by Alex Walters
'I’m sorry,' he said again.
'I wouldn’t say I’d got over it exactly. But I’m coming through. It’s not as painful as it was.' She frowned. 'What made you ask about Ryan?'
'It was only when you said the name that I made the connection. When I read the note in your file, I didn’t really think about the detail at all. I’d assumed you’d taken your late husband’s name. That he was Ryan Forester.'
'No, I kind of regret it now. But at the time I was full of feminist ideals. Well, I still am, but that’s maybe one decision I’d have made differently in retrospect. I kept my own name. He was Ryan McCarthy.'
'Ryan McCarthy. Christ.'
'What?'
'Do you remember what sort of an establishment Ryan was working in?'
'He'd just moved over to Manchester, a few months earlier, which was why we decided that I should look for a transfer. He'd only just got his promotion to Governor grade. Before that he'd been at a place in Lancashire—' She stopped. 'Shit, it was a YOI.'
Hulse nodded. 'I must have already moved on by that stage too. But Ryan was there, Kate. He was there as well.' He paused. 'The thing is, he was the one who made the first complaint against Gregory Perry. He was the one who raised it with me.' There was still the best part of half a pint of beer in his glass. Hulse swallowed it almost in one mouthful. 'I didn’t think Perry ever knew who’d first blown the whistle—'
Kate looked up, suddenly fearful for no reason she could explain. It was a Friday night. The car park beyond the garden was packed with cars. There were people coming and going—office workers visiting the pub after work, a few young men getting tanked up for the evening ahead, some already heading home after their regulation couple of halves. Just like the night Ryan died.
She couldn’t believe what Hulse was saying. She couldn’t begin to take in the implications. But, in that moment, she was feeling a long way from anywhere that she might call home.
***
Kate arrived back at her mother’s later than she intended. She’d sat with Hulse a little longer in that scrubby pub garden, neither of them wanting to return to the glare and noise of the party. For Kate, too many memories had been stirred. For Hulse, she guessed, the over-eager partying would only highlight the bleakness of his prospects. Both recognised that their conversation had opened up a nest of possibilities that, for the moment, neither wanted to examine too closely.
'Look, I’d better go,' she’d said finally, when the silence had stretched longer than she could stand. 'Will you be OK?'
'Tonight or in general?'
'Either. Both.'
'I imagine I’ll survive. Tonight and in general.' He sounded unexpectedly determined.
'Are you going to do anything? About what we’ve discussed?'
'I'm not going to let it lie,' he said. 'Perry's got away with this kind of crap once too often. I've got some ideas. I can't do anything through the official channels, but I might have one or two surprises lined up for him. Maybe sooner than he thinks.'
It sounded like bravado, but it wasn't the moment to challenge him. 'OK', she said, finally. 'But don't do anything stupid. Let’s both reflect on it.'
'Yeah, I’ll be doing plenty of that. No question.'
She’d half-hoped he might stay outside and watch her to her car, but hadn’t felt able to ask. In the end, she’d been the one who watched him weave his slightly unsteady way back into the pub, and then she’d headed back across the car-park. She was still feeling uneasy as she climbed into the vehicle and started the engine.
Her anxiety did not reduce as made her way back towards the motorway. There was something else. Something nagging at her mind. Something in her conversation with Hulse had stirred a thought or a recollection, but she couldn’t pin down what it might be.
At that time in the evening the traffic had been light and she’d arrived at her mother’s earlier than she’d feared, although still later than she’d originally planned.
'I had to put Jack to bed,' her mother said, with only a mild edge of rebuke in her tone. 'But I imagine he’s still awake, if you want to say goodnight.'
Kate had found Jack very much awake, reading some fantasy book that was apparently all the rage in his year at school. He was growing up already, Kate thought. Becoming his own person, developing his own ideas, moving away from her. She had no problems with that, but she wished she'd been here over the last couple of months to watch it happening. Day by day, she wouldn’t have noticed the gradual changes. As it was, each week she seemed to see something new, some side to Jack she hadn’t previously registered. But that was coming to an end now, she thought. School was over, the holiday had begun, and Jack was finally coming down to live with her.
'Is it good?' She perched on the edge of his bed and gestured towards the book.
'You’re late,' Jack said, bluntly. 'I could have been asleep. Then I wouldn’t have seen you.'
'But you’re not,' she said, knowing he was right. 'You’re reading.'
'It is good,' Jack said. 'The book. I’m going to read the whole series.'
'Not tonight you’re not,' she said. 'You’re going to sleep soon.'
Jack giggled at the notion of reading the whole series in a single night. 'Can I finish this one, though? I haven’t much to go.' He held up the book to demonstrate.
'As long as you turn the light off as soon as you’re finished.' She reached across and ruffled his hair. 'Broken up now then?' she said. 'Looking forward to the holiday.'
'Suppose so.' He looked up, a different expression on his face. 'But we're moving. I've got to go to a new school.'
'You'll enjoy it once you settle in. I'll find some other children who go there so you can meet them before you start.' She wasn't even sure if that was possible, but she could ask around among the neighbours. It wasn't the ideal point in the year to change schools, but she hadn't wanted to delay Jack's arrival any longer than necessary. 'You'll soon get used to it.'
