A Death Divided

by Clare Francis

  It seemed that Pete had spotted Joe coming out of the house because he glared at him, he slowed down as if to challenge him, before tightening his mouth and sweeping past.

  Chapter Eleven

  The builder had finally put up the new fence. From a distance it was just another brilliant addition to the shiny prosperity of Shirley Road. Closer up, however, set against the faded paintwork, rusting gutters and smeared windows of the house, the bright unweathered wood stood out like a new hat on an old tramp.

  Lifting the shopping out of the car, Joe started the automatic inventory. Front windows unbroken, old fence removed, side gate still hanging onto its post, though by the lurch of the hinges not for much longer, rubbish bin still more or less continent.

  The back door was unlocked. From the kitchen Joe called a greeting and heard a brief response from deep in the house.

  Unloading the food, he was surprised to find the cupboards far from empty. The fridge too was reasonably well stocked, with milk and fruit juice and chicken legs, all within their sell-by dates. The counters were smooth and clean to the touch, while nothing sinister crunched underfoot.

  Going into the front room Joe was met by his second surprise of the morning: a temperature that while a long way from hot was most definitely warm. The source, a portable electric heater, stood against the wall. Following his gaze, the old man commented, ‘Thirty five pence a day. I checked on the meter because they can run these bench-mark tests under artificial conditions, give misleading results. It’s foreign, of course. But clever. High thermal efficiency.’

  ‘Great. Where did you find it?’

  ‘Oh, Tracey’s husband Mick. Got hold of it at trade price.’

  Joe gave it a long moment. Tracey?’

  ‘She does for me.’ He peered at Joe over his spectacles.

  ‘That woman you arranged from the agency, I didn’t like to tell you, Joe, but she was a complete waste of time and money.

  I had to let her go.’

  ‘Fine, Dad. No problem. How did you find Tracey?’

  ‘Well, Mick runs the DIY store,’ he declared as if this should have been self-evident. ‘I’m helping them on a case.’

  ‘Ah. Medneg?’

  ‘No, no. Personal injury.’ Then, conceding the need for some sort of explanation, he added, ‘Mick got injured by a fork-lift, couldn’t work for six years, lost the house, lost everything, and the insurance company refused to pay more than a pittance. I can’t see much mileage in the case myself. In fact I think they’re living in cloud-cuckoo-land if they’re hoping for a pay-out after all this time. But they had bad advice. Got bogged down in the system. So I’ve offered to give it a go.’ He gave a long-suffering sigh. ‘As if I needed the extra work. Ha!

  Like a hole in the head.’

  ‘Very good of you. Dad.’

  He retorted, ‘Not good of me. I’m not going to make any difference, am I? But at least they’ll feel someone’s tried.’ He looked crossly at the computer screen, then back at Joe, before choosing to address the floor. ‘The day we stop challenging the buggers, that’s the day they’ll walk all over us, isn’t it?’

  ‘I’m sure you’re right, Dad.’

  ‘You bet I am!’

  ‘I brought some food.’

  ‘What? Oh, Tracey does all that. Tracey buys the food.’

  ‘Well, it’ll be a bit extra then.’

  The old man’s eyes came up to Joe’s and retreated just as rapidly. ‘Sorry about Jennifer.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I wrote. To Alan and Helena.’

  ‘They will have appreciated that.’

  ‘Must be terrible, thinking it’s suicide, and then to find out that he killed her.’

  ‘Nothing’s clear at the moment.’

  ‘I always said—’

  ‘I think this is a situation where it would be a mistake to make any judgements in advance of the facts, Dad.’

  ‘I was merely going to point out that so far as Jamie Chetwood is concerned, nothing would surprise me!’

  ‘And I’m saying that opinions invariably benefit from some knowledge of the truth.’

  ‘The truth? I don’t think there’s very much you can teach me about the value of truth, Joe!’ He swung back to his computer, shoulders hunched as if to attack the keyboard. ‘I’ve spent my whole life dealing with the truth. And if I’ve learnt anything it’s that the truth isn’t worth a damn. It’s the argument that counts. It’s the presentation. It’s the spin that wins the day.’ He jabbed a finger over his shoulder at Joe. ‘You should know that. You lot invented all the best ways of suppressing the truth.’

