by Penny Grubb
‘Before I go out to see the Martins,’ she said. ‘I’d like to see if I can get a look at Tremlow’s suicide note.’
‘You’re going to try sweet-talking the faithful plod?’
‘Well …’ Annie bridled at the way Pat voiced what was in her mind. ‘I know he was involved when Tremlow was found, and unless anything else has happened, he should be off duty this afternoon.’
‘You want me out of the way, do you?’
‘No, no. We’ll go out.’ Annie held up her hand. She hadn’t meant that at all. She’d thought vaguely in terms of another walk by the river.
Pat looked up to a corner of the room, gaze unfocused, then said, ‘I need to have a word with Babs about Orchard Park; that flat number you gave me. I’ll give her a ring. She can take me round to her place. He’s more likely to come up with the goods if you’re on your own.’ She paused and then ended on a speculative note, ‘You might have seen the last of the Earle case when Babs and I have done. Now get on the phone and get lover boy round.’
Annie wanted to say, don’t solve it without me. I want to be in on the end of it, but closed her mouth, the words unsaid. It was Pat’s call. She could only hope to get the full story later. She turned to her phone and clicked out a text to Scott.
Can u come 2 flat when u finish? Q to ask u.
While she interrogated Scott about Tremlow, Pat would get together with Barbara over that address at the top of the block. She remembered Maz’s words. … when Sleeman’s mate legged her down the stairs … and how Vince had brought news about the job being cancelled. Between them she and Pat had reignited it behind his back. Annie had a feeling it was coming full circle and about to join up with Vince again.
*
By the afternoon, the apartment was warm, comfortable and empty. Annie tried to quieten a flutter in her stomach. She told herself it wasn’t the thought of seeing Scott, of spending time with him here with the place to themselves that unsettled her. It was the idea of trying to trick him into giving her what she wanted about Tremlow’s suicide note if he wouldn’t discuss it with her. She wasn’t sure she could do it.
When the door buzzer sounded, she took in several deep, measured breaths and didn’t hurry on her way to let him in.
‘Hi, thanks for coming. Sit down. What d’you want to drink? Tea? Coffee?’
He settled for a soft drink. ‘It’s been a hot day. It’s not pleasant dealing with a body in this heat.’ He sat back in the chair and looked around the room. ‘Nice place this. I didn’t really notice before.’
‘It wasn’t the sort of visit where you take note of the fittings.’
‘What was it you wanted to ask me?’
‘It’s about Charles Tremlow. I’m going to have to talk to Terry Martin’s parents. I want to be a position to answer their questions if I can, so really I just wanted to know what he’d said.’
‘In the note, you mean?’ Scott shrugged. ‘He didn’t give us much really.’
Annie caught him in a brief glance towards his jacket where it lay over the back of the settee. Her mind raced over possible scenarios that could have brought him here with the note still in his possession. Maybe his partner dropped him off but left him with the evidence to deliver later. He’d taken time out to pick up his own car on the way but not stopped for long enough to change out of anything but the more overt elements of his uniform. At any rate she hoped those were uniform trousers. She didn’t want him to have quite such bad taste in clothes. She waited for him to elaborate, but he just said, ‘Did you get in touch with Jen?’
‘Yes, we had coffee, but she didn’t know about it till I told her. So how did it happen? Did Terry confront Tremlow about the body on the cliff?’
Terry Martin head to head with Charles Tremlow? It was hard to see Tremlow coming out best in a fight against anyone, although Terry had been very drunk. Annie saw Scott shrug as he weighed up what he should and shouldn’t say. It annoyed her. Hadn’t she been open with him about the things she’d found?
‘We only have the note. It was short. It wasn’t an essay.’
‘What did it say exactly?’
‘I can’t tell you.’
Annie fought to hold on to a relaxed smile. Couldn’t tell her! This was too much. She wouldn’t let it show. She intended getting her hands on it and knew just how. She led the conversation away from the note.
‘So it was the car exhaust thing, was it? Why did he go up on to the cliff?’
