Stick or Twist

by Diane Janes

  It was the perfect cue, he thought. But do you see me as part of that future? He was about to frame the words when his phone rang. He located it by feel and brought it to his ear.

  ‘Peter Betts … Yes …? OK …’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Just us? Not Ling? … Oh yes, I’d forgotten … I’m not sure how long it’ll take to get there, I’ll have to check … Right.’

  He turned to Hannah, who had raised herself to a proper sitting position and was looking at him enquiringly. ‘Developments in Cornwall. Ling wants me to go down there.’

  ‘I want to come.’

  ‘He’s sending me and McPartland.’

  ‘That’s not fair. It was you and I who did the original review – and came up with the new evidence.’

  Peter hit a couple of buttons on his phone, then waited for a reply.

  ‘McMahon wants to come too. It seems only right … She’s the one who made the breakthrough in the first place. If it hadn’t been for her, we’d still be taking the Thackeray kidnap at face value … OK.’ He turned back to Hannah. ‘He’s checking with Lingo and ringing me back. Made some smart alec crack about pillow talk.’

  ‘Who cares?’ Hannah sprang off the sofa. ‘One way or another, I’m coming with you, whatever Lingo says about it.’

  FIFTY-THREE

  Introductions had been made, pleasantries and professional courtesies exchanged, loos offered and coffees ordered. Time to get down to business.

  ‘It’s still a developing picture,’ DI Treffry said. ‘As you know, it took us a day to get anything out of him at all, but then he suddenly started to talk and he hasn’t stopped since. So far, everything he’s told us has stacked up. One deceased male with gunshot wounds in the house. One deceased female – also gunshot wounds – in a field not far from the house and finally, one male with serious injuries found on the beach and airlifted to the Royal Cornwall Hospital, where he’s yet to regain consciousness.’

  ‘Do they think he will?’ Hannah asked.

  ‘Who can say? You know what doctors are like – you can never get a straight answer out of any of them.’

  ‘Obviously you’re very welcome to go down and take a look at the crime scenes, once SOCO have finished. Can’t say how long that’s liable to take either at this stage. Big area, no clearly defined perimeters and resources cut back to the bone. We haven’t formally interviewed our Mr Medlicott yet. Doctor’s examined him and pronounced him fit, and the murders are on our patch, but in the light of the circumstances, we’ve held fire until you got here.’

  ‘Much appreciated.’ Peter put every ounce of sincerity into it. They might all be on the same side, but no one liked to have their toes trampled on by some force from the other side of the country. ‘So can you tell us the story so far: how Medlicott came to be here and what he’s told you?’

  ‘It’s got to be one of the funniest set-ups I’ve ever come across.’ Treffry allowed himself a chuckle. ‘I mean it’s a funny old world, down here in the south west. We’ve had the naked cyclist … didn’t that make the news up your way? No? Oh well, just a local interest story, I suppose. We had the two old biddies who tried to poison one another, after a bust-up over the arrangements for the Women’s Institute Harvest Supper … didn’t hear about that case either, I suppose. There’s the armless body reported floating off Padstow which turns out to be a mannequin – make up your own punch lines for that one … and now this. I mean, it’s not even a traditional love triangle, is it? Given that there were four of them.

  ‘Anyway … our PC Avent is a keen fisherman on her own time. Got a little boat she has, in part shares with her brother, and on mornings when she’s not on duty she goes out to check their pots.’

  ‘Pots?’ queried Hannah.

  ‘Lobster pots. So she’s motoring along, beautiful morning, hardly any swell, and she rounds the headland and spots this little boat in the distance. She can see right away that there’s something not right, so she goes over for a look and finds your Mr Medlicott, waving to her like a madman and trying to control this bloody great inflatable with a single paddle. Obviously he’s very pleased to see her.’

  ‘He didn’t try to get away?’

  ‘Not likely. If you’d been adrift off the Cornish coast in a dinghy, you’d be pleased to see PC Avent rock up, fisherman’s overalls and all. First thing he says to her, is, “Have you got a phone or a radio? I need to talk to a policeman.”’

  ‘That was the first thing he said?’

