by Jo Bannister
They knew that Sasha Wade was last seen on Saturday morning, June 14th 1997. That she left home with her guitar, a few clothes and a little money. They knew that the girl who went into the ground at The Diligence, probably around that time, was a physical match for Sasha.
They knew that two nights later Eddie Rollins got home around one to see a dark van – that he was never able to identify, that was gone the next morning – at the bottom of the garden. They knew the dead girl had suffered a head injury, and though it was unclear if it killed her there were no other signs of trauma. They knew that she was raised on the swathe of chalkland that ran along much of the south coast.
They knew that Sasha wrote songs and craved fame. She ran away once before in pursuit of celebrity. They knew that Jared Fry and Souls For Satan stayed at The Diligence eleven months before she disappeared, and that Fry bought the house eight and a half years later without mentioning this.
Now matters became speculative. Voss didn’t mind speculating but it was a tricky thing to do alone. With no one to point out the flaws in your case it was easy to become attached to a theory and find yourself defending it in the face of the evidence. He looked towards the door. But it was too soon for Deacon’s fury to have abated. He’d try again tomorrow.
There was the band. He wanted to talk to the other members of Souls For Satan who stayed at The Diligence. He was waiting for a call from the original drummer, who’d left the band six years ago and now had his own label in San Diego. Bass guitarist Zack Quaid was still with Souls, except that he was currently on a month’s retreat in Tibet and his PA wasn’t sure when she could get a message to him. Only keyboard player Johnny Turpin was currently close enough to meet. He lived in Hove, but Voss had been told he never got up before midday. Not for policemen; not for fires.
Deacon wouldn’t have taken that for an answer. Voss headed out to his car.
Anyone who thought Jared Fry looked like the wreck of a human being should have seen Johnny Turpin hauled from his bed at half-past nine on a Friday morning. His face looked like a cake left so long in the sun that the icing had run off the edges. His eyes were like piss-holes in snow. The t-shirt and joggers that served him as pyjamas were less flattering than the leathers he wore in performance and it was already clear he was in for a battle with middle-age spread. Only his hands appeared well-cared-for. He was thirty-one years old.
A mug of strong coffee later Turpin was beginning to make sense. Or Voss was beginning to understand him: he spoke with a Birmingham accent thicker than the coffee. He came over as a down-to-earth individual with no reservations about talking to the law. Of course, his vice was a legal one.
‘Beer,’ he said, rubbing his stomach gingerly. ‘Bit of a booze-up last night.’
‘Showbiz bash?’ asked Voss brightly.
‘Me brother’s darts team.’
He remembered that tour of the south of England. He even remembered the hotel where they stayed. ‘A bit of a dump. All bits of wood holding it up.’
‘Half-timbering,’ nodded Voss, deadpan.
‘The old biddy who ran it seemed to think we should be in bed by midnight. We tried to tell her, we were still on stage at midnight.’
‘You were there for six nights. Eight rooms. Who would that have been?’
Turpin needed his fingers to work it out. ‘Four band members, sound engineer, electrician and two roadies. Yeah, eight of us.’
‘Wasn’t Eric Chandos with you?’
Turpin shook his head. His hair fell in rat-tails to his shoulders. ‘Nah. He’d be a couple of hundred miles away, setting things up for the following week.’
Everyone agreed on that point. ‘What about groupies? Any of them stay with you at The Diligence?’
Turpin considered. ‘There was my wife Sharon.’
Voss grinned. ‘I think we can safely discount Mrs Turpin. You married young then?’
‘Twenty-one. She travelled with us for a couple of years, till she started with the kids.’
‘How many have you got?’
‘Five,’ said Johnny Turpin proudly.
‘I imagine the other guys had girlfriends.’
“Course they did. And sure, they brought them back to the digs. All the time.’
‘Can you remember who was at The Diligence with you?’
Turpin shook his head again. ‘I can’t remember any of their names. I’m not sure I ever knew their names.’
‘Would you recognise a photo?’ He produced a copy of the one Mrs Wade had supplied.
The keyboard player took another long swig of coffee, studying the picture. He didn’t return it until he was sure. ‘I don’t think I ever saw her.’
