by Peter Helton
‘And how are you this morning, sir?’
‘Not too bad, though I did have a few beers last night. And you’ll never guess who with.’
‘I shan’t try then.’
‘Kat. Bumped into her last night in Clifton Village and we had a couple of beers together. I think the ice is definitely broken.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah. We even talked about the Louise thing. Apparently it’s all over between them anyway. That should normalize relations a bit.’
‘Oh aye, totally normal. I saw Kat hide behind the drinks machine until you had crossed the corridor with that mug of coffee.’
‘Really? Ah. Yes, well … she did tell me one or two things she might not have done in the sober light of day. I was hoping she was too drunk to remember.’
‘Looks like she remembers all too well. Do tell,’ Austin said conspiratorially.
‘Nah. If I tell you then I won’t be able to blackmail her with it.’ He checked that no one stood below before flicking his cigarette butt through the window. He drained his mug of coffee. ‘Right, I’m ready to receive your earth-shattering news.’
‘The boffins have wrung out Barbara Steadman’s shagging phone.’
‘Now he tells me.’ He snatched the paper from Austin’s hand.
‘And she only ever used it to call two numbers. Her driver, Lisa Burns, and someone called Marcus Catlin.’
McLusky was already putting on his jacket. ‘And who is he when he’s at home?’
‘Don’t know. But when he’s not at home he’s a vet.’
At Marcus Catlin’s veterinary practice on the outskirts of Keynsham, a small town southwest of the city, his elderly receptionist chided them. ‘You really should have called ahead, Mr Catlin is very busy and he has three appointments this morning alone.’
‘Perhaps we could talk to him between appointments,’ McLusky suggested.
‘You could try and catch him in between, yes, I suppose so.’
‘Well, would you let him know we are here, now,’ he said, becoming impatient.
‘You being here is just the problem, because he isn’t.’
‘Why didn’t you say so in the first place?’
‘I told you he had three appointments this morning. His first was at Broadacre Farm, but that was just vaccination, he’ll be finished there now, I expect. You could try and catch him at Wychslade Farm. I’ll write down the postcode for you, and his next appointment, too, just in case. I can send him a voicemail or text if you tell me what it’s about. He keeps his mobile turned off, it scares the animals when it goes off, but he checks for messages in between appointments.’
‘He could set it to vibrate,’ Austin said helpfully.
‘Oh no, it always makes him jump, he says, and that wouldn’t do at all. There you are then.’ She handed over the paper with a worried smile. ‘Everything is all right, isn’t it? He hasn’t … done anything, I mean.’
‘Not that we’re aware of,’ McLusky said. ‘Nothing to worry about. But please don’t contact him, we would like to speak to him first.’ Outside he studied the addresses, then looked up and sniffed the air; it was just beginning to rain. ‘He’s that kind of vet. I thought cats and hamsters, but he’s probably got his arm up a cow’s arse right now. No wonder he doesn’t want to answer his phone.’
Back behind the wheel he still mused about it. ‘I wonder what the attraction is. I mean, if you could choose between a well-appointed surgery treating gerbils for hiccoughs or whatever and standing in a smelly shed up to your ankles in cow shit, why would you choose the cow shit?’
Austin didn’t have to think long. ‘Probably for the same reason you would never choose a desk job over real policing. You wouldn’t be happy as a CONGO.’ CONGO was Austin’s acronym for desk jobbers: Clock On, Never Go Out.
‘Too right.’ He handed the note to Austin. He hadn’t got around to fitting sat nav in the Mercedes yet. ‘Stick that in your phone and get us to the first one.’
Austin took out his iPhone. ‘As long as you’re sure. You might get your new car muddy. Take you hours to get that shine back.’ The Mercedes was already as dirty as every other McLusky-owned car had been.
It rained all the way. Wychslade Farm looked to McLusky like a mudpack thrown against the side of the hill. The farm gate, the farmhouse and the massive sheds appeared to stand on the slant. McLusky parked his mud-streaked car in the concrete yard next to an even muddier pair of Land Rovers, ‘I haven’t opened the door yet and I can smell it. This place stinks bad.’
