Trophies: a gripping detective thriller (The Wakefield Series Book 1) (19 page)

“Well, I could really do to speak to John myself, Mrs Hinchcliffe.” He looked heavenwards as the rain, which had stayed away for most of the morning, was now becoming heavy. “Look, do you mind if I come in for a moment … only, you can see … it’s pretty wet out here.”

She looked him up and down. “All right then, but only for a minute. I’m due to go out soon.”

It was only when she turned to lead the way down the hallway that he realised just how inappropriately dressed she was. With an apron of fat and errant breasts that should have been kept firmly under control, she wore a brightly coloured loose fitting top together with equally loud tight fitting leggings that seemed to betray every dimple and crease. He felt ill.

She led him into the small sitting room, which seemed to be lost in a fug of cigarette smoke. Looking at the scruffy three-piece suite, he declined the offer to sit down, fearing he’d leave with more than he bargained for.

“So,” she said, flopping down on the settee and taking up most of the two seats. “This friend of my John’s, why couldn’t he come and bring whatever it is himself?”

“Well, I’m afraid, Mrs Hinchcliffe …”

“Don’t tell me, he’s still inside.”

“Actually, he’s passed on. That’s why I’m here.”

“I’m sorry about that but how come you know him? You don’t look as though you’ve been inside yourself.”

She might look as much of a tip as her house, he thought, but she’s certainly not thick. He answered slowly. “No … it’s a bit of a long story … but, tell me, have you any idea how long he’ll be?”

“John, you mean? No, I haven’t and it’s starting to worry me.” She stubbed out her cigarette in the ashtray balanced on the arm of the settee. “I’ve even been to the police.”

“The police? What did they say?”

“Didn’t want to know. Basically fobbed me off. Looked at me as though I was simple and told me that he was a big boy now. Sarcastic bastards!”

“Useless.” He began to tour the room, taking in any details he felt may assist him in his quest. “Why would you want to contact them anyway?”

“They pulled him in last Friday.”

“Oh?”

“Some nonsense over burglaries … I don’t know. He seemed pretty upset when he came back, though.”

“But they let him go?”

“Of course. They’d got nothing on him. Anyway, next morning, when I got up he’d gone.”

“Is that unusual?”

She pulled another cigarette from the packet in her hand and lit up. “He’d normally let me know he was off at least.”

The stranger walked behind the settee while he kept the conversation going. “Perhaps he’s gone to stay with a mate?”

“His only mate, if you can call him that, ended up with his head smashed in over Christmas.”

“Not this Williams character?”

“You’ve heard about it then?”

“Been all over the papers.” By this time he was studying the framed photographs on a sideboard in the corner. “So the pair of them were close friends?”

“You seem to ask a lot of questions for someone who’s just got something to pass on.” She struggled to turn round to see what he was doing. “Exactly who are you?”

“I’ve told you, Mrs Hinchcliffe.” His expression broke into a smile. “I’m a friend of a friend of your son’s. It’s just I promised my friend that I’d deliver this as soon as I could. Only, I have to give it to him myself, I promised that. Have you any idea where he might be?”

“If I did, I would have tried there myself.”

“Is this John?” He picked up a photograph showing a much younger looking Jake and his mother, along with an older man he took to be Mr Hinchcliffe. All three were smiling for the photographer and his father had his arms around Jake and his mother as they stood outside the door to a caravan.

“Here, let me see that.” She stretched out a hand to take the photo from the stranger. She smiled as she recalled the occasion. “We had some lovely holidays up there.”

“Where about was that?” he asked.

“Up near Pickering. You know, on the North Yorkshire moors, not far from where they film ‘Heartbeat’ on the telly.”

“Oh, yes, I know it. Lovely in the summer but bleak in the winter.”

“My Jack, that’s John’s dad here.” She pointed to the man in the middle of the picture. “He passed on three years back.”

“I am sorry, Mrs Hinchcliffe,” he said, kneeling by the side of the settee.

“It was a blessing in the end, he’d been ill for some time. Anyway, he had this caravan parked up at Black Top Farm for years.”

“It looks really nice. I’ll bet you wish you still had it.”

She looked up for a second or two and gazed into the middle distance. “I suppose we still do. Jack didn’t sell it. I think it’s still there.”

