The Killing Club (12 page)

‘Tell me about this new job,’ she said.

‘It’s at the pub down the road. Clearing up in the kitchen, washing up and the mopping the floors and stuff.’

‘That sounds good.’

‘I’ve to go in on Friday. Eight o’clock sharp, the boss said. The weekend is when they’re busy.’

‘Did they ask for references?’

‘What?’

She looked at him, knowing the answer. ‘Never mind.’

He heard weariness and sadness in her voice.

She got up slowly and went across to one of the drawers in the kitchen cupboards. Craig watched as she pulled out a white envelope and a bunch of keys. She took a small glinting instrument from the midst of a bunch of pens crammed into a mug on the unit top and began to slit the envelope open. Then suddenly changed her mind and dropped both the envelope and the opener on to the table.

‘Is that blade sharp?’ Craig asked, alarmed to see what looked like a small dagger which had made a good job of slicing its way half way through a few inches of the thick white paper.

She smiled. ‘It’s a paper-opener. I don’t think it would be much good for doing any serious damage.’

Craig stared at her, not sure whether she was joking or not. ‘You don’t want to do anyone any serious damage, do you?’

‘No,’ she reassured him. ‘I don’t want to do any serious damage of any kind,’ she said dryly.

He watched her with concern on his face. ‘If you’re in trouble with someone, I’ll sort them out for you.’

‘No, no,’ she said hurriedly.

He was not mollified. ‘That guy who was here before. The creepy one with the piggy eyes. It’s him you’re in trouble with, isn’t it?’

Ruth frowned, not quite sure what or how much to say.

‘I followed him,’ Craig said.

Ruth gazed at him. ‘Good heavens!’

‘He got on a bus, so there’s no knowing where he was off to. I thought if he got in a car I could have got the reg number.’

‘Yes,’ said Ruth, faintly. ‘Listen,’ she went on, her voice firmer, ‘I don’t fully understand what that man who called himself Mac was talking about. But it seems to me that he thinks I’ve got something he wants. Some photographs.’

‘Well, have you?’

She shook her head. ‘Not that I know of, that’s the worrying thing.’

‘The bastard,’ hissed Craig. ‘I hate him.’ But hate was too soft a word. In his head he thought he would like to kill him.

Cat had tried to make an appointment to see Ruth talk to her about the team’s investigations and their conclusions, but she seemed to be often out, or maybe she didn’t bother to answer the phone every time it rang. She decided to simply drive to the
Old School House
and see if Ruth was in.

Reaching the house, she parked the car and killed the engine. Pulling the bell, she anticipated its quirky tinkle, which did not disappoint her.

Ruth answered promptly, her dog trotting behind like Mary’s little lamb. ‘Oh! Inspector Fallon!’ Cat saw surprise, then a fleeting relief cross her face, to be finally replaced with a hunted look of anxiety.

‘Is it convenient to have a word?’ she asked.

‘Yes, of course. Come in.’

The young man sitting at the kitchen table was still and wary-looking, his eyes lighting on Cat and staying there.

‘This is Craig,’ Ruth told Swift. ‘He’s staying here for a while.’ She seemed to be on the point of saying something further and then decided against it.

Cat smiled at the young man, whose dark hair almost obscured his eyes, making it difficult to assess his mood. Another of Ruth’s lame ducks, she assumed. ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘I’m Inspector Cat Fallon.’

There was a definite spasm of alarm on the young man’s face as he grunted an acknowledgement.

‘Craig,’ said Ruth, brightly. ‘Would you mind popping down to the shops and getting some milk, we’re running a bit short?’ She dug out her purse from a battered handbag, and handed the young man a two-pound coin.

He looked at her warm smile of encouragement and got to his feet. ‘Aye, sure.’

After the door had closed behind him, Ruth looked Cat straight in the eye. ‘He’s just served a long prison sentence. I used to do prison visiting some years ago, and Craig was one of my regulars. In time he was moved to a unit up in the north-east, so I lost touch. He was released a few days ago.’

‘And he simply turned up on your doorstep?’ Cat suggested, a note of wryness in her voice.

