A Reconstructed Corpse (21 page)

Or if the entire country could be convinced that something had happened to you, thought Charles. He could see another reason why Chloe Earnshaw might have been so ready to identify the severed arms as those of her husband.

‘How was it that you finally did come to leave her?'

‘I don't know. I just snapped. She'd beaten up on me really bad one Sunday evening. I think she'd broken a couple of ribs – hurt like hell.' He rubbed a hand gingerly across his front. ‘Still does. And, anyway, I thought, if I let this go on, one day she's going to kill me. So I just said I was going.'

‘And what effect did that have?'

‘She got hold of a broom handle and went for me even harder. And she was shouting all this stuff – that if I went, I'd never be able to come back – she'd kill me if she ever saw me again. It was terrifying. I thought she'd kill me if I stayed, and all, so I just left – out the front door, gone.'

‘And then you went to the pub?'

Martin Eamshaw looked bewildered. ‘Went to the pub? What do you mean?'

‘The Black Feathers. The pub down in the Lanes.'

‘I've never been to a pub in the Lanes in my life.'

‘Oh.'

So all the painstaking filming for
Public Enemies
had been reconstructing something that never happened. The sighting of Martin Earnshaw in the pub had just been another of Chloe Earnshaw's fabrications. Charles remembered vaguely that the details were supposed to have been telephoned to her anonymously. Easy enough to make that up.

The subsequent call – from the woman who claimed to have seen Martin Earnshaw walking from the pub to the pier – must have been more difficult to engineer, because by then the police had a bug on the Earnshaw's telephone. Still, not impossible. It had been recorded on the answering machine while Chloe was out shopping, and the voice had sounded as if it was disguised.

The police, who seemed as caught up in the glamour of television as anyone might not have investigated such a call too closely. So long as it provided some more action for
Public Enemies
to reconstruct, everyone was happy.

‘So, Martin, where did you go when you left the house?'

‘I just walked. I didn't know where I was going. I was so relieved to be out of there. I just walked. And then, when I kind of came to, I realised I was walking east, out of Brighton, and I thought, that's the way to Newhaven. So I walked on and I'd got a bit of cash on me – still carrying my passport too – so I caught the late-night ferry to Dieppe. And I've been in France ever since.'

‘So you don't know what's been going on here?'

‘What do you mean?'

‘About your disappearance.'

He chuckled. ‘Nobody's interested in whether I've disappeared or not.'

Don't you believe it, thought Charles. One day you really must see the audience figures for
Public Enemies
over the last few weeks. But he let it pass, for the time being.

‘The obvious question, though, Martin, is – why have you come back now?'

‘Ah. Well, you see . . .' A rather charming coyness came over him. ‘In France I met this girl . . . woman, really. In Dieppe. First day – it must have been meant. I was having a coffee with, like, virtually the last money I had, and she was the waitress, and we got talking and . . . well, the upshot was . . . her father'd just died and her mother was having difficulty coping with the farm they'd got . . . and so, last few weeks, I've just been helping out . . .'

‘Ah.' If Martin Eamshaw'd been hidden away on a French farm, it would explain why no television-watching English tourists had spotted him.

He gave another coy smile. ‘And the fact is . . . Veronique, that's this girl – well, woman . . . she and I . . . well, we've become very close. We're going to live together.'

‘Oh?'

‘She's lovely, she really is. But I thought, I can't just set up with someone else, I've got to tell Chloe . . . you know, to her face, actually have a confrontation, tell her what's what.'

‘Brave thing to do, in the circumstances.'

‘Yes. I wouldn't have dared if I hadn't met Veronique. She's given me confidence. Otherwise I'd never have gone near Chloe again – under any circumstances.'

Charles began to realise how safe Chloe Earnshaw had been in her fabrications about her husband's death. She'd got Martin so terrified, he'd have done anything rather than have to face her again. It was only his meeting Veronique that had thrown Chloe's plans. Without a new woman in his life, he'd never have posed any threat to his wife's machinery of self-publicity.

