Dead in the Water

by Peter Tickler

  Doreen stood up and moved unsteadily over to the fireplace. She took the lid off a small Chinese jar and extricated a packet of cigarettes and a box of matches. She lit up and blew a wreath of smoke up towards the ceiling, watching it as it expanded and then disappeared. Her mother wouldn’t approve, but she didn’t care. What harm could a cigarette or two do?

  Chapter 7

  Mullen slept soundly that night. The day had sucked the energy out of him and although he went to bed with the events and discoveries of the last twelve hours spinning in his head, his body’s need for rest and recuperation had the final say. He woke once to go to the toilet, but apart from that he was conscious of nothing until his mobile phone woke him. He rolled over, picked it up and checked the caller display; ‘Unknown.’ Most likely some wretched cold caller. He killed the call.

  He had barely lain back down before his mobile rang again. The same ‘Unknown’ was displayed. He groaned. His gut reaction was to ignore the call again and turn his mobile off, but something stopped him. Did these automated dialling systems dial you again immediately? He thought not. More likely they did so the next day or the next week. Which meant, he realised, that this was very likely a human being calling, not a salesperson. Hiding your number when you made a call was easy enough to do if you knew how. The phone continued to ring and Mullen reluctantly swung his legs over the side of the mattress and sat up. He pressed the answer icon, lifted the mobile to his ear and listened. There was silence, except for the muffled sound of someone breathing.

  “Who is it?”

  “Is that the Good Samaritan?”

  “What?” Even if Mullen hadn’t been half asleep, the reference would have confused him.

  “It’s a dangerous role.”

  This time Mullen said nothing. He knew when someone was threatening him. He knew too — or thought he did — that if he kept quiet and avoided rising to the bait then the chances were that the caller would say more.

  “Did you hear me?” There was a crack of irritation in the voice, even though it sounded artificial. Mullen was reminded of Stephen Hawking.

  “Are you trying to frighten me?”

  “It’s not you who should be frightened. It’s your friends.”

  It was like being kicked in the stomach. Mullen felt the bile rise and tasted the bitterness in his throat. He opened his mouth and forced himself to say something.

  “What do you mean?” Keep him talking, he told himself. And listen, Mullen, really listen — to his stupid voice, to what he says and how he says it, for any background noise.

  “Unless you stop,” the man continued, “one of your friends will pay the price.”

  And then the line went dead.

  * * *

  By the time Mullen had showered, dressed in clean clothes, eaten some muesli and downed a mug of black coffee, he felt almost ready to face the day. His headache of the night before was a distant memory, though anxiety was beating its own drum inside his head.

  Should he take the phone call seriously? The answer was surely ‘yes.’ Should he contact the police about it? Of course he should. Otherwise, if something did happen to one of his friends, he would never forgive himself. Would DI Dorkin and DS Fargo take him seriously? The answer to that question was less certain.

  Even so, Mullen made the call and after an argument with the person on the end of the line he got transferred to Dorkin. Except that the person who answered certainly wasn’t Dorkin, not unless he had had a sex-change or a nasty cricketing accident.

  “Your name, sir?” the woman said in a flat Brummie accent.

  “Doug Mullen. I need to speak to DI Dorkin.”

  There was a pause before she replied.

  “I’m afraid he’s out. I’m Detective Constable Ashe. Perhaps I can help.”

  “Is DS Fargo there?”

  “He’s out too.”

  “I need to speak to one of them.”

  “About what?”

  “About two murders and an anonymous phone call.”

  “I see.”

  There was another pause. Mullen wondered if she was getting advice or merely making him wait for the sake of it. Then: “They’ll be in touch shortly.” And she put the phone down before he could argue or complain.

  Mullen shrugged and leant back in the large Windsor chair he had adopted as his own. “And pigs will fly,” he said to the empty kitchen.

