by GJ Minett
When the procession reached the Walnut Tree, he stopped to book a table for Friday night. It wasn’t so much an act of penance. He’d probably quite enjoy it after a week away but Jesus, was he ready for a bit of a break from Abi. There was no specific thing he could put his finger on. She just seemed to be on his case all the time. This needs doing, that needs fixing, did you remember to put such and such away? A thousand varieties on the theme of How many times have I told you . . . All with a smile on her face but nothing much else there to prop it up. Maybe a night out together would go some way towards pulling the stick out of her arse.
Having booked the table, he turned into Brookside, then followed a series of back roads until Honer Lane came into view. All open countryside and single-track road now. Pagham Harbour somewhere up ahead. The clouds were starting to roll in with a vengeance, and even though it was still warm enough to have the hood down he thought he’d probably have to sort it as soon as he reached Hannah’s place. Didn’t need Carol Kirkwood to tell him a downpour was on its way.
He heard another vehicle approaching from the opposite direction before he saw it, hidden as it was by the hedges and the bends in the road. Someone was going to have to back up here and although usually he’d be quite happy to sit there and wait till hell froze over before giving way, he found himself taking note of an entrance to a field he’d just driven past. If it came to it, he could always reverse into it and let the vehicle pass – amazing what he was prepared to do when all was right with the world.
He laughed at how he seemed to be full of the joys of spring all of a sudden. In August, ha ha! Laughed, that is, until he saw who it was coming the other way.
And then he thought: what the fuck?
PHIL
He leaned back against the wall and smiled to himself as he watched her at work on the speedball. Amazing, really. He could see one or two others were watching with interest too. Most newcomers found it hard just to keep their hands in the air for that length of time and even before their arms gave out they’d have been struggling to find the co-ordination and timing needed to hit it every time.
She was as comfortable with the speedball as she had been just now on the heavy bag. He’d corrected her slightly crouched stance, which probably owed a lot to her beloved mixed martial arts, and offered a few tips designed to improve her leverage, but by and large she’d punched well, hitting through the target and pivoting to get maximum force into the shot. And as for the fifteen-minute warm-up – she’d sailed through it, even though he hadn’t been able to resist the temptation to make it a little bit more demanding than usual. Came up with a big grin on her face as if to say, Is that all you’ve got? He was impressed.
Anna had turned up out of the blue. She’d often threatened to come along, usually when they were out on patrol at Arun Valley, teasing each other to pass the time. He’d reached the point where he didn’t really believe she was serious about giving it a go and had been surprised to see her saunter through the door as if she hadn’t a care in the world. She’d drawn her fair share of compliments already and seemed to have been well accepted by hardened regulars, who were not easily impressed. He couldn’t help feeling pleased for her, even though he suspected he was in for a rough few days on patrol with her chirping in his ear about how easy this boxing lark was.
She finished the session on the speedball and grabbed a towel, wiping the sweat away from her face and the back of her neck. As she tugged at the scrunchie her hair fell forward, partially covering her face, and it occurred to him that at Arun Valley it was always tied back – he’d never seen her like that before. This was Anna the athlete, the girl who’d been area cross-country champion as a schoolgirl and claimed she could probably go out and run a sub-five-minute mile even now if she put her mind to it. Looking at her, he felt inclined to believe it.
‘So how did I shape up?’ she asked him, the grin there again.
‘Not bad.’
‘For a beginner?’
‘For someone who does MMA.’
‘Thank you, kind sir. I suppose you could do better?’
‘Doubt it. Back in the day, maybe.’
She unfastened her shoe and removed one training sock so that she could have a closer look at a blister that had been troubling her.
‘So just how good were you?’ she asked. ‘Back in the day.’
‘He was shite,’ said Baz, as he walked past.
Phil smiled quietly to himself. The two of them had sparred each other often enough when they were younger and he couldn’t remember Baz ever getting the better of him. No one knew it better than Baz himself.
‘I had my moments.’
‘What does that mean?’ she asked, feeling the inside of her shoe.
‘ABA quarter-finals. Had to pull out then – broke my hand.’
Anna’s eyes widened. ‘ABAs. That’s pretty good, isn’t it?’
‘Like I say, I had my moments.’
She sat down on one of the benches to put her sock and trainer back on and he slid alongside her. She slipped the extended fingers of one hand inside the scrunchie while the other tugged her hair back from her face.
‘What about your boy?’ she asked. ‘He ever try boxing?’
‘Callum? Not so’s you’d notice.’
‘Not for him?’
He pulled a face.
‘It was OK till they started hitting back. Then it wasn’t quite so much fun anymore.’
She wiped her face again, then wrapped the towel round her shoulders.
‘Disappointed?’ she asked.
‘Not really,’ he said, remembering Sally’s relief when Callum announced he was giving up. ‘I’ve never been one of those dads who want to live their lives through their kids’ successes. I just wanted him to be happy, that’s all. If I’m disappointed about anything, it’s the fact that there are so many good lessons to be drawn from boxing and somehow he’s managed to pick up the wrong ones every time.’
