The Killing Club (8 page)

‘Will you tell me now?’

‘A few days into working the rota, Hugh came back from the dunes one afternoon and told us that the figure of a man on a donkey suddenly came into view over the horizon. The man made straight for Hugh, and demanded that he pay a rent for parking the Land Rover under his palm tree in the square at In Salah the previous day. Given that Hugh didn’t speak any Arabic except a few swear words he’d picked up on the way, and that the irate Arab had very little English, they couldn’t have had much of a conversation. Hugh flatly refused to pay anything, and the guy started shouting, and Hugh tried a bit of Arabic swearing, and eventually the guy went away – still very irate.’

‘So Hugh had effectively made himself an enemy.’

‘Exactly.’

‘What did the police do?’

‘Shouted at us for moving Hugh’s body and confiscated our passports. It was all very frightening.’ She stopped for a few moments. ‘After a day or so the guy from the embassy in Algiers arrived and he sorted it all out and we were able to come home. Charles insisted on arranging for Hugh’s body to be flown home without delay to his parents, and he contacted them personally. I think he felt particularly bad about Hugh’s death because they’d been so much at odds with each other.’ She swallowed hard and shot Swift a quick glance, before turning away, her eyes glistening with tears.

‘When we got back to the UK again, it was like being in heaven,’ she said. ‘I remember that when Charles drove the Land Rover off the boat at Calais, I felt like leaping out and kissing the tarmac. We went back to our former lives and gradually all the guilt and grief and angst died down. Christian enrolled for a course in journalism and Charles and I got married.’ She hurried through the last details as though trying to give the impression that was the end of the story. That was that.

‘Were either of the stolen items ever found?’ Swift asked.

‘No.’ She thought for a few seconds ‘And no one was ever brought to trial for the killing.’

‘Were the UK police ever involved?’

‘Not to my knowledge. There was certainly no follow-up after we came home.’

‘Can you give me the date on which Hugh was killed?’

She grimaced. ‘I’ll never forget it. July 1989. The fifth.’

As Swift paused to make a few notes, Harriet fell silent. Her face was creased in uncertainty and anxiety and Swift was pretty sure she was already regretting having come to see him, and having possibly talked herself, and more importantly, her husband into a corner. He guessed that she was the kind of person who liked to have everything planned and under control. Uncertainty about what Swift might dig up if a full investigation ensued would be almost unbearable for her. He decided to go for brutal openness to what was on her mind. ‘Why did you come to see me?’ he asked. ‘What are you worried about?’

She put her head in her hands. ‘Oh, God, I’ve been such a fool.’

‘Have you?’

‘Telling you all this. Of course I have.’

‘So why did you?’

‘I’m sure you could answer that question without my help.’ Her face had become angry and resentful.

‘If I’d found out for myself, it would have looked rather worse,’ he suggested.

‘Charles is up for Director of Surgery at The Wentbridge in south London,’ she said. ‘He’s tipped as hot favourite for the post and he’s really keen to get it. If things came out about Algeria, it could ruin his chances.’

‘I doubt it,’ Swift said, ‘not from what you’ve told me.’ He waited, sensing the torment going on in her mind and emotions. ‘So what is it that you didn’t tell me?’

She shut her eyes tightly, opened them again. ‘Charles was actually charged with Hugh’s murder shortly after the police questioning was completed.’

‘With what evidence and justification?’

‘It was concerning alibis. Christian and I were in a café in the square when the killing took place, and there were plenty of people who could confirm that to the police. But Charles had gone off exploring, so he couldn’t provide an alibi. He likes doing that occasionally, taking off on his own for some time out.’ She looked at him with a pleading which somehow reminded him of his daughter, Naomi, when she got into difficulties. An appeal which was filled with both despair and challenge.

‘Go on,’ he said.

‘The police dropped the charges after the embassy guy spoke with them. Don’t ask me the ins and outs of it. I had the impression the legal system out there was complex and very different from ours.’

‘It also sounds as if your “embassy guy” had commendably persuasive diplomatic skills,’ Swift suggested.

She sighed. ‘Yes, I suppose he did.’ She was suddenly looking exhausted and defeated.

‘Are you concerned that there will be a record of a charge having been made?’ Swift asked. ‘That it could come out in a security search if your husband is offered the job he is after?’

