Behind Dead Eyes (12 page)

The
Rosewood café had one of those bells that rang when the front door opened. Ian Bradshaw glanced over at the door's steamed-up window every time the bell made a sound.

On the sixth time it rang, his vigilance was rewarded. ‘I didn't expect you to turn up.' Bradshaw looked into a tired face with dark marks under the eyes.

‘I'm always happy to take a breakfast from Northumbria Police,' Tom told him.

‘I wouldn't want you to think of it as a bribe.'

‘Right now, for a double bacon butty I'd sell my soul, along with all of my journalistic principles.'

‘What principles?' scoffed Bradshaw then he grinned. ‘We can throw in a fried egg if you like and a pot of tea.'

‘Coffee,' Tom insisted and he sat down opposite the detective. A moment later a young girl appeared and Tom waited till she had taken their order.

‘Okay,' he said, ‘I'll help you with your case,' but before Bradshaw could enjoy his small moment of triumph he added, ‘but there's one condition.'

‘What?'

‘You have to help me with mine.'

Kane did not invite Bradshaw to sit down and the younger man was glad of it. He wanted to get out of the DCI's office before Katie Tennant got the hump with him again.

‘Did you tell him we'd put him on the payroll?' asked Kane.

‘Yes,' said Bradshaw.

‘And?'

‘It wasn't enough.'

‘The greedy bastard!' the DCI flared.

‘I don't mean the money,' Bradshaw said quickly, ‘it's not about that.'

‘What then?'

‘He's working on something else,' said Bradshaw, ‘and you're not going to like it.' He explained Tom Carney's interest in the Rebecca Holt case then.

‘You're joking,' was Kane's response and Bradshaw wondered why people always said that, even when it was patently obvious no one was joking.

‘I'm afraid not.'

‘Why does he want to open up that can of worms? Richard Bell was tried and convicted.'

‘But the evidence was largely circumstantial,' said Bradshaw, adding hurriedly, ‘according to Carney.'

‘I'm familiar with the case, I was SIO on it,' Kane reminded Bradshaw, ‘and there was enough there to satisfy us and the CPS that there was a reasonable chance of a conviction in a murder trial. The jury agreed with us and Bell got life … but he's convinced Tom Carney he's innocent?'

‘Carney is not saying he's innocent, just that there is some doubt about his guilt. He thinks the jury might have been influenced by Bell's personality.'

‘Quite possibly,' admitted Kane, ‘the man shagged everything that moved.'

‘Bell's family are hiring him to take another look at the case. They want him to discover new evidence that might exonerate Bell.'

‘I'm thinking of the shortest verse in the Bible right now,' admitted Kane.

‘Sir?'

‘Jesus wept,' Kane sighed. ‘He won't find anything, we went over it all endlessly.'

‘Then it probably won't do any harm,' offered Bradshaw. ‘He's promised he'll keep an open mind and if he uncovers anything that Richard Bell won't want to hear, he'll tell him anyway.'

‘Including proof that he did it?'

‘Including that.'

‘So he's too busy to help us?'

Bradshaw hesitated. ‘Well he did make one suggestion, but I strongly suspect you are not going to like it.' Bradshaw wasn't sure he liked the suggestion either.

‘Go on,' said Kane impatiently, ‘out with it.'

‘He says he will help us with our case if we help him with his.'

‘Ha! He wants us to investigate a case we've already looked into and taken to a satisfactory conclusion, so we can undermine ourselves?'

‘Something like that.'

‘The cheek of the man.' Kane fell silent for a long while then. Bradshaw knew his boss was pondering Tom Carney's bizarre offer. He was more than a bit surprised when the DCI suddenly said, ‘What harm can it do? You said that yourself.'

‘So you want us to help him with the Richard Bell case?' Bradshaw genuinely wasn't sure if that was what his boss was suggesting.

‘Why not? We can provide him with some inside information, let him read the case files and so on,' said Kane amiably. ‘If he has a lead that needs following up, assuming it's a sensible one, then I suppose there's no harm in lending
a hand with it, strictly on the QT, as long as it doesn't tie you up for too long.'

