The Calling (8 page)

It was almost 11 p.m. as Michael Kincaide twirled around and around on the black PVC office chair. He gripped one end of his pilfered Argos pen between his teeth and parted his lips like Clint Eastwood. He savoured the image of Goodhew being silenced and sent to talk to Kaye Whiting’s parents.

Love it,
he thought with glee.

The front door clicked shut and Kincaide stopped and frowned at his watch. He waited for his wife to speak first. Janice didn’t bother though, and instead he could hear her removing her coat and shoes.

‘I’m in the study,’ he called out. He heard her give a tut. ‘Working,’ he added.

She entered the living room and scowled at him in his makeshift office crammed under their open-plan stairs. ‘Good day?’ she muttered with a perfunctory nod. No smile from her tonight, but so what?

‘Absolutely spot on,’ he said.

‘So you’ve made progress, then?’ she queried, sounding detached, and began flicking through the TV channels with the remote.

‘Yep, we’ve got a body for a start,’ he said, knowing that would draw her attention. She lowered the control and he continued, ‘And that’s a big step in the right direction.’

‘She’s dead?’

‘Of course she’s dead,’ he replied in a
how dumb are you
tone. ‘She was always going to be dead, Jan. But it’s a big plus getting hold of the body.’

‘How can you be so callous?’ she demanded, then turned up the volume and slumped on to the sofa without waiting for a reply.

He turned his back on her and dragged and dropped a couple of text boxes on to the screen, connecting them with lines and forming the basis of an organization chart. ‘I do well here and I could be headed for promotion.’

She pretended to ignore him but he knew she would be listening.

‘Marks wants me to prepare stuff for the briefing tomorrow. He didn’t ask Goodhew, so I’m the one in the good books this time.’

He began typing names into the Burrows family tree, waiting for curiosity to make her speak.

She flicked channels again.

‘Look, Jan, I’m trying to work. I need to concentrate.’

Sudden anger flashed across her face. ‘Tough. I’ve been working all day and I’m entitled to my evening, Michael.’

‘Well, as long as your precious career is all right, that’s fine, isn’t it?’

‘Here we go again,’ she snapped and jumped to her feet. ‘Fuck you, Michael.’ She disappeared into the kitchen, and he followed her. She ignored him and began slamming cupboard doors.

He leant against the doorframe. ‘You’ve got a nasty mouth on you, Jan.’ He deliberately smirked, and she glared in return.

‘Don’t preach at me. You’re the one who needs to pull his fucking socks up.’ Her bag lay on its side next to the bread bin; she reached into it and withdrew a credit-card bill, then stepped towards him, thrusting it into his face. ‘For example, what the fuck is this?’

‘It’s addressed to me,’ he smiled bitterly, ‘but what’s that got to do with anything, right?’

‘Clothes, CDs, stupid gadgets … anything but spend money on our home,’ she spat. ‘I need to see it ’cos I’ll end up paying it, won’t I?’ He ignored the question. ‘Won’t I?’ she repeated.

‘I’m not getting into this, Jan.’ He calmed his voice to an oily trickle. ‘I’m working on the briefing notes for tomorrow,
remember
?’

‘You’re a wanker, Michael.’

The corners of his mouth curled downwards in distaste and he poked the Argos pen towards her. ‘You don’t appreciate other
people’s needs, that’s your problem. You’re not the only person on the fucking planet who’s chasing promotion, you know. Staying late with the boss isn’t the only way to get it.’

‘Is that what you think?’ She stepped across the room, closing in on him. ‘Michael, what the hell is up with you?’ she hissed. ‘Every night you’re in a stinking mood. I think you can’t handle it because I earn more.’

He turned away and headed back to his PC. ‘Just for once, Jan, I wish you could be a bit supportive.’ He paused but couldn’t resist throwing in a final snipe. ‘It isn’t in your nature, though, is it?’ He dropped into the chair and tried to pick up his earlier train of thought.

His concentration failed, though. He knew he needed somewhere else to redirect his anger, so he chose his favourite target and mentally wandered back to an imaginary Goodhew. He pictured Goodhew looking stupid.

He hated that his colleague was Marks’ golden boy. Well, fuck him.

And, as if she’d somehow read his mind, a quieter Jan then returned to the room. She still held the credit-card statement and passed it to him. ‘Is this something about Gary?’

Kincaide shrugged. ‘Not really.’

