A Good Death

by Chris Collett

  ‘You must have already known something about her,’ said Jesson. ‘So why did you agree to meet her?’

  ‘It was a favour to my friend Mustafa. I knew the family wanted her off their hands, and I thought perhaps I could help.’

  ‘So your interest was nothing to do with her being pretty and half your age,’ said Jesson.

  ‘I don’t appreciate your tone,’ said Rani, a muscle in his jaw pulsing.

  ‘In that case, why don’t you tell us what really happened between you and Talayeh, Mr Rani?’ Jesson pressed on. ‘We have been told that she turned you down. Isn’t that how it went? That must have been humiliating; so humiliating that you stayed away from your good friend Soltan Ahmed’s funeral?’

  ‘I have already told you. It was me who decided that she was unsuitable. It was obvious to everyone who met her. You should ask Salwa Shah how much she liked having Talayeh in the house so close to her husband,’ he said nastily. ‘Ask her why Mustafa made that trip to Sana’a when he did.’

  ‘When did you meet Talayeh?’ asked Mariner.

  Rani consulted the diary on his desk and gave them a date. It was ten days before the fire.

  ‘And is that the last time you saw her?’

  There was the slightest beat of hesitation before he said: ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are you sure about that?’ asked Mariner. ‘Where were you on the evening of Saturday the eighth?’

  ‘I was at a business dinner in Birmingham. It went on until late.’

  ‘Can anyone confirm that?’

  ‘I’m sure that many of my associates will be happy to vouch for me.’

  ‘We’ll need their details,’ said Mariner.

  ‘Of course,’ said Rani. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me I have an appointment in London that I need to keep.’

  ‘He’s a cold fish,’ said Jesson as they left the premises. ‘He didn’t seem particularly upset or surprised about what had happened to Talayeh.’

  ‘No,’ Mariner agreed. ‘But it’s not him on the CCTV at the bus station; he’s neither tall nor slim enough, so we’ve got nothing to connect him to Talayeh on the day before she died.’

  ‘So what now?’ said Jesson.

  ‘We need to talk to Salwa Shah again,’ said Mariner. ‘I think we should do it formally and see if that focuses the mind.’

  Carter’s had got themselves organised. This time, when Khatoon and Bingley went back, the paperwork for the Astra had mysteriously appeared and George was able to produce it. The Astra was down in the book but noticeably entered after items brought in that morning. ‘Can you tell us any more about it?’ Millie asked George Carter.

  ‘I told him,’ said George, looking at Bingley. ‘Our Danny found it.’

  ‘If he’s here, we’d like to talk to him,’ said Millie.

  ‘He’s in his van,’ said George, walking them round to the breaker’s yard.

  Millie was curious. ‘Does Danny not live in the family home then?’

  ‘Not any more,’ growled George. ‘He’s got to learn some independence.’ He hammered with his fist on the caravan door. ‘It’s the police,’ he said, when Danny appeared. ‘They want to ask some questions about that car.’

  ‘Where did you find it?’ asked Millie.

  They weren’t invited in, so stood in the yard, while Danny leaned indifferently against the door of his caravan. He was what was commonly termed in police parlance ‘a streak of piss’; skinny and undernourished. Like his older brother, Danny went in for tattoos, but his looked more like the home-made variety. ‘About half a mile from here,’ he said. ‘It had been set on fire. That’s how I spotted it in the first place.’

  ‘When was this?’

  Danny’s lips moved silently as he worked it out. ‘Week ago last Sunday,’ he said eventually. ‘I saw the fire in the middle of the Saturday night, so next morning I went out to see what it was.’

  ‘Do you remember what time on Saturday night?’ asked Millie. But all he could say was ‘late’.

  ‘You must have realised that it was stolen,’ said Millie. ‘It was in good nick. Did you notify the police?’

  ‘I was going to, but I hadn’t done it yet.’ Danny gave them a sullen glare. ‘Don’t need to now, do I?’

  ‘Where are the plates?’ asked Bingley.

  He shrugged. ‘Didn’t have any,’ he said, though he couldn’t meet Bingley’s eye when he said it.

