The Calling (13 page)

Andy Burrows liked to
see
people when he spoke to them. He used his phone to ring for a pizza, or check on his mother, but anything more crucial could only be face to face.

So Andy didn’t make use of Goodhew’s mobile number; instead he carried the piece of paper to the police station in his breast pocket, and plucked it out as he waited for the desk sergeant. He needed to make sure he was asking for the young detective by precisely the right name.

‘Goodhew?’ Sergeant Norris squinted at him over half-moon spectacles. ‘I’ll find out,’ he said and picked up the phone to call the incident room. ‘No reply. I’ll try again in a few minutes. Take a seat.’

Burrows sat down on one of the six black, almost vandal-proof metal seats. Messages had been scraped into the paintwork of the one on his right. The tiny engraved letters fitted neatly between the punched-out diamond shapes.

Fucking Pigs
.

He looked away. He wondered whether the diamond-shaped holes were for decoration or just to save on metal. Or perhaps it made them easier to wash down.

Sergeant Norris tried another number, and Clark answered the call. ‘Is Goodhew up there?’

‘Not in at present. Don’t know what he’s doing right now. D’you want me to find out?’

Norris pressed his glasses against the bridge of his nose. ‘Well that might help, don’t you think?’

Clark grunted, rested the receiver on the desk and peered over the filing cabinet to speak to Kincaide. ‘I’ve got Doris on the phone, and he wants Goodhew.’

Kincaide frowned. ‘Well, he’s not here, is he? Ask him what it’s about.’

Clark grunted again and picked up the receiver once more. ‘Kincaide wants to know what you want Goodhew for.’

‘
I
don’t want him, but there’s a Mr Burrows down here, and he doesn’t want to talk to anyone else.’

‘Hang on.’ Clark covered the mouthpiece. ‘That Andrew Burrows is down there. Doesn’t want to talk to anyone else.’

At that, Kincaide’s head popped up over the partition. ‘Yes, well he’ll have to. Tell Doris to tell him Goodhew’s on his way, and not to let Burrows leave.’ Clark removed his hand from the receiver, but Kincaide butted in. ‘Forget it. Just give me the phone.’ He grabbed it from Clark and barked out his instructions personally.

Sergeant Norris hesitated for a moment. What Kincaide said was reasonable enough; it was the way that he spoke that put Norris’ back up.

‘I said don’t let him leave. Have you got it?’ ordered Kincaide and he slammed the receiver down. He sprang back over to his desk, swept up his notepad, pen and mobile phone. ‘If anyone wants me, take a message and I’ll get back to them,’ he called over his shoulder as he strode towards the door.

‘Yeah, OK,’ muttered Clark. ‘What am I now? A sodding secretary?’

Kincaide guessed Andy Burrows had some new information. Why else would he be here? And he guessed it was something of a delicate nature, as people found it easy to confide in Goodhew.

He opened the door to the waiting room, where Andy Burrows was busy chewing his thumbnail while trying to have a sly read of the graffiti under the notice board. He turned in dismay towards Kincaide’s firm greeting: ‘Mr Burrows.’

Kincaide did his best approximation of a warm smile, but Andy’s face fell further, then he set his jaw determinedly. ‘I wanted to speak to Detective Goodhew.’

Kincaide relaxed; this was going to be easy. He held the door
open. ‘He’ll be down in a minute. He’s on the phone just now. Come on through.’

Andy’s mouth relaxed into a smile and he trotted along behind Kincaide to Interview Room 3.

Kincaide left Burrows alone for the best part of an hour. Kincaide kept an eye on the time, picturing Burrows chewing his nails and generating a warm fug of BO, as the time ticked by.

By the time he returned, Burrows looked relieved to see him.

Clark slid into the room next, and into the vacant chair next to Kincaide.

Kincaide leant across the desk and addressed Andy Burrows face on, beginning with a quiet apology. ‘Unfortunately Detective Goodhew decided not to join us, but we’ve got all night, Mr Burrows, so take your time.’

By now, Andy Burrows wondered what difference it would make anyway. They were all trained the same, weren’t they?

After weeks of getting nowhere, DI Marks’ news should have come as a relief.

He’d gathered them all together in the incident room. Clark and Kincaide sat closest to him, on chairs pulled side by side; the others sat in a large arc spread across the room.

Except for Goodhew.

He sat on his desk, leaning against the wall and staring at Marks; present only in body, but trying very hard to coax his reluctant brain back into the room.

