Dead in the Water

by Peter Tickler

  She sniffed. “Personally, I don’t go along with Rose’s conspiracy theory about Chris. He had a relapse. He got extremely drunk, fell into the river and drowned. My daughter may not wish to believe it, but it happened. The pathology report supports that. His bloodstream was swimming with alcohol. The only issue as far as I can see is whether there was anyone else present at the time. My guess would be that if anyone was involved in it, if anyone did facilitate him in getting into such a state, it was Janice.”

  Guess was the operative word as far as Mullen was concerned. Possibly even an intelligent one. But nothing more than that. “Do you have any actual evidence, Mrs Wilby?”

  “Do you, Mr Mullen?” She stood up and picked up her bag from the table. She had had her say and — to Mullen’s relief — was going to leave. “I merely present to you what I know and what I consequently deduce. I suggest you give up your investigation with good grace and get back to more profitable work, such as tracking errant husbands. I do not want my daughter wasting any more money on a wild goose chase.”

  Mullen stood up too. He was not going to give her the satisfaction of having the last word. “Let’s just get this straight, Mrs Wilby. You think Janice felt guilty about Chris? That she felt she had somehow driven him to drink and so to his accidental death?”

  She didn’t reply, though there was a slight nod of her head, as if in agreement.

  “So how does Janice’s own death fit in with that?”

  She sighed, as if the whole conversation had become just too irritating for words.

  “Suicide, Mr Mullen. She was so riddled with guilt that she walked into the path of an oncoming car. Maybe it was a split second decision. She saw the car coming her way in the rain and the dark and she just decided to end it all.”

  * * *

  As Mullen watched the two of them disappear down the drive in Derek Stanley’s blue Astra, his overriding emotion was one of relief. But there was another feeling too; it had at first been a mere grain of sand in his shoe, but as the minutes passed it had become a sizeable lump of sharp grit impossible to ignore. Earlier, lying in bed, he had been ready to give up. But Margaret Wilby, far from putting him off, had ironically achieved quite the opposite. For a start, he hadn’t liked her hectoring, I-know-better-than-you manner. The more she tried to persuade him to give up, the more he felt determined not to. That was human nature, or his human nature at any rate. It was Rose who had hired him and he would stop only if Rose asked him to. And yet even if she did ask, even if she rang up this very moment and told him that they were quits, he wasn’t sure he would. Because the death of Janice had changed things. Now it felt extremely personal.

  Besides, Mullen mused, as he wandered round the back of the garden to review the tomato plants, he had been struck by something that Margaret Wilby had said. She had referred to ‘the pathology report’ on Chris. Those had been her precise words. It was almost as if she had had access to it or as if she had spoken to someone who did. She had, in their first meeting when she had given him lunch, hinted at being well connected; maybe she was. Did she know Charles Speight? Was he the pathologist who compiled the report on Chris? Was he working on Janice too? Why had Charles Speight been meeting Dorkin in a pub and why had that meeting been so brief? The questions flooded in, each demanding precedence in Mullen’s reluctant brain. And out of those questions there took shape another one: what are you going to do about all of this, Mr Mullen?

  The answer to that was in a sense rather modest. Mullen made a telephone call to the Reverend Diana Downey, though only after some considerable deliberation while he drank a fresh mug of tea at the kitchen table. His initial impulse had been not to ring her. Why give her advance warning that he was coming? Or indeed an opportunity to make an excuse not to see him? Better just to turn up at the vicarage or the church. Either she would be in or she wouldn’t. Of course, said the pessimist inside Mullen, Thursday might be her day off. Did vicars have a standard day off? Unlike their congregation, it could hardly be a Sunday. Saturdays were often wedding days. So, he guessed, Thursday was as likely as any other, a one in five chance. Mullen imagined that vicars generally made a point of getting out of the parish on their day off, in order to avoid the unwelcome parishioner knocking on the door (‘Sorry, Rev, but I wonder if I could just . . .’). Or did Diana Downey prefer to draw the curtains, microwave some popcorn and settle down on the sofa to catch up on the last series of Downton Abbey or Breaking Bad or whatever it was that floated her boat?

