Innocent Blood (19 page)

Feeling better, she tidied the house, not caring now whether the journalists reacted to signs that she was awake as she felt strong enough to deal with them. As she cleaned, a plan developed and became more concrete. The germ of it had been there when she woke up and she realised that it was the source of her new energy. Step one was to appear respectable and calm. There could be no trace of madness about her. Of course she wasn’t mad, she knew that, but sometimes people looked at her as though she might be and that would be unhelpful.

It took all night and most of the following morning to clean the house. Then she had a bath and washed her hair. It was unkempt and grey but she could remember how to put it up and experimented with several styles until she was satisfied. By now it was almost midday but she didn’t feel tired. Instead she inspected her wardrobe, uttering small tuts of annoyance at her dowdy clothes. Her best suit was ten years old and looked it but at least it was clean; her shoes were worn and she had no stockings as she’d given up wearing them in favour of knee-length nylon socks. This wouldn’t do. Perhaps she could sneak out of the back door and into Harlden to buy a new pair that would look good in front of the cameras.

As she crept out of the back garden and caught a bus into town she worked over the pieces of her plan in her mind, fitting them into a more coherent whole. By the time she returned she had all the details in place. She heated a ready-made shepherd’s pie from Tesco and changed into her clothes. Then she picked up the phone.

Jason MacDonald was surprised to receive a call from Mrs Hill the day after she’d thrown him out of the house, closely followed by her daily milk delivery. He considered her invitation to return with serious misgivings until she mentioned the contract he’d left behind on her smeared coffee table. In his experience the thought of money worked like magic on the most unlikely subjects and he believed that it had done so again.

They agreed that he would join her immediately with a photographer and that she would speak to no other journalist until he arrived. On the way he warned Kirsty, the latest female photographer to fall for him, that Mrs Hill was a wreck and that she would need a serious makeover to take a sympathetic picture. The house was as bad. It stank and showed signs of years of neglect and poor housekeeping.

Most of the press pack had left when he arrived, just a few diehards remained, drinking strong coffee and eating bacon sandwiches. They shouted catcalls at his leather-clad back as he pressed the doorbell. A woman answered at once, medium height, neat, wearing a black and grey suit. He took her to be a neighbour.

‘Is Mrs Hill at home?’

‘I’m Mrs Hill.’ She stepped forward and he saw her face more clearly.

There was no mistaking the sunken eyes and worry lines but if it hadn’t been for these he would have called her an impostor. Kirsty shook her head at him as they followed Mrs Hill inside.

The sitting room smelt of polish and cleaning fluid. There were fresh yellow and white daisies by Paul’s shrine and a matching vase full on the gleaming coffee table. The worn patches in the carpet and lack of paint on the skirting board were unchanged but otherwise it was a different room.

‘Would you like something to drink?’

‘Tea, please.’ Jason decided to forget his own advice and risk a cup. ‘Can I help you?’

‘No, that’s fine. I won’t be long.’

As soon as she’d gone Kirsty turned on him.

‘They told me you exaggerated, Jason but this is ridiculous. She’s the perfect picture of a grief-stricken mother.’

‘I’m telling you, this was a tip yesterday. When I sat down I was covered with dust!’

‘Right.’ Kirsty concentrated on setting up her equipment.

‘Honestly, something’s changed her.’

‘Either that or your overactive imagination has got the better of you again.’

He decided that to reply would be demeaning so he ignored her and went to study the photographs of Paul that covered the walls.

‘You won’t need those.’ Mrs Hill spoke from behind him. ‘I’ve looked out some others that aren’t faded. They’re in that box; help yourself – I’d like them back of course.’

He pawed through them like a dog at a butcher’s rubbish and identified ten brilliant pictures.

‘Fair enough,’ she said when he showed them to her, ‘but I’m surprised you haven’t chosen this one.’

She picked up the greying black and white photo of Paul in a Scout uniform in front of a grand but anonymous building.

‘What’s so special about this?’

‘It was taken at the golf club where Maidment worked, less than three weeks before Paul…before… The Scouts were doing odd jobs there to raise money for camping equipment. I believe that must have been when the major first saw him.’

Jason’s jaw dropped.

‘Why didn’t the police take it as evidence?’ he asked, automatically inserting a cassette into a mini recorder.