‘Me?' Bradshaw
really
didn't like that idea.

‘Of course you,' said Kane, ‘who else?'

‘But I'm working on the burned girl case for DI Tennant. Are you taking me off that?'

‘Oh no, I couldn't do that. Katie Tennant would rightly see that as a depletion of her already limited resources. No, you'll have to do it in your spare time.'

‘Spare time? I haven't got any spare time.'

‘Then make some,' snapped Kane. ‘If Tom Carney will bring his undoubted skills, along with his hugely annoying personality, to bear on the Frank Jarvis case then it will be worth it – because I am telling you now, he'll not find anything new for Richard Bell. We had some of our best men on it.'

‘Skelton and O'Brien,' said Bradshaw before he could stop himself.

‘Amongst others.' The tone was a rebuke. ‘There were twenty detectives at one point. I put every good man I could find on it in the early days.' That was another putdown, as Bradshaw had never been asked to work the Rebecca Holt murder.

‘I'm not sure I will get away with working on the Sandra Jarvis disappearance and re-examining the Rebecca Holt murder in my spare time, without DI Tennant noticing, sir.'

‘Oh I get it,' said Kane and his eyes narrowed slyly. ‘It's that bit of skirt you're seeing, isn't it? What's-her-name; the fit one, with the blonde hair?'

Bradshaw knew he should have taken issue with his senior officer for describing his girlfriend as a ‘bit of skirt'. This was 1995 for God's sake, not the Dark Ages. He also knew his DCI would be completely baffled to be pulled up by Bradshaw on it. Kane would assume he had actually just
paid the younger man a compliment. In truth Bradshaw lacked the energy to fight yet another battle and cursed himself inwardly for his cowardice. How the hell did his boss know who he was seeing, in any case?

‘Karen,' he answered.

‘Yes, her,' Kane nodded, ‘you don't want to miss too many nights in with Karen now you're shacked up together.'

‘We don't live together!' protested Bradshaw. What the hell had made his boss think that?

‘Oh, I heard she'd moved in. Anyway, it doesn't matter.' He waved his hand dismissively. ‘Don't worry, you'll still have most of your evenings together, just put a bit of your leisure time into this and I won't forget it. I have a solution that will give you some days away from DI Tennant without Katie getting her knickers in a twist,' he said and he smiled smugly. ‘Mentoring.'

‘Mentoring?'

‘It's a new initiative from the Home Office and championed by the Chief Constable. Senior officers select junior officers with potential and give them mentoring. It'll make you stand out and you might even get fast-tracked.'

‘What would I have to do?'

‘I'll get you a copy of my diary; you make a note of the things I'm doing, particularly any off-site stuff, leadership courses, visits to other forces, meetings with local brass or politicians, that kind of thing, and you tag along,' he said, ‘only you won't be tagging along, you'll be working the other cases. Katie Tennant won't be pleased you're missing days with her team of course but she'll like it a lot more than the truth.'

‘But I wouldn't actually be getting any mentoring though, would I?'

‘Oh, don't worry about that,' Kane was dismissive, ‘it's all a load of rubbish anyway. I mentor you lot every day. Look
we can meet up and I'll have a chat with you about your career, your strengths and your … er … weaknesses, so you can work on them. We'll even map out a career plan for you and I'll get one of the girls to type it up so you can show it to Katie Tennant.' He beamed at Bradshaw. ‘The best thing is we can do all of this in the pub. I've always said you learn way more having a few pints with the men above you than you do actually on duty. How does that sound?'

‘Great, sir,' said Bradshaw quickly, for he knew this was the answer expected of him.

‘But Katie cannot know the real reason you are AWOL from her team,' said Kane. ‘It's an off-the-record thing you're doing for me here. DI Tennant will be extremely upset if she finds out about it,' Kane reminded him, ‘but her anger will be as nothing compared to my vengeful wrath if you fuck this up,' and he let that sink in, ‘got that, Bradshaw?'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘Good lad,' said DCI Kane, ‘now enjoy the rest of your day.'

