Behind Dead Eyes

by Howard Linskey

  She had just been threatened by the most powerful politician in the city. ‘I am going to end you, Miss Norton,’ he had warned her – but was this the bluster of an impotent man or a real threat from a corrupt official who was friends with criminals? Did end you mean her career or her life? She felt sick.

  Helen knew this was the point in the Hollywood film when the plucky young reporter vows to take on the all-powerful men at the top, no matter what the cost to her personally – but this was no movie. This was real life, and suddenly Helen Norton was very scared indeed.

  Chapter Seventeen

  ‘Mrs Bell is at a meeting,’ the lady on reception told him, ‘but we’re expecting her back around midday.’

  Tom glanced at his watch. ‘Do you mind if I wait?’

  ‘Not at all; is she expecting you?’

  ‘Yes,’ he lied. Tom figured their first meeting might be more fruitful if Annie Bell wasn’t entirely on her guard when he arrived.

  A little over twenty minutes passed before a brand new hatchback pulled into Annie Bell’s reserved space by the front door at the head office of her father’s company, Soleil. Tom watched Annie cross the open area towards reception. She was of average height, with what could be described as average looks, but immaculately dressed in a dark business suit. She looked a little older than her years, with a premature touch of grey in her dark curly hair but who could blame her for that?

  Tom intercepted Annie before the receptionist could introduce him, ‘Mrs Bell, I’m Tom Carney.’

  He thought he was being discreet by not mentioning her husband but her first words to him were, ‘I thought you would come to the house.’

  ‘I did,’ he explained, ‘but the cleaner told me you were at work, so …’

  ‘… Here you are,’ she completed the sentence for him. Annie looked around uncertainly.

  ‘I assumed you’d have an office,’ he said quietly, ‘somewhere private.’

  ‘Alright.’ She led him inside. They passed rows of desks, where a surprisingly subdued group of people were working in front of large computer monitors.

  Annie Bell’s office was at the end of the room. She closed the door behind them and Tom brought a chair closer to her desk so they were facing one another. Annie’s office was a curiously impersonal work space, aside from one small, silver-framed photograph of two smiling little girls.

  ‘My two,’ she said when she noticed he was looking at the photo. ‘I know they look like butter wouldn’t melt but they can be a right handful.’

  ‘They’re lovely,’ he said. ‘I apologise if my appearance here is an embarrassment.’

  ‘A surprise, but not an embarrassment,’ said Annie. ‘I’m a senior manager at a company owned by my father, which employs a large number of people, all of whom know my husband is serving a life sentence for the murder of his lover,’ she paused, ‘how’s that for embarrassment?’

  ‘It must be difficult.’

  ‘It is,’ Annie admitted, ‘but you know what’s more difficult? Knowing he is innocent and not being able to do a damn thing about it.’

  ‘You seem very sure about his innocence.’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘You’ve never had any doubts? Even during the trial when you heard some pretty bad things about Richard.’

  ‘I have had two years to process the information from the trial. I learned that my husband was a womaniser. Do I like that fact? No. Do I take some of the blame for it? Perhaps but not all. He did what he did and he certainly had a choice not to do it. Does that make him a murderer? God, no. Richard is a gentle soul. I know him better than anyone and I can tell you this from my heart, he did not kill that woman.’

  He noticed she did not refer to Rebecca Holt by name. ‘So who did? Kill her, I mean.’ Then he added, ‘Was it you?’

  ‘If that’s meant to be a joke, it’s not very funny.’

  ‘It’s an honest question,’ he said, ‘and one I have to ask if you want me to look into your husband’s case.’ When she was slow to respond to that, Tom added, ‘Assuming you do want me to look into it, because now’s the time to tell me if you don’t.’

  ‘I am in favour of anything that might help my husband prove he is innocent, Mr Carney, though I’ll admit I was pinning my hopes on a successful appeal – we all were.’

  ‘But you have your doubts,’ he asked her, ‘about me looking into the case?’

