‘I’m sorry. I’ve been chasing my tail all day. I didn’t realize I’d a message.’
‘Doesn’t matter. I’m only fit for bed.’
‘Right,’ Jo said. If he was planning on hitting the scratcher, she was going to have to bring up the subject of Derek Carpenter straight away, though the timing was terrible. Harry started to wail before she got a chance. He’d fallen over. Jo stopped what she was doing and picked him up. She tried to wipe him clean as he laughed, and couldn’t resist giving him a tickle. As soon as he was sorted, she followed Dan into the sitting room. He was aiming the zapper at the box. EastEnders, or some similar shite, that he had actually gone to the trouble of recording, she realized. He would have baulked at the idea of watching a soap when he’d been working. Now he sat through complete dross with a glazed expression.
Jo sat on the couch. She really needed to talk to him before he got too engrossed. She picked a last bit of food from Harry’s hair as he ran past towards a football and kicked it, and then chased it again.
‘How’s the pain today, love?’ she asked, attempting a none-too-subtle shift of gear.
He shrugged, and kept staring at the box. ‘The same.’
‘I need to talk to you about the case. It’s important.’
He aimed the zapper and pressed the mute button with a sigh.
‘Alfie Taylor wants to interview you tomorrow about Derek Carpenter, over that girl we found in the mountains today. You remember …? ’
It didn’t seem like news.
‘He found out you registered him as a tout. I presume he wants to know why, and what information Derek had to give. I need a heads up.’
‘It’s confidential.’
Jo stared at him in disbelief.
She couldn’t hide her exasperation. ‘I’m supposed to be your bloody wife.’
‘When it suits you.’
‘What does that mean?’
He didn’t answer, and Jo knew she couldn’t pursue it without raising her voice, which she wouldn’t do in front of Harry.
She took a breath. ‘On the phone earlier, you said Ellen was a bit of a tearaway. The only logical conclusion I can draw from your complete lack of concern about this is that you believe Ellen could have run away.’
He didn’t answer. Inasmuch as she knew this man, that was the equivalent of an affirmation. She wanted to grab him and shake him. ‘I know you registered Derek Carpenter as an informant, but as he was a suspect in Ellen’s disappearance, you must have had more to base the runaway theory on? A diary, something like that?’
‘Not a diary. Ellen hadn’t come home a couple of times in the previous week. She refused to tell her family where she’d gone, just claimed to have lost track of time and fallen asleep in a friend’s house. Her friends covered for her at the time, but after she disappeared, they admitted they’d no idea where she’d been.’
‘I have to presume that Derek told you this. But what information could he have given you about the case that could be trusted?’
‘I told you, I gave him my word. I’m sorry.’
‘This is madness.’
‘Derek Carpenter took me into his confidence,’ Dan said.
‘Took you into his confidence?’ she repeated slowly. ‘He was a murder suspect. It was your job to get him to talk.’
‘I was younger then.’
‘Oh, God,’ Jo said, closing her eyes. She stood and started pacing. ‘Didn’t you wonder what Ellen’s shoe was doing in the mountains when it was found? How could you not entertain the possibility that Derek might have been trying to cover up his own involvement?’
‘I was confident he was telling the truth,’ Dan said. ‘Derek told me he planted the shoe there himself, because of all the speculation about a serial killer dumping bodies in the mountains at the time. He wanted people to believe that Ellen had been targeted by the same man.’
‘And you took that as gospel? I don’t believe this,’ Jo cut in, the panic beginning to well up her throat.
‘Would you if I said that someone else corroborated this version of events?’ Dan asked.
‘As long as it wasn’t Liz.’
‘It wasn’t Liz,’ Dan answered.
Jo blinked. ‘Not Ellen?’
No answer.
Jo let out a grunt of aggravation. ‘Do you know where Ellen is now?’
‘No. I helped her to leave the country, but I haven’t had any contact with either of them in twenty years, apart from a few weeks back, when Derek Carpenter rang to give me details of a drug-smuggling operation in the company where he worked, the details of which I’ve passed on to the drug squad.’
