A Good Death

by Chris Collett

  In what looked like a spare bedroom that was set up to be an office there was a desk, an office chair and two newly constructed shelving units alongside one that was half-finished. Sam’s achievements from Saturday night, perhaps.

  ‘It’s lovely,’ said Millie to Ted, on her way out. ‘They’re a lucky pair.’ It would take a certain kind of man to walk away from this little lot. But if that’s what Sam Fleetwood had done, she still had no clues about where he might be now.

  Leaving Ted to his work, Millie exited the house through the adjoining garage. It would be a long time before a car could be parked in here. Ted and his workmates were currently using it as a store room, and sheets of plasterboard were stacked against the wall alongside a row of rolls of the heavy-duty plastic, miscellaneous strips of timber and a pallet of leftover ceramic tiles, leaving very little room for anything else. But at one end there was some evidence that the young couple had begun to move in their possessions; either that, or the last owners had left behind the mountain bike, propped up against a surf board, and a faded wetsuit dangling from its hook. Aligned with the garage was a further covered carport. As Millie emerged into this, she saw a man on a driveway on the opposite side of the road washing his car, the old-fashioned way with a sponge and bucket of water. He made eye contact with her, so Millie went over.

  ‘Are you moving in?’ he asked.

  ‘Sorry, no.’ Millie showed him her ID, which she felt sure would play better out here. ‘You haven’t met your new neighbours?’ she asked.

  ‘Not face-to-face,’ he said. ‘Are they going to be trouble?’

  ‘There’s no reason to think that,’ said Millie.

  ‘To be honest, I’m not really sure yet who they are,’ the man told her. He looked retired, or close to it, lean with a lined, tanned face and short white hair. ‘There have been so many different contractors coming and going to work on the house over the last few months, it’s hard to tell who’s who. I know it’s a young couple, and I’ve seen him from a distance. I did see a woman there one day who I thought might be the other half, but I couldn’t be sure. Women do all sorts of jobs these days; one mustn’t make assumptions.’

  ‘Were you aware of anyone about here on Saturday night?’ asked Millie.

  ‘Let me think. Yes, it would have been Saturday as we were going out. We saw a man arriving, getting out of his car.’

  ‘What time was that?’

  ‘About ten to seven, I suppose. We were going to a concert at Symphony Hall, so that’s the usual time we would be setting off. When we came home later in the evening the car was still there. That would have been at around half past ten.’

  ‘Any idea what kind of car it was; the make or colour?’ asked Millie.

  ‘Hm, I only saw it for a few seconds. Once it’s under the carport it’s partly obscured by those laurel bushes. It looked about the size of a Golf, I think, dark blue or grey. These days they all look so similar. I did notice that it had some kind of rack on the roof, though, for carrying skis, that kind of thing.’

  ‘Was the car still there in the morning?’ asked Millie.

  ‘No, in fact, I think I might have heard it leave. At about one in the morning, I heard a car engine, and the headlights swept across our bedroom. Our daughter had gone out, you see, and I thought it might be the taxi dropping her off and turning round. But Lydia didn’t get home until much later and when I looked out then, the car over there had gone. Certainly all the lights in the house were off and the light on the burglar alarm was flashing, as if it had been set.’

  ‘One o’clock? Are you sure it was as late as that?’ asked Millie.

  ‘Yes, it was thereabouts; past the witching hour,’ he smiled. ‘I was quite surprised really, because when we saw the chap earlier he had a bag with him, as if he was planning to stay a few days.’

  ‘What kind of bag?’

  ‘Oh, you know, a sort of holdall thing.’ He modelled the size of it. ‘An overnight bag, with leather finishing. I’ve got one a bit like it.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you’d know which way the car went when it left here?’

  He didn’t, but that didn’t much matter. There were any number of routes Sam could have taken back to Edgbaston, and either direction was legitimate. ‘Look, what is this?’ he asked. ‘Is something going on over there that we should know about?’

  ‘It’s probably nothing,’ said Millie. ‘Mr Fleetwood, the man you saw, hasn’t been seen for a couple of days. We’re trying to track him down. So far, yours is the last sighting of him.’

