The Reckoning (18 page)

THIRTY-FIVE

When he saw the barmaid approaching with the
meal he had ordered, Justin saved his work and pushed his iPad away. He’d made
a good start on the article he hoped to sell but there was a way to go before
it was finished, and he couldn’t help feeling that there was something missing.

It needed something else, something more,
before he would consider the article ready for publication. The trouble was, he
didn’t know what it was missing.

“Thanks.” He gave the barmaid a quick smile
and then turned his attention to the food before him.

Why he was still in the village, he didn’t
know, there wasn’t really anything for him to do there, he already had
everything he was likely to get from the residents. Some instinct told him that
events in the village weren’t over, though; something was yet to happen. He’d
learned to trust his instincts; somehow, they never saw him wrong, so he
stayed.

Since he wasn’t going home, food had been
required, and the only place in the village for him to get a meal was the pub.
He hadn’t been certain what the food was going to turn out like, but the meal
before him looked far better than anything he could have made for himself, even
if it was only cottage pie.

The sight and smell of the cottage pie was
enough to make his stomach rumble loudly. Picking up his fork he dug in
eagerly. It tasted as good as it looked and smelled, and he ate hungrily, glad
that the pub served such generous portions.

Though he tried not to, he couldn’t help
listening in to the conversations going on around him. It was a habit, so
deeply ingrained that he couldn’t turn it off. The majority of what was being
discussed was of no interest to him. He kept listening, though, in case someone
was going to say something that was relevant to the Michael Davis case, and the
story he was writing. He heard nothing to do with Davis that he didn’t already
know by the time he finished his meal. The one thing he did discover was where
Constable Harp had gone when he observed her leaving the police station.

The vandalism at the Dean Stables, which was
being discussed by the group at a table a short distance away, had no connection
to his story. Nonetheless, he mentally filed away the details he overheard, in
case they should prove relevant or important later. There was always the
possibility, however remote, that the vandalism was somehow connected to the
murderous teen. He doubted it. If it wasn’t, as he suspected, then it was
unlikely to amount to anything worth writing about.

Once the conversation at the table had moved
on to more mundane things, and he had a fresh drink, Justin turned his
attention back to the article he was writing. Composing it on his iPad wasn’t
easy, but he had plenty of practice, and in the long run it saved him time over
writing it out by hand and then having to type it up when he got home.

THIRTY-SIX

Donna was busy writing down her current progress
on the Dean Stables vandalism, and making notes on what she needed to do the
next day, when the phone rang. Absently, she reached out to answer it, and had
to hurriedly grab her mug to avoid spilling her coffee when she knocked it.

“Greenville Police Station, Constable Harp
speaking, how can I help you?” she asked when she got the phone to her ear.

“I’d like to report an argument.”

‘An argument’, Donna couldn’t believe it, and
for a moment she stared at the phone in disbelief. “What kind of argument?” she
asked finally of the woman on the phone.

“It’s my neighbours, I can hear them; there’s
a lot of shouting and smashing. It’s not like them, normally they’re quiet,”
the woman, who made no effort to identify herself, said.

“Okay, I’ll be there as soon as I can,” Donna
said, realising she had no choice; though she relished having no superior to
worry about, she couldn’t help thinking that she could do with some support.
She’d been on her own for just one day, yet it felt as though she had done more
work than she would normally do in a week. “What’s the address?”

*****

“Hi, Donna,” Jason answered his phone.
“What’s up?” he asked, correctly guessing that his new friend wasn’t calling to
be sociable.

“I know I shouldn’t really be asking you
this, since you’re not a police officer anymore,” Donna began nervously, “but
I’ve just received a call about a possible domestic disturbance; would you mind
coming with me?” She knew she should be able to handle the situation on her
own, and suspected that she probably could, but for some reason she had a
presentiment of trouble.

What brought on that presentiment, she didn’t
know; what she did know, was that she didn’t fancy responding to the domestic
disturbance call on her own. She had no desire to add to the injuries she had
received over the past twenty-four hours. Just then, Jason was the only person
she could think of to ask along, which was why she had called him.

“Are you alright if I go out for a while?”
Jason asked of Lily, who was on cushions on the floor with Lucy, watching
television.

“Sure, of course I am,” Lily answered,
turning away from the TV to look over at her friend. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“No reason, just checking.”

