A Deadly Diversion

by David Barry

  Alice stared at her; her eyes cold as steel. ‘It’s true. And you know it’s true. Deep down you know damn well it’s true. I’ve lost my entire family because of your fucking boyfriend.’

  Bailey laughed in desperation. ‘But this is absurd. Who or why would someone pay him to kill your family?’

  Alice looked at me, knowing this was a tricky one to answer, and Bailey leapt on it.

  ‘You see! You haven’t got a fucking clue, have you? It’s ridiculous. You can’t think of a single reason why someone would hire him to kill...’

  ‘We may not be able to prove it right now,’ Alice interrupted. ‘But we can guess at the reason. We think he was involved in organised crime. So was my father. But the only person who can tell us why my family was slaughtered is your boyfriend. Which is why we need to speak to him.’

  ‘What makes you think I know where he is?’

  ‘Oh, come on, Christine!’ I shouted as I got up out of the chair, causing her to flinch. ‘After I left you my business card, someone found out where I lived, and my partner was murdered.’

  Her head drooped, her shoulders shook, and we heard the bubbling of tears. I looked at Alice and nodded, giving her the signal to take over. She stood up and went to Bailey, tentatively sliding an arm across her shoulder.

  ‘I know how hard this must be,’ Alice said, her voice soft and sympathetic. ‘It must be difficult to accept. But deep down you must know, having had to listen to Peter’s lies in the past, that there was something not quite right. You must know that. You’re not stupid, Christine. Think back to the way he suddenly disappeared out of your life. You must have found that odd. Suspicious.’

  ‘But what about Dan? Our son,’ Bailey sobbed and moaned as her body shook. ‘If he found out his father...God! I can’t believe this is happening. His father a... a killer. Oh, God! No! Please! Say it’s not true.’

  ‘Sorry, Christine, the man who left you so suddenly almost fourteen years ago was not who he pretended to be, and since then he got in with the wrong people and he’s become a ruthless killer. The man doesn’t possess a conscience, Christine. My little brother was only ten when he shot him in cold blood.’

  An animal cry of pain came from deep inside Bailey’s chest. ‘Oh, no, my Dan! What can I tell Dan about his father?’

  Over Bailey’s head Alice threw me a look. It was confident and manipulative, and I could see she was capable of moulding Bailey so that she might inform on her boyfriend.

  ‘I know all this has come as a dreadful shock, Christine.’

  Christine sniffed nosily and wiped her nose on the sleeve of her sweater.

  ‘Christine, listen to me,’ Alice said. ‘We may still be wrong about Peter. Perhaps he wasn’t the one who... But there’s only one way to find out, and that’s for us to confront him. I don’t mean you, Christine. I mean me and Freddie. Give him a chance to explain himself. It’s the only way.’

  Bailey looked up through misted eyes, her voice chocking with emotion. ‘You think there might be some mistake? You think he could be innocent?’

  ‘That’s for us to find out.’ Alice grabbed Bailey tightly be the shoulders and stared into her eyes. ‘Look at me, Christine. Whatever you do, you mustn’t tell him about our visit. He’ll only lie to you again. The only way is for you to... Do you have a mobile phone?’

  Bailey nodded.

  ‘If he visits you, you must send us a text to let us know he’s here. Can you do that without him knowing?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘It’s very important, Christine.’

  ‘What will you do to him?’

  ‘Follow him. Go to his place and talk to him. Find out the truth.’

  ‘But what if...?’ Bailey stopped, unable to say what was on her mind.

  ‘What if he’s guilty, you mean? Let’s deal with that when the time comes. What sort of car does he drive?’

  Bailey shook her head, more in confusion than a refusal to answer. ‘I think it was... it was a black BMW.’

  ‘What sort of model is it?’

  ‘How the hell do I know?’

  ‘OK. It doesn’t matter. When he came here to see you, how much time did he spend with you?’

  Bailey broke away from Alice and held the edge of the table for support. She looked weak and distraught, her make-up smeared, her hair dishevelled, and there was a trail of snot on one of her sleeves. Her body shook as she lowered herself into a chair.

