The Pact

by Roberta Kray

More like sleeping nights, Eddie thought. He’d stumbled across Charlie’s limp snoring body on many an occasion, curled up in the back of his car. Had the man ever done a whole night’s surveillance awake? He doubted it. Still, this wasn’t the time to start discussing his work ethic.

  ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Lunch it is. Get in.’

  Eddie waited until he’d fastened his seatbelt and the car was edging out into the traffic before he laid down the conditions. ‘Pizza okay for you?’ And before Charlie had time to suggest a more expensive alternative, he added, ‘Take it or leave it. It’s too early for most places and the Chief Constable’s on an economy drive.’

  If Charlie was disappointed he didn’t show it. ‘I can live with pizza.’

  Eddie drove past the office, hoping that Clark wasn’t peering out through the window. Hopefully, judging by the state he’d been in, he’d still be pacing the floor, wearing a hole in that deep pile carpet.

  ‘Couldn’t help noticing,’ he said.

  Charlie glanced at him.

  ‘Bit of strife,’ Eddie continued, ‘on the doorstep, there. You not getting along with that boss of yours?’

  But Charlie May knew better than to give away even the smallest piece of information before he had his arse firmly seated on a chair and a menu in his hands. He turned his head and stared out through the window.

  The restaurant Pizzeria was as bland as its name, a large anonymous space with regimented rows of formicatopped tables. A deep blue utility carpet covered the floor and splattered across the walls were the kind of framed pictures that looked like they’d been pulled from a free magazine. Its one redeeming feature – other than its cheapness – was that it was relatively quiet. Caught in that lull between morning coffee and lunch, only a few other tables were occupied.

  Eddie chose a place well away from the window.

  ‘So,’ he said, after the food had been ordered. He leaned back and took a sip of his Coke, the ice cubes rattling uncomfortably against his dentures. ‘What’s going on then – the boss catch you sleeping on the job again?’

  ‘Nah,’ Charlie said, not even bothering to pretend to be indignant. ‘Not supposed to be here, am I? Got packed off to the bright lights last week. Short-staffed at the London office, he said, everyone down with the flu, in need of some extra hands. So off I go, and the missus is none too pleased, I can tell you – she likes to know where I am on a night, even if I am on a job – and bugger me, when I get there …’ He paused to take a long slurp of lager. ‘Well, they don’t look too short-staffed to me, in fact the very opposite and there’s sod all to do except a pile of paperwork and you know me, Eddie, I don’t like to be confined in four walls, I like to be out on the street and—’

  ‘So you came back?’ Eddie prompted. He had a feeling this might turn into a long story if he didn’t nudge it along.

  ‘Just for the weekend. I mean, where’s the harm in that? I mean, yeah, I’m supposed to be on call in case anything urgent comes up but I got one of the other lads to cover for me. And so I’m planning on heading back this afternoon but first I nip into the office to see Janey – I’ve got some expenses due and I could do with the readies, you know, cause it ain’t cheap in London and—’

  Eddie interrupted again. ‘And Paul Clark wasn’t best pleased?’

  ‘Threw a right old wobbler, didn’t he? Said when he sent me someplace I was expected to stay there, not come sneaking back the minute his back was turned. Sneaking, that’s what he called it. As if I don’t have the right to grab a few hours with the wife and kids.’ He swallowed half the pint in one aggrieved draught. And then, because even the effort of holding a grudge was too much for him, he put the glass back down on the table and laughed. ‘Maybe he’s got that executive whatsit – stress! Do you reckon?’

  ‘More likely he just can’t stand the sight of your ugly mug.’

  Charlie laughed again.

  The waiter arrived with the food and they both kept quiet until after he had left. Eddie stared at the monstrosity Charlie had ordered, some kind of giant meatfest piled high with spicy beef and pepperoni. He had gone for the more restrained ham and pineapple himself, a choice that made him feel faintly virtuous although he wasn’t entirely convinced that it counted towards the five-a-day recommended intake of fruit and veg. Cholesterol levels, however, were the least of his problems. He was still trying to figure out why Paul Clark wanted to keep one of his employees out of the way – not to mention how another had ended up with his head caved in.

  ‘How well did you know Ivor Patterson?’

