No Place to Die (16 page)

He seemed taken aback by the change of pace. It hadn’t been her intention, but she was pleased to have achieved some movement. The room had felt dead.

‘Not until September last year, when the new term started. I had bumped into Maggie a few times, just in town when she was out with friends, or shopping. We ended up having a drink, chatting. I don’t know – I didn’t expect it at all. I knew she was seeing someone else and I knew, as her tutor, that I shouldn’t even be entertaining a relationship, but it just . . . ’ He shook his head. ‘It just happened.’ He raised his hands in a pleading gesture. ‘I know how that sounds. I know everyone must say the same thing. It sounds pathetic, but it’s true. I had no intention of doing anything about it. I thought she was intelligent, brilliant even. I would never have done anything if she hadn’t made a move.’ He was tripping over his words.

Jane began to doubt herself. ‘Maggie suggested the affair?’ she asked. It sounded stupid. Maggie wasn’t married; she was having fun at university. More than one sexual partner was expected, wasn’t it? Sleeping with a tutor probably added kudos. Jane cleared her throat, ashamed by the judgement in her thoughts. She knew why. Her own life had been different. She hadn’t had time to enjoy her youth. She had been working her way up the ranks, working her arse off. There wasn’t any time for love, sex or affairs. The only guy she had given more than five minutes to had buggered off when she was pregnant. Left her to raise Peter alone. Left her to punish herself for all the things she wasn’t able to do for him. She blinked, took a deep breath and looked back at Victor.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It’s not that hard to imagine, is it?’ I might not be Brad Pitt, but I wouldn’t say I’m Herman Munster, either.’ He looked as if he wanted to smile. ‘Anyway, we were having a drink. She told me she “fancied” me,’ he said, using his fingers to create inverted commas. ‘I’d had a few beers. I was flattered.’ He looked up to the ceiling. ‘No, I wasn’t flattered, I was shocked. Things progressed from there.’ His face changed, his mouth now a thin line. ‘Maggie was a fantastic person. She had her whole life ahead of her. I was under no illusion that the relationship would last. I was a stepping stone for her. She could have made a real difference in the field of psychology. I genuinely believe that and I’m . . . ’ He looked at Jane and held her eyes. ‘I honestly don’t know how anyone could do this to her. She was the most gentle, open person I have ever met.’

Jane tried to look away, but found she couldn’t. His gaze was fierce. His words. His body language. He was telling the truth. She was more convinced now than she had been at the start of the interview. ‘Tell me what happened the last time you saw Maggie,’ she asked.

‘She came to dinner,’ he said.

‘When was this?’

‘The sixteenth of April. It was the Wednesday before the Easter weekend. At first she told me she couldn’t come. We had been having a few problems: arguing over stupid things, like people do,’ he said. He leaned back in his chair and picked up his coffee. It must have been stone-cold, but he took a sip anyway. ‘Things weren’t straightforward right from the start. She’d ended things with her ex a few weeks after we started seeing each other, back in August or September last year. He wasn’t happy. He was persistent, trying to get her back – texting her, calling, sending her flowers, stuff like that. I know the guy. He’s bad news, not right in the head. But I couldn’t do anything, because Maggie and I weren’t meant to be seeing each other. It was one big secret. I hated it. I wanted to tell him to back off, but I couldn’t.’

‘We’ll come back to that, Victor, if you don’t mind. Tell me about the Wednesday, the night of the sixteenth.’ She wanted to try and keep him on-track. His eyes were darting all around the room. He looked as if he wanted to hit something or someone.

‘This is pointless,’ he said, sinking down in his chair. ‘I feel like we’re talking in code, talking around the subject rather than about it.’

‘I understand it can be frustrating, but I need to be clear on what happened.’

‘Okay,’ he said, sighing. ‘I invited Maggie over for dinner, to talk – make up, I guess. She said she couldn’t come. That she had to see Terry, to sort things out. I insisted. She gave in. She came over about seven . . . seven-thirty. I’d cooked a chilli. We ate, had a few glasses of wine, talked.’

‘What did you talk about?’

‘About us – the relationship. She was feeling a bit trapped, I guess. I was ready for more. She wasn’t.’

‘Go on,’ Jane said.

‘She said we’d “see how things go”, and we kissed and made up,’ Victor said, his tone angry, bitter.

‘What happened then?’ she asked, knowing before he opened his mouth what he was going to say.

‘God,’ he said, rubbing his hand over his head. ‘We had sex. We had dinner. We had an argument. We had sex on the table, if you must know. We broke it, as a matter of fact.’ He looked angry. He held the fury in his eyes, like a wasp trapped behind glass.