  ‘According to Avent, yes. So she said, “As it happens, I am an off-duty policewoman.” To which he says, “Yes, of course you are. You would be. Well, I need to report a murder. In fact, several murders.” At which point, Avent decides, judging from the state of the bloke and the way he’s talking, that he’s probably a loony tune, and that it would be safer to have him stay in his own boat, while she gives him a tow back to the harbour: radioing ahead to let us know that she’s bringing him in.’

  ‘Did she have much conversation with him on the way back?’

  DI Treffry regarded Hannah pityingly. ‘Ever tried shouting from one boat to another, when you’re travelling at ten knots, with a diesel engine going full tilt? We’d got officers waiting on the quayside by the time Avent came alongside, but Medlicott didn’t give us any trouble. As soon as he was in the car, he started to talk about these murders again. Said he’d got important information and wanted to speak to “the top man”, as he put it. He was cautioned, obviously, but he didn’t seem to care. Didn’t ask for a lawyer, didn’t take up the option of a phone call. Seemed very anxious about anyone knowing where he was. Said a couple of times, “I’ll be safe here”, as if he thought there was someone coming after him. Trouble was, after dropping it on us that he needed to report some murders – plural – he suddenly said he didn’t know where to tell us to go. Then he said maybe he’d imagined the whole thing. Let on that he couldn’t recall what his name was and asked us if we’d keep hold of him, until he regained his memory. As you can imagine, by now it isn’t just Avent who’s starting to think that he might be a sandwich short of a picnic.

  ‘Needless to say we got in a social worker and a trick cyclist. At this point he shut up altogether. Basically did nothing but drink tea for the next few hours. We didn’t know what to make of it. Nothing on him to say who he was. And then the message from your lot lands on the desk and I went in and put it to him, polite as you like, that he was Mark Medlicott and he just said, “Yes, that’s right”, and he started talking again, as suddenly as he’d stopped.

  ‘The story was a bit of a jumble. Reckons that his wife, Jude, was shot by her brother, Robin Thackeray – though just to confuse matters, he also said that this Robin Thackeray isn’t actually his wife’s brother. Robin Thackeray is also supposed to have shot another man, who Medlicott only knows as Stefan – and by the way claims to have never set eyes on at all. Only knows this Stefan was shot because he heard it happen, apparently. Finally, to stack up the body count one further, he claims that while Robin Thackeray was in the act of attempting to kill him too, they both fell over the cliff, and Robin Thackeray was killed. Of course he’s not correct about that, because when we eventually found the guy on the beach, he was still – just about – alive.’

  ‘Eventually?’

  ‘It took a while, because our friend, Mr Medlicott, reckoned that he couldn’t remember the name of the bloody house, or exactly where it was.’

  ‘Useful memory lapse?’

  ‘He seemed genuine enough. Tried hard to describe how you got to the place and looked at maps with us, trying to pinpoint it. We knew where Avent had picked him up and there aren’t that many deserted beaches and hilltop cottages along that stretch of coast, but it caused a bit of a delay.’

  ‘And he hasn’t gone into any more details yet?’

  ‘Not yet. But if you’re ready to go, we’ll fetch him into the interview room and get started. I’ve offered him the services of a local solicitor, Mr Carveth, because it keeps us covered.
Weird thing, Medlicott wasn’t keen. Said, “I can’t afford to pay for a solicitor.” I said, “If that’s so, then I expect Legal Aid will probably pay for you.”’

  ‘What’s his status? He isn’t under arrest, is he?’ asked Peter.

  ‘Here voluntarily, helping with enquiries. Most people’s first question is how long we’re going to keep them here, but he’s just the opposite. Doesn’t want to leave. He’s an oddball, is our Mr Medlicott.’

  Mark Medlicott was waiting for them in the interview room, dressed in a white paper suit. His blonde hair was badly in need of attention from a comb. As the officers entered he stood up and shook hands with each of them. His solicitor, Mr Carveth, shuffled belatedly to his feet and proffered his own hand, as if the unexpectedly enthusiastic level of courtesy displayed by his client had put him under an obligation to offer the same.

