Behind Dead Eyes (7 page)

At first it looked as if he was about to argue the point. ‘I'm fine,' she said firmly, ‘really.'

‘Okay,' he said uncertainly, ‘if you're sure?'

Helen got to her feet then and instantly regretted it, crying out in pain. He grabbed her as her knee gave way and helped her stand straight again. ‘I'm alright,' she said but he did not let go of her arm. Instead he steered her to the door, supporting her as they went. ‘I'll drive you home,' he said. ‘Your car will be fine here overnight and I'll pick you up again in the morning.'

‘That will set tongues wagging,' she told him.

‘I don't mind if you don't.'

‘I don't,' she told him.

As
he drove into the prison, Tom Carney knew deep down he was kidding himself. This was a one-off job, he had reasoned, which would probably only last for a week or two but it didn't mean he was back in journalism and he certainly wouldn't be writing another book. Financially, it made sense at a time when he desperately needed an injection of cash and he absolutely wasn't giving up on the house renovation. Perhaps now he would be able to afford to get someone in to help him finish some of the trickier jobs.

The one thing he didn't admit was the truth. Tom was experiencing something he had not felt for some time: a surge of excitement. He was intrigued by the Rebecca Holt case. Tom was convinced there were secrets here, and he wanted to be the one to uncover them.

‘What do you think of me, Tom?' Richard Bell asked abruptly as soon as they were seated in the visiting room. ‘Be honest.'

‘Think of you?'

‘I'm sure you've done your homework and we spent time together. What impression did you form of me?'

‘I'm not sure, yet.'

‘Do I look like a murderer?' Bell probed.

‘Very few people look like murderers.'

‘Strike that then. Do you
think
I am a murderer?'

‘I honestly don't know, Richard.'

Perhaps he had hoped for more. ‘Well, at least we are on first-name terms.'

‘You
are
capable of violence though,' Tom reminded him.

‘I was attacked,' Bell protested. ‘It was self-defence.'

‘I don't mean in here. I'm talking about the ex-girlfriend.'

‘That was years ago. Christ, we were kids.'

‘You were twenty.'

‘Don't you remember what it was like to be that age?'

‘I never punched a woman.'

‘It was a slap,' Bell replied, ‘not a punch, and I'm not proud of it either way.'

‘It did you some damage in court.'

‘Look, it was a very long time ago and I got run ragged by the girl in question. I lashed out and I have regretted it ever since. Ask Mark …'

‘Your best man? The character witness that didn't work out the way you intended?'

‘That wasn't his fault,' said Bell, ‘the prosecution lawyer tied him up in knots, but he'll tell you the truth. What happened with Amy doesn't make me a murderer.'

‘I won't lie to you,' Tom said, ‘I could look into this case for you but I won't sugar-coat what I find.'

‘I did not kill Rebecca Holt. I did not beat a woman I cared for over the head with a claw hammer. I know that saying it out loud won't make you believe me but I will not give in until I have cleared my name.'

‘Who said it was a claw hammer?' asked Tom, fixing his gaze on Bell.

‘Well,' was there a slight stammer in his reply, ‘the prosecution had an expert witness …'

‘He said it was a blunt instrument.'

‘Which was most likely a hammer,' Bell corrected him firmly, ‘because of the dimensions of the impact marks on Rebecca's skull.'

‘A hammer yes but he didn't say it was a claw hammer.'

‘Do you own a hammer, Tom?'

‘Of course.'

‘Usually they have a flat bit at one end of the head to bang in nails and a claw at the other end to pull them out again,' and he looked Tom right in the eye, ‘hence my use of the words,
claw hammer
.'

‘Okay,' said Tom, letting it go, ‘so you were saying … about wanting to clear your name.'

‘Freedom without exoneration is meaningless to me. How can I look my daughters in the eye and tell them their daddy is a killer,' Richard asked, ‘or try to explain that he isn't but had to admit to being one just so he could get out of jail?'

‘I understand.'

‘Do you? I seriously doubt that. It's not as if saying it would even change anything. I'd still be in here with no hope of release for years. What are you planning for the next five years, Tom; meet a girl, settle down, have some kids, get a home, a better job maybe with nicer prospects? That's what people usually do. They try to improve their lives. All of that is on hold for me until this nightmare is over. No women, no booze, shit food, nothing to look forward to. What do you think most people would say if they knew what my life was really like?'

‘That you deserved it,' offered Tom, ‘for killing Rebecca.'

