The Truth About Murder Read online

  ‘Right, tell me how I can help. Is it Miss or Mrs Todd?’ I turned to clear a space in the papers on my desk. I found it usually helped to give people a few seconds to adjust to my laboured speech patterns, but when I glanced up, she was entirely composed.

  ‘It’s Mrs,’ she said. ‘But Rita will do.’ She was foraging in her backpack and finally brought out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. ‘Don’t suppose I can . . . ?’

  ‘Sorry, one careless move and this lot’ll go up like a tinder box.’ She smiled and replaced them. No problem with her understanding me either, then.

  ‘I’m going to be straight with you,’ she said, fixing me with her blue-grey eyes. She didn’t wait for a reply. ‘This is a waste of your time. But if we could just sit here for a few minutes, make an appointment like your boss said — perhaps you can put it on one of those little cards? — then I’ll have done what I promised to do and Andrea will get off my back. I don’t know. My first time off in God knows how long and this is where she brings me. Other daughters would take their mum out for lunch or to a spa or something, wouldn’t they?’

  I sensed her custom — and fee — slipping away, and Jake wouldn’t thank me for that. ‘Why did your daughter bring you here?’ I asked.

  ‘You heard — she thinks I’m about to lose my job. And my pension.’

  I opened my mouth again to ask but she was one step ahead. ‘I’m a paediatric nurse up at the John Skidmore.’

  ‘And is your daughter right to be worried?’

  With a light shrug, Rita picked up the crucifix and dropped it again. ‘I suppose it’s possible,’ she conceded. ‘You know what things are like these days. Is there anyone who can say that they’re truly safe?’

  ‘But that’s exactly what we’re here for,’ I said. ‘We might be able to do something.’

  She smiled. ‘That’s kind of you, but honestly, I can fight my own battles. I really don’t need you or Andie to do it for me.’ She glanced out of the window and the glance lengthened into a stare at nothing in particular.

  I stifled a yawn, suddenly feeling exhausted myself. I wanted to go home and it felt as if she did too.

  ‘OK,’ I said. ‘Let’s make that appointment, and in the meantime, you can think things through and decide if you’d like our help.’ It seemed to satisfy her so I went and fetched the office diary (Barbara still likes things ‘written on a real page’). We settled on the following Wednesday to give Rita the chance to mull things over — and, I suspected, to cancel on us. It would also allow me to work out what the bloody hell, if anything, I could do to keep her on board. For form’s sake, along with the appointment details I gave her a business card, more out of habit than out of any hope that it would be used. ‘And is there a number I can reach you on, should I need to?’ I asked in return.

  She gave me a landline number. ‘I won’t bother you with the mobile,’ she said. ‘I hardly ever have it on.’

  Obligations fulfilled, she reached down and picked up the backpack. ‘Now perhaps Andrea’ll leave me in peace,’ she said with a wry smile. ‘Funny thing is, some proverbial faecal matter is about to hit the fan, but not at all in the way she thinks.’

  On another day, or at a different time, I might have probed to find out exactly what she meant. Instead, as she stood up to leave, I asked, ‘Why us? There are plenty of other law firms in town. Or was it Andrea who chose?’

  She shook her head. ‘Mr Asif told me about you.’

  ‘You know him?’

  ‘I cared for the baby when he was first born.’

  * * *

  ‘That was a strange one,’ observed Jake, after I’d seen Rita out. He leaned back in the chair in his rather better-appointed office, squeezing a stress ball in the palm of his hand. ‘What’s your gut feeling?’

  ‘Hungry,’ I said, though that wasn’t what he meant. ‘Beyond that, I really couldn’t say. She wasn’t exactly forthcoming.’

  ‘Did you get anything?’

  ‘A commitment to come back in a few days. But apart from that, not much more than you heard. Her daughter thinks her job might be under threat.’ I relayed the rest of my short exchange with Rita.

  ‘What did you think about her?’

  ‘I don’t know . . .’

  Jake raised his eyebrows.

