The Killing Club (5 page)

His toe hit a raised paving stone and he stumbled. He righted himself and stood very still for a moment, staring at the ground and wondering if he could bring himself to take even one more step. People walked past, not seeing the pain in his head, nor the fear in his gut.

‘So, will you give one of these jobs a try?’ Brian Norwood said, tapping his fingers on the papers in front of him.

‘I’ll have a think about it,’ Craig muttered.

‘Good man.’ Norwood said. ‘You can let me know next week.’

Craig stared at him.

‘You’re just out on licence,’ Norwood explained. ‘You’ve done your sentence and you’re a free man, but we need to keep a check on you to make sure everything’s going well.’

‘Right.’ Craig grasped the fingers of one hand in the other and twisted the joints so hard they hurt. He wondered about mentioning to Norwood that he was set on finding an old friend who might be able to help him. Maybe let him stay at their house for a bit. He glanced at Norwood’s fed-up-looking face and kept his thoughts to himself.

Later on, he joined a queue at a bus stop. He wanted to ask the woman in front if the bus was going northwards, but every time he opened his mouth panic rose up in his chest. She was just an ordinary woman, not very tall, big arse on her, greasy hair. She started fiddling around in her bag and then her purse dropped out on to the ground. He bent to pick it up for her. He saw the bus coming, slowing down for the stop. ‘Here,’ he said, handing the purse over.

‘Thanks,’ she said, giving him a smile.

‘Is it going north?’ he asked in a rush, his voice coming out far too loud. ‘The bus?’

She thought for a few moments. ‘It’s going to Otley,’ she said. ‘Yeah, that’s north.’

‘Thanks.’ He couldn’t believe he’d asked, just casual and normal. Couldn’t believe she’d given him an answer, nice and friendly and easy. As if he was just an ordinary chap.

Swift observed Georgie Tyson’s get-up as she got up from her desk to greet him. As usual, she was wearing black leather; not her usual biker’s leathers but a bomber jacket paired with a short, tight skirt. Her heavy black bikers’ boots completed the retro beatnik look, helped along with some bright pink tights and her spiky hair, currently black, streaked with burgundy.

‘Hi, there!’ she called out as he raised his hand in a welcoming wave from the doorway.

A few minutes later they were sitting on either side of the desk, hot coffee and biscuits on the desk top. Events seemed to drive on quickly when Georgie was around. Swift had known her for a couple of years. She was an ambitious newshound, hungry for advancement and the big time in journalism.

‘How’s the
Yorkshire Echo
?’ Swift asked.

‘Still nicely afloat and not able to do without me yet.’ Georgie crunched hungrily on a chocolate biscuit and took another one.

‘And you’ve been promoted to an office of your own,’ he commented.

‘Uh huh, and a column of my own. Don’t you read the papers, DCI Swift?’

‘It has been known,’ he admitted. ‘What sort of column?’

‘Basically, it’s all about me being on a bad-tempered rant and pulling people to bits. You know, writing about footballers’ taste in casual clothes, and actors who speak at political rallies in support of causes they know fuck-all about.’

‘Sounds just right for your talents,’ Swift observed.

‘Mmm, sometimes even
I
am a touch shame-faced about what I write, but the public seem to lap it up. And articulating the nation’s annoyances pays a lot better than reporting on grubby dealings in the local council and so forth. And I’ve been able to buy my own place. I’m as chuffed with it as a little kid with a Wendy House.’ She eyed him like a hawk considering its next swoop. ‘So what can I do you for, Chief Inspector?’

‘The body on the Fellbeck Crag,’ he said.

‘Ah, yes. Your press officer’s being very cagey about that.’ She didn’t sound really interested. ‘Some drunk staggering about and bumping his head on some inconvenient boulder, I’d have thought. All we know is that it’s a man. Do you know who he is?’

‘No,’ said Swift. ‘But I just thought you might.’

Her eyes widened. ‘Me! Nah. I don’t get out enough. Always got my nose to the grindstone.’

Swift took out the photograph Tanya Blake had given him and laid it on the desk in front of Georgie.

Her body stilled. ‘Good God … that’s Christian Hartwell.’ She stared across at Swift, and he could tell that she was truly upset.

He was fairly unnerved himself. It had just been a shot in the dark to talk to Georgie Tyson. He had expected no more than a few ideas, possible leads. But this was something else.

