Dead in the Water

by Peter Tickler

  “Becca Baines,” he said, trying to establish verbal contact. If he could get her talking, his thinking went, then there was less chance of her doing something she — and indeed he — might regret.

  She clapped her hands together in mock applause.

  “I’ve already been clubbed once,” he said. “Look!” He pointed to his head, as if the white bandage around it wasn’t obvious enough. Then the penny dropped. “You? It was you?”

  “I wish it had been.” Her face was impassive. Neither a definitive ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ Then she began to walk towards him.

  Mullen tensed. His head was pounding like a bass drum and he was feeling ridiculously hot. He lifted his hand to his forehead, which was clammy with sweat. “Look—” he began.

  “Bastard!” she said, just before he fainted.

  * * *

  When the man you’re about to tear limb from metaphorical limb collapses onto the gravel in front of you for no good reason, it inevitably changes things. Becca Baines froze. But it was momentary, the result of disbelief. She was a woman who acted first — and sometimes regretted it later. She didn’t freeze solid. That had never been her way, not even as a three-year-old when she had snatched her teddy from the wheels of an oncoming lorry loaded with straw bales.

  She dropped to her knees and checked for a pulse. It was there, if a little slow. “Hey!” she snapped. “You’re not allowed to die on me.”

  His eyes flickered open and shut, but otherwise he lay still, blank and uncomprehending, lost in some other world.

  “Let’s get you inside,” she said. “You really can’t lie here all day. Or I might be tempted to park my car on top of you.”

  Mullen’s eyes flicked open again, but otherwise he continued to look like an idiot on morphine. Her joke was lost on him.

  * * *

  When Mullen woke he was lying on the top of his bed and the room was full of shadow. The curtains had been half drawn. A glance at his watch told him it was just past six o’clock. He stared at the ceiling, thinking of nothing until he became aware of a snoring sound in the room. He propped himself up on one elbow and saw Becca Baines asleep in the large upright chair. On his first day in the house he had dragged it into the room from its original positon on the landing because he liked it so much. It reminded him of an ancient wooden throne. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood up. He padded across towards the door. He needed the loo. Becca shuddered violently and woke up.

  “Sleep well?” they each asked the other in unison, as if they had been practising for a play. She laughed. He nodded, conscious that his head was no longer throbbing.

  After their respective dozes, they both realised they were hungry, so they agreed to walk down the road as far as the Fox and eat there. Like him, she opted for a rare steak and insisted they both drink only water. “Don’t want you collapsing on me again.”

  Mullen thought collapsing on her wouldn’t be at all unpleasant, but he didn’t dare say so.

  Then, like a long-married couple, they ambled side by side back to the house in the weakening light, companionable and not needing to touch. She got into her car. “You can stay if you like,” he said, this time daring to say what he was thinking.

  She shook her head and started the engine. “I have an early shift tomorrow.” She reversed the car in a tight circle and put her head out of the window. “Another time.” She ran her hand through her mane of red hair. “Maybe!”

  Mullen stepped across in front of the car, blocking her path.

  “What?” There was impatience in her voice. A woman of quick emotions.

  “Tell me why you came.”

  Her face was suddenly serious. “To tell you to stop screwing up people’s fun.”

  “Is that how you saw it?”

  “Of course. It was definitely fun while it lasted.”

  In the last few hours Mullen had discovered for himself why Paul had so liked her, but why on earth had she liked him? He felt a sudden stab of jealousy. He leant forward, hand on the car roof, his face close to hers. “What about Janice?” He really wanted to know what made Becca Baines tick. “Did you not think about her?”

  Becca revved the engine ridiculously loud. Mullen moved back.

  She pushed her head further out of the window. “I also wanted to warn you that I wouldn’t trust that Janice further than you can throw her.”

  He opened his mouth to ask why, but the Punto lurched forward like a dog let off its lead in a large open field. Wheels span. Gravel flew. A cat that had been snooping around the shrubbery scarpered. And then Becca Baines was gone.

  Mullen stood watching long after she had disappeared from view. What did she mean? Was that jealousy talking? Or had Paul Atkinson told her stuff about Janice which changed things? He looked up into the sky and felt the first few spots of rain on his face.

  * * *

  By the time the woman had crossed Magdalen Bridge and reached the roundabout, she was soaked to the skin. There had been a few droplets of rain in the air when she had left the cocktail bar in the High Street, but this was a downpour. There was a pub across the road, but she had no desire to take refuge in there. Instead she walked across the side road which leads to St Hilda’s College and then continued straight on, stomping along the Iffley Road, head down, hands stuffed deep into her coat pockets. She didn’t care that she was soaked. Clothes will dry given a bit of time and a bit of hanging space. She wished all her problems were as easy to resolve as that.