  But in the end, after all the wondering and all the procrastination, Mullen made the call. She picked up on the third ring.

  “Mr Mullen, how nice to hear from you.”

  Mullen was ridiculously pleased to hear these simple words. They made him feel like he was making Diana Downey’s day. He had half expected her to have forgotten him altogether.

  “I wonder if I could call round today?” he said.

  “Today?” There was a pause, the sort of pause people who are caught on the hop make when they are trying to come up with a convincing excuse. Mullen cursed silently. It was a mistake to have rung her. Then, out of the silence, she spoke again. “How about half-two this afternoon?”

  “Okay.” He wondered if his surprise was obvious from his tone of voice.

  “Is that all?”

  “Yes. Thank you.”

  “My pleasure.” Diana Downey hung up.

  * * *

  Becca Baines had known that the police would come looking for her. Once Mullen had told them about her fling with Paul, it could only be a matter of time. Of course the police tramping into the hospital in their clodhoppers — and didn’t the huge DS Fargo have some big clodhoppers — meant that the news would be round the hospital faster than a bush fire in a bone-dry Australian summer, but that didn’t ultimately matter.

  At least Melanie Yarnell had had the sensitivity to give them some privacy from prying eyes by lending them her office, but Becca knew she would want something in return. From her point of view, the detectives’ timing could hardly have been worse. She had been on shift for three hours — very busy and not a chance to grab even a cup of tea and biscuit — and she could feel her irritability level rising with every passing minute. On the other hand, she was getting an unexpected chance to sit down.

  “Sorry to bother you,” DI Dorkin began. Becca reckoned it was probably the least original gambit in his detective’s book of easy interview openings. She was tempted to say so out loud, but Dorkin did not appear to be the sort of man who would appreciate such pleasantries.

  “I don’t suppose this will take long,” he continued, in similar vein. “As long as you answer our questions satisfactorily.”

  It wasn’t a line of conversation that filled Becca with any confidence. She imagined it was precisely the sort of thing the Gestapo must have said before they started torturing their prisoners.

  “We understand that you and Paul Atkinson have a sexual relationship.”

  “Had,” she said quickly.

  “Had?” Dorkin frowned as if surprised or unconvinced. “So when did it start?”

  If you are going to lie, keep it to an absolute minimum. Becca couldn’t remember who had first advised her along those lines, but it had become, if not part of her DNA, then second nature.

  “Five or six weeks ago, I guess.”

  “Guessing isn’t good enough.”

  She pursed her lips as she weighed up her response. “We met at the hospital on the fifth of May. I was buying myself a coffee in the canteen. I had just paid for it when I dropped my cup. He kindly bought me another.”

  “Just like that?” Dorkin sounded very unconvinced.

  “No, not just like that. I was giving you the shortened version so as not to waste valuable police time.” Her irritability and facetiousness were breaking through. She knew it, but she didn’t care. “The coffee went all over the floor and partially over my trousers. The left trouser leg to be precise. I freaked a bit. I think I swore. But he was righ
t behind me in the queue and came to my rescue. He offered to buy me another coffee. I thought it was very kind of him.”

  “Did you now.” Dorkin was still unconvinced. Becca could sense it, but she didn’t mind. Maybe it was the two sugars in her tea, but she felt calmer now.

  “Well, it wasn’t pure altruism on his part. Obviously he fancied me. He wasn’t the first man to stare at my chest and he won’t be the last.” She looked hard at Dorkin, then at Fargo and then back to Dorkin again, daring them to look at her breasts. To her surprise Fargo flushed in embarrassment. Dorkin merely sucked his teeth and resumed his questioning. “So when exactly did your relationship with Paul Atkinson finish?”

  “After his wife found out, of course.”

  “Which was when?”

  “Didn’t Paul tell you? I presume you have already spoken to him.”