‘Less chance of anyone finding him in time, I suppose. Poor old sod. He was a bit of a prat but harmless.’
Annie laughed her disbelief. ‘Harmless? I thought he’d confessed to a pretty gruesome murder.’
‘He did, but the way he told it, it could have been an accident. He just hit out. Didn’t realize what he’d done.’
So the note had given some detail. She wondered if she could spin the conversation out enough to tease the morsels from him bit by bit. She tried to picture what he described. ‘I can’t imagine a punch from Tremlow laying out a rabbit, let alone a full grown person.’
‘No, he hit out with a stick. He said where he’d hidden it and it looks like it’s for real. There’s congealed blood on it. It’s in the lab now.’
‘Where had he stashed it?’
He was silent for a moment. Weighing up whether or not he’s allowed to tell me, Annie thought angrily, but held on to her smile. Maybe the smile did the trick. Maybe the information came under the doesn’t-matter-who-knows category.
‘In his loft,’ he told her.
‘But—’ Annie stopped. She’d been about to blurt out that it couldn’t have been. She’d stood beneath that loft access. ‘Uh … When did he put it there?’
‘Who knows? Same night I suppose.’
She remembered the trapdoor. It hadn’t been touched in months. The image was clear in her mind. ‘I don’t think he could have done.’ She gave him a summary of how they’d called round; how she’d searched the house. ‘Not exactly searched,’ she amended. ‘I was just checking he was OK. The loft access caught my eye. I remember noticing it hadn’t been opened in ages.’
‘I don’t know that we’ve a reported sighting after that. You might have been the last person to see him.’
‘But we didn’t see him.’
Scott’s face relaxed into a smile. ‘We’ve really not looked into it yet beyond a brief chat with a couple of neighbours.’
Annie smiled back. She didn’t suppose resources would stretch too far for Tremlow, not with an unidentified murder victim and Balham still not found, dead or alive.
‘The loft thing’s useful,’ he went on. ‘He didn’t say when he’d stashed it.’
He’d relaxed so much, she felt emboldened to say, ‘But you can’t show me the note?’
‘Sorry, no.’
Bastard.
She smiled extra sweetly and glanced at her watch. ‘Not to worry. Listen, I’m expecting Pat back any minute with that sister of hers.’ Her words brought a certain immobility to his expression. The two sisters were a double act that didn’t make for relaxing company. ‘They won’t stay long. Let’s go through to my room. We can keep out of their way. D’you fancy a beer?’
Annie had known from first setting foot in it that her room was tiny, but it wasn’t until she led Scott in and closed the door, she realized just how small it was. There was no chair, no room for one, to invite him to sit on. They both had to sit on the bed.
This was appalling, their sudden proximity, what he must make of it? She’d meant him to make assumptions about this invitation into her room, but the way the walls pressed in made the enticement all too blatant.
She’d intended to settle him comfortably with his beer, then slip out of the room briefly on some excuse. I’ll just nip and get my bag … She only needed seconds. She could work through his pockets quickly, grab a look at the note. One rapid skim read would lodge it in her head. But they weren’t settled comfortably. He hadn’t taken the ring pull from his beer.
The tension was palpable. She scrabbled desperately for something to say, something that would get a conversation going, allow the stress to ease.
‘So it’s definitely suicide?’ She wasn’t in any doubt about the answer, but the question was there in her head. It was the one she’d asked Jennifer.
‘I can’t see the coroner coming up with anything else. Annie…?’
His answer was hurried, distracted. She felt the change of direction as he spoke her name.
‘Jennifer told me it couldn’t have been anything to do with the woman in the building,’ she gabbled out, speaking across him. ‘But could it? How sure can you be?’
‘Very sure.’ He spoke calmly, damn him, and with an undercurrent of amusement.
She busied herself with the ring-pull in her beer can, hoped he’d follow her lead and open his. Her mind blanked. There had to be more to say about the case. She concentrated on making space on the tiny bedside cupboard. ‘The killer was Edward Balham, wasn’t it?’ She shot the question almost at random, her nervousness showing in more hostile tones than she’d intended. ‘Um … I mean the woman on the cliff.’
