‘Tommy, darling,’ she said at last, ‘the coppers are here to see you again … Well, I don’t know, do I? … How long are you going to be then? … OK … Right … Yes, yes … Bye, darling.’
She ended the call, opened her mouth to speak and then broke off.
‘Can we see Mr McQueen?’ Grace broke in impatiently.
‘Yes.’ Barbara’s gaze remained on Max as she answered. ‘He’s on his way home. He’ll be here in about ten minutes.’
‘We’ll wait,’ Grace told her.
And still Barbara continued to stare at Max.
‘I knew it!’ She suddenly laughed. ‘I knew I recognized you.’
‘I think you have the advantage.’ Damn it, he never forgot a face. He hadn’t forgotten hers, technically, he supposed, but he’d forgotten where and when they had met.
‘I can even tell you the date,’ she said like a child with a secret. ‘It was years ago, I wouldn’t care to think how many, but it was the fourteenth of May. You’d been to a funeral in London.’
Max felt his world shift as the memories raced back to him.
He’d travelled to London the previous day, spent the night there and then attended the funeral of Bill Darby, his first boss when he joined the force. It had to be eight years ago now.
‘That was you?’ he said, and he could have kicked himself. Of course it was.
He could remember the journey and he could remember their conversation, but he wouldn’t have been able to say if his companion on the London to Manchester train that night had been brunette or blonde, tall or short.
‘We got drunk together,’ she explained, more for Grace’s benefit than his.
‘It was your birthday,’ Max recalled.
‘Yeah, and I’d been dumped by Mark Yates.’ She smiled. ‘I thought it was the end of the world.’
Max could remember thinking that Mark Yates must have been mad. She’d been attractive, full of life and fun. He supposed she still was. Dim, but fun-loving.
He’d bought her a drink to console her. And then another.
Bill’s death, at the age of forty-three, had been a stark reminder both of Max’s own mortality and of his general dissatisfaction with life. He’d been heading home to his wife and kids. Going home to a dull, stale marriage.
So they’d had another drink.
‘What happened to you?’ Barbara asked. ‘Your marriage? Did you work it out?’
‘Linda died.’
‘God, I’m sorry.’
‘Thanks,’ he said awkwardly. ‘She was ill at the time,’ he explained, ‘but we didn’t know. I thought she was—’
‘Depressed,’ Barbara answered for him. ‘That’s what you said. Depressed.’
She was being kind because Linda was dead. Max might have mentioned the word depressed but, with a few drinks inside him, he’d uttered far more damning words than that. He’d dreaded going home to Linda. Only the thought of his kids had stopped him suggesting that he and Barbara continued to drown their respective sorrows in a bar in Manchester.
‘Two boys you had, is that right?’
‘Yes. Harry and Ben. They’re fine.’
He hadn’t forgotten that train journey. For Max, it had been a turning point. Pouring out his troubles to an attractive stranger had shown him exactly how much he hated his marriage and how he longed to be free. Two strangers complaining about the problems in their lives, and he hadn’t even asked her name. Or if he had, he hadn’t bothered to remember it.
Two weeks after that train journey, he’d met Jill.
‘What about you?’ he asked her, ignoring Grace’s impatient sigh.
‘If you remember, I was coming to Harrington to visit my aunt,’ she said. ‘It was on that visit that I met my Tommy.’ She gave him a broad smile. ‘Who’d have thought it, eh? We were both as miserable as sin that night, and here we are, as happy as Larry.’ She coloured. ‘Well, I am. I’m sorry about your wife. Really sorry.’
‘Thanks.’
Grace sighed again, and Barbara brushed off all thoughts of that train journey. ‘Do you want a coffee or something while you wait for Tommy?’
‘Coffee would be good. Thanks,’ Max said.
‘Same for me, please,’ Grace said grudgingly.
How had that young woman with whom he’d shared a three-hour train journey come to marry a man like Tom McQueen? OK, so she wasn’t very bright, but even so, she was a kind, thoughtful person. A fun person. Did she have any idea how her husband filled his spare time?
Perhaps she didn’t. After all, Tom McQueen had dinner with the Chief Constable no less.
Snippets of that long-ago conversation came back to Max. ‘Stuff love,’ a drunken Barbara had said. ‘I’m going for money next time …’ Maybe she had been serious. Perhaps a healthy bank account was Tom McQueen’s only attraction.