  ‘Ah, bad business that,’ Charlie said. He made a sucking noise between his teeth and then took a large bite of his pizza and chewed on it purposefully. Although the tone of his voice was sorrowful, the event didn’t seem to have affected his appetite. ‘You caught the bastard yet?’

  ‘We’re working on it.’ And as he hadn’t directly answered the question, Eddie asked it again, rephrasing it slightly. ‘You friendly with him then?’

  ‘Nah, not friendly, I couldn’t say that exactly. He was more of … well, a colleague I suppose you’d call it. Never saw him outside work. We didn’t drink together, anything like that.’

  Eddie sensed the evasion and pounced on it. ‘You didn’t like him?’

  A wary gleam entered Charlie’s eyes. He tilted his head to one side while he considered his response. ‘Not especially,’ he said. ‘He kept himself to himself, didn’t mix much. I didn’t trust him. But in case you’re asking what I think you’re asking then no, I didn’t kill the poor sod.’

  ‘Well, that’s a relief,’ Eddie said drily. ‘Or I’d be the one stuck with the paperwork all afternoon.’ He took another sip of his Coke. ‘You saying he was bent?’

  ‘I’m not saying anything. The guy’s dead, isn’t he? Not down to me to cast aspersions.’

  Charlie, for all his faults – sloth being only the prime example – had a strong moral streak. It might not extend to giving value for money in the workplace but it precluded many of the sleazier sidelines of his profession. Private investigators were paid to snoop and as a result often stumbled on information they could use as much to their own advantage as their client’s. For an unscrupulous man, there were always opportunities.

  ‘C’mon, Charlie, help me out here. I need some background.’

  ‘What for?’ he asked. ‘I don’t get it. It was a mugging, said so in the papers. The guy’s walking down the street, minding his own business, and gets slammed from behind. Wrong time, wrong place. End of story. Unlucky but it happens. Why do you need to know about …’ His inquiry rolled softly into silence. For the first time he paused in his ceaseless demolition of the pizza. Comprehension dawned on his face. ‘Hey, hang on. Are you …? No, you’re kidding me. You can’t, you don’t … God, you don’t think it was deliberate, do you? You don’t think someone took him out?’

  Eddie shrugged. ‘Maybe. That’s why I’m here.’

  Charlie opened his mouth, revealing an unpleasant meaty mush, and then thankfully closed it again. ‘Shit,’ he murmured.

  ‘I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t explore all the avenues.’ What Eddie failed to mention was that it wasn’t actually his case any more but then, in his experience, it was always the minor details that tended to bog down an investigation. ‘So if there’s anything you can tell me …’

  Charlie reached for his glass and downed the contents in one. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Okay.’ But then he proceeded to stare silently at the empty glass as if his vocal cords, deprived of lubrication, had shrivelled into dust.

  Eddie caught the attention of the waiter and ordered another round. This time he got a beer for himself. He’d intended to stay off the alcohol but decided that he needed something stronger than Coke if he was going to watch Charlie May speaking with his mouth full for the next ten minutes.

  The place was still pretty empty and the drinks were promptly delivered. ‘So?’ he said. ‘What can you tell me?’

  Charlie spea
red a slice of pepperoni with his fork and gazed at it earnestly before sliding it between his lips. ‘I don’t know anything for sure.’

  ‘You’re not in the witness box. Rumour and gossip is just fine with me.’

  As if this attitude was faintly reprehensible, Charlie shook his head and sighed. ‘All I know is what I’ve heard, okay?’

  Eddie nodded. ‘What you’ve heard,’ he repeated patiently.

  ‘Okay, well there was a case, and we’re talking several years ago, when it all went belly-up. It was a divorce, a real cut-and-dried, some rich geezer who was screwing every blonde in town. No names, okay? I’m not going there. But everyone knew about it. I mean we’re not talking any attempts at discretion here, the husband couldn’t keep it in his pants, but when it came to getting evidence Patterson drew a blank. If his notes were anything to go by, the guy was leading a life that would lead him straight through the heavenly gates and into the arms of the Archangel Gabriel. Not a single photo, not one single scrap of evidence that pointed to the guy being anything but Mr Perfect.’