‘Annie …’
‘OK, OK, you don’t have to say anything. I know it’s under wraps till you get a positive ID.’
This would be so much easier if she didn’t fancy him; if she hadn’t fancied him from the first time she’d looked at the grim expression on his face and known how a smile would light him up. Motives sat uneasily together. The flimsy excuse of being out of Pat’s way; the obvious intention of inviting him into her bed; and the real reason of separating him from his jacket and Tremlow’s note.
‘D’you think Tremlow knew what Balham had done?’ She sought to stay in the safer refuge of messy deaths. ‘I mean, could that have been what Terry confronted him about that night?’
‘Not that I know of. He wrote a suicide note, not a life story.’
‘I wonder how he nerved himself up to it. He seemed so fearful.’
‘No mystery there. He was drunk. If he’d survived, he’d be facing a drink-drive charge. He must have been almost as drunk as Terry Martin.’
Annie remembered the comment – I don’t believe in drink – with which Tremlow had accepted the colonel’s offer of a nip of whisky. Oh no, he wouldn’t have been drunk – Doris Kitson about Terry Martin.
Aware that Scott had bent towards the floor to put his beer down, Annie glanced across wanting to read his expression while he wasn’t watching her. But as though he’d guessed what she’d do, she found his face turned towards her, a smile meeting her gaze. No mistaking the look he gave her. She looked down, feigned interest in a non-existent stain on her jeans, as she felt her heart pound. This wasn’t the way she’d planned things.
‘Uh … drunk, was he? I didn’t get the impression he was much of a drinker usually, so—’
‘Annie?’
He’d moved closer to her. She couldn’t look up. ‘Uh huh?’
‘This is a pretty small room, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, but …’
‘How about we leave the population of Milesthorpe outside just for now?’
He reached across her and lifted her beer can out of her grasp. She watched his hand, fingers long and slender, as it placed the can into the space she’d so painstakingly cleared on the bedside table.
The move brought his body close to hers. She gulped and felt a shiver run down her insides. Her psyche played traitor, told her it didn’t matter about finding out whether she liked him or not. She wanted him more than the note now. When his hand touched her face to move it round to his, she didn’t resist, let him take control. He held still for a moment, their faces almost touching, so close his features blurred. He kissed her softly until she began to kiss him back and then he pulled her close as her hands went to his head to drag him into her, to devour him as avidly as he devoured her.
Annie surfaced from a deep sleep. A feeling of wellbeing enveloped her. Her face formed itself into a smile as she turned her head. Scott lay beside her, his head resting back into the pillow, his mouth slightly open as he snored gently. He must have been tired enough before she’d enticed him through here. He lay on his back, out for the count, and looked as though he’d sleep for hours yet. She flexed her fingers wanting to reach over and run the back of her hand gently down the side of his face as he slept. But she mustn’t risk waking him. This was her opportunity to find out what Tremlow had said about Terry Martin.
Getting out of bed without waking him wasn’t a problem. He’d taken up the centre of the mattress and left her barely clinging to the edge. One outflung arm was across her. She eased herself sideways from under it and slid to the floor where she gathered up her clothes and crept out.
With her hand on the door to the living room she was met with a sudden vision of Pat and Barbara walking in to find her naked rifling through the pockets of someone else’s coat. Scott slipped into the image, appearing half-dressed and yawning. Pat would laugh, but the thought of Barbara’s face made Annie stop to pull on her clothes and straighten them down.
She’d slept deeply but not for long, and was confident Scott wouldn’t wake for ages. His jacket lay over the back of the settee. Her hands ran themselves quickly through the outer pockets and found nothing of significance. She reached inside and felt her eyebrows rise at the number of inner pockets that met her touch. How many pockets did a person need for heaven’s sake! Zips, Velcro, buttons.
It was the rip of the Velcro that melded into the click of a door.
Annie’s head shot up expecting to see Barbara, but the door to the hallway remained shut. Oh no! She felt the flush of guilt rush up her neck and face as she turned.
