by Faith Martin
His parents had chosen the wording for him, of course, so she found it plain and uninspiring. No lines of poetry, or even a personal comment, to make it unique. Just his name, date of birth and death, and the usual, pious claim that he had been a ‘beloved son’, as a final insult to her.
Why didn’t gravestones habitually say lover or soulmate of such-and-such?
Of course, she thought fairly, she couldn’t claim to be either of those things now. She sighed and stood looking around the deserted country churchyard with wistful eyes and a slowly burgeoning resentment.
She didn’t deserve this, any of it. She was lonely and alone. Her first faithless love was dead, and her new love wouldn’t acknowledge her. Although it was romantic and all very fine to ‘pine away’ with a broken heart, she was getting seriously fed up with all of it. Now that Michael’s case had been reopened, he should have come to her. Asked her to lie for him, or to simply run away somewhere so that they could be together and safe. But no — still he wouldn’t trust her. Still he was reluctant to love her like he should.
Why should she have to put up with it? All her life, men had misused and mistreated her and let her down, and failed to live up to even the lowest of expectations. But she knew there was no answer for her here. Michael was long and safely dead. Nothing could touch him anymore. It was she who was alive and suffering.
She reached down and snatched the gorgeous freesias from the small pot and tossed them angrily onto the quiet green turf. Then, deliberately, she put out her foot and ground their beautiful, fragrant petals into the ground. Wasn’t that, after all, what the two men in her life had done to her — each in their own separate ways?
She’d been patient, but his refusal to come to her now was one betrayal too far.
And she would suffer in silence no longer.
It was time she had vengeance.
* * *
As Mia stalked from the mockingly empty and quiet country churchyard, Gareth Proctor was sitting at his desk, sipping from a mug of hot, sweet tea. It was Claire who had provided it, on learning from Hillary what had been happening, and it was Claire who watched him surreptitiously as he drank it. Her motherly eyes were anxious and concerned, and she found it hard to concentrate on her own work. Though she did remember to fill Hillary in briefly on what she’d come up with on some of her assignments.
‘About the financial status of Dr Durning and Mia de Salle, guv,’ she said. ‘Both of them live in houses that they own outright, as opposed to renting. Neither of them has a current mortgage, although Dr Durning had one but has now paid it off. Dr Durning doesn’t earn much salary as a private tutor, and so far hasn’t published any books that could be said to have earned him a decent living. But he owns a nice car, and holidays abroad at least twice a year. Mia de Salle bought a very nice place in Woodstock as a cash buyer, about eight years ago.’
Hillary frowned. ‘Does her family have money?’
Claire lifted a hand, palm flat, and rocked it from side to side. ‘They’re not poor, guv, but they aren’t rolling in it either.’
‘Hmm. Interesting,’ Hillary said. Then, seeing that Gareth was now settled down in the main office, she left them both to it, and, straightening her shoulders, went to report to Rollo Sale.
From the superintendent’s reception of her, she realized two things. One, now that the tension and anxiety had passed and she and Gareth were both safely back at HQ, a fair amount of his worry and anger had had time to dissipate. And two, at some point, Commander Marcus Donleavy must have made it clear that she was not to be officially disciplined for disobeying his orders.
Since she couldn’t expect Rollo Sale to be happy about the powers-that-be going over his head when it came to how he handled his personnel, she stood stiffly in front of his desk and let him make it clear just how displeased he was, and didn’t take it personally.
Afterwards, she apologized, explained her thinking, and promised never to do it again. Thus, with honour satisfied on both sides, Hillary left, with both of them giving and receiving a mutually strained smile. Nevertheless, they both knew that she was in his bad books, and probably would be for some time.
Letting out a long sigh as she walked back down the corridor, she paused in the doorway and glanced in. Claire shot her a quick look with a raised eyebrow. Gareth was staring blankly at his computer screen.
‘Gareth. Do you have someone we can call?’ Hillary asked. And when he transferred his blank gaze to her, added, ‘It might be a good idea if you had someone stay with you overnight. A parent? A friend, perhaps?’
‘Thank you, ma’am, but I’ll be fine.’
Hillary looked at him thoughtfully for a moment, then sighed. ‘All right. But if you want to get off early, go ahead.’ A quick glance at the cheap, battery-operated white plastic clock on the wall showed her that it was nearly four o’clock anyway. ‘Claire can drive you home. Your car should be parked by your front door by now.’
‘Sure thing,’ Claire said brightly.
Gareth forced a smile.
Hillary went back to her office. After a few moments, she reached for her notebook and checked the next item on her to-do list.
She reached for the phone and dialled the Becks’ home phone number. William answered.
‘Mr Beck, it’s Hillary Greene. A quick question I forgot to ask before. You said that last time you saw Michael, he was on his bike, and so didn’t have his metal detector with him. Is that right?’
‘Yes, that’s right.’
‘Can you just confirm then that the detector is, or was, still at your place? I mean, when it came time to sort out Michael’s belongings, did you find the metal detector in his room, or the shed perhaps, or wherever it was that he usually kept it?’
‘Oh, now you’re asking me,’ William said. ‘I’m not sure, off hand. It was ten years ago now.’
