Grief Encounters (19 page)

We had him before a magistrate and didn’t oppose bail, but we asked for conditions. He had to stay in a Heckley bail hostel, report to the nick every day and keep away from Leeds. He was our
numero uno
suspect for Magdalena’s murder, and his confession was on record, but we were still looking. I reported his arrest in my murder log, but I didn’t draw a line across the page.

Edwin Turner rang me as I was gathering my thoughts, wondering about my next move. Poor Ted Goss hadn’t been part of the equation and things had been quiet for two weeks but it looked as if he wouldn’t go away.

‘I’ve found something,’ Edwin told me, his voice a conspiratorial whisper.

‘What this time?’ I asked. I’d assumed he’d stopped searching, given it up.

‘You know… What we were looking for.’

‘Images?’

‘That’s right. Images.’

‘How many?’

‘Hundreds of them. Thousands, even.’

‘Are they as horrible as we were led to believe?’

‘They made me sick.’

‘What have you done with them?’

‘Nothing. I hoped you’d tell me.’

‘What was the file called?’

‘Something like Letters J – Z. It was a sub-folder of a file called Statutory Instruments, inside another called Safety at Work. It was well hidden. Do you want to see them?’

‘No. You did well to find it, Edwin. I can’t tell you what to do with it, but I know what I’d do.’

‘Delete it?’

‘That’s right. Then delete it again from the recycling bin.’

‘Shall I keep looking?’

‘It might be a good idea.’

‘Have you found anything?’

‘Nothing definite, but I have a few leads to follow.’

It was only a little lie. Ted Goss had found himself a girlfriend and somebody had uploaded indecent images onto his computer. The same with Colin Swainby. Swainby met his girlfriend at a speed dating meeting, which is where Gillian Birchall met her date. Something was going off but I hadn’t a clue what it was. It didn’t make sense. I found a telephone number in the Police and Constabulary Almanac, picked up the phone, put it down, picked it up again and dialled the number.

Richard Wentbridge watched his wife walk into the hotel and fast-forwarded two hours to when they’d be having rough, clumsy sex on the passenger seat, in the Scammenden Dam car park. The thought did things to him. He was seated in his Mazda RX8 outside the Palatine Hotel and would follow her inside in a few minutes. From now on they would pretend not to be together. A black Jaguar swung into the car park and nosed into an empty space as he twisted to watch it. He liked the Jag, had considered buying one, and wondered who came to speed dating meetings in Oldfield in a car like that. It was even the XKR model, faster off the line than a Porsche 911.

It was a man, he noted with some disappointment, as a tall figure swung out, legs first, and uncoiled into the upright position. The indicators on the Jag flashed as the doors were locked, but the man went through the procedure again, and then tried the driver’s door. When he was happy that the vehicle was secure he ambled towards the hotel.

The careful type, Wentbridge thought. Let’s see what we can find out about him. He swung out of the Mazda and followed the tall stranger into the hotel.

‘Nice car,’ he said as he found a place at the bar next to his quarry. ‘How do you like it?’

‘I’m sorry?’ the stranger responded.

‘The Jaguar,’ Wentbridge explained. ‘I saw you arrive in it. Been thinking about one myself. Do you like it?’

‘Oh, yes, it’s fine. Lovely to drive.’ He reached forward to take his change from the barmaid and thanked her.

‘What is it? The four litre V-eight?’

‘Um, yes, I think so.’

Wentbridge laughed, open and friendly. ‘Oh, what a shame,’ he said. ‘A beautiful car like that and it’s wasted on you.’

‘I’m afraid it is,’ the stranger confessed. ‘Actually, it’s not mine. It’s one of the company’s pool cars. I’m only borrowing it. I haven’t a clue what half of the things are for. I’m much happier in one of the the Vectras.’ He took a long sip from his pint of lager shandy and licked his lips.

‘Wait a minute!’ Wentbridge proclaimed. ‘Wait a minute. You work for a company that not only has Jaguar XKRs in the car pool but that lets you out in them at night. Have you any vacancies?’

‘One Jaguar,’ the tall stranger admitted. ‘And I’m the boss, so I have first pull on it. Boss’s perk.’

‘I’m still impressed. What line of business are you in?’

‘It’s what’s commonly called a quango.’

