The Truth About Murder

by Chris Collett

  The next hour or so was agonising, as I pretended to work at the computer, monitoring the cleaner’s progress as she gathered up empty sandwich packs and coffee beakers, wiped over surfaces and emptied bins. Finally, she wheeled her trolley towards the lift, which would take her up to the first floor.

  In that time, I had located an empty manila folder, which I marked with a bold CONFIDENTIAL. Tucking it under my arm, I followed her up. A glance out of the window at the car park had already told me that Bowers had left for the day, and when I got upstairs it appeared that Gloria was — as I’d hoped — the only human presence there. In full view, I knocked on Bowers’ door. I waited a minute or so and knocked again, then did a bit of sighing and pacing, tapping the folder on my thigh to convey, I hoped, my frustration. Gloria was, by now, letting herself into one of the neighbouring offices and glanced up, catching my eye.

  ‘I can’t believe I’ve missed him,’ I said with a “just my luck” shake of the head. I held up the file. ‘I was meant to have left this in his office. I’ll get a bollocking tomorrow.’ I eyed the chain loaded with keys around her waist. ‘I don’t suppose you could . . . Just for a couple of seconds . . . ?’

  Even though there was clearly no one else around, Gloria checked behind her, and with a weary smile that suggested this wasn’t the first time she’d had this kind of request, she shuffled along and unlocked the door.

  ‘Two seconds,’ she repeated, sternly, at which point the limitations of my venture became clear. However, having unlocked the door, Gloria returned to her work and as I moved across to Bowers’ desk, I heard the door to the office next door being opened. Ideally, of course, the Beagle report would have been there on the desk or sitting at the top of the in-tray waiting for me. But the desk was immaculately tidy. I tried the first of the three desk drawers. It was locked. The second slid open easily, but contained only the usual office paraphernalia: pens, pencils, stapler, hole punch. The third drawer seemed empty, but as I closed it, something inside slid a couple of inches. Reaching to the back, I found a plastic bag containing a number of what looked like unused mobile phones and a corresponding number of unused SIM cards, their packaging intact. Burner phones. Why the hell did Bowers need these?

  A door closed out in the corridor. I was running out of time. Heart pumping, I shoved the bag back in the drawer, and that’s when I noticed what I first took to be a tiny scrap of paper on the floor by the leg of the desk. I bent and picked it up, slipping it into my pocket, and was practically running for the door when Gloria reappeared.

  ‘Thanks, Gloria, you’re one in a million,’ I huffed, brushing past her and back out into the corridor. It wasn’t until I was back at my desk that I realised I was still carrying the folder. I doubted she’d been fooled by the ruse in any case, but it was too late now. I’d have to trust her discretion.

  The SIM card was burning a hole in my pocket. My phone was fiddly and my hands trembled as I rushed to take the back off, remove the SIM and replace it with the one from Bowers’ office. All the risk had been worthwhile — it only took seconds for me to recognise the contents of Denny Sutton’s phone. Many of the contact names were familiar to me, but here and there were sets of initials, most of them meaningless to me. One sprang out at me, though: TC. I touched “Call”. After several rings, voicemail cut in, short and to the point:

  “You’re through to Top Cat. Leave a message.” Top Cat — Tyler Curzon.

  Out of interest, I looked at the call history. There hadn’t been many interactions between them, but I did note that the last call Denny had received from Curzon was on the evening of Friday 4 March, shortly before Stefan Greaves was mugged. It made me feel sick. I tried to work out if this was progress. This indisputably proved a link between Denny and Tyler Curzon, and further analysis could well confirm that it was Curzon who was tipping Denny off about the other Beagle crimes. That I’d found the SIM in Bowers’ office was dodgy to start off with, but even more so given that Bowers had quizzed me about the whereabouts of Denny’s phone. I felt sure that a forensic analysis would implicate more than just Denny and Curzon, so ripping out my phone battery again, I slid out the SIM and tucked it into my wallet for safekeeping.

  Then, my heart still pumping hard, I called Stefan Greaves and told him what I’d found and — more pressingly — not found.

  ‘I don’t know what else we can do.’

  ‘There’s always my press contact,’ he said. ‘I could try and convince him that we’re onto something?’