  Mullen was wrong. ‘Shortly’ turned out to be a lot sooner than he could possibly have expected. He had only just gone upstairs and brushed his teeth when a banging at the door summoned him back downstairs.

  “Hello, again!” The sour smile and gravelly greeting belonged to Dorkin. Behind him, Fargo loomed silent and surly. He seemed to be larger every time they met. “I’d like a little chat,” Dorkin continued, pushing inside. Fargo followed and Mullen, shutting the door, couldn’t help but notice that there were two uniformed officers standing in the drive, one of whom headed off round the side of the house. Were they out there in case he did a runner? It wasn’t a good sign.

  He walked back through to the kitchen where Dorkin was making himself comfortable in Mullen’s favourite chair, while Fargo stood against the wall, arms folded and still very large.

  “I’ve just been trying to get hold of you on the phone,” Mullen said.

  Dorkin’s eyebrows rose minimally. “Oh yeah?”

  “I’ve had an anonymous phone call this morning. Someone warned me they would hurt one of my friends if I didn’t stop my investigation.”

  “Did they now?” Dorkin rubbed his chin. “Can I see your mobile? I assume they rang you on your mobile?”

  Mullen unlocked it and passed it over. “You’ll see it in the call log. ’Unknown.’”

  There was a flicker of a smile on Dorkin’s face. He studied Mullen’s mobile for the best part of a minute, then placed it on the table. “I may need to borrow that for a while. Have you got a spare one?”

  “No.”

  “You don’t have an unregistered, pay-as-you-go one? I thought all smart private investigators kept a stock of them just in case they needed to do naughty things without being caught. For example, they might want to use one to ring up the mobile phone which is registered in their name. That way they can pretend to be an anonymous caller making untraceable threats.”

  Mullen stared back at the inspector. He seemed to be enjoying himself. But what the heck was going on? Why wasn’t Dorkin taking him seriously?

  Mullen stood up and leant forward across the table towards Dorkin. He heard Fargo tense for action, but Dorkin didn’t even blink. “There’s someone out there, Inspector, threatening to kill my friends. And you’re sitting there like some—“

  Mullen never finished his sentence because one of Fargo’s huge hands had gripped him by the arm and was spinning him around as if he was a kid’s top from the days when kids had proper simple toys. The next thing Mullen knew was that he had been rammed back into his chair and two hands were holding his shoulders extremely firmly.

  Dorkin’s smile had been replaced by a stony glare. “Shall I tell you why we aren’t taking you too seriously, Mullen? There are two reasons. Number one, it’s because you kept secret from us the fact that you and Becca Baines are pals. That you bought her a meal on Tuesday evening.”

  “Actually we went Dutch.”

  Fargo’s hands tensed, digging into his shoulders even more.

  “This is the woman you were spying on. You mess up her sex life and the next thing is you’re dating her.”

  “Not dating her. She came round to give me a verbal roasting, but I was only just out of hospital and I fainted in front of her. What with her being a nurse, well it changed things.”

  “So you ended up in bed together?”

  “No!” Mullen felt himself getting riled. “She put me to bed. She slept in a chair in the room. I think she was worried about me.”

  “But you must like her because you had supper with her.”

  “We have a share
d interest.”

  “Like stamp collecting?”

  “Like finding out who killed Janice.”

  “And why would she be interested in doing that?”

  “Because, like me, she’s probably worried that you’ll try and pin it on her.”

  Dorkin considered this, rubbing his fingers on his forehead. Then he gave a shake of his whole body and changed tack. He felt inside his jacket and pulled out a mobile phone. He took a few seconds to find what he wanted to find, then stretched across the table and held it close to Mullen’s face. “Take a look at this, sunshine.”

  Mullen recognised who and where the photograph had been taken almost immediately.

