“I can only imagine they must have found something compelling.”
It did seem as though the investigation into David Fallon’s murder, and who knew, maybe the attack on Stephen Bird too, had moved from stagnant to solved in no time. They must have found something.
They were liaising with the Cumbrian police and information on Denis Howard whirred down the wires.
Inspector Greene was terse as he passed it down to Brown.
“Lives on and off with his parents and is suspected of bullying them. He was an only child and was spoilt, from the minute he was born. Worked in mechanics, chauffeuring, various jobs connected with the engine. The police of more than one county have him in their sights. Suspected of much petty theft and more seriously, connected with a series of country house robberies, though nothing was ever proved. If anything, he passed information on to the professional fellows, left a door or a window ajar. As I say, not proven but he was a common denominator.”
“I can imagine him and Braithwaite being drawn together, sir.”
“Mmm, until it went wrong. I can’t see our Josh working in cahoots with anyone else for any length of time.”
“If he fell out with this Denis, it is probably a revenge thing.
Taking John. Do we have an address for the parents, sir?”
“We do, Sergeant Brown but it isn’t that simple.”
Brown’s face reddened though he hoped it wasn’t seen.
“You’re meaning that the lad is in a dangerous situation Could be held a hostage?”
“It’s a possibility. We have no way of knowing whether the boy is in the house though that should be possible to find out. More importantly, we have to proceed in a way that minimises danger to John Braithwaite.”
Brown looked at his boss and tried to keep his face expressionless. There was something strange in the way the
inspector spoke—as though he was reading out from a rule book and his boss’s face was tight and rigid. Some tiny memory or association stirred in Brown’s mind but he would have to think about it later.
“I spoke to young Freddie Earnshaw again sir. He implied that John ran away, I felt that he was leading me up the garden path, though, sending me in the wrong direction.”
“You went round to Honeysuckle Cottage.”
Brown’s stomach lurched at the tone of voice; he was in trouble.
“Just briefly. This morning I wasn’t satisfied with the way Freddie was when we went round before. It was as though he knew more than he told us.”
“You know I encourage you to use your initiative?”
That was a moot point but Brown made a noise of agreement.
“Well, that involved trusting you to use your judgement. The situation in that cottage is fraught enough. You should never have gone round there on your own and especially without discussing it with me That woman is at the end of her tether, unstable, to say the least. She could say anything; accuse you of anything. Didn’t anything like that enter your head?”
“Not really.” Several justifications and ifs and buts came to him but that would just make a bad situation worse.
He should have kept the visit to Freddie to himself. Or, maybe not; maybe it was because he had his own doubts about it that he brought it up. Possibilities raged through his mind for the remainder of the journey. Accusations. Complaints made about him.
He stared at the road and concentrated on driving.
Edith waited for the postman, looking out the window like a lovesick girl. Would that it were that simple. She just really needed to hear from Henry. He hadn’t rang her lately and much as she wanted to speak to him, she couldn’t think of a reason to ask to speak to him. Despite what had happened he was still on retreat which essentially meant, he was not to be disturbed.
Staffordshire
Henry woke in a way he had never woken before. Instantly awake and mentally sharp. The certainty was that Roland Weston had not killed David Fallon. Where this certainty had come from, he didn’t know. His belief in Roland’s guilt hadn’t been belief so much as accepting the inevitable, because he had been arrested and because of the scene that had happened between the two men a few days before.
There was proximity too. Roland Weston had been nowhere around others at the time Fallon had been shot. So much pointed at him, yet, it didn’t fit. Roland was passionate and intense and that could be a pain in the neck. But, to follow a man into the garden and pull a gun on him…no. As sure as he could be about anything, Henry was sure of that.
That left the question of: Who? Henry turned on his side and turned the pillow and for a moment the pillow’s coolness was bliss and he felt himself drift back into sleep again. There was a moment where he hovered between letting go of his thoughts and waking right up, his circular thoughts that always stopped just short of anything really useful.
Once again, he woke up, completely now. A thought was fixed in his head and he got out of bed.
Yorkshire
They had an address for Denis’s Howard’s parents’ house, and a lot of information about him. The consensus of opinion was that he was a bad lot and that it was a shame because the parents were harmless, if not the brightest pebbles on the beach.
Inspector Greene filled him in.
“He’s ran rings about them from a young age. They could see no wrong in him. Well, that certainly was the case with his mother, Ruth. Not so much the father, Barty. But as the mother is the strong one in the house, what she said went. He’s left home, years ago but comes back on a regular basis, when he runs out of money or is in some sort of trouble.”
The question hung in the air between them. Brown voiced it.
“Would he be capable of inflicting serious harm on John, sir?”
They were on the way to Cumbria. The road was quiet and the weather had settled into a duller but cooler spell.
Brown was filled with a nervous energy that he knew could become an unpleasant washed out tiredness when this day finally ended and when, hopefully, they had John Braithwaite back home with his mother. He had messed things up with Freddie Earnshaw and his mother. The lad had been lying or trying to mislead him when he had said about John running off to see—probably the first thing that came into his head.
