Paying the Ferryman

by Jane A. Adams

  Again that small hesitation. ‘We did what we could. But he was … a difficult man. Not someone you’d want to cross.’

  So, no, then, Steel thought. He frowned. When this old neighbour of Thea Baldwin’s had got in touch, been so concerned about Sarah, he had assumed that the women had been close and that Sarah and her mother had been a major part of the lives of Josette Harris and her family. Otherwise, why go to the trouble of calling in? He was now getting very mixed messages. He tried a different set of questions.

  ‘Did Thea Baldwin ever talk about having family? Parents? Siblings?’

  ‘Not that I knew about. Except … there was a brother, I think. I seem to remember her talking about a brother.’

  ‘But he never visited?’

  She laughed then. ‘No one visited. Not with Terry Baldwin around. You’d hear him. We were three doors down but we could still hear him. Shouting and screaming at her because he thought she’d spoken to someone he didn’t think she should have. There’d be that little girl crying in the street and him shouting and her – Thea – screaming at him to stop. But he never did. Next day she’d be black and blue.’

  ‘So you must have called the police?’

  ‘And they’d have done what? Come knocking on my door? He’d have known then, wouldn’t he?’

  Steel let the silence lie this time, not quite trusting himself to break it. He thought about Joey, about the lack of help that left the boy so desperately isolated.

  ‘Mrs Harris, why do you think anyone would want to kill Lisanne Griffin and her family?’

  ‘Who? Oh, sorry, you mean Thea. I can’t get used to her new name. Seeing her picture on the news, it was a right shock, I can tell you. I thought she was dead when she first went, you know. We all did. Thought he’d finally gone too far and then buried the body somewhere. Then someone said she’d been seen. With that policewoman who came round. Then we heard she’d made a statement. Put him away …’

  ‘And so, do you have any ideas?’

  ‘Well, it’ll be him, won’t it? Caught up with her.’

  ‘Terry Baldwin is in prison,’ Steel reminded her. Someone set a mug of coffee down on his desk and he nodded thanks, switching the phone to his other hand – and then back again when his biceps complained.

  ‘Like that’s going to stop him. He had family all over the shop. All he’d have to do is put out the call. You don’t get away from the likes of Terry Baldwin and his lot.’

  ‘Is that why you moved?’ Steel asked. ‘Mrs Harris, why exactly did you call us? It’s clear to me that you and Thea Baldwin weren’t what you’d call close.’ He knew it sounded harsh. Knew maybe he was giving offence where none was due, but … today, he found he had little patience for the excuses of others.

  Sounds of muffled outrage poured from the phone. Josette Harris let him know he had insulted her. ‘I just called to ask after her. Poor kid.’

  ‘The same poor kid you saw out on the street in all weathers and failed to help?’

  ‘You don’t know how it was.’

  ‘So tell me.’

  A stream of invective informed him that he was going to get little else.

  Steel lowered the phone and picked up his coffee. There were some days, he thought, when you just wanted to despair.

  He wandered through to the outer office, asked one of the constables who was following up on the supposed pseudonym for Victor Griffin and was directed to another desk in the improvised incident room. Nothing, he was told, had come up in relation to the name of Anthony Bertram.

  ‘Too much to hope for, I suppose,’ Steel said.

  He wandered off, unable to settle back at his desk. He thought about the ‘auntie’ Sarah had talked about and about the birthday card they had sent too. Sarah hadn’t been able to remember her house number or real name – she was just Aunt Trinny – but Steel reckoned she was probably traceable – always supposing she hadn’t moved.

  He returned to the officer who had been doing the search for Anthony Bertram and explained what he wanted to do.

  ‘Get hold of the voters’ register for Terry Baldwin’s old street. See if you can find this supposed aunt. Her name was Trinny; might have been Theresa, Trinity … I don’t know. Just—’

  ‘There’s a call for you,’ someone interrupted. ‘Someone called Alec?’

  Steel returned to his office. ‘Hello, Alec. What can I do for you?’

  ‘Do you have time to come across to the Dog? I think I may have found something.’

  Nice if someone had, Steel thought. ‘I’ll be right over,’ he said.

  Terry Baldwin had a visitor. The visitor had supposedly come from his lawyer but one look at him told Terry otherwise.

