To Die Alone

by John Dean

  ‘To follow him out of town and run him off the road. Listen,’ said Ross, looking increasingly anxious, ‘I may have done some bad things in my life but I did not kill him.’

  ‘I believe you,’ nodded Harris. ‘See, we know about the woman.’

  ‘You do?’ Ross looked relieved.

  ‘Yes, we do. Where did you see her first?’

  ‘She was driving behind Meredith’s car. When he broke down she drove past. I thought nothing of it at first but just as I was about to pull in, I noticed that she had done the same thing a bit further up the road. Something did not seem right so I went past her car all innocent like then backed into a gateway round the corner. By the time I got going they were both out of sight. Took me ages to catch up.’ He gave a slight smile. ‘I’m not exactly the fastest of walkers. Not really my scene.’

  ‘But you saw them both later?’

  ‘Not together. I saw her coming towards me. Hid in the trees until she had gone. I noticed that she was carrying a knife and I guessed what she had done.’

  ‘And then?’ asked Harris.

  ‘I went up to the copse and found Meredith. He was still alive. His breathing was very shallow, mind, and he kept making this gurgling sound. His dog was standing next to him and the bloody thing takes one look at me and goes berserk. Starts growling and snarling then it goes for my dog. Fought the bloody thing to a standstill.’ Ross shook his head in admiration. ‘Fought like a tiger. He would have been magnificent in the ring.’

  Harris scowled.

  ‘I assume it was you who shot him later?’ he asked.

  ‘Yeah, he were too badly injured to go on. Seemed like the kindest thing to do.’ Ross gave a half smile. ‘You’ve got to show them some kindness, haven’t you?’

  Harris looked at him bleakly.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Shortly after four that afternoon, the woman in the dark glasses approached the booking-in desk at Manchester Airport. The two Customs men standing nearby watched in silence as she stood for a few moments, glancing nervously about her as she waited for the queue to advance. Unseen by the woman, one of the officers took a faxed photograph out of his pocket and studied it for a few moments. He looked across at his colleague and nodded, and together they walked slowly towards her.

  ‘Would you accompany us, please, madam?’ said one of the men, taking hold of her arm.

  ‘Why?’ protested the woman as other passengers turned to watch the confrontation. ‘I have done nothing wrong. You have—’

  ‘Please do not make a fuss,’ said the Customs officer calmly. ‘Let’s do this nice and quietly, shall we?’

  ‘I don’t know what….’ began the woman angrily, but her voice tailed off as she saw a figure emerge from behind the check-in desk and walk along the queue towards her.

  ‘Hello, Gaynor,’ said Harris, glancing down at her luggage. ‘A strange time to be going on holiday with your husband at death’s door, is it not?’

  With a cry of anger, Gaynor Thornycroft wrenched free from the Custom man’s grasp and started to run across the hall, heading for the nearest exit, but found her way blocked by Gallagher. She veered to her left and started to run towards the other exit only to see a couple of uniformed police officers emerging to stand between her and safety. Whirling round, she saw Matty Gallagher walking over to her.

  ‘Now where,’ said the sergeant, ‘would you be going?’

  It was shortly after seven that evening and Harris and his sergeant were sitting in the interview room at Levton Bridge, Gaynor Thornycroft eying them balefully from the other side of the desk, the duty lawyer sitting alongside her with a glum look on his face. He had experienced enough run-ins with Jack Harris over recent days to view the forthcoming interview with dread.

  ‘This had better not take long,’ said a furious Gaynor. ‘I did not kill Trevor Meredith and when I get out of here—’

  ‘The United States is a long way from Roxham Hospital,’ said Harris calmly, glancing down at the airline ticket lying on the desk.

  ‘I had to get away. I could not stand it any more. Do you know what it’s like being cooped up like that?’

  ‘I take it that James was not aware of your little plan?’ asked Harris.

  ‘Plan? What plan?’ she snapped.

  ‘Please don’t take me for a fool, Gaynor,’ said Harris, voice hard edged now. ‘There’s enough people tried to do that over the past week. Besides, Barry Ramsden has confirmed what’s been happening. Positively eager to help, he was, wasn’t he, Sergeant?’

