Hot Blood (Bloodwords Book 1) (28 page)

‘Can I see that please?’ then, taking the
calendar, ‘yes, cars
Skem
is a reference to
Skelmersdale
but it is a pity he didn’t write the name of
who he was going to see. The Arthur Jarvis name might be more useful though.
Tonbridge isn’t in the Midlands son, it is a suburb of London. Lots of people
live there and commute into the City every day. We’ll keep this for a while if
you don’t mind. It could give us more clues. The sergeant will give you a
receipt before we leave.’

Taking her cue,
Lescott
asked Kevin, ‘Where will we find Caroline Burton?’

‘Caroline? Why do you want to see her? She’s
nothing to do with this. She is just one of our tenants. She has a caravan on the
park. What’s the interest?’

‘We just need to speak to her and it makes
sense to do that while we are here rather than make another visit don’t you
think Mr Archer?’

‘Well, if you put it that way, I suppose so. I
didn’t mean to be so snappy. I just don’t know what to think at the moment.’

‘That’s understood Mr Archer. Don’t worry about
it. But does Caroline get involved with anything here?’

‘Not especially. She’s one of three women that
tend to chat together a bit. We call them the Three Musketeers. As well as
Caroline there’s Jackie Jessop and batty old Phyllis Weston. The Weston woman
is a resident. She is as nosey as hell and away with the fairies half the time
but Mrs Jessop and her husband only come at weekends because they work. She is
a bit of a fancy piece with a high-powered job in Liverpool. Caroline is different
altogether. She’s a bit younger for a start, and a bit timid too. She wouldn’t
say boo to a goose. They are just three busybodies tittle-tattling. There’s no
harm in them Sergeant,’

‘Thanks for the character references Kevin,’
responded Davies. ‘Did any of them have any special contact with you or your
dad?’

‘Not at all Inspector. Caroline was quite cut
up when Dad died, though I don’t know why. Actually, the less contact we have
with them the better. They are like a load of old washerwomen and once they
start talking you can’t get away. I try to keep out of their way except for
making sure their site fees are paid.’

Having taken their leave, Davies and
Lescott
followed Kevin’s directions to Caroline Burton’s
caravan. Though with numerous potholes and poorly maintained, the asphalt site
access roads were an improvement on the pitted gravel car park. Overall, a lack
lustre image prevailed over the whole site; some caravans were well past their
prime, what once had probably been landscaped communal garden areas were
reduced to just grass and hedges, while road names and signposts to the various
areas of the site were so weather beaten as to be unreadable. There was the
potential for the site to be a smart, relaxing away-from-it-all hideaway but in
its current state, dilapidated would be a better description.

‘Do you know Debbie,’ said Davies as their
shoes crunches on the gritty roadway, ‘I used to fancy one of these as a
weekend retreat.’

‘It doesn’t look like somewhere I would like to
retreat to,’ she replied. ‘And it’s only fifteen minutes from Albert Road Nick,
you wouldn’t feel that you had gone anywhere would you?’

‘I didn’t mean here exactly,’ he responded. ‘I
meant a caravan. I fancied one in North Wales or on the Fylde. Somewhere within
an hour and a half drive but sufficiently away from work not to be available
for a couple of days.’

Stopping at a junction,
Lescott
indicated a turning to the right, where according to Kevin Archer’s directions,
the middle of three caravans would be that of Caroline Burton. The door was
closed and there seemed to be no sign of life. Walking over to the bay windowed
end of the caravan, Davies peered inside. A newspaper was laid out on a dining
table but he could see no other sign of occupation. Having completed a circuit
of the caravan and being about to leave, they heard a toilet flush and a door
close.

‘Sounds like she was indisposed Frank,’
remarked
Lescott
as she made her way back to the
caravan and hammered once again on the door.

A middle-aged woman opened the door. Attractive
for her age and conservatively dressed, she looked at the two officers and
asked what they wanted. After they had shown her their warrant cards and
introduced themselves, she confirmed that yes, she was Caroline Burton, and
stood aside while they climbed the two metal steps and entered her caravan.
Settling themselves on the built-in seating that ran the full width of the
caravan beneath the pseudo bay window, Davies and
Lescott
repeated some of the questions they had thrown at Kevin Archer; did she know
either of the Archers well, did she get involved with any activities on the
caravan park, did she have a mobile phone. Apparently the answer to most of
their questions was negative. She didn’t know either of the Archers
particularly well, she kept herself to herself and she didn’t have a mobile
phone.

Davies wasn’t convinced. ‘But we understand
that you were very upset when Peter Archer died. If you didn’t know him very
well, why get so emotional?’

There was a flush of colour as she looked first
at Davies, then across to
Lescott
, finally dropping
her eyes and saying nothing.

‘It’s all a bit confusing,’ continued Davies.
‘You see, as well as your obvious concern, we found a mobile phone in Peter
Archer’s van.’

‘And when we checked the numbers in its memory
we found one that was most interesting,’ cut in
Lescott
,
reading out a telephone number from her notebook as the woman’s colour deepened
and her eyes welled up. ‘That’s your number isn’t it?’ she added.

‘Mine?’ she responded.

‘Look, Caroline,’ said Davies. ‘The phone we
found in Peter Archer’s van was a pay as you go. There were only three numbers
in its phone book memory. When we checked the call register, two of them had
been called a number of times – one of them regularly. That number also
featured highly in the incoming calls register and according to
Vodaphone
, the number is that of a monthly contract owned
by a Caroline Burton.’

He looked her directly in the eye and held her
gaze. ‘I’ll ask you again Caroline, did you know peter Archer well and have you
got a mobile phone?’