‘Mervyn’s?’
‘Yes, the meat plant, that’s right.’
‘I knew Mervyn was hiding something,’ she said, talking as much to herself as him. ‘Drugs – yes, yes, that has the ring of truth.’
‘Since you’ve guessed that, I don’t feel I’m breaking a confidence this time,’ Dan said. ‘The drugs are being smuggled in animal carcasses. It’s a massive operation, and Derek’s information is invaluable. He’s going to be put in a witness-protection programme for his own safety.’
‘Alfie thinks he’s gone to ground because he’s got something to hide,’ Jo said. She paused. ‘Hang on, did Derek ring you directly?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you rang him back? There was more than one call to and fro, right?’
‘That’s right. Why?’
‘No wonder Alfie’s like a dog with a bone between his teeth. He’s been tracking your bloody phone. He probably thinks that if you’re in touch with Derek you know where he is. Do you?’
‘Give me a break!’
‘You’re being an absolute …’ She turned away rather than say the word.
When she looked back, there was fire in Dan’s eyes.
‘Ditto,’ he said.
49
FOXY HAD BEEN in bed when Jo called to update him. He hadn’t been able to sleep, anyway. His wife, Dot, had gone out socializing and he couldn’t relax until she got home safe. He checked the display on the alarm clock – 11.39 p.m. – and then went back to mulling over what Jo had said. On the face of it, her claim that she was nominating Niall Toland as a suspect, and presuming his source on the tape to be someone who was in cahoots with him, just seemed a step too far to Foxy. Maybe Alfie was right, and Jo was incapable of impartiality on this case. But something about the second conversation Toland had had with his source had been niggling at Foxy, too. It was only a partial recording, much shorter than the first. Jo hadn’t listened to it yet, as far as he was aware.
Foxy tried to work out what it was about it that seemed so odd. It was something to do with the power shift between the journalist and his so-called source. Toland had gone from being the one calling the shots in the first conversation to accepting everything the source told him in the second. Foxy was prepared to admit that this might have been because, having discovered how useful the source was to him, Toland wanted to keep him onside. But something about it wasn’t right. Foxy had even asked Joan, who’d typed the transcript for Jo, to redo it, because she’d taken it upon herself to guess what the last broken word uttered by the source was.
The conversation had started with the source asking Toland how it felt to land such a big scoop. Toland had replied, ‘Great.’ The source had asked if he was ready for the next one, and Toland had answered, ‘Absolutely.’ Foxy thought it weird that Toland seemed so nonplussed by the source’s announcement that the killer had gone on the run. He didn’t ask any obvious questions like who the killer was. There’d been some more toing and froing between them about something completely tangential – a football-match score – and then when Toland had said, ‘Thanks for this,’ the source had uttered his last words, ‘Don’t thank me, that would be your mis—’ At this point the tape ended, presumably because – based on the high-pitched tone – one of the parties, Toland probably, had hung up. Joan thought the source had been about to say, ‘That wo
uld be your mistake.’ But Foxy was still not sure. It sounded slightly awkward. Wouldn’t it have been more natural to say something like ‘It would be a mistake to do that’, or ‘That would be stupid’?
‘Maybe he just got his words muddled up,’ Joan had argued.
Foxy sat up at the sound of Dot turning the key in the lock downstairs and banging the front door shut after her. Lowering his feet into his slippers, he rose to head down to help her up the stairs. Then he had a change of heart, sat down again, and lifted his legs back under the covers. Dot would want a nightcap if she heard him up. The racket might wake Sal, their teenage daughter, who had Down’s syndrome.
He listened intently as Dot heaved herself up the stairs, puffing and panting. Sal was a good sleeper, but considering the length of time it was taking Dot to get up the stairs, it wasn’t beyond the bounds of possibility that Sal might yet stir. He considered going out to help Dot, but again decided against it. She’d shouted at him for doing something similar on previous occasions. He reached over to turn off his bedside lamp, closing his eyes so she wouldn’t give him every spit and cough of the night when she got in.
