Behind Dead Eyes (17 page)

‘The Castle.' Megan said the words quickly and her strong Scottish accent led Bradshaw to assume he misheard her.

‘I'm sorry, for a second there I thought you said she lived in a castle.'

Helen had to walk down Dean Street to get to the pub on the Quayside, a road so steep she was forced to tread carefully to avoid accidentally stumbling into a run. She almost walked past the Crown Posada at first, an ancient, Victorian watering hole with a stone façade, dark stained-glass windows and a single sign above the door to denote its presence.

Once inside the pub, she headed for the bar while scanning the room for any sign of Brian Hilton. She spotted him soon enough. He was sitting on his own in an alcove not far from the front door. Though they hadn't met, Hilton was one of the few journalists at her paper who merited his own photo byline and, except for a few extra lines on his face since it was taken, he looked exactly like his picture. The unfashionably long mane of silver hair was recognisable enough even in the subdued light of the Crown Posada's wood-panelled bar. Helen ordered herself a bottle of beer and ‘a pint of whatever he's drinking' and she gestured towards Hilton. The barman poured her a pint of bitter and she took it over, placing it on the table in front of Hilton.

He glanced at the pint, seemed to take a moment to register it, then looked up at the woman who'd delivered it. ‘Now then, bonny lass,' Hilton said, ‘what are you after?'

While
Hilton drained the remnants of his last pint and started on the next one, Helen explained she was a journalist with the same newspaper, because he clearly hadn't recognised her. Helen wondered when and where he wrote his copy; on the back of beer mats? Perhaps he phoned it in to one of the editors, like the football correspondents when they reported on away matches. She recounted a respectful, heavily edited version of the conversation with Graham about Hilton's in-depth knowledge of the local political scene. Next she explained her specific interest in Frank Jarvis and the fact that she was helping Tom Carney look into Sandra Jarvis's disappearance on the councillor's behalf.

When she had completed this explanation, Brian Hilton nodded sagely and said quietly, ‘Well, I might be able to help you out there.' Then she noticed he had almost finished the pint, so she got him another, even though her own drink had not been touched.

Hilton took a sizable gulp of beer and Helen realised this conversation was likely to be expensive. ‘Frank Jarvis,' he spoke the name like he was trying it on for size, ‘the kingmaker.'

‘Is that what they call him?'

‘Amongst other things,' he said, ‘but that probably sums him up. If you want to know someone who can actually get things done round here who isn't all mouth and no trousers then look no further than him.' He drank some more. ‘There
are people in politics who can get themselves elected; able campaigners who can muster up support from the grassroots of the party – and there's only one party round here of course – those are the people who climb the ladder.' And he counted off the stages on his fingers. ‘Town councillor, borough councillor, county councillor, MP, government minister, and that's ultimately what they want. Most politicians will tell you, “I came into this so I can change things, so I can make a difference,” ' another huge swig of beer and Helen waited patiently, ‘but that's bollocks.' Hilton thought for a moment. ‘I have seen dozens of politicians come and go and they all want to be important. They love that feeling even more than money or sex. It's all they care about in fact,' there was another long sip of beer then he put his pint back on the table, ‘except Jarvis.'

Helen waited for him to elaborate and when he failed to do so she said, ‘So what does he want?'

‘Well, contrary to everything else I've just told you, pet, I have formed the impression that this guy actually does care about the city he lives in. Sure, Jarvis likes the sound of his own voice, they all do, but I don't think he's that bothered about people kowtowing to him.'

‘Is that why he never stood for parliament?'

‘Partly,' he answered, ‘I think that went a long way towards it. He figured he could get more done if he stayed in the region.'

‘Better to be a big fish in a small pond?' she asked.

‘Maybe.' His eyes narrowed just a little.

‘But there was something else,' she said, ‘wasn't there?'

‘Ooh,' Hilton said dryly, ‘very good. You should be a reporter.'

She ignored his mocking tone and noticed his glass was
two-thirds empty, ‘I'll get us another drink,' she said, ‘and you can tell me all about it.'

Improbably, Olivia Barrington did live in a castle and not just any castle. She lived in
the
castle. Ian Bradshaw had grown up just miles from Durham city and been on countless day trips there as a child; ambling up the hill to the famous cathedral and castle, which towered high above the River Wear. All this time he had no idea it was possible to live in the actual castle but Megan Aitken assured him it was home to more than a hundred hugely privileged students.

Bradshaw was still wondering if Megan was winding him up when he arrived at the ancient Norman castle and climbed the steps by the main door. Would this be the student equivalent of one of those tricks played on young apprentices where they were sent for ‘a long stand' or some ‘sparks for the grinder'? However, when Bradshaw asked a male undergraduate if he knew Olivia, he struck lucky and was directed to the keep's highest floor.