She looked at him, frowning. ‘Well, yes, isn’t that obvious?’

‘But that would have been a risk quite aside from the issue of Christian’s death,’ he pointed out quietly.

‘OK. But clearly any publicity could open up the whole thing again. Journalists digging for any juicy morsels and so on. Charles’s name being in the papers.’

He allowed a silence to develop, allowing her mind to fully confront the most desperate fear which was torturing her.

‘Had your husband any motive for killing Christian?’ he asked.

‘No,’ she breathed, hardly disturbing the air as she spoke.

‘Do you know where he was at the time Christian was killed?’

She shook her head, on the point of tears. ‘No. I’m assuming he was going up and down some mountain for most of the day.’

Another death, another lack of alibi for Charles Brunswick, thought Swift. Which, of course, in no way compromised him in the absence of any supporting evidence or motive.

‘My son, Jake, is the most precious thing in my life,’ she said, with feeling. ‘Charles
is
my life.’ There was another pleading look.

‘Where is Charles now?’ Swift asked.

‘He’s a few miles away from here, in some pub up on the moors outside Pateley Bridge. He’s on leave from work and doing some walking on the fells. By himself, with his phone switched off. It’s something he likes to do occasionally, and I go along with it. He has a very responsible, stressful job; he deserves to have complete peace from time to time.’ She stood up, tears now running down her face.

‘When did he arrive in Yorkshire?’ Swift asked.

‘On Monday. He rang me in the afternoon to say he’d got there.’ She snatched up her coat and began to move towards the door. ‘I can’t talk any more,’ she said. ‘Thinking of what I’ve already said is killing me.’ She brushed past Swift. He followed.

‘Are you going back to your mother’s house?’ he asked.

‘Most probably,’ she said, wiping fiercely at the wetness beneath her eyes. ‘Don’t worry about me. I’m tougher than you might think. And I’ve got a son to think about. I won’t do anything stupid.’ She rummaged in her bag and gave him her card. ‘Just call if you want to speak to me again.’ She had the front door open now and he watched her hurry up the path to her car.

He looked at her card.
Harriet Brunswick, B.A. LPC. Senior Consultant – personal injury claims. Stirrup and Samson Solicitors
.

And then he walked back into the cottage and picked up the phone.

Ruth found herself waiting in some anxiety for Harriet to return from her meeting with Swift. She tried to read, she tried to involve herself in a TV programme about a Victorian artist, but found she couldn’t concentrate.

When the doorbell tinkled it was with massive relief that she walked to the front door. Harriet must have forgotten to take her key to the house with her.

Ruth swung open the door. And was then stabbed with surprise and disappointment to see a young man standing there. He was tall and broad-shouldered, a big slab of a lad with windblown hair and a hunted look in his eyes. Ruth felt no fear. She had a wealth of experience in dealing with strangers who simply turned up on the doorstep: she and her late husband had prided themselves on keeping an open house and always thinking the best of people unless they proved otherwise. Which sadly, had often happened. Behind her, Tamsin was standing quiet and watchful and the small dog’s presence contributed further to Ruth’s quiet trust that no harm would come to her from this young stranger.

‘Hello,’ Ruth said.

Craig felt himself trembling inside. He stood very still, willing her to delve back into her mind and retrieve some memory of him which would ease his total lack of confidence in proceeding any further. Having made it to her front door and dredged up the courage to ring the bell, he found himself now helpless and exhausted. ‘It’s Craig,’ he said.

‘Craig?’ she murmured, staring hard at him. Her eyes sharpened with recognition. ‘Craig Titmus!’

‘Yeah.’ He tried not to wince at the sound of his surname. The name of a murderer. ‘I thought I would come to see you, Mrs Hartwell,’ he said, to let her know that he knew her and he meant no harm.

‘Craig.’ she said, beginning to place him. ‘I used to visit you when you were inside.’

‘Aye,’ he said. ‘And you helped me learn to read.’

She smiled, remembering their sessions together. ‘It was a long time ago,’ she said. ‘Come in.’

He hesitated. The little dog looked at him and wagged its tail. He stepped through the door and stared around him. A huge house, dark wood walls, a light that looked like an old-fashioned lantern sticking up from the end of the banister.