  Joe lifted a hand in defeat, and stood up.

  But the old man rushed on. ‘You talk about opinion as if it’s a poor relation of the facts. Well, I tell you, opinion, instinct, whatever you like to call it - it’s stood me in bloody good stead! If I hadn’t had a feeling here’ - he tapped his chest - ‘if I hadn’t known the. bastards were lying - well! We’d never have got to the bottom of your mother’s death, would we? Do you think anyone would have come forward and told us? Of course they wouldn’t! No, they would have palmed us off with their own carefully edited version of events. That’s what you get when you ask for the truth, Joe - nothing worth a damn.’

  ‘I’ll remember that.’ Joe made for the door. ‘Bye, Dad.

  Take care.’

  ‘Joe?’

  The old man followed him into the hall. A small spark of mischief gleamed in his eye. ‘You want some unvarnished truth? Guaranteed. Well, how’s this then?’ He paused for effect. ‘There was never a buyer for that house down by Myersons.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘It was all a fabrication. A con. A trick.’

  If the old man had wanted to impress Joe, he had certainly succeeded. ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘Harris, the estate agent. It was just as I suspected - a load of nonsense. There! A situation where opinion matches truth rather nicely, I think.’

  A thin bunch of flowers had been left on Alan and Helena’s doorstep. Joe picked them up before ringing the bell, then held them down at his side in case they should be mistaken for a feeble and inappropriate offering of his own.

  He heard a muffled voice, a door closing, then light footsteps.

  Helena opened the door. ‘Oh, it’s you, Joe,’ she said matter-of-factly. ‘I thought it was going to be more flowers. I don’t think I can take any more flowers.’

  Joe revealed the bunch in his hand and indicated the doorstep.

  With a small sigh Helena took the thin bundle. She seemed composed, but her eyes were sunken and glazed. She looked as though she hadn’t been sleeping. She was wearing old clothes again, but they were tidy, no stains and no frayed edges.

  ‘Alan’s around somewhere,’ she murmured vaguely, before turning away.

  As Joe stepped over the threshold he caught a movement on the periphery of his vision and stepped back again in time to see Marc emerging from the side of the house, heading for the road, arms pumping self-importantly.

  ‘I’ll be with you in just a minute, Helena.’

  The instant Marc heard Joe call his name, his head went back, his pace quickened, he began to walk as fast as his plump legs would carry him. Reaching the footpath, he wheeled right and was lost to view behind the neighbour’s hedge. Joe might have left it there if his anger hadn’t got the better of him.

  Joe caught up with him at his car which, intentionally or otherwise, he had parked some way down the road. Marc lost precious seconds fumbling with the lock, and trying to dive in too hastily so that his foot caught on the sill. By the time he reached out to yank the door shut it was too late, Joe had a firm grip on it.

  ‘A word!’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘You’ve been lying. Marc.’

  Marc pointed a forefinger. ‘I’ll give you ten seconds to let go of that door or I’ll call the police.’

  ‘By all means.’ Joe moved around to the inside of the door an
d leant against it with his hands in his pockets. ‘Then we can tell them how you lied about Jenna’s phone call. About the timing of it. About what she said. We can tell them how you spoke to her well over a year ago. How there was nothing wrong with her at all. We can also tell them how you lied about the sale of the house. How you invented a buyer.’

  ‘Take your sick mind somewhere else, Joe.’

  ‘Is that a denial?’

  ‘I think your ten seconds has just run out.’ Trembling self-righteoiisly. Marc took out his mobile phone and began to dial.

  ‘If anyone’s sick, old pal, it’s you.’ Hearing himself say this, Joe’s anger evaporated, he felt a stab of disgust. This was brawling talk, and at the end of the day he didn’t want to fight with Marc, he wasn’t even sure he wanted to argue with him.

  He held up a staying hand. ‘Okay, okay.’