  ‘Worth a shot,’ I said, though my expectations were low. There wasn’t much more I could do at this stage. Besides, it was coming up to the time I was due to collect Keeley.

  Chapter Fifty-one

  I went round to Laura and Simon’s house feeling less than certain that what I was about to say would be taken seriously. It was Simon who came to the door.

  ‘Sorry, Laura’s out with Grace . . .’ he began.

  ‘That’s all right, it’s you I want to see,’ I said, and already his curiosity was piqued.

  Bemused, he took me through to his office and we sat in the confined space while I tried my best to articulate my involvement with Rita Todd and what I thought had happened to her, followed by what Fraser had told me. Simon, with the true open-mindedness of a journalist, listened patiently and without judgement, but I had to admit that even to my ears it sounded fantastical. After all, this was Charnford we were talking about, a bog-standard town in Middle England. The frown between Simon’s brows as I came to the end was no great surprise. His response, nevertheless, was measured.

  ‘If what you’re saying is true then it’s a hell of a story,’ he said. ‘But even you know what’s missing, don’t you?’

  ‘Evidence,’ I said, with a sigh. It was what had let us down with Mr Asif and it had always been going to let me down now.

  ‘Without it, all you’ve got is hearsay and speculation,’ said Simon. ‘I can’t print that, I’m afraid.’

  I was in no position to disagree.

  ‘One of the things that interests me most here is that Westfield is flying under the radar,’ he continued. ‘Normally, a visit by someone of his profile, everyone would want it on the front page — for him and for Charnford. So why have we been cut out of it? Maybe I’ll make some discreet enquiries.’

  By which time, we both knew, Westfield would have departed, and it would be too late.

  * * *

  When she came to the door, Keeley took my breath away.

  ‘You look terrific,’ I said, truthfully. ‘Did you manage to get . . . everything you need?’

  She tapped her clutch bag.

  ‘All in here,’ she said. ‘But I’m not promising anything. Do you understand?’

  ‘Of course.’

  We drove to Westfield’s hotel. Watching him walk out of the hotel lobby, his white-blond hair slicked back and navy suit in perfect accord with his dazzlingly blue eyes, I wanted to leap out and throw him to the ground. As he got in the car, he looked from one to the other of us and turned on the smile that by now made me feel slightly queasy.

  ‘I believe you two already know each other,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘I’m counting on your discretion, Mick,’ Westfield said, putting a hand on my shoulder, though he didn’t really sound as if he cared. ‘Now to Mawton Manor. Do you know it?’

  ‘Ashley Curzon’s place,’ I said, trying to sound as if I knew more than I did.

  ‘So I understand. Finally, a chance to relax a bit and switch off the politician in me. Then I can get back to London and start to change the world.’

  ‘Sounds ambitious,’ I said.

  He laughed. ‘Hardly. But I’ve been offered what sounds like an interesting job. Sorry, I can’t divulge any details,’ he added, in anticipation. ‘But I guess you’ll hear about it in the fullness of time.’

  My gaze met Keeley’s in the rear-view mirror. What kind of job? As I dropped them off at the Palladian pile that was Ashley C
urzon’s home, I made a mental inventory of the other cars parked on the drive, including Superintendent Bowers’. The one thing they all told me was that there was a shedload of money here tonight. I made a note of the other licence plate numbers with the intention of running them through ANPR at the next opportunity. Then, parking up, I decided to take a stroll around the outside of the building to get a sense of the scale of the place.

  Chapter Fifty-two

  Looking back on the meeting with Simon as I arrived home, I felt deflated. It would be about now that Fraser was delivering Westfield to Mawton Manor along with Keeley. What wouldn’t I give to be a fly on that wall tonight? I tried to go over what Fraser and I had learned, tried to apply a rational analysis. Now I’d had time to really think it through, it seemed ludicrous. It was little wonder that Simon had reacted in the way that he had. So when the rap on my front door came a little later, it was a puzzle. Had Simon decided the story was worth chasing after all? I hoped so. Drawing up a plan of action — even if it went nowhere — might help to subdue the thoughts doing endless circuits of my brain. The astonishment must have been all over my face when I opened the door and found Guy Leonard standing in the hallway, a bottle of wine grasped in one hand.

