The Truth About Murder Read online

  THE

  TRUTH ABOUT

  MURDER

  A captivating crime mystery full of twists and turns

  Chris Collett

  First published 2019

  Joffe Books, London

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental. The spelling used is British English except where fidelity to the author’s rendering of accent or dialect supersedes this. The right of Chris Collett to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  © Chris Collett

  ISBN 978-1-78931-292-8

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  www.joffebooks.com

  CONTENTS

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-one

  Chapter Forty-two

  Chapter Forty-three

  Chapter Forty-four

  Chapter Forty-five

  Chapter Forty-six

  Chapter Forty-seven

  Chapter Forty-eight

  Chapter Forty-nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-one

  Chapter Fifty-two

  Chapter Fifty-three

  Chapter Fifty-four

  Chapter Fifty-five

  Chapter Fifty-six

  Epilogue

  ALSO BY CHRIS COLLETT

  A SELECTION OF BOOKS YOU MAY ENJOY

  GLOSSARY OF ENGLISH SLANG FOR US READERS

  Prologue

  July burns with a suffocating heat, which only becomes more oppressive as the month progresses. These are turbulent times, with unemployment, inflation and poverty high. A sharp rise in the birth rate has created anxiety about how limited resources and public services can meet the population’s needs, so prejudice grows.

  Inside the Bishop’s Palace it is cool but airless, and for days now a headache has gripped my temples, making it impossible for me to marshal my thoughts coherently. Rumours have been circulating for some time now, but unsubstantiated as they are, it has been easy enough to ignore them in order to protect the reputation of an increasingly fragile institution trying to stay afloat in a chaotic world. At our last meeting, the Fulda bishops agreed to resist challenging the status quo when the Church itself is so vulnerable. Nevertheless, the chatter becomes more insistent. Visits from Heinrich Lackmann and Sister Baudelerta have uncovered some disturbing developments, and now I face a challenge from within. One of my most popular young priests threatens to leave his calling because of a crisis of faith and I have so far let him down. If ever a man was born to his vocation it was this man. His intellect and charisma have strengthened the Church’s position in the parishes he has led. In him I have seen echoes of myself as a younger man — the same integrity, the same conviction — at least until now.

  Chapter One

  Walking from one side of the ward to the other, Rita Todd was alert to the percussive music of the various machines beeping as they registered the vital signs of her tiny patients. She wondered, as she had on many occasions, whether it would be possible to do this job if she was tone deaf. They were full to capacity, as always, even though they’d managed to ship one patient out to a more specialised hospital in the next county, and only this morning — too early in Rita’s view — Baby Rushton, barely twenty-three weeks when he came in, had progressed on to the recovery ward, now relocated to a different wing of the hospital. It was a practice Rita had yet to get used to. Each time a child went from her care, Rita’s unease grew a little more. Her discomfort was compounded by what lately seemed to her to be the almost inevitable outcome — that the transfer to the ‘recovery’ ward marked exactly the opposite, and instead was the beginning of a fatal deterioration. The rationale was, of course, that the prognosis for severely premature infants was poor anyway, and that moving them on would at least free up space to admit a child with more chance of survival, like Verity, the little scrap before her now. The tiny human being that looked nothing more than a new-born rodent with her raw red skin and tiny row of ribs that stood out like the breakwater on a beach every time she gasped for breath.

  The only other adult in the room, Verity’s mum, Fay, sat on the opposite side of the cot, gazing unblinkingly down at her precious daughter, the bond so strong between them it was almost tangible. The other parents were not far away, trying to grab a few hours’ rest in the family room along the corridor, or collecting siblings from school for the weekend, a reminder that beyond the confines of these walls, life had to go on.

  Fay glanced up. ‘They work you hard, don’t they?’ she said, a comment on Rita’s continual presence on the ward this week.

  ‘It keeps me out of mischief,’ was Rita’s much-rehearsed rejoinder. What she really wanted to do was wholeheartedly agree. Almost in response, and mesmerised by the rhythmic bleeping, she felt a wave of fatigue crash over her. She’d agreed to stay on for the graveyard shift for the third consecutive night only because, once again, they were short-staffed. Since the latest reorganisations they were spread so thinly she seemed to do more extra cover than regular hours, though no one in management seemed to notice — or, more to the point, wanted to notice.

  She was shaken from her thoughts by the urgent squealing of a monitor across the ward: Baby Carew’s oxygen levels had dipped suddenly and dangerously low. As Rita hurried across the room, the door swung open and junior nurse Ellen Campbell, alerted by the sound, appeared from where she’d been snatching a few minutes’ break in the staff room.