Marks addressed them generally, switching his attention between each of them in turn, but never letting it settle on Goodhew, probably because he’d already spotted the mutinous look on his subordinate’s face and therefore wasn’t prepared to be distracted by it.

Marks continued, ‘We have proof that Kaye Whiting was in her uncle’s car on the afternoon she disappeared, the twenty-sixth of March 2011. Yesterday we also received two independent
confirmations
of him drinking heavily whilst in the Anchor at Woodbridge on that Saturday afternoon.’

Goodhew’s thoughts drifted again. Perhaps he had become just too sympathetic towards Margaret Whiting and her family, and there was a small part of him that felt irritated that Michael Kincaide should have made the arrest.

Gully turned her head sideways and caught his eye. She pressed her lips into a cheerless smile and shrugged. He returned the smile
and shook his head sadly. Burrows had yet to be charged and Goodhew couldn’t accept the idea that the man was guilty.

He reminded himself that the evidence so far was largely circumstantial, but still compelling. The second birthday card that Kaye had purchased – the one that read
Happy Birthday, Mother
– had later been given to Edna by Burrows, and was proof that Burrows had had contact with Kaye during or after her trip to Woodbridge. Proof, therefore, that Burrows had lied. Now, by his own admission, Burrows accepted that he was to blame for Kaye’s death, in a statement albeit too incomplete to be considered a proper confession. Add to that the independent witnesses who could confirm that Burrows had appeared both drunk and bad-tempered just prior to his meeting with Kaye, and it seemed as though it would only be a matter of time before charges were pressed.

Goodhew asked himself what reason he had to complain that such leads had converted into an arrest.

He stared out of the window beyond Marks. Students lazed on Parker’s Piece, reading books while catching snatches of warm sunshine. They drank Coke and played their iPods, oblivious to the dirty tune of murder playing in Goodhew’s ears.

Where had he himself taken any other line of investigation?

Nowhere, that was where.

The best he had come up with was one anonymous caller and a feeling that she knew something. Maybe that was just his wishful thinking, too.

He’d been enjoying working with Gully, though. He liked her sense of humour, and the way she cared about everyone’s feelings. He even liked the way she ate too many Jaffa Cakes, but none of those were reason to give undue weight to the fact that she remained convinced those anonymous calls were relevant.

‘Sir?’ he interrupted, and everyone turned.

‘What if she’d been found alive? She would have identified her uncle.’

Kincaide replied, ‘If she’d been found she could have identified anyone.’

‘But she knew her uncle well. And what was his motive?’

‘We haven’t established that fully,’ Marks replied, ‘but it appears
that something spontaneous blew up between them while they were on the way home. Andrew Burrows has admitted responsibility, and we’ll continue gathering evidence, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s just a matter of time before he tells us the rest.’

After a few more minutes, Marks shuffled his notes together and threw his plastic cup into the bin: sure signs that he was winding up the meeting.

Goodhew slipped back into his office chair and took the photo of Kaye Whiting from the top of his desk. He opened his top drawer and placed it face-up in the largest compartment of his empty pen tray. She didn’t look dead, she seemed so bright and fresh. He closed the drawer again, reminding himself to visit Margaret Whiting once more.

Not that he’d forget.

‘Something bothering you, Goodhew?’ Marks hovered over Goodhew’s desk.

Gary shook his head. ‘It’s not what I expected. I was just sure it wasn’t Burrows.’

Marks said nothing, but then he didn’t need to point out the stupidity of Goodhew’s comment. There was no one who ever really knew the limits of another’s behaviour, no way of determining the circumstances that could push the average person to kill.

‘But I’m not the best judge of people sometimes, sir.’

‘None of us are, Gary.’ He smiled genially. ‘I noticed that your leave was booked for this week. It doesn’t need to be cancelled, now we appear to be winding this up. I know you’re bang up to date with your paperwork. Just.’

‘But he hasn’t been charged yet.’

‘Whatever happens, we can manage.’

‘I don’t mind staying on.’

‘I do, Gary, and I expect your girlfriend minds too. Where are you taking her, anyway?’

Mention of her name conjured up a fleeting memory of her bare suntanned back and the scent of her Ghost perfume. ‘Nowhere, sir. I was just going off to the coast with a mate. He’s gone already.’

