by GJ Minett
‘I need your help here, Phil,’ Holloway said.
‘With what?’
‘If I’m not going to be able to turn the QE2, the very least I need to know is what sort of waters she’s sailing in. If I know there are icebergs coming up, maybe I can find a way to steer the ship past them.’
‘You want to try that in English?’
‘Next time you get some bee in your bonnet and want to go off on one – and we both know it’s a question of when rather than if, right? – I want you to ring me. Right away. Before you go ahead and do something we’ll both end up regretting.’
‘Why? So you can talk me out of it?’
‘Yes. Absolutely. If I can. But even if I can’t, it may be that I can give you a bit of context. If there are things I can tell you that might stop you from making a complete arse of yourself, I’d like the chance to do that.’
‘I don’t want you to do anything that’s going to put your own job at risk,’ said Phil, trying to work through the implications.
‘Not going to happen,’ said Holloway, with a wry smile. ‘I’m too close to getting out to allow something like that to happen. But if you’re adamant you’re not just going to walk away from this –’
‘I am.’
‘Then it’s the best way I can think of to limit the damage. Someone’s got to keep an eye on you – protect you from yourself. But I’ll need you to be straight with me. I’m going out on a limb here.’
‘OK,’ said Phil, looking at his watch and realising he’d need to be getting back to work before long or Langford and his cronies would be setting out to track him down. ‘I appreciate it. And I promise I won’t try anything without clearing it with you first.’
Holloway patted him on the shoulder as he got up and headed for the car. Phil followed but made no effort to get in, deciding the walk back would do him some good. Sitting hunched over, first in the car and then on the wooden bench, had left him feeling stiff and awkward in his movements. He’d need the rest of the afternoon just to loosen up again.
‘Don’t want to push my luck,’ he said, resting his arm on the roof of the car and leaning in through the passenger window, ‘but is there anything more you can tell me?’
‘Like what?’
‘Dunno. Just wondered whether you wanted to nudge me in any particular direction. Easier to turn me round if I haven’t set sail on the wrong course in the first place.’
‘Cheeky bugger.’ Holloway fastened his seat belt and switched on the ignition. ‘You be careful,’ he said as he pulled away. Phil watched as he headed for the exit. Then, as if acting on some last-minute impulse, the car swung round in a wide arc and came back towards him.
‘We need the bat,’ Holloway said.
‘The baseball bat?’
‘Until yesterday we didn’t even know for sure it existed. Now we need to find it.’
‘What d’you mean you didn’t know? It was Callum’s. He kept it in the boot of his car.’
‘You ever see it?’
Phil thought for a moment.
‘Well . . . no.’
‘Callum ever mention it to you?’
‘No, but –’
‘We’ve asked everyone about it and so far no one other than Abi knew he had one. At least no one’s admitting it. Struck us as a bit odd, given the sort of character your Callum was. Bit of a lad. Liked to show off a bit. I’d have thought he’d be the sort to take it out now and again in front of his mates. Let them know he was tooled up.’
‘But like you say, Abi knew he had it,’ he said.
‘Yes. She did, didn’t she? If she hadn’t told us about it, we might have been looking for a different weapon altogether. I mean, the lab techs aren’t saying it was definitely a baseball bat but they agree it could have been and given that he had one and it’s now disappeared, we’ve been assuming all along that’s what it was.’
‘Well, there you go then.’
‘But if she was lying about the bat for some reason –’
‘Oh, for Christ’s sake!’ said Phil, as he realised where this was going.
‘You know we have to go there. First thing you always do in a case like this is look at the family. Rule them out before you start rooting around elsewhere for evidence. And she did lie about where she was and got Owen Hall to cover for her. Who’s to say she wasn’t involved in it with this Adam Kitchener she’s supposed to have met afterwards? We checked that out and the pub was packed that night. No one remembers seeing either of them there.’
