To Die Alone (11 page)

‘No, no, I would not say that, although they clearly did feel that a remote rural setting might allow them to carry out their events unnoticed, that the law enforcement might be … less vigilant.’

‘They must be stupid then,’ snorted Harris. ‘You can’t fart in Levton Bridge without someone knowing about it.’

‘And yet you had no idea that Trevor Meredith had approached us,’ said Meredith with a slight smile on his face.

Harris did not reply at first, acutely aware that news of the poker ring at the King’s Head had also been unknown to him. Inwardly, he cursed himself. What was it he always said to his officers? ‘This place breeds complacency,’ he would say. ‘Do not fall into its trap.’ The words sounded somewhat hollow now as he looked across the table at his friend. Noticing that everyone else was watching, and sensing that they were waiting for him to speak, he resolved to save what face he could in the circumstances.

‘Well, for what’s it worth,’ said Harris, conscious that, for the second time that day, a meeting was not going the way he had planned, ‘I already knew all about the plan for Jenner’s Farm.’

‘Only because our local chap told you,’ said Maynard, ‘and he only knew because Trevor Meredith told him.’

Harris scowled.

‘And I hate to say it,’ said Maynard, ‘but we think that your presence in Levton Bridge might have been an added attraction for Gerry Radford. I think he rather liked the idea of staging a fight right under your nose. Your rather strident public comments on the subject down the years made such a prospect almost irresistible for him, I would suggest.’

Harris lapsed into moody silence and Butterfield saw her opportunity to make a mark on proceedings.

‘What did you actually know about Meredith?’ she asked, glancing at Jackson, wondering if the female connection would ease the tension in the room.

It didn’t.

‘Not much,’ said Jackson. ‘Trevor Meredith was less than forthcoming when it came to personal matters.’

‘I’m not sure I believe this,’ exclaimed Harris. ‘When we get a new informant, you can’t move for damned paperwork yet you knew nothing about your guy?’

‘Please get this clear in your mind,’ said Jackson quickly. ‘Trevor Meredith was not an informant, there was no official agreement, nothing at all. There is no paper trail.’

‘But you clearly did not object to him doing some freelance investigation on his own?’

‘OK,’ she sighed, ‘OK, we should have done more to dissuade him from getting involved. There will be an internal inquiry into what happened and I can assure you that we will take whatever action is required. Lessons will be learnt, of that you can be certain.’

She glanced at Maynard, who returned the gaze uneasily. Jack Harris sat back and crossed his arms, a look of satisfaction on his face: even though he realized that Ged Maynard was in trouble, what really mattered to the detective was that the meeting was swinging his way.

Which is when it swung back.

‘I imagine that the inquiry will be similar,’ said Jackson blandly, ‘to the internal police investigation into the two farmers who damn near got themselves killed in your area last night. I thought the police were supposed to keep such – what was your phrase, Chief Inspector, innocent and somewhat naïve? – men from getting into trouble.’

The satisfied expression was wiped off the detective’s face.

‘We all have our loose cannons, Chief Inspector,’ said Jackson with a slight smile. ‘It’s just that yours got lucky.’

‘Listen,’ said Maynard, leaning forward, eager to avoid another ugly exchange of views, ‘what has happened has happened. We should have kept you in the loop and now we want to help your murder inquiry, share what we know.’

‘Does that include anything about David Bowes?’

The RSPCA officers looked at him blankly.

‘What about James Thornycroft then?’

‘What do you know about him?’ asked Jackson sharply.

‘Ah, that kind of sharing,’ murmured the inspector. ‘Well, for your information, our colleagues in Bolton were called in to a break-in at his surgery at the end of last year. They suspect he faked the burglary to obtain the insurance money. The practice was not doing particularly well financially. They could not prove anything so he was never charged. They think that is why he moved to Levton Bridge. Bolton had his card marked. How come he is of interest to you?’

‘We had always known that there was a vet treating dogs injured in the fights,’ said Maynard. ‘There were reports of several being patched up and a couple being put down. Then, after we broke up the ring in Bolton, we heard that it might be someone from the town. We narrowed it down to James Thornycroft.’

‘Yes, but why on earth would he do that?’ asked Butterfield. ‘He’s not the most likeable of human beings but the man is a vet, for God’s sake.’

‘And Harold Shipman was a doctor,’ said Maynard.

Butterfield looked across at Harris, who shrugged.

‘I didn’t say I was original,’ he said. ‘I take it you confronted him with what you knew, Ged?’

‘Yes. Told him that, if he co-operated with us, we would keep his name out of it, but he refused. If you ask me, he was more frightened of Gerry Radford.’

