Deacon
Everton nodded and climbed out of the car to assess the carnage, lost his balance and fell flat on his face.
Everton’s hastily arranged appointment at the ENT department of St. George’s Hospital turned into a microcosm of all that was good and bad in the NHS.
He spent ten minutes playing musical cars in the packed car park – bad – before a departing Indian guy waved him into his spot – good. He arrived ten minutes early for his 9.15am appointment and found a free seat in the heaving waiting room in front of the television – good. Waited only twenty minutes to be seen by the triage nurse – surprisingly good – then two hours to be seen by the Consultant – unsurprisingly bad.
And it only got worse. The oddly attractive Austrian consultant, Mrs Bauer, sporting fiercely back-combed sixties hair and extravagant lip gloss, reprimanded him for missing his last two appointments and potentially making his condition worse. Everton was adamant that he hadn’t and was proved right when she discovered that the department actually had two files under his name and had been sending his appointment letters to his old marital home.
“Ah,” she said, without a hint of apology. “Mystery solved. When did this last episode start, Mr Bowe?”
“About a week ago.”
“And have you noticed any change in your tinnitus?”
“No. It’s still the same.”
“And where were you when the vertigo started? Were you doing anything that you think might have sparked it off?”
“No. I was actually – without being overly graphic – about to use the lavatory. I pulled down my trousers and just keeled over.”
“Did you hurt yourself?”
“Only my pride,” he answered ruefully.
“Well, what is that saying? Pride always comes before a fall.”
“This time it came after. And yesterday I crashed a police car in Richmond Park and some deer stampeded into some cyclists. Fortunately, they weren’t hurt – the deer.”
She gave a throaty smoker’s chuckle, picked up her otoscope and began cleaning the plastic cone with an antiseptic wipe. She had big hands for a small woman, and knuckles like walnuts, which made her coral gloss nail polish look oddly out of place.
“Well, I’m glad you haven’t lost your sense of humour, Mr Bowe.”
“I have my moments, Doctor,” he said, surprised at how easy he found it to speak so openly to her, a complete stranger, and yet struggled with the people close to him.
She pulled down his left earlobe, gently inserted the nozzle and said, “I’m sure. Tinnitus is an unpleasant condition even without the vertigo. I’ve known some of my patients to become suicidal over it.”
“Yes, well, on the list of things I could become suicidal over it’s probably about third.”
She laughed again and switched to his other ear. “Is that what you police call gallows humour?”
“Something like that. You have a good memory.”
“How do you mean?”
“About me being a policeman. You must see hundreds of people.”
“Actually, I’m dyspraxic. I have to do these mental exercises. It helps my memory.”
Everton laughed out loud.
“Did I say something funny?”
“No. Sorry. It’s just weird. They thought I was too as a kid.”
“So, we have something in common. Right. I’m going to smuggle you in for a videonystagmograph and caloric test. Let’s see if there’s been any change.”
Everton should have been pleased to have been jumping the NHS queue, but he’d had both procedures before and knew they weren’t pleasant. He was mildly claustrophobic. So, to be strapped into a dentist-like chair in a blacked-out room the size of a wardrobe was bad enough, but to have heavy goggles fitted – with a video camera attached to record his eye movements as the chair spun clockwise and then anticlockwise – filled him with dread. It wasn’t as bad as he remembered, but it was bad enough.
The West Indian technician unstrapped him, smiling broadly, and said, “One down, bra. Only the caloric to go.” He helped Everton out of the chamber and led him over to the other side of the room. “Take a seat,” he said, indicating another dentist like chair. “You need another bag?”
Everton shook his head. He barely listened to the technician’s instructions as he placed the vomit bag aside and began fastening another pair of goggles over his eyes. Taking a deep, deep breath, he gritted his teeth and waited for the cold, then warm, water to be alternatively syringed deep into his ear canals. He didn’t throw up but came close to it.
The results were, yet again, inconclusive, but he lied to Helen that it was a middle ear infection. He didn’t want to risk being forcibly retired from the job – or the case, which was beginning to occupy his thoughts more and more.
The interview with Celia Lewis did not go well. After numerous phone calls, she finally agreed to meet Helen and Everton at her London constituency office, a converted Victorian building overlooking Putney Heath. She could give them an hour, no more, before she drove down to Oxfordshire to check the final arrangements for the private funeral service.
The impeccably coiffured secretary ushered them into the constituency manager’s drably furnished office. Celia sat at a teak-style desk in front of her steel-haired driver, who stood, like a character out of a Tarantino movie, silhouetted against the winter light flooding in through the sash window behind him.
“You wanted to see me?” said Celia brusquely, forgoing any of the formalities.
“Yes. I’m sorry if it’s an inconvenient time.”
“It is. If you can please get to the point.”
Helen felt her hackles rise; she was willing to cut Celia some slack for being under tremendous stress but did not take kindly to her dismissive attitude. “I’ll endeavour to do that,” she said, nodding to Everton, who dutifully took out his notebook and pen. “Do you mind if my colleague takes some notes?”
