Laughing Boy (27 page)

Her mobile phone rang. “Mrs Jordan-Keedy,” she said into it, then, after a pause: “I’m with a client at the moment, call me later.”

Yesterday, Thursday, the youth had boarded the train, seating himself about four rows behind her. He followed her out of the station but she lost him by calling in a restaurant and pretending to ask for a table. When she arrived home she jumped in the car – make unspecified – and drove to the station again. He was waiting on the platform at the other side, for a train back the way he’d come.

The muscles at the back of my jaw were tightening and I wondered if it showed. “You called him a youth, Mrs
Jordan-Keedy
,” I said. “How old would you say he was?”

Her phone rang again. “Mrs Jordan-Keedy.” Longer pause this time, then: “I said I needed it today. Tuesday just isn’t good enough, you’ll have to come in tomorrow and
have it ready for Monday. Yes, I know you’re time-starved but aren’t we all. The meeting’s at ten thirty.”

She put the phone back on the desk but didn’t apologise for the interruption.

“Would you mind switching it off, please,” I said.

For a second or two she looked as if she might protest, but she reached forward and pressed a button. There, I thought, it’s easy once you decide to do it. “I asked you how old he was.”

“Early twenties at a guess, but he could be older. You know the type: an anorak, anally retentive.”

“Could you describe him?”

She could. He was nearly six feet tall, skinny build,
wearing
a khaki jacket, probably from the Army Stores, and he had bushy, unkempt hair.

“Clean shaven?”

“Absolutely.”

“Spectacles?”

“Obligatory.”

“Would you recognise him again?”

“Undoubtedly.”

I wrote her answers down, drew a line across the page and tapped my pen against it. Her fingers were long and white, with neatly trimmed nails, and she wore no rings or any other jewellery. I wished Dave or Maggie was there with me, for a second opinion.

“You say you came to work in the car, today,” I began.

“That’s right. I was concerned so I decided to change my
routine
.”

“That’s what I’m coming round to. You have a daily routine?”

“Yes. I come in on the 07:19 and try to go home on the 18:28 or the 19:58.” The times came at me like a burst of machine gunfire, far too fast to register in my feeble brain.

“Well you did right to change it, but how do you feel about going back to your usual routine next week? You’ll
probably notice that the train will be more crowded than usual.”

“With police officers?”

“Mmm.”

“No problem. That’s how I’d have handled it.”

“Good. Meanwhile, could you tell me a few things about yourself, please?”

“What do you need to know?”

“For a start, whereabouts in Heckley do you work?”

“Aire and Calder Water.”

“Ah, the Cattery,” I responded, giving the tower block its local name, bestowed on the building because of the number of fat-cat scandals that had been attached to it. Our water might taste like Domestos but the board had just shared ten million in windfall profits amongst themselves.

“That’s right,” she said. “I’m the senior accountant.”

I felt my eyebrows shoot up like a couple of crows taking flight. When I’m in trouble I grin, but I struggled to hold it back. “Does that give you a seat on the board?” I asked,
matter-of-fact
. See if I care. I talk to captains of industry every day.

“Yes, but is that relevant?”

“It could be.” I was extemporising like a non-swimmer who’s just fallen in the cut. “He could be following you for any number of reasons. For a start, you’re a young woman.” I gestured with a hand, leaving the rest of it unspoken. “Now it transpires that you have a position of
responsibility
in a controversial industry. That could be of interest to certain pressure groups. And, of course, you’re fairly
well-off.
There’s no point in going too far with the speculations. If he follows you again we’ll nab him and ask. How does that sound?” I hadn’t voiced the possibility that was uppermost in my mind. That her movements were predictable and he didn’t need any other motive for killing her.

“It sounds fine. What do I do?”

“Go back to your routine, that’s all. It might be helpful if
you kept us informed of your movements. I’ll give you a number to ring.”

I walked to the door with her and watched her drive away. I’d had a little bet with myself that the Porsche’s registration would be H2O, but it wasn’t. It began with CJK, though.