Voss moved on. ‘I know the band is the same except for the drummer, but what about the road crew? Who was travelling with you about then? Any idea where I’d find them?’
‘Well, you’ll find one of them in Jared’s garage. Tommy Bell.’
‘Fry’s driver?’
‘Driver, roadie – it’s the same job, he just thinks it sounds smarter. When we’re touring he drives the wagon, when we’re not he drives Jared around.’
‘Wagon?’
Turpin waxed enthusiastic. ‘Yeah, it’s great. It’s like a damn great bus. It’s got bedrooms and a sitting room and a kitchen: it’s not like travelling at all. You can sleep all day and wake up at the next gig. We used to shift everything in a couple of vans. This is better.’
‘So Mr Fry has a driver. Can’t he drive himself?’
Turpin regarded him frankly. ‘There’s this law about not doing it while you’re under the influence of drink or drugs.’
Voss nodded. ‘So there is. OK. So, do roadies get groupies too?’
Johnny Turpin laughed until he spilled the last of his coffee. It blistered the varnish on the floor. ‘You haven’t met Tommy, have you? Decent guy, what he doesn’t know about distributors and things you don’t need to know, and you come to want an all-night dry-cleaners – and believe me, there are times you desperately want an all-night dry-cleaners – you couldn’t be in better hands. But the answer to a groupie’s prayer? Let’s put it this way. When we were first on the road we couldn’t afford hotels so we slept in the back of the van. I used to sleep in one of Tommy’s sweatshirts.’
Voss wasn’t sure what Turpin was telling him. ‘Instead of pyjamas?’
‘Instead of a sleeping-bag.’
Voss didn’t know how much use this information was going to be, but then you never did. You just kept piling it up until something slid into place. ‘Tell me about Jared Fry. What kind of a man is he?’
‘He’s a bloody good songwriter.’
‘Yes. And a friend?’
Turpin had to think about that. ‘He’s never done me a bad turn. The success I’ve had, I got it on his coat-tails. But a friend? I’m not sure. We work well together.’
‘Who would he call friends?’
Turpin grimaced. ‘I don’t think he has any. But then. I don’t think he ever wanted them. What some people get from friendships, Jared gets from Eric.’
‘Have they always lived together?’
There was a bleary twinkle in Turpin’s eye. ‘You mean, are they extra special friends? No. But Eric knows which side his bread’s buttered on. Any of the rest of us walk – like Kevin Michaels, the original drummer – we’d be replaced in a week. But if Jared stopped singing, or stopped writing, we’d all be queueing down the Job Centre and so would Eric. No one in the world has more regard for his own best interests than Eric Chandos. When the time comes that the only way to get Jared on stage is to carry him, he’ll do that too.’
Heading back to Dimmock Voss thought of another call he should make. Not in a professional capacity but because DS Voss was a decent human being who didn’t like to see people hurting.
‘Hi, Daniel. I was passing, I just wondered how you were.’
For the second night running Daniel had barely slept. It showed in the dark smudges under his eyes, the hollowness of hi
s cheeks, the way every movement seemed an effort. But he ushered Voss inside as if he was glad to see him. ‘I’m OK, Charlie, thank you. Maybe a bit shell-shocked.’
‘I bet,’ said Voss feelingly. ‘How’s Brodie?’
Daniel gave an unhappy shrug. ‘I haven’t seen her today. She hasn’ t called. I don’t think she’s talking to me.’
‘What happened wasn’t your fault. You couldn’t have guessed Chandos would do something like that.’
Daniel shrugged. ‘Jared’s worth a lot of money to him. I should have realised I was pushing him into a corner. I knew about him and Brodie: I should have guessed it would come out if he got angry enough.’
‘My dad’s an undertaker,’ said Voss, apparently changing the subject. ‘It’s a traditional trade and he’s a very conventional man. He’s fifty-six but really he’s the last Victorian. When I left home he sat me down in the front room and gave me three pieces of advice. I still think they’re pretty good. He said, Always pay your bills on time. Never drink so much you don’t know what you’re doing. And be aware that you can hurt a woman without laying a finger on her.
