A Kind Of Wild Justice (44 page)

‘Yeah, I found the diary, course I did,’ he said. ‘And once I’d read it I sent it straight to the recycling bin. I didn’t want the missus to see it, did I?’

Tommy made his admission freely and immediately – as far as it went. Todd was not surprised. After all, the computer’s record of the date on which the document had last been read would have made it nonsensical for him to deny that he, or at least one of his family, had found it. And in any case Tommy knew that he did not need to deny it. If there was anybody who understood about circumstantial evidence, it was an O’Donnell. Particularly this O’Donnell.

After that it was downhill all the way. The interview with Tommy turned out to be as much of a waste of time as Todd had feared it would be.

‘Mr Mallett, I can’t describe how I felt when I found Caroline’s diary,’ said Tommy. His voice cracked a bit as he spoke and Todd did not doubt for a second that his emotions were one hundred per cent genuine. ‘I’d probably never have found it cos she had
the file tucked away among her homework. Essays, and maths tests and stuff, and then … then … this horrible thing. But there was a printout, you see. It was among her school books. I look through them occasionally. I couldn’t believe I’d missed it before. And then, when I read it, well. Do you know I actually thought it was a story at first? But it wasn’t.

‘The truth is I hated Jimbo enough to kill him. Yes, I did. But I didn’t do it. I didn’t hire Shifter. I’d only just found the diary when Jimbo disappeared. I was trying to work out what to do about it. OK, I wanted to hurt him badly. But there was Dad to think about and the rest of the family. Poor Caroline was dead. I couldn’t help her. I was just working it out – then Jimbo was topped. It was nothing to do with me. Honestly.’

Todd did not believed a word of it. The whole episode had the O’Donnell stamp all over it. Revenge. Rough justice. That was the code they lived by. But Todd couldn’t prove a thing and he knew it.

However, the obvious implication remained – that Fielding was probably innocent after all and that his protestations that he had been set up might indeed be true.

Fielding’s case was further helped by a computer expert called in by his defence lawyer who questioned the validity of the e-mail evidence discovered by the police hackers, pointing out that it was totally feasible to send a virus into a computer memory which could plant all kinds of files there. It was technically quite possible that the e-mail drafts could have been fraudulently placed.

Finally the father of a twelve-year-old-boy in Scotland, apparently even more of a computer whizz
than most twelve-year-olds, contacted his local police station. It seemed that the boy had discovered intriguing files buried in the memory of the second-hand hard drive his father had bought him from Glasgow’s famous Burrowlands computer market.

These included e-mail correspondence between ‘contractor’ and ‘enforcer’.

None of the e-mails was the same as the ones found on Fielding’s laptop. Nothing matched at all except the user names. Even the language employed was different. Police hackers were able to trace the origin of the ‘contractor’ e-mails. They had been sent, as Shifter had originally predicted, from another cyber café. And there, once again, the trail ended.

The case against Fielding began to look very weak indeed. A full police report was submitted to the Crown Prosecution Service who promptly applied to Exeter and Wonford Magistrates’ Court to discontinue all charges in view of the changes in circumstances.

Mike Fielding was at once freed from jail.

Joanna followed the progress of events closely. Tim’s contact at the Yard turned out to be as good as he had promised and the young crime reporter acquired far more detailed information than was ever officially released, and indeed far more than could be printed.

Joanna was greatly relieved when the charges against Fielding were dropped. But she found she didn’t know how to deal with it when he called her twice on the day after his release and once more the day after that. On all three occasions she avoided his calls and failed to return them. But, maybe because she reckoned she owed him an apology, maybe
because she was curious, or even because she still cared in spite of everything, she did eventually call him a week or so later. ‘I’m so glad you are free, and I am so sorry I doubted you,’ she told him at once.

Fielding’s heart lurched. He was so pleased to hear from her. He had feared he might never see her again. And regardless of all that he had said when she had visited him in prison, he wanted to see her very much indeed. He accepted her apologies. It still hurt, but not as much as being unable to be with her any more would hurt.

‘I suppose it must have been Tommy, mustn’t it?’ she asked.