“Still, no good in this weather.”

“We’ve spent some cold nights up there but there was a coal stove that kept everything cosy.” She stubbed out her cigarette.

“My parents used to take me on caravan holidays when I was young but we were in these big static jobs on proper sites with rules and regulations and everything. Not like this. I’d have loved to have had holidays in a place like this – all that freedom.” He took the photo back and returned it to its place on the sideboard. “Anyway, I mustn’t keep you. You said you were going out soon.”

“Did I? Oh, yes, that’s right, I’d forgotten.”

“So I best be on my way.” As he reached the door, he turned back. “While I think about it, it may be best if you didn’t mention this visit if you speak to the police again,” he said, smiling and tapping his breast pocket once more. “Just in case, if you know what I mean. Tell John, I’ll maybe call again in a few days. Hopefully, he’ll be back by then.”

“I’ll tell him … er …” She realised he still hadn’t told her his name as she struggled to rise from the settee.

“It’s all right, Mrs Hinchcliffe,” he said, already out in the hall. “Don’t get up, I’ll see myself out.”

Sylvia Hinchcliffe abandoned her attempt to see the stranger off the premises, as the front door banged shut. She watched him walk back down the path, turn right and disappear behind the next-door neighbour’s overgrown hedge. Settling back into her seat, she drew yet another cigarette from her packet. Lighting up, she studied it and considered the stranger’s visit. Such a polite man, she thought, wondering exactly what he had to pass on to her son. It had been a welcome interlude, which had brightened up her otherwise boring day.

30

Donald Summers approached the White Rose café near the old bus station and strained to peer through windows obscured by condensation that seemed ever present, summer or winter. A short, stocky, balding man, he’d worked in a nearby accountant’s office for the past fifteen years. Although perceived by some as a man following a boring routine, he was also seen by a few as a man of passion. He was passionate about the injustice he felt had been handed down to his younger brother, Paul. Some nine years older than Paul, he believed it fell to him to prove his brother’s innocence and his meet with the journalist, Robert Souter was, he hoped, one further step towards that achievement.

Inside, the babble of voices, hissing of steam and shouts of food orders was almost overwhelming. Initially his glasses steamed up, so he took a few seconds to wipe them clear. Once they were back on his face, he spotted Robert Souter seated at a table towards the rear. He struggled his way between the tables full of elderly women and men, their swollen shopping bags at their feet, young mothers with pushchairs and children sucking drinks through straws and messing about with chips and beans. Eventually, he dropped gratefully into the chair Souter had kept for him.

“Mr Summers.” Souter held out a hand and smiled. “Good to see you.”

“Please, call me Don, Mr Souter,” he replied.

“Okay, Don. Most people call me Bob.”

A waitress came up and, in response to Souter’s invitation, Summers declined anything to eat but settled for a large cappuccino. Souter ordered another tea. The waitress hesitated a moment with a look of displeasure on her face. She was obviously irritated at them taking up a table for only a tea and a coffee at this busy time but turned to head for the counter to process the order.

“Thanks for taking this up,” Summers said.

“Look, I don’t want to get your hopes up, but at the moment, I haven’t actually ‘taken this up’, as you put it. I’m just exploring possibilities, shall we say.”

“No, I appreciate that but you must understand, I have absolute faith in my brother’s innocence and I’m determined to see that the injustice of his situation is put right.”

“All right, Don, why don’t you tell me a bit about your brother. Paul, isn’t it?”

“Yes, that’s right. Well, he’s nine years younger than me so, growing up, he was never in my circle of school friends. When you’re fourteen or fifteen, a five or six year-old is more of a pain than anything else. Anyway, I got married and left home in 1970. Paul, obviously, was still at home – he was twelve. To all intents and purposes, he became an only child. With our age difference, I suppose he probably felt he always was. He was a sensitive lad and sometimes people confused that with him being a bit slow. He wasn’t, though, and did all right at school.”

Souter pulled out a packet of cigarettes and offered one to Summers which he declined with a slight shake of the head. “Sorry,” Souter said. “Do you mind if I do?”

“No, you carry on.”

Souter lit up and Summers watched, giving him the impression that he’d once been a smoker. “You were saying,” Souter encouraged.