  ‘Oh. When I saw you, I thought you might be here because of the Kramers.’ Millie waited for him to elaborate. ‘They live at number forty.’ He gestured a little way down the road. ‘They’ve been worried about a van hanging about, though I’m not sure if this was Saturday. We get the odd spate of burglaries around here, and they thought it might be someone “casing” them.’

  ‘Well, it’s helpful to know that,’ said Millie. ‘I’m not sure that it’s related, but I will go and talk to them.’

  Leaving the man to his polishing, she went up the road to the number he gave her and rang the doorbell, but the Kramers were not at home. This time when she tried Sam Fleetwood’s phone the number wasn’t even recognised.

  When Millie got back to Granville Lane at lunchtime, most of the office staff were on their breaks and she thought at first everyone was out. Then she spied the top of Brown’s thinning pate over his work station in the corner. ‘Well, that didn’t tell me much,’ she said, depositing her bag on the desk.

  Brown seemed to startle, and after some light scuffling, a good minute elapsed before he responded. ‘Oh, hello,’ he said.

  There were a number of things she could have caught him doing, but after the briefest hesitation, Millie decided to let it go. ‘Is DI Mariner back yet?’ she asked instead.

  ‘I think he’s still out on the fire thing,’ Brown told her, his composure recovered, though gazing at her over his PC monitor, he still looked a bit shifty. ‘Oh, and no luck with the hospitals. What exactly is it with this feller?’

  Mariner had told Millie to keep things low key, but not confidential, so there didn’t seem any reason not to let Brown in on it. As much for her own benefit as for his, she summarised how far she’d got. ‘According to the neighbour, Sam Fleetwood had a holdall with him when he went into the house, but he didn’t leave it there. Carrying it around with him starts to look to me as if he might have been planning a few days away,’ she said.

  ‘Could have been a gym bag,’ Brown suggested. ‘Does he go to the gym?’

  ‘Not that I know,’ said Millie. ‘He does triathlons, though, so he must need to stay fit. But wouldn’t he leave his bag in the car? Why take it into the house?’

  ‘Perhaps he came straight from the gym, had a shower and got changed.’

  Millie remembered that wet room, and her impression that it had been used. ‘Maybe,’ she said out loud. ‘But Sam left Charlie Glover’s house at the same time Mariner did.’ She hunted through the papers on her desk, before finding Mariner’s scrawled notes. ‘That was at about twenty past six,’ she said. ‘Would he have had time to go to the gym but still arrive at the house before seven?’

  ‘Depends where the gym is,’ said Brown reasonably. ‘Where did he go after that, I mean after he left the house?’

  ‘He should have gone back to his flat, but I don’t know which direction he took,’ said Millie. ‘I need to get hold of any Gatso footage around that area, at and around one a.m., to try and track his movements.’ It was one of the most tedious tasks imaginable, and Millie couldn’t help herself; she smiled sweetly at Brown. It took him about three seconds to catch on. ‘Oh, right. I’ll see what I can do, boss.’

  Millie wasn’t sure if she liked that title. It felt like a lot to live up to. ‘How about you just call me Millie?’

  ‘Okey-doke.’

  ‘Can you check too if Sam’s got a passport?’ Millie asked. ‘He’s meant to be going on h
oneymoon to Antigua. So he’s left it a bit late if he hasn’t.’

  Millie didn’t then get the opportunity to check in with Mariner until later that afternoon. ‘There’s nothing from Sam’s work or the accommodation to show that anything’s amiss,’ she told him. ‘Although I haven’t found anyone yet who’s seen him since Saturday night.’

  ‘We’ve checked with local hospitals?’ Mariner asked.

  ‘The first thing I did,’ said Millie, ‘or at least Brown did it for me, and nothing doing. Also, Sam’s phone hasn’t been used since Saturday night, when he had the text exchange with Gaby at about eleven, and I’m not getting a signal from it any more.’