  Maybe two hundred metres further on she stopped and raised her head. She looked across the road and took in a block of modern-looking, architecturally unexciting flats. Beyond them there stood a short terrace of tall town houses, all arched windows and grey-brown brickwork; they were striking, but would ‘benefit from some improvement’ as an estate agency would have said. It was this set of four properties which held the woman’s attention. She looked left. A car was parked some fifty metres away, side lights on, waiting for someone presumably, but it showed no sign of movement. Turning right, she saw three cars approaching. She studied them as they swished past. Even in the rain, their windows were open. Young women dressed in wild pink outfits thrust their heads through the windows and shouted coarsely at her. For a moment she wished she was one of them, off out on a hen night, to flirt outrageously with any men they encountered and to drink and dance until the last club was closed. But that wouldn’t, of course, have solved anything.

  She hunched herself even tighter against the rain and began to cross the road, reciting to herself for the umpteenth time what she was going to say when he opened the door. There were things she needed to tell him. There was stuff she needed to get off her chest. But she never did.

  Chapter 5

  Wednesday morning dawned bright and full of promise, the overnight rain only a memory. Not that Mullen knew anything about the dawn or heard the birds chorusing in the many trees which surrounded his Boars Hill home. He slept through it all, his dreams buried so deep they never rose anywhere near his consciousness. When he woke, the sun which shafted between the partially drawn curtains told him it was long past breakfast time. Nevertheless he pulled the duvet over his head and tried to ignore the morning light. Eventually it was his bladder which forced him out of bed. After that, he had no option but to face the day. He prolonged it by opting for a long bath — it seemed easier than trying to shower with his head bandage. After that, he took a bowl of muesli and a mug of tea into the garden at the back of the house.

  Sitting there, hiding from the world, he found it impossible to ignore the fact that the grass seemed to be growing even as he looked at it. Keeping the lawns in order was one of the several tasks he had promised to do in lieu of rent. So Mullen, who liked to keep his promises, went to the shed and got out the mower. There was something immensely therapeutic in taming the garden. After the lawns, Mullen found a strimmer and attacked the weeds which were threatening to encroach onto the gravel drive from under the rhododendrons and camellias. T
hen he turned his attention to the kitchen garden; someone had planted potatoes, runner beans, lettuces and beetroot. Mullen would never eat them all himself, but as he wielded a hoe around them, tiptoeing between the plants like a ballerina, he felt almost content. If only life could always be this simple.

  Eventually he went inside and made himself a sandwich — cheese, ham and mustard. He had just taken a bite, sitting at the long kitchen table, when there was a heavy banging at the front door. He got up reluctantly. Whoever it was, he knew they were about to spoil his day.

  “Hello, again.” It was DI Dorkin, probably the last person in the world he wanted to see. And Dorkin was not in a good mood. “You like messing people around, Mullen?”

  Mullen said nothing. It seemed more diplomatic in the circumstances.

  The first finger of Dorkin’s right hand prodded him on the sternum. “You said you lived in the Iffley Road!”

  Mullen wasn’t going to cave in to bullying. “I moved.”

  “You trying to play silly buggers with me, Mullen?”

  Mullen reverted to silence. He thought it might be safer. Behind Dorkin stood a man Mullen hadn’t seen before, presumably a detective constable or sergeant. But whatever his rank, structurally he was extremely impressive, six feet four if he was an inch and with the physique (and face) of an old fashioned bare-knuckle boxer.

  “We’d like you to come to the station, if that is not too much trouble,” the man-mountain said, deadpan.

  Mullen nodded.

  As for Dorkin, his mood suddenly appeared lighter, almost skittish. He smiled. “Or even if it is.”

  * * *

  Doreen Rankin was used to her boss’s erratic time-keeping. Arriving just in time for meetings was something he had developed into an art. “I’d rather sit at home in my pyjamas, do an hour or two on my laptop and then drive in after the rush hour." He had told her as much on the second day of her employment at GenMedSoft, just after he had appeared in his office at ten twenty-five in the morning. She had been in a mild panic because a man and a woman were sitting in reception, having arrived early for a meeting scheduled for ten thirty. “If you minimise wasted time, you maximise productivity,” he concluded serenely. “And sitting in the traffic is wasted time.”

  So when he had still not turned up at ten forty-five that Wednesday morning, she was not unduly worried. Besides, she had had plenty to do, and it was only when the marketing director Eddie Loach rang up for the third time and complained that Paul wasn’t answering his emails or his mobile calls that she decided she would have to intervene. In point of fact, Paul had two mobiles, but his personal one he kept personal. Only Doreen knew the number and even she used it very sparingly. She didn’t like Loach and she certainly didn’t trust him. He was a man who would cause trouble for Paul if he possibly could, and trouble for Paul would mean trouble for her. So she sent a text to Paul’s personal mobile. There was no response. She waited ten minutes, during which time an external client in a bad mood rang to speak to Paul.

  As far as she was concerned, that was enough. She dialled his mobile. After five rings, it cut into an answerphone message. Doreen killed the call and pursed her lips in irritation. She got up and shut her door firmly. If she had to leave an assertive message for him, she didn’t want anyone wandering up or down the corridor to overhear. She rang again. She knew exactly what she would say to him. It was one thing for him to be ‘maximising productivity’ at home, but it was quite another not to keep her informed. It was something they had discussed at length before, but clearly he needed reminding. And when he rang her back, she wanted an apology from him too. She pressed the redial button and prepared to wait for the five rings.