‘Yes,' he admitted, ‘you're right. I think that's exactly what most of them would say – but I did not kill Rebecca. You've got to believe me.'

‘No, I don't,' Tom told him, ‘I don't have to do anything,'
and before Bell could contradict that he added, ‘but I've decided I will look into your case. I'll do some digging and I'll see if I can come up with something new and, with permission, I'll speak to your nearest and dearest to see if they can shed some new light on the events of that day – but you won't be able to control my opinions or conclusions and you might not like what I find,' warned Tom. ‘If it's something about Rebecca that you didn't know or I discover the real reason she was killed …'

‘Tom, I assure you I can live with anything if the alternative is to stay in here for the rest of my life.'

‘And what if all the evidence I uncover still points to you?'

‘Then I'll be no worse off but I have every faith you will find the real killer.'

‘How do you want to play this? Do I keep visiting you here with updates?'

‘The governor isn't too keen on that idea.'

‘Why not?'

‘Because he knows that sooner or later one of his guards will sell the story to the newspapers.'

‘What story?'

‘Journalist reopens Rebecca Holt murder case,' Bell explained. ‘You can keep my wife informed. Annie visits regularly and this way nobody will ever know you are working with us.'

Tom liked the sound of that. Working for a convicted murderer wasn't something he was keen to include on his CV. ‘I still have a lot of questions.'

‘Then you'd better ask them.'

She'd asked for a couple of days off and Graham said she'd earned them. He'd told Helen it might be a good idea to keep her head down anyway following the incident which, in the
cold light of day, Helen was able to shrug off, particularly as the damage to her knee was less serious than she first thought. Aside from painful stiffness when she went up and down stairs, it was already on the mend. The time off was to accommodate her boyfriend, who had been granted a couple of free days by his father in return for all the hard work he had put in lately at the family business – a small chain of carpet stores in Surrey that Peter had been wholly dismissive of when they first met. He was not going to work for the old man, Peter had told her firmly. He was going to start up his own business. She had believed him.

A year after graduation, reality set in and Peter told her he was going to work for the business after all. It seemed the prospect of entry-level jobs while he saved up and planned his own venture was not that appealing. ‘This way I get proper hands-on experience before branching out on my own,' he'd enthused. A few years down the line and Peter no longer talked about his own dreams, only the intricacies of the carpet retailing business he was being groomed to take over, and Helen no longer asked about them.

They were walking down by the river together. A bracing breeze travelled along the Tyne towards them. ‘Isn't it a beautiful city?' she remarked about her adopted home.

Her boyfriend snorted, ‘What's beautiful about it? Half of it's a building site.'

‘They're regenerating the place. When it's done it will look amazing. They are going to build a massive concert hall on the banks of the Tyne and they reckon they can get funding from that new lottery. They're going to convert the Baltic Flour Mill,' she pointed across the river to the imposing old building, ‘into an art gallery.' When Peter offered no further thoughts, she continued, ‘Of course, that will take years …'

‘If it ever gets beyond the planning stage.'

‘But when it's done it will be fantastic. Anyway I still think it's beautiful, down here by the river beneath the bridges.' And she did. As well as the famous Tyne Bridge there was Robert Stephenson's High Level Bridge, a wrought-iron engineering miracle that still supported both road traffic and the trains from the railway in a single, two-tier construction, which had spanned the river since the days of Queen Victoria. She was about to tell him this was the bridge they used in
Get Carter
, but he might ask her how she knew that and it had been Tom Carney who told her, as they had raced over it on the way back from seeing the key surviving witness in the Sean Donnellan case. Peter didn't like her mentioning Tom. He wasn't jealous, he told her, he just didn't like her ‘banging on' about the guys she worked with and anyway, Peter wasn't looking at the bridges. He was frowning at some young girls in short skirts who were laughing raucously on their way to a pub.

‘Does anyone
ever
wear a coat round here?'

She wondered if he was going to say they would all probably catch their deaths. When she didn't immediately answer him, Peter turned to look at her as if he'd been slighted somehow. ‘Just because I don't find this northern outpost at the end of the known universe beautiful,' he was doing his exaggerated I-was-only-joking voice with accompanying winning smile, the one that had worked on her the night they first met in the bar of their student union, ‘doesn't mean I'm not happy to be here.
It
might not be beautiful but
you
are.' He put his hands on her waist then kissed her on the forehead, which she supposed was sweet but it did have the effect of making her feel like a little girl being counselled by a man who considered himself older and wiser, even though they were the same age.

