Payback

by Charlotte Mills

  A heavy frown appeared on the profile of Helen’s face. “That’s bad news. When was he due in London?”

  “On Monday, 13 February.”

  She waited for a reply, but after a few moments, she realised there wasn’t going to be one. Holding her notebook in her lap, her gaze drifted to the far side of the windscreen, where her eyes found Helen’s delicate hands softly holding the steering wheel. She knew that if she had been making this journey on her own, the driving would be much more erratic, with a smattering of frustrated swear words. In contrast, this felt almost sedate. Was that the journey or the company? She immediately thought of the saying about lovers and partners making people want to be a better version of themselves. Although they weren’t lovers, it didn’t stop her from wanting to make a better attempt at her so-called life.

  She continued her perusal up Helen’s arms. The cuffs on her long-sleeved grey shirt had been turned up to just below the elbow, revealing elegant, pale forearms. Her shoulders were relaxed, as was her profile as she looked out ahead, occasionally flicking a quick look in the rear-view mirror. Her almost blank expression changed occasionally with a slight furrowed brow or twitch of the lips, giving the impression of cogs turning as she considered ideas and possibilities.

  “You’re quiet.” Helen said with a quick look across at Kate. If she was surprised by her observations, she didn’t show it.

  “Sorry, bit tired. Too much CCTV watching,” she lied. She’d barely scratched the surface of the footage. Another power cut when she arrived home had put paid to that.

  Johnathan Sandwell lived on a small private estate. The two-storey stone house was set in acres of open countryside. The edge of the estate was lined with large oak trees. It was well kept. No doubt by a team of gardeners.

  Helen stopped in front of the entrance to the house, and its large timber front door, and looked over while she performed her angry doorbell pressing. The grin on Helen’s face told her she’d expected it, and well…who was she to deny the lady?

  The sound of the chiming bells could be heard from their position. Helen pulled her warrant card from her pocket, and she followed suit. A heavy sound behind the door piqued her interest as she imagined a large plank being removed from brackets either side of the door, like a medieval castle.

  The door opened only a few inches before an elderly face appeared in the gap. The man looked to be in his sixties at least. His thinning grey hair had receded, leaving a bulbous shiny forehead. His thick, black, plastic glasses covered small, dark eyes. He held an expectant look as his gaze travelled between the two of them.

  “Good morning. We’d like to talk to Mr Johnathan Sandwell,” Helen said in what must have been her best friendly voice.

  “Is he expecting you?” the man enquired. His tone sounded cautious.

  “No. We’re police. I’m DCI Helen Taylor, and this is Acting DS Kate Wolfe.” Helen held up her credentials for the man to see. “We need to talk to him about his son, Tommy Sandwell.”

  She might not know Helen that well, but she knew one thing for certain: the woman wasn’t about to be fobbed off after driving all the way up here. The old man barely glanced at Helen’s credentials, although his expression flickered at the mention of Sandy’s name and he opened the door wider.

  “I’m Richard Lees. I work for Mr Sandwell.”

  She noticed the glum expression on Lees’s face, and his reluctance to step aside. Common sense won as he allowed them in to a grand hallway. After he shut the door, he turned to face them.

  “I’ll let Mr Sandwell know you’re here.”

  In the bright entrance, she saw the man was slight as well as elderly. He obviously wasn’t employed as a protector. She worried for them both, living in this remote location. She hoped there was someone a little more youthful on hand.

  She took in her surroundings as she half-watched the man disappear towards the back of the house. It felt like she had stepped back a hundred years in time. The large entrance hall was painted white and had a beautifully tiled floor. An ornate timber staircase in the centre provided access to the left and right of the upper floor. There were several timber-panelled doors leading off the ground-floor space. She imagined a large library with leather wingback chairs behind one of them. She glanced at Helen, trading raised eyebrows at the time warp they’d walked into.

  Looking across the vast space, she watched as Helen arched her back—fatigued from the long drive, she guessed—and stared at the ornate ceiling above them.

  “Nice bust,” she offered playfully from across the room.

  Helen’s head snapped back in her direction, a look of surprise on her face.

  Grinning at the reaction she’d gotten, she nodded to the white ceramic bust of a woman behind Helen, just to the right of the staircase.

  “Nice bush.” Helen countered.

  She smiled as she briefly looked down to her crotch before catching the mischievous look that danced in Helen’s eyes. “Thanks. I try and keep it pruned.”

  Helen’s eyes darted to a space to her left.

  Oh, the painting. “Right… I thought you had X-ray vision for a minute.” Apparently, Helen wasn’t one to be outdone. She liked that. Really liked that. She knew she was pushing her luck, but she couldn’t resist a bit of harmless flirting.

  Approaching footsteps prevented her from voicing her inner thoughts of butlers and their supposed criminal behaviour.

  “Mr Sandwell is in the conservatory,” Richard Lees announced by way of explaining their necessary journey through the house. No doubt, his walk had slowed over the years, the urgency of youth long gone.

  “How long have you worked for Mr Sandwell?” Helen asked.

  “Thirty-four years,” he replied.

