The Valley (20 page)

Within a week, the story had died down. If Gerry had left behind a distraught pretty wife and two innocent looking young children, like I had imagined in my dreams, maybe the press interest would have continued. But there was only a middle-aged elder sister in Ireland whom he had not seen for decades, a gay community in the Caymans that was still firmly in the closet, and some very publicity-shy partners in his firm whose priority was to hold on to Gerry’s secretive offshore clients.

Although Gerry’s last known location was a hotel in London, where he had left an unpaid bill, there did not seem to be much interest in the story in Britain. The only press report of a UK police investigation appeared in a Cayman Islands’ newspaper. This quoted a Metropolitan police spokesman who stressed that Gerry was an Irish citizen and a resident of the Caymans, and there was no evidence that anything untoward had happened on British soil.

The Gerry that emerged from my research was different from the man Max described, but it was easy to see how he would have fitted into an insider trading scam. He would have had plenty of contacts in City banks, including compliance officers; and he would certainly have known how to channel millions of pounds a year into anonymous offshore bank accounts without alerting any regulators. The only mystery was why Max had tried to disguise his true identity. The most likely explanation, I thought, was the one Max had repeatedly told me to my face: he wanted to insulate me as much as possible from what had happened.

I was pondering all this when suddenly my phone rang.

‘Happy Christmas,’ Max said, when I picked it up.

He had never rung me before to wish me Happy Christmas.

‘Where are you?’ I asked.

‘Miami,’ he said. ‘I’ve been staying with some friends. They’ve all spent the last two days calling people and wishing them a Happy Christmas. So eventually I thought I ought to phone someone too or they would think me very odd.’

‘I’m glad I ranked above the head keeper at Glen Avon.’

Max laughed. ‘He’s on holiday.’

I was about to ask him what he had been doing when he suddenly said, ‘Can you remember the Christmases you spent at Glen Avon?’

‘Yes,’ I said, a smile forming.

‘Remember the time we drank an entire bottle of cherry brandy?’

I laughed. ‘It was my worst hang-over ever.’

‘And the time we chased down the grouse?’

The smile froze on my face. I did not say anything.

‘You must remember, John? It was Christmas Day, and when the grouse got up –’

‘You said it was diseased.’

‘It was. Strongylosis. It’s caused by parasites. We still have problems with it at Glen Avon.’

I changed the subject. ‘When will you next be in London, Max?’

‘The crew are sailing my boat back from Spain now. I’m going to try and join them for the cross-channel leg. Apparently it’s in great shape after the re-fit. You wouldn’t recognise it inside.’

I noticed my hand was shaking. ‘Max, I’ve got to go. I’m meeting someone and I’m late.’

‘All right,’ he said. ‘Happy Christmas.’

‘Happy Christmas Max.’

As I put down the phone, I was already thinking about the time we chased down that grouse.

It was a beautiful crisp Christmas day morning. Max and I were carrying buckets, heading for the mussel-strewn rocks bordering the sea loch. We took the dogs because they needed a walk but no shooting was allowed on Christmas Day, so for once Max didn’t have a gun. The black Labrador running in front of me suddenly froze. Max shouted a warning but it was too late. Birds erupted from the heather all around me, their wings fizzing with energy. Max pointed one out, identifying it as the weakling, because it flew less far and less fast than the others. I made a joke about us being able to catch it, and the next moment we had put our buckets down and were charging off after it, the dogs yelping at our heels.

The dogs combed the heather near the bird’s landing spot until they found it. The grouse launched itself into the air again, its wings beating frantically to keep it above the dogs’ mouths, and then it glided to its next resting point, about half a mile away. We chased after it and five minutes later the bird was driven into the air again. We repeated the same process again and again. The bird’s takeoffs became more laboured, its flights shorter, its landings heavier. Max and the dogs kept lolloping along, relentlessly chasing it down. After an hour I could no longer keep up and must have been half a mile behind when the bird landed for the last time.

Panting for breath, I saw Max and the dogs remorselessly sweeping the hillside, backwards and forwards, up and down, as the grouse sat tight, too exhausted to fly any further. I was still over two hundred yards away, when one of the dogs suddenly froze, its head pointing to a particular clump of heather, and Max dived in.

