Already Dead

by Stephen Booth

  The car continued to veer from side to side, dented a telegraph pole on one side, and took out a plastic grit bin on the other. An overhanging bough of ivy rattled across the roof like gunshots.

  Eyes wide, his hands sweaty, Charlie stared at the hill ahead. The narrowest corner was coming up, where there was an ancient stone house with mullioned windows. He knew it was the last bend before the run down into the Market Place past the bookshop and the hairdresser’s. Beyond it, if he couldn’t stop the car, he’d be flying out into the traffic on St John’s Street.

  He’d forgotten the junction with The Dale. Ironic, when it was the street he lived on. When he was within a few yards, a white delivery van nosed out of the junction. The driver saw him coming and stopped, gaping at the vehicle swinging from one side of the road to the other.

  Charlie only had one option. He yanked on the handbrake. The rear wheels locked, the back end swung round, the nose caught a stone step and the BMW flipped over, turning twice in the air before it hit the van, crushing its bonnet, then bounced off and slid into St John’s Street on its roof. A Sixes bus ploughed into it, pushing it up on to the pavement in front of Ken’s Mini Market, where it lay with its engine still running and fragments of glass showering into the gutter.

  For a moment, everything was unnaturally silent. Then people began to shout. And Sheena Sullivan continued to scream.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Barbara Dean had always known there were moments when your life changed. When a ring on the doorbell might mark the end of then and the beginning of now. A before and an after, divided by a turn of the latch and the opening of a door. A moment when you found two police officers standing on your step. And you knew. It was more than an interruption of normality. It was a closing down of life, as if someone had turned off the power to your world and plunged it into darkness.

  As she stood and stared at the two officers, Barbara realised that one of them was speaking. She could see his mouth moving. But the sentences had gone missing in the air somewhere between them. It was as if there was a time lag, his words bouncing off a distant satellite and returning slowly to earth, reaching her ears long after they’d been spoken. But no – not reaching her ears, but her brain. She heard the sounds, but her mind wouldn’t process them into anything that made sense. This wasn’t what she’d expected to happen.

  They came into the hallway and sat in her lounge. Their presence on her leather sofa was so unnatural that they might as well have been wax dummies that had been stolen from Madame Tussaud’s. They looked almost like real police officers, but there was something creepily wrong with them.

  ‘They crashed at the bottom of Green Hill,’ the first officer was saying.

  Barbara could detect from his tone that he’d said it already, perhaps more than once.

  ‘Was he badly injured?’ she said.

  ‘I’m afraid so.’

  ‘Is he dead?’ she said.

  ‘Yes.’

  She sat for a few moments trying to make sense of the answers. The two officers sat forward on the sofa, uncomfortable and anxious to leave.

  ‘They?’ she said.

  ‘Your husband had a passenger, Mrs Dean.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘There was someone else in the car with him. A woman, we believe. We thought—’

  ‘What?’

  ‘We thought it might have been you.’

  So that explained the looks of surprise when she answered the door. They’d expected to find no one home, or a teenage child perhaps. That would have been worse for them, she supposed – having to break the news to a child that their parents had been in an accident. It was foolish that she should feel a surge of relief on their behalf. As if it was some consolation that they only had to inform the grieving widow.

  ‘Could it be a mistake?’ she asked. ‘Are you sure it was Charlie?’

  The other officer consulted a notebook. ‘He was driving a red BMW 5 series.’ He read out the registration number. ‘Does your husband own that vehicle?’

  ‘I can’t remember registration numbers,’ she said.

  ‘It’s registered in his name.’

  ‘Well, then. That’s probably right.’

  She felt a laugh beginning to rise up in her chest, and stifled it with a cough. They would think she was hysterical. Did they still slap women across the face to cure hysteria? Or was that only in films? She was laughing at herself, though – at her silly inability to make the right responses.

  ‘What am I supposed to say?’ she asked, looking at the older of the two. The officer must have dealt with situations like this before, would know what words people normally spoke in these circumstances, how a well-balanced woman responded to the news of her husband’s violent and sudden death.

