by M A Comley
“I feel sorry for the poor cow who married him. Fancy having a letch like that as your husband.”
“When was the last time you had problems with him?”
“Gawd, now you’re asking. Around three months ago. My boyfriend saw him groping a girl at a nightclub and pinned him up against the wall.”
“Wow! That was brave of him.”
“Not really. He was livid when I told him that Bradley had done the same to me. Threatened to go round there to punch his lights out the second the words left my lips. I persuaded him not to. That didn’t stop him ploughing in there when he saw the weasel grope a young girl at the nightclub while she was dancing.”
“What happened afterwards?” Ruth jotted down the information.
“The bouncers intervened and told them both to either break it up or they’d be thrown out and banned. I pulled Tyson away, and that was the end of it.”
“Tyson, as in Mike Tyson?”
“Yep, his dad insisted he be named after the boxer. Might be why he loves going down the gym to work out.”
“Does Tyson have a surname?”
“Of course. It’s Brown. Tyson Brown.”
“Where does he work?”
“At the gym in Lunder. Spends most of his time on the equipment rather than dealing with the punters. Loves having a ‘physique most people would envy’. His words, not mine, although I’m not complaining.” Sarah sniggered, imitating a teenage girl talking about her first crush.
“You’ve been really helpful so far, Sarah. Can you think of anything else I should know?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
Ruth stood and offered her hand.
Sarah shook it firmly and left the room, shouting over her shoulder, “I hope you get the person responsible for this. It’s not nice living in an area where there’s a killer on the loose.”
“Don’t I know it?” Ruth said under her breath. She gathered her notebook and pen together and said goodbye to her salubrious surroundings with a tinge of regret.
Mr Wells was in the hall, ordering the staff what to do next. She waited until he’d finished talking and sent the staff on their way. “Thank you for allowing me to speak to them, Mr Wells. I don’t suppose you can spare me five minutes?”
“No. I’m very sorry. I’m going to be at full speed for the rest of the day. I’ll see you out, Miss.” He turned on his heel. His shoes were shined to perfection. The man obviously took pride in his job and his appearance. He waited at the front door for her to catch up.
Ruth handed him a card. “When you get five minutes, I’d love to have a chat.”
He took the card and placed it in his shirt pocket. “If I get the time. Good day, Miss.”
She smiled and hopped back in the car. When she reversed, Mr Wells was still standing at the entrance.
What’s he think I’m going to do, turn back and rob the silver?
She waved. His response was to nod before he closed the large front door.
Ruth blew out a frustrated breath and began her journey to the office. “Well, that was a waste of time, Ben. I’ve had more fulfilling days recently, I can tell you.” He moaned and looked at her in the rear-view mirror. “All right, you win, maybe a brief detour is in order. Only a five-minute run around the park. I have work to do, like ringing Tyson, although I’m tempted to go and see him. He’s got a fantastic physique apparently, not that I’m interested in that type of thing. I’ve got James. He’s fit enough for me, more than I can handle at times. Oops…too much information for your young, sensitive ears.”
They reached the park. Cynthia was there with her poodle, which meant their quick visit was extended to accommodate Ben’s flirting with his new lady friend. What a cute couple they’d be if they ever got together.
Nonsense, I’ve got enough trouble on my plate right now, without running around trying to get a couple of dogs to mate!
Chapter 12
When she rang Tyson, he recapped what Sarah had said virtually word for word but regrettably couldn’t add anything further of interest. Ruth went back to the wedding guest list and rang several more people. Unfortunately, her earlier frustrations came flooding back and multiplied in the process.
Ruth was treating herself to a ten-minute break and enjoying a cup of rich, strong coffee when her phone rang. “Hello, Carmel Cove Detective Agency, how may I help you?”
“Ruth, it’s me.”
“Hi, Louise, tell me you managed to find something out? I’ve been struggling all day and I’m in the process of losing the will to live.”
“Nope, sorry. I found nothing in the archives.”
“Bummer, I was hoping you would.”
“Unfortunately not, but don’t lose heart just yet. I do have some news for you that I think you’ll find interesting.”
Ruth sat upright in her chair. “Go on, I’m all ears.”
“I asked around the office to see if any of the other reporters knew Bradley Sinclair or if his name rang a bell, and Greg, he’s been here for over five years now, came up with the goods.”
“Go on. I’m dying to hear the gossip.”
“Well, he remembers Bradley being in some kind of trouble with some of the parents of the lads on the local football team. One day, a few of the fathers cornered Bradley—warned him not to be so demanding of their sons. Apparently, he ruled the training a tad harshly shall we say, although Greg likened Bradley’s form of discipline to an ancient time when, if someone did something wrong, they faced a den of lions.”
“Are you kidding me? These were young boys. No one had a right to treat them like that.”
“You’re not wrong there. That’s why several of the fathers took things into their own hands.”
“That’s interesting. One question: why on earth didn’t the fathers report him to someone on the council if they were playing for the county team?”
