Cherringham--Death on a Summer Night (5 page)

She took a deep breath, exhaled as if shaking off the feelings.

“My skin is still crawling, Jack.”

“I’m sorry. I needed you there.”

“I know. But that’s two hours of my life I’d like back, please.”

“Not worth the iced frappe, hmm?”

“Now
that
was a cheap trick,” she said smiling.

Jack watched a pair of swans coming in low to land on the water. Across the river he saw the meadows bleached yellow from two months of sun.

He could just hear the sounds of the fairground drifting upriver on the hot air from beyond Cherringham Bridge.

This time of the afternoon the place would be fairly empty under the burning sun.

But come evening the rides would be full, not just with the Cherringham crowd but with the hundreds of summer visitors too.

He took another sip of his coffee.

“Tim Bell was going to do something to Dinah Taylor that night. My guess, he took her up there for one reason only.”

“Drunk and stoned too. He was out of control …” said Sarah.

“Maybe. I’m not so sure,” said Jack. “Despite the booze, the pills, I think he was
in
control. Even this morning, talking it through, he could remember every tiny detail.” Jack took another sip of coffee. “He couldn’t have been that far gone.”

“He sounded … almost as if he was … proud … of what he’d done,” said Sarah. “Getting Dinah Taylor up there …”

“But that doesn’t make him the killer. I took him through his story three times — and you notice how it never changed?”

“Really? I thought it sounded a bit different each time.”

“That’s what makes me think he’s telling the truth. Different — but no contradictions. It’s not a practised statement. Something he’s got off pat. It’s real memory. The words change each time he tells it — but the events are solid.”

“You don’t think he killed her?”

Jack shook his head: “I’m really doubting it.”

Jack had rarely seen Sarah looking so thoughtful. But he knew he had to ask the big question.

“So — you on the case?” said Jack, expecting her to take a while to reply.

But she came straight back.

“I trust your instinct, Jack. And if you’re right, this has got to be the biggest miscarriage of justice since—”

“Since your ex got half the house in London?”

“Maybe not that big,” she said, laughing.

It was good to hear her laugh again.

“Even though the guy’s a total bastard?”

“In spite of that, yes,” she said. “And you know why I’m up for it?”

“I think I do. Because if Tim’s innocent — there’s an even worse bastard still out there somewhere.”

“Absolutely,” said Sarah. “The real killer. And that makes me angry. Angry and scared, for me, for my teenage daughter, for every woman in this village.”

“I can see that.”

“You know, in the past, we’ve worked cases together because we liked the people, we felt sorry for them, we were sticking up for the underdog …”

“And they always came to us — they
wanted
our help.”

“Exactly. But this — this feels different. As if it’s … I don’t know … A duty.”

Jack nodded. He knew that feeling. It had driven him throughout a thirty- year career as a cop. And it would never go away.

“I want to catch Dinah’s killer,” said Sarah. “How do we start?”

“Usual way — by talking to people.”

“Such as?”

“Anyone who’s still around. Dinah’s parents — get a handle on what home sweet home was like. Her friends — best friends if we can find them.”

“It’s over twenty years ago …”

“I’m sure you’ll be able to track them down.”

“I can try,” she said. “How about Tony?”

Jack always thought of Tony Standish as a kind of Cherringham institution — like local Royal family. As a solicitor he’d been in the village for nearly forty years, and whether he’d worked a case or not, he always seemed to have a good handle on events.

“Good idea. Maybe some of the cops who first handled the case are still around. I want to see the list of cars they traced. If they traced any, of course …”

“And don’t forget — the fair’s in town,” said Sarah.

“Same fair?”

“Same decrepit rides from the look of it. Maybe some of the old-timers were here that summer.”

“It’s possible,” said Jack. “Tell you what — grab your coffee, and let’s set up a whiteboard down in the office.”

“Looks like we have a case,” said Sarah.

“Yep,” said Jack. “And I don’t think it’s going to be an easy one. In a lot of ways …”

And he picked up his coffee and headed towards the wheelhouse, out of the beating sun.