“In 1975, when Paul was seventeen, Mum and Dad were killed in a car smash on the M1. A lorry crossed the central reservation and ploughed into them head on.”

“I’m sorry about that.”

Their conversation was interrupted by the return of the waitress. “One cappuccino and one tea,” she said in a loud expressionless voice, then set them down heavily on the table in front of them. Summers was about to mutter a word of thanks but decided against it when she strode off.

“A girl not entirely happy in her work,” Souter commented.

Summers grinned. “A lot of them about, I’m afraid.” He paused a moment before resuming his story. “Paul took it badly. Not that there’s ever a good time for a tragedy like that to happen but, for a lad of that age … just maturing … just starting to forge adult relationships, especially with Dad, it was hard. He seemed to go into a shell. He decided he still wanted to live in the house. It was the small semi-detached we’d been brought up in, over on Ramsbottom Avenue, if you know it?”

Souter shook his head and took a sip of his tea.

“Technically, it was left jointly to the both of us but Sarah, my wife, and I had been in a place of our own for the previous five years, so I let him stay – you know, didn’t force him to sell. He’d started work the previous summer, so he’d begun to learn the basic economics of life and anyway, in my line of work, I kept an eye on things for him.” Summers added some sugar to his coffee and watched it sink through the milk froth. He stirred it underneath the creamy layer then sampled it before carrying on. “He also found it difficult to talk to women, girls really. He never had a girlfriend, as far as I knew.”

“So how did that impact on what happened?”

“Well, if you don’t know the area where he lived, the two semi’s, ours and the old lady’s next door, Mrs. Reynolds - she was bad with arthritis and used to sleep in the room downstairs - they were at the end of the cul-de-sac. Now, on the street behind, there was a bit of a tarty piece by the name of Valerie Tattersall. Her old man, Dennis, used to work shifts on the railway in those days and Valerie used to, shall we say, sometimes indulge in a little late night entertainment with one or two blokes when Dennis was on nights. The other thing was that some would say she was a little indiscreet at times. Personally, I thought she was an exhibitionist because she’d leave the curtains open.”

Souter laughed. “Sounds like she was every pubescent lad’s dream.”

“Exactly. And Paul, being at the age when his hormones were working overtime, soon spotted her little floorshows. I also think she used to enjoy the fact that he could watch. Even if she wasn’t entertaining someone, she’d parade around in all her gear and give Paul, in his bedroom opposite, a free show. Paul, meantime, used to indulge in a little exhibitionism of his own. Sometimes, he used to … well, you know … shall we say, relieve his frustrations himself. Valerie obviously used to enjoy seeing this as well because this arrangement went on for some weeks.”

Summers looked around and leaned forward, concerned his tale was being overheard. “Then, one night, Dennis came home unexpectedly, some cock-up on his shift or whatever. Anyway, he walks in on Valerie who’s in the bedroom, fortunately for her, on her own, but in the Janet Raeger gear with the curtains open.”

“So let me guess … either Dennis thinks his luck’s in or he’s suspicious and starts knocking her about?”

“Neither. Paul doesn’t recognise Dennis, thinks he’s another of Valerie’s diversions and poor sod’s standing there in his bedroom window all proud and erect, so to speak, when Dennis catches sight. He goes ballistic, threatens to go round there and sort him out. Valerie, meanwhile, cracks on that she’s only just spotted him and eventually manages to calm Dennis down, persuading him that the police would be the best way of dealing with the situation.”

“So that’s how he ended up with a conviction for indecent exposure,” Souter pondered, stubbing out his cigarette.

“That was it. But it wasn’t his fault entirely. I know he was a bit stupid but she had more to do with it than he did, leading him on like that. Anyway, she got her comeuppance about six months later. Dennis walked in on her again, only this time, she wasn’t on her own. Some bloke from two streets away that had told his wife he was working a late shift. I tell you, I don’t know if I could be bothered with all that subterfuge, just for a bit of illicit nooky.”

Souter grinned. “So fast forward about twenty years and Paul gets rounded up in the hunt for Irene Nicholson’s attacker, because he has this previous conviction?”

“That’s right. But unfortunately for him, he has no alibi. And that big bastard Cunningham wants an easy conviction and persuades the poor girl to identify Paul.”