The statement was terse, short and to the point. ‘I do not comment on private family matters,' was all Councillor Lynch offered in his defence, so Helen's newspaper ran the story of his suspicious house sale with that quote at the bottom.

Helen hadn't expected Lynch to phone her back the next morning and threaten her. It was so blatant she had trouble accepting that the words were actually coming from the leader of the city council but when she pushed him a little on whether he had ever met the mysterious Mr Cooper, things rapidly escalated.

‘Who the fuck do you think you are?' he snarled at her, and these ferocious words were so unexpected from
someone in a position of power that Helen immediately felt queasy. But Joe Lynch was far from through. ‘I have worked tirelessly for the people of this city for more than twenty years, then you come along and try to destroy me. Well I won't let that happen, Helen Norton,' and he paused for a second before adding, ‘of 14a Monks Walk, Jesmond. Yeah,' he said, ‘I know where you live and I know what kind of person you are.' Then he used a stream of foul, misogynistic, four-letter words to describe her that she might have expected from a man like Jimmy McCree but not an elected official.

‘Now wait a minute …' she began.

‘No!' he shouted. ‘You've already had your say, now it's my turn. You picked the wrong guy to fuck with, you bitch. I am going to end you, Miss Norton.' And he abruptly hung up.

When he had gone, Helen sat at her desk in complete shock. She realised she was still holding the phone uselessly in her hand when she heard its dead tone. She got up and went to the toilet, ran the cold tap then splashed water on her face.

She had just been threatened by the most powerful politician in the city.
‘I am going to end you, Miss Norton,'
he had warned her – but was this the bluster of an impotent man or a real threat from a corrupt official who was friends with criminals? Did
end you
mean her career or her life? She felt sick.

Helen knew this was the point in the Hollywood film when the plucky young reporter vows to take on the all-powerful men at the top, no matter what the cost to her personally – but this was no movie. This was real life, and suddenly Helen Norton was very scared indeed.

‘Mrs
Bell is at a meeting,' the lady on reception told him, ‘but we're expecting her back around midday.'

Tom glanced at his watch. ‘Do you mind if I wait?'

‘Not at all; is she expecting you?'

‘Yes,' he lied. Tom figured their first meeting might be more fruitful if Annie Bell wasn't entirely on her guard when he arrived.

A little over twenty minutes passed before a brand new hatchback pulled into Annie Bell's reserved space by the front door at the head office of her father's company, Soleil. Tom watched Annie cross the open area towards reception. She was of average height, with what could be described as average looks, but immaculately dressed in a dark business suit. She looked a little older than her years, with a premature touch of grey in her dark curly hair but who could blame her for that?

Tom intercepted Annie before the receptionist could introduce him, ‘Mrs Bell, I'm Tom Carney.'

He thought he was being discreet by not mentioning her husband but her first words to him were, ‘I thought you would come to the house.'

‘I did,' he explained, ‘but the cleaner told me you were at work, so …'

‘… Here you are,' she completed the sentence for him. Annie looked around uncertainly.

‘I assumed you'd have an office,' he said quietly, ‘somewhere private.'

‘Alright.' She led him inside. They passed rows of desks, where a surprisingly subdued group of people were working in front of large computer monitors.

Annie Bell's office was at the end of the room. She closed the door behind them and Tom brought a chair closer to her desk so they were facing one another. Annie's office was a curiously impersonal work space, aside from one small, silver-framed photograph of two smiling little girls.

‘My two,' she said when she noticed he was looking at the photo. ‘I know they look like butter wouldn't melt but they can be a right handful.'

‘They're lovely,' he said. ‘I apologise if my appearance here is an embarrassment.'

‘A surprise, but not an embarrassment,' said Annie. ‘I'm a senior manager at a company owned by my father, which employs a large number of people, all of whom know my husband is serving a life sentence for the murder of his lover,' she paused, ‘how's that for embarrassment?'

‘It must be difficult.'

‘It is,' Annie admitted, ‘but you know what's more difficult? Knowing he is innocent and not being able to do a damn thing about it.'

‘You seem very sure about his innocence.'

‘I am.'

‘You've never had any doubts? Even during the trial when you heard some pretty bad things about Richard.'