John
John’s heart raced. It was like it was about to come out of his mouth. If he had been terrified before, it was nothing to what he’d felt now. There had been no time to do anything by the time he’d heard the tread of the man outside the shed. The man. Denis.
He was a different person from the one who had met John in
Ellbeck and who had seemed friendly, joked a bit with him, even about Yorkshire; saying that old thing about hearing all, seeing all and saying nowt. Denis had changed on the journey, becoming quieter and sharper; his temper more obvious.
That was nothing to what he was like when he pushed the shed door open. He hadn’t shouted and that was worse.
“You really shouldn’t have done this, you little bastard. Orphan bastard now, as it happens, because your stupid father just got himself killed, driving like an idiot, no doubt.”
John couldn’t stop shaking and he couldn’t tell whether it was because of what Denis said about his dad or whether it was terror for the position he was in. Then he felt peculiar. He had never fainted in his life but knew instantly that was what was going to happen. He had moved near the door when he’d heard Denis coming.
There was a smell in the shed that he had always liked. It was creosote. Now, with the shock of what Denis said about his father and the fright of what he was going to do to him, the smell of creosote overwhelmed him. A wash of cold came over his whole body, especially the base of his spine and his face. The dusty floor tilted towards him and came to meet him.
“He’s got to be got rid of. For fuck sake, every solid thing I do comes to shit and you pair haven’t helped. Did you even lock the door?”
“Calm down, Denis, calm down son.” A woman’s voice.
“Calm
down, are you mad you stupid bitch. How long do you think before the police come round here and I’m damned if I’m going inside again for the sake of a snotty-nosed kid?”
A man’s voice, quieter and not so angry.
“Talk sense, lad. If the police are on to you anyway and coming round here anyway and you’re up to your neck like you say, wouldn’t you be better off making a run for it. If you harm that kid, you’ll be at the end of a rope, no mistake. Calm your temper down and look at what’s staring you in the face.”
There was the sound of footsteps, someone pacing up and down the quarry tiles, the sounds of mumbling, angry low tones.
John kept his eyes tight shut. He was lying down on the big horsehair sofa in the kitchen with a blanket thrown over him. He must have fainted. He had a bad headache and a sick feeling made him panic. He couldn’t breathe loudly, he couldn’t sneeze and above all, he must not throw up. His life depended on lying here as quiet as he could be. Everything the old man said made sense.
It would be stupid to harm him, Surely, that would be obvious to Denis. People hung. What had he to gain by killing John. Just let
me go, he said over and over in his mind. Just let me go. In the end he didn’t know whether, he was praying or hoping. Just let me go…just let me go…just let me go.
“Your father is right, you’d be better off just going son. I have money upstairs. Money put to one side. I’ll go up and get it for you.”
He had sweat over his top lip and it itched like anything. The blanket was scratchy on his arms.
Please let him do what his mother and father said. It was the sensible thing to do. Please let the man see that. There was silence and then the shouting started.
“So you want me to go, do you, the pair of you. I thought at least my mother would stand by me but when push comes to shove, safety first isn’t it, Ma? Get me out of the road, that’s what you want isn’t it? Where would you like me to go? Australia?
Would that be far enough for you?”
He was shouting and the air felt like it was heavy with thunder.
It would have been better if the old couple had said nothing.
He’d thought it was helping but they had just made everything worse.
“And how far do you think I’d get? They’ll know by now that I’m driving a Land Rover and the registration number of it, and they’ll have the address of this place. Go on then, get the money. But the boy goes with me. Probably the only bit of sense you ever spoke, father is that he’s not worth hanging for. Not while I still have a chance. But he comes with me. He’s my insurance policy. Get him up, on his feet. What’s the bloody matter with him anyway? A faint shouldn’t last that long. Little tyke lying there probably bloody pretending. Wake him up mother.”
John wouldn’t have believed it possible to be more terrified than he already was but it was possible.
“Denis, don’t go doing that. That will just lead to more trouble, leave the young lad here with me and your mother. We’ll keep him here for a few days ’til dust settles and then sees that he gets back home. You don’t want to go hurting him, Denis.”
“Shut yer trap, get him up, get the bloody money and get out of my way, before I make you.”
John opened his eyes, stared up at the beams. The thought of being in the Land rover with that man, going God know where…
“Come on lad, sit up,” It was the old man and he touched John’s arm. Gently. They weren’t too bad, the old couple. So, how did they come to have a son like Denis?
Chapter Fourteen
Greene and Brown were accompanied by two of the local police, one of whom was the officer who’d filled Inspector Greene in on Denis Howard. The big question that was paramount in the minds of both the men from Yorkshire was, ‘what was Howard actually capable of doing?’, and they hadn’t had a definitive answer. The Cumbrian men hedged their bets. That was the feeling Bill Brown had. They were not as sure as he’ that Howard, when cornered, wouldn’t be capable of hurting young Braithwaite.