  ‘Right, I need you to take us to where you found it,’ Millie said, heading back to the car. Bingley followed, but not before taking a discreet photo of the white van parked beside Danny Carter’s caravan. He was about to pocket his mobile again when he noticed another photograph, one he’d taken yesterday, just before he’d passed out. Running to catch up, he presented Millie with the phone. ‘You should see this,’ he said.

  At first Millie couldn’t see what could possibly be of interest in that pile of miscellaneous rubbish, but then she saw the name printed across a scrap of plasterboard: ‘Boswell Construction.’ ‘Hm,’ she said, her voice low. ‘I wonder just how well he knows the Carters?’

  With both Carter brothers in the back seat, Danny directed them through narrow country lanes for about a mile and a half, until they came to a fork in the road, backing on to woodland, that served as a rough parking place.

  ‘It was there,’ said Danny Carter and Bingley drew to a halt a little way off.

  ‘Stay in the car, please,’ Millie said to their two passengers, while she and Bingley walked down to the spot indicated. There was a patch of blackened grass that had burnt down to the soil, but at first inspection no sign of any blood. Bingley took a wide circle around the site, and Millie looked up to see him squatting down. She thought for a moment he might be having another funny turn, but then he stood up and came back with an evidence bag, which he passed to her. It contained a cheap gold lighter, the plate wearing off at the corners. ‘Does Sam Fleetwood smoke?’ he asked.

  ‘No one’s said that he does,’ said Millie. She stopped. ‘But I know someone who was looking for his lighter, around the time that Sam Fleetwood disappeared. I’ll get a forensic search of this site and the surrounding area organised.’

  On the drive back to Granville Lane they had time to discuss the significance of what they had found.

  ‘If Sam has been playing away his father-in-law wouldn’t think much of that, would he?’ said Bingley.

  ‘But who’s he doing it with? That lecturer from uni?’

  ‘I’m sure she was telling the truth,’ said Bingley. ‘In a way, though, the identity of the woman doesn’t matter. Cheating is cheating, isn’t it?’

  ‘I don’t suppose you’ve had the chance to check Boswell’s alibi?’ said Millie.

  ‘I’ve made a start,’ said Bingley. ‘There was definitely a business consortium dinner on that night, and Boswell attended all right. But I haven’t got as far as finding anyone who can confirm what time he left, or what kind of state he was in.’

  ‘I think now might be a good time to update Clive Boswell on what we’ve found,’ said Millie.

  Salwa Shah still seemed to be reeling from their last visit, when Mariner and Jesson brought her into a station interview suite, to conduct more formal questioning. Her reactions seemed slow, and when Mariner first greeted her, she struggled to make eye contact.

  ‘We know now that Talayeh went to the bus station, as you told us, but we’re trying to reconstruct her movements after she missed her bus,’ he said. ‘It looks as if she might have met someone instead, a white man in Western dress.’ Jesson placed a still photograph from the CCTV on the table. ‘Do you have any idea who this might be?’ Mariner asked. The image was grainy and indistinct, and he wasn’t surprised when Salwa shook her head. Even if she did recognise the man, she had every excuse not to acknowledge it.

  ‘Is this an arrangement Talayeh might have made?’ Jesson asked. ‘Could she have contacted someone?’

  ‘No,’ said Salwa. ‘Talayeh didn’t know anyone in this country apart fr
om us and her relatives in Bradford. Unless—’

  ‘What?’

  ‘A couple of times she went out on her own, before I could stop her. She could have met someone then.’ It was conveniently vague.

  ‘What was it like having Talayeh to live with you?’ asked Mariner.

  ‘It wasn’t easy,’ Salwa admitted. ‘She was disrespectful towards my father, and towards me.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Talayeh was immature in her attitude towards men. She grew up in a small village and made trouble there by having a relationship with a man who was older than her. It was thought that if she came here, to England … But she was no different. We tried to match her with a friend of my husband, but it did not go well.’

  ‘Mr Rani,’ said Mariner. ‘We know about that. How did Talayeh get on with your husband?’ he asked, holding her gaze.

  Salwa looked down into her lap. ‘It was embarrassing,’ she said. ‘She flirted with him all the time. She would walk around the house sometimes, inappropriately dressed. Mustafa tried to ignore it, of course. We knew that she had had a difficult time so we tried to tolerate it. If I’m honest, I was relieved that she had moved on. But I didn’t wish her any harm,’ she insisted.

