by J. S. Law
Dan knew that she hadn’t made a sound on the thick carpets as she had approached, and yet he didn’t seem surprised when he looked up over the top of his reading glasses to see her standing at the door.
‘Hello, young lady,’ he said, his voice the epitome of a true West Country accent. ‘How can I help you?’
Dan tried not to let his comment bother her. It seemed to be a right of privilege to men of the cloth that they could refer to everyone around them as though they were younger, less experienced in life, and in some way less wizened. She showed him her warrant card, again eliciting no reaction.
‘I’m investigating the death of Stewart Walker,’ she said.
His brow furrowed and his head nodded slowly. ‘Of course, you must be the Danielle Lewis from the Special Investigation Branch, Loss of Life division. Come in, grab a pew, I’m pleased to meet you.’
He pointed to a comfortable-looking armchair, one of a matching pair that sat next to each other at a forty-five-degree angle.
Dan sat down, sinking too far back into the soft cushions and noticing that he had tactfully avoided using the nickname normally associated with her team. She thought about shuffling forward and perching on the edge, but Reverend Markton had moved across and taken the seat next to her. Moving further forward now would have brought them uncomfortably close.
He seemed relaxed, his legs crossed, palms down on his thighs, looking at her patiently.
‘So what would you like to talk about?’ he asked good-naturedly, and Dan felt that she had lost the lead in this interview.
‘I understand that Stewart Walker was talking to you in the months leading up to his death, that you had several meetings with him and also Cheryl Walker?’
He nodded.
Dan looked at him closely. He was stout, not fat, but a well-built man getting older. His stomach muscles had begun to surrender slightly and yet his thick forearms and powerful hands gave a hint that he had laboured and would likely still be strong and capable. He had a drinker’s nose, marked with red blood vessels and bent from an untreated break, likely many years before. His black clerical shirt and white collar looked impeccably clean and pressed. The only object that drew Dan’s eyes was the small set of gold submarine dolphins that were pinned neatly over his left breast.
‘He did speak to me, and yes, several times,’ Reverend Markton said quietly. ‘As did Cheryl; the whole situation is just wretched.’
‘What situation?’ asked Dan.
He looked at her more cautiously now, as though he had taken offence to the question and might think carefully about future answers. ‘The situation that led to a young man taking his own life,’ he said.
Dan could sit back no longer and used the arms of the chair to pull herself forward so that she was perching on the hard lip at the very edge of the deep cushion.
He was smiling. A knowing look passed over his face as if he had understood exactly why she had moved forward, had figured her all out in just a few minutes.
‘What did he talk to you about when he came to see you?’
‘We discussed a number of things that were on his mind,’ offered Reverend Markton.
‘Can you tell me what sort of things?’
‘Not in great detail, no. There was talk about his family life, Cheryl, the kids …’
Dan looked into his unwavering eyes.
‘Did he talk to you at all about moving home, or leaving the area, perhaps?’
‘That wasn’t something we spoke about, no.’
‘Did he tell you anything at all that might help me to understand what may have led to him taking his life?’ She waited, seeing his lips move, but no words came out.
His face became a mask of intense and personal pain. It was as though inside him, his conscience and his sense of duty were physically duking it out and each blow landed by either side meant only anguish for him.
‘The loss of Cheryl would have been a clear and obvious blow,’ Reverend Markton said, with an air of understanding so thick that Dan could have choked on it. ‘They were a very close and loving couple, but I really don’t know what I can say to help. We just talked, like many people do with me. That’s what I’m here to do.’
‘He wasn’t religious, though, from what I can gather. Why do you think he’d talk to you as much as he did, as opposed to his friends or relatives?’
‘Look, Danielle, I’ve already spoken to John Granger and Branok Cornish and I’ll tell you what I told them.’
She bristled at the mention of John being here and the fact that he hadn’t mentioned it to her.