‘Would you like to take a break?’ she asked, stunned by the words even as they came out of her mouth. What was she doing? He was rattled. If he was holding anything back, now was the time to push for the truth, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it.

‘No,’ he said, waving away her question. ‘I need to tell you about Terry. I don’t care what you think of me, what you do to me. But if anyone was capable of killing her, it was Terry.’

29th April – Tuesday

‘You can still talk to me, Jane,’ Lockyer said as he handed over her drink. She looked nervous.

‘Sorry, sir. It’s just been one of those days.’ She turned her glass of wine around in her hands, the condensation running down the stem.

‘Okay,’ he said, ‘let’s try something a bit different.’ She looked up from her drink. If he was going to say what he wanted to say, then he would have to find a way of making her ease up, if only for an hour or so. ‘No more “sir”. It’s just “Mike”, for tonight. And you’re “Jane”. We’re colleagues and,’ he paused, not knowing if he should continue, ‘friends?’ It was more of a statement than a question. He hated to admit it, but without Jane by his side he felt almost lost. He knew he relied on her. He just hadn’t realized, until now, how much. He sat down and took a swig of his pint.

‘I can’t stay long,’ she said, taking a sip of her drink. ‘My mother has Peter at her house. He’s got school in the morning. I don’t want to be late picking him up.’

She wasn’t going to make this easy for him. He looked around the pub at the other couples sitting at mahogany tables, chatting, talking about their days. Some would be work-friends, some would be friend-friends. Which was Jane, and was this ‘chat’ even a good idea? Someone behind the bar turned up the volume of the music and the lights dimmed to indicate the change from daytime drinking to evening. Lockyer was happy with that. He could do without a spotlight on him for the apology speech. He took a deep breath. ‘I want to apologize again for my outburst this morning,’ he said, feeling like a politician preparing to sidestep the blame. ‘It was unnecessary, unprofessional and, above all, unfair on you.’ He watched as Jane opened and closed her mouth. He wasn’t known for his apologies. ‘We need to clear the air. The Stevens case was difficult for everyone.’

She shook her head. ‘Every case is difficult in its own way,’ she said. ‘The Stevens case was no different.’

‘That’s not true, Jane, and you know it.’ His tone was more forceful than he intended and he noticed her sit back in her chair. This wasn’t going well. She wasn’t even looking at him.

‘What do you want me to say?’ she asked. She seemed to hesitate, as if she had more to say. He guessed she was going to add ‘sir’ or ‘Mike’, but had resisted both. How was he supposed to talk to her, if she couldn’t even say his name? He knew there was some damage to repair, but he had not realized things had drifted this far – that it was this bad.

‘I want you to talk to me, Jane. I want you to say what’s on your mind. You’ve never had trouble doing that in the past. Sure, you tend to tell me what I want to hear, before you tell me what you really think. But you’ve never held back, as far as I’m aware. Am I wrong?’

‘No, you’re not wrong.’ She hesitated again. ‘It always takes the team a few weeks to settle, to move on from a traumatic case.’

‘Yes, Jane,’ he said, draining half of his pint, ‘I know that and you know that, but we’re not talking about the team. The team will be fine as long as I’m fine, and I’ll be fine as long as you’re fine.’ He wanted to clap his hands over his mouth. That was not what he had planned to say. His speech, which he had worked on in his mind, was all generalizations about ‘working together’, ‘moving on’, ‘putting it behind us’ and other pointless euphemisms.

‘You’re worried about me?’ Her voice went up, her surprise evident.

‘I guess,’ he said, mining his brain for the right words. ‘I’m worried about you, but I’m more worried about us.’ He felt his cheeks heating. This was a nightmare. This wasn’t even why he had asked her for a drink. He just wanted to get back to work and have Jane in her usual position, at his side, her support unfailing. This was all emotional mumbo-jumbo. She looked as incredulous as he felt. ‘I don’t mean us as in “us”,’ he said, rushing to justify himself. ‘I mean the team. The unit. Strong leadership is all about teamwork and building working partnerships that . . . ’ He ran out of words. He didn’t know where he was going with that sentence. ‘I lied. I misled you and I shouldn’t have, and I’m sorry.’ He drained the rest of his pint. ‘Another?’ He was up and out of his chair before she could reply. He had to resist the urge to run screaming to the bar.