‘Pig farm,’ said Austin cheerfully. ‘They all smell like that.’
‘Again, Jane, if you had the choice between growing sweet smelling peas or whatever and living with the smell of pig shit all your life, who would choose this stench?’
‘Pigs are very intelligent. More intelligent than dogs. Just not cuddly. We shouldn’t really eat them.’
‘I’m surprised farmers can eat at all with this smell around,’ McLusky grumbled and got out of the car. A pale, grey-haired man in rubber boots, waterproof overall, plastic bib and black rubber gloves had appeared from one of the sheds, frowning across the dripping yard at them. McLusky showed him his ID. ‘We’re looking for Mr Catlin,’ he said. ‘We need to speak to him urgently.’
‘Urgent, is it? I’ll tell him.’ He turned and disappeared back into the concrete shed. McLusky was convinced it was at the centre of all the evil smells in the world.
It was several minutes before another man emerged from the broad metal doors. He was younger than the first man, in his thirties, with bright blue eyes and fair hair, and his overall was made from blue cotton. He nodded across to them before divesting himself of his plastic bib. He hosed down his black rubber boots at a tap outside the door before unhurriedly walking over to them. ‘Gentlemen? What can I do for you,’ he said in a jovial voice while raising a quick eyebrow at the muddy black Mercedes blocking the farm exit.
‘Are you Marcus Catlin?’ The man confirmed it. ‘I’m DI McLusky, this is Detective Sergeant Austin. We have reason to believe that you were acquainted with the late Barbara Steadman.’
Catlin shook his head. ‘Barbara Steadman? The woman that was killed? I read about that in the Herald. What makes you think I knew her?’
McLusky dug his hand into his trouser pockets. ‘Ah. Interesting. OK. While my sergeant here is quite happy to stand in the rain breathing pig shit all day, personally I prefer the smell of Interview Room Two at Albany Road Station where I’ll begin by charging you with obstructing a murder investigation. Austin, caution the man.’
‘All right, all right.’ Catlin lifted his hands in a calming gesture. ‘What do you want to know?’
The rain was beginning to annoy McLusky yet rinsed wellies or not, there was no way he wanted the man in his car; they all climbed into the vet’s Land Rover instead. The back seats were cluttered with small boxes and equipment of some kind but Austin squeezed himself amongst it. McLusky now convinced himself that the interior of the Land Rover also smelled of excrement. His stomach gurgled; he felt hungry and revolted at the same time.
‘I thought I could keep completely out of it. She was married, after all. And we had split up a few days earlier, so strictly speaking we were ex-lovers. You see? Much easier for all concerned, I thought. Especially the husband.’ Catlin spoke as though he was explaining a veterinary procedure to a nervous client.
McLusky gave an irritated nod. ‘Your concern is touching. How long had you known Mrs Steadman?’
‘About six weeks.’
‘Not very long. Which one of you ended it?’
‘I did.’
‘You sure?’
‘Yes, Inspector, I have a very good memory.’
‘Perhaps she dumped you and you could not forgive her?’
‘You’re not listening.’
‘Why did you finish it?’
‘We were completely unsuited to each other, our lives were different, our expectations. Barbara was … a typi
cal city person, I suppose. When I told her I was a vet she immediately assumed I looked after cats, dogs and hamsters from nine to five.’
‘Really.’
‘I do very little of that, it doesn’t interest me in the slightest. I grew up in a farming community and Barbara, it was like she had never set foot outside a town. I swear until she met me her shoes had never left tarmac. My idea of a good time is to take long walks.’
‘And hers?’
‘Driving her car – she talked a lot about her car – and sitting in bars and restaurants and drinking too much.’
‘How did you meet her?’
‘She ran into me in Bristol and dropped her shopping. She told me later that she had done it on purpose. She’d seen me, fancied me, and staged the thing. And she had done it before, how corny can you get?’
‘How was the sex?’ McLusky asked.
‘The sex was good.’
‘Your place?’
‘My place.’
‘But you decided you’d had enough good sex.’
‘I think, Inspector, it’s because I’m still dreaming of meeting the future Mrs Catlin. The vet’s wife. Barbara was not it. She had no intention of becoming my wife, either.’
