Bright Spark (38 page)

“And
Braxton junior is not only neck-deep in this mire, but he’s been abusing a 14-year
old girl as well, giving us a pretty good choice of pretexts for whatever we
want to do to him. Take it from me; this is not the job to be in for someone
with three daughters. If Kelly were my blood, you’d never find Braxton’s
remains. In fact you’d probably help me dispose of them.”

“Hasn’t
he also given us somewhere else to find him and any physical evidence he might
have kept? Didn’t the under-age girl and Firth’s cell-mate both mention an
allotment?” 

“Well
spotted. Something else occurs. Braxton senior may have been the first to discover
the fire at Marne Close. He was certainly in a God-almighty hurry to talk up
his heroic efforts and get his version down in my notebook. Not much recent
form, so he’s either gone straight or….”

“Got
good enough at something naughty to avoid our attention…”

“Something
that might have involved a four way conversation including his horrible son,
Firth and Murphy in a pub that night, a night which ends badly for at least
three of them.”

“Something
for which an allotment might be handy?”

“And
I bet it doesn’t involved prize-winning marrows.”

“Christ
knows.” Harkness snatched off his sunglasses and rubbed hard at his eyes. “What
a bloody mess. We’ve got plenty of shovelling left to do, you and me. I reckon
I might miss Hayley’s deadline.”

“I’d
offer you the box room if two of the kids weren’t sharing it already.”

       “What,
the one with the barred windows? Don’t worry. I’m working on an option.”

“Is
that the modern term for it?”

“Don’t
be cheeky. I should come back to work. This is getting too big for you and me
to handle under the radar. We can’t run this one like George Smiley. There’s
too much to do.”

“You’re
right. But which do you think would be trickier: Unravelling this case or
persuading the DI and the DCI that there is a case and you should be running
it?”

“No
choice, Ken. We need to do this properly. We’ll have to nick Kevin Braxton and
maybe his dad too. We’ll have to search their house and this allotment if we
ever find it. Sooner or later, somebody will notice all that forensic work on
the balance sheets, not to mention that interview with Jeremy you’re jacking
up. Christ knows what else will crop up when we start digging.”

“How
are you going to sell it then?”

“I
make it just gone three o’clock. The DCI’s a creature of habit, isn’t he?”

“Well
he can always be found in the first floor lavvy at 0920 hours with a copy of
the Daily Mail. And on the fairway by 1430 hours on a Friday. You didn’t answer
the question.”

“I’ll
serve it up to him as a fait accompli.”

“I
wouldn’t. He can’t stand foreign food.”

       Harkness
eased the RS gently onto the broken and pitted tarmac of the lay-by off Heighington Road. He was relieved to find the space empty of its usual fly-tipped mounds of
carpet off-cuts, broken fridges and rusting wheel-rims, or cars left by those
whose furtive habits had inspired this shortcut.

       This
fast and open country road ran along elevated ground overlooking the city from
the south-east. On his travels, Harkness had noted the surprising number of
cars parked unattended in this lonely spot, at the start or near the end of the
working day. Typically too expensive or well maintained to have been abandoned,
this spoke of secret wisdom.

       The
simple answer came to him while driving past the local golf club on Washingborough Road, which ran north of Heighington Road and parallel with it on lower
ground alongside the River Witham. The two roads bounded the wide and sloping
fairways of the club, with the pot-holed lay-by and a collapsed barbed wire
fence providing by far the cheapest membership option.

       To the
west, the road plunged into the shade of a desirable commuter village with its
thick sandstone walls and ancient stands of horse chestnut and sycamore. To the
east, the road swooped and dipped across wide fields of rapeseed, no longer
soughing with the soft hopes of spring but parched into crackling thirst.  To
the south, the land peaked then fell away to the fens and the cracked concrete
of quiescent bomber fields.

Harkness
waited for the engine note of a passing car to fade into the dirt before he
crossed the road. Through the tangled hawthorn, the concealed fairway dropped
away over a blind rise; beyond it, the city sweated in its heat haze, its
red-brick and sandstone lining the river and climbing the steep hill at the heart
of the city, the defensible ground that had inspired the Romans to dig in and
build their legionary fortress here. The colossal Norman edifice of the Minster
surmounted the hill, a symbol of the righteous might of that empire, piercing
the heavens and commanding the horizon across field, forest and fen for miles
in any direction.

A
few minutes of patient pacing led Harkness to the gap where the hawthorn had
been cut back and a number of fence posts kicked or levered flat, the barbed
wire stamped into the dry earth by golf shoes and trolley wheels. He sauntered
through, trespassing without compunction, knowing that his visit to the club
would be neither enjoyable nor relaxing. Perhaps he’d missed the point of golf,
he reflected, as he spotted a figure clad in green visor, lemon-striped polo
shirt and black and white check trousers hacking and spluttering at something
in a hilltop bunker that might have been the ball but could just as easily have
been a more gifted opponent.

