Broken Fall: A D.I. Harland novella

by Fergus McNeill

  Harland’s shoulder began to ache, and he stood up straight, reaching back to try and massage it a little. Blinking away the after images, he stared down at the picture on the screen once more – the now-familiar metal railings, the lamp posts with their ‘No Ball Games’ signs, the cars …

  He frowned.

  ‘Just a moment,’ he murmured. ‘You said there was another view of the car park?’

  The supervisor nodded.

  ‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘Not so close to the building entrance though.’

  ‘I’m not worried about that.’ Harland leaned forward and tapped the screen. ‘I want a better angle on those cars there.’

  The supervisor shrugged, paused the playback, and clicked the mouse a couple of times. The monitor flickered to show a different view.

  Harland stiffened.

  ‘Jack, get a licence check. Right now.’ He tapped the screen to indicate the front grille of a parked Audi. ‘I think I’ve seen that car before.’

  Harland stalked across the car park with renewed purpose. Hurrying alongside him, Linwood glanced across, his phone pressed to his ear.

  ‘You were right, sir.’

  ‘Richard Errington?’

  Linwood nodded.

  ‘None other.’

  Harland allowed himself a grim smile, but there was no humour in it.

  ‘Then I think we’ve got the whole thing,’ he said, softly.

  Linwood looked puzzled. ‘Sir?’

  ‘Come on,’ Harland told him. ‘I only have one question left to answer.’

  ‘But where are we going?’

  Harland reached for the fob in his pocket and unlocked the car.

  ‘You’ll see,’ he murmured. ‘We’re almost there.’

  Chapter 11

  Richard answered the door, his jowly face immediately darkening when he saw Harland and Linwood.

  ‘What do you want now?’ he scowled. ‘More questions, is it?’

  Harland glared back at him, but kept his voice calm and quiet.

  ‘Do you mind if we come in, Mr Errington?’

  Richard huffed and turned away. Harland and Linwood stepped inside, pulling the door closed before following the larger man along the hallway.

  ‘Inspector?’ Amanda looked up in surprise as they entered the living room, flickering an enquiring glance towards her husband as she got to her feet. ‘What can we do for you?’

  Harland paused, then wordlessly moved across and took a seat, gesturing for Richard and Amanda to do likewise. Somewhat confused by proceedings, Linwood had held back and was standing in the doorway, but that was fine. It helped create the atmosphere that Harland wanted.

  ‘I don’t know why people think they can lie to me,’ he said softly, gazing down at his plain gold wedding ring. ‘They think they can lie, and get away with it, because they think they’re smarter than everyone else …’

  He paused, noting the absolute hush that had fallen over the room.

  ‘… but they’re not.’ He looked up, eyes locking with Richard’s. ‘You’re not.’

  Richard’s mouth opened, but he was at a loss.

  Good.

  ‘It’s a terrible thing to take an innocent life,’ Harland told him. ‘And you can never outrun it. Sooner or later, it catches up with you.’

  ‘What?’ Richard was finding his voice at last. ‘What the bloody hell …’

  ‘Lies.’ Harland leaned forward, his voice cold. ‘They trip you up.’

  ‘But you can’t seriously think I would do anything to him …’ Richard blinked. ‘He’s my father.’

  ‘It’s not unheard of.’ Harland shook his head sadly. ‘A parent, murdered by their own child … especially when there’s money involved.’

  ‘Money?’ Richard exploded. ‘What are you talking about? I don’t get anything out of his death. The house goes to Jenny.’

  Amanda’s impassive demeanour faltered, only for a second. Harland leaned back, settling into the corner of the sofa, a faint smile spreading across his face.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said to Richard. ‘I wanted to be sure that you knew. Did your father tell you himself?’

  ‘Oh yes. The old bastard always had it in for Amanda and me,’ Richard grumbled. ‘He’d been threatening to cut me off ever since he first met her.’

  ‘Is that why you fell out?’

