Ghost Girl (42 page)
He was startled by a whooping police siren. It was his phone. The ringtone wasn’t such a laugh now. ‘Perfect Plumbing, hello?’ Nor was the fucking name.
‘May I speak with Matthew Benson?’
‘Who wants him? Callers were creditors or pissed-off customers; he would say he was ‘out of the office’.
‘It’s Porphyrion Insurance regarding the accident that your vehicle was recently involved in.’
Benson shut his eyes. ‘It wasn’t my fault. The lad was playing chicken – had to be – I had no chance. The police agree.’
‘You don’t consider yourself to blame?’
‘No, I do not. Look, who is this? Are you that reporter?’ It sounded like her. She must think he was born yesterday.
‘Porphyrion Insurance. I need to establish some facts.’
‘I don’t have a policy with you. I’m with Principle Star.’
‘We are a subsidiary of Principle Star; we handle cases meriting further consideration.’ The voice was quiet. ‘We may be able to help you.’
‘How’s that?’
‘I have here that you were doing thirty miles per hour; the speed limit on King Street.’
‘It’s on the camera.’
‘You didn’t stop to provide an officer with your details. Technically you left the scene.’ She inhaled, as if she was smoking. He could do with one himself.
‘I was in shock, OK? I went to the police, else the wife would have killed me. Now she’s killing me slowly. Or softly!’ He’d kept his sense of humour. ‘Anyone would have done the same.’ Another bloody woman on his case.
‘That’s not my department or my concern. I’m dealing with your compensation.’
‘My what? They said I wasn’t eligible. They don’t care what it’s done to my business.’
‘You have a low score on our Culpability Index, Mr Benson.’
‘I wasn’t drinking, if that’s what you mean.’
‘On the contrary, it means you are due a sizeable sum in recompense. We take into account disruption to routine, threat to livelihood: loss of earnings and ability to undertake work to the required standard.’
He let his shoulders drop. Someone out there – the husky voice, as if she lived on fags, that went with gorgeous looks – cared. The valve was not his fault; the boy outside Marks and Spencer’s wasn’t his fault. ‘That kid has ruined my life. What sum are we talking?’
‘We are talking – as you put it – about seven hundred and fifty thousand pounds, perhaps less, but negligibly so.’
‘How much under?’ Matthew Benson rubbed his eyes.
‘I haven’t got the calculation matrix in front of me. There will be minor issues to factor in – your business turnover before the accident, your health. Minor, as I say.’
‘Nothing wrong with my business until last week.’ He shut his diary.
‘Our judgement is reached according to principle. You were not charged with dangerous driving and intrinsic to your punishment was the unfortunate fatality. Your case would not have been referred to me if you were not a clear candidate. It will be a sizeable tax-free sum.’
‘Result!’ He punched the air and then smoothed a hand down his face. The sun had come out, making the van hot and airless. He opened the driver’s door. This would show Maureen!
‘For now, this is highly confidential. Payments from this fund do not meet with popular approval so please tell no one, not even Mrs Benson if there is one. Not until monies have been transferred. Any divulgence will jeopardize your claim.’
Benson wanted to shove down Maureen’s gullet that now that he was a millionaire – he didn’t trouble himself with exact figures – she’d better play her cards right. No debts, no mortgage. No nothing. This changed everything.
‘It will be hard not to tell my wife.’ As he spoke, Benson saw this wasn’t true.
‘I am sure you can keep a secret, Mr Benson.’
The woman was a turn-on. ‘Can it go into a separate account?’
‘We won’t detain ourselves with the nitty-gritty. I shall meet you to dot the i’s et cetera. All contact with Porphyrion is through me. A single point of contact preserves confidentiality and means we expedite your claim faster. When are you free?’
‘I’m busy in the day obviously, or I was until…’ He cast about for the right answer.
‘I can only do evenings for the next month.’
‘Shall I come to your office?’
‘No, we’re based in Cheltenham and I won’t meet at your home for the reasons given. I’ve pencilled in the sixth of May. I hope you don’t mind a Sunday, but the sooner we sort this the better. Do you know Spelling Way?’