‘You’re not seriously trying to tell me you think Abi had anything to do with it?’
‘No, not really,’ said Holloway, breaking into a broad grin. ‘Just showing you the dangers of picking your suspect and then making the evidence fit. Anyway, she was telling the truth about the bat. We’ve been checking his emails. There’s one from this time last year – an order for a baseball bat from Amazon, and an invoice for it on one of his accounts. He bought it all right. We find it and we’ll get a warrant for just about anything.’
‘That’s not going to happen though, is it?’ frowned Phil. ‘He’ll have got rid of it, surely. No one would be stupid enough to keep it.’
‘That’s pretty much what we thought,’ said Holloway. ‘Until we saw a picture of it.’ He took his mobile from his pocket and scrolled through his photos. Having called up a picture, he used his thumb to stretch it until it filled the screen. Then he passed the phone through the window for Phil to take a look.
‘Don’t know about you,’ he said, ‘but if it is Owen Hall who took this bat to your boy, I reckon there’s a fair chance he kept it somewhere. You think he could take it away and burn it?’
16
THE DAY OF THE MURDER: MONDAY, 25TH AUGUST
OWEN
She likes the designs. More than that – she really likes them. He’s been anxious about this all day. His fingers were actually trembling just now as he switched on the laptop and called the plans up onto the screen to show her. Four of them. Took him eight hours yesterday to put them together and another six today, not to mention the hours he lay awake on Saturday evening, just planning, planning, planning until he’d got it right in his head. Four designs, each with a different budget. Money shouldn’t be a problem for her but he doesn’t want her to be able to use it as an excuse for saying no, so he’s kept his own profit margins as low as possible. And if he really hopes she’ll go for the most expensive of the four, it’s not because of the money. It’s because it will take longer to get the work done and that means he’ll be there for two or three months at least, and if she’s pleased with what he’s done, she may want to keep him on as her gardener. This could turn out to be a long-term thing.
It’ll be like the old days. She was always his first port of call when he arrived at school. He used to seek her out in the playground, follow her around, sit with her and her friends at one of the picnic tables until the bell sent them off to lessons. She was part of his daily routine back then and routine mattered so much.
Abi Jessop (he still couldn’t bring himself to call her Abi Green, even now).
Abi: total = 12, multiple of 3. Owen: total = 57, multiple of 3.
Safe. Happy.
Abi Hall: total = 45, multiple of 3 and 5. Owen Hall: total = 90, multiple of 3 and 5.
Safe. Happy.
When he was taken out of school for good, his one big regret was that he would inevitably lose contact with her. Given that her family lived in one of the villages nestled in a cluster somewhere north-west of Chichester, there was no way of staying in touch and sure enough they’d drifted apart. He’d even heard she’d moved to France, yet although he hadn’t seen her since their time together at school, he’d never actually stopped thinking about her. Not completely. She was always hovering at the edge of his thoughts, just out of reach. And then, that phone call right out of the blue. She hadn’t forgotten him either. Now she’s taken the plans with her and promised to call in the morning to let him know which one
she’s going to choose. And things will be back the way they were. Back to normal. Everything in its place.
The grandmother clock in the hall is the first to start chiming, closely followed by the old mahogany clock on the mantelpiece above the fireplace, which seems to lose a minute or so every day and comes a more distant second as the day progresses. Two deep chimes from the first, two tinny pings from the second.
Seven-thirty.
He hasn’t had supper yet and even though the programme doesn’t start till 8.45, which means the film won’t be under way until nine at the earliest, he decides on the spur of the moment to leave now. There’s a KFC at Chichester Gate and he fancies something a bit more filling than the soup he was planning to have. If he leaves in the next couple of minutes, that should leave him with plenty of time.
He touches the spot on his cheek where she went up on tiptoe and kissed him just now.
It’s going to be a good evening. The perfect end to a perfect day.