Ruth smiled. ‘Yes. Right out of the blue.’

‘You obviously inspire trust,’ Cat said.

‘My daughter says I’m just a soft touch,’ Ruth observed. ‘He’s staying here for a while to find his feet.’ she added, with a hint of defensiveness.’

‘You’ve no need to justify your hospitable tendencies to me,’ Cat said, gently.

‘Ah, well, there’s good and bad in this world. And there’s brave and there’s foolish. You just have to work out what seems to be the right path for you, as an individual, to follow. I know many people would say I’m a sentimental fool for letting an ex-convict into my home. But I believe I can help him, and … I like him here. I’m sometimes far more lonely than I allow my family to know.’

Ruth got up and switched on the kettle. Cat watched her take a full carton of milk from the fridge and then calmly pour it down the sink. ‘There, I knew I was running out,’ she said. ‘He’ll be back in no time with the fresh milk. He’s learning to be a good shopper.’ She fussed about at the counter, dropping tea bags into her white china teapot, and rattling spoons. She said nothing more, simply brought mugs of tea to the table and sat down again. Cat had the impression the issue of Craig and his current residence in the Hartwell household was temporarily closed, and she decided not to push further.

‘Chief Inspector Swift has completed a report regarding Christian’s death,’ Cat told her. She explained what he had discovered during his investigations and sketched out the recommendations in his report to his superior officer. ‘Unfortunately we still don’t have any witnesses who have come forward to help us. However, I’ve just had information from our Scene of Crime Officers team to say that they found traces of blood on the stones over which we believe Christian fell, and they match the samples we had taken from his body, so at least we have precise knowledge of where he fell from.’

Ruth listened carefully. ‘Does that help you?’

‘Not very much, I’m afraid. Is there anything you have thought of, Mrs Hartwell, since we last talked? Anything at all which could have a bearing on Christian’s death?’

Ruth hesitated for a few moments. ‘I was invited in to see my solicitor earlier on today. Christian has made a will in my favour. He’s left me everything – his apartment, all his personal belongings and his money. It’s unbelievable, and also very sad. I can’t quite get to grips with it.’

Cat’s expression sharpened. ‘Do you know when the will was made?’

‘About ten days ago. Of course I’m aware that the making of the will so soon before Christian’s death must mean something.’

‘As though he had some inkling of what was coming?’

‘Possibly. And yet again, maybe it was sheer coincidence. After all, he had recently received a large legacy from an aunt, and he also had the expectation of further money from his book if it was a success. All reasons to make a will.’ Her mind surged on to the packet she had not opened. And the arrival of the unwanted visitor. The urge to confide in Cat Fallon regarding Mac the Knife was overwhelming, and yet she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Somehow, telling her would make the covert menace of the man worse, make it more real.

Cat, watching the older woman, was well aware that she was grappling with some internal struggle. Everyone in the police had seen this kind of conflict when interviewing people in the course of their work. People trying to shield loved ones, people afraid of revealing information which could wreck someone else’s life, people wondering how they could cover their own backs with a lie. People terrified of the repercussions if they spoke out.

Cat waited. As she sat, looking down at her hands, she was already thinking through the discussion she would have with Ed on the developments which had emerged during this interview. And it suddenly occurred to her how glad she was that she had made the decision to join his team.

She looked up and saw Ruth staring back into her face, her eyes now burning with her need to share her desperate inner worries. Cat held still, knowing the critical point of revelation was near.

At that moment Ruth’s young protégé came back with the milk. And the moment of unburdening was gone.

Later on, Ruth sat at the kitchen table, the padded envelope once again in front of her. She was on her own as Craig had gone up to his room. She supposed that after all those years of imprisonment he sometimes found the strain of being in the outside world overwhelming and felt safer sitting on his bed with the door closed and his thoughts free to swirl in his head, trying to make sense of his new life.

She picked at the red sealing wax and gradually worked the flap of the envelope free. Inside was a mobile phone and a further envelope, also sealed.