  Eddie picked up a slice of pizza, the congealing cheese leaving a stringy trail behind it. He took a bite while he chewed over what he’d been told. ‘There must be at least two of you though, working these cases? I mean no one can do twenty-four-hour surveillance. Even if he was covering then—’

  ‘Yeah,’ Charlie agreed. ‘Absolutely. But if we’re talking your standard divorce stuff then it’s going to be the guy on the day shift who sees all the action, right? By six o’clock, by seven, the target – unless he/she is off on one of their business jaunts – is gonna be safely back home and tucked up within the loving bosom of the family’

  ‘So you think Patterson tipped him off?’

  ‘That’s the rumour,’ Charlie said. ‘And that he got one almighty thank you for his trouble. Believe me, the client was less than happy.’

  Eddie nodded. It was interesting but flimsy. His nose was running again. He blew into a red serviette, screwed it into a ball, and dumped it on his side plate. ‘Is that it?’

  Charlie frowned at him. ‘I told you. I don’t have any hard facts. It’s only rumour, right, supposition. Just that there were a few other cases that seemed nailed down and then suddenly went walkabout, insurance claims, fraud, nothing too big and never too often.’

  ‘So why did Clark keep him on? He must have suspected.’

  ‘Why do you think? It’s always useful to have someone who owes you – and who knows it.’

  Eddie could see how that might be handy. ‘But he wasn’t working at the time he died, not for Clark anyway. He’d been sick and then he took leave, right?’ Saying the word leave reminded him of Jack Raynor and how he shouldn’t really be here, doing this. And what made it worse was that it looked like Raynor might be right. There was nothing to suggest that Patterson had been involved in anything seriously dodgy; taking the occasional backhander might not be strictly ethical but it was hardly the crime of the century.

  ‘Yeah, Janey said he had the flu.’

  Eddie took a large swig of beer, rinsing out the taste of the cheese. ‘Right.’ Would he go and see Paul Clark as he’d intended to? He wasn’t so sure now.

  ‘Must have come on sudden like.’

  ‘Yeah?’ He was only listening with half an ear. Maybe he’d skip Clark, save the aggro, and get back to the office.

  ‘One minute we’re working on a job together, not even a sniffle, he’s absolutely fine. Next thing he’s too sick to leave the house. And Janey, of course, she believes any old sob story. Never mind that I get stuck with covering his shift.’

  To hear Charlie protesting about someone else swinging the lead made Eddie grin. ‘Some people have no sense of responsibility.’ Then, as a casual afterthought, he added, ‘That the insurance job then? Butler, wasn’t it?’ He recalled Clark handing him the notes, the last case Patterson had worked on.

  ‘Hell, no, that was weeks ago.’

  Eddie had just taken another drink. He spluttered, a thin spurt of beer escaping from his lips and spraying across the table. ‘What?’ He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

  Charlie didn’t repeat it. His eyes immediately grew wary, his tawny brows shifting together in a frown.

  ‘C’mon, don’t go all dumb on me now! What are you talking about? What was the case you and Patterson were working on last?’

  ‘What did Clark tell you?’ he asked evasively.

  ‘Fuck what Clark told me.’ Eddie could feel a surge of adrenalin kicking into his bloodstream. Paul Clark had been lying. He’d known it all along. ‘You tell me!’

  But for a man who normally loved the sound of his own voice, Charlie May wouldn’t be drawn. He gave a tiny shake of his head and, as if searching for the nearest exit, glanced quickly around the room.

  Eddie gave him an incentive. ‘You want me on your back twenty-four hours a day, always looking over your shoulder?’

  ‘You wouldn’t do that, Mr Shepherd,’ he said, perhaps hoping to ingratiate himself by adopting the more respectful title. His voice was wheedling, almost plaintive. ‘You and me, we’ve always rubbed along okay.’

  ‘Just give me a name.’

  ‘You know I can’t. That’s stuff’s confidential. Why don’t you ask Clark?’

  ‘Yeah, maybe I will. And maybe at the same time, just to improve that great mood he’s in, I’ll tell him how often I’ve caught you fast asleep in the back of that clapped-out Mondeo of yours.’