  They went through the appropriate preliminaries, all identifying themselves for the tape, shuffling into chairs which had to be positioned at awkward angles, with rather too many officers crammed into an inadequate space.

  ‘We are investigating the deaths of two individuals and the serious injuries sustained by a third,’ DI Treffry said portentously, like a narrator, embarking on the prologue of a Shakespearian drama. ‘We would like you to tell us, in your own words, what you know about these incidents.’

  The man in the white paper suit nodded. He folded his hands together on the table in front of him, looked at Treffry, down at his hands, back at Treffry and then down again. At last he looked up and, taking in the room at large, opened with the words, ‘I’m sorry, I don’t seem to know where to start.’

  ‘How about you start right at the beginning.’ Treffry managed to sound a lot kinder and more patient than he actually felt.

  Observing from a corner of the room, Hannah was struck by how pathetic the guy looked. This was not merely someone who had come through a frightening ordeal. This was a man who had suffered a crushing defeat of some kind and was now utterly lost.

  ‘I don’t know …’ Medlicott continued to hesitate. ‘It starts with my needing the money, I suppose. And that starts from deciding not to go into the business … with my father and my brothers. Bad decisions. Always bad decisions. There was this other girl, you know. Poppy. Lovely girl. Rode in point-to-points. I think something could have come of it, if I’d stayed in Yorkshire. She’s married to some other chap now. Farmer of sorts …’ He trailed into silence. ‘This isn’t what you want to know about. I can see that, of course – but it’s context, you see. I want you to understand … how it all started … where it all began …’

  Catching Treffry’s eye, and sensing his assent, Peter said, ‘Suppose you tell us about meeting Jude Thackeray? Would that be a good place to start the story from, at least for now?’

  ‘Yes.’ Mark nodded. ‘Jude Thackeray. I met her at a race meeting in May. Newmarket. The Two Thousand Guineas. I recognized her face from the papers and I engineered it so that we’d be introduced. I started dating her. I won’t pretend that I loved her. It was a sordid business. I needed to get married, you see – to someone who had money – because of Chaz.’ He paused to look around the circle of faces, as if he half expected recognition of the name, but when he got no reaction, he went on. ‘What I didn’t realize was that she …’ He broke off, shaking his head. ‘It just sounds so crazy … I can’t see how anyone is ever going to believe me.’

  Peter Betts leaned forward a fraction. ‘We know far more about Jude Thackeray than you realize, Mark. Just keep talking. There’s every chance that we’ll believe you.’

  FIFTY-FOUR

  ‘I wish a few more of our cases required close liaison with our brother officers in Devon and Cornwall.’ Peter positioned his fork and spoon neatly on his empty dessert plate and lifted his napkin to his mouth. ‘That’s the best meal I’ve had in ages.’

  ‘If we can hang things out long enough tomorrow,’ said Hannah, with more than a hint of sarcasm, ‘you might have time to fit in a clotted cream tea.’

  ‘We’re booked into separate rooms,’ he said, unnecessarily.

  ‘That would be because colleagues of the opposite gender are not generally assumed to be sharing.’

  ‘Mine’s a single room.’

  She laughed. ‘Bad luck. I’ve got a double.’

  They were interrupted by the waitress arriving with their coffee. When she had gone, Peter said, ‘It will be interesting to see what turns up about this Chaz Bingham character.’

  ‘Mark Medlicott seems terrified of him.’

  ‘After what the bloke’s just been through, I’m not surprised. He’s probably terrified of his own shadow.’

  As she sipped her coffee he glanced around the almost empty hotel restaurant. It was the sort of place frequented by business travellers as well as tourists. If there had been more time, he would have tried to find somewhere a bit less corporate, a bit more romantic for them to eat, but by the time they had finished at police headquarters, it had been too late to be sure of getting a table anywhere else.

  There had never been much opportunity for nights out, romantic meals. Their relationship had not taken a normal course, with flirtatious preliminaries. It seemed as if they had fallen into bed at the end of a working day, got up to go to work together next morning and carried on from there.

  ‘Do you fancy going on holiday?’ he asked.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I said, do you fancy going on holiday?’

  ‘With you?’

