Tom Graham - Life on Mars - Get Cartwright

‘Understood, Ray?’ Sam added.

‘Nope,’ Ray muttered. ‘ I don’t even understand how to get dressed of a morning.’

‘Oh, stop sulking,’ Sam said, striding past him. And mischievously he added: ‘Sometimes, Ray, you’re worse than a bird.’

‘Shoot him for that, Ray!’ Chris urged, and he fell back into his gunslinger stance.

Getting clear of all this idiocy, Sam headed over to Annie who was sitting off by herself, hunting through masses of old police files and making scribbled notes. She barely acknowledged him as he approached.

‘I promised the Guv I would have words with you,’ Sam said gently, half smiling. ‘You overstepped the mark yesterday: you honked his horn. And he was not well pleased. In fact, he was livid, and the only way I could stop him coming after you like a rabid Rottweiler was to promise him I would officially reprimand you for your behaviour. So. There you go. Consider yourself officially reprimanded.’

He grinned at her, but Annie didn’t look up. Her face was serious and intense as she pored over her files, ran her finger down a page of typescript, paused, then made a note. Sam’s smile faded.

The more she looks into those files, the more she starts to see of her forgotten life. It’s coming back to her – slowly, and in fragments, but it’s there.

‘Listen, Annie,’ he said in a whisper. ‘I know you went to see Carroll, that you spoke to him. I haven’t said anything to the Guv about it – in his current state of mind, I think he’d hit the roof. I understand that you feel compelled to find out more about PC Cartwright, but you’ve got to be careful. You’ve got to try to –’

‘I think he was murdered,’ Annie cut in suddenly, without looking up.

‘Who? PC Cartwright?’

She nodded, keeping her head down as she thumbed her way through yet another file.

‘PC Anthony Cartwright died while off duty,’ she said. ‘DCI Carroll compiled the official report on what happened. The report says that DI Patrick Walsh and DS Ken Darby were witnesses to what happened. Together, they testified that they had gone drinking with Tony Cartwright, and that he had admitted to owing hundreds of pounds to a loan shark to pay off gambling debts. Heavy pressure was being put on him to pay back his loan plus yet more hundreds in interest, but he simply didn’t have it. According to Walsh and Darby, Tony Cartwright got drunker and more despairing, until at last he staggered off, distraught. They hung about for a bit and then went after him. They saw him throw himself into the canal, but it happened too quickly to stop him. It took two weeks to start dredging the canal.’

‘Two weeks? Why so long?’

‘There were no qualified divers available, apparently. Eventually the body was found and hauled out. Walsh and Darby testified to what happened, and DCI Carroll signed off on it. Case closed. But look here, Sam … The coroner’s report for Anthony Cartwright. It says that the body was identified by Walsh and Darby, not by Cartwright’s wife. She never saw the body. Carroll wouldn’t let her. According to his report, it was to spare her the trauma because the body was badly decayed. But, Sam, look …’

She shoved the coroner’s report at Sam and jabbed at it with her finger.

‘The name of the doctor who carried out the autopsy,’ she said.

‘Dr F. Enderby,’ Sam read out. ‘That name’s important?’

‘Only because there is no Dr F. Enderby who ever worked as a police coroner or anything else – not here, not in the Midlands, not in London, nowhere! If there was, then he’s done a brilliant job of removing every trace of his existence from the CID files. His name isn’t mentioned anywhere else, not once. Not once, Sam. When I get the chance I’m going to go down the county coroner’s office and see if there’s any mention of him there, but I’m not betting on it. Two weeks to get a diver in, by which time the body’s in too bad a state to be seen by anyone but this non-existent coroner. That ain’t right, Sam. And look at this. It’s a file of bank statements for Cartwright’s current account and building society account at the time of his death.’

Annie thrust the file into Sam’s hands. He opened it.

‘It’s empty,’ he said.

‘The statements are marked as “mislaid”,’ said Annie. ‘No proof that he was ever in debt. And the last person registered as taking this file out of the records office –’

‘– was DCI Carroll,’ Sam finished her sentence for her.

‘And here’s a statement from a man called Terrence Fitch, arrested less than a week after Cartwright’s body was recovered. He was a money lender, a loan shark. In this statement he admits to lending seven hundred pounds to Cartwright at some ridiculous rate of interest, and then threatening to kill him and his family when the repayments stopped.’

‘In fairness, doesn’t that corroborate the official story?’ said Sam.

‘Fitch was arrested by Walsh and Darby, and interviewed by Carroll. His statement was put into the Cartwright file, and after that Fitch disappeared from the records. Completely. No word of him.’

‘Are you saying he didn’t exist?’

‘If he did, he had the same talent for vanishing as the mysterious Dr F. Enderby. Look at all this stuff, Sam – it stinks of a cover-up. Files going missing. A dodgy coroner’s report. A miraculously convenient suspect interview that just happens to confirm the official story. And those same three names cropping up time and again: Carroll, Walsh, Darby.’

‘It certainly feels all wrong, Annie. But …’ He hesitated, fearing that the ears of Ray and Chris were flapping in their direction. Lowering his voice to a murmur, he said: ‘Why is it so important to you to find out what happened to PC Cartwright? Do you feel … close to him in some way?’

Annie paused, chewed her lip, and said: ‘I think so. I’m confused. Why does all this stuff feel so personal?’

‘Has the name McClintock turned up in those files?’ Sam asked. Here in this otherworldly 1973, McClintock was House Master of Friar’s Brook borstal. But, in life, he had not only been a serving police officer at the same time as Tony Cartwright, but he had died right alongside him on that awful night when Gould’s garage went up in flames.

‘Mr McClintock?’ Annie asked. ‘The House Master from Friar’s Brook borstal? I’d remember if I’d seen his name anywhere.’

‘No mention at all? That’s strange. Or maybe it’s not strange at all, given the way names come and go so freely in those files.’

‘This much I know, Sam – PC Cartwright died and his death was covered up,’ Annie said, her voice tight and constrained. ‘And the main culprit for that cover-up was DCI Michael Carroll.’

‘Well, at least we know exactly where he is and what he’s up to right now,’ said Sam. ‘Unlike your other suspect, DI Pat Walsh.’

‘And then there’s DS Ken Darby. We need to track them all down, Sam. We need to know exactly what happened, how they were involved, and why they covered it up.’

‘ You need to know,’ Sam gently corrected her.

And now Annie looked up at him, her face drawn and pale, her eyes slightly bloodshot as if she had been crying.

‘Yes!’ she hissed at him. ‘ I need to know. I need to know who I am and why all this is so damned important to me and what the hell’s going on!’

‘Shhh!’ Sam glanced over his shoulder at Chris and Ray, both of whom were pretending to do paperwork whilst in fact they were flagrantly ear-wigging. Drawing closer to Annie, Sam said in a low voice: ‘We need to talk.’

‘Well I don’t want to talk!’ Annie suddenly snapped at him. ‘I want to find out what’s going on and I want to do it my way!’