Words hammered inside him.
I want someone to love. I want someone to love me. I want to have a home and a family. I want to work in a kitchen and cook things
. His heart hammered in time with the words. He prayed that he could stop himself from shouting them out loud and frightening her.

She walked ahead of him and they ended up in a kitchen so big you could almost play a game of five-a-side football in it. The warmth of the room wrapped itself around him and he closed his eyes with the sudden pleasure of the heat. In the air there was a lovely smell of meat and potatoes.

‘Sit down,’ she told him. ‘There, look, beside the stove.’ Obediently he sat. He rubbed his hands on his knees. His hands looked too big and too red. He pulled them up to his chest and tucked them inside each other.

‘Would you like something to eat?’ Mrs Hartwell asked him. ‘I’ve got some stew with beef in it, and some savoury potatoes.’ She rested her hand briefly on his shoulder as she went towards the oven. He wanted her to leave it there; it was years since anyone had touched him. Touched him as a proper person.

‘When were you released?’ she asked, putting on some thick gloves and lifting a blue dish from the oven. She had her back to him, so he could look at her without feeling bad about it. He’d thought maybe she wouldn’t be too put out to see him, but he’d never dared think she’d be like this – asking him in, giving him food, treating him like he was someone she could respect.

‘A couple of days back.’

‘Where have you been staying?’ She was ladling out the stew now, on to a plate with a pattern of flowers around the edge. It was good that she was busy, made him feel OK about talking.

‘In a bedsit. Probation gave me the money.’ He didn’t mention the previous night when he’d slept in the bus station, wrapping his arms around his chest to keep warm. Watching her, he saw that she had got old-looking, more like a granny than a mum. When she’d come to the jail to teach reading, her hair had been dark brown, almost black, and she’d not had so many wrinkles on her face. He liked the idea of a granny – less scary than a mum.

She moved to a drawer, and started pulling out knives and forks. He jumped up. ‘I’ll do it.’

She turned to him, startled a little, then smiling.

‘Am I shouting?’ he asked, staring down at her, the cutlery in his fingers.

‘No.’ She let him set out the knife and fork, then placed the plate of food in front of him. He stared at it, before closing his eyes briefly and allowing the lovely smell to filter into his nostrils. He picked up his fork.

‘You can stay here for the night, if you like, Craig,’ she said, once he was filled with stew and potatoes and some tinned treacle pudding she’d found in the cupboard and smothered in cream.

He shot her a look, wondering if she was just winding him up. But no, her eyes were still kind.

‘Would you like to do that?’ she prompted.

‘Yeah.’ He couldn’t believe it. He kept thinking she’d turn on him. Maybe turn into a female version of Blackwell. ‘Thanks,’ he said. He swallowed, not knowing what to say next.

‘Craig is a nice name,’ Ruth said. ‘I remember you telling me how it came about that you got that name. It was your grandad who suggested it, because he was Scottish.’

He was astonished. ‘How can you remember that?’

‘Oh, I’ve always squirreled all kind of things into my memory.’ She smiled at him.

‘Aye,’ said Craig, not believing his luck in having made this long journey and found Mrs Hartwell. But most of all that she still seemed to like him, even though he was a murderer. She knew that, he’d told her all those years ago when she taught him to read. Who else would have a murderer in their house?

The doorbell tinkled.

Ruth raised her head like a startled animal. She got up, giving Craig a reassuring smile. ‘Oh, dear,’ she murmured, as she walked towards the front door, seeing the shadowy figure of Harriet waiting behind it.

Craig started up as Harriet entered the kitchen.

‘Hi,’ she said to him, placing a paper bag with a bottle in it on the table and then shrugging off her coat.

‘Who are you?’

‘Craig,’ he muttered.

‘Right.’ Harriet sat down at the table and drew a bottle of whisky from the paper bag. ‘Who’s for a nightcap?’ she said, smiling at her two observers. Without waiting for a response she jumped up and rooted in one of the kitchen cupboards, producing three dusty-looking cut-glass tumblers.

Ruth had seen, as soon as she opened the door, that all was suddenly right with the world for Harriet. Which meant, first and foremost, that she’d had some positive phone contact with Charles, and that, presumably, all had gone well during her talk with Chief Inspector Swift. Maternal relief rolled through her. She took a swallow of whisky and water, enjoying the cold sensation as it rolled down her throat and tickled the lining of her stomach.