Like False Money

by Penny Grubb

  ‘It weren’t nowt to do with me,’ Maz went on. Then, as a begrudged concession, ‘And it weren’t nowt to do with them either.’

  ‘Who’s them?’

  ‘Mally and them. I mean they’re not going to pin it on them, are they? Posh kids like that. But it weren’t nowt to do with them anyway.’

  ‘And what was it to do with you?’

  ‘Nowt. That’s what I’m telling you. But they can’t stick it on Terry no more, can they? And you’ve to stop them stitching me up.’

  ‘If Terry Martin’s guilty, there’s no reason at all they shouldn’t … uh … stick it on him.’

  ‘Yeah, but they like to get someone in what they can knock about a bit. You can’t have no fun with a dead guy. She were right mad at you for taking her back to her grandad’s but she said you listened. The others said you listened too. I need someone what’ll listen.’

  Annie considered this. Maz was worried probably for some spurious reason, but the three girls had vouched for her as someone to trust, so he wanted her to have his side of whatever it was. It all sounded like nebulous fears, but there was one aspect that interested her. What did Maz know about Terry Martin?

  ‘So will you meet me?’ he asked.

  Instinct told Annie she needed to grill him face to face, but she wanted it to be on her terms not his. When she hesitated, he went on, ‘I can easy get a car and come to you. You don’t have to go to no trouble.’

  She didn’t doubt that. ‘Well, just hold on a bit. We’ll talk about that in a minute. What is it you need to show me?’

  ‘I can’t say. But I’ll show you. See, I know I done wrong when I got it for them, but I didn’t do no murder and I’m not having them stick it on me.’

  Maz was at the edge of agreeing to admit to a lesser crime because he’d been scared witless to find himself close to a murder. It was so clearly against his nature – and probably nurture – to admit to anything that Annie found herself with a sliver of something close to respect for him for doing it. Then she remembered Bill Martin outside the church in Withernsea and she pulled herself up. OK, she thought, let’s hear you show you’re a better person than the crass git who disrupted a funeral.

  ‘Tell me about Terry Martin.’

  Maz told her he and Terry Martin had been ‘mates’. Terry had ‘done stuff’ for him. He’d been to the Martins’ house in Withernsea. It became clear Terry had used Maz the same way he’d tried to use the girls in Milesthorpe. Maz, far more streetwise, probably managed to squeeze regular money out of Terry with a steady supply of borderline useful information.

  He hadn’t taken Mally to the funeral. ‘She went with someone’s grandad. I weren’t going to go in. I don’t go with all that churchy stuff – load of cobblers. Mind, Terry’d started hanging about the church in Milesthorpe. I dunno what that were about. I played some of his music, special. That’s why I went.’

  Annie found her preconceptions in a heap on the floor. Was this for real? Was it some clever double-bluff to get her on side? He sounded sincere. Had Bill Martin been right, the sudden disruption had been a mark of respect to his son? She could see Maz in a completely different light if he’d gone to Terry Martin’s funeral specially to play some of Terry’s favourite music. Hardly a tactful tribute the way he’d done it, but it showed him from a different angle.

  When he went on to tell her about hearing from Martha Martin that she wanted her son’s death investigated, he had a bigger surprise for her.

  ‘It were me what give her Pat Thompson’s advert. I knew she’d come a cropper when Sleeman’s mate legged her down the stairs, so I thought she wouldn’t do no damage. I didn’t know what had happened to Terry. And I weren’t planning on taking no blame for it. Didn’t know she’d send you. Listen, I’ve telled you everything … nearly. Will you meet up? I’m not taking the rap for this.’

  Annie didn’t intend giving him notice so he had time to plan an ambush. ‘Well, I’ll have to think about it—’

  She stopped. The far door had opened and Pat hobbled in. Annie snatched the phone from her ear and pressed it into her shoulder, irrationally sure for a second that Pat had overheard what Maz said about Vince.

  Pat’s look held the annoyance of someone pulled from sleep too early. She held her own phone between thumb and forefinger. ‘It’s your faithful plod,’ she said. ‘He tried your phone, says it’s engaged. He insists it won’t wait.’

  What on earth? Annie reached for the handset Pat held towards her. ‘Scott?’

