Loose Ends (The Acer Sansom Novels Book 2)

by Oliver Tidy

  There was only one thing he could tell her. It risked her slamming the door in his face, reaching for the phone, shouting for neighbours. But then so did his silence and any probable lie he might be able to think up and deliver unconvincingly to a woman who he sensed could see right through him.

  ‘My name is Acer Sansom. Stan was my friend. I didn’t kill him.’

  Finally, he had said something that got under her guard. After a long moment during which he understood she was studying him and his claims, she said, ‘I know you didn’t. And I know who is responsible. Why are you here?’

  And the blow was returned with interest. ‘Stan has, had, something, information that can help me expose them.’

  ‘You’d better come in then,’ she said and opened the door wide to admit him. She pointed to an open door off the little hallway, the front room.

  ‘Sit down, Mr Sansom.’ He sat, removing the hat and the sunglasses. She remained standing, comparing him, he felt, to the photograph that she must have seen plastered all over the media. ‘What about the others?’ Her expression remained stern.

  ‘What others?’

  ‘The police officers last night, the intelligence officer in the boot of the car.’

  ‘Them.’

  ‘The news said you were there. That it was you.’

  ‘I was. It wasn’t. It was my ex-father-in-law’s home. I think they killed him too. There was something there that I needed. I saw about the shootings on the news this morning. When I left they were both alive. I slipped out while they were searching for me. I believe that the people I’m up against killed them just to turn up the heat on me. The same people that killed Stan.’

  She stared at him quietly before saying, ‘After what they did to my son, I can believe you.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Stanley and I were always close. We became closer after Jenny died. She wasn’t just everything to him, she was everything to us. When he learnt about you, when he decided to go to Turkey to find you, he needed someone to confide in, someone he could trust to put his affairs in order if things went badly for him there. He was aware that they could have done. When he returned he told me all about you. He told me everything that happened. I knew you were coming back to help him get his justice. So I know you didn’t kill him. Were you there? When he died?’

  Sansom saw then a weakness in the starched front she had been careful to project. He glimpsed something of the hurt and anger she must be feeling and he knew she would help him.

  ‘Yes. I was. He came to help me. He’d driven to Newbury to collect me when he knew that I was in serious trouble and my return had been compromised. He risked his life for me. And that’s what it cost him. They must have followed him. They knew who he was when he showed himself. He identified himself and then they shot him dead. They executed him.’

  Her eyes were filled with tears now. She raised her chin at him. ‘And you? How did you escape?’

  ‘They took me somewhere more private for a similar fate. Probably didn’t want my corpse confusing things. I could hardly have killed him if I was lying dead next to him. There were two of them. They are both dead.’

  ‘I’ve seen nothing in the news about them.’

  ‘That just means they haven’t been found yet.’

  ‘Where are they?’ She wanted to know where her son’s killers were.

  ‘Sharing the shallow grave they deserve and had ear-marked for me in the New Forest.’

  ‘Thank you for that. I’m not sure where my son got his sense of restraint, fair play and liberal justice from. Not me. I believe in an eye for an eye – biblical justice.’

  Sansom smiled at a memory. ‘So does the man responsible for all this.’

  ‘Bishop?’

  Sansom experienced another strike under his guard. ‘You know about him? His involvement?’

  ‘I told you; Stanley told me everything.’

  ‘Why aren’t you at the service?’

  ‘Firstly, I’m an atheist. I don’t do mumbo-jumbo. But I was a lone voice in that argument. Let them have their remembrance service. He deserved something. He was a good man and a good policeman. I have no difficulty remembering the good man, dutiful son and loving father that my son was for myself. I don’t need some charlatan in a frock pretending he had the first idea of what kind of a man Stanley was. Secondly, are you aware of who will be there?’

  ‘Bishop? Stan found it amusing that Bishop was his MP.’

  ‘I don’t.’ A look of disgust brushed her features. ‘Would you really expect me to be able to sit in the vicinity of that murdering fraud? I’ll be there when they lower my son into the ground. That will be a private family affair at a cemetery not far from here. That’s where I will say my goodbyes. I’m being collected by my daughter and her husband on their way back through. They wouldn’t miss the chance to be centre stage at some gaudy media event even if it was at the expense of her brother’s life.’

  Sansom understood the disdain the woman felt for them for their motives for that. ‘Do they know about Bishop?’ She shook her head once. That was enough. ‘But if you know about Bishop’s involvement...?’

  ‘Why am I not there confronting him? Why am I not ringing up the tabloids to expose him for the lying, dishonest, murdering, immoral, hypocritical crook that he is?’ Sansom nodded. ‘Who would believe me? I have no proof. It would never make the papers. No one could print what I would accuse him of. I am impotent in that regard. I have to sit and seethe out my days. If I go making wild accusations about someone like Bishop they’ll have me locked up in an asylum before I can draw my second breath.’ She turned it around on him. ‘Why are you still here? Why have you not disappeared back to Turkey? Surely someone as resourceful as you could manage that. Stanley said you had the chance of a new life there.’

  ‘I do. I wish I hadn’t come back. But I did. And now I have someone else to avenge, I have someone to bring down and I also have my life and identity to reclaim. I have that right, I believe.’