‘I'm also bloody freezing,' he told her then he shivered melodramatically, ‘so can we
please
find a pub or something?' He was still talking in that breezy manner, as if everything was just too silly to get upset about. ‘You know, one without sawdust on the floor.'

She wanted to say she had never been to a pub in Newcastle with sawdust on its floor but Helen knew he would sigh and say, ‘I was
joking
,' before going into one of his sulks, so she agreed to go for a drink, since that was easier than an argument, even though their walk had barely lasted a hundred yards along the river bank.

As she headed for the pub she found herself wondering whether Tom Carney would have wimped out of a bracing autumn walk like that. No, she thought, he wouldn't, but he would probably have been just as dismissive of Helen's romantic view of its post-industrial landscape, with its cranes and heavy girders in perpetual motion on the south side of the river. Tom was like a lot of people she'd met since she'd moved up here: fiercely defensive of the north-east to outsiders but just as likely to do the place down amongst themselves for its lack of opportunities. Absent-mindedly, Helen found herself wondering what Tom Carney was doing right now.

‘When
the police first questioned you, you denied you were having an affair with Rebecca Holt.'

‘Yes,' admitted Bell and Tom waited for an explanation. ‘Well you would, wouldn't you? I panicked. At that point I thought I was only putting my marriage in jeopardy but denying it at the beginning made me look bad later when it was mentioned in court. I understand that now. The prosecution made it sound like I was an effortless liar who wasn't even upset to learn the news of Rebeca's death.'

‘And were you?' Tom said. ‘Upset, I mean?'

‘Of course!' Bell said. ‘I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I cared for Rebecca deeply, and when the police told me she'd been killed, well, it was a complete shock.'

‘What did they say?'

‘That Rebecca's body had been found in her car. That it was parked in a lovers' lane and she had been murdered.'

‘Did they say how she'd been killed?'

‘Not at first but I asked them.'

‘And what did they say?

‘With a blunt instrument.'

‘How did you feel when you heard that?'

‘How do you think I felt?' Bell snapped.

‘I have no idea,' said Tom calmly. ‘Maybe you were shocked and completely devastated or perhaps you were worried the police thought you'd done it. Possibly you were panicking because you didn't want your wife to find out about your
secret lover, maybe you were worrying about everything you could lose: the job, the money, the house, the family. I don't know, Richard, because I don't know you. That's the point and it's why I'm asking these questions … and if you want me to help you then you really should consider answering them.'

Richard Bell held up a hand to placate Tom. ‘I'm sorry, you're right, you don't know me or anything about me apart from what I've told you and the stuff you read about in the newspapers.' He was quiet then and seemed to be recalling the moment when the police knocked on his door. Eventually he spoke: ‘It was like someone had punched me in the guts. I remember having to make a conscious effort of will just to stay standing and not crumple to the ground in front of them.'

‘Did they question you right there on the doorstep?'

‘Pretty much; they asked me about my relationship with the victim. I told them we were friends who had met at the sports club. They then asked me if we were
just
friends and I assured them we were.' And he shook his head, ‘I didn't know they already knew. Otherwise …' Richard shrugged.

‘You would have confessed to the relationship?'

‘Yes, of course – but at that point I was still hoping it wouldn't all come out. I was in damage limitation mode.'

‘How did they know?'

‘One of my notes,' he answered. ‘Rebecca stuffed it into the glove compartment. She must have forgotten to destroy it. Obviously they found it straight away. I don't think the police ever seriously looked beyond me as a line of enquiry from that day to this.'

‘Why not?'

‘I don't know,' and when Tom looked unconvinced, ‘I really don't. You'd have to ask them. I honestly can't think
why they would assume I'd killed Rebecca and not her husband say or some random nutcase.'

‘Oh yes, the nutcase theory,' said Tom.

‘Why do you say it like that?'

Tom quoted from Bell's letter: ‘
He's still out there, waiting to do it again
.'

‘Got your attention, didn't it?' Bell smiled grimly.

‘That the only reason you wrote it in your letter?' asked Tom. ‘To get me out here?'

‘There have been reports of a man roaming the area near the lovers' lane for years. Numerous incidents have been attributed to that man or possibly several men. The police don't know if it is the same person and it is a wide stretch of land, which is why people meet there for …'

‘Sex?'