  Charlie pulled a face, his mouth turning sulky. But it didn’t take him long to make up his mind. ‘You didn’t hear it from me, right? I don’t want this coming back like some bloody boomerang.’ Then, as if to justify his decision to talk, he shrugged and said, ‘It wasn’t as if it was any big deal anyway, just a bog-standard surveillance. Divorce job, I reckon, the missus playing around while the old man’s in the nick.’

  ‘It was a woman then?’ Eddie felt a jolt in his chest. And he suddenly knew, even before he heard the name, what was coming. He breathed in deeply, a great gathering of air. He thought of the way the photograph of Patterson had fallen from her fingers. He thought of the file in his drawer, of all those slim threads waiting to be woven together.

  ‘Weston,’ Charlie muttered reluctantly. ‘Eve Weston.’

  Why wasn’t he surprised? He slowly released the breath, a thin wheeze emanating from his lungs. Automatically he reached for his fags before realizing he couldn’t smoke in the restaurant.

  ‘The flats on Herbert Street,’ Charlie added.

  ‘And?’ Eddie tried not to sound too interested while the cogs in his brain began to click and whirr. What had he told Raynor? Two men dead, three if you counted Alex Weston, and all in some way connected to her.

  ‘Not much. I hardly saw her. There was only one time, a Saturday, she came out with some bloke early evening.’ He screwed up his eyes as if trying to picture him clearly. ‘An older geezer, grey hair, specs, suit. In his sixties. And they were friendly like, you know, very cosy.’

  Henry Baxter, Eddie thought instantly. Unless she’d traded him in for a similar model. ‘You get a photo?’

  ‘In the file,’ he said. ‘You’ll have to ask the boss.’

  Eddie nodded. He recalled that office in Covent Garden, that other basement – tidier at least than Patterson’s but no less claustrophobic – and the ageing solicitor who had employed Eve Weston. And not, he suspected, purely for her secretarial skills. If what the son had claimed was true, she’d been taking down more than his letters. Had Patterson found out and tried to screw him over? Had he blackmailed him, threatened to expose their continuing affair?

  He wondered if Henry Baxter had an alibi for the early hours of last Monday morning.

  There was no saying what some men would do to protect their marriages – or their mistresses. Eddie turned the idea over but then dismissed it. It wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility but somehow he couldn’t quite envisage that silver-haired pedant creeping furtively along the stree
t, wielding a cosh and caving in Ivor Patterson’s skull.

  Charlie, like a starving man, stuffed another slice of pizza into his mouth and mumbled, ‘So you think … you think that what happened had something to do with that case?’

  Eddie gave him a long hard look. ‘I doubt it,’ he said. ‘But if I hear any rumours to the contrary I’ll know exactly where they came from.’

  Charlie’s brows shot up. Then, still chewing, his greasy lips crawled into a smile. ‘You know me, Mr Shepherd: the soul of discretion.’

  Eddie pushed away his plate, half the food still uneaten, and looked at his watch. It was time to have a word with that lying git Paul Clark.

  ‘Right,’ he said, getting to his feet. ‘I’d best be off.’

  ‘But—’

  He flapped a hand. ‘Don’t worry. I won’t breathe a word about our little meeting.’

  ‘But Mr Shepherd—’

  ‘See you around.’ Eddie swept up his jacket and, without a backward glance, strode out of the restaurant. It was only when he was in the car and halfway down the road that he realized he’d left Charlie May with the bill.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  By the time Henry got back from his appointment it was after five and Louise had already gone home. He went through the list of messages she had left on his desk, checking to see if anything was important enough to merit his immediate attention. Only one caught his eye: A Mr Shepherd had called three times. It was urgent, she had written in her small neat hand, underlining the word twice. He winced at the unnecessary emphasis. Shepherd? He had no clients by that name.

  It took a moment for it to register and when it did, finally nudged into place by the Norwich phone code, Henry felt a resurrection of the disgust he had experienced on first meeting him. Sergeant Shepherd, the policeman with attitude who had come asking about Eve. He recalled his thick splayed thighs, the ugly leer on his face, and the sly innuendo.

  What did he want? Henry did not believe in the alleged urgency; men like Shepherd always assumed their business was more essential, more pressing than anyone else’s. Well, whatever it was, it could wait. He wasn’t going to call back today.