  She took a while to answer him. ‘I don’t want my husband’s hopes to be raised without foundation,’ she said. ‘Richard was devastated when his appeal request was rejected. He went into a big depression for a while,’ she explained, ‘then he read your book. The next time I visited him, it was all he could talk about. He told me he’d written to you and was hopeful of a reply. I didn’t discourage him because I could see what that faint glimmer of hope did for his mood, but I’ll admit I’m concerned about the impact on him if you are unable to find anything new.’

  ‘So am I. I’m not even sure I’m the right man to help him.’

  ‘Richard is convinced you are,’ said Annie, ‘he calls you a truth-seeker.’

  ‘But you think he’s clutching at straws?’

  ‘Drowning men do.’

  ‘Is that what he is?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ she said, ‘I can see the effect that place is having on him. I have to get him out of there.’

  ‘By finding the real killer?’

  ‘Right now that would appear to be our only option, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘It wasn’t you then?’ he asked amiably.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Convince me.’

  She sighed, and looked out of her window for the umpteenth time since they’d been there. ‘Not here,’ she said and suddenly Annie Bell was on her feet.

  Annie marched to the front of the building at speed but Tom managed to keep pace with her as they left the headquarters. ‘I can’t talk in there,’ she said and he understood that. It couldn’t have been easy being Annie Bell, even two years after the trial. ‘We’ll go to the park.’

  As they walked past her car he said, ‘Nice motor.’

  She answered absent-mindedly, ‘I drive a different one every week.’

  ‘How do you manage that?’

  ‘I don’t own them. It’s from the manufacturer. We have a large fleet of company cars. We get demonstrators dropped in every two or three weeks,’ she explained. ‘The novelty wears off pretty quickly.’

  ‘I’d be willing to risk that,’ he said. ‘So what exactly does Soleil do?’

  ‘We provide a range of integrated IT solutions tailored to suit the needs of an individual business. We don’t just sell unsuitable products then leave you to pick up the pieces. Our sales team act as management consultants who will help a firm with every step, from the purchase of hardware to the creation and installation of tailored software and staff training programmes then we help to set up management information reports.’

  ‘Sounds like a lot of hand-holding; must be expensive.’

  ‘In this life, you get what you pay for.’

  The entrance to the park was a few hundred yards from Annie’s office. She directed him to a bench in front of some hedges shaded by a large tree whose leaves had started to fall and littered the ground around them. ‘I have my lunch here every day,’ she said and he got the strong impression she did that alone. ‘It’s my favourite spot.’

  ‘It’s very peaceful.’ He joined her on the bench and they sat for a moment in silence until she decided to answer the question he’d asked in her office.

  ‘I might very well have harboured murderous thoughts towards that woman if I had known anything about her,’ said Annie. ‘Oh, I knew of her existence, even met her once, but I had no idea she was in any kind of relationship with my husband, until the police turned up on our doorstep to tell Richard she’d been murdered. Then it all came out, eventually. They quizzed me about her obviously. I suppose I was even a suspect at first but I had an alibi for the day of the murder
…’

  ‘You had a day off,’ he recalled, ‘shopping in town?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘lots of people saw me,’ adding, ‘then later the forensic expert said the blows could only have been administered by a man, so that should convince you.’

  ‘I read that,’ he said, ‘so who did kill Rebecca Holt, if not Richard or yourself?’

  ‘Her husband of course,’ she said, as if it was obvious, ‘though we’ll have a devil of a time proving it. He also has an alibi, for one thing.’

  ‘I’m not one for trusting alibis, Mrs Bell,’ Tom said pointedly, ‘they can be bought or manufactured.’

  ‘Well I didn’t buy mine,’ she challenged him, ‘there’s probably a dozen people who saw me in town during the course of that day.’

  ‘That was convenient.’

  ‘I’m a working mother,’ Annie reminded him, ‘I rarely have time alone. I run in the mornings though, before I take the kids to school. That’s my time. The rest of my day is pretty hectic.’