‘Did you have rows?’
‘Not about that.’
‘Where did you tell her it was over?’
‘Not in a lay-by.’
‘Where then?’
‘We were going for a walk at the time.’
‘Where?’
‘Along the canal. But not that canal. Along the Kennet & Avon near Bath. It was her idea. If we had to walk then at least it was flat.’ Catlin sighed at the memory. ‘She told me her feet hurt after eight minutes. I timed it. I decided there and then it was never going to work.’
‘OK. Lisa Burns.’
‘Who?’
‘Come on, now, you were doing so well there. Her driver. How much did you pay her to say she didn’t know what you looked like?’
He paused, exasperated. ‘Five hundred.’
‘Waste of money.’
‘It appears so.’
‘Did she ask you for it?’
‘No, I went to see her at her new job when I heard about Barbara.’
McLusky opened the passenger door. ‘Thank you, Mr Catlin. I would like you to come to Albany Road station within the next twenty-four hours to make a full statement and give a DNA sample.’
‘Is that really necessary?’
‘Yes, really. We can of course send someone round to your practice. Shall I arrange it through your receptionist?’
‘I’ll come to the station.’
McLusky got out and slammed the door. ‘Thought you might.’ Back behind the wheel of his own car he couldn’t decide what to do first, have a cigarette or chomp on a chocolate bar. First, he decided, he would drive and leave the bad smell behind.
In the canteen at Albany Road he mulled it over with Austin over a plate of plaice, peas and chips.
‘I see you went for the safe option,’ Austin commented. ‘Wish I had.’ His Mediterranean-style fritters appeared to consist mainly of breadcrumbs and dried herbes de Provence. ‘Was it safe to let the vet go?’
‘Not sure.’ In retrospect, and with no other suspect in sight, it may have been premature. He even suspected himself of having done it so he could get away from the nauseating smell, though he had to admit to himself that it was less nauseating than the smell of a decomposing corpse. But only just, he decided. ‘We’ll have to talk to Lisa Burns again, see what else she was paid not to reveal.’
‘Are we paying her another visit?’
‘Lord, no, bring her in, charge her with obstructing a police investigation.’ He squeezed tartare sauce from a couple of sachets over his peas and began shovelling them into his mouth. ‘Do you ever get tired of being lied to, Jane?’
Austin pulled a dismissive face. ‘I expect to be lied to, everyone lies to the police.’
McLusky put down his fork and sat back in his chair. ‘Doesn’t that bother you? That everything you hear is probably a lie? And that you expect it as soon as someone opens their mouth?’
‘Not really.’ He washed down his dusty fritters with a few gulps from a glass of milk. ‘It’s a challenge, that’s how I see it.’
‘I’m rapidly losing patience,’ said McLusky. He returned to his food and stabbed viciously at his fries.
‘I’ve just heard we have a thief in the station,’ said Austin.
‘One of ours, you mean?’
‘Canteen staff did a stocktake and they’re convinced someone is helping themselves without paying. Mostly chocolate bars, apparently.’
‘Fiendish behaviour,’ said McLusky and stuffed some more fries in his mouth.
Michael Leslie was angry. He was angry with his brother and angry with himself. But he had to admit that he had never before enjoyed himself so much while being absolutely livid. It was getting dark and the headlights had come on automatically. It had made him laugh; an angry laugh. He was hungry now. Lunch was a long time ago. But in a car like this it was easy to forget everything else. The automatic gearbox on this thing was so smooth you forgot it had gears at all. The Jaguar XJ was a point-and-squirt car; you pointed it at where you wanted to be and put your foot down and it didn’t drive you there, it catapulted you there. That was how the day had felt: he had a machine that obediently zoomed him to wherever he wanted to be, effortlessly, almost magically. Set the controls to the heart of the sun was the line from the song; Pink Floyd, wasn’t it? He had played no music at all today even though the sound system was probably as good as the rest of the car. He needed headspace. He needed to come to some kind of decision about his life and after all the arguing he and his brother had done over the last couple of days he was still sure that his brother was wrong. Only now he was equally sure that they had both been wrong. About what it all meant. About what was important. About money. And this car made the point perfectly, that’s why Rick had leant it to him, challenged him to drive the car and then come back and tell him that material possessions were unimportant. Rick probably hadn’t meant him to go on a ten-hour drive, but so what? His brother had so much money he owned a Range Rover as well as the Jaguar. Matthew 19.24 he had quoted at his brother, about camels and rich men going to heaven, about the first being last and the everlasting question: ‘Who then can be saved?’
