by Penny Grubb
‘He seems to think I need someone here to look after me.’
‘I’m no good at that sort of thing.’ The words were out before Annie weighed her immediate need for accommodation, but it didn’t matter. She couldn’t play carer to this woman for any price. ‘Isn’t it worth waiting to see if something else comes in? Just a day or two?’ A day or two was enough time for her to refind her feet. ‘I could go shopping and that sort of thing.’
Shopping. She could do shopping, but none of the personal stuff, helping her move about, touching her, all that. Just one more night. If she could wangle just one more night, then she’d have all of tomorrow to get her head together.
For the first time, Pat’s face relaxed into a real smile, and then she grimaced as she shifted position yet again. Annie held her breath and looked out across the river until the rustle of paper brought her gaze back. Pat had pulled another folder from her voluminous bag. ‘As it turns out there was another case. I hadn’t got round to telling Vince. Came in yesterday just before you arrived. An odd one. Nothing to it really, but I could let you run with it for a day or two. Maybe.’
Annie kept her tone even. ‘I’ll make a good job of it.’
‘You don’t know what it is yet.’
‘Even so …’ Annie subsided, but under the surface she bubbled with anticipation, a mix of anxiety and excitement. Of course she could do it. What did lack of experience matter? It was time to test the confidence she’d always claimed to have in herself. She waited as Pat slid a sheet of paper from the file.
‘It’s a Mr and Mrs Martin,’ said Pat, reading from the page in front of her. ‘Their son died in an accident on a building site. They want to know how it happened.’
‘Here in Hull?’
‘No, in Milesthorpe, one of the outlying villages. You can go out and see them this afternoon.’ Pat looked again at the paper. ‘Terry Martin. The son was called Terry Martin.’
Chapter 2
‘Milesthorpe?’ Annie closed her eyes to grab the memory. A headline … upside down text. The half-glimpsed newspaper in Vince Sleeman’s briefcase.
The Martins’ file comprised a single sheet of paper; handwritten notes Pat made when she took the call. Annie read it through. Terry Martin had been found dead in Milesthorpe the previous Tuesday evening and had last been seen at his parents’ home in Withernsea last Sunday.
‘Last seen by who?’ she asked.
‘His mother, Martha Martin. He left after Sunday lunch. Didn’t come back. They didn’t hear a thing until they had a visit from the police Tuesday night.’
‘Was it a regular thing, Sunday lunch? Would they have expected to hear from him during the week?’
‘Oh yes, he lived there. As far as I could gather he’d never left home, not properly.’
‘So did they report him missing or anything?’
‘No, they didn’t. And that’s something to look at. I assume it wasn’t unusual for him to stay out – hell, he was thirty-seven years old – but she was a bit hazy about it when I asked.’
Annie scanned across the scribbled words. Scaffolding collapse … trespassing?
‘What sort of site is it? What are they building?’
‘She didn’t know. Or rather couldn’t remember. She wasn’t focusing on anything really except a sort of desperation not to face the fact he was dead. It won’t take much digging to find out.’
‘And was he trespassing?’
‘I assume so. She said he wouldn’t have gone there without good reason. She said it before I’d had a chance to ask, and I don’t think she just meant Milesthorpe in general. It wasn’t a long call, she cut it short. Sad really. They’ve no other children. She wasn’t going to break down for me to hear, but she was right at the edge.’
Annie looked again at the notes.
Police … Health & Safety … work suspended … Surely everything that could be done was already in hand.
‘What exactly is it she wants from us?’
‘Like I said, it’s an odd one. Probably nothing to it. She’s lost her son and she’s grabbing at straws; kept telling me, everyone says it was an accident.’
‘And she thinks it wasn’t?’ Annie felt a frisson of apprehension run through her.
‘No, no, she accepts it was an accident but what was he doing there, that’s what she wants to know.’
‘Won’t the police investigation find that out?’