Cresting
the rise, he checked his watch and wondered how far into the game Brennan would
have got by four o’clock if he’d started half an hour ago. He didn’t know the
man’s handicap but he’d been playing here for most of Harkness’s service so
must have been sufficiently close to par to set a reasonable pace. Scattered
across a wide, undulating hillside of bunkers, groves, ponds and fairways, the
striped poles and limp flags of the greens formed no obvious pattern. Finally
accepting that he understood neither the layout of the course nor the rules of
the game well enough to do otherwise, he walked briskly downhill, aiming to
begin at the clubhouse and follow the herd.

Grateful
that he hadn’t come across grounds staff who might have questioned his dress
code or lack of anything to hit a ball with, he finally sighted Brennan’s party
teeing off for the fifth hole. Brennan had loosened his tie and donned a single
leather glove on his right hand, his only concessions to sporting attire.
Harkness approached quietly, out of Brennan’s eye line, frowning and raising a
finger to his lips as Brennan’s partner, a middle-aged bureaucrat Harkness
vaguely recognised from HQ, glanced at him. Brennan’s eyes never left the ball
as he checked his grip for balance, planted his hips, drew the club into a steady
backswing then drove it through the ball in a graceful downswing, following
through with a raised right heel. The ball drew a neat parabola between Brennan
and the green, skewing right in mid-flight to roll off the grass and into sand.

“Good
legs though,” said Harkness.

“I
was trying to be a smartarse,” said Brennan evenly, hand still a visor as he
stared at the bunker. “Compensating for wind which was there thirty seconds ago
but dropped when I swung.”

“It’s
easy to get caught out when the wind changes mid-swing.”

“Who
the…” Brennan turned, spinning the club to grip it midway along its length.
“What the bloody hell are you doing here, Rob? You’re not even a member.”

“Got
a minute, boss?”

“You
crack on, Paul,” said Brennan to the other golfer. “I’ll catch up.”

“Nice
day for it.” Harkness watched Brennan stow his driver while the other man
trundled away.

“You’d
think so but I’m struggling for form today. Too much tension in the shoulders.
Keep hooking my swing. It’s as if I instinctively knew some enormous pain in
the arse was heading my way. So. Why are you trespassing on my quality time
away from nagging, whining bastards?”

“We
need to talk.”

“So
talk.” Brennan peered into his club bag then drew out a sand wedge, testing its
heft. “You’ve got as long as it takes Paul to get to the green and pot his
ball. He’s crap, which is why I play with him, but you still haven’t got long.”

“I
want to come back to work,” said Harkness.

“Catch,”
said Brennan, throwing the wedge to Harkness. Without thinking, he raised his
palms to meet it, curled in his fingers as its chrome shaft met his skin, felt
the sparking jolt of pain flare up his arms and dropped the club with a gasp of
surprise and indignation.  “What do you think, Rob? Fit, are you? No, you can’t
come back. We done?”

       “No.
We aren’t. Sir. We’ve got this case all wrong. You need me to make it right. I
need to make it right.”

       “You
cheeky bastard. You’re on my golf course. Two ranks below me. Off duty. And
you’re not even a member. So either tell me something useful or piss off and be
grateful I’m getting soft in my old age.”

       Harkness
had intended only to ask for a restricted role in the enquiry team, easing
himself gently into work without further risk of injury or litigation; but
finding Brennan in a pugnacious mood, he knew only the truth, or most of the
truth would serve him.    

“You can’t
write it all off to Firth. Here’s why.” Harkness summarised the conversation
he’d had with Slowey in nearly every detail. He took care to make Marjorie and
Jeremy appear as potentially threatened witnesses and nothing more. He also
avoided any mention of Slowey’s name, although it was plain that he could only
have stayed up to date with the enquiry with Slowey’s help. As he spoke,
Brennan picked up the wedge and gripped it increasingly tightly with both hands
as if he wanted to snap it in two or wrap it around someone’s neck.            

“Let’s
get this straight,” said Brennan, wedge now dropped to his hip while he jabbed
an index finger towards Harkness. “You’ve been running around the town
bothering witnesses and pretending to be on duty when you’re not. You’ve been
exploiting Slowey, the only hard-grafting DC on my enquiry. And you’re trying
to knock holes in my nice, neat and very soon to be filed away case with your
conspiracy bollocks.”