‘I’ll help you in any way possible. If there was anything at all that I believed would be of use to you then I’d tell you, but I can’t just disclose everything that Stewart discussed with me.’
Dan shook her head and stood up to leave. She was edgy and tired, too tired for this shit.
‘Wait, Danielle, wait,’ he said. ‘I’m bound and protected by clergy-penitent privilege.’ He also stood up. ‘But I can say that I would never, in all conscience, withhold information that might aid your investigation. I, more than anyone, would desperately like to know why Stewart chose the path he did; even in the face of such overwhelming grief. He had his brothers around him, he had options.’
‘You’ve been very helpful,’ said Dan, already walking away.
He reached out for her, his fingers brushing her arm.
‘If you do want to talk, anytime, day or night, then you only need to come here,’ he said quietly.
Dan shook her head and began to walk away.
Passing through the church she looked up at the shape of Jesus on the cross. It had been a long time since they’d seen each other.
Chapter 7
Friday Afternoon – 26th September 2014
Her cabin was cold and there was nowhere in it where she felt comfortable. Dan needed to get out and do something, to make some progress, to prove that she was doing the right thing, or if not, at least doing the wrong thing for the right reasons.
The letter from her dad was on her periphery, but she didn’t look at it, couldn’t deal with it when she felt her position was already so weak.
Reverend Markton had been no use at all, obstructive even, and the police suspected that Cheryl’s attacker had done this before, but they couldn’t establish a link to a previous attack; Dan could.
She knew she had information that she should share, which would aid the police in their investigation, but she couldn’t explain to them the origins of it, wouldn’t be able to come clean about what she knew and how she knew it. In her mind now, she hated herself for this. It was weakness that stopped her from telling them, from telling anybody about the files in her secure box, the pictures and information gathered from a sabbatical year that commenced exactly one year and one day after Chris Hamilton was sentenced to life imprisonment without hope of parole.
She was still hyper-aware of the letter but she had to move forward; there was no time to deal with these thoughts now. If she couldn’t share the information, then she had to turn it to her advantage, use it to make amends with the investigation.
Felicity seemed sold on the angle that Cheryl had been murdered by a lover or someone in a relationship, that the motive for murder lay somewhere inside Cheryl’s life, tangled up with children and a husband that was rarely home.
But Dan couldn’t believe it. It just didn’t work. Not because of how Cheryl had died, but because of how and where Walker had, and she couldn’t shake that thought from her head.
The Walkers’ home was still fresh in her mind and she thought back through all that she had seen and done, considering every moment again, trying to see something that might offer an insight to her, a glimpse of a way forward. Then she let her mind replay the conversation with Felicity, even the warning about how DI Branok Cornish might deal with her if she tried to interfere beyond her remit.
One of the photographs on the stairs came back to Dan, the two fast friends hugging cheek to chee
k, the familiarity of the faces. She stood up and crossed to her desk, sorting through the papers until she found the list of names that had come with the case files. She scanned it quickly, then more slowly, reading each name in turn.
The second woman’s face, the friend, was in the forefront of Dan’s mind, not someone she knew well, but a face she’d seen before. She focused on the female names, none of them hitting the mark, until near the bottom, she saw it: Gemma Rockwell.
‘Lieutenant Gemma Rockwell,’ said Dan out loud.
She smiled and felt as though she could have punched the air. The navy was a smallish place and she remembered Gemma from an event or social in one of the Wardrooms, though she couldn’t place the exact time.
The warning from Felicity played again in her mind, that she shouldn’t probe outside her liaison role, but Gemma Rockwell was navy. She was armed forces, uniformed personnel and, as such, was fair game.
Now, Dan just needed to find Gemma and hope she wasn’t away at sea.
It was the end of the working day when Dan made her way up the gangway of HMS Lancaster and stepped onto the flight deck. She’d had to wait at the bottom for several minutes as sailors walked down the ramp, heading home for the night and leaving the ship behind in the hands of the duty watch.
