‘Don’t forget to call me,’ she said.
‘I won’t. See you.’
As Max walked back to his car, he wondered what the appeal was. It wasn’t purely sexual. Yes, she had a terrific body but so did countless other women.
He tucked the card she’d given him safely in his pocket. It was unlikely he’d use it, but he’d hang on to it just in case.
Chapter Seventeen
Brian Taylor lived in a four-bedroomed, executive detached house on Chase Gardens. The houses, twenty-four in a cul-de-sac, were identical. Boxes. Very nice boxes, admittedly, but not to Max’s taste. He preferred something older, something with more character. Still, each to his own.
‘It’s number four, Fletch,’ he said, as Fletch drove past and, for some reason, pulled up outside number ten.
‘Is it? Are you sure?’
‘Yes.’ Or he had been sure until Fletch put the doubts in his mind. ‘You need more sleep, Fletch? How are Sandra and the new addition by the way?’
‘They’re great.’ Fletch’s face had a distinctly dreamy expression as he reversed the car along the road. ‘I know I wanted a boy this time, but girls are great, aren’t they?’ He grinned at Max. ‘And the new addition’s name is Chloe.’
‘I knew that,’ Max lied.
‘Right, number four,’ Fletch announced. ‘It does look more promising I mean, with a silver BMW on the drive and everything.’
‘It does,’ Max agreed drily.
‘I still can’t understand why you don’t bring him in, guv. He has to be number one suspect.’
‘Oh, he is. But we’ve got nothing to pin on him. And he’d be sure to want a brief there. We’ll see how it goes here first.’
Max preferred to see people on their own territory. He always had and he always would.
They had nothing with which to charge Taylor. To all intents and purposes, Brian Taylor’s son had been murdered. There was nothing to suggest that he was in any way involved. Only a lot of coincidences.
They rang the doorbell and Taylor answered almost immediately. He was talking into his mobile phone, but he gestured for them to step inside. Whoever was on the other end of that phone was struggling to get a word in.
He was a good-looking man, fair-haired and dressed casually in jeans and a crisp blue shirt. His suntan said he hadn’t spent all his time in the office while in Italy. He wore glasses and a thin gold chain, very similar to the one Max wore, around his neck.
While he spoke on the phone, and Max gathered it was a business call, he ushered them into a huge lounge. Apart from two sofas in spotless white leather, a massive TV, a tiny hi-fi system, and a glass coffee table, the room was empty. It looked like a showroom rather than a living room. Max thought of his own house and wondered where these people kept their clutter. Perhaps people like Brian Taylor didn’t accumulate clutter.
Try as he might, Max couldn’t imagine this man in the throes of passion with someone like Josie Hayden. It was obvious that there had been passion at some point, however. As Accrington Stanley had said, Taylor was the adult version of Martin Hayden.
‘Sorry about that,’ he said, snapping his mobile shut. ‘I’m working from home today and, having been away for a few days, there’s a lot to catch up on. The voice mail’s on now so we won’t be disturbed.’ He gestured to one of those spotless sofas. ‘Please, sit down. What can I do for you?’
Fletch sat and, after only a brief hesitation, Max did, too. White leather. Who in hell’s name had white leather? Someone who didn’t have two boys and two dogs, he supposed.
‘As you know, we’re investigating the murder of Martin Hayden,’ Max began.
‘Yes. It’s dreadful, isn’t it?’ He sat down on the other sofa. ‘I imagine you know he’s my son?’
Max nodded. ‘Did you ever meet him?’
‘No.’ He wore a slightly wistful expression but didn’t seem too concerned about that. ‘No, I never saw him. Ah, that’s a lie. I saw him once when he was about a year old. At the time, the last thing I wanted was children. I certainly didn’t want Josie’s child. She was happily married, and so was I. Well, I wasn’t happily married, but the last thing I needed was that complication. But I saw him with Josie in town when he was about a year old, and I knew then that he was mine. He looked very much like me, you know.’
‘Yes, the resemblance is striking,’ Max agreed. ‘Did you make any attempts to see him?’
