Taking Pity (15 page)

H
ELEN
T
REMBERG
and Suzie Devlin sit under the same umbrella, sharing the contents of Suzie’s lunch. They are sitting on newspaper, on a wooden bench out the back of Wilberforce House. It’s a pretty spot. All neatly tended flower beds and daintily labeled climbers; damp trestles and red courtyard walls. Water drips from a tall tree with attractive, sturdy branches. A small blue-and-yellow bird is fluttering skittishly between the ground and the far wall. To Helen, it almost seems to be asking why Suzie is not dining alone.

“I haven’t had cheese spread since I was a kid,” says Helen, taking a bite of white bread and enjoying it. “Brings back memories.”

“It’s the best cheese there is. Well, I suppose there’s melted cheese, but you can’t really buy that, can you?”

Helen had forgotten the delightful oddness of Suzie’s character. She’s a sweet girl. She’s fun to look at. She makes people happy, when they’re not trying to kill her.

“How’s life, anyway?” asks Helen, sipping from a carton of Ribena. “You all sorted?”

Suzie shrugs, as if suggesting that nobody can ask for much more than “getting by.”

“Was hard what happened to Mel,” says Suzie, biting into a chocolate biscuit. “We were just becoming friends. Don’t know what I would have done if I’d lost Roisin as well. Though I suppose I kind of have . . .”

Helen doesn’t know what to say. She’s heard the rumors about why Adam Downey was in the McAvoys’ home. She knows how much bullshit is being thrown around.

“I think she’s spending some time with her family,” says Helen tactfully. “She’s been through a lot.”

“She’s been through a lot her whole life,” protests Suzie. “Nothing on earth could make her leave Aector. You know how they feel about each other. And to leave Fin . . .”

“You’ve tried to get in touch, have you?”

“Her phone’s disconnected. She’s not been on Facebook. I tried to call Aector at work but they say he’s still off sick, so I’m a bit stumped. Bit lonely, too.”

“You’re not seeing anybody?”

Suzie looks suddenly coy. “We’re taking it slow. He’s a nice guy. Bit too nice for me, I suppose, but he’s being very good to me. We met in the bank, actually. Paid off a bill for me and didn’t object when I thought he was a psychopath or a stalker or something. Not a bad start to a relationship. Even helped me scatter Simon’s ashes . . .”

Helen lets her talk about her murdered friend. Enjoys the animation and enthusiasm in her face. Suzie’s the kind of person Helen would like to be friends with.

“Are you going to get your notepad out now?” asks Suzie when she remembers that this is more than just a social occasion. “I don’t mind. It can’t be easy, knowing when it’s the right time to get down to business.”

Helen gives her an apologetic smile. “You won’t get into trouble?”

Suzie shrugs. “Not illegal, is it? Having a chat?”

“Depends on what we’re chatting about.”

“Well, I reckon we’re chatting about Piers Fordham. Do you know that name?”

Helen shakes her head.

“He’s who I was with getting the coffees yesterday morning. Well, him and Mr. Wilde. But he’s Scottish and smokes a gazillion cigarettes a day and couldn’t do a refined English accent if his life depended on it. So I’m thinking it’s Piers you’re after. Wouldn’t be the first time.”

Helen can feel her heart racing. She suddenly has a name. A real identity to tie to the faceless manipulator at the end of the phone who reveled in her discomfort and thought he was putting it right when he sent her to a house that was about to explode.

“He’s a solicitor, then?” she asks, keeping her voice even.

“Not as such,” says Suzie, blowing up her empty carton of Ribena and then squeezing it so that the air makes her fringe ripple. “He
was
a solicitor. Had a private practice in Grimsby. Did a lot of duty solicitor work. You know the stuff. People smashing up kebab shops or hitting their ex in the face with a beer bottle. That was his niche. Came over here once in a while, or at least that’s what it says in his file. I handle personnel records, you see. Or ‘filing,’ as they call it at my place. He seems to have been very good at what he was doing, whatever it was. Had some high-profile clients and cases.”

“But you say he’s disbarred, yes?”

“We don’t exactly go on about it around the watercooler, but you can’t help but Google somebody when you do a boring job like I do, can you? And yeah, he was struck off about five years ago. He’d been ripping off the legal aid people. Claiming for cases that had never gone beyond a caution. Making up bogus clients. He was getting druggies to sign forms for him, claiming legal aid for cases that were totally made up. He made half a million, according to the report I read.”