       “Mea
culpa.” Harkness shrugged, a gesture he hoped would infuriate the other man a
little more and make him fall off the fence, one way or the other. “But you
know you can’t ignore it. Braxton will get hauled in very soon by someone.
He’ll be asked all sorts of questions. His house will be searched. His dad
might get nicked too. Then there’s Jeremy Jennings and Jake Barnaby. Christ
knows what’ll leak out when they start talking.

“So
tell me. Sir. Do you want to get this case right before you put it to bed, or
when the Chief forces you to dig it out months from now when the papers and the
lawyers are all over it like prickly heat?”

       “You’re
a scheming bastard, Rob. Don’t you know that if you open this up, we could all
be exposed to some unwelcome attention?”

       “Yes,
but I’ve always got the Nuremberg Defence to fall back on.”

       “I was
just thinking. If I took a good warm-up swing with my best driver and happened
to bash your brains out, could I get away with it?”

       “You
could if my missus was on the jury.” Harkness looked over his shoulder, alerted
to the presence of two elderly golfers in matching leisure-wear by a polite but
persistent cough.

“Look,
boss. Sorry to hack you off and all that. Hold a grudge and choke off my career
if you want. Just let me off the leash for long enough to bottom this out. The
Braxton boy will need processing for knocking Slowey about anyway. Just sit
back and let nature take its course.”

       “My
office. Six o’clock. I want your plan in writing. Bring your man Friday too.”
Brennan gestured at the elderly golfers to play through. “Don’t be late because
I won’t be staying long. It’s salsa night and Mrs Brennan won’t be kept
waiting.”

       “So
you’re back at work, officially this time?” Sharon lay naked on top of him, her
frame pale and slender against his swarthy bulk, murmuring into his chest, head
resting on crossed arms, her flesh sealed to his by the sweat of a feverish
reunion now cooling and evaporating into drowsiness.

       “Yes,”
he said, letting an idle hand trace the notches of her spine from the chain at
her neck, its intricate gold contrasting irresistibly with the ample whiteness
of her breasts, to the small of her back and the swell of her buttocks.

       “Is
that all the conversation I get tonight?” she said, nipping him gently with her
teeth.

       “No,”
he said, pinching her behind when she bit him again, harder, drawing a vague
twitch of new desire.

       “Come
on. Talk to me now. Molest me again later.”

       “I
found the DCI on a golf course and demanded he let me work the case again.”

       “No
you didn’t. You did, didn’t you?”

       “Afraid
so.”

“So
what’s the gossip?”

       “I
can’t tell you. You’re the enemy.”

       “But
you’re sleeping with the enemy. That makes you a collaborator. So collaborate.”

       “Again?
Ow. Stop biting or I’ll have to restrain you.”

       “Come
on. Talk to me.”

       “Two
other suspects have emerged and will shortly be helping us with our enquiries.
Ouch. Jesus.” He slapped her behind briskly and she withdrew her teeth.
“Alright, I’ll talk. There were two other men in the pub where Murphy confronted
Firth on the night of the fire. Forensics links one to the break in there and
the assault on Slowey. A little bird also tells me Murphy was bent, into drugs,
supplying rather than using. That is absolutely it. You ok?”

       “Course
I am.” She placed her cheek against his chest, eyelashes flickering like
butterfly wings against his skin while her hand reached up to cradle his face
and hush his mouth. “I shouldn’t be asking. I’m sorry. It’s inappropriate.”

       “I
trust you,” he said, kissing her thumb.

       “You
don’t even know me. You shouldn’t.”

       “I
spoke to Slowey, by the way.” So far, so true. He had only to maintain this
breezy tone to sustain the half-lie. “He was gutted that your mum was so upset.
It really was just bureaucracy. There is one thing though…”

       “What?”
She drew back her hand and propped herself on her elbows to fully engage with
him, her breasts now starkly white against his chest, while he steeled himself
to manipulate this young woman and her family a little more.

       “Slowey
thought she was nervous about something, too nervous, on Jeremy’s behalf or her
own. We have to be open to the possibility that one of them saw something
significant and she was threatened.”

       “Jesus,”
she slid off him and gathered a sheet around herself, folding away the
intimacy.

       “I
shouldn’t have said anything.”

       “It’s
fine. I asked. You’re being nice, I suppose.” She squeezed his hand briefly,
for form’s sake. “It’s just odd. You put your armour on again for a moment
there. Became your job.”

       “I
should go.”

       “No.
Don’t. Shall I ask mum what’s going on?”

       “Please
don’t worry. It’s just Slowey being cautious. It might amount to nothing.
There’s absolutely no suggestion they’re in danger.”

“You
mean the way the Murphys weren’t in danger before they were all wiped out one
night?”

“We’ll
know a lot more by this time tomorrow.”

He
almost balked at her anxiety, knowing this as the first sign of feelings for
her he didn’t want to feel. Still, keeping her off balance could be useful.