Grief Encounters (16 page)

I went upstairs and brought Gilbert up to date with things. HQ were off our backs for the moment, so we’d give it another week and then go public with our search for Ennis.
Crimewatch
would find him, but we all have a sneaky desire to do things our own way. We’re supposed to be detectives, not media researchers.

When I’d finished he said: ‘And what about Ted Goss? Where are we with that?’ so I told him that Agent Turner was busily scouring Mr Goss’s hard disk, looking for indecent images or anything else of interest.

‘Let’s do our best for him, Charlie,’ Gilbert said. ‘His politics were a bit loony, but he was a decent chap. I hate to think of his reputation being destroyed by a rag like
Britain 2000
.’

Right, I thought as I trudged back down the stairs. Anything you say. Just give me a thirty-hour day and don’t complain about the dip in the
clear-up
figures. Edwin Turner’s note was still on my desk, so I rang him on his mobile.

‘I’ve found some photos,’ he said before I’d finished telling him who I was. 

‘How many?’ I asked.

‘Two.’

‘Two? Is that all?’

‘They’re not pornography. One is of him with a woman, in what you might call a compromising position; the other is of the woman.’

‘Where did you find them?’

‘In a drawer in his bedside cabinet. They’re paper copies, printed off. I knew he had some stuff up there, documents he was working on, things he had to read, so I had a look. He was a great one for reading in bed.’

‘Where are you now?’

‘At his house.’

‘I’ll be with you in fifteen minutes. But before you go…’

‘What?’

‘Did Mr Goss ever say where he met this woman?’ 

‘No.’

‘That’s a shame. Fifteen minutes.’

He was sitting in his boss’s executive chair, idly spinning one way and then the other. I’d knocked and he’d shouted for me to come in. I flopped into an easy chair as if I were a regular visitor and loosened my tie. One VDU was dead and the other showed a firework display screensaver. The room smelt of sweat, and a bluebottle was driving itself demented against the window.

‘Did you find anything on the disks?’ Turner asked.

‘No, except that I probably need spectacles. Did you find anything on the computer drive?’

‘Not a thing.’

‘So where are these photographs?’

‘Right here.’ He stopped swivelling from side to side and handed me a manila envelope. I took it and pulled the contents out.

They were A4 size, colour printed on normal paper, but still high quality. The first one showed Goss looking bemused into the camera, his mouth open, his tie unfastened. He was obviously sitting inside a car. Behind him, hands over her face, was a woman with her legs drawn up, revealing her preference for stockings over tights.

The second one was almost a formal portrait. It showed a woman’s face, front on, smiling straight into the camera. She was dark, probably tanned, with black hair in an expensive style. But it was her eyes that beguiled me, took my breath away. They were like limpid pools of milk chocolate, with green flecks in them, and I knew exactly what Superintendent Swainby had felt when I asked him if he’d opened the attachment she’d sent him. ‘It was her photograph,’ he’d said. ‘What do you think?’

I was convinced it was the same woman as had befriended him. I didn’t know what it was all about, but it had to be the same woman.

‘It’s the same woman,’ Turner said, breaking into my thoughts.

‘Sorry…’

‘In both photos. It’s the same woman.’

‘Oh, yes,’ I agreed.

‘You can see her hair. It’s the same woman.’

He was right. Her hands covered her face but enough of her distinctive hairstyle was visible to say it was the same person in both photographs. It wasn’t enough to hang someone, but I was convinced.

‘Have you ever seen her before?’ he asked.

‘No. Never.’

‘Will you be looking for her?’

Oh yes, I thought, we’d certainly be looking for her. I didn’t know or care who she was or what she was playing at, but I was certain that I wanted to meet her, needed to meet her. Of that I had no doubts. It was written in the stones.

Her name came to me in the middle of the night, when ghosts walk the streets and invade the brains of those who have no defence against them. Usually it’s a man called O’Hagan and another called Stanwick. They stand there, laughing at me, shafts of light pouring out of the bullet holes that I put in them. I shield my eyes against the glare and their faces become visible. They have dogs’ heads.

But tonight it was a woman called Teri. That’s what she’d told Swainby her name was. I lay naked on the bed, the duvet on the floor and the window open, willing her to go away, wishing she’d stay, cursing her for leaving, laughing when she comes back. She smiles at me and I have the falling dream again, waking with a start when I hit the bottom, somewhere on Jupiter. When the collared doves start cooing, monotonous as a Philip Glass record stuck in the groove, I get up and have a shower.