She laughed. “You know what men are like. Most of them prefer to go down the heavy-handed route to get their point across. Maybe they thought they’d sort things out themselves, without involving the authorities.”
“Wow! That’s got my mind working overtime. I wonder if any of the men were at the wedding. They might have seized the opportunity to put an end to his bullying once and for all.”
“Maybe, who knows?”
“Actually, thinking about it, John Calshaw, James’ former best friend, was away with the football team. I’m thinking the fathers would have travelled with the team.”
“Good thinking.”
“Louise, have you got that story ready yet?” a voice bellowed in the background.
“Crap, you’d better go, sweetie. Thanks for ringing. I hope you don’t get into too much bother.”
“I’ll speak soon. He’s a pussycat really, once he’s torn into some raw meat at lunchtime.” Louise laughed and hung up.
It was times like this that Ruth was grateful to be self-employed. Not having a boss breathing fire down her neck forty hours a week was a definite bonus.
She spent the rest of the afternoon writing down notes about the two different routes the investigation had taken so far.
Then she jotted down the questions that were puzzling her the most. Why did Bradley leave his own reception party? Why specifically go up to the turret and not simply take a walk around the garden if he’d wanted to seek out some quiet time away from the wedding furore? Had he found the whole day too much and killed himself, despite what Littlejohn thought? Or had someone tempted him up to the turret? Was he on a promise? On his damn wedding day?
She called James not long after she’d exhausted all the questions she was seeking answers to. He only added to her disappointment, telling her that the investigation had come to a grinding halt at his end.
Why didn’t that surprise her? Inspector Littlejohn couldn’t investigate a fart in a prune factory. She glanced up at the clock. It was four-thirty. Deciding she’d had enough for one day, she locked up the office and took Ben for a lon
g walk down by the river to clear her head before going home for the evening. “Make the most of this walk, boy, it’s your final one for the day. Once I get home tonight, I’m not budging from that couch.” She cringed when she realised Carolyn and the boys would be there when she got home. “Oops, maybe I’ll need to take a rain check on that one. Until James and I get our house back.”
The following day, back in the office, Ruth decided it was time she moved on to question the locals who ran several businesses in the area.
Her first stop was to Richard Knox who ran the local betting shop. She knew Richard well, not through frequenting his establishment, no, they had been friends since their schooldays. What he divulged absolutely floored her.
“I detested him, Ruth. He was a weasel. Actually, worse than that, an utter slimeball.”
“I’m hearing that more and more as this investigation continues. Why? What did he do in your eyes that warrants you thinking that, Richard?”
“In my line of business, you get to overhear what’s going on in the community. I can tell by the expression on your face that has come as a surprise to you.”
“Too right. Who’d have thunk it? And there was me thinking only women like to gossip.”
He laughed and jabbed her in the ribs with his elbow. “You’re a card, you are. We men don’t gossip.”
“No? What do you call it then?” she asked, perplexed, eager to understand the way men’s minds worked, something that had evaded her over the years.
“We like to think of it as putting the world to rights.”
“Whatever you like to call it, are you going to tell me what goss…snippets of information you overheard about Bradley?”
“Mostly about the way he disciplined the kids in the local football team. I heard that a couple of the boys’ fathers took him aside one day to teach him a lesson and to get him to lighten up on their boys. But that’s not all I’ve heard over the years. I also discovered that the women in this community consider him a bit of a sex pest.”
“I’ve heard the same thing. Crikey, why didn’t these people air their views publicly? Maybe Bradley might have mended his ways.”
He scoffed. “I doubt that very much. Idiots like that never learn from their mistakes, not in my experience.”
“Okay, I’m going to ask you something, and I think I already know what your answer is going to be, but I’ll ask it anyway. Why did you go to the wedding on Saturday?”
“Because I couldn’t let that girl down. Geraldine and I have always been close over the years. We dated when we were in school, don’t you remember that?”
“I vaguely remember. What happened between you?”
He shrugged. “No idea. I think we simply drifted apart. She’s a lovely girl, too bloomin’ good for the likes of him.”
“That’s all I’m hearing during this investigation, and yet nobody ever plucked up the courage to tell Geraldine what he was truly like, including me.”
“Maybe folks thought too much of her to do that. You know how fragile relationships can become where matters of the heart are concerned.”
“Maybe. Gosh, I’m standing here thinking that all this could have been avoided if even half of what I’ve learned so far had come out in the open.”
“You’re her best friend. If you’d known something sooner, could you have told her?”
Ruth gulped and pulled a face. “The honest truth is, I don’t know. What a terrible situation to be in, everyone in the community knowing what your other half was like, except you.”
“I know, lass. We’ll be here to support her going forward, she knows that.”
“Glad to hear it. I have to ask if you noticed anything suspicious going on during either the wedding or the reception.”
“I saw him, actually passed him on the stairs just before the incident happened.”
Ruth’s heart pounded against her ribs. “You did? Was he with anyone?”
“No. I asked him where he was going. He snarled at me and told me to mind my own business, if you must know.”
“How strange. Did you see anyone else in the vicinity around that time? Someone he was possibly on his way to meet perhaps?”
