Legacy of Lies

by Jane A. Adams

  Derek Reid was lost. His one thought had been to get away from the scene. His neck hurt and his head throbbed where he’d cracked it on the steering wheel. The seat belt had dug deep into his ribs when he had been thrown forward and he’d managed to crack his head a second time on something when the car rolled. He’d hit the back end of Marcus’s car at an angle, his speed and the angle causing the passenger side to lift and he had flipped, then rolled, ended up on his side confused and shaken and hurting like hell.

  He did not recall getting out of the car but did know that he had not had the strength to climb over the gate. Unable to open it, he had slithered beneath on his belly and then stumbled across the cow churned field as fast as his shaking legs could take him, his one thought that he should get away.

  Now, two fields or three fields over and disorientated, he wondered what to do. The day was warm and there were no cows here to snuffle in that curious way they had. Instead he lay at the edge of a field of wheat or barley, he didn’t know which but had the vague memory that he had once known the difference. He lay down on the swathe of uncut grass at the field edge and listened to his body complain.

  ‘God, Derek, your dad was right,’ he told himself. ‘Can’t get a bloody thing right. Not ever.’

  Except Sharon, he thought. Sharon was right. He’d known that from the start.

  Thinking about her gave him the strength to get up and he felt in his trouser pockets for his phone only to realize that it was in his jacket and his jacket was still in the car.

  Groaning in despair and disbelief he remembered that it had been cool first thing and he’d slipped his jacket on when he’d gone shopping for Kinnear. A further search of his trouser pockets informed him that all he had in the world was a handful of change and a crumpled five-pound note.

  His dad had been right, he thought again. Never could do a damn thing right. It did not seem in the least bit strange that here he was, a man in his early thirties still stung by the words of someone who had disappeared from his life when Derek had still been in his teens.

  ‘Can’t do a bloody thing right. Bloody waste of skin.’

  Derek sighed and considered the irony that he was in this situation precisely because for once in his life he had tried to do the right thing. Driving away from Kinnear that morning, Sam’s words still burning in his ears, he’d finally realized that he was in a no win situation. Kinnear would use him and then scrape him off like shit on the bottom of his shoe. Kinnear had no intention of giving Derek a share of what he saw as his. Sam Kinnear had waited too long and fomented so much greed in that waiting time that he wasn’t about to share any of his spoils now.

  He remembered Kinnear talking to him in prison. One long night when Sam had been in a conversational mood and when Sam wanted to talk you had no choice but to listen. He had talked about this man, this driver, this Sam Spade, and how he knew he had the proceeds from those first two jobs. Derek had laughed. Laughed at Kinnear.

  Spitting blood through the split lip Kinnear had awarded him as prize for his humour, Derek had explained that Sam Spade was a fiction. A made-up name. No one would call their kid Sam Spade.

  So Derek had decided when he had left Kinnear that morning that he would, for once, try to do the sensible thing. He would talk to Marcus and together they could concoct some story. Blackmail would probably fit the bill, he thought. Go to the police and tell them Kinnear was blackmailing them. It was close enough to the truth to be almost real and if forced Derek was now even willing to come clean. Tell the whole truth and nothing but. Do time if he had to. He’d managed before and though his heart sank at the thought of it, he could hack it again if he was forced.

  But it seemed that his father’s damnation of him had to thwart even his best intentions. Marcus had seen him and taken off like a scared rabbit and Derek knew that his chance was gone.

  He wasn’t sure why he’d tried to run Marcus off the road but he’d sort of figured it might be the only way to get to talk to him, convince him to go along with his scheme. Failing that he would have dragged Marcus’s sorry ass back to Kinnear and looked for another way out, but it was all too late for that now.

  Five pounds and a handful of change. Derek started to laugh it was all so bloody stupid. He choked the laughter back; it hurt too much. Would Sharon want him now? Now he wasn’t about to inherit part of Rupert Friedman’s illicit wealth.

  Well, he figured, if he could ever find his way out of this damned field and back to the hotel where she was staying he might ask her. But not just now.

