Mark Pearson - The Killing Season

‘My cousin Sam called me again earlier today, Jack. I was going to tell you at lunch.’

‘Go on?’

‘The estate agent has phoned her. He thinks he has someone very interested in the property. Might not even have to go to market.’

‘I see.’

‘Is that it?’

‘Well. We would have to sell our own properties. That will take time. If Sam wants a quick sell there is not a lot we can do about it even if we did decide to stay.’

‘I think we should. We can make a life for ourselves here, Jack. A good life for you and for me and for the children.’

‘If we sell in London now we won’t be able to go back, Kate. Property prices there are going up again. We’ll be priced out of the market.’

‘Is that your only concern?’

‘It’s one of them, yes, the main one.’

‘Don’t sell your property, then. Mine alone will raise more than enough to cover the cost of buying the house here. It’s worth over three times the value. I am also not without other financial assets.’

‘But you would have to sell it quick, you said.’

‘Easily financed — my property in Hampstead will sell quickly and I can more than cover the costs of a bridging loan, even if we find that we’ll need one.’

‘You’ve thought this all through, haven’t you?’ I said, throwing a sideways glance at her. She smiled and nodded at me.

‘I love you, Jack. I want this. More than anything.’

And there was the squeeze.

It was late afternoon. The sky black now, cloud-covered, and no moon.

I had moved my bits and pieces, such as they were, into the office that I had acquired next to Amy Leigh’s. It was a nice enough room, at that: wooden floor with a rich rug, an old desk with a captain’s chair behind it, a chair opposite for clients, a green wing-backed leather club chair in the corner for me to sit of a morning and read the Financial Times should I have the urge. I thought that would be unlikely. Old pictures on the wall of a nautical nature. An antique map of North Norfolk. All I needed, I thought, was one of those old globes that open up to reveal a drinks cabinet and I would be sorted.

I had locked up and was walking across to The Lobster when a drunken voice shouted out at me.

‘Oi, Irishman!’

I turned round: Len Wright. Dressed as he had been for the stag night, unshaven, dishevelled and even more drunk than he had been then.

‘Help you with something?’

‘Yeah, you can help me. You can help me by fucking back off to the stinking black bogs of Ireland where you crawled out from.’

He took a step closer to me, and put I put my keys in my pocket.

‘I’m not a woman, Len. You come any closer to me and I am going to hurt you badly.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Elaine James is what I mean. Made you feel more of a man beating her up, did it?’

He shifted his gaze sideways. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘Yeah, you do. Her and the Good Reverend. Your best mate. Didn’t like the fact that he was shagging her, did you?’

He stumbled towards me and threw a roundhouse punch. I leaned back and caught his arm as it passed. I pulled him off balance towards me and smashed his head into a lamp-post. He grunted in pain and I pulled his head back and repeated the treatment.

‘Delaney!’

I turned around and sighed inwardly.

‘Let that man go!’

I did as Superintendent Dean asked. For some reason she didn’t look to be in a good mood. Again. She had Sergeant Coker with her and a couple of uniformed officers. Len Wright slumped to the pavement, gurgling.

Seemed he had made a reappearance in town and had been getting rat-arsed in The Crown so someone had called the police.

A holding cell isn’t a particularly interesting place in which to spend a long time and I was pretty much bored with the place after half an hour. The door opened, Kate was shown in and the door closed behind her.

‘I’ve examined Len Wright. No lasting damage, but he’s drunk, not fit for questioning. They’re going to keep him in overnight.’

‘Good.’

‘And Superintendent Dean wants to do the same with you.’

‘Not good.’

‘Amy Leigh’s speaking with her now. What the hell were you thinking of, Jack?’

‘I was thinking he was swinging a punch at me and I didn’t want to end up like his girlfriend.’

‘You are more than capable of restraining him without smashing his head against a lamp-post, Jack, and you know it.’

‘Seemed like a good idea at the time.’

‘Why did you tell the superintendent about Elaine’s affair with the vicar? I thought we agreed to wait.’

‘Things have got a bit serious for that now, darling. And, besides, Len already knew.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I put it to him. I could see it in his eyes. He beat her up.’

‘Hence the lamp-posting.’

‘Hence indeed.’

‘The White Knight syndrome.’

‘A man should have a hobby.’

Kate sat beside me and ruffled my hair. ‘What am I going to do with you?’

‘Take me home and make love to me?’

‘That door’s locked, in case you hadn’t realised it, Jack.’

I patted the bench we were sitting on. ‘I know it’s not the Ritz but it could make the time pass more pleasantly.’

Before Kate could reply the door opened once more and Amy Leigh came in. ‘You got lucky, Jack. A couple of people saw the whole thing through The Lobster’s window. They have made a statement to the effect that Len Wright attacked you again.’

‘So I am free to go?’

‘Not quite yet, Delaney,’ said Susan Dean, who had appeared in the doorway. ‘If you had information that Elaine James was having an affair with Nigel Holdsworth why did you withhold that information from my team and the team from Norwich?’

‘I didn’t have information. I had a hunch,’ I said, looking her straight in the eye.

‘Is that right?’

‘Gut instincts. All good detectives have that. You know that, don’t you, Susan?’

‘What I know is that you are getting to be too much of a pain in the arse. I am still considering charging you with obstructing the course of justice. But I will be talking to your superiors and there will be a complaint made. I might not be able to charge you, Delaney. But I am going to make things very uncomfortable for you. You can count on that!’ She walked away.

‘Missing you already,’ I called out.

‘Jack!’ Kate slapped my arm as we stood up.

‘I reckon Len Wright is good for the assault on Elaine James,’ said Amy Leigh. ‘They’ll question him officially in the morning, and Elaine will be able to confirm.’

I nodded. ‘Good.’

‘But he claimed he has been in Norwich with a woman since the night of the stag do. And the woman has confirmed it.’

‘Who killed Nigel Holdsworth, then?’ I asked.

It was a bloody good question.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have any answers.

I was sitting behind my antique desk the next morning, pondering the matter, when Laura Gomez came into my office. Today she was wearing a black skirt, hooped tights in black and white, her trusty Doc Martens and a bright red woollen jumper. She looked like a liquorice allsort.

‘All right, Bertie Basset,’ I said. ‘What have you got for me?’

She sat down in the green leather armchair and crossed her short but perfectly proportioned legs.

‘I’ve come in to update you on the matter you asked me to look into, Gramps,’ she said.

Gramps?

I let it slide. ‘Get on with it, then.’

‘Just had a call there’s been some vandalism up at All Saints Church. Just up from the park, Beeston Regis. Want to take a squizz?’