Good People

by Ewart Hutton

  Ken shook his head. ‘Not in front of me. None of the others mentioned it either. If he had said anything, it’s something we would have talked about, believe me.’

  ‘He was drunk, wasn’t he?’

  Ken frowned and looked at me sharply. ‘Why do you say that?’

  I smiled pleasantly. ‘I would have thought that it might have loosened him up. If it was on his mind, that’s when he would talk about it.’

  He relaxed. ‘I take your point. And I suppose we all had a pretty good skinful that night.’ He smiled mock-ruefully at the ladies, and then shook his head. ‘But the subject didn’t come up. Only the inevitable fact that his leave was over.’

  I nodded understandingly. ‘How did he get home?’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘You dropped him off in Dinas. It was late, it was cold, and, you said it yourself, he was very drunk. So how did he get home?’

  ‘You didn’t abandon poor old Boon, did you,’ Zoë protested, ‘in your rush to get that dirty bitch up into the hills?’

  ‘Zoë!’ Sheila hushed.

  Ken smiled to include me in the conspiracy that we shouldn’t take his sister-in-law too seriously. ‘We dropped him at his house. He asked us to. He was supposed to be travelling in the morning.’

  I stared him out for a moment, giving him the opportunity to retract. ‘DCI Jones told me that you said in your statement that Boon Paterson asked to be dropped off in Dinas.’

  He shook his head. ‘No, sorry, he’s got it wrong. He must have misheard us. Boon asked to be dropped off at home. Your Inspector Jones must have heard us saying that we drove through Dinas on the way out to Boon’s.’

  ‘He was okay with that?’

  ‘Who was okay with what?’ Ken asked, puzzled by the question.

  ‘The pimp who was doing the driving. He didn’t mind running a taxi service?’ I asked, deadpan.

  His eyes drilled into me, trying to find what level of belief I was working on. ‘He didn’t have a choice. We were the paymasters.’ He flicked a glance of apology at the ladies.

  ‘Why did Boon want to be dropped off?’

  ‘I told you. His leave was over. He was travelling the next day.’

  ‘But not flying out until the evening. This was his last night, I would have thought that he’d have wanted to stay on with his friends for as long as possible. Continue the party.’

  ‘We tried to persuade him.’ He shrugged. ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to ask him why he wanted to be dropped off early, Sergeant.’

  ‘It wasn’t a case of imposing apartheid?’

  Ken’s lower jaw dropped as if he had been sucker-punched. I heard the women’s gasps of indignation, but I didn’t turn, I was locked on him. Letting him see that in my belief system he was full of bullshit.

  ‘I want you to explain exactly what you mean by that,’ he said slowly and coldly.

  ‘You told Boon to get off the minibus because you didn’t want him playing with a white girl.’

  ‘Sergeant, that is totally unfair!’ Sheila protested behind me.

  Ken went rigid, his fists balled, and his eyes screwed tightly shut, and I realized that I had made a bad misjudgement. This man was seriously outraged. I had seen it before, fury on the way to manifestation, and I prepared myself for an onslaught. But the moment passed. He opened his mouth; there was a slight gurgle before he spoke. ‘I’m not going to dignify that with an answer. I want you out of my house now. And I am going to report you for making that disgraceful accusation.’

  I smiled at him, and shrugged just flippantly enough so that he couldn’t take it for an apology. Okay, I may have been wrong with the racist slant, but, in my book, the guy was still a liar. ‘Mrs McGuire?’ I turned to Zoë, pulling out my mobile phone. ‘What’s your husband’s work number?’

  She gave me a puzzled scowl, but called out the number. I watched Ken as I tapped the digits in. He tensed when he realized my intention. I nodded slightly, the gesture just for him, thanking him for sharing his discomfort with me.

  Sheila had seen it. ‘What do you want to talk to Gordon about?’ she asked, questioning Ken with her eyes.

  ‘I assume that he wants him to verify something,’ Ken told her.

  I smiled happily at them both as my call was answered. ‘Good morning, Payne, Dyke and Thomas.’ The receptionist’s voice was chirpy.