She’d been heartbroken about her break-up with Mark Yates, or had appeared so. Yet only days later she’d met Tom and been swept off her feet. No, he couldn’t believe that. If he were a betting man, he’d stake a lot on her marrying for money.
They stood around in her kitchen drinking their coffee and spoke of everything from the weather to the new wine bar in Bacup. Yet Max couldn’t shake off thoughts of that train journey. The forced trip down Memory Lane had unsettled him.
In fact, when Tom McQueen finally arrived, he’d completely forgotten what they had called for.
‘The party you attended at Kelton Manor, Mr McQueen?’ Grace asked. ‘Did you see Bradley Johnson after that?’
Thankfully, Grace was eager to get her questions answered and Max dragged his mind back to the present.
‘No. I’ve already told you lot that,’ McQueen answered.
‘You didn’t have dinner with him at the Royal in Harrington the following night?’ Max asked him. ‘You want to get your memory checked out, Tom. It could be early onset Alzheimer’s or anything. I’ll have to help you out here. You paid on your Visa card. You ordered—what was it, DS Warne?’
She consulted her notebook. ‘Grilled asparagus followed by duck breast in orange and cointreau sauce.’
‘Ring any bells?’ Max asked.
‘You’re right,’ McQueen said. ‘Yes, I remember now. Babs was away, weren’t you, poppet?’
‘Yes, that’s right.’
‘Where?’ Max asked, suspecting she was lying.
‘Visiting my aunt,’ she replied, smiling sweetly at him. ‘She’ll verify it. Do you want me to phone her now?’
‘No need for that.’ Max turned his attention back to Tom McQueen. ‘You were saying?’
‘As Babs was away, I planned to eat out. I always do. I was on my way to the Royal when I bumped into Bradley Johnson. I asked if he cared to join me. After all, I’d enjoyed his hospitality the previous night. So we had dinner together.’ He gave Max a sly look. ‘That’s not a crime, is it?’
‘No.’
‘And as you’ve been so thorough, Chief Inspector, you’ll know that, after Johnson called a taxi to take him home, I stayed there for another couple of drinks.’
‘So we believe,’ Grace said. ‘What did you talk about during your dinner?’
‘This and that. Nothing of any importance.’
‘I don’t suppose you can remember that, either,’ she said, sarcasm dripping from her voice.
‘Not really, no. Oh, I remember he went on about his sons and how well they’re both doing. He’d helped one of them buy a car, I seem to recall. A typical parent,’ McQueen added. ‘One of those who can’t help boring people to death by raving about their kids. Blimey, and he thought I was missing out. The thought of kids bores me rigid. And you, eh, Babs?’
‘We’ve never wanted children,’ Barbara McQueen explained.
She was lying. On that train journey, she’d told him how lucky he was to have children.
I couldn’t bear to die without leaving something behind, my own flesh and blood. It would make life so pointless, wouldn’t it?
‘That’s convenient,’ Max murmured. ‘Both of you not wanting children, I mean. If one partner wants children and the other doesn’t, it can cause a lot of problems.’
‘We’re very lucky,’ Barbara murmured. ‘There was a time when I thought—well, I suppose most women do, don’t they? But then my cousins had children and I realized it wasn’t for me. I’m far too selfish for that.’
So she’d changed her mind? It was feasible, Max supposed.
‘What did Johnson say about the car he’d bought his son?’ he asked McQueen.
‘God knows. I’d lost the will to live by then. It was a top of the range something or other.’
‘A Mini?’
‘Yes, that was it. He was very proud of the one son, but the other was giving him problems, I gather. And no, he didn’t go into details so I don’t know what sort of problems. He didn’t say, and I didn’t ask. I was more interested in my—what was it?—oh yes, duck in orange and cointreau.’
‘Tommy likes his food,’ Barbara put in.
‘So I see,’ Max murmured. ‘And this meeting with Johnson was pure coincidence, Tom? Are you sure about that?’
‘I am. I would have mentioned it earlier, but I’d forgotten all about it. Just a boring meal, Chief Inspector. Nothing more and nothing less.’
‘I hope so,’ Max told him. ‘If I find there was more to it, you’ll be up on a charge of obstruction.’
McQueen seemed to find that amusing. Sod him.
They left soon afterwards and Grace drove them back to Harrington.
‘That sounds like quite a train ride,’ she said drily. ‘You made an impression there, guv.’
‘I’d forgotten all about it.’ That was almost true. He hadn’t forgotten the journey, but he had forgotten the woman.
