On Eden Street

by Peter Grainger

  ‘Yes. You’re Michael Wortley. Corporal Michael Wortley, Royal Anglian Regiment.’

  ‘Ex.’

  ‘Yes.’

  The rain was falling more heavily outside. There was a dripping sound from the ledge above the outside door, rhythmically, once or twice a second, like a metronome.

  Wortley said, ‘Was it you in the car on Tuesday night?’

  ‘Yes. There were two of us.’

  ‘I can count. Just couldn’t be sure of the faces. So, it’s your own car?’

  The thought came then that he’s going to steal it. He’s going to take the keys and disappear with my car. Imagine the phone call to DCI Freeman, DCS Allen’s reaction and the look on Serena Butler’s face…

  ‘Yes, that’s my car.’

  Wortley said, ‘I wanted to be sure who was asking the questions. That it was the police. I found your car tonight, at the station. And while I was there, you showed up. I followed…’

  Which meant he already had a vehicle. Wortley’s sentence had come to an inconclusive end, and in the space that formed after it, Waters sensed an opportunity. It was a small and nervous thing hiding in a corner, but if he managed this properly, it might be encouraged out into the open. It might even provide the answers to some questions. What did he have to lose?

  ‘Mr Wortley – I’m not going to make any attempt to arrest or detain you. I’ve no reason to, I’m not aware of any offence you might have committed in Kings Lake. I would like to ask you a few questions but you’re under no obligation to tell me anything. You’re free to go. Or you can come up to the flat and talk.’

  ‘Who else lives there?’

  ‘No one. I’m on my own. Apart from some tropical fish. You don’t know anything about curing white-spot, do you?’

  That was, he told himself later, a touch of genius. Not his own, of course, but there’s little point in getting older if you don’t get smarter, too. We live, and we learn from others.

  Waters turned and began to climb the stairs. He was halfway to the top when he heard another tread coming up behind him.

  The first few moments in the flat had been awkward. Waters took off his jacket and hung it up behind the door; he offered to take Wortley’s but that was declined. He put his shoulder bag in its usual place by the desk, and then, simply through habit, woke up and logged onto his personal laptop. No messages, no important emails. When he turned around, Wortley was by the fish-tank, bending forward a little and staring into it.

  He said, ‘What’s this white spot? They look healthy enough to me.’

  Waters said, ‘It’s a fungus. I treated it with some blue stuff a few days ago.’

  The neon tetras came slowly out of the weeds and into the light, tiny shards of electric brilliance glowing in the ultra-violet. Wortley bent more to see them and they darted away before cautiously repeating the process, as if they too were curious about him. He said, ‘I never kept fish or that sort of thing. On the move too often.’

  Waters said, ‘I’m going into the kitchen to boil the kettle. Tea or coffee? There’s more than one sort of both, if you’re fussy.’

  He could see Wortley was going to say no to that as well, and then the changing of his mind.

  ‘Just tea. Would you mind leaving your phone where I can see it?’

  He’s polite, thought Waters, and doesn’t speak quite as you might have expected, but there’s a trace of an accent, maybe from the East Midlands. Smith could have a made a good guess at the town, and probably the street.

  Waters put the iPhone on the coffee table in front of the television, and went through the open plan entrance into the kitchen. As he did what he had promised, he could see Wortley, still on his feet, examining the rest of the lounge. It was a small apartment and he hadn’t made the mistake of cluttering it up – most people would describe his taste as minimalist. He wondered what Wortley would make of it.

  With everything in place and the kettle beginning to heat up, Waters went back and invited his visitor to sit down. There was the two-seater sofa, two matching single chairs and the stool in front of the work-station where his laptop had just put itself to sleep again. But Wortley didn’t move to do so, still wary.

  Waters said, ‘Your disappearing got me into some trouble. How did you know we were there? Just for future reference.’

  ‘What camera were you using?’

  ‘A Lumix bridge, force issue. Why?’