Celia ignored the question. Everton took it as a sign of her acceptance. “If this is about the laptop, I already told your colleague that I have absolutely no knowledge of its whereabouts or, for that matter, why it should be so important.”
“It may not be. But we have reason to believe that someone who was in contact with your daughter is also responsible for the abduction and possible murder of three missing women.”
Hard as she tried to conceal it, Everton saw a hairline crack appear in Celia’s icy composure. “I don’t understand.”
The driver saw it too and immediately interjected, “Excuse me. Mrs Lewis agreed to this meeting on the understanding that it concerned her daughter’s missing belongings.”
“We think they may be connected in some way.”
“Why would you think that?”
If Helen didn’t like Celia’s patronising tone, she liked his and his silhouette even less. “Sorry, we haven’t been introduced. Who are you, sir?”
The tall man took a calculated step forward, revealing himself, and said, “Brian Hoffman. I look after Mrs Lewis’ personal security. And you are?”
“DC Lake, PC Bowe, Metropolitan Police Missing Persons Unit, South West Division.”
He nodded his acknowledgement to them in turn and said, “May I ask why you think Mrs Lewis would have any useful information about these missing women?”
Behind the studied politeness, the Savile Rowe suit and club tie, Everton smelt ex-Old Bill and weighed in on Helen’s side. “We have no idea if she has or not. That’s why we need to ask her these questions. To help us eliminate her from our enquiries.”
Hoffman slipped a leather notebook and Mont Blanc ballpoint from his chalk-stripe jacket and asked, “Who is your lead officer on the investigation?”
“I am, sir,” Helen replied evenly, knowing the reaction it would get.
“You?”
“Yes. Do you mind if we sit, Mrs Lewis? My colleague has an ear infection; it can upset his balance.”
“What? No. Just get on with it. Please.”
Everton was surprised by Helen’s sudden concern and wondered if it was a delaying tactic to prolong the interview and questioning. He took the seat and waited to see. He didn’t have to wait long.
“I understand that your daughter changed her will on the actual morning of her death. Have you any idea why she would have done that?”
Helen’s question came so far out of left field that it threw Celia completely. “I don’t understand… How do you know that?”
“How I know is unimportant, Mrs Lewis. My concern is how you knew. Had you seen the will previously?”
“No.”
“Had Gina told you about it previously? I ask because, and forgive me for saying, my understanding is that you weren’t on the best of terms with your daughter.”
“That’s rubbish. Total lies, and press fabrication.”
“My information didn’t come from the press, Mrs Lewis.”
“If you’re accusing Mrs Lewis of lying, she has a right to have her lawyer present,” cautioned Hoffman, studiously recording his version of the conversation in his notebook.
“I’m not accusing her of anything, sir. I have the utmost sympathy for her and her loss. But you must understand this is a possible murder investigation.”
Everton was impressed. Helen was like an impeccably polite dog with a bone.
“And I’m obliged to find answers to some difficult questions. It’s my job–”
“No!” Celia snapped, trembling with emotion. “I won’t be bullied into answering insulting questions about myself and my daughter’s private affairs – especially the day before I bury her!” She snatched up her Prada handbag and stalked out of the room. “And stay away from my husband too!”
Hoffman took an embossed card from his wallet and tossed it on the table in front of Everton. “Mrs Lewis’ lawyers, Harbottle and Lewis. I assume you’ve heard of them? They represent the royals.”
Everton shrugged. “No, but I’ll google them.”
Helen stood and headed for the door. Everton picked up the card and followed her. Hoffman stepped in front of them, blocking the exit.
“A friendly word of advice. You two are well above your pay scale. Tread carefully.”
“And what was yours?” said Everton, “And don’t tell me you’re not ex-Met.”
“Detective Superintendent. But I like this job a lot more and intend to keep it.”
“Well, bully for you,” grunted Helen, pushing past him and out.
“She’s going to get you into trouble, mate,” said Hoffman, easing back in front of Everton to prevent him following. “And I don’t mean just on the job.”
It was said lightly but Everton immediately got the message – Hoffman had been watching them. He leaned in menacingly close to him and whispered, “I like trouble, Mr Hoffman. And if you don’t mind your own business and step aside, you’re going to find out just how much.”
Everton and Helen decamped to the window seats of Caffé Nero on Putney High Street, staring morosely out at the traffic crawling past the window as they mulled over the problem.
“Let him do his worst,” grunted Helen, sipping her mocha latte. “I’ve got nothing to hide, nor have you.”
“Really? We were stoned out of our trees and screwing on the carpet last week,” replied Everton, dunking his Danish pastry into his double espresso and taking a sloppy bite.
“So what? It was a bit of weed. I know a guy on the drug squad dealing smack.”
“That’s not the point. He was letting us know he’s been checking us out. It was a warning from his employer.”
“And she wouldn’t be trying to warn us off if she didn’t have something to hide, would she? I mean, did you see her reaction when I brought up her daughter’s will?”
“Yeah. But the only other person who is going to know what was in it is Gina’s solicitor and he’s not going to tell us because of client confidentiality.”
“Unless we get a disclosure order.”
“A magistrate is going to need some serious proof of wrongdoing before they’ll agree to that and we don’t have any.”
