Breaking Faith

by Jo Bannister

  Now he understood. How Chandos had used him and Brodie both. If Daniel was right. Things like this, Daniel had a habit of being right. Deacon’s breathing was thick in his throat. ‘You discussed this with Brodie? What did she think?’

  ‘She thought she’d been very stupid. She was embarrassed and she was angry.’

  ‘And then she went to see him again.’ Deacon’s lips were compressed in a hard line.

  ‘She wanted to make amends. She thought she could find out what it was all about. She wanted to be able to give you something useful.’

  ‘Which was also a pretty stupid thing to do,’ growled Deacon. ‘If he’d realised what she was doing she could have got hurt.’ His gaze sharpened. ‘But that isn’t what worried you, is it? You were afraid he’d win her back. After everything he’s done?’

  ‘I know,’ murmured Daniel, ‘it doesn’t make any sense. But somehow this man can reach her in ways she has no defence against. That’s why …’ He gave a slow, gentle smile. ‘I couldn’t let him hurt her any more, and I could only think of one way to stop him. I didn’ t think she’d guess what I was doing. I didn’t factor you into the equation.’

  Deacon had lowered himself into Daniel’s armchair. Resting his elbows on the arms, gazing over his laced fingers, he regarded Daniel in silence for perhaps a minute. To Daniel, half blinded, it felt a long time. He couldn’t guess what Deacon would say or do next. He’d angered this strong, touchy man more times than he could remember, usually without meaning to and often without understanding quite how he had. Now he thought he’d done it again. But Deacon just sat in silence with his hands folded and an expression Daniel couldn’t fathom even when he put on his other glasses.

  Finally Deacon said, ‘You wanted Brodie to see Chandos thump you because you thought it would help her and me get back together. Is that right?’ There was no clue in his tone as to what answer he wanted.

  ‘More or less.’

  Deacon went on eyeing him pensively. ‘Daniel, I’m going to let you into a secret. At least, I think it’ll come as a surprise. Brodie won’t have told you because she doesn’t know.

  ‘Eric Chandos threw a spanner in the works of our relationship, and for a while it rained brass cogs and sump-oil and was all very dramatic. But Chandos wasn’t the first to come between us. And when he goes, as go he will, we’ll still have to work out what to do about the real threat to our future. The real third party. The one who was there before and will still be there when Eric Chandos is just a bad memory.’

  Daniel’s eyes saucered and his jaw dropped. Even his bruises paled. He could barely string the words together. ‘You’re telling me – you – have someone … ?’

  Deacon’s head tipped to one side. ‘Would that trouble you?’

  ‘If you told me you were cheating on Brodie?’ His light voice soared till it cracked. ‘You know how I’d feel about that. I’d want to kill you.’

  One sceptic eyebrow rose as Deacon’s gaze took in the frozen peas. ‘Lucky for me then,’ he said drily, ‘I got you on a bad day.’

  Deacon’s blow had hit him much harder than Chandos’s, but even with his mind reeling Daniel knew there was something not right about this. The irony in Deacon’s tone. Jack Deacon was a man who could make jokes about many inappropriate things, but Daniel couldn’t see him joking about this. ‘Hang on,’ he muttered, struggling for breath. ‘That’s not what you’re telling me, is it? Then – what … ?’

  ‘I know,’ Deacon said distinctly. Over the laced fingers his eyes nailed Daniel to the sofa. ‘What Brodie doesn’t. What I think you’re only beginning to suspect. I know.’

  ‘Know what?’

  ‘That you love her, Daniel. That the real, abiding threat to me and Brodie, the one I can’t do anything about, the one that will one day force us apart, is you.’

  Voss should have been on his way home too. But his desk was littered with notes and faxes and e-mails, and he didn’t like closing the door on it all. It would still be there in the morning, and God knows what else as well.

  Because he was a conscientious detective he had sought confirmation of everything Eric Chandos told him. And he’d got it. What records survived supported his account of Souls For Satan’s Irish tour. Dates, places, what ferries they used, what vehicles they took, what hotels they booked, for how many people. So far as Voss could tell, Fry had an alibi for the critical week that an innocent man would have killed for.