  “Hello?”

  The immediate response caught her by surprise. But she recovered quickly. “Even by your standards, Paul, this is late.”

  There was an indistinct noise from his end of the line.

  Doreen pressed on. “I can’t protect your back if I can’t get hold of you. Eddie is on the warpath and—”

  “Stuff Eddie.”

  She opened her mouth to protest, but he ploughed on. “Haven’t you heard the news?”

  “What news?”

  “Janice is dead.”

  “Dead?” Her mouth parroted the word, while her brain was trying — and failing — to comprehend what she had just heard.

  “She was killed in the Iffley Road last night. A hit and run.”

  “Oh!” Doreen was still failing to come up with anything meaningful to say.

  Paul Atkinson pushed on. “So you can tell Eddie the beagle that I won’t be in today and I won’t be answering his pathetic emails either.” With that, he terminated the call.

  * * *

  “How’s the head? Still hurting?”

  Mullen nodded.

  “Poor you!” Dorkin gave no impression that he meant it.

  He and his tame gorilla — otherwise known as Detective Sergeant Fargo — were sitting opposite him in a characterless box of an interview room with puke-coloured walls. Fargo had already turned on the recording machine and completed the formalities. Now he was leaning forward, elbows on the table, as if ready to indulge in the chummiest of chats.

  Dorkin was leaning back as far as he could go in his chair and seemed to be finding the whole thing highly amusing.

  “What exactly do you want?” Mullen said trying to move things along. The two detectives had totally ignored him during the car journey from Boars Hill to the station, talking only to each other and even then only in one- or two-word sentences.

  “Where were you last night?” Dorkin said. “Between eight p.m. and midnight.”

  “At home.”

  “For the benefit of the recorder, can you confirm that by ‘home’ you mean The Cedars, Foxcombe Road, a house owned by Professor and Mrs Thompson and in which you are currently living, in accordance with some privately agreed house-sitting arrangement.” Dorkin spoke without urgency, a man who had the situation under control.

  “That is correct.”

  “Are there any witnesses to where you were last night?”

  It was then that Mullen knew something was wrong. Sitting in the car as they drove to Cowley, he had assumed that Dorkin merely wanted another go at him, to go over old ground again and maybe tell him to get his nose out of police business. But he wouldn’t be asking questions about the previous night if that was the case. Mullen felt anxiety tighten around his chest.

  “A friend and I went to the Fox for supper. She went home about nine thirty. I went to bed shortly afterwards.”

  “Does your friend have a name?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you going to tell us what it is?”

  “No.”

  Dorkin twitched. It was a mannerism Mullen had noticed that evening at the Meeting Place. He wasn’t sure what it meant, but it felt like a minor victory.

  “Why not?” Fargo interrupted. He leant even further forward. Mullen could see that he took the role of bad cop pretty seriously. He smelt of sweat and pungent aftershave.

  “Professional confidentiality,” Mullen said, staring back.

  “So he was a client?” Fargo said, seeing a gap and charging straight for it. “What were you doing for him?”

  “No comment.”

  “Or was it a female client? Hiring you to spy on a husband?”

  Mullen turned towards Dorkin. “Why don’t you tell me what this is all about? Otherwise I might change my mind and ask for a solicitor.”

  Dorkin studied him for several seconds. Then nodded to Fargo. Fargo leant back, opened up a folder he had been cradling on his lap and produced two photographs which he slipped across the table to Mullen. Mullen felt the bile rising up his throat.

  A few days ago it had been him pushing an envelope of photographs across the table to Janice Atkinson. Now he was on the receiving end and the person in the photos was Janice. Only Janice wasn’t indulging in extra-marital high jinks with some admirer. Janice was beyond that
. She was dead.

  “Jesus!” Mullen said without thinking. “It’s Janice. What the hell happened to her?”

  “Hit and run.”

  “Do you know . . . ?” Mullen never finished his question. Obviously they didn’t know who had done it or they wouldn’t have hauled him in. Dorkin and Fargo were both watching him as if they didn’t believe him. As if they thought he already knew about Janice’s death. As if they thought he was involved in it. Anger rose in him like a rip tide. His hands gripped the table as if by so doing they could keep his impulses under control. His impulses were urging him to punch the hell out of Dorkin’s smug face, but of course he wasn’t stupid enough to do that, not here and not with Fargo eyeing him from across the table. Mullen looked down at the photographs again, forcing himself to study them, waiting for his emotions to recede. Poor Janice. Poor unhappy Janice.

  “It happened on the Iffley Road,” Dorkin said, all matter of fact. “Very near where you used to live, Mullen. Where we thought you lived until we discovered otherwise.” He paused for several seconds. “I expect that was where Janice thought you lived too. Bit of a coincidence, don’t you think?”

  Mullen wasn’t going to tell Dorkin what he thought.

  “So, Mullen.” Dorkin began to drum the table with his fingers. Was this him getting down to business? “Did Janice not know you had gone up in the world? Were you keeping it a secret from her? Didn’t you want her following you up to Boars Hill?”