by Karla Forbes
“I’m sorry,” he muttered lamely. “I didn’t want to hurt you.”
“Like you didn’t want to kill Tim you mean?” Her shock turned to triumph. “Who is going to believe a word you say now, Nick Sullivan?” She struggled to her feet just as the door crashed open and two police officers burst into the room. They took in the scene with one sweeping glance and positioned themselves between Nick and Esther.
“Are you alright, love?” one of them asked.
She wiped the blood from her forehead and held out her hand as evidence. “No, officer, I’m not alright. My husband has just attacked me. How much more proof do you need that he’s a violent man who’s capable of murder?”
***
Detective Inspector Mason was feeling edgy. He had no real evidence, and the investigation was drawing a blank at every turn. Tim Wellerby’s body had been found lying among the seaweed and flotsam on the shore the previous day, but having been battered by waves and nibbled by fish, it was a mess. Mason had given instructions to be notified, without delay, when the results of the post-mortem came through. Unless any other evidence came to light, it could mean the difference between charging Sullivan or letting him go. Mason hated the thought of his only suspect walking free. His clear-up rate was among the best, and every failure to bring the guilty to justice was something that he took personally.
The telephone rang. He shot out a hand to answer it, knocking over a nearly-full mug of steaming hot coffee in the process. He jumped to his feet, swearing loudly and swiping at his trousers with the back of his hand.
“Mason here!” he snapped, more sharply than he meant. He came abruptly to attention when he realised that he was talking to the coroner’s office, and slowly lowered himself back into his chair. As he listened in silence a thin smile of triumph spread slowly over his face, and by the time he disconnected five minutes later he was grinning broadly. He sprang to his feet.
“Bill!” he yelled. “Come here!”
DC Bill Gaskin, an overweight middle-aged man with tired eyes and sweat stains around his armpits, ambled into the office showing no apparent sense of urgency.
“Guv?”
Mason gestured for him to take a seat. “I’ve just heard back on the post-mortem,” he said, suppressing a hint of excitement. “Tim Wellerby was killed by a single cut across the jugular by a smooth, non-serrated knife. He was dead when he hit the water. There was bruising on the left side of his forehead that was consistent with being gripped tightly by someone wearing a heavy wristwatch.”
“Doesn’t that confirm what Sullivan said?” Gaskin asked, confused.
“Yes, but hear me out. Sullivan wears a heavy Rolex. Forensics will need to check it against the dimensions of the bruise, but I’ve no doubt it will match.”
Gaskin shook his head with disbelief. “Half the men in the country wear a big wristwatch. I do myself. Am I a suspect?”
Mason ignored the flippancy. “The knife that cut Wellerby’s throat was the same as, or at least very similar to, the knife found on Sullivan when he was pulled from the water.”
“What’s that supposed to prove?” Gaskin asked. “The defence will laugh us out of court. Nearly every home in the country will have a similar knife in the kitchen drawer.”
“True,” Mason conceded, “but the fact that it matches at all will give the jury something to think about. Anyway, there’s more.” He stood up and walked around the back of Gaskin’s chair. “Right, pay attention,” he said. “This is important.” He took his colleague’s head in an armlock in the way that Nick had described, and raised his other hand as though he was holding a knife.
“Sullivan said that one man held Wellerby like this whilst the other man, standing in front of him, cut his throat. However, the post-mortem shows that Wellerby’s throat was cut on a slight diagonal, the lowest part of the cut from his left rising to the highest part of the cut to his right – like so.” Mason made a slicing action with his right hand as he spoke.
“Err…yeah?” Gaskin said. “So?”
“That, together with the bruise on the left side of his forehead, is entirely consistent with the cut being made by one man standing behind him, not in front as Sullivan said.”
Gaskin furrowed his brow. “How come?”
“Because if the assailant had been standing in front of Wellerby, as Sullivan claims, the cut would be going in the opposite diagonal, from Wellerby’s right to left.”
Gaskin thought about this. “Only if the murderer was right-handed. He could have been left-handed. Sullivan could be left-handed for all you know. Have you considered that?”
“He isn’t!” Mason snapped. “I watched him sign for his belongings. He’s right-handed, like the majority of the population.”
“But—”
“No buts.” Mason held up his hand for silence. “Sullivan had the motive and the opportunity. He was fished out of the water carrying a knife that matches the murder weapon, and the bruise on the victim’s head was undoubtedly caused by the pressure from a Rolex.”
“Eh? A minute ago it was just a big wristwatch.”
“It will check out,” Mason insisted. “In addition to that, the location of the bruise and the diagonal of the cut was consistent with a right-handed man standing behind the victim, not in front as Sullivan claims.”
“Or a left-handed man standing in front,” Gaskin unwisely interjected.
“What are you saying? Three men killed Wellerby for no reason and then disappeared without trace, and, rather conveniently, the man who wielded the knife was left-handed. Sorry, Bill, I don’t buy it and neither will a jury. We’ve got enough to arrest him, and with luck we’ll soon have enough to charge him.”
