by David Evans
“Joe!” Souter exclaimed. “What the hell’s happened?” He dashed to his friend, pulling out his mobile phone as he did so. “Ambulance,” he said as the emergency operator came on the line. He relayed the situation and his location to ambulance control. “Looks like a stabbing,” he concluded.
Webster made the hissing sound again, his face screwed up in pain.
Panicking, Souter stood up and dashed back inside the pub. “Quick, I need help!” he shouted, grabbing some beer towels from the bar. “Someone’s been stabbed out the back. Ambulance is on its way.”
The landlord followed him back outside. “Keep an eye on the bar,” he instructed the young lad who’d been serving alongside him.
Souter knelt by Webster and held some towels to the man’s stomach. “What happened Joe?”
“Some bloke … didn’t see … just the pain.”
“Ambulance is coming.”
The landlord had his mobile to his ear. “Best call police an’ all,” he said.
“Tell Kathy …I love her,” Webster struggled.
Souter put a hand behind his friend’s neck. “Tell her yourself,” he replied.
From the direction of the city, sirens could just be heard.
“And Megan …and Tom too.”
He assumed they were his children but he’d never mentioned their names before. “Hold on, Joe, I can hear the ambulance coming.”
“I’m …scared Bob.”
“Stay with me, Joe.”
He was mumbling now in an incoherent attempt to talk.
“Save your strength.” Souter watched as Webster’s eyes grew dull. “Hang on in there. Joe! Joe!” It looked as though a mist had covered his eyes and they were still; unseeing. “Joe, come on.”
“Okay, sir, we’ll take over now,” a deep unfamiliar voice interrupted.
Souter felt himself being lifted under the armpits on to his feet and gently led away. Flashes of reflective jackets and blue lights meant help had arrived. Too late.
Souter was staring onto the table in the front snug of The Redoubt, cupping a small brandy in his hands when Colin Strong walked in. He didn’t look up.
“Bob,” Strong said, gently. He stood for a second but there was no reaction so he sat down beside him.
Behind the bar, the landlord held up a pint pot to Strong but he shook his head.
“He’s gone, isn’t he?” Souter eventually said, still focusing on the table. “How are his wife and kids going to cope?”
“Don’t worry about that. We’ll be speaking to them.” Strong stared at the door before turning to his friend. “What happened, Bob?”
Slowly, Souter turned his head. “You know who it was, don’t you? Joe Webster. He was in our class at school.”
“I know.” Strong leaned back on the bench seat, folded his arms and looked to the ceiling. “Have you just met up with him again?”
“Bumped into each other at the council offices the other week. He’s an engineer there.”
“And did you ‘just bump into him’ tonight or was your meet arranged?”
“You got a ciggie, Will?” Souter called out to the young lad behind the bar.
“Don’t smoke,” the lad replied. “D’you want one?”
There was an expression on Souter’s face that emphasized the illogicality of Will’s question.
“I’ll get you one,” he said.
“He called me this afternoon,” Souter eventually answered. “He had some information he wanted to give me.” He paused. “Well, that’s not strictly true. I’d asked if he could find something out for me … and he had.”
Before Strong could follow up, Will was back at the bar. “Here,” he said, holding out a packet of cigarettes and a cheap disposable lighter. “Old Frank says there’s a couple in there and the lighter’s nearly empty. You’re welcome to them.”
Souter stood and collected them from the barman. “Tell him I appreciate that.”
“Thought you’d given up?” Strong said once he’d sat back down.
“I had.” He gave a weak smile. “Just like that line in Airplane, ‘Looks like I chose the wrong day to quit smokin’, he added in a mock American accent. He lit up, took a deep draw and exhaled a large plume of smoke.
Involuntarily, Strong placed a hand on the breast pocket of his jacket where the still-unopened pack of cigars was tucked. Then he took his hand away. “So what information did he get for you?”
“Oh, it was nothing, just some council details, that’s all.”
Strong looked directly at his friend. “You’re lying to me, Bob. Now Joe’s been murdered, that’s for certain. I’m not sure what the motive is, if any at the moment. But for me to do my job properly, I need to know every detail leading up to this tragic event.”
Souter avoided eye contact and took another long drag of his cigarette, blowing the smoke to the other side, clear of Strong.
“So what did he get for you?” Strong repeated.
Eventually, Souter looked at his friend. “It was to do with the Lofthouse Development. Joe had done a lot of the work on the initial site survey. His interpretation varied considerably from the final report that was presented to the EU for funding.”
“Would that be sensitive enough to warrant someone shutting him up?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where is this information now?”
“He had it in a brown A4 envelope that he held inside his jacket when he left.”
Strong thought for a second. “I don’t remember seeing any brown envelope with him.”
“No,” Souter replied, “neither did I.”
54
Tuesday 4th September 2001
Strong had been allocated SIO, the Senior Investigating Officer, for the investigation into the murder of Joe Webster. Detective Superintendent Flynn had deemed that Hemingford had enough on his plate with the stalled investigation into the fire that killed Ormerod. All officers would still be involved with the fire investigation but a small number were allocated to work with Strong on the stabbing.
