Sorcerer (5 page)

June looked perplexed. ‘Well no, I don’t know anything of that kind about Ian. I know that he has an eye for the ladies and hasn’t been faithful to his wife since they first got married’.

‘And does that bother her?’

‘She turns a blind eye to it all because she loves him and deep down she knows that he loves her and will never leave her’ said June. ‘A physical relationship with just one woman for a whole lifetime isn’t enough for men like Ian Hayward and his wife gets that. The wives of certain premiership footballers should grow up and get it too but they’re too fond of seeing themselves in the papers playing the poor, sad victim of their man’s indiscretions. I’ve accepted it as the truth now. Some men need to go elsewhere from time to time and it doesn’t make the man wrong and it doesn’t make women like Hayward’s wife stupid for accepting it. It’s about embracing the difference between some men and some women. Ian Hayward isn’t exactly ugly. He’s one of those men who’ve matured very nicely and the only trouble comes when a mistress expects him to leave his wife because he never will. He’s with his mistress for sex and excitement. He’s with his wife for love and companionship and growing old together. Now I know a lot of women would totally disagree with me on this but like I said, it’s about accepting reality. And I say all this with the belief that every woman has the right to behave in the same way’.

‘You should start a problem page in a magazine’ said Jeff.

‘I just think that sometimes us girls would be better off accepting our men for what they are and not what we’d like them to be. We’d all be much happier if we did. But look, why all these questions about Ian?’

‘One of the boys who was in care at Pembroke House twenty-odd years ago made a complaint that he’d been physically abused and brutally sexually assaulted there. Ian Hayward was the copper he made the complaint to and according to Wiseman he told him to go away and forget it’.

‘You can’t be serious?’

‘Wiseman has now given us a sworn statement and we know from the files that his complaint was never recorded’.

‘Oh’ said June, surprised. ‘But I still can’t believe that Ian was deliberately up to something. There must be some explanation for why he never recorded that complaint. Have you tackled him about it?’

‘Oh yes’.

‘And what did he say?’

‘Well this was before we had Wiseman’s sworn statement but he said that he didn’t remember any such complaint. I’ve thought a lot about it and I just can’t see why he wouldn’t record it, June. What legitimate reason would he have?’

‘I don’t know but I won’t say anything if I see him’ said June. ‘But you look done in, mate’.

Jeff rubbed his face in his hands. ‘Toby didn’t settle very easily last night. I was up quite a bit with him’.

‘You’re doing your best, Jeff’ said June. ‘I know it can’t be easy being a single Dad but you’re doing a lot better than some who would’ve taken to the booze or taken off altogether’.

‘Yeah, well, Toby is my son and my life revolves around him. It always will do’.

‘Have you got time for a coffee and a chat? It is still early’

Jeff looked at his watch. ‘Not really but seeing as it’s you I’ve got about ten minutes before I’ll need to get back to continue building a case against a husband and wife team of evil, twisted bastards’.

‘Then there’s the issue of the potentially bent chief superintendent’.

‘Yeah, thanks for reminding me about that, June. I’d almost forgotten’.

Jack White was going to be sixty next birthday. He slipped out of his four poster bed and wandered nonchalantly into his en-suite bathroom. He needed to take a pee. He stood at the toilet and looked straight down whilst holding his penis. It was a straight look down. There was no beer belly to obscure his view of nature’s call. His stomach was firm, his upper legs solid. His nipples were still fixed closely to his chest. They hadn’t slipped their way into being man boobs. He ran a hand across himself. His chest hairs were now totally grey but the hair on his head was still full and was only peppered with grey rather than overwhelmed by it. He allowed himself to think that he didn’t look bad for his age.

He had a shower and then dressed in a button-down collar, long sleeved white shirt and dark green cord trousers. Then he walked across the upstairs hallway of his large house and knocked on the door to one of the spare bedrooms. He smiled when he heard a grunt come from inside and knew that Doreen was awake though not necessarily of this world.