  Marc’s finger hovered over the dialling pad. It was a threat but also a postponement.

  Joe dropped down onto his haunches. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Tell it your way.’

  ‘Get away from the door.’

  ‘So you can drive off?’

  ‘I’m not prepared to speak to someone committing a gross act of aggression.’

  ‘So if I move away, we’re having a discussion?’

  ‘That’s for me to decide.’

  The keys were in the ignition, just inches from Joe’s hand.

  The temptation was too great. Before Marc had time to realise what he was doing, Joe had snatched the keys and stepped back onto the path. He dropped the keys very deliberately onto the ground. ‘Let’s talk.’

  The colour had drained from Marc’s face. He was trembling again, but this time it looked like fear, though Joe could have put his mind at rest on that score.

  ‘Jenna never said she was frightened of Chetwood,’ Joe prompted. ‘She never said she was frightened of anyone.’

  Marc turned his face away and stared obdurately through the windscreen.

  ‘The only thing she was upset about was getting you on the phone. Marc, instead of her father.’

  Marc’s profile was growing more smug by the moment, as if having fixed on silence as his most effective and irritating weapon he was becoming increasingly confident of it. He folded his arms slowly, no easy task when his stomach reached almost to the wheel.

  Joe said, ‘Did you imagine Jenna wouldn’t tell me about it? , Did you think we hadn’t talked it through?

  Marc’s head twitched, his eyes began to swivel towards Joe before he returned his gaze to the windscreen.

  ‘So now we have the question, have you repeated this rubbish to the Carmarthen CID?’

  Marc blinked slowly.

  ‘Because if you have, then it’s time to go back and tell them it was all a mistake. Time to say you got carried away, or however you want to explain it. Because you’ll get caught out in the lie sooner or later. Marc.’ Joe added in a tone that came close to pity, ‘They’ll only have to look through the phone records.’

  Marc tried to look impassive, but the tension in his neck and the working of his jaw muscles told another story.

  The other alternative is one I’m sure we’d both prefer to avoid.’ Joe didn’t elaborate on this grim option, partly because it was more powerful unspoken, partly because he hadn’t entirely worked out what it was. ‘It’s your decision, Marc.’

  In the silence that followed, Marc’s obduracy seemed to harden again.

  ‘And the mystery buyer - that’s the only thing I can’t work out, Marc. Why bother to invent one? Why go to all that trouble?’ Joe left another lengthy pause. ‘Or did you simply want Jenna’s power of.attorney so you could flog the house off to some mate of yours and pocket the cash?’

  When Marc’s reaction came it was volcanic. His chest swelled, his shoulders heaved, his folded arms sprung apart in a burst of elbows and clenched fists, the colour shot into his round cheeks, his head swivelled round, he swung one foot on the ground and clutched the door frame, as if to leap out, he cried in a high-pitched voice, ‘You say that again and I’ll fucking kill you! You bastard! You come here, you create nothing but trouble, and you dare to talk crap like that to me!

  Well, let me tell you’ - he raised his fist and shook it in a gesture that would have been comical if it hadn’t been so fierce - ‘you are way, way out of line.”

  Keeping a weather eye on Marc, Joe bent down and picked up the car keys. He balanced them in his open palm as if to throw them to Marc: a distraction, or a gesture towards conciliation.

  ‘Okay. Put me right, then.’

  Marc seemed torn between .attack and retreat. Finally, with as much dignity as he could muster, he climbed out of the car and stood tall. ‘Cheat my sister?’ he declared caustically.

  ‘Pocket the cash? I find your suggestion totally out of order.

  Totally insulting. Totally offensive.’ He threw out his chest, he thrust his little chin forward, as if he’d rather belatedly appreciated the value of his weight-training. ‘I can’t even imagine the sort of mind that could dream that one up. I think you need help, Joe. I think you have a serious problem.’

  ‘So tell me - who was the mystery buyer?’

  ‘Why don’t you ask your friend Chetwood?’ Marc snapped.

  ‘Because if anyone was cheating Jenna it was that lowlife creature she married. He was the cheat!’

