Cherringham--A Fatal Fall (3 page)

“Did you recognise him?”

“Too dark. I mean, there’s still a couple of the lights on, so you can see shadows moving — but not so’s you’d see a face properly, you know. Anyways, I see him up on the scaffold — and he’s moving timber around. And I’m thinking — what’s he up to? Didn’t make sense.”

Though Ray could be pretty loopy … Jack had to admit … this was suddenly interesting.

“Then what?”“Anyway, I sits back on an old bit of sack waiting for both the lads to go. Brass monkeys it was, I can tell you.”

Ray paused, and Jack could see his cup was empty. He poured him another coffee and watched Ray drink.

“Then I heard it. Not a scream — a shout really. And a thud. I knew that sound. I’ve heard it before. God, it’s a bad sound. Someone falling. Wallop!”

Ray banged his right fist into his left palm.

“So I gets up — then I’m thinking, shit, what do I do, I’m not supposed to be here, they’ll have me, won’t they? I looks over at the site office — nothing. No movement. Not a dicky. Then I looks back at the house and I see a shadow, someone running. But not
to
the house.
Away
from the house. Know what I mean?”

“Bad situation.”

“Tell me about it. So I goes over, bent low, like. And there’s Dylan, lying under the scaffold. Stone-cold dead.”

“You sure?”

“Oh yes. Eyes open. Poor kid’s a goner. He’d landed on all the rubbish, see. Reinforcement mesh for the concrete. Gone right through him. No way back from that.”

“So what did you do?”

“What do you think I did Jack? I scarpered.”

“You didn’t phone the ambulance?”

“No point.”

“What happened then?”

“I went home. Opened a bottle.”

“You didn’t tell anyone?”

“Not a soul. Till now …”

“And what about Dylan?”

“Last night, I went up the Ploughman’s. Bumped into some of the lads from the site. They said Dylan was found in the morning. They reckon he was trying to rush — slipped on the ladder. Police say it’s an accident. Case closed, Jack, case closed …”

“But not for you. Because of what you saw …”

“Yeah that, but … I tell you, that kid knew what he was doing, Jack!”

“Might have just slipped; it was an icy night. Accidents do happen …”

“Okay. Sure. But then who was up there with him? Hiding?”

“Someone like you maybe? After a few tiles?”

“No. No way you need to go up the bloody ladder. They was stacked below.”

“Maybe a pal of Dylan’s helping him out?”

“What kind of pal leaves you to die in the dirt?”

Jack sipped his coffee, declining to remind Ray that was exactly what he’d done.

But Jack began to think there was something here.

Something about this didn’t play right.

And he knew Ray wouldn’t be here now if he wasn’t convinced there’d been dirty work going on up at that site.

“Okay … what do you want me to do about it Ray?” he said.

“Investigate of course! Find the killer. Bring him to justice. Isn’t that what you do?”

“Easier said than done,” said Jack.

“Seen you operate, Jack. If anyone can do it … it’s you. NYPD, eh? And I guess you’ll bring that nice Sarah in? Smart one there too!”

“Expect so,” said Jack.

“She’ll probably want to interview me, I reckon.”

Jack knew Ray had a soft spot for Sarah.

“Think I can get what we need to start, Ray. But if she does, I’ll let you know,” said Jack. “You might want to have a shower first.”

Ray nodded seriously. “Hmm, yeah. Good advice. Thanks.”

Jack got up, went to his desk, and took out a notepad and pen. Then he returned to the table and sat down again, facing Ray.

“Now, let’s go through this from the beginning. Times, names, everything you can remember, Ray.”

And Jack opened a new page in his notebook and wrote the words ‘Dylan McCabe’ at the top while Ray told his story all over again.

Sarah walked into Alan Rivers’ office with Jack. They had arrived unannounced but the police officer had no problem seeing them.

Despite a rocky start, over the past year Alan had gradually realised that the unlikely pairing of she and Jack could be an asset to life in Cherringham.

They had solved crimes, and Alan knew it.

But did he still hold out hopes that he and Sarah could be more than just friends?

She hoped not — but she knew torches could be held for a long time.

