Authors: Tom Bale
W
endy woke
to the sound of a car pulling up outside, and another driving away.
Monday morning
, she thought, and then remembered why it was busy outside.
She checked her phone for messages. She’d texted Josh a couple of times last night, but he hadn’t replied.
It was just after six, a while yet till the alarm. Beside her, Rob was snoring, not loudly but with a lack of rhythm that often kept her awake. He barely stirred as she pulled on a robe and checked the window.
A couple of police officers were chatting on the pavement, while forensic staff unloaded equipment from a van. Weak sunshine filtered through the clouds, sparkling on puddles in the road. Wendy hurried downstairs and opened the door before anyone could ring the bell.
‘We’d have used the side gate, don’t worry.’ The officer who greeted her was about twenty-five, with pale blue eyes and a cheeky grin.
‘I’ll put the kettle on. Would bacon sandwiches be of interest to anyone?’
His colleague exclaimed: ‘Oh my word, yes. You’re a lifesaver!’
A fine compliment, Wendy thought as she turned away – except she wasn’t a lifesaver at all. Her first aid skills hadn’t been equal to the task the day before, and while it might have been that the man was simply beyond saving at that point, the thought plagued her that there was something else she should have done.
S
he busied
herself in the kitchen, reflecting on the fears that had gripped her in the middle of the night. With the calming effect of daylight, it was easier to believe that life could soon get back to normal.
There were footsteps along the side of the house, and the young policeman came in to help with the teas and coffees, various preferences for milk and sugar scribbled on an old lottery ticket.
Once he’d taken the tray outside, Wendy tended to the bacon on the grill and checked her phone again. Rob trudged in, pale and bleary eyed, and immediately guessed what she was fretting over. ‘Anything from the Lost Son?’
‘No. I’ll have to get Evan to call him. I don’t want him worrying.’
‘
Josh
, worry about
us
? Not in this universe!’
His laughter was harsh and, to Wendy’s ears, a little unkind. She turned back to the unit, and was cutting up the soft rolls left over from the barbecue when suddenly Rob was behind her, his arms encircling her waist. Startled, she reared up, almost butting his chin.
‘Jesus!’ He let go and stumbled away.
‘Sorry. You made me jump.’
‘Normal service is resumed, then?’ he muttered.
That was unfair, but Wendy let it pass. She didn’t want an argument when the garden was full of strangers. Gesturing at the grill, she said, ‘Can you take over while I have a shower?’
‘Ought to start a catering business,’ Rob grumbled, but he seemed just as eager to forget the spat. ‘We’ll tell them it’s, what, two quid a bap?’
‘Ever the entrepreneur,’ she said with a conciliatory smile. ‘Don’t forget to offer them ketchup.’
He pretended to look aghast. ‘Brown sauce. It has to be brown sauce with bacon.’
I
n the shower
, Wendy tried to calm herself in preparation for the day ahead. She worked for an adult social care charity in Winchester, alongside a small, dedicated band of people, all committed to helping others. That said, she wasn’t yet sure if she wanted to tell any of them about yesterday’s tragedy. Some contrary part of her character recoiled at the thought of being on the receiving end of their sympathy and concern – especially as she felt it was undeserved.
I didn’t do anything to save him.
Her reaction to Rob’s touch also troubled her. Last night she had been grateful for the comfort of bodily contact; this morning it was an unwelcome reminder of how vulnerable she felt. From Rob’s point of view it made her behaviour annoyingly inconsistent, and she wouldn’t disagree with that. How could she, when her feelings about him changed from one minute to the next?
She was on the landing when a faint electronic
blurp
from Georgia’s room gave Wendy an excuse to knock gently. The girl was barely visible beneath her duvet; just a spray of light brown hair over the pillow. . . and the trailing wire of an iPhone charger.
‘Who’s messaging you at this time of the morning?’
‘Nth,’ was the only reply. Then the duvet was pushed down and Georgia rolled on to her back, eyes open, phone in hand.
‘This isn’t because of yesterday?’ Wendy asked.
‘People wanna know we’re okay.’
‘But your dad said not to mention it—’
‘It wasn’t me!’ A surly glance at her phone, which this time had trilled: Wendy knew this meant an incoming message on a different app. ‘There’s a kid whose dad is mates with one of the police, and he told someone else, who put it on Twitter.’
‘Okay. Sorry.’ Wendy leaned over and kissed her forehead. ‘No matter what happens, your dad and I will always keep you safe, you know that?’
