by Penny Grubb
She’d told her aunt. ‘It’s a big firm.’ The buzz, the elation had shone out of the simple statement.
‘Never mind, dear. It’s all experience. You’ll soon get a proper job.’
Crushed.
‘What are you thinking about?’ Scott’s words cut into her musing.
‘Nothing.’
‘Come on. You were laughing at me when I told you about the helmet my grandmother bought me. Then you looked really down. It was like a cloud going over the sun.’
She had to explain because she couldn’t leave him thinking she’d laughed at his memories. ‘It made me smile because it sounded so much like it was for me. I don’t remember a time I didn’t want to be a private investigator.’
‘What was it for you, a toy spy-glass and funny hat?’
She laughed and murmured, ‘Don’t be daft.’
‘There must have been something. PIs don’t usually hit the radar till you get older.’
He didn’t sound as though he was about to analyse her, or to mock. He just sounded interested. In a move that felt like unclipping a safety rope, she told him that her mother had died and she’d been sent to live with her aunt. ‘When I look back on it, my need to be an investigator feels like the only thing I took with me to my aunt’s house.’
‘Did your father hire a PI to look into your mother’s death?’
He said it so simply, as though it was the easiest thing in the world to talk about.
‘I’ve always assumed so.’
‘And how … uh … how did your mother die?’ She sensed his sideways glance.
‘I don’t know. No one talked about it. I’ve never tried to find out.’
She tensed ready to field the usual outburst, that people must have talked to her about it, why hadn’t she asked questions … but he just nodded as though he understood.
‘Were you living with your aunt before you came to Hull?’
‘Christ, no. I got out years ago.’ She laughed at her own words. ‘That makes it sound awful. It wasn’t. She was fine. I was happy there.’
It was true, she had been as happy as any of her peers when just a child, but despite material comfort, the sedate atmosphere of her elderly aunt’s world stultified the teenager in her. She’d scrabbled through college prospectuses looking not to kick-start her career but for any course that would take her far away and into a bustling metropolis.
‘Do you see much of her nowadays?’ Scott asked.
‘No, not really. I was on a tight budget when I left to go to college so I knew I wouldn’t be able to visit regularly.’ She remembered the exhileration of standing alone on a station platform in London, aged seventeen, her case at her feet. ‘And now it’s even harder. Soon after I left, she moved to a residential home so there isn’t really anywhere for me to stay.’
Shock had coursed through her when her aunt broke the news. It’s time I had a real retirement, dear. Someone to look after me for a change. But I wanted to see you safely off my hands first. Disbelief had turned into the realization that she’d valued a place to call home, even if she hadn’t wanted to be there much.
‘It must have come as a bit of a shock,’ Scott said, his tone matter-of-fact.
‘It was a bit. She was at sea with all the technicalities of college and me going away. She knew I’d taken a room in hall, but she didn’t realize that meant I’d counted on the option of going home in the long holiday if I couldn’t afford to stay. But it was OK. I’d got my own life and I soon found myself a place.’
She remembered the awful spell of sordid bedsits, of feeling rootless and cut adrift, but she’d picked herself up in the end.
‘So what did you do at college?’
Wasted my time, Annie thought, whilst silently thanking Scott for his change of topic. ‘Computing. It was supposed to make me marketable.’
‘Did it?’
‘It helped get me temporary posts, but it meant they shoved me into IT, so I stopped mentioning it on my CV, which made it look like I hadn’t any qualifications at all.’ She laughed, thinking back to the frustration of it all. ‘Hey, maybe I should sign up with your lot if I can’t get fixed up with anything else.’
‘Not round here you won’t.’
‘Why not? It could be fun trying out the other side of the coin. Being a PI should be a good grounding for a police officer.’
‘People usually do the reverse move. Just don’t join up round here. Go back to London.’
‘Why? Do you find it that bad?’
‘It’s all right for me. I’m a man.’
She stared across at him. Had she moved 200 miles north or 200 years back in time? The conversation skirted a side of Scott she might not want to see. She’d accepted his invitation mainly because she thought she liked him, but also because she wanted his take on Terry Martin. If he turned into someone she didn’t like after all, questioning him would become deceitful.
