Gallows Lane (Inspector Devlin Mystery 2) (7 page)

He held his soup spoon in his fist, hunched over in his seat, leaning towards the bowl rather than raising the spoon to his face. He still wore the same clothes that he had been wearing on the day I first met him, his hair a shadow on his skull. He had developed a hint of stubble. The blue canvas bag he had been carrying that day hung now over the back of his chair.

I nodded to the waitress and asked for a coffee when she approached, then sat opposite Kerr. I noticed that, although the restaurant was quite busy, most lunch patrons had sat well away from Kerr, thinking him a tramp, perhaps. I suspected that correcting their mistake by revealing he was an ex-con might not have set their minds at rest.

‘Sleeping rough, James?’ I asked. He grunted and continued shovelling the soup, pausing to scrape a spillage off his chin with his spoon, its edge rasping lightly against his fine beard growth. ‘Don’t mind me,’ I said to him, then thanked the waitress when she brought my drink, gesturing to her that she should use the ten-euro note I gave her to pay for both the soup and the coffee.

He nodded towards the retreating girl; ‘Thanks,’ he said.

‘You’ve no money, have you, James? That’s why you didn’t stay in the B&B – isn’t that right?’

He nodded again, tearing a chunk from the bread roll he had been given and smearing it thickly with butter.

‘How were you going to pay for that?’ I asked.

‘I figured one of you lot would turn up and cover it for me,’ he said, smiling.

‘And where are you staying?’

He crooned inharmoniously, ‘Wherever I lay my head, that’s my home,’ and went back to his food.

‘You can’t sleep rough, James, you do realize that, don’t you?’

‘What are you going to do – arrest me for vagrancy?’

‘If you want. You’ll get a dry room for the night; breakfast’s not great but at least there’s room service.’

‘No, thank you, Inspector. I travel as I am – if someone offers me food and shelter, then God bless him. If not, I will wipe the dust of this town from my feet as I leave.’ He spoke without a hint of irony, no sense of the absurdity of his words. He blinked, simplistically, then asked: ‘Can I get dessert as well?’

I stood up to leave. ‘James – I’m supposed to “drive you out of town”, so to speak. I’m not going to do that, because I think you’re on the level. Please don’t make my trust turn out to have been misplaced.’

‘I appreciate your candour, Inspector. I wish to speak to someone. When I have done that, I’ll be on my way; I promise you.’

‘Care to tell me who?’ I asked.

‘No. But I only want to speak, nothing else.’

‘No violence?’

‘None from me; on my honour.’ He raised his right hand as he spoke, his left hand placed on his chest.

As I left I handed the waitress another twenty euros. ‘Give him whatever he wants and give him back the change,’ I said as I left, then turned back to her. ‘And when he leaves, point him in that direction,’ I added, nodding towards Strabane.

‘God bless you, Inspector,’ Kerr called to me as I opened the restaurant door. I looked back. A family seated at a nearby table stared at him, the mother’s face pulled in revulsion, as though he had shouted an obscenity. When he winked at her, the family moved seats.

That evening I sat in the garden and watched Frank playing with a chew-bone. The sinking sun had suffused the air with a pink light of a quality that gave the puffed clouds the appearance of candyfloss and darkened the red azalea blooms the colour of blood. Shane sat beside me in his swing, twisting around in the orange seat, repeating ‘Gagga’ over and over, his tiny features drawn with determination. Debbie and Penny came out and sat on the step with me, each carrying a bowl of ice cream, which we shared. Our house is several miles from our nearest neighbour, so isolated that, over the humming of bees around the garden, the earth was silent. Debbie smiled at me as she handed me a spoonful of ice cream. The world might have been deserted and I wouldn’t have minded. Penny hugged into me, wiping ice cream off her face on to my shirt. I put my arm around her and ruffled her hair, guessing that her display of affection was a prelude to a request.

‘What are you looking for, sweetie?’ I asked. She smiled up at me, her milk teeth marked with strawberry sauce under the smear of an ice-cream moustache.

‘Noffin’!’

‘What’re you really looking for?’ I said, cocking an eyebrow, peering at her with mock suspicion.

‘A hamster called Harry,’ she said, grinning till her eyes disappeared. ‘Please.’

I looked up at Debbie who shrugged and gave Shane a push on his swing. ‘We’ll see,’ I said.