It took me another five minutes to catch up with them. Max was cradling the bird in his hands, letting it nestle in his cupped palms. When I drew close, he stroked the back of its neck with his finger. The bird arched its head backwards, like a cat nuzzling its owner, allowing Max to slip his thumb under its throat, and twist it back hard, snapping its neck, just like he had broken Gerry’s.

When PropFace re-opened after the New Year break, it seemed that every meeting I attended started with a conversation about what people had done over the holiday period. I ducked and dived as best I could but eventually had to resort to making up some imaginary cousins in Wiltshire, with whom I had stayed.

Nor was there any let up at the weekend, when I saw my sons for the first time in nearly three weeks. For a while, I distracted them with their Christmas presents, but the star of the show was not one of mine, but the huge remote-controlled toy yacht that Max had given to Jack. This prompted Jack to ask about his godfather’s real yacht which Max had told him all about when he came to his birthday party. Under pressure, I promised him that one day we would all go out on it together. It was the same promise I had given Max, and I still had no intention of honouring it.

When I returned the children to Karen’s house, it was Nick who opened the door and wished me a Happy New Year, as the children rushed inside. Walking home, I wondered what to make of him. I had to admit he had an affable, if slightly middle-aged, charm. The boys were certainly at ease with him, but I did not know whether that gave me comfort or not.

The next morning, I was just finishing getting dressed, when I noticed Nick’s business card was still inside in my wallet, crammed in with a whole lot of receipts. I remembered he had offered to help sort out a pension problem that PropFace still had. I needed some advice, but did not know whether I could take it from someone who was sleeping with my wife.

My thoughts were interrupted by a loud knock on my door. No one had pressed my buzzer to be let into the mansion block so I guessed my visitor must be the meter reader, who every three months went from flat to flat, trying to gain access before the residents left to go to work.

I walked across to the door in my bare feet, still buttoning up my shirt. Outside stood DS Joy Clarke with Steve, hovering in the background.

‘You look as though you’ve seen a ghost,’ he remarked. His mullet haircut had been cut back and he now looked less of a gormless sidekick and more of a muscled-up enforcer, ready to do Joy’s bidding.

‘How did you get into the building?’ I demanded.

‘One of your neighbours let us in,’ Joy said. ‘We showed her our ID – all perfectly legal. Now, can we come into your flat, please?’

‘No,’ I said, stretching my arm across the doorway. ‘I’m going to work.’

‘No, you’re not,’ Joy replied. ‘You’re going to help us with our enquiries instead.’

‘Do you have a warrant?’

Steve folded his arms. ‘We’ve got something better than a warrant. We’ve got evidence.’

Joy stepped forward. She was wearing an open necked shirt and when she came to a stop, her chest was only a few millimetres from my outstretched arm.

‘John, if I get a warrant, it won’t be to arrest you,’ she said. ‘We’ve got more than enough evidence for that already. The warrant will be to search your flat.’

I suddenly remembered the gun in the drawer below my bed, less than twenty yards away. I tried to stay calm.

‘But searches take a lot of manpower,’ Joy continued. ‘So, before we go down that route, I’m hoping you’ll agree to come with us of your own accord, and answer a few questions. If we can eliminate you from our enquiries, Steve and five of his colleagues won’t have to go through all your belongings in public.’

Steve grinned at me. He might be gormless but he was not so gormless that he would overlook a gun in a drawer.

‘I have to know your answer now,’ Joy said. ‘What is it: helping us voluntarily, or arrest and search?’

‘I’ll help,’ I said. ‘I presume you don’t mind if I finish getting dressed first?’

‘And I presume you don’t mind us coming into your flat whilst you do that?’

For a moment I left my arm in place, and then I smiled and lifted it, letting them march in. When I strolled over my bedroom, Steve followed me.

‘Do you mind?’ I said, turning around.

He ignored me and inspected my bedroom window, tugging on the thick iron bars that prevented any intruder from breaking in.

‘I’m hardly going to escape through that, am I?’ I said, risking a quick glance to the drawer by my feet. At least it was closed and locked.

