Mark Pearson - The Killing Season

‘Which would be?’

‘No proteins with starch-based foods, and vice versa.’

‘In English?’

‘You can’t have potatoes or bread or pasta with meats and eggs and cheeses and fish, et cetera.’

‘You becoming a new man, Jack?’

‘Becoming an old man. I am seriously thinking of buying one of those fisherman’s sweaters, whatever they are called.’

‘A Jersey or a Guernsey, I believe.’

‘Yeah, one of those.’ I leaned over and tapped a bell that hung in the corner with my pen, as there didn’t seem to be any signs of life behind the bar and Amy looked ready for a drink.

‘I’ll have a large soda and lime, please,’ Amy said to the bespectacled youth who had appeared behind the bar and who looked all of sixteen. I was forty-three now — maybe I was getting old.

‘Stick it on my tab, Billy,’ I said. I took a bite of my sandwich and registered my displeasure. ‘Not even any mayonnaise.’

Amy laughed. ‘Salad sandwiches and fisherman’s jumpers. You are getting old, Delaney,’ she said.

‘I have to tell you I was out on the Sheringham cliffs at six o’clock this morning, and there were brass monkeys running around desperate to find a welder.’

‘I heard about that. They found a dead body.’

‘Yes. Know of any large men gone missing from the area over the last thirty years or thereabouts?’

‘Well, no. Not really, not off the top of my head, Jack. What about the police — don’t they have a missing-persons register?’

‘They do and they’ll be checking it. Unlikely they will update me on any progress, though.’

‘Oh?’

‘Superintendent Susan Dean doesn’t have me at the top of her favourite-people list.’

‘Nor me.’

‘Why not?’

‘I do a lot of pro-bono work. And legal aid — represent people who can’t afford private counsel. If I didn’t get some of the people off who she has put through the system, even before the CPS are involved. .’ She shrugged and took a sip of her drink. ‘Then maybe her crime-solving figures and statistics would be higher. She’s a very political kind of policewoman.’

‘I know the sort.’

‘And she knows your sort, Delaney. Maybe that’s why she hasn’t warmed to you.’

‘And what sort is that?’

‘The sort who is more interested in “nicking wrong un’s” than he is in collecting badges.’ Her Ray Winstone impersonation was about as convincing as if I had attempted to do Katherine Hepburn. I smiled anyway.

‘Maybe I am too lazy, and too old, and too opposed to paperwork to be a political animal.’

‘Yeah, and maybe you just like kicking doors in and busting heads.’

‘If it gets the job done.’

Amy laughed again. ‘You don’t fool me, Jack. You do well in your job because you are a lot smarter than you like to let people think you are.’

‘You’ll have to write that down and I’ll see if I can work out what it means later.’

‘I’ll speak to my uncle,’ she said, ignoring me. ‘He may know of some missing people from that time.’

‘I’d be grateful.’

‘Why the interest?’

‘I think the guy was murdered and he was found on property that I am a security consultant for.’

‘Not at the time he was murdered, you weren’t. If he was murdered at all, that is. Is there any word on the autopsy?’

‘Not yet — the body has been taken to the morgue at Kelling Hospital. Didn’t want to risk transporting it too far, given its condition. And Kate is waiting to be given the go-ahead to do the preliminary work.’

Amy looked surprised. ‘Kate’s going to be doing it?’

‘Probably. Seems Norwich is a bit tied up for a day or so.’

‘He’s waited this long.’ She took another sip of her drink. ‘Shouldn’t think a couple of days’ or so wait more will matter in the grand scheme of things.’

‘Probably not, but I get the sense that Superintendent Susan Dean wants to steal a march. Bust the case, as it were, before more dazzling urbanites from the city come up and steal her thunder.’

She looked at me critically. ‘And is that perhaps why you are taking so keen an interest? Looking mayhap to steal her thunder with your own dazzling big-city skills.’

I looked back at her impassively. ‘I just like to solve a mystery.’

‘Sure you do. Anyway, I hoped to catch you here, and the mobile-phone signal is down. . again.’

‘I know.’

‘I understand you spoke to Helen yesterday and had a word with her builders?’

‘That I did.’

‘It seems to have worked.’

‘What do you mean?’ I asked, a little surprised.

‘She phoned me late this morning. On the landline, obviously! Said she’d come to an arrangement with the builders and they were going to finish the job for a lot less than they had said before.’

‘Which builders?’

‘The original ones. You obviously got your message across.’

‘I kicked his ladder away and punched his mate a few times about as hard as I could. Don’t think I made much of a dent in either one’s confidence.’

Amy looked at me, puzzled. I outlined to her how the meeting had gone down and filled her in on Superintendent Susan Dean’s take on the situation.

‘They’ve made an official complaint?’

‘No. Not quite. But she made it clear that she would throw the book at me if I hassled them any more.’

‘Nice.’ The young solicitor compressed her lips in distaste.

‘I might have flashed a warrant card and implied I was on the job around here, mind you,’ I offered by way of explanation for the super’s irritation.

‘So why the volte-face, then? Why would they backtrack on what they said?’

‘How did Helen Middleton sound to you?’

Amy Leigh considered it for a minute. ‘On reflection, not as happy as she should have done. She did say to thank you for what you’d done, but not to proceed with any further actions. She was happy to proceed under the new terms.’

‘But she didn’t sound it?’

‘No. Now I come to think of it she didn’t seem particularly buoyed.’

I nodded.

‘What do you think?’

‘I think the boys have paid her a visit. Obviously Superintendent Dean has given them the impression that my hands are tied.’

‘Aren’t they? Given what the police have said?’

‘Just think of me as Harry Houdini,’ I said and pushed the half-eaten sandwich away.

‘What are you going to do?’

‘What I said I would do.’

‘Which is?’

‘Help Helen Middleton, and frighten the boys some more.’

‘And how are you going to do that?

I looked at Amy steadily. ‘Do you really want to know?’

She considered for a moment or two and then smiled a kind of grimace. ‘I guess I probably don’t.’

‘Good guess.’

‘I don’t want you getting into trouble over this, Jack. I asked you as a favour.’

‘Trouble is what I do, Amy.’

She looked at me for another long moment and then laughed. ‘You crack me up, Delaney.’

I gestured to the barmaid. ‘Order me up a bacon sandwich and get me a pint of Guinness, would you, darlin’? And get this young woman a proper drink.’

I looked up at the sky. It was clear now, apart from a few long, crimson streaks of cloud. The first time for a long while. There was a freshening wind coming from the sea but nothing like the earlier storms. Maybe they had blown themselves out. The town smelled fresh and clean, and the ozone was almost as invigorating as the Guinness I had just drunk.

I walked up to my car which was parked by The Crown pub on the seafront. A bunch of seagulls were sitting on the promenade wall, eyeing me suspiciously. The seagulls didn’t like it out of season — there were no unwary tourists to pinch chips from.