Cruel Tide

by Ruth Sutton

  Back in the house she leaned against the wall inside the front door to get her breath back before picking up the pay phone and dialling Elspeth’s number.

  ‘Is Sam there?’ she asked.

  ’You all right Judith? Have you been running?’

  ‘I’m fine, is he there?’

  ‘No he’s not back yet.’

  ‘When he comes in, could you tell him something from me. Tell him that I’ve seen Anthony again, in the street by my house. I ran but I lost him. Can you tell him that?’

  ‘Who’s Anthony?’ asked Elspeth.

  ‘He’ll know. He asked me to tell him if I saw him, so I have. That’s all, thanks.’

  She lay on her bed and looked at the damp spot on the ceiling above her head. She’d had to reassure Elspeth more than once that she was OK, but she didn’t want to tell her any more. This wasn’t a cry for help or an admission that she was afraid. It was just a fact. If the man was Anthony, he knew where she lived and he was watching her comings and goings, and she didn’t know why. And if the same man had made that tape, he expected her to do something, not just weave some sob story about kids being sent overseas.

  She thought again about the voice on the tape. It was probably distorted, either by the tape machine or deliberately, but she knew it could tell them more. There was an accent, but she couldn’t pin it down. Suddenly she thought of Vince. Since his accident he seemed able to hear things that no one else even noticed. If he could hear that tape, he could tell them something about the voice and the person behind it, the same person who’d been looking for his little brother, the same person who could have threatened Harries, and might even have helped him die. Judith got up and went back to the phone in the hallway.

  CHAPTER 15

  ‘Is she out?’ Judith asked Vince when he opened the front door.

  ‘Regular as clockwork,’ said Vince. ‘She and Granny Violet go to the Catholic ladies’ knitting circle or whatever it is, up at Kells every Friday afternoon. For two blessed hours I have the house to myself. I can play the music loud, that kind of stuff. Love it.’

  He led the way into the sitting room where afternoon light flooded in.

  ‘Any change?’ she asked.

  He shrugged. ‘Don’t think so. Hard to tell really. Docs still don’t really know what’s going on. One of them said that if I could crack my head again like I did the first time it might come back again. Not sure whether that was good news or bad news. Mum was really cross.’ He sat down and turned towards her. ‘Anyway, what was all the mystery on the phone? I had to tell her it was something about Dad’s birthday to stop her asking questions.’

  Judith leaned forward and put her hand on his arm to hold his attention. ‘I want you to listen to a tape someone sent us at work. Did you manage to find our old tape recorder? The one from work was so heavy I didn’t want to bring it unless I had to.’

  ‘It was under my bed,’ said Vince. ‘Haven’t used it for a bit, but it seems to be working OK. Don’t tell me, we’re going to play Name That Tune just like the good old days.’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Nothing like that. Stay here, it’s going to take me a while to set it up.’

  ‘I can do it,’ he said.

  Judith gave him the tape and watched in amazement as he turned it round in his long fingers, threaded the tape into the various slots and round the various wheels and felt along the row of knobs for the one he wanted. ‘They all feel a bit different,’ he said. ‘Does it look right?’

  Judith leaned over to check. ‘Looks OK.’

  ‘And is this the “play” button?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Now before we listen to whatever it is, tell me what this is for. You’ve come all the way up here for the second time in a couple of weeks, and you didn’t want to have to tell Mum. What’s going on?’

  Judith told Vince an edited version of the events. She said that a relative of the boy who’d been found dead claimed the culprits weren’t being tracked down fast enough and had sent this tape to the newsroom to tell them to do what the police weren’t doing.

  ‘Why didn’t he just go to the police?’ asked Vince.

  ‘Must be some reason. Probably afraid of being picked up for something he’s done, so he’s going the long way round, through us.’

  ‘Come on then,’ said Vince, his finger leaning on the ‘play’ button. He pressed it down and the two of them listened, then rewound and listened again.

  ‘What do you want me to say?’ asked Vince.