After Strong concluded his first briefing on the case, he took Stainmore with him to collect Kathy Webster, Joe’s widow, to formally identify his body. It was another difficult episode, made more painful for Strong by the fact that he and Joe had been classmates at secondary school. He’d said that he would need to ask some questions and take a formal statement from Kathy at some point but understood if she would want some time beforehand. She insisted that that happened as soon as possible and wanted to go with them to Wood Street to give that information.
He found it difficult dealing with Kathy Webster. She wanted to know what progress he was making in his enquiries. Truth to tell, he had very little to go on. There was no CCTV at The Redoubt pub, the landlord had seen nobody strange in the place at the time and, so far, no witnesses had come forward who had seen anything useful. The post mortem carried out earlier that morning confirmed a single knife wound to the abdomen which had punctured the aortic artery and he’d bled out very quickly.
“I understand you were in the same class at school?” she had asked him.
“That’s right, but I’d not seen Joe since we left.”
“But he was with someone who had been at school with him, wasn’t he?”
Strong told her about Bob Souter and how it was Bob who had found Joe and tried to help, but the injury had been too severe.
He told her he was expecting Souter to come in at some point that morning to make a formal statement and give Strong the opportunity to probe his friend for any piece of information that might help find out who was responsible and why.
With a promise to keep her fully informed as soon as he found anything out at all, he offered for Stainmore to drive her home. She declined, saying she’d some business in town and would make her own way back.
As he was escorting her through the main entrance, he spotted Souter sitting on a hard plastic chair.
Souter stood as his friend appeared. He recog
nised Joe’s wife from a photo he’d been shown on that first meet in the Talbot & Falcon pub.
“Mrs Webster … Kathy,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”
Strong spotted her unease. “Mrs Webster, this is Bob, Bob Souter. He was with your husband when …”
She looked straight at the journalist, her eyes filling with tears. “Did he suffer?”
“I don’t think so. He … he told me to tell you … that he loved you,” Souter struggled to say.
Strong could see the pain on his friend’s face, and he was near to tears. “Look, why don’t you both come back inside for a few minutes?” he suggested.
Kathy shook her head. “I’ve got to be somewhere now, but …could we meet later?” she asked Souter.
Souter wiped his face with his hand. “Sure,” he said and pulled out a business card. “You can get me on either number.”
She gave a weak smile. “Thank you,” she said quietly. With an appreciative nod to Strong, she walked through the main doors and disappeared down the ramp into Wood Street.
“How was it this morning?” Souter asked Strong once they’d settled into the uncomfortable chairs in Interview Room 1.
“Difficult. I know I’ve accompanied relatives to identify bodies before … it’s never easy but … remembering Joe from years back, well …”
“And nothing to go on?”
Strong straightened in his seat. “That’s what I’m hoping to find out, Bob. So, come on, what do you know?”
Souter shrugged. “There’s not much more I can add to what I told you last night. Joe and I bumped into each other … in the toilets, oddly enough, a few weeks back when I was at some press conference in the Town Hall.” Souter then proceeded to tell his friend what Webster had suggested regarding adjusted findings in connection with the site survey for the proposed Lofthouse Redevelopment Scheme.
Strong’s ears pricked up at one point. “Who did you say his boss was?”
“Appleyard. Sam Appleyard.”
“That’s interesting,” Strong pondered.
“You know him?”
“Only that his name came up with something else.”
“Like what?”
“Another investigation.”
“Come on, Col. I might be better placed to help you if I know a bit more. Which investigation?”
Strong sighed and considered whether to answer or not. “Well, I suppose it was you who told me what it meant.” He snapped forward in his seat as if to emphasise the point. “But you can’t print anything on this.”
“Now you have got my full attention.”
“He’s one of the members of this Talisman Club that Chamberlain ran.”
Souter’s eyes opened wide. “Shit, so he could have been involved in Chamberlain’s death too?”
“Look, I didn’t say that, only that his name’s come up in connection with that investigation.” Strong was keen to refocus the interview. “Anyway, you say he showed you these drawings and figures that seemed to show some alterations to the survey?”
“Yes. He had two drawings of the site in the envelope along with his figures.”
“But did he give you a copy?”
Souter hesitated. “No. He just showed them to me.”
“I hope you’re not holding back on me, Bob? Because this is serious. A man was murdered.”
“And don’t I know it. Christ, he died in my arms, Col. Have you any idea how that feels? Not just another human being but someone I knew. Someone I’d only been speaking to a few minutes before.”
Silence hung like a shroud for a second or two as Strong held Souter’s gaze. Finally he shook his head. “I’ve attended plenty of deaths … but I can’t say I’ve ever experienced life extinguishing.”
Strong shook his head then stood up. “I’ll get us some drinks. I think we need a break.”
Ten minutes later, proper mugs of tea on the table, rather than the vending machine variety, they resumed the interview.
“You don’t seriously think Joe’s death can have anything to do with this commercial scheme, do you, Col?”