The car climbed a hill past a barrack-like hospital. Annie glanced at the Portakabins scattered in the grounds of imposing old buildings. Functional side by side with imposing … tattered hardboard … polished stone. Was it the converted remains of a stately home, or had it once been an asylum, and did tortured ghosts shriek in the fabric of the carved stonework? So much hidden …
Scott said nothing as he slowed at the top of the hill to manoeuvre the car out on to a roundabout that took them to a wide river of tarmac sweeping its way up between fields and trees. Abruptly, they’d left the city behind.
‘It was my dream,’ he said. ‘Always. I can’t remember not wanting to wear the uniform. I thought about it all the time, but in some ways I never thought about it at all. I mean that it wasn’t until the reality hit me that I knew what the dream was all about. Like my whole life hung on making it in, then I had to face the truth of it. Like going hell for leather down a wide road and suddenly you can’t see what’s ahead. It all looked like plain sailing and then you don’t know where the hell you are. Courtland Road was where reality hit for me.’
‘Courtland Road?’
‘It’s where you go for local training.’ A thought cut into sombre reflections and he flashed her a smile. ‘It’s on Orchard Park.’
She smiled back recognition of a shared experience.
‘You do two-week stints in between all the other stuff. Physicals, law study, out on the beat, all that.’ He paused as the traffic congealed round a tractor and trailer. ‘There was only one woman in the group I was with out of a couple of dozen. We were a good way into it. Six months at least.’ The tractor pulled over and they streamed past with the rest of the cars. ‘One of the cases she’d been on had blown up and she was called out.’
‘Called out?’
‘Called out of the room. You all sit round in this big room. A couple of the guys made some stupid comments. 1970’s stuff about the way she looked. All she was doing was walking out of the room, for God’s sake, but they made it into a big deal. You could see it got to her. I thought they’d get a real slap down from the guy in charge, but he joined in. It kind of hit me in a way … I don’t know, hard to describe. Almost like they’d punched the guts out of my childhood dream. I know it was silly, but it was the first time I’d really stood back and thought, hang about, is this really what I want to do? What if I’ve spent my whole life blinkered on this one thing and it isn’t what I wanted it to be.’ He gave a hollow laugh. ‘I got over it, but it bugged me. It still bugs me.’
‘And it’s worse here than other places?’
He shrugged. ‘I’m pretty sure there’s better forces. We had to liaise with West Mids not so long ago. They were a joke at one time, but they’ve cleaned up their act. At least that’s how it seemed. She left, the woman who was at Courtland Road with me.’
‘Jennifer Flanagan seems fine with it all.’
‘Yeah, if you’re a woman like Jen you can hack it. She doesn’t let anyone get to her.’
This conversational detour had run its course, Annie decided, as a c
halkboard sign outside a pub – Happy Hour – focused her thoughts. ‘Scott, you know the guy who fell off the house, Terry Martin? How did he climb up there? His blood alcohol was through the roof.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘Why shouldn’t I know it? Is it classified?’
A look of annoyance briefly clouded his features and he shrugged. ‘If you’d seen the drink-drive cases I’ve seen, you wouldn’t bother to ask. People do incredible things, then they just flop down unconscious. Or dead in his case.’
‘But as drunk as that? Didn’t anyone think it was odd?’
‘It explained why he was clumsy enough to fall.’
Annie opened her mouth to respond, but was cut short by a muffled ring from her bag.
‘Sorry,’ she murmured, pulling out the phone and glancing at a number she didn’t recognize. ‘Annie Raymond.’
A gruff voice spoke from the phone. ‘You’re supposed to call me.’
The boy. She felt irritation tense her lips. ‘Yeah and I might when I’m ready.’
‘Yeah, but I need you to do something.’
‘You don’t lack nerve, I’ll give you that. What is it?’
‘You’ve gotta meet me. An’ I’ll show you.’