“Is there a problem?” Lily asked, glancing at
Lucy and wondering what was going on that Jason needed to go out and see the
constable. Briefly, she wondered if the trouble had anything to do with Michael
Davis, a possibility that sent a cold shiver of fear running up and down her
spine.

Jason shook his head. “No, no problem,” he
reassured her. “Donna just needs my help with something. With luck, it won’t
take long to sort out and then I’ll be back; I’ll sort out dinner after that.”

“Okay, as long as everything’s alright.” Lily
turned back to the TV then, thankful that Lucy appeared to be fully distracted
by the silly comedy that was airing.

“I’ll meet you at the station shortly,” Jason
told Donna. He hung up then and made his way upstairs so he could change;
though he was no longer a police officer he thought it best if he dressed at
least a little better than he was right then.

In just a few minutes he was back in the
living room, having replaced his jeans and t-shirt with a dark suit and pale
blue shirt. He looked much as he had when he was a detective, the only thing
lacking was a tie, his concession to his civilian status.

Lily whistled when she saw him. “I haven’t
seen you all dressed up in a while,” she remarked. “I hope the constable
appreciates it,” she said, doing her best not to sound jealous.

Jason just smiled. “I’ll be back as soon as I
can,” he said, grabbing his car keys. Since the Land Rover was blocked in by
the Audi, he had no choice but to take the sports car, even though he was only
driving into the village.

THIRTY-SEVEN

As casually as he could, Danny made his way
up and down the rows of cars in the supermarket car park. He checked the doors
and looked through the windows of each car he passed, hoping to find something
that was worth stealing. He usually had a lot of luck with supermarket car
parks; every day he managed to find at least one car to steal from. He didn’t
necessarily get much from any one car, but over the course of a week he did
alright.

After a little more than half an hour he had
finished with the current line of cars and moved on to the next. That was when
he struck it lucky. He couldn’t believe it when the door of the Honda Civic
came open when he tried it; even more surprising was the sight of the keys in
the ignition. Though he had occasionally been lucky enough to find an unlocked
car, he had never had the good fortune to find one with the keys.

It was an opportunity he couldn’t pass up;
even if there wasn’t anything of value in the car, the car itself would fetch
him at least a few hundred quid. He knew a guy who would happily buy the car
from him. It took him all of about one second to decide to steal the car;
selling it would make him more money than he’d normally make in a fortnight.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

Danny turned sharply at the question, and saw
one of the supermarket’s security guards. How the uniformed man had managed to
get so close without him noticing, he didn’t know, and he didn’t like it. He
immediately turned and ran, darting between the cars as he raced for the
nearest exit. He couldn’t afford to get caught, he had been in trouble with the
police before, and he knew if he got caught again he was facing prison; there
was no way he was going to go down for the sake of a crappy Civic.

He was just coming out from between two cars
when he ran, full-tilt, into a trolley being pushed by a middle-aged woman. He
knocked the trolley over and went flying, sprawling on the ground face first.
Swearing, he picked himself up and looked around for the guard.

“STOP!”

The guard was more than thirty feet away, all
he could do was shout. With a feeling of relief, Danny stuck his middle finger
up at the older, and much slower, man and ran off. He was no longer concerned
about getting caught, his pursuer was too far away.

*****

With a squeal from his tyres, caused by the
wet ground, Anderson stopped his car on the upper level of the car park.
Getting out, he tucked his collar up against the rain and hurried over to where
he could see a small huddle of people, half of them in uniforms.

He wasn’t happy with the change in the
weather. The gloom and the rain would almost certainly be of more help to Davis
than to the officers hunting for the teen, since it would make it that much
more difficult for him to be spotted.

When he got closer to the group Anderson saw
that they were clustered around the rear of a car, a Honda Civic. He
immediately recognised the license number as that of the vehicle owned by
Andrew Andrews. That came as no surprise to him since the discovery of the car
that Michael Davis had stolen was what had brought him to the supermarket.

“Was it Davis?” he asked of his partner when
he reached the group. The moment he stopped moving he gave an involuntary
shiver; the day had been warm when the sun was out, but now it was cold, and he
was cold, mostly because he was more than a little damp after his brief walk
through the rain.

“No, Sir,” Murphy said regretfully. “It was
just a petty thief; Mr Perry spotted him acting suspiciously and challenged
him, the youth ran off and he gave chase. After the youth got away Mr Perry
returned to the car to check it for damage.”