‘Yes, I can appreciate that, but it is something I need to know,’ she pressed gently.
‘Hold on a moment, I’ll get my wife. She dealt with most of that sort of thing,’ he said.
Hillary heard a little click, and then a moment or two of silence, then the muffled sound of voices, and a little while later, Martina’s voice.
‘Hello? William says you’re asking about Michael’s metal detector?’
‘Yes, Mrs Beck, sorry to bother you again. I just wanted to know what happened to it after Michael’s death. Did you give it away to someone, or donate it to charity perhaps?’
‘No. No, I don’t think so,’ Martina said, after a moment’s puzzled silence. ‘I remember giving his clothes to Oxfam, and his books to Sue Ryder. We kept his watch and St Christopher, of course. But his metal detector . . . I’m sorry, I don’t remember seeing it . . .’
‘Did he keep it in his room?’
‘No, in the shed with his bicycle and other stuff.’
‘Try and picture it in your mind,’ Hillary said helpfully. ‘What other things of his were kept in there?’
‘Well, his bicycle, but we never got that back, as you know. He kept his wellingtons and dirty sneakers and stuff in there. An old dog lead and bowl of Tizer’s that he couldn’t bear to get rid of.’ She heard Martina Beck’s voice catch a little as she recalled the obviously long-gone family pet. ‘Michael was heartbroken when he died. There’s a spare freezer in there . . . You know, I really don’t think I’ve seen his metal detector at all since . . . since he left us.’
Hillary, who’d been feeling a growing sense of being on to something at last, tried not to get ahead of herself. ‘Do you know of anyone else in your circle of family or friends who might have had a use for it? It’s possible you gave it away when you were still feeling below par and just simply can’t remember it now. As your husband said, it was ten years ago.’
‘I suppose so,’ Martina said, but didn’t sound particularly convinced. ‘Do you want me to see if I can find it? Although I don’t think it can be in the shed . . .’
‘If you wouldn’t mind, Mrs Beck. And i
f you could call me back and let me know?’
‘Yes, I will,’ she promised, sounding a little distracted, and abruptly hung up.
So did Hillary. And she had the distinct feeling that when Martina Beck called her back, it would be to report that the metal detector was nowhere to be found.
Which meant . . .
Which meant she now had a fairly good working theory as to who had killed Michael Beck, and why.
But proving it was going to be a real challenge . . .
It was at that moment that the door to her office flew open so hard that it hit the inner wall with a sound like a gunshot, and started to ricochet back. Hillary’s nerves, which had just begun to settle down, went abruptly into overdrive again and she only just prevented herself from letting out a little scream.
In the doorway, looking at her with a face pale and tight with fury, was Gareth Proctor. Hovering behind him, looking upset and bewildered, was Claire.
‘What the hell did you do?’ Gareth thundered at her. He was breathing hard, as if he’d just run a marathon, and was sweating slightly with tension.
Hillary looked at him calmly, then let her eyes drift casually over his shoulder. ‘Claire, why don’t you go home early. I’ll drive Gareth back to his flat.’
‘Yes, guv,’ Claire said uncertainly. She looked at Hillary closely, to see if she was signalling for her to go and get help, but Hillary merely stared flatly back at her.
Claire nodded and backed away. When Gareth had stood up, checked his back pocket and suddenly started acting really weirdly, she had instinctively followed him when he blundered out of the room. But she knew when it was wise to beat a retreat. Whatever it was that was happening between Hillary Greene and the newest member of the team, she intended to keep out of it.
For a moment both Gareth and Hillary remained perfectly still and quiet, listening to Claire’s retreating footsteps.
‘You needn’t bother to drive me home. I’ll call a taxi,’ Gareth grated.
‘Fine. Come in and close the door. There’s no chair in here so you’re going to have to stand.’
‘I prefer to stand, ma’am,’ he said, his voice hard.
‘Good. Because I prefer you to stand as well,’ Hillary said, her own voice just as hard. She saw his eyes flicker, just a little, in surprise at her clearly unexpected response, but he was still too obsessed with one thing to really take heed of the warning.
‘You stole something from me, didn’t you?’ he immediately went on the attack. His right hand was clenched into an angry fist, and he had his weight settled firmly on his right leg. He was leaning just slightly forward, everything about his body language screaming that this was a man in a combative mood. She, however, was sitting with a desk between them, in a tight space where he’d have no room to manoeuvre, and with backup from the technical boffins in the office down the corridor just a shout away.
This time she had no doubts about who would come off best if things got physical.
But she wouldn’t — couldn’t — let it come to that.
‘Incorrect,’ she snapped back instantly. ‘You stole something from me, and I merely took steps to retrieve it.’
She again saw his eyes flicker uncertainly as, yet again, things didn’t seem to be playing out as he’d expected. Maybe he thought she’d bluster or deny things or try and bluff it out. Or maybe he thought she’d be submissive and placatory and try to explain herself.
Now, with just a few crisp sentences, he was beginning to sense that he’d read the situation — and her — all wrong. But he was still too angry and too shocked from his friend’s brutal death to make the mental adjustment needed. He was still too focused on trying to do right by his dead friend to realize the danger he was in.