  ‘Certainly seemed to be once he realized what we knew. That’s civic duty for you, I guess. I think it’s called damage limitation.’

  Gaynor Thornycroft looked at them, her face a mask of confusion.

  ‘I really do not know what you are talking about,’ she said, glancing at the lawyer. ‘None of this is making any sense at all.’

  ‘Do you plan to charge my client?’ asked the solicitor. ‘Because at the moment I am not quite sure why she is here.’

  ‘Then let me enlighten you,’ said Harris, glancing down at another document lying on the desk. ‘Five years ago, a new housing estate was built on the edge of town. The one on which Barry Ramsden now lives, oddly enough. Very pleasant it is, too. Mock-Tudor some of them and people tell me that the most expensive houses there go for the thick end of five hundred thousand.’

  Gaynor Thornycroft eyed him uneasily.

  ‘Several months ago,’ continued Harris, ‘the same developer, a fairly small firm from Roxham actually, decided that with the housing market starting to pick up, it would like to expand the estate: as we all know, Levton Bridge is a very desirable place to live. However, to make that happen, it needed to buy the adjoining land. There was a problem, though, because the dog sanctuary stands on the site in question. Doing OK so far, Gaynor?’

  She stared down at the desk but said nothing.

  ‘So,’ said Harris, ‘they made an offer to the directors of the company which runs the place. They were all for it. Why would they not be? See, they realized pretty quickly that constructing a new sanctuary elsewhere would not cost much more than a million and the land was worth what, Sergeant?’

  ‘Two and a half mill.’

  ‘So?’ protested the lawyer. ‘Surely none of them would benefit because under the rules of the not-for-profit company they cannot receive payouts.’

  ‘Indeed they can’t,’ nodded Harris. ‘Which is why they established a secret fund into which the additional money would be paid. Everyone won, the town got a new sanctuary, the developer got his site and they got a nice payback for all their commitment to the dogs down the years. And who knows – it might even be lawful in the hands of a clever solicitor.’

  ‘All very interesting but what does this have to do with my client?’

  ‘Ah, well,’ said Harris, leaning forward in his chair, ‘that is when it gets interesting. You will recall that some months ago, a rumour started circulating that the sanctuary was to be closed. The directors were horrified and stamped it out pretty quickly, a denial in the local paper, putting right anyone they heard spreading the gossip, that sort of thing. Trouble is, one of the people who heard the story was Gaynor Thornycroft.’

  ‘So?’ asked the solicitor.

  ‘During one of our interviews with Gaynor, she let slip that she had lived here as a child. I didn’t remember her and we did not really pick up on the significance of it at first. A lot of people try to pretend they don’t come from here. For some reason, people don’t like Levton Bridge.’

  Harris glanced at Gallagher, who gave a rueful smile.

  ‘When we checked her background, we discovered that her father was a man called Matthew Grainger,’ said the inspector. ‘Then I remembered him. He used to run an antiques shop in East Street. You might remember him as well.’

  Harris looked at the solicitor.

  ‘I bought some stuff at Grainger’s,’ nodded the lawyer. ‘Nice man, a bit old school. A real gentleman, m
ind.’

  ‘And a successful one to book. However, in time he decided that Levton Bridge was too small for his ambitions.’ Harris glanced at Gallagher. ‘A lot of people feel that. Anyway, he relocated to Liverpool. A big city centre shop. Unfortunately, the move was a disaster. The recession hit, his health failed and the business went bust. Matthew Grainger died a poor man. Am I still right, Gaynor?’

  She nodded, tears glistening in her eyes.

  ‘However, he did leave one thing of value, didn’t he? Or rather, you thought he had.’

  She said nothing.

  ‘I will answer that for you as well, then,’ said Harris. ‘It turns out that Matthew had always loved dogs and when he lived up here, he heard about the idea to create a re-homing centre and wanted to be involved. His business was doing well in those days, very well indeed, and he donated some money to help buy the site where the sanctuary stands. When his company eventually collapsed, Matthew managed to keep this arrangement secret from his creditors so no one tried to make a claim against the sanctuary. Honourable to the last. His wife having predeceased him, any claims to the land passed down to his daughter. The only thing he was able to leave you, Gaynor, a little nest egg. How I am doing?’