  ‘I liked her. She was upfront and I don’t doubt that she can fight her own corner. But she did agree, in theory, to come back again.’

  ‘OK.’ Jake seemed satisfied with that.

  ‘I don’t get why she wanted me, though,’ I said, still baffled.

  ‘You’re the handsome one,’ said Jake. He threw the stress ball in my direction. ‘Now piss off home, before I start getting a complex.’

  Chapter Four

  When we were young, my best friend Laura had a string puppet. You rarely see them now, but this was back in the days when kids used to play with proper toys instead of relying on the virtual world for their entertainment. The puppet was made from wood, with a bright green felt hat atop a perfectly spherical head, and a dopey expression painted on his face. She said he reminded her of me. Not because of the hat, or even the dopey expression, but because of the way he walked. Sometimes when she was bored with plodding him up and down, she would yank the strings hard, up through the wooden X that controlled him, bunching him into a knot of arms and legs, the strings contracting so much that they almost broke.

  Laura was right, I thought, wiping the rain out of my eyes. I was a lot like that puppet, and never more so than on this Friday night, when there was so much tension in my sinews, I thought they might snap. I needed a fix. Walking home, my line on the pavement ranged unevenly from one side to the other, and I had to work hard to avoid knocking into anyone. If there’s one thing total strangers don’t like, it’s unsolicited physical contact. The effort made my head throb even more, though after a day confined to the harsh strip lighting and stuffy atmosphere of various offices, it was a relief to at least be outside, even in the middle of the sort of sharp shower that had dogged the last few days. Crossing the stone bridge, I glanced down at the river, which flowed high and fast, brown waters surging by. Debris was accumulating round the supports and I watched a branch as big as a sapling being carried down from upstream.

  Arriving at my apartment block, I managed to stab pretty accurately at the security pad, but it took me three exhausted attempts to get my key in the lock of my front door. Once inside my flat I poured myself a drink before switching on my laptop — two meaningful emails amongst all the spam. One from Laura, asking me to confirm that I’d be round for supper tomorrow night, the other from ‘Crusader’ comprising four words: knight to king four. Some of us are old school, and the chessboard was set up next to my laptop. Scanning it first to refresh my memory, I slowly moved the corresponding piece. Interesting — it was not what I’d expected and right now it was hard to work out what it meant. The important things taken care of, I collapsed into my favourite recliner to give my next move some thought. (Laura would also say that I’m getting middle-aged.) What I needed now was a good woman and some chemical relaxation. A couple of hours later they both appeared, as arranged.

  ‘Hi.’ Letting herself in with the key I’d given her, Keeley walked into the lounge, from where I’d barely moved in two hours, and slipped off her jacket. The sight of her snug-fitting, low-cut dress began to shunt the blood around my body just a little bit quicker. She’d pinned up her dark hair tonight and looked more than ever like an exotic long-necked bird parading its plumage to attract a male. It was doing it for me.

  ‘You look nice,’ I managed to say.

  ‘Thanks,’ she smiled in appreciation. ‘I’m sure I must be putting on weight though.’ Frowning, she reached down to pinch an imaginary fold of skin between finger and thumb. ‘Could hardly get into this.’ The beige dress, cinched in at the waist with a wide, shiny black belt, seemed to me to cling in all the right places.

  ‘Don’t worry . . .’ I began.

  She flashed m
e a humourless smile. ‘I know. I won’t be staying in it for long.’

  She dumped her bag beside me on the sofa. ‘So, what first?’ she asked, but a glance at my crotch told her all she needed to know, and in one smooth movement she was on her knees in front of me, sending shock waves the length of my thighs.

  In phase two of this therapy session, Keeley took out of her bag a small polythene pouch of neatly rolled cylinders, thirty in all. ‘Thought you might need to stock up,’ she said.

  I’d tried a DIY roll-up a couple of times, but too much of the good stuff had ended up on the floor. This way was far more satisfactory. She put a joint between her lips and held a lighter to it before handing it to me. I took a long drag and the remaining tension began to slowly ebb away, my muscles easing. Over time, Keeley and I had perfected a routine that worked well, and when the spliff was spent we retreated to the bedroom.