Steve shrugged his shoulders and walked out, leaving the door slightly ajar. I sat on the bed and put on some shoes and socks. As I bent down to tie my laces, I pulled the duvet across so it slightly hid the drawer. That was all I could do and I knew it was unlikely to be enough. All through Christmas there had been countless opportunities when I could have taken the gun out and thrown it away for good. Now my only hope was to co-operate enough to persuade Joy she had no reason to search my flat.

I emerged into the lounge and reached for a coat.

‘You won’t need that,’ Joy said. ‘We have a car outside.’

She led the way to a blue Vauxhall with a siren on its roof, parked across the road from the mansion block entrance. She climbed into the backseat alongside me, whilst Steve drove. After five minutes I realised that instead of turning north to cross the river to Chelsea, we were heading south.

‘Where are we going?’ I demanded.

‘To the scene of the crime,’ Joy replied, looking straight at me. ‘Or at least, as close as we can get to it without getting our feet wet.’

I did my best to look puzzled rather than frightened.

‘We’re going to the South Coast,’ Joy explained, studying my face.

‘Why?’

‘I think you know why.’

‘As far as I know Lucy Grainger was abducted from Chelsea.’

‘Lucy Grainger was yesterday’s victim. We have a much fresher corpse now.’

There was a long pause and then Steve spoke. ‘We’re going to Southampton, John. Have you been around there recently? Perhaps on a boat?’

I shook my head.

‘Is that a definite no?’ Joy asked.

I turned to her. ‘I seem to remember that trying to give precise answers to your vague questions got me into trouble last time. ‘

‘What got you into trouble last time, John, was telling lies.’ Joy said. ‘So how about a change of tactics? This time, when we ask you a straight question such as, “Have you been in a boat in the sea around Southampton recently?” why don’t you give us a straight answer like, “Yes” or “No”?’

‘How about you telling me first what I’m being accused of?’

Joy smiled but said nothing. We continued in silence to the start of the M3. As we passed under the M25, I remembered that everyone at PropFace was still expecting me to come into work. I took my mobile phone out and called the switchboard number. When our receptionist answered, I told her I would be coming in late, as something had come up. I could tell she wanted more detail but I did not give her any, ending the call up as quickly as I could.

‘That was very well done,’ Joy remarked. ‘You did not lie but you gave a completely misleading impression of what you were doing.’

‘Joy, are you going to tell me what I’m supposed to have done?’

‘No,’ she said, ‘not now. We haven’t even cautioned you yet. We’ll do all that later in the station. This was just a helpful background chat.’

‘I’m sorry I wasn’t very helpful then,’ I said sarcastically.

‘Quite the contrary,’ she said. ‘You’ve been an enormous help. The fact that you’ve refused to answer certain questions tells us much more than any answer would have.’

I turned my face away so she could not see me redden. Gazing out of the window I noticed that cars were moving out of our way to let us pass. Steve must have turned on our flashing blue lights. I was clearly a priority.

No one said anything for nearly an hour as we carved our way through the rush hour bottlenecks. Slumped against the window, I kept thinking about what Max had said: the only way anyone could link me to Glen Avon was if I linked myself. And that’s exactly what I had done. Once they had found the gun, the cartridges and the blood soaked towel, they would hardly need any other evidence, but one look at the Internet history on my laptop would confirm that I had spent all Christmas researching the life and strange disappearance of Edward FitzGerald.

Sweeping into Southampton. I changed my posture, looking down at the floor. I could see Joy was wearing shiny patent leather shoes with pointed toes.

‘Don’t your feet ache in those things?’

‘Constantly,’ she said.

At the police station in Southampton, the duty sergeant maintained the pretence that I had come of my own volition, neither arresting nor charging me. Instead I was politely asked to wait in reception with Steve, whilst Joy disappeared, saying she needed to sort out an interview room. She returned fifteen minutes later with a young police constable, who led us up two flights of stairs and down a narrow corridor until we came to an unmarked room. The constable knocked on the door.

‘Okay, I’m coming,’ called out a voice with a Welsh accent. The door swung open and a large man in a brown suit emerged. But that was not all I saw, for inside, seated across a table from three other men in suits, was Max.

He saw me at the same time as I saw him. For an instant, his mouth opened, and then he just smiled. The man in the brown suit muttered, ‘You idiot,’ to the young police constable and slammed the door shut behind him, before turning to me.

