by Andrew Lowe
‘And it’s stolen,’ said Moran, flashing a bleary look at Sawyer. ‘Two months ago, from a lay-by near Bakewell. No ANPR since. We’ve been over everything from the surrounding area, and this is the only catch. I’ve barely been at home for the last two days. That fucking thing might cost me my marriage.’
Sawyer smiled. ‘It’s a price worth paying. You should be happy, Moran. You found the killer’s vehicle. It’s a breakthrough. All your own work!’
‘Fuck off!’ Rhodes’ venom startled Sawyer. ‘He sat there on his laptop most of the time. I was doing the grafting.’
Moran scoffed. ‘I was working on other angles. Updating HOLMES.’
‘It sounds like the beginning of a beautiful friendship,’ said Sawyer. ‘You can do it all again. Starting now. Focus on the Bamford and Baslow area and the routes to and from Hollow Meadows on the night Sam Palmer was last seen alive. Couple of days either side, in case our man did some casing.’
Moran sighed and slumped back in his chair. ‘What happened to the hand, sir?’
‘Overuse,’ said Sawyer, eyeing Moran, denying him the obvious joke.
Rhodes’ eyes widened at the sight of the picture on the whiteboard. ‘Sam Palmer? Chesterfield boss?’ Sawyer nodded. ‘Fuck me! What was it, a fan? It’s been a patchy start to their season but killing the manager seems a bit extreme.’
‘Do you follow them?’ said Shepherd.
Rhodes shrugged. ‘Got a mate who does. Been to a few games. Hard-working side but not that pretty. Palmer liked a drink, that’s for sure. Y’know. The old euphemism. Bit of a rogue. Hellraiser. Translates as “piss artist”. There’s a video online of him having a pitchside scrap with an opposition manager. Fucking hilarious. I would rather watch a fight between two middle-aged men in bad suits than a professional boxing match, any day.’
Stephen Bloom got to his feet. ‘Minor football celebrity. This will increase press interest. We should call a conference. Get on the front foot.’
‘Not yet,’ said Sawyer. ‘Let’s see if that van turns up again and work the Palmer angle, including this opposition manager. Maybe there’s a grudge there?’
Rhodes shook his head. ‘Nah. I think it was over a heavy tackle. Shook hands after. I remember his assistant manager saying the other fella told Palmer to calm down. Then he made the drinking gesture. Palmer didn’t like that. Handbags. Doesn’t sound like much of a motive for murder to me. He did a George Best, though, didn’t he?’
‘How do you mean?’ said Sawyer.
‘Yeah. He’s been off for a while. Fucked himself with the booze. According to my mate, he wrote an open letter to the fans in a programme, about how the doctors told him he didn’t have long if he carried on. Some surgeons won’t do it, though. For alcoholics.’
‘Do what?’ said Shepherd.
‘He got himself a new liver. Transplant.’
21
Sawyer took the Mini down through the central Peaks and, miraculously, found a spot in the Tissington Trail car park. He sat with the engine running for a while, mesmerised by the music (‘Magpie’ by The Unthanks), then got out and walked up over the hill and down into town.
He paused at the steps of the Town Hall and read the flapping banner above the entrance.
Autumn Art Festival
Ashbourne Town Hall Ballroom
October 9th-12th
A line of six promo shots of local artists stared down at him: three vaguely familiar, two unknown. The sixth, Harold Sawyer, had tamed his floppy thatch of hair, although it still seemed oddly lopsided, almost completely grey at the temples; an off-kilter frame for his furrowed brow and unfathomable green eyes (his gift to his son). He had opted for a slight side-on angle, hinting at his aquiline profile. He scowled into the lens with poise and suspicion.
Sawyer steeled himself and climbed the steps.
The vast Victorian-era ballroom swarmed with the Derbyshire fine-arts cognoscenti: champagne flutes, Sunday best, a backwash of chatter blending with syrupy classical music. It was a private viewing, ahead of the festival’s opening that evening. Strictly by invitation only. The artworks—mostly oils and watercolours—were arranged on separate easels, with the artists walled into individual zones behind pop-up partitions.