  ‘Gordon McGuire, please.’

  ‘Who shall I say is calling?’

  ‘Detective Sergeant Capaldi.’

  ‘Please hold, I’ll see if he’s available.’

  Ken smiled at me. It was the wrong sort of smile. Suddenly he wasn’t nervous any more. I wheeled round. Zoë was holding her mobile phone.

  Texting is silent.

  ‘Sergeant Capaldi?’ the receptionist came back on the line. ‘I’m afraid that Mr McGuire is in a meeting, but if you would like to leave a number he’ll call you back.’

  ‘Thank you very much, I’ll try again later.’ I cut the connection.

  ‘If there is some misunderstanding with our statement, Sergeant, I’ll get the others together and we can get in touch with Inspector Jones to rectify it,’ Ken offered helpfully, not a trace of malice or recrimination in the bastard’s understanding expression.

  Zoë hunched her shoulder at me in lazy apology. For being part of a conspiracy? Or for just providing unconditional protection?

  The bastards were playing a game with me. Ken McGuire had changed their story on the spur of the moment. Because he could. He had that power. He just had to call round the group with the amended version. The revised consensus became the new truth.

  Where was Magda?

  Where was Boon Paterson?

  Did they connect?

  Slamming Ken McGuire’s composure had been gratifying, but self-indulgent. Now I was going to pay for it. Because he was going to use his influence to get Inspector Morgan to cripple me. I was going to have to do something fast. To either find something concrete I could take to Jack Galbraith to get the investigation sanctioned, or to convince myself that I had been pursuing phantoms. What I didn’t have was time.

  Trevor Vaughan was their soft spot. I needed to brace him hard. But they knew that he was their weakness; the defensive block would be in place. I had to try to persuade them that it was no longer required.

  I found the Evans family builders team at work on a loft conversion in Dinas. Three men crammed into the cab of a white Ford Transit van drinking tea from thermos flasks. They stared at me as I approached. Paul in the passenger’s seat, with a skinny guy wedged between him and the driver, who shared the family likeness, older, but a little more hair, and marginally less bulk.

  The driver got out of the van. I held up my warrant card and introduced myself pleasantly.

  ‘I know who you are. What do you want?’ he asked truculently.

  ‘I want to speak to Paul,’ I said, nodding towards the van.

  ‘I’m his father. He’s got nothing to say to you.’

  ‘It’s important.’

  ‘You’re wasting our time.’

  ‘I’m trying to help Paul.’

  He shook his head. ‘Paul’s done nothing to need your help. So why don’t you just piss off now and leave us alone.’

  ‘I disagree.’ I took his sleeve between my fingers. The move surprised him, but he let me lead him away from the van. I lowered my voice. ‘It’s psychology, Mr Evans. Perception. It’s unfair, but it’s the way the world rolls.’

  He screwed his face up at me. ‘What the fuck are you talking about?’

  ‘Imagine the line-up: the McGuire brothers, Trevor Vaughan, Les Tucker …’ I paused. ‘And Paul. The public make snap judgements, Mr Evans. Based on perception and prejudice. When the first hints of rape start to leak out, guess who they’re going to be looking at?’

  ‘What are you trying to say?’ he snapped belligerently. ‘Nothing happened. There was no rape.’

  ‘Are you absolutely sure about that?’

  ‘Fuckin
g right, I am.’ But he couldn’t help it: his head shot round to take another look at his son in the van.

  I scribbled my mobile phone number down on a card. ‘Think about it. Talk to Paul again. I’ve got to go up to Caernarfon now for a couple of days on another case. If you feel like you want to talk to me, use this number.’ I handed him the card and walked away, trying to project rebuffed sincerity.

  6

  I set my phone to vibrate mode. I was meant to be in my ninja persona, an integral part of the night and the quiet earth, a ringing phone would have completely screwed my credibility. A real ninja would have ditched the telephone, been content with only a sharp knife and a prayer scarf, but then he wouldn’t have been born in Cardiff, and he didn’t have to keep in touch with the pub.

  The text message from David Williams came through at eight o’clock. Emrys Hughes had been into The Fleece looking for me. As instructed, David had told him that I had gone up to North Wales for a couple of days.

