Dead in the Water (13 page)

“Janice’s death was an accident, wasn’t it?” Becca had sobered up and gotten serious all in a moment. “It was a hit and run, wasn’t it? An accident pure and simple. The only issue being that the driver didn’t stop.”

“It was not an accident. It was deliberate.”

“How can you possibly know that? I’ve read the reports on the BBC and Oxford Mail websites.”

“Trust me. I’m a private investigator. I dig around and I find things out.”

For the first time in their short acquaintance, Mullen saw alarm in Becca’s eyes. Her skin had turned a sickly white. “How?” she said. “How—?” That was as far as she could get with her question.

“I’ve found a witness,” he said. “It was deliberate. And I’ve also learnt that Janice had had her drink spiked with something which would have made her very unsteady on her feet.”

Becca Baines stared at him for several seconds. She shuddered. “You’re serious!” There was the beginning of panic in her voice.

Mullen pressed on. “If I was the police and I thought Janice’s death was murder, then my suspicions would be directed first at Paul as her husband and then you as his lover.”

She shook her head from side to side. “But I didn’t.”

“Have you got an alibi?”

She looked up. Her face was a battlefield. “An alibi?”

“I can vouch that you had supper with me in the Fox. There will be people who will remember us. I can tell the police that you were with me until about nine thirty, but the problem is that she wasn’t killed until ten p.m. and of course from Boars Hill to the Iffley Road at that time of night doesn’t take long in a car.”

“Hey, you’ve certainly thought it through haven’t you!” She spat the words out. “But there would be a dent on my car if I’d run her down. And I know for a fact that there isn’t.”

“For all the police know, you stole a car and then set fire to it afterwards.”

Her mouth opened, but that was all.

They both fell silent. Mullen drank the rest of his wine. He needed it. Becca began to run her fingers through her hair — as if it was a wig and she was testing how well attached it was to her skull. Eventually she stopped and leaned forward. “Doug, you surely don’t think I killed Janice do you?”

Mullen didn’t answer at first. The grandfather clock in the hall chimed eight o’clock. It felt like midnight and his headache had returned.

“Tell me you don’t!”

“I really don’t know what to think, Becca.”

She stood up suddenly, knocking over her glass as she did so. “I’ll be off then. The last thing you want is a murderer in your precious house.” She stamped across the kitchen towards the hall.

“You’ve drunk too much to be driving,” he called after her.

“You sound like my mother, Mullen.” She hurled the taunt over her shoulder, but didn’t look back. Mullen didn’t follow her. Instead he emptied what was left of the wine into his glass and listened: to her car door slamming shut, to the engine bursting into life and to the wheels shooting gravel out behind them. Then silence descended and with it came a strange mixture of relief and sadness.

* * *

It was only when she had put her mother to bed just before ten o’clock that Doreen Rankin allowed herself the stiff gin and tonic she had been thinking about all evening. Normally she settled down in front of the BBC news with a mug of tea, but these were not normal circumstances and for once the stories of doom, gloom and violence failed to engage her. She killed the TV with a savage curse, pushed herself up from the sofa and hobbled over to the bookshelf.

Her right hand homed in on one of her favourite books, about the Pre-Raphaelites. She took it over to the table where the two of them always ate and opened it up. It fell open where she knew it would — Ophelia floating face-upwards in the river, singing with apparent serenity shortly before she was dragged down to her doom. ‘Her clothes spread wide,’ as Shakespeare recorded it, ‘her garments, heavy with their drink, pull’d the poor wretch from her melodious lay to muddy death.’ Rankin mouthed the words as she had mouthed them so often before, but neither Shakespeare’s words nor Millais’s painting held her as they usually did.

What dragged at her like Ophelia’s garments was the innocuous-looking brown envelope lying between the pages of the book and the three incriminating photographs which she knew lay inside it. She wished she had destroyed them as she had promised Paul she would. If she had done that, she could have pretended to herself that they had never existed — or at least that she had never known anything about them. If only!

She slipped her right hand inside the envelope and pulled out the photographs. They looked no better after a good slug of alcohol than they had when she had so unsuspectingly opened them in the office. She could destroy them now, she told herself. It wasn’t too late. She didn’t have a shredder here at home and there was no open fire or wood-burner in their twenty-first century apartment, but a pair of her mother’s pinking shears would quickly reduce them to a pile of indecipherable and unrecoverable paper shreds. Except that she had seen on some TV drama that there were people who were experts at putting shredded paper back together. She guessed it was a bit like doing a jigsaw puzzle, but without a picture to guide you.