  ‘Is there anyone we can call to be with you?’ asked the officer instead. ‘A friend or relative? It’s best not to be on your own.’

  So that was how she was supposed to behave. She should seek a shoulder to cry on, turn to her best friend for support or run to her mother for comfort. She didn’t feel like doing any of those things. So what was wrong with her?

  ‘I was cooking supper,’ she said. ‘He should have been home by now.’

  Both officers nodded sympathetically. To Barbara, it looked like approval. So perhaps, after all, she was behaving exactly the way they expected.

  ‘You shouldn’t be alone.’

  ‘But I want to be alone.’

  ‘You might want to talk to someone.’ The female officer pulled a leaflet out of her pocket. A list of grief counsellors and their phone numbers. In case she wanted to talk to a stranger.

  ‘Thank you.’

  She made no effort to take the leaflet, so the officer placed it on the table, then added her card. ‘You can reach us here.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said again.

  She wondered how she was doing, whether she was repeating meaningless phrases too much. How would these police officers be judging her? Too cold, too unemotional? She knew enough about the police to realise they were always judging the way people acted, how they responded to questions, whether they looked guilty or furtive, or ashamed.

  ‘Will you be all right?’ The younger officer sounded genuinely concerned. But it was probably just an act. They did it all the time. But for Barbara, it was a first.

  And Barbara Dean had no idea why she’d reacted in this way to the news. It was the last thing she would have expected of herself. If she’d ever thought about it, she would have imagined feeling a huge sense of relief at the news of Charlie’s death, the knowledge of a burden lifted from her life, the end of ten years of torment.

  But now she was thinking that those ten years could have been worse. After all, he’d never shouted at her, and she had never screamed at him. They’d hated each other, but only in whispers.

  At least it was an opportunity to stay away from the office. With news spreading that the team from the Major Crimes Unit were arriving at West Street, Diane Fry was keeping clear. In fact, it was a miracle the MCU had been able to find Edendale so quickly. Normally, officers based in St Ann’s were like lost sheep without a sheepdog when they had to venture over the M1 into Derbyshire. The Eden Valley probably wasn’t even on their satnavs.

  So here she was in Wirksworth, following up the death of the estate agent, Charlie Dean, and feeling like a version of Ben Cooper, chasing some mystery that she couldn’t explain, but which was challenging all her instincts.

  And that was another thing she had to do. She had to corner Ben Cooper … If it took her the whole of the next week, she would have to pin him down and force him to explain how he knew the name of Sean Gibson, the man whose fingerprint was found on the phone lying in the mud of the stream bed at Sparrow Wood, the same man who was now being sought by the MCU from their incident room in Edendale. Cooper couldn’t be allowed to get away with being so enigmatic, even if she had forced him into it herself.

  Fry turned up The Dale, passing the exac
t spot where Charlie Dean’s BMW had been flattened by the number 6.1 bus from Belper. Parking was difficult enough everywhere in Wirksworth, and there was certainly nowhere to park at the Deans’ house – not without completely blocking the road. It was far too narrow to risk her car.

  Fry could see the family liaison officer’s Vauxhall on the gravel. There might have been enough room for two vehicles, if it wasn’t for a heap of sand and a pile of breeze blocks and other building materials occupying the space next to the Vauxhall.

  She had to carry on all the way up The Dale and turn round at the top, where the road curved back into Green Hill. She came down again slowly, and had gone past Magnolia Cottage again before she reached some residents’ parking spaces under a high retaining wall, where she was able to park the Audi between a flowering cherry tree and a pink Citroën 2CV. It was a fifty-yard walk back up to the house. Much too far, especially in the rain.

  ‘How do people manage for parking here?’ she asked the FLO.

  ‘Mrs Dean has a resident’s permit to park in Rydes Yard, the council car park a few hundred yards down.’

