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Authors: Jo Bannister

BOOK: True Witness
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“So they tried out a few different disciplines. Because there were two of them they got competitive: trying to run further and faster than one another, trying to lift more weight. Before I knew it they were waiting on the doorstep when I opened up. At some point they made the transition between trying to beat one another to trying to better themselves, and then they were genuine athletes.”
Even the memory sparked a certain pride in his eye. “I tried them on a variety of programmes. They were terrible boxers – hadn't the self-control, kept trying to finish the fight rather than win it. They were better at track and field events, but what they were really good at was keeping going in adverse conditions. The track steeplechase only scratched the surface – they could have finished one and run a better one right after. Strength, stamina, endurance and mental resilience: they were natural cross-country runners.
“I put them in for the Three Downs that first year. They were fifteen, for pity's sake – men of thirty should have been running over the top of them. But they weren't. Nathan finished eighth out of a field of sixty. Chris finished twelfth, on a sprained ankle. The next year he won it.
“So what was he like? He had guts, Mrs Farrell. He never gave up. Nothing was too hard for him or hurt too much. You showed him a goal and he could shut out everything else. He was a born champion. If he hadn't had the physique for running he'd have found something else to excel at. He was never going to be ordinary.”
He was telling her what had impressed him as a coach. Brodie wanted to hear what kind of a boy Chris was, what kind of a man he was going to be. If he was solemn, or up for
a night on the tiles. If he laughed a lot or took life as seriously as he took his sport. If the training and the competitions and being the best fell-runner around left time for socialising, for gambling or for romantic entanglements. Nobody killed Chris Berry because he was fast across country. He just might have died because he'd made some bad acquaintances, some bad debts or some bad choices.
She turned to Nathan, still as edgy in her company as a cat in a room full of rocking-chairs. “You must have had good times together. Running hard, training hard – drinking hard?”
But he shook his head. “You can't drink and run.”
“So what did you do to relax?”
Nathan shrugged. “Get a video. A disco, maybe, if we weren't competing at the weekend. Normal stuff.”
Brodie nodded. “Did he have a girlfriend?”
“Sure. Her name's Lindsay. Last week her name was Jill.”
Brodie chuckled. “No danger of him getting too serious too soon, then.”
“He was serious about running. Girls are like beer – they can get in the way. It's all right having the odd one, but you need to keep on top of the job.”
But it was too soon for Nathan to be making even wry jokes about his friend. His voice caught and he stumbled to the window, stood looking up at the looming bulk of the Firestone Cliffs.
“I'm sorry,” Brodie said softly, “I don't mean to upset you. I know you're hurting. You had a close friend for most of your life, now he's gone. All the things you did together you're going to be doing alone. It'll be hard for a while, but the worst will pass. You'll always miss him, but it won't always be like a knife in your side.”
She'd been trying to comfort him. But the boy fled the room, choking back a sob.
Brodie put one long-fingered hand to her mouth, regarding Ennis over the top of it and speaking through the fingers.
“I'm trying to make things easier for Daniel and what I'm actually doing is making things worse for you and Nathan. Maybe I should go now.”
He didn't try to dissuade her.
“It's just – Look, you're a policeman …”
“Was,” Ennis said quietly.
“All right, you were; but you know how these things come about. Something terrible happens, and everyone's so desperate to deal with it they jump at the obvious answer. But obvious isn't always right. I'm worried that because it looks like an open-and-shut case, because Jack Deacon thinks he knows who did this, everyone's taking an awful lot for granted. Maybe they're right – but if they're not, the man who killed Chris must be feeling pretty smug by now.”
Ennis frowned. He was twenty years older but there was something about him that reminded her of John. An inner calm, a quiet intelligence, a personality that made its impact without trying too hard. Even six months ago, comparing someone to her ex-husband would have been the kiss of death. It was a mark of her recovery from the divorce that now she could remember what attracted her to him in the first place. He was a good man, a kind man, an honourable man. He'd just had the misfortune to meet someone he loved more than his wife.
Now George Ennis looked at her with the same astute, troubled eyes and said, “Mrs Farrell, what are you suggesting? That we look for this other man together?”
Until that moment it hadn't occurred to her. But it made sense. He owed it to his friend as she owed it to hers. “Why not? Look, we want the same things. We want to know what happened. We want Chris's killer behind bars. If it's this – this –”
“Neil Cochrane,” supplied Ennis softly.
“Right, if it's this Neil Cochrane then OK, it's not the perfect result for Daniel but he can start coming to terms with the fact that he made a mistake. And once he's in custody
people will relax. When they have a proper target for their anger they won't have to use it up on Daniel.”
“And what do you think Jack Deacon's going to say when he hears I've got involved in his investigation?”
