by Issy Brooke
“It’s not your fault–” Edwin cut in.
“I know, I know,” Gaz said, looking miserable. He picked at a stray thread on the lounger. “I don’t like admitting that I’d had one bottle too many, though. So there we are. I wasn’t for backing down, he wasn’t for backing down, and the next thing I know, he’s throwing a punch at me. Badly, I might add. I ducked out of the way and landed one on him. But he fought dirty and I ended up with a shiner.”
“Yes, but what on earth were you fighting about?” Penny asked.
“Politics,” Gaz said.
She shook her head. It was exactly what Cath had said. But the kids had laughed at the idea. “No,” she said. “I don’t believe that. Owen wasn’t into politics at all.”
“Exactly,” Gaz shot back. “And he should have been. That was the point of the argument, you see? He was all whinging and moaning, but I told him, you’ve got to be the change that you want to see in the world, you know? I got mad, I admit. I can’t stand people who are all mouth but they do nothing. He was saying, oh, you shouldn’t vote, just smash the system. But that isn’t the way and he really didn’t have a clue. We have to do things a different way.”
“So, what do you do?” she asked. “Actually, what do you do for a living?”
Gaz and Edwin fell silent. She felt their sudden awkwardness as Ed shuffled his feet, and Gaz looked around the garden, anywhere but at her. A nerve had been hit. Was he out of work, and ashamed of it?
“I’m freelance,” he said at last.
“Right…?” That sounded fine.
“Yeah. Yeah, so now you want to know if I put my money where my mouth is, right? I do. In fact, I work undercover.”
“For the police?” She glanced at Edwin, remembering how his past had come to light in another murder investigation.
“No, not for the police.” Gaz frowned and glanced at Ed.
Ed ran his hand through his hair. “I think you can trust her,” he said. “To a point. In spite of appearances.” He gave a light laugh. “There was stuff that I told her about my past and she didn’t pass it on, when she could have done.”
“Really? She knows about you?”
“She does. Some of it.”
“Tell me, Penny. What do you think about big business?” Gaz said in a sudden change of direction.
It was lucky that the topic had been on her mind lately, what with her encounters with Brian and the protesters. “It’s a balance,” she said slowly. “I think you might disagree but I don’t think that the idea of business is intrinsically bad…”
“Why would you think I might disagree?”
“Um. Because I’m making assumptions,” she confessed with a rueful laugh. “Sorry. Okay. So when businesses lose sight of the people involved, and the long term benefits – and possibly long term harm – that their activities impact, and when they feel above the law, I suppose that’s when there is a problem.”
Gaz was nodding. “I’d pretty much agree with you,” he said. “And therefore, I do something about it. I … I am telling you this in strictest confidence and I’m not going to give you any details, so don’t even ask. I go undercover. Sometimes I’m paid by charities or organisations or newspapers, sometimes I hope to sell the story once I’ve got it. I’m here for a while with Ed, who I met on the same sort of protest circuit, because I’ve just been exposing the poor business practise in a large company. Don’t ask me which one. I’m saying nothing. The videos got plastered all over the internet and a lot of things were affected. Now the police want to talk to me, and so does the company, but I trust neither, so I’m laying low.”
“Oh. Well, good on you,” she said with sincerity. “You weren’t here for the protest camp, then?”
“No. That was sheer co-incidence,” he said. “I did pop down to see what was going on, but you saw how that ended for me.”
He’s not one of us, the woman had said. Penny chewed her lip. She knew Edwin enough to believe him; but did she believe Gaz? He certainly wasn’t going to give her the sort of details that she needed if she was going to corroborate his story.
But she wanted to believe him.
She finished her drink. “Thank you,” she said, warmly. “I appreciate you talking to me.”
“Now what?” Gaz asked as Edwin took her empty glass.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I just want to find out the reason why he was killed, and bring peace to the family.”
“To yourself, more like,” Gaz said. “But it’s still a valid reason.”
“Maybe.” She nodded at him, and followed Edwin down the cool hallway to the front door. Before he closed the door and left her alone on the pavement, she said, “Thanks for letting me in, and talking with me.”
“No probs,” he said, smiling slightly, which was his equivalent of an expansive grin. He jerked his head to the side. “What he says is true. You can trust him. And he’s not the sort of guy to run anyone over, you know.”
“No, he doesn’t seem the type.” But he did admit to arguing with Owen, she thought.
“I am sure the police will sort it out,” Edwin continued. “Be careful, Penny. If you are not supposed to be investigating, then you probably shouldn’t.”
“Would you say that to Gaz?” she said.
He winced. “Touche.”
Chapter Ten
She walked back to her cottage but didn’t enter it. She stood on the pavement for a while, thinking.
I have to tell Cath about this, she decided. This might be important. He said he isn’t a suspect but she said that he is. And anyway, Gaz didn’t give me any details that could identify the company or what he did, so it’s probably okay, and maybe the police have other information that this will feed into.
Also, I want to get back into their good books. This is the right thing to do.
They probably already know it. I’ll just be confirming it.
But just in case they don’t …
She had her car keys in her pocket. The little red Fiesta needed a good wash, and when she peered in through the window, she noticed it was as filthy inside as it was outside.