‘Oh, yes,’ he replied. ‘Tommy always had a low opinion of his brother, you know. He wasn’t fooled like his father was. I’ve no doubt he thought Jimbo was a despicable human being. Although he might not have realised Jimbo was a paedophile, Tommy’s got the old-fashioned villain’s abhorrence of all sex crimes. He would have hated what Jimbo did. But that wouldn’t have been enough, of course. Family was different. When he discovered that Jimbo had been abusing his daughter, driven her to suicide probably, his Caroline, the apple of his eye and the whole O’Donnell clan – he’d never let Jimbo get away with that. Never. He couldn’t. It would go entirely against his nature.’

‘You don’t think there’s any doubt, then?’

‘Nope. But I’ll be astonished if it’s ever proved. Tommy knows how to cover his tracks. He’s had enough practice.’

‘Could he have framed you, do you think?’

‘He could have. He doesn’t like me, but I don’t
think it would have occurred to him that he needed a scapegoat. And I’m not sure that O’Donnell is that clever. He’s bright enough, but whoever did me would have to be very clever indeed and a real computer whizz. Mind you, I reckon Tommy would probably have known where to find the right person for the job.’ He paused, then added mischievously, ‘Someone a bit like you, Jo, really.’

‘Don’t start that again, Mike. Apart from anything else I don’t have that kind of knowledge and you know it.’

‘No. I’m kidding. I just keep going over and over in my mind who might have done it.’

‘Any ideas?’

‘Nothing definite,’ he admitted. ‘I’ve made a few enemies in my time. There’d be quite a list of people who’d like to see me done up like a kipper. How many of ’em would be capable of doing it, though, is something else.’

‘So what do you think …’

He interrupted her. ‘Jo, when I called I didn’t want to talk about all this, particularly. I’ve just got to live with it now if I want any sort of future. And that’s what I wanted to talk about. My future. Our future. Us.’

‘I didn’t think there was an “us” any more.’ Her voice sounded distant.

‘There could be.’

His temper had cooled, of course. He wanted to see her again. It was always her he had dreamed about in prison. Always her in his thoughts when he woke up in the mornings with an erection, or half a one more often than not nowadays. It had really knocked the stuffing out of him, all this, in every possible way. He
couldn’t explain how he felt. He couldn’t explain how mercurial those feelings were either. Maybe it was because the strength and longevity of his desire for her frightened him. One minute he never wanted to see her again and the next he felt that life wasn’t worth living without her. He couldn’t regret that it had all started with her again, there had been too much pleasure involved, even a little bit of joy. But so much bloody pain too. That seemed to be inevitable for them.

‘Sometimes I think you and me will always be an “us”,’ he carried on. ‘I was angry with you because you didn’t believe in me, and particularly when I was in the clink that was very important to me. But it hasn’t affected my feelings for you.’

‘Mike, your feelings change with the wind, I should have learned that twenty-odd years ago.’

Had she read his mind, he wondered. He couldn’t argue with her. He was well aware that she spoke the truth.

‘I met your wife when I was leaving the prison.’

‘Ah.’

‘She never even knew about you and me, did she?’

Typically he avoided the question. ‘Look, can we at least meet and talk?’

‘I doubt it. Talking has never been our strong suit, has it?’ she said, her voice heavy.

No, he thought. They never had time to talk much. Sex and their jobs. That had always been their bond. But it must have been more than that to have lasted all that time, to have been resurrected so easily.

‘We could try. If we are going to end this for good I really don’t want us to do it on the bloody phone.’

He heard her sigh. ‘Mike, there’s no point.
Anyway, I don’t dare. For all I know Paul’s still having me followed. If you and I even met he’d find out, I’m sure of it, and if he did he’d divorce me. He’s told me so and I believe him absolutely. He won’t put up with it again.’

‘And would that be such a disaster, then?’

‘Mike, don’t be ridiculous. I have so much to lose. Including my daughter.’

‘Since when has your daughter been so damned important to you?’

‘Mike, that’s a terrible thing to say. Of course she’s important to me.’

‘Really? More important than your job and that flash house and maybe being Lady bloody Potter?’

He didn’t know why he was saying these things. The last thing he wanted to do was alienate her. He wanted to try again and yet he knew he was also doing his damnedest to destroy any chance of that. He was tying himself up in knots. Why was it so often like that with her?