Brodie shrugged. “He won't like it, any more than he likes it when I trample on his toes. But you're a private citizen now, you're entitled to do things that you couldn't do as a police officer. Asking questions on another detective's manor is one of them. He won't like it, but he'll put up with it. I think he'll understand why we're doing it.”
Ennis eyed her askance. “We're still talking about Jack Deacon, are we?”
Brodie laughed. “OK, maybe that's optimistic. But as long as we don't obstruct his inquiry there's nothing he can do. If we make any progress, we'll tell him and maybe he'll have the grace to thank us. If we don't he can have the pleasure of rubbing our faces in it. Either way we're not going to get under his feet. I'm looking for a man he doesn't believe exists. How can that jeopardise his investigation?”
Still George Ennis looked deeply unhappy. “I don't understand why you're so sure there is another man.”
“I'm not,” admitted Brodie. “Even Daniel isn't confident any more. At the time he was. He saw the killer, and he didn't think it was Neil Cochrane. The second murder shook him to the core. I want to set his mind at rest. Of course I want to see a man who enjoys sodomising teenage boys and then beating them to death in jail, but principally I want to help my friend. He's hurting, and he's in danger, and he will be until this is resolved. And if Jack Deacon's looking for the wrong man it's going to take too damn long.”
“Forgive me, but – what do you think you can do about it?”
Brodie bridled at the doubt in his voice. “Deacon's chosen to tackle this inquiry from one angle; well, I'll approach it from another. I don't think Chris was a random victim. I think his death was a consequence of something in his life,
something he knew or was involved in. If so then other people may know about it, even if they don't know they know. His family and friends may know things whose relevance they haven't suspected because everyone thinks Chris was waylaid by a pervert. If his friends have different pieces of the jigsaw, maybe all it'll take is for someone to put them together. I'm going to try. If you're offering, I'll be glad of your help.”
There was a long silence. She tried to read Ennis's expression. He didn't like it, but then he used to be the man at the hub of the investigation whom everyone else was trying to second-guess. Naturally his sympathies lay with Deacon.
But he wasn't blind to her argument, and he knew that if she proved Deacon wrong the policeman would be too busy reeling in his catch to waste much time in recrimination. Brodie couldn't tell what Ennis thought of the central idea, that maybe the farmer from Menner Down wasn't guilty of Chris Berry's murder. But he didn't have to buy into it, had only to acknowledge the possibility and recognise that vital time could be wasting. It wouldn't do Chris any harm if he helped her and they were wrong. It might aid the killer if he refused to help and she was right.
Brodie hadn't much more to offer by way of persuasion. She murmured, “If someone's going to be asking about Chris, I dare say the people who cared for him would sooner it was you than me.”
George Ennis drew a deep breath and finally nodded. “God knows what we can achieve. But if you want me to talk to his friends, I can do that. I'm not sure I believe in this other man of yours. It
is
hard to identify people from a snatched glance, I'm not surprised Hood didn't recognise Cochrane and I wouldn't take that as proof that Cochrane wasn't there. All the same, if there's even a chance that he's right we can't ignore it. If we look for another man and fail to find one, that'll be something in itself.”
Brodie nodded in relieved agreement. This was something
she meant to do, but she had no illusions about how difficult it would be or how unpopular it could make her. Having Chris Berry's coach along for the trip would make it easier. “That's how I see it. If we can get at the truth, what that truth is will be of secondary importance. Whether it's Cochrane or someone else, we all want the right man to pay for what he did.”
“What if it was Cochrane?” said Ennis. “Will Hood accept that?”
“He'll have to,” said Brodie bleakly.
What Brodie wanted was to bring Chris Berry's friends together. “Could you invite them to a wake here this evening?”
George Ennis looked astonished. “None of us is in the mood for a party!”
Brodie was determined. “Then tell them it's a prayer meeting. But don't mention me. They mightn't come if they expect to be questioned, but once we start talking about Chris they'll stay.”
Ennis was doubtful but seemed unable simply to refuse. He spread one hand in an oddly helpless gesture, then went into the hall and made the phone-calls. Through the shut door Brodie heard Nathan's voice raised in a plaint. Ennis responded sharply and the voices sank to a mutter. More calls followed.
When Ennis returned alone, Brodie said, “Is Nathan all right?”
He shrugged. “Not really. They were very close. He's hanging on by his fingernails.”
“There are counsellors,” she said. “If you think he needs help.”
“I think he just needs time.”
Probably no one knew Nathan Sparkes better than his coach so perhaps he was right. Brodie hoped so. “Who did you call?”
“Everyone we could think of who was more than a casual acquaintance. School-friends Chris stayed in touch with; kids from the coffee-bar in Bank Lane; people from the gym, of course, and others he knew through running. And Lindsay. But I don't think she'll come. The poor kid was crying on the phone.”