  Words were superfluous, and the two women worked in silence, their eyes fixed on the array of screens and digital markers. Rita was all too aware of the anxious looks cast across from Fay. Every crisis in here was a painful reminder of the tenuous grasp on life all these children had. When she’d first qualified, Rita’s pulse used to accelerate to keep pace with the urgency of the machines, but after seventeen years she’d learned to check the anxiety and remain as calm as possible. She and Ellen worked quickly and quietly through the procedure, tension seething beneath the surface as it always did, but after only minutes the baby began to stabilise, the machines resumed their regular beat, and the danger had passed. As she turned back to the ward, Rita saw that the door
was open, framing the stocky figure of paediatric consultant Mr Leonard. He had a medication records file tucked under his arm, she noticed, and his expression was grim.

  ‘Can I have a word, Rita?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘You go ahead, I’ll be fine here,’ said Ellen, oblivious to the sudden thickening of the atmosphere. And it was now, as Rita crossed the room to follow Mr Leonard, that her heartbeat began to pick up speed.

  Chapter Two

  It was a Friday unlike any other, which is no doubt why I ended the working day feeling like my head had been used to score the winning goal for the opposition. It traced back to those moments in the courtroom before the verdict was pronounced, when the only discernible sound was the creak of ancient timber doing battle with an overzealous heating system. Along the row I could see Mr Asif’s fingers tangled in his lap, his knuckles white.

  ‘Not guilty.’

  At the delivery of the verdict, there followed a collective exhalation of breath from across the chamber, and I looked across to see Councillor Ashley Curzon exchange a look with his solicitor. He wasn’t crass enough to gloat — if anything he looked relieved — but there was a hint of a smile behind the eyes, too. He’d got away with it, and he knew he had. On our side of the courtroom, Mr Asif’s shoulders slumped. Jake was leaning in to him, doubtlessly with words of apology and sympathy, knowing that Asif would now have to go home to his wife and tell her that the death of their baby boy was down to nothing but a collection of unfortunate circumstances. Never mind that they were circumstances constructed through negligence and greed. Instead, the jury concluded, it had been a tragic accident. Taken in by the defence barrister’s tale, they decided that the outcomers had brought it on themselves. Even though it had been established that the central heating boiler was a cheap, knocked off import from Eastern Europe, health and safety officers could find no fault with it, nor in the way it had been fitted. They did however find the house to be poorly ventilated, with no open windows, leading over time to higher levels of carbon dioxide, which were enough to overwhelm a delicate child. The tiny boy was premature and in poor health anyway. And never mind that Asif was a qualified engineer, the family — being new to the country — could not be expected to understand the workings of the modern central heating system, suggesting a strong possibility that on this occasion the pilot light had gone out (or been extinguished). Certainly, it had been decided that there was no criminal case to answer. The only representative remaining here from the police was a scruffy looking individual, who hadn’t even been required to give evidence.

  As papers were tucked back into briefcases and tablets were shut down, Curzon and his team got to their feet and were first out of the courtroom, Curzon pausing only to throw a penetrating stare in our direction.

  ‘And so he goes on, his reputation unsullied,’ muttered Jake, watching them go. Generally irrepressible, in another life, Jake would have made an excellent spiv. Today he wore his customary uniform: dark suit, tie at half-mast and desert boots. All that was missing was a trilby perched on the back of his head. As it was, he’d grown up in what he called a posh suburb of Liverpool. Until meeting him I hadn’t known there was any such thing.

  ‘How can a guy that hot be so cool?’ my friend Laura had wanted to know, after the one and only time she met him. It was a mystery, but something Jake could never resist turning to his advantage, which is why one of the early divorces I’d done the grunt work for was his. I’d kind of hoped that some of Jake’s success with women might rub off on me, but so far that had yet to be realised

  ‘So that’s it?’ I said, still stunned that it was all over so easily.

  Jake nodded slowly. ‘It was going to take rather more than we managed to find to bring down the reputation of Ashley Curzon,’ he said. And he was right. For all that he was rough around the edges, Curzon was a local boy made good, his success founded on the housing squeeze back at the beginning of the century. He’d been responsible for the construction of almost all the town’s new developments, based on his supposed belief in high-quality social and affordable housing, most of which he still owned. The jewel in his crown was the small complex set aside for newly arrived refugees from war-torn Syria and his very public undertaking to allow them to get on their feet before any rent was required. The philanthropic gesture made the national news and had secured Curzon a strong influence within the local council. Long-term it had probably nailed him a knighthood, too. But behind the facade of publicity, Curzon, it transpired, had been far from mindful of the welfare of his tenants. He hadn’t factored in Mr Abdul Asif, who two months ago had walked into the offices of Perry, Goodman and Wright (PGW, as we’re known locally), to sue him for negligent manslaughter. There had been too little evidence for the police to take much interest — we had done what we could, but it wasn’t enough.

  ‘Well,’ Jake said, now on his feet and stowing files into a messenger bag. ‘I think we can treat ourselves and take the rest of the day off.’

  ‘It’s ten to five,’ I pointed out.