Pat threw her a raised-eyebrows glance. ‘What investigation would that be? If it was clearly an accident they’ll leave it to Health and Safety who’ll be all over the site. If they find anything that warrants criminal charges, it might go further. They might investigate the builder, but no one’s going to put resources into finding out what Terry Martin was doing there. No one except his parents, that is, and they’ve come to us.’
Annie’s mind raced through the angles looking for ways in. ‘Can we get at any of the official reports? Witness statements, that sort of thing.’
Pat nodded. ‘I’ll get hold of the post-mortem report. You’d be better talking to whoever found the body than reading their statement. And the Martins’ll know who that is. They know far more than I got out of the mother. Like I say, she was on the edge, cut things very short. They’re your starting point. Get the name of the coppers who dealt with them as well. It might be useful to talk to whoever went out to Milesthorpe that night. They could well have picked up gossip about what Terry Martin was up to.’
‘Wouldn’t they have put it in their statements?’
‘You are wet behind the ears, aren’t you? Look, if they got a whiff anything was dodgy about the death, I’m sure they’d have reported it. Well, most of them would. But they’re not going to go digging for complications. When a body’s found on your watch, you want it to be a clear-cut accidental death. Suspicious deaths are a nightmare all round.’
‘So how many police officers would have been involved?’
‘Mrs Martin said “they” came to tell them on Tuesday night, so I assume two. They likely dredged up a second officer from somewhere to go and break the news. It’d be unusual for more than one to have gone out to Milesthorpe initially.’
‘Even for a body being found?’
‘You need to grasp the scale of things round here, Annie. We’re not even talking Hull resources. Milesthorpe’s East Riding. Factor in people off sick, people called to cover elsewhere and you’re lucky to have two coppers on duty at night in that area. Might only have been one. That’s something like a thirty mile stretch of coast. It’s a big area.’
Annie felt the weight of her bottom jaw. One police officer covering a thirty-mile stretch? It felt more as though she’d crossed continents than come a mere 200 miles north.
‘What did Terry Martin do? For a living, I mean.’
‘His mother said he worked as a journalist, but I don’t think he did. Not as a regular job anyway. I think he just bummed off his parents really.’
‘OK, I’ll see what I can get out of them face to face. Shall I ring and see if I can go now?’
Pat pushed her hands down into the cushions of the settee, shifting position in what seemed more of a habit than a real need to move. ‘I wouldn’t mind having a go at her myself, but it’s a bother getting anywhere with this blasted thing.’
Annie followed Pat’s gaze to the giant plaster cast and opened her mouth on the question she’d been at the brink of asking since she arrived. But before she could speak, Pat went on, ‘I suppose I could get you to drive me, but I’m not sure it’s worth the bother.’
Drive? Annie’s mouth shut as she lost the thread for a moment. She’d told Vince she had a clean licence. He hadn’t dug deeper and she hadn’t explained. In the five years since she’d passed her test in the driving school Corsa, she’d driven maybe half-a-dozen times. But – she straightened her shoulders and sat up – all cars were more or less the same and the roads were quiet round here. Not like London.
It struck her then what Pat had said … un
less Mrs Martin had changed her mind. One wrong word … she’s on the edge … clutching at straws. If Mrs Martin backed out, there was no job for Annie.
When a man’s voice answered the phone Annie knew she’d been handed an advantage and mustn’t let it slip. His tone was weary but in control. She must deal with him and not let his wife into the conversation. ‘Mr Martin? My name’s Annie Raymond. I’m calling from Jed’s Private Investigators. You contacted us yesterday.’
There was a pause. ‘Oh yes. That was the wife. I’ll get her–’
‘No, no. That’s OK. I’m just ringing to say I’m on my way out to see you.’
‘Martha,’ she heard him call. ‘It’s that investigation firm. About that disk. What shall I …?’
Annie strained to listen but his voice tailed away and the response was muffled. Then he was back in her ear. ‘Just wait a sec, love. The wife’s on her way.’