  Much later, while I showered, Keeley disappeared into the kitchen and not long after, her disembodied head appeared through the steam.

  ‘No milk,’ she said. Bugger. Although it didn’t matter now, it would in the morning. Plus, I was low on cash and was going to owe Keeley more than usual for the ‘extras’. When I was dressed, I left her to freshen up and pulled my leather jacket on.

  ‘Back in five,’ I told her — as it turned out, somewhat optimistically.

  Outside, the nip in the night air was enough to cloud my breath, but in my newfound relaxed state, I hardly noticed the cold. This was the one time of the week when life was good and from the inside at least, I felt like the me I was always meant to have been.

  I noticed the gang of youths loitering outside Davey’s supermarket from some distance away. They fell quiet as I approached, triggering an unwelcome murmuring in my gut and unwanted memories of the school playground. One of them said something to make the others laugh, and as I drew parallel with them a gobbet of spit arced out of the huddle, landing on the pavement just in front of me, just close enough for it not to have been random fire. Fighting the urge to shoot back an insult or even a punch, I forced myself to nod a civil greeting towards them and pushed my way into the shop.

  I went to the cashpoint first. It meant paying a transaction fee, but at least the retinal scanner here was reliable. In the couple of years since they’d introduced them, they hadn’t yet got the technology right and it seemed like half of them either malfunctioned or had been vandalised. I withdrew three hundred. Davey, or so I’d always assumed him to be, smiled from behind his counter as usual, and waited patiently while I fished out the loose change I needed for the milk.

  Despite my determination not to be intimidated, it was a relief when I emerged from the shop to find that the youths had gone. I wasn’t about to let the incident ruin my evening, but I’d already decided that tonight Keeley and I would go for dinner somewhere we were known. By the time I reached my building, I had relaxed again. Perhaps if I hadn’t been in a haze of dope I might have seen it coming, but I was putting my key in the door when something slammed into me from behind, smacking my face into the reinforced glass and sending a judder through my jaw. I was spun around, my shouting cut short by a blow to the stomach that knocked the air out of me and bent me double, pushing bile up into my throat. As I lurched forward, a foot hooked under my shin and brought the pavement rushing up to meet me. My skull reverberated as my head hit the concrete. Dazed, I had a vague impression of two, maybe three dark shadows dancing around me and I knew instinctively that they were young males. The icy concrete stinging my face, I thought vaguely of the items of worth in my pockets: my wallet stuffed with twenty pound notes, my mobile phone and house keys. I hugged my arms around myself to protect them. But the pummelling blows continued until my only conscious sensations were a searing pain in my chest, a fire between my legs and a metallic stickiness in my mouth. Then, when I could bear it no more, the pain began to dissolve and somewhere in my field of vision, a brilliant light appeared. Beginning as a pinprick, it grew ever more intense, giving off a warmth and glowing comfort that drew me compulsively towards it. I floated towards the light, with that same euphoric lightness that comes on the cusp of sleep. Then a sharp, hot force smacked me in the ear and a foul smell invaded my nostrils, dragging me back to cold, painful reality. In desperation, I flailed my arms to grab at the light, but as I did it began to recede, getting dimmer and dimmer, until the blackness overcame me and I slipped into the void.

  Chapter Five

  When the light snapped on again, it was dizzying and painful. A weight on my chest held me down and my arms were pinned by my sides. A faint smell of citrus wafted in the air as a young woman leaned over me, and my head rolled uncomfortably on the pillows beneath. Everything in front of me seemed a long way off and slightly out of focus, as if I was looking the wrong way down a telescope.