Helen purses her lips and blows out. She’s chewing her lip. Picking at the skin around her nails. She senses something taking shape.

“He went to prison?”

“Eighteen months, he got. Served less than seven.”

“Which prison?”

“Hull.”

Helen makes a fist. “Your firm employs him, though, yeah?”

“Not on staff, no. He does investigative work. Sorts out things that need a bit of finesse and legwork. He’s got his own firm but he does at least a day a week on jobs for us. A lot of probate. Conveyancing. Things that don’t need a license.”

“He makes a lot of money?”

“Not bad,” says Suzie. “More than me. More than you, I should think.”

Helen scratches at the back of her neck, thinking. A crooked solicitor. A man with the balls to try and scam the big boys. A man who spent time in prison and got to see how hopeless and ill-disciplined the majority of criminals really are.

“What’s he like?” asks Helen, bouncing her legs on the balls of her feet. “Single? Kids? Gay? Straight?”

Suzie laughs. “He’s straight, I know that much. Tried it on with me a few times. I’m not keen, to be honest. He was married until he went to prison, I think. Don’t know about kids. He’s a bit too big for his boots, you could say. Always likes to let it be known he’s got the goods on you. He was the only one who gave me a sly wink when I came back to work after the court case. Everybody else had the good grace to pretend they didn’t know what I had been getting up to. He made it clear he knew, and that if I wanted, he could help me.”

“Help you with what?”

Suzie shrugs. “Make it go away. Get a new job. A fresh start. Maybe have the bitch who killed Simon bumped off. I don’t know. But he’s that sort. Got a lot of, I dunno . . . swagger?”

Helen flops back against the bench. She doesn’t know why she is so surprised. Every criminal case of note has been made on a stroke of luck. Serial killers have been stopped by routine vehicle checks; rapists sent to prison because one of their victims recognized their shoes or an Identikit struck a chord with a copper. One phone call, made at the wrong time, made to gloat over the fate of Colin Ray, and suddenly Piers Fordham is in the frame for so many crimes, Helen doesn’t know where to start listing them.

“How do you contact him?” asks Helen. “He’s not an office person, I gather?”

“No, we tend to see him only a couple of times a month. He sends his case papers and invoices in from home. He’s rarely in the office. Was only in yesterday to have some papers signed. It was a surprise when he asked to borrow the meeting room.”

Helen rubs her shin with the toe of her shoe and thinks hard. She can picture it clearly. Can see Piers Fordham slipping into a side room so he could phone Colin Ray and goad him. He was out of the way. He was invisible. None of the CCTV cameras could pick him up, and the unregistered mobile phone would doubtless be going in the bin once he got outside. He’d made a call, and it was going to come back to haunt him.

“What is it you think he’s done?” asks Suzie, brushing her hands clean on her trousers. “Has he been ripping us off? I mean, I have a bit of responsibility for the accounts so I hope there’s nothing going to cause me problems.”

Helen shakes her head. “It’s just routine,” she says without thinking about it.

“No it’s not,” says Suzie, beaming. “He’s a bad one, isn’t he? What’s he done? What does Aector think? And the other one. Nice, but a bit scary.”

“Detective Superintendent Pharaoh,” says Helen automatically. “She’ll be pleased, I think. I can’t really tell you much. I just wanted to get to know a bit about him.”

“Well, I can give you his home address,” she says. “And he’s got a work mobile on him, in case we need him. You can track him down from that, can’t you?”

Helen turns away as the bluebird flutters down to the grass at Suzie’s feet. Suzie puts a crumb of bread between her bare toes and lets the bird peck at it. She looks up at Helen, absurdly pleased.

“He’s lovely, isn’t he? He’s going to be migrating soon. I’ll miss him.”

“Piers?”

“No, the bird. Although, Piers is always going on about the weather in Britain and hating it. He was playing about on his computer yesterday morning, looking at apartments somewhere hot.”

“A laptop?”

“No, one of the PCs in the back office. He had to see Mr. Wilde and the boss was late in, so he was killing some time having a coffee and fiddling on his computer. Nice place he’s got his eye on . . .”