  ‘I suppose so. I mean, it was up to him what he did with his money, but I wasn’t going to be told who I could or couldn’t marry.’ Richard shook his head, a shadow of regret passing across his face, before he stiffened and looked up angrily. ‘So there you are; I had no reason to kill him.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Harland said, looking at them across the coffee table. ‘Neither of you had any motive to kill Albert …’

  Amanda nodded slowly, her face unreadable.

  ‘…but one of you thought you did.’

  It took Richard a moment.

  ‘What the bloody hell are you …?’ he began, then trailed off, his expression changing as he turned to look at his wife. ‘Amanda?’

  Ignoring him, Amanda stared at Harland – a long, level stare, trying to gauge how much he knew, how sure he was.

  ‘You didn’t know, did you?’ Harland met her gaze, and held it until she eventually sighed and turned towards the window.

  ‘Amanda?’ Richard’s voice sounded loud, scared. ‘What have you done?’

  Grabbing her arm, he shook her, desperate to elicit a response.

  ‘What the bloody hell have you done, you stupid woman?’

  ‘IDIOT!’ She whirled round, eyes flashing, teeth bared. ‘Why the hell didn’t you tell me?’

  Richard shrank away from her, stunned into silence.

  ‘Well?’ she hissed, leaning forward and making him flinch. ‘You never bloody stop your incessant talking but you didn’t think to mention this?’

  Harland watched Richard floundering. Why hadn’t he told her? Pride at first, perhaps … then later, when his business faltered, the dawning fear that she would leave him. Without the prospect of some financial reward on the horizon, she’d have no more reason to stay.

  ‘I … oh God!’ Richard sagged against the arm of the sofa, his shoulders twitching as the first sobs escaped him. ‘But why? Why?’

  Amanda glared at her husband, then appeared to remember herself, glancing over at the others.

  ‘You may as well,’ Harland told her. ‘We know where Richard really was. You’re the only one without an alibi now.’

  She lowered her eyes, her shoulders rising and falling as she took a deep breath; easing out from under her burden, free at last to say whatever she wanted.

  ‘Why?’ She slowly lifted her chin and turned to face Richard. ‘Because I deserve something. After all these years, tolerating you, supporting your business failures, turning a blind eye to your grubby affair, I deserve something. I deserve to be happy.’

  ‘But …’ Richard shook his head. ‘But I’ve done everything I can to—’

  ‘Not with you,’ she snapped. ‘For pity’s sake, Richard, how could I ever be happy with you?’

  Richard seemed to deflate.

  ‘What?’ he gasped.

  ‘I met someone else.’ The light in her eyes softened and she looked down, a different note in her voice now. ‘Someone who makes me feel … special.’ For a moment, she looked almost serene, the victim of a loveless marriage who’d been granted an unexpected opportunity for happiness.

  But Harland remembered: The heart wants what the heart wants. And he knew what Amanda’s heart desired.

  ‘Pity your composer boyfriend didn’t have any money,’ he murmured.

  Her head whipped round, a look of pure hatred on her face. ‘You—’

  ‘No, you!’ Harland exploded, jabbing an accusing finger at her, silencing her. ‘You pushed an old man down a flight of stairs. Not out of love, or in a fit of passion. You did it for money. For some bloody money.’

  Had she gone there hoping to reason with Albie? Pe
rhaps to beg for some cash so that she could finally be free of Richard and strike out on her own, or build something better with her tame composer? No, Amanda wasn’t the sort to beg. And the witness report had clearly mentioned a woman in a blue carer’s tunic. Why would she have got hold of something like that, been wearing something like that, unless she was planning to get rid of Albie?

  He shook his head in disgust.

  She’d gone there prepared, let herself in using the key-safe. She’d have spoken with Albie, maybe vented her frustration, said all those petty little things she’d been dying to say, getting herself worked up, gathering her courage. And then, somehow, she’d got him to the top of the stairs, probably gloating over what she was about to do.

