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I was still trying to digest what I'd been told at the bank as I drove through the lunchtime traffic towards the railway station. Then it occurred to me that Albert Parker could be the one who fenced the drugs that Jackson had allegedly stolen from the chemist — they were both petty crooks when all was said and done. I'd already dismissed the idea that Parker might have killed the bookmaker and then called Jackson to help him dispose of the body, but the more I thought about it, the more I began to like the scenario. I'd have to wait and see what the interview produced.
The Castle was a lot fuller than it had been on my previous visit, and I presumed that this was merely due to the unemployed having money to spend. I revised that opinion on my walk to the bar as I took a closer look at the clientèle. Instead of the pinched faces and faded clothes of the impoverished, the majority of drinkers that lunchtime looked well-fed and well-clad. There were several women in there, too, so my appearance created no stir and elicited no comments.
I asked for a glass of red wine and scanned the room for my quarry. He wasn't hard to spot. Twenty years on, Nosy Parker still resembled a ferret. I took my drink and ambled across to his table.
“Mind if I join you?”
He looked up, surprised. “Sure.”
I took the seat opposite, with my back to the room. I didn't trust him and, while I could put up with him playing footsie — if he tried — I damn sure wasn't going to have him touching my thigh.
“It's Albert, isn't it? Albert Parker?”
“That depends on who's asking.” He picked up his half empty pint and leaned back.
“My name's Verity. I understand you know Leslie Jackson.”
I watched in fascination as his whole demeanour changed at the mention of the name. He went from confident to scared in a matter of heartbeats.
“I did. Not had anything to do with him in twenty years.” He leaned over the table at me. “Take my advice and stay away from him. He's bad news.”
Twenty years, eh? I should have expected that. If he was telling the truth, it put paid to my idea that he had fenced the drugs taken from Dewar's, though it still left the question of Parker's involvement in the Hapstone case unanswered.
“How is Jackson bad news?” I asked.
He turned sideways in his chair and looked away from me, not bothering to answer.
“C'mon, Albert. You were in his gang weren't you? I recognise a gang member when I see one.”
Parker swivelled back. “Yeah, well I recognise a cop when I see one, even if you are better looking than most of them.” He leered at me. “What is it you want?”
I saw no point of disabusing him of the notion that I was police, I'd get more out of him if he thought that.
“I want to know why you haven't seen him in twenty years. I'll buy you a pint,” I said, and smiled at him.
“Okay.”
He drained his glass and thrust it toward me, but I wasn't fooled. If I left him now to go to the bar, he'd be out of the door like a shot.
“Uh-uh. When you've told me.”
The glass went back on the table and he scowled at me.
“All right. The bloke you're asking about, Jackson, though sometimes he called himself Jackman, was a crook.”
“Much like yourself, then.”
“Look, do you want to hear this or don't you?”
I put my hands up, palms outward. “Carry on.”
There had been four other members besides Jackson and Parker in Jackson's gang. They were all petty crooks, robbing posh houses, smashing and grabbing, opportunistic thieves that, thanks to Jackson, planned their attacks with meticulous care. Once they even held up a security van, but the brutal side of Jackson emerged when he coshed both the driver and the guard into a state of insensibility. This was too much for some of the members, including my informant, who quit the gang.
“What did Jackson say when you told him you wanted out?”
“Said I was a fool, that he was planning the big one.”
“The big one? Did he tell you what that was?”
“No, and I didn't ask, but he was sure he was going to go up a notch and into the big time with whatever he'd got planned.”
I sipped at my wine while I digested this. What had Jackson meant by the big one?
“What about my drink?”
“Will you be here to drink it if I go and get it?”
“Sure. You're easy on the eye and I'm thirsty.”
I laughed and asked him what he wanted, but kept him in view as I walked to the bar and waited to be served, at the same time ignoring the familiar face I saw.
“Thanks,” he said, when I placed the full pint in front of him.
I re-took my seat, wondering if Jerry could be persuaded to give me a beer allowance for keeping my informants sweet and talkative.
“Did you murder John Cook that Bonfire Night?” I asked, and watched Parker spill nearly half his drink.
“Whoa, lady!” He grabbed the pack of tissues I offered him and dried himself off. “I didn't murder anyone. He hit his head, that's all”
“And you called Jackson to dispose of the body for you.”
“No!” He banged his fist on the table, causing heads to turn. “No,” he repeated, more quietly, “I'd already cut my ties with him.”
“I think you'd better tell me all about it, Albert.”