‘What happened between them put a duty on Chandos to take care of Mrs Farrell. To put her needs above his own. And not to throw her name into the middle of an argument as if it was a grenade. He behaved like a cad. Nothing anyone did or said, or could have done or said, alters the fact.’
Daniel was grateful for that. He’d rerun the encounter endlessly in his mind, as if finding another way to play it would let him rewrite the ending, but he never found the point at which he should have seen and could have avoided what was coming. Still he carried the burden of Brodie’s unhappiness, if only because it mattered more to him than to the man who caused it. He sighed. ‘Jared’s right: we crucify women whenever we love them.’
At the same moment they heard the tattoo of footsteps on the iron stairs. Daniel was on his way to the door before Brodie had the chance to knock.
Voss was about to excuse himself but she waved him back as if it was her flat. ‘Stay where you are, Charlie, I want your opinion on this too.’
‘What’s happened?’ asked Daniel softly.
‘I’m not sure. It might be just my nasty suspicious mind at work again.’ She paused long enough for someone to demur; when no one did she rolled her eyes and continued. ‘Eric came to my house last night. No,’ she added, knowing what both men would be wondering, ‘nothing happened – we just talked. Mostly, he talked. He says he’s in love with me.’
Neither man knew how to respond. Neither was quite sure she wanted a response.
After a moment Brodie gave a gruff chuckle. ‘I was hoping to surprise you – I wasn’t expecting you to be dumbstruck! Does it seem entirely beyond the bounds of possibility, then?’
Charlie Voss was shaking his ginger head and saying, ‘No, no,’ very quickly. But Daniel, who knew her better, knew she was teasing them.
‘Did you believe him?’
‘Well – no,’ she admitted. ‘A bit of me wanted to, but actually I haven’t fallen for a line that thin since I was about sixteen. People don’t say when they love you, they show it.’
Daniel bit his lip. ‘Then what … ?’
‘That’s what I asked myself. I went to bed wondering, and I still didn’t know when I got up this morning. So I thought I’d come round here and ask you. What does Eric Chandos stand to gain by pretending to be in love with me?’
One answer was so obvious Voss was reluctant to voice it. ‘He may have thought he stood to gain you.’
She gave him a smile like patting his head. ‘Nice try, Charlie Voss. Sucking up to the boss’s girlfriend is never a bad move. Unless it turns out she’s his ex-girlfriend,’ she added in wry parentheses. ‘But no. He’s an intelligent man: he must know I’m not going to forget what he did even if he lays on the sex appeal with a trowel. So if it isn’t me he wants, what is it?’
‘Perhaps he wanted to apologise,’ said Daniel.
Brodie laughed aloud. ‘He did that too, but I don’t think he risked a thick ear to give me an apology. I hope not, because it wasn’t a very good one.’
‘So not love and not guilt. What’s left?’
Brodie regarded him sternly. ‘Don’t come the cynic with me, Daniel Hood, you’re no better at it than Eric is at apologies. Get your brain in gear and tell me what he was up to.’
Daniel accepted the rebuke graciously. Behind the thick glasses his pale eyes slid out of focus, went distant with thought. ‘You think he has an ulterior motive.’
‘I’m sure of it. What he’s done, what he’s said, makes no sense otherwise.’ She made herself look at him. ‘I never thought it was love. I thought it was desire. But if you want something so much you have to have it regardless of the cost, you take better care of it. You don’t throw it away. Not that quickly, anyway.’
‘You think he’s using you?’
‘I think he’s trying to. But I don’t know what for.’
Daniel had the glimmerings of an idea. He struggled to put it together. He was hindered in this by his own hopes, because if he was right the episode at The Diligence was nothing to do with him: if he’d never gone there it might have happened differently but it would still have happened. But if it wasn’t desire motivating Eric Chandos, it was something altogether nastier. ‘What if he’s using you to get at Jack?’
‘What?’ said Voss, startled. ‘How? Why?’
Brodie said nothing. But her attention was absolute, her gaze like claws in his face.
Daniel didn’t want to spell it out. However carefully he chose the words they would hurt and humiliate her. He bit his lip until he tasted blood.
