by Keith Dixon
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
THE BUMP ON THE back of my head was tender and made it difficult for me to sleep, so I rose early the next morning and went out for a run in light drizzle. There were four weeks to go to Christmas, and it was cold and bleak in the fields behind my house, the ground unyielding and hard as concrete, despite the rain. I ran around the edges of two ploughed fields, crossed a wooden stile greasy with dew, picked my way over an abandoned railway line and then climbed the short rise that led to a municipal playing field in which two sets of white goal posts loomed out of the morning mist. Then I turned for home, crossed two roads busy with early traffic, and tracked drying pebbles of mud over my carpet as I headed straight into the shower, where I stood like a penitent, head bowed, waiting for some kind of judgement.
Eventually I took a deep breath and phoned Laura’s mobile phone.
‘Well well,’ she said, when she heard my voice. ‘It’s the solitary man.’
‘Aye, well.’
‘I’ll take that as an apology.’
‘I’m not always careful what I say.’
‘You do come on like a beefy bully sometimes.’
‘Is that how you think of me? I like to think of myself as a sensitive wallflower.’
‘With those shoulders? I don’t think so.’
This was promising. ‘Where are you?’ I said.
‘I couldn’t face work. I’m weary, Sam. All those sad faces. I’ve been working from home.’
‘I’d like to meet you tonight—perhaps on neutral ground.’
‘Given how people are feeling, that’s probably a good idea.’
‘Where?’
She suggested one of the large country pubs on the road that connects Waverley to Alderley Edge. I had no reason to argue, this time.
It was Friday and the place was heaving. It was a young Waverley crowd—an expensive haircut, a sleek car parked outside, a confidence borne of a large bank account and a good school. I didn’t take to them much. It seemed to me that the glamour was unearned, the result of daddy’s money smoothing a path through life and solving any problems that arose along the way. I pushed through the taut, shiny skin and open neck shirts to the bar and ordered a pint of the guest beer. When it came I took a deep slug and tried to forget how old I was.
I’d found a table in a corner behind a screen, so I saw Laura enter and look around before she saw me.
She made quite an entrance. She’d changed from the office formality into something a lot racier—dark purple leather trousers coupled with a simple black top, this covered by a black lace bustier that swooped around her neck and ran down her bare arms in a series of lacy swirls to her wrists. She was very slim and tall, and edged easily between the crowd as she looked past them, finally catching my gaze; that can’t have been difficult, as my eyes must have been on stalks.
‘Thanks for coming,’ I said. ‘You must be exhausted.’
‘It’s good to get out of the house. I can’t stay home and stare at the four walls every night.’
‘I bet they stare right back.’
She smiled and sat down, and I went to the bar and bought her a drink. When I returned she was on the phone. I sat quietly until she’d finished.
‘Sorry about that,’ she said. ‘Mothers have a great sense of timing. They always call just when you’re leaving the house, or about to have a drink with a man in compromising circumstances. Oh, perhaps I shouldn’t have said that.’
I took another slug from my beer.
‘I’m sorry I caused you problems with Tara,’ I said. ‘Sometimes you have to confront things head on. Cause a fuss. See what falls out of the tree.’
‘Is that your standard practice? It’s not what I had in mind when I asked you to investigate.’
‘What did you think I’d do?’
‘In my last company we called in an investigator because we thought one of the managers was salting money away. This guy, the investigator, just followed the paper trail.’
‘It might come down to that in the end.’ I took a sip from my drink. ‘Has Evans spoken to you?’
She gave me a dim smile. ‘He told me he’d asked you to leave. I told him to go boil his head.’
‘I like your imagery.’
‘Ignore him, Sam. It’s coming out of my budget. It has nothing to do with him.’
‘You really get on with him, don’t you?’
‘Old wars. But it would be useful to have something concrete to show. Any ideas?’
‘It’s still early in the investigation. It can take a while to get your bearings.’
‘At our expense.’ She caught herself. ‘God, listen to me. I sound like our clients. Wanting to know they’re getting their money’s worth for every hour that’s billed. Sometimes I feel like sending them copies of Das Kapital and asking them to read it and then debate the true value of labour. If it wasn’t tragic you’d have to laugh.’
I looked at her closely, leaning forward to get her attention. ‘Laura, I do have some questions I need to ask.’
She leaned back in her chair as if to distance herself. She didn’t appear pleased. ‘Is this how you work, then—trick people into thinking they’re having a night off, then interrogate them?’
‘It won’t take long. First question. Did you get on with Rory and Tara?’
‘Me? Am I a suspect now?’
‘It would be a good ruse—the perpetrator of the crime hires someone to investigate it. Like something out of Agatha Christie.’
‘Thanks very much for thinking I’m that clever—or devious. I’ve told you how I got on with Rory—all right in small doses. Tara I could take or leave. I suppose we rubbed along OK but you couldn’t get close to her.’ She smiled grimly. ‘But then you must know that, of all people.’
This felt like a mild dose of retaliation. I felt my cheeks buzzing with blood. ‘When did Howard tell you?’
‘Yesterday. He came by the office. He took great pleasure in letting me in on your dirty little secret. Did Rory know?’
‘Not that I’m aware of. Unless he was a damn good actor.’
She took this in. ‘Howard thinks you need to be watched. He’s suspicious—on two counts, really. First that you’d been married to her; second, that you were there on the night she vanished.’
‘My turn now—do you think I did it?’