  “Our colleague, Detective Constable Ashe, is a bit of a Facebook obsessive. Always posting her holiday photos and sharing stupid stuff she’s spotted on the internet. I tell her it’s bad for her. I point out that people are more important than computers. But when has any woman taken a blind bit of notice of what I say?” The wry smile was back on Dorkin’s face. “But that’s one of the strengths of having someone like Ashe on the team. She thinks differently and has other ideas. Like looking to see if the Meeting Place had a Facebook page and then going through everything on it in great detail after she’d gone home and put her little boy to bed. All in her own time, bless her cotton socks. And then, amidst all the photographs up there, she finds this one.”

  Mullen said nothing.

  “You recognise yourself, of course?”

  “Of course.”

  “And the man you’re talking to. The man with long hair.”

  “Of course I do.” Mullen was trying to think and finding it difficult. He hadn’t realised anyone had been taking any photos that evening. But of course anyone and everyone with a mobile phone can take a decent photograph in an instant nowadays and it’s impossible to stop. And here he was in a photograph with Chris and Chris had got his hand on Mullen’s shoulder as if they were best mates. And indeed the benign smile on Mullen’s face didn’t gainsay that.

  “There are three others actually, Muggins. And they all suggest that you and Chris got on pretty well.”

  Muggins! A flash flood of anger caused Mullen to grip the arms of the chair. If he lost control, it would be just the excuse Dorkin needed. Even so, when Mullen did finally speak, he did so more sharply and louder than he had intended. “It’s my job to get on well with people.”

  “It’s your job to stop people getting out of hand.”

  “I don’t believe in bullying people. I’ve seen it happen in the army. My best mate was bullied and he blew his own brains out. So I try to be nice to people and I only lay down the law when people are in danger of getting out of hand. I find it works best that way.”

  Dorkin made a show of clapping, bringing his hands together and away again in slow motion, several times. “Bravo!” he said. Mullen pretended not to care. If there was a ‘taking the piss’ module in police training school, Dorkin had clearly passed with distinction.

  “Are you gay, Mullen?”

  Mullen said nothing.

  “Chris was.”

  There was more silence. The only significant noise was the heavy breathing of Fargo. He could sense the sergeant tensing behind him, waiting for the explosion that Dorkin was trying to detonate.

  “Who told you that?” Mullen knew he had to wrest the initiative back from the inspector. There was nothing to be gained by lying down and letting Dorkin stamp all over him.

  “Wouldn’t you like to know!” There was the smile again.

  Mullen stretched his arms. He felt Fargo’s hands alight ever so briefly on his shoulders in warning. He tried to think. Dorkin was trying to provoke a reaction. There were gays at the Meeting Place, of course there were. But Mullen doubted very much if Chris had been one of them. On the contrary, he had always seemed interested in the opposite sex, whether it was the waif-like Mel or a couple of the female punters who were always up for a nice flirt and maybe a lot more.

  “I would, as it happens. But obviously you’re not going to tell me.”

  “What were you two talking about in those photos then?”

  Mullen knew it was easier — and safer — to tell the truth. Besides, he wasn’t sure how good he was at making things up on the spot. The chances were that Dorkin already had some idea about the conversation. Maybe someone had overheard some of it and informed the police. Kevin Branston or Mel or one of the punters.

  “Chris was a bit on edge,” he started. “So a bit like Sergeant Fargo here, I put my hand on his shoulder to calm him down.” Mullen paused.

  Dorkin looked at Fargo and nodded his head, which as far as Mullen was concerned could have meant anything. Grab him. Give him a slap to help his memory. Something like that. Fortunately Fargo didn’t interpret it that way. Instead he padded around the table and settled himself in front of the sink unit, close to Dorkin and in full view of Mullen.

  “We need a bit more detail than that, Doug.”