I was on dangerous territory, telling her to resume her
normal
routine, but I couldn’t see any alternative. I rang Salford and they agreed to keep a weather eye on her over the
weekend
. Come Monday I’d have her followed in both directions. I wanted to talk to someone about it. This could be the break we’d been waiting for but there was nobody to discuss it with. I put the kettle on, then decided I’d been in the office long enough, I needed some fresh air.

I drove to Neville Ferriby’s house in its neat little
development
of up-market dwellings. I should have talked to Rod, asked if he was moving yet, but I didn’t. I’d park on Ferriby’s drive and wait for him, listening to the radio. I could afford the time.

The sun was shining when I arrived so I strolled round the back to where I knew there was a garden seat. An hour or so there, away from the phone, gathering my thoughts, sounded inviting. Then I’d have the pleasure of putting the shifty Mr Ferriby on the spot.

His car wasn’t on the drive or in the garage, but the door to the shed where the fish were kept was wide open. I walked towards it and peered inside.

The tanks were dark and silent, the fish congregating
listlessly
up near the top, seeking the warmer water, their
once-vibrant
hues reduced to shades of dirty brown. There was nothing exotic about them now, and if somebody didn’t do something they’d soon be carrion. First thoughts were that a fuse had blown, but then I remembered the open door.

I looked on the wall just inside the door and found an electric cable. I traced it downwards and where it emerged from the floor there was a white plastic box with a switch on
it. If it was wired up like all the switches at my house it was in the off position. I pulled a pen from my pocket and used it to operate the switch, just in case we needed to find whose finger had done the dirty deed. Dave would have been proud of me.

Things happened. A loud buzzing came from
everywhere
, soon settling to a steady hum, lights in the tanks flickered then sprang into life and after a few seconds
bubbles
burst forth from the gravel and produced the familiar, reassuring sound of lapping water. The fish panicked for a few seconds, dashing about, then realised that they were saved and settled down. Heat, light and oxygen, they thought, there is a God. I decided to do the job properly and feed them, so I hunted around and found a box labelled Freeze Dried Tubifex Worms. When I took the lid off and saw the gruesome contents I remembered that you should never over-feed fish, so I put it back on and went outside.

That’s when I noticed that the back door to the house was open, too. The lawn was spongy under my feet as I walked across it, looking up at the windows, all tightly closed. I placed my fingertips against the door, pushed it wide and listened.

Somebody or something was in there. I stepped inside and moved across the kitchen to the door that gave way to the hall. The noise was louder now, more distinct.

“Uh, uh, uh, uh,” it grunted, guttural, almost obscene. “Uh, uh, uh, uh.”

It was coming from upstairs. I stood with one foot on the bottom step and listened again. “Uh, uh, uh, uh,” then: “Ah, uh, yes, uh, uh.”

Whatever they were doing they were doing it with
energy
, gusto and enthusiasm. I climbed the steps, well over to the left in the hope that they wouldn’t creak, trying to peer round the landing as I climbed.

There were four bedroom doors off the landing and one of the middle ones was ajar. There had been a slight pause in
the noises, but now they were coming again. “Uh, uh, uh.”

I gently pushed the door all the way open and beheld the scene inside. A figure was standing in front of the built-in wardrobes and every door was flung open. She was
surrounded
by piles of clothes – suits and sweaters – and her right arm was jerking up and down in time with all the grunts as she slashed more of them with the Stanley knife she was holding. “Uh, uh, ah, uh.”

“Mrs Ferriby, I presume,” I said.

She spun round, her mouth and eyes wider than nature ever intended, and stood there, paralysed by more emotions than there are names for.

“Detective Inspector Priest, Heckley CID,” I said. “Could you put the knife down, please?”

It took a while for the words to register, then she dropped the knife and flung herself sobbing on to the bed.

I picked it up by the blade. “I’ll be downstairs,” I told her. “Sort yourself out and be down there in two minutes.”

I found a plastic bag in the kitchen and put the knife in it. Habit, I suppose. Makes me feel as if I’m doing the right thing. I sat on the windowsill surveying Neville Ferriby’s
little
kingdom and waited for Madame F to present herself. The room was overstuffed and overbearing, a swirling mass of conflicting patterns. No marriage could have survived that room. I heard bathroom noises and eventually she appeared, sniffing into a tissue. I told her to sit down.