  The man was dressed for the part in a smart, charcoal grey suit, white shirt and a narrow silk tie and he had a briefcase, now laid out on the table in front of him. He appeared to be riffling through some papers.

  Terry sat down opposite.

  ‘So,’ he said. ‘And who the hell are you?’

  ‘Maxwell,’ the man said. ‘I hear you had a visit from the constabulary. Your brother said you might be in need of a debrief.’

  ‘In need of a what?’

  ‘You might want to talk about it.’

  ‘And why would I do that? They came to talk to me about my ex getting what she deserved. Not a lot more to say, is there?’

  ‘And her husband. They tell you about him too?’

  Terry dropped his gaze. ‘I know about that. Yeah.’

  ‘You don’t sound happy.’

  ‘Why should I be? What mad fucker decided that was part of the plan?’

  ‘He married her. Well, as good as. No surprise he became collateral damage. You wanted it done, Terry.’

  ‘No.’ Abruptly, Terry leaned forward across the table. ‘I wanted her done. That was the deal. No one told me she was shacked up with him.’

  ‘What difference does it make to you? You wanted her dead; we told you we’d see to it. And in return …’

  Terry fidgeted, all the bravado he had shown to Steel and Naomi now visibly absent. ‘Yeah, but him. He’s connected. He’s—’

  ‘He walked away from all that. Seems he preferred to be respectably employed. Married with a kid—’

  ‘He wasn’t married to her. I never let her have a divorce. She’d have had to show herself first, wouldn’t she? The bitch never had the nerve.’

  ‘She took his name. They had a kid. The world saw them as a loving, respectable couple.’

  ‘So what happens now?’

  ‘You keep your part of the deal.’

  Terry could no longer meet Maxwell’s eyes. ‘That was before. Before I knew about him. It’s a bigger risk now.’ He turned back, leaned across the table, earnest now. ‘Look, what I know, it’s kept me safe all this time. In here. Kept all the other fuckers at arm’s length. Why the hell should I let go of it now? It’s insurance, that’s what it is. I need assurances. I need—’

  Maxwell rose and signalled to the guard that his consultation was over.

  ‘Where are you going? I’ve not done talking.’

  ‘I have done listening. Terry, get this. Your information gets less valuable by the day, and get this too. There’s no such thing as safe.’

  THIRTY-FIVE

  ‘What am I looking at?’ Steel asked as Alec handed him a press cutting with a photograph attached.

  Alec pointed. ‘Look, in the crowd at the back.’

  ‘Victor Griffin,’ Steel said. ‘Do we have a real name?’

  ‘For him, no. But we do for a good number of the other attendees, so someone somewhere will be able to put a name to the face.’

  ‘If they’re willing to tell us,’ Steel said.

  ‘Someone will be.’

  Steel nodded absently and looked at the picture more closely. It was a press photo, taken at a funeral seven years before. ‘How did it end up in the file?’

  ‘This is the funeral of Terry Baldwin’s father. So the pictures, alongsi
de a lot of other random stuff, got scooped up and filed.’ He pointed. ‘Terry, Lisanne, Terry’s brother Roddy, who became head of the family. This freckled kid here is Ricky Lang, the young man who shot you.’

  Steel studied the face. He could tell, now it had been pointed out, that this was the same person – before he’d wielded a gun, shot Steel and finished up lying at the foot of the stairs with his neck broken.

  ‘These three standing off to the side are representatives of the Tobias clan. If you remember, Terry beat one of the brothers so badly he never really recovered.’

  ‘That was why his father sent him away.’ Steel nodded. ‘That must have been a tense meeting.’

  ‘I’m guessing Roddy kept them well away from him. I’m still not clear in my own mind why the Tobias family would have let him get away with it, though. Why they’d be willing to grant an amnesty for him to go to the funeral. The only reason I can think of, apart from respect for Terry’s dad, is that they actively wanted him there for some reason.’

  ‘There’s no record of them trying to get to him?’

  ‘No. We do know that he went to the wake and that there was some direct discussion between him and the Tobiases. What was discussed, well …’

  Steel nodded. ‘And the people standing with Victor Griffin?’