He realized now that it had been his own spiritual crisis that had made him react so fiercely; it wasn’t his brother he had been trying to convince that the bible was more important than the bank statement, it had been himself. And since he was living entirely on his brother’s charity right now, attacking his riches as immoral had been a silly and ungrateful thing to do.
He smiled grimly at the thought of handing back this car and getting back on the bicycle he had praised so much to Rick as being eco-friendly, democratic, cheap and honest. But you didn’t zoom on a bicycle. Nearly there, he thought, and felt his heart sink as he recognized the country lane that ran past his brother’s ‘rural retreat’, as Rick liked to call it. But it was time to be brave and face up to it honestly. Perhaps they should both for once compromise? Jesus!
He stood on the brakes yet the Jaguar only just managed to stop before crashing into the white van that had stupidly pulled out from the side of the lane. How could the moron not have seen his headlights approach on an unlit road? He gave a retaliatory blast on the horn. Now the van jerked forwards a couple of times and stopped. Must have stalled the engine. Great. You see? On a bicycle you’d have squeezed past that thing but now you’re at the mercy of that idiot van driver. As if in answer the driver’s door opened and a man climbed down into the road, making apologetic gestures and shrugging his shoulders. ‘Oh no, don’t come and tell me you’ve broken down’, he said to himself as he let down the window. The driver walked up to it. ‘Having a problem?’ he asked him.
The man bent down to bring his face closer, laying one hand on to the roof of the car. ‘Mr Leslie?’ he
asked.
‘It is, but …’
As if out of nowhere a shiny semi-automatic pointed straight at his nose. ‘Then shut the fuck up or I’ll shoot you right here.’
THIRTEEN
The boat that had most likely been used to transport Barbara Steadman to the site where she had been murdered had belatedly been reported stolen by the owner. Before it disappeared it had been tied up to a larger boat near the Nova Scotia pub. ‘The owner is a well-to-do plumber,’ Austin said, looking at the report.
‘They’re all well-to-do,’ McLusky said without a flicker of interest. The boat itself had been handed over to forensics where it had apparently sunk without a trace and McLusky did not expect to hear back from them until long after the killer was in custody.
‘There’s nothing to connect him at all and naturally his DNA and prints will be all over the boat,’ Austin added.
‘Yes,’ McLusky said, disgust in his voice. ‘Let’s get some coffees.’ He gathered up a colourful bouquet of dirty mugs and led the way.
In the CID room DI Fairfield was standing next to the seated Sorbie, tapping his monitor to draw his attention to something. She looked up, nodded a greeting at McLusky and quickly ducked her head down again. While the kettle heated McLusky stood in front of the large scale map of Bristol on the wall. ‘And where was it found again?’
‘It was drifting past the SS Great Britain site,’ Austin said, spooning coffee granules. ‘The harbour ferry people reported it and we got the water rats to bomb out and pick it up.’
‘He’s not stupid then. Letting it go was the best thing to do, really, now we have no idea where he came ashore.’
‘Surely the best thing to do would have been to scuttle the thing?’
McLusky narrowed his eyes. ‘Yyyes.’
‘You mean no,’ Austin told him. ‘You usually mean no when you say yyyes.’
‘Do I? No wonder I’m confused. It’s just a feeling I get about the man. He’s only interested in one thing, killing his victims. He doesn’t think “I’ll have that iPhone and that Gucci watch off her” for instance.’ He glanced at his own watch and compared the time with the clock on the wall. Ten past four. His Rolex kept perfect time. ‘He didn’t rob his victims. He even put Bothwick’s jacket back on him after he had killed him. He had no possessions removed from him.’
