Lost Hours

by Alex Walters

  Annie gazed back at the other woman for a moment, keeping her own expression neutral. She had little doubt that Adamsson wasn’t telling the whole truth, but she suspected Adamsson was the kind of person who rarely told the whole truth. Whether it was significant in this case, Annie had no idea. But she was increasingly realising that Keith Chalmers’ life was much more complicated than she’d imagined. Every step in this case seemed only to open up new questions. ‘Thank you for your time, anyway. I’ll organise for my team to talk to the other members of the office.’

  ‘That won’t be a problem,’ Adamsson said.

  ‘I’m glad to hear it,’ Annie said, offering her sweetest smile. ‘I’d hate to be a nuisance.’

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Stepping back outside into the warmth of late morning felt almost comforting. The trade union offices had been air-conditioned, but Annie suspected that was not the only cause of the chill that seemed to pervade the place. As far as she’d seen, the only other current occupant of the offices had been a miserable-looking young woman who was presumably the administrator. Annie wondered whether Keith Chalmers had been the only one of the representatives who made a point of being out on the road as much as possible. She could see now why Jack Connell had referred to the office culture as poisonous. Annie had felt the same herself, even in the short time she’d been in there.

  Nevertheless, she resisted making the leap from that to any connection with Chalmers’ death. There were plenty of toxic workplaces, but that rarely led to murder. But it was another avenue they couldn’t rule out. She’d get someone in there to talk to the rest of the team to see what emerged.

  Annie had considered delegating the interview with Erica Adamsson to one of the team, particularly given Jennings’ continuing anxiety about any possible conflict of interest. She had more than enough on her own plate as it was, and she knew there were risks in spending too much time away from the office. On the other hand, she’d wanted to get a feel for Chalmers’ work background, and she wasn’t sorry now that she’d experienced Adamsson’s personality and unique management style at first hand. Even if there was no direct link to his murder, Annie felt she understood something more about what might have influenced Chalmers’ attitudes and behaviour.

  In the end, she’d justified her morning out of the office, at least to her own satisfaction, by organising a meeting with Chalmers’ son, Andrew. It felt appropriate that she should meet Andrew Chalmers personally at this point, if only to reassure him the case was being given appropriate priority. She was beginning to build a picture of Chalmers’ life and personality that seemed at odds with the person that Sheena had described to her.

  She’d had a couple of local officers break the news to Andrew Chalmers at the earliest opportunity and also to seek his permission to enter his father’s house. Andrew Chalmers had a set of keys to the house, which he’d used to keep an eye on the place when his father was travelling, and had offered to provide access. She’d arranged with a couple of the team to carry out the initial visit, in case Chalmers’ murder had actually occurred at his home and there was a need to protect the scene. While she’d been talking to Erica Adamsson she’d received a message to confirm there’d been no sign that the killing or any other disturbance had occurred at the house, and that the two officers were, with the son’s permission, conducting an initial search for anything that might be pertinent to the case. Andrew Chalmers had agreed to wait for her at the house.

  Eastwood itself was just over the border into Nottinghamshire. The creation of the cross-force East Midlands Special Operations Unit a few years before had caused its fair share of headaches for everyone involved, but it had reduced the need for liaison with other forces when operating outside the county. Annie’s experience was that, because of the proximity of Derby and Nottingham, both located in the south of the respective adjacent counties, the county boundary was often irrelevant to people’s living and working lives. Eastwood, as it happened, lay almost equidistant between the two cities.

  Her own knowledge of the town was limited to a vague awareness of its links with D. H. Lawrence and its history as a former mining town. She’d visited it a few times for work purposes and found it an unexpectedly thriving place. It seemed for the most part to have shed any signs of its mining heritage, other than the rows of terraced mining cottages that included Lawrence’s birthplace.

