by Mark Raven
Perhaps if my potential client were still alive, he would be able to tell me. But, as he is dead, what have I to go on?
I was pleased with the notes—I batted the croissant crumbs from them in a protective manner—but they still led nowhere. I would keep them in my file for potential cases that were taken no further.
This decided, I tucked them away in my jacket pocket and meandered down the High Street. The sun was warming up the old stone already. An ancient city, I thought, a city to grow old in. I went into WH Smiths and bought a Telegraph. The woman at the counter asked if I would like any of the range of special offers that came with it. I felt sorry for her, some marketing geek back at HQ making her hawk Milky Bars and Tangfastics to people coming in to buy newspapers or stationery. No wonder there’s an obesity crisis, I thought. If it isn’t chips with everything, it’s chocolate.
The phone was ringing as I entered my office. Even with its stained glass window, the place always looked small and poky after a day out. Perhaps now would be a good time to get my own place, I thought. But deep down I knew I wouldn’t. The truth of the matter was: I was already set in my ways. Already old…
‘Becket,’ I said wearily.
‘Ah, Becket. At last!’
And there it was: that familiar nasal tone at the other end like he had not trained himself to breathe and talk at the same time.
‘Richie,’ I sat down. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘I understand you have been bothering one of my witnesses,’ he paused as if to read from his notes. ‘Mrs Jennifer Forbes. You met her yesterday.’
At least it wasn’t Reuben Symonds who had contacted him, I thought. But that would have at least made sense.
‘I wasn’t aware she was witness to anything,’ I said.
Richie stopped in his tracks. I went on, ‘So there is an investigation, is there?’
‘Becket, I told you—no, I asked you politely—to stay out of it. You're not even working for anyone, as far as I am aware.’
‘As far as you are aware, that is correct.’ I said. ‘Might I remind you she contacted me the day before yesterday.’
‘But she did not ask you to come up to the inquest and ask her questions.’
‘Richie, she spoke to me under no duress whatsoever, I assure you.’
I thought of the three large G&Ts I’d bought her and wondered if that was strictly true. And yet it was interesting that Jenny Forbes-Marchant had not told Richie that she had rung me after her father’s inquest.
‘The woman is grieving, you dumb fuck,’ Richie was saying. ‘Even you should understand that, Becket.’
Even me, I thought. I took a deep breath. People like Richie were impossible to argue with. There were no handholds, no common decency to them. They were as slippery as eels with about as much moral sense. I counted to ten.
‘I understand what you are saying, DCI Richie. What I am unclear about is why you are saying it. Did Mrs Forbes-Marchant make a formal complaint?’
There was a beat before Richie said, ‘I rang her. She told me that you had been to see her. She was upset.’
‘She was upset because she had seen me?’ I asked. ‘Or she was just upset?’
‘It is a difficult time for her. I understand she has just gone through a rather painful divorce.’
‘Richie, this compassion,’ I asked, ‘is it a new side to your character? Or had I missed it before?’
Richie laughed bitterly. ‘You never knew me, Becket.’
I waited for him to finish what was on his mind. But he didn’t. He contented himself with his heavy breathing routine.
I said, ‘Look, pleasant as it is to reminisce, DCI Richie, I am busy right now. With other cases. And I really do not have the time for this.’
‘I’m pleased,’ Richie said. ‘That you do not have the time for this, Becket. That you have other cases. Just don’t talk to her again.’
And he put the phone down.
As it happened, there were actually some case-files to review on my desk. Mainly small tasks for Anthony Carstairs. Matrimonials where the other side had employed a private investigator whose approaches needed checking out. It was routine stuff. I would have enjoyed it on another occasion, but suddenly I found it all very irksome. But what was the alternative? To go across to the pub at nine thirty in the morning? Sit in the park and read a book? Wander around the Cathedral with the tourists? No, it is better for Becket’s soul to wade through these files, I thought. Immeasurably so.
And so I did.
By mid afternoon, I had emailed my notes to the head clerk. After a while, I wandered downstairs with the files piled on an arm. As I stood there, the great man breezed into chambers full of some tale of adjournment and some circuit judge’s cock-up. It was what Carstairs called ‘entertaining the troops’ but his small army of interns and admin folk looked like they just wanted to get on with their work so they could leave while it was still light. As I was speaking, Carstairs checked his watch several times. In response, I checked mine. Then I went back upstairs to wait for his call.
It was our little code. Carstairs would go into his office and phone the golf course, and then he would call me with the tee off time. We tried to keep business and pleasure separate in such ways, or at least maintain the charade in front of the juniors.
When the phone rang, however, it was not Carstairs.
‘Mr Becket. Jennifer Forbes-Marchant. I’m ringing to apologise. There seems to be some sort of misunderstanding.’
That evening, after a long round of golf, one strewn with many errors and at least two balls lost to the heavy rough, I got home, showered and packed an overnight bag. In the lounge the answer machine was blinking. I listened to the message twice. It went something like this.
‘This is a message for Mr Becket. I would like to advise you to keep your nose out of our business. We won’t warn you again, Mr Becket. Your actions could have serious consequences.’
