Kennedy 02 - A Darker Side (13 page)

Chapter Twenty-Five

As Max pulled into the fitness centre’s car park, he was just in time to see Donna Lord striding towards the entrance with a bag slung over her shoulder. She glanced back, saw him, and was standing by his car when he parked.

‘That’s good timing,’ he greeted her.

‘Isn’t it? I do like a man who’s punctual.’

If Jill hadn’t made him feel so uncomfortable, he would have stayed at Lilac Cottage a little longer. Punctuality had never been one of his strong points.

Donna shifted her bag to her other shoulder and Max, beginning to regret this already, grabbed his own bag from his back seat.

This wasn’t business. Who was he trying to kid? And damn it, he’d far rather be at Jill’s enjoying a glass of wine before he went home to the boys.

‘You’re looking more tense than ever,’ she scolded as they walked into the club.

She, on the other hand, seemed very relaxed. It was the first time he’d seen her without make-up, and it came as a painful reminder that she was far too young for him.

As she signed them in, Max looked around him.

The man sitting at the reception desk clearly worked out in every spare minute. A couple of young women, both wearing black dresses which he assumed was the club’s uniform, walked across the reception area and through a door marked
Pool
.

When Donna had finished flirting with Mr Muscles at the desk, she slipped her arm through Max’s and nudged him towards that same door.

‘See you in the pool in five minutes,’ she murmured. ‘Oh, and here’s the key for your locker.’

Max went to the appropriate changing room and found the appropriate locker. He must be mad; he hadn’t been swimming, other than a splash around in the sea, for years. He didn’t particularly like swimming.

However, he was changed in well under five minutes and he walked out to the pool. It was massive, and he had to admit that the water, shimmering against blue tiles, did look inviting. There were four people in the water, all of them swimming determined lengths. And this was supposed to be fun?

It was a good ten minutes before Donna appeared. She was wearing a black one-piece with a vivid slash of purple across her left breast. The effect was stunning. Her legs really did go on forever.

She stood by the side of the pool, gazed at the water for a moment, then, giving him that broad smile, called out to him, ‘Frightened it might be cold?’

‘Yes.’

She laughed, a laugh that started at red-painted toenails and ended with a toss of blonde hair.

Shaking his head, Max walked to the deep end and dived in.

She’d lied, he realized immediately. The water was freezing. It might clear his head, but it wouldn’t do much for the rest of him.

He’d completed half a length in an effort to fight off the shivers when she appeared at his side, laughed, and overtook him. OK, so she’d had plenty of practice. Max put in more effort and caught her midway down the second length.

He stopped at the shallow end and brushed the water from his eyes with his hands. She stopped, too, and stood very close to him, shaking the water from her hair very much like his dogs did. With wet hair clinging to her face and her face shining with vitality, she looked better than ever. She knew it, of course.

‘Not bad,’ she teased him.

‘For someone so out of condition?’

‘I couldn’t possibly comment on that,’ she said, spluttering with laughter. ‘And I never said you were out of condition. Just the opposite, in fact. I merely said you were tense.’

‘True.’

The next thing he felt was her foot running along the back of his calf muscle, and suddenly he was breathing harder.

‘Come on, lazy bones,’ she said, and she set off to do another length.

As Max swam, she was all over him. One moment she was by his side, the next she’d dived underneath him.

By the time they decided to call it a day, Max was knack-ered. She wasn’t even breathing hard.

‘Well?’ she asked. ‘Feel better for that?’

‘Actually, I do,’ he admitted. He was knackered, but he felt good.

‘I’ll see you in five minutes then.’ She patted him on wet buttocks and strode off towards the ladies’ changing room.

As Max showered, and dressed, he asked himself what in hell’s name he was doing. One minute he was fantasizing about Donna’s naked body next to his, and the next he was wishing he was at home with his kids. One thing was certain, he was too old to be chasing leggy young blondes . . .

They met up in the reception area.

‘Drink?’ she suggested. ‘I think we’ve earned one.’

It was tempting. But he really was too old.

‘I can’t,’ he said.

‘What? Not even one drink?’

‘Sorry. I have things to do.’

