A Private Investigation

by Peter Grainger

  There was a lunge forward from Harris, and Smith was more than willing for the game to be played out like this on their feet, though the effort of the struggle had left him light-headed. Should’ve kept up the gym membership, more time soon… Sidestep and right cross, aimed deliberately into the left eye, and another because this is about disabling an opponent quickly, not about scoring points or the Queensbury rules.

  Harris had enough sense to realise he was facing a man who could box. He moved back and around, crouched and crab-like, arms wide, probably aiming to reach the knife again. Smith inched around with him, fists up, making sure he was between Harris and the weapon, trying to keep his focus, trying not to let Harris see that for some reason he couldn’t make out, he was losing it, losing focus. Harris looked a little wavy, sort of blurred, and the charge that came took Smith by surprise.

  They fell in an embrace, Smith finding enough speed to use Harris’s weight against him, so that in the struggle on the floor it was Smith who had the upper hand first, enough to get his knees onto Harris’s arms, pinning him down like a couple of boys wrestling on the school field. Punching was no good, Harris was too strong, seemed to be getting stronger. Better finish it.

  Both hands went to Harris’s throat, the thumbs crossing over the windpipe and squeezing it shut. It takes longer than we imagine, the innocents among us – as long as drowning. A similar sort of death, perhaps, the slow deprivation of oxygen, the outer systems closing down one by one until the brain alone remains, still seeking the solution, still seeking, to the end, the answer to it all.

  Smith straightened his arms and leaned down into the neck of the struggling man, the hands pulling at his own. Unconsciousness would do, of course, might not have to kill the bastard. He’s bleeding from somewhere too, blood on his face.

  Harris’s hands were on his own, four hands at the one throat, gripping but not trying hard to pull Smith’s away – and he was saying something, hissing something at Smith. He was saying ‘You’re done.’

  Curiously sanguine, in more ways than one with all that blood. Where is it coming from? All over Harris’s face now, falling like rain from somewhere, rain spattering down with every breath, every breath that Smith takes, every time he breathes out, the rain showers down and the hands are letting go.

  Then lights very bright and shouts very loud but far away. A great fist flying into the face of Harris, doing some serious damage. Harris on his front next, arms behind, and two great fists now, pinning the wrists while other hands put cuffs around them. Confusion, voices shouting again. Someone strong has turned Smith onto his front as well, has started to pull off his jacket and shirt at the same time.

  Looking to his left, Zoe Johnson staring at him and crying. Someone with her, an arm around her, someone has got that damned tape off at last. Serena Butler that is, with her, good girl, Serena, great sense of timing. And that’s Waters’ voice. Waters here as well? Shouting? Never heard him shout or swear like that before. Get a bloody ambulance? Why?

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  There had been no noise in the house since the locking of the door yesterday morning, and now, on the Saturday, on Christmas Eve, the silence seemed to have fed upon itself and grown in number 27, Old Road on the Millfield estate. The weakening cold front that had edged its way westwards across the North Sea over recent days had passed without incident, and with that went the last hope of a white Christmas. At dawn there had been a little sunshine, brightening the winter jasmine in the garden and making a few minutes in the conservatory a tempting proposition, but there had been no boiling of a kettle and no grinding of coffee beans. The Telegraph remained folded in the letterbox and no-one had listened to the news on Radio 4. If they had done so, they would have learned that rain was on its way, with a risk of some coastal flooding.

  At ten thirty, the silence opened its eyes like a cat that had been sleeping and watched the front door. There had been footsteps. Someone tried to pull the newspaper back through the letterbox and failed, and then came the turning of a key in a lock, the sound of an opening door and low voices.

  John Murray came into the kitchen, the keys still in his hand. He stood in the centre, looking around, seeing a place for everything and everything in its place, and this seemed to cause him pain. He hadn’t moved when Waters appeared behind him a few seconds later, holding The Telegraph. Waters looked around as well and then he placed the newspaper on the kitchen table, carefully, like an offering.

  Waters said, ‘I’m not really sure what we’re looking for.’

  Giving an answer seemed to involve an effort for Murray. Finally, he said, ‘Contacts. Anyone else who should be told. And to make sure the place is secure. Don’t want…’

  Waters moved the newspaper a little, as if he’d put it in the wrong place.

  ‘I thought Reeve said they’d found someone. His sister?’

  ‘Yes. Coming up from somewhere on the south coast this morning. She’s the official next of… But Reeve said she thought there might be someone else. And we can’t just leave the place, can we? Someone needs to keep an eye on it.’