‘Who wouldn’t be? In fact….’ The inspector’s voice tailed off and he looked at the RSPCA officers with an appalled look. ‘Hang on, is there a chance that James Thornycroft could have worked out that Meredith was feeding you information?’

‘Why,’ said Helen Jackson with a wan look on her face, ‘do you think you are here?’

It was just after 10 a.m. when, still wearing his pyjamas, James Thornycroft made his way slowly down the stairs to discover that he was alone in the house, his wife having long since left for work. He recalled vaguely that she had tried to rouse him before she left but he had grunted and rolled over in bed. Now, he paused on the landing and stared at his haggard reflection in the oval mirror, wincing as he did so, partly from what he saw and partly because of the jagged pain in his head. Moving in a laboured fashion, Thornycroft headed down the stairs. The couple had only recently moved into the semi-detached house on the new estate in Levton Bridge and had still not managed to unpack all the boxes and, as he walked down the hallway towards the kitchen, he stumbled over one of them, stubbing his toe and swearing loudly.

Hopping into the kitchen, he sat down and examined his foot. As he leaned over, another sharp pain from his head reminded him of the previous night’s excesses. Thornycroft made for the sink and ran himself a large glass of water, which he downed in one go. He refilled it then reached into a cupboard for a packet of Aspirin, of which he swallowed two.

‘You’re a damned fool, James Thorncroft,’ he groaned. ‘Always have been.’

He sat back down at the kitchen table and turned hooded eyes on the empty wine bottle standing on the draining board. Had his wife seen it? Surely, she must have. His mind went back to the events of the previous evening. After leaving the surgery shortly after 9.30, he had not felt the desire to go home and face another row with his wife, or have to answer her endless questions about the parlous state of their finances. With the wounds of their life in Bolton still raw, Gaynor Thornycroft had turned her anger on her husband on numerous occasions over recent weeks and there had been constant shouting matches. To avoid another one, Thornycroft had bought a bottle of wine from an off-licence near the surgery and had driven around for the best part of an hour and a half before going home.

When Thornycroft arrived home, the house had been in darkness, as he had guessed it would be – his wife always turned in early – so he had sat and downed the entire contents of the bottle. As he sat in the semi-lit living room, his mind had been in turmoil but, as he drank and thought, he had resolved not to do what he had done in Bolton. No, this time he would stay, would face whatever was coming. There would be no running this time. Besides, where was there to run? Into the arms of Gerry Radford and his accomplices? Or the RSPCA and that Maynard fellow who seemed determined to link him to the dog fights? Thornycroft knew co-operating with law enforcement was not an option: he knew that he would not cope well with prison, certainly not given Radford’s connections on the inside, but he was even more frightened of the gangster’s connections on the outside should word leak out of his involvement. After all, look at what happened to Trevor Meredith, he had reminded himself. Not that he needed reminding. Thornycroft had felt a sudden stab of guilt, knew that he would have to live with Meredith’s death on his conscience until he breathed his last. Eventually, after drinking far too much, he had gone to bed where he lay in the darkness, mind still turning things over and over and over, until he finally drifted off to a disturbed sleep.

Now, he sat in his kitchen and stared out of the window, oblivious to the bright summer sunshine which had bathed his back garden in golden light. He had been sitting there for ten minutes, sipping his water and wishing that his head would stop throbbing, when the phone rang. Still moving slowly, he walked into the hallway and picked up the receiver.

‘Mr Thornycroft?’ said a voice.

‘Hello, Janice.’

‘I am sorry to ring you – I know your wife said you were ill – but Mrs Burns wants to rearrange her appointment and she is most insistent.’

‘Tell the old bag to sod off.’

There was a silence at the other end of the phone.

‘Tomorrow,’ said James Thornycroft, ‘Tell her I will be back tomorrow.’

He replaced the receiver and walked back into the kitchen. No running, not this time. Even if it was true that a man could never forget his past, he could at least destroy the evidence that it had ever existed. Thank God for the delete button, thought James Thornycroft. Filled with a fresh purpose, he made himself a cup of strong black coffee and walked upstairs, where he brought down the ladder leading to the loft. Climbing into the darkness, he fumbled for the pull-string to turn on the light. Once he could see where he was going, he walked over to reach behind the water pipes and produced a large box. Opening the lid, Thornycoft brought out a laptop computer and took it down the ladder and into his study in the spare room.

