There it was, a red brick house, just as Molly had described. Its tidy front lawn enclosed by a low picket fence. A smattering of colourful flowers lined the borders of the garden. Hanging baskets above the front door swayed gently in the light breeze. It was a picturesque scene. Arthur Bennett clearly took great pride in his home.
Sam rapped on the door. Within seconds, he heard movement from inside. The door opened and an elderly man appeared.
'Good afternoon, young man,' the man said, greeting Sam with a warm smile. 'Can I help you?'
Sam had given great consideration on how to play this out. He presumed Arthur was reeling from the news of Carl's demise, and Sam didn't want to upset the old boy any further. Nor did he want to arouse Arthur's suspicions. The last thing Sam needed was Mason getting another phone call about him interfering with known acquaintances of the deceased.
'Hello, I'm looking for a Mr Arthur Bennett. Carl Renshaw's former gardener? I was given this address by his wife, Molly.'
The mere mention of Molly's name caused the man to sigh deeply with sadness.
'Yes, I'm Arthur Bennett. What can I do for you?'
Sam stepped forward and offered his hand.
'Pleased to meet you, Mr Bennett,' he said confidently. 'My name is Ryan Harley.'
Arthur took Sam's hand and shook it with as much energy as he could muster. It was a limp effort. Sam could see Arthur was ailing in his twilight years, his physical strength rapidly vanishing. His hunched shoulders accentuated an already bony frame, and his skin had an unhealthy pallor, dotted with numerous liver spots. Sunken cheekbones gave Arthur's face a gaunt look. He didn't look well at all to Sam, who wondered how Arthur had managed the physical effort of keeping Carl's grounds in order until so recently.
'I'm looking for an old friend of mine,' continued Sam. 'Peter-'
Sam realised he couldn't remember Peter's surname. He berated himself for the oversight. Fortunately, Arthur's mind was still sharp.
'Ah, you mean Peter Canning,' he said. 'The man I recommended to the Renshaws. Apparently, he's been doing a lovely job looking after the place. At least he had been until the...'
Suddenly, Arthur looked choked up. Sam could see tears welling up in his eyes. Struck by a pang of guilt, Sam decided he should leave. It had been a bad idea to come here.
'Look, Mr Bennett, it's obviously a bad time for you, so I'll get off.'
Arthur took a handkerchief out of his pocket and blew into it noisily. Tucking the hankie away, he fought to regain his composure.
'No, no, young man. Take no notice of an old codger like me. Come inside and have a cuppa. I could do with the company.'
He gave Sam a wide smile.
It was the face of a lonely man.
Sam stepped reluctantly into his house.
***
Arthur rested a tray down on the coffee table. He took the teapot off it and poured boiling water into two mugs, then added milk and sugar before stirring the drinks thoroughly. It was a slow and tortuous process, giving Sam the opportunity to gaze around Arthur's front room.
It was a homely affair, neat and tidy, just like the garden outside. Gracing every wall were photographs of Arthur and a woman, taken throughout various stages of their lives. The portraits from their earlier years reflected a young couple full of vigour and happiness. He was big, strong and handsome. She was tall, slim and attractive. Sam thought them a fine couple.
'That's my wife, Elsie,' said Arthur, noticing the interest Sam was taking in the pictures.
'She passed away three years ago.'
'I'm sorry to hear that,' replied Sam, taking a couple of biscuits off the plate offered to him. 'She was beautiful.'
Sam watched Arthur gaze tenderly at a photograph on the sideboard. Taken more recently, the picture showed a frail looking Elsie sitting alongside her husband. Arthur, still looking fit and powerful, had one broad arm protectively placed around his wife's shoulder. Even after all those years, Sam could see they were still a couple very much in love.
A chance to grow old with the person you loved.
A familiar sadness swept over Sam.
'Cancer took her,' said Arthur, matter-of-factly. 'God rest her soul.'
'That must have been hard.'
'It was. She was a wonderful lady and I miss her dreadfully. But I'll be with her again soon.'
Sam watched Arthur cup his hands around his mug, relishing the heat sinking in his bones. The old man stared wistfully at the picture for a moment longer, then looked back to Sam.
