Authors: Tom Bale
R
ob was resigned
to heavy traffic on the route to Chichester, and he wasn’t disappointed. It was just after nine when he reached the northern outskirts of the city and turned east in the direction of the Goodwood estate. Another half a mile, and he pulled across the road into a lay-by overlooking a new development of executive homes.
Construction was in the early stages: the majority of the site was a sea of mud. Excavators rolled to and fro between vast mounds of subsoil, and a couple of men were directing the movement of a concrete mixer. Rob got out of the car, aware of a tight knot of tension in his stomach. There were trees growing parallel to the road, and he used them for cover as he moved closer to the site. Almost at once he made out the imposing figure of Jason Dennehy, standing among a cluster of men inspecting a newly dug trench.
Of all the building trades, Rob regarded groundwork as the most demanding. It was the one on which the other trades were dependent for scheduling, and there were few options for inside work when the conditions turned nasty. It therefore took a particular type of individual who chose to endure years of backbreaking physical toil in all conditions: not the kind of person you wanted as an enemy.
And Jason Dennehy looked the part of a tough guy, no question. He was well over six feet tall, broad and muscular and completely bald, with piercing blue eyes and tattoos that adorned at least a quarter of his body. Now in his mid-thirties, he’d met Rob more than a decade ago, when he was still just a jobbing labourer, but his determination and work ethic meant he’d quickly become a successful contractor with half a dozen men on his payroll.
Prior to the labouring job, however, there had been a misspent youth of shoplifting, robbery and assault. After spending his twenty-first birthday behind bars, Jason had made a concerted effort to clean up his act, but it was common knowledge that he’d continued to fraternise with some dubious characters from his past.
Rob watched him for several minutes. At one point Jason broke away from the other men to make a phone call, but even then he was only a few yards from them. Rob saw no prospect of getting him on his own, or of having a discreet conversation.
Whether it was common sense or cowardice, Rob understood that he wasn’t going to do it. Despite the note through the door, he still felt too uncertain. And never mind that the trench was an unsettling reminder of his nightmares, no doubt inspired by the wisecracks he’d heard over the years (though rarely said to Dennehy’s face) about how this was the perfect job for disposing of bodies.
R
ob felt
lousy as he returned to the car, annoyed with himself and with life in general. On the drive back to Petersfield he found himself brooding, yet again, on the state of his marriage.
He’d first met Wendy nearly thirty years ago, when he was an apprentice to a large plumbing firm in Worthing. He’d been a bit of a tearaway as a kid, indifferent at school and interested only in tinkering with motorbikes and hanging out with his brothers – the elder one an electronics engineer, the younger one a mechanic. Wendy, two years his junior, had excelled at school, then followed her vocation to become a social worker.
At first Rob had felt sure that he could only be a passing fancy, a chance for her to experience muscles, grease and instant gratification before she found a partner with a suitably prestigious white collar career. But the relationship had grown serious, and in 1991 they married and immediately began to try for a baby. Heartbreak followed, with several false alarms and a suspected early miscarriage. The stress led to a brief separation, but they were soon reconciled, having agreed to lower their expectations where children were concerned, and also consider the possibility of fostering or even adoption. Within a year or so, Wendy had fallen pregnant with the twins, and for the next two decades there was barely a wobble. As a result, Rob had taken it for granted that they would remain together for the rest of their lives.
Then came the bombshell: Wendy didn’t see it that way.
R
ob decided
to call in at home en route to the office. He found Evan and Livvy putting a picnic together, and asked if Georgia was about.
‘In town with her friends,’ Evan said.
‘Is she? Good.’ Rob drifted to the window. The back gate was open, a couple of figures in white crouching just beyond it. There was no sign of Husein or anyone else that he knew. No one he could talk to about the note.
He followed his son outside, casting his usual critical eye over Evan’s ancient VW Polo. ‘Enjoy your picnic – and drive carefully, all right?’ As he headed for his own car, he noticed that one of the neighbours was pruning a rose bush at a convenient angle to observe the Turner household.
Irritated, Rob backed out faster than was sensible, cutting diagonally on to a driveway across the street. His view was obscured by the police van, which meant he didn’t see the young couple walking along the pavement until he’d nearly hit them.
He stamped on the brake, then saw in the mirror that he’d caused them to break their stride. They were about Evan’s age, the boy in jeans and the girl in a floaty dress. She was blonde, and not dissimilar to the woman he’d passed this morning, working on her iPad. The boy made a vague gesture of protest and Rob lifted a hand in apology, then accelerated away, irked by his own poor driving when he’d only just urged his son to take care.
It was stupid to let inquisitive neighbours get to him. Like it or not, he and his family were going to be in the spotlight for a while. They had no choice but to tolerate it.
H
is office was
on the first floor of a two-storey building in Lavant Street, midway between the High Street and the railway station. The ground floor was occupied by a soft furnishings store, and there was a separate entrance at the side which served three different office suites, two of them occupied by a firm of accountants.