  ‘Tell me anything you can hear in that man’s voice. It is a man, isn’t it.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Vince. ‘He’s angry. Frustrated. Sort of spitting out the words, as if he was really wanting to shout, or get hold of someone.’

  ‘Violent?’

  ‘Could be, if he’s angry enough. Who’s “the girl with the hair”? Is that you? I hope he doesn’t know where you live.’

  Judith said nothing to that, glad that Vince couldn’t see her face clearly. ‘What about the accent?’ she said.

  ‘It’s a funny one, isn’t it. Not from round here, although, bits of it sound like Lancashire. Play it one more time.’

  ‘Is it North American?’ said Judith. ‘There’s a chance this person spent some time there.’ Vince shook his head. ‘Not like any American accent I know, and you hear them on the TV enough these days… Wait a minute. One more time.’

  Vince listened attentively. ‘I think it’s Australian,’ he said, ‘with bits of Lancashire, or the other way round. Maybe someone born here who went there. It’s not just the individual words, it’s the way they go up and down. You’ve heard Rod Laver talking at Wimbledon. Somewhere between him and Al Read.’

  Judith listened again. ‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘So he’s an angry man who was brought up in Lancashire and then went to Australia, and now he’s come back.’

  Vince leaned forward. ‘And he’s looking for someone to blame. If I were you I’d keep out of his way.’

  ‘That’s the problem,’ said Judith. ‘We’re actually trying to find him.’

  ‘You and whose army? You’re not doing some super heroine act are you? Judith Pharaoh, Ace Reporter, tracks down Ozzie madman. Leave it alone, I say. Let some big brawny policeman handle it.’

  Judith thought of Sam and laughed. She checked her watch. ‘What time’s Mum due back?’

  ‘Never before four,’ he said.

  ‘Can I use the phone?’

  ‘Carry on,’ he said. ‘I don’t pay the bill.’

  Judith called the familiar number in Roose, where Elspeth had just got in from school. ‘I gave him your message,’ she said. ‘He said he’d try to call you at work today. He seemed cross about it, for some reason. What’s going on?’

  ‘Do you have his number? I haven’t got it on me.’

  Judith wrote down the number, checked the time again and rang it, while Vince sat on the bottom stair, listening and intrigued.

  ‘Sam? It’s Judith Pharaoh. Yes I know. I’ve been out since lunchtime. I think I’ve pinned down the accent of the man on the tape, it’s Australian.’ She listened for a few moments. ‘No, he’s not an expert, he’s my brother, but he has a knack for voices, and…’ Vince couldn’t see his sister roll her eyes. ‘I know it wouldn’t stand up in court but it doesn’t have to, does it? It might make it easier to track down where Anthony’s been the past so many years. His sister assumed he’d been in jail… No, not in Australia, over here. Look, are you interested or not? … I’ve seen him twice near my flat, but when I try to get closer he disappears. I don’t know how he knows where I live… Why, do you think he’s dangerous?’

  She listened for longer this time. ‘Why haven’t you told me all this before? Yes I could come to Elspeth’s but I thought you wanted me to leave you alone… When? Tonight? … Yes, I suppose so. Any chance of having supper?’

  Vince mimed the hands of the clock going round. Judith rang off, kissed her brother, let herself out of the house and w
ent the long way round back to the station to avoid bumping into her mother.

  She walked from the station at Roose and it was after six by the time she got to Elspeth’s. Sam opened the door, pulled her into the house and then stepped out to the gate to look up and down the road.

  ‘Were you followed?’ he said.

  Judith laughed. ‘I don’t think so. You can’t be serious about Anthony having a go at me, surely. I just think he knows I’m working on the story and wants to know what I’m finding out.’

  Elspeth turned from the cooker. ‘What are you two on about now? Don’t spoil supper, and not in front of Tommy.’

  So it was after supper, with Tommy in bed and Elspeth reading him a story, before Sam and Judith could continue their conversation.

  ‘We think Anthony Lennon may have murdered Harries,’ said Sam, keeping his voice low. ‘That’s why you need to be careful. If he thinks you, or me come to that, might be on to him, we could be next.’