‘Good question. It was another part of their bungling, I suppose. At first all their attention went on this man Bryan Taylor, then on the theory that Paul had run away with him.’ She poured some tea. ‘But before I go on, we need to sign the contract. There’s so much more I can tell you then.’

‘Yes indeed!’ He passed her a fresh copy and a pen.

‘But it will cost more than £5,000 for exclusivity. I need £20,000.’

‘What?’

He was shocked by her mendacity. He had her categorised as an unsophisticated loony – a walkover.

‘I’ve been thinking about what you said, about needing to take a complete break. That’s what it’s going to cost.’

‘For a holiday?’ he asked incredulously.

‘Yes, and for this and that.’ She smiled at him, an unpractised gesture that didn’t change her eyes.

‘I’ll need permission from my editor.’

‘By all means, call him.’

‘Her,’ he corrected and pressed the speed-dial on his mobile phone. ‘Are you prepared to negotiate?’

‘Oh no.’

The photographer started clicking preparatory Polaroids to check the lighting. Sarah Hill took a sip of tea and wondered again how much it would cost to have a man killed. Kirsty had to ask her to stop smiling.

Prison was uncomfortable but not as bad as he had anticipated. He put up with it without complaint though he noticed that he’d not been segregated despite his alleged crime. It was better this way, he decided. It was easier to protest innocence when not surrounded by sex offenders. ‘
A person is known by the company he keeps,
’ his father had always said and Maidment was inclined to agree with him.

Initially he was left alone, he imagined because of his age and bearing, though his accent irritated some. Then word of his alleged crime circulated and the mood became overtly hostile. When he was confronted for the first time he looked his accuser directly in the eye and said simply, ‘
I did not do it. I swear on my wife’s grave and on my regiment’s honour that I am innocent of the charges.
’ Then he had turned in a slow circle, looking each of his would-be attackers squarely in the face, exposing his back to the most aggressive as he did so.

For some reason they believed him; whether it was his unflinching gaze or military demeanour, it was hard to say. Even the doubters eventually fell silent when the toughest prisoner chose to speak a word in his defence.

On his second evening the television broke and the mood became ugly. There was a brief fight and one man ended up in the infirmary. He recognised the signs of bored aggression. It was deleterious to discipline, far worse than fear. The disinterest of the guards piqued him. They were supposed to be in command, to create a stable environment, not to patrol with a swagger of superiority and leave trouble to boil over. He confronted one of them on their next round and told him so, demanding that some form of entertainment be provided for ‘the men’ as he called his new mess mates.

The guard he challenged laughed in his face and attempted to trip him up as he passed. But Maidment’s reflexes were quicker than his age might suggest and he kept his balance.

‘Nice one, Major.’ Kelly was a squat bruiser on remand for GBH, with old prison tattoos on his knuckles.

‘It’s irresponsible,’ Maidment commented. ‘I wouldn’t have had any of them under my command.’

This tickled Kelly and a few of the others joined in his laughter. Frank, a wife-beater who’d gone too far the last time and was up for attempted murder (though mention of his wife’s name brought tears to his eyes) swirled around in his chair, ignoring the blank screen for the first time.

‘Did you see any action, Major?’ he asked and a few other faces turned towards him, mildly curious.

‘Yes, I did.’

‘Kill anyone?’ Kelly challenged.

Maidment saw no reason to prevaricate. Coy didn’t work with hard men. Simple truth was best.

‘Yes.’

‘Hand to hand?’ Bill was charged with murder, an unpredictable man regarded as the hardest nut on remand – he’d bitten off part of a policewoman’s ear during his arrest, chewed and then swallowed it.

‘Yes. Hand to hand, knife to knife, with rifle and explosive.’ He said it without bravado, a simple statement of fact.

They were all staring at him now.

‘Where were you on active service?’ Bill automatically took the lead as he did with anything that captured his attention.

‘In Borneo, under the command of General Sir Walter Waller.’

‘Walter Waller – what a wanker!’ Frank laughed at his own joke but no one else did. It was more interesting to hear what the major had to say about killing and death.

‘He was the most remarkable man I’ve ever known,’ he said, ignoring Frank, ‘served in Burma in the Second World War, then Malaya. He set up and commanded the Jungle Warfare School – some of the finest military training available anywhere in the world. Jungle Warfare is the most demanding there is. Grand manoeuvres don’t work in confined areas. Your enemy knows the terrain better than you do and can appear, attack and vanish back into it without sound.’