  She imagined it was now largely a commuter town, convenient for the M1 motorway and for people who worked in Nottingham or Derby, as well as in the nearby retail park with its large Swedish furniture store. Chalmers’ house was to the west of the main town centre, out in the more rural Moorgreen area. Following the satnav direction, Annie found the house easily enough. She turned into the driveway and gave a low whistle.

  In fairness, she had no idea what trade union officials earned – though she’d now make a point of finding out what Chalmers was paid – or of Chalmers’ other financial circumstances. Maybe he’d inherited money from somewhere. It was also the case that, for some reason, property in this area remained relatively cheap.

  Even so, the place was more impressive than she’d expected. Not exactly a match for Michelle Wentworth’s place, but with a similar feel to it. The core of the building looked as if it was probably eighteenth or early nineteenth century, perhaps a workman’s cottage of some kind. It had been tastefully extended, and the overall effect was entirely harmonious. The driveway led into a courtyard, and Annie could see a lengthy lawned garden to the rear of the house, with open country beyond.

  There were two other cars parked at the front of the house, one of which was a police pool car. She assumed that the other belonged to Andrew Chalmers. The location of Keith Chalmers’ own car remained a mystery for the moment.

  As she approached the house, the front door opened and a young man emerged to greet her. He was probably in his late twenties, she thought, and good-looking in a slightly nondescript way. She couldn’t detect any obvious resemblance to the photographs she’d seen of his father.

  ‘DI Delamere?’

  ‘Annie Delamere, yes. I’m very sorry that we’ve had to be the bearers of such awful news.’

  He led her into the house, then through into a living room. The house was nicely decorated, she thought. Tastefully painted, with various items of furniture that, to her inexpert eye, looked expensive. But there was something anonymous about the place, as if Keith Chalmers had paid for an interior designer to decorate the place for him without making any personal contribution to the choice of decor. As she looked round, she could detect no strong signs of Chalmers’ own personality. There didn’t even seem to be any personal photographs. ‘Your people are upstairs,’ Andrew Chalmers said. ‘I just told them to get on with it. As far as I’m aware, Dad had nothing to hide and if they can find anything that might help you catch whoever did this…’ He trailed off, as if unsure how to finish the sentence. ‘It’s all been a bit of a shock.’

  ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘If you’d prefer to wait before talking to me—’

  ‘No, I’m happy to.’ He smiled. ‘It might even be therapeutic.’ He gestured towards the kitchen. ‘Would you like a coffee? I wouldn’t mind one.’

  ‘That sounds a good idea. I’ll come and help you.’ She had the feeling he’d benefit from taking a few minutes to grow accustomed to her presence before they began talking. She was also curious to see more of the house.

  She followed him into the kitchen, and helped him track down the coffee, mugs and milk from the fridge. It struck her that, for all his apparent closeness to his father, he seemed unfamiliar with the kitchen. It had been a long while since Annie had lived with her own mother – and she had been only too glad to get away – but she still knew pretty much exactly where her mother kept everything.

  ‘It just struck me,’ Andrew Chalmers said, ‘that this is all stuff my dad would have been expecting to use. I mean, he must have bought this milk expecting he’d be able to drink it.’ He shrugged, aw
kwardly. ‘I know that’s obvious. But it seems oddly poignant now.’

  ‘I understand what you mean,’ Annie said. ‘It’s always the little things that get you. Were you close to your father?’

  ‘It depends what you mean by close. He and my mum were divorced years ago. She moved away and I spent most of my time living with her, down near Loughborough. Dad had access and I used to see him some weekends, but he was always working, always busy. So we weren’t particularly close when I was a child. It was only when Mum died a couple of years back that we properly got back in touch. I’ve seen a lot more of him over the last year or two.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Annie said. ‘That must make it even more of a loss.’

  ‘That’s the thing. I did feel I’d finally begun to establish some proper connection with him and now, well, this.’ He finished making the coffee and they carried their mugs back into the living room. Annie took a seat in an armchair and Andrew sat on the sofa opposite. ‘Can I ask what happened, exactly? The officers who came to see me were a bit vague.’