  ‘Annie? Listen, I didn’t want you to hear this from anyone else. Charles Tremlow’s dead. He’s topped himself.’

  CHAPTER 18

  ANNIE GASPED IN a breath, confusion overwhelming her. A picture slammed on to her consciousness. Tremlow broken, slumped on his kitchen table. Tremlow dead?

  Had he done it because of her?

  ‘Why, Scott? How? Tell me what happened.’

  ‘I can’t, Annie. I don’t know what happened. No one knows yet. I shouldn’t be ringing you, but I didn’t want you hearing it from anyone else. I don’t know what time I’ll get away. There’s a stack of loose ends here.’

  ‘Are you at his house?’

  ‘No.’ She felt the extra layer of worry in his tone. ‘Annie, you mustn’t come out here. I shouldn’t be telling you this.’

  ‘I won’t. I won’t. I just need to know. Oh my God!’

  ‘Listen, Jen should be off duty in an hour. They’ve no reason to keep her on. Give her a ring. She’ll have got to hear about it by then; she’ll know whatever there is to know. I have to go.’

  Annie didn’t think to say thank you until his voice had gone. She stared at the silent handset, watched as Pat reached out to take it back. A hollow carved itself out inside her. She felt stunned. A faint chirrup from the phone still pressed to her shoulder roused her. She remembered Maz.

  ‘Uh huh?’

  She heard his desperation in a detached way, heard him promise her information, frantic to hold her. She heard herself say yes to a meeting, but knew it was only to get him off the line. He knew it too. She clicked the phone off to the sounds of him trying to pin her down to a time.

  A jolt ran up her spine as she sat down hard on the settee. She heard clumping footsteps and the clink of china on the tiled surface of the low table. The tang of coffee snaked around her.

  ‘Here.’ Pat’s voice was curt. ‘Drink that. Tell me about it later.’

  Before Annie could stammer out a word of thanks Pat had hobbled back to the bedroom.

  Why had he done it? She, Annie, had killed him. She knew it. He couldn’t stand the humiliation of her having broken him. Yet she still didn’t understand. His story had been confused but hadn’t had that much of a lie in it. She couldn’t begin to get inside his mind. She thought of the others – Heather Becke, Doris Kitson, the colonel, Tina Hain, the three girls. Reading them was a piece of cake; emotion lay naked on their faces. But Tremlow might as well have been an alien.

  One hour. Jennifer wouldn’t be off duty for another hour. She cupped both hands round the hot drink warming herself against a sudden chill.

  Her phone lay on the table top. Must remember to charge it later. Would she really go to meet Maz? Thoughts paraded automatically as she grabbed at anything to keep Scott’s call out of the forefront of her mind. Why hadn’t Maz called straight back? Was he wise enough on some level to know it would do no good? It gave her a glimmer again of something below the brittle arrogant surface. Did he have anything for her? Was it a trap where she’d find herself surrounded by grinning faces crowing over her stupidity? What was the worst he could do? He was no killer, just an amateur car thief, a boy who wanted to impress and who’d found the perfect foils in Mally, Laura and Kay.

  The next sixty minutes crawled by until time slowed to a stop. Annie closed her eyes and counted off the final 300 seconds because they wouldn’t leak away by themselves.

  Jennifer answered on the third ring. ‘Oh, Annie … Hello?’

&nb
sp; Annie felt her heart thud dully at the sound of Jennifer’s voice. The surprised tone told her Scott hadn’t been in touch and she wasn’t expecting a call. It seemed presumptuous to expect Jennifer to meet her, to talk police business, without Scott having paved the way.

  ‘I wondered if you’d like to come out for a coffee. It’s not often we’re both off-duty at the same time.’ She tried to keep her tone bright, as though the suggestion were the most normal thing in the world.

  ‘That’s a kind thought, Annie, uh … Actually, I’d planned on … Still, I suppose … Yes, why not? Thanks.’

  Well might Jennifer sound surprised. The request was without precedent. And she mustn’t make Jennifer feel ambushed once they were together, so she added, ‘Sad about poor Charles Tremlow, isn’t it?’

  ‘The guy from Milesthorpe? Why, what’s happened?’

  Annie’s heart dropped like a heavy rock in still water. Not only had Scott not been in touch, Jennifer didn’t even know about it. Their meeting became an unnecessary waste of time. She cast about for a way to rescind the invitation Jennifer hadn’t wanted to accept. There wasn’t one.