There was a noise — or rather a series of noises all too familiar to Doreen Rankin: a heavy thump as her mother swung herself heavily out of bed, a shuffling of feet, the bang of a door. It was the first of her mother’s frequent nocturnal trips. She took another couple of sips of her gin and tonic and listened, waiting for the noises that would signal that her mother had returned to her bed. She was convinced that sooner or later she would fall and crack her skull on a piece of furniture or snap her hip.

She sipped again at her glass and realised there was only ice at the bottom of it. She poured herself another drink, with a bit more gin this time, and dropped in some extra ice as compensation. She returned to the sofa, glass in one hand and photographs in the other, and slumped down. She took a swig and belched.

Alcohol was supposed to confuse and befuddle the mind. But that wasn’t how it felt to Doreen Rankin. Quite the opposite. Things were becoming clearer with every mouthful. She couldn’t possibly destroy the photographs. They were evidence. She ought to give them to the police. Except that doing so would be a second betrayal of Paul. Unless of course he had killed Janice, in which case helping the police was her duty. But having an affair did not make Paul Atkinson a killer. He was a charmer, yes. Doreen was pretty darned sure that he had cheated on his wife several times on business trips to Europe and the States. But that didn’t mean he would have killed his wife if she had found out. What would have been the point? To judge from the way he treated her and the angry phone calls she herself had received from Janice, they weren’t exactly a match made in heaven.

She took another sip and discovered she was down to the ice again. It was amazing how quickly a nice G & T disappeared. She eased herself up, made her way over to the table again and poured herself another refill. This was the last one tonight, she promised herself. Definitely the last. She took a gulp and looked again at one of the photographs. It was the one where Paul had his hand on the woman’s fat bottom and she was whispering something in his ear. Doreen picked up the next one. It was, she now realised, taken almost immediately after the first (Paul’s hand was still on the bitch’s bottom), only in this shot Paul’s face was visible and there was a terrible leering grin spread right across it. She must have been whispering something quite disgusting into his ear. Doreen took another gulp from her glass and felt the anger rise. It was the woman’s fault! Paul was an attractive but weak man, easy prey for the unscrupulous woman. She knew that. She had always known that. Well, she wasn’t going play into the bitch’s hands. She was going to find the pinking shears and go to work on the photographs. And when she had got a nice pile of shredded paper, she’d burn them just to be sure. And later on, in a few days’ time, when Paul had recovered from Janice’s death, she would tell him what she had done. He would be so pleased.

Doreen stood up and moved unsteadily over to the fireplace. She took the lid off a small Chinese jar and extricated a packet of cigarettes and a box of matches. She lit up and blew a wreath of smoke up towards the ceiling, watching it as it expanded and then disappeared. Her mother wouldn’t approve, but she didn’t care. What harm could a cigarette or two do?

Chapter 7

Mullen slept soundly that night. The day had sucked the energy out of him and although he went to bed with the events and discoveries of the last twelve hours spinning in his head, his body’s need for rest and recuperation had the final say. He woke once to go to the toilet, but apart from that he was conscious of nothing until his mobile phone woke him. He rolled over, picked it up and checked the caller display; ‘Unknown.’ Most likely some wretched cold caller. He killed the call.

He had barely lain back down before his mobile rang again. The same ‘Unknown’ was displayed. He groaned. His gut reaction was to ignore the call again and turn his mobile off, but something stopped him. Did these automated dialling systems dial you again immediately? He thought not. More likely they did so the next day or the next week. Which meant, he realised, that this was very likely a human being calling, not a salesperson. Hiding your number when you made a call was easy enough to do if you knew how. The phone continued to ring and Mullen reluctantly swung his legs over the side of the mattress and sat up. He pressed the answer icon, lifted the mobile to his ear and listened. There was silence, except for the muffled sound of someone breathing.

“Who is it?”

“Is that the Good Samaritan?”

“What?” Even if Mullen hadn’t been half asleep, the reference would have confused him.

“It’s a dangerous role.”

This time Mullen said nothing. He knew when someone was threatening him. He knew too — or thought he did — that if he kept quiet and avoided rising to the bait then the chances were that the caller would say more.

“Did you hear me?” There was a crack of irritation in the voice, even though it sounded artificial. Mullen was reminded of Stephen Hawking.

“Are you trying to frighten me?”

“It’s not you who should be frightened. It’s your friends.”

It was like being kicked in the stomach. Mullen felt the bile rise and tasted the bitterness in his throat. He opened his mouth and forced himself to say something.

“What do you mean?” Keep him talking, he told himself. And listen, Mullen, really listen — to his stupid voice, to what he says and how he says it, for any background noise.

“Unless you stop,” the man continued, “one of your friends will pay the price.”

And then the line went dead.

* * *

By the time Mullen had showered, dressed in clean clothes, eaten some muesli and downed a mug of black coffee, he felt almost ready to face the day. His headache of the night before was a distant memory, though anxiety was beating its own drum inside his head.

