“I don’t have to explain myself to you,” said Max Simmons. He leaned away and opened the door. Hogarth reached past him, slammed the door shut and hit the central locking. He looked Max Simmons in the eye.
“Yes you do,” said Hogarth.
“Okay, okay… I didn’t know. I wanted to help the woman, didn’t I? She called me. She was a friend. I didn’t know her husband was still alive, honest I didn’t.”
“But then you did, and you still dragged your son into it.”
“I didn’t know what was going to happen, did I?”
“No. And you knew it wasn’t kosher, didn’t you? No way you couldn’t have known.”
Hogarth looked the man hard in the eye and found him speechless.
“There. This is the moment when I should smash your face in. But I won’t.”
“Because you’re a cop. You can’t do a thing to me.”
“Oh? Ask your son about me. Yes, I could do it easily, Max. But I won’t. Not for you. For the sake of your son. Your boy doesn’t even know I’m here. He doesn’t know we’re talking like this. And from now on, don’t you ever lean on him or make him risk his career like this again – because if you do, next time I won’t hold back.”
“Cops like you, you’re—”
“Careful. But you’re right. We’re the backbone of society, Max. Well said. Mind that face of yours on the way out.” Hogarth pressed the central locking and the locks flicked open. “Off you go. Just remember what I said.”
Max Simmons swore under his breath as he stepped out of the car and slammed the door. Hogarth smiled and watched the older Simmons disappear in his rear-view mirror. He turned and grabbed his whisky bottle from the back seat and returned it to the front seat.
“One job done, one to go – then it’s drinks o’clock,” said Hogarth, talking to his overpriced bottle. “I promise.”
Epilogue
Hogarth waited almost an hour before he saw anything. He had already parked his car out of sight behind the public toilets near the seafront café; a place he remembered for all the wrong reasons. The site was one of a few where Hogarth had been on the receiving end of some unwarranted violence. Hogarth put the thought aside. He hid his whisky inside the golf bag in the boot, then set off and picked his way along the overflow parking field towards the beach huts. He picked a hiding place between two huts where the line of huts curled away from the seafront to face the inauspicious grey concrete wall which marked off the ex-MoD firing range. Nowadays the MoD area was nothing more than a dog friendly walk all the way to Shoebury East Beach, a good long way off. It was still spring and the evening air was getting nippy. Hogarth hunched his shoulders against the cold and stayed quiet in the shadows between the beach huts. No one noticed him hiding, apart from one poor old dear who heard him coughing as she strode past with her little white Westie. Hogarth couldn’t tell who was more frightened. The old dear or the yapping dog. But it was a good lesson. There was no telling when Melford might arrive. He needed to stay silent.
But Melford wasn’t the first to arrive. Hogarth froze as a gleaming red car pulled past his position and drew to an aggressive halt. He leaned out and looked at the car. It was brand new, and of a type someway between a Range Rover, an X5 or Audi equivalent. The type of car which spoke of a fat wallet and a matching ego. Hogarth pulled his head back and listened as the door opened and the man inside jumped out onto the concrete. Ahead of the parked car was the ramp up to the seafront and another slipway down to the shingle beach which was still divided from the MoD beach by a tall fence. The beach on the other side was still verboten, probably due to ordnance buried in the silt, still waiting to explode. He listened to the man pacing around. He heard the spark of a lighter and listened to him exhaling his smoke. The cold was coming in off the estuary and Hogarth thought of his malt, his favourite armchair, and his radiators, ticking louder than Melford’s clocks.
Melford’s metallic saloon cruised past and drew to a slow halt. Hogarth tried to read the man’s profile behind the steering wheel – chin jutting out, head back, face tense. He waited for the car to stop fussing into a parking space, and as the car door finally closed Hogarth tuned his ear to the quiet greetings between the two men. It was hard to make out their words. The breeze was getting stronger, stealing the words before they could reach his ears. But Melford’s tone was unmistakable. He was angry, and not just angry, desperate too.
“…I want this…” said Melford.
“…happy in the end… all of you will…”
“…my wife… the most important consideration.”
“She’ll be taken care of.”
It was a patchwork of words rather than a conversation, no more substantial than the shred of half-note he’d tugged free from the drawer in Melford’s office. So far he had learned nothing beyond confirming that Melford was in it up to his neck – whatever it was. But it wasn’t good enough. If he intended to take something to the Directorate, he needed more than a few half-heard words. He needed decent, verifiable, inside knowledge. He needed evidence too. Hogarth strained his ears but it was no good. He needed to move closer. He knitted his eyes shut, took a breath and turned out onto the green. He trod gently along the back of three beach huts, and looked to his right, realising he’d been spotted tiptoeing around like a criminal by yet another evening dog walker. Hogarth glanced at the dog walker, nodded, and willed them to be quiet. His heart beat faster still. He looked through another gap between the huts, and through the dark walls either side, he watched Melford’s back appear close by, before it withdrew. Yes. He was close enough to hear everything now. Dangerously close. He threaded into the dark gap and held his breath, his forehead prickling with sweat even though the evening air was no better than cool. He waited and he listened.
