by Neil White
‘I don’t know, but he’s the one with Harry’s ear, not me.’
Sam tried to think, to work out why Jon would be a threat.
‘I heard him talking with Jimmy King when he was here the other day,’ Alison said, nervously. ‘They mentioned Terry’s case.’
It all came in at Sam in a rush. He felt his hands tremble. Jon Hampson, former senior detective, now a senior clerk at Parsons & Co. He thought about the date of the murder, and how long Jon had been at the firm. He must have retired not long after Terry McKay was arrested for murder, the case left unsolved, no one else suspected. Jon Hampson ended up at Parsons & Co—nothing unusual in that—but it seemed from his lifestyle that he enjoyed a very good income, certainly a lot more than most solicitors’ clerks.
Sam rushed into Jon Hampson’s room. Jon was there, working through some files. Sam was angry, his eyes wild. ‘You knew, didn’t you?’ he shouted accusingly.
‘I knew what?’ Jon stood up, walked towards him.
‘You knew all about Terry McKay.’ As Jon stayed silent, Sam shouted, ‘You bastard. You fucking bastard. You knew all along. And you were watching me, reporting back to Harry.’
Jon didn’t move, so Sam got nearer to him, his breath close enough for Jon to feel the heat. ‘What did you say you wanted, a piece of the pie?’
Jon took a deep breath, and Sam noticed that his cheeks were red.
‘I didn’t really know anything,’ he said quietly. Gone was the brashness from the bar a few days earlier. ‘I had my suspicions. McKay had said something different on the way in to the station. He was drunk though, so we couldn’t have used it. Egan was angry, thought Harry had got him to change his story. We just didn’t know why.’
‘Egan?’
Jon nodded. ‘I wasn’t the SIO. We were both on the team though.’
‘So what did you do?’
Jon looked uneasy. ‘Not much. There was no proof of anything, so I just let Harry think that I knew something. He offered me a job when I retired.’
‘Made you too well-off to say anything?’
Jon smiled unpleasantly.
‘You let him buy your silence,’ accused Sam.
Jon nodded. ‘And worth every penny. I gave most of my waking hours to the police. All I had to show for it was a semi-detached bungalow and a poxy pension, while all the time fat cats like Harry grew richer. Why didn’t I deserve some?’
‘You had something of value,’ Sam said, his voice getting louder, bringing the secretaries out of their rooms. ‘Integrity. A clean conscience.’
Jon sneered. ‘And now I’ve got a holiday home and a nest egg. So go fuck off with your conscience,’ and he stormed out of the room.
Sam was going to follow him, confront him further, but then he realised that it wouldn’t change anything. But maybe Egan would help more.
Sam walked quickly into the cobbled yard of the police station and saw Egan waiting at the back wall, just where he’d said he would be. Sam was panting by the time he reached him.
‘What’s this cloak-and-dagger shit, Mr Nixon? We’re sort of busy right now.’
Sam caught his breath and then said, ‘Me too. I am trying to find my son.’
Egan didn’t respond.
‘Terry McKay was once arrested for murder,’ said Sam. ‘Who do you think did it?’
Sam could see that Egan didn’t want to answer at first, that he didn’t need reminding of which murder it was. After a few seconds of pursing his lips, he said, ‘Terry McKay was the only suspect.’
‘That’s not the question I asked, Inspector.’
‘I’m not in the witness box,’ retorted Egan.
‘You might be, if you don’t help me.’
Egan stared at Sam for a while, and then softened, maybe remembering that Sam’s son was missing.
‘I didn’t think McKay had done it,’ said Egan. ‘Terry McKay is a drunk and he’s a thief, but he is not a murderer. You know what people like him are like. They steal, they get caught, they admit it, and they go to court. They are a nuisance, but just the everyday part of being a copper. I’ve never known him hurt anyone.’
‘So why was he arrested?’
‘We got some information,’ said Egan, a smile flitting across his face. ‘It was enough to lead us to him. He had the purse, and his story was a crock of shite.’
‘Who tipped you off?’
Egan smiled. ‘You know I won’t tell you that.’
Sam guessed straightaway who it had been: someone connected with Jimmy King.
‘But you didn’t charge him.’
‘That wasn’t our decision. That was the CPS. You know how it works.’
‘But everyone thinks he got away with it,’ said Sam.
‘He had an alibi.’
Sam looked surprised. ‘How come?’
‘He was wanted for shoplifting,’ said Egan. ‘It had been caught on CCTV, a booze theft, and had happened at the same time as the murder, but a mile away.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘Whoever called it in, hadn’t counted on that. Maybe they’d seen him sleeping off the stolen sherry later and assumed he had been like that all day.’
‘Who was she, the dead girl?’ asked Sam, his mind busy with what he had just been told.
At that, Egan smirked. ‘Ask your client.’
Sam paused, confused. ‘What do you mean?’
‘She was Luke King’s fiancée. Or, should I say, ex-fiancée. Debbie Harris. She’d dumped him a few weeks before.’