'I was diagnosed with the same cancer a few months ago,' he said in a hushed tone. 'I've not got long now. Anyway, me and Elsie have been apart far too long.'
Sam was touched by the man's quiet dignity. His everlasting love for his wife.
'Is that why you stopped working for the Renshaws?' he asked, posing the question gently. 'Because of your illness?'
Arthur smiled thinly.
'That's right, young man. I just wasn't able to look after such a big place any longer. Now, I just potter about here. It's all I can do. I didn't tell Mr Renshaw about the cancer. Him and his wife were always good to me and Elsie. I didn't see the point in upsetting them. They took Elsie's death badly enough.'
Once again, Sam felt admiration for Arthur. It compounded his own guilt at coming here under a dishonest cover.
'Anyway, listen to me rambling on,' said Arthur. 'You came-'
He began to cough. A horrible, rasping cough emanating from deep within his chest. It went on for some time, eventually moving Sam to stand over him in concern. Arthur waved for him to sit back down. Gradually, the cough subsided enough for Arthur to continue speaking. He looked tired and drawn now.
'I was going to say,' he uttered, his chest still wheezing, 'that you came here about Peter Canning, didn't you?'
'I did,' confirmed Sam. 'But if you're not well enough-'
'Never mind that, young man,' said Arthur, giving Sam a grim smile. 'This is as good as it's going to get for me. Now, what did you want to know?'
'Peter's an old friend of mine,' said Sam, reciting the spiel he had rehearsed. 'We lost touch years ago and I'm trying to track him down again.'
Arthur looked bemused.
'Well, I wouldn't know,' he said. 'I only introduced him to Mr Renshaw. I haven't heard from him since.'
Sam feigned mild surprise.
'Oh, right. I got the impression from Mrs Renshaw that you knew him well. I must have got the wrong end of the stick.'
'No, I only met him a few months ago,' said Arthur, shaking his head. 'He started coming into Bursleigh Social club. I used to be down there regular and we got talking. He'd just been made unemployed and was desperate to get back into work. I happened to mention I was planning to retire, and when he told me he'd done a bit of gardening in his time, I recommended him to the Renshaws. Thinking about it, I haven't seen him down the club since.'
The last sentence caught Sam's attention.
'Yeah, that makes sense,' he said. 'Peter was always good at the practical stuff.'
Suddenly, Sam didn't want to bluff the old man any longer. Arthur would be asking awkward questions any time now. Questions Sam wouldn't have the answers to. He didn't want to cause alarm to a kindly, widowed man trying to live out his remaining days in peace.
'Apparently so,' said Arthur. 'Mrs Renshaw pops round to see me every now and then, and she's always happy with his work. I don't think she's too keen on Peter as a person, though. Anyway, it doesn't matter now. Not after this terrible business with the fire...Mr Renshaw...his poor wife and kiddies left without-'
Arthur's eyes began to mist over again. Sam levered himself up out of his chair. He hadn't bargained for so much emotion.
It was time for him to leave.
Sam found it difficult extracting himself from Arthur Bennett's living room. Despite his tiredness, Arthur was clearly reluctant to lose the company of his visitor, while Sam found himself strangely drawn to the pleasant old man. Perhaps it was the common themes bonding them.
Pain and heartache.
Loneliness.
Sam didn't dwell on that.
He was forced to make his excuses and leave the moment Arthur innocently asked Sam why Molly hadn't given him Peter's contact details herself. Sam's hurried reply that she had, but Peter was no longer living at the address, seemed to satisfy the old man. Then again, Arthur looked shot by that time and in no state to be conducting an interrogation. The bout of coughing had totally worn him out. Edging hastily to the front door, Sam asked if there was anything he could do for Arthur before he left.
Arthur told him there wasn't and thanked Sam for coming.
Sam asked silently for forgiveness.
***
Driving away from Arthur's, Sam once again had that unnerving sense of being followed. It was a feeling and nothing more. He couldn't make out a tail behind him, despite taking the precaution of going out of his way and venturing up and down some quiet side roads. If someone was tracking him, they were making a better fist of it than Peter had.
