Authors: Shirley Wells
‘Your door’s locked,’ Max said with some surprise.
‘I know. I have this burly copper who keeps reminding me about security.’
‘Burly, eh?’
‘You do have a key, you know,’ she reminded him.
‘I do, and I know exactly where it is. I’ll put it on my key ring,’ he promised.
He’d obviously been home because the suit he’d worn all day had been replaced with a claret and blue Burnley FC T-shirt.
‘I’m on the phone,’ she said. ‘And by now, the whole of Liverpool will know that I have a man in my home.’
‘Ah. And how is your mum?’
‘On top form.’
Jill picked up the receiver.
‘Mum, I’ll have to go.’
‘Was that Max I heard?’
‘It was. It’s work. I need to go, OK? I’ll give you a ring tomorrow night. Or Sunday.’
She returned the phone to its cradle and breathed a small sigh of relief that she’d escaped the usual marriage lecture.
‘It’s not work,’ Max told her. ‘The kids are out ten-pin bowling so I thought I’d come and pester you for an hour before I go and pick them up.’
It was unlike him not to be at headquarters. With a murder case not yet a week old, he’d be working every spare moment.
‘Are you working tomorrow?’ she asked him.
‘I’ll be in for the morning, but come hell or high water I’ll be at Turf Moor in the afternoon. Hey, I might be able to get you a ticket.’
She pulled a face. ‘It’ll be a sad day when I have nothing better to do than watch grown men kick a ball about.’
‘No soul, that’s your trouble.’
She smiled at that.
‘I expect I’ll be working after the game,’ he went on. ‘We’re not making what you’d call progress, are we?’
‘You’re finding out more and more about the victim,’ she pointed out.
Little of it was good. Lauren Cole hadn’t been popular. She’d treated her dog well but had had little regard for anyone or anything else. The boyfriend, Ricky, wasn’t alone in calling her a tease. A pretty young woman, she had no trouble attracting members of the opposite sex. She loved the sense of power, loved stringing them along and then dropping them. To outsiders, she gave every indication of being a hard-nosed uncaring bitch. In Jill’s view, she’d been desperately lonely, a girl who’d craved love …
But it was Friday night and Jill didn’t want to talk about work.
‘I’m out tomorrow anyway,’ she told him. ‘Kate and I are hitting the shops. I had no idea she was going to the States for Christmas. How come you didn’t mention it?’
‘Forgot. Sorry.’
Jill often thought that, one day, Max’s mother-in-law would pack her cases and leave them to it. Kate had the granny flat in Max’s home, which meant she could see her grandchildren whenever she liked, but few women would tolerate being general dogsbody to Max. Kate walked the dogs when no one was available, she ferried her grandchildren about, she organized Christmas and birthday celebrations. But Kate thrived on it. Or she had until now.
‘Anyway, I’m trying not to think about it.’ Max added. ‘No Kate and a visit from my dad. When your luck’s out, your luck’s really out. But Christmas is ages away yet.’
‘A whole fortnight,’ she agreed with a wry smile. ‘Still, good for Kate. It’s high time she visited Carol. And a break away from home will do your dad good, too.’
Max grimaced at that. ‘It’s the rest of us I’m worried about.’
‘He’ll be fine.’
It was a lot for the man to adjust to, that was all. He’d always been a fiercely independent, outgoing, opinionated type. Like Max really. It seemed, though, that he could only be that way with his wife standing at his side. Without her, he was floundering.
‘Fancy going for a pint?’ Max asked.
‘Why not?’
Max would go over and over every minute detail of each case he worked on. Give him a personal problem, though, like a father who wasn’t coping as a widower, and he had a talent for pushing it from his mind.
Crime she supposed was easier for him. Most of the time, it was black and white. At least, he saw it that way. A crime was committed and it was his job to find the perpetrator. Simple. When it came to more personal problems, life became a very grey area. He didn’t handle it well.
The Weaver’s Retreat was only a short walk from Jill’s cottage and it was a pleasant enough evening. Snow still lay on the footpaths and roadsides, but it was freezing hard and crunched satisfyingly underfoot.