  Derek shifted position finding the deepest grass and closed his eyes. He had not felt so bone weary in the longest time. Too bone weary even to despair.

  With the sun on his face, Derek Reid slept while just two fields away they searched for signs of where he might have gone.

  Back at the crash site, the crime scene officer had managed to open the door. The contents of the glove compartment, Reid’s jacket and the assorted debris from the door pockets and floor had settled on the roof.

  Pictures had been taken and now he was bagging and tagging everything. No telling what might later be of use. The phone rang and he paused in his methodical search to retrieve it. He straightened up, phone in his gloved hand and waved it at the officer in charge. ‘Should I answer it?’

  ‘Is there a name?’

  ‘It says Kinnear.’

  ‘It what? Bloody hell. Yes.’

  The SOCO pressed the key to accept the call and listened.

  ‘Where the hell are you? I told you to get back here. You listening to me?’

  The SOCO covered the mouthpiece. ‘What the hell do I say?’ he whispered.

  ‘You listening to me?’ Kinnear’s voice again. ‘Who’s there?’ Silence.

  ‘He’s rung off.’

  ‘Never mind. Bag it and give it here.’

  He took the wrapped phone from the SOCO and shook his head in disbelief. ‘He put Kinnear’s name in his directory,’ he said. ‘What a wally.’

  The SOCO shrugged. ‘Lucky break,’ he said.

  Sam Kinnear stared at his mobile phone and then dropped it on the bed in disgust. He did not know who had answered the phone but it had not been Derek Reid, that was for sure. He was surprised that no one had spoken. Had it been the police, would they not have announced themselves? Whatever, it seemed to Kinnear that this was not good, that it was a warning, that he should clear out while he still could.

  A warning too that Derek was out of the reckoning.

  Kinnear always travelled light and it took only minutes to shove his clothes back into his pack and select what food did not need cooking. Bread and beans and cheese and ham went into his bag. He had no objection to cold baked beans. Water. Derek had been bringing the bottled stuff.

  Finally he reached beneath the bed and took out a fabric bundle. The gun was cleaned and oiled and he had two full clips to go with it. That, he figured, should be enough. He wasn’t aiming to have to shoot his way out of anywhere but always best to be prepared.

  A last look around to check for anything he’d missed and then Kinnear was gone. Retrieving his car from below in the rundown barn. He knew where he would go. He figured he had one last chance to get what he was owed and, risky as that might be, he had come too far and wasn’t about to walk away.

  Thirty-One

  Elaine Ritchie held the door open halfway and leaned against the frame. She examined Billy Pierce carefully, methodically.

  He stood still and waited for her to finish.

  She had changed, of course. It had been twenty-five years or more since he had last seen her, sitting in the public gallery as Sam Kinnear was sentenced.

  There had been no jubilation that day and that was one of the things he had always remembered about her. Usually the victim’s relatives who came to see the sentencing reacted in some way: relief, joy, tears; but with her there had been nothing like that. Elaine Ritchie had listened as the court sentenced her husband’s killer and then she had got up a
nd quietly left the gallery. No fuss, no sound, not even a change of expression, and it was that same expression he remembered now. That quiet examination, but beyond that there was nothing he could read.

  ‘I said I’d come to talk to you about Rupert Friedman,’ he said. ‘You don’t seem surprised.’

  She didn’t respond to his question. Instead she said, ‘You were the copper that knicked Kinnear.’

  ‘One of them, yes.’

  ‘I remember you. You’ve got old.’

  ‘I’m retired now.’

  ‘So …’

  ‘I’m doing a favour for a friend.’ He didn’t think Alec would mind the appropriation. It was something he hoped would become fact anyway. He liked Alec Friedman.

  ‘A friend? What kind of favour?’

  ‘Rupert’s nephew. There are questions surrounding Rupert’s death that need clearing up.’

  For the first time concern rather than academic curiosity showed in the woman’s eyes. Her eyes were almost green and her hair still quite blonde though he thought that these days it probably had a little help.