  She said nothing but they could see her battling the tears, her shoulders heaving with the effort.

  ‘So,’ said Harris, ‘when she heard the rumour that the land might be sold, she saw her chance of bailing herself out of her financial difficulties. She approached the directors demanding a cut of whatever they made from the sale.’

  ‘Have you got any evidence of this?’ asked the lawyer.

  Harris held up the document.

  ‘We didn’t have until the good sergeant here persuaded the bank manager down at Roxham to open his safety deposit box,’ he said.

  Gaynor looked at the inspector in shock.

  ‘That’s confidential,’ she protested.

  ‘In a murder inquiry, nothing is confidential,’ said Harris.

  ‘What is it?’ asked the lawyer.

  ‘It is a letter written by Matthew Grainger shortly before his death and given to his daughter. In it, he chronicles what he claims was a verbal agreement with the directors that he, or his heir in the case of his death, receive a cut of the sale. How am I doing, Gaynor? Still right?’

  She glowered at him.

  ‘During the discussions that followed,’ continued Harris, ‘the directors initially refused to acknowledge the letter, but when Gaynor said she would go public, they backed down pretty quickly. None of them wanted to be seen as money-grabbers. All except one of them – our friend Trevor Meredith, who refused to acknowledge the validity of the claim and said they should not give in to blackmail, a stance which he refused to soften. One can only guess at his motives but one imagines that the last thing he wanted was Gaynor stealing part of his share. Am I guessing right, Gaynor?’

  She said nothing.

  ‘Anyway,’ said the inspector, ‘a week ago, the developer loses patience with the delays and says that he’s going to look elsewhere. In desperation, the directors make a final approach to Trevor. He says they can go ahead and sign the deal but that he still will not countenance Gaynor getting any of the money. Our Gaynor could see her money disappearing. How much was it, as a matter of interest?’

  ‘I would have made half a million pounds,’ she said quietly.

  ‘A tidy sum, but none of it would happen without Trevor agreeing – according to Barry Ramsden, the directors were prepared to reject the offer for the land rather than be unmasked as moneygrabbers. Standing in the community, it’s a terrible thing. However, there was a get-out clause in all of this. You knew, because your husband had told you, that Radford was after Meredith and that gave you an idea. I assume there was a deadline for the sale of the land?’

  ‘The developer gave us until tomorrow morning,’ nodded Gaynor. ‘The contracts were ready and the money would have been paid over on Tuesday.’

  ‘Which got you thinking. You realized that if Trevor were to die, the problem would be solved. And because James had told you what was happening, you knew that there were plenty of people would like to see Meredith dead. Even if he was murdered, everyone would simply put it down to Radford’s doing – he’s got plenty of form for such things, after all – or maybe a falling out with our friend Garratt, a man with a record of violence and even murder. Who would suspect a respectable woman like you, and a grieving wife to boot? And, by the time anyone had worked it out, you and your money would have been long gone anyway.’ Harris glanced down at the airline ticket lying on the desk. ‘To Los Angeles, no less. Very nice.’

  Gaynor glowered at the detectives.

  ‘We even know why you did it,’ said Harris, taking a document out of his jacket pocket. ‘Your husband was about to be declared bankrupt. You would have lost the new house, the one thing you had left. You needed money and you needed it fast, Gaynor, and I suspect that by that stage, it did not really matter who got in your way.’

  ‘Trevor Meredith was a bastard,’ said Gaynor in a voice infused with anger, surprising the detectives with the sudden vehemence of her response after listening in virtual silence. ‘Everything bad that ever happened to us could be traced down to that man. He was the one who introduced James to wildlife trafficking in Zaire, he was the one who got him gambling; he was the one who persuaded him to buy that crappy vet’s practice up here and he was the one who persuaded him to get back into smuggling the animals again. Trevor Meredith ruined my life, Chief Inspector, ruined it, I tell you.’

  ‘I really must….’ began the solicitor, but she waved away his attempts to speak.

