by Jo Bannister
Voss hesitated. But it had to be said. ‘What about Chandos?’
Deacon took a deep breath and let it out again. ‘He says he was in Ireland too, but no one was paying to see him and no one was interviewing him for the papers. He travels ahead of the band. He says he was in Belfast on the 16th. Do we believe him?’
‘I’d want some sort of corroboration,’ said Voss. ‘A hotel receipt, a petrol docket – something.’
‘But it’s eight years ago and he says they’re all gone. They probably are – mine are.’ Deacon continued thinking. ‘Belfast was the last stop on the tour?’
‘Yes. The Wednesday and Thursday nights, 18th and 19th.’
‘Right,’ nodded Deacon. ‘But if Chandos was there to spot problems in time to sort them out, how late would he leave it? If he was in Belfast after, say, midday on Monday 16th he didn’t kill Sasha Wade either. But if he was there any earlier there might have been time for him to get back to England, meet Sasha, kill her and bury her at The Diligence on Monday night. Using the old van, which he then cleaned up and delivered to the dealer the following afternoon.’
His eyes flared suddenly wide. ‘So we know somebody was in London by Tuesday 17th. Fry and the band were still in Ireland. The only one who could have got back to London in time to deliver that van to Patel on the Tuesday was Chandos. And if he was there Tuesday afternoon, maybe he was there by midnight on Monday.’ Deacon had the bit in his teeth now. ‘How long would it take him to get from Belfast to London?’
‘By car? A couple of hours from Belfast to Stranraer, then a full day’s driving.’
‘Find out when he left Belfast.’
‘He can’t remember where he stayed,’ said Voss apologetically.
‘That’s convenient,’ growled Deacon. ‘Then find out when he was at the concert-hall.’
‘It’s eight years ago …’
‘Find out!’
Voss called the King’s Hall in Belfast. He was lucky in that there were still people working there who remembered seeing Chandos, but after eight years no one could say precisely when the manager had arrived, how long he had spent scrutinising the arrangements, or when he had left.
Deacon slumped behind his desk, regarding his sergeant from under bushy eyebrows. ‘It’s not just me, is it, Charlie? It’s not just me wanting him to be involved. Reading too much into some random events.’
Voss didn’t think so. ‘There are too many coincidences. One or two you could accept, but we keep meeting another one. Now there’s the black van that was unaccounted for but still the property of the band the night one was seen at The Diligence.
‘And there’s the song.’ He kept coming back to the song the way Deacon kept revisiting his grudge. ‘Chandos says Sasha must have been at a party where Fry sang it or else knew someone who was. But it’s another point of contact.’
‘But why would he buy a house where he’d buried a body?’
‘And if by some crazy mischance he found he had,’ agreed Voss, ‘why would he immediately start digging up the garden? You wouldn’ t. You’d put a really heavy statue on the spot to discourage anyone from digging there ever again.’
Deacon was trying to remember what they’d been told about the work. ‘The pool was supposed to go at the top of the garden, beside the stable-block. The bottom of the garden was Plan B. I wonder who gave Wilmslow the go-ahead to dig there.’
‘I’ll ask him.’
‘You do that little thing, Charlie Voss,’ said Deacon. ‘Because if Fry told Wilmslow to dig there, probably he didn’t know there was any reason not to. But if Chandos did, that’s him in the clear. Either way, you and me are taking a run up to The Diligence for another conversation with the pair of them.
‘And for heaven’s sake,’ he added with asperity, ‘get a shave first. What’s wrong with your generation that you can’t get up in the mornings?’
When Daniel heard Brodie’s quick step on his stairs his heart plummeted. He knew immediately that Deacon had broken his word and told her. Or not that, because he hadn’t given his word, but decided Brodie had to know. Seeing her face he was sure. She looked ill at ease, wound up for an encounter she knew would be difficult but had to be faced anyway. They regarded one another across the little sitting room and neither of them seemed able to start. Daniel couldn’t believe it had come to this.
Her long fingers pushed the cloud of dark hair away from her face and Brodie gave him a wry half-smile. ‘I’m sorry.’