Annie toyed with calling him Maz. That would shock him. ‘Actually, I haven’t got to do anything. Tell me what you want and I’ll decide.’
‘Nah, listen. You gotta come and meet me.’
Annie glanced at Scott. ‘I might call you back, but I’m not talking to you now. I’m with someone.’
‘Who?’ Wary now.
‘The police.’
‘Uh … See you then.’ Annie laughed at the alacrity with which he ended the call.
By reminding her of Orchard Park, she found the boy had crystallized something in her mind. Pat had said, you’re allowed weekends, but she would go back to Orchard Park tonight. Not by taxi. Just quietly in Pat’s car and wait to see who turned up on Saturday nights. The alternative of a few extra hours’ sleep was attractive, but she wanted the full picture. Details mattered.
Scott pulled off the road and into the car-park of a small pub. ‘We can get something to eat here. I wanted to take you further out really but …’ he glanced at his watch. ‘I can’t be late back tonight. This bloody job. It is what I want to do but it plays havoc with any sort of social life.’
Annie smiled and put her hand on his arm. ‘That’s fine, don’t worry. I have to go out on a case later, too.’
She was glad he wasn’t too pushy. She didn’t want to be rushed. There was a frisson to being in his presence and she found herself looking forward to seeing him, but underneath that there was unease because she still wasn’t sure whether she liked him.
Annie woke the next morning far too early. It had been late when she came in after sitting yawning outside Mrs Earle’s block until the white van appeared, a minute or two late, and disgorged three men. Her theory strengthened with every visit. Two men on dealing nights, three every other. But not the same third man. Who were they? Why did she think she’d seen them before? The man last night had been in shadow from van to entranceway. She hadn’t had a good look. If she had, maybe she’d have found him a complete stranger.
She’d planned a lie-in but once she’d woken, she knew sleep wouldn’t return. The boy had demanded a call. Odds on, he’d be dead to the world somewhere, but she said she’d call him and it would serve him right to be roused at this hour.
The phone rang for a long time before a croaky and befuddled voice said, ‘Yeah?’
‘Hi,’ Annie said brightly. ‘I said I’d ring back. So what’s it all about?’
She expected curses, but after a moment’s mumbling, he got his act together. ‘You’re that Annie from the investigation place, right?’
‘Yes, and you’re Maz, aren’t you? What do you want?’
A small gasp of surprise confirmed her guess. Then his words came quickly, his tone anxious. ‘It’s about that guy, Terry. That Terry Martin. You’ll meet me, won’t you? Look, they can’t stick him for it now, can they?’
‘Can’t stick him for what?’
‘They can’t stick him for doing in that Balham guy.’
It interested her that rumour stayed with the original theory that Terry Martin had murdered Edward Balham despite lack of official word about the body. She’d thought the silence might have got the grapevine working overtime with new theories. It hadn’t even leaked that it had been a woman’s body.
‘It weren’t nowt to do with me,’ Maz went on. Then, as a begrudged concession, ‘And it weren’t nowt to do with them either.’
‘Who’s them?’
‘Mally and them. I mean they’re not going to pin it on them, are they? Posh kids like that. But it weren’t nowt to do with them anyway.’
‘And what was it to do with you?’
‘Nowt. That’s what I’m telling you. But they can’t stick it on Terry no more, can they? And you’ve to stop them stitching me up.’
‘If Terry Martin’s guilty, there’s no reason at all they shouldn’t … uh … stick it on him.’
‘Yeah, but they like to get someone in what they can knock about a bit. You can’t have no fun with a dead guy. She were right mad at you for taking her back to her grandad’s but she said you listened. The others said you listened too. I need someone what’ll listen.’
Annie considered this. Maz was worried probably for some spurious reason, but the three girls had vouched for her as someone to trust, so he wanted her to have his side of whatever it was. It all sounded like nebulous fears, but there was one aspect that interested her. What did Maz know about Terry Martin?
‘So will you meet me?’ he asked.
Instinct told Annie she needed to grill him face to face, but she wanted it to be on her terms not his. When she hesitated, he went on, ‘I can easy get a car and come to you. You don’t have to go to no trouble.’