“I'm sorry to involve you in this,” Brodie said quietly.
“All I can say is, if it leads to anything it'll have been worthwhile.”
“Of course it will,” said Ennis, but his heart wasn't in it.
“How many are you expecting?”
“Maybe a dozen.” He looked critically at his sofa and his one chair. “We'd better do it downstairs.”
“I'll need you or Nathan to brief me on who's there – their relationship to Chris, how long they knew him, that sort of thing.”
“Not a problem.”
 
 
Jack Deacon didn't get home for breakfast. He didn't get home for lunch, and by the time he remembered he'd promised to help Daniel with his bank it was mid-afternoon and the place would be closed. So he got on with his work.
At four-fifteen the phone rang. Dr Roy had preliminary results of the post mortem on Kevin Sykes. “Do you want the good news or the bad news?”
Deacon breathed heavily. Hari Roy was an excellent forensic medical examiner but he had an odd sense of humour. Deacon put it down to his university education. Deacon didn't have a lot of time for education. “There's some good news?”
“Yes,” said Dr Roy, “or possibly no, depending on how you look at it. Kevin Sykes may not have been murdered. Not by the man who killed Chris Berry; conceivably, not by anyone.”
Deacon scowled. He'd seen the damage himself. You can commit suicide in a variety of imaginative ways but not with a blunt instrument. “What are you talking about?”
“There are fragments of car paint in the head-wound. I don't think he was beaten with a wheel-brace, I think he was hit by a car.”
They'd been over this already. “There were no leg injuries,” objected Deacon.
“I think he was lying down at the time. In fact, I think he was dying at the time. There was enough heroin in his system to take out a horse.”
Deacon's scowl eased from irritable to puzzled. “You think someone shot him full of heroin and then ran him down?”
“Or,” said Roy, “he shot himself full of heroin and passed out, and a car drove clean over him because the driver never recognised him as a human being. You saw him: with that coat pulled over him, in the dark and the dirt anyone could have taken him for rubbish. Whoever ran him down may not know how he dented the front of his car, or what the sticky stuff on it is.”
Deacon was nonplussed. He hadn't considered that the death of Kevin Sykes might fall outside the pattern. “Accidental death?”
“That's not a forensic conclusion,” said Roy. “But if you want my personal opinion, I think it's the likeliest explanation.”
Deacon's brain churned, amending what he thought he knew in the light of this fresh information. So he was never going to connect Neil Cochrane to the death at the brewery. But Roy was right: that might be good news. Cochrane could have an alibi for Monday night – he didn't seem to have but he could – without it getting him off the hook as far as Berry was concerned. Far from derailing the inquiry, this just might simplify it.
It also meant that the men in the cells downstairs had torched Daniel Hood's flat for no good reason. Not that there was ever a good reason for arson, Deacon thought quickly – even in the privacy of his own head his respect for the law was absolute. But they'd done it because they thought his indecision had led to another death. Deacon would enjoy telling them they were going to prison for a misunderstanding.
And the other person who'd be interested in Dr Roy's conclusion was Daniel. Deacon rang his own number but got the
machine. Daniel must have given up waiting and gone to tackle the bank manager alone, trusting to his ownership of the world's most honest face to achieve as much as a signed statement from a senior police officer. Deacon glowered. It would probably work. A man with no charm of his own, he mistrusted it in other people. He knew it was a potent weapon, and he couldn't charge anyone for possession.
 
 
By seven-thirty everyone had come who was coming. There were eight of them: fewer than Ennis had hoped but enough if one of them knew Chris had made an enemy.
Brodie passed round coffee and biscuits, introduced herself but offered no explanation for her presence. The young people were confused. Some of them thought they were here to drown their sorrows, some for a short memorial service. Coffee and ginger-nuts puzzled them all.
But they each obediently took a cup and for a while just sat together, sharing their shock and grief. Then they began to talk about the young man whose passing they were here to mourn.
At first Brodie just listened. Nathan, who was perched beside her, murmured the names of the speakers and explained how they had fitted into Chris's life. They were remembering aloud, little anecdotes from their shared lives, moments of kindness, of bravery, of triumph, and, as the mood relaxed, of comedy too.
They were all young – late teens, a couple in their early twenties – and for most it was their first experience of irrevocable loss. To start with they didn't know how to talk about it: all the vocabulary they had were cliches. But as they grew easier with the process they discovered that what you really remember about someone is the times they made you laugh.
But that was never going to explain why Chris Berry died. Brodie realised she would have to declare herself if she wanted
to achieve anything. She took a deep breath and prayed they wouldn't walk out before she'd finished.
“Please don't feel offended, or angry – or if you are, be angry with me, not George. This was my idea. He agreed to help because we all want the same thing – the man who killed your friend. I don't know that this will help, but it may.