  Annie sat in Starbucks near the station hugging a cup of coffee not half so fierce as Pat’s brew. Jennifer arrived ten minutes later. It was the first time since Terry Martin’s funeral Annie had seen her in civvies. Jennifer wore her hair loose. It straggled over the shoulders of a flowery blouse. The untidiness and fussy material sat awkwardly with Jennifer’s stately form; the ill-matched skirt at just the length to suggest dowdiness rather than make the most of her long legs. But for all her awkward manner Annie could see Jennifer was comfortable in her own skin. Maybe that was the clue to Scott’s comment about ‘women like Jen’.

  Jennifer’s demeanour was more animated than Annie expected after the phone call. As she approached the table, she looked round to make sure they weren’t overheard, and said, ‘I made enquiries about Charles Tremlow after what you said. Yes, isn’t it awful? Have you any idea why he did it?’

  I know why he did it. ‘Uh … no. Let me get you a drink. Coffee?’

  When she sat down again, Annie asked, ‘Where did they find him?’

  ‘In his car on the cliff road outside Milesthorpe. I wonder what drove him to that?’

  Annie swallowed hard. It was me. I did it. ‘Is it definite that it’s suicide?’

  ‘Oh yes, I think so. Why?’

  ‘I just wondered. You hear of these things. Odd sorts of deaths that turn out to be accidents.’ Annie felt compelled to press the point, to find a way out of the guilt.

  Jennifer gave her a hard look. ‘Not in this case. Hosepipe from the exhaust. There’ll have to be a post-mortem and everything. Why are you so keen it shouldn’t be suicide?’

  Because if it is, I did it. ‘I just hate to think of anyone in that much despair, and he didn’t seem like someone who’d do that.’

  ‘What do people who do that seem like? You never know with people. There’s so much hidden beneath the surface.’

  So much hidden … The phrase sent a chill down Annie’s spine. ‘But could he have been killed by whoever killed the woman in the building on the cliff?’

  That hard look again. ‘No. No, definitely not.’

  ‘How can you be so certain?’

  ‘I can’t say much but we know what happened there … We know who did it. We need to confirm it, that’s all.’

  ‘But there’s been no fuss. There’s a killer loose.’

  ‘No, there isn’t,’ said Jennifer. ‘The person responsible is dead. Look, you mustn’t say anything, not yet. It’s just that there’s been a problem getting a definite ID. Trying to trace family, all that …’

  Jennifer’s voice tailed off. Trying to trace family. The words stopped Annie for a moment. It seemed a long time since she’d given the dead woman any thought in terms of her being a person with family. There might be parents, children, a husband. What did you say to people? Your daughter … your wife … her body lay hidden for weeks … when we found her she was half rotted.

  She sat up suddenly. What did Jennifer mean, the killer was already dead? ‘But Jennifer, you can’t mean Terry Martin did it? He couldn’t have. He—’

  ‘I can’t tell you anything else, Annie!’ Jennifer’s words cut through with enough authority to silence her.

  There was an awkward pause, then a phone rang. They both reached for their bags, but it was Jennifer’s handset that flashed an incoming call.

  Annie chewed on what Jennifer had let slip. Terry Martin? No, it couldn’t have been. Terry Martin chased shadows. He didn’t strangle women. The answer was in her head. She needed time to calm down and think it through rationally. She and Pat would suss it out between them when she got back.

  Annie became aware that Jennifer’s gaze was on her as she finished her call. She looked up into a steady stare that stood the hairs on her arms to attention.

  ‘One of my colleagues said he’d keep me posted on any news.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘They’ve found a note. Charles Tremlow left a note.’

  Emotion flooded Annie like fallout from an explosion. Unstoppable. Culpability, like shrapnel, flew out from the words Tremlow left behind. ‘What did he say?’ It was a whisper.

  ‘Said he couldn’t live with it.’

  What was Jennifer saying? Why was her voice so flat and calm? Why didn’t she come right out and accuse Annie of pushing an old man over the edge.

  ‘It’s Terry Martin,’ Jennifer said. ‘Tremlow’s confessed to killing Terry Martin.’