  I had dressed for the vigil, but by now the chill had seeped in through all the layers. I had been rooted here for long enough to imagine fungal spores sending out emissaries in my direction, trying to bring me into the family. I was hidden in a stand of spindly fir trees that had been planted as a windbreak beside the empty bungalow at Trevor Vaughan’s farm. Far enough away from the main house and outbuildings to keep the dogs quiet.

  Les Tucker’s crew-cab pickup truck had been parked outside the farmhouse when I had arrived. I had driven past and parked out of sight to wait for him to leave. I used binoculars on the farmyard. When Les left, he took Trevor with him.

  I moved down into my position in the fir trees. I wasn’t looking forward to this. Trevor Vaughan was probably the nicest and most sensitive one of the bunch. But that was his downfall. As in life, it was the meek and tender ones who got shafted.

  The pickup returned before pub closing time. For a moment I thought that Les was going to drive Trevor up to the house and continue playing bodyguard, but he just swung into the entrance of the drive to get a better angle to turn around. Trevor got out, and the pickup sped off the way it had come.

  ‘Trevor …’ I stood up and called his name out quietly.

  He froze. There was no moon, but enough residual light for me to make him out on the drive. With the fir trees as a backdrop, he couldn’t see me.

  ‘You’re not meant to be here.’ He aimed his voice out in my general direction, the surprise in it ebbing.

  ‘They thought it was safe to let you out?’

  The dogs, locked up in a shed by the house, picked up on my voice and started barking. He moved towards the house.

  I came out on to the drive in front of him. ‘We have to talk.’

  He stared at me for a moment. It was too dark to make out his expression. He dropped his head. ‘All right,’ he said quietly, ‘but I’ve got to get the dogs quiet first.’

  We turned the bend in the drive and the door of the house opened. ‘Trevor?’ his mother’s voice called out enquiringly.

  He pushed in front of me. I was about to grab him, thinking that he was trying to make a run for the house, and then realized that he was using his body to shield me. ‘It’s all right,’ he called out. ‘I’m just going to check what’s disturbed the dogs.’

  He waited until the door closed before he moved to the small shed where the dogs were still barking. He slammed a wall with his hand and called out a command. The dogs went quiet for a moment, and then started to growl. A low, deep and threatening primal sound. ‘They know you’re here,’ he observed, looking back over his shoulder at me. It struck me then: all he had to do was take out the old screwdriver that secured the hasp on the door, and the dogs would run me off. I still couldn’t make out his expression, but I knew that he was letting me know that he shared that knowledge. He tapped the wall again, and the dogs went quiet.

  He took me into a section of a barn that doubled as a workshop. A bare, low-wattage light bulb illuminated a dusty workbench and a mixed collection of tools hanging from nails hammered randomly into the plank walls.

  ‘You look cold,’ he said.

  ‘It’s been a long wait.’

  ‘You’re very determined.’

  I nodded. ‘I’m glad you’ve recognized that, Trevor. Hopefully, that means I don’t have to threaten you. Believe me, I would like to keep this civilized.’

  He looked at me searchingly. His face was drawn and pale. I had to remind myself that this was a young man. ‘What if I promised you that nothing bad happened up there on Saturday night? To the woman.’

  I caught the hesitation before the qualifier phrase. It puzzled me. I shook my head. ‘Too general, Trevor. I need to know facts.’

  ‘I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you any more than that.’

  ‘Who are you protecting?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘I’ve got all night, Trevor. I’m not leaving here until I know.’

  ‘My mother will be out to see what’s taking me so long.’

  ‘Fine. So we do this in front of her. Do you want that? Do you want her to hear what you did to that girl?’

  ‘I did nothing to her,’ he insisted.

  ‘Explain what you mean by “nothing”.’

  ‘Nothing.’ His voice rose. ‘Nothing, nothing – I didn’t touch her, I promise you.’ He looked at me entreatingly, begging me to believe him.