  ‘Peace offering,’ he said. ‘I’ve no wish to interrupt your Friday evening, but I feel we didn’t get off to the best of starts. I was an arse. It’s been happening a lot lately, as my wife’s frequently pointed out. Cate is a lovely woman and a good friend, so I would like to make reparation.’

  O-kay . . .

  ‘And if you’ll allow me the opportunity,’ he went on, ‘I’d also like to enlighten you about Rita Todd, also someone I am — was — fond of. I want to set the record straight regarding our relationship.’

  This I had to hear. Now, no doubt, the failings of my overactive imagination would be revealed. I stepped back to let him in.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he asked, as he brushed past me and I followed him into the kitchen. ‘You look a bit peaky.’ Aware that he must have been staring, he held up the bottle. ‘You do drink this stuff?’

  I got out some glasses and he poured us each a generous measure, before we went to sit in the lounge.

  ‘Cheers,’ he said, sincerely. ‘Here’s to a fresh start.’

  ‘Cheers.’ I took a sizeable gulp. I’m no connoisseur, but I knew quality when I tasted it, enjoying the complex flavours which lingered on the palate. He’d overfilled my glass, though, and as I went to place it on the coffee table, an unexpected spasm threw a few drops onto the carpet.

  ‘Whoops.’ He looked long and hard at my twitching hand. ‘I understand Cate mentioned surgery to you,’ he said, lightly. ‘Not my place to meddle, of course, but it might be worth serious thought.’

  The flat was beginning to feel unbearably warm. It had been milder today and I’d meant to turn down the thermostat. I drank some more wine and held my tongue.

  ‘I mean, I’m sure you know all this, but as you get older, your muscles will stiffen and you’ll be in more pain. It’s quite possible that surgery would help.’ He took my stony silence as resistance. ‘It might at least be worth having an assessment to see if it would be a suitable treatment. It would give you options.’

  Leonard’s face drifted out of focus. God, I hoped I wasn’t about to have another seizure. Talk about bad timing. I took a deep breath to try and clear my head.

  ‘Anyway, I digress,’ he went on. ‘We’re here to talk about Rita. Rita . . .’ He leaned forward in his seat. ‘I’m happy to tell you all I know, but I’m afraid there’s one condition. Rita was party to some very privileged information.’

  ‘OK.’ I was struggling to concentrate on what he was saying.

  ‘In order to share this with you, I have to ask you to sign a simple non-disclosure agreement.’

  A printed sheet of paper had appeared on the coffee table in front of me, and he brandished a pen.

  ‘Like Delores,’ I said, my tongue suddenly rubbery and slow.

  He looked surprised. ‘Yes. Like Delores. Would you mind?’

  I wasn’t at all sure, but the room had started moving away from me, curling into a long tunnel. Partly to anchor myself in the fast distorting space, I took the pen from him. Its grip was reassuringly tangible, something quite literally to hold on to. He pointed to a place on the paper, and I leaned forward to scrawl my name.

  ‘Splendid,’ he said. ‘Now. Rita.’

  But as I sat back to listen, Guy Leonard’s face began to melt, finally vanishing behind an explosion of silent fireworks.

  Chapter Fifty-three

  The circuit of Ashley Curzon’s manor took me a leisurely fifteen minutes. Petrowlski had told me he’d picked up the property some years ago at a knock-down price because of the state it was in. Less ostentatious than I’d anticipated, it was built in a truncated U shape, with perhaps six or eight rooms on each of the two levels, making it easy to navigate. Apart from those at the front of the house where the reception was being held, these were all in darkness and all I could make out inside were the static shadows of the furniture. Tacked onto the end of one wing, at right angles and almost completing the square, was a low timber-clad construction. Sliding picture windows along each side opened onto the landscaped gardens, and had views over the surrounding countryside. An aquamarine, backlit rectangle in the floor cast an eerie glow over the room. Ashley Curzon had an indoor swimming pool, lucky bugger.

  At the far end, where the pool room linked to the house, was a kind of indoor patio, with loungers and other garden furniture among exotic pot plants and complete with what looked like a bar. At the opposite end, an object the size of an armchair was covered with a sheet. If that was the barbecue, it was modest for the otherwise upmarket amenities.