Her deep beetroot colour had gone. Now she had
become as white as a sheet. Tears rolled silently down her cheeks. Her
shoulders sagged and she looked as though she was about to slide off her chair
and into a heap on the floor. Slowly she put her elbows on the table, her arms
straight out with her hands together clasping a now sodden handkerchief. She
let her head drop, and with her forehead resting on the table she sobbed.

Lescott
left her seat in the window and joined the
distraught woman at the dining table, taking an adjoining chair and resting her
arm on the sobbing woman’s shoulders in comfort. Several minutes passed before
she regained her composure, her eyes now swollen and her makeup a sodden mess.
Some colour had returned and her cheeks were now fiery red, accentuated by her
otherwise pale complexion. Slowly she sat more upright and turned toward
Davies.

‘Peter and I were very close,’ she said between
sobs. My husband died many years ago in a car accident so when Peter’s wife
died I knew what he was going through and I helped him come to terms with her
death. Over time we became very close.’

‘Lovers Caroline?’

She looked at Davies and considered her answer
before replying. ‘Not at first. No. I was just there for him to talk to. Kevin
was a bit young and Peter felt that he shouldn’t burden him. Peter just needed
to unburden himself. The rest came later.’

‘How much later?’

‘Inspector, when does somebody become close to
somebody else? Is it when they share concerns? When one supports the other?
When they make love the first time?’ The frail little woman of just a few
minutes ago had changed. Gone was the tendency to burst into tears, the nervous
disposition, the continual stretching of her sodden handkerchief. In their place,
a more determined woman with a clear purpose – almost a philosophical
outlook. It was clear to Davies that there were two sides to Caroline Burton.
Two conflicting characters; the one a timid little woman who wouldn’t say boo
to a goose, and the other a strong woman who would defend those near and dear
to her to the utmost.

Allowing her time to consider what she herself
had said, Davies remained silent for a while, then replied, ‘Caroline. Let’s
start again. It is clear to me that you and Peter Archer were close, perhaps
even what is called “an item” these days. It is also clear that you both had
mobile phones and called each other regularly. But why all the cloak and dagger
pretence? What is not clear to me is why Kevin did not know his father had a mobile
phone, why you denied having one, or why either of you should conceal your
friendship. It’s not as if either of you were married. Both of you were free to
hitch up with whoever you wanted. So why the secrecy? Come on Caroline. If you
were as fond of Peter as you seem to be, help us catch the person that murdered
him.’

‘I’ll put the kettle on Inspector,’ she
replied, easing herself up and moving over to the kitchen area. As she busied
herself making them a drink, she settled into a steady review of her relationship
with Peter Archer, actually going back to before his wife had died. Not that
there had been anything between them at that point they should understand
– she wasn’t like that at all.

Apparently, she had bought her caravan on the
Green Fields site shortly after her husband had been killed in a crash on the
Formby by-pass. Though only a fifteen minute drive from her house on the
outskirts of Southport, spending weekends at the site enabled her to get away
from old memories and live for today. She had enjoyed those weekends so much
that after a while she had sold her house and become a permanent resident at
Green Fields.

Of course it wasn’t as run down in those days.
Everything was prim and proper and there were lots of activities going on. It
was a fun place to be.

Then Peter’s wife had died. She was the one
that had run the place really. She had been the happy face in reception,
running it like a meeting place and coffee shop for the residents and
organising events and activities. Peter did all the maintenance and with a
teenage son to bring up and nobody to help him in the business he just went
back into his shell. None of the things his wife had been responsible for
continued. The site just deteriorated and the result is the current
dilapidation.

At first she just befriended the newly bereaved
man. She had gone through the same experience herself several years before and
knew how desperate he would be feeling. Over time he started confiding his
hopes and fears in her. He had great hopes for Green Fields but with no
activities and ever fewer caravans sited, funds to achieve them were
non-existent. He feared that the whole thing would go down the tubes, taking
both him and his son with it. That was his big fear.

As Kevin had become a young man, he had put
more pressure on Peter. The lad had inherited his mother’s eye for business,
her enthusiasm, her vision for the future, but Peter just did not have the
funds to go ahead with any of his son’s ideas.

About a year ago, Peter’s own father had died
and he had been really down. During the lean times when things had got
especially tight, his father had always helped him with small loans or gifts.
Sometimes that had been all that had kept the site open. He had believed that
his father’s estate would be split between him and his sister but the sister
had managed to grab it all and that had started a family feud. So Peter had
started spending more time with Caroline and she had given him her old mobile
phone so that he could call her. But just recently he had changed. He had
regained some of his old enthusiasm, he seemed happier. She had thought, or
hoped really, that he was happier because they were together enjoying each
other’s company, but there was more. They were enjoying each other’s company of
course, but he had a new project, something he didn’t discuss with her but
referred to sometimes as something up his sleeve that would save green Fields.
Sometimes he said his sister was about to get her comeuppance, whatever that
meant.

And, yes, they had become an item. It hadn’t
happened suddenly, there was no flash of light or love at first sight. They
sort of grew together, and then fell in love gently. Peter had not wanted Kevin
to know that he was discussing their personal family life with another woman,
even less a tenant, so in the early days they just met quietly for a chat in
her caravan. Just like the three of them were talking now. Later, when they had
really become close, Peter didn’t think that Kevin would be able to accept
another woman in his mother’s place; Kevin had been close to his mother as a
child and Peter didn’t want to hurt him so they just continued as they were.
That had made it all the harder when Peter had died. She had not been able to
be open. She had not been included in any arrangements. She had lost one
husband – now it was as though she had lost another.

It had taken a long time for her to tell her
tale. Caroline sat with them in the lounge area and their cups were empty. On
the face of it, hers was just a sad story. Two people drawn together by
circumstances then separated by fate. But among the twists and turns of her
secret love story, Davies had spotted something. Perhaps something that she had
referred to actually had the potential to open up a few metaphorical doors.