  Dorkin said nothing. He leant back in his chair and rubbed his hands together. Becca wasn’t sure what that meant. But clearly they must have interviewed Paul and he would have spilt the beans about them. She guessed they wanted to compare stories and see what discrepancies they could unearth.

  “He rang me on Monday. We didn’t actually speak. He left a message on my mobile. All very short and not so sweet.”

  Dorkin perked up at this last comment. “So you didn’t like it?”

  She laughed. “I didn’t like the fact that he hadn’t got the balls to tell me face to face. I didn’t like the fact that he left a voice message ending it. It was better than a text, I suppose, but only just. But actually — and I dare say you won’t want to believe me — I was relieved. I knew it wasn’t going anywhere. I was only ever going to be his bit on the side. I’m looking for more than that now.”

  “So why get involved with him in the first place?” Dorkin could sense the weakness of her argument. “He’s an older married man, a recipe for disaster if you’re looking for true love.”

  Becca knew he was right, but she wasn’t going to admit it. “I wasn’t looking,” she said. “It just happened.” She took two more sips of tea, buying herself a few seconds of thinking time. “Where were you on Tuesday evening, between eight and eleven o’clock?”

  “That’s easy. I was out. I had a meal with a friend. That was about eight. Then we walked back to his place and I drove home. I guess that was around half past nine or a bit later.”

  “Can anyone verify what time you got home?”

  She shrugged. “Probably not. I live on my own in Wood Farm. Still I expect you’ve already found that out. You wouldn’t be much good at your job if you hadn’t.”

  Dorkin said nothing. He was watching her with half-closed eyes, waiting for her to slip up. “You’ve probably checked my car over too. In which case you’ll not have found any evidence that I ran Janice Atkinson down. If you check the CCTV, you’ll find I didn’t drive along the Iffley Road that evening. And if you check your brains, you’ll realise that I had no reason to even wish her dead.”

  Fargo stirred, scraping the floor with his chair as he did so. Unlike Dorkin, he had run out of patience. “Not if you’re lying about your feelings. Not if you were so obsessed with Paul Atkinson that you’d do anything to free him from his wife.”

  Outside in the corridor there was an argument going on, loud enough to distract all three of them. As if by some tacit agreement, they waited for the bitter words to cease and for angry steps to mark the departure of both participants.

  Then Dorkin resumed. “Who was this ’friend’ you had supper with on Tuesday night? And where did you eat?”

  “In the Fox pub on Boars Hill. It’s not bad. Have you ever tried it?”

  She watched with pleasure as the penny dropped with a clang inside Dorkin’s head. She looked at Fargo. He didn’t seem to have got it.

  “And the friend I ate with was Doug Mullen. I think you know him, don’t you? Anyway I am sure he will vouch for me.”

  * * *

  An hour or so later, after some more work in the garden followed by a cheese sandwich, Mullen locked up the house and headed into Oxford. He parked in what was fast becoming his usual place in Lincoln Road, before walking briskly towards town, this time avoiding the main road — up Wytham Street, past the outdoor swimming pool and along Marlborough Road. Then he turned left, walking along the river until he reached the encampment. His hope was that the two men he had talked to just before he was clubbed into unconsciousness would be there. It was a long shot, he knew, and his fears were fulfilled. There was no sign of them at all. Only a guy with long lank hair who had clearly been smoking dope and was very likely going to be no use at all.

  Even so, Mullen offered him a cigarette and lit it for him. “I’m Doug,” he said, trying to get a conversation going.

  “Fets,” came the reply in thick Glaswegian.

  “Fitz,” Mullen replied, checking.

  The man nodded and took a drag.

  Mullen explained that he was trying to find two men: a tall skinny one with a scar down the side of his face and a shorter fatter man with tartan trousers and a Midland accent. The mention of the tartan trousers seemed to mean something to Fitz. He held out his right hand and stroked the palm with the index finger of his other hand. Money! Mullen swore to himself. He had had enough of handing out money and cigarettes to all and sundry and getting very little reward. But the man scratched at his palm all the more. “Gone.” he insisted. “Liverpool.”