  ‘But Harries hanged himself,’ said Judith, ‘didn’t he?’

  ‘That’s what it looked like, and there was a note in his pocket that we think he wrote himself, but that could have been under duress, you know, someone made him write it. The autopsy report came back but it was inconclusive. He could have been choked by someone and then strung up to make it look like a suicide. We still don’t know enough to satisfy a coroner. Don’t make me explain everything. Just trust me will you? It’s possible someone murdered Harries, and that could have been Anthony Lennon, and now he’s hanging around outside your house. Of course I’m worried about it. And Morrison is, too.’

  ‘You told Morrison?’

  ‘Of course I did. He’s my boss. The last thing any of us want is being accused of putting you in danger, or not doing enough to protect you.’

  Judith sat back, deflated, thinking. ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘Not sure yet. We’re trying to track him down, obviously. Looks like he stole the tape recorder from a secondhand shop in town. Place was such a tip to start with it took the owner a while to realise that anything had been taken.’

  ‘But why go to all that trouble?’ asked Judith. ‘He could have written a note, or come to see you.’

  ‘Not if he’s already in trouble with the police, here or wherever he comes from. What if he hasn’t got the right papers? False passport or something. If he came in, we’d probably check. What if he can’t write?’

  ‘Not write? Who can’t write these days?’

  ‘Lots of people,’ said Sam. ‘I meet them all the time. They cover it up, but they never learned as children and then it’s too late. If you’re right about Anthony, what chance did he have? If he was shipped off to Australia or wherever it was to work, that was the end of his schooling.’

  ‘So the tape was the only way he had?’

  ‘Looks like it.’

  ‘It still doesn’t make sense,’ said Judith. ‘If he killed Harries, or even if he goaded him into hanging himself, why would he draw attention to himself like this?’

  ‘Arrogance,’ said Sam. ‘See why I’m worried about him following you around? God knows what he’s capable of with a woman.’

  ‘I still don’t think he wants to harm me,’ Judith said after she’d thought about it for a few minutes. She cleared plates from the table and took them over to the sink. ‘Maybe he’s just looking for information about how Stevie died. That’s what he wants, not me.’

  ‘What’s the matter with you?’ Sam cried out, and then lowered his voice when Judith turned and put a finger to her lips to quieten him. ‘Think about it. He wants something you have, and hasn’t any scruples abut how to get it. If he didn’t get what he wanted from Harries, then he’ll be after you next.’

  ‘Why not come after you?’ said Judith.

  ‘Because we’re the police and you’re not. And he must know by now that you’re a pushy, nosey reporter who’s poking around in matters that you should have left us to get on with.’

  As his voice rose again, Elspeth came down the stairs and into the kitchen. She was not happy. ‘Look you two, I don’t mind cooking for you both, but this is our home, me and Tommy, and I don’t want it messed around by you two shouting at each other. If you want to talk, fine, but if you want to argue, go and do it somewhere else.’

  Sam picked up his jacket from the back of the chair. ‘I’m taking Judith home,’ he said. Judith was about to protest but the look on Elspeth’s face told her it was time to leave.

  It was foggy outside and the two of them walked in silence through streets that seemed ethereal as the fog turned the orange street light into swirling strands and made their footsteps echo. ‘I feel as if I’ve wasted the whole day,’ she said, ‘and now I’m being frogmarched back to my own place. You couldn’t care less about Lennon being Australian, could you?’

  ‘Frankly, Judith, I wouldn’t care if he came from Mars. It makes no difference to anything about this case, and you probably have wasted the whole day, and made more work for us, too.’

  She stopped. ‘How come?’

  ‘You’ve made yourself vulnerable, and now we’ll have to protect you. If you’d just left things alone, I wouldn’t have to frogmarch you home, as you put it.’

  ‘It’s my job, just like you have yours. I was given a story, and told to get on with it, so I did.’

  ‘Why did they give you the story, instead of Skelly?’

  ‘To give me a chance, maybe?’ said Judith, thinking of the encouragement she’d had from Irene Thornhill.