“Are you sure?” Gaskin sounded unconvinced. “Quite sure,” Mason said, with confidence. “And that business with his missus yesterday… He hasn’t done himself any favours. Who’s going to believe that a man who can attack a pregnant woman is incapable of killing the bloke who shagged her in the first place?”
“But that won’t be admissible in a murder trial,” Gaskin reminded him. “It’s a different charge altogether.”
“Not officially admissible,” Mason conceded, “but these things have a habit of leaking out under cross-examination. Once the seed’s been planted in the jury’s mind, it’ll be free to grow – however many times the judge directs them to forget it.”
Gaskin shook his head. “I’m not so sure, Guv.”
“Well I am. He’s not a hardened criminal; he’s just a stupid bugger who lashes out when he loses his temper. Bring him in, Bill. Faced with all the evidence, I’ll have a confession out of him in five minutes.”
***
Nick had become an outcast living in the shadows of decent society. The telephone remained quiet, and when he occasionally ventured outside, he was tormented by the illogical notion that every face that turned towards him, recognised him and damned him as a murderer. He remembered Tim calling him a cocky bastard. He had laughed at the time because it had been true, but that was a lifetime ago. The bedrock of his happiness had proved unstable and his life had quickly unravelled around him. Now he felt only confusion, emptiness and, if he was totally honest, fear.
He had spent hours going over the facts in his mind. Whichever way he looked at things, they were bad. He guessed it was only a matter of time before the police came to arrest him. As far as they were concerned, they had found their murderer. And even to Nick’s own ears, his story sounded unconvincing.
When the sight of an empty fridge had forced him to leave the house, he had set off for the supermarket, hurrying around the shelves, trying to avoid eye contact with the other shoppers. It wasn’t until he was safely back in the car that he found himself breathing normally again. He knew that he couldn’t go on like this.
He hunched over the steering wheel, thinking hard. The three murderers had disappeared and he was the only suspect. Had the police tried to trace them? He guessed that they had made a few cursory enquiries but
had quickly given up. Why spend too long searching for three men who probably never existed, when they had the real murderer to hand?
Nick began to formulate an idea in his mind. If the police weren’t going to search for the three men, then he would do it himself.
The more he thought about it, the more he liked it. In a modern society, people didn’t just appear and disappear at will. Someone, somewhere, would know them – and if he could go back to the police with proof that the three men existed, they would have to give his story some credence. He turned the key in the ignition and pulled out of the car park with the first real stirrings of hope since the interview with Mason. It felt good to have made a positive decision instead of sitting around giving in to despair.
An uncomfortable thought broke through his newly-found optimism. Why should he succeed in finding these men when the police had failed? Even worse, he might run out of time; the police could come for him any day. What hope would he have of finding the real murderers if he was locked in a cell waiting for his case to come to court? He angrily pushed the thought to the back of his mind. He had never before failed at anything he had set out to do. Now was not the time to give in to self-doubts. He would find the men and he would force the police into a re-think.
He nosed the car through the busy traffic, working through his plan of action. The murderers owned a boat; they had been scuba diving. Neither of these things could be done without leaving a trail. He waited at the traffic lights ready to turn into the road where he lived. It was an area of money and understated respectability. The houses were detached, set back from the road and hidden from view by long winding driveways and tall hedges. His neighbours were surgeons and stockbrokers, city high-flyers and leaders of industry. They kept themselves to themselves and observed society’s conventions. So when Nick saw two police cars with blue flashing lights cross the junction ahead of him, he froze. He watched warily as they turned into his road and pulled into his driveway.
They had come for him!
A horn sounded angrily behind him and he looked up at the lights with a start. They had changed to green. He sat, immobile with indecision. Had the police turned up to interview him or had they come to arrest him? With a feeling of dread, he knew the answer. They had come in two cars. That could only mean they were bringing him in.
The horn sounded again, louder and angrier than before. Nick shot a glance at his rear view mirror and saw a growing queue of irritated motorists building up behind him. He came to a decision. He yanked hard on the steering wheel and turned left, away from his house, away from captivity. He had no idea what he would do or where he would go, but he knew that his only hope of clearing his name was to stay free. He was suddenly aware that his Aston Martin, once his pride and joy, was now a liability. He would have to ditch it and become invisible.
He could hardly believe what was happening to him. In just three days, his neatly-ordered world had been overturned. He was now a fugitive on the run.
Chapter Three
The journey from Horsham to Brighton should have taken no more than thirty minutes; instead it took an hour. Nick changed his mind three times en route, and when he finally arrived, he parked around the corner out of sight, debating whether or not to get out of the car. It was an ordinary street of neat terraced houses, with cars standing in the road or on paved front gardens where lawns used to grow.
He had visited the house countless times before, but never in circumstances like this. He wasn’t sure why he hesitated, and told himself that he didn’t want to implicate others in his problems; it was easier than admitting the truth. He sat staring through the windscreen, putting off the moment for as long as possible. It was only when he noticed a neighbour’s curtains twitch that he roused himself to move. The longer he waited, the harder it was going to be.
He reluctantly reached out and opened the car door. If he didn’t do it now he would drive away for ever.