  ‘Was Talayeh the reason your husband went to Sana’a?’

  ‘No,’ she said, a little too quickly. ‘He had business to attend to anyway. Taleyah was just a silly girl.’ Her eyes filled, but she seemed determined not to succumb.

  Mariner suspended the interview at that point, and he and Jesson convened again outside.

  ‘She seems more upset about this than she did about her father’s death,’ Mariner observed.

  ‘I suppose she was in shock then,’ said Jesson. ‘She’s had more time for this to sink in.’ But there was nothing to hold her on, so Mariner arranged for a car to take her home.

  TWENTY-ONE

  ‘There is now enough concern for us to open an investigation into Sam’s disappearance,’ said Millie, without preamble. ‘We have significant fears for his safety. His car has been found.’

  She was in the conservatory of Clive Boswell’s home again, and Millie was glad they were sitting down. Gaby stared at Millie for a moment, processing the words, then seemed transfixed, her attention switching to a spot on the floor that commanded her interest. Her father was immediately at her side. ‘Where did you find it?’ he asked.

  ‘I can’t tell you that just at the moment,’ said Millie. ‘But what we also found is staining in the boot that looks like blood. Can either of you think of an explanation for that?’

  Suddenly raising her eyes, Gaby made a high keening sound. She looked tiny on the expanse of leather sofa, sitting hunched over, as if to minimise her presence.

  ‘Look, is this necessary?’ Clive Boswell pleaded, seeing his daughter’s distress. ‘Couldn’t I—’

  ‘I’m sorry, sir, it is important,’ said Millie. ‘I’ll ask again; do you have any idea?’

  ‘What about that fall Sam took, a few weeks ago?’ said Boswell.

  At that point, Gaby seemed to tune in. ‘Oh yes,’ she said vaguely. ‘He had this road race and he came off his bike, round near Church Stretton. He made a real mess of his arm; took all the skin off the underneath, elbow to wrist.’ She lifted her arm to indicate. ‘It bled a lot. I told him he should go to A and E, get it properly cleaned up and dressed, but you know what men can be like.’

  ‘OK, that’s helpful,’ said Millie.

  ‘You think something has happened to him, don’t you?’ Gaby said, catching on.

  Boswell was sceptical. ‘You really think that?’

  ‘We’re keeping an open mind, but certainly this development is serious,’ said Millie calmly.

  ‘We’ve done the sensible thing and postponed the wedding,’ Boswell told her. ‘I’m beginning to phone round people to let them know. It’s heartbreaking, though of course we still hold out hope that it will go ahead in the end.’

  ‘Mr Boswell, I have to ask you to be a bit more precise about your movements on the—’ Millie began, but Boswell was already on his feet.

  ‘Is that all, sergeant? Can I show you out?’ Gaby seemed not to notice.

  Millie had no option but to follow. Once they were in the hall, Boswell closed the door and lowered his voice. ‘Actually, I have a slight amendment to make to what I told you about that Saturday night. Stupid really, but I suppose it’s not something I’m very proud of.’

  ‘Go on,’ said Millie blandly.

  ‘Well, the truth is, I wasn’t drunk when I left the dinner; far from it. But I didn’t come home straight away. I went to see a friend.’ He cleared his throat.

  ‘Which friend would this be?’ asked Millie, though she’d guessed by now what was coming.

  ‘Well, when I say friend … She offers a service,’ said Boswell, with a weak smile. ‘It’s one of the ways I’ve coped since my wife died.’ He paused. ‘Actually, that’s not quite true either. It started before that, when Emma was ill. Anyway, I see her about once a month and that Saturday was one of those occasions. I’m sorry, I know I should have said at the time, but Gaby doesn’t know anything about it. It would devastate her. She’d think I was betraying her mother.’

  ‘We will need to verify this with your friend,’ said Millie.

  ‘Can it be done discreetly?’ pleaded Boswell. ‘I have the church to think about too.’

  ‘As long as this information has no direct bearing on Sam’s whereabouts, there’s no reason to share it at this stage,’ Millie said. ‘How well do you know the Carters, who run the waste disposal station Sam was investigating?’