‘Well, I’m not going to stand here arguing with you. Take your leave or I’ll assign you to two weeks on Crime Prevention. All those little old ladies would love you.’

The laziest of Hawaiian waves lapped the shore just feet from their restaurant table, and to Bryn it seemed that the sun was only a stone’s throw away as it tumbled like a giant slow-motion pompom into the Pacific.

Nadine glowed in the reflection of the incandescent sunset. Her hair was clipped back and adorned with fresh orchids, and hundreds more were woven into the lei that was draped from her bare shoulders.

Bryn reached across and squeezed her hand. ‘I’m glad we met.’

‘Well,’ she laughed, ‘you’d have been pretty lonely here if we hadn’t.’

‘And so would you!’ he retorted. ‘You’ve seen nothing of your friend since she met that dentist bloke.’

‘But that’s hardly surprising, Bryn,’ she said. ‘This is just about the most romantic place you could imagine, isn’t it?’

He gazed deep into her eyes for what he estimated was the requisite time and tried not to notice that she vaguely resembled his sister Shelly. ‘And there’s nothing wrong with having a holiday romance, is there?’

‘Not at all,’ she beamed, and lowered her lashes. ‘But don’t move too fast. You’ve only been here a day!’ She curled slender fingers around her glass. ‘So how can you afford to stay here, really?’

A helicopter swooped above the bay, then swung round to land on the sand and drop a sole passenger.

‘I told you, my mate booked the holiday for him and his
girlfriend. They’ve split up and now he’s had to work.’ Bryn realized how improbable it sounded, even as he said it.

She fluttered her eyelashes again. ‘No, really, stop teasing. No one works instead of coming here.’ She raised her glass. ‘I think you’re a millionaire looking for a girl who’s not after his money.’

Bryn raised his glass and clinked it against hers. ‘You found me out!’

The passenger waved thank-you as the helicopter’s blades beat faster and it rose above him and away from the beach, levitating to palm-tree height, then swinging back towards Honolulu.

He swung a small rucksack over his shoulder and turned towards the hotel. ‘Blimey!’ Bryn spluttered mid-sip. ‘It’s my mate, Gary.’

Nadine peered towards Goodhew. ‘The one who booked your holiday?’

‘Yup.’ Bryn grinned, waving with both arms. ‘That’s him.’

Gary waved back. He hopped over the low ornamental hedge and cut across the lawn.

‘And what does he do for a living?’ she wondered.

‘Police,’ he replied, and grinned at her obvious disappointment. ‘He’s not a millionaire either.’

‘Don’t be silly.’ She laughed.

A waitress ran to the patio doors and slid one across for Gary. ‘Aloha, Mr Goodhew, how are you?’

‘Aloha! I’m very well, thank you.’ He smiled and joined Bryn. ‘They’ve arrested her uncle.’

‘When?’

‘Yesterday, no charges yet, but Marks told me to take my holiday.’

Bryn frowned as the waitress pointed him out to one of her colleagues. They both then waved. ‘Does that waitress know you?’

‘Not really.’ Goodhew waved back before turning to Bryn’s companion and shaking her hand.

Darkness had settled on Kauai, when Gary found Bryn leaning on the bar beside the pool. ‘Where’s your friend?’

‘Having a bath.’ Bryn slid a glass of Coke towards Gary and added more ice to his own. ‘Unfortunately she’s having it in her own room and I’m not invited.’

‘And no alcohol for either of us?’

Bryn shook his head and moved to a quiet spot near the water’s edge. He placed his glass on the bamboo table top and hovered next to his chair. ‘What’s going on, Gary?’ he whispered, thrusting his hands into his pockets and glaring at the floor.

Gary shrugged. ‘What do you mean?’

‘You said that Andy Burrows got arrested yesterday, so how did you manage to get halfway round the world so quickly? I don’t believe you’ve booked this holiday on police pay.’

Goodhew sighed and took the seat opposite. ‘I saved up,’ he lied.

‘Right. Chartered helicopters aren’t thrown in on package trips, and even the waitresses seem to know you.’

As Goodhew had spoken he realized how poor he was at even small untruths; so the only way to satisfy Bryn’s curiosity would be to give the honest if incomplete story. ‘I’ve been here a couple of times before with my grandmother. It’s always been special to her, and it was to my grandad, so it’s a bit of family tradition. I thought it would be a special place to bring Claire.’

Bryn’s eyes widened. ‘You were going to propose?’