  ‘So either the battery’s dead or he’s taken out the SIM,’ Mariner concluded. ‘It doesn’t necessarily mean much. Fleetwood could have still had some kind of accident. We had a bloke go missing a few years back who was in the habit of spending all night in the pub before wandering back along the canal. We didn’t dredge his body up until about six weeks after he disappeared.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s Sam Fleetwood’s style,’ said Millie. ‘I mean, he might go running, but at that time of night? There’s nothing at his flat to signal that he’s left unexpectedly or in a hurry. Though I did find a couple of interesting things.’ She told him about the make-up and tights. ‘They’re the kinds of things a woman might keep there, as spares, but there’s nothing else belonging to Gaby that I could see; not even a toothbrush. I’ve looked at Gaby’s Facebook page and there are lots of pictures of her with Sam. She’s fair-skinned, but the make-up is the sort of colour I might use, for a woman with olive or darker skin.’

  ‘I’m not sure that she even wears much make-up,’ said Mariner. ‘I’m pretty sure she wasn’t on Saturday, and that was a special occasion. She was dressed up.’

  ‘There you go then,’ said Millie. ‘And how tall would you say she is?’

  ‘She was wearing heels,’ said Mariner. ‘But even then, she didn’t come much past my shoulder. About Suzy’s height, I suppose.’

  ‘Suzy’s petite,’ said Millie. ‘But the tights are medium, so for a taller woman.’

  ‘You said a couple of things?’ said Mariner.

  ‘Yes, these were in a drawer,’ said Millie. ‘I’m guessing they’re this year’s, as Valentine Day was only a couple of months back.’ She showed Mariner the pictures of the cards on her phone. ‘The handwriting on this one matches Gaby’s, but not on this one.’

  ‘From your little bear,’ Mariner read.

  ‘Then we have one of the neighbours at the new house seeing Sam arrive there on Saturday with what looked like an overnight bag,’ Millie continued. ‘He heard him drive away again, but not until around one a.m., two hours after Gaby received the text from Sam to say that he was just leaving.’

  ‘So why the delay?’ Mariner wondered aloud.

  ‘I was thinking that perhaps he had a specific rendezvous with someone,’ said Millie. ‘Perhaps it was the only time she could get away. Something else you should know; Gaby told you that Sam has to work away some weekends, didn’t she? Well, not according to his boss, he doesn’t. Nobody from his department does.’

  ‘You think Sam Fleetwood’s got another woman on the go,’ said Mariner.

  ‘That’s what it all looks like to me,’ said Millie.

  ‘And he hasn’t been back to his flat?’

  ‘I don’t think so. The guy in the flat below Sam’s thought he heard bumping around up there early on Sunday morning, but there was no sighting and he couldn’t even be sure about the timing. The flat’s all neat and tidy and the wardrobe’s a bit sparse, as if he’s taken stuff with him.’

  ‘So what next?’ asked Mariner.

  ‘I’ll start talking to other people who know him and see what that turns up. See if I can find out who “Little Bear” could be.’

  ‘Sounds like a plan,’ said Mariner. ‘Keep me apprised. But so that you know, I’m on leave all day tomorrow, so anything you’re not sure about will have to go to Superintendent Sharp. I don’t really want to make a thing of this, so can you let the rest of the team know? If there’s anything urgent, I can be reached on my mobile, and I’ll be back in on Friday.’

  ‘OK.’ Millie was slightly taken aback. She’d never known Mariner to take leave in the middle of an investigation before, and here there were two ongoing. She was tempted to ask what was up, but it was none of her business, so she said nothing.

  ‘Do you think he’s ill?’ asked Vicky straight away. Millie had waited until people were starting to leave for the day before telling them, and now she and Vicky were the only ones left in the office. ‘Or is it a job interview?’

  ‘Whatever it is, I’m sure he’ll tell us when he’s ready,’ said Millie. ‘He’s not one for secrets, either. Enough of them out there. I just got the impression he didn’t want it bandied around the office. PC Brown is a bit of an unknown quantity, isn’t he?’ She said, changing the subject.

  ‘That’s one way of putting it,’ said Vicky. ‘What?’ She’d seen Millie’s expression.

  ‘What do you make of him?’

  ‘He seems all right,’ said Vicky. ‘Why?’

  ‘It’s just that – when I came in at lunchtime today, he was all on his own. I think I caught him up to something.’

  ‘Oh yes?’ she was intrigued now.

  ‘I thought I might have walked in on him having a wank,’ said Millie. ‘He jumped a mile, and there was definitely some rearranging of the clothes going on.’