“…you’re making this harder, Glasson. One of my officers is on to me.”
“Then deal with it. You’re the boss, aren’t you?”
“It’s not like that. It never has been. My world isn’t the same as yours.”
“Yes, it is. There’s a hierarchy and you’re the top dog.”
“I’m CID. That’s all. I’m nowhere near the top of anything.”
“Nearer than some, Melford. Don’t make excuses.”
“I’ve never made any excuses.”
“Good. Because you’re going to need your backbone to get this done.”
“Listen to me first,” said Melford. “I took a call from one of them this afternoon. This guy has been asking around. Been asking the others. He suspects me and he’s getting too close.”
“Again – he’s your problem, not mine – so deal with it. You handle your end and I’ll handle mine.”
Hogarth blinked and pressed his head back against the wooden hut. He felt sick. Not Melford, no. Not another one ready to sell himself down the river for a few extra shekels for his pension plan. Hogarth wanted to walk out there and shake him, to face the man called Glasson and beat him into a pulp, but it couldn’t be done. He needed every detail he could get. Hogarth took his mobile from his pocket and hid the light of the screen by pressing it against his hip. He glanced at the app icons on the front screen, then dabbed the voice recorder app, hit record, and held his phone out into the air.
“You’re ready?” said Glasson.
“No, of course I’m not ready.”
“No one’s ever ready, but if they want it bad enough, they’ll always do it.”
“I want this over with. It’s been too much already.”
“Good. That’s exactly what I want to hear. Then it’s time we move to the final phase.”
Hogarth peered around the corner and saw a bony hand extend towards Melford. Melford looked down at the hand with contempt. He left Glasson’s hand hanging in the air.
“You know, you’re making me sacrifice my career for this.”
“You made some stupid mistakes. They were yours, not mine.”
“And you dragged all the others into this!”
“To m
ake you pay attention. But then you made it wider police business. That was stupid.”
Glasson’s hand was withdrawn.
“I didn’t know how far you were going to take it, did I?” said Melford. “You’d already threatened Eleanor. I needed to be sure!”
“And you weren’t sure already. Bullshit, Melford. You were getting cold feet. But it’s too late for that now. You know that. They’re onto you, are they? Then it’s time to deliver. Shake on it. Then do what has to be done.
The hand reappeared. Melford looked like he couldn’t bring himself to touch it.
“You’ll leave Eleanor alone? No more threats? No more dragging innocent people into this?”
“If you do exactly as you promised, she’ll be left alone, and so will all your little bum chums. I promise. Scouts honour. You keep your word, do what we agreed, and it’s over.”
“But this isn’t over, Glasson. Not for me. It can’t be.”
“Just think of your wife, and it’ll make everything easier.”
He watched Melford take the man’s hand and shake it limply. Glasson grinned and Hogarth’s eyes narrowed in understanding. The situation seemed to be changing before his eyes, becoming clearer, making sense. Hogarth pulled his phone back into the darkness between the beach huts to switch off the recorder but it slipped from his fingers and landed in the detritus of the weeds wood and gravel with a thunk. Melford froze and started to look around.
“There’s someone here,” said the other voice. Hogarth heard a flurry of feet, a panic of car doors slamming, and the start of a car engine. Hogarth left his position and pulled himself out of sight behind the huts. He watched the red Ford streak past the gaps in the beach huts, whining as it fast-reversed towards the main road. But he noticed that the metallic body of Melford’s car stayed exactly where it was. Had he heard Melford open the door? Yes, he was sure of it. So why hadn’t Melford got in and fled like the other man? Hogarth’s heart was pounding. He thought of home and thought of whisky. Hogarth glanced down into the gap between the beach huts and saw his phone screen glinting at him exactly where he had dropped it. He reached for it, bending down to stretch. Once he had it, he would get out of there. But before anything else he needed his phone… He reached out and touched it, but as his finger pinched the top edge, a tall shadow loomed in on the other side of the gap. Melford’s glinting eyes stared down at him in the darkness. In Melford’s hand was a pistol. A dull glow came from its strange surface. Hogarth couldn’t take his eyes off it. It was a dented, scratched up old pistol which could have been a hundred years old or more. But what did that matter? A gun was a gun. And a dead man was still dead. Hogarth picked up his phone and stood up, and the gun stayed low by Melford’s hip.
“You’ve pushed too far, Hogarth. I tried to warn you but you wouldn’t listen. And now you’re jeopardising everything. For what? Come through here. Come through and face me.”