Parker's story had Cook so drunk when they left the Stables that he turned towards the Racecourse insisting that he'd left his car there. With the other man's arm heavy around his shoulders the small ferret-faced man claimed he had no option but to go along. When they reached the stone gateposts to the course (the wrought iron gates had been removed and melted down for armaments during the last war and never replaced) Parker had remonstrated with the bookmaker, throwing off his arm and making a grab for his satchel. A tug-of-war followed, with Cook holding on to the strap, until he'd lost his grip after a strong pull from his companion and fallen backwards, hitting his head on the gatepost in the process.
“Was he dead?” I asked.
Parker stared down at his glass, moving it around in circles on the beer stained table top. It didn't seem possible that the pointed face could get more pinched, yet it did. He looked genuinely pained by what had happened. Perhaps confession is good for the soul, I thought and waited for him to speak.
“Yes,” he said, without looking up.
“What did you do with his body?”
“I buried it. I dragged him deep into the woodland that skirts the course and broke into someone's shed for a spade. I didn't mean to kill him.”
Which said something for him, I supposed. Anyone else might have left Cook where he was and run off — then I remembered that Parker had been seen leaving the pub with his victim.
“How long did it take you?”
“Most of the night. I had to do it in stages. He was a big and heavy man and then I'd got to find the spade. I've been waiting all this time, expecting at any moment to hear his body had been found. I didn't mean to kill him,” he said again.
“Nevertheless, you did” said a familiar voice.
Becky suddenly appeared from somewhere behind me. I'd seen her when I went to the bar for Parker's pint, but heaven knows how long she'd been there listening. Long enough for her to get the gist of Parker's confession, anyway.
“Constable Bowles, meet Albert Parker, known to his friends as Nosy. He's all yours.”
And she's welcome to him, I thought, as she recited the formal statement.
“Albert Parker, I am arresting you for the murder of John Cook. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.”
A hubbub of noise behind me alerted me to the fact that the pub was rapidly emptying. A constable I didn't recognise joined Becky and yanked the protesting Parker to his feet.
“It was an accident,” he said, as he went towards the door. “I didn't mean to kill him.”
“Yeah, they all say that,” said Becky.
I put a hand on her arm as she made to follow her colleague. “I believe him, and the man in the car was not Cook. Parker had nothing to do with Hapstone.”
“Oh?” She glanced away at Parker's retreating back, then looked at me again. “So who did?”
“I'm still working on it.”
“Okay. Good work getting him to confess like that, though.”
“You heard it?” I hadn't realised she'd been so close.
“Oh yes. I was standing just behind you for most of it. Thanks for the collar.” She bent down and put her mouth close to my ear. “It's my first one.”
She smiled looking remarkably pleased with herself, and strutted out.
I didn't linger at the Castle myself once the excitement had died down. Holding down two jobs at once was seriously interfering with my lunchtime drinking, I thought, leaving half a glass of red wine on the table when I went.
Back at Fernbank, I remedied that situation and opened a bottle. Before I could take so much as a sip, Mr Glenn arrived.
“I've just come to drop some tools off, Mrs Farish. I've finished the previous job so, if it's all right with you, I'll be able to start tomorrow morning.”
I let him in and we sorted a time for him to call, then I left him to it and walked into the office. I switched on the laptop and then began to pace, thinking back on what Parker had told me.
Finally, after what seemed like an age floundering around in the quicksand of my own ignorance, I held the end of a rope that might yet pull me towards the truth.
I had one person left to speak to and then, with any luck, I would have solved the mystery of what had happened in Hapstone on Bonfire Night, twenty years ago.
***
I said nothing to Jerry that night, instead we discussed Becky's arrest of Albert Parker for most of the evening while I let my ideas on Hapstone percolate into certainty.
Nor did I say anything to KD the next morning, but when I left her at half past twelve, it was to drive out to interview my final witness.
Number 20, Baskerville Gardens lay in the middle of a semi-circle of detached houses in an up-market area of town, with space for three cars at the side.
I'd phoned ahead and told the occupant that I was coming, but took a moment to collect my thoughts and work out what I needed to ask her before I got out of the car and approached the glossy black door. I wondered about the woman I was about to meet as I lifted the ornate knocker and let it fall.
All artifice aside, Angela Overton was a lot younger than I'd expected. She opened the door wearing a pair of black leggings, a long top, belted at the waist to emphasise her still slim figure, and beckoned me in with a curl of pink painted fingernails.
“You seem surprised I'm not older.” Her pleasing voice drifted back to me as she preceded me down a long corridor filled with antique tables, a large mirror, and a grandfather clock. In front of a door she stopped and turned. “I was twenty-two when I married Howard. He was nearer fifty.”