‘Oh . . .’
She couldn’t possibly know about the times he and Sally had been called to the school to discuss Callum’s behaviour, especially the bullying he always tried to pass off as standing up for himself. Couldn’t possibly know – but she seemed to get the general drift of what he was hinting at without him actually saying it.
‘What does he do now?’ she asked.
‘Oh . . . couldn’t really tell you,’ he said with a self-deprecating chuckle. ‘Way over my head. Something to do with marketing is all I know. The rest of it – not a clue. He’s making a fortune out of it though, I know that much.’
‘So he turned out OK then,’ she said, nudging him in the ribs. ‘Even though you still beat yourself up about it.’
‘I guess so.’
‘Well, at least you care. Wish I could say the same about my old man.’
Phil sat upright and looked at her. This was probably the first time in the three months they’d been working together that they’d strayed over into more personal territory. It occurred to him just how little he knew about her family.
‘You don’t get on?’ he asked.
She shook her head. ‘Not really. I’m still expected to turn up every week for Sunday lunch and we do our best to keep things civil for Mama’s sake but it’s never really comfortable. We’re probably too alike. I’m different from what he expected in a daughter, I guess. I should have been like Lucia.’
‘Your sister?’
She nodded. ‘She did everything right. Grew up the way a bella bambina ought to: pretty smile, loves her poppa, married at nineteen and had already given him two grandchildren by the age of twenty-three.’
‘You don’t think you’ve got a pretty smile?’ he asked.
‘Wouldn’t matter if I did, but thanks for the thought,’ she said. ‘No, I was the rebel, the tomboy. More interested in running and getting sweaty than parading around in frilly dresses and ribbons. Conduct unbecoming, I think the phrase is. Don’t suppose the fights helped either.’
He laughed. ‘Sounds like you and Callum would get on well.’
‘Yeah . . . or beat the crap out of each other.’
She picked up her sweatshirt – the first indication she was about to leave.
‘You haven’t told me how much the subs are,’ she said.
‘On the house.’
‘No, seriously.’
‘Seriously. No charge for first-timers.’
She slapped his knee as she got to her feet. ‘OK. In that case I’ll pay for you when you come to MMA for the first time.’
He laughed.
‘Why not?’ she urged him. ‘Go on – live a little.’
‘MMA? At my age?’
She tutted and turned to head for the door, waving goodbye to Baz as she went.
‘You know how often you do that?’ she asked, as he caught up with her. ‘Put yourself down? What happened to you’re only as old as you feel?’
He held the door open for her and walked outside. It didn’t seem in keeping with the rest of the evening somehow to point out that alongside her he felt every second of his fifty-four years.
He offered to drive her back to her place but she demurred.
‘Think I’ll go for a run,’ she said. ‘See if I can turn this into a proper workout.’
She went up on tiptoes and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. Then she was off, heading down towards the beach, hair bobbing behind her, so relaxed and easy it was difficult to imagine her ever running out of energy.
He walked a few yards to the end of the road, avoiding the temptation to lift a hand to his cheek, and watched the retreating figure until she disappeared from view.
HANNAH
She tried his mobile again. The ‘9’ in brackets after his name laughed back at her, reminding her how many times she’d tried it already.
Nine calls.
Three voicemail messages reflecting increasing levels of concern and frustration.
At least half a dozen texts laced with the same potent mix. And still no reply.
Damn you, Callum Green. Damn you!
He should have been here ages ago. She hadn’t worried at first. He’d probably been delayed – some problem at work or maybe Abi had thrown some last-minute obstacle in his way. He’d be there soon enough, that was all that mattered. She even wondered whether he might be having a joke at her expense, deliberately keeping her waiting as some sort of payback for all the times she’d left him kicking his heels downstairs.
But as the minutes ticked past, she started to wonder what was going on. Was he OK? If he’d been taken ill, he’d have got a message to her somehow, wouldn’t he? And the same applied to any change of plan. She was quite capable of driving to Bournemouth and meeting him there if the need arose. All she needed was a call to explain – anything so that she knew where she stood.
Because there was a third possibility that had dawned on her just a few moments ago, and that was that he might have changed his mind about the whole thing. She hadn’t reached the stage where she thought this was really likely because things had been so great lately. Even as recently as Saturday night he’d almost had to peel himself away from the bed, so she didn’t see how things could have changed substantially in less than forty-eight hours, but then again you never knew, did you? Being the third party always meant being on the outside and if the freedom that bought her was appealing for the most part, there were definitely times when it was anything but.
So at 9.30, with her patience running on fumes, she decided on what she’d promised herself she would never do – to ring his home. She worked out a cover story: a colleague from work who needed him to sign off on some documents. Did Abi know where he was at the moment and when he’d be back? Then, having got her side of the conversation straight in her head, she dialled his home number, hoping against hope that he would answer instead of her.
