Murder of a Dead Man (27 page)

‘Can I speak to Lyn please?’

‘I’ll get her.’ There was a clunk as the receiver was laid on a hard surface. Trevor could hear voices in the distance. Faint, but not so faint that he couldn’t detect an argument. Then Simon shouted, ‘He’s your boyfriend. You bloody well tell him.’

‘Lyn speaking.’ Her voice was sharp. Not a good way to begin a reconciliation.

‘Are you all right?’

‘Perfectly well, thank you. Why shouldn’t I be?’

‘Can we meet somewhere? Have dinner perhaps?’

‘You’re not working tonight?’

‘I am, but I can take a couple of hours off.’

‘Let me know when you can spare a whole night.’ She slammed the telephone down. He held the empty receiver until it began to buzz. Hanging up, he pulled out his book again and dialled the number for the local hospital. He had to go through two switchboards and three secretaries before he finally reached Daisy.

‘It’s Trevor. I wondered if you’d like dinner tonight. Just dinner. I’ll have to work afterwards.’

‘You’re involved…’

‘Lyn left me yesterday.’

‘And you’re phoning me today?’

‘Just dinner. Conversation, nothing more.’

He sensed her hesitation as he willed her to give him the answer he wanted.

‘I won’t finish here until half past seven.’

‘I’ll pick you up in the foyer.’

‘I won’t have had time to change,’ she pointed out.

‘We don’t have to go anywhere smart. What about the pub around the corner?’

‘Not there,’ she said quickly.

Trevor racked his brains trying to think of a place where they weren’t likely to run into anyone they knew.

‘What about the Turkish restaurant?’

‘No, the Chinese.’

Most of the force ate in the Chinese, but he’d rather put up with their comments, and eat with Daisy, than eat alone. ‘See you at half past seven.’

He hung up before she had a chance to rethink her decision.

The telephone woke Anna. She opened her eyes, reached out and grimaced in pain as her hand closed painfully around it. A quiz show was playing on the television. A row of earnest young men sat opposite a row of earnest-faced young women watching a presenter pull questions out of a rotating drum.

‘Hello,’ her voice was hoarse from sleep. She could hear breathing, slow, steady, the faint hum of traffic. ‘Hello?’ she repeated, wondering if she’d picked up a pervert.

‘Anna…’

The voice was faint, but she recognised it.

‘Adam?’

‘I need help.’

‘Half the local force is out searching for you.

You have to give yourself up.’

‘Not yet, Anna. I’m innocent. I swear it. I can prove it. You have to believe me.’

‘I believe you.’ She meant it.

‘I haven’t anywhere to go.’

‘Come here.’

‘You won’t tell anyone?’

‘I promise. We’ll talk; decide what to do.’

‘I saw you with the police last night.’ His voice was growing fainter.

She almost said, “I am the police,” then she remembered the time they had spent together, the way he had made her feel. How she had dreamed of this very thing happening night after lonely night.

Of him coming to her, needing her. ‘Where are you?’

‘You live in Mitre Gardens.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Do you live alone?’

‘Yes.’ She wanted to say there hadn’t been anyone after him.

‘I’ll come to you. If any one is there I’ll know, and I won’t come in.’

The line went dead. Anna continued to hold the receiver. She knew what she should do. Contact Trevor, in Dan’s absence, and contact him immediately. But the familiar voice had worked its charm. Could it be possible that she still felt something for Adam? He said he hadn’t done anything. She’d believed him. What evidence – hard concrete evidence – had she seen to prove his guilt?

The least she could do, after everything they had once been to one another, was listen.

‘What time do you have to return to work?’ Daisy asked Trevor after the waiter had taken their order.

‘When I get there. With the luck we’ve been having, it will probably turn into an all-nighter.’

‘Still looking for your arsonist?’

‘Even if he isn’t the one who set fire to the man in Jubilee Street, he’s a murderer now, with eleven dead…’

‘Twelve,’ Daisy corrected him grimly. ‘Another one died this afternoon in the burns unit. I’m sorry, I thought you would have known.’

‘After the initial flurry no one bothers to tell the investigating coppers anything, and we’re too damned busy to read the papers, except when upstairs sends down copies marked for our attention because some reporter has decided it’s open season on the police. Was the victim young?’