  “You knew Tommy too?” she asked as they passed along a dark corridor behind the stairs.

  Lees slowed his pace even more. He seemed to want to look at them. “Of course. It broke his parents’ hearts when Tommy vanished.”

  “Why do you think he disappeared?” Helen continued.

  Exiting the dark passageway, they entered what could only be described as a sunroom occupying a small corner of the house. The two exterior walls were made up of windows with large metal stanchions to support the upper floor.

  With his gaze fixed on the route ahead, Lees held his position. “He couldn’t stand the thought of letting his parents down. I remember he was so upset at the thought that they would think he had done it.”

  “Done it?” she asked.

  Richard blinked a couple of times before answering. “Stolen the money,” he offered reluctantly.

  Obviously no secrets in this house. “You don’t think he did it; stole the money?”

  Lees tried to straighten his weary frame. “No. I thought he would come back when it all died down, but…” Lees shrugged his shoulders. “He had a few problems in the past, but he had sorted himself out.” He fixed his stare at the floor, his stature losing its form. He stooped a little before moving towards the large glass door that led to the conservatory.

  She considered the man’s words. Tommy hadn’t been known to the police until the fraud allegations; any earlier problems must have been kept within the family. Which brought up two questions: What were those issues? And—more importantly—how would she find out about them?

  The heat of the conservatory surprised her. Condensation covered the windows that were visible behind a variety of plants lining the long sides of the oblong room. Several rows of tables topped with plants occupied the far end of the room. The curved structure of the roof looked delicate against the cool blue sky beyond.

  She scanned the room for Johnathan Sandwell until a man, whose face she recognised from the file on Tommy, stepped out from behind the distant greenery. As he walked towards them, she could see that he was well dressed, wearing what looked like a smoking jacket atop a white shirt
and patterned cravat. Tall and slim with wire-rimmed spectacles and his grey hair slicked back, he looked elegant despite his elderly years. He was still holding a pair of secateurs in one hand and cuttings from one of his plants in the other. He placed them both on a nearby potting bench before saying something she couldn’t hear to his employee.

  “Mr Sandwell, I’m Chief Inspector Taylor, this is Detective Sergeant Wolfe. We’re from Warner Police station.” Helen took a breath. “Can we sit down?” she asked.

  With a slight wobble in his hands, Sandwell nodded, offering an open hand towards the small suite of wicker furniture on one side of the room.

  “Please.”

  She wondered if Sandwell had ever given up hope for his son. Declaring somebody dead as soon as technically possible seemed so clinical.

  “I’ve ordered us some tea?”

  “Thank you,” she said, taking out her notebook as she took a seat opposite. It finally dawned on her that they were delivering a death notification; she felt the smile disappear from her face.

  “I hope you’re not parched. It might take a while,” he said quietly as they watched Richard shuffle out of the room.

  She caught the warmth in his smile as she made herself comfortable and focused on his enlarged eyes behind the glasses, knowing what Helen had to tell him, she wanted to check his reaction.

  “Sir, I’m very sorry to have to inform you that we’ve found the body of your son, Tommy Sandwell.”

  “In Warner? Where’s that?” he asked with a frown.

  “It’s on the Shropshire border, a few hours from here.”

  She worked hard to keep the smile off her face, knowing exactly how he felt; Warner was in the middle of nowhere, and in many ways a perfect hiding place for Sandy.

  Helen waited for Johnathan Sandwell to nod in reply before continuing. “Tommy had been living in the area for a number of years before he died.”

  If he was surprised, it didn’t show.

  “Tommy was declared dead in August 1996,” Helen said, letting the statement hang in the air.

  “Yes. His mother wanted some closure, and it was necessary for the business. He was due to take over in a few years.” Sandwell shook his head. “When did he die?”

  “Several weeks ago. We’re waiting for more tests to confirm exactly when.”

  Sandwell’s eyes grew even wider behind his thick glasses and he covered his mouth with a shaking hand. She found herself grateful that they were sitting down.

  “Weeks! He was only a couple of hours away all these years? What was he doing there?” Frustration coloured his voice.

  “He did odd jobs now and then, cash-in-hand stuff. He had a few close friends, but he mainly kept off the radar. I became acquainted with him over the last few years and helped him out when I could. He was a good man.”

  “Thank you, Inspector.” Sandwell wiped away a tear.

  She was more than happy for Helen to take the lead as she quietly took notes. This was one interview she had no intention of butting in on. Besides, she didn’t have long to wait for the question that was at the forefront of all their minds.

  “How did he die?”

  Helen took a second to reply. “We think he was hit by a car. The driver failed to report it. No witnesses have come forward so far.” Helen waited few beats before continuing. “His body was found by firemen when they answered a call to a fire at an abandoned house. We were investigating his death when his fingerprints revealed his identity. He was just known as Sandy in Warner. We had no idea of his background.”

  She waited patiently for Helen’s words to be absorbed. The fact that Helen knew Sandy must have made this interview quite difficult for her too.

  A sniff drew her attention back to Sandwell, and she looked up to see him nodding. “Then you learned about the fraud at the company.”

