‘Of course, sir, I was just interested…’ Mower left the statement hanging, as if he might have ambitions to become one of this unprepossessing pastor’s congregation.
‘We’re interested in someone who we think came here about eight or ten years ago, sir,’ Mackintosh broke in. ‘We thought at least you might remember him and possibly know where we can find him now.’
‘One of my congregation?’ Wright asked.
‘We think so. A black lad, about twenty at the time, name of Leroy Jason Green. Ring any bells, sir?’
Wright glanced down at his hands, which were joined almost as if in prayer, and did not answer immediately.
‘May I ask why you want to trace him?’ he asked, and when the two policemen gazed at him stolidly without response, he shook his head. ‘No, I suppose not,’ Wright said sadly.
‘You knew him?’ Mower snapped, his approach much less friendly now.
‘I did,’ Wright said. ‘He came here regularly for a while and I believed at the time that he was one of our successes. He had been in trouble with the police in the past, been in prison, I believe, but once he found Jesus I thought he had turned a corner in his life. I had high hopes. He was an intelligent young man. I prayed…’ He gazed almost pleadingly at Mower and then Mackintosh, but when he met no response his gaze turned sadly to his hands again.
‘D’you know where he went when he left London?’ Mower asked.
‘I don’t, I’m afraid. One Sunday he was here and the next he had gone. I never saw him again.’
‘Is there anything else you can recall which might help us to trace him?’ Mower persisted. ‘It’s very important we talk to him as soon as we can. We’ve spoken to his family but they have no idea where he is.’
Wright raised his eyes to the ceiling this time as if in search of divine guidance.
‘It’s just possible, I suppose…’ He hesitated. ‘He struck up a friendship with one of our benefactors. A successful man who contributed most of the cost of renovating this place. He came occasionally to services here and seemed to take an interest in Leroy. I know he was associated with various projects for young people in trouble. It’s just possible that he took Leroy onto one of those schemes, gave him a start in terms of employment or training, something of that sort. He might have had contact with him after we did.’
‘And this benefactor is…?’ Mower snapped.
‘A man called David Murgatroyd, a devout Christian. I believe he’s gone on to greater things these days. You should be able to trace him. He did very well in the city, I believe, and has become quite a philanthropist.’
‘Bingo,’ Mower exulted under his breath without letting his expression alter by even a fraction of an inch.
‘Anyone else you can think of?’ he asked, but Wright shook his head.
‘It’s only a possibility,’ he said sorrowfully. ‘I don’t feel I have been of great help to you, or to Leroy. I will pray for the young man and hope that the trouble he seems to have fallen into is not too great.’
‘Was that a result?’ Doug Mackintosh asked as he and Mower went back to the Met officer’s car which was being hovered over by a slightly uncertain traffic warden.
‘Police,’ Mackintosh snapped and the woman backed off with an attempt at a smile.
‘Oh yes, that was a result,’ Mower said. ‘A very useful lead indeed. Can you do me a real favour and drop me off at King’s Cross? I need to get back sharpish.’ As Mackintosh set off again with a slightly grudging shrug, Mower pulled out his mobile and thumbed in DCI Thackeray’s number, with a satisfied grin.
Laura Ackroyd hung up her office phone with a hand that was shaking uncontrollably and glanced around at her colleagues. But no one seemed to have picked up the shrill voice that had just assailed her for five minutes with a stream of invective which made her shudder. Even worse was the feeling that the woman at the other end of the phone had some justification for her fury in view of the appalling news that she had rung to pass on to the Gazette, at the same time as cursing reporters and all their works.
Laura got to her feet unsteadily and on the way to Ted Grant’s office touched the crime reporter, Bob Baker, on the shoulder.
‘You’d better hear this,’ she said, her mouth dry, and motioned him towards Grant’s glass enclosure, where the editor could be seen flicking through the latest efforts of his staff with a typically dissatisfied expression on his face. He glanced up when the two reporters tapped on the half-open door and edged into his cluttered sanctum.