  ‘There you are then. I won’t even dock your wages.’ But as is so often the case, it didn’t quite work out like that.

  The offices for PGW are located in a former Victorian townhouse we share with a small IT company, along a back alley off the high street. We’re one of a handful of law firms in the town that have evolved broadly designated roles. Ours had started out small, specialising in divorce, with the occasional employment litigation case. But the lines were blurring. Fewer people were getting married, so the divorce rate had dropped correspondingly, and with local jobs scarce, those who had them liked to hang on to them and dared not risk taking action against employers, present or past. But we like to think that, unlike some of our competitors, we’re ethically sound. We don’t chase ambulances, even metaphorically, nor do we promise guaranteed pay-outs, which means that slowly and incrementally our work opportunities are shrinking. My task as the firm’s one remaining paralegal is to research cases, put together the paperwork, and on rare occasions talk to clients.

  After such a tense afternoon, I looked forward to getting back to the comforting, familiar smell of furniture polish and old paper and the air of peaceful calm. It wasn’t to be. We could hear the raised voices before we’d even opened the door. Barbara, our main administrator, was standing in the cramped outer space that we laughably call reception, coat on and bag over her arm, ready to leave, but was apparently being prevented from doing so by the more pressing commitment of refereeing two other women who were engaged in a heated discussion. For once in her life, Barbara looked harassed.

  ‘No, I’ve made up my mind. It’s a fuss over nothing,’ the other, older woman was saying.

  ‘Oh, come on, Mum!’ The younger woman was clearly exasperated. ‘Now that we’re here . . . It’s just a few minutes of your time!’ She was dressed for business, in a suit, with subtle make-up and groomed, shoulder-length hair. Her towering heels went some way towards compensating for her slight frame, and she was taking charge.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Barbara intervened. ‘In any event, you will need to . . .’ Hearing us, she swung round, sagging with relief.

  ‘What’s going on?’ asked Jake.

  ‘I was just explaining to these ladies that because of the time, they will need to make an appointment to come back on another day.’

  Jake made a show of looking at his watch, though I knew what was coming next and I understood. It would be nice to end the day by doing something positive for someone.

  ‘Actually, Barbara,’ he said. ‘Our last meeting finished a bit earlier than expected, so I’ve got a few minutes to spare. It’s OK, you get off home. We can handle it.’ As Barbara hurried out with a grateful smile, Jake turned the full beam on the two women. ‘Now, what can we do for you?’

  After a pause of two or three seconds, it was the younger woman who spoke up, shooting her mother a meaningful look as she did so. ‘I’m Andrea Todd and this is my mum, Rita. She ne
eds you to help her keep her job.’

  The older woman rolled her eyes. ‘Don’t be so melodramatic, Andrea.’

  Her daughter sighed a weary sigh. ‘Just talk to the man, Mum. Please?’

  Jake, meanwhile, was looking from one to the other, trying to assess what exactly was going on. In the end he settled on the mother.

  ‘Why don’t you come through to my office and we can . . .’

  But Rita Todd stood her ground. ‘No offence,’ she said. ‘But if we must go through with this charade, I don’t want you.’ She switched her gaze to me. ‘I want him.’

  Well. That was a first.

  Jake raised his eyebrows at me. My head throbbed, the pain blossoming out from the base of my skull, but this was a potential client. Tired though I was, I nodded. A quick chat and a date in the diary. I could do that, even after five on a Friday afternoon. I walked past Jake towards my office.

  ‘I’ll hang around for a bit,’ he murmured.

  ‘I’ll wait for you outside in the car,’ Andrea called after her mum. ‘Then I can drop you back home.’

  ‘No thanks, love, I’ll walk,’ came the response, with more than a touch of belligerence. ‘I don’t mind a bit of rain and it’ll clear my head.’

  Chapter Three

  For practical reasons, my face-to-face contact with clients is rare, and consequently I inhabit an office that’s poorly designed for it. My desk takes up one corner beside a window that overlooks the narrow yard and next door’s fire escape, with most of the other space taken up with filing cabinets and archive boxes. It meant that Rita Todd and I ended up sitting with our knees almost touching.

  Up close and personal, I got a better sense of her. Late fifties, or perhaps even early sixties, she was attractive in an impish kind of way, with a slim, boyish figure and improbably dark, close-cropped hair. I could imagine her being at home behind a bar. She wore jeans and a V-necked pullover, and I knew at least one of my colleagues who would have approved of the Doc Martens. Sitting down, she seemed to have as much difficulty keeping still as I did. While we talked, her eyes ranged around the room and every couple of minutes or so, she picked up the tiny crucifix that hung around her neck, pulling it up over her chin and running the cross back and forth along its fine silver chain. She caught me watching her at one point and, as if it was some guilty secret, hastily dropped it. Perhaps she could feel the atheist vibes coming at her from my direction and was afraid it might prejudice her chances.