  ‘Or because there was no one else,’ said Sam.

  They walked the rest of the way in silence. Before they turned into Cannon Street Sam held Judith back and peered down the street into the gloom. ‘Just checking,’ he said. ‘No one here, but I can only see halfway down.’

  When they reached Judith’s door, she pulled her keys from her bag and turned to face him. ‘Thank you for walking me home, constable,’ she said, with as much irony as she could muster. ‘I’m sure I can manage to climb the staircase to my own front door without assistance.’

  Sam said nothing, still looking around, up and down the street. ‘No lights on downstairs,’ he said. ‘The other tenant must be out.’

  ‘The downstairs flat’s empty,’ said Judith. ‘I’m all on my own in the house. Poor me. Do you want to come in and look under my bed, just in case?’

  Sam said nothing, but he stayed where he was. ‘You go in,’ he said. ‘I’ll wait till you turn the upstairs lights on.’

  Judith turned away without another word, unlocked the front door and closed it, pushed the light switch and climbed the stairs with an extra hard thump so that Sam could hear. At the top of the stairs, she hesitated. The door to her flat was slightly ajar. She pushed it and the door swung open. She waited. The light switch timer clicked off and there was darkness. Her heart thumped. She listened for the was still standing in the street when she opened the front door.

  ‘Sam,’ she said. ‘There’s something…’

  He pushed past her and up the stairs. In the darkness she fumbled for the light and heard his voice above.

  ‘Police!’ he shouted. ‘Come out!’

  There was no sound. Light flooded the tiny hall and stairs as she found the switch and followed him, breathing hard, seeing light from above now as Sam found the next switch. At the open door of her flat she caught her breath. To her left was the tiny kitchen, where broken crockery spilled across the floor. Smashed eggs. Something orange oozed over them. ‘My orange juice,’ she whispered. Cupboard doors were open, one of them pulled off its hinges. Sam appeared at the door of her bedroom. His face was pale.

  ‘Don’t come in here,’ he said. She pushed past him. The bed was upturned, the mattress slashed. A mess of clothes on the floor, ripped and soiled. The smell of urine. Sam was trying to turn her away, to push her out of the room but she caught sight of the wall. A stick figure with breasts and hair sticking out from the head on either side.

  Judith felt Sam
’s arm round her shoulders as he pushed her out of the room. Her eyes were wet and smarting and her head thumped.

  ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Downstairs.’

  Judith sat down on the bottom step. Sam pulled his radio from his pocket and stood outside in the street to get a better signal. She heard him give the address and talk for a while before he came back and sat on the step beside her as she sobbed.

  ‘More police are coming,’ he said. ‘We’ll find him, whoever did this.’

  ‘All my things,’ Judith whispered. ‘It was so tidy.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he said, putting his arm back round her shoulders. ‘We’ll find you somewhere to stay. It’s only stuff, after all. You’re all right, that’s the main thing.’

  They sat for a while, the light from the street and the fog seeping through the open door. When the first car arrived, Judith was led to sit in the back while two men in uniforms went with Sam back up the stairs. She saw the lights go on behind curtains that she had drawn back that morning.

  ‘My scooter,’ she cried, suddenly, remembering. She tried to open the car door but it was locked. She squeezed herself over the back seat into the front, catching her knee on the handbrake before she pushed the passenger door open and fell out onto the pavement. Her knee throbbed but she limped to the alley that ran between the houses, through a wooden door halfway down into the back yard and there it was, shining dark red in the shadow of the back wall. Judith leaned over the machine, felt its smooth hardness under her fingers, and cried.

  ‘Judith!’ a man’s voice shouted. She heard the sound of running footsteps and the squawk of the radio. ‘I’m here,’ she said, but her voice croaked. She got to her feet and pushed herself back along the narrow passage. A man in uniform stood at the end of the alley and shone his torch into her eyes. The light went away and she heard him shout, ‘She’s here.’ He pulled her arm and she stumbled onto the pavement. Sam picked her up. ‘My scooter,’ she whispered. ‘It’s still there.’