  ‘So you think Freddie Holt may have done it? You don’t subscribe to the mad stranger theory?’

  ‘That’s possible too, but her husband had a motive.’

  ‘Mad strangers don’t need a motive. It’s what makes them mad. Her husband didn’t necessarily have a motive either, come to think of it.’

  ‘She cheated on him.’

  ‘He didn’t know about that until after she was found dead,’ said Tom.

  ‘That’s what he said,’ scoffed Annie, ‘but you don’t really believe that, do you?’

  ‘Why not?’ asked Tom. ‘You expect me to believe the same thing about you.’

  ‘You obviously don’t know much about Freddie Holt,’ she said.

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘If ever there was a man capable of murder, it’s him.’

  They spent half an hour discussing the rumours that followed Freddie Holt while he amassed his fortune. If a tenth of them were true, Rebecca Holt’s husband was a fully paid-up member of the ruthless bastard society who was not afraid to bend rules or even hurt people if he thought it was required.

  Annie glanced at her watch. ‘I have a meeting,’ she told Tom. ‘If you’re finished,’ then she demurred, ‘for now?’

  ‘Not quite. I do have one last question for you,’ said Tom, ‘and it’s this: why would you care one way or another about the well-being of your cheating bastard of a husband when most women would probably abandon him?’

  ‘Would most women abandon him? Perhaps, but I doubt it. This is the real world and he is not just my bastard of a husband, as you put it, he’s the father of my children. I have two wonderful daughters who miss their daddy very much and want him back. I said I was partially to blame for his behaviour and that was no exaggeration.’

  ‘In what way?’

  She looked embarrassed then. ‘I wasn’t always there for him. Having a full-time job and two small children … I was tired a lot of the time … We drifted apart. I regret not putting the time and energy into our marriage that I gave to my career and the girls. I think he resented that and sought comfort, if that’s the right word, elsewhere. I will always feel responsible for that.’

  ‘Then why work at all? Did you even need to, financially I mean?’

  ‘Because my husband was Sales Director and my father is well off?’ She looked disappointed by him. ‘Stop being a senior manager in the company and become a housewife instead, living off other people’s money, attending coffee mornings and yoga classes? That’s not who I am, Mr Carney. It’s not who I was brought up to be.’

  ‘I see,’ he said. ‘I have a list of people I would like to speak to about your husband and his case. One of them is your father.’

  She frowned at him. ‘Why do you want to speak to Dad?’

  ‘I’d like to get his perspective.’

  ‘I’m afraid he doesn’t want to talk to you.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘He isn’t necessarily in favour of this.’

  ‘I see,’ said Tom, ‘then it would be useful for me to know his reasons.’

  ‘I have always been one hundred per cent behind my husband. I never doubted his innocence for a moment. My father however …’

  ‘Thinks that he did it.’

  ‘… Is less convinced than I am. The trial soured his opinion of Richard. My husband’s behaviour obviously upset my father. We have clients and investors. My father had to explain that one of his key employees, his own son-in-law, had been found guilty of murder. Obviously that was difficult. He understood Richard wanted to appeal but when that was refused he felt it was the end of the matter. I disagree.’

  ‘So your father thinks you should leave Richard in prison.’

  ‘He doesn’t think I have any choice, but Richard wants you to help him and I support my husband’s decision.’

  ‘Is Daddy paying my retainer?’

  She shook her head. ‘I have my own money, Mr Carney. Daddy, as you call him, has no say in this.’