But by the time she was finished with him, he would fully understand the danger he was in.
‘You read his suicide note, didn’t you, once you’d fobbed me off with Sergeant Rawson,’ he went back on the attack.
‘Of course I did,’ Hillary said flatly. Perhaps he had expected her to feel guilty about that, because her uncompromising statement seemed to wrongfoot him for a third time. But he quickly rallied, still so sure that he held the moral high ground.
‘Then you know it was meant for me to find and deal with.’ His eyes flashed. ‘You had no right to interfere. It was nothing to do with you!’
Hillary slowly leaned back in her chair and cocked her head slightly to one side. She let her eyes narrow a little. ‘Nothing . . . to . . . do . . . with . . . me,’ she said, deliberately elongating the spacing, her tone utterly disbelieving. ‘Let me see. I’ve been a police officer for all my adult life.’ She ticked the points off ostentatiously on her fingers as she spoke. ‘I’m still working for the police force as an investigator. And the murder of a man in Reading, of which I now have direct evidence and knowledge, is nothing to do with me?’ She smiled gently. ‘Hmm, an interesting hypothesis,’ she said sardonically. ‘Now let me just sit and think about that for a moment.’
She was relieved to see that a slightly guilty flush had now crept over his face, that some of his surety was being eroded. He opened his mouth to speak, and she instantly held up a hand.
‘Be quiet, Mr Proctor,’ she said, the words a clear and unambiguous order. ‘You are going to listen to what I say next very carefully and without interruption. And I suggest you bury your anger and your burning sense of righteous indignation and engage your brain. Because your future is going to depend on it.’
Gareth instinctively stiffened to attention at the voice of command, but then began to look almost instantly mulish again. No doubt he was beginning to remember that he was no longer actually in the army. And that Hillary was not his superior officer.
Before he could begin to get his head properly around that, she began to speak.
‘What you did today was a criminal offence,’ she began, her words crisp and clear. ‘For which you could be charged, and, if found guilty, be sentenced to jail time. You would have to serve your sentence, and come out with a criminal record at the end of it. And if you found getting a job hard before, just how hard do you think you’d find it then?’
Gareth swallowed hard, but said nothing.
‘I understand you have an ex-wife and a daughter who, presumably, rely on your financial help?’
‘Now wait a minute . . .’
‘And your actions today could have far-reaching consequences for them,’ Hillary steamrollered over him.
It shut him up, as she knew it would. No doubt, during the heat of the moment and then the awful numbing aftermath of his friend’s suicide, all his thoughts had been with Jason Morley.
Now she needed to make him see that he had other commitments.
‘When you stole that piece of evidence, you were also becoming an accessory after the fact to the murder of Francis Clyde-Brough,’ she informed him coldly.
‘That bastard deserved everything he got,’ Gareth said hotly, unable to control himself any longer.
Hillary had no doubt that he was gearing himself up to explain just what awful thing it was that the murdered soldier had done overseas which had resulted in Jason Morley and probably several others wanting him dead. And that he fully expected her to be as outraged as himself. And she probably would be too.
But again, she ruthlessly cut across him. ‘You may well be right about that, Mr Proctor,’ she said briskly, ‘but right now, that’s irrelevant.’
‘No, ma’am,’ Gareth snapped out, ‘it isn’t! Jason only did what his friends couldn’t because they were dead. Killed hundreds of miles from home because of that stupid bastard’s incompetence and cowardice. Clyde-Brough might as well have killed Jason as well, because he was never right afterwards. Oh yes, he was one of the lucky ones who came home, but he couldn’t forget. Couldn’t settle. He became depressed, had terrible nightmares. He just kept spiralling down and down until he did what he did out of sheer desperation. You can’t judge him. You don’t have the right.’
Hillary sighed heavily, but wasn’t all that convinced by Gareth’s scenario. To make your best friend part of your suicide sounded more like an act of aggression to her, rather than a matter of trust. She wasn’t surprised that Gareth was seeing things from only one side, but she would be willing to bet a fair amount that, friend or not, Jason Morley had probably harboured some resentment towards his friend. Maybe subconscious and unacknowledged, but there nevertheless. Gareth obviously hadn’t been part of whatever it was that Clyde-Brough had got so drastically wrong. And Gareth, although suffering the results of his own disaster, had still come through it and was managing to cope. He’d got a new flat, a new job, a new life. Friend or no, Jason Morley’s feelings towards his mate must have been mixed, to say the least.
But she knew it was no good saying any of this to Gareth now. He wouldn’t want to hear it. He’d probably never want to hear it.
She nodded slowly, giving him time to calm down. ‘I understand how you feel,’ she said quietly.
Gareth snorted insultingly.
Hillary’s eyes hardened again. ‘Do you think you’re the only one who understands loyalty to a colleague, Mr Proctor?’ she asked him, her voice dangerously quiet now.
And suddenly Gareth remembered Hillary’s résumé — and her award for bravery, for taking a bullet for a friend. ‘Ma’am, I didn’t mean to suggest . . .’