‘Morning!’ he greeted cheerfully as he popped his head round the door. He liked having Doreen to stay especially in the late evening when they usually set the world to rights over several glasses of scotch, or early in the morning when the presence of company made the day seem just that little bit more promising.

‘Fuck off!’

Jack laughed. ‘You shouldn’t be using language like that. You’re a lady of advancing years’.

‘Well you’ll be a gentleman of no further years if you carry on pouring scotch down me on top of all the wine we had with dinner. Not to mention the champagne before’.

‘Oh yeah, I really had to force it down you, didn’t I’.

‘You shouldn’t put such temptation in my way, Jack. You know I’m useless at resisting’. She lifted her head from under the duvet and yawned rather dramatically. ‘What time is it, anyway?’

‘Nearly ten o’clock’ Jack replied. ‘I’m going to make us some brunch’.

‘Scrambled eggs with salmon like you normally make it?’

‘Amongst other things’

‘I’ll be right there. And get the coffee on’.    

‘Yes your royal highness’.

‘Shouldn’t that be the other way round?’

‘Ha bloody ha. I so get you confused with Victoria Wood’.

Jack and Doreen had been close friends for nearly thirty years. He’d gone to work in her office at the engineering plant in Salford that he ended up the chairman and owner of after working his way up through a combination of luck and making all the right choices with the chances that came his way. A couple of years ago he’d sold the company to a group of Chinese investors and made a sum so tidy he was even cagey with Doreen about just how much he’d made from the deal. It had not been a bad outcome considering. His parents had thrown him out forty years ago when he told them he was gay and he’d clawed his way up to the top. But losing the support of his family hadn’t been the only price he’d paid for all the material wealth that now surrounded him. He’d had plenty of sex but he’d grown to live without the touch, the tenderness, the hand to hold and he’d grown used to having nothing except an empty house to come home to. He wasn’t short of friends. He had a good life. But he was lonely and the gay life was obsessed with youth and though he was still full of energy and not ready to even contemplate retirement from lustful activity just yet, he did realize that he was heading at speed towards ending his days alone. He had everything and yet he had nothing at the same time. He was a poor little rich boy with all that money and nobody to love.  

‘My God!’ he exclaimed when Doreen sauntered into the kitchen in her night dress and robe. ‘You look decidedly second hand. Shall I arrange a little nip and tuck for this afternoon?’

‘I only stay friends with you because you’re loaded’.

‘And of course you and Roger are so poor’.

‘We are compared to you, money bags’ she said whilst tearing into a croissant that was in the basket on the table. ‘Now where’s that coffee?’

‘Don’t you want a juice of some kind first?’

‘Pink grapefruit?’

‘I read your mind’ said Jack as he poured some pink grapefruit juice that he’d just squeezed into a glass and handed it to her.

‘Oh I don’t want to be hungover today’ she groaned.

‘It’s a bit late for that, love’.

‘Roger’s Dad is coming over tonight and I’m doing dinner’.

‘You like Roger’s Dad’.

‘Yes I know but that’s not the point’ she insisted. ‘I could just do with curling up on the sofa’.

‘You have turned into such a lightweight’.

‘It’s what acting your age does for you’ said Doreen. ‘You should try it sometime’.

Jack’s house in Alderley Edge was at the end of a long lane and on the edge of land belonging to the farm next door. It was an old stables that he’d had converted and the floor to ceiling windows in his kitchen, which was the size of a small house in itself, meant that anybody coming up the hill from the main road could be seen for quite some time before they turned into the drive. The house was secluded rather than isolated and on one side only a clump of trees separated his place from the line of semi-detached villa type houses that traced a line down to the main road.

‘Here’s your lift’ said Jack as he spotted Roger’s car coming up the hill. 

‘I can only just see him’ said Doreen, squinting into the morning sunlight. ‘My eyes haven’t kicked into gear properly yet’.