Helen feels like hugging the small, squishy, and delightfully odd girl. “I don’t suppose your computers store things like what websites he may have visited, do they? Or do they wipe at the end of each day?”

Suzie laughs. “No chance of them being wiped unless you do it yourself. I used to look at a few sites I shouldn’t and it was a nightmare remembering to delete my browsing history. Why?”

Helen bites down on the tremble that is affecting her lower lip. In her coat pocket she can feel her mobile vibrating. Colin Ray, eager for an update. She’s going to make him pretty damn happy. She can already picture them, walking back into the station and giving Pharaoh the bloody lot. Can imagine the warm handshakes and the hugs and the drams of celebratory whiskey. Can see McAvoy’s look of eternal thanks. Hopes that the image will rub out the one she carries with her—frightened eyes and falling masonry.

She turns to her new friend, wincing for effect as if to remind the girl of the injuries she suffered saving Roisin from death.

“Suzie,” she says. “I think I might need another favor.”

•   •   •

M
C
A
VOY
IS
LOOKING
at a satellite image of the Winestead area. It’s a surreal sensation. He feels he should be able to see the roof of his own car. Should be able to put his hand out the window, wave at the sky, and see himself, tiny and pixelated, on the laptop screen in front of him.

The screen is almost entirely green. It’s an area of woodland and fields, broken up by ancient hedgerows and boundary walls. St. Germain’s Church is a square of brown and gray in an oval of trees and grass. It is surrounded by darker grassland that comes to an end at the tree line. On three sides, the grassland borders arable land, though in this satellite image none of it seems to have been given over to crops. The trees begin to the right of the church and stretch in an impenetrable mass for hundreds of meters. There is only one significant gap in the canopy of trees and branches. It’s the spot where the estate used to sit. The dirt track that leads to it is a tiny knife slash in the greenery.

McAvoy expands the image as much as he can and takes in the red roof of the remaining property. It’s changed a lot since the Winn family called it home. The outbuildings have been pulled down. Audrey’s old cottage is a pile of rubble and earth. Like the mansion owned by the Hildyard family centuries before, the structure has been demolished to try and bury the blood it has seen. Only the manor house remains, and that has been modernized almost beyond recognition.

McAvoy tries to make sense of it. He puts his finger on the screen, touching the house. Fiddles with the cursor and the image jumps to include more of the local landscape. He places another finger on the church. According to the timeline, the Winn family left their home in the early evening for an after-dinner stroll. This was not unusual. At some point on that stroll they encountered Peter Coles. For reasons unknown, he shot all four family members with a double-barreled shotgun. He then exposed the breasts of Anastasia Winn and sat looking at her and muttering to himself until John Glass turned up.

Something about the picture feels unsettling. McAvoy tries to imagine the route they would have taken. Through the trees. Over the boundary wall. Across the grass and through the old moat, into the churchyard. If Peter Coles was playing with his gun on the grounds of the church, surely the Winn family would have heard and altered their route?

McAvoy flicks through the printouts and curses the lack of information. Every question he comes up with lacks a suitable answer. He wants to know what the family ate for dinner. Were they struggling to digest a large meal? Had they perhaps taken a drink and set out for a walk in the snow in high spirits? A postmortem examination would give him such answers, but the report has yet to be located.

McAvoy removes his fingers from the screen and splays his hand. Expands the image of the churchyard and looks down at the drawing in his notepad. Places a finger on the location of each corpse. Clarence Winn, nearest to the church. His daughter a few feet away. Then farther back, toward the moat, his wife and youngest son.

John Glass’s original statement is one of the few pieces of evidence McAvoy feels he can trust. He reads it through again and digests its contents. Cross-references with the document stapled to the back of the crime scene photos, outlining the injuries suffered by each family member.

The wounds Clarence Winn suffered were to the torso. His daughter’s to the face. His wife was shot in the chest. His son had wounds to the abdomen and head.

McAvoy looks out the window. Looks up at the church. It has a sinister air in this fading light. The soft rain and pewter sky seem to reinforce its air of timelessness and isolation. Were it not for the occasional sound of passing cars on the road to his rear, McAvoy could have stumbled into a different time and not realized it. He would not be surprised to see a Spitfire fly overhead or to hear a horse and cart clip-clop to a halt behind him.