‘What sort of things?’ she demanded. ‘You can’t be working, surely? You need to have some fun, detective.’

He did, but not with Donna. She was everything a man could want, and he was flattered, but he’d been there, done that, and had the wrecked relationship to prove it.

‘Some other time maybe,’ he said.

‘OK. Some other time,’ she said, and although the smile was still in place, her manner had changed. She wasn’t used to being turned down, he realized. Not that it surprised him.

He must be mad.

‘I’m sorry, Donna, really. I’ve enjoyed this evening very much. It’s just that well, I’ve got a couple of kids at home. I need to spend some time with them.’ She didn’t look convinced. ‘There’s someone else,’ he tried to explain, ‘and I don’t want to mess that up.’

‘And who’s the lucky lady?’

‘No one you know.’

‘Ah, you’re trying to get back with your psychiatrist.’ She smiled. ‘OK, Max. Don’t worry, I won’t embarrass either of us by asking again.’

With that, she dropped a quick kiss on his cheek, and strode off. Max stood watching as she threw her bag on the front seat of her car, climbed in and drove out of the car park.

He regretted his decision the second she was out of sight.

Jill was probably enjoying rampant sex at that very moment. What did she care whether he jumped in the sack with Donna Lord or anyone else? She didn’t. She had the nation’s favourite defence lawyer to keep her warm.

Besides, Donna had only suggested a drink. What harm would that have done? She must think him mad.

She wasn’t far wrong, he decided.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Jill’s first thought when she walked into Max’s office the following morning was that he looked rattled. He was glancing at papers on his desk before screwing them into balls and tossing them at the wastepaper basket. Most of them missed.

‘Good time last night?’ she asked casually.

‘OK, thanks.’ He didn’t look at her; he threw another ball of paper at the wastepaper bin.

Why wasn’t he going to tell her about last night? Because it wasn’t important? Or because it was?

The remaining sheets of paper were barely glanced at before being crumpled and thrown at the bin.

‘Right,’ he said, getting to his feet. ‘Let’s see what Toby Campbell has to say for himself.’

Plenty, Jill hoped. It was exactly a week since they’d been to his house, and they were no further forward.

‘He doesn’t want a brief,’ Max said as they walked to the interview room.

Five minutes later, they were sitting opposite Toby Campbell. The tapes were running and Max had introduced those present.

‘What can you tell us about James Murphy?’ Max asked.

The question took Toby Campbell completely by surprise. ‘James Murphy? The boy that’s missing?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, nothing. How do you mean? I don’t know him.’

‘You’ve never spoken to him?’ Max asked.

‘Never. All I know is what I’ve heard on the TV or radio.’

‘So can you explain what this card was doing in his bedroom?’ Max passed the small business card across the table.

‘No, I can’t,’ he said, ‘but I can tell you who I gave it to. Well, not his name, but he’s a young chap in a band called Watershed. He plays the bass guitar very well. He’s a short, chubby boy with ginger hair and a mass of freckles.’ He looked from Max to Jill. ‘The missing boy,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Do you have a recent photo? I haven’t paid much attention to the picture that’s been on the TV.’

Max looked in his file, found one and passed it across the table.

‘I’m not sure,’ Toby Campbell murmured, ‘but it could just be that this boy, James Murphy, plays lead guitar in the same band. On stage, his hair is well, it’s stuck up like a hedgehog’s. He wears a hat, too.’

‘He plays in the same band,’ Max confirmed. ‘And you claim that you gave that card to the other boy?’

‘I did. He’s talented and I know of a band who are looking for a good bassist. How James Murphy got hold of it, I can’t explain.’

Max leaned back in his seat. ‘I hope you can appreciate my problem,’ he said slowly. ‘Two boys from the same school go missing. One turns up dead. A common link? You. Guitars and you.’

Toby Campbell wasn’t as cool as he was trying to appear. Jill noticed the way he flinched as Max had said ‘one turns up dead’.

‘Martin Hayden,’ she said. ‘How did you feel when you heard he’d been murdered?’

‘Very sad, of course.’

‘Define sad. Tell us what you did when you heard about it. Did you think, Oh dear, what a shame, did you have a good cry, did you contemplate suicide?’