‘I was going to say
privacy
,' Bell replied, ‘but yes, if you are going to have sex with someone in a car then Lonely Lane is as good a place as any.'

‘Back when I was a teenager it was known as “Shaggers' Alley”.'

‘With some justification,' conceded Bell. ‘The lane stretches for miles across fields between two arterial roads, with deep woods on both sides. That combination is always going to attract lovers, plus all manner of sleazy individuals. It was only when we got into the case against me that we discovered there were guys out there doing all sorts of things in the woods and fields surrounding the lane.'

‘What kind of things?'

‘Voyeurism, for starters,' he began. ‘One guy was arrested with a camera and a zoom lens. He'd been taking photos of people having sex in their cars. They don't know if he was a blackmailer or just an old-fashioned pervert. Most people
have no idea what goes on in the woods. I certainly didn't know. There's been more than one rapist,' Bell told him, ‘some have been caught and some haven't. It's the ones that haven't you should be looking for.'

‘But Rebecca Holt wasn't raped,' Tom reminded Bell.

‘No,' said Bell, ‘she was beaten to death by a madman,' and he looked Tom directly in the eye.

‘Okay,' said Tom, ‘let's say it wasn't you and it wasn't a madman. Who else could it be?'

‘Her husband,' said Bell without hesitation. ‘I'm serious. Who had the biggest motivation? If he found out about us …'

‘Perhaps,' agreed Tom, ‘but why didn't he kill you instead?'

‘I don't know. Because I can fight back? Perhaps he didn't fancy his chances against another man. Maybe he just couldn't bear the thought of his property being handled by someone else so he had to destroy it.'

‘His property?' repeated Tom. ‘
It?
'

‘That was the way he viewed her,' said Bell.

‘She told you this?'

‘In so many words.' And when Tom looked unconvinced Richard added, ‘She didn't have to tell me explicitly but she mentioned things.'

‘What kind of things?'

‘He was jealous and possessive,' said Richard.

‘Sounds like he had cause to be.'

‘Not from day one.'

‘So he drove her to it?'

‘He didn't like her going out on her own. He didn't want her to have friends at all. He'd complain if she dressed nice when she went somewhere without him or if she wore something too revealing when he was with her. He once told her all he wanted to do was keep her in a box. He thought
that
was a compliment.'

‘Okay,' said Tom, ‘I'll look into it.'

‘You'll speak to her husband?'

‘Yes.'

‘Then be careful. Tell people you're going to see him then make sure he knows you told them. I don't want to read about you being washed up on the banks of the Tyne.'

‘That's not going to happen.'

‘Freddie Holt is a very ruthless man who does not like to be crossed,' said Bell. ‘He had some union problems once, a long time ago. He made them go away.'

‘How?'

‘The old-fashioned way, using big guys with pickaxe handles.'

‘How do you know this?'

‘Everybody knows it. I'm surprised you've not heard the stories.'

‘I've not,' Tom admitted, ‘but I'll check them out.' And he thought for a moment. ‘If he's the kind of man who sends men with pickaxe handles after his enemies, wouldn't he do the same to you if he found out you were shagging his wife?'

‘I've thought about that. If he knew I was having sex with Rebecca behind his back he might have been tempted to break every bone in my body,' said Bell, ‘but bones heal and this kind of punishment lasts a lifetime, quite literally.'

‘Are you actually saying he framed you?'

‘I'm saying it's a possibility. I don't know but it certainly suited him, didn't it? He got rid of an unfaithful wife without having to pay her a penny in alimony and had his revenge against her lover at the same time. I'd say that was a bit of a result, wouldn't you?'

‘Assuming he didn't love his wife,' said Tom.

‘It wasn't what I would call love,' Bell assured him.

‘Explain the dead-letter drop to me,' said Tom. ‘Why go to all that trouble?'

‘It might sound like a lot of trouble,' said Bell, ‘but I couldn't phone Rebecca at her house because I never knew when her husband would be around. There are only so many times you can say “Sorry, wrong number.” She didn't own a mobile phone. Why would she need one? Rebecca was basically a housewife. She could hardly justify asking him for a mobile when she didn't have any cause to use one, except to go behind his back with somebody. He would have suspected her straight away. He didn't keep regular hours like normal guys. Sometimes he was away for days at a time or he'd show up suddenly without warning. We wondered if he did that just to test her. If she was at home when he came back then fine, but if she was out, she'd get the third degree;
Where had she been and who was she with?
If she was alone, which stores did she go to, if she was with friends who were they, if they went to lunch together what did everybody have? It used to drive her crazy, he was so controlling and he never trusted her.'