‘You’re early, Charlie,’ the desk sergeant greeted me as I walked into the nick.

‘Can’t sleep, this weather,’ I replied. That, and it’s a good time to do some work, before the
hurly-burly
of the day begins. I’m on the first rung of the stairs when he calls me back.

‘Charlie…’

‘Yes, Arthur.’ I turned, smiling, hoping it’s a joke. I feel in need of a joke. A day that starts with a good joke is like a day on holiday.

‘There’s this woman,’ he begins, and my brain runs through the repertoire to see if I’ve heard it. ‘She’s in the cells. Bumped her car in the early hours and she’s OPL.’

‘Go on.’

‘She’s distraught. Her name’s Gillian Birchall. Reckons she was set up, somehow. Any chance of you having a word with her?’

It isn’t a joke. ‘Me?’ I said. ‘Nothing to do with me, Arthur. Has the doctor seen her?’

‘Yes. No problems there. She’s forty-five. Your age.’

‘And a bit. So what’s so special about this one?’ Claiming that your drinks were spiked is a standard defence against drink-driving charges. It rarely works.

‘Well for a start, she’s headmistress of that fancy private school in Oldfield. St Somebody’s.’

‘So she should have known better. How much over was she?’

‘Fifteen micrograms. Apparently yesterday was her birthday and a boyfriend that she didn’t know very well took her out for a meal. He drove. Afterwards he took her home and she invited him in for a coffee. He didn’t stay very long, but when he went outside his car had been stolen. He then persuaded her to run him home, back to Heckley, and on her way back to Oldfield she says she was driven off the road by a Range Rover.’

‘Bang to rights, Arthur,’ I said. ‘Sad and unfortunate, but that’s the law. Did the Range Rover stop?’

‘No.’

‘There you go, then. She was out with the girls, got pickled, drove off the road. Tough luck. Twelve months’ ban,
£
200 fine, loss of credibility. Is that her fancy Honda in the visitor’s spot?’

‘Mmm.’

‘In that case, her insurance premium will double, too. That’ll learn her.’

The day shift sergeant had arrived and had listened to most of the conversation. ‘What’s her level now?’ he asked. Arthur told him that she was down to 35 micrograms and could probably go home in about another hour. He wandered off to take a look at the only prisoner we had.

‘She said her boyfriend drove a Mazda RX8 and reported it stolen at about ten minutes to midnight,’ Arthur told me. ‘I’ve checked, and there wasn’t a car like that reported stolen last night or any other night. Not for over a week.’

‘Because she’s a lying toad. You’re going soft in the head, Arthur.’

‘I know, Charlie, but my granddaughter goes to that school, and Miss Birchall works wonders with them. We went to the end-of-term plays that the kids put on, and they were marvellous. She’s a brilliant teacher. This could ruin her. I don’t think she’s making it up.’ 

‘So why didn’t you just cook the figure on the Alcometer?’

‘Because the doc was here. I sounded him out but he came on all holier-than-thou.’

I was wavering, not wanting to be involved. I didn’t like the thought of diverting resources, namely my time, to protect a foolish woman who’d flouted the drink-driving law. When I applied Dave’s Gaitskell House test – would I do this if she lived in the Gaitskell House tower block – the answer was a resounding ‘no’.

The day shift sarge came back. ‘She’d like a black coffee,’ he said, then, to me: ‘She’s a good-looking woman, Charlie. Would you like to take it to her?’

I shook my head in disbelief at my own folly. ‘You know how to manipulate a vulnerable single man,’ I said. ‘Give me the key, Arthur, and twenty pence for the machine, please.’

‘It’s not locked,’ he replied. ‘And the coffee’s your treat.’

Gillian Birchall wasn’t at her best, but she looked OK. Her mascara had run and her eyes were red, but the figure was well-proportioned and she had no carbuncles or other serious disfigurements. She was wearing a blue dress that showed her knees and had draped the blanket she’d been given over her shoulders. Her shoes were sensible granny’s
lace-ups
with scuffed toes, and didn’t go with the dress.

‘My name’s Charlie Priest,’ I told her after I’d rapped my knuckles against the cell door and pushed it open. She took the coffee from me and whispered a thank you.