“And you've not remarried?”
She shook her head, ash-blonde locks flying in all directions. “Oh, no. I've kept hoping he'd come back. I loved him very much, you see.” She gave a sad little smile. “Oh, well. Come in.”
Offering me refreshment, which I declined, she waved me to a seat in a generously proportioned living room overlooking the immaculate grounds and an uninterrupted view of rolling countryside. Lord knows how much the property was worth, but I had to assume that Angela was not short of a bob to two. What she lacked was a husband and I needed to find out why.
From my upright armchair beside the fireplace, I gazed with frank curiosity around the room. It appeared as neat and tidy as my hostess, though the furniture and décor were dated. Both the house and its occupant looked much as they would have done twenty years ago, and I guessed that was deliberate on Angela's part. Other than a few more lines on her face, nothing had changed in all that time and, should Howard Overton ever return, he'd instantly recognise that this was his home and his wife.
“Will you tell me a bit about your husband, Mrs Overton?”
She leaned forward eagerly.
“You said on the phone that you were re-investigating Howard's disappearance. Is there any news? Have you found out what happened to him?”
Actually, I had a damned good idea what had happened to him, but it was far too early to say anything yet. There would be time enough to give her the bad news when I had proof positive and I'd worked out, to the police's satisfaction as well as my own, exactly how Overton had ended up in Hapstone.
“Not as yet, I'm sorry, but I am looking into it. What can you tell me about him?”
“He was a lovely man, a wonderful husband, well-respected in the town. As well as being manager at Cavanham's, he was also a member of the Rotary Club and chairman of the local golf club, so he was well known to a lot of people. Of course, twenty years ago, Crofterton was much smaller, the new estates hadn't been built and the population was a lot less. Even so, he was known and liked by most people.”
Most eh? Well, somebody hadn't liked him.
“So, it's unlikely he had any enemies, then?”
Angela let out a peal of laughter at the suggestion. “Goodness, no. Certainly none that I'm aware of.”
“Did he know anyone by the name of Jackson or Jackman?”
She thought about this for a moment, then her face lit up. “Yes, he knew John Jackson, the solicitor, on the Bellhurst road. They played golf together, occasionally.”
“What about a Leslie or Lionel Jackson?”
“Hmm. I don't think so.”
No, it was unlikely that the Jacksons that interested me moved in the sort of social circles Howard Overton inhabited but, if the scenario forming in my mind bore any resemblance to the truth, twenty years ago their paths had crossed—and with deadly results.
“Forgive me for asking, but was everything all right between the two of you?”
Her delicately pencilled eyebrows rose and made perfect arches above her green eyes. “Yes, it was. Oh, I'm aware that a lot of people thought I was nothing but a gold-digger, or Howard had married me to sport a trophy wife on his arm, but honestly, it was not like that. We had a happy marriage, and those friends of my own age who couldn't understand why I married an older man are now all on their second, or in some cases their third, husband.”
She seemed to think she'd proved her point, but who was to say the same could not have been said about her, if her husband hadn't vanished. As if she could read my thoughts, she said:
“I loved Howard. He was the right man for me and I'm positive I'd be with him still.”
“What happened on the morning he disappeared?”
“Happened?”
“Yes, Was everything as normal?”
“Oh, I see.” She sat back and crossed one Lycra-clad leg over the other, revealing neat ankles and small feet in black ballet pumps. “Yes, things were no different that day and I've been over it again and again over the years. Howard got up and showered while I prepared his breakfast. He left here at the usual time —”
“Which was?”
“Eight o'clock.”
I nodded and made a note. If he was going into work for half-past eight and the banks don't open for another hour — or more in some cases — and close again six hours after that, what on earth were the staff doing in that time? These days the answer was earning fat bonuses, but that was in the investment sector, not at the lowly branch level. I dragged my mind back to the woman opposite me.
“Did your husband say anything before he left?”
“Nothing out of the ordinary. 'Have a good day and I'll see you tonight', that sort of thing.”
“Then what happened?”
“Well, the bank phoned me at about four o'clock to ask if Howard had come home. I didn't understand and said no, I wasn't expecting him for at least another hour. Then they said he hadn't returned after going out at lunch, and I...I...”
For the first time in our interview Angela's self-possession deserted her. Eyes glistening with unshed tears, lips compressed into a thin line, she stood up and turned her back on me, staring out of the picture window. The tick, tick of the grandfather clock I'd seen in the hallway was the only sound in the silent house. I waited, giving her time.
“All these years without him,” she said, still gazing into the distance. “You can't imagine how many times I wished I'd never let him out of my sight that morning.”