Again . . . no reply. After eight rings it cut to voicemail, both of their voices reading out a message in a sing-song voice which she could easily imagine giving way to fits of giggles the moment they’d finished recording. Happy families. It felt like more than just a slap in the face.
‘DAMN YOU’, she screamed as she cut the connection. ‘WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?’
6
NOW: THURSDAY, 2ND OCTOBER
HOLLOWAY
Edmund Mitchell was a diminutive retired accountant with a comb-over that bordered on the ridiculous and halitosis that surely ought to have come with a government health warning. He and his wife had been neighbours and close friends of Laura Hall, nursing her through the final stages of her illness and acting as surrogate family to Owen ever since his worthless wastrel of a father had upped sticks and left the two of them to fend for themselves. As such he’d been the obvious person for the boy to turn to whenever he needed a father figure and today was no different.
They sat next to each other, across the table from Horgan and Holloway. In preparation for the interview, Mitchell removed his rimless glasses and began polishing them on his tie. In front of him on the table a small notebook had been opened and a monogrammed fountain pen lay alongside it, primed to record any minor deviation from the correct procedure. Even though he was no more than five-feet-six-inches tall and probably hadn’t weighed more than eight and a half stone dripping wet at any stage of his entire life, he nevertheless had a presence that was in inverse proportion to his size. Until he opened his mouth to speak, it was easy to dismiss him as a nonentity, just one more humble employee worn to work every day of the week by the same suit, spending his lunchtime breaks feeding the ducks in the park from the sandwich he’d meticulously wrapped in greaseproof paper the night before.
Holloway opened proceedings which, he advised them both, would be tape recorded and videoed. It was not a formal interview as such, he pointed out. Its purpose was merely to ascertain exactly what had happened on the evening of Wednesday, 1st October 2014 at a service station on the A27 just outside Littlehampton and, specifically, to determine whether any follow-up action needed to be taken. Did he understand?
Owen nodded and when reminded that he needed to speak for the benefit of the tape, mumbled: ‘Yes.’
‘Might I make an observation here, Inspector, before we get started?’ asked Mitchell. Here we go, thought Holloway, preparing himself mentally for an afternoon of paragraphs and sub-sections.
‘By all means.’
‘When Owen came to see me earlier, he explained in detail everything that had happened. I advised him it was very much in his best interests to get down here and explain it to you himself so that you would then be free to get on with doing your job.’
‘I’m very pleased to hear it,’ said Holloway, smiling to show his appreciation before turning his attention to Hall. ‘Owen?’
Hall leaned forward, hands clasped, both elbows resting on the table. He looked a lot more comfortable than he had done in his own garden earlier in the day.
‘I’m sorry I l-lied earlier,’ he said, looking directly at the table. ‘I p-panicked because I d-didn’t understand what was happening. I’ll answer all your questions now.’
‘OK,’ said Holloway, loosening his tie and undoing the top button of his shirt. ‘Let’s start with a few basics, shall we? You are now saying that you were there at the service station at the stated time?’
‘Yes.’
‘Was there anyone with you in the car when you arrived?’
‘Yes.’
‘And this was the girl Julie whose whereabouts were causing you some concern?’
‘Yes. Well . . . I d-don’t know if that’s her real name but it’s what she t-t-told me.’
Holloway paused for a moment. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘We’ll come back to that. So, this Julie . . . we’ll call her that for now, shall we? How long have you known her?’
‘A f-few days. She rang me. Last week sometime. S-said she was a freelance reporter from Brighton. She wanted to meet me.’
‘Did she say why?’
&nbs
p; ‘Not then. She just said she had something I’d want to know about – something I’d find really interesting. I gave her my address but she said it was better if we met somewhere else in c-case she was being watched.’
‘Watched?’
‘Yes. She suggested the seafront outside Butlins would be best. Lots of people. We’d be safer in a crowd. She said she’d find me . . . knew what I looked like.’
His right index finger started tracing imaginary circles on the surface of the table as he spoke.
‘She said she knew all about the case. She’d t-taken an interest in it, been d-doing a lot of investigating of her own and the m-m-more she looked into it the angrier it made her cos she thought you were all coming at it from the wrong angle.’
‘What did she mean by that? Did she explain?’
He shook his head. ‘Doesn’t matter. She was lying anyway. Making it all up. But I believed her. She said she was c-c-close to working out exactly what had happened and that if she was right everyone would get off my b-back and leave me alone. There was this woman who was meant to have some sort of p-proof that I couldn’t have been involved and she’d been trying to get her to c-come forward with what she knew. She was expecting to hear from her any time.’
‘And did she?’
‘Couple of days later. She phoned me, said she’d arranged to meet this woman on Wednesday night at the B-Burlington Hotel in Worthing and I could come with her if I liked but I mustn’t tell anyone in case it scared her off. So I didn’t . . . not even Mr M-Mitchell.’ He looked apologetically at his AA who patted his arm to let him know it was all right.
‘So that’s where you were heading last night?’
‘Yes.’
‘The Burlington, you say?’
