Dead and Gone: A Gripping Thriller With a Shocking Twist

by D. L. Michaels

  Most of the stuff was predictable: oil and watercolour paintings of the local countryside, some portraiture and a surprisingly large stock of seascapes for a place so far from the coast.

  The works of local modernists had all been unsympathetically swept into a corner, as though gathered for refuse collection. Next to a Picasso-like daubing of cubed heads I found four beautiful brass sculptures of embracing lovers. The first three appeared to tell the story of the first date, the first kiss and the first consummation, but I struggled to work out the fourth – then I realised it depicted a tightly bound ménage à trois.

  ‘Do you like it?’ asked an optimistic sales voice from over my shoulder.

  I turned and saw a slightly chubby man with dark hair and warm brown eyes smiling at me. He was wearing tattered jeans and a Superman T-shirt splattered with white paint.

  ‘I like the first two.’ I pointed at them. ‘The meeting and the kissing. They’re the magical parts of any relationship. I like those.’ I looked from the sculptures to him. ‘Would you be willing to split them up?’

  He laughed. ‘I would, but Shayne wouldn’t.’

  ‘Shayne?’

  ‘Shayne’s the sculptor. I’m Martin. I’m just minding his stall while he takes a break.’

  I noticed the price tags. ‘Phew, two grand. That’s a lot for four teeny-weeny brasses, Martin.’

  ‘He won’t budge on price. Shayne never does. And by the way, I think you’re wrong.’

  ‘I’m not, that’s a lot of money.’

  ‘Not about the price. You’re wrong about the magical part of a relationship.’

  ‘I am?’ I said, surprised by the remark.

  ‘I think you are.’ Wistfully, he added, ‘I’ve found that when you’ve been with someone for a long time, someone you really love and you know you can trust, you get this feeling of completeness that elevates you. It makes you feel more secure in the world, more confident. Do you know what I mean?’

  I wasn’t sure I did, but I answered, ‘I guess so.’

  ‘Well, for me, I think that’s the magical part of a relationship. Don’t get me wrong.’ His eyes twinkled. ‘I love the first rush of a relationship, the excitement, the passion, the uncertainty, but when you find someone, and you both know it’s right, then, wow, that’s not special – that’s magical.’

  I was saved from making an inadequate reply, because he spotted a smartly dressed young couple drifting to an adjacent stall. ‘Would you excuse me a minute?’ he said excitedly. ‘That’s my stand and it looks as though I might actually have my first customer of the day.’

  I watched him scurry towards them like a young child dashing to an ice-cream van. He skipped into their eye lines, beamed a big smile and then gestured dramatically in the direction of his own works. They were collages. And to be honest, I’ve never liked or understood collages. To me, they are the result of an adult play session called cutting up and gluing things together.

  I waited a couple of minutes but there was no sign of Shayne and it became apparent that Martin was going to be a long time with his prospective purchasers, so I gave up on the bronzes and drifted away.

  After a little more browsing, I left the exhibition and strolled the streets. I bought some handmade cards that I thought might be useful for upcoming birthdays and a giant white vase that would look great filled with fresh or faux flowers, then I headed back to the car.

  Within minutes, the day grew suddenly dark and rainy as only it can on wintry days. No run up. No warning. Just a near instant loss of light and torrents of water.

  As I put the radio on and drove off, I realised I was hungry and needed to stop somewhere to eat before the long crawl home.

  A little out of town, southbound on the A41, I spotted the glow of lights in a building and the sign of a pub called The Hunted Boar, so I turned in.

  It was one of those whitewashed barns of a place, with low oak beams, warm lighting and a roaring log fire.

  I made my way to the bar and picked up a menu.

  ‘They do an amazing steak and ale pie.’

  I knew the voice was Martin’s before I turned. ‘Do you stalk all your customers?’ I joked.

  ‘I’m not stalking you,’ he answered. ‘And you’re not a customer, you didn’t buy anything, remember?’

  I smiled at him.

  ‘I live across the road, so if anyone’s stalking anyone, it’s you stalking me.’