  Neither of them seemed willing or able to move from the places where they had first stood. After a space, Waters said, ‘Did Reeve say anything else? How he is this morning?’

  ‘No change.’

  ‘Serena’s still there, at the hospital. She’ll let us know if-’

  ‘Chris! There isn’t likely to be any change, not for the better. You heard what they said.’

  Murray looked away then. Waters moved the newspaper one more time, eyebrows raised a little because Murray, the most laconic of speakers, never interrupted anyone. After a time, Waters said, ‘Alright. I’ll take a look in the lounge,’ and left Murray alone in the kitchen.

  But remember, Chris, what he always told you – don’t just look, make sure that you see. There were five Christmas cards on the mantelpiece. The first was from everyone at Runciman’s Farm Shop. He remembered the bacon that Smith had cooked for him after he spent the night here with an awful hangover; it came from that farm shop. Smith must be a highly regarded customer to get a personal Christmas card. Then he looked inside the other cards because there might be a phone number or an address – though if there was, it would be down to DCI Reeve to get in touch. He’d never seen her like she was last night, or rather, early this morning. Even Superintendent Allen had backed out of her office.

  Two similar cards, with conventional Christmas scenes, were signed “From Victoria” and “Love to you, Uncle David”. Victoria might be his sister. Odd to think of him being someone’s uncle, as well. The next was from “Jo” and it had a message: “I hope you’re looking forward to Saturday as much as I am. I’ll be waiting underneath the clock!”

  That’s today, he’s supposed to be meeting someone today. Underneath the clock? That usually means a railway station. In Kings Lake or was Smith going somewhere? There was nothing else on the card. Maybe there would be a number in his phone but that’s already gone into evidence. And then Waters realised that “Jo” was the woman he’d seen with Smith months ago in Sandrines’ restaurant, the two of them sitting in an alcove by the window – the same woman that Smith had brought into the station a week ago, according to Mike Dunn. She was the writer working on the Andretti case, and now Andretti… Or rather, Harris had… How much did she know? She might be a potential witness.

  The final card was peculiar. The front was a very Catholic image of the Virgin Mary and the child in her arms, nothing to do with Christmas as far as he could see. Inside, in a fine hand, was a message – “To Stuart (!) the season’s greetings. All is well here in Belfast, Lia.” Smith was in Belfast last year, after the operation on his knee, Waters knew that much, but who was Stuart? And the exclamation mark told you that whoever wrote it knew it was wrong, anyway. He put that card down, picked up the one from “Jo” and pushed it into the back pocket of his jeans.

  ‘Anything?’

  Murray had come into the lounge. Waters tol
d him about the card, that it should go to Reeve because the woman might know something. Smith might have told her about the search for Zoe Johnson and the involvement of Paolo Harris. Murray nodded and Waters said, ‘How about you?’

  ‘No. I just had a call from Maggie. She’s spoken to the ward manager.’

  ‘I didn’t hear your phone.’

  ‘Still on silent from earlier, in the hospital.’

  ‘What did they say, on the ward?’

  Murray didn’t answer straight away. He examined the remaining cards as if Waters might have missed something, and then said, ‘Maggie thinks they’re waiting until a relative arrives, whoever is the next of kin.’

  ‘And then what?’

  ‘Who knows? They like family there, familiar voices and all that. Sometimes it helps people regain consciousness. But …’

  ‘But what?’

  Murray looked at the younger man, not angry anymore because you need to have seen death up close more than once before you can begin to come to terms with it – you need to have seen it and watched it take someone that you love before you understand that it’s the price we pay for everything.

  ‘This cardiac tamponade or pneumothorax, or whatever it was, was severe. I don’t really know what they are but I know what ‘severe’ means and I know what that look on the surgeon’s face meant. Probably irreparable damage, she said, never mind the high likelihood of hypoxic brain injury. When they say catastrophic blood loss, they don’t just mean fairly bad. And on top of that, there’s already infection. As far as I could make out, he’s already on every antibiotic they’ve got. It’s not good, Chris.’

  ‘But he’s not dead, John. While there’s life?’

  ‘You heard what the surgeon said about the odds. I don’t think DC would have put one of his out-of-date fivers on it. And brain damage? That’s not what he’d want, is it? I’d say he’d choose the other option and go for a quick, neat exit.’

  Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind – Murray had found a moment to speak privately to the surgeon. No bookie would have given you any odds at all. There was little hope.

