The Fethering Mysteries 06; The Witness at the Wedding tfm-6

by Simon Brett

  There was no point in denial. Robert Coleman would find the can in the boot, anyway. So much for prudence, thought Carole. Though she’d never had cause to use it, she’d always carried a spare can of fuel in the Renault. In case of emergency. Now it was going to be the cause of an emergency.

  The keys were still in the ignition. Robert Coleman ripped them out and opened the boot. Then he opened the two doors on the driver’s side of the car. He unscrewed the top off the petrol can, and began to pour.

  “No,” said Carole instinctively. “Not over the upholstery.”

  He laughed at the incongruity of that, but she couldn’t see the joke.

  Robert Coleman splashed some more petrol over the Renault’s bodywork, then cruelly over Carole’s front. He trickled a trail across the ground to where Michael Brewer lay, and upended the remains of the can over the unconscious man. The drenching did nothing to bring the victim round. Brewer lay there, unmoving except for his shallow breathing.

  Robert Coleman took a disposable gas lighter out of his jacket pocket. “After I’ve set fire to the car, I’ll leave this beside dear old Mick. Serve him right, the police will say. Hoist with his own petard.”

  He faced Carole. “Get in the car.”

  Numbly, she moved towards the open driver’s door.

  “No, in the back.” They were the most chilling words she had ever heard.

  The petrol fumes were disgusting, burning the back of her throat as she slid inside the Renault. She felt the slime of the fuel penetrating her skirt. In her mind the fatuous thought formed that she’d never get the upholstery properly clean again.

  Robert Coleman slammed the front door shut. She looked up at him through the other door, the only opening in her private crematorium.

  “Aren’t you going to strangle me?” she asked. “Like the others?”

  He chuckled. “Only if you try to escape. Otherwise, I don’t think I need bother.”

  He slammed the remaining door shut. The petrol fumes were so intense that Carole could hardly breathe.

  Through the car window, she could see Robert Coleman hold up the lighter as he backed away towards Michael Brewer’s body.

  “I’ll light it from the edge,” she could just hear him saying with a silly giggle. “Don’t want to get my fingers burned, do I?”

  Robert Coleman had already destroyed Michael Brewer’s life once. And now, as he stood beside the man’s prone body, he prepared to do it a second, more permanent, time. He flicked the lighter flame into life.

  Carole Seddon held her breath, not only to shut out the fumes, but also as though in some way that might lessen the inevitable agony.

  What happened next was so fast as to be almost a blur. Michael Brewer’s body jerked into action. From the ground his legs scissored and slammed against Robert Coleman’s knees, sending him flying away from the petrol-soaked area.

  Immediately, Michael Brewer was on his feet, grabbing his quarry once again by the lapels, lifting him up like a rag doll and slamming his back against the broad trunk of a tree. As Robert Coleman sank dazed to the ground, Brewer reached in and removed the gun from his pocket.

  Keeping the gun trained on his enemy, he backed towards the Renault and opened the back door.

  Carole Seddon burst out of her malodorous prison, and in sheer relief pressed herself against her rescuer. Fumes of petrol rose around the two of them.

  ∨ The Witness at the Wedding ∧

  Forty

  Robert Coleman’s eyes opened, and took a moment to focus on the tall man with a gun who faced him. “What are you going to do, Mick? Kill me?” The question was almost a sneer.

  “Don’t think I haven’t thought of it. Often, over the last thirty years. And don’t think I’m not tempted now.”

  He pointed the gun at the heart of the crumpled man on the woodland floor. Carole saw the finger whiten as it tensed against the trigger, and she could feel Michael Brewer’s desire for the purgation that this death would bring.

  A long moment elapsed. Then, his inner demon vanquished, he lowered the gun. “But no. I want you to be punished as I was punished.”

  Half an hour later, Carole and Michael Brewer stood in the petrol-reeking clearing. Robert Coleman was safely tied up in the old cellar, with the metal lid firmly closed on him. It was nearly dark. Through the gaps in the trees they could see the daylight dwindling over the Downs.