Penny squeezed my leg and leaned into me. ‘Thank you, Daddy. I love you!’

‘I love you too, sweetie,’ I said. The sun crested the hills to the west, filling the sky with a brilliant explosion of warmth that stained the clouds orange and red and created a physical presence in my throat that I could not clear.

The following morning, as I sat in my car having my first smoke of the day, Burgess radioed through to say that Sinead Webb had phoned the station reporting a prowler in her grounds. There were no available officers in the station, so with nothing else to do, I volunteered.

The Webbs’ home was at the top of Gallows Lane, though the entrance to it was along an old coach path accessed from Coneyburrow, barely wide enough for two cars to pass, and bordered with rhododendrons and foxgloves.

The house itself was fairly modern, but designed almost as a post-colonial statement. The first-floor rooms to the front, which I guessed were bedrooms, opened out on to balconies overlooking the grounds, the main front door of the house framed by Doric columns whitewashed in sharp contrast to the garish salmon-pink of the house itself. The double doors at the front were heavy mahogany with thick brass fittings. I banged twice on the knocker, then stood back, looking up at the bedrooms for signs of life. One of the patio doors leading from the bedroom on the right had been left partially ajar and, behind the lace curtain which wafted lightly in the morning breeze, I thought I could see the outline of a figure, looking down. When the figure saw me looking, he or she stepped back quickly. Then I heard the door-lock slide back and Sinead Webb opened the front door.

Mrs Webb was younger than I had thought, possibly ten years junior to her husband. Her brown hair was cut short and slightly spiked, tapered at her neck. Despite being in her dressing gown, she wore a little rouge on her cheeks which served to accentuate the unnatural green of her eyes.

Her dressing gown was silk and she wore it over a long white nightgown. She was slim, small-breasted and sallow-skinned. Her age was most readily gauged around her neck where the skin was wrinkled, in contrast with the cosmetic work she had had carried out on her face.

‘Is it Peter?’ she asked breathlessly, before I could speak, peering over my shoulder at the squad car I had parked in her driveway.

‘No, Mrs Webb. Everything’s all right,’ I said, introducing myself. ‘I’m here about the prowler,’ I explained.

‘Oh, right,’ she said, laughing lightly. ‘Oh, come in, please.’

She led me into the kitchen where the remains of the previous evening’s meal remained on the worktop beside the sink. An almost empty bottle of white wine sat on the pine dining table with two glasses, one smeared with lipstick.

‘Sorry, it’s a bit of a mess,’ she said, gesturing nonchalantly towards the sink. ‘I got a real fright. I had to call a friend to stay the night. A girlfriend,’ she added quickly.

I nodded through the lie and said nothing.

‘So, do you want a description or something?’ she asked, not sitting down and so forcing me to remain standing also. I suspected that she regretted having asked me in and now wished to get rid of me as quickly as possible.

‘Well, maybe you can tell me where you saw … him? Her?’

‘Him – definitely him. He was standing at the edge of the garden; over under the apple trees.’ She moved to the window and pointed over to where three or four apple trees were plotted out about two hundred metres from the house.

‘What was he doing?’ I asked.

‘Just standing there,’ she said. ‘Watching the house. I was making dinner and he was just there. Staring.’

‘Did he … do anything?’ I asked, struggling to find appropriate wording while making my meaning clear. ‘You know?’ I nodded suggestively towards her.

‘Oh, like that!’ Her laugh tinkled. ‘Oh no, nothing like that. He was just watching.’

‘Did you go out to him?’

‘No, no. My friend came to the window too and when he saw him he ran,’ she said, a split second before realizing that she had exposed two lies with one sentence. Her friend had been there all along, and was most definitely a
he.

Mrs Webb blushed, and fidgeted with her gown pocket, attempting to remove a packet of cigarettes. I offered her one of mine and took the opportunity to light one for myself As I held the lighter out, I realized that her eye colour was the result of contacts, for one of the lenses was not sitting quite right and an umbra of her own brown colour could be seen around the green in her left eye. She was aware that I was looking at her and shifted position slightly.

‘So he ran after he saw your friend?’ I asked.

She nodded. ‘I thought it might have been a reporter or something. You know – about Peter’s arrest – but he was too badly dressed. Jeans and a cardigan or something. Bald-headed.’