Cerys Chaplin sat at the main desk, next to a window that offered a rather unprepossessing view of the car park. Rob used a smaller desk in the corner, while the remaining desk was kept clear for the teams to fill out timesheets and requisitions, or else just sit and rest between jobs.
From the moment he’d employed her, Rob had worried how Cerys would fare in what was still an absurdly male-dominated industry. But to his relief, she had proved adept at handling the crude and often downright filthy banter that was part and parcel of any tough working environment.
In fact, Cerys had turned out to be a godsend. He’d employed her just prior to Iain Kelly’s departure – and it was thanks to her keen eye and administrative skills that he’d been able to piece together and record the extent of his former partner’s dishonesty.
‘The applicant’s in a panic,’ she told Rob when he apologised again for today’s scheduling change. ‘He assumed it meant rejection, but I’ve promised him you can do Wednesday at two.’
‘I take it I’m free then?’
‘You are, don’t worry.’ She handed him a sheaf of papers. ‘A few things to sign, some estimates to review – oh, and there were a couple of personal calls for you, but they wouldn’t say who—’ She examined him more closely. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Yeah, it’s just. . .’ Rob shrugged, then realised he spent too long in this woman’s company to keep it from her. ‘We, er, had a bit of an incident yesterday.’
He told her the full story, and warned that the calls were probably from journalists trying to approach him via the business – the logo and website address were, after all, emblazoned on the side of his Land Rover.
Cerys was shocked. She was a short, slightly heavy woman with a round face and thin painted eyebrows that gave her a look of wry surprise. Now she rose from her chair, arms opening as if to embrace him, only to settle for patting his elbow.
‘What a hideous thing to witness. You shouldn’t have come in at all today.’ The eyebrows twitched in sympathy. ‘And there’s really no clue as to who is behind it, or why it happened. . .?’
Rob shook his head. There was a moment when he was sorely tempted to reveal his suspicions about Jason and show her the letter. But that seemed like a step too far.
He felt guilty enough about what he was keeping from Wendy; confiding in Cerys would only make things worse.
O
n Monday evening
it was six o’clock before they opened a bottle of wine, which in Wendy’s view showed admirable restraint.
She’d been uncharacteristically subdued at work, prompting so many enquiries about her wellbeing that she’d invented the tale of a nagging toothache. Her manager immediately insisted she get an emergency appointment and leave early.
Wendy felt ashamed of the deception, but it meant she was home in good time to give her formal witness statement to the police. Afterwards, when she compared notes with Rob, they agreed that there had been nothing untoward or inconsistent in their respective accounts.
‘So it should be over, really, from our point of view,’ she’d said.
‘I hope so,’ Rob agreed, though he didn’t sound particularly confident.
It turned out that he had confided in Cerys, after learning that the media were trying to contact him through the business. With that in mind, they discussed whether their wider families should be told of the incident. Wendy saw no reason to alarm her parents, who had retired to France, but Rob said he was inclined to call his younger brother, Sam.
‘Only because he lives close, so he might hear something. I wasn’t going to bother with Paul.’
From his grimace, Wendy knew to maintain a diplomatic silence. Rob’s elder brother lived with his third wife in Carlisle and had barely spoken to them for years. She knew it pained Rob that the three siblings were not closer, though he and his younger brother met up every few weeks to hear the latest on Sam’s custody battle with his ex-wife.
It was probably inevitable that some of their family and friends would hear of the tragedy and wonder why they’d said nothing about it; a few might even take offence, but if they did. . .
well, tough luck
, Wendy thought.
This was their way of dealing with what had happened. Privacy, discretion, silence.
And generous measures of wine.
B
oth of the
local TV news programmes featured the story, their reports typically dry and factual. An inquest had been opened and adjourned, pending the outcome of police enquiries. The post-mortem indicated that the man had died as a result of multiple injuries, though the police spokesman was ‘not prepared to release any more specific information at this stage’.
‘Perhaps because they don’t know anything,’ Rob suggested. Earlier, DS Husein had advised that the search of the common had yielded nothing of value.
Better news was that the garden was now theirs again. The evening wasn’t as warm as the previous one, but it was still pleasant enough to sit on the terrace. Wendy wanted to talk about Georgia, and the extent to which she might be traumatised by this experience. No more than the rest of them, was Rob’s opinion.
‘But she’s starting from a different baseline. She’s more vulnerable than we are.’
‘Really? Evan reckons she’s tougher than the lot of us.’
‘I’d like to think so. But what if that’s just a façade?’
Rob had no answer there. What they could agree was that the incident had inadvertently boosted their daughter’s social standing. After returning to give her statement, she’d rejoined her friends in town and was spending the night at Amber’s. Wendy had gladly given assent: despite plenty of encouragement Georgia rarely invited any friends for sleepovers, and she was almost never invited to others.
At twenty past seven Evan trooped out with a rucksack on his shoulder. ‘Thought we’d stay over at Liv’s.’