Daniel’s fugitive gaze slipped away, seeking refuge in the cornice and the prints on the walls and the view of the English Channel that was his back garden – anything to avoid meeting hers. He stammered his way towards a response. ‘There’s nothing to be sorry about. You haven’t done anything … Neither have I. There’s no need …’
‘That’s kind,’ she said, ‘but not entirely true. How you’re feeling right now, that’s my fault. And Jack’s feeling pretty rough, and that’s my fault too. I didn’t want to hurt either of you, but the fact is you got hurt and I’m the reason.’
‘Brodie,’ he managed, ‘I never meant to put you in this position. I shouldn’t have said anything. I wish I’d kept my mouth shut. I wish Jack had. You and me: nothing’s changed between us. You know what I want – I want you to be happy. It’s all I ever wanted. I’m sorry if I’ve made it harder.’
There was a great deal about Brodie Farrell to please the eye and linger in the mind. She was tall and lithe, both shapely and strong, with classic features framed by a mass of tight dark curls. She carried herself with an elegance born of confidence, and had a way of wearing clothes that made them look more expensive than they actually were.
None of which made the impression on Daniel Hood that her eyes did. He loved her eyes. The intelligence there, the strength, even the acerbic sharpness. The woman had drawn a winning hand from the genetic pack, but none of it would have mattered to Daniel if she’d had someone else’s eyes.
And the moment was coming when he had to meet them. He summoned all his courage and looked up.
Her eyes were puzzled. ‘What do you mean, you wish Jack had kept his mouth shut?’
The possibility that he’d made a mistake swept over Daniel like a toxic fog, choking him. He struggled desperately to remember what he’d said, to think what he should say now. ‘I … What? What are you talking about?’
She raised her hand and laid a butterfly touch on his bruised cheek. ‘This. What’s Eric Chandos to you or you to him, that you end up carrying the print of his fist on your face? The only reason you’d know one another in the street is me. The only reason you’d reduce him to a quivering jelly, goading him until he hit back the only way he could, is me. I got you hurt again, Daniel, and I’m sorry.’
His skin registered her touch as spots of cool fire. He put his own hand to his cheek as if to preserve the sensation. He said carefully, ‘It was absolutely, positively, worth it.’
Brodie chuckled and her arm went about him in a quick hug. ‘So where does Jack come into it?’
This close to the precipice he dared not stumble. ‘I said something to Jack that I hoped he wouldn’t repeat. I was tired and a bit upset, and I said something stupid. Then when you came here …’
‘You thought he’d been telling tales out of school,’ finished Brodie with an indulgent smile. ‘It’s all right, Daniel. You were entitled to be angry – I don’t mind you bad-mouthing me to Jack. As for him grassing you up – how long have you known Jack Deacon? I don’t suppose he was even listening. I’m damn sure he’s forgotten everything you said by now.’
Daniel smiled uncertainly and shrugged. ‘Maybe.’ But he really didn’t think so.
Norman Wilmslow remembered the discussions that followed his abortive attempt to excavate beside the stable-block. They involved a number of men who were all eager to avoid the blame, and the longer the debate went on and the hotter it became, the surer Wilmslow was that any time now it would be all his fault.
‘So who sugg
ested putting the pool at the bottom of the garden?’
‘I did,’ said the builder.
Which wasn’t the answer Voss wanted. ‘Why?’
‘Because there were no other structures down there to interfere with it. Why do you think builders like greenfield sites? It’s easier and cheaper than building where there are pipes and cables under the ground.’
‘Still, I don’t suppose you told the clients that was where their pool was going and they could like it or lump it. I presume you got somebody to OK it first.’
‘Of course I did. Though there wasn’t much to think about. Between building considerations and planning considerations and what-all else, it was put it there or put it on the long finger.’
‘So who told you to go ahead?’
‘The big man,’ said Wilmslow.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The phone rang. Brodie waved Daniel to take it. She had the feeling they weren’t entirely done yet, and she slipped off her shoes and curled up cat-like on the sofa to ponder why. Something he’d said, some look he’d had … He’d thought there was another reason for her coming here.