Amazingly, many people connected to Dinah and her story still lived in Cherringham.

Like small towns everywhere,
Jack thought.
Lot of people just never move on.

And after he and Sarah had made up a list of people to talk to, Jack offered to tackle what could possibly be the most difficult one first — Dinah’s father.

Though Dinah once lived in a small cottage near the primary school, not far from Sarah’s place … now her father lived in a flat just above the hardware shop.

Jack decided to turn up unannounced since he doubted the man would welcome opening up old wounds.

The street-level door to the upper flat was open, though it looked as though it was meant to be locked.

Carelessness? Or maybe the latch in the rotted wooden frame didn’t hold anymore?

Either way, easy entry …

Jack walked up the dark stairs.

The man was old enough to be a retiree … what they called “pensioners” here. And Jack guessed he’d be doing what a lot of “pensioners” did.

Nothing
.

Reaching the top of the stairs, he knocked. An overhead light was dark —or maybe the bulb burned out, never replaced.

“Mr Taylor?” Jack said with another sharp rap of his knuckles against the wood.

Finally the door opened.

Jack heard TV in the background, volume loud; raucous laughs from a daytime TV show.

Same stupid stuff everywhere.

“Yeah, what — oh you?”

“Mr Taylor — Jack Brennan.”

The man held the door open only about a foot, and from the looks of things, it didn’t seem as though it was going to be opened any more than that.

“I know who
you
are.”

The man — unshaven, grey bristle covering his chin like a winter’s frost — rubbed at his lips. He opened his mouth, gummy.

Life didn’t seem to be going so well for Dinah’s dad.

Then the man sniffed, as if weighing his next words.

And Jack realized he recognized Taylor as well.

One of the crowd … that mob that had gathered outside Bell’s house.

Jack was a good foot taller than the man. Maybe that gave Taylor pause … just as it did a lot of the seedy characters Jack dealt with in Manhattan.

“You stood up for that …” long pause, searching for the right word … “
bastid
who killed my Dinah, that piece of …” his eyes were wide now, mouth working double time with the anger of his words, “Tim Bell!”

Jack nodded.

“Yes. That was me. Look, Mr Taylor, I was hoping I could—”

Another giant burst of crazed laughter from the TV. Something painfully funny causing the studio audience to bust a gut.

“—have a few words. Had some questions.”

Then Jack decided he’d change tack.

Trying to guess what would make Dinah’s father allow him in … and maybe answer a few questions about that night decades ago.

“I, maybe, well,” Jack smiled in the gloomy hallway — “stepped in it a bit last night. I mean, not knowing the facts of the case.”

“Damn right you did, from what I hear. Who could stand up for that—”

Jack expected a repeat of a spit-out
bastid.
Instead
:

“—
killer! That murderous piece of garbage who took … who took—”

The man began breaking up.

After all these years.

And despite the man’s hatred for Tim Bell, Jack felt sorry for him. A loss like that, how do you ever recover?

A sob.

“—my beautiful Dinah from me.”

Then Jack took another chance. Could go either way.

Get the door slammed shut, or …

He reached out and laid a hand on the man’s shoulder. “I understand, Mr Taylor. I have a daughter. I’ve seen loss. It has to be—”

The man’s eyes slowly looked up where previously they had been trained on the floor, up to Jack.

“—impossible to deal with … to go on …”

The man nodded.

Then Jack added quietly, “Just a few questions …”

And the man slowly opened the door.

*

The TV now muted, and with no offer of tea, Vincent Taylor gestured at an easy chair with open gashes that showed the white stuffing beneath.

Newspapers scattered on the floor, as if placed there for some as yet unseen pet.

The open windows of the flat only let in more of the humid, hot air. These hot nights … had to be impossible to sleep in this place.

Even from across the small living room, Jack could see a tower of dirty plates and pans in the primitive sink.

Must have been a rough twenty-five years,
Jack thought.

And now with Tim Bell back in town …

The man reached over to a small table for a crumpled pack of cigarettes. He peered into the box, then stuck an index finger in and worked out a single, nearly crumbled cigarette.

