One Under

by Hurley, Graham

He started to walk again. This time, Tarrant let him go.

  Faraday found Willard waiting for him in Martin Barrie’s office. The Detective Superintendent had called a special meeting of the Coppice management team for eleven o’clock and senior detectives were already drifting down the corridor outside.

  ‘Result, Joe.’ Willard was looking pleased. ‘It’s been a lot of resource to throw at a suicide but it sends a message, doesn’t it?’

  Faraday wasn’t quite sure what Willard meant. They’d picked up Andy Mitchell at half past seven in Old Portsmouth, given him half an hour to sort out cover for the kids. Tracy Barber, who had been one of the arresting DCs, had told Faraday of the little faces at the window as their father walked away towards the squad car at the end of the close. The Family Liaison Officer would have been round there by now, but there was going to be a big hole to fill in the months to come. Two more kids without a home, he thought. Two more recruits to Pompey’s army of bewildered nippers.

  ‘Well, Joe?’ Willard was still waiting for an answer.

  ‘I don’t know, sir.’ Faraday was aware of Martin Barrie watching him. ‘We did what we did. I’m not sure “result” is a word that anyone should be proud of.’

  ‘You think we missed something?’ It was Willard’s turn to be puzzled.

  ‘Not at all. I think we did OK. It’s what happens next, isn’t it?’

  This wasn’t at all the conversation that Willard had been planning to have. He stepped closer to Faraday.

  ‘It’s about consequences, Joe. Everything you do has consequences. You know it. I know it. Those nice Mitchells know it. Strap someone to a railway line and leave him for dead, and one day there’ll be a knock at your door. We’re in the justice business, aren’t we? Or have I got that wrong?’

  ‘Not at all, sir. Two kids without parents? Some bloke in pieces in the Buriton Tunnel?’ He nodded. ‘Definite result.’

  The meeting began shortly afterwards. Barrie called on Faraday to summarise the state of play. Andy Mitchell, he said, had called his solicitor to Central and was digging in for the first of the interviews. After his wife’s resigned compliance, Faraday was anticipating a spirited defence. The only direct evidence against him was Jenny’s statement, and in Faraday’s experience, given the circumstances, Mitchell might well decide to deny everything. His wife, he’d claim, had entangled herself with a lunatic. The only way she could keep the lid on the affair was by helping the bastard to his death. Afterwards, with luck, there’d be no evidence of her involvement.

  Heads nodded round the table. Mitchell, it was noted, had retained Bazza Mackenzie’s solicitor, Nelly Tien. She’d doubtless find a way of turning events to her client’s advantage. By the time Jenny Mitchell had confessed, it would have been too late to save Mark Duley. Mitchell had stayed silent ever since in a heroic attempt to keep his family together. Not a murderer at all, predicted Faraday, but a hard-working father, committed to helping society’s cast-offs, trapped into a lie by his faithless wife.

  The tabloid potential of the eventual court case brought a contribution from Willard. For the last ten days he’d been fending off media interest in the case, feeding the Media Relations Department a series of bland press statements about promising lines of enquiry and unceasing effort. Now, before the media storm broke, he wanted to be quite certain that Coppice was reporter-proof.

  It was Martin Barrie, this time, who asked for clarification. What did Willard mean, exactly?

  ‘I need to know we’ve got our ducks lined up. The last thing I want happening is some smart-arse journalist digging around and finding material we’ve overlooked. ’ He glared round the table, then settled on Faraday. ‘Does that make sense, Joe?’

  ‘Perfectly, sir.’

  ‘You can give me an assurance?’

  Faraday thought about the question. In this company he didn’t want to give any hostages to fortune.

  ‘Forensically, there’s nothing we haven’t done.’ He gestured at the Coppice file, open on the table in front of him. ‘We spent a couple of days in the tunnel. We boshed Duley’s room, we did the caravan, in fact we pretty much spent every penny we could lay hands on. Right, Jerry?’

  Jerry Proctor nodded. ‘Right, boss.’

  ‘In terms of other lines of enquiry, we obviously chased a lead or two, eliminated names, but that’s standard MO.’

  ‘What about this Mickey Kearns?’

  ‘He’s yet to reappear. There’s an all-ports watch for him.’

