‘Have the police been in touch with you?’ I asked.
‘No. Not recently.’ Les sounded bewildered by the question. His voice had a rasp in it, as if he was recovering from a bad cough. ‘Why should they be?’
‘Think about it. They’ll soon find out that you met Celeste at ReProgramme. Once they get in touch with the drop-in centre, they’ll be told about you and her going off together.’
‘We didn’t exactly “go off together”,’ he complained.
‘All right. But they’re going to find out that you knew her. It’s only a matter of time before they contact you.’
‘They may not be able to find me,’ he said defiantly.
‘I didn’t have too much difficulty.’
‘You haven’t found me.’
‘I’m talking to you.’
‘Yes,’ he conceded. ‘But you don’t know where I am.’
‘Anyway, you know we are now talking about a case of murder?’
‘I still haven’t got over hearing that,’ said Les, sounding genuinely shocked. ‘If I’d heard Celeste had died from an overdose, I’d have been sad, but I wouldn’t have been surprised. She’d been heading that way for a long time. But why anyone would want to kill the kid …’
‘You presumably don’t have any idea who might have wanted to do it?’
‘None. There’re whole areas of her life I didn’t know anything about. She came from a wealthy family, I think, but she never talked about that stuff.’
I was faced with a moral dilemma. Moments before, only a couple of hundred yards from where I now was, I’d been asked by two policemen to tell them anything I found out that might have relevance to their investigation into a murder. I was now talking to someone who had known the victim very well. And the police had yet to make contact with him. My obvious social responsibility was to give Detective Inspector John Prendergast Les’s contact details.
I didn’t consider that option for very long. My natural curiosity was too strong. I wanted a private session with the witness before I put the police in touch with him. And I wasn’t even certain that I ever would put them in touch. Surely it wouldn’t take them long to make the connection under their own steam? I had no wish to obstruct their enquiries, but I was starting to regard the investigation as personal.
I fixed to meet up with Les that afternoon.
He was where he’d said he would be, on a park bench, not far from the much-advertised Portsmouth Historic Dockyard. There were good children’s play facilities within sight, but I reckoned the place would be considerably less family-friendly after dark. Still, it was a warm day. As I approached him, Les was blinking into the sun. The pallor of his face and arms suggested they hadn’t seen much of it recently.
He looked wary as I approached. He wasn’t about to say anything until I identified myself. ‘I’m Ellen.’
He stretched out a hand to me. ‘Les.’
For an addict – or perhaps recovering addict – he looked in pretty good shape. Though he was slender, the biceps bulging against his T-shirt sleeves suggested time spent in the gym. The tattoos on his arms didn’t look as if they’d been done by a professional. He wore jeans and anonymous trainers. His thinning hair was cut short.
I was dying for a coffee and there was a snack kiosk nearby. But I didn’t want to break the moment. I sat on the bench beside him.
‘You were right, incidentally,’ said Les. His voice still sounded as though he needed to clear his throat.
‘About what?’
‘The Boys in Blue. Had a call from them just after I’d finished talking to you.’
‘Was it Detective Inspector Prendergast or Detective Sergeant Prasad?’
He shook his head. ‘Somebody called Williams.’
‘Ah. So, are they coming to pick you up?’
‘No, Ellen … mind if I call you Ellen?’
‘Please.’
‘“Pick me up” sounds like they’re accusing me of something. They only want to talk to me for background information about Celeste.’
‘Of course. So, do they want you to go to Chichester?’
‘No, no, they gave me an address right here in Portsmouth.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Said I’d be there in half an hour. I’d probably be on my way by now if you hadn’t turned up.’
‘What made you think I might not turn up?’
He shrugged. ‘I don’t know you, do I? I get a call from you out of the blue. You could be anyone.’
‘I did say on my message that I know Dodge.’
‘Yes,’ he conceded. ‘Good bloke, Dodge.’ He looked rueful. ‘Like a role model for me. I really admire the stuff he does at ReProgramme. I thought I could go down the same route … you know, get qualifications, be a counsellor, help people who’re into this kind of shit. But that got screwed up after I met Celeste and – as you put it – “went off” with her.’
‘Don’t you think you can get back into the ReProgramme set-up?’
‘I don’t know. I let them down – I let Dodge down, in particular. And, of course, I let myself down – when I started using again.’
‘Are you using now?’
‘I haven’t done anything since I heard about Celeste.’
‘Well, that’s a start.’