  On the way home, Waters had switched on the heating with his phone, and Wortley was unbuttoning his jacket – this had to be a promising sign.

  Wortley said, ‘I don’t know that make myself, but there’s an autofocus assist light on the front. It glows red if the light’s low. I spotted that. Someone was pointing a camera in my direction.’

  At fifty or sixty yards? He must have excellent eyesight, but it was true, Waters had misjudged the light that evening, and he hadn’t known about the additional sensor on the camera. Gathering forward intelligence had been Wortley’s specialist role in the Army – he would know all about taking clandestine photographs.

  The kettle boiled and switched itself off. No hurry, always allow it to cool a degree or two.

  Waters said, ‘Who did you think it was, in the car?’

  Wortley eyed him suspiciously then, as if he could see not only little red lights on cameras but the thought processes of detective sergeants; Waters was indeed thinking quickly while trying to appear calm. This was complicated. How much did Wortley know about what was going on here?

  ‘I assume you thought it was the police watching you.’

  Wortley said, ‘You’d been at the office asking about me the day before.’

  ‘Yes. Not me personally, but… I’ll make this tea. I’m going to sit on the sofa. You’re welcome to take a seat. If your coat’s damp, feel free to hang it up.’

  When Waters returned to the lounge, Wortley was sitting on one of the individual chairs with his coat still on but fully unbuttoned. There were coasters from The Blue Note on the coffee table, and Waters set down the two mugs of tea. He thought about going the whole way and offering his visitor some Rich Tea biscuits but didn’t want to push his luck. If they got on well, perhaps they could go out for pizza later.

  Waters said, ‘If you were certain it was us, the police, watching you on Tuesday, and you didn’t want to talk to us, what are you doing here? I genuinely don’t understand. And I don’t understand how you found me either.’

  ‘I did what you lot do all the time. Your number plate was on the CCTV. I could see what time you arrived, watched you driving up and down choosing a good spot.’

  ‘OK, got that. But why track me down? And first of all, how did you do that?’

  When Wortley explained, it was simple enough but revealing. On Wednesday morning, he had parked up outside Hunston police station and watched the cars going in and out for most of the day. It was a natural assumption of his that the car, if it was a police car, had come from the nearest police station. When it didn’t show up, on Thursday, today, he’d moved on to the next station, which was Kings Lake Central. ‘That car park has a security barrier as you know,’ Wortley said, ‘so I parked outside in the street. I had my own engine running, about to pull out and leave when you drove by. So, then I knew it was the police who’d been at the office and lost me the job.’

  So much depends on sequencing – the order in which one asks the questions. Wortley was talking now, he was even drinking the tea, and Waters knew that if he was careful and patient, he would discover important things, here in his own flat of all places. This man had spent two whole days keeping Norfolk’s police station car parks under surveillance; this was a tribute to Wortley’s tenacity, but his motivation had to be much more than finding out who had asked where he lived, didn’t it?

  Waters said, ‘Who else did you think it might have been?’

  No answer this time. Wortley had reached the limits of what he wanted to share, perhaps, and it was time to play another card.

&nbs
p; ‘I don’t know the whole story, but I do know there are other people looking for you, and I know why they are.’

  There was annoyance in Wortley’s voice when he responded to that.

  ‘Course you do! It’s why you’re after me! Same reason, only you want me to talk and they want to shut me up. Well, guess what? I’m not planning on talking about it and I’m not planning on getting shut up. Thanks for the tea. Call who you like. You don’t know what I’m driving or which way I’m going. You’ll not see me again.’

  Wortley was on his feet and doing up the camouflage jacket, as if he was heading back to the front – which, in a way, he was. Waters remained on the sofa, spoke slowly and chose his words with care.

  ‘I heard about what happened in Norwich for the first time last Monday morning, around about midday. But we’ve – and I mean the Kings Lake police – we’ve been looking for you for almost three weeks.’

  Wortley was listening again. Eventually he said, ‘Why?’

  Waters went on, ‘I’ve spoken with Major Fogarty, and I’ve met your brother.’