I nodded. ‘I might take a look around out there, Mrs Webb. Beyond that, we’ll keep our eyes open. If he comes around again, give us a call. How’s that?’

She smiled. ‘Thank you, Inspector,’ she said, opening the back door to allow me out to the garden.

I walked around the apple trees, grateful for the coolness of the shade they provided, and pretended to examine the ground for evidence in case I had an audience from the house. In reality, I knew who the tramp was and guessed there’d be nothing worth finding in terms of evidence. Chances were Kerr was looking for somewhere to sleep. Or he was looking for somewhere to rob for petty cash. Or he was looking for someone, just as he had said in the café.

While I examined the ground, I tried to decipher the registration plates of the two cars parked behind the house. One was an old Vauxhall Vectra. The other was a red Ford Puma, though I could not see the registration plate because of the way it was parked. Still, I suspected that one of the cars belonged to our mysterious friend. As I finished my smoke beneath the apple trees, I was aware that I was being watched from an upstairs window. I glanced up to see Mrs Webb staring down, gnawing at the corner of her mouth. Perhaps she had begun to wonder why I had not asked her about the items found on her land.

When I arrived back at the station Williams was making coffee and indicated that she would make one for me. I left my stuff in our office and stood, hands in my pockets, listening to the shouts coming from Costello’s office. My heart lifted somewhat vindictively as I watched Patterson and Colhoun traipse out of the office, both looking decidedly unhappy. Colhoun had turned a shade of green I had never seen on anything that wasn’t a corpse and Patterson had turned a similarly extreme shade of red. He muttered something to his partner, then pushed open the back fire exit and went outside.

Williams handed me a mug, then leaned against the counter beside me, nodding towards the slowly closing door.

‘Someone’s not happy, eh?’

‘Oh well. I’m sure he’ll survive,’ I said, turning to go into the office. Williams followed and sat down behind the desk, affecting an interest in a sheet of paper sitting in her in-tray.

‘I don’t know if it’s a superior officer thing,’ she said, ‘but are you actually going to tell me at some stage what’s going on, or do I have to guess what the problem is between you and Patterson?’ She gazed at me over her coffee mug.

‘Sorry?’

‘You and Patterson. What’s going on? I think I have some right to know – partner,’ she replied and, though her tone was joking, I could sense beneath it an unspoken resentment.

I opened my mouth to speak but, failing to formulate anything to say, took a gulp of coffee. Then, unsure where to start, I began with my meeting with Kerr, and all that had happened since, right up to Peter Webb being brought in for questioning over something he knew nothing about.

Williams blew across the surface of her coffee as I spoke, listening attentively and showing no reaction to any of the revelations. She remained quiet for a moment after I finished then asked, ‘Well, what do we do now?’

‘We? I thought I’d fuck this one up myself, you know.’

‘Not a chance. This sounds kind of juicy,’ Williams said, smiling and draining her cooled coffee.

‘Juicy?’

‘You know what I mean, boss. Besides, I know something you don’t about all of this.’

‘What’s that?’

‘I’ll tell you when I feel like it.’

‘Point taken, Caroline. I’m sorry for not telling you. I—’ I started to explain, but Williams held her hand up in placation.

‘Enough already. I preferred it when you were saying nothing. You’ll be interested to know that Peter Webb walked out of here thirty minutes ago.’

‘Why? I thought they were going to question him again today.’

‘So did they. Costello got woken at five-thirty this morning by a VIP, demanding that Webb be released immediately.’

‘Jesus, who?’

‘No one knows. High, high up,’ she said, pointing towards the ceiling.

‘God?’ I asked with mock seriousness.

‘Higher,’ she replied. ‘Regional HQ. One of the Assistant Chief Supers, apparently.’

‘You’re kidding.’ An ACS getting involved in a case like this was like using a sledgehammer to crack a peanut. Unless, of course, they had somehow learnt about the suspicion surrounding the veracity of the guns find on Webb’s land. In which case, the trail could well lead back to me. ‘Shit,’ I said, the realization dawning on me, just as Costello shoved open our office door and pointed at me.

‘What a bloody mess,’ he said, grunting as he lowered himself into his seat. ‘From start to bloody finish – a bloody disaster.’ ‘What’s happened, sir?’ I asked.