Scattered Remains (Nathan Hawk Mystery)

by Douglas Watkinson

  “Mike, it’s Nathan Hawk. Apologies for the ungodly hour, but I really do need to speak to you.”

  Half a minute later, having thrown on some clothes, he appeared at the door still buckling the belt to his jeans and welcomed us aboard. The cabin was dimly lit and the section we’d entered was his office, simple and sufficient for his needs, and like most people who are dropped in on unexpectedly, he began to tidy the place needlessly.

  “You know Jaikie?”

  “Your son, the actor.”

  “Yes.” He nodded, trying to get a measure of why we were there. “We’ve come about Belinda.”

  “What’s happened to her?”

  “Nothing, nothing. I need your help.”

  He nodded slowly, still half asleep, still at a loss.

  “There’s no other way of putting this, Mike, other than bluntly. I think she murdered Patrick Scott.”

  It took him a few seconds to absorb the horror, then he shook his head. “No, no, she was crazy about the guy.”

  He slumped into an upright chair, his hands went to his face and swept it, as if clearing a cobweb he’d just walked into.

  “Why?” he asked. “Why has she…? What evidence is there to suggest it? Like I say, she was crazy about him.”

  “That’s often the key to it. Not in this case, though. It’s all to do with the car engine Patrick designed. Did you know about it?”

  He was even more puzzled now. “Well, yes, I found it fascinating but as for it being practical…”

  “Plenty of people thought it was. I think Patrick went north with Belinda on November 1st last year. She says he didn’t, it was just her and Chrissie from the shop. A buying trip. Can you help me there?”

  The danger with fabricating a story is not knowing where to draw the line, when to abandon the pleasure of watching your victim squirm. I had a way to go yet, but the principle was worth bearing in mind.

  “Chrissie went with her to drive,” said Hewitt.

  “I think Patrick went too and while they were away Belinda persuaded him to cash in on the solar-powered engine, try selling it to interested parties – Ralph Askew at the Department of Energy and Climate Change, Julien Raphael at ASC, Edward Rochester, a host of others, I expect. He phoned them from all over the country.”

  He stood up again, more challenging now, and ready to argue in Belinda’s defence. “Why would she kill him, then, if they were in it together?”

  I shrugged. “The old story. They fell out. Maybe he had a change of heart. You know her better than I do. Would that have angered her?”

  As he frowned, the dim light in the cabin made his brow cast a shadow over the rest of his face. “She was always a fiery character but not enough to murder.”

  “That’s what I’d like to suggest to her, then. Courts are more lenient with crimes of passion, more forgiving.”

  He took a few steps towards me. “Hang on, you’ve already got her in front of a judge and jury? You’re suggesting that she went north with Chrissie and Patrick, and somewhere on that trip she killed him?”

  “No, she killed him when they got back. I think for the last few days of his life she held him against his will.”

  “Where, for Christ’s sake?”

  “In the cellar at the shop. I’ve been there tonight, seen where she kept him chained up to a down-pipe. The shop was still closed, first two weeks of November, he could’ve screamed his head off to no avail. There are blood stains on the floor. Someone’s tried to get them out but you never can completely.”

  He shook his head, just the once, left to right and turned away. “This is not my daughter you’re talking about. And where’s the body?”

  “Widely distributed, you might say. A man called Charles Drayton disposed of it for her, in tins of dog food.”

  On learning that a loved one has acted against all expectation, the first response of a close relative is disbelief, the second denial. Those two shifts are straightforward enough but then comes a hint of the relative testing the truth of the matter. They don’t accept it right away, sometimes they never do, but they entertain the possibility of it by questioning the accuser. Mike Hewitt didn’t do that. He started behaving exactly as I’d thought he would: he started blaming himself.

  “This cannot be the daughter I raised,” he said. “It isn’t. I refuse to believe it.”

  “That’s why I’d like you to come with me, round to Scorpius, sort this out. If she’s killed him she’ll have to account for it. Far better that she tells you and me, as opposed to the copper in charge of the case. His name is Kelloway, an unpleasant man at the best of times.” I avoided Jaikie’s gaze and he mine. “He’ll get the truth out of her one way or another. But whatever she is, whatever she’s done, she’s still your daughter.”