It took Daniel a minute to work out who was calling him. Someone with a comprehensive vocabulary of expletives, certainly, and a sense of grievance fuelling them, but there weren’t enough other words – nouns, verbs – for the litany to make sense. All he could be sure of was that he’d managed to annoy someone, and for once he didn’t think it was Deacon. He said, ‘If you’ll calm down for a minute and tell me what the problem is …’
As soon as he’d said it he knew: both the caller’s identity and the nature of his problem. He couldn’t calm down. The chemicals ravaging his brain left him unable to discriminate between a setback and a disaster, so he could be reduced to incoherent rage by trivial inconveniences then sit and watch a cigarette burn a hole in his thigh because sometimes even pain was a phenomenon that applied only to other people.
‘Jared? Is that you? Jared – stop yelling for a minute and tell me what’s happened.’
The rage was genuine, thick as curd in his voice, but behind it Daniel heard fear. Perhaps fear lies behind most fury. He still wasn’t finishing many sentences, but some gist of a narrative began to emerge. ‘You fly bastard! You offer me … And then you rip the rug …! I know what you think of him. I know what you think of me. So? It’s too late to … it’s too … It’s just too late. This is it, this is my life. I need him. I can’t manage alone.’
Daniel said again, ‘What’s happened?’
‘You know what’s happened! You sent them. You told them … And they’re going to lock him up, and I … I’m …’ His voice choked to silence.
‘The police have arrested Chandos? What for?’
‘Because you told them to, you bastard!’
Daniel sighed. ‘Jared, I have trouble making twelve-year-olds do what I tell them, let alone policemen. Whatever they’re doing, it’s nothing to do with me.’
‘I’m supposed to believe that? Eric knocks you down and next morning the police come for him? He was right about you. A man would have got up and hit him back. Telling the police is what little girls do.’
‘Jared, you can believe me or not, as you like, but I didn’t tell the police anything. They may have seen – it did happen on their doorstep – but after you went home, I went home. If they’ve arrested Chandos it isn’t because of anything I did.’
‘Then tell them to let him go!’
Daniel rolled his eyes to the ceiling. He wasn’t getting through. He looked questioningly over the phone at Brodie, and she made an impatient gesture then nodded.
‘All right,’ said Daniel, ‘I’m on my way. I don’t know what good it’ll do, but if you want me there I’ll come.’
Jared Fry grunted and put the phone down.
‘Such a charming man,’ murmured Daniel. He looked at Brodie in some embarrassment. ‘I’m sorry to ask but would you take me up there? You needn’t wait, I’ll get a lift back with someone.’
‘We’ll see,’ said Brodie; which was Brodie-esque for The shit has hit the fan and someone who let me down has been arrested, possibly for murder, and you expect me to keep a discreet distance? Have we actually met?
Daniel knew he’d lost that one when she drove round the back of The Diligence and parked in the courtyard. ‘So you’ll wait for me here?’ he suggested hopefully.
‘Of course I will,’ she said, getting out of the car and leading the way to the kitchen door. He followed like a disconsolate spaniel who hasn’t put up a pheasant all day.
Miriam let them in, clearly relieved to see them. As the door opened a barrage of noise hit them. Daniel – who’d been subjected to something similar fifteen minutes earlier – knew what it was: Fry bouncing off the walls. He tracked the rumpus to the hall.
Chandos’s PA, a tall girl with straight brown hair and the expression of a dyspeptic camel, was trying to restore some kind of order and failing. Other members of the staff were there too, making token attempts to net Fry as he hurtled past. A sharp uppercut would have stopped him in his tracks, but none of those equipped to deliver one was prepared to and Daniel didn’t do fisticuffs. Daniel talked.
He tapped the whirlwind on the shoulder as it passed and said, in an even voice as if nothing much was happening, ‘Let’s go somewhere quiet and talk.’ He headed for the glass turret where he hoped, stripped of his audience, Fry might calm down.
After a moment, rather sheepishly, Jared Fry packed away his tantrum and followed.
To Brodie, anything short of a locked door was an open invitation. She went too.