  ‘And when he does?’

  ‘He’ll have some questions to answer.’

  ‘About Duley?’

  ‘Yes, sir. And about the money he’s alleged to have lost.’

  ‘And Mackenzie?’

  ‘No evidence, sir.’

  ‘So he’s home free? Again?’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’

  Willard nodded.

  ‘Go on,’ he said. ‘I’m still listening.’

  Faraday was reviewing the last couple of weeks in his head. The broad thrust of events that had taken Duley into the tunnel was, he thought, clear. He’d fallen hopelessly in love, wrecked a number of lives and ended up under a train. Jenny Mitchell, by her own admission, had been complicit in his death and would now have to face the consequences. There was, though, one tiny bit of the jigsaw for which Faraday couldn’t find a place.

  ‘There might be an issue with the spare key,’ he said slowly.

  ‘What key?’

  ‘The spare key to the padlock. Duley bought it in Petersfield a couple of days before he died. And he made a point of leaving it with the woman who’d been looking after him.’

  Faraday explained about Ginnie Bullen from the Writers’ Conference. Her sister’s cottage, he pointed out, was a mile up the road from the tunnel. Duley knew that because he’d first discovered the tunnel when he was staying there.

  ‘Where does this woman live?’

  ‘In the south of France. She came over for the conference but she was back home again by the time Duley died.’

  ‘So what’s your point, Joe?’

  ‘I’m not sure, sir, not yet. Just that the spare key might represent … ’ He tapped the Coppice file. ‘ … Another line of enquiry.’

  ‘Really?’ Willard was smiling now. ‘Fancy it, do you? Couple of days in the sunshine?’

  The meeting went on. Martin Barrie complimented his team on a good job well done and said it had been a pleasure to see how open-minded they’d remained in the face of evidence which might, presented to a different bunch of guys, have led the enquiry into choppier waters. There were smiles around the table, a recognition that the items seized from Mackenzie’s Hayling Island property hadn’t, after all, derailed Coppice.

  Faraday’s assumption was that Duley had driven out there on the Saturday, in the car he’d borrowed from Daniel George, and picked up the items he’d need for the tunnel. He may well, said Faraday, have wanted evidence to point in a certain direction. Since he was evidently going to the trouble of killing himself, he might as well exact a little revenge for the beating he’d taken in the caravan.

  ‘Which direction?’ It was Willard again.

  ‘Kearns. Plus whoever else. As far as Duley knew, these guys owned the place.’

  ‘And he assumed we’d trace this material?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Faraday nodded, weary now. ‘And it turned out he was right.’

  The question provoked another nod of approval from Martin Barrie. The Detective Superintendent wasn’t in the business of singling out individuals for special praise but he wanted people to know that Faraday had been driving two enquiries at the same time. In their very different ways, he said, both Coppice and Tartan had demanded total focus, total concentration.

  Even Willard had the grace to agree. He was on the point of adding his own round of applause for Faraday’s efforts when the door opened. Heads turned. It was Winter. There were blotches of rain on his shirt and his hair was plastered against the pinkness of his scalp.
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  ‘Sorry I’m late.’ He was out of breath. ‘Got held up.’

  The Detective Superintendent waved him to a chair at the end of the table. His mention of Tartan had come at a fortuitous moment. For the time being, until they all knew the outcome of the interviews with Mitchell, there was nothing more to say about Coppice . Winter had been taking a lead role in the hunt for clues about Givens’ disappearance. Now was a good time for the DC to share his latest thoughts with the Head of CID.

  ‘My pleasure.’ Winter gazed at Willard. ‘What would you like to know, sir?’

  Willard understood that Jake Tarrant had become the prime suspect.

  ‘They knew each other well. Am I right?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘And this Mr Givens was on close terms with Tarrant’s wife. Yes? And on top of that, a hundred and eighty-five thousand of Givens’ money would tell most of us that he had … ah … another compelling reason to kill the man. Am I getting warm?’

  ‘Without a doubt, sir.’

  ‘So when might we start thinking of an arrest strategy?’

  Winter gave the question some thought. At length he frowned.