  He dug out an old jumper, put on a quilted anorak and the three of us walked round to Scorpius. For most of the half mile or so I thought I’d misread Hewitt and began to wonder how far he’d be prepared to go. All the way, I thought, maybe into the main cabin of Belinda’s narrowboat and then run alongside my charade that she’d been the one to murder Patrick Scott. Within sight of Scorpius, 300 yards away, he stopped and turned to me.

  “I can’t do this,” he said.

  “Can’t do what?”

  He took a deep breath and sat down on a bollard, one of half a dozen blocking vehicular access up from North Wharf Road. He smiled at himself as he confided his characteristic weakness.

  “I can’t let you and this … Kelloway terrify the life out of my little girl.” He gestured round. “Four in the morning, this godforsaken place, can I watch her be accused of murder? I just can’t. I know there isn’t one evil thought in her head, let alone the ability to murder…”

  “You’ve lost me,” I said.

  He smiled. “I don’t think so, Mr Hawk. I think you’ve played it perfectly.” He paused and I was more than happy to wait. “I didn’t mean to kill him, but I did. I was pig sick of being poor, having to ask Belinda to sub me every time I wanted to go abroad, buy a painting, new pair of shoes. She didn’t mind. I did. So with her and Chrissie out of the shop for ten days, I invited him over to Sweet Lady Jane and… tested the water. Big companies, governments, competitors would pay through the nose for the idea, I told him. We could make a fortune. He wouldn’t listen. The car was for Everyone.”

  He shook his head, having difficulty with the concept of doing something for no personal gain but for the pleasure of improving life for all.

  “Then what?” I asked.

  “We parted amicably enough. Next morning I got in touch with a couple of acquaintances…”

  “The Gaffneys?”

  “Yes. Basically I got them to… kidnap him and take him to the flat over the shop. Keep an eye. When he became difficult, they chained him up in the cellar while I went round the country on a phoning trip. I must have tried tapping 20 people, but the one who showed the most interest was some government lackey from the Department of…”

  “Ralph Askew.”

  He glanced away with a wry twist of his lips. “Do stop me if I’m telling you things you already know.”

  “You can stop if you like. I just needed to hear you say you’d killed him. And you did, a minute ago.” I took out my iPhone and showed it to him. “Crisp and clear. Jaikie’s taped it as well. He saw it in a film or ten. If it’s any consolation to you, I knew you wouldn’t let your daughter carry the can. How did you kill him?”

  He began to speak with a certain amount of ease now, the kind of relief that comes from a confession. “With a flat iron. One of those heavy old cast iron things our grandmothers used.”

  He’d gone down to the shop cellar, tenth of November, to try and persuade Patrick for the umpteenth time. To use reason on him. He unchained him and instead of walking calmly up to the flat for a chinwag, Patrick flew at him. Hewitt grabbed at the nearest thing, swung it and it caught Patrick on the temple and he fell.

  “What brought you to my cabin door?” />
  “The little things, as usual. Patrick Scott could be cruel, unforgiving and egomaniacal, according to Belinda. I wouldn’t persuade a daughter of mine to stay with such a man, no matter how interesting he turned out to be 40 years on. You made her feel stupid for not wanting to. You saw him as a potential money-spinner with an idea that would change our lives.”

  He smiled. “If it worked.”

  “The beauty of this was it didn’t need to work, just threaten to. The slightest chance that it might and people’d pay good money for it, to bury it or develop it, and you tried to sell it like an art dealer; as if it were ‘a Van Gogh, a Picasso, a Cezanne’. Ralph Askew’s description of your cheap-jack hustle.”

  Hewitt nodded. “My old problem, going in way above my head.”

  “And keeping bad company. Charles Drayton.”

  “Yes, poor old Charlie. I met him at…”

  “…at an MG Enthusiasts’ Club event? Useful man, Charlie. He came complete with two heavies - Trader Gaffney and his uncle, so devoid of any morality you got them to kill Charlie as well.”

