Gone to Ground (14 page)

At first, she thought she'd go up on to the narrow gallery at the back, but decided instead to find a space for herself down front, six or seven uneven rows from the stage.

There wasn't long to wait.

Without preamble, the four male members of the band took their positions, and Orton, unannounced, walked on and took a seat at the piano. The first number was short and over almost before Lesley had got in tune with what was happening. The roadie handed Orton a guitar, and she moved to the centre of the stage. A brief, jokey introduction and they were into song number two. The sound was mercifully clear and loud without being deafening; Orton's voice, high in places, occasionally wavering, almost shrill, rode over the insistent drum and bass-like rhythm with ease. Her manner between songs, as she grew more relaxed, was engagingly ditzy, taking on a vagueness Lesley thought was charming, even if, as she supposed, it was something of an affectation. However much she might pretend to uncertainty, it was clear that Orton was very much in control of what she was doing: the band, the audience, everything.

When she made fun of how awkward she felt to be wearing a dress—a rarity, apparently, in honour of the city that had nurtured Paul Smith—someone from the crowd yelled out, "You look fit!" and followed this, in the next lull, with the number of his mobile phone.

A cliché, Lesley thought, but they were all in the palm of Orton's hand.

When the band went off, leaving Orton to accompany herself on acoustic guitar, there was a new vulnerability in her voice that seemed to make the crowd draw closer.

Home is where the heartbreak
Wraps cold around my bones

Lesley felt something shiver inside.

The band came back and the tempo quickened, the volume increased, sweeping the crowd along with it. Then, all too soon, the set was over, save for the unison clapping, the stamping of feet and shouts for more, the obligatory encores.

Lesley was near the exit when Orton came out from the wings for one final time, singing the opening lines of "It's Not the Spotlight," so softly over the ringing tones of her guitar, you had to strain to hear. Lesley listened, hanging on each fragile word, and then slipped outside before the song could end.

"JESUS!" WILL SAID, KICKING OFF HIS RUNNING SHOES IN the hall. "That was hard."

"Why do it then?" Lorraine asked. She was standing in the kitchen doorway in her toweling dressing gown, leaning sideways against the jamb. "It's not as if you're putting on weight. Not too much, anyway."

"Bloody cheek!" Will pulled his T-shirt over his head and flicked it toward her. "And besides, you're in no position to talk."

"I've got a reason."

"An excuse."

"I'm not like Madonna, you know. Pay a personal trainer and get my figure back in two weeks."

Leaning forward, Will kissed Lorraine on the side of the face. "Never fancied Madonna, anyway."

"Get off, you're all sweaty."

"Not for long. Quick shower and I'm yours."

"Kids might have something to say about that."

"Where are they anyway?"

"Jake's eating his breakfast, Susie's sleeping."

"Making up for last night."

"Something like that."

On the landing, Will turned and called back down. "Any chance of scrambled eggs?"

He wasn't sure if she'd heard, but there they were, twenty minutes later, soft and just slightly runny, the way he liked them, along with mushrooms, two rashers of bacon, and toast.

"I'd forgotten," Will said.

"What's that?"

"That it was my birthday."

"You could have this every morning, if you weren't rushing out of the house as if the place were on fire."

"And if you weren't busy feeding Susie."

"You could do it yourself, you know."

"Not until she's on to the bottle."

"I meant make your own scrambled eggs."

"Not half as well as you."

"Bull shitter."

"That's swearing," Jake said from the door.

"I thought you were in the bathroom, young man. Gleaning your teeth."

"I have."

"Really?"

"Yes."

"Come here then."

"What for?"

"Let me smell your breath."

Jake hesitated. "I'll just go back upstairs. Do them again."

"You do that."

Will shook some brown sauce onto his plate. "You're a hard task mistress."

"You want to be the one who takes him to the dentist?"

"Not particularly."

"Well, then."

There was frost on the car windows, a thin covering that scraped away cleanly, no need to use the spray. The sky was the same pale, opaque gray as the day before and the day before that. Though there was no sign of ice on the road, he felt the rear wheels sliding under him as he took the turn into the road along the fen.