  ‘Christine,’ Alice continued, ‘how much time does he spend here when he visits?’

  Bailey looked up, her eyes pleading. ‘I wasn’t lying when I said he never visits. What I meant was, he’s only been about twice this year. And before that it was just once in about five years. He’s like a stranger. And the effect this has on Dan is terrible. It would be better if he didn’t come at all.’

  ‘So is he likely to come back again soon?’

  Bailey nodded. ‘He promised he would. He said very soon. Within a week, he said.’

  ‘As soon as he does, Christine, send us that text. When he was here the last time, how long was he here for?

  ‘Most of the afternoon and evening - about six or seven hours. He spent a lot of the time in Dan’s room, trying to bond with him. Oh God! What’s going to happen if he goes to prison. What will Dan do then?’

  ‘At least you’d know where you could find him,’ I said, keeping any emotion out of my voice. ‘Dan would be able to visit and talk to his father regularly. It might be better than seeing him only two or three times in five years.’

  ‘And how will he feel if he finds out it was me who was responsible for putting him away?’

  Alice stood over Bailey, her nostrils flaring and her eyes filled with cold determination. I knew she was about to state the hard reality of the circumstances, giving the woman no choice but to play along with what we suggested. ‘Whatever happens, Christine, your boyfriend cannot continue working for whoever it is he works for. He can’t be allowed to continue murdering innocent people. And let me make it quite clear what the consequences will be if you should warn him about our visit. There’ll be even more unnecessary bloodshed, and it’s a risk we’re not prepared to take. Do I make myself clear?’

  Bailey’s head sunk onto her chest. ‘Yes,’ she mumbled.

  ‘Sorry, Christine: I didn’t catch that.’

  Bailey raised her head and nodded, staring zombie-like at Alice through clouded eyes. ‘Yes. All right. I’ll do it. I’ll do it.’

  ‘Thank you, Christine. It’s the best way. It’s the only way, believe me. Now we’ll leave you to think about what we’ve said.’

  We started to leave, but I turned back at the door for a final word. ‘A word of warning, Christine. When Chapmays turns up, he mustn’t suspect anything. You’ve got to act normal and not make him suspicious. If you can’t handle it from the pressure, make out you’re coming down with the flu or something. But he mustn’t suspect anything. Otherwise you could be in danger. Remember, this man is ruthless, and killed Alice’s ten-year-old brother rather than leave a witness behind. So if he thinks you’re about to shop him - ’

  I left the unfinished sentence hanging ominously, hoping it would serve as a warning in case she decided to confront Chapmays and confide in him. It was a terrible risk we were taking, but it was the only way we could think of to smoke the bastard out.

  As soon as we had left the house, and Alice was behind the wheel of her Saab, she turned to me and asked, ‘Will she play ball and warn us when he comes round, d’you think?’

  I stared thoughtfully through the windscreen, watching an old lady shuffling painfully along the street, supported by a triangular pulpit frame on wheels. Eventually, I turned to Alice and said, ‘Christine Bailey will sit there for hours now, in a state of shock. She’ll weep and moan, feeling sorry for herself
and her son, but as we’ve planted the seeds of doubt about his past, the way it was obvious he was not who he pretended to be, she’ll soon realise she has no option but to go along with what we’ve suggested.’

  ‘I hope you’re right.’

  ‘She’s a primary schoolteacher, don’t forget. And what we told her about Chapmays showing no mercy when he killed your kid brother, must effect her. It must do.’

  ‘Meanwhile, we’ll just have to sit tight and wait for her to contact us.’

  I glanced at my watch. ‘Time for me to get home and face the music. If this investigation gets any worse, I think Michelle will freak out. I could find myself being taken to the cleaners via the divorce courts.’

  ‘Oh, Freddie, I’m sorry. This is all my fault.’

  ‘Or even worse, sleeping in the spare room.’ I grinned to let her know I was joking. Well, perhaps half joking, because I had yet to get home to face the music.