  ‘Hello there,’ she said brightly, her voice ricocheting around inside my head. ‘You’re still with us, then.’ She stepped back and her form became clearer, a smile spreading across her pale, freckled face. Policemen weren’t the only ones getting younger. Nurses were, too. Despite the jagged pain inside my skull, I struggled to arrange my facial muscles to reciprocate — unsuccessfully, apparently, because it seemed to frighten her off, and she backed away. But then, after a murmured conversation somewhere outside my vision, she came back, followed by an older man whose hair was too long. I had a sense of black clothing and a white collar. A priest? Was I about to be given the last rites? Or had I already bypassed that bit? He smelled of the outside world and didn’t look as if he’d shaved recently. If I had died and gone to heaven, St Peter was looking distinctly rough.

  ‘Hi Stephen, how are you feeling?’ His voice was too loud and his smile seemed overloaded with sympathy because I’d been hurt, or maybe just because it was me.

  ‘Stefan,’ I tried to correct him, but it was even harder than usual to get my mouth around the word. He leaned in towards me, his face creased in a frown of concentration as I breathed in stale air, but after my third unintelligible attempt he gave up and put a comforting hand on my shoulder.

  ‘Never mind, son. You’re finding it hard to talk. I’ll come back another time.’

  If he was anticipating any improvement in the interim, he was going to be in for a big disappointment. But I was glad he went, as it meant I could slide back into my cocoon again. When I next awoke, the room was dimly lit and quieter, and I felt a little more present in it. For a moment I thought I was alone, but then I felt the movement beside me and looked up into another woman’s face, as a cloying perfume wafted my way. I’d caught her scrutinising me. She was smartly dressed but with no white coat, so I was guessing not medical staff.

  ‘Everything all right, doctor?’ a female voice inquired. OK, so I’d guessed wrong about that, put in my place by Freckle-face, who was suddenly in the doorway. ‘Doctor’ muttered something in reply that I couldn’t hear, and when he retreated, so did I. The next time I saw the world, it was in the form of a fleeting glimpse of a ginger scalp, more dark clothes and a different aftershave, but this time I couldn’t even summon enough energy to break the surface.

  * * *

  I was concentrating on my book when I sensed rather than heard it — a subtle change in breathing pattern, nothing more. Was he awake? Keeping my eyes fixed on the page I was reading, I listened carefully. The disturbance passed and regular rhythm resumed. I risked a sideways glance. No, his eyes were still closed, his breathing steady again. The momentary surge of adrenalin subsided and I felt ludicrously grateful for the reprieve. Coward. The sooner he regained consciousness, the sooner I could get this over with. It was long overdue.

  I had Denny Sutton to thank for this. He’d come here to interview the victim last night but found him still out of it and pretty much unable to speak. He’d assumed it was because of the beating and the medication until the nurse had put him straight. At that point, Denny decided that this case was better suited to a junior officer.

  ‘Good luck,’ he’d said,
with a smug grin. Not his fault, really. Denny Sutton was a product of his time. He couldn’t get his head round ‘all the political correctness bollocks.’ There didn’t seem much point in him trying now either. Two weeks and he’d be gone, retired with the lovely Mrs Sutton to sunny Portugal, where he could be as un-politically correct as he liked.

  In every other respect, Denny was a good copper, at least that’s what everyone kept telling me. He’d stayed on the front line, garnering bucketloads of respect along the way. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe it, more that I hadn’t seen much evidence. Sure, he’d been accepting enough of me turning up from the other end of the country to fill the gap left by his old partner, Kevin Booth, and there were plenty who wouldn’t have. But that was as far as it went. It wasn’t made any better by everyone telling me what a dynamic team Denny and Booth had been. At first, I’d naively hoped that some of that expertise would rub off on me — I was keen to learn — but so far Denny was keeping me too much at arm’s length to make that happen, and we were fast running out of time. I’d even found myself envying the easy banter between Denny and the paramedic who’d attended the scene on Friday night.

  ‘Another one for you, Den,’ the ambulance man had said. ‘If we keep meeting like this, people will talk.’

  Mostly Denny seemed to prefer to work alone, his philosophy being that we should each play to our strengths, which, according to him, was why I was sitting here instead of him, nervous tension clamping my insides. I suppose it was marginally better than being out on the streets on this wet late winter night.