‘I have had two years to process the information from the trial. I learned that my husband was a womaniser. Do I like that fact? No. Do I take some of the blame for it? Perhaps but not all. He did what he did and he certainly had a choice not to do it. Does that make him a murderer? God, no. Richard is a gentle soul. I know him better than anyone
and I can tell you this from my heart, he did not kill that woman.'

He noticed she did not refer to Rebecca Holt by name. ‘So who did? Kill her, I mean.' Then he added, ‘Was it you?'

‘If that's meant to be a joke, it's not very funny.'

‘It's an honest question,' he said, ‘and one I have to ask if you want me to look into your husband's case.' When she was slow to respond to that, Tom added, ‘Assuming you do want me to look into it, because now's the time to tell me if you don't.'

‘I am in favour of anything that might help my husband prove he is innocent, Mr Carney, though I'll admit I was pinning my hopes on a successful appeal – we all were.'

‘But you have your doubts,' he asked her, ‘about me looking into the case?'

She took a while to answer him. ‘I don't want my husband's hopes to be raised without foundation,' she said. ‘Richard was devastated when his appeal request was rejected. He went into a big depression for a while,' she explained, ‘then he read your book. The next time I visited him, it was all he could talk about. He told me he'd written to you and was hopeful of a reply. I didn't discourage him because I could see what that faint glimmer of hope did for his mood, but I'll admit I'm concerned about the impact on him if you are unable to find anything new.'

‘So am I. I'm not even sure I'm the right man to help him.'

‘Richard is convinced you are,' said Annie, ‘he calls you a truth-seeker.'

‘But you think he's clutching at straws?'

‘Drowning men do.'

‘Is that what he is?'

‘Oh yes,' she said, ‘I can see the effect that place is having on him. I have to get him out of there.'

‘By finding the real killer?'

‘Right now that would appear to be our only option, wouldn't you say?'

‘It wasn't you then?' he asked amiably.

‘No.'

‘Convince me.'

She sighed, and looked out of her window for the umpteenth time since they'd been there. ‘Not here,' she said and suddenly Annie Bell was on her feet.

Annie marched to the front of the building at speed but Tom managed to keep pace with her as they left the headquarters. ‘I can't talk in there,' she said and he understood that. It couldn't have been easy being Annie Bell, even two years after the trial. ‘We'll go to the park.'

As they walked past her car he said, ‘Nice motor.'

She answered absent-mindedly, ‘I drive a different one every week.'

‘How do you manage that?'

‘I don't own them. It's from the manufacturer. We have a large fleet of company cars. We get demonstrators dropped in every two or three weeks,' she explained. ‘The novelty wears off pretty quickly.'

‘I'd be willing to risk that,' he said. ‘So what exactly does Soleil do?'

‘We provide a range of integrated IT solutions tailored to suit the needs of an individual business. We don't just sell unsuitable products then leave you to pick up the pieces. Our sales team act as management consultants who will
help a firm with every step, from the purchase of hardware to the creation and installation of tailored software and staff training programmes then we help to set up management information reports.'

‘Sounds like a lot of hand-holding; must be expensive.'

‘In this life, you get what you pay for.'

The entrance to the park was a few hundred yards from Annie's office. She directed him to a bench in front of some hedges shaded by a large tree whose leaves had started to fall and littered the ground around them. ‘I have my lunch here every day,' she said and he got the strong impression she did that alone. ‘It's my favourite spot.'

‘It's very peaceful.' He joined her on the bench and they sat for a moment in silence until she decided to answer the question he'd asked in her office.

‘I might very well have harboured murderous thoughts towards that woman if I had known anything about her,' said Annie. ‘Oh, I knew of her existence, even met her once, but I had no idea she was in any kind of relationship with my husband, until the police turned up on our doorstep to tell Richard she'd been murdered. Then it all came out, eventually. They quizzed me about her obviously. I suppose I was even a suspect at first but I had an alibi for the day of the murder …'

‘You had a day off,' he recalled, ‘shopping in town?'