  Chapter 26

  Saturday 12 October 2013

  A week went by and we heard nothing from Christine Bailey. Because it looked as if Chapmays was trying to bond with his son, Nicky suggested he might visit on a Saturday, and perhaps take him to a football match. So the three of us arranged to come into the office for at least half the day. But it was almost midday and it looked as if it was going to be an unproductive Saturday, and Michelle wasn’t too pleased when I told her I needed to go to the office to sort out one or two problems. She gave me a cold stare, shrugged, and took refuge in the garden, a trait she had inherited from her father whose obsessive gardening was a means of escape from her mother’s equally obsessive dusting and cleaning.

  The three of us sat in the inner office, me behind the desk, and Nicky and Alice on chairs in front of it. Because of Alice’s huge financial input in the business, I suggested she should take pole position behind the desk, but she waved it aside. I didn’t think it was gender bias, with her doing it out of deference to me as the male instigator of the business; I just didn’t think she cared about anything to do with status and her only concern was the job in hand.

  We spent most of the morning going through everything we had learnt about the case so far, right from day one when Alice came to assign us to the investigation. It was her idea that in order to protect ourselves from any legal ramifications in the future, we ought to have a written record of everything we had discovered up until now. Rather than waste our week waiting for Bailey to call, we spent most of the time writing up accurate records of the case. Nicky wrote it all down, first in shorthand, then in longhand before transferring it onto the computer, printed out copies for each of us to look through, and then made two USB pen drive copies, which Alice and I could store in a safe place away from the office. I stuck mine in a pocket, next to my passport, which I had taken to carrying around in case I needed to make a trip to Krakow the last minute, although I didn’t fancy my chances going up against some evil arsehole in another country, and for the moment I decided the best bet would be to see if we could nail Chapmays.

  I began to wonder if we would hear from Christine Bailey soon? I kept asking myself the same questions over and over. If she was telling the truth about Chapmays’ visits, how infrequent they were, would we still be sitting here twiddling our thumbs months from now? I was well aware that without his old girlfriend’s help, we were stuck. We had very little chance of finding him. We didn’t know his true identity, and he was clearly careful about remaining anonymous and hidden.

  While the evenings during the past week had not been exactly welcoming and friendly with Michelle still upset about Bill and the way I had lied to her about interrogating Lennox , she did at least concede that Olivia had been free of internet attacks for nearly two weeks now. But I still had to be ultra careful about everything I said, because every time I opened my mouth Michelle questioned and contradicted me as if she was a prosecuting counsellor. ‘You don’t know how close I came to starting divorce proceedings, Mr Weston,’ she snapped at me at one stage. When she said it I stifled a smile because I knew that with those words at least my marriage was safe. But only for the time being; because if Michelle discovered the case we were working on was somehow connected to the pervert violating Olivia on the internet, then things could only go from bad to very much worse. If that happened, I had two chances of repairing my marriage - slim and none.

  Alice caught me looking at my mobile on the desktop, willing it to buzz, and she smiled. ‘What is it they say about a watched kettle?’

  I sighed. ‘I know. But this is frustrating. I mean, where do we go from here? With Jack Dawe out of the way, Chapmays knows the only way we can find him would be through Christine Bailey, the way he found us. He probably feels a bit more secure now. The media didn’t report a car bombing, so he thinks his ex-girlfriend will be in the dark about that.’

  Nicky, reading through the transcript she had typed, looked up. ‘But he might not have rung Jack Dawe’s father and found out he’d given you his address. Maybe he’s smart enough to guess at what your next move will be. Which means he might guess about Christine Bailey, and you paying her another visit.’

  ‘If that’s the case,’ Alice said, ‘he’ll do one of two things. Either he’ll try to kill Freddie, having failed the first time; or he’ll stay away from Christine Bailey, disappear from her life again.’