Her room had two doors; the heavy outer one was wide open, with the inner one ajar. Bradshaw could hear the B52s on the radio. He knocked loudly enough to compete with ‘Love Shack' and she called, ‘Come in!' Bradshaw found Olivia working at a desk by a leaded window, which gave her a stunning view of the Romanesque cathedral opposite and the Palace Green that lay between the two ancient buildings. He wondered if she took it for granted.

Olivia peered over the top of her glasses at Bradshaw in confusion, having presumably been expecting a friend, not a detective sergeant. Once he told her who he was she immediately stopped what she was doing, got to her feet and gave him her full attention.

If the two Julies possessed public school accents, Olivia's seemed to inhabit an even higher plane, as if educated for future employment at Buckingham Palace. She apologised for her unkempt appearance, explaining she was revising for exams and hadn't even had time to ‘have a shar' that morning, ‘let alone wash my hair'. Bradshaw found himself mentally translating her words before writing them down and was usually a beat behind her as a result. He wondered how Sandra Jarvis had found sharing a room with a girl who made the two Julies seem almost working class by comparison.

‘Sandra was
rilly
nice and it was very jolly sharing for a time but I'd simply die without my own space,' she explained.

Bradshaw nodded and began the same round of questions he'd asked the other girls. The first ten minutes of his interview were routinely repetitive, with Olivia confirming Sandra had never mentioned particular problems with home, love life or academic studies. Bradshaw was already planning which pub to visit so he could grab a pint after a fruitless day, but Olivia was still talking about how
rilly
intense university could be. When he happened to mention it was even more pressured for Sandra because she worked in a bar as well, Olivia said, ‘Oh yah, and she worked through the holidays too,' with the wonder of someone who has never had to work a day in her life. ‘And there was her other job as well.'

‘Her other job?' asked Bradshaw as, once again, there had been no mention of this in the case files.

‘Yah, that
did
sound rather stressful.'

‘What other job?'

‘The one looking after those poor people,' she explained, ‘who have had such dreadful lives.'

‘What do you remember about
1976?' Hilton asked, when Helen returned with two more beers.

‘It was hot?' she offered and he frowned.

‘Yeah, the heatwave,' he said, ‘the hottest and driest summer since records began. That's all anyone ever remembers.' He seemed deeply disappointed by this. ‘But what else happened in 1976?'

Helen realised she was being tested. Why would the date mean something to Brian Hilton? She would have been barely five years old, but since they were talking politics she opted for, ‘Harold Wilson resigned?'

‘Good lass,' he replied, and she felt like she was back in her politics tutorials. ‘In March 1976 Harold Wilson resigned as Prime Minister, so there was an election. There was much talk at the time about the new order replacing the old and Frank Jarvis was already seen as the coming man. He was in his thirties, young for a politician but many people thought he was a dead cert to take over from the old MP who was retiring and it was one of the safest seats in the country.'

‘So what happened?'

‘The seat went to someone else.'

‘Why?'

‘Because he turned it down. When you're a politician, everything you say or do is fair game. You're in the public eye, particularly at a national level. Round here it's bad enough but we don't jeopardise long-standing relationships with the local party by reporting every piece of gossip we're given and there's always the possibility we'd get sued, which can put a local paper out of business. Down there it's different.' She realised he was referring to London. ‘The tabloids don't have to worry so much about staying on the good side of some new MP and they can survive a few libel cases
because they sell a lot more papers than we do. Scandal is their bread and butter. A politician's career can be over like that.' He clicked his fingers to show how quickly it can happen. ‘We expect MPs to behave impeccably, even though we know they bloody don't.'

‘Are you saying Jarvis had something to hide,' she prompted him, ‘and that's why he couldn't become an MP?'

‘Partly, but it was more complicated than that. Let's just say he was trying to repair something that couldn't be fixed by swanning off to London.'

Helen instantly knew what he meant. ‘His marriage.'

Hilton smiled. ‘Go to the top of the class, pet.'

Tom
had almost finished reading the case files when he noticed something was absent from them. The last sighting of Sandra Jarvis in the north-east had been at Newcastle Central railway station, one of the first places to invest in the relatively new, not inexpensive technology of CCTV, because large railway stations had more than their fair share of trouble from drunks and fights between rival football fans. The still from one of the cameras that showed Sandra Jarvis buying a rail ticket was missing from the file, which was odd since it was a crucial piece of evidence.

Tom was then told he had a phone call, which was a surprise, since hardly anybody knew he was at the police HQ.