Continuing on to his original destination, Sam thought about Arthur's description of meeting Peter. It was highly suspicious the way Peter had been in the right place to take over Arthur's job. No, it was more than suspicious. The more Sam considered it, the clearer it was Peter had turned up at the club with the intention of talking his way into a job at the Renshaws. Then, having got what he wanted, he dropped the false pretence and stopped going there. It had all been done subtly enough to manipulate a vulnerable old man. A sociable bloke happy for company, willing to go out of his way to do someone a favour. And, of course, Carl would have been happy to offer Peter the job on Arthur's recommendation. Arthur had worked for the Renshaws for years. They weren't going to question his judgement.
All of which made Sam wonder why Peter had wormed his way up close to Carl. Had he committed the arson and murder? Or at least been involved? It would go some way to explaining his strange behaviour. Stalking Sam around town the way he had. Sam hoped DI Mason was following the same lines of enquiry and investigating Peter Canning.
Somehow, he doubted it.
***
There was a scrum of people outside his front door. Cars and vans were parked haphazardly all the way up the lane past his house. Sam's worst fears were confirmed when he saw a television camera in amongst the crowd.
Reporters.
Thinking fast, he drew up level with the cottage and lowered his window.
'Hey!' he shouted. 'Are you after Sam Carlisle?'
Some of them had already turned to stare at the white Capri pulling up. Now, they all looked his way, attracted by his yell. A middle-aged man wearing a long overcoat got to the car first. He crouched down and addressed Sam through the open window. Behind him, a ruck of inquisitive faces had formed.
'Do you know where he is?' asked the man eagerly, frantically withdrawing a notepad out of his pocket.
'He'll be round the back,' replied Sam. 'I'll go round and ask him to come out and talk to you. If you lot go round, he'll scarper off across the fields.'
With that, Sam moved the car along slowly until he reached the turn-off to the dirt track. He looked in his mirror. Nobody had followed him. They were all waiting patiently outside the cottage, chatting amongst each other. Marvelling at this rarely seen example of the media's trusting nature, Sam gently eased the Capri off the road and down the dirt track. When he reached his garage, he did a three point turn and got out. He ripped away a loose plank of wood from the back fence, then opened his boot and took out a blanket. Sliding onto the back seat of the car, he propped the piece of wood up against the back of the seat and placed the folded blanket on top of it. Sam stepped back and studied his handiwork. It was crude, but he would be some distance away and travelling at speed. Satisfied, he got into the front of the car and drove back up the dirt track.
Only this time, he put his foot down.
It worked a treat. The reporters heard the roar of a car engine coming up the dirt track, then watched in dismay as the Capri hurtled back out onto the country lane before roaring off into the distance.
'There's somebody in the back seat!' came an angry cry.
'He's fooled us!' another person yelled. 'He's smuggled Sam Carlisle out!'
Some of them looked at each other. Those quicker off the mark were already heading to their vehicles.
'Get after that car!'
That final, anonymous shout was the cue for several minutes of mayhem. Everybody rushed to their cars and vans, tripping over each other and dropping equipment in their haste. Cameras had to be stashed carefully back into vans and cables collected up and stored away. In the mad scramble to chase after Sam Carlisle, one impatient newspaper reporter guided his car around a stationary television van and collided with a rival's vehicle pulling out blindly in front of him. A young lady from the local radio station, desperate for her first major headline story, drove straight over the foot of the lead crime reporter from the Bursleigh Sentinel. A large television camera was dropped in the melee, sending fragments flying all over the road. The next car driving over the shards of glass and plastic got no farther than a few yards before one of its tyres burst in spectacularly loud fashion, causing numerous members of the Bursleigh press to dive for cover under the misapprehension a gun had been fired. Some of those already in their vehicles heard the frightened screams of their colleagues and veered off the road in panic.
In the resulting chaos, only a few vehicles managed to take up the chase. Oblivious to the carnage behind him, Sam had already built up a sizeable lead. Furious his name had been leaked to the press, he drove through the countryside like a man possessed.
He felt like strangling DI Mason. The man had gone way too far.