Holloway Falls (12 page)

13

The following Monday, Shepherd caught an early train to Bristol.

It squatted on the skyline, lowering at its returning son. As the train bisected its raggedy suburban edges, it opened its maw to receive him.

He stepped from the train. Temple Meades reared above him. Its interior was like an industrial tabernacle. He imagined it filled with steam and smoke. Men and women in Victorian dress.

Hiking the Adidas bag over his shoulder, he saw himself in the window of W. H. Smith. The image was transparent. He looked prophetic and spectral, towering over passers-by. His eyes were piggy and squinting behind the wire-framed granny glasses. Head shaved bald and wild beard shot through with grey.

The bitter, powdered old women in the taxi rank kept a twisted eye on him. The accent had become foreign.

He caught a taxi to the police station. He watched Bristol go past. The Hippodrome. College Green. Park Street. The banks on Whiteladies Road.

The taxi dropped him outside the station. He waited before going in. The televised news broadcasts had made the building familiar, but its proximity had no effect on him. It was too studiously neutral, like a municipal library. The news crews had long departed.

Inside, it smelled like school. The desk sergeant hunched over a mug of milky tea and a tabloid newspaper. Shepherd approached the desk. The officer obscured the newspaper with a meaty forearm.

He greeted Shepherd with the irked cordiality of all men who wore epaulets.

Shepherd set the Adidas bag on the floor. He said: ‘I’m here to see Detective Inspector Ireland.’

DI Ireland was not available. The desk sergeant offered to find someone else.

Shepherd told the desk sergeant why he was there. The officer didn’t change his expression or miss a beat. ‘One moment,’ he said, and lifted the receiver on his desk phone. As he spoke, he glanced from Shepherd to the phone, from the phone to Shepherd.

Shepherd retreated. He planted himself in a moulded plastic chair too small to properly accommodate his bulk. While he waited, he tried to read the
Guardian
. His teeth hurt.

A middle-aged officer with cropped, thinning hair had emerged from behind the reinforced doorway before Shepherd had unfolded the sports section. The officer introduced himself as Sergeant Graham Newell.

Newell led Shepherd to a stale and windowless interview room. He invited him to sit at a cigarette-burned Formica table. They were joined by a young WPC.

Newell asked if he would like a drink. He said no.

Newell broke the seal on a new cassette and loaded the tape deck. He pressed
RECORD
. Then he introduced himself again. He named the WPC as Constable Hadley.

He read out Shepherd’s name and the date and time. Shepherd was given a full caution, then reminded that he had not been arrested. Actually, he’d begun to wonder. He was free to leave the station at any time. He was entitled to free and independent legal advice. If he wished, he could speak to a solicitor, on the telephone if he preferred. Newell asked if he understood. Shepherd nodded. Newell asked him to speak aloud for the tape. Shepherd said: ‘Yes.’

Newell referred to a sheaf of documents. He cleared his throat.

He said: ‘So. Mr Shepherd. According to what you’ve told me here, it was you who phoned DS William Holloway at this station at 3.37 p.m. on—’ he referred to his notes, and read the date. ‘At this time you attempted to communicate certain information concerning the whereabouts of Joanne Grayling, who at that time was considered to be a missing person.’

‘That’s correct.’

‘Can you tell me why you did that?’

‘Yes. I had a dream.’

‘You had a dream.’

‘Yes.’

‘Could you give me a bit more detail?’

‘That’s all there is.’

‘Well now. Let’s see if it is. What did you dream
about
, exactly?’

‘Joanne Grayling.’

‘I see. And did you know Joanne Grayling?’

‘No.’

‘Had you ever met Joanne Grayling?’

‘No.’

‘To your knowledge, had you ever seen Joanne Grayling?’

‘No. Never.’

‘I see. And DS William Holloway?’

‘No.’

‘Well, you
phoned
him. You asked to speak to him.’

‘I did not.’

‘Then why are you here, Mr Shepherd?’

‘Not by name, I mean. Not specifically.’

There was a great deal more. Eventually Newell stopped. He composed himself and drew in a long breath. He tugged at an earlobe.

He asked if Shepherd wanted to clarify anything. Then he looked at his watch. He said: ‘Interview concludes,’ and recited the time. He removed the tape and sealed it with a label he took from his breast pocket. He asked Shepherd to counter-sign. Then he handed him a piece of paper that documented the purposes to which the tape could be put and the conditions in which it would be kept.