  ‘In your dreams,’ I chided, holding a ten-pound note over the counter, trying to get a server’s attention.

  Martin snatched it out of my hand. ‘You can put that away. You’re in my local, so I’m going to buy the first round. And dinner, if you let me.’

  I decided I would let him. I looked at him and decided something else as well. I’d also let him take me home and I’d sleep with him. A one-night stand. Something reckless. Something I’d never done before. Probably would never do again.

  But that night, I needed to.

  I needed to be someone other than myself.

  Someone I should have been years ago.

  14

  Annie

  Through a narrow window beside the locked interview room door, I get my first glimpse of Ellison. He’s a half-erased drawing of a human being. Faded clothes and the deathly-white flesh of a long-time addict. More skeleton than skin. Balding. Wiry. Stooped.

  I glance at Charlie. ‘Not a picture of good health, is he?’

  ‘That’s what several decades of sampling your own gear does for you.’

  ‘He’s shaking’ observes Nisha.

  Charlie’s eyes are locked on him. ‘He says one of the gang leaders is implicated in this historic murder. A man who these days appears “clean” but isn’t.’

  ‘That’s the modern way,’ I say. ‘Clean is the new dirty.’

  ‘I was sent here because the man who shot at you, Colin Richardson, is not only an escaped con, he has the kind of connections that can lead us to big fish, really big fish. This tale of murder from Ellison’s past doesn’t interest me, but it seems he has to tell it before he gives up anything on Richardson or his bosses. So, in short, Annie, I need you to work your persuasive magic on him.’

  ‘But, I don’t work for you any more, sir.’ I say it not entirely tongue-in-cheek. ‘We are overloaded with cases, starved of cash and I’m less than keen to open another one based on the ramblings of a dopehead.’

  Charlie laughs. ‘Then think of all the glory, not to mention the promotion prospects this case offers.’

  ‘I’d have thought you knew by now that I’m not interested in promotion.’

  ‘Hey, I am,’ pipes up Nisha.

  ‘Please,’ implores Charlie, his warm eyes glowing, ‘play along with me on this.’

  I give him a blank stare. ‘Is Ellison already under caution?’

  ‘No. He’s here voluntarily. But he knows if he tries to walk, then we arrest and charge him with enough drugs offences for him to be held on remand. And I expect he’s terrified of going to prison. It’s such an easy place for crime bosses to get at him.’

  ‘So, the little chat we are about to have with him is off the record?’

  ‘Up to you, Annie.’

  I turn and take another look through the glass. Ellison is twitchier than a squirrel on a nut feeder. ‘Has he asked for a solicitor?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You offer him one?’

  ‘Of course,’ he says, in a way open to the widest of interpretations.

  I’m apprehensive because all historic cases are heavy on research. Tracing the whereabouts of people last seen five, ten, fifteen years ago is hard enough; getting someone to remember times, places and faces is always fraught with difficulties. Add to that, the testimony of a detoxing drug addict and suddenly months of hard work can end in nothing except a big bill and a rollicking from the boss. ‘Okay. I surrender. Let’s see what he has to say.’

  Charlie gives me that melting smile again and opens the door.

  Ellis
on jumps nervously as we enter the room.

  ‘Relax, Andy,’ says Charlie. ‘This is DI Parker and DS Patel from Historic Crimes. They’ve come to talk to you about the murder you mentioned.’

  He nods like a frantic pecking bird.

  ‘All right if I sit down, Andy?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, I suppose, yeah.’

  I settle opposite him and take out a pocket book and pen. Ellison shifts on his seat, his eyes everywhere except on me. I wonder if he’s actually fit to have this chat. ‘What’s my name, Andy?’

  ‘What?’ He scowls at me.

  ‘You’ve just been told my name. What is it?’

  ‘Parker.’ He looks to Charlie. ‘Right?

  ‘That’s right. How long since your last fix, Andy?’

  ‘Dunno. Too long.’ He flashes broken yellow teeth and again cranes his head toward Charlie. ‘Is someone going to get me something?’

  ‘Eventually. Hey, look at me.’

  His eyes return to mine.