Georgia nodded, still trying to look blasé, but her eyes were shining with tears. Wendy spared her by getting busy, snatching up a wet towel, hooking a discarded bra on the handle of the wardrobe; huffing as a mother should at the state of the room.
She said, ‘Evan and Livvy were planning on a picnic, if you wanted to go with them?’
‘Nah. I’m meeting Amber and Paige.’
Wendy detected a note of pride in Georgia’s voice. Amber was somewhere between an acquaintance and a friend, but Paige was a girl she’d previously only envied – and perhaps also feared – from afar. One of the school’s queen bees.
In today’s prurient world, Wendy shouldn’t have been surprised that the drama had enhanced Georgia’s status. And while the girl fiercely – and rightly – guarded the secret of her past life, an event like this was no doubt viewed as safer territory to exploit.
‘All right,’ Wendy said, ‘but just be careful what you say—’
‘
Mu
-um, I’m not a moron. I
know
!’ Shoving the phone to the edge of the bed, Georgia grabbed the duvet and vanished beneath it.
R
ob had woken
with a start and immediately thought:
The letter
. He’d buried it among some paperwork in his study before coming back to bed, then lain awake, worrying himself into a frenzy until sheer exhaustion knocked him out.
WE KNOW WHAT YOU DID.
That phrase haunted him as he descended the stairs. Should he tell DS Husein? Should he risk the consequences, whatever they may be?
His mood was made bleaker still by Wendy’s reaction when he tried to embrace her. Perhaps it was his own fault for assuming the tenderness they’d shared during the night would carry over to the light of day.
DS Husein arrived in time to cast an envious glance at the tray of bacon butties, and feigned disapproval: ‘Spoil them like this and they’ll start to expect it.’
‘Blame Wendy. It’s her mission on earth to keep people well fed. Do you want one?’
Husein declined, ascertaining from Rob’s expression that there were none spare, then had a thought: ‘I might have to confiscate PC Jarrod’s breakfast on the grounds that he already has high cholesterol.’
When Rob told him about the phone call from the journalist, Husein said, ‘You did the right thing, but I can’t promise there won’t be more attempts like that. Some of these people stop at nothing, believe me.’
The detective went on to ask when would be a convenient time for the family to give their formal statements. With a watery sense of dread, Rob said, ‘Early evening is best for me, if that’s okay? I’ve got a lot on today.’
Like finding out who sent that note.
H
e was munching
on his bacon roll when Wendy came down with the news that Georgia was awake, and in unusually good spirits. ‘I think this has given her a bit of extra street cred.’
‘As long as she doesn’t say too much—’
‘She knows that. Don’t worry.’
They talked about work, and whether either of them could spare time to pop back during the day. Wendy didn’t like the idea of leaving the house empty.
Rob shrugged. ‘I’ll see how I get on, maybe reschedule a few things.’
‘Really? As if you haven’t already crammed in a fortnight’s worth of jobs for this week?’
It was an accusation Rob couldn’t deny – though he would argue that necessity had forced him to push his workload to an unreasonable level over the past few years. After a period of rapid growth, his plumbing and heating business had suffered badly as a result of the economic downturn from 2008 onwards. As a result, Rob made the fateful decision to form a partnership with a man named Iain Kelly.
At first the enlarged business had seemed to be back on a sound footing, but gradually the financial situation worsened again, and of course the banks weren’t prepared to help. Rob was in the process of seeking support elsewhere when he found out why they were in trouble: Iain Kelly had been siphoning off money to feed a gambling habit and pacify a couple of mistresses. He’d also traded on the firm’s reputation – Rob’s reputation, in effect – to borrow from a range of friends and associates, all of whom were left out of pocket when Kelly fled to Spain, holing up in a luxury villa which he’d purchased in a girlfriend’s name.
For months Rob had teetered on the brink of bankruptcy. In a tragic irony, only the death of his father – just two years after his mother had succumbed to cancer – had staved off financial ruin. Rob had used his share of their estate, some sixty thousand pounds, to clear many of the debts. It left him extremely bitter that his parents’ legacy had, in effect, been squandered to satisfy another man’s creditors, and he had felt little sorrow when he heard, a year or so later, that Kelly had been killed in a water-skiing accident. To Rob, it seemed like nothing less than divine justice.