Sam looked up, took some deep breaths. There were too many things coming together.
‘I didn’t know she was Luke King’s girlfriend,’ said Sam quietly.
‘Is there any reason why you should have done?’
Sam shook his head slowly, and then asked, ‘Was he ever a suspect?’
Egan thought for a moment, and Sam could tell that he was thinking back. ‘He had an alibi too.’
Sam raised his eyebrows.
‘Your boss,’ continued Egan. ‘He was at dinner with his family, celebrating some land deal Jimmy had organised. Parsons was there.’
Sam turned away and started to pace as he thought about Harry’s involvement, and what he had been told by Terry McKay. And what Luke King had told him. It was all moving fast now, too fast.
‘I think my son’s disappearance is connected with the King family,’ said Sam eventually.
Egan nodded. ‘I know you do. I can tell that.’
‘Are you looking there?’
Egan hesitated. Sam could tell there was more he could say, but he replied simply, ‘I am not in charge of that investigation.’
Sam looked at the floor, saw that it rippled and moved in front of his eyes. He wasn’t in control, he knew that. He turned to run out of the yard. He wasn’t looking where he was going, and he ran straight into the path of a 1973 Triumph Stag in Calypso Red.
I had to slam the brakes on to avoid Sam Nixon. I stopped just in front of him, his hands resting on the bonnet, a wild look in his eyes.
I put my head out of the window. ‘Sorry about that.’
Sam didn’t respond, he just stared at me through the windscreen.
‘It’s okay, Sam. It’s okay.’ I knew that it wasn’t.
Sam put his head down, his forearms now over the bonnet, so I got out. I glanced at Laura, who had been driving just behind me, and raised my eyebrows. She got out of her car and joined me.
‘What’s going on, Sam?’ I asked.
His eyes looked haunted, his face drained of colour. He didn’t answer.
‘I think Thomas King has something to do with the disappearance of your son,’ I said.
Sam’s eyes started to focus on me, some colour returning to his face. ‘Thomas?’ he asked.
I nodded. ‘Luke’s older brother. He’s a doctor, here in Blackley.’ And then I filled him in on all we had found out over the previous few days, about the dream meetings, about Eric Randle’s paintings, about Jess’s dream diary. He knew some of it, but not the full p
icture.
‘But Luke King told me he’d done it,’ said Sam, lamely.
I glanced over at Laura, and she looked like she had guessed that response. No comment to questions only ever meant one of three things: guilt, or they’d done something even worse, or they were covering for someone else. I looked back at Sam. ‘It looks like he was covering for his brother.’
And then Sam told me the full story of Terry McKay. ‘I thought it was Luke the family were protecting,’ he said. ‘It must have been Thomas all along. Egan just told me that Harry Parsons alibied the whole family when Debbie Harris was murdered. That must have included Thomas.’
‘And, if Terry was right,’ I added, ‘Luke must have given him the purse to set him up, but they didn’t know about the shoplifting. The story about someone else giving Terry the purse was the back-up story, just in case the police believed him and wanted to use him as a witness. It was Harry who told him what to say.’
I looked round at Laura as she asked, ‘But why kill Debbie Harris?’
It was Sam who answered. ‘She’d broken off her engagement to Luke a few weeks before. Luke’s a pathetic person. Maybe he was hurting, maybe he had said that he wished she was dead. Thomas made it all better.’
‘Healing hands,’ I added.
Laura nodded. When Sam looked confused, Laura said, ‘He’s been leaving calling cards with the children when they are returned. Healing hands.’
Sam looked angry. ‘I want to find Thomas King. I want to be there when you find my son.’
‘We have procedures, Sam, you know that,’ said Laura.
‘Fuck procedures.’
‘Come with me,’ I said. And as he climbed into my car, I said to Laura, ‘I’ll keep an eye on him.’ As I pulled away, I saw that Laura was watching me, her hands on her hips. I knew that she wouldn’t be far behind me.
Chapter Fifty-six
We were quiet all the way to Thomas King’s surgery. It was on one of the roads out of Blackley, on the ground floor of a redbrick Victorian semi, the road choked by traffic all around it as rush hour started to take hold. A collection of brass nameplates on the wall gave it away, and the colourful Family Health posters in the window.
As we made our way to the door, I saw Sam straighten his tie.
‘Are you okay?’ I asked him. I cursed myself silently. Silly question.
He looked at me, his reactions slow, and then he shook his head. ‘Not really,’ he said.
I saw Thomas King’s name on one of the brass name-plates before I opened the door into the reception area. It was quiet. The only person in there was an old woman perched on a chair in the corner, with a shopping basket, black PVC on wheels, rested against her knees. She wore a patterned woollen hat and her glasses were thick, which made her eyes look large.
I smiled at her, and her eyes glowed with pleasure as she smiled back.
The receptionist sat behind a high wooden counter, so that she couldn’t been seen, invisible to me until I got right up to her. She looked irritated when I knocked on the counter.
‘I need to see Doctor King,’ I said. ‘I’m a reporter and I would like to ask him some questions.’