‘Like the Elephant and Castle on a bad Saturday night,’ Frank interrupted.

‘Shut the fuck up,’ Bill said in his normal speaking voice. Frank went pale. ‘Go on, Major.’

So he told them his story about the Brunei revolt and the Borneo operation that was meant to last for three months and went on for over three years. He didn’t tell them about the near loss of his own patrol. It still shocked him that he’d revealed so much to Fenwick and he had no desire to repeat the spectacle. But he did describe Lieutenant-Colonel John Woodhouse’s brilliant strategy for twenty-two SAS. How the four-man patrols had befriended local tribes with medicine and food, thus denying the rebels support while gaining valuable information. He quickly disabused them of their belief that he’d been in the SAS, explaining that he was in the Guards Independent Parachute Company. Yes, he’d been trained by the SAS; yes, he’d led his own patrols into the jungle well behind enemy lines; and yes, he could still recall the methods he’d been taught forty years later.

With the aid of his remarkable memory he shared some of this learning, how to move without noise in a jungle; his preferred weapons; and the best way to kill a man silently.

When the guards announced lockdown, there was muttering from the thirty men gathered around him in a wide semicircle but the mood was calm again.

‘Major.’

‘Yes, Bill.’

‘Anyone give you grief, you let me know, awright?’

Bill stuck out his callused hand and grabbed Maidment’s manicured fingers in a crushing grip.

‘I will but I trust that will not be necessary.’ He nodded his head in acknowledgement without saying thank you. That would have suggested weakness.

As he’d thought, prison wasn’t so bad.

The interrogation next day was the most intensive yet. Instead of being taken back to Harlden he was driven to an anonymous police station close to the prison and into yet another sour-smelling interview room. He declined his right to have his solicitor present. Poor old Stenning wasn’t reacting well to the pressure of constant questioning and had developed a nervous tic that Maidment found distracting.

He watched as Fenwick broke the cellophane wrappers from two cassettes and put them into the machine. The second simultaneous recording would be sealed and dated after the interview as a secure record, should the police be tempted to ‘doctor’ evidence. He considered it an unnecessary precaution with Fenwick in charge. Integrity was a characteristic he recognised.

Fenwick started by explaining that his questions were related to another enquiry and not to Paul Hill’s murder, about which they could no longer question him.

‘Where were you on 16
^th
December, 1994?’ This was one of the dates the FBI had squeezed out of their witness, on which he claimed there had been an orgy involving young boys at a large house in Sussex. Though the witness said that he didn’t know the address.

Maidment closed his eyes briefly and thought back.

‘In Harlden, at work.’

‘Can you prove that?’

‘You have my journals for the period.’

‘We’ve checked those, they’re blank.’

‘Hmm, curious. It must have been a quiet day.’

‘I find it remarkable that you can recall precisely where you were on that day.’

‘It’s a quirk. I have very good recall for facts and figures, including dates. You may check me on others if you wish.’

‘We might well do that. 9
^th
April, 1987.’ Another of the volunteered dates.

‘April is a busy month at the club. I was probably very involved in organising our tournament. It started on the first weekend of May, you see. Still does.’

‘Have you ever visited Crawley, Jeremy?’ Fenwick’s use of his first name amused Maidment; a classic ploy to build familiarity and to establish the interview hierarchy.

‘Crawley, well yes. It’s not my favourite town but I’ve visited it. Hilary used to be a hospital visitor there and I drove her many times.’

‘Is the hospital close to the swimming pool?’

‘I have no idea, Andrew.’

‘Rank or Mister, please, Jeremy,’ the chief inspector said mildly.

‘Likewise.’ Maidment allowed himself an inner smile at Fenwick’s expense. ‘I’ve never visited a public baths in my life. It’s one of those places to which I have an abiding aversion.’

‘Talk to me about August 1981.’

‘That was my first month as secretary at the club, I remember it very clearly. There was meant to be a proper handover but my predecessor announced that he was going away on holiday three days after I arrived. I was really thrown in the deep end.’

‘Was one of your responsibilities to dispense locker keys for the changing rooms?’ Fenwick continued.

‘Of course. It was important that they were looked after securely; I kept duplicates in my safe.’

‘Did people lose them?’