At least it sounded professional. They were using a voice distorter so there was no accent, no giveaways. But I pressed ‘save’ anyway. An electronic voice—female this time—informed me that my message would be stored for five days. It sounded like the caller’s sister.
I wondered who it could be. I had received any number of threats over the years, but you generally knew who they were. Not that it mattered. The really dangerous people tend not to call ahead.
I made a quick call and left my own short message.
Then I left the flat.
I went to the garage where the Spider was stored and opened up. I struggled to recall the last time I had used her for a long journey. I checked the oil and the plugs, topped up the radiator and the screen wash, and being Italian, I checked her brake fluid. After several attempts, the engine fired and I ran her for a few minutes while she cleared her throat, and asked me where the hell I thought I’d been.
We were on the road by seven, and missed most of the traffic. Outside the city I put her hood down and a cap on my thinning locks. We headed towards Rye across Romney Marsh where the road dwindled to a single track that splintered at its edges. Out on the marshes, there was a sense of impermanence. The feeling that our civilisation built around oil and the motorcar would come and go. The icecaps would melt and the sea would reclaim the land. But right now the Spider was the only car in sight: a red blur on the grey-green landscape. Only a few sheep for company.
There is nothing better, I thought, than travelling westwards on an English summer’s evening. The sun was still relatively high but had already begun to blur in its transit from yellow to orange to red. For some reason, I thought of the Mondrian doors on the Alconbury Estate.
How fortunate I am not to have that kind of existence, I thought. I have a freedom of sorts. Freedom to pursue whatever interest I want. Whether people want me to or not.
In the Met, quite often I had been told to give up on a case, abandon it, told to wind my neck in, not be so damned obsessive; get some treatment for an obvious case of
autism or OCD. The fact that I would not—or could not, in some cases—had made me unpopular. Perhaps they really did all hate me there, as Richie said. Or those that remained did: those that had stayed and been able to withstand the increasing bureaucracy, back-protecting and political interference. There was no reason for people like that not to hate me.
I felt the wind chill my face. I had caught the sun on the golf course. We negotiated Eastbourne, took the route over Beachy Head—the Seven Sisters stained nicotine-yellow in the waning sunlight—and then Birling Gap, Seaford, and crossing the swing bridge at Newhaven drove inland towards the A27. The coast road wasn’t much fun at Brighton, and besides the South Downs were always worth a drive. We passed Shoreham, Lancing, Worthing, Arundel and finally made Chichester as the sun dipped below the horizon.
I checked in at a budget hotel on the main drag and asked where the nearest secure car park was. I left my bag at reception and drove the Alfa across town to a multi-storey that was about to lock up for the night. That done, I went for a swift pint in a local hostelry before walking back across the park towards my hotel.
It was the usual city park after a long, hot, late summer’s day: long shadows, the heat dissipating gradually. There was the lingering aroma of cut grass and the dry, yeasty whiff of cannabis resin. Groups of people who had met and sat in circles with the express intention of getting wasted were beginning to disperse and take their growing belligerence home or to the pubs. Some had lit disposable barbeques that would leave little squares of charred grass in the morning, along with discarded bottles, cans, empty crisps bags and all the usual detritus of a disposable society. You could see where people had been sitting, as the circle of litter remained as an outline of their presence. Somehow they were just too important to clear up after themselves. I wondered at the sort of mentality that meant you could just get up and leave your rubbish behind. Like it had nothing to do with them, and that it was someone else’s responsibility. It was the way such people lived their whole lives, and it sickened me.
It makes you grateful that our climate is so poor, I thought. Otherwise this would happen all year round.
Ahead of me, people were meandering in the direction of the park gates. I noticed two youths stripped to the waist; one with a bullet-headed dog on a choke chain, the other holding a girl’s hand. She had her hair pulled back in a tight ponytail, what is known, I believe, as an ‘Essex facelift’. The two men were carrying cans of cheap lager, the woman a small bottle of a blue liquid. The couple had matching tattoos at the small of their backs, a Hindu inscription of some kind. I felt myself staring, so I looked away.
Night was falling and bats were beginning to flit amongst the trees. It is so difficult, I thought, to catch nightfall in watercolour. It is as if the colours conspire against you. You had to be very good to do it well.
I heard a can being scrunched underfoot and turned to see one of the youths ahead undertaking this activity with great accomplishment. It was as if he were known for this particular skill, a master of the art. His companions laughed and swaggered on leaving the can behind. I considered calling the young man back to point out that a bin was not ten feet away, but I decided against it. It had been a long day, and besides, I told myself, I had not seen him actually drop the can. He could merely have been crushing something that was already in his path. So, when I reached the flattened piece of metal, I stooped, picked it up and put it in the bin.
It is what you do, I thought. Pick up after children.
‘Oi!’ someone shouted. ‘What you doing?’
I turned to see the trio and dog regarding me with a malevolence I felt I hardly deserved. I approached them. The one who had called out was a tall, gingery lad, his hair cut close to his skull, a spatter of freckles around a pair of dull, brown eyes. He had the unwashed feral smell that comes from drinking all day and pissing in bushes. He took a step towards me so I could benefit from the aroma. The other one and his girlfriend looked less interested, and stood farther off.
‘Can I help you?’ I asked politely.
He looked me up and down as if he were amused by my appearance. The dog must have sensed something from his master’s tone as he started a low growling. It looked like a Staffordshire bull terrier. They were nice dogs, in my opinion, but they growled far too easily.
‘So it was your can,’ I said.
‘What’s it to you? I'm sick of people telling me what to do.’
What to do. He jabbed a finger three times in my chest. The dog started barking. Without thinking, I grabbed the finger and twisted it hard. The boy yelped. I bent the finger back, stepping out of the range of the dog, which began jumping up at us. I placed the thumb of my other hand into the hollow between the boy’s chin and his bottom lip. I pushed his head back and held him there. It would be a slow pain, but one that would stop me being hit at least. I just hoped he would not let go of the dog. If he does, I thought, I could end up getting bitten.
‘Lee, leave it for fuck’s sake,’ the other lad called. ‘Can’t you see he’s a copper?’
‘You would be advised to leave it, Lee,’ I agreed.
I tried to keep my voice as level as possible, but my heart was beating unpleasantly in my chest. I cursed my stupidity for getting involved. But now I was involved I had to finish it. That was the problem with getting involved: commitment.
Lee was saying nothing. As I pushed his head back further, I watched his eyes burning. It is the shame that gets them, I thought, always the shame. Shame that they are inadequate. That when it counted, they did nothing or said too much. During my time in the RAF Regiment, I had seen enough new recruits like Lee. They were the ones who lasted a week—too thick or too weak to change their ways—and went back home with bad boy reputations.
Gently, I moved my thumb down below the chin, and found the sternal notch. I increased the pressure there. The boy smothered a cry, but showed no sign of giving up. With his free hand he made a grab at my hair.
I swept his legs from under him and pinned him over the dog. That’s one way of doing it, I thought. I felt the terrier squirm and wriggle furiously underneath the weight of our bodies. It started to whine. I didn’t blame it. I felt like whining too. The girl shouted this time.
‘Lee, leave it for fuck’s sake!’
I looked up. The other boy looked like he was torn between two courses of action: kicking me in the ribs or running away. Perhaps he would do both. The girl pulled at his arm, and said in a hectoring tone, ‘Come on, Jason. He ain’t worth it!’
I was not sure if this referred to their friend or me. Am I worth it? I asked myself.
Jason stood his ground, but the moment had passed him by. Now, he too was like a dog on a lead. The girl was holding him back. Jason called out, ‘You all right, Lee?’
Lee had stopped struggling. Twenty seconds more and I knew he would lose consciousness. The terrier was whining less now, but still wriggling to get free. I could feel its haunches scrape on the pavement beneath us. I released the boy slowly, keeping an eye on the other two. As I stood, Lee kicked out at me weakly, the fight gone from him. He rolled over and started coughing. Finally he let go of the dog, which fortunately scuttled over to the girl, its lead trailing behind it.
I turned and walked back the way I came. It was a defeat of sorts. I listened out for a bottle breaking and feet running after me, but none came. Other youths passed me, shirts tucked into their jeans like flags, making towards the incident, looking at me with interest.
Now, I had to walk the long way round to the hotel. What good did that do? I asked myself. What good did that do anybody?
I went in to the nearest pub and ordered a pint. People looked at me strangely. I kept an eye on the door. I was breathing heavily.
There is a delayed reaction to everything.
Why do I get involved? I asked myself.
Not for the first time either.
Next day I drove down to Hayling Island. The Marchant residence was on the bluff of a hill. It wa
s on an estate of substantial properties, Edwardian I suspected, redbrick, ivy-clad, long shingle drives, and reeking of old money. They were a far cry from the bungalows and new builds I had seen on my drive from Chichester. As the Spider crunched to a halt, Jenny Forbes-Marchant, resplendent in a pair of jeans a size too small for her, strode out to greet me.
Chapter Nine
So, two weeks ago, Mr Sunny Prajapati, in payment for the yacht Cassandra, had drawn a cheque on his company account, for the sum of £75,000. He had given this to Sir Simeon Marchant, who had not deposited it immediately. When he had, it had been returned by the bank. Prajapati’s company, PiTech, was not going to honour it.
Yesterday, Jenny Forbes-Marchant had called me to apologise for Richie’s call, and explained she had a problem that I could possibly help her with.
Her proposition was to me: if I got the company to pay the amount in full or in part, I would receive a ten percent commission of whatever was recovered. I said I would think about it, and ring her back. Then I went off to play golf with Anthony Carstairs. By the time we’d reached the 18th, Carstairs had convinced me that the prospect of getting £7,500 for very little work was quite good, and if I wouldn’t accept the client’s instructions he certainly would.
It was the word ‘client’ that did it. I would have a client. Becket would be gainfully employed, and thus allowed to poke further around in the case of Sir Simeon Marchant and the missing sailor.
Back at my flat I had—after listening to a threatening message—rung Jenny Forbes-Marchant and accepted the case. She said she would be at the family home on Hayling Island the following day, sorting out a few domestic matters, so I agreed to meet her there.