  Fry examined Barbara Dean critically. She was one of those women worn down by life, so drained of energy and emotion that she looked like a washed-out shadow. Mrs Dean seemed slow to respond to anything, reluctant to express an emotion in case it squeezed out the last drops of her spirit and left her empty and crumpled, like an old plastic bag. Her eyes were withdrawn, her face devoid of expression.

  Fry had seen this sort of woman before. When others around them smiled or laughed, their mouths barely twitched. In some women, that might suggest too much Botox, their facial muscles frozen from attempts to resist the process of ageing. But not the likes of Barbara Dean. These women were frozen on the inside, their souls crushed by the intolerable strain of being alive. Now and then, Fry was consumed by the fear that she might end up like that herself in a few years’ time. It might only take one bad decision to trap her into a situation she was unable to escape, and all the life could be drained from her too.

  ‘What was her name?’ asked Barbara. ‘The woman. The other officers wouldn’t tell me.’

  ‘Sullivan,’ said Fry. ‘Sheena Sullivan. She’s a hairdresser, here in Wirksworth.’

  ‘The girl at …? Oh, I think she did my hair once.’

  ‘She says she met your husband on a speed awareness course.’

  ‘Oh, that,’ said Barbara. ‘He met too many of the wrong kind of people on that.’

  There was a big fireplace, and a heavy beam dividing the living room. Upstairs, a wide landing was in use as a home office, a computer workstation occupying one corner, bookshelves lining the wall.

  Fry looked out at the rooftop views over Wirksworth, and the actual magnolia tree in the garden. From here, residents had the best outlook: eastwards across the town, not at the ragged wall of abandoned quarry immediately behind their houses. An area had been dug out behind the house, as if in preparation for foundations. She remembered the pile of breeze blocks and building materials.

  ‘What are you planning, Mrs Dean?’ she asked.

  ‘A kitchen extension. Charlie had been promising it to me for years, but he never seemed to have the money. The property market has been so depressed, you know. He was finally getting round to it, when…’

  Fry nodded. It was strange that someone else had found a source of extra cash, as well as the Turners. Or perhaps not so strange.

  ‘Mrs Dean, do you know of anyone who might want to harm your husband?’ she asked.

  Barbara gave her a small, humourless smile.

  ‘Well, that’s obvious,’ she said. ‘Me.’

  The vehicle examiner had Charlie Dean’s wrecked red BMW 5 series up on a ramp when Fry arrived in the police garage. It was a complete write-off, the front end crumpled beyond recognition, the roof peeled back by the fire and rescue crew to free the occupants. Dean himself had been dead on arrival, his body crushed by the bus, but Sheena was in hospital in Derby. Doctors were hoping she’d escaped life-threatening injuries thanks to airbags and her position in the rolled car when the bus hit it.

  ‘Were the brake lines cut?’ Fry asked the examiner.

  ‘Looks like it at first glance. It’s becoming a bit of an epidemic.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘We’ve had quite a number of incidents around the county of brake lines being cut in the last few months. They all appear random at first, with no apparent intention of harming any specific victim. A bit of superficial investigation turns up several vehicles damaged in the same street, which suggests mindless vandalism, though of a particularly reckless kind. But usually some of the cars turn out to have had their fuel lines cut instead, which is the real clue.’

  ‘You’re talking about fuel theft.’

  ‘Yes. A litre of fuel costs almost one pound forty pence at the pumps now, and thieves are looking for an easy way to steal petrol. Most filler caps have secure locks these days, but it’s perfectly possible to drain petrol from a car by cutting through the fuel line, if you have the opportunity and a few simple bits of equipment. Of course, these guys aren’t experts, just chancers. On some vehicles, they mistake the brake line for a fuel line and find themselves draining hydraulic fluid instead of petrol. But they’re never going to put their hands up and admit their mistake, are they?’

  ‘Unlikely.’

  ‘Fortunately, no one has suffered a serious accident as a result of one of those incidents. Before now, anyway. But I dare say there are a few motorists driving around Derbyshire testing their brakes at regular intervals, convinced that someone is out to get them.’

  ‘Mr Dean was just unlucky that he was on such a steep hill, then.’