  ‘He had a heart attack. His solicitor called me.’

  ‘That’s correct, but, well … May I come in?’

  She thought about it and then finally stood aside and let him through. The door opened straight into the living room. It was at the front of the house and the large bay he had seen from outside added unexpected space. A sofa, overloaded with bright cushions, had been set there, separate from the rest of the room in which the furniture circled around the twin foci of gas fire and television.

  A small shelf of books settled in the space between the sofa and the wall on one side and a tiny table – he thought of Victorian plant stands – squeezed into the gap at the other end. He could see a mug had been set down there when he had knocked at her door. Steam rose, carrying the scent of coffee.

  She saw him looking. ‘Do you want one?’

  ‘Thanks.’ He was already sloshing from too much tea drunk in the little café, but making him a drink would help to break the ice and give him a better chance to look around.

  The kitchen was small, but very clean, leading off the living room and visible in its entirety from where he stood. Two closed doors he guessed led to bedroom and bathroom.

  ‘Sugar?’

  ‘Two, please. This is a nice flat.’

  She handed him the coffee. ‘Yes. And now it’s mine.’

  ‘Rupert left it to you?’

  She nodded. ‘There was some weird thing in the will,’ she added. ‘His nephew wasn’t to be told. He was getting the rest but this was a separate thing.’ She looked worried. ‘Does that mean he’s a greedy bastard and might want it back?’

  Billy Pierce smiled and shook his head. ‘He’s already guessed most of this,’ he said. ‘Alec feels he’s already been given more than he could ever have expected.’

  She wriggled her shoulders and crossed the room to retrieve her coffee. ‘Well, that’s all right then. Rupert always said this was my place. Rupert was good to us. All the way through he was good to us.’

  ‘Us?’

  She indicted that he should sit down and he chose the chair closest to the television. She took the one opposite.

  ‘I have kids. Two of them. This flat was too cramped, really. I slept out here for years and they had the bedroom. But it was somewhere safe after … after Fred was killed.’

  ‘You rented from Rupert?’

  ‘Rented,’ she laughed. ‘I paid a pittance to him but I made sure I always paid.’

  ‘How did you meet?’

  Elaine sipped her coffee and considered her response. Billy understood that he was going to get the expurgated version. He figured it would probably be enough.

  ‘After Fred died, Rupert turned up on my doorstep one day. Not here, of course, in the dump of a place we’d had to move to. Fred left us with nothing and the police were all over it. They thought he might have been in on it.’

  ‘Did you think he was?’

  She shrugged. ‘I was never sure. We were flat broke, two kids, and his job barely covered the rent and heat. I worked behind a bar five nights a week while he minded the kids. It got so we passed in the hall. Anyway, we were broke and Christmas was coming and if he thought he could have got away with it … I suspected he might have passed on some information. Times they were due to do the pick up, that sort of thing. I was never sure and I never said. I figured he’d more than paid his dues and I wasn’t going to let his kids think he was anything but what he’d always been to them. A decent man and a good dad.’

  ‘And Rupert?’

  ‘Turned up on the doorstep. Said he’d been trying to track me down, that Fred had set up a life insurance and we were the beneficiaries. Rupert said he’d sold it to him.’

  ‘You knew he was lying?’

  She shrugged. ‘Of course I did. Fred didn’t have two pennies to rub together, never mind cash to pay monthly for some policy he’d never have thought he might need. And Rupert as an insurance salesman? Pull the other one. But, he had all the paperwork and a big fat cheque and the promise of a monthly amount which would pay the rent and a good bit more and … so I chose to believe him.’

  ‘Rupert knew you doubted?’

  She smiled. ‘Rupert knew, but we never broke our cover story. Not ever. Not even when we became friends. He was always the man who’d sold Fred the policy and I was always content to just let it ride.’

  ‘Did you ever wonder where the money came from?’

  She was back into study mode now, examining him over the rim of her mug as she sipped her coffee.

  ‘Elaine, this is off the record. I have no authority to ask you now. If anyone asks me, I’ll keep your cover story going.’