*
He takes the back road to Chichester, through Lagness and North Mundham. It’s more direct, and even though it can be frustrating to get stuck behind farm vehicles coming in and out of Barfoots or one of the many nurseries that line the road, it’s a much more pleasant drive through open countryside than it is battling the heavier traffic on the main road. This way won’t bring him out onto the A27 until the Whyke roundabout. He’ll be practically at Chichester Gate by then.
He’s looking forward to the film. There aren’t many things he and his mother used to do together that he’s kept going since she died but this is one. They used to have a family membership pass, went to Cineworld at least once a week, sometimes more. The films weren’t always that good. ‘They don’t make them like they used to.’ She used to say that nearly every time. ‘Give me Paul Newman or Steve McQueen any day.’ Never really mattered to him though. A trip to the cinema was always an adventure: big screen, surround sound, big bag of popcorn and a huge cup of Diet Coke which he could slot into the holder next to his seat. He doesn’t have a season ticket anymore. Can’t afford it, so he has to be more selective about the films he watches, but he still probably goes at least once a month. Something to look forward to in the evening.
North Mundham Primary School coming up on the right. Light at the pedestrian crossing immediately out front is red even though there are no children around now. An old man is hobbling across the road, swinging his legs in an unnaturally wide arc to take the pressure off his protesting hips. At the front of the queue of traffic coming from the other direction is a pony and trap – two lads up front looking very pleased with themselves. He’s never liked horses. Feels uneasy around them. Remembers when his mother handed him an apple to give to an old shire horse at a children’s farm years and years ago. Something about the way it slurped the apple out of his hand and swallowed it in one go, leaving saliva trails on his fingers and the sleeve of his coat. Never been near one since.
The lights change and he pulls slowly forward. Eases past the queue on the other side of the road, which stretches around the next bend. One of the cars is a flashy-looking sports job. The driver’s hunched over, trying to get something from the glove compartment and he just has time to decide there’s something familiar about him before it dawns on him. He’s now two or three cars further down the road but looking back in the rear-view mirror he can see the driver’s sitting upright again. Even from behind he knows it’s Callum. Instantly. Not likely to mistake him for anyone else.
And he’s a hundred metres or so along the road before he asks himself what he’s doing over this way. It must be at least twenty minutes since he rang Abi to say he was on his way to Bournemouth. He should be the other side of Portsmouth by now. Instead, he’s not that far from Honer Lane and that cottage, the one in South Mundham where he went with that woman on Saturday evening. Is it a coincidence? Has he got a good reason for being here or is he lying to Abi again?
He knows he’s going to have to find out. Can’t just leave it. So he drives on to the next roundabout. Left to Selsey, right to Chichester. Ignores both and doubles back on himself, returning to where he last saw Callum’s car. It’s nowhere in sight now but that doesn’t matter. He’s got a pretty good idea where he’ll find it. It’s not like he wants to catch him up – he just needs to know for sure.
He turns right at the roundabout opposite the Walnut Tree, drives down Mill Lane. Passes two cars coming the other way, both of them multiples of three. Hasn’t seen a prime number since he set out, which tells him he’s on the right track. Wonders what to do next. This would be so much easier if Abi was here in the truck next to him so she could see for herself what Callum’s up to. Telling her won’t be enough. She won’t believe him. May even decide she doesn’t want anything more to do with their plans for her garden – no one likes telltales is what Willie says. What he needs is evidence. If he can get a photo of Callum’s car outside the cottage with a date and time stamp, he can store it away somewhere, carry on collecting snippets like this for the next few weeks. Then, when he’s got enough in the file, he can present all the evidence to Abi in one go. Not even Callum will be able to talk his way out of that one. And Abi will thank him eventually. She’ll realise his heart was in the right place.