Scott stood behind her, his expression hard. Not half-dressed as in her mental image, she noted inconsequentially, but fully dressed. He even had his shoes on. She knew he’d come through that door with a smile on his face, but the sight of her with his jacket had obliterated it and left only amazement and anger.
‘What the fuck are you doing?’
Even if she could have controlled her expression, she couldn’t pretend she’d been doing anything other than going through his pockets.
‘Well, I have to go and face the Martins with all this. I need to know what happened.’ She tried attack as a belated form of defence.
His expression didn’t soften. It grew an air of incredulity and worse, a measure of distaste as he stared at her. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Why couldn’t you have just shown me the note? He said something about those two missing days, didn’t he? I need to know. His mother needs to know.’
‘The note?’ He looked blank for a moment. ‘You mean the old guy’s suicide note? I don’t have it.’
‘You don’t…? But when I asked about it you looked at your jacket.’
‘Oh, I looked at my jacket, did I?’ She saw cold anger suffuse him as his voice rose. ‘A single look and the great detective surmises that I’m withholding evidence from her. Bloody drama queen! And what did you surmise from the way I looked at you? No need to answer that one, is there? Is that how you get all your evidence?’
‘No, it wasn’t like that …’ She stopped, because he was right. It had been like that, but not the way he implied.
He marched across towards her and, with a scything sweep of his arm, snatched the jacket from her hands as he headed for the outer door.
As she opened her mouth to try to speak, he cut across her. ‘I heard the note read out, OK? I never even got to hold it.’
‘You didn’t…?’
In the open doorway to the hall, he turned and looked her up and down. His words came in measured tones. ‘There was nothing about Martin’s missing two days. He heard him out there, heard him come down from the scaffolding platform. Sounds like he didn’t fall, he jumped, or something fell from the platform. Tremlow grabbed the stick and went out in a panic. Hit out and found he’d killed the guy. And before you ask, it’s not clear whether he pushed the body i
nto the hole or if it just fell. Whatever he hit his head on down there disguised the blow from the stick. If he’d burnt it, no one would ever have known.’
Stunned at his open contempt, she felt his words carve out a void inside her. He stared at her hard as though waiting for her to speak. No words would come.
‘That’s what you wanted, isn’t it? Will it do?’
‘Will it…?’
‘Well, I’ve no cash on me.’ He spun on his heel and strode out.
It took Annie a second to understand, then she hurled herself after him into the hallway and shrieked. ‘Fuck off!’ at the door as it slammed behind him.
Tears of anger and humiliation stung the backs of her eyes. The bastard! She’d show him. Should have stuck with her instinct. So much for not being sure if she liked him or not. She was sure now. And the bastard had called her a drama queen! She didn’t care what he thought of her. She really didn’t. The only emotion he spawned within her now was fury.
Tremlow’s note. She had what she needed. Nothing else mattered.
She pictured Scott’s smile, the way he looked at her when he relaxed. Deep inside there was a nub of hurt that wouldn’t harden into anger.
CHAPTER 20
AFTER THE ECHO of the door slamming and the stomping footsteps receded, Annie was left in a silent bubble that was the empty apartment. She turned slowly, let her gaze move from the still of the room to the expanse of water outside.
Pat and Barbara would be home soon. She tried to rehearse the conversation. Pat was bound to ask, did you get lover boy to cough up the goods, or something like that.
Her shoulders straightened. She had the information and would meet Pat’s eye unflinchingly. ‘Oh yes, I know what was in the note …’ Well, perhaps she wouldn’t meet her eye; maybe she would busy herself in the file, pretend to be distracted as she answered. ‘Uh … what’s that? Oh, Tremlow’s note? Yeah, sure, I’ve got what I need on that …’ She tried to talk herself through a scenario where she answered Pat without embarrassment flooding her until she glowed like a beacon; where there was even a slim likelihood of Pat failing to notice something was wrong. No chance. Not now, not so soon after Scott had walked out like that, the bastard!