  I drummed my fingers on the desk thoughtfully. ‘But all evil bastards, psychopaths and mass murderers relate to someone. Christine Bailey said he was a devoted father when his boy was a toddler. And it sounds like he’s trying to bond with the lad. We are in the same boat as her, inasmuch as we haven’t a clue about his true identity. So it could well be that he might look on her place as a bolthole, somewhere he can lead a normal family life in his Peter Chapmays disguise.’

  Alice was about to say something but we all froze as my mobile began buzzing and spinning clockwise on the smooth wooden surface of the desk. I snatched it up, clicked on text, and saw that it was a number unlisted in my mobile phonebook.

  I scrolled to the message.

  ‘It’s from her,’ I said, and read it aloud. ‘“He’s here now. Upstairs with Dan. C Bailey”.’

  I grabbed my leather coat from the back of the chair and slid my arms into the sleeves. I felt a metal lump bumping against my thigh and tapped the left side of my coat that concealed the gun in my inside pocket. ‘Come on!’ I said. ‘We don’t know how long he’s going to be there.’

  ‘Please be careful,’ Nicky said, throwing her arms around Alice. ‘Have you got the tracker?’

  ‘It’s in my glove compartment,’ Alice replied.

  Then we were on our way.

  ***

  Alice parked the Saab on the opposite side of the street to Christine Bailey’s house, a good hundred yards away from it. There was only one black BMW in the street, parked a little way beyond her house. To fit the tracker might prove awkward if the son’s bedroom was in the front and he or his father happened to look out of the window just as one of us attached it beneath his rear bumper. As if Alice could read my mind, she said, ‘I’m just guessing but usually the master bedroom’s the one at the front of the house. So let’s hope it’s Christine Bailey who uses it.’

  I looked at my watch. It was just after four-thirty. At the moment it was fairly quiet but we needed to move fast, before the street became busy with people arriving home from the shops.

  Alice leaned across, opened the glove compartment and removed the tracker. ‘I’ll do it,’ she said. ‘I’m wearing my track suit and I’ll sprint along until I get to his car - I’ll just look at someone out jogging, then - if the coast is clear - I’ll attach the tracker and keep on jogging to the end of the street.’

  ‘I’ll slip into the driving seat,’ I said, ‘and keep an eye on the house. If I see anyone looking out of the window, I’ll give one warning blast on the horn and you can continue jogging al
ong the street. Then you can jog back along the opposite side, and try again when the coast is clear. Hopefully that won’t be necessary. As soon as I see you’ve attached the tracker, I’ll drive to the end of the street, pick you up, then we can wait there until Chapmays leaves.’

  I heard Alice taking a deep breath. ‘OK, here we go.’ She slid out of the driving seat, carrying the small black tracker as unobtrusively as possible under her left hand as she began to sprint at a steady pace along the pavement. I slid quickly into the driving seat, keeping a watch on Bailey’s house in case someone came to the upstairs window.

  I watched as Alice neared the BMW, but just then - Shit! - a woman carrying a shopping bag came out of the front gate of the house right opposite the car and nearly collided with Alice. I gritted my teeth and watched as Alice nodded to the woman, and then carried on jogging to the end of the street. The woman walked slowly in the same direction, heading for the main road and shops.

  I saw Alice crossing the road, and watched as she jogged back on the opposite side in my direction. She got to just in front of the Saab, gave me a quick look and mouthed ‘Shit!’ then crossed the street again and headed back towards the BMW. I stared at the upstairs window of Bailey’s house as she sprinted up behind the BMW. There was no one looking out of the window. I saw Alice glancing quickly around to make certain she wasn’t being watched, and then she stooped and attached the tracker to the rear underside of Chapmays’ car. It was done. I started the engine, put it into drive, and cruised slowly to the end of the street. I found a parking space near the main road and pulled over, then shifted into the passenger seat as Alice slid back into the driving seat.

  She blew her breath out with relief. ‘Glad that’s done. Now we can follow him at a safe distance. Let’s hope we haven’t got long to wait.’

  ‘That’s the least of our problems, Alice. We haven’t worked out what happens when we find out where he lives.’