Should he take the phone call seriously? The answer was surely ‘yes.’ Should he contact the police about it? Of course he should. Otherwise, if something did happen to one of his friends, he would never forgive himself. Would DI Dorkin and DS Fargo take him seriously? The answer to that question was less certain.

Even so, Mullen made the call and after an argument with the person on the end of the line he got transferred to Dorkin. Except that the person who answered certainly wasn’t Dorkin, not unless he had had a sex-change or a nasty cricketing accident.

“Your name, sir?” the woman said in a flat Brummie accent.

“Doug Mullen. I need to speak to DI Dorkin.”

There was a pause before she replied.

“I’m afraid he’s out. I’m Detective Constable Ashe. Perhaps I can help.”

“Is DS Fargo there?”

“He’s out too.”

“I need to speak to one of them.”

“About what?”

“About two murders and an anonymous phone call.”

“I see.”

There was another pause. Mullen wondered if she was getting advice or merely making him wait for the sake of it. Then: “They’ll be in touch shortly.” And she put the phone down before he could argue or complain.

Mullen shrugged and leant back in the large Windsor chair he had adopted as his own. “And pigs will fly,” he said to the empty kitchen.

Mullen was wrong. ‘Shortly’ turned out to be a lot sooner than he could possibly have expected. He had only just gone upstairs and brushed his teeth when a banging at the door summoned him back downstairs.

“Hello, again!” The sour smile and gravelly greeting belonged to Dorkin. Behind him, Fargo loomed silent and surly. He seemed to be larger every time they met. “I’d like a little chat,” Dorkin continued, pushing inside. Fargo followed and Mullen, shutting the door, couldn’t help but notice that there were two uniformed officers standing in the drive, one of whom headed off round the side of the house. Were they out there in case he did a runner? It wasn’t a good sign.

He walked back through to the kitchen where Dorkin was making himself comfortable in Mullen’s favourite chair, while Fargo stood against the wall, arms folded and still very large.

“I’ve just been trying to get hold of you on the phone,” Mullen said.

Dorkin’s eyebrows rose minimally. “Oh yeah?”

“I’ve had an anonymous phone call this morning. Someone warned me they would hurt one of my friends if I didn’t stop my investigation.”

“Did they now?” Dorkin rubbed his chin. “Can I see your mobile? I assume they rang you on your mobile?”

Mullen unlocked it and passed it over. “You’ll see it in the call log. ’Unknown.’”

There was a flicker of a smile on Dorkin’s face. He studied Mullen’s mobile for the best part of a minute, then placed it on the table. “I may need to borrow that for a while. Have you got a spare one?”

“No.”

“You don’t have an unregistered, pay-as-you-go one? I thought all smart private investigators kept a stock of them just in case they needed to do naughty things without being caught. For example, they might want to use one to ring up the mobile phone which is registered in their name. That way they can pretend to be an anonymous caller making untraceable threats.”

Mullen stared back at the inspector. He seemed to be enjoying himself. But what the heck was going on? Why wasn’t Dorkin taking him seriously?

Mullen stood up and leant forward across the table towards Dorkin. He heard Fargo tense for action, but Dorkin didn’t even blink. “There’s someone out there, Inspector, threatening to kill my friends. And you’re sitting there like some—“

Mullen never finished his sentence because one of Fargo’s huge hands had gripped him by the arm and was spinning him around as if he was a kid’s top from the days when kids had proper simple toys. The next thing Mullen knew was that he had been rammed back into his chair and two hands were holding his shoulders extremely firmly.

Dorkin’s smile had been replaced by a stony glare. “Shall I tell you why we aren’t taking you too seriously, Mullen? There are two reasons. Number one, it’s because you kept secret from us the fact that you and Becca Baines are pals. That you bought her a meal on Tuesday evening.”

“Actually we went Dutch.”

Fargo’s hands tensed, digging into his shoulders even more.

“This is the woman you were spying on. You mess up her sex life and the next thing is you’re dating her.”

“Not dating her. She came round to give me a verbal roasting, but I was only just out of hospital and I fainted in front of her. What with her being a nurse, well it changed things.”

“So you ended up in bed together?”

“No!” Mullen felt himself getting riled. “She put me to bed. She slept in a chair in the room. I think she was worried about me.”

“But you must like her because you had supper with her.”

“We have a shared interest.”

“Like stamp collecting?”

“Like finding out who killed Janice.”

“And why would she be interested in doing that?”

“Because, like me, she’s probably worried that you’ll try and pin it on her.”