‘He’s … he was … a journalist. He’s been the top writer on our sports section for the past four or five years. God! I can’t believe this. What happened to him?’

Swift gave a small smile. ‘That is what I’m trying to find out.’

‘Do you think he’s been the victim of dirty work at the crossroads?’ Georgie asked, pulling herself back into professional mode. ‘Murder? Assassination? It happens to journalists all the time.’

‘Your words, not mine,’ Swift said, ‘so don’t think you’ll get away with going to press and putting your words in my mouth.’

‘Wouldn’t dream of it. You’re far too nice a guy to play dirty tricks on.’

‘And you are far too kind,’ he said. ‘Listen Georgie, I want to know more about Christian Hartwell, and if you’ll keep quiet now, there are likely to be some goodies later. And, of course, if you don’t keep quiet I’ll be in the mire, and most definitely sent out to grass … in which case you’ll get nothing. I give you my word as a decent guy.’

‘Yeah. Fair dos, as my old granddad used to say. OK, Christian Hartwell, let’s see. He joined the
Echo
around five years ago. He’d worked for local papers all over the place before that, and also done a spell of volunteer work in East Nepal and other places in the back arse of Africa. Which just shows he’d got a lot of guts. He was rather handsome in those days, solid, but not fat. He had really lovely dark eyes; you noticed his eyes because he was the kind of guy who really looked at people. And he had lovely thick brown hair.’ She looked again at the photograph and gave a grimace of dismay.

‘It sounds as though you had rather a fancy for him,’ Swift commented.

‘Does it?’ She slanted a sly glance at him.

‘OK, then. Did you have an affair with him?’

‘Hey! That’s off limits.’

‘Fair enough … I apologize.’

‘As a matter of fact,’ she said, ‘I didn’t ever hop into bed with him. He’d had a steady girlfriend for a year or so before he joined our team. He told me that they’d been planning to get married, but she got killed in an accident. They were at a barbecue at some posh house with a swimming pool. She jumped off the diving board and it was faulty, not fixed properly. Her head was split open when she got hit by it, and that was that. What bloody awful bad luck. I think after that he was a bit wary of getting in deep with anyone else.’ She stopped, chastened by her unthinking pun. ‘Sorry.

‘He always struck me as, kind of, rootless,’ she continued. ‘He didn’t seem to have any family, which I used to consider was rather cool and made him gloriously free. But thinking it over, I’m not so sure.’

‘What was he like at his job?’

‘Well, I can only offer my own opinion,’ she pointed out. ‘But, in my book, he was almost too talented for our rag. He wrote some great articles based on his experiences in Africa. I mean, he’d witnessed some terrible brutality, women who were raped and murdered, children who were mutilated, whole villages set on fire. If you’ve witnessed those kind of scenes up close it inevitably shows through in your writing, and with Christian the power and pathos of what he had witnessed simply shone through in every line. The trouble was the readers could only take so much of it, and I think it got to be the same for him. In time, he got offered the sports section, strictly on the understanding that he left the misery issues behind and became more upbeat.’

‘And did he succeed on the sports page?’

‘Yeah. He had that canny ability to turn his hand to different styles of writing.’ She helped herself to another biscuit, and munched as she cogitated further. ‘His sports reporting was biting and witty and lots of fun,’ she said, ‘and it generated quite a bit of fan mail. I think that’s probably what sparked off the idea of trying his hand at writing a novel. We used to tease him about it, of course. A very high proportion of journalists aspire to write a novel, but not nearly as high a proportion actually get around to it. However for the ones who do, the pickings can be pretty good, and so we were all both pleased and as jealous as hell when he got his advance cheque. Christian was tickled absolutely pink about the whole thing; it really perked him up a lot.’

‘And when did all this happen?’

Georgie helped herself to another biscuit and ruffled the spikes of her hair as she tried to remember. ‘He got his cheque around two months ago, and the book’s due out in the spring of next year.’

‘Have you read it?’

‘Yes, I have. He was very secretive about it until his contract was signed and sealed. But after that he was happy to show a copy of his manuscript to anyone who was interested.’

‘And what did you think of it?’

She grinned. ‘It’s one of those quirky, murky, foxy-poxy tales – full of sex, cute phraseology, snappy one-liners and a heap of improbabilities.’

‘You wish you’d written it yourself?’

‘Hah, don’t I just? If he’s lucky he’ll make a packet.’ She paused. ‘Oh hell, he’s dead.’