  Which didn’t necessarily make him innocent. For a conscientious detective, a water-tight alibi eight years old was enough to raise suspicion where none existed before. It might prove innocence; it might suggest that someone knew that one day he was going to need it. If Souls For Satan had been travelling shoe salesmen, Voss would have been surprised at how well their journey had been documented.

  But they weren’t reps, they were a rock band, and by 1997 they were just big enough for their activities to be remembered. There was nothing dubious about Fry being able to establish his whereabouts so precisely.

  Voss fanned out the papers with his hand, hoping this would make them look fewer. It didn’t work. Cover his desk? – he could redecorate his wall with the things. He looked at his watch, with a guilty twinge because he knew his fiancée would also be looking at hers just about now. She’d wait half an hour, then she’d phone him. Just once. She didn’t nag. She knew what he did was important. Her restraint only made Voss feel guiltier.

  He thought that for once he wouldn’t trade on her patience but would get home before she phoned. In twenty minutes he could marshal this blizzard of papers into some sort of order so that first thing tomorrow he could dispose of it and be ready for something more promising. He picked up two sheets at random and, finding both related to the vans, laid one on top of the other in an embryonic pile.

  Then he picked them up again and looked closer. His brows knit in a puzzled frown. ‘Now,’ he asked himself, ‘what does that mean?’

  ‘Of course I love her!’ Daniel heard his voice soar and tried to bring it under control. ‘Dear God, is that your revelation? There are hermits in Anatolia who know I love her. There are amoebas in the seas of Ganymede who’ve heard a rumour. You’re telling me this came as a surprise to you? You’ve seen the stupid things I’ve done for her, you must have known why. I think the world of her. Bizarrely enough, she cares for me too. I know you never understood that but I thought you were OK with it. You can’t think it’s a threat to you.’

  Deacon was nodding slowly. ‘You’re talking about friendship.’

  ‘Of course. That’s what it was from the start. You can say that’s all it was, but to me that isn’t the Wooden Spoon. The friendship of Brodie Farrell is worth having on any terms that it’s offered.’

  ‘But still, friendship. Platonic friendship.’

  ‘Yes. Jack, you and Brodie have been together for nine months. You can’t really think she’s been cheating on you with me all that time.’

  The big man shook his head. ‘No, I don’t think that. Like I said, I don’t think Brodie knows what the situation is. As far as she’s concerned, you two are just really good friends.’

  ‘That’s what I’m trying to tell you!’

  Deacon looked up with coals in his eyes and his voice was deep with import. ‘Daniel, it’s a lie. I know – you don’t tell lies. So maybe it really is a secret and I’m the only one who’s cracked it. But I’m telling you, if it was a crime I could get a conviction. I know what I’m seeing. What you feel for Brodie: it may have been platonic once but it isn’t now. You feel about her the way I feel about her.’

  ‘You’re wrong,’ Daniel said faintly.

  ‘Look me in the eye and say that.’

  But he couldn’t. Ignorance was one thing. He’d seen this coming for a little while, had managed to avoid facing it, so it wasn’t exactly a lie the first time he told Deacon that friendship was all it was. But it would be a lie if he said it again. He thought sometimes it would be a good thing to learn how to lie, just
a little bit, but he wasn’t going to start by lying to Jack Deacon about Brodie Farrell.

  ‘You admit it,’ Deacon said softly.

  Daniel flicked him hunted eyes. ‘I thought you said it wasn’t a crime.’

  Deacon blew out a gusty sigh. ‘What are we going to do?’

  ‘We’re not going to do anything,’ said Daniel with certainty. ‘I hope you and Brodie will get back together. I know that’s what she wants, I think it’s what you want too. Nothing has happened to stop that being the best outcome.’

  ‘Of course it has!’ snarled Deacon. ‘You expect me to keep this from Brodie? Don’t you think she has a right to know?’

  ‘Know what?’ cried Daniel, a catch in his voice. ‘That I wish I was the sort of man she could fall in love with so I could sweep her off her feet, but I’m not so I won’t? You think that’s something she needs to know? Jack, what we have – that friendship you don’t understand – used to work for both of us. It still works for her, and even if some schoolboy part of me would like more it’s a pretty good deal for me too. I don’t want to lose it.’