Benson was about to say that he did. He’d been apprenticed at a company there thirty years ago and was sacked for persistent lateness. None of it mattered now, except if they were still there, he’d like to rub their faces in it. ‘In a pub? I owe you a drink!’
‘We all pay our dues. Is nine-thirty all right? I apologize for the late hour.’
‘It’s fine.’ Everything was fine. ‘Will you bring the cheque?’
‘You will receive a BACS payment into whatever account you choose.’
‘Yeah, right. I’m not thinking straight. That kid running out was terrible for me, seems every cloud has a silver lining!’
‘Goodbye, Mr Benson. It will all be all right.’
‘Bye then… Hey… Hello?’
‘Yes?’
‘I didn’t catch your name.’
‘Mrs Hunt.’
Benson had not taken a number. No problem, he could look up the last received call. Number unknown. She had come through a switchboard. He could contact Principle Star if he had to cancel. He would not cancel. It was too good to be true.
Matthew Benson deleted the call entry from his phone. He knew how to keep a secret. He did, however, write the appointment and the street name in his diary. Sunday, 6 May. These days he could not trust his memory or his driving reflexes.
Thursday, 3 May 2012
‘…last row… Spelling Way. No tree.’ Jack dropped the printout.
Jack and Stella were in Stella’s old bedroom, now Terry’s office. They had eaten shepherd’s pie; the plates were stacked behind the computer monitor. Stella had not put the heating on. Jack was huddled deep in his coat, hands tucked in his cuffs. Stella wore her anorak.
They had transferred the grid of the crashes from her Filofax to a spreadsheet. Stella pressed ‘print’. Despite Jack’s reliance on her stolen database information, she was enjoying the task. It was like preparing a cleaning rota.
Heads together, they consulted the results.
‘We need the date when the killer of Michael Thornton died.’ Stella would not suggest he look in the police printout.
‘We won’t find it.’ Jack clasped his mug of milk.
‘Why not?’
‘He’s not dead.’
‘Go on.’
‘The killer of these drivers never found out who knocked Michael down. He, or she, never gave themselves up. Your database says the case is still open, remember?’
They had put question marks in the last row. ‘Jack.’ She sipped at her tea; although it was hot, it didn’t warm her.
‘What?’ Her tone made him turn.
Stella flapped the spreadsheet. ‘What is your hunch about Spelling Way? Terry didn’t take a photograph.’
Jack stared at her as if she was a stranger. She knew that look. He was hiding something.
‘It’s like the other roads. You’ve been there – you know it is.’
‘Yes, but why did we go there?’ He wouldn’t fool her like he tried to fool Lucille May.
‘It fits the profile: long, straight, desolate…’
‘With no green glass.’ Stella looked again at the spreadsheet. ‘Why is it here?’
‘I could be wrong. Or…’ Jack trailed off. ‘In the model— er, on the map, it stands out and…’
‘Michael Thornton is the reason for the other deaths.’ Stella clutched at his arm. She grabbed the spreadsheet. ‘This is about revenge. These deaths are rehearsals, stop-gaps, for the one that counts. The driver of the grey saloon. Jack, you’re right, this isn’t a cold case. The man – or woman – is still out there. He will kill again.’
‘Brilliant, Stella! He’ll keep on murdering other drivers until he finds Michael Thornton’s killer. There’s nothing else for him to live for.’ Jack pulled in his chair. ‘Stella, if I’m ever rude about your spreadsheets again, be rude back.’
‘And shut me up if I say anything about your signs.’
Jack consulted the grid. ‘Lucie said Carol Jones saw a man leaving the scene of Harvey Gray’s crash. She said he was drunk. It’s the only sighting of anyone near a crash. Had to be the killer. He slipped up that night. He might be losing his touch.’
‘That was years ago – there’s been Charlie Hampson since then. The first murder was in 1970. This man must be in his sixties at least. Could he carry out murders like this?’ Stella thought of Terry, dead in his sixties. From comments he made, she suspected David was close to sixty, although he behaved like a much younger man. These days sixty wasn’t old.