  Had he known? Had she actually told him? Something had certainly warned him of the danger he was in, and he’d had the presence of mind to press the help-line button he wore beneath his pyjamas. But it was too late. She’d pushed him, watched from the top of the stairs as he fell to his needless, undeserved death. She must have stepped over the body, pausing to make sure he was really gone, then let herself out and closed the door behind her. The witness report had her walking down Granby Hill a few moments later.

  Harland frowned, wondering why there hadn’t been other sightings … unless she took the footbridges, crossed the water in the darkness at Brunel’s Locks. He pictured her, a small, determined figure, walking along the abandoned wharf, passing through the shadows beneath the busy road bridge, and returning unseen to Spike Island. It wasn’t the route you’d expect a lone woman to take at night, but she wasn’t worried about meeting someone dangerous. She was someone dangerous.

  He stared across the coffee table at her, cold and silent, sitting at the opposite end of the sofa from Richard, her arms folded.

  Had she guessed that walking that route, dressed in the blue tunic, would put Tracey under suspicion? Was that all part of her plan? She’d certainly known that her idiot husband was out cheating on her. Implicating Richard’s mistress would only have made her vengeance sweeter. Timing Albie’s death to coincide with their cosy little tryst, then smoothly providing her husband with an alibi – one that would spare him any embarrassment, one that he’d sieze on, even be grateful for …

  Harland sighed. She’d played a dangerous game, extremely well. And she made him sick.

  Getting to his feet, he beckoned Linwood to step forward as he looked down at Amanda.

  ‘Sergeant Linwood, please caution Mrs Errington.’ Noting, with some small satisfaction, her obvious irritation at the use of her husband’s name, he leaned over the table, bringing his face close to hers. ‘You deserve everything you get.’

  Epilogue

  Harland indicated and turned right on to Stackpool Road, his eyes already sweeping along the line of parked cars, looking for a space. He had plenty of time – he wasn’t due at the pub until eight – but it usually got busy around now; people coming back from work, glad to be home for the evening, reunited with their friends and loved ones.

  Absently, he found himself wondering about Tracey, and what her future might hold. Would she continue seeing Richard? Or had too much happened for them to simply carry on as before?

  Spotting a small gap on the left-hand side of the street, he slowed and began carefully manoeuvring the car in tight against the kerb.

  How long had those two been seeing each other? Tracey had done contract nursing before joining Western Gold … maybe that’s where Richard had met her, back when his agency had been doing NHS work.

  Harland frowned as he straightened the steering wheel. How could someone like Richard be juggling two women? Yes, one of them had turned out to be a killer, but Tracey seemed like a good person … perhaps she saw a different side of him. Perhaps there was something worthwhile beneath all that pompous bluster. After all, he had wanted someone good – someone he knew – to look after Albie. Maybe it was that compassion that had brought Richard and Tracey together. Maybe he was slowly trying to rebuild things with his father. As Amanda said, he cared about his family.

  Pulling up the handbrake, Harland switched off the ignition and leaned back in his seat, rubbing his eyes.

  Amanda. He’d enjoyed a grim surge of pleasure as he’d watched her being led away, having her head bowed beneath the hand of a uniformed officer as she was put into the back of the police car. Standing there, with the adrenalin still pumping, he’d felt good about things, good about himself … but the satisfaction had evaporated as he drove home at the end of his shift.

  Climbing out of the car, he locked it, tugging on the handle to make sure, then trudged back down the pavement towards his house.

  His empty house.

  He sighed. At least he’d been right about Jenny. He wondered if he should have called her, but no doubt Richard would already have been in touch, and her husband would be back now anyway. Still, he really hadn’t wanted to believe that she was involved in her father’s death and, thankfully, she hadn’t been. He was pleased about that, at least.

  Pausing at the gate, he fumbled in his pocket and drew out the bunch of keys, hefting them in his hand as he approached his front door.