  ‘Why not?’ I grinned at him salaciously. ‘She was there for you and Paul. A gift from your mates. To get your cherries popped. Although, from the rumours I hear, yours went some time ago.’ I went in close to him, still grinning. ‘And here it is: effortless pussy, brought to you on a plate. A gift. And you’re trying to tell me you didn’t take up the opportunity? Come on, Trevor.’

  He tried to draw away, but he was backed up against the workbench. ‘I was too tired. I had had too much to drink. I didn’t want a girl, I just wanted to sleep. I went to bed and left the others to have their party.’

  I pictured the pile of bracken on the floor. ‘In the other room? Is that where you went to sleep?’

  He nodded. I saw it then. In his eyes. What I had missed before. The pain and the evasion. He saw my recognition. I held his upper arms to stop him squirming away. He leaned back over the bench, twisting his head away. ‘Look at me, Trevor.’ He shook his head, resisting. ‘Look at me …’

  Slowly, he stopped shaking his head. His body stiffened in my hands. When he finally looked at me his face had collapsed.

  ‘Trevor,’ I said his name quietly, searching for the right words, ‘were you trying to escape?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Trevor, are you gay?’

  He tensed. ‘No.’ He shook his head vehemently. ‘No … I don’t know,’ he wailed with real anguish.

  ‘It’s no big deal,’ I said soothingly. ‘Not any more. Not in this day and age.’

  Anger flashed under his film of tears. ‘It is round here.’

  I gave him time to get over the enormity of almost pouring his heart out to another man. Not quite voicing something that he had managed to keep between his id and his naked reflection in his bedroom mirror. Something still deniable, the safety catch still half switched on.

  ‘Do the others know?’ I asked.

  ‘What is there to know?’ His voice had a rasp to it. ‘I told you, I don’t even know myself,’ he insisted, retreating back under protective cover. The guy dreamt of cock, but was waiting in despair for a visitation from Saint Vagina to sprinkle desire dust. Who was I to tell him that she was never going to arrive?

  ‘I heard a rumour that you were in the habit of visiting prostitutes.’

  He managed a half-smile. ‘I heard that one myself.’

  ‘And it seemed like a good idea not to protest too much?’

  He shrugged that off. ‘They meant well,’ he said.

  ‘Who did?’

  ‘My friends. Trying to set us up with the prostitute.’

  Did they? I wondered. Or was there
something infinitely crueller behind it? But we had got there. We were back with Magda without me having to force the issue.

  ‘Tell me about her. I call her Magda. What was her real name?’

  ‘I don’t really know.’

  ‘She wasn’t Miss Danielle, was she? She wasn’t a prostitute from Cardiff.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Trevor, you were supposed to fuck this woman, and you’re trying to tell me that you don’t know anything about her?’

  He shot me a hurt look. He still wanted me to be his friend. ‘I was asleep. I was really tired. I had had too much to drink and it had been a long day. I woke up at the petrol station and she was already in the back of the minibus. I heard Gordon tell the driver that we were giving her a lift as far as Dinas. That seemed reasonable; I didn’t think any more about it.’

  ‘That was the first time you’d seen her, or heard anything about this being organized?’

  ‘Yes, but that doesn’t mean that Gordon or Les hadn’t arranged it,’ he said protectively.

  ‘There was no pimp, was there?’

  He thought about that. He shook his head, but looked at me defiantly.

  ‘I don’t give a fuck who was driving, Trevor,’ I said, guessing the reason for his stance. ‘I’m not even going to ask. I just want you to keep answering me as truthfully as possible.’

  He nodded.

  ‘You dropped Boon Paterson off?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where?’

  He frowned. He had a dilemma. He shouldn’t have. He was supposed to be telling me the truth now. There should only have been one possible answer. He came to a decision. ‘We dropped him off at his house. He was drunk, and it was cold – we couldn’t leave him to walk all that way home.’

  Those were the reasons that I had given Ken McGuire, I noted, but let it pass. I didn’t want to interrupt this flow. ‘So you get up to the hut …’ I prompted.

  ‘Yes, and everyone was cheerful. It was like a party. We still had beer and stuff, and music. And everyone was happy. She was enjoying herself.’