  “I paid Charlie 25 grand to dispose of the body. Every penny I had. And there he was, the perfect catholic, in fear for his mortal soul, ready to confess his guts out.”

  I could see that Jaikie was shaken by Hewitt’s calm recollection of the bare facts, so as much to distract him as anything I asked him to go and phone Jim Kelloway, get him down here as soon as possible. I tossed him my phone.

  “Dad, it’s four in the morning.”

  “It’ll be Evelyn you speak to, so use some of that magic charm. And copy everything our friend here said onto the laptop, back seat of the car. Email it to Jim.”

  He glanced at Hewitt. “Will you be alright, Dad?”

  I raised my eyebrows and he set off towards North Wharf Road. I turned back to Hewitt.

  “You know, Mike, you gave me the worst three minutes I’ve had for a long time when that Bog Standard dinner jacket you hired threw mock acid at my son on your instructions.”

  “When did I do that?”

  “Two weeks before you had him try to kill me, in Bloomsbury Square.”

  He nodded with a world-weary kind of amusement

  “I get it. Once a copper, eh? Pin everything you’ve got onto the nearest sucker.”

  “Stand up.”

  He knew the reason I wanted him to and said, “Are you sure you can handle this?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  He got to his feet slowly and took a half classic stance of lead and guard, ready to fight me off as I went close. He expected me to do something similar, I imagine, and straightened up in surprise when I took a spray from my pocket and put a single shot of it between his eyes. He then did what the Gaffneys had done. He rubbed the stuff in and five seconds later was buckling at the waist as he choked on his own spit. I stepped in closer, raised a knee and cracked him in the face. He came upright and reeled back along the cobbles, glancing off the bollards. I went in to kick him, caught him once. He held up his hands, unable to see me, barely able to breathe.

  “Do what you like,” he spluttered. “I’ll give you everything on the Gaffneys, but I never, never had anyone attack your son. Or you…”

  For some reason I stopped and listened. “Did you turn over Laura Peterson’s house?”

  “Who the fuck do you think I am? MI95 or somebody? Jesus, what is this stuff?”

  I went to kick him again, only to hear Jaikie’s voice forbidding it. “Dad, leave him.”

  I turned to him. “What did Jim say?”

  “I haven’t phoned him yet. Knew I couldn’t trust you. Did you bring any gaffer tape?”

  -18-

  Four weeks later a great deal had changed, some of it beyond recognition. Christmas tends to do that of its own accord, without the aid of a murder inquiry coming to an end, and I’d handed over the organisation of the festivities to Laura. She’d agreed to take charge on one or two conditions, the main one being that we returned to pronouncing the word schedule in the way God had intended. Also, fawcetts were to become taps again, elevators lifts, cream milk and pants trousers … unless they actually were pants. It seemed a small price to pay. At the centre of the celebrations would be a Martin Falconer turkey, which he gave me as payment for having ‘looked into’ the titanium plate. I couldn’t believe the neck of it, especially as he and Jodie were joining us for dinner. Fee was due home on the 20th of December, Ellie and Terrific Rick the day after. We still hadn’t heard from Con but expected to any day now. He’d always been a last minute kind of guy … chap.

  Mike Hewitt had pleaded guilty to the kidnap and murder of Patrick Scott and saved us all, especially his daughter, much grief. I visited her just once at Paddington Basin. She was angry with me, naturally. I didn’t stay long but in our brief conversation she told me she was selling the business and heading off to Canada. The Gaffneys were scooped up and in custody, down in Tilbury, charged with kidnap, murder and conspiracy, pleading innocence and a bad start in life, but if played off against Hewitt they wouldn’t stand a chance.