‘So you came to Brighton this morning to have the confrontation?'

Martin Earnshaw nodded. ‘Yes, Veronique's gone up to London to do some shopping. She thought I was daft, but I said seeing Chloe was something that had to be done.'

‘A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do,' Charles rumbled in suitable American.

‘Yes.'

‘And do you still feel that?'

A quick shake of the head. ‘No. Don't know why I ever did. And the great thing is, Veronique won't mind whether I have done or whether I haven't.' He was almost crowing with happiness. ‘She is great, you know. Seeing Chloe again made me realise just how great. And how awful things were. When I was in the same room with Chloe this morning, I just felt all my will drain out of me. I couldn't do anything. If you hadn't been there, I'd never have got away from her again.'

Charles Paris grinned. ‘Glad to have been of service. Another pint?'

At that moment two people entered the pub. As Charles moved to the bar, he saw a solidly attractive dark-haired woman come in, not together with, but at the same time as, an elderly man.

The woman, from the way Martin Earnshaw hurried to greet her, had to be Veronique. And she looked as nice and warm as he said she was.

The elderly man was Kevin Littlejohn.

He looked at Charles Paris and froze. Then he turned towards the bar and saw Martin Earnshaw.

Kevin Littlejohn did a classic double-take, and fainted.

The two men hurried forward to help.

‘What on earth's the matter with him?' asked Martin Earnshaw.

‘He just thinks we look alike.'

‘You and me?' Martin looked sceptically into Charles's face. ‘But we don't look anything like each other, do we?'

‘No,' said Charles Paris on a bit of a giggle. ‘No, we don't.'

IT WAS DAFT, he knew, given the fact that there was only a pay-phone there, but he preferred to make his calls from Hereford Road. Or maybe homing back in on where he lived – however unwelcoming it might be – gave him a feeling of continuity, or even of security.

He was back home by four o'clock. Having stiffened the odd sinew with a slurp of Bell's, he got out the paper on which he'd scribbled the numbers from Louise Denning's index, and went to the payphone on the landing.

Stuck to the wall was a message on a yellow sticker. Must have been written by one of the Junoesque – or perhaps Frank Brunoesque – Swedish girls who inhabited the other bedsitters.

‘CHARLES PARRISH – JULIET RINGED.'

His first thought was ‘Who on earth do I know called Juliet?', before, with shame, he realised it was his daughter. They hadn't spoken for months. Get the difficult call out of the way first, thought Charles, then I'll phone Juliet. Though he had a guilty feeling that the second might not be a particularly easy call either.

He rang Sam Noakes's office number and got through straight away. Her voice was deterrently professional. ‘Yes, who is it?'

‘Charles Paris.'

‘Who? Oh, you're the actor in the reconstructions.' Her voice took on a more forbidding you're-not-going-to-waste-my-time-again-are-you tone. ‘What do you want?'

‘I've got some more information. On the Martin Earnshaw case.'

‘All right. Tell me about it.'

‘I think it'd be better if we met.'

She didn't think that was at all a good idea.

‘It concerns Ted Faraday. And Greg Marchmont. It's quite sensational stuff.'

She was clearly tempted, but asked, ‘What makes you think it's information we haven't already got?'

‘I haven't seen anything in the media about it. And once this breaks, even you are going to have difficulty keeping it quiet.'

She decided quickly. ‘All right. Come and see me at my office.

Sam Noakes wasn't actually based in Scotland Yard, but in a nearby Victorian building, which showed signs of recent and incomplete conversion into offices.

‘Only just moved in here,' she explained when she met him from the lift. ‘We were spilling out of the main building. Ours is one of the fastest growing departments.'

‘What department is that?'

‘It's officially called “Television and Media Liaison”. But we're known throughout the force as the “Video Nasties”.'

‘Oh.'

In the corridor they passed uniformed men and women, who all acknowledged the inspector with the same respect Charles had noticed from her colleagues in the W.E.T. hospitality suite.