  Deacon found himself in the absurd position of trying to encourage his rival. ‘You don’t know you would lose it. Until she knows how you feel you’re not going to know.’

  ‘And by then it would be too late. You say something like that out loud, you can’t go back. You can’t pretend it was a joke if somebody looks horrified, or laughs. Nobody stands to gain anything by having this out, but nobody else stands to lose as much as I do. I won’t risk losing her.’

  ‘You’d rather sacrifice something that would make both of you happy?’

  ‘She’s happy now. At least, she was and will be again. And I’m – content. Please, Jack, don’t make an issue of this. You made a lucky guess and I was too slow to deny it. Forget it. What matters is what’s best for Brodie. I can’t give her what she needs. She likes having me around, she enjoys my company, but for some things she’s always going to want you or someone like you. I may regret that but I can’t change it. And you shouldn’t be trying to! If you want Brodie to be happy, put things right between you.’

  Deacon’s heavy brow was troubled. ‘She has the right to know. To make an informed choice.’

  ‘Listen to me.’ Daniel was calm now, clear and determined. ‘If you say a word of this to Brodie, I will leave here and never see her again. She’ll be hurt and confused, and I don’t want to do that, but I will do it rather than ask her to choose between two kinds of caring. If you care about her you won’t put her in that position.’

  Deacon shook his head, bemused and defeated. ‘I don’t understand you, Daniel. I never did. The more I know you, the less I understand. Are you sure this is what you want?’

  ‘Quite sure.’ He even managed a smile. He put the packet of frozen peas to his face again, hiding behind it, and they shifted with a tiny, icy clink like the sound of something dying.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  When Deacon went into his office the next morning, for a moment he thought he’d opened the wrong door. Papers like an early snowfall drifted an inch thick on his desk, making it look like Voss’s. Deacon shuddered. Detective superintendents still have paperwork to do, goodness knows, but usually someone has tamed it before it reaches them. Usually their sergeant.

  Deacon bellowed, ‘Voss!’ like a bull moose at the peak of the rutting season.

  Voss was at the coffee machine. Though it was now officially the weekend he’d been here since before seven. He hadn’t shaved yet, and his stubble was a startling shade of red. He hurried back, holding the polystyrene mug like a peace offering. ‘Don’t touch anything,’ he said; adding a belated, ‘Sir,’ when he saw the expression on Deacon’s face. ‘I know where everything is.’

  ‘I know where everything is too, Charlie Voss. It’s on my desk. It should be on yours.’

  It had taken Voss half an hour to lay out the paper-trail in a form that Deacon, a man with all the natural sense of order of a garden hose – which can be carefully coiled and tied and hung on a hook in the shed, and still be full of kinks and missing its connector next time it’s needed – could be expected to understand in the small window of opportunity between trying and losing his temper.

  ‘Bear with me.’ Voss tapped the first sheet, top left, with a forefinger. ‘This is the two black Transit vans owned by Souls For Satan at the beginning of June 1997. This one they bought new nine months previously, the other they’d had for four years and was then seven years old. Hence the difference in the plates.’ He glanced at Deacon, but thus far the superintendent was keeping pace.

  ‘OK. This’ – another tap – ‘is the same vans booked on the Dublin ferry. And this’ – another piece of paper – ‘is them making the crossing.’

  ‘Hang on.’ Deacon peered closer. Then he put his glasses on and looked again. ‘Is that a mistake?’

  Voss breathed a sigh of relief. If he’d had to point out the discrepancy it would have taken him another month to get back in Deacon’s good books. ‘No. Back in May they ordered another black Transit to replace the older of their two vans. It was delivered early in June and they took it to Ireland.’

  ‘What happened to the old one?’

  ‘It was sold via a dealer to a market trader. He registered his ownership on June 18th.’

  Deacon was beginning to suspect where this was going. ‘When did the band send in the notification that they’d parted with it?’

  June 18th.’