‘I did cry, yes,’ he admitted softly. ‘For all his faults, he was a lovely boy.’

‘You don’t have children, do you?’ she said.

‘No. I’ve never married.’‘

Do you regret that? Did you want children of your own?’

‘I think most people do,’ he answered frankly. ‘If they didn’t, the IVF clinics wouldn’t have such a workload.’

‘But Martin was special, yes?’

‘To me, I suppose he was. Yes.’

‘He was special. You cried.’ She watched him carefully. ‘You loved him, didn’t you?’

His answer was barely audible.

‘Was that a yes?’ she prompted.

‘Yes.’ He reached into his trouser pocket and pulled out a colourful handkerchief. ‘Yes, I did. He was beautiful, confident, ambitious everything I ever wanted to be.’

‘Martin teased you about that, didn’t he?’

‘Martin never knew how I felt.’

‘Of course he did,’ Jill scoffed. ‘He was a bright boy. He’d know how you felt.’

‘Maybe,’ Campbell replied, ‘but, if he did, he never said anything.’

‘I think he teased you,’ she said. ‘He would have enjoyed that. He’d have taunted you. Flaunted himself. Reminded you at every opportunity that you couldn’t have him.’

‘No.’

‘That hurt you, didn’t it? It made you angry.’

‘No. I told you, he never said anything.’

‘You told him how you felt. He laughed in your face. You decided to teach him a lesson. A lesson he’d never forget. He’d never taunt you again, would he?’

‘No, no, no. You’ve got it all wrong. He never knew how I felt. I swear to God.’ He threw out his hands. ‘I’m not stupid. Martin was a bright young thing. What interest would he have in an old has-been like me? None. None whatsoever. Yes, I loved him. I admired him from afar. I was never stupid enough to let him know how I felt.’

Jill didn’t know why she was bothering. Toby Campbell couldn’t tell them anything.

Max must have thought the same because he rose to his feet.

‘OK, thanks for your time, Mr Campbell. We’ll get an officer to take you home.’

Blowing his nose again, Toby Campbell nodded. ‘Thank you.’

Jill and Max left the room, walked out into the corridor and stopped by the coffee machine.

‘Well?’ Jill asked as Max hunted in his pockets for change.

‘We’re not going to get anything out of him, but I’m sure he knows something.’

‘I’m not.’

‘He’s the one firm link to the two boys Yes, yes, I haven’t forgotten Geoff Morrison –’

‘Whose boyfriend sings in a band,’ she reminded him.

‘I know, but Campbell’s admitted to being in love with the boy, for God’s sake. What sort of weirdo is he?’

‘He’s a sad, pathetic, lonely sort of weirdo, and yes, he might even have tried it on with Martin Hayden, but he’s not your man. Think about it logically, Max. Apart from anything else, he doesn’t drive and never has. He could have taken a taxi out to Lower Crags Farm but why not wait until Martin arrived for his guitar lesson?’

‘Because Martin had no intention of going back for a guitar lesson.’

‘OK, so he gets a taxi to the farm, leaps out of the bushes and bludgeons Martin to death. Except he wouldn’t because he loved the boy. But then what? Does he carry the body into Harrington town centre and throw it in the canal?’

‘You’re a psychologist, Jill.’ Max handed her a coffee.

‘Oh, yes, silly me. You’re the mighty detective and I’m the idiot who does the what is it? oh yes, the psychology bollocks. Forgive me, oh wise one, I was forgetting my place for the moment.’

‘There’s no need to get bloody sarky with me!’

‘None at all,’ she agreed sweetly. ‘There’s no need for me to waste my time thinking about Toby Campbell, either. It’s Josie Hayden we need to concentrate on. I’ll see you later.’

Toby Campbell wasn’t their man, Jill was sure of it. Geoff Morrison wasn’t, either.

She’d go and see someone else on the case, Grace possibly, and see what they had on Brian Taylor . . .

Grace, however, had problems of her own.

‘What sort of mood is he in?’ she asked Jill.

‘Max? The usual. Why?’