‘Yes,' she said, ‘lots of people saw me,' adding, ‘then later the forensic expert said the blows could only have been administered by a man, so that should convince you.'

‘I read that,' he said, ‘so who
did
kill Rebecca Holt, if not Richard or yourself?'

‘Her husband of course,' she said, as if it was obvious, ‘though we'll have a devil of a time proving it. He also has an alibi, for one thing.'

‘I'm not one for trusting alibis, Mrs Bell,' Tom said pointedly, ‘they can be bought or manufactured.'

‘Well I didn't buy mine,' she challenged him, ‘there's probably a dozen people who saw me in town during the course of that day.'

‘That was convenient.'

‘I'm a working mother,' Annie reminded him, ‘I rarely have time alone. I run in the mornings though, before I take the kids to school. That's my time. The rest of my day is pretty hectic.'

‘So you think Freddie Holt may have done it? You don't subscribe to the mad stranger theory?'

‘That's possible too, but her husband had a motive.'

‘Mad strangers don't need a motive. It's what makes them mad. Her husband didn't necessarily have a motive either, come to think of it.'

‘She cheated on him.'

‘He didn't know about that until after she was found dead,' said Tom.

‘That's what he said,' scoffed Annie, ‘but you don't really believe that, do you?'

‘Why not?' asked Tom. ‘You expect me to believe the same thing about you.'

‘You obviously don't know much about Freddie Holt,' she said.

‘What do you mean by that?'

‘If ever there was a man capable of murder, it's him.'

They spent half an hour discussing the rumours that followed Freddie Holt while he amassed his fortune. If a tenth of them were true, Rebecca Holt's husband was a fully paid-up member of the ruthless bastard society who was not afraid to bend rules or even hurt people if he thought it was required.

Annie glanced at her watch. ‘I have a meeting,' she told Tom. ‘If you're finished,' then she demurred, ‘for now?'

‘Not quite. I do have one last question for you,' said Tom, ‘and it's this: why would you care one way or another about the well-being of your cheating bastard of a husband when most women would probably abandon him?'

‘
Would
most women abandon him? Perhaps, but I doubt it. This is the real world and he is not just my
bastard of a husband
, as you put it, he's the father of my children. I have two wonderful daughters who miss their daddy very much and want him back. I said I was partially to blame for his behaviour and that was no exaggeration.'

‘In what way?'

She looked embarrassed then. ‘I wasn't always there for him. Having a full-time job and two small children … I was tired a lot of the time … We drifted apart. I regret not putting the time and energy into our marriage that I gave to my career and the girls. I think he resented that and sought comfort, if that's the right word, elsewhere. I will always feel responsible for that.'

‘Then why work at all? Did you even need to, financially I mean?'

‘Because my husband was Sales Director and my father is well off?' She looked disappointed by him. ‘Stop being a senior manager in the company and become a housewife instead, living off other people's money, attending coffee mornings and yoga classes? That's not who I am, Mr Carney. It's not who I was brought up to be.'

‘I see,' he said. ‘I have a list of people I would like to speak to about your husband and his case. One of them is your father.'

She frowned at him. ‘Why do you want to speak to Dad?'

‘I'd like to get his perspective.'

‘I'm afraid he doesn't want to talk to you.'

‘Why not?'

‘He isn't necessarily in favour of this.'

‘I see,' said Tom, ‘then it would be useful for me to know his reasons.'

‘I have always been one hundred per cent behind my husband. I never doubted his innocence for a moment. My father however …'

‘Thinks that he did it.'

‘… Is less convinced than I am. The trial soured his opinion of Richard. My husband's behaviour obviously upset my father. We have clients and investors. My father had to explain that one of his key employees, his own son-in-law, had been found guilty of murder. Obviously that was difficult. He understood Richard wanted to appeal but when that was refused he felt it was the end of the matter. I disagree.'

‘So your father thinks you should leave Richard in prison.'

‘He doesn't think I have any choice, but Richard wants you to help him and I support my husband's decision.'

‘Is Daddy paying my retainer?'

She shook her head. ‘I have my own money, Mr Carney. Daddy, as you call him, has no say in this.'