Jack looked unconvinced. 'We're not even going on holiday,' he said. 'Just going to your new house.' She'd returned to her mother's every weekend since she'd started her new job, so Jack hadn't yet visited the house.
'Our house,' she corrected. 'And you’ll like it. OK, sleepy head, I’d better get down to Granny. Don’t forget to turn your light off, and don’t stay up too later either.' She kissed him gently on the forehead and then made her way downstairs.
Later, she lay in the darkness herself, listening to the faint ticking of the bedside clock, the soft clicks as the house cooled overnight. Her mind was still running over her earlier conversation with Hulse, trying to identify the detail she hadn’t been able to pin down. It had slipped away from her while she’d been talking with her mother, but now the unease crept back into her mind.
Her drifting mind latched on to her dealings with Carl, back in her days working for Greg Perry. Carl who was battling with the emptiness inside his mind, struggling with memories that might one day begin their slow rise to the surface or might remain buried, forever colouring his future.
She sat up in the darkness, suddenly wide awake, her brain racing. She'd recognised the tiny detail that had been tugging at the edge of her mind since her conversation with Hulse. It was nothing obviously significant. So why had it lodged in her thoughts and troubled her so much?
Her laptop was sitting open on the small old-fashioned dressing table under the window. She’d been planning check her e-mails before going to bed, but in the end had felt too tired and woozy from the wine to bother. Now she booted up the machine and opened up her e-mail client, intending to send an e-mail to Hulse to ask him to check the point that had occurred to her. But instead she paused and opened up one of the new messages in her in-box.
Freud was right, she thought. There really was no such thing as coincidence.
She hesitated only for the briefest of moments, then she began to type a response.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
'What do you reckon?' Joe Milton said. The sky w
as clear but the morning was still chilly, and he was standing hunched against the breeze, his hands wedged firmly in his pockets. They'd come out in a hurry when the call had come from the Control Centre and he'd left his overcoat back in the MIR. Another perfect start to another working weekend.
Murrain had been in the middle of some extended discussion with Wanstead, so Milton had drawn the short straw on this particular one. He'd been more than relieved when Marie Donovan had offered to accompany him. They'd been getting on well over the past week, he thought, but he'd not managed to pluck up the courage to ask her out again, and he still had no idea whether she'd be inclined to say yes. Still, he added optimistically to himself, she'd apparently jumped at the chance to come and view a mutilated body with him. That had to be a positive sign.
'What do you mean? Did he jump or was he pushed?' Donovan was more appropriately dressed for the early morning, wearing a smart-looking beige raincoat. They were standing at the edge of the railway track watching the white-suited SOCOs get on with their work.
'Well, did he jump or did he fall, I suppose. Accident or suicide.'
They'd closed the line to preserve the scene. It was the main Manchester to London line and the trains had been diverted via Crewe, with resulting delays, so there'd be a few fed-up travellers even on a Saturday morning. The protocol was that every violent death was treated as a potential crime until the circumstances were confirmed, which is why Murrain's team were involved. As they could see from the state of the dark-suited body splayed out between the tracks, this was as violent as they came.
'Poor bugger,' Milton observed. 'Don't imagine he knew what hit him.'
'Don't imagine he knew anything,' Donovan agreed. She looked at the scene around them. 'Why was he here?'
'That's the question, isn't it?' Milton examined the damaged fencing behind them. They'd been let into the site by the Network Rail employee designated to meet them. But it was clear there other, less official ways of accessing the tracks.
One of the SOCOs straightened up from examining the prone body and ambled slowly across the tracks towards them.
'Morning, Neil,' Milton said. 'You pulled the weekend shift again, then?'
'You know me. Never one to miss out. It's where you get the interesting ones.' Neil Ferbrache pulled off his protective helmet and nodded to them both. He was a senior SOCO, highly experienced, with an occasional sardonic wit that belied his usually taciturn manner. He was one of the best they had, though, and Milton had learned to trust Ferbrache's judgement.
'Is this an interesting one?' Donovan said.
Ferbrache scratched his nose thoughtfully. 'Not sure, to be honest.' He was, as Milton also well knew, not a man given to offering speculation beyond the available evidence. In many ways, he was Murrain's polar opposite. That was presumably why the two men always seemed to get on so well. 'Slightly odd one.'
'In what way?' Donovan gazed over to where another SOCO was carefully examining the length of track beyond the body. She could never understand how the SOCOs managed to handle this kind of work, week in and week out. Whether it was an accident or a violent crime, they had to deal with the consequences. Dead and mutilated corpses, decomposing flesh, graphic injuries, and much of it in the most unpleasant working environments you could imagine. And yet for the most part they seemed more sane and balanced than the average copper. Maybe they had to work hard to keep it that way. 'You don't think it was just an accident?'
Ferbrache shrugged. 'Seems most likely. Doc will no doubt confirm but the injuries appear consistent with being struck by a bloody great high-speed train. Only question is why the poor bugger was here at all in the wee small hours of the morning. He's not some drugged-up teenager in a hoodie. Respectable looking chap in a suit. Well, used to look respectable, anyhow. Less so now.'
