Michael Fowler - Heart of the Demon

“I can’t do that. You don’t need to know this after all this time. What difference will it make? No one will be able to recall anything that far back.”

“She was married wasn’t she?” He sensed Paul hesitate. “Come on you’ve got to be straight with me. I need to know what I was covering up all those years ago.”

“She was married yes. She still is to the same guy, and that’s why it’s so messy.”

“Come on cough up. You’ve done the hard part getting this far.”

“He’s a local councillor.”

“Why’s that so messy?”

“Because he’s now a member of the Police Authority.”

“Bloody hell Paul. You certainly pick ‘em don’t you. Now you’ve told me that you might as well tell me now who she is.”

“Karen Gardner.”

“Karen Gardner, married to Jerry Gardner — chair of the Police Authority?”

Paul nodded “One and the same.”

“But she must be fifty if she’s a day.”

“Probably now, yeah. She was in her thirties when we met. I went to a burglary at their flat, and when I caught the kid who’d done it, she sort of rewarded me. After that I used to visit her every so often when her hubby was at his meetings.”

“I have to say a few of the lads used to hint that they thought she was a bit of a warm ‘un. You dirty bugger.”

“Yes she was. In fact she was red hot. Can you see now why I never said anything? And I know that I wasn’t the only one doing the rounds with her. I got a whisper she was getting a good seeing to by a local villain and that’s when I called it a day.”

Hunter’s breath hissed through clenched teeth. “That puts a different complexion on things. If you knew about him then he might also have known about you being a cop.”

“I have to confess, it’s got me thinking now.” He paused and screwed up his face, then rubbed a hand across it. “This is a real fucking mess Hunter isn’t it?”

Hunter chose not to respond immediately. He was still a colleague even though they had been out of touch for all these years. He bit down on his lip, and then said, “You know who the guy is?”

“No idea. It was just a snippet I picked up in the pub, and so as I say I stayed well clear of her.”

“You know what I need to do, don’t you?”

“Interview her.”

Hunter nodded. “You and I go back a long way. I promise I’ll be as discreet as I can be. But it’s all fitting into place now. This villain whoever he is, may well have known about you visiting Mrs Gardner and thought of a really good way to get back at a cop. So the possibility is he could have either nicked the car that night, or got someone else to do it to set you up. And then somehow or other Carol Siddons got involved and ended up dead.” Hunter pondered for a second, then added, “Most probably because she witnessed the accident, which killed your sister’s boyfriend and was going to blab.”

DAY EIGHTEEN: 23rd July

On leaving the club Hunter’s mood was somewhat deflated. Getting into his car he popped in his ‘Bon Jovi’s Crossroads’ album into the CD player and tried to lose himself in the rock music, but driving home the music slipped into the background as he spent the journey replaying the evening’s conversation over and over in his mind and reflecting. Despite everything he and Paul Goodright had done together in the past, he knew that things would never be the same between them again. That trust they once shared had ended with their exchange of words.

He was restless for the remainder of the night as he mulled over his next steps. The saying ‘a problem shared’ entered his head time and time again, and he knew after several hours of tossing and turning that he had to confide in someone. Under normal circumstances when something troubled him he knew he could always turn to Beth. But this was different. This was a problem within ‘the job’ and he knew that the one person, apart from his wife, who would not pass judgment, and who would give him good balanced advice would be Grace.

The sleep, which had eluded him for hours, finally caught up with him about four o’clock. When the alarm sounded three hours later he felt thick-headed and completely drained, and he was only able to invigorate himself by staying longer in the shower. Tilting his head backwards, he lingered, feeling the rush of the cool water pour over his face.

As he stood outside on the patio finishing off his toast, taking in all the smells of the fresh morning air, and re-running last night’s events, despite the problems ahead he somehow felt himself becoming refreshed and revitalized. He drove to work replaying Bon Jovi, singing along to ‘Living on a prayer’ and ‘Keep the Faith,’ before cruising into Barnwell station yard.

When he entered the MIT office Grace Marshall had already arrived, face made up and smartly dressed looking business-like as usual. He noticed she’d scraped her hair back into a tight bunch, accentuating her high cheekbones and showing off the summer freckles.

Grace acknowledged him with a wide smile and as he sidled up to her he could see she was already adding milk to two cups of tea; one for him.

“We need to talk,” he said quietly.

Her warm burnt umber eyes widened.

“We certainly do,” she responded in quite a formal tone.

Grace’s response momentarily took him aback, and he returned her a quizzical look.

“What was the matter with you yesterday? You reacted as though you’d just been shot when Sue Siddons mentioned the cardigan,” she said stirring in a spoonful of sugar.

Hunter quickly glanced around, just to make sure no one was in earshot.

“I’ll tell you after morning briefing,” he replied, picking up the steaming mug and moving to his desk. He set the cup down and began to sift through the pile of papers and files which had accumulated in his tray over the last few days. He hoped he would be able to focus on their content.

The daily briefing centred on the previous day’s meeting with Susan Siddons, and Hunter recounted the conversation he and Grace had conducted with her. It had given a new dimension to the investigation. They now had a name for the mummified remains, and with this came the task of uncovering Carol Siddons’s past prior to her disappearance all those years ago. It had also thrown up the name of someone who could be considered to be their first major suspect: Steven Paynton, a petty criminal with a hard-man reputation. The police knew that he and his family had terrorised their community for years and many times the cops had met a wall of silence, or court cases had collapsed through fear. True, over the years there had always been enough people willing to tell the police about the family’s criminal activities, but to get those people to be witnesses and give a formal statement had been damn near impossible.

Therefore Steve Paynton had very few convictions. Those he had were petty — mainly for theft and burglary. And he had collected those in his early teens, for which, he had spent several months in a young offender’s institution. More up-to-date police intelligence revealed him as a minor league drug dealer who used violence to settle debts. Susan Siddons had also given some personal insight into his brutality towards her and her daughter, and this was now supported by information from Social Services who had their own personal file on Paynton. A phone call late the previous afternoon from one of the team leaders at Social Services had revealed that one of Paynton’s ex-partners, after numerous beatings, had fled the area just to get away from him.

This had occurred over fifteen years ago, before he had hooked up with Susan Siddons. The paperwork revealed that numerous attempts had been made to persuade the woman to formalise a complaint, but she had point blank refused to speak with the police, choosing instead to change her name and leave her home behind. A member of the team did stay in touch with her for a short time and had helped to re-house her. The last address in Retford, Nottinghamshire, was now five years old and Hunter and Grace were given the job of tracking her down.