He looked at me cynically. ‘Yeah? I heard on Saturday that she’d died. And where are we now – Monday? Clean for more than two days – let’s string up the bunting, shall we?’
‘All I’m saying is that, if the other staff at ReProgramme are anything like Dodge, I’m sure they’ll give you another chance.’
‘Maybe. We’ll see.’ His voice had a tinge of cynicism, but he was attracted by the idea.
‘Incidentally, Les, I meant to say, you know, given the fact that you were … close to her … I’m sorry for your sake about what happened to Celeste.’ I’d keep calling her that until he volunteered that he knew her real identity.
‘Thanks. Kind of thing that keeps happening, when you’re using. Sort of people you mix with. Number I’ve known who … you know, overdose, accidentally while under the influence … You get used to losing people.’
‘When did you last see her?’
He screwed up his eyes with the effort of recollection. ‘I don’t know. Week back, couple maybe. She lost interest in me.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘I mean I don’t fool myself that I was attractive to Celeste as anything other than a source of drugs. My dealer got killed in a knife fight a couple of weeks back. Soon as I’d lost my supplier, Celeste was off to find someone new.’
‘New boyfriend or new dealer?’
He shrugged. ‘Both possibly.’
‘You don’t know who she found?’
A shake of the head. ‘No idea.’
‘Have you seen her with him?’
‘No,’ he said firmly.
I knew he was lying, but I also knew I would get nothing more out of him on the subject. Time to move the discussion on. ‘Dodge told me that you know Nate Ogden.’
‘Yes. Spend more than a year banged up in the same nick, you get to know people.’
‘You don’t know where he is now?’
‘Why should I?’ The defensive response was instinctive.
‘Because nobody else seems to.’
‘That’s not much of an answer,’ he said, but he seemed to be assessing my words, deciding what response to give. His manner suggested he might know something.
‘Has Nate got some hideout that you know about?’
He grinned. ‘Good on direct questions, aren’t you?’
‘Well, has he?’
‘If he did have – and I’m not saying he has – I’m afraid I wouldn’t tell you about it. Friend of Dodge’s you may be, but I’m not going to grass up a mate to anyone.’
‘Honour among thieves?’ I suggested.
The idea amused him. ‘You could say that. Thieves, murderers, drug dealers … pretty much comes to the same thing, doesn’t it?’
‘What about the police?’
‘What about the police?’
‘Are you going to tell them where Nate might be hiding?’
‘You are joking, I take it. I’ll tell you exactly what I’ll do when I’m with the police. I will do nothing to antagonize them. I do have some experience of this stuff, you know.’ He grinned again and looked at his watch. ‘I will turn up at the time we have agreed. I will be unfailingly polite. I will answer all their questions to the best of my ability. Sadly, my ability does not stretch as far as knowing such details as where Nate Ogden might lie low.’
‘Right. I see. You know, incidentally, what some people are assuming about him?’
‘I don’t know, but I can guess.’
‘That, because Celeste was found in his mother’s house, and because Nate was in prison for having killed another young woman, and because he’s disappeared since the murder …’
‘Yes. I can join the dots.’
‘And what kind of picture do they make when they’re all joined up?’
‘I’m not into pictures much,’ he grunted.
‘Do you think there’s a possibility that Nate killed Celeste?’
‘You can call her “Kerry” if you like. I do know who she really was.’
‘Right. And do you know of any connection between her and Nate Ogden?’
‘No direct connection, no.’
‘Which suggests you might know an indirect connection …?’
‘I don’t think you’ll think it’s important.’
‘Try me.’
‘Well, one thing you do get a lot of in the nick is time. And time means you talk a lot … and if there’s someone you get on with …’
‘Like you did with Nate?’ I prompted.
‘Yeah, we talked a lot inside Gradewell. It’s fairly relaxed there. We worked on the vegetable garden together, Nate and me. Wouldn’t probably have been bosom buddies in any other kind of situation, but inside … well, you don’t have that much choice. So, we talked a lot.’
‘Did he talk about his crime? You know, the reason he was banged up. Did he mention that girlfriend, you know, the one he—’
‘No, you don’t really do that in the nick. Well, some do, the loudmouths. Boasting about what they done, bigging up the violence, so’s they come across as real hard men. But Nate wasn’t like that. Quiet type, really. He did once mention that the girlfriend had had a son who’d been taken into care before he met her. Otherwise, her name never came up. Nate did talk about his mum, though.’
‘Were they close, do you reckon?’