  ‘Not at all really,’ said Boswell. ‘One or two of my site managers use them, because I’ve seen the name on invoices. But it wasn’t until Sam started talking about them that I put two and two together.’

  ‘Do you believe him?’ said Mariner, when Millie reported back what she’d learned.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ said Millie. ‘I keep thinking about the religion. It wouldn’t be a very Christian thing to do, to bump off your prospective son-in-law, would it? And it was Boswell who pointed us in the direction of Carter’s in the first place.’

  ‘That could be an elaborate double-bluff,’ said Mariner. ‘As could acknowledging his links with them. And besides, if Clive Boswell wanted to get rid of Sam Fleetwood, I doubt he’d sully his own hands. He’ll have plenty of loyal employees who might help him out. You and Bingley need to check out this revised alibi, and some of his contacts.’

  Talayeh’s sister had arrived from the Yemen and Vicky Jesson went to meet her from Birmingham airport, along with an Arabic interpreter. Until they had established what had happened, Maimoonah (‘but everyone calls me Mai’) was to be accommodated in a basic hotel; something for which she seemed grateful. ‘I hardly know my cousin’s family,’ she said of Mustafa Shah. ‘And I am afraid of what happened to my sister.’

  In her mid-twenties, she was a pretty girl and the photograph of Talayeh she showed Jesson was of a young woman who looked very like her, in obscene contrast to the girl Jesson had seen on Croghan’s mortuary slab. Jesson offered to wait with the interpreter in the hotel lobby while she settled into her room, but Mai asked them to come up with her. She did not want to be left on her own. So Jesson and the interpreter stood by and watched, while she unpacked her few things. It was a strange dynamic.

  ‘What was Talayeh like?’ Jesson asked.

  ‘My sister was a sweet girl, full of life and with big ambitions,’ said Mai, haltingly, via the interpreter. ‘She always thought the best of people. She was so pretty that even when she was little she had attention wherever she went, from men and women. At first my parents liked it. They were proud of their daughters. It was only when Talayeh was older and began to respond to the men who admired her that things changed. Talayeh formed—’ The interpreter broke off while there was a brief discussion about the precise word. ‘An inappropriate friendship with a man in the next village,’ she went on, ‘he was
older than her, and already promised. My parents tried to stop Talayeh from seeing him, so they ran away together. They were missing for nine days. When she was found, my parents decided that Talayeh should be married as quickly as possible to a man who she could look up to and who would take care of her.’

  And control her? Jesson wanted to ask. But it was too soon to ask such a loaded question. ‘I suppose they wanted to put some distance between Talayeh and this man too?’ she surmised instead, waiting patiently while her words were translated.

  ‘Talayeh craved excitement,’ said Mai wistfully. ‘I think they really thought if she came to England it would make her happy.’

  ‘We’re going to go to the mortuary,’ said Jesson, via the interpreter. ‘You don’t have to see your sister, she was very badly—’

  ‘No,’ Mai looked directly at Jesson, even though it was the interpreter who spoke. ‘I want to.’

  At the hospital Mai provided a DNA sample. She was also able to positively identify Talayeh’s jewellery, and kept her composure right up until she saw her sister’s body, at which point she broke down, great sobs wracking her body, and Jesson stepped in to support her.

  ‘Did you have any communication with Talayeh while she was in England?’ Jesson asked as they sat in the visitor’s room afterwards. She had brought Mai some sweetened tea.

  ‘We spoke on the phone when Mrs Shah would allow it. Talayeh didn’t much like it in Birmingham. She didn’t feel safe.’

  ‘Safe how?’

  ‘I don’t know. Our village is very small and it’s in the hills. We go to Sana’a, of course, but just for a few hours at a time. Talayeh told me that the city was exciting but too much; overwhelming.’

  ‘And what about the man she was to marry, Kaspa Rani?’ said Jesson. ‘What did she tell you about him?’

  ‘Only that she had met him and that he was old and ugly,’ Mai let out a giggle that turned into a sob. ‘She didn’t want to marry him, but my father had threatened that if she didn’t, he would disown her. I don’t think that’s true but Talayeh believed it, and she was miserable.’