***
Annelies walked in from the garden carrying the last of the autumn roses and dropped them onto the kitchen table. Her brother gave them a cursory glance before returning to his newspaper and the cricket results. He was a heavily-set man, as different from Annelies as a brother and sister could be. Where she was fair, he was dark, and where she was nimble on her feet and moved with the grace of a dancer, he was ponderous in his movements and was already developing the beginning of a paunch.
“Have you got a vase for these?” she asked, flicking a stray wisp of hair behind her ear.
“No idea,” he muttered, not bothering to look up a second time.
Annelies began opening cupboard doors. “Come on Ed. Show a bit of interest will you? They need to go in water.”
Her brother gestured vaguely towards the kitchen sink. “Stick them over there,” he said, noncommittally. “I’ll sort them out later.”
She stepped lightly over to him and snatched the newspaper out of his hand. Her hazel eyes glinted with fierce determination.
“Indulge me, will you? I didn’t put up with a handful of thorns just to see these roses wilt and die. All you’ve got to do is tell me where the vases are and I’ll get one myself.”
He tried, unsuccessfully, to recover his newspaper and gave a scowl of self-pity. “I don’t know where the damn vases are. If we ever had any, my bitch of a wife probably took them when she left.”
“But Jayne left you over a year ago,” Annelies pointed out with disbelief. “You must know whether or not she left any vases behind.”
Without warning, Ed shot out a hand and triumphantly snatched back his newspaper.
“Why should I?” he said, smoothing down the pages with exaggerated care. “When am I going to bother with arranging stupid flowers?”
“When are you going to bother with anything except the sports pages and looking after Ed Burgen?”
He gave her a self-satisfied grin. “Sounds alright to me, sis.”
“Yes, well, maybe if you’d occasionally thought of something other than yourself, Jayne might not have left you and I wouldn’t have to keep traipsing over here to check that you’re OK… And don’t call me sis.”
Ed sighed, laid his newspaper to one side and gave her his full attention. “OK,” he said resignedly, “what’s up?”
“Nothing’s up.”
“Yes it is. You only object to being called sis when you’re in a mood.”
“I’m not in a mood,” she protested. “But if I was, it would be because I’m sick of being taken for granted.”
“Taken for granted?”
“Yes. If you and Jayne hadn’t split, I could get on with my own life instead of worrying about you all the time.”
“But I don’t want you to worry about me,” Ed pointed out. “I do quite nicely on a diet of beer and canteen food. This might come as a surprise to you, but I probably wouldn’t die of malnutrition if you missed the occasional week-end and left me to fend for myself.”
“Well, perhaps I will,” she snapped.
“Well, perhaps you should,” he countered.
As Annelies opened her mouth to hit back with a sharp retort, the doorbell rang, stopping the tirade before it had begun.
“Wait there,” she ordered. “I’ll be back.” She swept from the room as her brother reached for his newspaper once again.
She yanked open the door with a scowl that immediately dissolved into a smile of welcome.
“Oh hi, Nick. This is a nice surprise. Come in.” She peered at him closer. ”God, you look awful. Are you OK?”
Nick dredged up a wan smile of his own. “I’ve been better, Annie. Is Ed in?”
Annelies gestured to the kitchen. “He’s through there, if you can drag him out of the sports pages.” She began to follow him down the hallway. “You look really bad, Nick. You’re not going down with something are you?”
Nick turned, then hesitated. “Listen, Annie. I could do with Ed’s help, but I need to talk to him privately. Would you mind?”
She eyed him with c
oncern. “What’s up Nick? It’s not Esther is it?”
“Please,” Nick said, “Don’t ask; not now. I need to talk to Ed first. It’s important.”
She reached up and touched him lightly on the arm. “Of course, Nick. Go through. I’ll make myself scarce.”
She watched him go, fear crawling in her stomach. She had seen Nick in many moods over the years since he and her brother had been friends. She had seen his ups and downs, his triumphs and (far less frequently) his failures, but she had never seen him looking as he did today. She hugged her arms to her and wondered what could be wrong. She had hero-worshipped him when she was twelve and he had been nineteen and although she had grown up, and adulation had become simple friendship, she still cared for him. She stood alone in the hall as the kitchen door closed in her face, and found that she couldn’t walk away.
***
“Hi Nick.” Ed looked up from his newspaper with surprise. He glanced at his watch. “Blimey. It’s only six o’clock. Shouldn’t you still be slaving away in the city, quoting Aristotle and making your last few millions of the day?”
“Shut up Ed,” Nick said, not unkindly. “I’m in trouble. I need help.”
Ed came to attention, looked at his friend properly and saw the black shadows under his eyes. “What is it?” he asked, genuinely concerned. “You look like shit.”
“Thanks mate,” Nick said pulling out a chair and sitting down. ”You don’t look so good either.”
“Seriously Nick, what’s the matter?”
Nick explained as Ed heard him out in appalled silence.
“Tim’s dead?”
“Yes.”
“And they think you killed him?”
“Yes.”
“And you belted Esther?”
Nick looked uncomfortable. “Well…yes.”