  ‘It’s really a question of evidence, isn’t it? You’re right about motive. And you’d be right about opportunity as well. Tarrant does death for a living. We all know that. But we haven’t got a body. And without a body I doubt we’ve got a case. Pull him in by all means. But a tenner says he’ll deny everything. The bloke’s disappeared. He’s gone. He’s history. Tarrant’s no fool. Assuming he did Givens, he’d have thought the thing through. My money’s on the waste process.’

  At Barrie’s prompting, he described the hospital’s procedure for disposing of Clinical Waste. Willard was watching him carefully.

  ‘They used to have an incinerator of their own at the hospital,’ he pointed out.

  ‘Shut, sir. Everything goes through Whiterose.’

  ‘And they had a random sampling policy. One bag in twenty. Just in case.’

  ‘Everything’s automated now. Time is money.’ He smiled. ‘You know the way it goes.’

  ‘So you’re telling me Tarrant’s off the hook?’

  ‘I’m saying we haven’t got any evidence. Nothing to chuck at him.’

  ‘So we kick it into touch? Pretend Givens is still alive?’

  ‘I don’t know, sir. That’s a policy decision. Like I said, time is money.’

  ‘But what’s your feeling? Deep down?’

  ‘Here and now? Hand on heart, sir, we don’t even know whether the bloody man’s dead or not.’

  ‘But the overwhelming evidence, surely … ?’

  ‘Of course, sir. Dead right. But you ask me for proof … ’ He shrugged. ‘There isn’t any.’

  At lunchtime, Faraday ducked out of the back entrance and hurried to his car. The wind had got up now, blowing the rain in flurries round the corners of the building. Willard had asked for a private meeting, just Faraday and Winter, at three fifteen. On the phone Peter Barnaby had cautiously agreed to a spot of lunch in a pub a couple of minutes away from the hospital. The weather, alas, had made him cancel his plans for a day at sea.

  The Oyster Catcher lay at the end of Locksway Road. Sepia prints of Victorian fishermen lined the wood-panelled bar and there were glimpses of Langstone Harbour through the windows at the front. Faraday knew this area intimately. His own house was barely half a mile away.

  Peter Barnaby was soaked by the time he arrived. He’d driven across the city from his Southsea home but his umbrella, blown inside out by a sudden gust of wind, had been useless for the dash from the car. Now he sat at the table, dripping rain onto the floor, while Faraday collected a pint of Guinness from the bar.

  ‘I might as well be at sea,’ he told Faraday on his return. ‘This is like most weekends without the fun.’

  Faraday apologised for making so sudden a hole in his precious Sunday. Barnaby said he was pleased to be here. Just kidding. He swallowed a mouthful of Guinness, then looked up.

  ‘This about Jenny? Am I right?’

  Faraday nodded. ‘We arrested her last night,’ he said. ‘After she gave us a full statement.’ Briefly, he explained Jenny’s role in Duley’s death. ‘She’ll be up for assisting suicide, I’m afraid. That’s a serious charge, as I’m sure you know.’

  ‘Christ.’ Barnaby looked shocked. ‘That’ll crucify her.’

  Barnaby’s choice of verb stopped Faraday in his tracks.

  ‘Crucify?’

  ‘Of course. Those kids mean everything to her. She’ll go down?’

  ‘Almost certainly. We haven’t charged her yet, not until we’ve had an account from Andy. We arrested him this morning.’

  ‘Bloody hell.’ Barnaby’s hand found his glass. ‘You blokes don’t hang around, do you?’

  ‘I’m afraid not.’ He paused, looking for ways of softening the appalling news. ‘After we’ve charged Jenny, she’ll go before the magistrates. There’ll be every possibility of bail. She may be home for a while before she faces trial.’

  ‘And Andy?’

  ‘It depends how he plays it. To be frank, her fate’s in his hands. If he denies everything, his own part in it all, he could hang her out to dry. Assisting suicide could put her away for a fair time.’

  ‘Terrible.’ Barnaby shook his head. ‘Those poor bloody kids.’

  ‘You’re right.’ He hesitated again. ‘There’s another reason I wanted to see you. When we interviewed her yesterday, Jenny said she’d talked to you about Duley.’

  ‘That’s true. She wanted advice.’

