Lost Hours

by Alex Walters

  This didn’t feel quite like that. In this case, they had no shortage of leads. If anything, they had too many. Too many possible roads to explore, pulling the team in different directions with no certainty about which if any of them might be important or relevant.

  They were still working on the assumption that the murders of Justin Wentworth and Keith Chalmers were linked. The problem was coming up with a motive that convincingly accounted for both deaths. Justin Wentworth’s murder could be linked to the accusations of attempted rape that had been brought against him, or possibly to his dealings with illicit substances, but what relevance would that have to Keith Chalmers? Similarly, Chalmers’ death might have been linked to his trade union activities or to the disciplinary and corruption charges he’d faced. But, again, what relevance would that have to Justin Wentworth?

  And now, to muddy the waters still further, they had this Sammy Nolan. Sammy Nolan who had at least a tenuous link with Keith Chalmers but, as far as they were aware, none with Justin Wentworth.

  It was quite possible that Nolan’s death wasn’t linked to the others, that he’d been killed for some squalid reason unconnected with the wider investigation. Maybe he was in debt or had simply trodden on the wrong person’s toes. That kind of thing happened, and people like Sammy Nolan were usually the victims.

  But it was a hell of a coincidence that he’d been murdered just as they were going to talk to him about an incident involving one of Michelle Wentworth’s companies. And it was a further coincidence that his killing was so similar to those of Justin Wentworth and Keith Chalmers. Coincidences happened. But, like all good detectives, Annie had learned never to take them at face value. Shit might happen, but it often happened because someone, somewhere had wanted it to.

  She could tell that these or similar thoughts were going through the heads of every officer round the table. She remembered something she’d read about the anxiety of choice, that if we’re presented with too many options, we tend to freeze and not pick any of them. This felt like that. The team was losing motivation because it simply didn’t know which of the many leads to pursue.

  That was her job. She’d used this afternoon’s meeting to set out the priorities clearly and to make sure that each part of the team, every individual, knew precisely what they should be doing and what their objectives were. At this stage don’t worry about the big picture, she’d told them, because we still don’t know what the big picture looks like. Focus on completing your corner of the jigsaw. Then we can see what it’s showing us.

  She could tell that, for the most part, it had worked. The team had gone away with renewed energy, regained focus. But she could also tell, not least because she was feeling it herself, that they were not entirely convinced they were all working on the same puzzle.

  ‘So what about Sammy Nolan?’ she asked Stuart Jennings again after the meeting. ‘You think we should treat him as part of the same investigation?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  It was his usual infuriating response to that kind of question. But he was right. She was still SIO in practice, even if Jennings had taken over the public profile stuff. ‘For the moment I think we should. I can’t begin to imagine how he fits in, but there’s too much of a connection for us to disregard it. He had met at least one of the victims and worked for a business owned by the other’s mother. But we have to keep an open mind. There could be countless other reasons why Nolan was killed. The similarity of the MO might mean nothing. It’s not as if repeatedly beating someone around the head is exactly a sophisticated way of committing murder. We should treat it as a separate strand but keep it under the umbrella of this investigation.’

  ‘Well fudged,’ Jennings said. ‘You’ll make the senior ranks yet. But I think that’s the right answer.’

  ‘And you’re still happy for me to continue?’

  ‘With every baffling development this case seems to move further and further away from any potential conflict of interest. I need someone level-headed on this one. Feels like we’re knitting fog.’

  ‘I’ll take that as a compliment.’

  Jennings looked surprised. ‘It was intended as one. I do make them, you know. Occasionally. When I feel they’re merited.’

  ‘Well, thank you. I’m glad you feel it’s merited. I’m not sure I do at the moment.’

  ‘It’s a mess, this one.’ He held up his hand. ‘Not your handling of it. It’s just one that seems to make no sense. It would be really easy to lose your way. But I thought you did well just now. Kept them engaged, kept them motivated, kept them focused. It’s all you can do. But it’s making me more and more nervous. So far, the media haven’t really made the connections I thought they would. That’s partly been due to the way Comms have handled it. They’ve released enough to keep the media happy, but held back on a lot of the critical details. They said that Chalmers’ body was dumped in the heart of the Peak District, for example, but not that it was at Wentworth’s house. That’s not a line we can hold for long. Someone’s going to tip them off, or some journalist’s going to be bright enough to ask awkward questions.’

  ‘I get the message,’ Annie said. ‘We need a result.’

  ‘That’s always the message. Although, just at the moment, I’d settle for at least some kind of breakthrough. Something that starts to give us some answers, rather than just raising more questions.’

  ‘You and me both.’ She pushed herself to her feet. ‘Thanks for the support, Stuart. At the meeting and just now. I needed it.’

  For once, he actually looked mildly embarrassed, as if he’d been caught out in some social faux pas. ‘You’re doing a good job.’