  ‘James? Why have you dragged him into it? This is some dangerous shit, mate! For Christ’s sake, you involved my family?’

  Temper again. Where did he sleep last night, if he slept much at all? In a vehicle, somewhere in a layby?

  Waters said, ‘I met James in Kings Lake Central police station, nearly a fortnight ago.’

  Wortley tried to make sense of this, and gave up.

  He said, ‘What the hell was he doing there?’

  It wasn’t then a dramatic pause from Christopher Waters. It was the real thing because it isn’t often you have to say to someone, ‘He came to identify your body.’

  Neville Murfitt? No, he couldn’t recall ever hearing that name but he remembered Joe Ritz at the night shelter, remembered sitting in that little room and drinking tea with him. There was another bloke the night before, and they had passed the time of day. He, this other bloke, had left early in the morning. Perhaps, Waters had suggested, because he’d been through your bag and taken your ID card?

  Wortley said, ‘I didn’t notice it was gone until I was in Hunston. But I was sure I hadn’t left in Norwich, even though I was out of there in a hurry. So, you reckon he had it away? And that’s what got him killed?’

  ‘We think it’s the most likely explanation.’

  Wortley had been sitting down again for several minutes, and had had his mug refilled. Waters gave him time to think over the implications of what he had been told.

  ‘I can’t say I can picture him. Did he look much like me?’

  ‘Not especially. But he’d let his hair grow and had something of a beard. At a casual glance, people could assume he was that soldier, down on his luck, living on the streets.’

  After a pause, Wortley said, ‘They assumed he was me.’

  The conversation was long past the point at which Waters should have suggested that Michael Wortley ought to accompany him back to Kings Lake Central so he could be interviewed by senior officers. He was by no means certain Wortley would comply, but he should have said it by now. However, he was certain of some other pertinent points. First, if Wortley refused, Waters was unlikely to persuade him by the use of force. Two days’ training in self-defence and a few tips from John Murray were not a match for Wortley’s professional skills, never mind the fact he was powerfully built, in comparison to Waters. Second, the man was talking to him now, and mention of DCIs and DIs was probably going to bring that to an end. Whether or not Wortley would ultimately agree to come in, why not get everything he could now, as an insurance policy? Third, never mind the investigation, Waters just wanted to hear the rest of the story, and fourth, he felt some sympathy for the man. Life hadn’t been kind to him, and it wasn’t difficult to see why Joe Ritz, a listener as good as any on the Kings Lake force, had spent the evening in his company.

  Waters said, ‘I’m not involved in the Norwich investigation, so you can tell me to mind my own business. I know what happened with the women, though. How did you get involved with something like that?’

  Hesitation, awkwardness and the jaw working a little.

  Waters added, ‘I know you and I have only just met, but… In my job, you get used to making assessments of people. Something like that – in my opinion, it’s not who you are.’

  Wortley said, ‘Years ago, so they tell me, when blokes left the Army or any of the services, they’d walk straight into a job. It was valued. You had the self-discipline, the respect for authority, you were a good timekeeper. Transferable skills, in the lingo. It’s not like that now. It’s the opposite. Everyone’s heard of PTSD, and everyone assumes you’ve got it if you’ve seen active service. If you’ve seen as much active service as me, they assume you’re a nut-job, permanently on the verge of a breakdown. They don’t want to get involved.’

  Waters’ iPhone still lay on the table, and he saw a light blinking on it, which meant he had a message or an email. He looked away – picking it up would end Wortley’s story.

  ‘So, I’m not whining about it, things are the way they are. I needed some money and I got it by working security on the doors of a nightclub. It’s all supposed to be licensed now but the reality is, it’s cash in your hand, no paperwork. A lot of blokes do it for the girls, as well…’

  In the pause, he looked at Waters, wondering just how much the detective sergeant knew about him. The detective sergeant gave nothing away.