‘Mum and Dad want to see me,’ Livvy added, as if she felt obliged to justify the decision. ‘I think they’re a bit worried, what with. . .’
‘Of course.’ Wendy smiled, but she sensed that Rob was put out by it.
After kissing her goodbye, Evan said, ‘Oh – Josh texted earlier. I told him about yesterday and he said he hopes we’re okay.’
Rob snorted. ‘That’s a first. Can I see the message?’
Wendy thought he was probably joking, but Evan baulked. ‘I think I deleted it.’
‘Right,’ said Rob, scornfully.
After they’d gone, Wendy said, ‘I daresay he was “interpreting” it.’
‘Fabricating, more like – so we don’t think badly of his brother.’
‘In that case, we can forgive him the deception, can’t we?’
Rob gave a grudging shrug, and they sat in silence for a moment. So far this evening he’d been uptight, twitchy, but now there was a distinct shift in his mood. A quick glance told her what had just occurred to him: they were alone in the house.
Rescue came in the form of a visitor, Dawn Avery, looking drained after a long day in London. Her court case had been delayed by a late-arriving witness, then suspended when a member of the jury was taken ill. ‘If there’s a more inefficient use of time and money than the British justice system, I’d hate to see it.’
Wendy smiled, and persuaded her to accept a small glass of wine, ‘for medicinal purposes’. She’d grown to like Dawn a lot, having initially had to overcome a sense of disloyalty to Tim’s first wife, Jill, who’d been reliant on Wendy in the aftermath of the split. Jill suffered badly from endometriosis, and her reluctance to have children was based partly on a warning that she might struggle to carry a baby to term. Tim seemed to brush that off as an excuse, and Wendy, who’d had her own difficulties with regard to conception, felt he could have been a lot more understanding.
B
ack on the terrace
, Dawn gave them an update on the post-mortem. ‘There was actually some doubt at first as to whether the man had been attacked. Some of his injuries, like the cuts and bruising, could be explained away as accidents, and even the knife wounds and, er, incisions, could have been self-inflicted. At a push.’
Rob let out a gulp of incredulous laughter. ‘You’re saying he did all that to himself?’
Wendy began, ‘I can’t believe that—’ before Rob snapped: ‘And who was he running from?’
Dawn shifted in her seat. ‘To be fair, we have no evidence that he was running from anyone. We haven’t been able to pick up a trail, and there aren’t any witnesses who saw him before he reached your property.’
‘So what—?’ Rob broke off as Dawn raised an index finger.
‘That’s how it looked
at first
. But then we found the likeliest cause of death – massive internal bleeding, which would have caused organ failure. He’d been beaten quite savagely, and skilfully, to a point that would almost inevitably prove fatal.’
Wendy felt a bizarre mix of shock, sorrow and guilty relief. ‘So there’s no way I could have saved him?’
‘I’m afraid not.’
‘He didn’t kick himself to death, then?’ Rob’s sarcasm had a bitter sting, which Dawn pretended not to notice.
‘Very unlikely. The kidneys were targeted, so unless he was repeatedly throwing himself backwards against a blunt object. . .’ She took a sip of wine. ‘Remember that we’re operating on the balance of probabilities. Without CCTV to show us what happened, there’s nearly always a range of scenarios. All we can do is home in on the most plausible, which in this case is that someone attacked him, probably kicking him until he lost consciousness, and then perhaps left him for dead.’
Wendy asked, ‘When did that happen, do you think?’
‘No more than a couple of hours before he died.’
‘So he can’t have got far from where the beating took place?’
‘No, and that’s a puzzle. If it was close by, there ought to have been some sign of it. He was missing a shoe when he came in, and we haven’t even found that.’
‘Unless he was thrown out of a car?’ Rob ventured, and Dawn nodded glumly.
‘That may well be it, and then we’re really in trouble.’ She described how the man had been in extremely poor health to begin with. ‘Heart disease, cirrhosis of the liver, and signs of heavy drug use. I’d bet money that he’s been homeless for several years at least, prior to whatever happened here.’
‘Are there still no clues to his identity?’ Wendy asked.
‘Not so far. His teeth were in a terrible state, though there was some evidence of dentistry carried out in his adolescence, which the pathologist thought was British.’
‘What about the theory that he was a migrant worker?’ Rob asked.
‘It’s an avenue we’re still exploring, but I’d say there’s less confidence in that idea than there was last night.’
Rob looked almost stricken by this news. ‘So where, uh, where does that leave us?’
‘You?’ Dawn frowned. ‘Well, I know it’s been a horrible shock, but hopefully now you can put it behind you. For us, though. . .’ She shrugged. ‘We’ll go on combing through the missing persons reports, and it may be that the case will be added to the bureau’s website, though that’s pretty much a last-ditch attempt at identification. . .’
‘And then?’ Wendy asked, picking up on the air of hopelessness.
Dawn spread her hands. ‘Like I said before, it’s possible that this is a mystery we’ll never solve.’