‘Is Superintendent Roscoe based here too?' he asked.

Sam Noakes grimaced. ‘Yes, for about another week. He's extended his retirement till after the end of the
Public Enemies
series.
Then
maybe we'll be able to get some proper work done round here. Come through.'

The inspector led him into a small office sliced off by unpainted chipboard partitions and gestured to a minimally upholstered chair. She sat with her back to the window behind a commendably tidy desk. Her striped shirt and jeans expressed that casualness which takes great care and money.

‘And who takes over from Roscoe when he goes?'

‘There another old fart sitting in for a few months – but at least he's one who won't interfere so much. Then they'll promote someone permanent. The role of the department's changing so quickly at the moment that they don't want to rush into an appointment.'

‘Is it likely to go to someone already working here?'

Sam Noakes gave an enigmatic shrug that didn't rule out the possibility of her being in the running for the job.

Then she straightened up and became businesslike. ‘Right, tell me what you've got. It'd better be good.'

‘It is,' said Charles Paris. ‘Have you heard anything from Sergeant Marchmont in the last few days?'

She shook her head dismissively. ‘He's on sick leave. He's got nothing to do with the case now.'

Her unconcern sounded genuine. It was hard to believe that she did know anything about the contents of Marchmont's flat. But then, if some of Charles's suspicions of her were correct, Sam Noakes was highly skilled in deceit.

‘What about Ted Faraday? Have you heard anything from him?'

‘There've been a few faxes from Brighton – apparently he's still working undercover.
Claims
to be making progress with the investigation, but I've seen no evidence of it so far.'

Again her ignorance of the private investigator's true fate sounded sincere. Again Charles had to remind himself of the deviousness of the criminal he was up against. Somebody had killed Faraday and maintained the myth of his continued existence by faxing reports from him. Or rather by making Greg Marchmont fax reports from him. So the criminal was someone with a hold over the sergeant. By that criterion, Sam Noakes definitely qualified as a suspect.

‘Inspector, when Chloe Earnshaw identified the arms as her husband's, I believe you were with her . . .?'

‘Yes, I was.' Noakes seemed suddenly to realise that she was losing control of the conversation. ‘Mr Paris, I invited you here because you said you had some information on the case, not so that you could start interrogating me.'

‘It's relevant.'

‘Bloody well better be.' She sank back into her chair and sulkily allowed him to continue.

‘From what Chloe Earnshaw's told me, it seems that her inspection of the severed arms was extremely perfunctory.'

‘It's not something you want to bloody linger over. The poor girl had been through hell since her husband disappeared, fearing the worst. Now suddenly the worst had happened. I wasn't about to put her through another major ordeal. The identification was only a formality.'

‘Why? Didn't the possibility ever occur to you that the arms might have belonged to someone else?'

‘Oh, come
on
. They were found near Brighton. Their owner seemed to have been killed round the time Martin Earnshaw disappeared. The arms belonged to someone the right size, the right age.'

Yes, thought Charles. My size, my age. He remembered how in the hospitality suite Greg Marchmont had mistaken him for Ted Faraday. Faraday, Martin Earnshaw and Charles Paris were all about the same size and the same age.

‘And presumably more would be found out about the arms by more detailed forensic examination?'

‘Presumably.'

‘But you implied when we spoke before, that more detailed forensic examination never took place.'

Sam Noakes looked truculent. ‘It was deferred. Until the whole body had been found.'

‘The police have great advantages, don't they, in organising how a case is pursued?'

‘Of course we do. That's our job.'

‘But, if a policeman – or woman, with privileged information, wanted to control the direction of enquiries . . . by, say, ensuring that the forensic investigation was inadequate, it wouldn't be difficult to do, would it?'

‘Perhaps not. But why would they
want
to do it?'

Charles shrugged. ‘Any number of reasons . . . To make their own role in the proceedings look more important than it actually was . . .? To impress a television audience . . .'

‘What are you actually saying, Mr Paris?'