  ‘Now here he was doing it again. Threatening to take away the only security I had, the one thing my father left me.’ She was battling with emotion now. ‘He was a decent man, Inspector, it never even crossed his mind that they would not honour his agreement if the land was sold. Do you know my father’s last words before he died? “Be happy”. With that money, I could have been happy, started a new life, a fresh start, without my feckless husband. And Trevor Meredith? Trevor Meredith was going to ruin it all. And for what? Greed, that’s what.’

  ‘Pot or kettle?’ said Harris.

  She did not reply but sat there, trembling slightly as silence settled on the room for a few moments.

  ‘So how did you kill him?’ asked Harris.

  ‘Look,’ said the solicitor, ‘I really do think—’

  ‘No,’ said Gaynor. ‘Let me tell him. He knows anyway.’

  The lawyer shrugged and sat back in his seat.

  ‘I could never have imagined how easy it was,’ said Gaynor, with a slight smile as she regained her composure. ‘I followed him when he left his house. My plan was to get ahead of him and pretend to break down so he would stop and help me. Then he pulled off the road and I decided to follow him over the hills. I followed him to the copse. Gave him a final choice, change his mind or face the consequences. Showed him the knife but all he did was laugh in my face.’

  ‘So you stabbed him?’

  She nodded.

  ‘When he saw I was serious, he tried to get the knife off me and we struggled for a few moments. Then his bloody dog went for me so I stabbed Trevor and got out of there as fast as I could.’ She gave the detectives an odd look, her eyes flashing anger.’ And do you know what I felt when that knife went in…?’

  Harris shook his head.

  ‘I enjoyed it, Inspector. I enjoyed killing the bastard.’

  Suddenly, Jack Harris felt very tired.

  EPILOGUE

  Two days later, shortly after eleven in the morning, the inspector stood in the graveyard of Levton Bridge’s parish church. Sun filtered through the trees and the birds sang as the mourners drifted away after the body of Trevor Meredith had been lowered into its grave. Matty Gallagher walked across to where the inspector was standing.

  ‘Strange occasion,’ said the sergeant. ‘Poor old vicar did not know what to say.’

  �
�What can you say?’

  ‘I suppose.’

  The detectives watched as Jasmine Riley detached herself from a group of mourners and walked across the grass towards them, supporting her mother who was walking with the aid of a stick.

  ‘How’s your leg, Mrs Riley?’ asked the chief inspector.

  ‘It’s getting better. Thank you for what you did.’

  ‘It was no trouble.’

  ‘Will that awful Garratt man be sent to prison, Inspector?’

  ‘It’s a long story,’ said Harris.

  For a few moments nobody spoke, then Jasmine looked at the inspector.

  ‘I’m glad Trevor didn’t die alone,’ she said. ‘I’m glad Robbie was there.’

  Harris nodded. There was another silence than Jasmine looked at him.

  ‘Can I ask you a question?’ she asked.

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Trevor did try to stop the dog fighting, didn’t he? I mean, he was genuine about that, wasn’t he?’

  ‘Who knows what his motivation was?’

  ‘But it’s possible,’ said Jasmine. ‘I mean, it is possible, yes?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ said Harris.

  ‘So do you think he was a good man, Inspector? I mean, at least in some way?’

  Harris looked at her, saw the hopeful, almost pleading, expression on her face, and knew what he had to say to ease the suffering of a woman struggling to come to terms with what had happened. Even if what he said helped only a little, Jack Harris knew the right thing to say. Knew what she wanted to hear.

  ‘No, Jasmine,’ he said instead, ‘on balance I don’t think he was.’

  As the inspector turned and walked away, Jasmine shot a distressed look at Gallagher, but the sergeant simply shrugged and followed his boss. As Harris walked out of the graveyard and towards his Land Rover, his mobile phone rang. Looking down, he saw the name Ged Maynard on the read-out and frowned.

  ‘Ged,’ he said, taking the call. ‘How’s it—?’

  ‘I hear you got Radford.’

  ‘Yes, Ged, yes we did. Word is they are going to throw the book at him. Apparently, there’s guys falling over themselves to save themselves by stitching him up.’