Newell excused himself. He left WPC Hadley in the corner.

Shepherd tried to read the handout. It was dull. He flattened it on the burned table. A headache pressed down on his eyes.

At length the door opened again. A gangling, funereal man in a suit and loosened tie entered the room.

‘Mr Shepherd?’

‘Yes.’

‘My name is James Ireland. Please come with me.’

He followed Ireland up a resounding flight of stairs into a small office cluttered with filing cabinets and paperwork in various degrees of disarray. Ireland sat behind the desk and invited Shepherd to sit. They were joined by a large woman in a carmine trouser suit and a fringed pashmina. She introduced herself to Shepherd as Dr Jenny Lowe and sat alongside him, just within his peripheral vision.

Ireland assured him again that he had not been charged with anything. He was not a suspect, but they were very keen to eliminate him from the inquiry. He had not been charged with anything. He could speak quite openly without fear of ridicule or censure.

He played a tape of Shepherd’s conversation with Holloway.

Sir, I am about to replace the handset.

Please. Don’t … Joanne is alive.

Who is this?

Please listen. I know how this sounds.

Ireland stopped the tape.

‘Is that your voice?’

‘Yes.’

Ireland massaged his temple with a thumb. He rested his eyes for a moment.

‘And you live in …’

‘North London,’ said Shepherd. ‘Near Highbury.’

‘Near the Arsenal?’

‘Quite.’

‘I’ve been there,’ said Ireland, ‘once or twice. When I was younger. To see Liverpool away. Couldn’t face it now. London’s a bit much for me.’

‘I know what you mean.’

‘I’ll bet. You don’t sound like a Londoner.’

‘No. I’m from Bristol.’

Something in the room tightened.

‘Oh, I see. Where in Bristol?’

‘Well, I was born in Frenchay. Then I lived in Redland.’

‘It’s nice, Redland. Nice area. When did you leave?’

‘Ooh.’ Shepherd pretended to count back. ‘Years ago. I don’t know. Five years. Six? Six years.’

‘And there’s no family?’

‘None.’

‘I see.’

‘My wife left me.’

‘I see. I’m sorry. So—actually—you have nobody to corroborate your claim to be the man who called Detective Sergeant Holloway.’

‘Do I need corroboration? You’ve got the tape. You can hear it’s me.’

‘We’ll have the tape properly analysed,’ said Ireland, cordially enough, ‘if I deem it necessary. But I’m hoping it won’t be. Can’t you think of anybody?’

‘Well. There’s my landlord. He was with me when I made the call.’

‘Your landlord?’

‘Yes.’

‘His name?’

‘Lenny.’

‘Lenny—?’

‘Kilminster.’

‘Lenny Kilminster. And Mr Kilminster’s address?’

‘The same. I lodge.’

Ireland sat back. He let Dr Lowe interrupt.

She said: ‘Can you tell us exactly
why
you made the call, Mr Shepherd?’

‘I wanted to help.’

‘And how did you think it would help?’

‘I don’t know.’

She looked at him for a long second. Then she deferred back to Ireland.

Ireland had exhausted his cultivated patience. He warned Shepherd that he could be charged with wasting police time, not to mention a number of more serious offences. He took some time about it, and went into some detail. Shepherd knitted his hands in his lap. Then Ireland excused himself and stomped from the office. The door rattled in its frame.

Lowe ignored Ireland’s exit. She sat on the edge of the desk and made a call. A couple of minutes passed while she rifled around in a capacious bag. Eventually she produced a video cassette. At the same time, a young officer appeared in the doorway, pushing before him a television and VCR on a wheeled, tubular metal trolley. The young officer plugged everything in, handed the remote control to Lowe and excused himself.

She pointed the remote at the video and, with a non-essential flick of the wrist, pressed
PLAY
. They watched the early evening BBC news report that broke the Joanne Grayling story. A reporter declaimed grimly in the Bristol sunshine. The low-rise, red-brick police station was behind her back.

Lowe pressed
PAUSE
.

‘Is this the report you saw?’

Shepherd said it was.

She fast-forwarded the tape.

‘And this?’

She showed him the ITN broadcast that went out the same day.