Hogarth cleared his throat and did as he was asked. He stepped through the weed-filled gap between the huts into the side lane before the concrete wall, his eyes flicking between Melford’s shaded face and the dull glinting edge of the old gun.
“Antique by any chance?” said Hogarth.
“Yes, but it works well enough. You know me too well, Inspector. And as of now, that’s a significant problem.”
“I’d say that gun is more of a significant problem, sir. You see… thing is… you use that on me, and whatever scheme you’ve got underway is already finished, totally ruined before its even begun. You might be able to get one or two people to turn a blind eye to a common or garden murder, but killing a cop is different, sir. No one wants to know. No one wants to help you. You become the literal definition of the word pariah.”
“Hogarth! Why wouldn’t you leave well alone?!” Melford shook. “You think they’ll ever promote you for this? Even if you shopped me and hung me out to dry, you’d still be soiled goods. You’ve already stepped all over the police and crime commissioner. You always put yourself against vested interests! For heaven’s sake man, you were knocking off the MP’s wife! You’re already finished and you don’t even know it. You don’t get anything anymore. You’re done. The best you can ever hope for is just to keep your job.”
“Yeah,” said Hogarth. “I already figured that part out a while back. But here’s the thing, sir. I quite like my job – for all the crap that comes my way – this job still gives me a reason to get out of bed in the morning. And there’s something in that, isn’t there, sir?”
Melford glanced down at his pistol. “What did you plan to do about what you think you heard…?”
Hogarth kept his breath even and forced himself to sound confident. He wasn’t. Hogarth really didn’t want to die.
“The truth, sir?”
Melford nodded.
“The truth is I was going to gather evidence, work out what you were up to, and hand it all over to the Directorate to do the rest. It’s exactly what you would have done.”
Melford nodded and twisted the pistol thoughtfully in his hand. The pistol started to rise, but very slowly. Hogarth watched it and raised his palms in a stop gesture.
“But sir… from what I think I heard… I know that’s the wrong thing to do.”
Melford frowned and narrowed his eyes. He stared at Hogarth.
“You’re only saying that because I found you… because you think I’m going to shoot you.”
“No, sir. I’m saying that because you should have been honest with me before.”
“And told you what, man?!” snapped Melford.
“I offered to help you. You’re not corrupt, sir. At least not by choice. That police bulletin email… you used it because you wanted help. You might have even wanted us to see something was up. Sir, it was a veiled cry for help.”
Melford said nothing. The gun stayed low.
“The local businesses, sir. The convenience store, the car salesman. You know those men, and they know you. I don’t understand the connection, but my guess is it’s personal in some way. And that man, Glasson. He’s been threatening them to get to you. To manipulate you.”
Melford turned his head towards the sea.
“It doesn’t matter. In the eyes of the law it’s the same. It’s all corruption, Hogarth.”
“Not in my eyes, it’s not, guv. Glasson threatened your wife, didn’t he?”
Melford faced Hogarth again and looked him in the eye.
“How…?”
“Pieces of a jigsaw, sir. You get enough of them and you begin to see the whole picture.”
Melford nodded. “You could have had a decent career, DI Hogarth.”
Hogarth swallowed and looked at the gun.
“I think good men occasionally have to do questionable things in order to achieve the greater good. Sometimes, sir, not often, but sometimes… the ends justify the means.”
Melford tilted his head as he strained for Hogarth’s meaning.
“And you believe that, do you?”
“I don’t just believe it, sir. I know it.”
“And that’s why you’ll never get promoted.”
“I don’t deserve promotion, and I don’t want it, guv. But I am still willing to help you get out of this mess.”
Melford nodded once.
“Then stand aside. Do nothing, say nothing, and let me finish what has to be done.”
Hogarth shook his head. “No, sir. My team wouldn’t give up on me.”
Hogarth showed Melford his phone and pressed play on the recording. Two voices became audible but obscured by the wind. As Melford listened, Hogarth thumbed the trash icon, and the video shrank and disappeared off screen, deleted for good.
“I’m going to help you, sir.”
Melford looked at Hogarth, his eyes glinting. The DCI didn’t say a word, he only stared. The estuary breeze picked at the hair on his widow’s peak, and the ancient pistol wavered in his hand…
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The DI Hogarth Secret Fear series
The Secret Fear
The Secret Dawn
The Secret Sins
The DI Hogarth Darkest Lies series – The first DI Hogarth series
The Darkest Lies
The Darkest Grave
The Darkest Deed
The Darkest Truth
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The Dirty Game
Only Live Once
Behind the Mask
The Dark Tide
Lucky For Some
Luck & Judgment
The second thrilling series featuring Eva Roberts & Dan Bradley, private detectives
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The Secret Dawn Page 34
