The TV Detective (23 page)

Dan did his best to distract himself by working on the puzzle on the wall. Bonham's string of characters danced on the edge of his eye line, felt like it was calling, waving and taunting.

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Dan had always prided himself on enjoying a good riddle. When some rare and precious spare time allowed, he would often attempt– and commonly come somewhere close to completing – a cryptic crossword in one of the newsroom broadsheets.

He'd tried looking up the letters and number on the internet at home, but found only reams of financial data and some references to a far distant galaxy. Both of which dated from long after Bonham's conviction, and neither of which offered any help.

The “U” had kept tickling his mind and prompted a strange thought that perhaps it could refer to a German U-boat of Second World War vintage. But some more research sunk that line of inquiry as effectively as a barrage of depth charges.

Dan did his best to come up with a lightning strike of inspiration, but his sullen brain was proving immune to prompting. Eventually he gave up and returned his attentions to Adam and Suzanne.

But still nothing of note was happening in the inquiry. And by five o'clock, hate to admit it though he did, Dan was very bored.

It was a relief when Adam called a halt to the day. He told Suzanne and the other detectives in the MIR to go home, rest, and they would start afresh tomorrow.

Dan waited for everyone else to depart, before asking, ‘What shall I do? There doesn't seem much point me coming back tomorrow and just sitting here, waiting for something to happen.'

‘That's fair enough. It's not exactly interesting. Why don't you go back to your newsroom tomorrow. I can always call you if there is some development. Are you off home now then?'

The question was oddly tentative. ‘Not necessarily,' Dan replied. ‘What did you have in mind?'

‘Do you fancy a beer? And maybe something to eat?'

‘Yeah, I'd like that. But can I sort out my domestic life first?'

‘Oh yes? Have you got that woman waiting for you?'

Dan smiled. ‘Not exactly.'

He explained about Rutherford, how he had been neglecting the dog lately, and the guilt that brought.

‘If I can get home, take him out for a run, shower and change, I can meet you on Mutley Plain in a couple of hours.'

‘Done.'

The Old Bank pub was the honoured venue, lacking in atmosphere, but rich in ales, a contrast unlikely to deter Dan.

As he walked down the hill towards Mutley Plain, Dan realised with surprise that, for the first time during his meetings with Adam Breen, he didn't feel nervous.

Around him, the Christmas procession continued. Even some of the passing cars were bedecked with tinsel and plastic Santas. It was only early evening, but plenty of the people were already by far the worse for wear.

The night was still dry, but had turned suspiciously warm. Long experience of the mercurial moods of the weather in the South-west made Dan think it indicated that rain was on the agenda. The
Wessex Tonight
forecaster had prophesised it too, but that counted for little. Dan had been amused to read an article carried in all the papers which reported that scientists had concluded the best way to predict tomorrow's weather was simply to say it would be the same as today's.

Which, in one study, more or less reduced a whole profession to being largely a waste of time, in his humble opinion.

Dan stopped at the cashpoint. He had to queue and was a couple of minutes late, so he wasn't surprised to find Adam already waiting. He'd also had the decency to get a couple of pints. It was interesting that the detective too preferred a table with his back to the wall and a good view of the pub, and probably for similar reasons to El.

Police and photographers, professions of paranoia. To which pairing Dan suspected he could probably add journalists too. None was ever going to win a popularity contest.

They shared some pleasantries about the clemency and busyness of the evening, before Adam sprang his surprise.

‘We've had a – well, I don't know what to call it. It could be something, it could be nothing. To say it's a development is putting it too strongly. It might be, it might not. Let's say, we've had an– occurrence. It came after you'd gone home. I didn't bother calling you because I'm not quite sure what to make of it.'

It had been dawning on Dan that alongside the detective's fondness for theatre and his obsession with his wardrobe, he was also a fan of the irritating art of delayed gratification. And there it was, encapsulated in just a single statement. It was more like a crossword clue than a straightforward method of delivering information.