‘So you used your dead-letter drop to arrange meetings down Lonely Lane.'

‘Yes, but I didn't arrange to meet her that day.'

‘Then why would she go there?'

‘I don't know.'

‘Was she seeing someone else?'

‘God, no.'

‘You're certain about that?' Bell nodded. ‘And you definitely didn't arrange a meeting for the day she was murdered?'

‘Positive. I wouldn't forget a meeting with her. They took some setting up for one thing and …'

‘Go on.'

‘Well, they were memorable.'

‘Because of the sex?'

‘Yes,' Bell answered defiantly, ‘but not just that. We had a connection.'

‘Did you love her?'

‘Rebecca?'

Tom nodded. ‘It's a legitimate question. I'm not just being nosey.'

‘I suppose I did.'

‘You suppose you did?'

‘I'm not sure I know what that word means. I'm not convinced I ever did. There were times when I was meeting Rebecca and I would be so excited I could actually feel my heart beating in my chest – but is that love or was it lust? Then afterwards I'd be driving away from her, feeling completely content except for wondering when I would be able to see her next. Is that love? Perhaps it is.'

‘And did she love you?'

There was no hesitation this time. ‘Yes.'

‘She said so?'

‘She used the word.'

‘And did you use the word?'

‘Is this relevant?'

‘I don't know yet – but I suspect I may have to ask you far more embarrassing questions than this before we are through, so why don't you just answer?'

‘No, yes, in a way.' And he sighed, ‘I used to routinely answer “Me too” or “So do I” and on occasion maybe “Love you too.” '

‘But you'd say it quick, like you were making light of it?'

‘Perhaps,' he admitted.

‘Women notice that kind of thing,' Tom told him.

‘I know,' answered Bell, ‘I understand women, believe me. I just always associated the word
love
with something
permanent and I didn't see how we could ever be a permanent thing.'

‘Why not? I'm serious. If she loved you, she could have left her husband and you could have asked your wife for a divorce.'

‘You make it sound very simple.'

‘It could have been.'

Bell shook his head. ‘What would we live off; fresh air? If I tried to divorce Annie I'd be out of a job like that,' and he clicked his fingers. ‘If Rebecca left her old man he'd tangle her up with lawyers for years. He has money squirreled away all over the place, some in bank accounts in Jersey, property abroad, that kind of thing.'

‘You still could have done it though,' Tom persisted, ‘made a clean break, started somewhere else, if you really wanted to.'

‘Yeah, well, perhaps we were just lazy then.' His voice softened. ‘And I had the girls to think about.'

‘And how do you feel about them?' asked Tom. ‘Your girls, I mean.'

His reply was instant. ‘I love them more than life.' Tom decided not to pursue Bell further on that.

‘Wasn't it all a bit elaborate though?' he asked instead. ‘Leaving messages for each other in a wall?'

‘I could hardly write letters to her or leave notes next to the frozen peas in her local supermarket.'

‘But you used to see her down the sports club?'

‘That's how we met, but I was never really alone with her there. There's always someone around. If a married woman is seen at the bar or on a tennis court more than once with the same guy everybody just assumes they are screwing. They love a bit of gossip down there. They have money, they don't work and they're bored. They love to catch someone doing something they shouldn't.'

‘What made you think of it?'

‘You can blame Annie for that. She bought me a spy novel for Christmas. The hero had to contact his agent in a hostile country, so they worked out a dead-letter drop. Basically you write a note then find a place to leave it but it has to be somewhere no one else is likely to stumble on by accident. There were loads of loose stones in the walls around the fields. I just had to mark one so Rebecca could find it. I got one of those tester pots and put a small splash of white paint on the stone then left my first note behind it when I put it back. It was easy.'

‘How did Rebecca know when to collect it?'

‘Up until that point we were trying to see each other every two or three days at the same time in the same place, but half the time it didn't happen. If her husband was home or if Annie's old man called a client meeting I couldn't get out of, one of us would be left sitting there, so I promised I'd find a better way. Every morning on my way to work I'd pull over for a couple of minutes, scribble a note to Rebecca and leave it behind the stone in the wall. Sometimes it would say I could see her that day and what time, or at least I was able to tell her I couldn't make it.