  ‘Then, one night I was sorting out a couple of difficult bastards on my own. I didn’t clout anyone but I let them understand the situation, and after that a couple of others came over and started a conversation. How much was I getting a night? Would I like to double that, or treble it, no questions asked? I’ll admit I wasn’t in a good place, you know? I’d left the Army and things hadn’t gone right for months. Years…’

  Waters said, ‘Was it a mistake, leaving? Major Fogarty spoke highly of you. There was a Colonel Yates as well, he said the Army couldn’t keep the best men anymore.’

  ‘Christ, you met Yates?’ There was almost a smile on Michael Wortley’s face. ‘I could tell you some stories about that stuck up little…’

  Soldiers’ stories. Wortley should never have left the Army.

  ‘Anyway, I was just riding shotgun. I never handled any of the stuff, never sold it. I like a beer, never done anything else. Sometimes I was a driver. It was only for a couple of months, and then they said how about a promotion, into another part of the operation. Property management they called it.’

  Waters got a surreptitious look at his watch. The time was a few minutes short of ten o’clock. He needed to be thinking about how this was going to end.

  ‘I didn’t twig it straight away. Might be hard to believe but I didn’t. I thought these girls were just illegals, you know? They were setting up this new house – there are plenty of others – and it was a couple of days before the men started turning up. If you can call them men. I was thinking to myself, I’m out of here tonight, I don’t need this, and then I heard one of the girls getting a serious beating. I stepped in and said I’d make sure she behaved herself, leave it to me, I said. When they did, same day it was, I put them all into a van and took them to a police station. I didn’t make them do anything else, I just said to the one who spoke English, your choice, love, but you’ll be safer in there than out here. Then I drove off. I don’t know what happened to them after that.’

  Waters said, ‘They all went to the police. You did them a favour, Michael.’

  ‘Yeah? Good. I reckon a couple of them were still in their teens.’

  ‘What did you do then?’

  ‘I had a flat. I kept an eye on it the rest of the day. I didn’t know whether they knew where I lived or not but I knew they’d come after me. There was a lot of money involved but that wasn’t the main thing. I’d seen faces, I knew stuff – more than they guessed, I expect. Old habits and all that. When you’ve been trained to keep your eyes and ears open, you know?’ />
  And Waters thought, it’s an odd life. A twist here, a turn there, and similar people can end up in very different places. Michael Wortley would have made an excellent policeman. Waters said, ‘What happened to your car?’

  Wortley looked surprised.

  ‘You know about that? That was them, sending a message. I don’t how they moved it as I had the keys, but they burned it out. A couple of hours later, I got on the first bus out of the city. I didn’t plan that. I just happened to end up where I did. Random, isn’t it – this bloke Neville getting stabbed because I did all that?’

  Waters said, ‘And because he went through your bag and stole the ID card. He got more than he bargained for, but it was his choice. You’re not responsible.’

  The story had been told, and neither of them spoke for a few seconds. The light on the phone had stopped blinking – that might have been something important, might still be, but so was Wortley’s account of what had taken place to bring him here on this strange Thursday evening. His worst day at work followed by the most remarkable interview of his career. Eventually he said, ‘So, what will you do now?’

  Wortley too had been trying to make sense of it all.

  ‘Do you reckon they know they got the wrong man? Do they think I’m dead?’

  ‘Possibly. The story has been in the media but without names, as yet. One newspaper reported that a former soldier had been stabbed to death, so it’s possible they haven’t realised. But eventually the truth will go public. Will they leave it or come after you again?’

  Wortley didn’t answer. He seemed distracted for a moment, watching the fish tank. Waters did the same, and saw the tiny fish swim as a shoal to the end of their universe and then turn, a shower of blue sparks, and begin the process again. They must do so hundreds of times a day.

  ‘So, what’s it like, then, being a copper?’

  ‘There are good days and bad days, like any job, I expect. Today wasn’t so good, when my boss was told you’d disappeared.’

  ‘Sorry…’

  Wortley said that without thinking and without irony. Waters picked his way forward with care, looking for the right words to say what he must say.