Adam was waiting, an expectant look on his face. When you stripped away the defences and began to get to know him, for an experienced senior detective in his early forties the man could behave remarkably like a child.

‘Go on,' Dan said patiently.

‘Penelope Ramsden.'

‘What about her?'

‘She had an accident.'

‘What sort of accident?' Dan asked, in a strained voice.

‘A car accident. A crash.'

‘It happens.'

‘It does. But not like this.'

Adam sat backand nodded, his face full of a knowing look.

Dan sighed. ‘Wouldn't it be easier if you just told me?'

After a sip of his beer, perhaps more to aid another little build-up of the suspense rather than quench his thirst, Adam did. Ramsden had pulled out of the drive of Bray's offices too fast, hadn't checked what other traffic was coming and her car had been hit by a lorry. She was in the local Tamarside hospital, unconscious, her condition assessed as serious but stable.

‘Right,' Dan said. ‘Sad, but it happens. I wish her a speedy recovery, but I don't quite see how it has any bearing on the inquiry.'

Adam smiled. ‘Maybe. But you might think differently when I tell you what happened in the minutes before the crash.'

The police had been called to Bray's offices. It was the end of the working day. Several of the staff rang in at once. Penelope Ramsden, they said, had gone mad. She jumped up from her desk, let out a piercing scream, picked up a chair, smashed it into her own computer, then several others. She broke a couple of windows, a television and a photocopier, screaming all the while, before running outside and into her car, driving off and being hit by the lorry.

Dan sat silently, digesting the news. ‘OK,' he said slowly. ‘So, it's either just anguish at the death of the man she claims to love, plus maybe fear for her future now he's gone and the future of the business is uncertain, or it's …'

‘Quite,' Adam replied. ‘Maybe it's the fact that she can't live with having killed him.'

‘So what do you do now?'

‘We,' the detective said quietly.

It took Dan a minute to comprehend all that tiny word meant. In the mundane surroundings of a high street pub, a seminal moment had passed.

‘Sorry, we.'

‘We question her. We find out just what that little outburst was about. But we can't do it yet. The doctors say she'll be in no fit state to answer any questions for a few days.'

‘Well, that's certainly an interesting – occurrence.'

‘Indeed.'

The two men sat in thought as they watched the evening flow around them. Parties of men and women stood at the bar and eyed each other in that way the lubricated think of as subtle, but all others see as simply lecherous.

Then Adam sprang surprise number two of the evening. He cleared his throat and congratulated Dan on his handling of the interview with Arthur Bray.

‘I suspected you might get on better with him. And you found out what we needed to know. Well done on that. I doubt he would have told me.'

‘Really? I thought I struggled.'

‘You did at first, but you kept going and you got there. People respond well to you. I think they like talking to you. Plus, well, there's something else too.'

‘Like what?'

‘It's like – you can see inside people. You understand what makes them tick. You did it with Arthur, sensing the reason for the breakdown of his relationship with Edward. I've never been good at that psychology bit. I prefer facts.'

Dan felt his face flushing, and his spirits rising with it. ‘Well, err– thanks,' he muttered.

They sipped at their drinks in silence, then Adam leaned forwards and said, ‘Who did it? Come on, who do you really think killed Edward Bray?'

It was a question which had been with Dan all afternoon in the MIR, and had followed him home that night. Even running around the park with Rutherford, he couldn't shake loose its hold. For the incurably curious, a mystery could easily become an addiction.

‘I think it's hard to bet against Gordon Clarke,' Dan said. ‘What do you think?'

‘I agree. He's got motive aplenty. Being the suspicious sort I am, I had Paget's story checked, just to see if she might be spinning us a line to try to distract attention from herself as a suspect. But it's all true. A couple of other people at that business reception say she and Clarke spent ages talking, almost to the exclusion of anyone else. Staff at the hospice confirm that flowers from him arrive more or less weekly. So he could be motivated by thinking that removing Bray would give him a real chance with Paget. Love can be the most powerful motive for action.'