Gemma Rockwell was dressed in her No.1 uniform, a neatly fitted black suit, with white shirt and tie and two gold bands around the cuff of each sleeve showing her rank, which was equal to Dan’s. She was placing her tricorn hat on as she hurried out onto the flight deck looking flustered. She was the Officer of the Day and as the rest of the crew exited, her hassles were just beginning.
Dan extended her hand and shook Gemma’s by way of greeting.
‘I don’t have a lot of time,’ said Gemma before Dan could speak. ‘The Captain’s living on board at the moment; it’s a nightmare.’
‘That’s fine. I won’t take much of your time. I’m surprised you’re here. I thought you’d be at home, to be honest.’
Gemma nodded and Dan noticed how red and blotchy her face was and how her eyes never quite settled on Dan’s; this was someone who was hurting.
‘The mob doesn’t recognise friends as compassionate cases,’ Gemma replied. ‘I’d rather be here anyway. We’re low on qualified Officers of the Day and if someone drops out it just gets crapper for everyone else.’
‘Keeps the mind off it too?’ asked Dan.
Gemma nodded and checked her watch.
‘I just wanted to talk to you a little bit about Stewart and Cheryl Walker,’ began Dan. ‘I understand you and Cheryl were close friends?’
Gemma looked at Dan and seemed to think hard about her reply.
‘That policeman with the funny name said I shouldn’t say anything about anything to anyone else. He made it clear that if I breathed a word of it I’d be in trouble. He seemed to think he could keep what happened a secret.’
‘Well, I’m with his team,’ said Dan, making sure she held eye contact and pulling out her warrant card. ‘So I’m going to ask you to do exactly the same things as DI Branok Cornish did.’
‘That’s him, Branok Cornish,’ said Gemma, seeming to relax at Dan knowing his name.
‘But I do want you to talk to me about how Cheryl was in the days and weeks leading up to her attack. I’d also like to ask you about her relationship with Stewart Walker.’
Gemma nodded, but not in a positive way. She was nodding to say she was frustrated, that she had said this before and that she didn’t want to say it again. ‘That’s what he asked,’ she said. ‘Was Cheryl seeing someone? Was she having an affair? Did she tell me who she was hanging out with? Did I think she’d lie to me?’
The nod had changed to a slow shake of the head now and Gemma’s eyes were filling with tears.
‘I’ll tell you what I told them,’ she said. ‘I don’t know anything. She was my friend, for years now, my best friend. We talked every day, except when I’m on here, because the signal’s pants. She was up and down, but when Stewart was away she always was. Two kids on her own, months without any messages, news or emails.’
Dan just watched and waited, letting Gemma talk.
‘She was just Cheryl, you know, just normal. I don’t know anything to help, I really don’t.’
‘Ma’am.’ A voice rose from off to Dan’s left, near to the hangar that bound the forward side of the small flight deck.
Gemma and Dan both turned to look.
‘Captain’s looking for you,’ said a young able seaman. ‘He’s in his cabin.’
Gemma nodded. ‘I’ll be right up.’ She turned back to Dan. ‘Look, I have to go. When the policeman came he made an appointment and I spoke to him at the regulating office. If you’d do that, then I’d have more time.’
‘It’s fine,’ said Dan. ‘I’m almost done, I promise, but I just want you to do one thing for me. I’ll be quick.’
Gemma looked impatient.
‘I don’t want you to tell me what you know – I understand that you feel you don’t know anything that will help – but I want you to tell me what you think, what you feel.’
‘I’m not feeling very much at the moment.’
‘I know,’ said Dan, ‘I can only imagine. But do you think that Cheryl was having an affair? Do you feel that she would have a relationship while Stewart was away? Even something fun and casual, something harmless?’
Gemma looked nervously in the direction of the ship’s superstructure and the space where the young sailor had called her from. Then she looked back, making eye contact with Dan and holding it.