  CHAPTER 19

  ANNIE WATCHED HERSELF twist the key in the lock of the apartment, click down the handle and push open the door. Stunned disbelief fought guilty relief for dominance. If it were true that Tremlow had killed Terry Martin then his suicide wasn’t her fault.

  Pat, in the middle of an enormous yawn, looked up as she entered and further distorted her face by way of greeting. She let the full extravagance of the yawn take its course then said, ‘OK, let’s have it. What did lover boy want? Storm in a teacup or something important?’ Before Annie could answer, Pat shot her a piercing look and added, ‘It doesn’t look like quite the calamity it was this morning.’

  ‘Well, I suppose …’ Pat was right, the guilt had lifted. It didn’t feel half so bad. ‘In one way, it’s worse.’

  Annie gave Pat a brief summary of events, ending with the call Jennifer received while they were together. ‘He killed Terry Martin,’ she finished. ‘He confessed to it in his suicide note.’

  Pat’s eyebrows rose in surprise. ‘Christ, there’s a turn up. What did the note say exactly?’

  ‘I don’t know. Jennifer didn’t say.’

  ‘So there was something in your theory, after all.’

  Not much, thought Annie. She hadn’t come close to guessing Tremlow’s secret. The killer he’d protected was himself. She’d majored on mystery men on the scaffolding tower, the drama queen leaning towards the unnecessarily dramatic as usual.

  ‘I mean it, Annie,’ Pat said. ‘Something got at you; told you it wasn’t as straightforward as it looked. You’ve got the right instinct. Don’t discount it.’

  Annie looked up through the window out across the estuary, a panorama on a world that bustled on unmoved by Tremlow’s death; unaware he’d ever lived.

  ‘The Martins’ll have to be told,’ she said.

  Pat nodded.

  ‘But told what exactly, and when and who by? Should I go out there now before the police get there?’

  ‘You could, but I’d advise you to wait, see if you can find out more. They’ll want to know how it happened, what the note said. If the police get there first, it won’t do any harm.’

  Pat hadn’t told her what to do, she’d advised her. This was her case now; her decisions to make. She thought she’d already had that authority and now recognized she hadn’t been ready for it. The weight sat heavy on her shoulders, but didn’t crush her. ‘They’ll have to reopen the enquiry into Terry�
�s death, won’t they?’

  ‘Yeah, might disrupt your social life a bit, but it shouldn’t be too resource-hungry with the killer off the books.’

  Annie acknowledged the comment with a small curl of her lip. ‘It was my fault Tremlow died, you know. If I hadn’t pushed him the way I did, he wouldn’t have done it.’

  ‘Don’t get hung up on if-onlys, Annie. They never brought anyone back to life. What was that about the first murder, about that killer being dead too? They can’t have meant Terry Martin did it, can they?’

  ‘That was my first thought, but it wasn’t him. I know exactly who it was. Terry knew too. It was Edward Balham, the missing farmer. I don’t know how they know it’s him, or how they know he’s dead, but I’m sure that’s who Jennifer meant.’

  ‘Yes, I think you’re right. That copper saw something on the film the first time we ran it for him. Maybe Balham’s been on their books for a while. And who knows what they found when they searched the site. Balham probably topped himself too.’

  ‘Why the secrecy?’

  ‘I suppose they want to identify the poor cow they found up there. And Balham could have thrown himself off the cliff. It can take time for a body to wash ashore.’

  ‘That’s why there was no big murder enquiry then. They knew right from the start the killer was dead.’ She wished Scott would trust her with this sort of stuff. After all, she hadn’t broken any of his confidences.

  ‘Poor buggers. They’ve not only got Tremlow on their hands, they’ve an unidentified murder victim, a family to trace and another missing body. And not one of them young or glamorous enough to attract extra resources. It always makes me glad to be this side of the line when things like this happen.’

  Me too, thought Annie. Not that beggars could be choosers in her own position, but at least she had the perception of choice. Scott and Jennifer had to do anything and everything they were ordered to do.

  Memory walked her back along the paths and pastures of Milesthorpe, from the track behind the houses where the remnants of a sea breeze reached a couple of miles inland, to the fierce gale at the top of the crumbling clay cliff. Tremlow had chosen to die up there just a spit from the first murder scene. Did Tremlow know what Balham had done? Had Terry Martin gone round there to confront him? It was all conjecture.