  Murray walked over to the sideboard and lifted the receiver of the landline. Then he pressed a button on the base unit, listened again and said, ‘No messages.’

  Waters said, ‘That was his back-up. I don’t think he ever really believed in mobiles.’

  Murray’s attention moved to the small collection of photographs in old-fashioned silver frames. He looked at the one of Sheila and was grateful that she had been spared this. Then he picked up another and studied it.

  ‘I wonder who these are with him. It looks recent.’

  Waters studied it and said, ‘Not round here, with those green hills.’

  There was a woman, small and dark-haired with an attractive smile, about the same age as Smith, or maybe a little younger – when Waters looked more closely he could see that she had a stick, that she was leaning on it as if she might be disabled in some way. In the middle was a youngish man, an inch or two taller than Smith, well-built, with broad shoulders and the same dark features as the woman, a handsome man who was also smiling at something that had been said – said almost certainly by Smith, who stood looking at them with that familiar, quizzical straight face. Someone else nearby had caught that sunlit moment and sent it to Smith.

  Waters took the frame and turned it over but there was nothing written on the back, no clue as to where or when it had been taken, but Murray was right – it couldn’t have been long ago.

  He said, ‘I’ve no idea who they are. But they look as if they ought to be told.’

  Murray took back the photograph and replaced it on the sideboard.

  Then Waters said, ‘He’s good at keeping secrets, isn’t he?’

  John Murray’s gaze travelled around the rest of the room before he said, ‘Did he ever say much to you about his time in the Army?’

  ‘No. He once told me about some of the training. About jumping into Norwegian fjords from a helicopter after dark. We were on a helicopter over the North Sea at the time. I think he was trying to reassure me…’

  Murray said, ‘Well, that wasn’t part of everyone’s basic training. He was in the special forces and he worked undercover in Belfast. I don’t know much more than that, but we know he went back there not long ago. I reckon something happened then, he was different when he came back. The photo could be to do with all that.’

  Waters took out the card from his pocket.

  ‘He’s supposed to be meeting someone today, as well. Read the message.’

  Murray did so, turning over the card afterwards, searching for anything that might help. Then he said, ‘This is the writer he’s been seeing. Maggie said she thought they were getting pretty friendly. We need to get to his phone and see if her number’s in there.’

  They went upstairs, just to make sure all the windows are closed and that, said Murray. In the main bedroom, the same sense of order, no untidiness but no fussiness, just the quiet economy of an intelligent man who has lived alone for a long time. The bed was made and the quilt turned down on the right side, ready for another night’s sleep.

  Another room was a study, with an old oak desk and on it a notepad, a fountain pen and a silver propelling pencil. Above the desk was a shelf and a long line of the small black notebooks they had seen him use every day of his working life. Waters knew about these – he had been shown them once before and knew what they represented. Every case that Smith had worked was here – these were his personal duplicates of the official record. Somewhere in those Alwyches, his own father’s name would be found. What happens to things like these when someone dies? Who would take them? Would a single page of them ever be read again, or would they go straight into a skip?

  And then, finally, in the last room, the guitars, the amplifiers and the music. The two of them stood for a long moment in silence, and then Murray made a show of checking that the windows were securely shut, telling Waters that this lot must be worth a bit.

  Waters went to the stand where a book lay open. The staves and notes meant nothing to him but there were words underneath, and these he could read, a few lines before it became too blurred – “There should be laughter after pain, There should be sunshine after rain, These things have always been the same, So why worry now? Why worry now?”

  It was a little after eleven o’clock when they left the house. Murray locked and tried the handle three times to be sure, as if that was the thing that really mattered. Then they walked to Waters’ car, got in and drove away.

  From the house next door, an elderly woman watched them go. Still at the window, she said to her husband that she hoped David was alright. She hadn’t seen him since yesterday morning and she had a card for him. She stood there a while longer and then she said nowhere looked very Christmassy this year. Her husband came to the window and told her he thought it was going to rain soon.

  At a quarter past eleven, they heard the phone in number twenty-seven begin to ring, and it went on for a long time.

  © Peter Grainger 2018 All rights reserved

  If you have enjoyed this story, please consider leaving a review at Amazon, where you first found it. As I rarely market or promote my writing in any way, it stands or falls entirely by the readers’ opinions of it.

  Details of my other novels can be found at http://www.petergrainger.com/

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  As ever, thank you for reading,

  Peter Grainger

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve />
  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine