Death in a Far Country

by Patricia Hall

  ‘You’ll tell the police now?’

  ‘Yes,’ Jenna said. ‘Bring them on. This has gone way too far now. I want it stopped.’

  ‘And do you really think Les Hardcastle is behind it? That he would try to have you killed?’ Laura asked, trying to hide the incredulity she felt.

  Jenna suddenly looked slightly forlorn against the white pillows and her eyes filled with tears.

  ‘It’s not what I want to think,’ she said. ‘I don’t much like the man but I thought he and my father had been friends over the years.’

  ‘Les came to our house once or twice when I was a teenager,’ Laura said. ‘He always seemed a friendly sort of bloke. Not as cuddly as your dad. I called him Uncle Sam. But I didn’t think Les was friendly at all when I spoke to him this week. There was something much more unpleasant there, much more determined. He really seems to believe that he’s got some millionaire to take an interest in the club and back his plans.’

  ‘Did he say who?’ Jenna said. ‘Was it someone called Ahmed Firoz?’

  ‘He didn’t say. Who’s Ahmed Firoz, anyway?’ Laura asked.

  ‘Well, he’s a millionaire all right, but he’s made his money by buying up run-down property, razing it and building shopping centres, cheap hotels, multiplex cinemas, and business parks, that sort of thing, anything that will make him a fat profit. He’s been laying waste to sites right across the north of England, ripping down Victorian buildings, for years now. His motto seems to be never renovate if you can raze. He actually approached me just after my father died but I told him to get lost. I had my own plans for the club. So he may well have turned his attention to Les. But if Les seriously thinks Firoz is going to build him a new stadium on a prime town centre site he must be more stupid than I thought. The club’s only hope is to move out of town altogether. That might just possibly save us. We’re five million pounds in debt, for God’s sake. And don’t, whatever you do, print that.’

  ‘You’re going to tell me when I can print that,’ Laura said with a grin. ‘But according to Les, his investor will have the club in the Premiership in no time at all.’

  ‘Pure fantasy,’ Jenna said. ‘Wishful thinking. But he won’t listen to me. He’s built me up into the enemy, the smart young know-it-all from down south, and a woman too, just to add insult to injury. He’s obsessed.’

  ‘Obsessed enough to try and kill you?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Jenna said, suddenly lying back against her pillows looking utterly frail and weary. ‘I simply don’t know. There seems to be so much going on at United that I knew nothing about.’

  ‘You’ll carry on, though?’ Laura asked, not wanting to see Jenna defeated.

  ‘I will, though now Paolo tells me there’s a chance some of the players may be infected with HIV. How the hell is the team supposed to cope with that?’

  Laura gazed at Jenna in astonished horror, even as an anxious looking nurse came to the foot of the bed and indicated that she should go.

  ‘How did that happen?’ Laura asked. But Jenna did not respond. She turned her head away and closed her eyes and Laura instantly guessed exactly how it might have happened. To the nurse’s relief, she said goodbye and made her way slowly through the ward and out of the hospital, her mind whirling. It must be Grace who had been HIV positive, she thought. The post-mortem would have revealed that. But if it was true of Grace, then what of Elena? Was that to be the indelible legacy of the abuse the girl had suffered? Laura felt so overwhelmed by blind fury that she sat motionless in her car for some time in the hospital car park before she dared trust herself to drive again.

  Sergeant Kevin Mower, after he had spoken to Laura the previous evening and been left gloomily contemplating what looked like the wreckage two people he liked had made of their lives, had gone on to pursue his own inquiries. He had spent most of the night sitting in his misted-up car outside The Manhattan club, waiting for Stephen Stone to leave. Every now and again he had to switch the engine on to avoid hypothermia in spite of the sheepskin coat and woollen gloves he had dragged out of the furthest reaches of his wardrobe. He looked like a 1960s commercial traveller, he thought, as he glanced in his mirror before he left his flat. All I need is one of those little hats with a feather at the side. But for all his sartorial sacrifices, the night turned out to be a waste of time. Stone had finally left the club at about four in the morning, with a young woman Mower recognised as one of the hostesses on his arm, gazing adoringly up at him. They had gone into the car park at the back of the club and come out soon afterwards in a silver Aston Martin, which Mower seriously coveted as soon as he recognised its sleek profile.