‘Fifteen-year-old runaway. A boy. One of his friends told us his real name so at least his parents were at his bedside.’

‘Some comfort.’

‘Trevor, not even you can blame yourself for this.’

‘If I hadn’t gone in there that morning, none of it would have happened.’

‘Maybe not that night but certainly another. All the firemen agreed the old factory was a disaster waiting to happen.’

‘I’ve seen a lot of those around. Not all of them go up.’

‘Those people had nothing and nowhere to go.

You were looking for a murderer…’

‘And succeeded in turning him into a mass murderer.’

‘I thought you were too sensitive for this job two years ago, now I know you are.’

He looked into her grey eyes. They glittered like crystal in the light of the lamp that burned on the table. ‘You never told me.’

‘I’d just given you the brush-off. You probably wouldn’t remember.’

‘I was stretched out in A and E, battered and bruised after a dealer had run his car into me. You were the junior doctor on duty. I asked you for a date, and you said “Thank you, but I have more man in my life than I can handle right now, Sergeant Joseph.”’

‘You do remember.’

The waiter brought their meals. Sweet and sour pork for him, prawn fried rice for her.

‘I remember everything about you,’ he murmured huskily.

She looked at him. ‘Eat up.’

‘Why? So I can get back to work early?’

‘No, so we can have coffee in my flat. Anyone who’s carried a torch as long as you have, Trevor, deserves something.’

‘Throw the dog a bone?’

‘You always have talked too much.’

Anna checked her bedroom and bathroom and went downstairs. She straightened the throws on the old sofa and chair. Slipping plastic bags over the bandages on her hands she tried to clear the kitchen, but after she smashed three plates she gave it up as a bad job. The curtains downstairs were open. Usually she closed them as soon as dusk fell so the neighbours couldn’t see the mess, but tonight she left them open. Anyone looking in from the outside could see right through the living space from the front to the back. Adam would be able to check for himself that she was alone.

Switching off the main light she lit an Indian oil lamp in the corner. On the rare occasions when she had a free evening and spent it at home she stayed in her bedroom. That’s why she’d set up her TV and DVD in there. She even ate her meals upstairs, although she was careful to take her dirty dishes into the kitchen. It was easy to put up with the chaos of downstairs, when she only walked through it on her way in or out of the kitchen. The phone rang again and she jumped.

‘Hello, gorgeous. Did they treat you very badly in the hospital?’

‘Peter.’

‘Expecting the bogeyman? Fancy coming out to dinner? I’ll feed you with my own fair hands.’

‘Thanks, but they really pulled me about this afternoon. My hands hurt like hell.’

‘Then I’ll bring around a take-away and a bottle of wine. What would you like, Indian or Chinese?

White or red?’

‘Can we make it another night?’ she softened her refusal. ‘I’ve taken painkillers and a sleeping tablet. I’m already in bed.’

‘I have a couple of hours before we go out on the night shift, I could come and warm you some milk and clear that mess downstairs.’

‘I feel like throwing up and that’s one thing I’d rather do in private.’

‘Fine.’ There was an edge to his voice.

‘Maybe tomorrow, Peter. I really do feel lousy tonight.’

‘Whatever you say.’

‘Peter?’

He’d already hung up.

It wasn’t easy to walk through the town without being noticed. Particularly for someone as dirty as he was. But his shorter hair and clean clothes had given him new confidence. Head up, he walked briskly down a side-street behind a crowd of students. Despite his ill-fitting clothes and beard he didn’t look different enough to warrant a second glance. The police were searching for a man with black clothes and long, matted hair. Someone furtive, in hiding. Not a confident, scruffy student.

For the first time he was grateful for the time he’d spent on the streets. He knew the town as well as he knew the studios he’d once worked in. It was four miles to Anna’s house. But he dare not risk hitching, and he didn’t possess a penny piece so he had no option except to walk. Strange, a week locked up in the factory followed by a couple of days on the run had cured all craving for drink and the pills he had exchanged most of his giros for as soon as he had cashed them.

The students turned into a pub. He followed them, went to the gents and looked in the mirror.