‘But,' said Dan. ‘Although that's all true, where's the evidence? Apart from suspicion and circumstance, we've got nothing.'

‘Agreed. And do you know what? I'm coming to doubt whether we're going to get any actual hard evidence. We haven't by now, after all, and we're a week and a day on from the murder. This killing has clearly been carefully planned. I reckon the only way we're going to get a conviction is if we can push someone to incriminate themselves.'

‘How? Surveillance hasn't worked. Nor has any of the interviewing.'

Adam picked up his beer, took a long drink. ‘Yeah,' he said. ‘What we really need is a break. And so far we haven't had one. Nowhere close.'

‘You know what I keep thinking about?'

‘What?'

‘That cancelled appointment. The one the week before Bray was killed. It must indicate something happened for the killer to put the murder off.'

‘Yeah, but we've been through all that. It was a dead end. None of our suspects had anything come up unexpectedly which might force them to delay their plans.'

‘I've been thinking about other possibilities too,' Dan said. ‘What if there was a conspiracy, say between two or more of our suspects? That voice, the person who reported Bray's body at the lay-by, that was a man. So if a woman killed him, it would have to be a conspiracy. Maybe the fact that it's proving a difficult case indicates several people were involved, all painstakingly planning it out.'

Adam held up his hands. ‘Hold on. We can't even find the evidence to point to one person yet, let alone several. As you said yourself, the person who reported Bray's body could just have been a passer-by who didn't want to get involved. It happens. Let's just keep working at it without dashing off after wild possibilities.'

A couple slipped through the crowd and sat down at the next table. Adam watched them settle, then said, ‘Well, I reckon the High Honchos are going to be out of luck with their lust for a result by Christmas. Ah well, let's forget it for now. There are other things in life apart from work.'

The change in his voice was marked, from winter to spring in a second.

‘Oh yes?' Dan said. ‘Anything you care to share?'

‘I spoke to Annie earlier. She said she was missing me, as was Tom.' The detective's face broke into a smile, perhaps the first truly genuine one Dan had seen. ‘We are going to be spending Christmas together. It doesn't mean we're back together of course, there's still a long way to go, but …'

He didn't need to finish the sentence. Dan reached out a hand and Adam shook it. ‘I'm delighted to hear it,' Dan said, with real feeling. ‘This calls for a celebration.'

He headed to the bar to get them some more drinks. A woman thrust a piece of mistletoe at him, followed by her very full and red lips and yelled, ‘Give me a kiss, Mr TV man!'

It was a measure of Dan's mood that he did, with no attempt to demur or dodge.

The evening passed by easily in a haze of conversation, so much so that they almost forgot to eat. Dan scrambled to the bar and just managed to get them a couple of cheap curries before last food orders were called.

When he got back to the table, Dan felt relaxed enough to ask Adam about the scoutmaster and the charges against him. It wasn't the detective's inquiry, but as a police officer and a father he knew plenty about it. There was no doubt about the man's guilt, and it was thought unlikely the case would go to trial as the evidence was so strong.

The scoutmaster had taken photos of himself abusing children, which had been found stored on his computer.

‘Hundreds of photos,' Adam said quietly. ‘Bloody hundreds.'

‘He deserves to be exposed then,' Dan added.

‘I'd say what he deserves is a fair bit more than that.'

It was time for a change of subject, before the unpleasantness of the conversation soured the evening irreparably. Dan told Adam about his plans for the holiday, his dilemma about whether to see Kerry on Christmas Day, and, after much agonising about the present he had bought for her.

The detective did not produce the required reaction. He started chuckling.

‘What?' asked a piqued Dan. ‘Don't you think it's a good idea?'

‘It's certainly practical,' was all Adam would say in reply.

By the end of the evening it was an unsteady path they wended from the pub, picking their way through the last remnants of the drinking detritus that swirled or staggered in the currents of the night. Adam promised he would call Dan in the morning if there were any significant developments and they set off for their respective flats.