“How did this lead to the discovery of the
car that Davis stole?” Anderson wanted to know impatiently, not in the least
bit interested in the tale of the security guard and the petty thief. Just then
there was only one thing he was interested in, and that was catching Michael
Davis; not that he thought that was going to happen anytime soon, based on the
way things had been going up till then.

“When there was no sign of the vehicle’s
owner after an hour, despite efforts to trace him or her, the manager called in
a report of the situation, including a description of the car,” Murphy said.
“The officer who took the call contacted me the moment the vehicle came up on
the system as the one we were looking for.”

Anderson turned to the uniformed security
guard, who stood a little to one side of the officers. “Are you sure it wasn’t
Michael Davis that you chased? Were you shown a picture of him?”

Rob Perry, the security guard, nodded. “They
showed me a picture, it wasn’t him. I’ve seen the kid around a few times, he’s
a shoplifter, and he’s been known to steal from cars.”

“Did you see Michael Davis at any point?”

“No.” Perry shook his head. “And I couldn’t
tell you when the car was parked here; you might be able to find out from the
surveillance tapes, though.”

A quick look around the car park revealed to
Anderson that it was fully covered by cameras. Someone was going to have fun,
he was sure, going through all the footage from the cameras. “Has there been
any reports of stolen vehicles from here or the local area?” he asked of his
partner.

“Not that I’m aware of,” Murphy answered.
“I’ll check in and find out for sure, though,” he said, taking out his radio so
he could make the call.

“While you’re doing that, get some officers
down here, we’re going to need to search the car park and the surrounding
streets for any clue to where he’s gone. I’m going to need to make a public
appeal for information as well; someone who was here this afternoon might have
seen something.”

THIRTY-EIGHT

Donna couldn’t help wishing that she was
driving Jason’s sports car, instead of her own much more mundane vehicle. With
the weather the way it was, though, she figured she and Jason were safer in her
car. In the Audi, she suspected she would have had a hard time keeping to the
speed limit, a dangerous thought that she pushed from her mind as she
concentrated on the road ahead.

“This is it,” she said when she pulled up in
front of the address she had been given for the domestic disturbance. Turning
the engine off she took the keys from the ignition, but made no immediate
effort to leave the car and step out into the rain that was lashing down.

“It doesn’t seem as if there’s any arguing
going on now,” Jason commented as he looked out through the rain to the house.
“I’d guess it’s all over with.”

“I’d better check on things anyway,” Donna
remarked, none too keen to get out of the car. “Make sure everything is
alright. You might as well stay here in the car; there’s no point both of us
getting drenched.”

“It’s alright,” Jason said, “I’m here, I
might as well do what I came here for; I won’t be much help to you if there’s
trouble and I’m in the car, sheltering from the rain.” With that he undid his
seatbelt, threw open the door and got out. He felt a twinge in his back as he
did so but quickly pushed it from his mind, the painkillers he was taking were
dealing with the worst of the pain from where he had been shot by Will Davis.

Her shoulders hunched against the rain, which
trickled uncomfortably down the back of her neck, Donna rang the doorbell.
While she waited for someone to respond to the bell she looked over at Jason,
wondering how he could be so indifferent to the weather. The rain was lashing
down, both of them had been soaked to the skin within moments of getting out of
the car, and the wind was practically howling, yet he seemed almost oblivious.

“Hello.”

Donna immediately picked up on the
nervousness of the woman who answered the door. It was evident in her quavering
voice and the way she didn’t open the door fully. “Good evening – it was
anything but, but the greeting was automatic – I’m Constable Harp, from
Greenville Police Station, this is Mr Denton; we received a report concerning
raised voices and the possibility of things being smashed.” As she spoke, she
ran her eyes over the lady in the doorway, what she could see of her anyway.
The redness of her cheek and the beginnings of a bruise around her eye leapt
out at Donna, but she didn’t say anything just then. “Do you mind if we come in
and make sure everything’s alright.”

“I, well, okay,” the woman agreed after a
brief hesitation.

“Thank you.” Donna stepped forward as the
woman moved out of the way and opened the door wide. “Do you mind if I ask your
name? The person who reported the disturbance didn’t tell me who lives here,
though I’m sure I should know you, your voice is familiar, even if your face
isn’t.”

“Elizabeth Gardiner, Constable, we spoke on
the phone earlier,” she said as Donna entered. “You wanted me to confirm Joe’s
alibi for last night.”

Donna felt something cold and heavy settle in
the pit of her stomach. “Was the argument your neighbour overheard anything to
do with that?” she asked.