‘These scientists need to pay Kelton a visit,’ Max said as he pushed open the door. ‘If the planet
is
warming up, it’s probably all down to Ian.’
The warmth that hit them was wonderful thanks to the landlord’s obsession with his fires. Both were blazing merrily. Radiators were too hot to touch.
‘Don’t knock it,’ Jill said, shrugging out of her coat and going to hang it on the peg.
While Max got their drinks, Jill looked around the crowded pub and was pleased to see she knew most of the customers.
At the far end of the room several of the older residents were putting the world to rights over a heated game of dominoes.
‘Tom!’ Ian shouted across to one of them.
Tom Canter looked up from his game, saw Jill, and shouted out, ‘Give me two minutes.’
‘What’s that about?’ Jill asked Ian.
‘No idea. Tom was asking if you’d been in, that was all.’ He handed Max his change. ‘Mind you, it must be important if he’s going to interrupt his game of dominoes.’
The game lasted another ten minutes but then Tom left his friends and, pint in hand, came over to Jill and Max.
‘I said I’d let you know when I remembered where I’d seen that girl before, the one that were murdered,’ Tom said.
‘And have you?’ she asked him. The door burst open, letting in a blast of cold air as well as Steve and Alison Carlisle.
‘The men driving the gritting lorries will be making some money if this weather keeps up,’ Alison greeted them, rubbing her hands together. ‘Hello, Jill, Tom.’ She looked at Max. ‘And you’ll be?’
‘Max Trentham,’ Max introduced himself.
‘The policeman?’
‘That’s me.’
‘What’s anyone having to drink?’ Steve asked.
‘Steve,’ Tom said, somewhat impatiently, ‘I were just telling Jill and Max here that they should speak to you about that young girl who were killed.’
‘Me? Why would they want to do that?’
‘Well …’ Tom’s frown deepened. ‘Because you’re some one who knew her.’
‘What are you talking about, Tom? I never knew her.’
‘Shall we get drinks?’ Alison said. ‘What’s anyone having? Tom?’
‘Not for me, thanks. I’ve just got one.’
‘We have, too. Thanks, Alison.’
Jill was far more interested in what Tom was talking about, and Max, she could see, was equally keen to return the conversation to Lauren Cole.
‘You were saying, Tom?’ she asked as Alison stood at the bar to order drinks.
‘Just that Steve knew that girl. I saw you with her,’ Tom told him.
‘You couldn’t have,’ Steve said, shaking his head. ‘I’ve never seen her.’
‘Bugger me,’ Tom said, scratching his head. ‘I could have sworn it were you. I’d have staked my life on it.’
‘Sorry, but it wasn’t.’
‘I can’t help you then,’ Tom told Jill. ‘It’s just that I were out in the field seeing to my sheep—’
‘Sheep?’ she said. ‘I thought you’d retired.’
‘Oh, I have really. I’ve only got the two small fields now. But I thought I’d get a dozen sheep. Otherwise I had nothing to do with my time. In any case, the dog were bored without sheep to work.’
Jill supposed she shouldn’t have been surprised. Farming was in Tom’s blood. For generations, the Canters had been farming that land. It must break his heart to know that his sons had no interest in it whatsoever.
‘Anyway, that’s when I saw the girl,’ Tom went on. ‘The girl who’s dead. She were climbing over the fence at the bottom field. I watched her for a minute because she had a white dog with her and, whereas most dogs would have scrambled underneath it, she had to lift him over the fence.’
‘Are you sure it was her?’ Max asked him.
‘Positive.’ He looked at Steve. ‘Well, I
were
sure.’
‘When was this?’ Max asked.
‘A couple of weeks ago. Let me think, it would have been the Monday morning. So yes, a week before she were killed.’
‘When she’d climbed over the fence and lifted the dog over, what then?’ Jill asked him.
‘Well, that’s just it.’ Again Tom scratched his head. ‘I saw, or
thought
I saw, Steve here with that greyhound of his. He shouted to the girl—’
‘Shouted what?’ Max butted in.