She pressed the key fob to unlock the car but it didn’t make its reassuring little beep. The orange hazard lights flashed once. She popped the door open. Had she omitted to lock it? Things had been so busy lately. Maybe she’d forgotten, what with everything else on her mind.
If it had been tidy inside, she would have assumed that Destiny and Wolf had finally met their promise to clean up for her, to repay her for all the lifts she had been giving them. They might have just forgotten to lock it again; they knew she kept the keys in a bowl in the kitchen. But it was a mess.
It was lucky I live somewhere rural, with no crime, she thought sarcastically as she slid into the driver’s seat. Except for the murders and the drug dealing, of course.
Then Penny sat still for a moment. She shouldn’t really tell Cath about Gaz. She had promised she wouldn’t.
What was more important? Her sister, or some bloke she didn’t know?
Her mind whirled. She couldn’t see the right way forwards. Instead, she distracted herself temporarily by grabbing a plastic carrier bag from the bottom of her tote bag – one of her “just in case” shopping bags – and she started to fill it with rubbish from the car.
Wolf and Destiny really weren’t the tidiest kids. She found a half-empty drinks bottle rolled under the seat, and myriad discarded wrappers which she realised, with shame, were from her, not her nephew and niece. She also had a scattering of parking tickets that had made a sticky clump on the dashboard. When she flung the seat backwards on its runners, something made a terrible grating sound. She fished around the side of the seat and found a tin that seemed to contain sweets or mints. There was fur stuck in the hinge of the tin, picked up from under the seat. She didn’t fancy trying them, so chucked them into the rubbish bag with everything else.
I’m just putting this off, she told herself. Yet I know that it is something I need to
do. Come on. Let’s go. She tied up the plastic bag and put it on the passenger seat, and then drove slowly down the street. She stopped at the end to throw the bag into a bin, and then proceeded to turn left and head out of the town.
She wasn’t sure if Cath would be working or not, but decided to take the chance and drive to her house, a lonely detached place on the northern edge of town. It stood alone behind a row of tall, dark cypress trees. The front lawn was rough and yellowed, and scattered with various once-bright plastic toys, now fading in the sunlight.
“Hey. Hey!” Cath said when she did answer the door, but it took her a moment to smile. From behind her, somewhere in the house, a child was shouting something in the sort of gulping fits of tears that they have when they have got themselves into such a state they can’t actually stop.
“Wow, is everything all right?” Penny asked.
“I am about to commit murder,” she said, “and I am close to not caring.”
“Ouch. Sorry. Perhaps I should go.”
“No, come in. Be a witness. Or maybe an accomplice,” she added darkly. “Give me one moment. Please, go on through to the sun room.”
Penny knew the way. She pottered through the pleasantly untidy lounge and out into the beige-and-wicker-furnished room tacked on to the back of the house. She heard Cath’s heavy footsteps thump up the stairs. There was no more shouting; she must have lowered her voice to one of dire menace.
Finally she reappeared with the biscuit tin.
“Sorry about that. I wish I was at work, dealing with horribly rude criminals and even worse constables. Kids! The summer holidays can’t end soon enough. How are you?”
“I’m okay. Look, about that incident with Tina Fairmore. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have gone to see her.”
“Nope. You shouldn’t have. Have a biscuit?”
“Thanks. So, um, how is the investigation going?”
Cath shrugged. She sat back in the chair, nestling into the cushions, and looked suddenly tired. “Slowly,” she said at last. “More importantly, how is your sister, and how are the kids?”
“Doing well,” Penny said. “Outwardly, they are doing more than well. They look really happy. I was worried about it. I thought they were all in denial or something, but then I looked closer.” She shook her head. “They will get through it, though. I think it’s just strange for them to have lost someone so close to them that they didn’t really like. They were all scared of him, in truth. It’s not a straightforward mourning.”
“No, of course. I can’t imagine.”
Penny couldn’t hold back any longer. “Look, about Gaz. Gareth. You know, Edwin’s mate. I’ve found something out.”
Cath raised an unruly eyebrow. “So, you are meddling…”
“No, not at all. I went to see Edwin as a friend and Gaz happened to be there, that’s all. And we talked as friends. Like friends do.”
“And so…?”
“Gaz…” Her mouth went dry. She was betraying a confidence. She planned out her words carefully. “Gaz told me some things that I promised to keep to myself. So I can’t tell you much, but basically, he’s definitely not here for the protest. He never was. He’s here because he’s some kind of environmental justice investigator and he’s on the run.”
Cath rolled her eyes. “Tell me everything. As a friend.”
Eventually, Penny did.
* * * *
Cath had mellowed considerably by the second cup of tea. “Thank you,” she said at last. “Your information does help. We hadn’t got anything out of him, which in itself was suspicious. He was – is – still a suspect whatever he said. He’d clearly been in custody before. And I promise we’ll tread carefully when we follow these things up. Hopefully, then, he won’t be linked at all and we can drop him from the list. He’s not a major suspect. We have different levels.”
“I hope he can be dropped, too. He seems all right. Cath–”
“No.”