Her eyes fluttered nervously and then she gestured towards a seat. ‘Doctor Newby will be out in a couple of minutes.’
‘No, Doctor King,’ I said.
‘Doctor King isn’t here,’ she said, but before I could ask why, she walked quickly into another room. The old woman leaned forwards and said, ‘Doctor King was lovely,’ her smile sweet, painted pink lips hiding the worn yellow of her teeth.
I smiled politely, but Sam turned round and asked, ‘Was?’
The old woman nodded, still smiling. ‘He left. Such a nice man.’ She wiggled her finger playfully. ‘Healing hands, he used to say.’
She chuckled louder this time, her hat bobbing as she shuffled in her seat, but I could tell from Sam’s expression that he and I were both thinking the same thing.
Then a door opened, and a man with a short grey beard and a chisel parting appeared. Doctor Newby, I presumed.
Bruce Newby looked nervous behind his desk. His hands fidgeted as he straightened his tie and brushed his legs. From his purple cheeks and the redness in his eyes, I got the feeling that being a doctor in a small Lancashire town came with more pressures than I expected.
‘Why do you want to speak to Doctor King?’ he asked. He tried to sound confident, but I heard the nervousness.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘but our questions are for him. Why did he leave?’ I smiled politely.
Doctor Newby looked to his right, as if some help might miraculously appear on the wall.
‘I don’t think I can assist you,’ he said quietly, his voice trembling.
‘That’s fine, Doctor,’ I said, and stood up to go. ‘Sorry to have bothered you,’ and I smiled and turned towards the door. Sam looked confused, but then he realised what I was doing when I said, ‘It was only Doctor King we wanted, but the police are on their way, and they’ll be more insistent than me. They’ll want to go through your drug stocks. You do keep drugs here, don’t you?’
‘They can’t do that,’ he spluttered.
‘Do you want to test the theory?’
I saw Doctor Newby waver and lick his lips. I went to walk through the door when he blurted out, ‘We caught him stealing drugs.’
When I turned round, I saw that his eyes were filled with regret. ‘He was a good doctor. The old dears around here loved him. Whenever they were near the end, they asked for him. He did more than most doctors. He spent time with them, he listened to them, made them feel better in the last days of their life.’
‘What did he steal?’ I asked.
‘Diamorphine. Pethidine.’
‘Seems like he was hot on painkillers,’ I said.
‘Diamorphine,’ said Sam. ‘That’s heroin.’
Doctor Newby nodded. ‘In its street form, yes. But this was medicinal stuff, used as painkiller.’
‘What was he doing with it?’
The doctor shuffled in his seat and swallowed. He looked like he was trying to find a way of avoiding the question, but he realised that there wasn’t one. ‘He told me that he had become addicted to it,’ he said quietly.
‘So what did you do?’ I asked. ‘Send him to rehab?’
Doctor Newby didn’t answer straightaway. He looked around the room once more, straightened his tie again. We sat there and let the silence grow. After a minute, he said, ‘We had to let him go.’
‘Why?’ I pressed. ‘What else was there?’
His eyelids flickered. ‘Nothing.’
I cocked my head, gave a wry smile. ‘C’mon, Doctor Newby. You don’t let young doctors leave just because they have a drug problem. That can be cured. You are the caring profession, after all.’ I raised my eyebrows. ‘Would the GMC like to look at his patients’ files?’
The doctor looked down at that, and I thought I could see tears in his eyes. I glanced at Sam, and I saw that he looked worried. There was something more going on than we’d thought.
Sam intervened. ‘I’m a lawyer. Would you like some legal advice? Free of charge?’
‘Do I need it?’
‘Ask me and find out. You’ll be my client, and everything will be confidential.’
‘What about the reporter?’ he asked, and pointed at me,
‘This is off the record,’ I said.
Doctor Newby thought for a moment, and by the time he nodded his assent, it looked like he had aged ten years.
‘I think he might have been over-prescribing,’ he said quietly. He cleared his throat. ‘Even though some of his patients were old, a lot were in good health. Some of the deaths were a surprise.’
‘And you think he might have over-prescribed painkillers?’ I asked.
Doctor Newby swallowed and straightened his tie again. Then he nodded.
‘Wouldn’t that show up in the post mortem?’ I asked.
‘What post mortem?’ said the doctor
, and he laughed ironically. ‘These were old people, with their GP saying that they had died of natural causes. The death certificate was counter-signed by a surgery near the town hall—we have a reciprocal arrangement—and they were cremated mostly.’
‘And you are suspicious?’
His lips tightened, as if he couldn’t bring himself to say it. ‘We didn’t notice. It was the other surgery that commented, at a Rotary Club dinner, just as a joke. One of the doctors said that they called him Doctor Death behind his back. And there was a solicitor at the dinner. He pulled me to one side, told me that one of his clients had left a large legacy to Doctor King in a will that she had drafted herself, when the solicitor had drafted all the earlier ones. He was doing the probate, but he was worried it was a forgery.’