He’s in Punches Lane now, turning into Honer Lane and heading towards Pagham Harbour. Driving more carefully. The farmhouse cottage where they went the other night is about a mile along on the left, just before the road peters out. Callum should be there by now, has probably gone inside. But what if he hasn’t? What if he’s just there to pick her up? The last thing he wants is to find Callum coming back towards him on this single-track road. How’s he going to explain what he’s doing all the way out here if that happens? Whatever he says, Callum’s not going to believe it. He’ll know he’s being followed. Maybe it would be better just to turn round and go back. Forget about the whole thing. But he doesn’t want to give up on the idea if it means he has nothing to show Abi. He needs to think about this. So he drives through an open entrance to one of the fields and parks the truck where it won’t be seen from the road. Gives himself time to think through the possibilities.
The best thing to do, it seems to him, would be to leave the truck here and go the rest of the way on foot but that might leave him a bit exposed. If it was just a couple of hours later, he’d feel happier about things but although there are heavy, dark clouds overhead and the light’s fading fast he reckons it’ll be another hour at least before he has enough cover and he can’t possibly wait here that long. This whole Bournemouth trip might be just one more lie but, if it’s not, then Callum may only be calling in for a few minutes. Could be coming back down the road any time. Bye bye photo. He can’t take the chance. If he’s going to do something, it has to be now.
So he leaves the pickup where it is, tucked away out of sight, and jogs round a couple of bends in the road, his ears straining for any sound resembling an approaching vehicle, making a note of where all the entrances are in case he needs to get off the road as a last resort. Another bend. Fifty more metres of road ahead. And another bend. He’s starting to wonder whether he might have underestimated just how long this would take on foot. Then he turns one more corner and there’s the cottage, no more than thirty metres away from where he’s standing. And there’s a car in the drive, only he can see straightaway it’s not Callum’s. It’s a yellow one, the same one the woman was driving when she picked Callum up in the car park on Saturday evening. The one Callum was driving just now was black, only he can’t see any sign of it. There’s a garage tucked up against the cottage but her car’s blocking the entrance – his can’t be inside unless she moved hers to let him get past and why would she do that?
He wonders whether he might have got it wrong. Maybe Callum wasn’t planning to visit her after all. What if he was on his way somewhere else when Owen passed him? The fact that he was near South Mundham might be just a coincidence. And if he’s not coming here at all, there’s not going to b
e any photo.
But even as he’s coming to terms with his disappointment, another possibility occurs to him – one that’s far more alarming. What if he is coming but went somewhere else first? If that’s what’s happened, he could turn up any minute and there’s only one road back out of here, all the way down to Manor Lane. He needs to get out of here. Now.
He turns and runs back down the road towards his truck. His breathing’s becoming more and more laboured by the minute. He’s not an athlete. He’s strong but not built for running and it’s only a growing sense of desperation that drives him on. He reaches the truck and doubles over for a few seconds to get his breath back. Then he gets in, turns the key in the ignition. Nothing. He tries again – it splutters, then dies. And again. He slams his hand down on the dashboard, curses himself for having got into this mess. Takes a deep breath and tries again. This time the engine roars into life and he gives a sigh of relief. It might be his day after all.
He releases the handbrake and pulls out of the entrance to the field. Revs a little too hard, causing the wheels to struggle for purchase as he swings out onto the single-track road and heads back towards North Mundham.
And as he checks out the first bend, no more than fifty metres away, Callum’s car comes cruising into view.
They both come to a halt, facing each other. Callum gets out of his car first and stands there for a moment, one hand resting on the door. Owen isn’t sure what he’s doing. He can’t be checking to see if there’s any way he can squeeze past. It must be obvious even from inside the car that one of them is going to have to back up. He’ll have worked out whose pickup it is and it looks to Owen as if he’s trying to decide whether there’s any way this could be a coincidence. He thinks about getting out of the truck as well but can’t move. His body won’t respond. He’s desperately trying to come up with an explanation as to why he’s here, on a road leading nowhere, at exactly the same time as Callum. And he’s coming up empty. There’s nothing there.