‘Just hello. Then he ran to catch her up. Bugger me,’ Tom said again. ‘I must be going senile. Are you sure it weren’t you, Steve?’
‘Of course I’m sure.’ Steve was smiling indulgently at the old man. ‘Had you been on the homemade wine, Tom?’
‘No.’ Tom supped at his pint. ‘In that case, Jill, I can’t help you. Sorry.’
Tom, still wearing a mystified expression, returned to his pals and his dominoes.
‘How strange,’ Steve said. ‘I walk out that way a lot, as you know, but I’ve never seen anyone else with a greyhound. It’s unlike Tom to get confused too.’
Alison rejoined them, a glass of white wine in her hand and a pint of Guinness which she handed to Steve.
‘Here’s to Friday nights,’ she said, raising her glass in a toast. ‘I’ve had the week from hell and I am so glad it’s over.’
‘You’ve been away, haven’t you?’ Jill asked.
‘Sales conference,’ she said, nodding. ‘I’ve been stuck in Leeds all week. Years back, a sales conference was fun. We’d have parties every night. Now, we spend every minute tied to our laptops deciding how we’re going to improve on sales for the coming year. This year has been particularly bad figures-wise, so we all need to come up with some pretty drastic ideas. Still, it’s the weekend now and I’m forgetting all about work until Monday morning.’
‘Anything planned for the weekend?’ Jill asked her.
‘Not a thing,’ she said with satisfaction. ‘I quite fancy going somewhere on Sunday. What about you, darling?’ she asked Steve. ‘After church, we could drive up into the Yorkshire Dales.’
‘Sounds good to me,’ he agreed.
‘That’s settled then. Having said that, if we get more snow, as they say we will, we won’t be able to get out of Kelton never mind Lancashire …’
They chatted for another half hour, until Max had to leave. Jill walked back to her cottage with him.
‘You think Tom Canter is going senile?’ he asked her.
‘No. I think he was merely mistaken.’
‘Odd, though, don’t you think? On the day of the murder, Steve Carlisle was seen running away from the area. He carries a saw, so he says, to chop wood. How do we know he didn’t carry an axe? And now Tom Canter swears blind he saw him talking to Lauren Cole. Very, very odd.’
‘Tom was obviously mistaken,’ Jill said. ‘Steve wouldn’t lie. As for carrying a saw – well, so what? He takes a bit of free wood home now and again. That’s not a crime. And he told you why he was running.’
‘How well do you know him?’
‘Well enough to know that he wouldn’t go out and bury an axe in Lauren Cole’s head.’
On Sunday morning, Max decided to pay Percy Jacobs another visit.
As he drove through the town, he wondered if the Carlisles had managed their trip to the Yorkshire Dales. The sun was shining, most of the snow had thawed over the weekend, leaving the roads clear, so it was the perfect day for an excursion.
He parked his car outside Jacobs’ block of flats. In daylight, the area looked even more run down. Today it was deserted.
The lift, unsurprisingly, still wasn’t working so Max climbed the stairs to the fifth floor.
As he knocked on the door, he hoped Jacobs hadn’t gone on one of his camping trips. He was in luck; Percy opened it almost immediately.
‘Christ, I’m bloody popular with you lot!’
‘What do you mean by that?’ Max asked curiously.
‘Like bloody buses you lot are. There’s never a copper in sight when you need one. When you don’t, they’re crawling all over the place.’
Max walked inside and Jacobs didn’t attempt to stop him.
‘Do I take it you’ve been visited by police officers?’ Max asked him.
‘Yes. Straight after you.’
The room was stifling. Radiators were hot and the gas fire was turned to full. Jacobs might be allergic to work, but he could presumably afford huge gas bills. Today, he was sweating in a faded red T-shirt.
‘Tell me about it,’ Max said.
‘About two minutes after you and that sergeant left,’ Jacobs explained, ‘I had another copper banging on my door.’
‘What was his name?’
‘Dunno. I didn’t ask and, if he told me, I’ve forgotten.’
‘Uniform or plain clothes?’
‘Uniform. Here, what is all this?’
Max wished he knew.
