No Smoke Without Fire (A DCI Warren Jones Novel - Book 2) (30 page)

“I look back on it now and I realise that if they hadn’t he would have just kept on going and could have really hurt me. At the time, with no physical evidence of an assault the police couldn’t do anything without my say-so and I refused to press charges. I don’t know why — I guess I was in shock. We’d rowed before and it had never got physical. I guess I just wanted to believe it would be a one-off. Anyway, after the police left, he was all apologetic and crying and we ended up having the most amazing sex.

“After that we had a number of rows. Each time we’d make up and it’d be like the old days, before the arguments. Since then I’ve read a lot of books about the subject and I realise that I was a classic case; I just kept on going back because part of me felt guilty. As if I had brought it upon myself. That I had driven him to those lengths. I actually felt as though it was my fault that he was violent and when I saw how upset he was after each episode, I felt responsible for his torment.”

“So how did you end it?”

She laughed bitterly. “Daytime TV, would you believe? I had the morning off, since I was working the late-night shopping shift, and I was watching some breakfast show. The presenter was interviewing the sister of a woman who had been murdered by her partner. She’d kept a diary and the sister read out extracts of it. I suddenly realised that she was reading out my life. That all of the feelings that I had were the same as that of this murdered young woman and that if I didn’t get out of this relationship, I would end up the same way.

“At the end of the programme they put up a telephone number for more help and advice. I phoned it and, at the end of the week, took a day off work, packed everything I needed and left before he was home. He probably still has some of my old clothes and books. I never went back. The shop that I worked for were fantastic. He turned up to try and talk to me and the store security guards wouldn’t let him in. When I left in the evening, my colleagues took it in turns to drive me to my new apartment. After about a month, he stopped calling me and I haven’t seen him since.”

She smiled and kissed Alfie on the forehead.

“A year later I met Lewis and realised what real love was all about. If this was a fairy tale, I guess you could say that ‘they all lived happily ever after’.”

Warren smiled.

“I’m glad to hear it and I’m sorry to have brought up such painful memories.”

Josephine shrugged.

“He’s a dangerous man, Mr Jones. I know you can’t say anything but I think he is capable of seriously hurting someone.”

She paused and Warren waited; it was clear that she had more that she wanted to say, but was uncomfortable.

“I don’t know if this is at all relevant, but when we had sex, he did have some unusual tastes.”

Warren said nothing, knowing she’d fill the gap.

“Sometimes he’d tie me up and then pretend to strangle me with my dressing-gown cord. Normally it was just a bit of harmless fun, but once he was drunk and went too far. I almost passed out. When I came to my senses, rather than being alarmed he was the most excited I’d ever seen.”

Chapter 37

It was still raining when Warren left Josephine McCaulley and returned to his car. As he waited for the air-blowers to reach temperature, he plugged his flat mobile phone into the car’s charger. With a muted beep, the phone started up. Within seconds of the phone gaining a signal, it started buzzing repeatedly as missed call after missed call came flooding in. Cursing his forgetfulness when going to bed the previous night, Warren opened the call list. A vague sense of unease passed through him. The calls had started an hour previously, with a call from his mother-in-law, Bernice, of all people. This was followed about fifteen minutes later by a missed call from Susan. A second missed call from her followed less than a minute later, presumably as she redialled in the hope that he’d just missed the first attempt. This time she left a voicemail. A few minutes later a missed call came from Tony Sutton and one from the station’s main switchboard. A flashing envelope icon alerted Warren to the presence of two text messages.

Top of the list, sent two minutes after his missed call, was one from Tony Sutton.

Phone the missus guv. Urgent. Tony

The next down was from Susan, sent just after her missed call, and was similarly urgent.

Call me as soon as you can. Susan x

That Susan had apparently been able to call him then send a text relieved Warren of one whole set of worries, but he could only think of a few reasons why Susan would have called him repeatedly, then tried Tony Sutton and the main station switchboard. And why was the first call from Bernice?

Deciding that he’d wasted enough time as it was, Warren ignored the voicemails and rang Susan directly. She picked up on the second ring.

“Warren, you need to come home immediately. It’s your grandmother.”