‘He won’t be when I’ve told him the latest.’ She was already striding off toward Max’s office. ‘Another kid from Harrington High has gone AWOL.’

‘No!’ Jill quickly caught up with her. ‘When? And who?’

‘Keane. Jason Keane. Vanished into thin air this morning.’

Chapter Twenty-Seven

The curtains needed pulling across, but Toby Campbell couldn’t summon enough energy. Let passers-by see him sitting in his armchair with an untouched cup of tea at his side and tears pouring down his face. He no longer cared.

Everyone thought he was odd anyway. He may as well give them more reasons to think so.

To hell with them. He switched off the table lamp and sat in the dark so they couldn’t see inside.

If Emily had married him, he wouldn’t have been in this mess. He would have been teaching, providing for the family he’d longed for.

They had met at university in the early sixties, when Emily had been studying European literature and he’d been studying music. For Toby, it had been love at first sight. He could see her now; tall, willowy, always laughing, untidy blonde hair flying around her face, enthusing over her best-loved poets, hugging her favourite novels to her chest, a long scarf wrapped around her neck . . .

They had shared a flat. And a bed.

Emily, however, had refused to share his life.

‘Me? Settle down?’ She’d laughed at the very idea. ‘Hell’s teeth, Toby, it’s not me, is it? Can you see me as the adoring wife putting your slippers to warm and your dinner on the table?’

Oh, how she’d laughed.

That was the problem, of course. Toby
could
see her as the adoring wife. He hadn’t wanted his slippers warmed or his dinner on the table, but he had wanted Emily in his life. Had needed her in his life. They had been ideally suited, or so he’d thought. She had her books and he had his music. More importantly, they’d had each other.

When those idyllic days came to an end, Emily had gone to Venice. Toby would have gone with her, or followed her.

‘Don’t talk daft, Toby,’ she’d scoffed. ‘Look, it’s been fun, huge fun, but we have our own lives to live now. I want to travel and have fun. I want to see Venice and Rome, Barcelona, Russia I want to see the world.’

‘Let me see it with you,’ he’d pleaded.

‘No. Please don’t make this difficult.’ A rare frown had creased her brow. ‘Please set me free.’

‘At least promise me that you’ll keep in touch.’

‘OK. I can promise that.’ The smile had been back. ‘I’ll send you postcards. Dozens of them,’ she’d vowed, laughing happily.

So Toby had set her free.

He had taken a job teaching. Without Emily, though, life had been meaningless. And those promised postcards had never arrived . . .

When his parents died, leaving him a sum of money, he was finally able to give up teaching. He had enough to live on. Teaching music privately was more to keep his mind occupied than for financial gain. Mostly, he’d taught young girls to play the piano. Occasionally, if he were lucky, he’d teach the guitar or violin.

Then, one day, Martin Hayden arrived on his doorstep.

His blond hair had been blown into his face and a long scarf had been wrapped around his neck. He had reminded Toby of Emily . . .

In Martin Hayden, Toby had seen the young man he had always wanted to be, the young man with whom Emily would have shared her life.

Martin had been rash, a risk taker. Just like Emily, he’d been ambitious and greedy. No way would he have allowed something or someone he wanted to walk out of his life.

‘What would you know about life, old man?’ he’d asked once.

It was the sort of thing Emily would have said, he realized. Looking back, it was easy to see how she had used him. It had suited her to share his flat while she was at university. There had been no one else in her life, as far as Toby knew, so sharing his bed had been easy repayment.

For years, he had longed to see her again. That was impossible, of course. He had no idea which country she was in. In his more bitter moments, he hoped she’d fallen on hard times. He had hoped that someone had used her, hurt her like she had once hurt him. He would have liked to talk to her again, to let her know just how much the memory of their affair, if it could be called an affair, angered him.

Instead, he’d had to settle for a new love in his life, Martin Hayden. And now Martin was dead.

In a strange way, it was like losing Emily all over again . . .

His ginger cat wandered into the dark room.

‘I suppose you want feeding, Marmalade? Hmm?’

Toby dried his face on his hands, switched on the lamp, rose to his feet and pulled the curtains across.

His cat needed feeding. Life went on.