  “He didn’t say what it was about. It was only the third time I’d come across him at the Meeting Place and I’d not had any trouble from him previously. But that night he was on edge. Of course it was a special evening, when supporters of the project had been invited to come and see how it all worked and meet people. Maybe that had got to him. Or maybe it was something more personal. Anyway one of the other guys said something — I didn’t hear what — and Chris started to get aggressive with him. He was only a couple of metres away from me, so I stepped over to calm him down. I think that was when I put my hand on his shoulder. In retrospect it was a bit of a risk to take. He might have turned on me, but at the time it seemed to be the quickest and best way to kill off any trouble. With there being so many visitors, Kevin Branston had warned me not to let anything develop. Anyway that was what I did and it worked.”

  Dorkin sucked at his teeth as if he had got a piece of food stuck in them. “So in the other photos of you and him talking, are you telling me that you can’t remember what you and he said? Didn’t you ask him what the problem was?”

  “I asked him if he wanted to talk about it.”

  Dorkin stared back at Mullen. “You’re a ruddy counsellor too are you now?”

  “Not a very good one.” Mullen felt light-headed, as if he had consumed too much alcohol on an empty stomach. “Chris just changed the subject. He started asking me about the World Cup.”

  * * *

  As soon as Dorkin and his colleagues had driven away, Mullen got out his laptop. If Detective Constable Ashe could interrogate Facebook, then so could he.

  It didn’t take long to find the photos of himself and Chris. It had been right at the beginning of the evening. There was already quite a scrum of punters and Chris had been in an awkward mood. Not that there had been any real trouble from him. That had come from Alec and John who had ended up fighting in the main hall — fortunately before the guests had arrived. Less fortunately Alec had ended up with a broken nose. The last thing Branston had wanted that evening was trouble, so after ordering John off the premises he had insisted Mullen drive Alec straight up to Accident and Emergency and stay with him until he had been dealt with. Two hours later Mullen had returned to the Meeting Place to discover the food and guests had all disappeared, leaving behind them a blocked toilet which he ended up having to sort out.

  Mullen began to flick quickly through the rest of the album, curious to see what he had missed. But after only six photos he lifted his finger and stopped. On the screen in front of him was the Reverend Diana Downey. She stood out with her dog collar and rather flimsy clothing and was quite clearly attracting a lot of attention from the men there. Mullen scratched at his head. It wasn’t, as soon as he thought about it, so surprising that she should be there. You would expect a place like that to attract the support of churches. And it offered a more innocent explanation of why Kevin Branston had been visiting the Reverend Downey the other day. (Though it didn’t, Mullen reckoned, entirely explain Branston’s rather furtive exit from t
he vicarage. Or had he been imagining it?)

  If Downey was there, had other people from St Mark’s church also come along to see how their money was being spent? As Mullen continued with a more careful trawl through the album, he soon got some answers. Downey appeared in several of them, always talking to a different person. Whoever it was who had been clicking away had been taken with her too. Mullen spotted Derek Stanley with his tell-tale goatee, talking to some of the regular punters. In another, more surprisingly, was Margaret Wilby, immaculately dressed in navy blue and white and talking to the student Mel and the punter who was always hanging around her. Was Wilby on some church committee and coming along in her official capacity? There were a couple of other faces that Mullen recognised from the church service, but otherwise nothing until he came across a picture that stopped his forefinger dead. In the centre, with his back to the camera, was Chris. The fact that his face was turned away didn’t mean he wasn’t easy to identify with his olive green t-shirt and camouflage trousers. Talking to him was Janice Atkinson, arm in arm with her husband Paul, and next to them stood Derek Stanley, listening intently. There was someone beyond Stanley — but all that was visible of him or her was a raised glass, a hand and a white sleeve. Was it Diana Downey? Mullen flicked to the next photograph in case it should reveal more. It didn’t. It contained mostly punters, except for the distinctive figure of Margaret Wilby, lips pursed as if the wine in her glass didn’t come up to scratch. Or maybe she thoroughly disapproved of the whole business. Mullen flicked on again, but realised he was back at the beginning with photos of the outside of the building bedecked with a long banner wishing everyone ‘Welcome to our Open Evening.’