  “So what do we do now?” asked Carole. “Call the police?”

  His response was an automatic and distinctive “No!”

  “But this is a police matter. We’re both witnesses to what Robert tried to do to us. He should be in custody.”

  “I’m not questioning that, but I’m not going to let a policeman get near me.”

  Carole tried to soothe the paranoia she saw in his eyes. “Michael – Mick, it’s all right now. Your nightmare’s over. We know the truth. And we can tell the truth. At last justice can be done.”

  “I’m still not going near the police,” he insisted doggedly.

  “Mick, the police are on your side. On the side of justice.”

  He barked out a bitter laugh. “You dare tell me that? I had my bellyful of the police thirty years ago. On the side of justice? They didn’t listen to me. They believed what was easiest to believe. The police stitched me up.”

  “It was Robert Coleman who stitched you up.”

  “The police helped. They wanted me sent down. They were part of the conspiracy with all the other authorities: the judges and banisters who convicted me; the judges who rejected my appeals; the prison officers who made my life hell. I’m never again going to get close enough to the police for them to arrest me. Because experience has taught me that, with my record, that’s the first thing they would do.”

  Carole wanted to argue, but she knew that the long build-up of distrust would not easily be shifted. And, insome ways, she could not help feeling sympathy for his view. Given what had happened in his life – spending thirty years under a brutal prison regime for a crime he did not commit – Michael Brewer was entitled to be paranoid.

  “That’s presumably why you didn’t approach the police after Howard’s murder? You must have known Robert had done it.”

  “Of course I did, but there was no way I was going to put myself at risk. Robert’s framed me once, and he’s quite capable of framing me again. Come on, if it came to a choice between him and me, who would the police go for? Ex-copper and bloody Justice of the Peace? Or the lag who’s just done a thirty-year stretch for murder?”

  Carole could see his logic, and part of the reason for his instinct to hide himself away. She felt enormous pity for the man, the way his trust in everything had been destroyed. “Listen,” she said, “what you need is legal representation.”

  “Oh yes? A fat lot of good that’s done me in the past. The lawyers are all part of it. They’re all in it together.”

  “Mick, I used to work for the Home Office – ”

  “So you’re part of the conspiracy too, are you?”

  “No. But I did make some useful contacts while I was there. In particular, a solicitor called Jerome Clancy. Have you heard of him?”

  An abrupt shake of the head.

  “Well, he’s got quite a reputation for taking on cases of miscarriage of justice. Given what we’ve now got on Robert Coleman, I’m sure he’d take you on. With Jerome Clancy behind you, you wouldn’t need to worry about the police.”

  “I’m still afraid. If they get me alone in a police station, they’ll charge me with something. I’ll never get out of there.” The eyes flickered with fear.

  “You will, Mick. I know you’ve had a lousy deal in the past. But believe me, your life is about to change.”

  “Huh.”

  He did, however, finally agree that she should ring Jerome Clancy in the morning, and try to arrange a meeting. And Carole agreed that she would stay another night in Leper’s Copse, because the police were probably on the lookout for her too, and might force he
r to lead them to Michael Brewer.

  “All right,” she said. “I’ll stay. But I have to make one phone call first.”

  “Not to the police?”

  “Nothing to do with the police, I promise. In fact, it might well take the police pressure off, stop them searching for me as well as you. I’ve just got to call a friend to tell her I’m all right.”

  Jude was in the hotel in Villeneuve-sur-Lot, just getting ready for bed, when her mobile rang.

  “Carole.”

  “Thank God. I’ve been so worried about you.”

  “Well, this is just to say I’m fine.”

  “Where are you?”

  “I can’t tell you that. All be clear tomorrow, I promise.”

  “But, Carole…”

  “I can’t tell you anything else.”

  “Oh. All right, I’m sure you know what you’re doing. Listen, shall I ring Inspector Pollard? He said I should get in touch the minute I heard anything from you.”