Dot had been renewing old acquaintances in the last few months, claiming she wanted to catch up with people she hadn’t seen for years before they both headed off together on a round-the-world cruise – supposed to be like a second honeymoon, but without the renewing of vows – to mark his retirement. But he knew it was just an excuse to drink in a way she couldn’t at home because he didn’t – or at least he hoped that’s what it was.
Foxy didn’t want to jinx things by challenging her. Their marriage hadn’t exactly been without incident. It didn’t change the fact that she was the only woman he’d ever loved or wanted. The bedroom door opened wider and the room brightened as Dot flicked on the overhead light.
‘Can you turn that off?’ he asked, worried the brightness travelling down the landing would disturb Sal. She liked to sleep with both bedroom doors left open.
Dot snapped it off again, grumbling something about him being an old grump, and then tried to stifle some giggles as she banged into, or tripped over, one object after another as she tried to strip. She stank of sour booze and smoke. And she didn’t smoke.
Foxy stretched an arm out and turned the bedside lamp on again.
‘Jesus,’ she snapped, squinting, ‘can I not have a bit of privacy?’
She had managed to get her skirt and blouse off and had only half hoisted her nightdress up. Her face was a mess. Her false eyelashes were coming away at the corners, and her lipstick had smudged into the wrinkles around her mouth like red stitches.
Foxy sat up. ‘Here. Let me,’ he offered.
She held her arm up and walked her hips as he pulled the nightdress back down. ‘Did you get the tickets today?’ she asked as he lifted the corner of the duvet for her to get in.
‘Yes. I tried to ring you to let you know, but your mobile was off.’
‘I must have been having my face done. I decided to go for collagen treatment so I can look my best before we head off. The surgeon was very nice. He was Indian, I think. Too young for me. You should try it. Honestly, there were more men than women in the waiting room.’
‘How much did that cost?’
‘I can’t remember.’
‘You can’t keep spending money like it grows on trees, Dot.’
‘Oh, don’t be such an old fart,’ she said. ‘Life’s for living. We’ll be dead long enough.’
She hopped up out of bed again, and started to sing ‘Moon River’, pursing her lips, walking her shoulders and cocking her hips. She still harboured a dream of becoming a professional singer.
‘Would you like to dance, beautiful?’ he asked her, feeling his heart lift as her face lit up. He adored her, but he had an ulterior motive – to stop the racket.
It was while her arms were wrapped around his neck that the penny finally dropped. What if the word that Joan had assumed was ‘mistake’ was actually ‘missus’? And the full sentence: ‘Don’t thank me, that would be your missus …’
As he recalled, Alfie had mentioned when he’d asked Foxy to put the tapes into the logbook that Niall Toland had probably cut the phone call off early because he was shattered, being a new dad. It might be nothing. He made a mental note to mention it to Jo in the morning. Right now his own missus was his only concern. Dot had fallen asleep in his arms, and was snoring her beautiful head off. Something else occurred to him as he tucked her in. Men didn’t launch into a heartfelt discussion about a match with someone they didn’t know. Sure, they talked football basics to strangers as a conversation starter, but an in-depth analysis of the match, and knowing which team they supported, implied friendship.
He was starting to come around to Jo’s way of thinking, despite all the odds. Foxy would get her to listen to the tape tomorrow for herself, but right now he was certain that Toland and his source knew each other.
50
JO WAS BURNING the midnight oil, sitting up in bed, chewing the top of a biro with a pad of foolscap balanced against her bent knees. Rubbing her eyes, she yawned and glanced at the pertinent points in the statement Sexton had taken from the mother reunited with her child. She was absolutely convinced Niall Toland knew a lot more about what had happened to Amanda Wells than he was letting on, and the logical inference was that it was because he was in closer contact with the source and the presumed killer than he wanted anyone to be aware of. Just how well connected with the underworld was he?