  ‘What have you been taking, Andy?’

  ‘Speedballs,’ he says. ‘Crack. Horse. Painkillers. Weed.’ He scratches again. ‘Anything that’s going. You got some Valium?’

  ‘Do I look like I have Valium?’

  ‘Well, yeah, you do. Older women, I mean, they take plenty of pills, don’t they? Lots of them are users.’

  In my peripheral vision, I see Nisha stifle a smile. ‘I don’t have Valium, Andy. But I do have a short temper. So after insulting me, maybe it’s a good idea if you tell me all about this murder you’re supposed to have knowledge of.’

  He turns in his seat, so he can face Charlie.

  ‘Look at me,’ I tell him again. ‘I’m the one who can keep you out of being locked in car boots or jail cells, not him. Start persuading me I’m not wasting my time being here.’

  He turns his chair back. ‘I’m gonna give you a name,’ he scratches some more. ‘Not the killer but the victim. You check it out and then you give me something to stop me feeling like I’m dying. Okay?’

  I nod.

  Ellison spits on his fingers and rubs saliva on his forearm to ease the itching. ‘Ashley,’ he mumbles. ‘The name of your victim is Ashley Crewe.’

  ‘Boy Ashley, or girl Ashleigh?’ I ask

  He looks at me as though I’m stupid. ‘A bloke.’

  ‘And Crewe, with one e or two?’

  ‘I dunno. Two, I think.’

  ‘Ashley Crewe, with two e’s’ I repeat it as I write the name down. It means nothing to me. Or Nisha, from the look on her face. But I see Charlie’s eyes light up. To him, it clearly means a lot.

  15

  Sarah

  The first time I slept with Martin, I woke in his bed around three a.m., still deliciously high on the chemicals of sex.

  I watched him sleeping, then stared up at the skylight window over the bed. Ash-grey clouds slid over a brilliant white sickle moon and made me contemplative. I needed to take stock of what had happened. What I had done.

  Yes, there had been a frantic pulling-off of clothes, a clumsy clutching at all the dials and levers of mechanical intercourse, but then, when we had kissed again, when his skin and mine had found each other, then I had sensed an astonishing tenderness I had never experienced before.

  To be so relaxed, so sexually spoilt and so physically indulged, without any strings or commitments, had been liberating. No spa session in the world can ease your tensions like a night of shudderingly good orgasms.

  But it hadn’t all been lust.

  He’d talked. Shared secrets. Opened up. Reached out.

  Martin, I discovered, was seven years younger than me, had never married (but had come close to tying the knot with a vegan he met at uni). He was a full-time artist but didn’t make much of a living out of it, so supplemented his income by teaching art at night school. He wasn’t rich or particularly successful, but he was happy. He lived in rented accommodation, a two-bedroom terrace, and had a small work studio in part of an old building being renovated by a mate. His mother and father had retired to St Ives, a place he’d happily holidayed as a kid, spending every morning with his dad, skimming stones over waves and picking shells off the beach.

  While Martin had overwhelmed me with his openness, I know I had disappointed him with my lack of it. I’m not an extrovert as he is; I don’t like to talk about myself. I’d given away that I was in my early thirties, had said I had not long come out of a relationship and was living with friends, while saving up enough for a place of my own.

  He’d said he dreamed of owning a house, with a garden big enough for a dog that would go everywhere with him.

  I’d revealed that I dreamed of getting off the treadmill that my life had become. Reinventing myself. Starting again. He’d held my face in his hands and said, ‘Then do it. Quit the job and move in with me. No questions asked. No strings attached. Just do it.’

  I’d kissed him then. As much out of excitement as a desperate desire to shut him up. I didn’t have that kind of courage. Maybe my heart did. But not my head. Not the cold, logical, boring bit of me.

  I stared at the skylight thinking about an impossible new world with Martin and watched dawn smear pinks and purples across the glass, before yielding to paler blues and wintry greys.

  Then, like a cat burglar, I silently dressed and tried to creep unnoticed out of his life.

  Martin caught me, coat in hand, in the hallway – him still in his Simpsons boxers. ‘You’re not going, are you?’