There was a short respectful pause. Swift broke the silence. ‘So, despite a number of setbacks along the way, during his last months Christian appeared positive about his life. He was looking forward to the future, to the publication of his book and maybe a new career as a novelist.’

‘Hang on there,’ Georgie said. ‘I should point out that nearly all journalists and writers are plagued with insecurity. If you do a dud piece you feel like crawling away into a hole. And if you do a fantastic piece, you have a nice gloat for a day or two and then the uncertainty comes rolling in. You can’t quite believe that your masterpiece wasn’t just a flash in the pan, you have a sneaky feeling that you’ll never do another piece that equals it, and you can even get to a point where it’s really hard to believe you did it at all.’

‘You’re telling me Christian could have been overcome by chronic insecurity?’

‘It’s possible.’

‘And thrown himself off the side of a crag as a result.’

Georgie wrinkled her nose. ‘Nah, I don’t really believe that. I was just letting you into some trade secrets.’

‘When did you last see him?’

‘Ooh! Isn’t that the standard sleuth’s question on eyeing up a suspect and smelling a rat?’

‘Yes,’ he said.

She held up her hands. ‘It wasn’t me, gov.’ He received another slicing glance. ‘I’m not really a suspect, am I?’ she asked, shaking her head in mock despair.

‘I’m not smelling any rats just at this moment.’

‘Phew.’ She reached out towards the biscuits again, thought better of it and smacked the reaching hand away with her other hand.

‘So when did you last see him?’

She frowned. ‘Just remind me of the date he died?’

‘Tuesday last. Three days ago.’

She leaned back, considering. ‘It was the weekend before last, ten days ago. We were both on late afternoon shifts on the Saturday. He was really looking forward to the next week. He was taking a fortnight’s leave. He was planning to go down to London to have meetings with his editor and his literary agent. Maybe take in one or two parties. Possibly spend a few days in Cornwall – he often went there to relax and do a bit of photography. He was due back at work Monday of next week.’ She fell silent.

‘So, no one would have been likely to worry about his not being around?’ he suggested. ‘No family, girlfriend, or colleagues.’

‘That’s right. He was always a bit of a free spirit, as I mentioned before. He used to follow his instincts of the moment. I suppose he was quite an impulsive sort of guy.’

‘Do you know if he had contacts in Cornwall? Did he stay at any particular place there?’

‘No idea,’ Georgie said. ‘He just liked it there for the light and views.’

‘For his photography?’

‘Yep. He just did it for his own pleasure, but he was pretty good. The paper occasionally used some of his pictures.’

‘Quite a talented guy, all round.’

‘Yep.’

‘Any enemies?’

‘Not that I know of. He was pretty well liked.’

‘Do you know anything about his family?’

She shook her head. ‘Sorry, can’t help you there. But I can ring down to personnel to give you details of his address, contact numbers and so on.’ She eyed him from below her long black mascara-laden eyelashes. ‘This is all too good to keep to myself. Sorry, but that’s the way it is.’

He pointed a warning finger at her. ‘No. You’ll have to hold on until we’ve informed next of kin.’

She nodded. He heard a murmured, ‘OK.’

‘I mean it,’ he told her, his tone uncompromising. ‘That includes all your colleagues as well.’

‘OK. Scout’s honour,’ she said. ‘I’ll phone your press officer tomorrow, see what’s what.’

‘Are you familiar with the geography of the crag?’ he asked her. ‘Any places where a person could fall and kill themselves? I speak hypothetically, of course.’

She stared at him. ‘You’re joking. Do I look like one of the world’s outdoor girls?’

‘There are one or two danger spots,’ he told her. ‘And a lot of people walk there, including little children and pet dogs. Apparently there have been appeals to the council to put up barriers or warning signs, but …’ He raised his eyebrows.

‘But, no response?’

He gave a nod in the affirmative.

A smile curved Georgie’s burgundy-tinted lips. ‘Leave it with me. A bit of snapping at the heels of council officials is just my cup of tea. I can do a nice little piece on that.’

‘I thought so,’ he said. ‘Don’t ever let it be said that I don’t offer you some juicy little bones to chew on from time to time.’

Back in his office he rang Cat Fallon on her mobile. It was now going on for 6 p.m. He wondered if she was at home yet, going on to imagine her in her little cottage, maybe pouring a glass of wine, or soaking in the bath. Getting ready to go out with Jeremy Howard.