The painkillers Jo had taken before coming to bed had made her drowsy. She hated taking them as regularly as she did, and knew she was on a collision course with an ulcer, but her headache was even making itself felt in the nerves of her teeth. She’d managed to reschedule the appointment with Dr Griffen, her ophthalmologist, after ringing earlier to offer a grovelling apology for the ‘no show’. But using the job as an excuse for never being where she was supposed to was starting to wear thin. Other people managed to juggle their personal and professional lives, so why couldn’t she?
Jo stole a glance at Dan lying alongside, his legs over the covers, one arm behind his head, wearing only his boxers. He’d been monosyllabic since their stand-off, and was staring at a late-night movie on the TV in their bedroom. The room was lit by a blue glow, and the laptop screensaver kept flicking to life at the slightest vibration from its perch on the locker beside Jo’s side of the bed. She hadn’t bothered to put on the bedside lamp. It only made her eyes feel more tired. She wondered how much longer she’d have to wait before it would be safe to broach the subject of Ellen Lamb with Dan again. Giving each other the silent treatment was juvenile and exhausting. His face was stony, and he looked too thin. He’d lost a lot of weight since the shooting, and didn’t sleep soundly any more either, not like he used to.
His anniversary gift – a skimpy black silk camisole and matching knickers – sat in its gift box on the dresser. Jo had put the bunch of flowers left on top of them in water before getting in to bed. The bloody flowers had marked her white shirt. But annoyance had quickly turned to guilt, long since replaced by fury at the fallout from their row. That was the reason why she’d opted for a pair of comfy, and profoundly unsexy, fleece-lined pyjamas, designed to send out an unmitigated signal he make no attempt to touch her. She didn’t want presents, she wanted him to trust her and to talk to her, the way he used to.
Jo studied the rough map she’d sketched of Nuns Cross, outlining the five cul-de-sacs and writing the owners’ initials in the boxes she’d drawn for houses, along with a note about their occupations.
She’d got all forty residents’ names from the electoral register, an alphabetical listing of the addresses and occupants. The information wasn’t going to pass any scientific test – a search in the land registry would have given her the actual deed owners – these names could be renters for all she knew. For now, she was prepared to take a punt that anyone who’d listed Nuns Cross as their address to vote was the probable owner. She’d
also looked into each resident’s occupation by running their social security number through the system, and had run searches on all of the names, looking for previous criminal convictions. As it happened, of the forty residents listed, Derek Carpenter was the only one with previous.
She rubbed her face in frustration. She could almost hear Alfie now, claiming that with enough strands of circumstantial evidence, you could fashion a rope. There was only one resident she’d no occupation for, and it was the former owner of the vacant house in Nuns Cross: Paul Bell. Jo needed to find out more about him. She glanced up at the telly impatiently. The noise was starting to get on her wick, and affect her concentration. She wished Dan would turn it off. He sensed her bristling, and turned it down.
Jo stared at the computer screen as Paul Bell’s social security number returned the details of his last occupation – journalist. She sat up straight, and felt her heart speed up. She scrolled through the details to establish where he’d worked, and saw he was a former member of staff at the News of the World.
Jo’s eyes darted to her shirt lying on top of a wicker laundry basket in the corner of the room. Flicking a corner of the duvet back, she stood and headed out to the hall, grabbing the stained shirt she’d dumped earlier. Carrying on down the stairs of the dormer, she stopped at Dan’s flowers in the hall and held the shirt up to the stalk containing the lily. Rubbing it to and fro, she made exactly the same criss-cross pattern in precisely the same colour as she’d seen on Niall Toland’s shirt when she’d interviewed him in the station.
Jo hurried back to the bedroom and retrieved the mother’s statement Sexton had given her, running a finger down the lines. Other than the flowers, there was nothing tangible to link Toland to the baby bar her hunch. But it was as strong as they got.
Too Close For Comfort Page 21