At the foot of the stairs she came face to face with Deacon, who’d despaired of making any progress with his inquiry when he couldn’t hear the lies he was being told and had come through the sitting-room door like the little man in the Bavarian weather-house, red-faced and yelling, ‘What the hell is all this noise?’
When he saw Brodie he blinked. He couldn’t think what her presence here meant – at least, he hoped he couldn’t. She smiled at him, he squinted at her. She leaned forward and kissed him quickly on the cheek, then she was gone.
Brodie had been in every room in The Diligence when she was negotiating the purchase. The solar was part of the central upstairs flat where Miss Carolgee the lecturer in economics had kept her train set. (She’d tried to explain it away as a treat for visiting nephews. Brodie hadn’t believed her, and the two women had spent a happy hour on their hands and knees on the floor, whistling The Flying Scotsman through Astroturf tunnels.)
The layout was gone now, in its place a beanbag sofa and a low table with a tray on it. When she saw what was on the tray she pursed her lips but said nothing. She sat on the sofa and let the men shift for themselves.
Daniel had his hands in his trouser pockets. Brodie had noticed him do this in heated situations, and finally she’d worked out why. It was an declaration that, however events developed, he at least would not be provoked to violence. Like many things he did, it was a two-sided coin. It should have made him vulnerable. In fact it made him appear in control, of himself and the situation. One day – perhaps today – someone would be sufficiently exasperated with this bit of mindplay to respond with a good thump, but mostly it had the effect of defusing anger and making people take a step back.
‘All right, Jared,’ he said, ‘so what’s this all about? Why are you so angry? The police have been here on and off all week. They’ve talked to you and they’ve talked to Chandos. You know why: they’re trying to make sense of what they found in the garden. They ask questions, you answer them, they go away. Why do you think it’s different this time?’
In the same way that Daniel used weakness as a weapon, Fry used anger as a defence. With every step up through his old house it had been seeping away, leaving him unprotected. He sounded like a child. ‘They won’t let me see him.’
‘Why is that a problem?’
‘Because … because …’
Because it raised the spe
ctre that if this ended badly Jared Fry could be left alone, and he no longer knew how to deal with that. He depended on Chandos in the same way that he was dependent on heroin.
Brodie hadn’t a massive supply of patience and the reserve with his name on it was rapidly running out. But it’s hard to remain unfeeling when someone’s in that much distress. His predicament might have been of his own making but then, so was hers. A little kindness goes further at such a time than any other. She moved to one end of the sofa and patted the seat beside her. ‘Sit down and we’ll see if we can help.’
But it wasn’t her help he wanted. There was something about Daniel that made it easy to accept his friendship. It might have been the way they met, or what people who didn’t know him very well saw as his undemanding nature. But Brodie was different. Fry blamed a lot of his present difficulties on Brodie Farrell. A rational man would have recognised that she was only doing what he paid her for when she brought him to this house of ill omen, but Fry was not a rational man. Common sense is the first casualty of addiction, as instinct is the last. Instinctively he felt that his problems began with her. She’d brought him to this house, she’d bewitched the man he relied on to keep the chaos at bay, finally she’d brought the enmity of a powerful adversary down on them both. He blamed Brodie for Deacon’s presence here and for whatever disasters would follow. He looked coldly at her hand patting the sofa and turned his back.
‘Don’t be childish,’ said Daniel, sitting cross-legged on the rug. ‘I understand that you’re upset. But taking it out on us will get you nowhere. If you want to talk we’ll talk; if you don’t we’ll go home. My life may not compare with yours for glamour and excitement, but even I have better things to do on a Saturday than sit on the floor of someone’s loft while they hurl abuse at me.’
Fry was regarding him with the same puzzled expression that Brodie had seen on others confronted by the enigma that was Daniel Hood. People found it hard to stay angry with him – he was too little and too obviously decent – but they never knew quite what to do with him instead. Mostly they ended up liking him. Right now Jared Fry didn’t know his left ear from Thursday week, was still breathless from trying to beat up a house, and could as easily have tried to silence the demons in his head by hurting himself or someone trying to help. Brodie would not have felt safe alone with him in this state.