‘What did he want, Percy?’
‘The same as you.’ Jacobs looked at Max as if he should personally be held responsible for the hopeless inefficiency of the UK’s police force. ‘When I said you’d already been poking around, he said I was to tell him exactly what I’d told you. Christ, you lot are bloody crap. Talk about the left hand not knowing what the right’s doing.’
It would be easy enough to find out who had knocked on Jacobs’ door. That was assuming anyone from the force
had
knocked on it, and Max didn’t believe it for a moment. It was far more likely that someone was impersonating a police officer.
‘What did he look like?’ Max asked.
‘I dunno. Young. Average build.’
‘Marked car?’
‘Dunno. I didn’t look. Anyway, it was pitch bloody dark outside.’
‘So what did you tell him?’
‘The same as I told you and that other bugger. That I hadn’t been anywhere near Kelton Bridge, and that anyone who kills a cat should be hung, drawn and bloody quartered.’
At mention of the word cat, Jacobs’ pet ambled into the room, its tail held high. Jacobs scooped it up and the cat’s body vibrated as it purred.
‘OK, Percy, that’ll be all for the time being. But if anyone else comes calling, I’ll be extremely pissed off if you don’t let me know. Got that?’
Max left the building with a growing sense of unease. There might be a logical explanation, but he doubted it. It was too coincidental that this so-called copper had called on Jacobs two minutes after he and Fletch left. Someone must have followed them to Jacobs’ flat, and that someone was impersonating a police officer. People like that were the lowest of the low because a copper’s uniform gave anyone carte blanche to do exactly as they pleased.
After leaving Jacobs, Max drove out to Kelton Bridge, but there was no sign of Jill or her four-by-four so he decided to pay Tom Canter a visit.
Max only had a vague idea of where the farm was and getting to it was like solving the puzzle of the Rubic Cube. Roads – lanes really – that should have headed out to the farm, stopped abruptly for no reason that Max could fathom.
After turning round twice and driving back to the village, he eventually saw a track leading down to what had to be Brinks Farm. It was narrow, and potholes a foot deep threatened to break his car’s suspension.
He eventually found himself in a large concreted yard where a black and white border collie raced out to meet him. There were a couple of geese in the yard too and, if the dog was friendly, the birds weren’t. They hissed at Max with their wings at full stretch.
‘They won’t harm you,’ a voice called out.
Max turned to see Tom Canter coming out of a barn, his wellington boots caked in something Max preferred not to think about.
‘Oh, hello,’ Tom said, recognizing him. ‘It’s Max, isn’t it?’
‘That’s right. I was wondering if I might have a chat with you about Lauren Cole, the young woman who was murdered.’
‘Of course, although there’s nothing I can tell you.’ He nodded at the house. ‘Let’s go inside. I’m finished here for the moment.’
Max followed him, through a porch filled with enough outdoor coats and pairs of wellington boots to cater for everyone in the village, to a large, equally cluttered, but warm kitchen. A towel had been hanging from the Rayburn’s rail and the collie pulled that to the floor and curled up on it, making sure he had the warmest spot in the house.
‘Sit yourself down, lad,’ Tom said. ‘The kettle’s on. Will you have a cup of tea with me?’
‘That would be more than welcome. Thank you, Mr Canter.’
‘Call me Tom or I’ll think you’re talking about my dad. And he’s long gone.’
The farmhouse was big, at least four or five bedrooms, Max guessed. From what Jill had told him though, Tom lived alone. His wife had died several years ago and his sons were living in London.
‘You live alone, don’t you, Tom?’
He was warming an ancient teapot shaped like a house, but he stopped. ‘I do. I have for more than ten years now. Well, apart from Jack,’ he added, nodding at the dog. ‘And the geese, of course. Sheep, too.’
Max supposed it must be hard, having farmed all your life, to cope without animals.
‘I’ll get some more chickens, too,’ Tom said. ‘In the spring, that’ll be. And probably a few more sheep.’
‘That’ll keep you busy.’