An elderly gent in a dark morning suit and bow tie greeted Sawyer at the entrance desk. ‘Hello there. Could I get your name, please?’ Sawyer held up his warrant card and the man startled, but instantly regained his composure. ‘Is there a problem?’
‘Well. I’m more of a sculpture man myself.’ The greeter looked confused. Sawyer shot him a smile. ‘I’m here to speak to one of the artists.’
‘He’s okay, Arnold!’
Harold waved and shouted from the far end of the hall. Arnold looked put out, but stepped aside and forced a smile.
Sawyer walked through to his father’s section, and Harold pulled him into a hefty hug. He was shorter than Sawyer, but the contact was a reminder of his steel and strength: oddly undiminished for a man at the back end of his sixties. Sawyer recalled a moment of arm wrestling in a pub beer garden, somewhere in Dovedale. He would have been four or five years old. His mother: indulgent, radiant, urging Harold to go easy. His father’s arm like a tree trunk: implacable, unbudgeable, even as Sawyer wrapped the fingers of both hands around the knuckles and jerked and pulled.
‘What a lovely surprise, Jake. You should have said you were coming.’
‘You should have invited me. Then I wouldn’t have had to gatecrash.’
Harold laughed, wheezing slightly. Sawyer caught a glimpse of his vintage, rippling to the surface of the fitted navy suit: a little too young for him, too metropolitan for the parochial setting. ‘Didn’t think it would be your scene. It’s so lovely to see you, son. How are you? I read about the Crawley case. That’s a hell of a shunt along towards DCI.’
‘It wasn’t a career move, Dad.’
Harold caught his eye, read him. ‘Of course not. It’s a pleasant side effect, though.’
A young woman in a maroon mini-dress walked over from the entrance and hovered at the edge of their conversation, too close to be ignored. She took an iPad out of a shoulder bag and held it up for Harold’s attention.
‘Son. Five minutes. Sorry. I need to look at this.’ He turned to the woman.
Sawyer wandered over to the largest of Harold’s canvases: a vast abstract, rendered in violent smudges and splashes. Greens and blues and pinks. There was something vaguely oceanic in there. Wild water, churned by storm winds. He took out a boiled sweet—a chocolate lime—and slid it into his mouth. He leaned in close to the work, as if studying it for clues.
‘Rather good, isn’t it?’
Another woman had sidled over. Fortyish and elegant in a white suit jacket, jeans and tan ankle boots. ‘Provincial work can be a bit patchy.’ She edged close enough for Sawyer to catch a gust of expensive perfume. ‘And most of this stuff is barely on the bright side of average. But I do like this.’
She gazed into the painting for a few seconds, holding the silence, then turned to Sawyer and held out a hand. ‘Clara McKee. I write about art for the Manchester Evening News.’
He shook. ‘Jake Sawyer. I’m a civil servant.’
Clara nodded. ‘Sawyer? Are you…’
He nodded. ‘Son.’
‘Ah! Do you share your father’s artistry?’
An attendant proffered a tray of drinks. Clara took a glass of wine, but Sawyer waved him away. ‘I tried to paint, but I was held back, really.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yes. Lack of talent. So unfair.’
She laughed. Too loud and braying. Sawyer winced. ‘Skipped a generation! Well, I’m an admirer of your father’s work. Do you enjoy it?’
He angled his head at the painting. ‘I think so. I suppose I wonder about how he makes the decisions over where to put the paint. Why one colour and not another?’
‘Ah, but that’s the pleasure of abstract art. The mystery. I doubt the artist would be able to artic
ulate any of that. He wouldn’t know himself.’ She stepped closer to the painting. ‘I suppose it’s a form of self-examination. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it therapy, but I think the two are related. For me, art is the ultimate way to transcend the fate that awaits us all.’ She stepped back and turned to him. ‘You may have photographs, of people you love. But they actually tell you little of the person in the picture. Particularly, if the shot is posed, prepared. What is more revealing and, I would say, lasting, is how an artist chooses to express himself, project his ideas and feelings in whatever form. The brain that moved the brush may have long since been absorbed back into the minerals of the Earth, but the work is immortal, eternal. That’s why so many people gather to see the Mona Lisa. It’s actually quite an ordinary painting. But there’s a fascination in how a seventy-seven by fifty-three centimetre piece of canvas can somehow transcend its creator and all his inner complexities.’ She took a sip of wine.
