Talisman (The Wakefield Series Book 3)

by David Evans

  Movement behind the reception desk where Susan had registered her attendance drew their attention. The admin staff were putting on their coats and closing down computers.

  Sammy got up and walked towards them. “Excuse me,” she said, “do you want us to turn the lights off when we go?”

  One of the women looked puzzled.

  “It’s just my friend here had an appointment for half past four and you seem to be shutting up shop.”

  “Oh, don’t worry about that,” the woman said, shrugging on a coat. “The medical staff are all here till six.”

  Sammy turned and walked back to where Susan was reading another magazine. “Great. You’ve obviously got the last appointment. So if the medical team is here until six, why make the last appointment two hours before that? They should spread them out more. If they’d have given you a five-thirty slot you’d be …”

  “Okay, I’m bored now,” Susan said.

  Before she could pick up another magazine, a voice called from further along the corridor, “Susan Brown.”

  They looked at one another, recognising the voice. “Belinda,” Susan mouthed to Sammy.

  Susan came out of the examination room with a broad smile on her face.

  “Good news?” Belinda asked.

  “All signed off, no adverse effects,” she said.

  “That’s great; I’m really pleased for you, Susan.”

  “Have you got much more to do?” Sammy asked.

  Belinda glanced at her watch. “You were the last patient and the clinic officially finishes at six. I’ll have a little bit of paperwork and that’s me … off home.” Her expression saddened.

  “Is everything okay?” Sammy asked.

  “Oh, it’s … well it’s not a happy place these days.”

  “Well you finish off what you’ve got to do and we’ll take you for a drink,” Susan said brightly.

  “Oh no, I couldn’t …”

  Sammy looked directly at the nurse. “Why? Have you got something better to do?”

  “Besides,” Susan added, “I’d like to thank you in some small way for what you did last year. This …” she indicated her legs, “is the result of all your top class care.”

  Belinda considered for a second. “Okay you two, you’ve talked me into it. Give me ten minutes.”

  Twenty minutes later and a few streets away, the three women were sitting at a corner table in a pub, drinks in front of them. Several office workers and a few of the nursing staff were enjoying an early evening drink before making their journeys home. Susan told of how her first year at university had gone and how Souter had managed to fix her up with a summer job on the Post. Sammy spoke of her gratitude for the help Souter and especially Alison had given her in obtaining a job for her where Alison works. Finally, the girls brought the conversation round to Belinda’s situation and how they’d last seen her in Pinderfields A & E.

  Suddenly, Belinda’s eyes filled. “I’d rather not …” Her voice faded.

  Susan leaned in closer and took hold of her hand. “We only want to help.”

  Belinda pulled a tissue from her sleeve and dabbed her eyes. “I’m sorry, it’s just …”

  Susan interrupted her. “Do you remember when I was on the ward … and you were on night duty. That first time we spoke. I mean really had a conversation. I’d been crying … I got upset at the stupid situation I’d gotten myself into. I didn’t want to talk about what happened to my Mum … then my Dad. But you said it would be better if I didn’t keep it to myself. You didn’t judge me. You just listened. Afterwards, well … I really appreciated it.”

  Belinda sniffed, wiped her face and looked around at the other drinkers. No one seemed to be taking any notice of them. She leaned forward on the table and began the story of what had happened since she discovered her husband had a house she knew nothing about.

  Sammy interrupted her flow when she mentioned the roll of film. Her eyes widened and she asked what the participants had been up to.

  “Just a healthy bit of BDSM,” Belinda responded. There was a moment’s silence before all three erupted in laughter.

  “And it was Colin Strong who came to see you about it?” Susan asked once they’d regained their composure.

  “Him and a DS Stainmore, yes.”

  “He’s a nice guy,” Sammy said. “He and Bob are best mates.”

  “I know,” Belinda said. “That’s why, when it all blew up on Tuesday I went specifically to see him at Wood Street.”

  “Why, what happened on Tuesday?” Susan asked.

  Belinda related the events of this week. “But then today,” she continued, “I had another one come to see me.” She became upset once more. “Hemmingway, or something like that. And he tells me they can’t do anything about it. Not enough evidence. Even though Anthony was there.”

  Susan and Sammy looked at each other. “Never heard of a Hemmingway,” Susan said.

  “Wanted me to withdraw my complaint.”

  Sammy looked thoughtful. “Bloody funny handshake brigade, Police are well known for it.”

  “Well I know Charlie’s friends with some high up copper, Giles Wadsworth. I’ll bet he’s been calling in favours there,” Belinda said.

  “Here, he wasn’t one of those in the BDSM club was he?” Sammy chuckled.

  “No, definitely not. Can you imagine?” Belinda laughed.

  “Might have been handy though … and you had the photos to prove it,” Susan added.

  Sammy looked away somewhere over Belinda’s shoulder into an indistinct distance.

  “Sammy,” Susan said, “Are you okay?”

  “Belinda, have you ever heard mention of a Talisman Club?”

  She looked puzzled, then thoughtful before finally shaking her head. “No, can’t say as I have. Why?”

  “Oh nothing really. Just a thought.”

  The conversation drifted away from Belinda’s problems as the girls spoke of their excitement of their upcoming holiday. Finally Belinda, declining the offer of another drink, stood and said her farewells, thanking them for cheering her up.

  After she’d gone, Susan and Sammy decided to have one more before making their way back to the flat.

  Once Susan had returned with their drinks, Sammy asked, “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  Susan slurped some lager. “About the Talisman Club, you mean?”

  Sammy nodded.

  “Do you think Belinda’s husband is running some sort of private members sexual deviants club from that other house?”

  “Would be interesting, wouldn’t it? We know her husband is in contact with ‘fat arse’ Faulkner and I saw that card in his drawer.”

  Susan chuckled at the reference to the council leader. “And if Bob’s made the right connection, was that woman in the bath involved with it?”

  29

  Monday 6th August 2001

  “Ah, Bob,” Chandler greeted as Souter entered the reception area of the Yorkshire Post building on the Monday morning. “Tomorrow. Ten-thirty at Wakefield District Council offices, they’re going to be making some big announcement.”

  “What about?”

  “A couple of Tory MEPs are making some statement about a big project here in West Yorkshire partly funded by Europe, so no doubt they’ll be ‘bigging it up’ for themselves. Anyway, make sure you cover it.” At that, he disappeared through the doors to the main stair whilst Souter paused in thought. Moments later, he collected his messages from Patricia behind the main desk and made his way to the newsroom.

  Still deep in thought he sat down at his workstation and fired up his computer.

  “Morning, Bob,” Janey Clark said cheerily over the low partition.

  Souter didn’t answer.

  “Oh, morning, Janey. And how are you today,” she mocked. “Oh, not too bad, you know. Apart from the miserable bastard I have to work next to.”

  Finally, he looked up. “What? Oh, sorry Janey. It’s just Chandler … Actually, have you heard ab
out some big announcement at Wakefield Council tomorrow?”

  “This Lofthouse thing, yes.”

  “Thought so. Some slippery MEPs looking for some good publicity for themselves.”

  “Of course. Why else would they get involved?”

  He turned and looked at her intently. “Any idea who they are?”

  She faced her computer screen, moved her mouse and clicked a couple of times. “Yep. Here. The conservative MEP for Yorkshire and the Humber, Andrew Marsden and … here we are, the Scottish MEP, Stuart Hamilton.”

  “Hamilton?”

  “Yes. Do you know him?”

  “Hmm.” It was his turn to face his screen and tap a few keys.

  Janey came round and stood behind him. She was determined to find out what he was investigating.

  “Thought so,” he finally said. “Stuart Hamilton, brother of Lady Morag Hamilton, the wife of Kenneth Brogan.”

  She nodded. “That guy you challenged at the planning meeting the other week?”

  “The very same.”