  ‘Maybe so.’

  Ursula Hart was one of the partners in estate agents Williamson Hart, Charlie Dean’s employers. Though it was Sunday and the office wasn’t normally open, she’d agreed to meet Fry in their old fashioned premises just off St John’s Street in Wirksworth.

  ‘He was a good estate agent in a lot of ways,’ said Hart. ‘Great at doing the hard sell without putting off the buyer completely, which is a rare skill these days. But we were going to have to let him go.’

  ‘You were?’ asked Diane Fry. ‘Why? Are you cutting back? Is the business in trouble?’

  ‘No, no. Well, not since we found out what Charlie was up to, thank goodness.’

  ‘And what was that?’

  ‘Oh, it was a clever scam. After completion on a property, he was maintaining contact with many of our clients – buyers and vendors alike. He got himself into a position of trust by concluding a successful transaction, which can be quite stressful for clients. And then he was using that trust to advise people on financial matters and brokering insurance policies, which of course he wasn’t qualified to do. And he certainly wasn’t doing it on our behalf. Charlie Dean had quite a nice little earner going there. Well, we couldn’t tolerate that. Our company’s reputation was at risk.’

  ‘He sounds like a fairly typical con man,’ said Fry.

  ‘I suppose you’ll say that’s what an estate agent is anyway. I’ve heard it all before.’

  ‘I wasn’t going to say that at all. I don’t have enough experience with your profession.’

  ‘You don’t own a property yourself?’

  ‘Not at the moment.’

  ‘Well, if you’re looking for somewhere in the area … we have some very nice starter homes. Or perhaps a rental property?’

  Her hand hovered a pile of brochures, but Fry stared at her coldly, and she slowly withdrew it.

  ‘Not appropriate, I suppose?’ she said.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, some time when you’re off duty, perhaps.’

  Fry didn’t respond. She couldn’t imagine herself house hunting. And if she ever did, it wouldn’t be here. Not in rural Derbyshire at all, in fact. She’d be terrified of turning into the sort of person who felt obliged to have a wood-burning stove and logs neatly stacked up in a wicker ba
sket. A nice, modern loft apartment in the centre of Birmingham would be about the mark. Not that she’d ever be able to afford one.

  ‘So when did you find out about Mr Dean’s unauthorised activities?’ she said.

  Ursula Hart laughed. It was quite a dirty laugh, almost a snigger.

  ‘Did I say something funny?’ asked Fry.

  ‘Unauthorised activities,’ said Hart. ‘It sounds like a euphemism. Particularly apt for Charlie. We found out what he was up to when one of his girlfriends wrote to us and shopped him. It seems he’d dumped her and she wasn’t happy about it. So she wanted revenge, and decided to get him into trouble. Hell hath no fury and all that. That was a bit remiss of Charlie, I think. He’d let her into his secrets. I suppose he must have decided to trust her.’

  ‘Always a mistake.’

  ‘Well, not always…’

  ‘And when was this exactly, Ms Hart?’

  ‘About two months ago. Obviously, we had to investigate her allegations. But the evidence seemed pretty conclusive. So we’d taken a decision to sack him next week. My partners will be relieved that it isn’t necessary now. This sort of thing always creates awkward scenes and recriminations.’

  ‘Were you planning to report him to the police? It sounds as though Mr Dean’s activities were illegal.’

  She shook her head. ‘No. Reputation, you know.’

  ‘That again.’

  ‘It’s important in business. We have too many competitors in the property market. If people start to hear bad things about us, they’ll go elsewhere with their properties. It was bad enough that Charlie was messing around with these women of his.’

  ‘Women? Ah, you said “one of his girlfriends”.’

  ‘Exactly. I gather the latest one was with him when he crashed the car.’

  ‘Sheena Sullivan.’

  ‘I don’t know her. But there have certainly been others over the years. He was using our properties for his assignations, you know. Any that had been left standing empty. If he was handling the marketing of the property he had access to the keys for accompanied viewings. We knew about all that, thanks to the woman scorned.’