Ruth stared at the shiny black phone. She was well aware of being a Luddite as far as the use of new technology went. Having been a prison chaplain’s wife for thirty-odd years and having shared the burden of answering phone calls on his behalf for much of the day and some of the night, she had always considered the ownership of a mobile phone to be a terrible intrusion into one’s life. To be constantly available at the end of one of those little gadgets seemed to her like a kind of hell. She smiled to herself, recalling that her grandson Jake liked to tease her about her ancient two-tone grey bakelite phone with its push-around dial being a museum piece, and to marvel at the diminutive size of her television.

She turned the little phone around in her hands, then hesitantly ran her fingers over its blank grey screen. Nothing happened. She had no idea whether it required turning on or not. And maybe its battery was flat, an inconvenience which was a constant source of frustration for Harriet.

She guessed Craig would know what to do to bring it to life. But did she want that? What revelations might the little phone be hiding? And the envelope. Were the photographs Mac the Knife was wanting inside that envelope? Fear made its spider-legged way down her spine. Could she face finding out? She heard Craig coming down from his self-imposed sole confinement and thrust both the phone and the envelope back into the drawer.

She smiled at him. ‘Would you like a trip out in the car?’

Instantly he was wary, but excited at the same time. ‘Where do you want to go?’

Ruth smiled at him, wondering how long it would take him to build up the personal self-esteem which would enable him to consider that he had a right to be a party in making a decision regarding the destination of a trip out.

‘To a little place called Burley-in-Wharfedale,’ she told him. ‘It’s about twenty minutes drive from here. I need to check on an apartment there. For … a friend of mine.’

He thought about it. ‘OK.’

Ruth got out a map. It was so old it had torn along the creases. But it had Calverley Street clearly marked on its southern side. She took the countryside route, driving close to the bank of the River Wharfe and past farming estates that once used to rely wholly on farming for their livelihood but now were more centred around the catering and tourist industries.

Craig looked out of the window, entranced with the views. The ground and the hills were so vividly green, and the sky above enormous. Ruth pointed out the river and suggested that he might see some interesting birds: herons, perhaps, or woodpeckers. He didn’t manage to make out any birds, but the river itself fascinated him – a broad motorway of water, sometimes gently sliding, sometimes flowing fast and choppy, all the time gleaming blue/black in its banks.

Once in Burley, they drove along broad residential streets bordered by tall trees and big stone houses. At the end of the street Ruth was looking for there was a small two-storey block of flats built of red brick. A band of grass and some scratchy-looking green bushes formed a communal garden. More tall, old trees bordered the garden and when they got out of the car they had to be careful not to trip over the roots which had burst up through the paving stones like the knuckles of giant fingers.

Craig looked up at the flats. ‘Why do you need to come here?’

‘I need to sort through my friend’s things,’ she said.

‘Why?’ he asked, childlike in needing explanations of things a person of his age who hadn’t spent years in prison wouldn’t have thought twice about.

‘I promised I would,’ she said calmly, and that seemed to satisfy him. Inside herself, she felt a strong reluctance to go on with this mission and would have liked to run back to the safety of the car and go home. She was afraid of what she might find in Christian’s flat, fearful of getting more embroiled in whatever had been going on during Christian’s last days. And then there was the here and now, the fear that somehow Mac the Knife was watching her, knowing every move she made.

Christian’s flat was on the ground floor. The July sun was shining on the windows, picking out the grime and highlighting the cheap, flimsy curtains.

‘Has your friend gone away somewhere?’ Craig asked, watching her fit the key into the lock.

‘Yes,’ she said, brisk and terse at the notion of being on the brink of an awful revelation.

Which was, to some extent, the case.

As they walked into the living room they could see that the place had been ransacked. The coffee table had been upended. A single mug lay on the floor, its contents having spilled out, making a dark stain on the small beige rug on which the table stood. The sofa had been overturned and the covering fabric slashed in several places. All the drawers had been pulled from a CD cabinet which stood against the back wall.

A large slimline TV seemed intact, its red standby light glowing. Craig went across to it and pressed a switch. A superlatively clear picture came up on the screen: a herd of elephants walked across a desert under a cobalt blue sky. ‘Digital,’ said Craig. ‘The buggers who came in here must have been mad not to take it.’