Circle of Lies

by Paul J. Teague

  There was a cautious tap at the door. They looked at each other and Olli jumped up.

  ‘I’ve gotta go. I said I’d meet Willow at half-past eight and I’ll be late if I don’t hurry.’

  Will got up and answered the door. Charlotte recognised the voice immediately; it was Nigel Davies.

  ‘Good morning Charlotte,’ Nigel said as he entered the family kitchen, led by Will.

  ‘I’ve got to be on my way too,’ Will said. ‘I need to speak to you this evening, about that thing at the university we discussed.’

  He gave Charlotte a kiss and was on his way, chatting to Olli as they made their way down the stairs.

  ‘I’m sorry to call in on you so early in the morning,’ Nigel began, settling into a chair at Charlotte’s invitation. ‘It’s just that I was in the office early this morning to start writing up this news story and… sorry, I should ask how you are first, I suppose?’

  ‘Better than I should be, but still a bit stunned,’ Charlotte replied. ‘You saw Barry last night. Did he look like a man who was about to go back to his room and hang himself?’

  ‘No, he didn’t,’ Nigel said. ‘How are the kids? Did they see anything?’

  For the first time, Charlotte saw how fortuitous it had been that Lucia was out late; she’d avoided having to see the body. She’d been so busy focusing on the negatives of the situation, that she’d neglected to see the silver lining. It would have been much worse if Lucia had had to help with Barry McMillan’s corpse. Olli appeared to be none the worse for it; besides, she’d always considered her son to be more mature and resilient. For some reason, she never worried about him as much. She resolved to check in with Olli after school and give Lucia an easier time over her late night. As it turned out, it had probably been for the best.

  ‘The kids are fine. Lucia missed it, and Olli seems to have taken it in his stride. Have you got any more information about Barry’s death?’ Charlotte asked.

  She knew that Nigel Davies often found out interesting information a long time before everybody else in the town. It was one of the privileges of working for a respected news organisation; people told him things. She’d enjoyed the buzz of joining him at the scene of the assault on the night watchman at the Sandy Beaches Holiday Camp, and in her idle moments she’d begun to speculate about what being a local reporter might be like. As a former teacher, that career path had never even occurred to her. But getting to know Nigel had piqued her interest.

  ‘I wanted to show you this,’ Nigel said. He had a photocopy of a newspaper clipping in his hand. It was black and white, and from the old-fashioned fonts Charlotte could tell that it wasn’t recent. She took the sheet of paper from Nigel and studied it.

  It showed a photograph of five men sitting around a circular table. The cutting was from the local newspaper but was dated 2006, well before Nigel’s time. The headline read Morecambe Stars On The Rise. The only striking thing about it was that a thick, black marker pen had been used to place a cross through one of the men.

  ‘What’s this?’ Charlotte asked, not entirely sure why he’d handed it to her.

  ‘Look closely at the man with the black cross through him. Recognise him?’

  Charlotte looked hard at the cutting. At first, it wasn’t clear enough to be certain, but the tiny caption below the photograph confirmed her suspicions. It was Barry McMillan, thirteen years younger, with a full head of hair and a stylish, well-cropped beard.

  ‘It’s Barry,’ she said, looking up. ‘But what’s this about?’

  ‘I was first in the office this morning,’ Nigel told her. ‘This was posted through the letterbox, addressed to me. As you can see, it’s from 2006, and that’s a much younger Barry McMillan in happier times. He’d just landed a huge international book deal, and this was a feature on the great and the good in Morecambe.’

  ‘I’m sorry if I’m being a bit slow, but so what?’ Charlotte said, a little impatient for Nigel to get to his point. ‘Did you put this cross through Barry?’

  ‘That’s just it; I didn’t,’ Nigel replied. ‘That’s how it was delivered. But look closely at the background to the picture. If you scan the text, you’ll also find it in there.’

  Charlotte was beginning to feel like she was back at school, trying to coax an answer out of a pupil who wasn’t getting it. Only she was the pupil who was being slow.