And dating was something she still didn’t see in her immediate future. She had the kids to raise first — time was going so fast! — and her work at her web business, and …

Well, there was this.

Working with the former New York detective who seemed to have dropped out of the sky into Cherringham and her life.

Jack was more and more a part of everyone’s world here, even if he still struggled with the odd euphemism or local custom.

“Alan,” Sarah said as the police officer looked up, jacket off, a pile of papers stacked in front of him.

Like everything in the village, the Cherringham police station ran on a tight budget.

There had to be a lot of desk work for the village’s one officer to deal with.

“Sarah, Jack … come in. I’m absolutely buried in paperwork here. Making me think I should think twice about handing out parking tickets. Seems hardly worth the time.”

“Bane of every police officer from here to LA,” Jack said. He took a seat. “That’s one thing I do not miss about the job at all.”

Sarah took the other chair facing Alan’s swamped desk.

She felt that the two of them — a single mum, the retired New Yorker — had grown to trust each other so much. Amazing that they could work so well together …

Jack had called her soon after his chat with Ray.

Was she interested in paying a call on Alan Rivers about an accident that — if you believed Ray — was no accident at all.

And after sending a client some brochure layouts for a new restaurant in Chippenham — very upmarket — she said she’d call and see if they could grab a few minutes with Alan.

On the way, Jack briefed her about what Ray had said.

What he claimed to have seen.

Now they were here to get the official story.

“So, you two. I’m always interested to hear what you’re up to. What can I do for you?”

Jack looked at her and she took the lead.

“It’s about that accident, Alan. Dylan McCabe?”

Alan nodded. “Nasty one, that. Funeral on Friday I believe. Just before Christmas. Not nice.”

“Yes. So you’re sure it’s an accident?” Sarah said.

Alan looked at her, perhaps sensing a surprise coming.

“From everything that could be seen it was an accident. Working when it was dark, icy. Slipping off a plank. Might have survived if all that steel mesh hadn’t been stacked below him.”

“Yeah,” Jack finally said. “That mesh. Wrong place, wrong time.”

“Right,” Alan said.

While both Sarah and Jack liked Alan, they had talked in the past about how the Cherringham officer didn’t seem to be gifted with any special deductive insights … or even the basic level of suspicion that the job demanded.

He tended to take things at face value …

Probably a result of needing to move cases quickly from his inbox to his outbox. From the looks of things it seemed that police work — here at least — was still very much stuck in the twentieth century.

“So,” Jack said. “What if it wasn’t the wrong place?”

“Hmm … not sure I follow?”

Jack looked at Sarah. A smile. A moment that she knew he relished … when he told people things they didn’t know — and just watched their reaction.

“What if someone wanted that mesh there, just where Dylan McCabe fell?”

“Then — that would be murder. You’re not saying …”

Another look, and now it was time for Jack to tell Alan about his chat with Ray Stroud.

*

Alan sat back, at first just listening to what Jack said Ray told him, then — grabbing a yellow pad — taking a few notes.

“Well. I don’t know what to think.”

Sarah could guess what was making Alan pause.

“I mean, it
is
Ray Stroud we’re talking about. And I can’t remember ever seeing him when he wasn’t bleary-eyed from a mixture of smoke and drink. They really let him work on that site?”

Jack laughed at that. “Apparently.”

Sarah knew that Jack liked Ray. But she had to admit that Ray wouldn’t seem to be the most reliable witness.

Then she saw Jack lean forward as if having an intimate chat with Alan, elbows on knees, hands folded together.

“But here’s the thing Alan, what if he was right? What if someone had been there, what if they had
done
something? Then this was no accident. You’d have a murder.”

Alan nodded.

Probably not words that the Cherringham cop wanted to hear.

“Okay. Well, I’ll have to talk to him.”

Jack looked at Sarah.

Ray wouldn’t like that.

“Would he be in trouble?” Sarah said. “I mean, if his story checks out?”

Alan hesitated for a few moments. Then: “He came forward. Late. But he came forward. That’s the important thing. I can check out his story … though with Ray, who knows what he sees or doesn’t see.”