I certainly couldn't imagine what it would be like to have your husband, or your father, just walk out one morning and vanish without a trace. And as for waiting twenty years with no sight, sound, or news of him, well... a cold shiver went down my spine.
“I'm very sorry, Mrs Overton.”
I'd meant it, I truly sympathised with her, but what a stupid and inadequate thing to say! I kicked myself, beginning to wonder whether I was cut out for this job. Angela turned her head and looked over her shoulder at me.
“It's all right. There are no words anyone can say to help, or to change things. People don't know what to say in this situation. It's like when someone dies — and I've certainly felt bereaved all these years.” She walked back to her chair. “Go on.”
“Yesterday, I spoke to a Mrs Trace at Cavanham's. She said that your husband did not look well and appeared to be breathless when he said he was going for a late lunch at two o'clock. Have you any idea what might have been wrong?”
She nodded. “Oh, yes. That's what caused the worry, you see. That's why I contacted the police.”
I rocked back. If she'd informed the police that her husband was missing, why did his name not appear on Becky's list?
“Your husband was ill?”
“He had angina. When the person at the bank said that Howard looked ill, I checked his bedside table and his medicine was still there. He'd gone to work without it.”
Having visions of her husband collapsing in the street, Angela had phoned the local hospitals to check if he'd been admitted. When she'd discovered that they had no patient by his name, and no-one suffering angina or a suspected heart attack had been brought in, she became frantic and phoned the police.
“Did the bank not know about his condition?”
She interlaced her fingers and twisted them together. “I don't think so. It hadn't long been diagnosed and Howard felt embarrassed admitting to it. He said it made him feel less of a man. I told him that was stupid, and he would always be all the man I'd ever need, angina or not, but...” She shrugged her shoulders. “Are you married? You must know what it's like.”
I let the question go by. I thought I knew Jerry well enough, but after less than three weeks of, so far, wedded bliss, it was too early to say. I went over what she'd just told me, trying to fit it into what I'd already surmised. It opened up a lot of possibilities and I was anxious now to get back home and start researching. I stood up.
“Well, I think that's all for now, Mrs Overton. Thank you for your time. I may be back if I need to ask anything further.”
She came towards me and touched my hand. “You will find out what happened to him, won't you?”
“I can't promise, but I will try.”
Even if what I found was not the answer she wanted. Or maybe it was — she must know that he was likely dead — perhaps she just needed confirmation of that fear.
She smiled and stood back. “Oh, I'm sure you will. You strike me as the sort of person who once they get the bit between their teeth won't let go.”
I stared at her as though her head had just exploded. Hell's teeth, but I'd been stupid. I could have saved myself, and Becky, hours of work if I'd only asked the question I posed to Angela Overton now.
“Did your husband ever go to the dentist's, Mrs Overton?”
“No, never. He had a morbid fear of them. Why on earth do you ask?”
Because I'd just confirmed the identity of the man in the car. Now, could I prove who put him there?
***
It seemed like an age that I sat in the car in front of the Overton's house trying to calm my excitement after speaking to Angela. Was this it? Had I really solved a case where the police of twenty years ago had failed? Could it be that simple?
Bah! All these questions! Why was it in my nature to be so damn curious, so filled with the need to know things? Suspecting my life would be very much easer and simpler if it wasn't, I crossed my arms over the steering wheel and rested my head on them, earning me an odd look from a passer-by, a kindly soul who tapped on the window and asked if I was all right. I assured her that I was, then put both myself and the car into gear and pulled away from the kerb.
I drove slowly, concentrating on the road and allowing my subconscious time to make sense of what I knew. Or thought I did, because I had begun to get the horrible feeling that the same person lay behind more than one of these disappearances.
When I arrived home the house was in uproar. Wrenches, bits of lagging, and copper pipes littered the hall. Having let Mr Glenn in that morning before going off to Bishop Lea, I'd since forgotten all about him and the central heating.
I dropped my bag on the office table and thumped up the stairs in urgent need of the bathroom — only to discover after I'd used it, that the water had been switched off. Great.
When taxed with this fact, Mr Glenn cheerfully agreed from his position under the kitchen sink. “Yes, it's off. Shouldn't take long. I'll put it on again in about an hour.”
“I don't suppose you thought to fill the kettle, first,” I said, addressing his denim clad legs, the only part of him I could see.
Of course he hadn't. What man would?
Deprived of my caffeine, I stomped back into the office wondering whether I could get Jerry to agree to us living in a hotel while the heating was installed, or perhaps I might ask KD if she wanted a couple of well-trained house guests. No, perhaps not. I was very fond of my boss, but the thought of living with her for any length of time brought me out in a fit of the heebie-jeebies.