  ‘I’m sorry. Nigel, you’ll have to tell me. I can see it’s a picture of Barry, but what’s the big deal?’

  ‘There were two things that caught my attention,’ he began. ‘First of all, why would someone send a picture like that to me?’

  ‘Charlotte suspected he wasn’t looking for an answer to his question, but she gave one anyway.

  ‘Maybe they just wanted to let you know there was an old photo of Barry that you could use in your newspaper report?’

  ‘Perhaps, but I don’t think so,’ Nigel said. ‘I’m surprised you haven’t noticed it yet.’

  ‘What, Nigel? Noticed what? Why don’t you just tell me?’

  She knew she was being intolerant, but she’d had a lot to deal with; he needed to spit it out.

  ‘That photograph was taken in this guest house, Charlotte. It was taken in this very building where your guests are currently eating their breakfasts. I recognised it from the fireplace. I’d remember it anywhere. Somebody is trying to tell us something. I think there’s a reason Barry McMillan booked into this guest house and I reckon it has something to do with why he decided to hang himself.’

  Chapter Four

  Charlotte couldn’t wait for the guests to clear the lounge, so she could get into the room and compare the photograph with the genuine article. Nigel had been most insistent that the newspaper cutting was a tip-off of some sort, but he hadn’t a clue what it was telling him.

  ‘Do you mind if we send our photographer Chris around to take a few external pictures of the guest house?’ he asked before leaving. ‘Normally, we don’t make a big thing of suicides, but in this case, we have to report it. Besides, I think there may be more to this than meets the eye. What did you say the name of the officer was who spoke to you last night?’

  ‘It was DCI Summers, the lady we met when the security guard was attacked at Sandy Beaches Holiday Camp. I like her. I bet she doesn’t take any shit from her subordinates, but she’s nice. Very thorough, I’d say. Are you going to let her know?’

  ‘That’s good if it’s DCI Summers,’ Nigel replied. ‘I’ll have to tell her, this is something which might suggest there’s more to it than a straight suicide. And didn’t you say his phone had gone AWOL? You get a sixth sense for this sort of thing when you’re a journalist, and I’m going to stick my neck out and guess he had money worries or something like that. There’s nothing we can report on just yet, but I reckon there’s more to this.’

  After Nigel left, Charlotte checked out the last of the guests and briefed her two maids not to go into the room Barry McMillan had been using. One of the small luxuries of the guest house being fully operational was that they could now afford to pay a couple of additional staff members to take care of the morning drudgery, leaving Charlotte more time in a management role.

  It suited her, providing a wonderful freedom between the hours of 10 o’clock and 4 o’clock when the rest of the world was out at work. The maids were Polish, two young women who’d come to the UK to study and pay their way through University. They were diligent and thorough, spoke better English than many of the locals and the work suited them perfectly. Charlotte couldn’t believe her luck.

  By half-past-ten Chris, the photographer from the paper, had taken his pictures, and she was clear for the rest of the day. Charlotte knew exactly what she was going to do next.

  She was used to walking around the town; from where they lived on the promenade, it was easy to walk along the sea front and head for the town centre. Besides, she’d become addicted to the sight of the bay, whatever the weather, and it remained a treat for her to walk along it.

>   Ever since things had settled down over the matter with Bruce Craven, she’d begun to see that it had been a good plan moving from Bristol to Morecambe. It had given them all a fresh start, and she was feeling much better in herself. Her confidence had returned; she no longer felt as fragile as when she’d suffered her breakdown in the classroom. The panic attacks were a thing of the past, and if she sensed that one might be on its way, she knew how to calm herself. With the memory of Bruce Craven now properly buried, she was beginning to trust that things might be taking a turn for the better.

  As Charlotte walked along the front, she realised that she could now admit something to herself that once upon a time she would never have dared to articulate. There was a time, not so long ago, when she too might have considered ending her life like Barry McMillan had done. When her teaching career was imploding, and she believed herself to be losing her mind, she’d inhabited that dark wasteland; there were definitely two days on which she came very close to taking her life.