“True fact,” Jack said.

Then Alan looked at them as if signalling — meeting done, and he’d follow up.

But as planned, Sarah knew they weren’t done.

*

“Alan, since it’s still officially an accident … you don’t mind if we, well, look into things?”

“Hmm, is that what you two call it?” He grinned. “Looking into it? I must say, you do a pretty good job of that. So fine. Go ahead — there’s no worries on my part. Just don’t get everyone all worked up, at least not till I can talk to Ray myself. And even then, well …”

A look right at Jack.

“You know enough to be careful about such things, right Jack? The powers that be, and all that.”

“That I do.”

“Great — thanks Alan,” Sarah said. “So …”

And now it was her turn to whip out a small reporter’s pad and pen.

Alan looked as though he had just been ambushed.

“Can we ask you what you know about Dylan McCabe?”

Alan nodded. “Okay — but I’ll have to dig through this pile to find my notes, what we have on him.”

He’s okay with this,
Sarah thought.
Good.

“We can wait.”

“I was getting bored with all this anyway,” Alan said, grinning, and he slid the pile of reports to one side.

“Here we go. So — ask away. Not much on the system to be honest, but what little I do know, I’m happy to tell you …”

Sarah looked down at her pad to the few questions she and Jack had quickly come up with.

More should pop up — as they always did — once they started with Alan.

“So what have you got on his work record? What did his boss tell you?”

Alan grinned. “Hang on. Now
I’m
feeling interrogated. But okay …”

He slid a sheet of paper off the top of nearby pile.

“Frankly, as I said, not much.”

“But didn’t the builder’s office give you his information?” Sarah said. “I thought there were rules about such things …”

“There are. People who work on building sites these days need a thing called a CSCS card. Kind of ID. Trouble is, the CSCS they had on file for McCabe was fake, bogus.”

“That really his name?” Jack said.

“As far as we can tell, yes. But a real CSCS would show his work record, tax payments, any criminal history …”

He paused there.

“The number the company had for him brings up no history in the system.”

“So you really don’t know who Dylan McCabe is?”

“I wouldn’t exactly say that. According to some of the lads I talked to, he’d worked on other sites. He was Irish — he made no bones about that.”

Sarah wondered if Alan knew that — two generations back — Jack’s family was about as Irish as they come.

“But he didn’t seem to have any special construction training. Just signed up as a basic labourer. And — apparently — he was a bit of loose cannon.”

“What do you mean?” Sarah said.

“His boss said that McCabe liked to get the men stirred up. Talk about workers’ rights, that sort of thing. But — and this is the problem with your friend Ray’s theory — apparently he was well liked.”

Sarah looked at Jack who had turned away, looking at the window of Alan’s office.

The street outside was busy, the last frantic days of holiday shopping descending, Cherringham’s High Street buzzing.

But she was sure that wasn’t what he was looking at.

Putting the pieces together.

And Sarah had to admit — there were things here that didn’t add up. The accident itself, Ray’s eyewitness account, the phony ID.

And the big question: was there someone who wanted McCabe dead — and why?

Jack returned to the conversation.

“This boss—?”

“Gary Sparks. Site supervisor.”

“Did he say why McCabe was working late, in bad weather?”

“Just said that McCabe was responsible for setting up for the tilers. Ran late that night while everyone else had already decamped to the Ploughman’s.”

Again, Jack turned quiet.

And Sarah had to admit that whatever questions and suspicions she had when she walked into this office had only grown.

She was sure Alan could see that as well.

“Think there’s something hidden there, Alan? Something Gary Sparks didn’t say?” Jack said.

“I don’t know, Jack. I suppose there could be …”

“Any reason someone might want him dead?”

Sarah watched Alan take a breath. If anything, he was never one to jump to a conclusion.

Cautious and steady.

Sometimes … maybe too cautious and steady.

“I don’t know, Jack. Apart from Ray and his mysterious ‘phantom’, there’s no evidence that this is anything other than an unfortunate building site accident.”

Yet Sarah had the feeling that Alan didn’t have total confidence in those words.

Jack nodded, looked to Sarah, signalling that the meeting was over.