‘No, no. But I came here by myself once when I was at university.’

‘When you were dating her the first time?’

‘Exactly. She went home to her family at the end of our second year and I came here. I was sorry she’d missed it, so it seemed to be the right thing to do this time.’

‘But obviously not meant to be?’

Goodhew latched on to Bryn’s mildly sarcastic tone immediately. ‘You don’t do that fate and destiny stuff, Bryn, so what was that about?’

‘We had a deal on this holiday: no discussing work, or any women who aren’t within two hundred yards. If you’re breaking the rule, at least do me the favour of boring me with the whole story. She dumped you, right?’

‘No.’ Goodhew sipped his drink, then shook his head. ‘I ended it.’

‘What did she do?’

For someone with a self-declared avoidance of all things monogamous, Bryn was extremely persistent in his quest for details, and he made several random guesses before Goodhew stopped him.

‘It was going well, but I felt uncomfortable with her coming to my flat. I think she sensed it because she asked several times about spending the night there, but I always preferred to be at hers.’

Bryn shrugged. ‘Fair enough.’

‘Yeah, I thought so too, at first.’ Goodhew let out a long slow breath and spread his hands in an expansive gesture that seemed to say it all. ‘Then I booked this trip and …’ Finally, he shrugged too.

‘And what? “And …” doesn’t explain anything. You don’t like anyone going into your flat, not even your grandmother, as far as I can work out. So why are you surprised that you felt odd about having Claire there?’

‘Yes, I like privacy, but this was different. In some ways it was going well between us, but there was always this thing about her coming to the flat that really bothered me. Couldn’t put my finger on it until I booked this holiday. It was going to be a surprise for Claire, but when the tickets arrived I just put them on the top of the fridge and didn’t even bother opening the envelope.’ Goodhew didn’t offer a deeper explanation, just the bare facts he’d already laid out, but Bryn no longer looked puzzled.

‘I get it, Gary. My dad goes on about this: he calls it a moment of truth. Says it can happen at any point, first date, first kiss. Maybe the first lie or first bust-up. At any point really, and in your case the first time Claire came home with you. It’s the moment you realize it’s not going to work – not long-term.’

Goodhew stared at his friend with renewed interest. He’d expected sarcasm or lack of interest, maybe a mix of the two, but definitely not wisdom. ‘I couldn’t give up, not just like that.’

‘Why not? Women go on about men being “commitment phobic”, but that’s not you. You’re too hung up on the fucked-up idea that you’ll find a soulmate. And she wasn’t it, was she?’

He still considered Claire to be as beautiful now as when he’d asked her out that first time, during their first year at university, but she’d changed. They both had. ‘It wasn’t the same, I suppose,’ he conceded – and, if he was honest, he knew it had never been, the second time around. His job had caused some of it; his inheritance too. She saw her progress to becoming an architect as a series of exam/experience milestones that would take her to an ordered but
conventional life: modern house, new car, all safe and secure. Nothing wrong with that but, for himself, Goodhew neither saw his life nor wanted it that way.

‘Who else have you spoken to? Anyone at work?’

‘No, they never met her. Look, I don’t need to talk to anyone about Claire.’

‘So who met her, apart from me and your grandmother?’

‘What does it matter? I’ve never met Valerie.’

‘Valerie with the Volvo? That’s different, I wasn’t in a relationship with her. But you could’ve met her, whether or not I thought it was serious. What about Sue?’

‘Gully?’

‘Yeah. I’m sure you could’ve introduced her to Claire without it being awkward.’

‘Then what?’

‘Then you might have talked to Sue instead of keeping it all to yourself for the last few weeks. How many other mates have you got outside work?’

‘What is this? Bryn O’Brien, personal counsellor?’

‘No, it’s Gary Goodhew, sad bloke who gets dumped as soon as his only mate gets a better offer.’ Goodhew followed Bryn’s gaze towards the woman now walking from the main hotel towards the pool. She wore a semi-transparent sarong over her bikini. ‘Nadine’s such a lovely name.’

‘She’s heading for the pool, not you.’

Bryn looked at him in disgust, ‘No, Gary, a woman doesn’t
swim
in a bikini like that.’ He abandoned Goodhew at the bar and moved towards Nadine, only taking his eyes off her for long enough to throw one last piece of advice at his friend. ‘I’m just saying you should take a risk or two.’