  But when it came to it, it had been easy to shake herself out of it on both occasions. She was never a genuine suicide risk, even if she’d gone there in her mind. The first time, Will had sent her an old photograph of them as a young couple that he’d found tucked into one of his diaries. She’d forgotten all about it and seeing the photo again brought her such joy that it rescued her temporarily from that dark place. On the second occasion, Lucia had given her a hug and a kiss. She never did that. Had she sensed her low mood? Perhaps, but it was enough to prevent her self-destructive thoughts that day.

  Now, as she walked along the promenade, past the toddlers being pushed in their pushchairs, the joggers, the dog-walkers, the bird-watchers and the tourists, she felt a sense of joy and elation. In some bizarre way, Barry McMillan’s death had helped her to mark a milestone in her own life. There was no way she would ever do what he had done. She saw it clearly in that moment, and she was pleased to be alive. It hadn’t always been the case over the past few years, but now she could say it with confidence. The old Charlotte was back, and she and Will were doing okay again.

  It didn’t take her long to make it to the library, and she knew exactly who she needed to speak to. Nigel had allowed her to take a photograph of the cutting on her smartphone and she was going to show it to her local historian contact, Jon Rogers. He liked to lurk behind the scenes, so she had to check in at the main reception desk and ask if he was around. It wasn’t long before he emerged from wherever he went to hide from the public, to escort Charlotte into the archives area.

  ‘Do you recognise me?’ Charlotte asked when he shook her hand.

  ‘Yes, I do recognise you. It’s funny; I was only thinking about you the other day. How long ago was it that you came to see me? Six months?’

  ‘Yes,’ Charlotte replied, ‘probably about that. It’s gone so fast. What made you think about me after all that time? I’m Charlotte, by the way. I expect your colleague told you that already? I run the Lakes View Guest House at the Town Hall end of the promenade.’

  ‘Yes, she did. Hello, Charlotte. You came to mind because somebody was asking similar questions to you. About that chap, what was his name? Bruce Cranfield?’

  ‘Craven,’ Charlotte answered immediately, her tone cold and clipped.

  ‘Yes, that’s the chap! She was researching her family history. Reckoned she’d read about what happened at the holiday camp in the national newspaper. She’d come to a dead end trying to trace Bruce to the holiday camp, and there was no record of him after he left there. What a strange coincidence that you should turn up so soon after she got in contact.’

  Charlotte could feel the blood draining from her face. It felt like the grim reaper had come to take away all the joy she’d felt not ten minutes previously.

  ‘Who was it?’ she asked. ‘Who was looking for him?’

  ‘She was some obscure relation, a half-sister, I think. Either way, she was very interested when I told her about that photograph of the new paddling pool being opened. Is that what you’ve come about today?’

  Charlotte was rigid with fear. Everything she thought they’d put behind them had reared up like the fury of a dragon about to incinerate its prey. Who the hell was this person? As far as she knew, Bruce Craven had no family. Why wouldn’t the man just stay dead?

  Charlotte shook herself out of her trance.

  ‘It’s a different subject, actually,’ she began. She pulled out her smartphone from her jeans pocket, navigating to the picture of the press cutting.

  ‘Can you locate me a better copy of this?’ she asked.

  ‘Now, that photograph takes me back,’ Jon said, taking the phone from her hand and studying it closely. ‘It’s 2006 or thereabouts, off the top of my head. We’ll have that stored on microfiche. I’ll be able to get you a better copy. I can remember it appearing in the newspaper. We were all much younger back then; I had more hair than Barry in those days, and I didn’t have to wear these glasses. I knew Barry in school as a child. It’s so sad that he took his life; I heard about it on the local radio this morning.’

  He handed the phone back to her. ‘I’ve always wanted to be a writer, but I never followed through with it. As a younger man I looked at that photo with a burning sense of jealousy about how well he’d done. It turns out I needn’t have been envious; clearly all was not well in his life, or he would not have ended it like he did.’