‘Did you hear what I said?’
‘Yes.’
‘What did I say?’ Jack was seldom peeved; he went straight to sulking and radio silence.
‘That he slipped up.’
‘After that…’
‘No, then.’
‘I said that if he finds out we are investigating these deaths, we are in danger. He may already know.’
The shepherd’s pie was a lump in her stomach. ‘Jack, I wish you’d listen about Lucille May? She didn’t like me obviously knowing stuff and I doubt she bought your grieving-friend act.’
‘I just don’t think it is her.’ Jack shook his head. ‘You said you’d trust my signs.’
‘That’s not quite what… Look, Marian told me the police don’t analyse traffic incidents. The only people who might spot a pattern are curious police officers and reporters. Terry was a curious officer and Lucille May is the sort to pick up a scent and follow it to the kill. She’s ruthless. She didn’t seem to think that Markham and Gray’s deaths were suicides even though she didn’t know about the green glass. Why would she doubt it? The reason has to be that there’s something she didn’t say.’ Stella remembered the woman’s harsh questioning, fired like bullets. ‘I don’t get the sense you and your dad were close?’ Then there was her odd reaction to the mosaic and the proximity of her house to the site of Michael Thornton’s death. Not to mention the child’s bike and the ancient-looking swing.
‘Our killer has to have a powerful motive. Something has kept him going all these decades.’ Jack adjusted his reading glasses and scoured the spreadsheet. ‘I don’t feel it’s Lucie.’
‘What if she had a child that died?’ Stella told him about the bike. She didn’t mention she’d had one exactly like it; he would see it as a sign and it wouldn’t help her argument.
‘Then why the emphasis on Michael Thornton?’
‘She didn’t mention him.’
‘The street where he died is the first photo in Terry’s blue folder.’
Stella stabbed at the top row of the grid with her finger. ‘If this is motivated by revenge, it has to be someone in Michael Thornton’s family.’
‘Makes sense. So we find out who they are – parents, siblings, cousins – and we’ve solved it.’ Jack stood up and strode over to the windowsill.
‘If it were that simple, Dad would have solved it.’
‘The deaths are getting more frequent. Three in ten years. Classic serial-killing behaviour. The urge to kill builds so the interval between murders gets shorter.’
‘If someone in the Thornton family is doing this, he’s not a proper serial killer. He’s killing systematically, like cleaning up,’ Stella said. ‘These men are dying within months of the accidents involving the children.’ She turned to the laminated street map of London with which Terry had replaced her poster of John Travolta in
Grease
and, grabbing a pot of multicoloured drawing pins off the desk, began marking the crash sites on the map in red.
‘He’s racing against time,’ Jack mused. ‘It would be clearer on the model than that map,’ he added, more to himself.
‘He might be dying. He might already be dead. The last death that we know of was Charlie Hampson in 2009.’ Stella scrutinized her work. Maybe Terry had solved it?
‘Like you say, we should work from the likeliest principle. He left the blue folder out. That was a sign. We’ll assume he isn’t dead and his next murder site is Spelling Way.’ Jack folded his arms.
Stella put a yellow pin on Spelling Way and sat down.
Jack picked up the stolen printout and put on his reading glasses.
‘Well I never.’ He sprang up and rushed to the door.
‘What? Where are you going?’
‘Time waits for no man or woman. I’m going to pay another visit to Lucie.’
‘Glad you’re with me on this. This is the kind of murder that suits a woman: doesn’t need strength or knowing how to handle a gun.’ Jack always came around in the end. Stella gathered up the plates and mugs. ‘We must be careful. I think she’s already on to us.’
‘She’s a pussy cat.’ Jack was on the landing. ‘I should see her by myself.’
A mug slid across the plate, Stella steadied it.
‘Check the address,’ Jack shouted from the hall. She heard the front door slam shut.
Infuriated, Stella was gathering up her things to go after him when her phone rang. Jack had changed his mind.
‘Have you got a moment?’ It was Jackie.
‘Yes.’ Stella stopped herself saying no. It was past five; working late again, Jackie deserved her attention.