  Disappointed with my findings, I returned to the car and sat weighing up the relative merits of sitting and freezing my arse off out here for the next few hours or heading back to the nice warm station, where I could at least be doing something useful. It crossed my mind that I could have another crack at Bowers’ office — no danger of him turning up there. But then I realised that he’d have brought anything pertaining to Operation Beagle with him here tonight. The chance of anything useful happening here was pretty small and Keeley would be in it for the long haul, so I turned the key in the ignition and was just checking over my shoulder to reverse into a three-point turn when I spotted another vehicle making its way towards the parking area. It stood out from all the other cars in terms of both age and condition, and when the driver emerged, I recognised her. I saw her gaze sweep over the assorted cars, forcing a hesitation, so I rolled down my window and called out to her.

  ‘Hey, what are you doing here?’

  Her relief at seeing me was touching. She hurried over and got into the passenger seat beside me.

  ‘They told me at the station that this is where you were. But I thought you must be inside,’ she said.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I’ve just been round to Stefan’s place, but he’s not there. He’d promised to come out with me tonight. We were supposed to meet in the market square, but he didn’t turn up and he didn’t let me know he wasn’t coming, which isn’t like him at all, he would always let me know. And now I’m thinking, what if he’s been beaten up again and left for dead in some alleyway somewhere . . .’ She stopped to draw breath.

  ‘Woah, steady on. Let’s backtrack a bit. What makes you think he might have come to harm? How do you know he hasn’t just made other plans and — I don’t know — forgotten to tell you?’

  ‘Because he wouldn’t do that. He promised to come with me.’

  ‘With you where?’

  ‘The candlelight vigil for the homeless, in Charnford.’

  ‘That’s very noble.’

  ‘It’s what you do for friends.’

  ‘You were friends with the rough sleepers?’

  ‘Some of them, yes.’ Her tone was defensive, belligerent. ‘We were in the care system together: me, Tom
mo, Liam and that. I was lucky. I came out of it all right, but not everyone does and it’s not always their fault.’

  ‘You knew Liam Archer?’ I said.

  She nodded. ‘I mean, I’m sorry Liam killed your mate and all that, but he was harmless. He wouldn’t have done it unless someone put him up to it.’

  ‘I was told it was the voices in his head.’

  She pulled a face. ‘Liam didn’t hear voices. He wasn’t the smartest and he was easily led, but that was all. He just always wanted to be part of the gang.’

  ‘What gang?’

  ‘I don’t know now. When we were at school it was Bostwick and Sully and all that crowd — until he stopped coming to school.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Dunno. He just stopped. And no one seemed that bothered.’

  What Plum had just said was significant, but my thought process was interrupted by my mobile buzzing into life. It was Keeley.

  ‘Sorry, I need to get this.’ Plum made to get out of the car, but I signalled to her to stay.

  ‘Where are you?’ asked Keeley.

  ‘I’m outside, why?’

  ‘Westfield’s gone off somewhere. A guy who looked like staff came and got him. Your boss and Ashley Curzon have also disappeared and there was a woman who was all over Westfield when we got here, and I can’t see her anywhere now.’

  Apart from Plum’s old banger, nothing had moved out of the car park so they couldn’t have gone far.

  Before doing anything else, I put a call through to Sharon Petrowlski and asked her to call round to Stefan Greaves’ flat, though I felt sure there’d be nothing to find.

  ‘And you stay right here,’ I told Plum. Then I got out of the car and headed for the hall.

  I showed my ID at the door. ‘I’m Matthew Westfield’s driver,’ I said. ‘I’m burstin’ for a piss, do you mind?’

  As I’d hoped, he let me in. Now I just had to find them. Inside, it was clear where the official action was taking place. Crossing the chandeliered vestibule, I came to double doors that opened onto a room big enough to be called a ballroom. I saw men in black tie and women in dresses of all colours and levels of sophistication, but no one whose face I immediately recognised. In one corner a petite, pretty woman with a strident voice seemed to be holding court with half a dozen or so couples. Flunkeys circulated, balancing trays of champagne flutes and canapés. Nodding at one confidently, as if I was meant to be there, I scanned the room until I saw Keeley. She was involved in what looked like a less than riveting conversation with a short, red-faced man. I willed her to glance in my direction, which eventually she did. Her eyes met mine and, making her apologies, she hurried over. Her kiss on the cheek took me aback, until I realised this was role-play. Over her shoulder, the red-faced man stared regretfully into his drink.