  ‘What did you tell her? We should be doing this officially, of course, a proper statement and we will -’ Faraday’s gesture bridged the gap between them ‘- but for now maybe you’d just tell me informally.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Barnaby explained that Jenny had rung him up the week before Duley had died. She’d asked to meet him and he’d taken her to lunch in a pub in Old Portsmouth.

  ‘How was she?’

  ‘Very upset. And, listening to her, I could understand why. It’s her own fault, of course, and she was the first to accept that, but she told me she just felt helpless. She’d never suspected anyone could turn out like this Duley character.’

  ‘She told you about him?’

  ‘In some detail. The more she said, the more it made sense. This is classic stalker behaviour. It’s obsessive. And it can be deeply disturbing. Jen had got to the stage where she’d run out of options. Hence, I suppose, her call to me.’

  ‘I gather you told her about Section 136.’

  ‘That’s right. To be frank, it was a pretty small port in a pretty big storm but I think it gave her some comfort. That’s what she said, at any rate.’

  ‘And you based this advice on what she told you? About Duley?’

  ‘Oh no.’ He shook his head. ‘I met the man.’

  ‘You met him?’

  ‘Yes. Actually, I insisted. Second-hand diagnosis is poor clinical practice. Wherever possible, there’s nothing like the real thing.’

  ‘How did you fix it?’ Faraday was fascinated.

  ‘I phoned him up. Jen gave me his mobile number. I explained who I was and asked for half an hour of his time. He said yes straightaway. He came to the hospital. To my office, as a matter of fact.’

  ‘And how was he?’

  ‘A great deal saner than I’d been led to expect, but that was no surprise, really. These people can be brilliant actors. He sat there and he said his piece, and it all made perfect sense. At least from his point of view.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘He said that he and Jen were a couple, a perfect match. He said he loved her and there wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do to prove it. Evidently he’d got himself in some kind of trouble. Someone had certainly had a swing or two.’

  ‘There wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do to prove it? He said that?’

  ‘Yes, that’s exactly what he said.’ Barnaby studied Faraday a moment. ‘
You’re thinking suicide, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’d be wrong. In my judgement, that was the last thing on his mind. It was pretty plain to me that he still had hopes, assumptions even, about Jen. These people always do. Life’s open-ended for them. Anything’s always possible. That’s why suicide is a dead end. That’s why they wouldn’t even contemplate it. They always assume things will work out. Why? Because they should do. Because they must. It’s not like you and me. It’s not a question of acknowledging someone else’s rights in the matter, someone else’s wishes, someone else’s territory. These people recognise no boundaries. It’s a question of the imperative, of what they need. Life owed him Jenny Mitchell. And he’d move heaven and earth to make that happen.’

  Faraday nodded. Sally Spedding had said something very similar. Andy, too.

  ‘Her husband was right then? Whatever happened, Duley would always be around?’

  ‘Is that what Andy said?’

  ‘According to her, yes. He said Section 136 and the rest of it wouldn’t work. Getting rid of Duley, if Jenny was serious, meant exactly that.’

  ‘Then he is right. You know about Section 136. You guys could have arrested him, detained him, but then what? After seventy-two hours we have to start making some serious decisions. We can treat a sectioned patient on the basis of second opinions but there are regular review periods and appeal procedures and all sorts. Could I give Jen an assurance that we could lock Duley away for ever? Of course I couldn’t. And I hope to God she didn’t go away thinking otherwise.’

  Faraday nodded. In the absence of meeting Duley himself, he sensed this was the closest he was going to get. He thought again of Jenny, alone in a holding cell in the Bridewell, and of her kids, wondering when on earth they were going to see their mother again.

  ‘So where does the blame lie?’ he said at last.

  ‘That sounds like a philosophical question.’

  ‘It is. It’s exactly that. Pretend I’m not a copper for a moment. Pretend I’m interested in cause and effect, in what makes people do what they do - that’s your field, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. It is. And to let you into a small secret, it’s imprecise as hell. There’s nothing hard and fast about it. It’s not like physical medicine. There’s no wiring diagram, no maintenance manual. Human behaviour’s a movable feast. You must know that. I suppose that’s what makes our jobs so fascinating.’