Helen shrugged; she knew Everton was right but she wasn’t going to admit it. She picked up her skinny blueberry muffin and began idly nibbling at the crust.
“It looks like we’re back to the two guys.”
“Not necessarily,” corrected Helen. “I mean, think about it. Out of Gina’s family and friends, who gained the most from her death?”
Everton could see where her train of thought was leading and didn’t like it. “No way. Laura had no idea she’d been left everything until Gina’s mother told her.”
“That’s what she says. And before you jump to the lovely Laura’s defence, I’m just playing devil’s advocate.”
Everton caught her teasing smile and felt himself flush.
“You’re blushing.”
“I am not blushing – and I do not have a thing for Laura Fell.”
“Okay. Fair enough. It’s just that I know from personal experience that you do have a bit of a thing for us whitey women.”
Everton grabbed her muffin, shoved it whole in his mouth and said, “Not anymore, and that’s racist.”
Amy Tann missed her therapy session, and when she didn’t answer her therapist’s calls, Simon dropped by to check on her, concerned, he said later, that she’d been going through a “bit of a bad patch”.
After getting no response to his knocks, he lifted the flap of the brass letter box to call inside – and smelt her. She was lying in a foetal position on the hall floor. For a second he thought she might be in a drunken stupor and called her name again. Then he saw the flies and the black clotted blood matting her hair.
Her husband Philip and a police colleague kicked the front door down. Philip fell to his knees in shock at finding his wife, weeping real tears on seeing what some “monster” had done to her. But the bruises on his knuckles and the front door key in his wallet ended his desperate charade. He was arrested on suspicion of murder and eight hours later formally charged.
Borough Commander Walsh, who thought he’d seen just about every act of senseless brutality in his twenty-odd year career as a copper, was appalled. Tann had battered his wife beyond recognition. Beneath the spongy mess that had once been her face, her jaw, nose and left eye socket had been fractured and several of her teeth were missing. The pathologist reckoned that she must have died slowly and in agony.
Acutely aware that he would be expected to hold a press conference to explain how a senior Met officer could cold-bloodedly murder his wife, Walsh swallowed his disgust and paid DS Tann a visit in his cell.
Philip looked up from pacing the bare box of a room, belligerent and unrepentant, snarling, “I don’t need any lectures. She was a lying, drunken bitch and she got what she deserved.”
Walsh listened to his echoing tirade from the doorway, wondering how so much hate could be contained in one man, and how the hell he was going to explain it to the press.
“What, you got nothing to say?”
“What would be the point? You’re screwed up, Tann. In here,” Walsh replied, tapping the side of his head.
Philip exploded, banging his chest like an ape and screaming, “If I’m fucked up it’s because my whore of a wife fucked me up! And now she’s fucked up herself! I call that justice!”
Walsh, lost for words, just stared at him. Philip held out his arms, like the Messiah, challenging him to disagree.
“Well, enjoy it while you can,” said, Walsh, “Because inside they’re going to show you another kind of justice and you will not enjoy that.”
Laura skipped over the front-page story of the murder in the Metro and was therefore unaware that Amy Tann’s husband’s arrest had forced the suspension of the doping investigation, involving her.
She was scanning the inside pages for a report on Gina’s funeral. She finally found one. A brief article headed: MP’s SUICIDE DAUGHTER buried. That was it. No photograph. No eulogy. Her friend’s life and death was
now just old, page-four news.
It was only just five o’clock – too early for a drink – but she didn’t care. She opened a bottle of Australian Shiraz, Gina’s favourite wine, and curled up on the sofa with her laptop, clicking through their shared Facebook photos, creating her own personal eulogy.
She was woken by her mobile at nine-thirty. She hoped that it might be Frieda phoning to talk to her about the funeral. But it wasn’t, it was Everton.
“I’m sorry to phone you so late. I just wanted to check you’re okay? I know today can’t have been easy for you.”
She was touched by his interest but couldn’t help feeling a growing unease about their relationship. Was he merely showing concern as a friend, because she barely knew him, and not at all socially, or was there something else? Because as much as she liked him, that was not going to happen. No matter how lonely she felt.
“I’m fine,” she lied. “But I’ve got someone with me. Can I ring you in the morning?”
“Oh. Of course.”
She thought she could she hear his disappointment, but it may have just been her imagination. She waited for him to hang-up but suddenly remembered. “Oh! Wait! Did you go to the funeral?”
“No. I had a difficult meeting with Mrs Lewis yesterday and under the circumstances I thought it was best not to.”
“I didn’t go either. Gina’s solicitor rang to warn me that the Lewis’s intend on going to court to freeze her assets in lieu of contesting the will.”
“On what grounds?”
“Diminished responsibility or something. The whole thing is a nightmare.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’m going to get to the bottom of all this, Laura. I promise you.”
Later, she wondered why he’d said “I”, like it was his own personal crusade.
Everton wasn’t even aware that he had. And the moment Laura cleared the line he immediately redialled. A male voice answered his wife’s mobile.
“Hello?”
He hesitated, thinking that she could be out with a date or even something worse…