His face was filthy, thick with ingrained dirt. He placed a grimy hand beneath the soap dispenser and pressed half a dozen times. He used all the soap and half the paper towels in the holder before he was satisfied. A man opened the door and walked in, staring at him as he made his way to a cubicle.

He ducked out quickly, back into the street. A woman with a Doberman on a lead walked out of a house. The dog snarled. She began to apologise. He smiled and walked on. The smile felt peculiar, alien.

He wondered if it was the first time he had tried to smile with this face. He slowed his steps and glanced back. The woman was walking on in the opposite direction. Soon, if Anna had kept her word, he’d be safe. For a time.

‘Home.’ Daisy shut the door of her flat and tossed her keys and handbag on to a chair. ‘Do you really want tea or coffee?’ she asked as she faced Trevor.

He shook his head. He felt as shy, awkward and embarrassed as he had done as a teenager when he’d taken a girl out for the first time. He wanted Daisy, had fantasised about her for what seemed like for ever, but had always envisaged meeting her again in glowing, sunset tinted, romantic scenarios. Never a businesslike, clinical atmosphere like this one. ‘We don’t have to do this.’

She shrugged her arms out of her coat, dropped it on top of her keys and walked towards him. Two steps and her arms were around his neck.

Reaching up she ran her fingers down the side of his face, from his temple to his jaw. He locked his arms around her waist and pulled her close. Bending his head he brushed his lips tenderly over hers. His touch was so brief, so light, she couldn’t be sure afterwards that their lips had actually met.

‘I’m here, I’m real, and I don’t break,’ she whispered.

‘After all this time, I’m having trouble believing it.’

Lifting her face to his she kissed him with a fervour that bruised his mouth and took his breath away. Taking his hand she led him through the door towards the bedroom.

‘Daisy…’

‘No words, Trevor. If we start talking we’ll never stop. And you have to leave soon.’

‘Only for tonight. Neither of us are going anywhere. We’ve all the time in the world.’

She walked ahead of him into the bedroom, kicked off her shoes and unzipped her skirt. ‘I just hope that after all that waiting I live up to your expectations.’

His mouth went dry as he watched her unbutton her blouse. He wanted to tell her he loved her, had loved her since the first moment he’d seen her. He tried, but after she slipped out of the last of her clothes she laid her finger over his mouth.

Lights burned at regular intervals in the windows of the houses. Tony tried to check the numbers, and failed. The houses were small, yet most had names.

Then he found two consecutive numbers halfway down. Odds were one side of the street, evens the other. He crossed the road. His broken shoes soaked up rainwater from a puddle that had collected in a patch of sunken tarmac. Stepping back into the shadows of a garage he glanced up and down.

She must have been watching for him. The front door opened before he knocked. He stepped swiftly inside and waited just inside the door while she drew the curtains at both the front and the back of the house.

‘Anna, I’m sorry. But I had nowhere else to go.’

She’d tried to prepare herself, but none of her imaginings had prepared her for the reality. The voice was Adam’s. The stance, even the walk, was his. He was thinner than she remembered, and that she could cope with. But not the face. Even in the subdued light of the oil-lamp, it was so very different. She turned aside, hoping to spare him her shocked reaction.

‘I left the curtains open so you’d know there was no one here except me. You must be cold, so why don’t you go up and have a bath?’

‘You haven’t changed, Anna. I see you’re still as domesticated as ever.’ He looked around the room.

‘Yes,’ she agreed, remembering more than she wanted to. ‘I must have been hell to live with.’

‘No more than me.’

Those eyes, those startlingly dark eyes. She would have known them anywhere. ‘Are you hungry?’

‘It’s so long since I’ve eaten I can’t be sure.’

‘I’ll send out for whatever you like. Chinese, a pizza…’

‘Same old Anna, always knows where to buy, never how to make.’

‘The bathroom’s on the left at the top of the stairs. There’s a clean robe and towels laid out.’

‘And I thought I looked presentable.’

‘You don’t smell presentable,’ she answered bluntly. ‘Well? What’s it to be?… Food?’ she said in response to his blank look.

‘Whatever you have in your cupboard.’

‘Nothing.’

‘In that case whatever you want. You won’t tell anyone I’m here?’

‘Not until we’ve talked. Go on, go upstairs.’