‘I’m a detective inspector. The sergeant has told me your story,’ I went on, ‘but I’d like to hear it from you. I warn you, though, that if it’s just a fanciful attempt to justify your behaviour, I shall be mightily displeased.’ I savoured the moment. It’s not often one has the chance to chastise a headmistress. I sat on the plastic chair. She was on the edge of the bed.

‘It’s not a fanciful tale,’ she replied. ‘I’m convinced I was set up.’

‘Tell me about it.’

He was called Richard and was polite, handsome and quite sophisticated. He’d had a public school education, was an NS and had a GSOH. It was only the third time she’d met him, but when he learnt she had a birthday coming he’d insisted on taking her out for a meal. They’d dined well, at the Wool Exchange, and her story was more or less as Arthur had related it to me.

‘I don’t socialise much,’ she confessed. ‘I work hard and most of my friends are married. I was rather pleased to be invited out by a respectable, attentive male who wasn’t football mad and didn’t appear to have any hang-ups. Especially when he said he’d drive.’

‘How much did you have to drink?’ I asked. 

‘More than I ought. Normally I only ever have the odd glass of wine. He bought a bottle of an Australian Shiraz, of which I think I had more than half, and after that we each had two orange juices. I suspect there was a vodka or perhaps something more sinister in mine. He assured me it was straight orange juice, but they went down extraordinarily well.’

‘Did he order them from a waiter?’

‘No, he went to the bar for them.’

‘Is that all you had?’

‘Not quite. At my house I poured us both a small brandy.’

‘It sounds as if you pushed the boat out.’

‘I know. I’ve had a few problems lately with a certain section of the school governors. It was a nice change to let my hair down. I thought: what the heck. I was enjoying myself and school’s out, so a hangover was a small price to pay.’

‘Weren’t you suspicious of him at all? Or of his intentions?’

‘It crossed my mind. We had a quick coffee at my house, and the brandy, and I was expecting him to…well, you know…make a move. Suggest staying the night, or something. But he finished his drink and announced that he had to be on the
seven-twenty
train to London this morning, and better be off. On one hand it got me out of an awkward situation, on the other, I felt just a small tweak of disappointment. It would have been nice to be asked.’ She smiled at the confession and sniffed.

I could imagine the scene. She’d give him a goodnight kiss, which would develop into an embrace, and her principles would start to wobble like a trick cyclist in a crosswind. I’m forty-five, she’d think to herself, and I’m missing out. My life is slipping by. She might even plan what she’d write in her diary:
My birthday; got laid
.

‘So what happened then?’ I asked.

‘His car had gone. We saw that from the doorway. He had a quick look around and then came back in. He phoned the police and reported it missing and tried for a taxi. They said they’d be half an hour, so he persuaded me to take him home. He said the wine would have worn off by then. He needed to be in London for a ten o’clock meeting, otherwise it would cost him thousands. Stupidly, I fell for it.’

‘Did he use your phone?’ I asked.

‘No, his mobile.’

‘And you only heard one side of the conversation?’

‘Yes.’

‘Where did you drop him off?’

‘Outside the gates of one of those riverside developments in Heckley. He watched me drive away. Whether he went inside or not I don’t know.’

‘And then what happened?’ 

‘I was going down the hill, towards the Five Lane Ends Road crossroads and there were these headlights behind me. Suddenly I didn’t feel sober any more. I felt decidedly squiffy. It was a 4x4 and it came up behind me, dazzling me. I slowed down because I thought it might be the police. Near the crossroads it suddenly shot past, pulled in front and braked hard. I hit the back of it and swerved off the road, into the ditch. He just drove on.’

‘And it was a Range Rover?’

‘I think so. I remember seeing the little green Land Rover badge as I hit it, but it was quite a swish vehicle, not one of those that looks as if it’s made out of Meccano.’

‘Who called the police?’

‘I don’t know. I phoned the AA but the police came first, and here I am.’ She gestured with her arms. ‘God, what a mess.’

I could imagine how she felt. The arresting officer would have treated her with practised disdain as he breathalysed her and brought her to the nick. Then it would have been a blood test and the taking of fingerprints and DNA samples. Mugshots would have been fired off, standing in front of the same wall as a long procession of killers, rapists and burglars. She’d have had her rights thrown at her and been questioned about her lifestyle until she felt like someone in a Kafka novel. Or like a criminal. And now she was in a tiled cell with a bunk along one wall and a stainless steel toilet in the corner, and I was her one hope of redemption.