‘No,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘I really don’t think she would. You know, Cheryl was gorgeous, funny, loud. She loved to be the centre of attention, she bought shoes and clothes she couldn’t afford, she sometimes flirted just for fun, but she loved her family and I really don’t think she would do the dirty on Stewart. If she did, I really do think she’d have told me.’
‘I believe you,’ said Dan, ‘and I believe she would have confided in you, but I just want to ask one more thing—’
‘Ma’am?’ It was the young sailor again.
‘I’m coming,’ said Gemma. ‘Look, I really have to go.’
‘I know, but please, it’s important, one last thing. Forget about knowing things, just concentrate on what you feel and tell me, how do you think Cheryl felt about Tenacity coming back this time?’
Gemma looked off in the direction of the submarine berths, as though she might see Tenacity watching her as she spoke about it. She seemed to think about it hard, pursing her lips and shaking her head again, as though she couldn’t reconcile what she was thinking and what she was about to say.
‘Gemma, I don’t need any proof, or any evidence, I just want to know what you feel, no more than that,’ Dan said.
Gemma looked back and sighed. ‘I think she could have been frightened.’
‘Why could that be?’ asked Dan. ‘Why would you pick up on that, do you think?’
‘I really don’t know. She never said anything or did anything, but there was something different this time.’
‘Did you ask her about it?’
‘It wasn’t like that, it was just …’ Gemma paused again. ‘I really don’t know, I’m sorry.’
‘It’s fine,’ said Dan. ‘Honestly, just one last question.’
‘I really have to go now,’ Gemma said.
‘I know, but very quickly, why frightened, why not nervous or anxious; why did you say frightened?’
Gemma started to walk away, stopping a few yards from Dan and turning back. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘You asked me how I felt and that’s what I felt. It wasn’t an anxious excitement, it wasn’t pre-return nerves. I don’t know what it was, but you asked me to tell you what I thought, and I have. If I had to give it a name, I’d say it was fear.’
Chapter 8
Friday Evening – 26th September 2014
Dan’s mind hadn’t stopped. For hours, images from the investigation flicked th
rough it like a never-ending slideshow, the animation effects spinning the pictures away, or dragging them in close as they scrolled through. They were interspersed with memories of John Granger after the Hamilton case, his face when he realised she had gone to Hamilton’s house without him, had carried out an entire investigation without including him, that she didn’t trust him. Then there was Blackett, first on the scene, furious, yet relieved to see her alive. Her sister Charlie, her dad and the Tasmanian Devil toy, all looking at her, followed by more images from the pictures inside her secure box. Felicity Green’s face morphed into the Reverend Brian Markton shaking his head in sorrowful apology, then Roger Blackett again, saying ‘I will tell you what’. Then there were other recollections that began to appear, probing at her defences; ones that she knew must never again break through.
When John called, it gave her a reason to open her eyes and escape the memories; something that she felt would have been too much like cowardice before then.
On the walk down from the Wardroom, she had stopped and looked out to sea. The amphibious assault ship, HMS Ocean, was alongside in a maintenance period and dominated the skyline. Behind it and to the left, gliding slowly along the Hamoaze, she saw the black lines of a surfaced submarine as it drifted towards its berth. She could clearly see the conning tower and masts, and knew that it must be Tenacity stealing her way back towards home.
Dan stopped and watched until the submarine finally drifted from sight, first dwarfed, and then swallowed behind HMS Ocean.
She met John near to the Senior Rates Mess and he fell in beside her as she walked past him.
‘Why don’t you bring me up to speed on what you’ve done?’ she said. ‘I gather you’ve already spoken with Reverend Markton. I would have thought that worthy of mention?’
She felt him sigh next to her, but he didn’t reply.
‘Well?’
‘Well, I spoke to him, not interviewed, just spoke to him, and he said pretty much nothing,’ John said. ‘I wouldn’t go and interview anyone alone. As you know, that’s not how we do business in the SIB. I can arrange for us to go and speak to him later on today if you want to, together?’