‘Quasi autonomous, non-governmental…’

‘Yeah, you’ve got it. I’m the CEO, for my sins.’

Wentbridge grinned and shrugged his shoulders.

‘The popular opinion is that it’s not for your sins,’ he said, ‘it’s a reward for scratching the right backs. You must be doing all right: decent package; good pension;
and
they let you use the company Jag. What more does a man need?’

‘Well, for a start, some time off would be useful,’ the stranger told him. ‘I work bloody hard to earn my package.’

‘I’m sure you do,’ Wentbridge agreed. ‘Times are tough, and nobody’s throwing their money around, these days. So what exactly does this quango do?’

The stranger took another sip of his drink. ‘Look,’ he began as he lowered his glass, ‘don’t think I’m being rude, but to be honest, I came here tonight to try to get away from the job for a couple of hours. Can we change the subject, please?’

Wentbridge raised his hands in an apologetic gesture. ‘Forgive me,’ he said. ‘It’s me who’s being rude. I see a nice car and lose all sense of proportion and discretion. I take it you’re here for the speed dating?’

‘That’s right. Thought it might be interesting. I’ve never done anything like it before. What’s the routine?’

‘I’ve only been once, myself. See the fat woman with the bleached hair and the kaftan near the door into the other room?’

‘Dripping with bling bling?’

‘That’s the lady. Register with her. She’ll tell you the carry-on. And good luck. Tell them about the car and you’ll pull like a magnet.’

The tall stranger picked up his glass and walked over to the woman. Beaming with delight, she ushered him into the adjoining room that she’d hired for the night and asked him to sit down at the table just inside the doorway, where her paperwork was set out.

‘Where did you hear about Encounters?’ she asked.

‘A friend told me about you.’

‘That’s what I like to hear. Personal recommendation is the best way of advertising.’ She explained about speeding tickets and how the evening would progress, and started to fill in an adhesive label. The tall stranger looked around the room, which was rapidly filling, and saw that everybody was wearing a label.

‘You’re number fourteen,’ she told him. ‘What name will you be using?’

‘You mean, my Christian name?’

It was an invitation to use subterfuge, if he wished. Encounters didn’t care who or what you called yourself as long as you kept coming. They dealt in fantasies, and fantasy started at the door.

‘Or anything else you’d like to be known as.’

‘I’m called Torl.’

She sat back and blinked. ‘Tall?’

‘T-O-R-L. Torl. My mother was Norwegian.’

‘Oh, I see. It suits you. You are tall. It’s a good job we don’t all have names that describe us. I’d have to be called something like Dumpy.’

More like Dump Truck, he thought, but he said: ‘Oh, Cuddly might be more appropriate.’

She giggled and would have blushed if she had the blush gene, but she hadn’t. ‘You’ll go down well,’ she told him. ‘That’ll be
£
24.99.’

The next hour was amongst the most tedious he had ever spent, ranking alongside being caught in the queue for Ikea on a bank holiday Monday or watching cricket on TV once when he took a day off work with a nose bleed. He tried to make the best of it, sorting the liars from the desperate, but decided it was unkind and generally just went along with what they said. He knew all about the difficulties of meeting people once you’d reached a certain age. His contribution rarely got beyond explaining about his Norwegian mother, then the time was spent listening to their stories. One woman in a pinstriped suit aroused his interest and she said she was an IC nurse at the General.

‘Do you use strepto traps at the General?’ he asked.

‘Um, no, I don’t think so,’ she replied.

‘They’re what you catch streptomycin,’ he told her, losing interest again as he registered her blank look.

He’d seen number twelve almost as soon as he’d entered the room, but had to go through the full quota before he was allowed his three minutes with her. She was wearing a silk dress in a mustard colour, and a shawl in a matching green was draped over the back of her chair. Torl looked into her face as he sat down opposite her, and his mouth felt dry.

‘That colour suits you,’ he said. ‘Not many people can wear it, but on you it looks great.’

‘Thank you,’ she replied. ‘I like a conversation that starts with a compliment.’ She leant forward to read his badge. ‘Torl? Is that your name or a badly spelt description?’

He reached out and pressed an imaginary button on the table between them. ‘
It is Norvegian
,’ he said in a tinny, robotic voice. ‘
My mother vos Norvegian
.’

She laughed. ‘I’m sorry. I guess you’ve been asked that before.’