“You don’t know what I was going to ask!”
“Yes, I do. You want to be more involved. You think you’ve earned the right, now, because of telling me about Gaz.”
“Not at all! Okay, yes. Please. Go on.”
“No. It’s for your own safety, and we’ve got leads we are following up that we can’t afford to have compromised by a well-meaning amateur like yourself. Step back, Penny.” Cath smiled sadly. “I can tell you one thing, though. Tina Fairmore’s car was at Alf’s garage that night, just as she claimed. So don’t go bothering her again.”
“She’s a property developer, though. She must be linked. He was protesting the housing, she is building…”
Cath nodded. “I know. Was he really protesting against the housing, though? I get the feeling that he was camping out there in his van just because others were. He might have thought there was safety in numbers. But although Tina is not completely off the hook, she’s not the main line of enquiry at the moment. Ah, I shouldn’t have said that bit.”
“La la la, I heard nothing, don’t worry. It’s odd, though. The car that killed Owen was taken from, and returned to, Alf’s garage. You’ll have already looked at the CCTV and everything, right?”
Cath muttered through gritted teeth, “What CCTV?”
“Oh, you’re joking.”
“I wish I were. Anyway. Enough of boring, tedious work stuff! We have to stop talking about it. What about this fete that Brian Davenport is putting on?”
“What fete? Why?”
“Aha! Now this, I can tell you about,” Cath said, her eyes lighting up. “Brian wants to throw a great summer garden party at his hotel, to celebrate and reward all the ‘hidden efforts and unsung heroes of the community’ – his words, not mine. It’s for the police officers and community support officers, the council workers, the maintenance staff and gardeners and refuse collectors, the doctors and nurses and support staff, and all the local volunteers. I’m surprised your Ariadne hasn’t told you about it, now she’s volunteering so much at the dogs’ home. She’ll be there, I’m sure. So will I. What do you think? Nice of him, isn’t it?”
Penny frowned. “Don’t you find him just a little bit creepy?”
“He’s smooth, yes, but he’s a businessman. They get oiled like that when they are doing their MBAs, I think it’s part of the course. Obviously it’s a massive publicity stunt for him, and all the press will be there, so it’s not entirely altruistic.”
“I don’t think it’s going to be remotely altruistic,” Penny said. “How come you lot are allowed to go? Isn’t it seen as bribery?”
“It’s all transparent and above-board and anyway, we won’t be on duty.”
“I’m not convinced. I don’t like the way he tries to touch my elbow.”
Cath stared. “Your elbow? Are you suggesting some strange…”
“No, no. Is he married, though?”
“Yes, for the third time. Elbows, huh?”
“Oh, stop it. No, I don’t like him.”
Cath looked disappointed. “Seriously, Penny, you judge people too harshly. Take it at face value, all right?”
Penny felt frustrated. There was something about Brian that she was suspicious of, something nagging at her, but she couldn’t put it into words, even to herself. “Maybe you’re right,” she said at last. “It has been stressful lately and that does mess with my head.”
She sighed, and stood up. “Thanks for the tea, and biscuits. I’ll be off.”
Cath stood, too, and gathered up the mugs. “Thanks for coming by. I have missed our chats. Do send my regards to Ariadne and the kids. Are they sorted for school in September?”
“Yes, apparently so. They’ve got their uniforms and everything.”
Cath smiled, and nodded to a large framed print on the wall. “They do school photos a bit differently these days,” she said. “What do you think?”
Penny grinned. “That is great!” she said. The entire class was ranged along in a row, all striking different dynamic poses against a white bac
kground, the kids beaming with natural joy. “It looks much more fun than our stiff, artificial photos. Did you have a kid at your school who would try to run from one side to the other as the camera panned along, so they’d get into the photo twice?”
“Yes,” said Cath as she walked Penny through to the front door. “Did you?”
“Yup,” Penny said with a wide smile. “In my year, it was me.”
She waved goodbye and drove home slowly.
Something still nagged at her, but this time, it wasn’t about Brian Davenport.
Chapter Eleven
Penny took a circuitous route home, pausing to idle the car engine opposite Alf’s garage as she gazed at the scruffy forecourt and shabby, peeling paintwork. A figure appeared in the doorway to the office, and she pulled away hastily, pondering the general disarray of the obviously-failing business.
Had the garage always been there?
* * * *
One man knew more about the history of Upper Glenfield than anyone else she had met. Reg Harris was a dapper sort of gentleman, a working man all his life who nevertheless cleaved to older ideas of style and presentation. One might be a fellow who worked with his hands from Monday to Saturday, but in Reg’s worldview, one wore a tie on Sunday. He was now the self-appointed local historian, and even maintained a somewhat basic website about the town. It was all very early-internet-explorer, with a blocky Comic Sans font and eight bright colours with jagged clip art but it was a hive of information.
That wasn’t enough for Penny, and the next day she spent a profitable half hour with the source of all knowledge himself, Reg. He directed her to seek out particular records in the main library in Lincoln, so, after a long walk with Kali and a hearty lunch, she piled into her car once more and set off for the cathedral city.
