by Keith Dixon
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
AN HOUR LATER and as groggy as a drunken dog, I dragged myself to the train station and made my way via train and cab to Tara’s house. I watched the wintry, bare fields trail past the cab window like a succession of Christmas cards, and thought of Tara in the moments after my head was cracked open. Where was she? What was she doing? How had the kidnapper subdued her before taking her away? Had he hit her too? I replaced that image with one of her running down the stairs in the boarding house in Leeds, her short, tight hair bobbing with each step. It made no difference; I was still depressed.
The cabbie could only park outside the entrance to the chapel, next to the two blue vases, because a police car and attendant officer blocked his way. Blue and white police tape wound its way round the site. I paid the cabbie and approached the man on duty.
‘Where you going, Chummie?’ he said.
I told him my name. ‘If it’s all right with you, I’ve come to get my car. Talk to your boss.’
The officer, a young-looking farmer’s son with beetroot cheeks and mild acne, stepped back and spoke into his collar. The conversation went back and forth for a while, then he nodded and waved me up the lane.
To walk up to the chapel took much longer than it had taken to drive it a couple of days before. But the weather was trying to break—the sky was a fragile blue and a weak sun came through the oaks and elms, speckling the brown leaves underfoot. There was the same undertone of mulch in the air that I’d noticed before. The clarity of the air began to clear my sinuses. By the time I reached the house I was feeling more like a human being and less like a collection of nerve-ends.
Three large, white police vans and two patrol cars clustered in front of the chapel pointing at each other, and a couple of officers in yellow anoraks stood around keeping a general watch. Forensic staff wearing oversize blue all-in-ones and white gloves and carrying paper jiffy bags walked back and forth from the chapel to the vans, like aliens moving house. I couldn’t believe they were still stripping the place, but it was only a day and a half since Tara had gone missing. They would be crawling over the carpets and furniture with vacuums and chemicals and ultra-violet light, hunting down DNA with the relentlessness of train-spotters.
I walked to my car. Howard came out of the chapel talking to a neatly-dressed man carrying a briefcase. I realised it was Derek Evans. Howard stopped when he saw me, then walked over, holding his hand palm up as an injunction to stop. Evans turned away and watched the forensic officers moving between the house and their van. I saw that Howard was tired, but he still managed to summon a supercilious glare to direct towards me.
‘You’re only here to get your car,’ he said. ‘No snooping around.’
‘What’s Evans doing here?’
‘Who—oh, him. Colleague of Mrs Brand’s. Professional courtesy. Now listen, you’ve had your go at this, Dyke. You screwed up. You don’t get a second chance.’
I said, ‘Talk to my client.’
He stepped up close. I could see the tired wrinkles around his eyes and the tufts of hair sprouting like weeds from his nostrils. He smelled faintly of tobacco, though I hadn’t seen him smoke. ‘I don’t know how to make this clear to you,’ he said. ‘You’re beginning to interfere with police procedure. You’re in danger of polluting evidence. And what’s more, you’re getting on my tits. Everywhere I go I seem to be falling over you. You’re like a bloody cold-sore that won’t go away.’
‘I thought we were getting on quite well.’
‘I’m giving you a nice warning—stay out of the way. If I come across you again in the next week, I shall not be an happy man. Do I make myself understood?’
‘I can’t guarantee anything. I’m not responsible for what this villain is up to.’
‘I’ll have you on a charge for wasting police time.’
‘If I hadn’t been here it might have been days till someone found out Tara was missing. You’ve got a head start because I happened to turn up.’
‘Funny, that.’
‘Spare me the sarcasm, Howard. It might work with your young plods around here but not with me.’
This seemed to upset him unreasonably. He stood with a look of bewilderment widening his face, then got angry.
‘You can piss off,’ he said. ‘I’ve told you the rules of the game. You keep out of my way. You don’t interfere with police business. I don’t see you around crime scenes or talking to witnesses. I don’t even smell your aftershave. Have you got that in your head? Do you want the stitches tightening to make sure it doesn’t leak out?’
‘A low blow on an unarmed civilian, Inspector.’ I had a sudden thought. ‘So now your chief suspect’s missing, where do you go from here?’
This caught him by surprise. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Tara Brand was beginning to look good for killing her husband. Don’t tell me you hadn’t noticed. She benefited financially from Rory’s death and she wasn’t keen on the new direction Brands was taking. Now despite all the evidence, I don’t think you’re stupid. You must have been putting this together in the same way I was.’
He turned away, shaking his head and putting a hand up to feel the shape of his hair.
‘I don’t believe you,’ he said. ‘It’s true what they say about Yorkshiremen.’
‘What’s that?’
‘They don’t understand what tact is because they can’t spell it.’
‘That’s a racist slur.’
‘Do I care? Look, whether Tara Brand was a suspect or not is none of your business. What we do next as an investigating police force is none of your business. Your business is keeping out of my way. You can do that as well and as often as you like.’
He moved to my car and opened the driver’s door.
‘You can go now,’ he said.
I climbed in. The seat had been re-adjusted and the rear-view mirror knocked to an awkward angle. There was a faint powdery smell. Forensics had been through here without taking the car in. I re-jigged the seat and mirrors to suit my position while Howard watched from the open door.
‘Do we understand each other?’ he asked.
‘Do your worst,’ I said, reaching for the door. ‘I’ve got a living to make. It’s every man for himself now.’
I slammed the door shut.