Elizabeth nodded. “Yes.” A bitter note filled
her voice. With Jason in the house as well, she closed the door. “You might as
well come through. Watch where you put your feet, though.”

Donna and Jason followed Elizabeth as she led
the way through to the kitchen, where they discovered the reason for the
caution. The floor was covered in the broken remains of plates, cups and
glasses.

“What happened?” Donna asked as she moved
into the kitchen, being careful where she put her feet.

Elizabeth didn’t answer straight away,
instead she picked up a broom and returned to sweeping up the mess. It wasn’t
until she had finished the job that had been interrupted by the ringing of the
doorbell that she spoke. “I don’t really know what happened,” she said, bending
to sweep the pile of broken crockery into a dustpan so she could dump it in the
bin. “He came home, Eric, my husband, and everything was just like normal; he
made himself a drink, wanted to know when dinner was going to be ready and
complained about it not being on the table waiting for him.

“I’d just dished up dinner and given him his
plate when the phone rang, I answered it, he never does; answering the phone is
too much like work for him.” Her voice was contemptuous. “It was a woman. The
voice was familiar, but I didn’t recognise it. She wanted to speak to Eric so I
gave him the phone.

“Whoever it was, they must have told him
about Joe, because when he got off the phone he went mental. I’ve never seen
him like that before, he was scary; he called me a whore and wanted to know how
long it had been going on for. He called me all kinds of horrible names, threw
his dinner at me, told me I was an ungrateful bitch who didn’t appreciate
everything he does for me, as if he actually does anything for me.” Throwing
the dustpan and brush on the floor alongside the bin, she took a glass from a cupboard
and filled it to the brim with wine, which she gulped down greedily. “He’s at
work all day, wants his dinner on the table the moment he comes home, and when
he’s not working he’s at that bloody golf club of his. I’m lucky if I see him
for more than an hour at a stretch, and when I do he doesn’t pay any attention
to me.”

Donna let Elizabeth rage about her husband
until she ran out of steam, by which time she had drained her glass, refilled
it and gulped down half of the second serving.

“Is your husband responsible for the mess in
here?” she asked, once the older woman had fallen silent.

“Some of it, I did the rest,” Elizabeth
admitted. “I came in here to get a cloth to clean up his dinner and he
followed, he threw more dishes at me, and I threw some at him in return.”

“What about the mark on your cheek, and the
bruising around your eye? Is your husband responsible for them?”

Elizabeth nodded as she reached a hand to her
cheek. “He’s been a bastard for most of our marriage, but he’s never hit me
before.” She dropped her hand and reached for the bottle so she could refill
her glass again, she thought better of it though and pushed it away instead.

“Would you like to make out a report against
your husband?” Donna asked. She looked round at Jason for support, she’d never
dealt with a domestic disturbance before, not a serious one anyway, and wasn’t
really sure what she should be doing.

“You don’t have to decide right now,” Jason
said, speaking for the first time, “but we will need to find your husband so we
can speak to him. Do you know where he is?” he asked, assuming, correctly, that
Mr Gardiner was no longer at home.

Elizabeth shrugged. “He didn’t say where he
was going.”

“Are you sure about that, Mrs Gardiner?”
Jason pressed her; her body language suggested she wasn’t being entirely
truthful.

“He didn’t tell me where he was going,” she
insisted, though after a brief hesitation she continued. “But when he was
leaving I heard him mutter something about getting that ‘little bastard’. I
think he meant Joe.”

“Why didn’t you tell us that straight away?”
Donna wanted to know.

Elizabeth shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Well we need to find your husband before he
can catch up with Mr Proud. Does he know where Mr Proud lives?”

“I don’t know. He didn’t know anything about
Joe until that phone call; whoever it was, if they told Eric about Joe and me,
they might have told him where Joe lives. They even knew I was with Joe last
night!” she exclaimed. “I wish I knew who it was that called, and why they told
him.”

Donna felt something cold, heavy and
unpleasant settle in the pit of her stomach. “Maybe with a bit of time you’ll
realise who it was that called, in the meantime, will you be alright on your
own? Mr Denton and I need to see if we can find Mr Proud and your husband before
he can do something he’ll regret.”

*****

“Is everything alright?” Jason asked of Donna
as they drove away from the Gardiners’, the look on her face suggested that
something was weighing on her mind.