  ‘Don’t push it, or I’ll start to think you’re taking the piss.’ She left the office, pleased that for once she’d managed to have the last word. Pleased also that, finally, she did seem to be building some kind of positive working relationship with Jennings.

  She arrived back at her own desk to find DC Colin Palmer waiting for her. He’d sent his apologies to the meeting because he was in the middle of working through the mass of documentation they’d gathered from Keith Chalmers’ house. ‘Sorry for missing the meeting,’ he said now. ‘I had the feeling that if I stopped ploughing through Chalmers’ stuff I might not summon the will to start again. He wasn’t the most organised man.’

  ‘You didn’t miss much. Mainly a pep talk and a recap. Not that that absolves you from attending,’ she added. ‘We need to make sure we’re all on the same page. But it wasn’t a three-line whip this time. How are you getting on?’ As she asked the question, she realised Palmer was looking pleased with himself. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve got something?’

  ‘Maybe. I don’t know how significant it is, but it’s interesting.’

  ‘Go on. Even “interesting” would cheer me up at the moment.’

  ‘Like I say, I’ve been working through Chalmers’ papers. There’s a fair bit of stuff. Some of it’s just trade union casework. Individuals he’s represented in discipline and grievance cases, that sort of stuff. We’ll need to check through all that systematically, but on the face of it, there’s not likely to be much of interest. Then there’s a lot of personal stuff. Again, most of it not likely to be particularly interesting. Just copies of old bills and household documents. But then, tucked away at the back of one of the drawers in his bedroom, we found these.’ He held up an evidence bag that appeared to contain a number of used envelopes.

  Annie peered at the offering. ‘And?’

  ‘They’re letters addressed to Chalmers. I suppose they’re what you might describe as love letters.’

  ‘Might you?’

  ‘Well, I’m not sure “love” is quite the right word.’

  She was amused to see that Palmer was showing signs of blushing. ‘Ah. Right. A bit raunchy?’

  ‘Something like that. The letters themselves don’t seem to be dated, but the postmarks suggest they’re around twenty years old.’

  ‘I’m not sure how to brea
k this to you, Colin. But people have been doing raunchy stuff for a lot longer than that.’ She smiled. ‘So these – well, let’s call them romantic letters were sent to Chalmers?’

  ‘To his office address.’

  ‘Not from his wife, then?’

  Palmer grinned awkwardly. ‘Definitely not from his wife. The letters are clearly responding to ones sent by Chalmers. It comes across as if they’re trying to outdo each other in – well, you know…’

  ‘Raunchiness?’

  ‘Exactly. It feels intrusive just reading it.’

  ‘Just doing your job, Colin. But you presumably think there’s something interesting about these letters other than their smut value.’

  ‘That’s the point. It’s who these letters are from.’

  ‘I can see you’re dying to tell me.’

  As he told her, she sat back and gave a whistle. She’d already half-guessed and was trying to work out what, if anything, it might mean. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I think we’d better go and break the news to Stuart. It may not be quite the breakthrough he was hoping for. Not yet. But as you say, it’s definitely very interesting.’

  Chapter Thirty

  After her bust-up with Peter Hardy, Michelle Wentworth had sat by the pool, her eyes half-closed, watching as the sun slowly descended over the moorland. There were clouds gathering on the horizon, she noticed, and a stronger breeze blowing in from the moors. The forecast had predicted a change in the weather this evening, and as night fell she thought she could almost taste it in the air.

  She’d tried to throw herself back into work but had found that, unusually for her, she’d been unable to focus on anything. The words and numbers had swum before her eyes as if she’d lost the ability to read or to count. Tomorrow, she’d head back into the office. She wondered now about Peter’s motives for advising her to work from home over the last few days. Whether or not it had been good advice, she realised now that she was beginning to go stir-crazy.

  She’d made some mistakes over the past year. She was sure of that now. She’d taken her eye off the ball. She’d allowed Peter Hardy to get too close, given him too much influence and authority. She’d been seduced by him, and in more ways than one.

  She had a suspicion now that he’d been bullshitting much more than she’d realised. He’d always been very plausible, but she should have had the nous to see through that. The question she was left wrestling with now was just how much substance there really was below the layers of bullshit.

  There couldn’t be nothing, she thought. There’d been enough evidence of it. The initial money had been there just as he’d promised, no questions asked, no strings attached. She’d allowed herself to be seduced by that, too. Who wouldn’t have been? Free, apparently unconditional money to fund their business expansion. All she’d needed to do was produce the returns they’d been expecting, and she knew she had the capability to do that. At that point, it had been just as Hardy had promised. A few more years of that, she’d thought, and she’d have had the freedom she wanted.

  But she’d spent her life telling people that nothing came for free. If you wanted something, you had to work for it. That was just how it was. Or, at least, that was how it was for people like her, people who weren’t born to privilege. You could claw your way up the social scale, but you had to work and you had to keep working.

  That was the lesson she should have taught Justin. She’d failed there. She’d felt guilty about Justin – for bringing him into the world, for depriving him of a father, for that whole mess. Above all, she’d felt guilty for not loving Justin the way she should have.