When she replied he thought there was a slight quaver in her voice but she spoke very patiently, as if addressing a wayward child. ‘Mike, I don’t think you listen to yourself sometimes. In any case it doesn’t make any difference. It really is over for us now. It has to be.’

‘Why, so you can stay with a man you don’t love just because he’s a rich cunt?’

He knew he had shouted the last words. He had meant to be vicious but even as he yelled into the telephone he regretted it. Almost at once he began to stumble an apology.

It was too late.

There was a click as he opened his mouth to speak
again and he ended up whispering the word ‘sorry’ into a buzzing receiver.

She had hung up on him.

Joanna sat on the edge of the bed in the cream and white bedroom of her Richmond home, staring numbly at the telephone she had just been using. It was typical of Mike to flare up like that. Nonetheless, she was stunned. She had never told him that she didn’t love Paul and in any case it wasn’t as simple as that. It was to Fielding, of course. He always saw other people’s actions in black and white even though his own were invariably anything but.

Joanna had ensured that she was alone in the house before she made the call and she was very glad of that. It was just before six o’clock in the evening. Emily was staying the night at a friend’s. The au pair was also out. Paul wouldn’t be home for hours.

So Jo could weep in private, weep for the end of the love affair of her life. It was the end. She had no intention of going back on her word. But God, it hurt and Mike’s words had hurt more than anything she could imagine. Far more, she thought, than he would ever suspect. She still did not think he truly realised just how strong an effect everything he said and did had on her.

There was no future for them. Maybe there had never been a chance of one. They carried so much baggage now it was impossible. Angela Phillips. Jimbo and Tommy O’Donnell. Shifter Brown. So many images flitted through her mind whenever she thought of Mike. Which was still most of the time. And yet the pair of them were eternally plagued by doubts. In every direction. Their lives together,
inasmuch as they had ever been together, tainted with suspicion and betrayal.

Mike Fielding and Joanna Bartlett. An unlikely coupling caught up in a tangled web that was all too often of their own making.

She accepted absolutely now that Mike had not hired Shifter and that he had been framed. But she still didn’t trust him. How could she? She could never be sure of anything about him. He was so unlike Paul in that. You could always be sure of Paul.

She knew damned well that if she had gone along with him on the phone, told him what she suspected he had, at that moment at any rate, wanted to hear, told him she’d leave Paul, her daughter, everything to be with him, by the next day he’d probably have changed his mind.

She knew she had made the right decision. She just knew it. It was the only decision. But that didn’t make it any easier.

The tears came freely pouring down her cheeks. She’d done a lot of crying lately. But it never seemed to help.

She flung herself full-length on the bed and buried her face in the pillows. An era had ended for good. It was over. And so at last was the case of Angela Phillips and James Martin O’Donnell.

Even in her misery it occurred to her that there had finally been a kind of rough justice.

After Joanna had hung up on him Fielding. predictably enough, went to the pub. He knew he should try to forget Jo. She was just too dangerous for him. And it looked as she was in any case giving him little choice.

Mike was still mystified as to how those e-mails had got on to his laptop. And he still had no idea who had framed him so effectively. He assumed it must have been one of the many police colleagues he had crossed over the years, some of whom he could quite believe disliked him far more than most villains had ever done.

And then the police had discovered Caroline O’Donnell’s diary, which started all their doubts. Though there was no mystery about that, of course. Fielding himself had been responsible for the tip-off. He had told his
wife to write the letter which alerted Todd Mallett. He had told her exactly what to say, and how to type the letter and where to post it from in order to provide virtually no clues to its origin. Ruth had been confused and had asked a lot of questions he’d had trouble answering. But, as usual, in the end she had done his bidding.

Of course, only Fielding knew there wasn’t a word of truth in the diary. He had written it himself, on the dead girl’s computer sitting in that bedroom which her family had kept as a shrine. He had done it while
her parents were on holiday. Down on the Costa del Crime, naturally. It hadn’t been difficult to break into the O’Donnell home. They didn’t go in for a great deal of security. They didn’t need to. It would be a brave villain who would do their house. And in any case Fielding was good at breaking into places, having a look round, retreating without leaving a sign. It takes one to catch one, he thought with a wry smile. The old adage again.