  ‘No with your netball team! Of course with me.’

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘Anywhere. Cornwall. Crete. The Caribbean. Places that don’t even begin with the letter C.’

  ‘You’d fry in the Caribbean. All that fair skin.’

  He noticed that she wasn’t answering the question. Presumably the netball team option seemed preferable. When she didn’t need him anymore, he would have to take it on the chin, as Granny Mina would have put it. The best thing would be to seek a transfer. It would be too hard, if he had to be confronted by a Hannah who had moved on, found someone she really cared for, maybe started that family she secretly longed for. Why was it so hard to say the things you most needed to say? Probably, Peter thought, it was more a case of putting off the moment, because that avoided having to hear the answers that you didn’t want to receive.

  As she lifted her coffee again, her almond-shaped eyes met his over the rim of the cup and he was unexpectedly reminded of Granny Mina’s eyes as she watched him over a hand of fanned-out cards. ‘What’s it to be? Stick or twist?’ That old sense of excitement and uncertainty, of choosing to take a card, not knowing whether it would spell triumph or disaster, until you turned it over and learned your fate.

  Now or never. He reached across the table with both hands and clasped the set of fingers which were not involved with the coffee cup. ‘I’ve been thinking,’ he said, ‘about my empty flat. It’s been amazing these last few weeks with you …’

  He stopped abruptly when he saw that her eyes appeared to be watering. Yes, there was no doubt about it. Tears had emerged and were already leaving parallel tracks down her cheeks. ‘Hannah – what’s wrong?’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ She relinquished the coffee cup and eased her other hand from between his, in order to fumble in her bag for a tissue. ‘I’m really sorry,’ she mumbled. ‘I promised myself that I wouldn’t do this.’

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Make a fool of myself. Make it awkward for you, when the time came.’

  ‘Why? What? What are you talking about?’

  ‘It’s probably better if you don’t say anything. I know you mean to let me down gently, but …’ She had to stop in order to blow her nose, which seemed inclined to join her eyes in the operation of manufacturing unwanted moisture.

  He had feared a whole variety of possible reactions and rejections, but he had not expected her to start crying. He could see that their waitress and a couple at another table had noticed something amiss a
nd were covertly observing what had all the appearances of a romantic date gone badly wrong.

  ‘Hannah …’ He lowered his voice. He was no good at this sort of thing and now he’d attracted an audience. ‘I didn’t mean … well, what I wanted to say …’ Oh, for goodness sake – what did he want to say? Why wouldn’t anything remotely sensible or coherent come out of his mouth?

  ‘You mentioned your empty flat,’ she prompted, dabbing her eyes again.

  ‘I was going to say that it’s a waste,’ he said, ‘keeping two places on.’ He looked at her carefully, trying to divine encouragement. ‘The thing is, Hannah … The thing is …’

  ‘What, Peter?’ Her sense of humour was bubbling back. She was on the edge of laughter as she asked, ‘What – exactly – is the thing?’

  ‘The thing is, McMahon, that I don’t want to move back to my flat, because I prefer living with you. I strongly suspect that I’ve fallen in love with you. The evidence all points that way on my side, but you keep giving off these other signals.’

  ‘What other signals?’

  ‘You keep on stressing that everything is a temporary arrangement. You won’t even let me meet your family …’

  ‘Only because I didn’t want them to scare you away. I’m mad about you, you idiot. I have been for ages, but I thought you were only sleeping with me out of kindness. As for my family, at the first whiff of romance my mum and my granny will be all for making us an appointment to see Father Joseph at St Ignatius.’

  ‘I wouldn’t necessarily have a problem with that. I mean, I’d be fine with my son being brought up a Catholic, so long as he wasn’t being brought up as an Ipswich supporter.’

  FIFTY-FIVE

  Mark took a last look around the room before picking up his case. He had found sanctuary here, closeted from the outside world. Beyond the walls of the house, he knew that he was an object of notoriety, and constantly imagined himself being pointed out. People turning to one another and saying, ‘That’s Mark Medlicott. The bloke who was mixed up with that double murder in Cornwall. Funny business. Can’t make head nor tail of it myself.’