Not so very long ago, a woman they knew from the village, not a friend exactly, but someone who would stop and chat with Lorraine if she met her rather than walking past, had driven off in her brand new Volvo, slid on a patch of black ice, lost control, and ended up with the car wrapped around a tree. Safe herself, aside from being badly shaken, the car was a write-off—and it could have been so much worse.

Leveling out, Will moved up through the gears. He had to go to Police Headquarters in Huntingdon first thing; a meeting about information management systems for officers at the rank of detective inspector and above. Important, Will didn't doubt, but not the thing to whet his appetite for the rest of the day.

By the time he got to Parkside, a little after twelve, Will's head was heavy with a barely digested mix of common sense and poorly articulated mumbo-jumbo. What was it, he thought, that caused consultants and advisors and high-ranking individuals who should know better to adopt a language that, while it seemed to share a number of characteristics with normal everyday English, was as foreign of Serbo-Croat or Farsi?

He'd been back in his office barely ten minutes before Helen's face showed round the edge of his door, smiling.

"What's up?"

"You remember," Helen said, "the semen on the towel?"

"Great way to start a conversation."

"You do remember?"

"From Stephen Bryan's laundry basket, yes."

"We'd assumed it belonged to someone he'd met casually, but without any proof."

"Something's happened to make us change our mind?"

"The opposite. It looks as though Nick Moyles has come up with the goods."

"Go on."

Helen perched herself on the edge of Will's desk. "Moyles was in this bar, asking around and this guy comes up to him, says he's got something he wants to say. Hadn't wanted to come forward at first, didn't want to get involved, but then he'd seen an appeal for information on TV. I suppose he thought we'd get to him sooner or later and figured sooner, under his own steam, would be better."

"Nick's brought him in?"

"Downstairs now, waiting our pleasure."

"Name?"

"Johnson. Russell Johnson."

"What's he like?"

Helen shrugged. "Nice, quiet, polite. A little earnest. Quite good looking if you go for that fey kind of thing." She swung her leg down from the desk. "According to Nick, he's an ex-student, though not of Bryan's. Met when he was doing one of those charity muggings in the market square. Excuse me, but have you got five minutes to discuss the famine in West Africa. You know the kind of thing."

Will did. If ever anything was going to put him off donating to charity it was that: half a dozen healthy looking specimens waiting to waylay him with tales of woe and misery, when all he wanted was to get into Pret A Manger before they ran out of cinnamon danish.

"Anyway," Helen said, "it appears Bryan did. Have five minutes to spare for him. And more. Johnson ended up spending the night and Bryan sent him on his way next morning with a hot breakfast inside him and a standing order for famine relief."

"When exactly was this?"

"Five days before the murder."

Will whistled as he moved round from behind his desk. "He's agreed to give a sample? DNA?"

"Apparently."

"Let's go and see what he has to say."

Russell Johnson was medium height, slight, fair hair falling forward a little over his forehead. When Will and Helen entered the room, he was standing, hands in pockets, close to the far wall, and, without being asked, he went back to the table, pulled out a chair and sat down.

Will introduced Helen and himself. Chairs and table aside, there was no other furniture in the room. At the end of the table, which butted against the wall, was a twin-deck tape recorder; a video camera, not switched on, was bracketed to one of the upper corners of the room, behind where Will and Helen were now sitting.

Johnson fidgeted with his hands, brushed his hair away of his eyes, looked at Will then Helen, looked away, fidgeting some more.

"You won't mind if we record this conversation, Russell?" Helen said.

"I'm not under arrest, am I?"

"Should you be?"

"No, of course not." A nervous laugh.

"Well, then? We can go ahead?"

"Yes, I suppose so. Sure."

He didn't look sure of very much at all.

Helen stripped the cellophane from around two new cassettes and slotted them into place.

"So how well did you know Stephen Bryan, Russell?" Will asked, once the preliminary rigmarole was over.

"I didn't really ... I didn't know him ... not very well at all."

"As I understand it, you spent the night with him."

"Yes."