  Suddenly Mullen realised what he was saying. He wasn’t asking for money. He was saying the two guys — or the tartan-trousered one at least — had come into some money and gone. It wasn’t good news. Liverpool wasn’t exactly local. Had they been paid to move on by whoever had knocked him unconscious and stripped Chris’s tent of all its possessions? It seemed more than possible. Mullen pulled out his last packet of cigarettes. There were only seven left in it, but the guy had earned it. He handed it over. He also handed over one of his own business cards. It was the longest of long shots, but you never knew. “Ring me if either of them ever comes back and it’ll be worth twenty quid. All right?”

  The man nodded. Mullen turned away and then suddenly back again. It was stupid not to ask. “Did you know Chris?” Fitz stared at him uncomprehending. Mullen continued. “He drowned in the river down near Sandford. He had long fair hair, was tall and wore a camouflage jacket and trousers. He had a tent here.” Mullen waved his arms around in the hope that this might somehow prompt the man. But he merely stared back at Mullen, face and eyes blank, and muttered ‘Liverpool’ again. If he had known Chris, it might as well have been in another universe.

  * * *

  Despite walking with deliberate slowness along the river, Mullen arrived at the vicarage a quarter of an hour before the agreed time. He hated being late, but even he recognised that this was ridiculously early. If he wanted to get off on the wrong foot with the Reverend Downey, then knocking on her door fifteen minutes before she was expecting him would almost certainly achieve it. He paused, wondering whether to do a circuit of the area or go and buy another bar of chocolate from the woman who had been so helpful in the shop down the Abingdon Road. Not for the first time in his life, chocolate won.

  Or chocolate would have won if something very unexpected had not occurred. Mullen had just checked his wallet for money when the front door of the vicarage opened. His first instinct was to raise his hand and call out — after all he knew the man well enough to do so. But there was something about the way Kevin Branston emerged from the house — not exactly furtive, but not exactly unfurtive either — which caused Mullen to hold back. If Branston had turned west, then they would inevitably have seen each other. But he didn’t. And as Mullen watched him hurry off in the direction of the Abingdon Road as fast as his weight would permit, it was with a bewildered sense of excitement that maybe he had been witness to something he really hadn’t been intended to see. Had Branston been getting out of the vicarage in plenty of time to avoid bumping into him? Surely, Mullen debated with himself, he wasn’t being paran
oid to think that?

  * * *

  As Mullen gave up on the chocolate and retreated back along the river, he wrestled with his thoughts. Kevin Branston knew Diana Downey. He hadn’t known that. But was that so much of a surprise? Both of their jobs included dealing with the marginalised of Oxford. Chris had attended both St Mark’s and the Meeting Place. Was that just because they were places where he could get a welcome and free food? Or had Chris had connections with Branston and Downey that went back further? These were the thoughts that ricocheted wildly around his head right up to the moment when at 2.31 p.m. he finally knocked on the vicarage door.

  Diana Downey welcomed him with a smile. Nothing surprising in that. It was part of her professional persona, and yet Mullen couldn’t help feeling that she seemed a bit on edge.

  “It’s kind of you to see me at such short notice,” he said, trying to lay his own distracted thoughts aside.

  “Not at all. Would you like a cup of tea? Or coffee?”

  “I’d like to talk about Chris.” Mullen knew as soon as the words came out of his mouth that they wouldn’t win a good manners competition, but he didn’t much care.

  “Okay.”

  They went into what was clearly her study — desk, laptop computer, multi-function printer, bookshelves, a wooden cross on the wall, a slightly bedraggled orchid on the window sill and at the far end of the long room a low round table with two armchairs either side. She waved him to one of them while she sat in the swivel chair by the desk.

  “So what do you want to know?” She was sitting upright, facing him, hands clasped over her lap, looking directly into his face. Her chair gave her a distinct height advantage and her whole demeanour spelt out an underlying message: this is a business meeting — nothing more and nothing less.

  Mullen plunged straight in. “Did you ever smell alcohol on Chris’s breath?”