‘No, that’s OK, don’t disturb her. I’ll be with you in … in twenty minutes. Bye.’ Annie raced out the words and put the phone down. If she could just get them face to face she’d convince them they needed her. About that disk …
She told Pat what she’d overheard, but Pat just said, ‘Twenty minutes? You’d better bloody not be there in twenty minutes. If you’re clocked speeding, you’re paying the fine.’
Annie left the flat in a more buoyant mood than she’d have thought possible just an hour ago and clicked the key fob in her hand. It was no Corsa-clone that winked its lights back in reply. It was a sleek silver monster that unlocked its doors and ran its BMW logo across her consciousness. She felt her shoulders tighten.
Pulling away from the kerb was a jerky affair with frantic wheel turning to avoid the car parked in front, and her halt at the end of the street was rather too abrupt, but despite her clumsyhandedness it was a smooth ride and the biggest, glossiest car she’d ever been in. The afternoon sun bathed her in a warm glow. She imagined every passer-by followed her progress with envy. Soon, she was out on the main road heading for the coast.
‘Head east and follow your nose,’ had been the main thrust of Pat’s directions. She’d pooh-poohed Annie’s assumption that she could just key the address into the SatNav.
‘SatNav’s OK in town. It would have got you to Mrs Earle’s, but don’t try it in East Yorkshire, you’ll end up in a ditch.’
The bulk of the Salt End chemical works, a can’t miss it landmark appeared through a tangle of concrete legs that hoisted a road over a large roundabout. The bright lights on the cooling towers and skeletal metal infrastructure lit the near-horizon like a vast pleasure beach. It lacked only the screams of revellers and booming beat of loud music from extravagant rides. If she tried to turn in here, Pat told her she’d find the road blocked by gates and uniformed guards. She glanced across as she approached the island: an innocuous exit from a roundabout that sparked a feel of something hidden below the surface.
The road east out of Hull went on for longer than seemed possible, bypassing the town of Hedon, snaking through unlikely sounding villages, past interminable speed camera warnings and even through a pseudo-town large enough for complex junctions and civic flowers. How was it possible to travel so far east and not fall into the sea? If the signs hadn’t continued to say Withernsea she’d have been convinced she’d taken a wrong turn.
Forty-five minutes after her call, she found herself on a doorstep that led directly from the street and up against a hatchet-faced woman who made no move to invite her in. ‘Twenty minutes you told my husband,’ the woman said. ‘And anyway, I rang back and told the other woman–’
From the corner of her eye Annie saw a curtain twitch next-door. ‘How do you do,’ she interrupted in strident tones. ‘I’m Annie Raymond from–’
‘Come inside.’ Mrs Martin grabbed her arm and with a murderous glare dragged her into a gloomy hallway where a man with lined features drooped in the background. A dark wood hallstand crowded the space, its polished surface holding a small white card whose print Annie couldn’t read without staring, and first she must consolidate her position. Clearly Mrs Martin had contacted Pat and Pat had decided to give Annie free rein to try and retrieve the job.
‘Miss Thompson must have just missed me. But I’m here now. Let’s at least talk it through. Don’t you want to know … uh … what really happened?’
Mrs Martin pursed her lips. It was her husband who responded, his tone gentle, resigned. ‘We know what happened, love.’
Annie knew she’d lost them. Martha Martin had changed her mind just like Pat predicted. Mr Martin, she judged, hadn’t wanted them in the first place. If I can just get them face to face, she’d said … but now she was here and had nothing to hold them.
Nothing. She glanced round the hallway. Wood panelling gleamed at her. The white card still shimmered just out of range. Dust particles danced in a shaft of sunlight. Nothing except Mr Martin’s words. A long shot that might alienate them more, but it was all she had.
‘I could just take a look at the disk while I’m here.’
Martha Martin spun round to give her husband an outraged glare. He turned helpless eyes upon Annie. ‘But how did you know about it?’
For a second, Annie thought he was begging her not to let on that he was the culprit, the one who’d spilt the beans. But then she saw he was sincere. He’d never noticed his slip over the phone. She turned to Mrs Martin. ‘Didn’t you mention it when you spoke to Pat Thompson yesterday?’