  Embarrassed at being caught, I lied. ‘Sorry, I just didn’t want to wake you.’

  ‘At least let me make you some breakfast.’

  ‘No. I’m fine, thanks.’

  For the first time, there was a feeling of distance between us.

  ‘Are you rushing back to someone?’ He put an almost painful emphasis on the word. ‘Was one night with me enough to drive you back to him?’

  ‘To the contrary.’ I moved closer to him as I slipped on my coat. ‘I think you’re wonderful. Too wonderful to be involved with me.’ I kissed him quickly and turned for the door.

  ‘Sarah,’ he shouted, loud enough to stop me. ‘At least leave me your phone number, or an email, so we can stay in touch.’

  ‘It’s best if I don’t. Believe me. It’s best if I just go.’

  ‘I’ll be in the pub.’

  ‘I don’t live round here, Martin. Another reason this won’t work. I live hours away.’

  ‘I’m going to be waiting for you. Every Saturday night, at six-thirty, I’ll be sat by the fire in the pub, waiting.’

  I laugh at him. ‘It’s your local. I bet you’re in there every Saturday, anyway.’

  ‘Then tell me your local. Or any other pub in the country and I’ll wait there instead.’

  ‘You’re mad.’

  ‘I know.’

  We both laugh. ‘I have to go, Martin.’

  ‘I know you do. I also know you need to be away from me, to find out that what you really want is to be with me. You need that time. Which is why I’ll be in the pub, in our pub, your new local, waiting.’

  ‘Please don’t do that. Don’t waste your time.’

  ‘Oh, it won’t be wasted,’ he said, smiling sadly. ‘Even if you don’t come, it’ll be worth it, because I’ll spend the time remembering last night and remembering you.’

  That was my cue to leave.

  I rushed through the door with my pounding heart almost literally in my mouth.

  Had I stayed, I know I would never have wanted to leave. And such foolishness would have had terrible consequences.

  Martin was lovely.

  Being with him had been so lovely.

  But back then, I had never imagined I could spend the rest of my life with him. Hadn’t thought I could ever be that lucky.

  16

  Annie

  Back in Charlie York’s adopted office space, I ask him the question that’s been on my mind since Ellison finally gave us something worth chasing. ‘Ashley Crewe – does t
hat name ring some cracked bell deep in your dusty bell tower of a brain?’

  ‘Crewe does,’ he answers confidently. ‘Not so sure about the Ashley part. I don’t want to sound stupid, or send us off in the wrong direction, so I’ll hold my tongue until your sergeant has finished her checks.’

  Nisha is on the phone, sitting at a desk a metre away. She’s half listening to us and someone on the other end of the line, so she silently mouths, ‘Two minutes.’

  ‘So how is Annie Parker?’ Charlie asks me, with a friendly smile.

  ‘She’s fine,’ I answer happily in the third person. ‘Given the mess she’s been wading through, Annie Parker is doing just fine.’

  ‘And Tom and Polly?’

  ‘Polly’s good. You know how resilient kids are. They’re much tougher than they look. I’m not sure she fully understands what’s happened. I mean, she knows she had a mummy and a granddad and they’re not here now, and never will be again; but she doesn’t seem to grasp the enormity of the loss.’

  ‘That’s a good thing, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, of course. I wish Tom was the same.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I heard that he’d been struggling.’

  ‘Still is. Poor lad has completely lost his confidence. Stupidly blames himself for not having been around on the day of the accident. Thinks if he hadn’t done an extra shift at work then they would have gone out for the day together as they’d originally planned, and his wife and father would still be alive.’

  Nisha stops the conversation getting any more maudlin. ‘Seems Ashley Crewe went missing almost a quarter of a century ago,’ she announces to both of us. ‘He was a teenager living in a children’s home in south Manchester, where he attended a crappy secondary modern, the kind where no one minded when kids disappeared, which they did every month from the sound of things. Most of them turned up in some part of the North West, London or Glasgow but Crewe never did. After the statutory seven years, his family applied for the official declaration of presumed death certification and it was granted.’