  ‘I’m afraid we can’t provide too much detail at this stage, not till we’ve had the pathology report and other information. But we believe it was an unlawful killing.’

  ‘Murder?’

  ‘Potentially. Obviously until we know the full circumstances, it’s difficult to be sure.’

  ‘But that’s crazy. Who’d want to kill Dad?’

  ‘That’s what we need to find out. You’re not aware of any reason why someone might want to harm him?’

  ‘Dad? I can’t imagine it. I mean, he wasn’t always the easiest character to deal with. That’s what made him good at his job, or one of the things. But I can’t imagine why anyone would want to harm him.’

  ‘Tell me about him,’ Annie said. ‘What sort of a man was he?’

  ‘Like I say, I only really got to know him properly in the last year or so. That sounds weird, but I don’t have any strong memories of him from my childhood. We’d drifted even further apart as I’d grown older. I’d no great desire to see him and he made no effort to see me. I think now he was actually a bit embarrassed. He knew he’d let me down when I was a kid. He’d always been too involved in his work to devote time to me, and Mum reckoned he’d been the same when they were married. He just felt too awkward to admit that, or to make the first approach to me. He recognised I owed him nothing, and he didn’t want to seem to be imposing on me.’

  Annie wondered whether this was an overgenerous interpretation of how Keith Chalmers had behaved, but she could see why it was an idea that his son might prefer to cling on to. ‘But you did get back in contact,’ she prompted him.

  ‘When Mum died, I met him at the funeral. We got on okay. Better than I’d expected. We had some things in common. Afterwards, I decided it was just stupid for us to stay – what’s the word? Estranged? So I phoned him up and we got together, and we took it from there. We met up every couple of weeks, sometimes just for a beer or a chat, sometimes for a meal. We’d begun to enjoy each other’s company…’

  ‘I’m very sorry,’ Annie said. ‘What are your own circumstances?’

  ‘I’m married,’ Andrew said. ‘Diane and I live over the other side of Nottingham now. We’d sometimes invite Dad over for dinner or Diane would join me when I met him. They got on okay. But she recognised I needed time alone with him. Time to recapture all those lost hours.’ He smiled. ‘Sorry, I’m beginning to sound really maudlin.’

  ‘That’s understandable.’

  ‘You asked what sort of a man he was. I’ve just been trying to think how to answer that. As a child, I always felt he was hard-working, a little driven. Though that’s probably because it was what Mum always said about him. Among other less polite things.’ He gave a rueful laugh. ‘She reckoned that if he’d been prepared to devote half the time to his marriage that he devoted to his job the two of them might still have been together. But he was a workaholic, and she said he’d do almost anything to get what he wanted.’

  Annie considered that for a moment, wondering about its implications. ‘Almost anything?’

  ‘Maybe I’m exaggerating. She described him as a wheeler-dealer. Someone with good intentions, but who believed the end justified the means.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound entirely positive.’ She wondered whether she was pushing this too far, but he seemed keen to talk honestly.

  ‘My mum’s view of him wasn’t exactly entirely positive. She thought he was basically a good man with generally decent intentions, but that he was – I’m not exactly sure how to put it, but she felt he was unreliable, untrustworthy. Maybe a little weak. What he saw as pragmatism, she saw as a lack of principle.’

  ‘How did he seem more recently? When you met him again as an adult, I mean.’

  Andrew was silent for a moment. ‘I’m not sure, exactly. I recognised some of what Mum had said about him. But the drive wasn’t there any more. He seemed different. Disillusioned, almost. He was still doing his bit, as he called it, but he felt he’d been betrayed. He reckoned he’d been shafted – that was his word – by the people he worked with. There’d always been a lot of factionalism in the union. He reckoned it went with the territory. I work in the charitable sector now doing fundraising stuff, and I can see some of the same tendencies there. People who sometimes get so caught up in the cause that they lose sight of basic human decency. Anyway, Dad reckoned that there was a new breed of trade unionist who were more interested in furthering their own careers than in protecting the interests of their members.’