"Slept with him."

"Yes."

"Had sex. I assume you had sex?"

"Yes." Johnson ran finger and thumb over his upper lip, covering his mouth. "Look, there's nothing ... there isn't any law. We're entitled..."

"Russell," Helen said sweetly, "within the bounds of reason, you're entitled to fuck who you want."

Will shot her a warning glance.

"Stephen Bryan," he said, "how many times did you see him? In all?"

"I said, just the once."

"Tell us about that. How you and Stephen met."

Johnson repeated, more or less exactly, the story they'd already heard.

"And that was the only time you saw him? That night? The morning after?"

"Yes."

"You're sure?"

"Of course I'm sure."

"Why was that?"

"I don't understand."

"Assuming, you know, you got on well, how come you saw him just the once?"

"He made that clear. Stephen. You know, before. Before I went with him."

"And afterwards, he didn't change his mind?"

Johnson shook his head. "A once-and-for-all-time thing. That's what he said."

"You didn't try and get him to change his mind?" Helen asked.

Johnson nodded, not holding her gaze.

"Sorry?" Helen said.

"I ... Yes, I did. I asked him..." Johnson shook his head.

"You liked him, then?"

"Yes."

"What did you think when he was killed?"

"I didn't ... I couldn't believe it ... You don't, do you? Not someone you know. Someone you've known. It was horrible. Ghastly. What happened. What they said in the papers."

Johnson closed his eyes.

"I want you to think carefully," Will said. "Was there anything that Stephen Bryan said when you were together that might have a bearing on what happened?"

Johnson looked up. "What kind of thing?"

"Anything. Anything at all."

"I can't think..."

"Take your time."

After some moments, Johnson shook his head. "I'm sorry."

"Did he mention other people?" Helen asked. "Other people he'd met, perhaps? Casually?"

"No. Not really. I did ask was he seeing anybody. You know, seriously, and he said no, not anymore." Johnson ran his tongue along his lips as if they were suddenly dry. "There was this photograph beside the bed. Stephen with somebody else. I asked if that was the person he'd been involved with and he said yes. 'I don't know why I keep it there,' he said, 'not anymore.' He ... he turned it round before we ... before we went to bed."

"And did you get the impression," Will said, "since that relationship had finished, he'd been seeing other men?"

"I don't think so. I mean, I didn't ask him, not directly, and he didn't say, but no, that wasn't the impression I got. Although..."

He hesitated, uncertain.

"Although what?"

"When we got there, back to his place, there was a message on the answer phone. Stephen started to play it, almost automatically I suppose, and then as soon as he heard the voice, he switched it off."

"This message," Will said, "can you remember what it was?"

"Not really. I wasn't really paying much attention."

"But you heard something?"

Johnson nodded. '"You better believe what I say.' I think that's what it was. Something like that, anyway."

'"You better believe what I say?'"

"Yes."

"The exact words?"

"I don't know. I think so, yes."

"And that's all you can remember?"

"Yes. Like I said, Stephen switched it off."

"What kind of a voice was it," Helen asked. "Male, female?"

"Male, definitely."

"How old?"

"I don't know. There wasn't enough to say."

"Think. Your age? Older?"

"Definitely older."

"Forties? Fifties? Older than that."

Johnson shook his head. "Forties, maybe. It's difficult to say."

"Any kind of an accent?"

Johnson gave it some thought. "A bit of one, yes. Not strong, though. But not—what's it called?—received pronunciation. Vaguely northern, I suppose. Yorkshire, maybe. South Yorkshire. Sheffield. I had a mate at university, he was from Sheffield. It was a bit like that."

"And this voice, was it angry? Calm? Matter of fact?"

"Not angry, not exactly. More firm. Positive. As though whoever it was wasn't going to take no for an answer."

"Threatening, then?"

"Yes, I suppose so. Threatening. You could say that."

"And how did Stephen respond? Aside from turning it off? Did he seem frightened?"

"No, not frightened. At least, I don't think so. More annoyed. Pissed off, you know? But not for long. It didn't get him in a mood or anything."