  Charlotte realised she’d never felt that sense of belonging or home, because she’d never lived anywhere long enough. Perhaps the move to Morecambe might be different.

  Jon invited her to get to a coffee from the staff kitchen and then led her to the microfiche machines. Using his honed skills and encyclopaedic knowledge of the archive, it wasn’t long before he’d not only isolated the clipping but also managed to lay his hands on another newspaper feature that he was eager to show her. He wouldn’t be drawn on what it was until he could place it in her hands.

  ‘I didn’t realise that you owned the Lakes View Guest House, and I certainly didn’t put two and two together until you showed me that photograph. Take a seat. I think you’ll be surprised by what I’m about to tell you.’

  For a man who looked like he should be caked by the dust from ancient artefacts, Jon Rogers had an uncanny ability to surprise. His monotone delivery and bland persona concealed hidden talents: this man knew how to draw a white rabbit out of a hat.

  ‘Here’s the photocopy of that first cutting you showed me, without the big, black cross through poor old Barry McMillan. Your cutting was a bit clipped, too. As you can see, there’s a little more detail on this copy.’

  Charlotte took the sheet of paper from him, keen to study it. Nigel’s copy had been of terrible quality, but Jon had managed to print out a much sharper version.

  ‘This is excellent, thanks. What else did you say you had for me?’

  ‘Well, when you told me you owned the Lakes View, it rang bells immediately. This is one of the curses of living in a town for so many years. I remember all this stuff.’

  He handed over a second photocopy to Charlotte, who devoured it like she might set upon a burger after a day without food. Jon summarised it for her as she read.

  ‘You probably don’t even know this, as you’re so new to the town. But shortly after that photograph was taken in your establishment, the owner ended up in prison. He kidnapped a minor and held her in an attic room in your guest house. Rex Emery was his name. It was a huge news story at the time. In fact, he’s been in prison for so many years that he must be out by now.’

  Chapter Five

  The day couldn’t end soon enough for Charlotte. As she passed the newspaper offices on her way back from the library, she dropped off a copy of the cutting for Nigel Davies. He was delighted to receive it, acting like a man relieved to have an interruption from generating the lead story for that week’s edition of the newspaper.

  ‘You see this?’ he said, looking closely at the image. ‘There’s something in it that was cut off th
e original clipping.’

  Charlotte leaned over. She’d never been invited upstairs to enter the heart of the news operation. It was far busier and noisier than an office workspace.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked.

  ‘Well, this picture was taken by a photographer from this newspaper. I’ve got a student from the local college digging out the details for me as we speak. We should have a colour copy of it somewhere, but it’s more likely to be in storage now. We keep all the paperwork in a facility on the White Lund Industrial Estate, so it may be a devil to find. Anyhow, think about how this would have been set up. The photographer is standing behind the camera. But look; there’s somebody standing at his side. You can see their sleeve.’

  Charlotte studied the area of the photograph he was pointing to.

  ‘Oh yes. I just ignored that. I didn’t know what it was.’

  ‘Now, take a look to the side of this guy’s head. There’s a mirror there. You can just make out somebody’s face.’

  ‘You’ve got better eyesight than I have,’ Charlotte replied, after squinting at the image for a couple of seconds. ‘Are you sure that’s what it is?’

  ‘Yes. The photographer should have known better. It’s a bit of a rookie error catching a reflection in the mirror. Anyhow, it’s not his reflection; it’s the reflection of the person standing at his side; you can see from the angle the picture has been taken.’

  Charlotte wasn’t entirely convinced but decided to take his word for it.

  ‘What does that tell you?’ she asked, none the wiser.

  ‘It tells me that at least seven people were in that room; the five men at the table, the photographer and whoever it was standing next to him. I can trace the photographer from the number on the image. We always have a reference number in case the people in the photograph want to buy a copy; it’s one of the ways the newspaper makes money.’