He lit it with a wooden match; took a deep drag.

“Go on then,” Taylor said. “Your questions …”

Jack leaned forward, hoping to keep whatever empathy he had built up with Dinah’s father.

“Your wife … Mary? … She passed away?”

Sarah had found that information online in one of the old village obituaries.

The man nodded. “She moved away, ran off with that bloke, didn’t she. What happened to Dinah changed us. And that was Mary’s way, I suppose, of dealing. Leaving me.”

“You stayed in the village?”

That made Taylor look up. “Damn right I did. My village. Why the hell would I leave? Made sure that Bell got convicted, sent away — not that it did any good. He never would tell anyone what he did to my poor sweet girl.”

“And what is it that you think happened?”

“Think? Are you daft? Think? I
know
what happened. He tried to have his way with her … she was a good girl, Brennan, a good girl. Smart. Talented. And when she turned that
bastid
down, he lost it.”

Another deep drag. “He killed her.”

Jack would have liked to hear the father’s theory on what Bell did with the body — if murder was what happened. But he felt that would just be pouring fuel on an already raging fire.

One thing Jack knew: Bell wasn’t safe in this village, not with Vincent Taylor and his hatred.

Jack made a mental note to stop by the police station later; alert Alan Rivers that Taylor could use a warning.

Maybe Bell as well …

“Tell me, Mr Taylor, is there anyone else who might know something about that night?”

The man nodded. “Um. Sure. Her friends I suppose, that girl Jen, and her mate Michelle … Dinah and them, always together, little gang they were.”

Jack already had their full names, both interviewed in the papers during those early, desperate days of the search for Dinah. Sarah had already set up a meeting with them.

But then—

“And that Ollie bloke. Was her boyfriend for a while. Didn’t much care for him either — but he was no bloody ‘Tim Bell.’”

“They broke up?”

Taylor nodded.

“Do you think Ollie could have done anything bad to Dinah?”

The man crushed out his burned-to-the filter cigarette, and leaned forward. “Are you listening to me, Brennan? Tim Bell
did
this. He’s the damn killer who won’t say a word about where she is. We just need—” his eyes moved away, lips working with the powerful, threatening words — “someone to pry open his murderous mouth.
Make
him bloody well talk.”

Taylor nodded, the inevitability of it so clear to him.

“Someone will, mark you. Now that he’s here. Someone will …”

Or —
Jack thought —
they’ll end up killing Bell.

Sounds like Vincent Taylor would be up for that.

Jack nodded.

“One last question. This boyfriend, Ollie. Know where I might find him?”

“Works with Pete Bull. Least, sometimes. Not the brightest bulb. Probably find him there.”

Jack had been to Bull’s plumbing supplies many times, fixing up the Grey Goose, and recalled seeing workers there. One, probably … Ollie.

He stood up.

Jack had someone new to talk to. And a clear idea of the danger Dinah’s father represented to Bell.

Other than that — nothing much useful from this angry father, huddled in this stifling, smoky room reeking of nicotine and loss.

“Thanks, Mr Taylor.”

“One thing for you, Brennan.
Detective
. If you find out anything — anything at all — you best tell me.”

A threat to me? A warning?
Jack thought.

Whatever it was, Jack smiled back. “If I learn something, I’ll be sure you find it out as well.”

The man nodded as if he had won a victory over Jack.

And then he stood there as Jack walked across the sea of discarded newspapers to the door, to the dark gloomy hallway, out of this sad and angry flat.

For a few minutes, sitting at a back table at the Angel — Cherringham’s posh pub — Sarah thought that the two people that she wanted to question had both decided to be “no-shows.”

Jen Foote and Michelle Lang.

The pair had been Dinah’s best pals at the time she disappeared.

And now?

Sarah knew that Jen worked at “Hair Do!”, the village’s lone beauty salon, unaware that her so carefully puffed-up hair revealed that the Cherringham salon was more than a little out of date.

As for Michelle Lang, Sarah knew nothing.