‘Sorry about that,’ he said. ‘A small mishap in our communications. I’m Detective Chief Inspector Davies. I gather you’ve offered to help us with our enquiries.’

Without waiting for my reply he set off up another flight of stairs, and we followed. At the top we marched down a brightly-lit passageway with unmarked doors on each side, heading deeper into the building. No one said a word.

The room we eventually entered was much larger than the interrogation rooms in Chelsea police station. It contained a table, a digital tape recorder, a camera above the door, and what I presumed was a one-way mirror running down one side of the room. Joy and DCI Davies sat down at one side of the table across from me, and Steve and the uniformed policeman were sent out to get some coffee.

‘Make sure it’s the decent filtered stuff,’ Davies yelled after them. ‘And a biscuit or two wouldn’t go amiss either.’

He then turned to me. ‘John, you’re not under arrest and you haven’t been charged with anything. We’re hoping you can help us with our enquiries, that’s all. It’s really just a chat but there are some formalities we have to follow, so I’m going to switch the recorder on and ask you to identify yourself, and we’ll do the same. DS Clarke will then give you a standard caution, so we can use the information you give us as evidence. Is that okay?’

He gave me a friendly smile. There was a nice Welsh lilt to his voice, but I remembered that Milburn had started questioning me quietly and casually with smiles all round, and that had not lasted. Davies was a much bigger man. Slumped in his chair, he gave off an air of lugubriousness, and I doubted that there would be any shouting and pacing around my chair like Milburn had done.

After Joy read out the caution, Davies looked down at a note book on the table beside him, and then asked me, ‘Have you been on a boat off the South coast recently?’

‘That’s the same question as DS Clarke asked me in the car. I told her that I would not answer such general questions until I knew what all this is about.’

Davies shifted in his seat. ‘Okay, it’s about a murder. We stumbled across the body of a man dumped at sea off the south coast. And we need to know whether you had anything to do with it.’

‘Am I connected to the victim?’

‘That’s what we want to find out. So have you been on a boat in the area recently?’

‘Define recently.’

‘Let’s say any time in the last six months.’

‘What do you mean by area?’

‘The South Coast of England between Bognor Regis and Bournemouth, including Southampton, Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight. In terms of the sea areas, we’re talking Southampton Water, The Solent, Spithead and anywhere within fifteen miles of the Isle of Wight. Is that specific enough for you?’

‘Yes,’ I said.

There was another silence. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Joy smiling.

‘So have you been in that area in that time, or not?’ Davies asked.

I took a long time before answering. ‘I don’t think so.’

He glared at me. ‘Are you sure?’

I waited for as long as I dared and then said, ‘No.’

His glare got nastier. ‘John, are you taking the piss?’

‘I visit friends. I make business trips. I wasn’t born in this country and I often get lost. So if you want a definite answer, you’ll have to wait until I’m back in my office with my diary and a map.’

DCI Davies let out a deep breath. ‘Have you been on board the
Glen Avon
then? Presumably you don’t need a map to answer that,’

‘You mean Max Grainger’s boat?’

‘You know it?’

‘Yes, he talks about it a lot.’

‘Have you been on it?’

I paused and then said, ‘I am not prepared to discuss any aspects of my relationship with Max Grainger.’

‘Why not?’ Joy asked.

‘Because he’s my friend and business partner and I know he’s a very private person who dislikes publicity.’

‘You’re talking to the police, not the press,’ DCI Davies said.

‘My prior experience with DS Clarke showed me that sometimes what you say to the police in confidence ends up in the press.’

Joy shook her head. DCI Davies looked at her and then turned to me. ‘I can tell you categorically that anything you say in confidence in this room will not end up in the newspapers.’

‘I’m sorry, I can’t take the risk.’

‘Risk?’ Davies said. ‘Risk?’ He threw his arms into the air, before leaning forward. ‘John, you’re taking a much, much bigger risk by not clearing your name from this murder. So come on: a straight answer to a straight question please. I’m not asking you about your relationship with Max Grainger. All I want to know is have you or have you not been on board the
Glen Avon
?’

I opened my mouth to burble some evasive answer when I suddenly remembered Max’s assured confident smile. I looked at Davies. The relaxed air he had adopted had now gone. I could even see his temple throbbing.