Michael Fowler - Secret of the Dead

Tony straightened up from his slouch at the mention of that name. “What about Alan Darbyshire?”

“Oh don’t read too much into that comment, he was just a bad influence. Jeffery was never one for drinking, but when he got in with Alan they seemed to be never away from the pub. It was putting a strain on our marriage and I told him so. And I told him that he had a daughter to think about.”

“Can you remember roughly when this was?”

She glanced away momentarily, a look of concentration on her face. For a couple of seconds she started worrying her bottom lip, then said softly, “He went in CID in the summer of nineteen-seventy-two, and he was probably three or four years in, when he started with the regular late drinking sessions with Alan. He didn’t come in rolling drunk, or anything like that, it was just that it’d be the early hours of the morning before he got home. He always used to say he’d been working late. It caused quite a few rows, I can tell you.”

“Did you get to know Alan Darbyshire well?”

“Oh yes. I saw a lot of Alan. We used to go out as a couple, me and Jeffery and him and his wife Pauline. She was nice, and he was quite a character.”

“It’s been mentioned that you used to go on holiday together?”

“Oh yes, that was in the early eighties. Alan knew someone who had a place in Benidorm, and so it only cost us for the flights and our spending money. We’d go there a couple of times a year. It worked out cheaper than a holiday in England.”

“What kind of place are we talking about in Benidorm?”

“It was a two bedroom villa with its own pool, lovely place.”

“Do you know who it belonged to?”

“To be honest, at first I didn’t think anything about this. As cops, and you’ll know what I mean when I say this, you get to know a lot of people, from all walks of life, and Jeffery used to tell me it was a case of ‘you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours’. He told me that he and Alan had done a businessman a favour and in return he was letting them use his holiday home when he didn’t need it.” She fixed on Tony’s expression. “And before you ask, no I don’t know what that favour was. But I don’t believe it was anything underhand. Jeffery wasn’t the kind of man to do anything wrong. He loved his job. I have to say though, I was never too sure about Alan. I always used to say to Jeffery that I thought he was a flash git. You see he got promoted and he had a bit more money and used to throw it around a bit.”

“What do you mean by that comment Jennifer throw it around?”

“Well, things were a bit tight for us even with the overtime. I didn’t work and we had Katherine. Alan and Pauline didn’t have children, and she worked, so it always seemed as if he had a lot of money, and he liked to show off by flashing it around.”

Tony swung his gaze towards his FLO colleague. He could see Carol feverishly scribbling away in her journal.

“Did you ever get the impression Alan would do anything dodgy?”

Jennifer rolled her head from side to side. “Not to my knowledge, but Alan always acted the Jack the Lad, and after a while it grated on me. I felt as if Jeffery was a bit of a lap-dog around him, both at work and when we were out, and I didn’t like it. I told Jeffery my thoughts on quite a few occasions and we’d end up rowing over it. It wore me down in the end and I deliberately forced some space between us when it came to going out as couples. I used to make excuses about not feeling well, or say we couldn’t get a baby-sitter, and then I told Jeffery I couldn’t face going on holiday with them. I guess that’s when I realised our marriage was in a mess. I did try to make a go of it but I could tell Jeffery wasn’t happy and that’s when he and Alan started boozing regularly together. We started to drift apart. And I started to re-evaluate my life. The final straw was when he came home with the new car. A brand new BMW, I ask you. I went spare because money was tight enough as it was, but he told me that the businessman Alan and he had done a favour for brought them over from Germany, because he fiddled the VAT, and he’d got the car on a nought per cent interest deal. It was at that stage I felt something wasn’t quite right. I know the police are sticklers when it comes to accepting gifts, or even credit, and I wanted him to give it back. I told him he could lose his job if anyone found out. All he kept saying was that it was all above board and he was paying for it but without the added interest, and that Alan had got a similar deal as well.”

“Is that what caused your marriage to break up?”

“Not exactly. It was well on its way by then, in my eyes. I started to get suspicious about Jeffery’s late night jaunts. I’ve already mentioned about his drinking sessions. Well, on a couple of occasions when he came home I could swear I smelt women’s perfume on him, and I fronted him up about it, but he just told me it was because of this night club he and Alan went to. I got a friend of mine to follow him one night and I discovered he was visiting a private club in Wakefield, which I found out was a strip club. That was it. I dolled myself up one night and turned up at the club. I found Jeffery and Alan entertaining a couple of women at the bar. They were dressed like whores, and for me that was the last straw. I came straight back home, packed two suitcases, got my dad to pick me up, and I left with Katherine and stayed at my parents’ caravan in Skegness until I could fix myself up with a place for us both. Then I filed for divorce. I never came back. Jeffery came to the van and pleaded on bended knees, but by then I’d really had enough. I knew I’d be better out of it. Jeffery had changed so much as a person.”

“When was this, Jennifer?”

“Nineteen-eighty-three. And I got divorced the following year on the grounds of his unreasonable behaviour.”

“That year’s important to our enquiry Jennifer. You’ve mentioned earlier that Jeffery used to tell you about some of the jobs he was involved in. Can you recall him ever mentioning the name Lucy Blake-Hall?”

Jennifer West nodded. “I certainly do. It was splashed all over the local papers as well. He and Alan played a big part in that job. Jeffery told me that they had arrested the man who had murdered her.” She pushed herself upright from the work surface she had been leaning on. “In fact, that was the night I caught him and Alan with those women. He tried to tell me, once I’d caught him out that he was celebrating because they had charged Lucy’s killer with her murder. You see, the strip club belonged to Lucy’s husband.”

DAY SIX: 29th November.

The only sound in the house came from the crackling logs burning in the grate. Hunter had lit the fire the moment he had got downstairs, having seen the state of the weather when he opened the bedroom curtains that morning.

Taking a spell out from his paperwork he stared into the dancing flames and day-dreamed for a brief moment. It reminded him of his and Beth’s very first viewing of this house; the image before him prompted the recall every time. Passing by after a shopping trip, they had spotted the owner’s home-made sign and he had stopped the car and reversed to get a better look. They had lingered at the top of the drive for a good five minutes, Hunter taking in the well appointed three-bedroom semi. He could remember thinking that this was too good to be true. They knew the location well from walks they had taken together in the fields at the rear of the property when they were younger, and both of them, at one time or another, had talked and dreamed about living in such a house. They decided to knock on the owner’s door — it was too good an opportunity to let slip. By sheer chance they were the first viewing, the sign had only gone up that morning, and the minute they had entered the brightly lit hallway they knew this was a house with potential. Once they had been shown into the richly furnished lounge and had been greeted by the roaring fire, Hunter had looked into Beth’s eyes and knew this was the place for them. That was ten years ago and since then it had become a family home with the births of Jonathan and Daniel.