And with that, the worst of Warren’s nightmares came true.

* * *

The journey back to Coventry had been a terse, silent affair. After speaking to Susan, Warren had immediately driven back to his house. A call to the station on the way revealed that Tony Sutton had already spoken at length to Susan and that he’d tipped off Superintendent Grayson that Warren would probably need a leave of absence. Upon arriving home, he’d found Susan waiting with packed overnight bags for both of them.

Under normal circumstances, Warren would have resented the way that he seemed to have suddenly become a passenger in his own life. He’d have been annoyed that his subordinate, Tony Sutton, knew about his family problems before he did and had arranged to cover for him. And if there was one thing he really disliked, it was Susan packing his clothes. But today, he felt nothing, just relief that he didn’t need to think of such things when his mind was reeling from shock.

Warren had insisted on driving and he’d pushed the car as fast as he’d dared westwards along the A14. A colleague in Traffic had once hinted at just what the trigger threshold was on the average speed cameras that lined the dual carriageway and Warren used that insider knowledge to get them to the junction with the M6 as quickly as possible without risking his licence; at least not for speeding.

An extended period travelling at fifty-six miles per hour whilst two arrogant lorry drivers drove at precisely the same speed, blocking both lanes of the carriageway, nearly caused Warren to undertake using the hard shoulder. Only Susan’s calming presence restrained him. Nevertheless, he took a perverse pleasure in phoning in the details and suggesting that colleagues with nothing better to do might want to do a spot-check to make sure that the lorries were roadworthy and the drivers’ paperwork was in order.

Eventually Susan and Warren arrived back in Coventry, Warren’s childhood home town. Pulling up outside the row of grey terraced houses, he turned off the engine and reached for the door handle.

Susan stopped him. “We’re here, Warren. No need to rush now — two more minutes won’t make a difference. Get yourself together. You’re no good to anybody racing in like this.”

For a few more seconds, Warren was silent. To those that didn’t know him, Detective Chief Inspector Jones was fully in control. His jaw was set like rock, his eyes as hard as stone. But Susan could feel the tautness of the muscles in his arms; his hands were shaking, she noticed, and she could see the faint glimmer of pain and fear in his eyes. Warren Jones the man was far from in control.

Finally, Warren slumped back into his seat. “You’re right. Another couple of minutes won’t hurt.” His voice shook slightly.

Susan watched him with concern as he took deep breaths, before looking out of the window at the darkening street beyond. He stared at the houses that lined the cul-de-sac, but she doubted he was seeing what she saw. To her eyes, the street seemed sad, run-down. Most of the houses still had remnants of the pebble-dashing that had seemed such a good idea back in the sixties. A couple of home-owners had decided to throw good money after bad and have it replenished. Another couple had cut their losses, stripped it off and replastered. Warren’s grandparents had followed the rest of the pack and left it to nature to decide. It reminded Susan of a dog with mange.

Pebble-dashing aside, the houses in the street were a mixed bunch. Some, like Warren’s grandparents’, were clearly well maintained. Their house had a small garden with a postage-stamp-sized lawn, surrounded by carefully weeded flower-beds that Susan knew would be a riot of colour in the spring. The front windows were uPVC, but the sills had been painted a cheerful red to match the front door and the garden gate. This splash of scarlet was one of the only colours visible in the miserable December gloom; all the houses in the immediate vicinity had retained the black-on-white colour scheme that they’d been built with.

The only other hint of colour visible was the rusty brown of the abandoned Ford Escort that littered the garden opposite. The owner, a shaven-headed lout with a half-dozen tattoos and even more kids, would periodically pop open the bonnet and fiddle around underneath it, thus keeping an uninterested council off his back and avoiding scrappage charges.

Finally, Warren was ready. Giving Susan’s hand one last squeeze, he clambered into the driving rain and headed towards the gate.

* * *

Entering the house, Warren was greeted with an awkward hug from his second cousin Jane, juggling her eighteen-month-old daughter with one arm and her uncharacteristically shy three-year-old son in the other. Next in line, to his surprise, was his mother-in-law, Bernice.