‘About twenty times. But what about you? Is Teri your real name, or are you really a Gladys or a Dorothy?’

‘It’s my real name now,’ she replied. ‘I adopted it for business reasons, a long time ago.’

‘What line of business was that?’

‘Hair and beauty. I opened a salon, eventually had ten dotted around West Yorkshire. Sold out when I got married. What about you? What do you do?’

He explained about the quango. ‘We’re called LINDI,’ he said. ‘Local Industry Development Initiative. I’m boss of the north-east section. We look for companies that are struggling through lack of capital and help them out. We also give early stage funding to venture investors, if we think they may be on to something.’

She smiled at him and his stomach tied itself in a knot. They were both leaning on the table and he could feel the heat of her legs close to his, or was it just his imagination? She said: ‘You mean, you look for these companies and give them money?’

‘Well, yes, more or less, but they have to go through a fairly intensive vetting process.’

‘How much do you give them?’

‘We have a maximum grant of
£
700,000.’

She opened her eyes wide and silently mouthed the sum back at him. ‘You give them all that?’ she said.

‘Not all of them. Most grants are quite modest.’

‘But you spend your working day looking for someone to give money to. Are you sure you’re not called Santa Claus?’

He laughed. ‘Some companies think we are. We have an annual budget of thirty million, and last year we helped nearly four hundred of them.’

Again she mouthed the sum back at him. ‘
Thirty million!
’ Her lips were full and her eyes hypnotised him. He’d never seen such eyes. The lights played in them as she smiled at him and the pupils were blacker and deeper than the spaces between galaxies. Even the creases in the corners highlighted their perfection. Teri reached across and placed her hands on his. ‘I’ve made up my mind,’ she said. ‘I want to be your friend. Can I be your friend? One of your elves would do.’

Torl turned his hands over to hold hers and thought that she could be his slave mistress if she wanted. He bit his bottom lip and tore his gaze away from her face, struggling for the right words. He wanted something frivolous and snappy, to break the spell, but the muse had deserted him. He opened his mouth to say he’d love her to be his friend, that he might even find a vacancy for another elf, but the bell rang and all the men stood up to move round one place. 

Dave and Maggie were walking away from the coffee-making table with steaming mugs in their hands and big grins on their faces as I entered the office after seeing Mr Wood. ‘What’s the joke?’ I asked.

‘No joke, Chas,’ Dave said. ‘We were just talking about coincidences.’

‘Do you believe in them?’ Maggie asked.

‘Coincidences?’

‘Hmm.’

‘Do you know, Maggie, you’re the second person to ask me that this morning.’

‘So do you?’

‘No.’

‘Coffee?’

‘Please.’

‘I’ll bring it to you.’

I read the quotation on my calendar before tearing the day off, and opened the window. I have a desk down in the incident room but I prefer all my correspondence to come to my upstairs office, where I can sort it myself. The most interesting item was a lab report on the samples taken from the back seat of Ted Goss’s car, showing that Ted himself had spent some time there, and so had a woman. Her DNA was obtained from hair found on the back seat headrest, but it wasn’t on our database. Fingerprints on the passenger’s safety belt buckle were probably hers, too, but they hadn’t done the tests to prove it. These things cost money, and I didn’t have a case to charge it to.

Maggie came in with my coffee and I told her to fetch hers. I was glad of the interruption. The Swainby-Goss soap opera was consuming my waking hours, and I was supposed to be looking for a murderer.

‘OK, Maggie,’ I began, ‘it’s 1978 and you’ve robbed a bank. The proceeds of your enterprise come to
£
370,000 and fill half a dozen suitcases.’

‘That many?’ she interrupted.

‘Going on for that, I imagine. Remember that it was in fivers, oncers and coins, not nice crisp twenties, ready to be made up into wages by the various mills and factories. So you’ve got away with the money and paid off your accomplices. What would you do next?’

‘I was thirteen, so I’d probably have blown it on lipstick and David Essex records, but I’ll try to put myself in the robber’s place. How would he invest it – is that what you’re getting at?’

‘It’s a starting point.’

‘There wouldn’t be much point in hiding it. Not for twenty-five years, unless he was planning to escape. For a start, he couldn’t be sure that the currency would stay the same. What did fivers look like in 1978?’