  “Yes,” Helen confirmed. “We need to know about the circumstances of his disappearance. I know it’s a long time ago, but can you tell me when you last saw Tommy?”

  The number of times he must have gone over his last meeting with his son, looking for any hint of what he’d been planning. The fact that Sandy had been alive until very recently had to be a jab to the ribs, but she understood why Helen needed to ask.

  The old man clenched his hands together in his lap. “The day before he went missing, he came here to see us, his mother and me,” he clarified, “after the police released him.”

  “And how did he seem?” Helen asked softly.

  “He was…angry.”

  “Looking through the case file, there didn’t seem to be much evidence against him at the time. Do you think he took the money?”

  Sandwell shook his head. “No. He had access to money if he needed it; he didn’t need to steal it. It never made any sense to me.”

  “Did anyone leave the company under a cloud around the time of the money going missing, or shortly after, maybe?”

  “Not that I can think of. It was a long time ago. You’re better off talking to some of the people that worked with him at the time.”

  “We’re in the process of tracing them,” Helen confirmed.

  “I got the feeling he was involved with someone. He seemed…happy before it all happened. There were odd phone calls that he always ended when someone entered the room. I could be wrong. I mean, no one ever came forward or anything.”

  Married, an affair? She jotted in her notebook.

  “Was he living here at the time?” Helen queried.

  “No. He had a flat a few miles from the factory at the time. He’d moved out a few years before.”

  No doubt cleared out after Sandy was declared deceased.

  “I see. Do you have any of Tommy’s belongings from his flat?”

  Sandwell shook his head. “No. There wasn’t a great deal of personal stuff… He was never very materialistic.”

  “Do you have any questions you want to ask me?”

  Sandwell shook his head. “For the first few years, we were so hopeful, but hope gradually fades. His mother was much more practical. She found a way to move on. I’m not sure I ever did. Maybe now…”

  Helen held a mournful expression. “Thank you for your time, Mr Sandwell. I’m sorry for your loss. We’ll do our best to find out what happened to your son.” She stood, indicating it was time to leave.

  “Thank you, Inspector.”

  Helen pulled a card from her pocket, stretching her arm to hand it to a still seated Johnathan Sandwell. “Here’s my card. If you think of anything else or have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me.”

  The opening of a door behind them made everyone look around, watching as Lees returned, wheeling a small trolley into the room. The uneven tiled floor made the china clatter as it moved towards them.

  “Would you like some tea before you leave?” Sandwell offered.

  “Thank you, Mr Sandwell, but we should get back.” Helen replied.

  “I’ll see you out,” Lees said to the police officers.

  She waited until they were back in the dark corridor before asking any questions. He continued to walk towards the front door, obviously keen to eject them. She had other ideas. “Do you know if Tommy was in a relationship with anyone at the time he disappeared?”

  Richard frowned as he released the catch on the front door. “I’m sorry, I don’t know. He didn’t bring anyone here.”

  Helen smiled. “Okay. Thank you for your help, Mr Lees. Someone will be in touch with Mr Sandwell to make arrangements for Tommy.”

  Richard nodded before closing the door behind them.

  “I guess I should be grateful you didn’t accuse him of running Sandy over.”

  “Who me? Just getting a bit of background info, Guv.”

  “Really.”

  “I’ll drive back, Guv. Give you a break,” she offered a
s they walked towards Helen’s car.

  “Sure?” Helen asked, before she cautiously held out her car keys.

  “Yeah,” She took the keys, knowing she had to be in the driver’s seat to put her plan into action. “Lunch?” She spotted the time on the dashboard as she started the car. “I saw a pub not far from here.”

  “Lead the way.”

  She noted the subdued look on Helen’s face as she plugged in her seatbelt. “I-I think he appreciated what you said about Sandy being a good person.”

  “Thanks.”

  Helen closed her eyes and let her head fall back against the headrest. “It’s the shittiest part of the job,” she said quietly. “And certainly not one I’ve missed since leaving Manchester. Not including Sandy, I’ve only given two notifications here, both due to accidental or natural causes.”

  She slowly directed the car out of the Sandwell estate.

  “Not that it will make you feel any better, but I think you’re very good at it.”

  Helen opened her eyes to look at Kate. “Two compliments in the space of five minutes, Virginia? Have you had a bump on the head?”

  She pursed her lips at Helen’s response. “Let’s put it down to light-headedness due to lack of food.” She didn’t want to mention the fact that they’d left Sandwell’s before getting that cup of tea, on top of missing her morning cuppa at her desk.

  Helen smiled in reply.

  “It’s a shame there aren’t any more old company workers in the area. So far, the others we’ve located are in the opposite direction.”

  “A job for another day,” Helen said.

  In the pub car park, Helen did not miss how Kate quickly manoeuvred the car into a tight space, knowing full well that she was too close to the car beside them for Helen to get out. But she had been expecting this for the last few days. Pulling her cuffs from her pocket, she managed to slap one end on Kate’s wrist as she undid her seatbelt. Quickly, she secured the second cuff to the steering wheel, trapping Kate in the car.