‘You look as though you’ve lost a fiver and found a brass farthing,’ he said to Laura, who knew that her face must reflect her distress.
‘I’ve just had Debbie Stapleton’s partner on the phone,’ she said, her voice strained as she fought back tears. ‘Debbie’s taken an overdose and been rushed to the infirmary. Her partner’s blaming us, Bob in particular but me too, apparently, and she’s not going to do it quietly. She says she’s already done an interview for local TV tonight. I’d say she’s going to kick up as much of a stink as she possibly can. The Gazette’s not going to come out of it very well.’
‘Nor are Peter Maxwell and his academy friends,’ Bob Baker put in defensively. ‘They’re the ones who decided to persecute the woman. It’s no good trying to shoot the bloody messenger.’
‘There are messengers and messengers, Bob, and you’re not one I’d like delivering to me,’ Laura said, throwing caution to the winds. Bob opened his mouth to retort angrily but Ted Grant broke in.
‘Enough already,’ he said. ‘Let’s not waste time blaming each other. Laura, did this so-called partner – does she have a name by the way? – did she mention Maxwell or Murgatroyd? Has she got them in her sights as well?’
‘Her name’s Maggie Benwell, and she’s going to spread the blame as widely as she can, that was very clear. She’s blaming us for outing Debbie on the front page, and the school and the council for suspending her and putting an end to her career. She’s virtually accusing us all of hounding Debbie to death. She’s got everyone in her sights – the Gazette, the council, Murgatroyd, the lot. The only thing she didn’t mention was that she apparently took off herself and left Debbie on her own to face the crisis. I didn’t reckon that was very supportive behaviour either.’
‘How to you know that?’ Grant asked sharply.
‘I spoke to Debbie earlier today to warn her that the national press might be landing on her doorstep any minute, in particular Vince Newsom, who we all know is not the most gentle of ministers to the walking wounded. She was there all on her own and sounded bloody terrified.’
‘Right, where is this Benwell woman, at the moment?’
‘She didn’t say, but I expect she’s at the hospital,’ Laura said.
‘So get down there, try to make contact and persuade her that we don’t make the news, we just report it. Bob, you get up to their cottage and see what you can winkle out up there. There’s bound to be a copper or two you can chat up. And the neighbours. See who did turn up from London. I’m sure we can give this a bit of a spin in the direction of ruthless paparazzi from the nationals if we try hard enough.’
‘And what about Maxwell and Murgatroyd?’ Laura asked. ‘They’ve got some hard questions to answer, haven’t they? Maggie Benwell’s right about that, at least. They’ve behaved disgracefully.’
‘I’ll talk to them myself,’ Grant said cautiously. ‘It’s not that unusual, you know, for head teachers to get booted out if they’ve been running a crap school. Ms Stapleton can’t have been too surprised at that possibility.’
Laura stared at her boss open-mouthed.
‘You’re going to let them off the hook,’ she said, her stomach tightening. ‘All that stuff – crazy God-botherers, bullying, sex discrimination, homophobia – that I’ve been researching, and now a woman driven to suicide, and you’ll let it ride?’
‘I’ll talk to them,’ Grant snapped. ‘As I hear it, this may be the least of Peter Maxwell’s troubles, so leave it
to me, will you?’
Laura felt the colour drain out of her face as a wave of nausea overtook her. She spun on her heel without another word and made it to the cloakroom just in time. As she splashed cold water on her face and gazed at herself in the mirror, hardly recognising her own reflection, she knew that she had to make some more hard decisions quickly. Her whole life, she thought, and that of her baby, were in limbo, and she could no longer carry on like this. She pulled her mobile out of her bag and thumbed in Michael Thackeray’s number.
‘I must talk to you,’ she said softly when he responded. ‘Please, please come home tonight.’
For a moment she thought her plea was going to be rebuffed, but then the familiar voice came back, filling her with euphoria for a second.
‘About eight,’ Thackeray said. ‘I’ll see you then.’