She didn’t doubt that. ‘Well, just hold on a bit. We’ll talk about that in a minute. What is it you need to show me?’
‘I can’t say. But I’ll show you. See, I know I done wrong when I got it for them, but I didn’t do no murder and I’m not having them stick it on me.’
Maz was at the edge of agreeing to admit to a lesser crime because he’d been scared witless to find himself close to a murder. It was so clearly against his nature – and probably nurture – to admit to anything that Annie found herself with a sliver of something close to respect for him for doing it. Then she remembered Bill Martin outside the church in Withernsea and she pulled herself up. OK, she thought, let’s hear you show you’re a better person than the crass git who disrupted a funeral.
‘Tell me about Terry Martin.’
Maz told her he and Terry Martin had been ‘mates’. Terry had ‘done stuff’ for him. He’d been to the Martin’s house in Withernsea. It became clear Terry had used Maz the same way he’d tried to use the girls in Milesthorpe. Maz, far more streetwise, probably managed to squeeze regular money out of Terry with a steady supply of borderline useful information.
He hadn’t taken Mally to the funeral. ‘She went with someone’s grandad. I weren’t going to go in. I don’t go with all that churchy stuff – load of cobblers. Mind, Terry’d started hanging about the church in Milesthorpe. I dunno what that were about. I played some of his music, special. That’s why I went.’
Annie found her preconceptions in a heap on the floor. Was this for real? He sounded sincere. Bill Martin had been right; the sudden disruption had been a mark of respect to his son. Hardly a tactful tribute, but she could see Maz in a completely different light if he’d gone to the funeral specially to play some of Terry’s favourite music.
When he went on to tell her about hearing from Martha Martin that she wanted her son’s death investigated, he had a bigger surprise for her.
‘It were me what give her Pat Thompson’s advert. I knew she’d come a cropper when Sleeman’s mate legged her down the stairs, so I thought she wou
ldn’t do no damage. I didn’t know what had happened to Terry. And I weren’t planning on taking no blame for it. Didn’t know she’d send you. Listen, I’ve telled you everything … nearly. Will you meet up? I’m not taking the rap for this.’
Annie didn’t intend giving him notice so he had time to plan an ambush. ‘Well, I’ll have to think about it–’
She stopped. The far door had opened and Pat hobbled in. Annie snatched the phone from her ear and pressed it into her shoulder, irrationally sure for a second that Pat had overheard what Maz said about Vince.
Pat’s look held the annoyance of someone pulled from sleep too early. She held her own phone between thumb and forefinger. ‘It’s your faithful plod,’ she said. ‘He tried your phone, says it’s engaged. He insists it won’t wait.’
Annie reached for the handset Pat held towards her. ‘Scott?’
‘Annie? Listen, I didn’t want you to hear this from anyone else. Charles Tremlow’s dead. He’s topped himself.’
Chapter 18
Annie gasped in a breath, confusion overwhelming her. A picture slammed on to her of Tremlow broken, slumped on his kitchen table. Tremlow dead?
Had he done it because of her?
‘Why, Scott? How? Tell me what happened.’
‘I can’t, Annie. I don’t know what happened. No one knows yet. I shouldn’t be ringing you, but I didn’t want you hearing it from anyone else. I don’t know what time I’ll get away. There’s a stack of loose ends here.’
‘Are you at his house?’
‘No.’ She felt the extra layer of worry in his tone. ‘Annie, you mustn’t come out here. I shouldn’t be telling you this.’
‘I won’t. I won’t. I just need to know. Oh my God!’
‘Listen, Jen should be off duty in an hour. They’ve no reason to keep her on. Give her a ring. She’ll have got to hear about it by then; she’ll know whatever there is to know. I have to go.’
Annie didn’t think to say thank you until his voice had gone. She stared at the silent handset, watched as Pat reached out to take it back. A hollow carved itself out inside her. She felt stunned. A faint chirrup from the phone still pressed to her shoulder roused her. She remembered Maz.