‘Recently, yes. I suppose that, as you get older, family means more. I often think that, if I killed myself on the motorway tomorrow, I’d leave nothing behind. So yes, I wrote to Josie about a month ago asking to see him.’
‘What was her reaction to that?’ Max asked.
‘Nothing. She didn’t answer my letter or call me or anything.’
‘I see. So what did you do then?’
‘I’m sure she’s told you all this.’ He sighed, somewhat dramatically. ‘I phoned her and told her that if she didn’t meet me, I’d turn up at the farm and see Martin for myself.’
‘And she met you?’
‘Yes. I’m afraid I didn’t give her much choice. The last thing she wanted was me turning up on the doorstep. So yes, we met this sounds silly, but we met in the graveyard at St Saviour’s. No chance of anyone seeing us there, you see.’ He frowned at Max. ‘But I’m sure Josie has told you all this.’
Max ignored that. ‘How many times did you meet?’
‘Twice.’ He twisted a watch, a Rolex by the look of it, around his wrist a couple of times. ‘The second time was last Tuesday, a week ago today, the day before young Martin was murdered.’
‘Why twice?’ Fletch put in.
‘The first time, she was being awkward about me seeing Martin. I said I’d meet her there the next week give her time to think about things, you know. She’d calmed down a bit by then and seemed to accept that I had a right to see him. She was resigned to it, I suppose you’d say.’ He sighed. ‘I went off to Italy and, the next thing I knew, Martin had been murdered.’
‘How do you feel about that?’
Taylor thought for a moment. ‘I’d be lying if I said I was devastated,’ he admitted. ‘I never knew the boy. He’s a stranger was a stranger to me. I suppose I feel cheated, to tell you the truth. It seems a cruel blow. Selfish, I know, but just when I wanted to see him . . .’ He shrugged. ‘Very selfish of me.’
‘How would you describe your relationship with Mrs Hayden?’ Max asked.
‘Past or present?’
‘Both.’
‘Seventeen years ago, I found her amusing,’ he explained. ‘She was very naive, especially sexually. She’d never been unfaithful to that husband of hers.’
‘I see.’
‘To be honest,’ he went on, ‘it was just a bit of fun. You know, some afternoon entertainment. I had no idea that Josie thought it was anything more.’
‘Have you had many affairs?’ Fletch asked.
‘A few. I’m a salesman which means I travel about a bit, and hotel rooms can get pretty boring, believe me. It’s nice to have something to alleviate the boredom.’
‘And Mrs Hayden was something to alleviate the boredom?’ Fletch guessed.
‘It sounds callous, but yes. Yes, she was.’ He thought for a moment. ‘My first marriage was heading for the divorce courts at a fast pace.’
‘What about now?’ Max asked. ‘How do you get along with Mrs Hayden now?’
‘She was very cool with me,’ he replied. ‘Cool, angry. Hurt probably. I’m not her favourite person, not by a long way. She talked a lot about Martin. She said he was like me in looks and temperament.’
‘Really?’ How odd. Josie Hayden wasn’t a fan of Brian Taylor, yet she thought her son was like him in temperament. Which part of that temperament had young Martin inherited?
‘How did you hear about his death?’ Max asked.
‘The oddest thing. When I was in Italy, I called my brother. Nothing unusual about that as we often speak on the phone, but just as we wer
e ending the call, he jokingly said something about a murder in Harrington. Said the victim, a young boy, looked just like me and that I should watch out. I asked the name and he told me. Of course, he doesn’t know that Martin was my son.’
They spoke for another half-hour, but nothing new came to light. Brian Taylor seemed a damn sight more open and honest than Josie Hayden.
Max was on the point of leaving when his phone rang.
‘Excuse me.’ He walked over to the window to answer it.
‘Max,’ Grace greeted him breathlessly, ‘you won’t want to hear this.’
He’d already guessed as much. When Grace called him Max instead of the usual guv, he knew something serious had happened.
‘Go on.’
‘We’ve got another dead body.’
Max felt the world shift slightly. ‘Not another’
‘No,’ she cut him off, guessing he was expecting it to be another pupil from Harrington High. ‘It’s Josie Hayden.’