  Chapter Eighteen

  The multi-storey car park was dark even during daylight hours, thanks to low, grey, concrete ceilings supported on thick pillars, the gloom broken only by light coming from narrow spaces at either end of a long line of parked cars. Helen crossed the ground floor then found the lift had broken down, forcing her to take the stairs, which were lit by bare bulbs strong enough to illuminate the misspelt graffiti covering the walls. As the door closed behind her she was entirely alone and suddenly felt extremely vulnerable in this enclosed space so she moved quickly, becoming out of breath as she took each set of steps without pausing until she reached her floor. This wasn’t where she wanted to be right now. Not when she had just been threatened by a powerful man with gangsters for friends, but Helen couldn’t spend her whole career hiding in the newsroom. She had just interviewed a youth worker who was helping teenagers avoid gangs by teaching them boxing and this necessitated a visit to one of the rougher parts of the city. Helen had to push the heavy door hard to get it to open and its lowest edge scraped against the ground as it moved. It eventually swung noisily open before wedging itself into the concrete. Once again she was alone and the car park was so quiet every step she made was audible as she crossed the floor.

  There was something that didn’t feel quite right here, an atmosphere that Helen told herself was caused solely by her overwrought imagination, because she was in an unmanned car park and had seen too many movies where lone women were suddenly pounced on by men who lurked in dark shadows. Nonetheless, she quickened her pace.

  Helen was halfway to safety and beginning to feel calmer when there was a sudden loud bang that made her simultaneously start and turn in a panic towards the noise. She almost stumbled, convinced that she was about to be attacked.

  But there was no one there.

  It took Helen seconds to work out the cause of the noise that had echoed across the car park. The door she wedged open slammed shut with a terrific bang. Helen took two deep breaths before she felt able to resume her walk to her car, which was on the upper of the two levels on this floor. That meant climbing the ramp the cars used, as she could not see a footpath. She did this briskly while looking around her to make sure no one was following. Helen knew she was well and truly rattled now but she couldn’t help herself. She vividly recalled the threats from Councillor Lynch and knew the company he was keeping these days. She told herself she had good cause to be nervous.

  Helen spotted her car, but as she drew closer, what she saw stopped her in her tracks. Someone must have followed her here – how else could they have known where to find her car? The message had been sprayed on the light-coloured bodywork in thick, dark lettering as unsubtle as the words used: ‘Bitch, whore, slag.’ It was enough to make Helen feel sick and she was momentarily torn. She had no desire to go near the car but nor did she want to risk going down that dark, enclosed staircase again. She couldn’t stand out here in the open either. What if the man who had done this was still nearby?
What if he was watching her right now?

  Helen decided to move and set off at a normal walking pace towards her car, noting with relief that at least her tyres remained undamaged. If the vandal was watching her, she was determined not to let him see how upset she was. Helen banished her feelings of revulsion and kept walking. She put her hand into her bag and drew out the keys so she could get into the car and drive away as quickly as possible.

  She was only a few yards from her car when it suddenly dawned on her that whoever did this could be inside. He might even be lying in wait for her on the back seat.

  She steeled herself and gripped the keys in her palm, ensuring the pointed end stuck out through her fingers. If he was inside and he leapt for her, she swore she would gouge him in the face.

  Heart pounding, Helen reached the car and stole a quick glance inside, but saw nothing on the back seat and no one hiding in the foot wells. Instantly her fear of the car was replaced by a desperate desire to climb inside it as quickly as possible and lock the door. She moved the key into a more natural position, opened the door and got in as fast as she was able. Helen slammed the door so quickly she banged her knee, but without pausing, she started the car’s engine, reversed swiftly out of the space and drove as fast as she dared for the exit.

  The rain was lashing down on Ian Bradshaw as he stood disconsolately on Elvet Bridge, cursing Tom Carney for his lateness. Why had he agreed to meet the reporter in Durham city out in the open? Because the weather had been deceptively warm and sunny earlier that day and it had seemed like a good idea at the time.

  ‘You’re late,’ he told Tom as he trudged towards Bradshaw with his hands tucked into his jacket pockets.

  ‘Traffic was a bastard. They are digging up the roads again. I told you we should have met in a pub.’ Tom couldn’t see the point of meeting at all, since he couldn’t imagine DCI Kane agreeing to his little deal.

  ‘I’m on duty,’ Bradshaw reminded him, ‘it’s alright for you.’ And the two men walked across the stone bridge together into the old core of the city.