  Annie thought back to her meeting with Erica Adamsson. Even if Keith Chalmers’ depiction of the union was inevitably partial, Annie could see that his views might well have seemed incompatible with those of some of his colleagues.

  ‘Dad was the old guard, really,’ Andrew Chalmers went on. ‘It might just have been that he didn’t fit in any more. He had his own ways of doing things and I know some people thought he was a soft touch, too ready to do a deal with management.’

  ‘You said you thought he was disillusioned. How did that manifest itself?’

  ‘He was just going through the motions in his work. He felt he was criticised whatever the outcome. He’d get flak from his own side for being in the boss’s pocket. He’d get criticised by the members for failing to protect their interests adequately. He’d see his colleagues showboating, as he saw it, to raise their own profiles. And he’d say what’s the point? Why should he bust a gut trying to do the right thing by the members if nobody even recognised or cared what he was doing? I know he was looking at the possibility of retirement, but he was still a year or two off it.’

  ‘Were you aware he’d been subject to the union’s disciplinary procedures? That various… accusations had been made against him?’

  ‘Dad alluded to it, but he never wanted to discuss the detail. Again, he reckoned he’d been set up.’ He paused, clearly thinking. ‘I’m sure he was right. But I also wouldn’t be surprised if he’d given them the ammunition.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘From the little he said to me, I had the impression he was a little too willing to bend the rules when it suited him. I’m sure he always did it for good reasons, or what he saw as good reasons, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he went too far on occasions.’

  ‘But they didn’t proceed with the disciplinary procedures, as I understand it.’

  ‘Dad was smart, and he could talk his way out of anything. I imagine he’d have covered his tracks pretty well, and would have an answer for everything. And he was still well regarded at national level.’

  ‘You’re being very honest with me, Mr Chalmers.’ Andrew Chalmers had talked more openly about his father than she’d expected, and she wondered to what extent he was still in shock.

  ‘There’s no point in not being, is there? Especially if it helps you find whoever did this.’

  ‘You think his death might have been linked to his work?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. I’m just telling you
what I know. I’m not intending to speak ill of the dead but Dad was honest about his failings, especially if he’d had a drink or two. That was part of the disillusionment. He knew he’d done things he shouldn’t have, and he knew he’d not always achieved as much as he could have. But then that’s probably true of most of us.’

  ‘If you don’t mind me asking, why did he and your mother split up? Was it just his overworking?’

  ‘From what Mum said, it was mainly that. That was the chronic thing that was never going to change. But there was something more specific that prompted the actual split. Mum would never talk about it, but Dad talked to me about it recently. He had an affair.’

  Annie looked up in surprise. Somehow, this hadn’t been what she’d expected. She’d envisaged Keith Chalmers as someone who was largely married to the job, with no time for anything as frivolous as a romantic life. ‘And that was what caused the break-up?’

  ‘It must have been the final straw. Mum might have been prepared to play second fiddle to his job but not to another woman.’ He paused. ‘I never really knew for years why they split up, and if I asked Mum gave me anodyne stuff about them having drifted apart. Then later when I pressed her she talked about him being married to the job. It was only when I was an adult that Dad admitted he’d had an affair. I think he assumed Mum had told me.’

  ‘What did your father say about it?’ Annie wasn’t sure why she was even pursuing this topic. Whatever Keith Chalmers had got up to twenty years earlier, it was unlikely to be relevant to his death.

  ‘It wasn’t what I expected. I assumed that it was some passing fling, maybe with someone from work. But Dad reckoned it had been serious. He was planning to leave Mum to be with this other woman. He’d actually broken the news to her and told her he was leaving. Mum had always given me the impression that she’d been the one responsible for throwing him out. I guess it’s always the way. People shape their memories to suit their own needs.’