  ‘Or whoever he was. No, can’t put names to any of them, I’m afraid. Naomi would have been able to, I think. Our best bet is to copy it to our colleagues who were involved and to the Met; they should be able to get a handle on it.’

  Steel nodded. ‘I’ll get that done. Well done, Alec. It’s a start at least. And it proves that Lisanne and Victor moved in the same circles. She didn’t just meet him as a teenager and then happen to run into him again. He was always there – in the background, maybe, but not an unknown – and it certainly wasn’t a coincidence when they met again.’

  ‘Which begs the question,’ Alec said. ‘We’ve been assuming that the gunman was after Lisanne as his primary target. What if he wasn’t?’

  ‘Well, when we put a name to the face, we can base our speculation on something concrete,’ Steel said.

  His phone rang. Steel listened. ‘I’ll come right over,’ he said.

  ‘Developments?’

  ‘We think we’ve found the Aunt Trinny that Sarah Griffin talked about,’ he said. ‘Maybe she’ll be able to tell us something.’

  THIRTY-SIX

  That evening, Maggie drove Joey and Tel out to the bike project. To her surprise, Steel was there, accompanied by a man with dark hair who was almost as tall as the Inspector and a pretty woman who, Maggie realized, was blind.

  ‘I didn’t expect to see you here tonight. How’s the arm?’

  ‘I needed a break,’ he told her frankly. ‘I’m on the end of the phone should anyone want me and an hour here will clear my head.’

  Maggie nodded. ‘Any news?’

  ‘Bits and pieces,’ he said non-committally. His attempts to speak with Trinity Matthews – Aunt Trinny – hadn’t panned out so far and there’d been no reply, as yet, to queries about the photograph. He knew his frustration showed, even if Maggie didn’t know the cause.

  She smiled sympathetically.

  ‘Maggie, this is Naomi Friedman and her husband, Alec.’

  ‘Naomi?’ Joey interrupted. ‘You helped Sarah and her mum?’

  The woman turned her head towards Joey. ‘I tried, yes.’

  ‘She liked you,’ Joey said. He shuffled his feet awkwardly, evidently torn between wanting to ask Naomi questions and wanting to get on to the bikes.

  ‘I’ll get the boys sorted out,’ Steel said. ‘Maggie, maybe you and Naomi would like to get in the warm. Alec, you want to come with us?’

  Maggie watched them go. ‘I think the men are off with their port and cigars,’ she said. ‘While we ladies retire to the drawing room.’

  She regretted that immediately, wondering if this Naomi woman would get the joke. To her relief, Naomi laughed. ‘If the drawing room is warmer, then I’m quite happy about that.’

  Maggie took her arm. ‘It’s this way,’ she said. ‘It’s more of a hut, really. But there’s a heater and there’s a kettle and I’ve brought biscuits.’

  ‘Sounds good. So, are the boys yours?’

  ‘Only one of them. The other one, Joey, he’s Sarah’s boyfriend, or pretty much. To be honest I think that makes it sound too simple.’

  ‘Oh? In what way?’

  Maggie laughed. ‘I suppose they both just need someone to hang on to. Especially now.’

  ‘Was Sarah unhappy before?’

  ‘Oh, goodness, no. Sorry, didn’t mean to give that impression. Sarah was always a cheerful little soul and she genuinely loved Vic, I think. He was a nice man. Kind, you know? But there was still something like – missing, you know?’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘OK, there’s a bit of step up and the floor isn’t what you’d call even. I came to the conclusion it was because she had so much in her past that was verboten. A whole pile of Christmases and birthdays and family that she couldn’t talk about. It separated her out from the crowd.’

  ‘And Joey?’

  Maggie laughed. ‘I’m guessing not much gets past you,’ she said.

  ‘Only things I actually have to see. The rest of me still works pretty well. Sorry, didn’t mean that to sound so sharp.’

  ‘That’s OK,’ Maggie said. ‘Joey. Right. Well, Joey, bless him, has problems similar to the ones Sarah ran away from. Violent father. Only in Joey’s case he’s got a mother that can’t or won’t do anything about it. He finds it all very hard.’

  Naomi nodded. Maggie had shown her to a seat and now she could hear her filling a kettle. So Vic was kind, she thought. That’s what everyone said about him. But who was he?