  It was only when he remembered how it had been earned that his anger kicked back in and he slid his own car into gear and followed at a discreet distance, which he knew was difficult on empty early morning roads, well lit and slick with rain. Whether Stone was aware of being watched, Mower never knew, but he guessed he probably was. Either way, his quarry drove at a strictly legal pace until he reached a leafy part of Southfield, where heavy gates swung open ahead of him as he swept into the drive of a large modern house. Mower pulled up a little way back and watched the gates swing shut again behind the car, the security lights come on and then go off and silence return to the sleeping neighbourhood. That, he thought, had been a complete waste of time, and he did an angry three point turn and roared back down into town to his own flat and a distinctly chilly and solitary bed.

  He was back at police HQ at eight on Sunday morning and found Thackeray already there, looking marginally more cheerful than he had seen him for some time.

  ‘Developments, guv?’ he asked.

  ‘The first bit of luck we’ve had in this wretched case,’ Thackeray said. ‘The mobile phone company have traced the location of the number Joyce Ackroyd was given.’

  ‘It’s still active?’

  ‘It’s still active, and it’s somewhere in the vicinity of St Judes church off Aysgarth Lane.’

  ‘Is that blasted place still standing?’ Mower asked in surprise, thinking back to a catastrophic accident there some years previously that had almost cost Thackeray his life.

  ‘Apparently, propped up with scaffolding and, like a lot of the streets around there, waiting for a major redevelopment scheme to start. Some of the houses are already boarded up, I’m told. I’ve already spoken to the beat bobby and he reckons there are squatters in a few of them, but he’s not seen anything that makes him think anyone’s running a brothel or anything like that.’

  ‘But we’re going to make sure?’ Mower said with satisfaction.

  ‘I want round the clock surveillance, starting now.’ Thackeray turned to the street map of Bradfield on the wall behind his desk. ‘I don’t want as much as a mouse, let alone a rat, getting in or out of these streets here, Aysgarth to Inkerman, Blenheim to Austerlitz, without us knowing about it.’

  ‘We’ll need more troops than we’ve got on duty on a Sunday,’ Mower said.

  ‘I’ve cleared it with the Super,’ Thackeray said. ‘Call in anyone you need from CID, and uniform will assist. I want details of all vehicles arriving and leaving, all pedestrians on the streets, and which houses are occupied, officially or unofficially. I’ve asked the water company to set up some fake diversions so that traffic has to approach by a more limited number of streets, so that should help. But tell everyone to remain absolutely invisible. I don’t want Stone and his mates scared off. I just want to know where they’re holed up. As soon as we know that, we’ll act.’

  ‘Right,’ Mower said, with some satisfaction as he turned to go.

  ‘And Kevin,’ Thackeray said sharply. ‘I want updating as soon as anyone reports back. I’ll be here all day. I want Stone pinned to the floor this time, with no wriggle room. He needs locking up for a long time.’

  ‘Sir,’ Mower said closing the door behind him with real relief. For the first time since he’d come back to work, Thackeray was showing some of his old decisiveness, Mower thought. He just hoped
to God it would last.

  Laura was surprised to find, when she returned from Sheffield and went to the Gazette office, that Tony Holloway was nowhere to be seen. In fact, the newsroom was deserted and distinctly chilly, the lights off and the computers down. She kept her coat on and sat at her desk gazing at her blank screen for a long time, her mind running endlessly over what she knew about the problems of Bradfield United and how that now seemed to mesh with the exploitation of the dead girl Grace and her friend Elena. How much of what she knew, or guessed, she could put in print the next morning she was not sure. Or even how much she should pass on to the police who, no doubt, would interview Jenna themselves as soon as the hospital allowed. Feeling unusually uncertain of herself, she wished she knew where Tony had gone.