Since she had been talkative and untroubled
on the way to the domestic disturbance call, he could only assume that it was
something Elizabeth Gardiner had said that was the cause of her worried look.

Donna was silent for a moment as she focused
on the road ahead; finally, after about a minute, she spoke. “I think this is
my fault.”

“What do you mean?” Jason asked curiously.

“I think it’s my fault that Mr Gardiner found
out about his wife’s affair. I think I know who called and told him, and I know
how they know Mrs Gardiner was with Joe Proud last night; I told her,” Donna
said, incredibly unhappy with the thought that she was responsible for the
situation Elizabeth Gardiner was now in.

“I think it’s time you filled in a few blanks
for me,” Jason told her. “I gather that Mrs Gardiner has been having an affair
with someone called Joe, an affair that you knew about, and which someone saw
fit to tell Mr Gardiner about. What else do I need to know?” he asked.

He wasn’t with Donna that evening officially,
but since the domestic disturbance appeared to be more complicated than just a
husband and wife going at it, he thought it best if he knew everything that
Donna knew.

“Joe Proud is the stable-hand I spoke to this
afternoon about the vandalism at the Dean Stables,” Donna said. “His alibi for
last night is that he was with Elizabeth Gardiner, they’ve been having an
affair and she confirmed it. After speaking to Joe I told the Deans that he
couldn’t have been responsible for the vandalism and why. Apparently Claire
Dean was interested in Joe Proud, and when he rejected her she became
vindictive.

“I think she called Mr Gardiner and told him
about the affair to get revenge on Joe Proud for rejecting her. It’s my fault,”
she said. “If I hadn’t told Claire Dean about his alibi, she would never have
called Mr Gardiner.”

“You shouldn’t blame yourself,” Jason told
her. “You couldn’t have known that she was going to call Mr Gardiner and tell
him about the affair, or that he would react the way he did. If anything, the
fault lies with Mrs Dean; she’s the one who chose to involve herself in a
situation that has nothing to do with her.”

*****

The car skidded in the pub car park as Donna
stood on the brake. The moment it stopped moving, she threw open the door and
got out so she could hurry over to the pub entrance, Jason hot on her heels.

They saw the cause of the urgent phone call
from the landlord, which had diverted them before they could get to Joe Proud’s
house, as soon as they were inside. The stable hand was at a table near the
bar, his face white and his arm strapped tight against his chest. At another
table, being watched over by Geoff Carver, the landlord, was a man whom Donna
assumed to be Eric Gardiner. On the bar was a golf club.

“It’s about time you got here,” Geoff said
when he saw Donna. “He keeps trying to make a break for it.”

As if the landlord’s words were his cue, the
man at the table surged to his feet. Before he could get more than a pace from
the table he was grabbed by both Geoff and Neil, the village’s mechanic, who
was standing a short distance away.

“Mr Gardiner,” Donna began, taking out her
handcuffs as she approached the table, “I am arresting you for assault,
possession of a dangerous weapon with intent to harm, and disturbing the peace;
you do not have to say anything…”

Once she had read him his rights and
handcuffed him, Donna left Eric Gardiner at the table. She turned her attention
to the stable hand, while Jason took a seat next to Eric Gardiner so he could
keep an eye on him.

“Are you alright, Mr Proud?” she asked.
“You’re not too seriously hurt, are you?”

“He broke my arm, that bastard broke my arm,”
Joe said through gritted teeth.

“Are you alright to tell me what happened, or
would you rather go to the hospital and deal with this later?” Donna asked. She
didn’t like how white the stable hand was, but she didn’t think he was in need
of immediate medical attention.

“There isn’t much to tell,” Joe said with a
one-shouldered shrug. “I was playing pool with a mate; I was lining up a shot
when he walked up and smashed a golf club down on my arm. I don’t know who he
is or why he did it…hold on, did you call him Mr Gardiner?” he asked, going
whiter, if that was possible.

“That’s right,” Eric Gardiner said angrily.
He tried to get to his feet and was pushed back down onto the chair by Jason.
“It’s my wife you’ve been screwing. You were with her last night, you little
bastard! I’m going to break more than your fucking arm when I get hold of you!”
he declared, trying again to get to his feet, with the same result as before.

“I think you should refrain from making threats
like that, Mr Gardiner,” Jason said. “You’ll only get yourself into more
trouble, and I don’t think you want that, not when there’s a pub full of
witnesses to your assault on Mr Proud.”