Brodie may have behaved like one but she wasn’t a fool. She knew that two and two never make five. There was a missing factor in all of this, and she thought Daniel had found it, and his very reluctance to explain suggested what it might be. Her voice was hard, metallic. ‘Spit it out, Daniel. What do you think Eric’s up to?’
‘I don’t know. It just occurred to me that maybe what he really wants is to take Jack’s mind off his job.’
Voss’s eyes widened with shock. ‘But that would mean …’ He fell silent then, but not in time.
‘Yes,’ Brodie said crisply, following the trail of barbed wire. ‘That everything between us was a lie. The only reason he was interested in me was that I was involved with Dimmock’s senior detective. Jack Deacon’s soft spot, the best place to attack him.’
Wanting to spare her pain Daniel tried to back-pedal. ‘We don’t know that. This is pure speculation …’
‘Yes,’ she agreed wearily, weighed down by understanding, ‘but it makes more sense than the alternative. I know he was lying when he said he loved me: I think he was lying before that. I was bowled off my feet, stupid with what I felt for him, but Eric never was. I think he knew what he was doing all along. He was making it impossible for Jack to treat him like any other suspect.’
‘Suspect?’ echoed Voss, startled. ‘What are we supposed to suspect him of? There’s no connection between him and the girl in the garden. Is there something else he’s hiding?’
‘I don’t know what he’s hiding,’ said Brodie, ‘but I’ll wager cash money he’s hiding something. Something that would damage him if it came out. Something that, if it started to come out, would be investigated by Dimmock CID.’
‘A crime,’ said Voss.
‘It has to be.’ Now she was thinking faster even than Daniel. ‘Jack has, you’ll agree, a certain reputation. Eric wasn’t sure he could take him if they went head to head. But he could put Jack off his game. He needed a distraction, something to stop Jack thinking like a policeman.’
‘If it really was a ploy, if Chandos made a play for you specifically to upset Jack,’ Daniel said quietly, ‘Jack had to know about it.’
Her jaw clenched hard, Brodie nodded. ‘He had to make Jack aware of what he’d been up to – what we’d been up to – without actually telling him. You gave him the opportunity
, but if you hadn’t he’d have made his own. He needed Jack to know I’d been unfaithful. He wanted Jack thinking about that. Seeing him as a rival, not a suspect.’
Voss knew things about police procedure that neither of the others did. ‘If Division get to hear about this they’ll take Mr Deacon off the case – the murder and anything else Chandos might be involved in. They’ll say there’s a conflict of interests. If I had something to hide, I’d rather face almost anyone than Jack Deacon.’
Brodie was not blind to what that meant: that her behaviour had left a man she cared about barely able to function professionally. That she’d crippled him. But there’d be time to agonise over it later: now she was seeking a way to make amends.
Voss was a detective: he needed to relate the theory to the facts. ‘But what are we actually suggesting here? That even though we’ve been unable to connect them, Eric Chandos did in fact murder Sasha Wade?’
Brodie shook her head. ‘How could he have done? I don’t think it’s anything to do with your case, Charlie. I think he was just unlucky: turning up a body in his back garden meant everybody’s actions were going to be under the microscope, and something he thought he’d got away with was in danger of coming to light.’
‘What?’
She shrugged. ‘Who knows? Except that it mattered to him to keep it quiet. Mattered enough to go to a lot of trouble and a fair bit of risk to distract attention from it.’ Her lips were tight.
Daniel was reviewing what they knew. ‘Drugs, maybe? We know Jared’s an addict. Maybe Chandos is his supplier.’
But Voss wasn’t convinced. ‘Jared Fry is worth a lot of money to Eric Chandos. When he finally dissolves his brain with that stuff he’ll be worth nothing. Chandos made it pretty clear yesterday that he’ll do just about anything to protect that investment. I can’t see him actively encouraging Fry to do drugs.’
‘So maybe it’s fraud,’ suggested Daniel. ‘He’s taking more out of the pot than he’s entitled to. Jared would never have noticed, but now other people are involved, and some of them are policemen, he’s afraid it’ll come to light.’