“I just don’t know, Bob. We’ve got very little to go on at the moment. No witnesses, no weapon, nothing significant.”
“It’s more likely to be some yob off his face on drugs or something. Somebody tried to mug him. Joe grabs the envelope because he doesn’t want to give it up. They think there’s something more important in it, grab it and rush off.”
“So why haven’t we found it then? If that was the case, they’d have thrown it away when they realised it was just some drawings and figures. Nothing they could sell.”
And so the conversation went round and round, Souter keeping quiet about the memory stick until he’d had a chance to review it and Strong suspicious that he wasn’t being told everything. Finally, they had a formal statement from Souter which he signed.
55
Wednesday 5th September 2001
Alison had called the previous night from New York. Souter couldn’t be more pleased to hear her voice. He decided not to tell her about what happened at The Redoubt but he knew she could tell something had occurred. ‘Just a bit of a row at work,’ he’d said, not wanting to go into details. ‘Nothing to worry about,’ he’d concluded. Her excitement at being in the States quickly overwhelmed her curiosity as to what Bob was concealing. God, he wished she was here so he could share his pain. But he was happy for her to be experiencing new adventures. And after all, he would soon be there with her. Only three and a half weeks to go.
She was full of all the exciting new places she’d been taken to. The hotel was in downtown Manhattan, basic but comfortable. Colleagues in the office had organised tickets for a Broadway show next week and she thought she’d seen an actor from one of the TV shows she’d seen back home.
He’d arrived at his desk early and reviewed the files on Joe Webster’s memory stick. The two versions of the site plan were there as were two versions of the table of results. Coordinate points in one column and values of various contaminants in others. He was at the printer collecting hard copies when Susan approached.
“How are you, Bob?” she asked.
“Still a bit raw, if you must know.” He had his back to her as he shuffled the papers into a neat pile then placed a large paperclip around them.
She placed a hand on his shoulder. “Do we need to talk?”
He straightened up, put a hand in his pocket and drew out a handkerchief to wipe his face. Gently, she turned him towards her and hugged him. “We do,” she said, answering her own question.
They found a vacant meeting room and sat down.
“This has to be about Lofthouse, doesn’t it?” Susan asked.
“No other explanation I can think of.” He spread the drawings on the table in front of them. “This is what he showed me on Monday.” He proceeded to explain what Joe had told him and how the value of the works had probably been increased by four or five million pounds.
“Christ, that’s worth killing for,” Susan concluded. “So who do you think are the chief beneficiaries?”
“Joe reckoned Faulkner and his boss, Sam Appleyard on the council, at least. But there may be one or two others with a vested interest in lining their pockets. And finally, Brogan. He must be in line for the biggest share. Janey reported on their ‘preferred developer’ status last week.”
Susan looked thoughtful. “Don’t forget all the political hangers-on too, Brogan’s brother-in-law, Hamilton. Possibly Marsden, the local MEP.”
“If I remember correctly from Janey’s report last week, I still think the council are dangling the carrot to Thistle. I don’t think there are any contracts in place.”
“Extra pressure for none of this to come out then, Bob. So what’s our next move? Spill all this to Colin?”
“Our next move? No, you need to keep well away from this, Susan.”
She studied him hard. “Could it be the same guy who attacked you? The man in the leather jacket, Kennedy?”
“And let me guess, you haven’t mentioned the Brogan / Kennedy thing to Colin?” His face told her the answer. “Christ what are you like? What would Alison say if she knew? She’d tell you to give all you know to Colin.”
A knock on the door interrupted them and Janey poked her head around. “Strategy meeting you two?”
“What? Oh very funny.”
“Pardon me for having a sense of humour. Anyway, there’s a call for you,” Janey said, indicating Souter. “A Kathy Webster, says it’s important.”
56
Thursday 6th September 2001
The Websters lived in a recently built stone detached property in Ackworth, just off the main Doncaster Road. The front room curtains were partly drawn despite the warm sunshine; a respectful gesture, Souter thought. Kathy answered his ring on the bell herself. “Come in,” she greeted.
He stepped inside and apologised that he was a few minutes earlier than the time she suggested when she called him yesterday.
Kathy Webster looked to be around forty with shoulder length dark hair, tied back and was dressed in a blue floral pattern blouse with dark blue trousers.
An older woman with a strong resemblance to Kathy appeared at the lounge door.
“This is my mum,” she said. “She’s come to stay with me for a while.”
Souter acknowledged her.
“This is Bob Souter. He was at school with Joe … and with him when …” She wiped her face with a tissue as she struggled to hold her composure. “I’m sorry.”
“No, listen, don’t apologise,” he said.
“It’s too soon, love.” Her mother put an arm around her shoulder.
“It’s okay, Mum. I’ll be fine. I need to speak with Bob, if you can give us some time.”
“If you’re sure.” The woman studied her daughter for a few seconds before retiring to the lounge and closing the door.
Kathy led the way to the rear facing kitchen. “The kids are at my sister’s. I thought it best,” she offered by way of explanation.