She stopped the tape, rewound it.

She said: ‘Now, can you tell me if these two reports have anything in common? Besides the obvious.’

He said: ‘Not that I can see.’

She asked him to look once more. They watched the tapes again. Shepherd leaned forward. He parted his beard like Victorian skirts and rested his jaw on his cupped hands. But he saw nothing.

‘No detail?’ she said. ‘Nothing strikes you as being at all strange?’

A band across his eyes was slowly tightening.

‘No,’ he said.

‘Look again,’ she said.

She read his expression. ‘Just once more.’

Rewind, fast-forward, pause. The reporter’s image froze and flickered laterally behind fuzzy stripes of poor tracking. Lowe approached the TV. She tapped the screen with her pen. Just behind the reporter’s shoulder, a man was moving into shot.

‘Watch him,’ she said.

She pressed
PLAY
. The man walked fully into frame. He walked to the door of the police station. He stopped and looked over his shoulder. The morning sun shone in his red hair.

She said: ‘That man is Detective Holloway.’

When Shepherd had been escorted back to the interview room Lowe lifted the phone and called Ireland back to his office.

She said: ‘He saw Holloway on TV. He’s in the background, walking into the station. ITN shows him leaving again, a bit later on. Who knows why he picked up on it? Perhaps it was just the red hair. Perhaps he entered the shot at a significant moment. Whatever: who knows? So, Shepherd goes to bed and has a nightmare about Joanne. And in the nightmare, his unconscious dredges up the image of the red-headed policeman he’d seen on TV twice that day.’

Ireland searched in his top drawer.

‘And by coincidence it was Holloway?’

‘Oh,’ she said, ‘there’s no real coincidence about it. He
worked
here, for God’s sake, and there were a thousand cameras stationed outside.’

Ireland slammed the drawer.

He glanced over the surface of his desk. He picked up a sheaf of paper, squinted at it, put it down again. He removed his glasses and lay them, upended, on the desk.

Distracted, he said: ‘It’s one more embarrassment I can do without.’

‘Jim,’ she said. ‘You saw him, for God’s sake. He’s like a penitent schoolboy.’

He patted the desk until he found his glasses again. Then he put them on.

‘But not a guilty one,’ she said. ‘He’s no more guilty than the poor woman who called to tell us she’d heard her dead husband’s voice on
Crimewatch
.’

She leaned forward and moved a greasy-cornered pile of A4 from a collapsing in-tray. She pointed. Ireland said ‘Ah’, and picked up a bottle of Pepto Bismol. He began to struggle with the childproof lid.

He said: ‘But some of the details were spot on—’

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Rubbish. Look.’

From the mess on his desk she lifted a spiral-bound map of Bristol and the West Country.

‘Name a page,’ she said.

‘Twenty-four.’

He dropped the lid on the table and swallowed glutinous, bright pink liquid.

She flicked through the book. Then she lay it flat on the desk. Her finger hovered over page 24. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘Give me a grid reference.’

‘3C.’

She stabbed her finger down on the page.

‘Right,’ she said. She rotated the book so Ireland could see it.

‘Look. To the right of my finger, about an inch: there’s the river Avon. If you look closely, you’ll see that my finger is actually
resting
on a railway line.’

His lips glistened pink, as if with cheap lipstick. He wiped them with the back of his hand.

She said: ‘Pick an urban environment and, almost by definition, you’re close to water and railways—depending on how you define “close”. And, one way or another, where there’s a railway there’s a shed.’

He took the map, examined it, put it down again. He belched and pressed the tips of his long fingers to his sternum.

‘That’s all very well and good,’ he said. ‘But it’s another coincidence and I’m not happy with it.’

‘Oh, it’s not coincidence
at all
,’
she said. ‘It’s just psychology. A lifetime of television murder mysteries are jumbled in his head. One night he’s disturbed by a news report about a missing girl. Who can say why? That night, his subconscious throws up a few of those images. He thinks, suddenly, he’s got the Shining. But he hasn’t. All he’s got is a low-grade mental health problem.’

He was nothing more than one of the nutters who dogged such investigations—who, indeed, had already dogged this one. The law of averages demanded that one of them would be right about something, one day. Clearly Shepherd was disturbed, but she didn’t think he was dangerous. And he had nothing to do with the death of Joanne Grayling.