  Joe asked incredulously, ‘Are you saying Chetwood was pretending to buy the house?’

  ‘What I’m saying is, you have a good look at his values’ this with a stab of the forefinger - ‘before you start making statements about mine

  Joe had the feeling of aiming at a shifting target, of getting it in his sights only to find it had popped up somewhere else.

  He made a humble gesture, a simple appeal for truth. ‘I’m just asking who this mystery buyer was.’

  Marc took a step closer, and for the first time it occurred to Joe that he was in serious danger of getting punched. Joe was two inches taller, but Marc had the muscle, and he seemed confident of it now, because his body language had developed all the subtlety of a fighter entering the ring.

  ‘You’re not asking who the buyer was,’ Marc cried on a rising note of injury. ‘You’re saying I’m a liar!’

  ‘Marc, I’m perfectly prepared to accept that you’re not lying. But why can’t you give me a simple answer to a simple question?’

  ‘You’re saying I was trying to cheat Jenna!’

  ‘I just want the truth.’

  ‘No, no!’ His button eyes were glaring; the irises appeared to be completely surrounded by white. He was shivering with rage. ‘You’re making totally offensive accusations!’

  In the instant Joe understood that he had touched some deep nerve in Marc and that it was going to take a huge amount of time and tact to placate him, he also realised he wasn’t prepared to go to the trouble of doing it just then; he didn’t have the energy, and, more importantly, he didn’t have the patience.

  Joe pointed a forefinger of his own, a purely defensive tactic while he stepped backwards out of range. ‘Okay - have it your own way. But remember this. Marc. I loved Jenna too. And if someone killed her, believe me, I’ll be the first to put him behind bars. Right at the front of the queue. But if I have to go to the police and tell them what you’ve been up to, then I’ll do that too, because I’m not going to stand by and watch them going off on the wrong track, wasting their time, having the whole investigation fucked up just because you’re stuck on some sort of private agenda. So unless you have anything to tell me …’

  Joe made to chuck the keys to Marc, but as he swung his hand forward Marc suddenly averted his eyes. Catching the keys again, Joe waited while Marc, caught in the throes of some fierce inner debate, swayed forward as if to whack Joe after all, then rocked back again, locked in fury.

  Finally, he hissed, ‘Okay, okay!’ and gave a bitter sigh. ‘All right, all right…’ And still it was a moment before he could bring himself to spit it out. ‘Okay, so I mad
e a mistake about when Jenna called. Okay, so it was a bit earlier than I said. So?

  But she was definitely frightened - no way I was wrong about that. No way! I could hear it in her voice. And the things she said - all of that was dead true!’ His eyes were darting up to Joe’s face, searching for the slightest, hint of disbelief. ‘All that about not daring to talk for long. About him killing her if he found her on the phone. Absolutely one hundred per cent accurate. Okay?’

  Joe nodded.

  Apparently dissatisfied with this response. Marc glared belligerently. ‘One hundred per cent. Okay?’

  Joe nodded again.

  ‘What’s more-‘

  He was waiting for a sign that he had Joe’s full undivided attention, and Joe gave it to him. ‘Yes?’

  ‘You are totally out of order if you think I’d sound off to the Welsh police. I haven’t said a word to them!’ He spelt it out emphatically, ‘Not - a - word. And I’m not going to either, not till they say for sure that it was him killed Jenna.’

  Joe said nothing and waited.

  ‘I want them to decide on the evidence. Okay? I want them to find out for sure. Because contrary to what you’re suggesting I have no ambitions to stir up trouble, I don’t want any bad stuff laid at my door! So you should be more careful with your facts, Joe, before you go pointing the finger.’ His own forefinger made a final accusing jab. ‘Don’t you go accusing me of being irresponsible, because you’re the one who’s wide open in that department!’

  ‘So, if the police charge Chetwood you’ll tell them about the call?’

  ‘Too right!’

  Joe couldn’t help thinking that Marc’s reticence had more to do with having exaggerated the original facts than any sense of justice. ‘Fine. And the house buyer?’