‘It was like a mutual admiration society back there.’
‘Just leave it, Grace!’
Snow had fallen. It was crisp and crunchy underfoot and the sun, almost set now, had shone all day. Not that Max had seen much of it. He’d spent most of the day at his desk, going over everything again and again.
He’d called on Jill more out of a sense of duty than anything else. He felt bad because he hadn’t seen much of her since the boys had returned from France. Come to that, he hadn’t seen much of Harry and Ben, either.
He walked with his hands in his pockets. Jill, beside him, had hers encased in black gloves. He was well aware of the foot of space that separated them.
‘You OK?’ she asked.
‘Me? Fine?’
‘Right,’ she said in a way that made it clear she didn’t believe him but, if he couldn’t be bothered to tell her, she couldn’t be bothered to ask.
Max wasn’t fine. Hadn’t been fine since his chat with Barbara McQueen, in fact.
With one look, one reminder, she’d brought back memories that Max had chosen to forget. Painful memories.
Back then, his marriage, along with several others he’d known about, had been hell. He hadn’t understood the reasons for it, either. Most of the time, he’d accepted that it was his own fault for working long, erratic hours and drinking too much. Linda had hated that. But surely, there had been more to it than that. All he had known was that, given the choice, he would never be part of a relationship again.
Obviously, he would have given all he had for the doctors to find a miracle cure. Linda had been the mother of his boys and, if strength of will could have saved her, she would still be his wife, and still be loving his sons. As it turned out, strength of will had been as ineffective as medical treatment.
Since her death, he’d forgotten the hell that was their marriage and only remembered the sense of guilt and loss her death had left him with.
How effortlessly Barbara McQueen had reminded him of the man he had been then.
Would he have left Linda if she’d lived? Would she have walked out on him? It was impossible to know. Yet Max had known he couldn’t have taken much more of it.
What madness, he wondered, was pushing him into a relationship with Jill?
He was happy with his lot. Why change it?
People said that kids were a tie. His weren’t. They never complained about the limited time they had with him. Instead, they enjoyed what little there was to the full. Linda, he recalled, had wasted many a free evening complaining about how few there were …
Thank God he had his work. With so many other things demanding his attention, he didn’t have to think about the future.
‘That was a big sigh for someone who’s fine,’ Jill said drily.
‘Sorry, I was miles away.’ Or years away. ‘I was just wondering if you’d had any more thoughts on Bradley Johnson’s killer?’
‘I’m not on the case,’ she reminded him, ‘so I only know what you’ve told me. But from the photos …’ She paused. ‘There was no remorse shown. And there was no attempt made to hide the body. It was someone who didn’t care if they were caught or not. His watch was still on his wrist and that would have been a temptation, as would the cash in his wallet. But not to your killer. Your killer held Bradley Johnson in contempt.’ She looked at him and gave him a rueful smile. ‘In a word, no. There’s nothing I haven’t already told you.’
‘Someone who held him in contempt?’ Max grimaced. ‘That narrows it down one hell of a lot. Practically everyone in the village falls into that category.’
Max couldn’t say he had any sympathy for the man. To his way of thinking, people who resorted to blackmail deserved all they got.
They walked on into Black’s Wood and both stopped at the spot where Bradley Johnson had met his Maker. Before meeting Him, though, he’d met someone else. Who?
‘I still think he was planning to meet someone at the pub,’ Max said. ‘Whoever killed him hit him from behind.
Probably hid behind this tree.’ He ran his hand down the trunk of the sturdy chestnut.
‘I’m not so sure.’ Jill looked at the path, well-used by dog walkers, that stretched ahead. ‘If it was blackmail, and I bet he’d planned on filling that money belt he was wearing, the Weaver’s would be too public. This is an ideal spot for doing the dirty deed. I think he was expecting some poor unfortunate—our killer—to meet him here and hand over the cash. Neither would want to be seen. The pub would be too crowded.’
‘But would they expect it to be crowded on a Wednesday afternoon?’ Max was doubtful. On that particular Wednesday, the Weaver’s Retreat had been busy, but only because a crowd had turned up unexpectedly after a funeral. ‘It was busy that day, but Johnson would have expected it to be quiet.’
‘True.’
‘There was nothing found to suggest that anyone had been here waiting,’ Max went on. ‘Impatient feet hadn’t trampled the ground. No cigarettes or chewing gum had been discarded.’