Sawyer squinted at her. ‘But, as you say, it can be revealing. The choices made. All those micro decisions. If you want to understand an artist, you look at the work.’
Clara abandoned her sip, almost spluttering. ‘I couldn’t agree more! The work reveals more than the boring old obituary. The life, the biography. That’s full of facts. The work is full of secrets.’
Sawyer joined his father at a table in the corner of his section. He slid a leaflet out of a fan arranged around the edge of the table. Several pages, quality paper, photographs of the works, contact details for purchase enquiries. The banner photograph of Harold stared out from the back page, above a few words of context, including a cute line about how he had switched from criminal investigation to self-expression.
‘Not like you to come south of the wall, Dad.’
Harold sat back, smiled, poured out a bottle of San Miguel. ‘You mean the north-south divide at Castleton?’
Sawyer nodded. ‘From Midhope to Ashbourne. Inching closer to London.’
‘Fuck that. We’re technically outside the National Park here. That’s plenty for me. It’s giving me hives.’ He took a drink. ‘Did you get an evaluation after the Crawley case?’
‘I’m of sound mind.’
‘And body? What’s with the hand?’
‘Punch bag. Caught it on a rip.’ Sawyer crunched through the last of another chocolate lime, grimacing at the bitter centre.
‘What’s your choice of candy, these days?’
‘Candy?’
‘Sorry. Been talking to American dealers.’
‘Chocolate limes. Varies.’
Harold snorted. ‘Well. I suppose I was wrong. All that nagging about your teeth falling out.’ He sipped his beer. ‘When you were a teenager, Jake, you used to come to my study. Say hello. It made me smile, watching you gauge how much small talk you needed to cover before you could ask for the thing you actually wanted.’
‘I’m not here for money.’
Harold nodded. ‘Chris Hill should leave you alone for a while. I’ve covered the finances for Michael’s care.’
‘We should get him a speech therapist.’
‘You think we didn’t try that?’
‘He spoke to me.’
Harold narrowed his eyes. ‘Michael? Spoke?’
‘He said he remembered Mum saying something to the killer.’
Harold took a slow sip of beer, kept his eyes on Sawyer. ‘What did she say?’
‘She said, “Why?”’
‘And this is a breakthrough, how?’
‘You say “Why?” to someone you know. You say, “Stop!” or, “No!” or, “Please!” to someone you don’t know. Someone who’s attacking you with a hammer.’
‘Jake…’
‘Why did you try to stop Marcus Klein’s release?’
Harold didn’t miss a beat. ‘Because he murdered my wife, your mother. She knew him, Jake. They taught at the same school together. That explains what she said. If she said it. Michael is hardly what you’d call a reliable witness.’
‘And who would be? The Almighty himself?’
Harold sighed. ‘Already? We’re going there?’
‘How about Owen Casey?’
The name jolted Harold. He screwed his eyes shut, dropped his head. To Sawyer, it looked like a pantomime; displaying an effort to recall. But his father would know about his son’s sensitivity to lies, or the sugaring of truth.
Sawyer helped him out. ‘Repeat burglar from around the time you were at Buxton.’
Harold opened his eyes and fixed Sawyer with a steady gaze. ‘I don’t remember him, no.’
‘Irish traveller. Part of a group that settled in Uttoxeter in the seventies and eighties. You probably called them “gypos” in your day. Or “pikeys”. They don’t call them that any more. I don’t even think they do much travelling.’
‘And you think he killed your mother?’
‘No, I don’t. But I thought you might remember the name, give me an idea about where I might find him. I think he was involved in framing Klein. If I can find Casey, I might be able to catch the end of the thread, follow it back.’
Harold kept his eyes locked on his son. ‘You’re asking a sixty-seven-year-old man if he can think back thirty years and give you information on some petty thief who might be able to help with the framing of a convicted murderer? I said it before, Jake. Can you not see how crazy this is? How counterproductive?’