  “No. Under no circumstances tell Inspector Pollard you’ve heard from me.”

  “What about Gaby and Stephen? They’re desperately worried about you too.”

  Which was rather gratifying, really, Carole thought. “Tell them I’m OK, but don’t tell them anything else.”

  “I can’t tell them anything else, you’re being so cagey. Ooh, and what about David?”

  “What about David?”

  “Stephen says he’s been terribly worried about you. Can Stephen tell him you’re all right?”

  “Yes,” said Carole, somewhat surprised, “I suppose he can. One other thing…”

  “What?”

  “Gulliver. That poor dog has been stuck in High Tor since – ”

  “No, he hasn’t.”

  “What?”

  “A local policeman checked on your house because Inspector Pollard was worried about you. Gulliver is apparently living it up as a guest of Fethering Police Station.”

  After she finished the call, Carole grinned at Michael Brewer. “Probably as well I’m lying low. Apparently the police have taken my dog in for questioning.”

  Their next task was to try to clean themselves up and get out of their petrol-soaked clothes. Michael Brewer proved to have quite sophisticated domestic arrangements in his primitive hideaway. He had a tank of water for washing in, and an array of soaps and detergents.

  He also found some clean clothes. “Be a bit big for you, I’m afraid. And perhaps a bit masculine. I’ve only got one dress” – he looked wistful – “and that’s been here for over thirty years.”

  “Marie’s?”

  He nodded. “Little disco dress she wore. Her mother didn’t know about it. I’d pick her up in some sedate little number her mother approved of, then bring her out here to change.”

  “Did Marie often come here?”

  He nodded briefly, as if the recollection were painful. “Marie and I loved each other,” he said.

  Carole had had some prudish qualms about washing and changing down in the cellar with Robert Coleman there, but he appeared to be asleep, trussed up against his chair. Perhaps he was concussed after Michael Brewer’s smashing him into the tree. Anyway, his eyes were closed, and he twitched and mumbled, as though in troubled dreams. And given what he’d done, Carole thought tartly, his dreams deserved to be troubled.

  She managed a fairly effective basic toilette. Keeping on her underwear, to which the petrol did notseem to have penetrated, she dressed in the T-shirt, knitted jumper and jeans Michael Brewer had looked out for her. The jeans needed a lot of rolling up, giving her the look of an American bobbysoxer. Very definitely not Carole Seddon’s usual style.

  In spite of assiduous washing and fresh clothes, the smell of petrol still lingered around her. She didn’t think she’d ever be free of the smell of petrol. And, as for the Renault…

  She vacated the cellar for Michael Brewer to do his own cleaning-up process, and went for a little walk around Leper’s Copse as she tried to settle her mind. In the hollow of a field a little way away, she found a small blue Peugeot, presumably the car in which Robert Coleman had arrived.

  When Michael Brewer emerged in his change of clothes, he suggested cooking a meal for them. To her surprise, Carole realized that she was suddenly very hungry, and accepted the offer.

  Neither of them wanted to eat down in the cellar. The space felt contaminated by the presence of Robert Coleman. So Michael Brewer brought plates of hot sausages and beans out into Leper’s Copse. He said he’d offered food to Robert, who hadn’t wanted any. “Have to be humane to prisoners,” said Brewer with a trace of humour. “At least I know all about that.”

  They ate their food on the edge of the copse, as far away from the smell of petrol as possible. As on the previous evening – which to Carole now seemed a lifetime away – her eyes soon adjusted to the darkness and she was aware of the greying contours of the surrounding Downs. It was a beautiful area, which kept its secrets.

  Among his stores, Michael Brewer had managed to find a bottle of wine, and their little dinner â deux – the Home Office retiree and the former lifer – felt surprisingly cosy.

  After they had finished eating, Carole asked, “How long have you known that Gaby was your daughter?”

  He sighed. “I suppose I always suspected it…hoped it was true – hoped that there might be one positive thing salvaged from the wreck of my life. But I didn’t know for sure until Marie wrote to me in Parkhurst.”

  “When was that?”

  “Seven, eight years ago.”

  Just round the time of Gaby’s panic about bowel cancer, thought Carole, and Michael Brewer’s next words confirmed her conjecture.

  “Marie said she had wanted to keep the truth from Gaby all her life, but for some reason she’d had to tell her that Howard wasn’t her real father. She hadn’t told Gaby who her father was, but there was a lot of stuff in the press around that time about adopted children tracing their birth parents. Marie was worried Gaby might have a go at that. And I had been around at the right time, so, in case Gaby made the connection, Marie thought I should be prepared for some kind of contact from her.”

  “And did Gaby contact you?”

  He shook his head. “I doubt if it ever occurred to her that I might be involved. Doubt if she even knewof my existence. But, obviously, once I knew for certain she was my daughter, I wanted to make contact with her. But I couldn’t write or anything, because I didn’t know what the set-up was with Howard. I didn’t want to put Marie in an impossible situation inside her family, so…I knew I’d have to wait till I was released.”

  “Why did you vanish when you were released? Why didn’t you go to your appointments with your probation officer?”

  “I’ve told you!” The light of paranoia was back in his eye. “I had to get away from authority. I knew that lot would re-arrest me as easy as blinking.”

  “I’m sure you’re wrong.”

  “Well, I’m not. And I’ve had a lot more experience of that kind of world than you have, Carole.”

  That was unarguable. “So what Gaby interpreted as you stalking her was just you trying to make contact?”

  “Yes. But it was difficult. I needed to see her on her own. I needed to find out whether she knew anything about me.”

  “Which was why you broke into her flat…Was it her birth certificate you wanted to see?”

  “Yes, that kind of thing. Just to check whether there was any acknowledgement of my existence in my daughter’s life.”

  “And was there?”

  He shook his head bitterly. “Nothing. Father’s name on the birth certificate was Howard Martin.”

  “And abducting me? What was all that about?”

  “It was a way of getting to Gaby. She wouldn’t respond if I contacted her, but if you did…”

  “Well, why on earth didn’t you tell me that? Why did you have to go through all the strong-arm routine?”

  “In my experience, violence – or the threat of violen
ce – is the only way you can get anything done.”

  Carole was about to argue with this, and then she thought about what his recent experience had been. In a prison environment, the principle he had just outlined might well be the only viable one. Michael Brewer’s faith in his fellow human beings was not going to be easily re-established. So she contented herself with saying, somewhat huffily, “I still don’t see why you had to take me away from High Tor.”

  “The police were looking for me – are looking for me. I had to get both of us somewhere safe.”

  “Huh. Well, you could have said.”

  There was a silence. It was much darker now. Carole could sense rather than see the curves of the Downs in front of her.

  “There’s one thing, Mick…”

  “Hm?”

  “You had a lot of information. I know some of it you got from Gaby’s flat – like her mobile number, for instance. But there’s other stuff you couldn’t have known unless someone told you. For example, how did you know where Gaby’s flat was?”

  He was silent for so long that she didn’t think she was going to get an answer. Then, slowly, he said, “Marie.”

  “You talked to Marie?”

  “Yes. After she wrote to me that first time in Parkhurst, we wrote quite a lot of letters. Couldn’t say much in them, of course, because of the prison authorities my end, and Howard at her end. But…we re-established contact. And then, when I was released…I got her phone number and rang a few times. We found it easy to talk. Marie and I always found it easy to talk.”

  “But weren’t you worried about Howard answering the phone?”

  “He never did. His deafness made using the phone difficult for him. He could use it, but he preferred not to.”

  “So was it Marie who set up the meeting you were going to have with Howard – you know, the day after he died?”

  “No. I didn’t want her to know about that. I rang Howard to fix it at a time I knew Marie would be out.”

  “And of course the meeting never happened.”

  “No. Wouldn’t have happened even if Howard hadn’t been killed. As soon as I discovered that Robert knew about it, there was no way I was going to turn up.”