It was nagging at him and tormenting him; that feeling he’d had that this was the case that would make him. What a stupid and selfish way to be thinking about this anyway. Far from proving himself the master detective he’d only succeeded in upsetting the household in Honeysuckle Cottage—as if they didn’t have enough problems. Clearly, young Freddie had been trying to mislead him with that load of rubbish about running off to sea. What a pity he hadn’t run off to sea.
“Right, you can just about see the cottage at the top of this lane. The trees were in full leaf and partly obscured the view of a four square and somehow, forlorn-looking cottage. Could a house look forlorn? There were a few outbuildings, including a lean-too shed and one that was nearer to the road.
The sense of danger crept up from the soles of Brown’s shoes, up through his whole body, like gooseflesh. There was no sign of life but he knew as sure as he knew anything that something bad was happening inside, or, more likely already had happened.
They had already agreed that they would approach quickly, hopefully with the element of surprise.
“Get up. Stop lying there pretending to be asleep. I saw your eyes open. You’re coming with me.”
He lay there for a few seconds, his thrup…thrup…sweat on his top lip. Concentrating so hard, praying to do the best thing. There was a sharpness in his neck, like a needle, a small pressure.
“For God’s sake, son. Stop that now. This has gone far enough. If you stop now, we’ll be able to sort things out, somehow.” The old man’s voice.
“Sort things out, how? A couple of minutes ago you were telling me to hop on my bike; take myself and my troubles out of the way.
No. We’re doing things my way. Open your eyes, do you hear me?”
John opened his eyes. He saw the brown wooden handle of a knife and just a sliver of the blade. The pressure on his neck was steady, not really hard. He needed to swallow and tried to do so without moving his throat too much
“Stay still, if you don’t want your throat cut.”
John lay still, listened to the thrup-thrup of his heart. It was as if life had stopped and the whole of existence was in this room, where he could smell bacon frying and now, hear, every few seconds, the sound of the woman sobbing.
“Shut with the racket, mother. Crying won’t solve anything, and you are seriously beginning to get on my nerves.”
The pressure of the knife lessened.
John kept his eyes on the man’s face but out of the corner of his eye he was aware where the blade of the knife, rested, lightly first, then removed altogether.
“All right. Get up, young fella. We’re going for a drive. Take your time, don’t want you fainting on me again, you’ve been more trouble than you’re worth already. Just like yer old man.”
John’s feet were on the floor. He still felt lightheaded. He had fainted. It was a horrible sensation when it had happened, as it was overcoming him. But, it had been an escape from this situation.
“What the bloody hell is that?”
Denis waved the knife about now and John’s heart gave a sickening lurch into the base of his throat.
“There’s someone at the door.” The old man spoke and there was something in his voice that could have been relief. He hadn’t called someone, surely? John hadn’t seen a telephone and of course he hadn’t noticed whether there was a telephone line to the house.
“Say nowt and stay still. They’ll bugger off if we don’t answer.”
Please don’t. John perched on the edge of the old sagging settee and didn’t dare to move or put any expression on his face but his thoughts jumped as fast as his heart had.
If it was the police, they would rescue him, get him away from here, back to Ellbeck. He’d never in his life do anything so stupid again. Looking back at the idiot he’d been, he felt like he was a different person. What had he been thinking?
A loud bang came on the kitchen door and Denis swore.
“They know we’re in her
e, son. They won’t go away. You’re better to face them down. Up to now, you haven’t done anything so bad.
Keep it like that…Denis, do you hear me. I’m your mother and I raised you and it wasn’t so you’d grow up to be hanged…”
John held his breath. Denis hadn’t shouted to his mother to shut up. Maybe he was listening to her. Maybe he’d see the sense in what she was saying and let him go. Then, the woman went and
ruined it. The second she started the crying again and then saying that he’d broken her heart, John knew that she had lost it.
“Shut bloody up, woman. I’m trying to think here, the last thing I need is you having bloody hysterics on me.”
Both of their voices had risen and John reckoned that unless the police or whoever it was on the other side of the door was deaf, they must know they were in here.
“For fuck sake.”
Denis Howard kicked viciously at the chairs on his side of the table and they clattered to the floor. John couldn’t help the start he made and Denis looked at him, his eyes round, protruding; his lips tight and tendons standing out on his neck.
John had never seen anyone look as angry, in his entire life.
“Stand up. Come here. You.” He pointed over at his father. “You go and let them in, whoever it is. Say nothing. Bring them in here.”
John knew with complete certainty what was happening and everything in him cried out against it. The man was half-mad with rage. Probably capable of anything. He looked at the door. How fast could he move. It was worth a try and help was only yards away.
“Don’t even think about it. I’m warning you.” He must have given something away, his glance at the door must have been obvious.
John took a step in the direction of Howard who was now standing by the door. It had been a stupid thought anyway. What chance did he have of getting past him?
The back of his shirt was yanked back by the collar. It was a blue shirt that Cathy had brought for his birthday, in February.
She was generous with her money, his sister. The shirt was a disgrace now; smelling of sweat with a filthy tide mark around the neck. He felt that he would choke for a few seconds until Denis eased his grip.
[Edith Horton 05] - Murder in Retreat Page 19