“It is Mrs Ferriby?” I asked, and she nodded.

“First name?”

“Monica.”

“And where do you live now, Monica?”

“Sheepstone.”

“Anywhere near the cemetery?” I was surprised how attractive she was. Petite, with a tendency towards
plumpness
, but well-groomed with a face that would be pleasant under different circumstances.

“Just over the road from it.”

“And what exactly were you doing upstairs just now?”

She sniffed into the tissue, then gave me a little smile. “Exacting revenge, I think you’d call it.”

“I’d call it criminal damage. Was it you who turned the fish off?”

She blushed and nodded.

“That wasn’t very nice.”

“No, I don’t suppose it was.” She half rose to her feet, saying: “I’ll switch them back on, it may not be too late…”

“That’s OK, I did it.”

“Oh, thank you.”

“So what were you exacting revenge for?”

She sank back in the chair and sighed. “Money
problems
.”

“Go on.”

“Well, when we divorced we came to an arrangement about the house. An
amicable
arrangement, we called it. Uh! He kept this place but is supposed to help me with the
mortgage
for mine. Now he’s saying that my boyfriend lives with me and that excuses him from payment. He’s been spying on me, gathering evidence against me. He’s doing it right now, so I sneaked out the back way.”

“Does your boyfriend live with you?”

“He stays overnight once or twice a week. He lives at Stockton-on-Tees, ninety miles away. What else could he do?”

Shag her earlier and go home? “It doesn’t sound
unreasonable
to me, Monica, but I don’t know the rules.”

“How much trouble am I in?”

“That depends on whether your ex prefers charges.”

“It’s up to him?”

“Yes.”

“Then he will.”

“Tell me,” I began, “what does Mr Ferriby do for a
living
?”

“He’s retired.”

“But he’s not that old.”

“No. He retired on ill health and a full pension.”

“What’s wrong with him?”

“It’s a long story.”

“I’ve got all the time in the world.”

She looked around the room and her eyes settled on the cocktail cabinet, as if she needed a drink, but then she remembered this was not her home anymore.

“I’m listening,” I said.

“Neville worked for the Inland Revenue,” she stated, looking back at me. “As a statistician. I believe the
expression
is they ‘let him go’, on full pension and with a nice
little
compensation payment.”

“Why?”

“Because his work wasn’t up to scratch.”

“I thought you said ill health.”

“His work wasn’t up to scratch because of ill health.”

“So what’s wrong with him?”

“Neville has a problem.”

“Which is…?” I went through the possibilities in my mind. Little girls, little boys, bigger girls, bigger boys,
photography
and all the ramifications of that.

“He takes drugs, Inspector. Neville is a heroin addict.”

I let it sink in, trying to figure out if it changed anything. I wasn’t even sure what I was doing there. Mrs Ferriby came to my rescue, volunteering information for once, without my having to crowbar it out of her.

“I suspect he’s having trouble with his supplier, and that’s why he’s unable to pay me.”

“The price of heroin is at an all-time low,” I told her. We measure our success by what effect we have on the street price.
Failure is no success at all
, as the troubadour sang, and prices were rock bottom.

“Not to Neville, Inspector. Neville is not what you might call street-wise. If he had to go out and find some heroin he’d probably wander into a city centre pub with his money
in his sticky little hand and ask the first person he met.”

“So how does he get it?”

“He’s had the same supplier since he started taking it, about eight or nine years ago.”

“And who’s that?”

She sat back, looked up at the ceiling, turned her head towards the wall.

“A name, Monica.”

“Graham Allen. Graham Allen, the boy next door, is his supplier.”

I could see how it might have happened. Graham would have been fourteen, maybe sixteen, tall and handsome. Neville would have invited him to come and look at the fish, showed him some photographs, explained how a camera worked, insinuating his way into the boy’s affections. But Graham had seen Neville watching Mrs Allen, and had a
different
agenda. He’d told Neville about the drugs that were on sale at school, brought some home, and they’d
experimented
together. And Neville had become hooked,
completely
under Graham’s control. A nice little earner for him, you might say.