“Everyone thinks they know who killed Chris and why. They may be right, but I'm not convinced. It may have been someone else, hiding behind the events of ten years ago. If so he's going to get away with murder unless someone comes up with an alternative explanation.
“You don't have to know that someone wanted Chris dead, you don't have to know that they killed him. You don't even have to believe there
was
a someone else. But if you saw or heard anything odd, that bothered Chris or he was unwilling to talk about, that may be the reason. If someone was gunning for him, he may have known who. He may have said or done something significant, something that would point the police in the right direction. You must want that even more than I do.”
They heard her out in silence. It wasn't politeness: she'd rendered them speechless. They thought they knew what had happened, and appalling as it was they'd started coming to terms with it. Now a woman they didn't know from Eve was telling them they'd got it wrong – that everyone had got it wrong – and one or more of them knew what had happened instead. They stared at her open-mouthed with disbelief.
But it wasn't the first time Brodie had stilled a room. She wasn't embarrassed. The secret was to keep talking until someone else was ready to. What she said mattered less than the fact that someone who had something useful to contribute wouldn't have to break a stunned silence.
Her voice was quiet and conversational. “I didn't know Chris. But I met his mum once. If she'd been any prouder of him she'd have exploded. But in some ways you knew him
better than she did. There were things he'd tell you that his mum and wild horses wouldn't get out of him. You know what I mean: things you know you should be ashamed of and actually aren't. Making out with people precisely because they'd horrify your mother. Drinking too much; smoking a joint, popping pills, just to see what the hype's about. Losing at strip poker and reckoning it was worth it because of who was second worst.
“Come on, it's not
that
long since I was eighteen – I know about lager roulette. I know about behaving badly for no better reason than it looks more fun than behaving well. You're not going to tell me you never do stupid things just for the hell of it? That Chris never did?”
Finally one of them interrupted her: a girl in her late teens, long fair hair scraped back, scrubbed cheeks, eyes still puffy from crying. But the voice was ribbed with anger and the refusal to hear the dead boy slandered. “You got one thing right – you didn't know Chris. We did. Don't you dare tell us he brought what happened on himself.”
Brodie spared Nathan an questioning glance. “Tiff Willis,” he murmured, “she's a runner too.”
Brodie nodded. “I'm sorry, Miss Willis, that's the last thing I want to suggest. Nothing Chris did or didn't do could justify what was done to him. It was murder. There can't be any mitigating circumstances.
“But the fact is, almost nothing comes from nowhere. Most events have a history, and most victims of violence know their attackers. Chris may have known his.”
“
We
know Chris's attacker,” rasped a young man with ginger hair and the upper body development of a thrower. “The freak with the sheep.”
A tall black youth remembered the name. “Neil Cochrane.”
Brodie nodded. “Quite possibly. And that's the line CID are following. If it was Cochrane, they'll get him. I just want to be sure that we aren't missing something because of this man and what he did ten years ago.”
The gathering thought about that, and if they still resented her suggestions, her very presence here, at least they could see merit in her argument.
Tiff Willis said disdainfully, “If you think we can tell you about a secret life Chris was leading as an international drug-smuggler, you're wrong. He was a runner – an athlete. It doesn't leave you time to get into much trouble.”
Brodie dipped her head encouragingly. “I can see that. But some trouble comes to your door without an invitation. Did he
seem
troubled in the last few weeks? Was he spending time with people you wouldn't normally see him with?”
There was a soft mutter of discussion. The black youth – Nathan Sparkes said softly, “Joffe Matthews” – said, “He was short of money. But he always was. We all are.”
“Did he ask you for a loan?”
Joffe chuckled. “Hell no – he knew better than that! But he was pricing parts for that car, said he couldn't afford the scrapyard prices let alone the list price.”
Brodie flicked a grin. “Chris ran a car?”
George Ennis explained. “He and Nathan bought it together. It's a bit elderly, but at the level they were competing at it's a nightmare depending either on lifts or on public transport.”
“So he was hard up,” said Brodie. “Any reason? Had he been spending much recently?”
“Mrs Farrell,” murmured Joffe Matthews, “are you
sure
you remember being eighteen?”
There was a general ripple of amusement. Brodie didn't mind them baiting her as long as they kept talking. “I remember my first car. You didn't park where you were going, you parked at the top of the nearest hill.” A chuckle and a general softening of the atmosphere were her reward.
Tiff Willis seemed to have known the dead man as well as any of them, and – in the absence of his girlfriend – to have cared as much. She wasn't beguiled by Brodie's easy manner,
still resented discussing her friend with a stranger. But Brodie doubted if anyone here was more likely to come up with useful information. Because she knew Chris well enough to know personal things about him, and cared enough to share them even when she'd rather not if she thought she could help catch his killer.

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