Milton knew better than to argue with Ferbrache's observations. He gestured towards the broken fence. 'Taking a short cut?'
'Probably.' Ferbrache pointed in the opposite direction across the railway tracks. 'Some evidence of an informal footway over there. There's a residential area beyond that and you can walk into the town from there. Could be where he was heading.'
'Any clues as to his identity?'
'Haven't had chance to move the body yet to check the pockets. Still taking photographs. Will be able to check in a minute, though.' Ferbrache looked as if he was itching to do just that. 'Any word from BTP?'
Milton shook his head. They were liaising with British Transport Police on this one, and they'd had a call in from when the body had first been reported to check whether any driver had reported a collision. 'No. No-one's reported anything. I guess if he was hit at speed the driver might not even have been aware.'
'There'll be a few clues on the body of the train, I'd imagine,' Ferbrache said. 'Scattered between here and Macclesfield. Who found him?'
'Some dog-walker at sparrow-fart,' Milton said. 'Dog went mad. Owner followed it and spotted the body. That was about six-thirty.'
'I reckon he'd been dead a few hours by then. One of the overnight freight trains, I'm assuming. Unlucky bugger, if so. They're not that frequent.'
Milton considered that, and glanced at Donovan. 'Bad luck to pick just that moment to cross the track.' He looked around. The area was thinly wooded, but there was plenty of visibility along the straight track. 'And downright stupidity not to see it coming.'
'These things happen,' Ferbrache said, philosophically. 'Doc'll no doubt confirm, but there's a strong smell of drink about him as well as a strong smell of blood and guts. Maybe too pissed even to spot an oncoming train.'
'Any other possibilities, you reckon?' Donovan asked.
'There's always other possibilities, lass. Suicide. Foul play. That's more your territory than mine. There's nothing much to suggest it wasn't an accident, other than the circumstances.' He paused. 'One thing. See that patch there, just this side of the body? The slight hollow between the tracks.'
Milton peered and nodded. 'Go on.'
'It's a slightly muddy patch. The only bit here that is. Most of the ground's dry, but that spot obviously collects the rain-water. There's a jumble of footprints there. A couple of them seem to match our unintentional commuter over there, but there's at least one that doesn't.'
'And?' Milton knew Ferbrache too well to imagine he was likely to offer any further speculation.
'And nothing much. But they're there. They could—I stress could—have been made at roughly the same time as our friend's. But they could be older, or even newer, I suppose. Your dog-walker, maybe?'
'He claims not to have come past the fence. Just saw the body from a distance and went off to call us. But we can check his shoe prints for elimination. You think it might suggest there was more than one person here?'
'It might,' Ferbrache agreed. 'Or it might suggest bugger all. Even if there was someone, it might have been some equally pissed mate who took flight when he saw what was happening. Not everyone's a hero in those circumstances.'
'You can't be sure that the footprints are fresh?' Donovan asked.
'They look relatively new but it's hard to be sure. And, judging from the way the ground's trampled, there're obviously a few people prepared to use this as a short-cut.'
'Maybe we'll have more of a clue once we know who he is,' Donovan said.
'No doubt.' Ferbrache gestured towards his colleague by the body, who waved back in acknowledgement. 'Speaking of which, I think we're done with the portraiture. We can move the body and see if we can find out a bit more about him.'
Marie Donovan glanced at Milton who, out of Ferbrache's eye-line, made a face that suggested he wasn't keen to get any closer to the mutilated body than he really had to. She gave him a warm smile in return. That was another thing about her, Milton thought. She didn't seem to care that he was more squeamish about such matters than she was.
'OK, then,' she said, with a final grin in Milton's direction. 'I'm game. Lead on.'
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
&
nbsp; Kate sat in her mother’s neat sitting room to make the call. Her mother and Jack were in the kitchen, baking some cakes. Jack had insisted that Kate should keep out of the kitchen, as the cakes were intended as a surprise.
She shouldn't be doing this, she knew. It was against all the rules. She should refer this upwards, let someone else deal with it. She didn't even know what he wanted, why he'd made contact. She told herself all she had to do was listen, then she could make a decision. And after last night she wanted to know what he might have to say.
The phone rang for so long she’d assumed it would ring out or cut to voicemail. She was considering what message she should leave when, unexpectedly, a voice said: 'Yes?'
'This is Kate Forester. You asked me to phone. Is that Carl?'
There was a moment's hesitation. 'It’s Kevin now,' he said. 'But yes.'
'Is that what I’m supposed to call you?'
'I think that’s best,' he said. 'I’m not even supposed to acknowledge there ever was a Carl. Live in the present.'
'So why contact me?'
'I wanted to talk to someone,' he said. 'Someone who understands.'
'You must have some sort of official support?'
'I’ve a probation officer, who I see periodically in conjunction with an officer from the witness protection programme.' He spoke as if reading out a sentence from some official handbook. 'They organised my new life for me. I suppose if I asked for it they’d put me in contact with a suitable professional to talk to.'
'I’m sure they can. They must have people available for this kind of thing. To give you the support you need.'