Once the machine had booted up, he searched through his images folder for several moments then pulled up a picture depicting a group of men standing in two rows in front of a veranda, on the edge of jungle. Among the black faces were several white men and, thoughtfully, James Thornycroft stared at his younger self standing next to a bearded Trevor Meredith.

‘I tried to warn you, Robert,’ he sighed.

Finger hovering over the delete button, Thornycroft hesitated then, with sudden resolve, pressed down. He opened other files, revealing different images, and started to delete them from the hard drive, stomach churning images of horribly injured dogs, grainy pictures shot in the half-light of deserted old warehouses and sheds, images of men exulting in the triumph of their combatants and the suffering of the defeated, pictures which would send James Thornycroft to prison if they fell into the wrong hands. Or see him face down in a ditch if Gerry Radford and his acolytes realized that he still had them. Until now, they had been his insurance policy, now, after what had happened to Meredith, they felt more like a death sentence.

‘Should have done this a long time ago,’ he said as he watched the pictures being swallowed up.

An hour and a half later, the computer was still deleting the files when the front-door bell rang.

As Jack Harris and Alison Butterfield emerged from the RSPCA meeting shortly before noon, the inspector was already on the mobile phone, talking to his detective inspector back at Levton Bridge Police Station.

‘How you getting on, Gillian?’ he asked.

‘Making decent progress,’ said the DI’s voice. ‘We’ve already talked to a couple of the names on the poker list – the guy who runs the corner shop in Eden Street and that young trainee accountant at the council offices.’

‘Anything useful?’ asked the inspector, as he and Butterfield started walking down the terraced street towards the direction of the town centre.

‘They had been waiting for us to turn up. They were really worried: I thought the accountant was going to collapse. Had to get him a glass of water.’ Roberts chuckled. ‘Old woman.’

‘But did they say anything of use?’

‘Confirmed your chap’s story really. There has certainly been tension over the money being lost. I reckon it got totally out of hand.’

‘Which is why we are going to stop it. Did you get anywhere with checks into this chap Bowes?’

‘No one seems to know much about him. What’s more – and this is a bit funny – I did all the usual checks but can’t find any record of him. Odd really, it’s like he never existed before he came here.’

‘Just like Trevor Meredith,’ said Harris, pointing Butterfield in the direction of an alleyway that cut through into Roxham’s main shopping street.

‘Maybe so, but I’m still not convinced that any of them would kill over a game of cards, guv,’ said Roberts.

‘I just want to eliminate people, Gillian. Talking of eliminating people, did you come up with anything on Jane Porter?’

‘A totally unspectacular woman, guv. Been at the sanctuary for years, no criminal record, no soft intelligence. Unmarried, no skeletons that we can find. Another non-person really.’

‘No one is a non-person,’ said the DCI, looking over at Butterfield. ‘There you are, Constable, your second lesson today from the Book of Jack Harris.’

‘You doing your father figure thing again?’ said Roberts.

‘Something like that. I know you are busy but will you do me a favour?’

‘Sure.’

‘I know I asked you to leave the Thornycroft interview for us, but from what the RSPCA have just said, he was in deeper than we thought,’ said the inspector as the detectives emerged on to the shopping street. ‘Seems like he might have some distinctly unpleasant little friends. Can you make up some spurious excuse and go and see if he is OK?’

‘He in danger?’

‘They got to Trevor Meredith.’

‘OK, I’ll look in on him,’ said Roberts. ‘What you going to do?’

‘Get some breakfast.’

‘Ah, the pressures of life at the top,’ said Roberts.

As he walked down the hallway, James Thornycroft felt his heart pounding. Trying desperately to make out the figure through the frosted glass of the front door, he hesitated, wondering whether or not to turn and escape out of the back of the house.

‘Pull yourself together, you daft bastard,’ he murmured. ‘It’s probably only the gas man.’

Partially reassured by the thought, he opened the front door.

‘What the—?’ he exclaimed as a fist snapped out and caught him full on the face.

Staggering backwards, and before he could react further, Thornycroft was pushed violently into the hallway, his knees buckling as he collided with the telephone stand. As the intruder slammed the door and walked towards his victim, James Thornycroft instinctively threw up an arm to protect himself. He was too late: the man’s boot slammed into his gut, knocking the wind out of him. Gasping for breath, Thornycroft sprawled across the floor.

‘Please God, no!’ he cried. ‘I did as you said.’

‘Gerry reckons you been talking too much to the police.’

With a cry, Thornycroft struggled to his feet and turned to run into the living room. As he did, he stumbled over the cardboard box again, fell forward and hit his head against the edge of the doorframe.

The intruder stared down at his lifeless body.

‘Shit,’ he said.