Half an hour later she left the Gazette building, unsure whether she ever wanted to cross its threshold again.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Laura woke up alone in bed the next morning, puzzled for a moment at the sounds of movement in the living room next door. Then the events of the previous afternoon and evening came flooding back and she groaned faintly. Everything, both professional and personal, seemed to be falling apart, and as the first wave of nausea, which was becoming a regular morning occurrence, hit her, she buried her head under the bedclothes and closed her eyes.
Within minutes she felt a hand on her shoulder and peered out of her cocoon to find Michael Thackeray, already fully dressed, standing by the bed holding a cup of tea in his hand.
‘I brought you this,’ he said awkwardly. ‘When Aileen was pregnant she found it helped.’
Thackeray had stayed the night after an evening of inconclusive wrangling over the future, but had chosen to sleep on the sofa, and she had not objected. They both knew that if they found themselves in bed together the sexual chemistry that there had always been between them would prove irresistible, and that would not solve their problems.
Thackeray sat on the edge of the bed as Laura sipped her tea disconsolately.
‘I have to go to work now,’ he said. ‘This murder case I’m working on looks as if it may blow up into something much bigger than we anticipated. There may have been other similar killings elsewhere.’
‘A serial killer?’ she asked, but her heart was not really in the question. There was too much else on her mind.
‘Possibly,’ Thackeray said. ‘You’ve had contact with this man David Murgatroyd, haven’t you? What’s he like?’
Laura looked at him in astonishment for a moment.
‘Surely you’re not looking at him for your murder, are you? He’s some sort of born-again puritan. I can’t see him going dogging in the woods.’
‘No,’ Thackeray said, smiling faintly. ‘But he does seem to have had some contact years ago with someone we’re interested in. I want to see whether he knows where he is.’
‘Well, he doesn’t like answering questions, that’s for sure,’ Laura said. ‘I wish you luck. The man’s a bastard, if you want my opinion. It was his religious bullying put Debbie Stapleton in hospital.’
‘You take these things too hard, Laura,’ Thackeray said. ‘Do you want me to come back tonight?’
‘If you want to,’ Laura mumbled.
‘I do want to. I hate to see you like this, you know that.’
‘You know what to do about it,’ Laura said bitterly.
‘Yes,’ Thackeray said, but would not meet her eyes. ‘Are you going to work today?’
‘No,’ Laura said flatly. ‘I’ll call in sick. I want to go to the hospital again to see Debbie Stapleton. And I want some time to think.’
Thackeray sighed and ran his hand gently over her face and hair, spread in a red cloud over the pillow, before kissing her on the cheek.
‘I won’t get much time to think today,’ he said. ‘But I will see you later. I love you, Laura, you know that. Take care.’
Laura lay back on the pillows with her eyes closed long after she heard the front door of the flat close. For all Thackeray’s solicitude, and she never doubted for a moment that it was genuine, she knew that he was still deeply ambivalent about committing himself to another child. And she could see no way of shifting him. To all intents and purposes she was on her own in this.
Eventually she crawled out of bed, called the office to tell them she was not coming in until later, showered and dressed and contemplated going down to the infirmary to see how Debbie Stapleton had fared overnight. She had made the same journey the previous afternoon, at Ted Grant’s insistence, though with absolutely no confidence that she would discover anything of use to the Gazette. In that expectation, at least, she had been proved right, but after she had failed to extract any information at all from the press-relations manager she had found herself back in reception where a woman she vaguely recognised was sitting alone in a chair against the wall, red-eyed and twisting a handkerchief in her hand. Their eyes met, and the woman suddenly leapt to her feet as if she had been stung.
‘You’re that woman from the Gazette,’ she had said vehemently. ‘Debbie said you had red hair. What the hell are you doing skulking around here like a ghoul? Haven’t you and your friends done enough damage?’
‘You must be Maggie,’ Laura had come back quietly, realising this would be a difficult situation to defuse. At least Maggie had not returned to the ranting attack she had launched on the telephone. ‘I’m sorry about all this, but you must realise that Debbie invited me to school to tell me what was going on there. I really don’t think I can be accused of harassing her. How is she, by the way? Is she going to be OK?’