  Susan appeared on the floor. “Something breaking?” she enquired, shrugging off her coat.

  “Sounds like it,” Souter responded.

  * * *

  “I just needed a break from the place, Bob.” Strong was studying the menu in the Half Way House pub he’d just driven to. The car park to the two storeys Yorkstone building on a busy cross roads seemed empty but the décor was bright and cheerful and the menu looked good. Two elderly couples were sitting at a table on the other side of the room.

  Souter had managed to get hold of him on his mobile earlier in the morning and he’d seemed keen to get out for a lunchtime rendezvous.

  “You sound a bit down, mate,” Souter said, placing an orange and lemonade in front of his friend and a pint on the table for himself.

  “It’s this new DCI. And then there’s Flynn being an arse too.”

  “That’s Detective Superintendent Flynn, isn’t it?”

  Strong nodded. “I think I’ll have the beef and ale pie. Sod the arteries.”

  “I thought you got on all right with the bosses?”

  Strong rubbed his face with a hand. “Oh Flynn’s been okay in the past, I suppose. Bloody politics and members clubs getting in the way.”

  “Rolled up trouser legs?”

  Strong laughed. “I should have joined when Cunningham invited me years ago, shouldn’t I? Then I’d be just like them.”

  “You sound like you need more than a lunch out to cheer you up. Let me see about the food and we can chat properly.”

  Order placed and back at the table, Souter studied his friend. “The new guy … you don’t get on?”

  “No, it’s not that …”

  “Resentful?”

  “Well, I suppose there’s a bit of that. I’m just, well, I think I need a bit of time off. Sort out my thoughts.”

  “Have you spoken to Laura about this?”

  “A bit. I think she knows I’m not too happy. I suppose it started with the disappointment of not getting the job permanently. And then some of the stuff I’ve had to deal with.”

  “Such as?”

  “Well … this Chamberlain character. I don’t know if you saw him when he appeared in A & E when you were lying on your trolley?”

  Souter nodded. “His wife is the nurse that Susan and Sammy know. He smacked her didn’t he?”

  “Yeah. And he’s done it again. Trouble is we’ve no real evidence to support the wife’s story. On top of that he has the ear of the ACC.”

  “Like I said, the Lodge connection.”

  Strong was thoughtful. “No, I don’t think so. I mean Wadsworth, the ACC is, and Flynn definitely is, but I don’t think Chamberlain is connected that way. No, I think Chamberlain and Wadsworth were at Uni together.”

  “So what’s really bothering you, Col? You had grief last year with Cunningham but you overcame that.”

  “But did I?” Strong took a large swig of his drink. “Oh, I don’t know, Bob. I try and do the right thing and all I get is grief and yet others seem to wheedle their way through life and everything falls in their laps.”

  “But that’s you, Colin. You couldn’t work any other way. You’re straight as a die. And you’re always going to do the right thing. You always did on the football field. That’s why we played so well. I could tell instinctively where you’d be. Come on, how many times did a pass from me get you in on goal? The fact that you sometimes fucked it up when you got there was nothing to do with me.”

  Strong broke into a grin. “But I used to struggle to find where you were hiding.”

  “That’s because I thought differently. I used to go looking for space, sit in front of defenders until the last minute before moving into space behind them.”

  The waitress arrived with their food, pie for Strong and cod, chips and peas for Souter. Once she’d brought the cutlery and a selection of sauces, Souter moved the conversation on. “Anyway, I think I might have a bit of interesting info for you. Cheer you up a bit?”

  “Go on,” Strong said, pouring extra gravy over his mash.

  “Last time we did something like this … it seems ages ago, you just dropped in a reference and asked me if it meant anything.”

  “Remind me.”

  “You asked me if I’d ever heard of the Talisman Club.”

  “Oh yes, that’s right.”

  “At the time, you were talking about the body in the bath in Normanton.”

  “Yep. We found a card with that name on it in her house. Do you know what it is?”