  In retrospect, she’d have been better not having him. That had been an option, she supposed. But she’d thought things would change. She’d thought she would change. She’d thought that, once she was free of all the other encumbrances and it was just her and Justin, it would somehow magically be all right. It hadn’t been, of course. Justin had just become another burden, another weight that meant she had to work even harder.

  The only compensation she’d been able to offer him had been financial. She’d spoiled him. She bought him pretty much everything he’d ever wanted, even at a time in those early days when she hadn’t really been able to afford it. She’d provided him with the best education money could buy, with the aim of ensuring that, even if he wasn’t exactly the brightest, he’d still have the ability to make something of himself.

  He’d made something of himself all right. An utter arsehole who was nothing but an embarrassment. Drowning in drink and drugs, and without even the ability to behave like a civilised human being. But that again had been her fault. She’d thought she’d been doing the right thing in sending him to that school, but really it was just another way she’d used her money to avoid taking any real care of him. He’d been out of his depth in every way – too common to be respected by the posh kids, too dim to be respected by those on scholarships, too unloved to feel comfortable in his own skin. He hadn’t even been able to tell her any of that. She guessed now that, for years, he must have just hated every second of it. Then, when he’d managed to scrape his way into university, he’d tried to reinvent himself, tried to become the kind of person he’d been mocked for not being during his time at school. The result had been that he’d simply become a nasty, inebriated, uncaring bastard.

  All that had been her fault. Now, she couldn’t really even bring herself to miss him. She had an awful feeling that, if his death had occurred in other circumstances, she’d probably have felt only relief. One less burden. One less thing for her to worry about. She’d assumed at first that his murder had been somehow connected with the way he’d lived – maybe he’d owed money to the wrong people, maybe some friend or relative of that young girl had decided that money wasn’t a substitute for justice, maybe it was some other mess he’d managed to get himself into.

  She should have told the police that, told them what Justin’s life had really been like. But she’d felt that, if she could give him nothing else, she should provide him with at least that limited protection. She didn’t imagine it would take the police long to discover the truth, but at least they wouldn’t have heard it from her.

  Instead, at Peter’s instigation, she’d sent the police on a series of what were most likely wild goose chases, getting them to focus on her previous, largely legitimate business dealings, in the hope that it would deflect them from paying too much attention to the sources of their current funding. She had no idea if Peter’s strategy had worked. She imagined that, whatever Peter might say, the police weren’t stupid. She could tell they’d had some suspicions from the start. That was no doubt why they employed that so-called Family Liaison Officer to get close to her.

  The thought of Zoe Everett made Wentworth sit up. Shit. She’d been so caught up in her thoughts that she’d lost track of the time. Zoe was due to arrive for one of their regular debriefs.

  Wentworth’s first thought when Zoe had brought up the subject of meeting regularly had been to wonder quite how long they expected the inquiry to continue. But that was the great unknown, of course. The police might have a quick breakthrough, but If they didn’t make progress, the investigation could continue for months. That was the last thing she wanted, but it might be unavoidable. On that basis, she’d thought that at least with a regular meeting, she could be prepared for Zoe’s visit. She could make sure that nothing inappropriate was left lying around, plan what she was going to say.

  Except, of course, today she’d been too tied up to do any of that. She looked at her watch. Zoe was due in a few minutes. Wentworth sighed, pushed herself to her feet and made her way back into the house. She conducted a quick check around the kitchen and living room to make sure that no documents or paperwork had been left out. Her office was more problematic as she always had files and papers spread all over the desk. The papers were mostly innocuous, and there was no reason why she should have to bring Zoe in here, so one option was simply to leave the papers out and lock up the room. But
she knew only too well how sod’s law could confound those kinds of assumptions. In the end, when she heard the buzzing of the intercom from the main gate, she hurriedly gathered up all the papers and dropped them into an empty drawer of her filing cabinet, then locked the cabinet and the room.

  She’d just finished doing that when her mobile phone rang.

  ‘Hi, is that Michelle? It’s Zoe. I’m just at the gate. I tried the intercom but there was no response.’

  ‘Sorry, I was in the office and lost track of the time. Hadn’t realised how late it was. Hang on.’ Wentworth walked through into the hallway, checked the CCTV coverage to see Zoe’s car waiting outside the main gate, and then pressed the control to open the gate.

  She opened the front door and watched the car head up the driveway towards her. A small, slightly battered old Fiat. Wentworth had wondered sometimes what it must be like for these people, carrying out their demanding, risky jobs for such limited reward. Even that DI probably wasn’t on a large salary, presumably. They must be susceptible to bribery, she thought. Maybe that was something to bear in mind if things ever became really sticky.

  Zoe Everett climbed out of the car and beamed up at her, with the air of an eager young social worker visiting a particularly needy case. ‘Looks like the weather’s breaking finally, doesn’t it?’