Room service provided Gary with a fresh-fruit breakfast on the balcony of their bungalow at 6.30 a.m. Bryn still hadn’t returned. Goodhew leant over the low balustrade as he ate, watching the sea and allowing juice from the fresh pineapple to drip on to the rocks below.

Sometimes shoals of fish darted in bright-coloured ribbons just below the surface of the bay in the mornings here, and he’d risen
early in the hope of spotting them. No luck today, he thought. He took his tray inside, wiped his hands on a napkin. He then took an apple to eat as he sauntered through the long corridors and down to the foyer.

The hotel lobby was deserted apart from the receptionist.

‘Aloha, Jana.’

‘Aloha, Gary.’ She smiled warmly and reached under the counter, producing a Hertz keyring. ‘Your car is here, and I had it brought round already. I guessed you’d be going out early.’

He nodded his thanks. ‘Mahalo.’

He folded back the roof and drove along the almost deserted Kūhiō Highway and then left on to Mā’alo Road, winding up through cane fields towards Wailua Falls.

As the road climbed further above sea level, the gentle breeze swept up the sounds of gushing water and Gary caught his first glimpse of the waterfall. Recent rain had swelled the mountain streams, and three freshwater cascades leapt from the eighty-foot cliffs, diving into the deep cup below.

He pulled on to a dusty patch of verge and scrambled down to an old path, marked with knotted rope, that would eventually take him to the water’s edge. The first time he had walked to the falls had taken the longest, since he’d struggled to follow the route whenever the path vanished, but now he recognized its landmarks: the muddy twists and turns, the giant swaying grasses, and finally the driftwood thrown down by the waterfall itself.

He clambered over broken branches and on to a rocky ledge some thirty feet above the edge of the pool. The sun blazed down on to his back as he removed his shirt and threw off his shoes. He inhaled deeply, drawing the perfect morning into his lungs. Cambridge seemed another world, a world he rarely left for long and missed deeply whenever he did. Even so, he was now filled with the sense of a perfect moment, as he dived in. Before he even hit the water, the perfect moment had been replaced by the guilt of forgetting, however briefly, the suffering of Margaret Whiting.

His body sliced through the dark surface, the cold cutting right through him, like flying shards of glass. The thought of Kaye came with him.

He swam underwater with his eyes open, watching the sun’s rays twinkle on the surface and pick out plumes of tiny bubbles gliding up from the bottom.

It was stimulating: a different kind of cold to the lifeless gloom that she had met. He turned into the current and swam towards the base of the Wailua Falls, where it was colder and the water darkened and it rumbled like distant thunder. He stayed under until lack of oxygen made his lungs begin to strain.

But he wondered what it was like to drown, and forced himself to swim deeper. The churning torrent buffeted him and his chest ached against the pressure. He tried to swim deeper still, until the weight of water threatened to pin him down.
Stop it!
He rolled away and propelled himself upwards to the surface.

The waterfall now spilt on to the rocks to his left, shooting jets of spray upwards like ribbons dancing in the air and the sunlight refracted into tiny rainbows. Droplets showered Gary’s hair and face as he paused, treading water. He was gasping as his lungs struggled to refill.

In his mind, Kaye’s skin had dried slowly, repelling the water as if she were made of wax. She’d stared up at him with dead eyes that no one had bothered to close.

Spray saturated his face and he felt it trickling down his nose and over his cheeks. His pulse was still racing but he ducked under again anyway, and swam slowly towards the tranquil waters further away from the falls.

With a sudden jolt, he broke back up again through the surface and threw himself into front-crawl, panting hard as he struck out for the path to where he’d left his clothes. There he hauled himself out of the pool and up the bank.

His shorts and shirt clung to him damply and he shivered, but not from cold.

Instead, Gary shivered with excitement as he dashed back up the steep path, clutching at the undergrowth for support. Running, wherever possible, back to his car.

He could see it now: the girl in the street resembled Kaye. That was the way she looked, too; pale skin and mesmerizing blue eyes just like Kaye’s.

I should’ve followed her right then. I’m such a stupid git.

He revved the Chevy’s engine, swung it around in the roadway, and sped back towards Po’ipū.

He’d been determined not to become blind to other possibilities, and he wondered if that was why he’d been so quick to doubt his own judgement.
Follow one’s instinct:
it sounded like an excuse to favour wishful thinking over facts. His grandmother disagreed, of course, arguing that instinct was the conclusion the brain reached after processing a lifetime’s learning.