He scratched his thinning hair and then lifted his specs, resting them on the top of his head as he thought. Then he clicked his thumb and forefinger together. “Come to think of it, I think I saw a flash of a black dress. Someone dashed across the landing at the top of the stairs. Gawd, don’t quote me on that, it was the briefest glimpse, and I’d had a few on the day.”
“Black dress, or do you mean black cloth? Could have it been a pair of pants you saw?”
“I don’t know, maybe, although I’m inclined to believe it was a dress.”
“So you didn’t pass anyone when you were upstairs?”
“No. The only person I saw was Bradley on my way down. He was on his way up.”
“Why were you up there?”
He looked over his shoulder to make sure no one was listening. “I was having a nose around the house at every opportunity. One of these days I’m going to earn enough off this place to buy a pad like that of my own. I wanted to know what to expect.”
“Huge heating bills and maintenance costs is my bet, excuse the pun.” She laughed at the look on his face. It was as if she’d swiped him around the cheek with a wet fish.
“Crikey, I never thought about the practicalities of running a big house.”
“I doubt many people do. Stick to your comfortable semi and invest the money in a pension scheme. That way you’ll be able to retire at sixty-five instead of what? Seventy-four? Isn’t that what the damn limit is at the moment?”
“I think you’re right. It’s appalling. Don’t worry, I’ve already got my pension in hand.”
“Glad to hear it. I’d better get mine sorted out soon, we’re not getting any younger, are we?”
“We’re thirty-five, Ruth. I know I haven’t got a foot in the grave yet, and I’m sure you haven’t. Hey, are you ever going to marry James?”
“Why do you ask? More gossip you’ve been privy to that you’d like to enlighten me about?”
“No. Don’t go biting my head off, you can see the man adores you. It’s the wedding season, give the lad a chance.”
“For a start, my love life is no concern of yours, and for another, I’m not ready for marriage. James is aware of that and has accepted it.”
He lifted an eyebrow and tilted his head. “Has he?”
“If there’s nothing else, I have other people I need to see, Richard,” she replied stiffly, no hint of a smile on her face.
“Nope, nothing else. I didn’t mean to offend, just telling it how I see it, love. Give your old man a break and let him slip that ring on your finger.”
“Bye, Richard, thanks for the info…” She turned towards the door and called over her shoulder, “And the lecture.”
“Hey, anytime, Ruth.” His ridiculing laugh followed her out of the door.
So, someone was probably lying in wait for Bradley, but who? And why?
During her walk with Ben at the park, she had a brainwave. She fished out her phone and rang the station, asking to be patched through to James. He answered her call immediately.
“This is becoming a habit, Ruth, what do you want?”
She flinched at the tone of his voice. “Sorry, this will be the last time, I promise. I need you to do me a huge favour. Will you?”
“I’m hardly going to say yes if I don’t know what you’re going to ask me. What is it?”
Ruth chewed on her bottom lip. She feared he was going to go ballistic once he heard what she was calling about. “I need to see the crime scene photos.”
“Like that’s going to happen,” he said, harsher than she’d anticipated.
She realised she was asking a lot. However, without those photos, she feared she would be going round and round for days to come. “Please, James. I’ve never asked this of you before, it’s important. Look, if Littlejohn isn’t com
ing up with the goods, then what harm can it do for me to see the photos? Pleeeeaaase?”
“Do you even care about getting me the sack?”
“Of course I do. It won’t come to that.”
“You’re an idiot if you think that, Ruth.”
“If you get the sack, I’ll offer you a job. Hey, that’s not a bad idea, come and work for me.”
“That has to be the craziest idea you’ve had since the day I met you. What about my pension?”
“All right. It was a dumb idea, granted. How about it, James? There’s a killer on the loose. That should be our priority.”
“I can’t.”
“I know how difficult this could be for you, but please, I’m begging you. Something important has come to my attention, and I need to clarify things before I can announce who the killer is.”
“You’re talking to the wrong person. You need to speak to the inspector, not me.”
“What? You know how much she hates me.”
“I can see why at times,” he grumbled. “All right, I’ll see what I can do. No promises, though.”
“You’re amazing. I love you so much.”
“Hah, only when you want something.”
“I’m hurt you should say that.”
“Liar. No, you’re not. You’re far too interested in the photos to be hurt.”
“Thanks, James. I’ll see you later. I’m going home soon.”
“Part-timer. See you later.”
There was a sudden spring in her step, and she raced around the field, chasing Ben. He barked excitedly, matching her own excitement.
James walked in through the back door a few hours later. They had the house to themselves; Carolyn had insisted she should give them some space and had taken the boys out for a McDonald’s and a movie.
Ruth sauntered sexily towards her man and flung her arms around his neck.
“You’re so transparent, lady. I’m already aware that you’ve spotted a file in my hand.”
She gasped and stepped away from him. “Gosh, so there is. How did I miss that?” She fluttered her eyelashes and grinned.
“Yeah, right. Do you want to see these before dinner or after?”