  She crossed the office to his desk, where a bundle of the Sunday papers was scattered around, most of them with the brief details of Jenna Heywood’s accident prominently displayed, not just on the sports pages but at the front. United’s unexpected draw with Chelsea had given the club a celebrity that not even a female in the chairman’s seat had warranted until now. Laura scanned the papers and was surprised at how pessimistically Jenna’s injuries were described. She wondered if Tony had checked out Jenna’s more optimistic prognosis this morning. By the end of the day, she knew that between them they would have to produce a coherent version of the weekend’s events for Ted Grant’s early editorial conference, and it would be in both their interests to get the facts right.

  Back at her own desk, she pulled out her mobile phone, which she had switched off for the drive back from Sheffield, and realised that there were two messages waiting. The first was from Holloway, telling her he was meeting Les Hardcastle at three for a chat about United’s future. The second was an angry sounding call from her father asking her to ring him back. Laura glanced at her watch. It was five to three already. She could spare her father about thirty seconds. He answered the phone as if he had been sitting by it waiting for her call.

  ‘Have I been sold down the bloody river by Les Hardcastle?’ he said, without any greeting at all.

  ‘Quite likely, Dad,’ Laura said. ‘What have you heard?’

  ‘That he’s getting into bed with that shark Ahmed Firoz.’

  ‘I heard that too,’ Laura said. ‘Isn’t it good news?’

  ‘All Firoz will want is the land. He’s about as likely to want to rescue the club as he is to bail out George Bush. Les told me nowt about this. The man’s conned me. He’s a bloody fraud.’

  And quite likely a would-be murderer, Laura thought, but it would be the fact that he had taken Jack Ackroyd for a ride that would really rankle down in Portugal.

  ‘I’ll see what I can dig up, Dad,’ she said. ‘Maybe they can be stopped.’

  ‘I bloody well hope so,’ Jack said, and hung up abruptly.

  On a hunch, Laura buttoned up her coat again and walked across the town to the Clarendon hotel, where she glanced into the bar from the foyer. As she suspected, Tony Holloway was sitting at the far end of the room with Hardcastle, deep in animated conversation, the older man’s face flushed with excitement. He thinks he’s won, Laura thought to herself. He may even still think Jenna is dead or dying. He’s going to get the most enormous shock when he finds out she isn’t.

  In two minds whether to march into the bar and tell the two men that she had just come back from Jenna’s bedside, she was suddenly aware of a third man approaching their table, a tall, heavily built, grey-haired Asian wearing an expensive looking suit and an air of total self-confidence. Even without hearing anything of what was being said, Laura could see that the other two deferred to the new arrival, Tony half rising to his feet, and Les Hardcastle waving urgently to the waiter to attend to the newcomer’s needs. Laura did not hesitate then. She marched across the thick pile carpet of the Clarendon bar with an enthusiastic smile on her lips and a cheery greeting for Tony Holloway.

  ‘Here you are,’ she said. ‘I thought I’d lost you and would have to write tomorrow’s story all by myself. Good afternoon, Les. You must be getting fed up with everything that’s going wrong at that club of yours. But at least Jenna’s not as badly hurt as they first thought. I’ve just come back from visiting her and she had some very interesting things to tell me that I’d like to check out with you. If that’s all right?’ She smiled invitingly at all three men.

  To judge by the expressions on the men’s faces, her intervention, as she had expected, was not remotely all right with any of them. Tony Holloway’s face flushed with embarrassment and Les Hardcastle half rose in his chair with a flash of such naked rage that Laura took a pace backwards in case he decided to hit her. The third man remained seated and impassive, his dark eyes slightly hooded and full of curiosity as he watched the drama unfold before him.

  Obviously thinking better of making a scene to upset the Sunday afternoon calm of the Clarendon, where people at other tables were already showing an interest, Les sank back into his seat and waved Laura into the fourth chair at the table.

  ‘This is Laura Ackroyd, also from the Gazette,’ he said to the silent onlooker opposite him, who took a sip of his iced water and nodded noncommittally in Laura’s direction.

  ‘She’s helping me with this story,’ Holloway added quickly.

  ‘And you have been to see the unfortunate Ms Heywood?’ the third man asked, his accent impeccably public school. ‘How enterprising of you. The morning papers implied her life hung by a thread.’

  ‘You shouldn’t believe all you read in the papers, Mr… er…?’ Laura said.

  ‘Ahmed Firoz,’ the big man said easily. ‘I’m relieved to hear that the accident was not as serious as we were led to believe.’

  ‘Are you?’ Laura asked quietly.

  ‘We all are,’ Les Hardcastle said quickly. ‘It would be a tragedy for the club to lose our Jenna so soon after Sam. A real tragedy.’

  ‘It wasn’t an accident,’ Laura said. ‘It was an attempt to kill her.’

  There was complete silence around the table for a long time before Hardcastle cleared his throat noisily.

  ‘Is that what she’s saying?’ he asked.

  ‘That’s what she’s going to tell the police. It comes after a lot of other harassment. All very unpleasant, and now positively murderous.’

  Laura was aware of Firoz watching Hardcastle very intently as he drummed his fingers gently on the table.

  ‘I think perhaps we need to continue this discussion without the help of the Press,’ he said eventually. Laura watched Hardcastle’s face darken to a positively dangerous puce before Tony Holloway got to his feet and Laura too pushed back her chair.

  ‘I’ve missed my drink then, have I?’ she said to Hardcastle sweetly. Firoz got to his feet with her and helped her on with her coat.

  ‘It has been very interesting to meet you, Ms Ackroyd,’ he said, his voice emollient but his eyes cold.

  As the two reporters walked out of the hotel together, Tony gave instant vent to the frustration that had been simmering ever since Laura had entered the bar.

  ‘You’ve lost us an exclusive there,’ he said fiercely. ‘I’m bloody sure Hardcastle and his friend were going to spell out exactly what they had planned for the club now Jenna Heywood’s out of the way.’

  ‘There’s only one problem with that, Tony,’ Laura said. ‘Jenna’s not out of the way. And as far as I can discover Ahmed Firoz is about as likely to rescue United as he is to become Archbishop of York. All he wants is the land. Les Hardcastle has been had. So has my dad. And so have you. And if Jenna can make her suspicions stick, Hardcastle may be facing a very long time in jail. If I were you, I’d keep very quiet about your cosy relationship with that gang of sharks or Ted Grant will have your guts for garters.’

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Laura Ackroyd dressed very carefully the next morning. She had time off work to attend the police inquiry at County HQ, and she wanted to give as sober and responsible an impression as she could to the officers from
the Midlands. She chose a black suit over a not-too-revealing cream silk top, stuffed her red boots to the back of the wardrobe and slipped her feet into dark stockings and black shoes with a medium heel, before trying to discipline her unruly cloud of red hair into a neat chignon. She eyed herself critically in the mirror. She knew she stood to be accused of reckless impulsiveness, which had put her own life in danger and had almost cost Michael Thackeray his, but she hoped her almost nun-like appearance might help counter any preconceptions the inquiry team might harbour before she even appeared.

  Nothing she had done was criminal and she was not the accused in the proceedings. She was not even likely to be the star prosecution witness. That honour would probably fall to the elusive Val Ridley. Even so, she knew that what she said this morning might affect future careers, and not just Michael Thackeray’s. The least she could do was give an impression of sobriety and seriousness and try, in her evidence, to overcome the impression of recklessness that the inquiry might already have gained. But as she cast a final critical eye over her appearance in the mirror, she was suddenly filled with a crippling doubt that she could pull it off. When it came down to it, she had put the man she loved into an impossible situation, and even if the inquiry was less critical than she feared, even if he himself eventually forgave her, she doubted if she would ever forgive herself.

  Two hours later she came out of the board room, where she had faced three sceptical and brusque senior police officers, feeling wrung dry, to find Michael Thackeray waiting for her in the foyer, his back to the inquiry desk, his expression grim. Her heart thudded uncomfortably and she gave him a wry smile.

  ‘I didn’t expect to see you here,’ she said, her mouth dry.

  ‘I had to come over anyway,’ he said unconvincingly. ‘How did it go?’

  Laura shrugged. ‘Difficult to tell,’ she said. ‘They listened to me but they didn’t give much away. They said they might want to see me again when Val Ridley has given evidence, which she doesn’t seem to have done yet. No doubt to compare our stories. Have you got time for a coffee? I think I need one.’