  He was glad he’d been able to exact some justice for Albie. Poor old Albie, living all alone in that empty house, surrounded by reminders of his late wife …

  Harland hesitated, the key in his hand. Standing on the doorstep, he checked his watch. It was only ten past seven, but he could always take the long way round, maybe stop and look at the boats on his way to the pub …

  Jamming the house keys down deep into his pocket, he turned away and strode back out to the pavement, his mood already lifting. After all, it was a nice enough evening. And the walk would do him good.

  Acknowledgements

  Thanks to my editor Francesca Best, who suggested I write this story, to everyone at Hodder, and to my excellent agent Eve White.

  Kate Ranger and Chris Wild deserve special mentions for their helpful comments on those early drafts.

  Finally, I’m indebted to friends and family for their support and encouragement, but most of all to Anna and Cameron. Thank you.

  Read on for an extract from the brilliant new crime novel by

  FERGUS MCNEILL

  A D.I. Harland Investigation

  What if someone wished their life was more like yours?

  Exactly like yours.

  And what if they lived upstairs?

  Nigel never meant for it to happen. At first, he just wanted to be Matt’s friend. But quickly his fascination with his new neighbour drifts into obsession.

  Rearranging his furniture to recreate the layout of the rooms downstairs. Buying the same clothes, going through Matt’s post, his things. Becoming Matt without him ever knowing.

  And it would have been all right – no harm done – if Matt hadn’t brought the girl home.

  When things spiral out of control and the young woman goes missing, Detective Inspector Harland has to unravel the disturbing truth. But there’s far more to the case than meets the eye …

  Out now

  1

  Detective Inspector Graham Harland nosed the car into a cobbled alleyway and bumped the passenger-side wheels up over the kerb. Switching off the engine, he leaned forward, gazing up through the windscreen at the old, industrial building – three storeys of sturdy Victorian brickwork, illuminated against the darkness by the steady flash of blue lights. The arched windows were bricked up and sealed beneath decades of masonry paint, while spiked iron railings and aluminium-cased security cameras crowned the upper floors. But it was the murals that held his attention.

  Burning bright against the grime-blackened walls, a host of nightmarish images reared up – sinister, subjective, suggestive. Stencilled creatures stood ten feet tall above the cracked pavement, wreathed in slogans, while aerosol figures twisted themselves around the architecture of the upper storeys, leering down out of the gloom – different styles and colours, yet somehow the characters danced together to form
an unbroken skin, stretched out across the nightclub’s walls.

  Ahead of him, Harland could see a small crowd of ghouls – shuffling silhouettes pressed up against the gently twisting police tape, all eagerly staring towards the lights of the ambulance and the patrol cars.

  Waiting for the body to be brought out to them.

  He sighed and sank back into the seat, his watchful gaze flickering up to the reflection in the rear-view mirror. He looked tired. The strobing blue lights glinted cold in his eyes, casting shadows beneath the high cheekbones, picking out flecks of silver grey in his short, dark hair and in the stubble on his angular jaw.

  ‘Shall we?’

  Beside him, Detective Sergeant Russell Pope stared at him with small, expectant eyes, one pudgy hand on the door handle, inquisitive and eager to poke around the scene.

  Just like the bloody ghouls.

  ‘Might as well,’ Harland said. It was a narrow alley, and he watched Pope struggle to clamber out without banging the passenger door on the adjacent brick wall, then turned away and got out himself. Standing up and stretching his tall, lean frame, he briefly thought of lighting a cigarette, but the chill touch of a breeze that blew across the cobbles dissuaded him. Not now. He’d have one later. Afterwards, when he’d really need it.

  Pope was staring up at the building, head back, his lips slightly parted as they always seemed to be when he was thinking.

  ‘Know anything about this place?’ Harland asked, slamming his door and walking over to his colleague. He’d heard of the Jahanna club but had never been in.

  ‘Not much,’ Pope said with a shrug, turning back towards him. ‘A few drugs busts, the odd fight. Nothing out of the ordinary. Locals and students, I suppose.’