  ‘You think they’ll allow you to?’

  ‘I think I can make them.’

  ‘With violence? I’m sorry but if you are on your own I don’t rate your chances of success. Have you seen the creature that the media are making of you? If you don’t mind me saying so, despite the poor likeness of you being peddled in the press, your days of liberty would seem numbered, even to the most optimistic of outlooks.’

  ‘No, not with violence. I have another idea. A better idea.’

  ‘Would you like to share it with me?’

  Sansom thought about it for a moment. If Stan Tallis had respected her enough to confide in her then she might prove a useful sounding board for him. She was clearly an intelligent woman.

  ‘If I tell you then I’m putting you in danger.’

  ‘Mr Sansom. I am seventy-seven years old. There is only one thing that interests me in this world now and I think you can guess what that is. Maybe, I have a right, too.’

  ‘All right. I’ll tell you. It might help to bounce it off someone.’

  ‘I was about to make tea. Would you like one?’

  ‘Yes, please. I could...’

  She looked at him and finished his sentence without his embarrassment for it, ‘Murder one?’ Neither of them smiled. ‘What’s in the box?’ she said.

  ‘Nothing. It’s empty. It’s a prop. Something to make me look like I have a reason for walking around a quiet street.’ He shook it to prove this and then put it on the floor beside him.

  ‘Reminds me of an old Army ruse,’ she said.

  As she reached the doorway, she turned and said, ‘You’d better come into the kitchen and tell me your plans and exactly what you are looking for here? We don’t have all day, you know.’

  She pointed towards a simple pine table and chairs, indicating that he should seat himself again. While she organised tea for them, he first told her what he was there for.

  ‘When I was at Headley Court, recovering, I was interviewed
by the Army. The officer who debriefed me obviously had some sympathy for my position and Stan’s in all this, when he understood it. When he learned of his overseas posting, he forwarded the tapes, or copies of them, of our discussions to Stan. They should still be here.’

  ‘I know about those, of course,’ she said.

  Then maybe you’ll also know that when Bishop first came to see me I made a recording of our conversation. That should be here, too, as well as notes that I made when I was waiting for my flight out of the UK to Turkey that Bishop, or rather his man Smith, organised.’

  ‘And how do you imagine all that is going to help you if it is here?’

  ‘That brings us to my big idea.’ He smiled self-deprecatingly as he prepared to unveil his master plan, something that he was afraid this smart, thinking woman might see some rather large gaping holes in. And he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear about them.

  She sat with him at the table and poured for them as he told it the way he saw it playing out.

  When he had finished, she sipped her tea thoughtfully, not looking at him, giving the impression that she was thinking it through. Finally, she said, ‘That’s it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You make it sound very straightforward.’

  ‘You said we didn’t have all day.’

  She inclined her head, acknowledging the point, and then glanced at the kitchen clock.

  ‘It won’t be that simple, you know.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘You might have something with the first part, but as for the second, well if I’m perfectly honest, I don’t rate your chances very highly.’

  ‘I’m getting used to fighting against the odds.’

  ‘So I understand. But without the second part falling into place you can do nothing with what you might have, even if you can convince her of your innocence. How do you plan to get to her?’

  ‘Knock on her front door.’

  ‘You were lucky today. You might not be next time. Why would she believe you?’

  ‘Because I would be there. I think I could get her to listen to me and if she does I think I could convince her not to dismiss me as a crazed sociopath and start screaming the place down.’

  Mrs Tallis raised her eyebrows at him. ‘Or turn you over to the police?’

  He nodded, although the gesture was not an emphatic endorsement of his chances.

  She sipped more of her tea. ‘Perhaps I could help.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Perhaps I can save you the risk of having to confront her on her doorstep, which, if you don’t mind me saying so, is not exactly a subtle approach and clearly not without its dangers. After all, I am a mother of one of The Cop-Killer’s victims with a story to tell. She is a journalist. More than that, she will have the necessary empathy to relate to me. Because of our connection, I doubt she would be able to resist my offer.’ He considered the implications and advantages of what she was suggesting. ‘I could also provide you with something that you have in very short supply.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Credibility, Mr Sansom. Credibility.’

  ***

  12

  ‘If I let you involve yourself in this, it could prove very dangerous for you. You know what these people are capable of. As I said, I can’t be sure yet, but they might be responsible for the death of my father-in-law. He was old, too.’

  She didn’t thank him for the comparison – or the reminder. ‘Clearly, I need to re-state and clarify my position for you, Mr Sansom. I have two deaths – two murders – of close loved ones to torture my existence. My life is a form of purgatory, which is ironic when you consider my loathing of faith systems. The nature of my son’s and my granddaughter’s deaths torment my every waking day and deprive me of sleep. The fact that I can do nothing about either, not even point a finger, only adds to my sense of frustration and anger, especially when I have someone to point my finger at. If you deny me the opportunity to do something, however small, towards the bringing to account and prosecution of those responsible you are denying me the opportunity for what Mr Fleming so famously referred to as A Quantum of Solace. The issue is not whether you should allow me to become involved, it is whether you have the right to deny me involvement. Is that clear enough for you?’