Sawyer stiffened. ‘You’re in denial. That’s the crazy bit. You’ve locked it all away, told yourself justice has been served, taken refuge in the same old biblical bullshit.’ He waved his hand around at the paintings. ‘And what is this? Catharsis?’ He leaned across the table. ‘You tell me to move on and accept things. But I think that deep, deep down, you know that Klein didn’t do it.’ He sat back. Harold glared at him. ‘I get it, Dad. You’re old now. You want peace and quiet. You’re following the Flaubert model. Be ordinary in your life so you can be extraordinary in your art. Here’s the thing, though. I’m not ready to rest yet. Not ready to let it rest.’ He leaned in. ‘“Why?”. Mum never got an answer to her question. But I will.’
22
Sawyer fitted his phone into the dashboard cradle and slotted in the ignition key. He paused, before turning. He had wanted to see his father face to face, to get a live reaction to his mention of Casey. At the time of his mother’s death, his father had been working at Buxton, under Keating, and it was conceivable that Sawyer’s current DCI might have sanctioned unofficial informants, and his father might want that particular soil to stay undisturbed. But Harold’s response to Casey’s name was genuine: he didn’t know him, and he seemed baffled and disturbed by Sawyer’s continued obsession. Maggie had said that if he was in the middle of a breakdown, he’d be the last to know. Was this the first twinge of self-awareness? Was it all an elaborate conspiracy story he was telling himself to muffle the pain?
He pulled out of the car park, passed beneath a canopy of rusty trees, and turned right onto Mappleton Road, rolling down between the low pastures: a sunken spread of olive green that would soon be twinkling with frost.
His phone rang: an unrecognised number. He set it to speaker and answered.
‘Sir? It’s Walker. DS Shepherd has asked me to brief you.’
Sawyer smiled. ‘Pestering paid off, eh?’
‘I don’t—’
‘Brief away.’
Walker cleared his throat. ‘Frazer Drummond has preliminary findings on Sam Palmer. Single stab wound. Internal bleeding. Says he proposes death by haemorrhagic shock. The mark on his forehead suggests Palmer was hit by something first. Bruising around wrists and mouth similar to Susan Bishop’s.’
Sawyer passed a cyclist, giving him a generous berth. The man—elderly—waved as he passed. ‘Where did the knife penetrate?’
‘According to Drummond, he “scored a direct hit” on the liver with a blade that was long enough to pass directly through. Nothing internal removed.’
‘Apart from the blood. Did you look into Palmer?
Was Rhodes right about his liver transplant?’
‘Hundred per cent. He went off the rails. Drink-driving in 2016. Assaulted the arresting officer. Fines. Banned for a year. Came out he was on Antabuse. There was a minor press fuss about a chronic alcoholic getting a transplant. Brought it on himself, all that. But it doesn’t look like he did anything untoward.’
Sawyer pushed a button in the door and rolled down the window. The outside air rushed in, sharp and chilled. He turned up the phone speaker volume. ‘Now we’re getting somewhere. How about Rhodes and Moran?’
‘Still nothing on the van we saw at Tideswell. I showed it to Palmer’s girlfriend. She didn’t recognise it. Couldn’t find any direct link between Palmer and Susan Bishop.’
‘We know where Susan’s heart came from. Now we need more on the source of Sam’s alcohol-free liver. Check with—’
‘I already looked into that, sir.’
Sawyer raised his eyebrows. ‘Nice. And?’
‘Palmer didn’t want any details or contact with the donor. So we can’t get the info there. The transplants were performed at different hospitals. Susan got her heart at Wythenshawe. Palmer’s op happened at St James’s University Hospital in Leeds. It all depends on the unit facilities. And here’s the interesting bit.’
‘They both happened on the same day?’
Walker paused. ‘Almost. Susan’s heart op was April 10th last year. Palmer’s liver on April 11th. They would have both been on the lists and the organs would have become available somewhere nearby.’
Sawyer nodded. ‘Shepherd told me the donors have to die in hospital so the organs remain viable.’ He turned onto a straight, clear road which led back into the National Park. ‘Did both organs originate from the same hospital? Bishop’s heart came from Sheffield Northern General, yes?’
‘That’s right. Manchester and Leeds wouldn’t confirm. Confidential. But they use a specialist ambulance service called Pulseline. Their records show organ dispatch from Sheffield to Manchester on April 10th and to Leeds on 11th.’