‘It's me,' Helen said, ‘thought you'd still be there.'

‘I'm nearly done,' he told her.

‘Can you pick me up at the Quayside?' she asked him. ‘I got that dirt you wanted.'

‘Blimey, that was quick.'

Helen was standing directly under the Tyne Bridge, sheltering from the rain but putting herself in even greater jeopardy from falling bird shit, which was a hazard for anyone walking beneath its girders. He flashed his lights and she quickly jumped in next to him.

‘You've gone up in the world,' she said.

‘Eh?'

‘Your car,' she remarked on the two-year-old black Renault he'd finally upgraded to.

‘It's not that flash,' he said shortly, and drove away.

Helen had grown used to the need to play everything down round here. It seemed the biggest sin in the north-east was to become too big for your boots.

‘I would never accuse you of being flash,' she said, ‘just, you know, it's good to seeing you doing well. You deserve it.'

‘What makes you think I'm doing well?'

‘Oh I don't know,' she said brightly, ‘perhaps it was the several front page leads in national newspapers a while back, followed by the critically acclaimed non-fiction book of the year.'

‘I don't remember picking up that award.'

‘You know what I mean!' She mock-punched him on the shoulder.

‘Have you been drinking?'

‘I have been
working
,' she announced grandly and she told him about her drinks with Hilton and everything she had learned about Frank Jarvis..

‘It seems Mrs Jarvis had a major wobble when Frank was about to be selected as a Newcastle MP and he turned down the nomination at the last minute.'

‘He rejected the chance to become an MP?'

‘To save his marriage,' said Helen. ‘Alan heard rumours of an affair, which he said was highly likely. A lot of young women used to volunteer to help the Labour Party campaign back then. He told me it was because of “women's lib”. He reckons Jarvis probably had a fling with one of the party's “dolly birds”.'

‘How refreshingly old school,' deadpanned Tom.

‘Mrs Jarvis must have found out about it because Frank disappeared for a few days at a critical point then he turned down the nomination.'

‘Wanted to spend more time with his family, eh?'

‘He may have been forced to do that, otherwise someone would have leaked it. This was nearly twenty years ago, when people were a lot less tolerant of that sort of behaviour.'

‘Any idea which “dolly bird” he had an affair with?'

‘I'm afraid not,' she said, ‘but there was one other thing that will interest you.'

‘Go on.'

‘It seems Mrs Jarvis has always had a bit of a drink problem,' Helen explained. ‘She has it under control most of the time but during that period she was drinking more heavily than normal and she crashed her car.'

‘Blimey,' he said, ‘was she done for that?'

‘No charges,' said Helen.

‘What did she do? Abandon the car and stagger off?'

‘Not exactly. The story goes that she spun off the road and skidded into a wall somewhere out in the sticks. She wasn't badly hurt and she just stayed there and waited for someone to come along. A police officer attended the scene but when the report was filed it stated the driver was sober and must have skidded on a wet patch in the road.'

‘He covered it up?'

‘That has always been the rumour, because back then Mrs Jarvis was rarely sober.'

‘Bloody hell,' said Tom, ‘he's probably Chief Constable by now.'

‘Whoever it was,' she said, ‘he recognised Jarvis was the coming man and decided it would be sensible to help him out of a big mess.'

‘I keep hearing how incorruptible Jarvis is. I was beginning to believe it and you managed to dispel that myth in about five minutes.'

‘More like an hour and a half – and I wouldn't say it made him corrupt necessarily.'

‘What would you call it then?'

‘It's not the same as taking backhanders, is it? He was protecting his wife from arrest and possibly prison. Wouldn't you do that?'

‘Possibly,' conceded Tom, ‘but I have no intention of standing for public office.'

‘Brian Hilton said that was one of the problems of our system,' she replied. ‘He reckons we expect politicians to be morally superior to everyone else but they are just the same as the rest of us.'

‘In my experience they are a lot worse.'

‘Anyway, whatever happened, it must have shaken them both. He dropped out of the running for the safe seat and eventually became leader of the city council. There were no more rumours about affairs and Mrs Jarvis kept the drinking under control, at least in public. Their marriage has been rock solid since then, apparently. Where are we going by the way?' she asked him.

‘I'm off to meet Ian Bradshaw. He's been doing some digging into Lonely Lane for me,' then he added, ‘but don't worry, I'll drop you back first.'

‘I'm not in any hurry.' Delving deeper into a good story with Ian and Tom was infinitely preferable to returning to her empty flat and worrying about the men out to get her.

‘Okay,' he told her, ‘then you can ride shotgun. Thanks, Helen.'

‘What for?'

‘For finding the dirt. I knew there'd be something. There's always something.'