I switched on the computer and read through the notes I'd made during my interview with Mrs Overton. I needed to be sure of my facts before Becky arrived. I also hoped she'd be in a better mood today. Last night, Jerry had said she'd been as high as a kite over her arrest of Albert Parker. She and Sergeant Stott had questioned him for over an hour in one of the station's interview rooms and later, when Jerry had spoken to her, she had readily admitted that I was the one who'd wormed the confession out of him. Pleased that she'd given me the credit as well as achieving her first arrest, I hoped we were beginning to work together as a team.
About to sit down and research the shops in Crofterton twenty years ago, I jumped out of my skin when a whining scream ripped through the house making everything shake, including the fillings in my teeth. It took a while after I'd realised it was Mr Glenn drilling through the brickwork for my heart rate to return to normal. Hell's teeth, if I had to put up with that all afternoon, I'd never get any work done. I shut the office door, trying to remember if either of us possessed a pair of headphones, and returned to the table.
Finding it impossible to type while at the same time having my hands clamped over my ears, I gave up and paced about the room, thinking of all the people, all the red herrings, that Becky and I had chased after. So many things had had to come together that November evening twenty years ago for the crime to have happened at all.
Then I went over the case that I had built, checking it and testing it, trying to pull it apart at the seams. Did it hold water, or was just a rusty bucket of supposition and guesswork, full of enough holes to serve as a Scout camp shower? And was I convinced enough of my own reasoning to take my findings to Jerry? I wished Becky would get here so that we could talk it over.
I stared at the wall, an ideal wall on which to fix a large incident board. The sort of whiteboard that I could write on, wipe off and slap sticky notes all over. KD used to have a large cork-board in the office that served a similar purpose. She said being able to plot things out graphically helped her visualise her stories, and right now I believed her as I attempted to view the Hapstone affair like a movie in my mind.
“But what if I'm wrong?” I asked aloud in the silence.
Silence! The drilling had stopped. Hurrah! I hurried around the table, my pacing had carried me to the far side of the room, and fed my search into the computer just as a tap came on the door.
“Come in.” I turned, expecting to see Becky in the doorway, but it was only Mr Glenn.
“I'm just going to the van for some more bits. The water's back on, if you want to fill the kettle, but I'll need it off again when I come back.”
“And the drilling?”
“Sorry, there'll be more of that, too. I'll try and get most of it done by the end of the day.”
“Oh, okay, thanks.”
I hurried into the kitchen and then, while the kettle boiled, went upstairs to flush the loo. I checked that everything was neat and tidy, although I'd already done so first thing that morning. I'm not obsessively house proud, but having a stranger in the house made me want to present it at its best.
On the way downstairs, my stomach rumbled and I made the coffee and grabbed a handful of biscuits. With this poor apology of a lunch, I traipsed back into the office, and resumed my interrupted search, hoping to find photos of Cavanham's Bank and the shops that had surrounded it in the early '90s.
I came up empty handed and, disappointed, nibbled at the last biscuit — where had the rest gone, so quickly? — and picked up my notebook. As I did so I caught sight of my watch — it said half-past two. Where had Becky got to? Come to that, where had the heating engineer got to? I didn't remember hearing him come back in.
Throwing the pad on to the table, I got up and went into the hall.
“Mr Glenn, are you back?”
When he didn't answer, I opened the front door and peered outside. Becky's car sat on the drive, Mr Glenn's van did not, and there was no sign of either of them. I went down the two steps onto the tarmac and, turning to my left, walked to the corner of the house. The hairs on the back of my neck prickled, I felt an odd sense of foreboding. Wondering if Glenn had driven his vehicle down the gravelled area at the side of the house, either to give Becky room to pull in, or to get closer to the back door, I looked around the corner. There was nothing to see — except for the prone figure of a man with his head in the border.
“Mr Glenn!”
Heart pounding, I raced toward him and knelt at his side. A thin trickle of blood ran down his scalp and I heard him groan.
“Don't move. I'll call an ambulance.”
I hurried back to the front of the house, past the few straggly shrubs to the right of the door and came to a halt on the bottom step. My brain had just registered what my eye had passed over. Half hidden in the shrubs under the window lay a solitary red stiletto. So, if Becky's car and one half of her footwear were here, where the devil was the woman herself?
A tiny scrap of white paper trapped in the letterbox fluttered in front of me as I pushed open the door. I pulled it out and read the single sentence it contained.
“DCI Farish—If you ever want to see your wife again, STOP digging in Hapstone.”