‘It will,’ he agreed. ‘My lads, both of them, reckon I should sell up and buy myself a bungalow in the village. What the hell would I do in a bungalow, eh? I was born in this house. I might not have much land left, but I know and love every inch of it. I know where the birds make their nests, I know where the best of the blackberries grow, I know where the fox raises her young – a bungalow,’ he muttered with disgust.
‘Of course,’ he went on, ‘they only want me to sell up because they reckon it would be more money for them. Oh dear, that sounds bad, doesn’t it? I don’t mean it like that. They’re good boys. It’s just that it’ll grieve them when I go and the taxman has some of my money. It’s no good though, I can’t see myself in a little box in the village.’
‘I can’t say I blame you,’ Max said, understanding perfectly. ‘Although there would be less to heat and clean in a smaller place.’
Tom smiled at that.
‘There would, lad,’ he agreed, ‘but I can get this kitchen warm enough for me. As for cleaning, the dust moves itself around without any interference from me.’
‘I’m sure it does,’ Max agreed, amused.
The tea was made, and a bottle of milk and a bag of sugar were put on the table.
‘Tell me,’ Max began, ‘what made you so sure you’d seen Steve Carlisle talking to Lauren Cole.’
‘My, that were funny, weren’t it?’ Tom said, shaking his head in puzzlement. ‘I’d have staked my life on it being Steve.’
‘But why?’
‘Because it looked like him. From the lazy dog strolling several yards behind him, to the coat he were wearing. The dog, I mean. It wears a tartan coat all winter. I mean, I know my eyesight’s not what it were fifty years ago, but I’d have sworn it were Steve.’
‘And now?’ Max asked.
‘Now what?’
‘Now you don’t think it was?’
‘Course I don’t. If Steve says it weren’t him, it weren’t him, were it?’
Max looked at him for a few moments until surprise registered on Tom’s face.
‘You think he might have been lying?’ Tom smiled at that. ‘No, Steve’s no liar. Why the hell would he lie?’
Off the top of his head, Max could think of a dozen reasons.
‘He’s a regular churchgoer, you know,’ Tom went on. ‘Not so many of those about these days.’
‘So I believe.’
‘Catholic,’ Tom added with a wink, ‘but you can’t hold that against a bloke, can you?’
Tom, having put three sugars in his tea, was still stirring.
‘It said on the telly that the dead girl came from Harrington,’ he said thoughtfully.
‘That’s right.’
‘Then perhaps the bloke I saw, the one with the greyhound, came from there too. I don’t know of anyone other than Steve who has one round here. But if it were someone from Harrington …’ He shrugged.
‘It’s possible,’ Max agreed.
‘One thing’s certain,’ Tom said with absolute conviction, ‘it weren’t Steve. He wouldn’t lie. He’d have no need to, would he?’
Max decided to pass on that one.
‘What was he wearing, this man you saw?’ he asked instead.
‘A black coat like Steve wears, black trousers and a grey hat.’
‘A grey hat? Are you sure?’
‘Quite sure. Perhaps that’s why I thought it were Steve. When winter arrives, the dog wears its tartan coat and Steve wears that grey hat of his.’
What had Ricky said? That the man who met up with Lauren, the man who’d given her the creeps, wore a funny grey hat, like his mum had knitted it for him.
‘His hat,’ Max said, ‘does it look hand-knitted? A hat like that?’
‘That’s the sort,’ Tom replied. ‘Not that I can imagine Alison knitting it. Women don’t knit these days, do they? They don’t darn socks or mend sheets. We live in a waste ful society and that’s a fact.’
‘We do.’
Talk turned from the old days, when life had been simpler, to the recent spell of cold weather.
By the time he left the warmth of Tom’s kitchen, Max was convinced that Steve Carlisle was lying.
There were far too many coincidences. Why had Carlisle been running that morning? Because he thought he’d forgotten to lock the door? Max found that doubtful. If he often took a saw on his wood-gathering trips, would it be surprising if sometimes he took an axe? No, it wouldn’t. And this man with the grey knitted hat? How many men with greyhounds walked these hills wearing a grey knitted hat? Max would bet a lot on there being only one.