Les sucked his lower lip. ‘I don’t know. The way he talked about her, she was definitely a few sandwiches short of a picnic. Filled the house full of shit she didn’t need. I think she’d always been heading that way, but apparently it got worse when Nate was banged up for murder.’
I made a mental note of that. A lot of hoarding behaviour seems to be triggered by some personal trauma. But I didn’t tell Les that I knew about Maureen Ogden’s problem from having witnessed the results of it.
‘Apparently, one thing Nate’s mum was very into was coupons.’ I made no response to that either. ‘You know, those things you get in free newspapers, on cereal packets, all over the bloody shop.’
‘I know.’
‘She couldn’t resist them. Forever snipping them out, forever claiming things like free pizzas and samples of washing powder and discounts on every bloody thing under the sun. Mostly useless tat, according to Nate. But she also liked these prize draw things, you know, “your chance to win a hundred grand”, all that stuff. She’d been entering those for years. And, according to Nate – he told me this just before I was released from Gradewell – one day she got lucky.’
‘His mum’s number came up?’
‘Exactly. And, incidentally, Ellen, this is another piece of information that I will not be sharing with our jolly Boys in Blue. If asked about Nate’s mum, I will not divulge everything he said about her. I’ll say he mentioned her hoarding tendencies, but I will not mention her love of coupons. Nor the fact that she got lucky with one of them.’
‘You mean …?’
‘Yes, she had a winner.’
‘Do you know how much?’
Les shook his head. ‘Nate was a bit coy about that. Certainly in the thousands, though.’
‘So, from being a poor little pensioner, Maureen Ogden suddenly became a rather better-heeled little pensioner?’
‘Yes.’
‘With a very healthy bank balance.’
‘You would have thought that, wouldn’t you? Except Maureen Ogden was one of the old brigade. Didn’t believe in banks, according to Nate. Kept any money she had in a shoebox underneath her bed.’
‘Ah.’ I suspected that I knew the answer, but I still asked, ‘And why is this significant?’
‘It’s significant because I told Celeste about Nate’s mother’s win.’
That put a new complexion on things. The scenario was dependent on a high degree of coincidence, but it was possible.
Kerry Tallis, or Celeste, as ever in need of money, remembers Les telling her about Maureen Ogden’s win on a prize draw. And about her distrust of banks, her habit of keeping her money under the bed. Celeste goes to relieve the old woman of the cash, and is surprised in the act by Nate Ogden, who has just witnessed his mother’s death in Queen Alexandra Hospital. In his fury at what the girl is doing, Nate kills her. Realizing how he’s screwed things up, he does a runner.
Hmm … I wasn’t entirely convinced. Some of the details were a bit inconsistent and hazy.
But it was a possibility worth considering.
I had felt the vibration of an arriving text on my phone while I was talking to Les but, not wanting to interrupt our conversation, didn’t look at it until back in the Yeti. I was very relieved to see that it came from Hilary.
It read: ‘I’ve located Nate Ogden. He’s at this address.’ She gave me a postcode. ‘I’m going to see him. I think he’ll talk to me. Should be there about five. If you’re interested, come along. Love, Hilary.’
Interested? I tried ringing to get more information, but there was no response. I loaded the postcode into the Yeti’s satnav and set off.
As I drove back east, the synapses in my brain were popping like sparklers. The fact that I had only been given a postcode must mean that Nate’s hideout was not in an urban street, but somewhere off the beaten track. And why did I have this feeling that the postcode was somehow familiar? The satnav was taking me inland, to the north of Chichester.
I felt relieved that Hilary was all right. I didn’t think about ringing Philip to set his mind at rest. If she was contacting me, surely she’d have been in touch with him too.
I also felt ridiculously cheered that she had asked if I wanted to join in her investigation. I’d worried over recent years that our relationship was becoming diluted, that we were drifting apart, but this seemed to be a validation of our friendship. And also, she must think there was something I could contribute to helping Nate Ogden. I was excited and intrigued.
Normally, I’m very good about not using the phone while I’m driving. It can ping and blip away at me with new texts and voicemails as much as it wants. Aware how vital a clean driving licence is to my business, I wait until I’m sedately parked before checking them.
But something told me this particular ping was important. One-handed, and illegally, I checked the text. It was from Ben. It just read: ‘I’m not so good, Ma.’
There was only one possible response.
I unplugged the satnav, turned back towards Chichester, and drove in a way that was certainly a threat to my clean licence.