A few minutes later, Doreen’s husband Roger let himself in through the big main door at the front and walked into the kitchen. He was armed with a stack of that day’s newspapers which he placed on the edge of the kitchen table. They were all news hounds and would soon slowly start devouring them.

‘Room for another?’ asked Roger as he eyed all the food Jack had prepared.

‘Need you ask?’ said Jack. ‘I’ve made more than enough for three. Sit yourself down and I’ll put some more coffee on. And see if you can breathe any life into our desperate housewife here’.

‘I’ve been trying to do that for the last thirty years’ quipped Roger.

‘Would you two stop talking about me as if I wasn’t here’ Doreen protested. ‘That is such a boy thing’.

‘Oh that’s right’ said Jack. ‘Women on the other hand stab each other in the back whilst they’re not looking. That’s far more mature and up front’.

Doreen stuck her tongue out at him.

‘Christ!’ Roger exclaimed. ‘I’ll need to go to alcoholics anonymous if you come near me with that today. How much did you two have last night?’

‘We both reached a point where enough was not enough, Roger. Now do you have a problem with that, dear?’

‘Absolutely not my little spring flower’ said Roger. ‘I watched the football on the telly in peace and had the remote control to myself all night. Bloody magic! Every married woman should have a gay man best friend. It takes so much pressure off their poor weary husband’.

Roger had also worked for the same engineering firm as Jack and Doreen and he’d taken early retirement along with his wife just before Jack had sold the company. Jack had negotiated good terms for all those who’d wanted to leave the firm at that time. He wouldn’t have been happy selling it to the new Chinese owners otherwise. All through their working life, Roger and Doreen had been careful to be discreet about the fact that they were mates with the man who became the big boss although it became a bit of an open secret. The company had only employed about five hundred people and it was hard to keep things like that quiet. The three of them had grown so comfortable with each other that silences were never awkward and they treated each other’s houses as extensions of their own homes. Roger had sometimes been jealous of the bond between Doreen and Jack but he’d soon realized that there was nothing for him to worry about. He could trust them implicitly. 

‘By the way’ said Roger between mouthfuls of Jack’s spinach and feta cheese omelette. His scrambled eggs and salmon were supposed to be his signature dish but Roger preferred the omelette. ‘When I stopped off in the village to pick up the papers I heard some interesting news with regard to what’s alleged to have been happening up at that Pembroke House near the University. The police want to question George Griffin’.

The words fell on the room like hail stones in a storm. He looked up at Jack and Doreen who were exchanging looks with each other. Jack looked like someone had stepped over his grave.

‘What have I said?’ asked Roger.

‘Nothing, sweetheart’ said Doreen. ‘It’s just that Jack used to know the family’.

‘I didn’t know that’ said Roger.

‘I knew them a long time ago, Roger’ said Jack.

‘They retired out to Spain’ said Doreen. She licked her lips after another drink of coffee. ‘Somewhere near Alicante I think. They’ve been down there quite a few years now’.

‘What’s Mary’s son’s name? Ed, isn’t it?’

‘That’s right’ said Doreen. ‘He kept his family name of Lake which was the name of his father and Mary’s first husband’.

‘Wait a minute?’ said Roger. ‘Didn’t they have a daughter too?’

‘She was Griffin’s daughter from his first marriage’ Jack confirmed. ‘Her name was Anne’.

‘Is she still local?’

‘Nobody knows’ said Doreen. ‘She disappeared over twenty years ago’.

Jeff and Rebecca were sitting at the conference table in Jeff’s office reviewing progress on the investigation. Two members of the squad had been to see Ed Lake who’d confirmed that he was the step-son of George Griffin but that he didn’t know of any alleged ill treatment of the boys at Pembroke House. The officers concerned however were convinced that Ed Lake was hiding something but they couldn’t decide if it would be incriminating to himself or to his step-father. On that basis, Jeff decided he would go and see Ed himself.