‘You seem to have convinced the police, so that has to be good enough for me.’
‘Thanks for the vote of confidence.’
‘You started it.’
We both sipped from our drinks, unable or unwilling to look at each other for the moment.
‘So why did you split up?’ she asked.
I described the circumstances of my so-called marriage to Tara and explained that I hadn’t heard from her in eighteen years, apart from when I received the divorce papers, which I signed and sent back in a fit of righteous anger.
‘So was she hard work back then?’ Laura asked.
‘I think we both were. I couldn’t give her what she wanted.’
‘Which was?’
‘I couldn’t help her become the person she wanted to be.’
‘Tough one. And do you feel guilty now?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘The feeling I’m getting is that you think you failed her somehow.’
I looked away uncomfortably. That was something that I’d never fully explored, even in the worst moments of despair after Tara left. Laura had got there quickly.
‘I’m not a great one for responsibility,’ I said. ‘It’s something we spoke about.’
‘You and Tara.’
‘She wanted me to commit to her. In some way. I thought it was because of her dad, the Major. But maybe it was the way she was—she wanted me to show something, some dedication. To her. It was always to her.’
Laura shook her head. ‘That’s pretty lousy. She comes back all these years later, makes you feel guilty, then vanishes.’
‘Thanks. I hadn’t looked at it like that
.’
‘Do you think she’s dead?’
This was something else I’d been trying to avoid thinking about. ‘Maybe not,’ I said. ‘But if it’s the same man who killed Rory, why not leave her the same way he left him? Why take her?’
She looked down guiltily. ‘Sorry. I shouldn’t bring this up here. But it’s hard not to. I worked with her but I didn’t know her. It’s a shock she’s gone like this, but I don’t really know what I think about it. I’ve never had to deal with anything like this. In marketing you tend to look at the upside of things and avoid negative thinking. Not very helpful for dealing with real life.’
I didn’t want to talk about Tara any more. I’ve always thought it was unhealthy to dwell on a past that couldn’t be altered. Also, I didn’t think it fair to involve Laura in the twists and turns of my relationship with my former, possibly dead wife.
I changed the subject. ‘How much do you rate Mal O’Donovan?’ I said.
‘Oh, he told you his story, did he? Good. He’s OK, as consultants go. Lots of experience. Good with the boys—when he’s away on courses he gets down with the delegates, becomes one of the lads. Always gets good feedback, though I don’t think Rory liked him.’
‘Why not?’
‘There’s just something creepy about him. Untrustworthy.’
‘He told me he’s spoken to you about his theory of the open fire door. What do you make of it?’
‘I couldn’t say. I didn’t notice whether it was open or not. I know the lads use it to go downstairs for a smoke. It could have been left open from the night before.’
‘But what about when you get downstairs—the door to the outside. Would that have been left open too?’
‘Probably not. They’re pretty security-conscious. They have to be with all the gear lying around. Everyone knows it’s a security door and has to be shut properly.’
‘So it’s unlikely it was left open the night before Rory was murdered and someone used it to get inside?’
‘Unlikely, but not impossible. It’s all very casual there. You must have noticed. It’s the new rock and roll—office life is the same as being on tour with the Stones, now. You can call people dude, smoke dope and play music all day long.’
‘It wasn’t like that in our day,’ I said.
‘Certainly not. We wore shirts and ties, pulled up our socks and saluted the manager as he parked his Bentley and walked in.’
She raised her glass then and drank her red wine in great gulps and waggled the glass in front of me. I took it from her and headed back to the bar. I was glad that we seemed to be on an even keel again.
When I returned to the table, two young men were standing over her and talking with raised voices. I recognised the one doing most of the talking as the man who’d asked Betty if he could borrow her swipe card before going out for a smoke. His lank hair hung down over his face like a straw-coloured veil that was parted in the middle by the protrusion of his long and bent nose.
‘I don’t care what you think, Billy,’ Laura was saying. ‘Sam’s working for us and he needed to ask me some questions.’
Billy stood back as I approached. The man with him was tall and skinny and made entirely of angles, and had a clear, open face across which no thoughts seemed to travel; he said nothing but mimicked Billy’s tense body language.
‘You’ve got to work out whose side you’re on, Laura,’ Billy said, pointing a nicotine-stained finger at her. ‘Let the police do their job and stop pissing about with amateurs.’ He turned to me. ‘Nothing personal, mate, but you weren’t exactly a lot of help to Tara, were you? I’d think you’d want to bugger off before you made another cock-up.’
‘Can’t do that,’ I said. I put Laura’s drink down, then stood to my full height and took half a step towards him. ‘Why don’t you leave us alone before we all get in trouble?’ I smiled calmly.
‘Is that a threat?’
‘Might be.’
‘This is the way you do business, is it? People disagree so you puff out your chest and try to look hard.’
‘Never fails.’
‘I don’t trust the pair of you,’ he said. ‘This company’s going right down the plughole. Someone’s got to say something.’
‘You’ve said something. Now why don’t you and your friend here go and pull the wings off some flies.’
He hesitated a moment, looked at his friend, then backed off, pulling his colleague’s arm as he turned. They filtered back into the crowd.
‘Great work, Beefy,’ Laura said when I sat down. ‘Two more pissed-off people with a grudge against me.’
‘They’re not the ones to worry about. At least they’re obvious. It’s the ones who keep quiet I worry about.’
At that moment, I didn’t know how pertinent this statement was about to become.