  “Not for definite, but I have a theory …”

  * * *

  Sammy had investigated the files on the memory stick over the course of the weekend using Susan’s computer in the flat. The biggest disadvantage, apart from it being slow, was that they didn’t have internet access. She’d gone back over the emails from January. Before the contact from Brogan, Faulkner appeared to have had meetings with Andrew Marsden, the local MEP regarding the project. There was nothing in the body of these emails to indicate anything other than them being a vehicle to report progress. Marsden was obviously pursuing funding from the EU.

  “We need internet access,” Sammy had concluded on Sunday night. “Anything really interesting is bound to be on Faulkner’s personal email account.”

  “How are you going to get access to that?” Susan had asked.

  Sammy grinned. “Ways and means, Suz. Ways and means.”

  And so Sammy was sitting at a terminal of an internet café not far from the railway station when Susan walked in.

  “Any joy?” she asked, sitting at a spare seat beside her friend.

  Sammy, brows furrowed, concentrating on the screen, finally responded, “They’ve obviously discovered I’d changed his password.” She glanced to Susan. “Well, I thought I’d have a bit of fun. Anyway, it’s been changed. At least I can imagine Faulkner puzzling over not being allowed into the system.”

  “Can you get back in?”

  “Maybe but it’s his private email account we need to get into.” Sammy said, opening up various web pages and typing.

  “Hey, you know you came across emails about Faulkner having meetings with the MEP, Marsden, guess what I found out this morning? Well, Bob did.”

  “Shit, I’m not getting in here. What was that?”

  “Brogan’s brother-in-law is only a Scottish MEP by the name of Stuart Hamilton. I don’t suppose you remember any references to him, did you?”

  Sammy paused. “Hamilton? That would be handy for him. I can’t remember his name being mentioned but there were mentions of the MEP, Andrew Marsden. And in the folder marked ‘TD’, for Thistle Developments, there were some publicity brochures for the company. The directors were listed as Kenneth Brogan and Lady Morag Hamilton.”

  “Keeping it all in the family, eh?”

  “Exactly.” Sammy began closing down the pages she had open on the screen. “Look, I’m going to have to get back to work. I can’t be
late. We can pick this up another time.”

  30

  Tuesday 7th August 2001

  At an assembly not far from Wood Street Police Station, in the offices of Wakefield District Council, Souter, Susan and Janey sat alongside a large number of newspaper and TV journalists, awaiting the press conference. He’d nodded to a couple of reporters from the Nationals he’d met on previous occasions and wondered how much importance they would place on what was to be announced. He also recognised a couple of faces from BBC North and ITV’s Calendar team.

  A raised platform with microphone stands was the focus of the assembly and after a few minutes, an entourage swept onto it. Bernard Faulkner led the delegation and Souter recognised the following two men from photographs he’d studied online as Andrew Marsden and Stuart Hamilton, the MEPs. Close behind was the local Labour MP with Michael Pitchforth, the Head of Planning and another man Souter didn’t know bringing up the rear.

  As he expected, the announcement was heavily political, with the Labour MP attempting to give himself and his party credit for pursuing the scheme, whilst the Conservative MEPs were trumpeting the fact that it was they who had been instrumental in securing significant EU funds to allow the scheme to proceed. The fifth man in the group was introduced as Samuel Appleyard; WDC’s soon to retire Chief Civil Engineer.

  Questions were invited from the assembled media. Most gave sufficient opportunity for the politicians to milk as much kudos as possible. Only one journalist Souter didn’t recognise questioned the need for yet another out of town shopping development. When given the expected answer that it would benefit all local residents, bringing much needed jobs to the area and boosting the local economy, the journalist followed up by asking which faceless developer would actually benefit financially from the scheme. The stock answer was only to be expected; it would be a partnership between WDC and a developer who would be selected with the best interests of local rate-payers in mind.

  Shortly after, the press conference was wound up, pressures of other engagements for the politicians the given reason.

  “I thought you might have put your head above the parapet and asked something controversial?” Janey asked Souter as they stood to leave.