Dorkin considered this, rubbing his fingers on his forehead. Then he gave a shake of his whole body and changed tack. He felt inside his jacket and pulled out a mobile phone. He took a few seconds to find what he wanted to find, then stretched across the table and held it close to Mullen’s face. “Take a look at this, sunshine.”

Mullen recognised who and where the photograph had been taken almost immediately.

“Our colleague, Detective Constable Ashe, is a bit of a Facebook obsessive. Always posting her holiday photos and sharing stupid stuff she’s spotted on the internet. I tell her it’s bad for her. I point out that people are more important than computers. But when has any woman taken a blind bit of notice of what I say?” The wry smile was back on Dorkin’s face. “But that’s one of the strengths of having someone like Ashe on the team. She thinks differently and has other ideas. Like looking to see if the Meeting Place had a Facebook page and then going through everything on it in great detail after she’d gone home and put her little boy to bed. All in her own time, bless her cotton socks. And then, amidst all the photographs up there, she finds this one.”

Mullen said nothing.

“You recognise yourself, of course?”

“Of course.”

“And the man you’re talking to. The man with long hair.”

“Of course I do.” Mullen was trying to think and finding it difficult. He hadn’t realised anyone had been taking any photos that evening. But of course anyone and everyone with a mobile phone can take a decent photograph in an instant nowadays and it’s impossible to stop. And here he was in a photograph with Chris and Chris had got his hand on Mullen’s shoulder as if they were best mates. And indeed the benign smile on Mullen’s face didn’t gainsay that.

“There are three others actually, Muggins. And they all suggest that you and Chris got on pretty well.”

Muggins! A flash flood of anger caused Mullen to grip the arms of the chair. If he lost control, it would be just the excuse Dorkin needed. Even so, when Mullen did finally speak, he did so more sharply and louder than he had intended. “It’s my job to get on well with people.”

“It’s your job to stop people getting out of hand.”

“I don’t believe in bullying people. I’ve seen it happen in the army. My best mate was bullied and he blew his own brains out. So I try to be nice to people and I only lay down the law when people are in danger of getting out of hand. I find it works best that way.”

Dorkin made a show of clapping, bringing his hands together and away again in slow motion, several times. “Bravo!” he said. Mullen pretended not to care. If there was a ‘taking the piss’ module in police training school, Dorkin had clearly passed with distinction.

“Are you gay, Mullen?”

Mullen said nothing.

“Chris was.”

There was more silence. The only significant noise was the heavy breathing of Fargo. He could sense the sergeant tensing behind him, waiting for the explosion that Dorkin was trying to detonate.

“Who told you that?” Mullen knew he had to wrest the initiative back from the inspector. There was nothing to be gained by lying down and letting Dorkin stamp all over him.

“Wouldn’t you like to know!” There was the smile again.

Mullen stretched his arms. He felt Fargo’s hands alight ever so briefly on his shoulders in warning. He tried to think. Dorkin was trying to provoke a reaction. There were gays at the Meeting Place, of course there were. But Mullen doubted very much if Chris had been one of them. On the contrary, he had always seemed interested in the opposite sex, whether it was the waif-like Mel or a couple of the female punters who were always up for a nice flirt and maybe a lot more.

“I would, as it happens. But obviously you’re not going to tell me.”

“What were you two talking about in those photos then?”

Mullen knew it was easier — and safer — to tell the truth. Besides, he wasn’t sure how good he was at making things up on the spot. The chances were that Dorkin already had some idea about the conversation. Maybe someone had overheard some of it and informed the police. Kevin Branston or Mel or one of the punters.

“Chris was a bit on edge,” he started. “So a bit like Sergeant Fargo here, I put my hand on his shoulder to calm him down.” Mullen paused.

Dorkin looked at Fargo and nodded his head, which as far as Mullen was concerned could have meant anything. Grab him. Give him a slap to help his memory. Something like that. Fortunately Fargo didn’t interpret it that way. Instead he padded around the table and settled himself in front of the sink unit, close to Dorkin and in full view of Mullen.

“We need a bit more detail than that, Doug.”

“He didn’t say what it was about. It was only the third time I’d come across him at the Meeting Place and I’d not had any trouble from him previously. But that night he was on edge. Of course it was a special evening, when supporters of the project had been invited to come and see how it all worked and meet people. Maybe that had got to him. Or maybe it was something more personal. Anyway one of the other guys said something — I didn’t hear what — and Chris started to get aggressive with him. He was only a couple of metres away from me, so I stepped over to calm him down. I think that was when I put my hand on his shoulder. In retrospect it was a bit of a risk to take. He might have turned on me, but at the time it seemed to be the quickest and best way to kill off any trouble. With there being so many visitors, Kevin Branston had warned me not to let anything develop. Anyway that was what I did and it worked.”