H
usein came in
, asked if they could spare a moment and introduced them to the senior investigating officer. Detective Inspector Sandra Powell was a tall, plump woman in her forties with blonde highlights and a cheerful Black Country accent.
‘Post-mortem’s getting fast-tracked today,’ she told them. ‘Hopefully that’ll give us something useful.’
Rob asked if any witnesses had come to light, and Husein shook his head. ‘So far it’s just your elusive boy on a bike.’
There seemed to be a slight edge to his voice, Rob thought. Certainly DI Powell was watching him a little too intensely.
‘Would you recognise him if you saw him again?’ she asked.
‘If he was wearing the same clothes, maybe.’
‘Well, I’ve recorded an appeal for TV and radio news, so maybe that’ll prick his conscience.’
After thanking them for their co-operation, she headed out to the garden with Husein in tow. Rob shut the back door, and said, ‘I still can’t shake off the idea that they suspect me of something.’
‘Hmm. I suppose if you hadn’t run out on the common. . .’ Wendy faltered as she registered the displeasure on his face. ‘I don’t blame you, because you were worried about who might be out there. But if you’d stayed in the garden with the rest of us, there wouldn’t be any loose ends to pull at, would there?’
She had a point, so Rob only nodded. Wendy put the TV on in time for the local bulletin, which led with a report on migrants discovered aboard a ship in Southampton. That reminded him of Husein’s theory about a farm labourer, possibly trafficked to work illegally in the UK.
Their story came next: a brief, dry description of a badly injured man, pronounced dead on arrival at hospital. A shot of the common showed crime-scene tape fluttering in the early morning breeze. Their garden was off camera, but a cut to Russell Drive put the location beyond doubt. It was followed by the appeal from DI Powell, which appeared to have been filmed in the car park of Heath Pond, a large nature reserve only a couple of minutes’ walk away.
Looking at ease in front of the camera, the detective explained that they were keen to speak to anyone who was in the area yesterday, between two and five p.m. ‘Even if you don’t think you noticed anything untoward, we would still like you to get in touch.’
Rob imagined being that young man on the bike and hearing Powell’s appeal. Would he, as a teenager, have picked up a phone to the cops, or told his parents that he might be a potential witness?
Not a chance.
D
S Husein brought
a warning that a few media representatives were out by the main road and would no doubt be prowling through the town today.
‘They wanted to know about you, but Sandy deflected them, did that piece to camera instead.’ He sniffed, as if slightly put out that his boss had seized the limelight.
With a glance at Rob, Wendy asked, ‘What does DI Powell think of all this?’
‘Oh, you’ve got nothing to worry about,’ Husein said astutely. ‘She’s already on her way back to the office.’ Their surprise must have shown, for he went on: ‘Job’s a lot more desk-bound these days. I probably spend more time looking for suspects on Facebook than I do pounding the streets.’
‘Really?’
‘A slight exaggeration, but not much. People live their lives online, so often that’s the best way to find out what they’re up to.’
‘But not this poor guy in our garden?’ Rob said.
‘I doubt it, somehow. And we won’t know that till we get him identified.’
He left them to it, and Wendy treated Rob to a smile. ‘See? Nothing to worry about.’
Before leaving, he retrieved the note and slipped it into his pocket. He’d been fretting over an appropriate farewell, but Wendy surprised him by initiating a hug. He must have reacted awkwardly, because she said, ‘We can still hold each other, for goodness’ sake.’
‘Glad to hear it.’ He squeezed her tightly for a second, wanting her to know he wasn’t being flippant: this meant a lot to him.
He left the house, half expecting flashbulbs to pop in his face, but the street was quiet. He’d reached the driver’s door of his battered eight-year-old Land Rover when the neighbour opposite, Philip Denning, just happened to emerge from his house at the same time. Phil did something in the City and was, by his own account, tremendously good at it. Now he called out: ‘Rob, are you—?’
‘Just off to work, Philip. Gotta hurry.’
Ignoring another question, Rob started the engine and drove out. There were several unfamiliar cars parked close to the junction with the main road, one of them occupied by a young blonde woman with an iPad on her lap. No sign of the TV crew, though, and no one to accost Rob as he turned left on to Sussex Road.
He drove only a short distance before pulling up at the kerb to make a couple of calls. One was to rearrange an interview scheduled for this morning, while the other caused him a moment or two of doubt.
No, got to do this.
‘Steve, mate, just wondered – any idea where Jason and his crew are working right now?’