  Mrs Tallis’s argument jogged the memory of his first meeting with Eda in Istanbul. She too had disputed his authority to exclude her from the opportunity of playing some small part in the destruction of someone who had cost her a loved one. In the end, he had wisely decided that she could prove herself useful to him in his mission – and she had. As he looked across at the septuagenarian, he could imagine that she too could prove useful to his purpose, although the idea of involving an old woman in something so dangerous seemed to him morally bankrupt and filled him with a sense of unease and repugnance.

  ‘How exactly do you think you can help?’

  ‘Good,’ she said, interpreting his question as an acceptance of her as a proactive ally. ‘That is something I suggest we discuss at a more convenient time and place. As I mentioned earlier, we don’t have all day. We should try to locate what you came here to find and then you had better leave. I have a son to bury and grieve for.’

  She led him to a bedroom that the policeman had half turned into a study. It was not a tidy, organised room. There was a small flat-pack desk, on top of which stood the same framed photograph of Tallis with his daughter that had been in the papers and that Tallis had carried around with him in Turkey. An old metal filing cabinet stood up against one wall. It was unlocked. Sansom began his search there. Mrs Tallis went through the drawers of the desk. Sansom moved to a couple of cardboard boxes on the floor, but again found no sign of what he was looking for.

  ‘I can’t see anything of what you have described here,’ she said.

  Sansom went to the little floor-standing bookshelf into which were crammed books, lever-arch files and a few thin folders. He took out everything carefully and then replaced it with equal care. With the dead man’s mother in the room, he felt uncomfortable rooting through Tallis’s personal papers and possessions. The man wasn’t even in the ground.

  He was also becoming more conscious of the passage of time. From underneath a neatly-made single bed pushed up in a corner, he pulled some shoeboxes that looked promising, but again they yielded nothing.

  ‘Perhaps we should try another room,’ he suggested.

  ‘There are two other bedrooms – Stanley’s and Jenny’s. You look in his; I’ll look in hers.’

  It had not occurred to Sansom that Tallis’s daughter would have a room here. It must have shown on his face.

  ‘She preferred staying with her father rather than with her mother when she wasn’t away. He couldn’t bring himself to clear it out when she was lost to him. It’ll all have to be dealt with now, though.’

  Sansom could see that the realisation provided an added burden for the old woman.

  She showed him towards her son’s room and left him to it. Sansom wondered if she had chosen her granddaughter’s room over Tallis’s because the idea of invading her son’s private things with his death so recent and raw might have been too painful for her.

  Alone, he searched more aggressively, going through, under and on top of a wardrobe. He ferreted under the bed and in the bedside cabinet. He rummaged in a chest of drawers. Coming up empty, he stared around for anything he may have missed – a place where a few papers and a couple of small cassettes could have been secreted.

  He was raking the room with his eyes once more when she called to him. She was standing in the daughter’s room holding a large, buff envelope and reading something from it. In contrast to every other room he had been in, this had a tidy and ordered feel. There were the inevitable posters on the walls, feminine touches, trinkets and accessories. The bed was still made. For a father of an only child it must have broken Tallis’s heart every time he entered. Perhaps he never did. Perhaps that was why it had the feel and smell of a shrine,
undisturbed, stale and airless, left as it was when the occupant last walked out of the door, never to return.

  Sansom pushed the sensation of acute sadness away and reached for the envelope. She passed it across to him. He looked inside: five mini-cassettes, a Dictaphone and a sheaf of papers. Another part of his puzzle – the puzzle that might see him survive this. The puzzle that might see Bishop and Smith brought to some sort of account. Again, he felt another small jolt of satisfaction at something accomplished.

  ‘Is this everything?’ she said.

  ‘It looks like it.’

  ‘Good.’ She made no attempt to wonder out loud why Tallis had chosen to hide it away in his daughter’s room. ‘You have transport, I take it?’ He nodded. ‘Where are you hiding yourself?’

  ‘Up until last night I was with a friend of a friend. I’m used to sleeping rough. I have the car. I’ve slept in worse places. I’ll be fine.’

  She looked like she was battling with a proposition. ‘People sleeping in cars only draw attention to themselves. Attention is the last thing you need, especially when everyone in the country is looking for you. You know there’s a reward on your head?’

  He shook it. ‘How much?’

  ‘Ten thousand, I believe.’

  ‘A tabloid?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.’

  ‘Perhaps not but it should make you more anxious regarding your ability to retain your anonymity.’

  There was another brief pause.

  ‘You’ll have to come and stay with me,’ she said, finally, her mind made up. ‘Stanley trusted you; he liked you too, by the way. And let’s not forget he got you into this mess. If you get yourself noticed and apprehended, or worse, my chances of seeing Bishop and whoever else is involved in this get their comeuppance will be reduced to something like nothing.’

  Sansom did not argue with her. He knew the dangers that would come with his prolonged exposure on the street. If she could offer him a safe haven until he could move on to the next phase of his task, he should take it. She was right: everything depended on him remaining at liberty and to that end all other considerations would have to take a back seat.