  The superintendent thought about it. ‘It’s not a high priority, is it? You don’t rush to catch the post. You fill in the new owner’s name and address, then it sits on the sideboard for a week, then you use it as a bookmark for a bit, and sometime after that you stick it in a pillar-box. A week isn’t a significant period of time.’

  ‘Any other week wouldn’t be,’ agreed Voss. ‘But that week? OK, so maybe some time went by between the band parting with the van and both parties registering the change of ownership. As you say, it happens all the time. But maybe it didn’t happen this time. Maybe the new owner sent off the registration-form as soon as he got it. In which case …’

  ‘In which case,’ said Deacon, taking the baton and getting up to speed, ‘Souls For Satan actually owned three vans on the Monday that Eddie Rollins did his stock-taking, and only two of them were in Ireland. We need to talk to that market-trader, find out when he actually took delivery.’

  Voss nodded. ‘He works at Camden Lock: the Met are sending someone round to see him.’

  ‘When?’

  The sergeant glanced at his watch. He did it a lot these days, Deacon had noticed – possibly due to a new interest in the passage of time, more likely because it was a present from his fiancée. ‘About now, sir.’

  But it was another hour before the Met phoned Voss with the information he’d asked for, and by then he’d thought of more questions. He used the number provided by his London colleagues to call the trader direct, looking for greater detail.

  It turned out the black van had gone to the great scrapyard in the sky two years earlier. Thirteen years isn’t a bad life for a Transit van, particularly one that’s been used by a rock band and a market trader. ‘So you had it for six years,’ said Voss. ‘What did you use it for?’

  ‘Carrying stuff. To the market. Stuff for sale.’ There’s a kind of natural wariness between policemen and market traders that’s built in at a genetic level.

  ‘What kind of stuff?’

  ‘Antiques of the future,’ said Arnold Warboys firmly. ‘Eastern European, mostly. Hand-carved stuff – bowls and chairs and the odd bed. They think nothing of it, they’d rather have shiny new plastic. Ship it over here, give it a spray of polish, and the next thing you know it’s the latest thing in St John’s Wood. It’s entirely legal, squire,’ he added loftily, ‘all above board.’

  ‘I’m sure it is,’ said Voss. ‘Going back to the van. Did you ever find anything odd in it? Left over from the previous owners.’

  ‘
It came from a rock band,’ said Warboys, ‘the only odd thing about it was it was clean. I had a good look to see if there were any interesting little packets under the seats …’ He remembered then who he was talking to, covered his confusion with a cough. ‘Not that … I mean, I’m not … Anyway, there wasn’t. Nothing. It must have been valeted. You buy a seven-year-old van, you don’t often get it valeted first.’

  Only if someone has something to hide, thought Voss. Aloud he said, ‘Can you remember when you bought it? Exactly when – the day, or at least what part of the week?’

  He could have asked a hundred people and eight years on they’d have had no idea. But Arnold Warboys measured his life in market-days. ‘It was a Wednesday. I picked it up on my way to a little antiques sale in Pinner. I don’t think it’s going now but it used to be Wednesday mornings. You’d see stuff sold there on the Wednesday, then on the Saturday it’d turn up, polished and three times the price, in Kensington High Street. Jimmy Patel called me on the Tuesday afternoon to say it was in and I went to see it on my way to Pinner. It was just what I needed: I bought it, phoned my insurance and took it with me.’

  When Voss related the conversation to him Deacon tried to do the maths in his head, got it wrong and had to scribble on the back on an envelope. ‘So Jared Fry and his band left for Ireland on Monday June 9th, when Sasha Wade was still at home with her parents. He took the new van, and the newer of the other two, and he played most nights between the 10th and the 19th. It might just have been possible for him to come back for a few hours, but so difficult you can’t imagine him doing it.

  ‘Sasha left home on Saturday June 14th, and she took a change of clothes so she maybe wasn’t expecting to be back before the start of the week.

  ‘Eddie Rollins started stock-taking on Monday June 16th. He worked late and got home around one in the morning – the Tuesday morning – and that’s when he saw the dark van parked down the garden. Fry was still in Ireland. Unless we’re wrong about almost everything we think we know, Fry didn’t kill her.’