‘Suicide?’ But he suspected the answer to that was something else he’d picked up from Grace’s tone.
‘No, guv.’
Chapter Eighteen
Jill sat on a stool at the bar in The Weaver’s Retreat. It was just after nine o’clock and the place was packed with regulars who called there after their evening meal.
Liz and Tony Hutchinson came in and, after the usual greetings and moans about the weather, the three of them sat at the table nearest the fire.
‘I wouldn’t be surprised if we didn’t have snow soon,’ Tony remarked.
‘It feels cold enough.’ Jill held her hands out to the burning logs.
Inevitably, talk turned to Martin Hayden.
‘Tony told me that Sarah does your hair, Liz,’ Jill remarked.
‘Occasionally.’ Liz nodded. ‘She’s good with colour,’ she explained, ‘although I prefer Jon to do it when I’m having anything more drastic than a quick trim.’
‘What’s she like?’ Jill asked. ‘Does she talk of her family much?’
‘No. She’s one of those rare beings a hairdresser who doesn’t insist on (a) knowing your business and (b) telling you hers.’
‘I heard something yesterday,’ Tony put in. ‘I’m not sure if it’s true or if it’s idle gossip, but someone said Andy Hayden was spending a lot of time in Benedict’s.’ He took a swig of beer. ‘That takes a bit of believing, doesn’t it?’ He grimaced. ‘God knows what would happen if George found out about it.’
Benedict’s was Harrington’s lively gay club, and Tony was right. It took some believing.
George had made his thoughts known to Martin about what he called sissy poetry books. Why was George thinking along those lines? George and Andy were father and son, both working the farm, but they weren’t close. Was Andy gay? Was that why George was so hostile towards him?
‘It could be nonsense,’ Tony added. ‘It was Glen, the mechanic at the garage, who told me.’
‘Andy Hayden isn’t gay,’ Liz told them with certainty. ‘For a while, at least a year, he was seeing Lucy Rodgers.’
At Jill’s frown, she explained, ‘She’s a nurse at the vet’s in Harrington. I know her because we had to take Tony’s mother’s cat there quite often.’
‘And they’ve split up?’ Jill asked. ‘Recently?’
‘Yes. She had a whirlwind romance with a new vet at the practice and they’re due to be married at Easter.’
‘I wonder how Andy took that.’
‘I don’t know, but badly, I imagine. He used to worship her.’
‘Really?’
Before Jill could comment further, her phone rang. It was Max.
‘Where are you?’ he asked.
‘At the pub. You?’
‘Shivering outside your cottage. I need to talk to you.’
‘OK, I’ll walk up. Let yourself in. There’s a spare key under the pot on the right-hand side of the door the one with the winter pansies in it.’
‘Bloody hell, Jill. Why in hell’s name don’t you erect a sign all burglars, rapists and murderers welcome?’
She chose to ignore that. ‘Put the kettle on,’ she told him ‘and I’ll be there in five minutes.’
‘What I need doesn’t come out of a kettle,’ he said grimly, and she could hear him unlocking her door.
Jill cut the connection, said a hasty goodbye to Tony and Liz, left her unfinished drink on the table and stepped out into the cold.
It didn’t take long to walk the half-mile home, and she found Max in the sitting room nursing a glass which held a generous measure of whisky. She knew, just by looking at him, that something was very wrong.
‘What’s up?’
‘Josie Hayden’s dead,’ he said flatly.
Jill dropped on to the sofa, still wearing her coat and scarf.
‘Dead?’ The heating had been on all day and her cottage was warm, but she shivered and thought her teeth were about to start chattering. ‘Suicide?’
Max shook his head.
‘Murdered?’ She couldn’t believe it.
‘Do you want a drink?’ he asked, and she nodded.
Max went to the kitchen for a glass and poured her an equally generous measure from a bottle he must have brought with him. She was sure she had no whisky in the house.
‘Thanks.’ She took it from him, had a swallow and felt the warmth in her throat.
After a few moments, she took off her coat and scarf, and sat on the floor in front of the gas fire with her drink cradled in her hands.
‘Your friend found her,’ Max said quietly. ‘Ella Gardner.’