‘No. I never said anything about … about any disk. We hadn’t made up our minds.’ Behind the words, Annie heard uncertainty. Martha Martin hadn’t been sure what she’d done or said since she’d heard the news about Terry.
‘It might help.’ Annie tried to speak gently. ‘A trouble shared and all that.’
‘The lass has a point, Martha.’
Martha Martin fixed her steady gaze on Annie for a moment, then seemed to come to a decision. ‘Come through here.’
The musty aroma of age and sweet smell of polish wrapped itself round her as she followed Martha across the hallway and through to a small sitting room. A tall-backed two-seater settee and matching pair of armchairs clustered round an elaborate fireplace that housed a small electric fire.
‘Sit down,’ Martha ordered, ‘but we’ve not made our minds up.’
Annie hesitated. The end of the settee nearest the fire was undoubtedly Martha’s; her territory marked out with a nonmatching cushion placed to support her back, reading glasses balanced on the settee’s arm, a worn footstool. The armchair at the other side of the fire was marked equally clearly as Bill’s.
The other chair must have been Terry’s. Annie hesitated. The only alternative was the other end of the small settee that would put her in awkward proximity to Martha.
Despite the weather, the room felt chilly but Annie would lay money the fire wasn’t switched on from April to October. Unless, she thought suddenly, Terry had demanded heat. They’d have switched it on for him and never mind the cost. The room was too small for the three of them to remain standing, but their old-fashioned courtesy demanded they wait for her to sit. She took in a breath and sat in Terry’s armchair, seeing Martha stiffen as she did so.
Martha sat down with a small gesture to Bill. ‘Tell her about his disks.’
‘Our Terry did them for the newspapers, love,’ Bill told her.
‘Did what exactly?’
‘He took photos and wrote articles. Quite the roving reporter was our Terry. He did all the village shows.’
‘And it was always his stuff they printed, you know,’ Martha added with a spark of pride. She gestured towards a tiny television tucked almost out of sight by the side of the settee. ‘It was because of his films. He took moving pictures and then made photographs out of the good bits. He said it was the only way to get good shots of the livestock.’
Annie looked at the television. Both Martha and Bill would have to twist awkwardly in their chairs to be able to see the screen. Only Annie, in Terry’s chair,
had an unimpeded view.
‘And this disk?’ she prompted.
‘It was by his camera. We didn’t find it right off, so we didn’t tell the police when they came.’
‘And they wouldn’t have been interested,’ Martha muttered.
‘Did he have the camera with him when …?’ Annie let the question fade.
‘No, love. He just had his notebook. The camera was in his room.’
‘What’s on the disk?’
‘We don’t know. Our Terry had a special machine to play his disks.’
‘Any idea what he might have been filming?’
‘He was set to do a story about Spurn, so it might be that. We’re not sure. It says “Spurn” in his book, the one he had with him.’
‘Spurn Point?’ Annie smiled as school memories surfaced. ‘A cyclic coastal landform,’ she recited.
Both Bill and Martha stared. It was Martha who spoke. ‘Do you know Spurn? I thought from your voice you weren’t from round here.’
‘Oh yes, we learnt all about it at school. One of our teachers took us on a trip there. He was a keen naturalist. We loved it; great stretches of beach and sand dunes.’
‘Terry loved Spurn,’ Bill said to Annie. ‘We used to take him there when he was a lad.’
‘It’s a wonderful place. It’ll be a real shame if they let the sea take it.’ For the first time Martha’s expression was friendly. By chance, Annie had said the right thing.
This was the time to slip in questions about who had found the body, what were the names of the police officers who’d broken the news, where exactly had it happened? They were too conventional a couple not to give her information now they’d invited her in. On the flip side was the resentment she’d build if she antagonized them. They hadn’t signed up to the job yet. She decided to keep quiet.
‘You’d better come and see.’ Bill got to his feet. ‘I’ll take her,’ he said to Martha. ‘You stay here.’
‘There’s the notebook, too,’ Martha said. ‘She can look at it but don’t let her take it away.’