  ‘Ugh, really?’ Vicky screwed up her face in disgust.

  ‘I might be completely wrong,’ said Millie. ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t have said anything. But I can’t think what else—’

  ‘It wouldn’t do any harm to get Max to check the history on Charlie’s computer,’ said Vicky. She couldn’t help herself. ‘Maybe that’s why Stone calls him what he does,’ she giggled.

  Millie joined in. ‘It might explain the glasses too,’ she said.

  ELEVEN

  Jamie’s hospital appointments were based on his (and therefore Mariner’s) home address so were, conveniently enough for Mariner, at the QE. He parked in the nearest of the visitor car parks and walked up the ramp to the main building, where he caught up with Jamie and Nell in one of the many waiting areas of the outpatients’ department. They stood out, not because of Jamie, but thanks to Nell’s electric blue spiked hair and multiple piercings. Nell met Mariner with one of her customary smiles; one of the loveliest Mariner had ever seen, but spoiled today by a couple of deep gouges down her left cheek. ‘Courtesy of Jamie,’ she said, seeing Mariner’s reaction.

  ‘God, I’m sorry,’ said Mariner, on Jamie’s behalf, but Nell shrugged it off.

  ‘I’ve had worse,’ she said. ‘And they’re healing nicely given that it was only a couple of days ago.’

  Jamie, to Mariner’s dismay, was slumped in a wheelchair, largely inanimate, apart from tugging listlessly at the bandage again. He was hunched over like an old man. His eyes grazed Mariner’s fleetingly, but were dull and indifferent.

  ‘What have you given him?’ said Mariner grimly.

  ‘I know,’ said Nell. ‘Creepy, isn’t it?’ And, she didn’t need to add, further proof that Jamie wasn’t himself at all. ‘Would you like me to hang around? It’s just that we are pretty short-staffed at the moment, so they could do with me back at MP.’

  ‘Short-staffed’ wasn’t a phrase Mariner liked to hear, and he wondered for a moment if that had anything to do with Jamie’s change of behaviour. But Nell couldn’t be held to account for it. ‘No, it’s fine,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t look as if he’s going to put up much of a fight today. I’ll drop him back when it’s finished.’

  ‘Great,’ said Nell. ‘I’ve put some snacks and a drink in his bag, and a change of clothes should you need them.’ She’d thought of everything, and when she said goodbye to Jamie, it was with tenderness, despite the injuries. When she had gone, Mariner immediately checked his work mobile, but there were
no messages, yet. Everyone was probably out and about. He sat down beside Jamie for the long wait.

  DC Millie Khatoon was on her way to speak to Sam Fleetwood’s church mentor, Laurie McKinnon, who worked from home as a software designer. He lived in Cofton Hackett, which had once been a discrete village but was now a far-flung extension of the city, nestling at the foot of the Lickey Hills. When he came to the door McKinnon wasn’t quite what she’d expected. In Mariner’s notes Gaby had described him as an ‘elder’, which Millie had taken literally, anticipating him to be an older man. McKinnon’s hair was greying, but he could only be in his early forties at most; a quietly spoken Scot.

  ‘Guiding Light?’ said Millie. ‘Isn’t that a bit like stepping into the Big Man’s shoes?’

  McKinnon smiled. ‘Not at all.’

  Once Millie had explained her purpose he had brought her through to his office, offering her a drink along the way. Millie accepted it with gratitude; she hadn’t quite appreciated just how many cups of tea she’d drunk when she was at home with Haroon. She’d gone home yesterday thoroughly dehydrated. Now they were sitting in the spare room that doubled as McKinnon’s work space, a row of Apple Macs set up along a worktop. Each one pinged intermittently, signalling an incoming email, and each time McKinnon couldn’t resist checking the sender.

  ‘So how does this mentoring work?’ Millie asked.

  ‘It’s much less formal than the title implies,’ said McKinnon. ‘Our church has expectations. We recognise marriage as a lifelong commitment and responsibility towards another individual. Modern life can challenge that, so we try to support couples, especially someone in Sam’s situation, whose own parents split up. I’m there as a kind of sounding board. The idea is that having married and raised a family myself, I can draw on those experiences. That’s all there is to it,’ he said, with a smile.