  She nodded slowly. ‘I wondered,’ she said, ‘but I didn’t want to know. I had kids to raise and the money helped but it was still hard. Occasionally I wondered if it might be from the robberies. I knew the money had never been recovered but, then again, I figured we were owed.’

  ‘And did you never wonder why Rupert had offered help? Did that not strike you as odd?’

  She looked away and he knew that she had wondered many times. Perhaps she even knew. ‘He was an insurance salesman,’ she said at last. ‘I kept all the policy documents he gave me, all the insurance stuff he said I should hang on to. It has my husband’s name, his signature, it’s dated from six months before he died, that’s all I’ve ever needed to know.’

  ‘Rupert was a clever man. When did you move in here?’

  ‘About two, three years after Fred died. The place we were in was damp and Vicky, our eldest, had asthma. Rupert said he was moving away but didn’t want to sell the flat. He thought it might be a good investment in years to come. It was a bit small but, like I said, the girls slept through there and I had a sofa bed in here. It was warm and dry and the rent was so low I don’t know why he bothered.’ She smiled for the first time. ‘He’d taken to visiting us, once a month, the Tuesday closest to the fourth of the month. He carried on after he moved. He’d meet me for coffee somewhere.’

  ‘He didn’t come here?’

  She shook her head. ‘No.’

  ‘And you continued to meet?’

  ‘Right up ‘til the month he died. We’d meet in different places. He’d suggest somewhere and we’d both take the train. Have lunch, maybe go to the pictures. No strings, no romance, just two friends.’

  ‘Never any romance?’

  She shook her head. ‘No, I’d have liked … I mean it wasn’t that I didn’t think about it but, I got the impression there was someone else but that maybe she was married. No woman wants to play second fiddle, you know.’

  ‘I know. Elaine, did Sam Kinnear contact you?’

  She scowled, her expression hardening and taking away the residual prettiness. ‘That bastard,’ she said. ‘Turned up one day, asking questions. He didn’t come here, he went to my daughter Vicky’s place. God knows how he found her.’

  ‘Rit
chie isn’t a common name. Is she married?’

  ‘No. He started sniffing round, asking about Rupert, demanding she tell him. Her boyfriend came home and they called the police. He cleared off but they’d let slip one or two things.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘She wasn’t sure, he got her flustered and upset. She thinks she told him Rupert was in the antiques business and it was somewhere up north.’

  ‘How long ago was this?

  ‘Eighteen months. Sometime around that. I told Rupert when he phoned to arrange our meeting and he said not to worry and he was sorry Vicky had been upset.’

  ‘Vicky didn’t tell him where Rupert lived?’

  She shook her head. ‘She couldn’t, she didn’t know. Neither did I. You see it was the one thing Rupert was particular about. I paid the rent when I saw him each month and he’d tell me bits and pieces about his business, but he said Kinnear would come looking for him one day and he didn’t want me to have to lie. I suppose he realized I wasn’t strong enough, not to stand up to someone like Kinnear.’

  ‘He knew Kinnear would come looking?’

  She nodded. ‘I suppose that’s really how I knew,’ she said. ‘How I really worked it out, but I knew him by then and I knew he’d never have had anything to do with the guns or with Fred dying, so I just forgot I knew.’

  ‘You knew what?’

  ‘That Rupert must have been involved,’ she said.

  Thirty-Two

  By the time he awoke it was late afternoon, the sun had dropped below the level of the hedges and though it was still warm, Derek Reid shivered.

  The headache was worse, a cracking feeling running from his temples through to the back of his neck. His shoulders had stiffened and he recognized the effects of whiplash. This added to his general misery and disorientation.

  He did not know which way to go. Back towards the car was out. The police would be waiting for him, wouldn’t they? He found it hard to remember why, but he knew that way was danger. So, he plodded on, circling the field, searching for a way out. A gap in the hedge gave access into the next field and he plodded on, grateful that here the massive open, fenland fields had given way to a smaller patchwork.