Warren and Bernice had never had the closest of relationships. Bernice had done little to hide the fact that she thought that Warren, whilst a perfectly nice man, was beneath her daughter. That he was a detective chief inspector and a church-going Catholic were points in his favour, but he was never going to measure up to the investment banker husband of Felicity, Susan’s younger and more fertile sister. Although, that being said, with the way the economy was going things might change, Warren thought. The last he’d checked, nobody was holding the police accountable for the credit crunch or the Eurozone crisis…

“How is she?” Warren managed.

“The doctor says that she’s comfortable, but she’s not really with us.” This was from Dennis, Susan’s father. A stern glance from Bernice reminded him who the official spokesperson was for the marriage and he promptly shut up.

The dynamics of Bernice and Dennis’ marriage never ceased to fascinate Warren. Dennis was, by all accounts, a successful and highly respected businessman. Although officially retired, he still held a substantial interest in the company that he’d help set up and he was an active and vocal member of the board.

Bernice, on the other hand, was — to use an old-fashioned term — a kept woman. She’d raised Susan and Felicity in the family’s large, expensive house in the leafiest part of Warwickshire, but, after the children had grown up, had settled into a life of church committees, charity fund-raising and socialising.

To outsiders they seemed like that old stereotype of the powerful, bread-winning husband and the mousy housewife, whose role in life was to support her husband’s career. To those that knew them, the opposite was true. It was immediately obvious that Bernice wore the trousers and Dennis was well and truly under the thumb. Regardless, Warren still wasn’t sure why they were here and why Bernice had been the one to call him that morning.

“Why don’t you tell us what happened, Mum?” suggested Susan.

“Jack phoned Dennis and I this morning about nine o’clock and said that something was wrong with Betty. She seemed very sleepy and her voice was slurred. He wanted to take her down to the doctor’s, but he didn’t think she could walk. He wondered if Dennis would mind giving them a lift.”

Warren blinked. “Why on earth did he call you and Dennis?”

“Well, Jane had left to take the kids to nursery and we’d mentioned on Sunday when we took them to church that we weren’t doing very much this week. He didn’t want to make a fuss.”

Warren’s head spun. He’d actually been asking why his grandfather hadn’t just called for an ambulance, but Bernice had, in her own unique way, answered something completely different and opened up another avenue of questioning. When had his wife’s parents started driving his grandparents to church on a Sunday, and how did he not know about it?

Warren decided to deal with that question later.

“Why didn’t Granddad call an ambulance? Especially after last time. He must have known it was a stroke!” Warren’s voice had started to rise, and Susan laid a comforting hand on him.

Bernice leant forward, taking Warren’s hand in her own; it was the most affectionate gesture she had ever made towards him since he had started dating her daughter.

“Warren, they had an agreement. Betty and Jack told us about it a few months ago. Last year, after Betty had her mini-stroke, she hated being in hospital. It was only a few nights, but she made it clear that she never wanted to go back in again. When Jack tried to wake her this morning, he knew what had happened but couldn’t decide what to do. Dennis and I came straight over and persuaded him to call a paramedic, just to check her out. They confirmed that she has had a bigger stroke and that the rhythm of her heart is very irregular.”

Warren could barely keep his voice steady. “So what happens now?”

“Dr Gupta, Betty’s GP, came around an hour ago. Betty and Jack have both signed living wills outlining their wishes and he has agreed to respect them.” She leant forward again, squeezing his hand tightly. “Warren, we think Betty had another stroke while Dr Gupta was here. She is probably going to have another stroke or a heart attack soon. They have given her medicine to keep her comfortable, but she’s not expected to recover. I’m sorry, Warren.”

Warren sat back, stunned. It had all happened so fast. In the space of just a few hours, his entire world had turned upside down. A world without Nana Betty seemed inconceivable. Of course, he’d known this day would come; both his grandparents were in their late eighties. Nana Betty’s mini-stroke the previous spring had been a warning shot, but she’d seemed to recover from it, at least physically. Warren thought back to the previous Christmas, a few months after her stroke. She’d been quieter than usual, claiming that the pills she was on made her tired. Over the following year she’d lost weight, he realised. And she’d seemed less vibrant somehow.