  Alec had told her about the photograph; Steel had notified colleagues and the picture had now been distributed to all relevant parties. And Alec had confessed that he’d photographed it on his smartphone and sent it to Gregory. Just on the off chance. He had been a tad sheepish about that but Naomi hadn’t been surprised. Gregory had means and contacts that they didn’t. She wondered what he was up to right now.

  ‘Steel tells me he helped set this project up,’ she said.

  ‘That’s right. Tell me, does anyone actually call him “Ryan”?’

  ‘Probably his mother, and I suppose his sister. Did you know the Griffins well?’

  ‘No. Only Sarah. I met them, of course, school things and community stuff, and we got on fine. Even went for a drink on the odd occasion. But it was all pretty casual. I liked them as far as it went. Evie’s mother got to know Lisanne pretty well, I think. Evie is Sarah’s best friend.’

  Naomi nodded.

  ‘But no one expected anything like this. Tea or coffee?’

  The door opened and a couple more parent refugees came in. Maggie knew them and Naomi was introduced and it was explained that her husband had driven Steel out here because of his arm and that she’d come along for the ride. She was soon absorbed in the casual chat of people who knew one another only because of their respective kids. The deaths of the Griffins obviously emerged as a main topic of conversation and Naomi was asked if she knew anything, being a friend of DI Steel.

  ‘Only that his arm hurts,’ Naomi said, and was grateful that Maggie directed the conversation on to more general topics.

  For the next hour she listened to the conversation and the roar of the bikes, her mind drifting back to the last time she had seen Thea Baldwin and her little girl, getting into a car with the woman from the Trust and driving away. Sarah had lifted a little gloved hand to wave. She’d been wearing red gloves, Naomi recalled. Red gloves and a blue raincoat and she’d been clutching a backpack and a small carrier bag of toys. Not much to carry with her off into the unknown.

  The door opened again and Steel came in, announcing that they were all ready to go. ‘Tel came off, fell in a puddle,’ he said. ‘He’s fine but he’s soaked through.’

&n
bsp; Maggie groaned. ‘Again. He’s making a habit of it.’

  She helped Naomi outside and handed her over to Alec. The roar of the bikes was much louder out here, two stroke engines spluttering their distinctive smoke.

  ‘How’s the arm?’ she asked Steel.

  ‘Hurts like hell, if I’m honest. I think I’m going to follow advice for once and get off home. Alec, would you mind giving me another lift? I can call someone from work or get a taxi if it’s a problem.’

  ‘It’s no problem,’ Alec told him. ‘Just give me directions. Does it need the dressing doing?’

  ‘I think I can manage, thanks. I’m at that point when I just want to sleep, you know?’

  Naomi was very quiet as they drove away. When they’d said farewell to Steel Alec commented on it. ‘What’s on your mind? Apart from what a mess this is?’

  ‘Victor Griffin,’ she said. ‘I’ve been trying to think who might have been at that funeral. Baldwin was a middle-ranking operator, never major league, but he’d been around long enough, involved for long enough that everyone would send a representative to pay their respects at the very least.’

  Alec nodded. ‘So it’s a fair assumption that Victor Griffin would be from one of the major families or organizations. Someone had recorded a list of the big players there that day. But most of those are in the parties closest to the grave. Vic Griffin was well back in the crowd. Of course, it’s possible that he’d come to try and speak to Thea. That their relationship never really ended between her meeting him in the West Country and then getting back together with him in Bristol.’

  ‘If that’s the case, then she was far cleverer and far more secretive than I or Terry Baldwin gave her credit for. Unless, of course, that was where they made contact again. The funeral. If that was the last push she needed to shop her husband and make a break for it.’

  ‘That would make sense,’ Alec agreed. ‘Timing-wise, it would make sense. You know what strikes me? Both Terry and Vic Griffin met Thea in the same location. Thea went to a festival when she was nineteen and met Victor, or whoever he was then. By the time she’s twenty, she’s met and got pregnant by and married Terry Baldwin, someone she’s also met down there. Is it too much of a stretch to imagine the three of them were all together then? That Terry and Vic were both down in Somerset or Devon or wherever and Thea got involved with both of them and then Terry became the chosen one?’