‘Oh, no!’ Ella had said she planned to call and offer her condolences. ‘What happened?’
‘Josie was at the farm alone. George and Andy were at a sale of farm machinery in Cumbria, and Sarah had gone back to work for the first time. It seems Josie let someone in –’
‘Someone she knew?’
‘We don’t know. Possibly. Anyway, they slit her throat.’
‘No!’ Jill was starting to shiver all over again.
‘We’ll know more tomorrow after the autopsy, but it seems she was cut badly after she was dead.’
‘Cut where?’
‘Everywhere. Face, arms, legs, breasts, genitalia.’
‘Dear God.’ No wonder Max looked wiped out. ‘Poor Sarah. Poor Ella, too. What a shock. Is she OK?’
‘Ella’s fine very calm considering. Sarah’s not so good. Understandably.’
‘Poor kid.’
They talked some more, and had another drink.
‘What about Brian Taylor?’ Jill asked. ‘You saw him today, yes?’
‘Yes, and he seemed a damn sight more forthcoming than Josie.’ But they both knew that meant nothing. ‘I suppose it’s just possible he drove straight to the farm before we saw him and killed her. I can’t see it, but it’s possible. We’re taking him in for questioning. We’ll keep him overnight and I’ll see him in the morning. Actually, I’d like us to see him in the morning.’
She nodded. ‘OK.’
‘George and Andy Hayden have a shed load of witnesses so we can discount them.’
‘You can’t discount George Hayden, Max!’ Jill didn’t care how many witnesses the man had. ‘His brother dies and, bingo, George inherits a farm that meant everything to him. He discovers his wife’s been unfaithful and that he’s brought up someone else’s son and, bingo, they’re both wiped out.’
Max was shaking his head.
‘He may not have done it himself,’ she allowed, ‘but he could easily have paid someone else to do it.’
‘I don’t think so.’
Jill didn’t know what to think. ‘At least we know the answer’s at the farm and not the school.’
‘Not necessarily, Jill. You see, that’s not all.’
‘Oh?’
‘No.’ He rubbed his hands across his face in a gesture of weariness. ‘Another pupil from Harrington High has been reported missing.’
‘No!’
‘Ye
s. A James Murphy.’
‘James? But I know him. And his parents.’
‘I thought you might.’
It was only the fourth of December but Jill’s first Christmas card had been delivered that very morning. It was from Emma, Gerald and James Murphy.
‘He stayed late at school for football practice,’ Max explained, ‘but he should have been home by five thirty.
His parents were planning to take him and a friend to the cinema. James hasn’t turned up.’
Dear God. What were they dealing with?
Chapter Nineteen
Jill could have slaughtered Max. Technically, it wasn’t his fault she felt like this, but she had to blame someone. If he hadn’t called at her cottage last night, she wouldn’t have had a drink. And if he hadn’t coaxed her into letting him sleep in her spare room, she wouldn’t have had another drink. And another.
This morning, she had the hangover from hell. He, on the other hand, looked as fresh as the morning dew.
It was hot and stuffy in Phil Meredith’s office and a lot of the conversation was going over Jill’s head. She needed water lots of it and fresh air.
She’d been at the morning’s briefing, and that had been depressing. They had a huge tangled mess to unravel. Millions of questions and no answers.
But it was always that way.
‘I’ve had the headmaster of Harrington High on the phone,’ Phil snapped, ‘saying he wants some answers. He’s not the only one. The school will be deserted today.
We’ll have a major panic on our hands if we don’t move quickly.’
‘All suggestions gratefully received,’ Max said pleasantly.
‘Don’t get bloody funny with me!’
‘I’m not,’ Max said, taking a breath. ‘My kids are at Harrington High so I know how the parents are feeling.’
A reminder that Harry and Ben attended the school seemed to calm Phil slightly. It didn’t do much for Jill. It didn’t look as if it had done much for Max either.
‘The answer is at Lower Crags Farm,’ Jill said quietly. She couldn’t talk any louder; her head hurt too much. ‘It has to be.’
‘There’s no link between the Haydens and James Murphy,’ Phil scoffed, dismissing that.
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