‘It’s taken me hours to find out,’ Maggie Benwell had said, her face contorted with bitterness. ‘Apparently they only issue bulletins to ‘family’ – and I’m not ‘family’, am I? I had to go to the hospital management to convince them that I’m effectively her next of kin before they’d tell me she was recovering. But she’s taken bloody paracetamol and that can have long-term effects. She’s not out of danger yet. But I don’t want you printing that in your bloody newspaper. Let us have some privacy, for God’s sake.’
‘I don’t think this story is going to stay out of the Gazette whatever I do,’ Laura said. ‘She has a lot of campaigners like Steve O’Mara on her side, all of them out to stop David Murgatroyd, and they’ll make capital out of what’s happened, I should think. She’s in the middle of a very public battle, I’m afraid, Maggie, and that’s going to be even more true now.’
Maggie Benwell had turned away and sat down again, dabbing her eyes and then twisting her handkerchief in her hand.
‘I wanted us to go for a civil ceremony, then I’d have some rights. I should be up there in the ward with her instead of down here like a bloody pariah.’
‘Is she in intensive care?’ Laura had asked.
‘Yes, and they’re strict about visitors up there. Relatives only.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Laura had said, turning away, feeling defeated, leaving Maggie to her sad vigil alone.
This morning, feeling drained and still nauseous herself, she had driven down into the town centre and made her way to the infirmary, hoping against hope that Debbie’s condition had improved overnight. And when she inquired at reception she was relieved to hear that the head teacher had been moved to one of the main wards and could have visitors. She took the lift to the third floor and ventured cautiously onto the ward and immediately saw Maggie Benwell at Debbie Stapleton’s bedside at the end of the ward. The two women spotted her almost immediately and exchanged a few words and Laura was not surprised to see little warmth in either of their eyes as she approached.
‘I’m not on duty today,’ she said cautiously, wanting to avoid another tirade from Maggie. ‘I was in town and wondered how you were…?’ Debbie Stapleton was leaning back against her pillows, ashen-faced and with dark circles beneath her eyes, one hand clutching her partner’s.
‘You warned me what would happen,’ she said so
quietly that Laura had to strain to catch her words. ‘Thanks for that, at least.’
‘I shouldn’t have gone off like that,’ Maggie said. ‘I should have realised…’
Debbie squeezed her hand hard.
‘You’re here now,’ she said.
‘What are you going to do about the council and these academy people?’ Maggie asked, clearly still in no mood to let anyone off the hook. ‘Is the Gazette going to expose how they’ve been behaving?’
Laura sighed.
‘I don’t know,’ she said honestly. ‘I hope so, but I wouldn’t bank on it.’ She thought of Ted Grant’s cosy relationship with many of Bradfield’s movers and shakers, who seemed only too ready to take David Murgatroyd’s plans to their hearts, and guessed that his victims stood little chance of a fair hearing. She could just imagine the whispered conversations about hysterical women and emotional reactions even without any of the covert homophobia which would no doubt also rise to the surface like scum on a stagnant pond, and she shrugged.
‘I’ll see what I can do,’ she said, as she got up to go, content that Debbie was back in the safe hands of her lover. And if I get nowhere with that, she thought, I may well call it a day myself.
Sir David Murgatroyd arrived at Bradfield’s central police station with his solicitor in a top-of-the-range BMW precisely five minutes before the hour of his appointment with Superintendent Jack Longley and DCI Michael Thackeray. He glanced at his watch as he got out of the car.
‘Half an hour, Dixon,’ he said to the driver. ‘I should think that would be more than adequate, don’t you?’ He glanced quizzically at his lawyer who scurried round the back of the car to fall into step beside him.
‘More than enough, I should think, Sir David.’
They were shown quickly from reception to Longley’s office and offered chairs across from Longley’s desk, arranging impeccably tailored suits to their satisfaction as Thackeray took the report Sergeant Mower had prepared on his trip to London to a seat at the table underneath the window overlooking the town hall square below.
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