  Richard Slater’s piece was ready for publication in the New Year but he was having difficulty getting the sensitive bits, the stuff that pointed a finger at the Under Secretary at the Department of Energy and Climate Change, past editors and a convocation of grey suits. Ralph Askew sent me a Christmas card. It arrived early, which I hate, and had a photo of him and his family on the front, which I hate even more. His face looked as slappable as ever and I firmly believed by then that Bog Standard was his man - a friend of a friend of a friend - never mind the crap he’d given me about Her Majesty’s Government not killing those they found inconvenient. He asked politely if there was anything further on the solar car. He’d obviously assumed that I was boasting when I said that I knew where it was…

  The day before Christmas Eve I drove over to Rushfarthing House in the new old Land Rover I’d been forced to buy. There’d been some attempt at celebrating Christmas, centred around the possibility that Patrick would arrive home any day now. Life was confined mainly to the kitchen these days, no doubt because the weather had turned colder. An over-decorated tree was shedding pine needles like mad, because of the heat, lights were strung around the wall and holly had been pinned in every available space. Tesco’s had provided the Christmas fare and Gerald offered me a glass of it, ice all the way to the brim.

  “Good to see you again, Mr Hawk,” he said, several times, giving the impression that he really meant it but I guess any friendly face would have drawn a similar reaction. The man was lonely and it was no wonder. Marion entered from the garden, dressed in her uniform of body-warmer and gardening gloves, brandishing secateurs and carrying yet more sprigs of holly.

  “Nathan Hawk,” said Gerald, introducing her as if she knew me but the name was eluding her. “Hawk, dear. Subfamily Accipitrinae?”

  She smiled as if she’d merely had a senior moment. “Mr Hawk, of course. Perhaps I can make you boys lunch?”

  “In a while perhaps, yes. It’s only half eleven, but thank you.”

  “Very well,” she said as he took the holly from her. “Call me when you’re hungry.”

  “Fear not about lunch,” said Gerald, after she’d gone back to the garden. “There’s a wonderful game pâté in the fridge, some granary rolls to go with it. Bit of a mess in here, I know, but shove aside anything that’s in your way.”

  “How is she?” I asked, settling at the cleaner end of the table.

  “No better, no worse.” He took a sip of the straight scotch he was drinking. “So, you caught your man. It was most gracious of you to keep Pat’s death from Marion. She still thinks he’ll come home one day, but the interesting thing is she has no sense of despair now, so even if we told her he was dead, she wouldn’t see it as a tragedy.”

  He reached for the scotch and splashed another double measure into my glass, then went to the freezer for more ice. I thanked him and set the drink to one side.

  “There is the small ma
tter of the solar-powered car,” I said.

  “Yes, yes,” he replied, almost dreamily. “I don’t suppose it matters much to anyone now.”

  I smiled. “You know that isn’t true.”

  He tried to minimalise the subject. “Well, if certain people could get their hands on it…”

  “Gerald, the car is yours, morally and legally, inherited from your son and you and I are still the only two people in the world who know where it is.”

  He chuckled. “Well, I haven’t seen it for over a year so how on earth…?”

  “That’s true.”

  “And a whole host of government technicians swarmed over the grounds with metal detectors, scoured the house, the loft, the outbuildings for a disc. Every inch was covered.”

  “Not every inch.”

  I rose and gestured to the back door. He took an old jacket from over a chair and followed me out onto the patio, bringing our drinks with him. He stopped by a bench and set them down, then watched as I walked to a cluster of sheds and opened the door to the smallest one. In front of me was a round, yellow filter the size of a naval sea-mine. A dial on it offered half a dozen choices and I set the handle to ‘empty to waste’ and switched on the power. A rush of water hissed through a rubber hose then away into a ditch that ran beside a hedge down to the woodland. Green water. The swimming pool was emptying. He came over to me with a smile and handed me my drink.

  “You’re a clever chap, Nathan Hawk. How did you know?”

  “It was the only place the men from the ministry didn’t look. You knew they wouldn’t, of course. A car under water?” I shook my head. “I guess you’ve wrapped it in something watertight…”

  “I’ve vacuum packed it, no less, in heavy duty polythene. A double skin.”

  I nodded. “When I realised that it must be in the pool I went to the website of the people who make the winter safety cover. They boast that it can hold the weight of a Range Rover, there’s a photo of one doing just that. So what, you towed it out through the French windows?”