‘All the time; we had a number of repeat offenders. In the end I introduced a forfeitable £10 deposit. Not terribly popular, I can tell you. The first time I asked for a second £10 from a member all hell broke loose but I stuck to my guns and fortunately the president backed me up.’

‘But you could have helped yourself to a new key at any time without paying, couldn’t you?’

‘Why on earth should I?’ He stared at Fenwick blankly. ‘I had no need of a locker as I had an office, and even if I had I should have applied the same rules to myself.’

‘You’re sure you didn’t have a locker?’

‘No, Chief Inspector, of course not. I was secretary. Although I played when time allowed, I had the luxury of an office in which to change and leave my things.’

He watched as Fenwick wrote down a careful note on a piece of paper then tucked it in his pocket. While he didn’t object to their line of questioning as it was preferable to a continued interrogation on Paul Hill’s disappearance, he was confused by it.

‘How about parking permits, did you give out those?’ Fenwick continued.

‘Yes, in fact they were renewable annually from September each year so one of the things I had to do that August would have been to issue the new ones. I introduced colour coding and permit numbers, again far better from a security point of view. We chose blue for the first year, I recall.’

‘And did they too get misplaced by members?’ Fenwick asked the question innocently but Maidment knew that it had to be significant so he was very careful in his answer.

‘Rarely.’

‘So, with your memory you’d remember if you’d had to issue a replacement. It might even be mentioned in your meticulous journals.’ Fenwick flicked through the pages for August 1981 casually.

Maidment found that he was staring at the book and dragged his eyes away.

‘I doubt there’s mention of such a trivial matter in there. My office records were kept separately and I believe most were destroyed by my successor.’

‘And the name of anyone to whom you issued a duplicate in 1981?’

‘I don’t believe I had cause to do so.’

‘Indeed.’ Fenwick looked up from the books and stared him in the face. ‘I’m afraid I don’t believe you, Major.’

For the first time, Maidment realised that he might well end up in prison for a long time.

That night, as he tried to coax himself to sleep in his cell, Maidment went over the dates mentioned by the police again and again but failed to find a connection. He had deliberately not asked about their significance and now regretted not doing so, partly out of curiosity but more importantly because he was afraid that the police would interpret it as the action of a guilty man who already knew. The thought brought sweat to his forehead and chest and he turned over on his damp pillow, searching for comfort in its lumpy stuffing.

Maidment was finally drifting towards sleep when the relevance of their questions about keys and permits clicked into place. He’d been so diverted by the puzzle over dates that he hadn’t really thought about them, but as he relaxed his sub-conscious threw their significance into the front of his mind.

He recalled the argument about a second £10 key deposit, out of all proportion to the money involved but driven by principle for both protagonists. Only one man had taken it to the president for resolution, and only that man had had occasion to remark sarcastically, as he demanded a replacement parking permit, whether he would be required to pay for that too. The thought propelled him upright on his bunk and he banged his head on the underside of the springs above.

One man, the same man, had needed both a new permit and a new key in late August 1981, and it was because of that man that he was in this cell now, charged with Paul Hill’s abduction and murder. The realisation made him feel sick. He needed to find out why August 1981 was significant; he needed to work out how he was going to defend himself in the face of the physical evidence they had against him that linked him to Paul Hill; but most importantly he needed to find a way of speaking to that man. Only then would he be able to face the police, and more importantly his conscience, with equanimity.

Fenwick and Nightingale sat in the beer garden of the Broken Drum overlooking an idyllic village green with cricket field beyond. On this muggy August working day the only people taking advantage of the village amenities were dog walkers and mothers with children home for the school holidays. The wooden bench was damp and they had placed a plastic boot liner on top to protect their clothes. In front of them a plate of cheese and ham salad sandwiches sat untouched; two glasses of tomato juice were growing warm.

He had just told her about his conversation with Quinlan, watching her go pale as she had realised the significance of what he was saying, and unconsciously angle her body away from him.

‘I’m sorry, Nightingale. I should have had more sense than to behave in a way that’s left you vulnerable to rumour.’ He was genuinely contrite, miserable that she should be suffering because of their friendship.

‘It’s OK. I’m as much to blame as you are. I’m a grown-up after all, though I appreciate I haven’t exactly been behaving like one in the last week. My mood has been unprofessional and I apologise.’

‘Don’t, for heaven’s sake. You’ve had reason enough to be upset and my reaction to what Quinlan said didn’t help.’

‘Even so…’