He joined the back of a group crowded around the bar. They didn’t appear to be waiting for drinks, but it would give him some time to get himself together. He glanced over his shoulder. Jane was staring at him, her empty wine glass still in her hand. He cringed as he did a ridiculous mime of getting her a fresh glass. To say he was out of his comfort zone was an understatement. Whatever this zone was, he never wanted to be in it again, ever. A girl in front of him turned and looked at him.

‘We’re not waiting,’ she said. Her eyes travelled up and down his body until they rested on his hair. ‘Go ahead.’

He mumbled his thanks and moved around the group, trying to flatten the piece of hair that was obviously sticking up. Without thinking, he rested his elbows on the long metallic bar. He could smell the alcohol as a long puddle of beer soaked into his shirt. ‘Great,’ he said, lifting his arms as he examined the large, dark patches inching up his sleeves.

‘What can I get you?’ the barman asked, using a ratty-looking cloth to wipe the bar as he spoke.

‘Bit late for that,’ Lockyer said, displaying his damp elbows.

‘Yeah, mate. We’re short-staffed tonight. Only me on,’ he said, without a hint of apology. ‘What can I get you?’

Lockyer could feel the anger rising up his throat. He opened his mouth, but closed it again. He shook his head. Starting a fight with a complete stranger wasn’t going to help. It might make him feel better for a second or two, but then he would be back where he started. ‘Glass of Sauvignon blanc and a pint of Thatchers,’ he said.

‘Small or large?’

‘Small,’ he said, with as much venom as he could muster.

As the barman poured the drinks, Lockyer glanced back at Jane. She was texting, running her free hand through her fringe. She looked tired. He was so preoccupied with getting things sorted that he hadn’t even noticed how strung-out she was. He remembered his thoughts over the weekend. She had brought this on herself – that’s what he had been telling himself, and telling her. He was pushing all the blame onto her. ‘Very gallant,’ he said.

‘Say what, mate?’ the barman said, his eyebrows bunched together.

‘Nothing,’ Lockyer replied, shaking his head.

‘That’ll be nine-forty.’

He took a tenner from his wallet and handed it over. ‘Keep the change. I’m sure you’ve got a tips jar for the excellent service.’ His sarcasm missed the mark. The barman had already wandered off. Lockyer was invisible to him now. ‘Thanks,’ he went on, turning and walking back over to the table.

‘Thanks,’ Jane said, as he handed her the wine.

‘No worries,’ he replied, chinking his pint with her glass. ‘So,’ he said, taking a hurried sip, ‘where were we?’

‘You were worried about me,’ she said, a sudden smile appearing on her face.

In that one gesture he felt all the tension leave his shoulders. She was taking the piss out of him. He could have kissed her. It was familiar – this was the kind of talking he could handle. ‘Yes,’ he said, in a mock-serious tone. ‘Very. You look, if you don’t mind me saying, like shit.’

Jane laughed. She threw her head back and really laughed. Lockyer joined her, relieved to feel normal again, to be rid of whatever phantom had taken over his brain for the last half-hour. ‘So, what’s up?’ he asked.

‘Well,’ she said, with a sigh, ‘I’ve had a pretty crappy day. My boss called me in this morning and tore several strips off me. I’ve got nowhere with a case involving a friend, and I’m going round in circles with a case involving a stranger.’

‘So, all in all, not good,’ he said, picking up his beer mat and peeling back the edges.

‘That’s about right,’ Jane said, taking a large gulp of wine. ‘If in doubt, drink,’ she said, taking another swig.

‘Impressive,’ he said. ‘Has anyone ever told you that you drink like a bloke?’

She smiled. ‘Not today.’

They fell into a comfortable silence. Well, he was comfortable and Jane looked better, more relaxed. The atmosphere had changed. It was as if his trip to the bar had actually been a wormhole and he had travelled back to the time before the Stevens girl was even found. He was the boss and Jane was his dedicated and enthusiastic DS, who laughed at his jokes, took the mick out of him and essentially made the everyday feel better.

‘Why didn’t you tell me about your brother?’ she asked.

Lockyer coughed, choking on his cider. ‘What?’ he asked, his voice croaking.

‘Your brother. Why didn’t you tell me about him, Mike?’ To hear her using his first name made him feel like a small boy. ‘Well,’ she said, lifting one shoulder, ‘you wanted to clear the air. Put the Stevens case behind us. Your brother is a part of that.’ Lockyer was stunned into silence. His brain dried up. Jane seemed to read his thoughts. ‘What I’m trying to say is . . . I talk to you about Peter. Not a lot, I grant you, but about how hard it can be sometimes, with his autism: the problems at school; my mother – I talk to you about all of that. I talk to you because I trust you. Bobby . . . it is Bobby, isn’t it?’