‘He winds you up, though?’

Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to tell her a little. ‘He’s getting extra money from somewhere. A lot of it. For a start that flat he lives in, right in the centre, he says he rents it, but it was transferred into his own name a few months back.’

‘So he’s bought it?’

‘No mortgage and most of his salary’s just accumulating in his bank account.’

‘So, you’ve said before how he’s got next to no social life.’

‘Right, but he’s managed to book himself and his girlfriend on to a trip to Hawaii.’

‘I thought you said they’d split up?’

‘That’s not my point. No one ever saw them together in the first place, so maybe she didn’t exist. But he has booked the trip and paid off his mortgage, and spends bugger all.’

Jan sighed. ‘Inherited?’

Kincaide sighed more loudly. ‘His grandfather died when he was a kid, but the rest of his family are all alive and well.’

‘How do you know all of this, anyway?’

‘Jan, if I delivered milk or painted walls for a living, I could understand that question.’ He was starting to wonder why he’d thought he could ever get through to her but he added, ‘No one starts acquiring money out of the blue like that.’

Jan crossed her arms and fixed him with her serious look. ‘If he’s bent, drop him in it, Michael.’

Kincaide curled his feet under his chair and slid his hands under his thighs. ‘It’s not that simple.’ He puffed out his cheeks with a deflated sigh. ‘Marks won’t act.’

‘Because he thinks Goodhew does no wrong?’

‘No, I could live with that. Marks knows Gary’s breaking the rules, and he just lets him get on with it. No one else would ever get away with it like Gary does. We all push the boundaries sometimes, but Marks is there to slap us back behind the line before we’ve even crossed it. But with Goodhew? No.’

‘But you’re saying Goodhew’s done worse than that? You’re saying this money’s got a dodgy source.’

Kincaide shrugged, although he wanted to nod. ‘Maybe, yes, but I don’t know that I can prove it. And without proof…’

She raised her eyes towards the ceiling but in thought more than exasperation. When she spoke again her voice contained an unusually sympathetic tone. ‘You’re looking at this all wrong, Michael. Goodhew’s money’s not hurting you in any way. Until you can prove where it came from and have evidence that it’s part of something illegal, forget about it. What’s really getting to you is Marks and the unfairness of the situation.’ She paused and Kincaide nodded. ‘Marks cuts Goodhew slack because Goodhew’s getting him results. So Goodhew’s had a couple of
winning
performances? So what? He’s been in the right place at the right time, that’s all. Marks knows that Gary doesn’t have your experience or skills. You just need to beat him to the prize …’

Kincaide sat quietly as she continued with such flattery for the next few minutes, as the sudden disappearance of the earlier tension
between them had caught him off guard. He even ignored the patronizing twang that accompanied a couple of the comments, and held on to her two main points: Marks would pay attention to results, and the end would justify the means.

The plan had been to meet Bryn for a beer and a game of pool, but by early evening Goodhew decided he was in the wrong frame of mind and he sent Bryn a text to cancel.

Goodhew retreated to the second-floor study and lit the fire. He had been lying on the floor, staring at the ceiling, for some time when the doorbell rang.

He found Bryn waiting on the doorstep, holding two packs of beer and a takeaway.

‘You shouldn’t cancel by text, Gary.’

‘You do it all the time.’

‘Yeah, but to girls not mates. Made me think you were going to vanish for another month. Can I come in or what?’

It wasn’t that Goodhew consciously kept people out; more that the need for them to come in never really arose. He stepped back and let Bryn into the hallway. ‘Second floor.’

Bryn walked up the stairs ahead of him and Goodhew followed, wondering whether his friend would start to ask questions about who lived in the rest of the building, and not wanting to either tell him the truth or lie.

But, in typical style, he showed no curiosity about the building or conducting any personal conversation whatsoever. For the first thirty minutes Bryn’s attention was evenly split between the lager and the curry.

Eventually his interest moved away from food and found its way on to the Kaye Whiting case.

Now Bryn was perching on the edge of the armchair as he screwed up pages of scrap newspaper into balls and tossed them into the fire, aiming at the glowing orange gaps between the logs. The flames glowed through his latest bottle of Stella Artois. ‘I couldn’t tell someone that kind of news.’

Gary shrugged. ‘Someone has to, don’t they?’ He drained his own bottle and slipped upstairs to the kitchen, returning with two fresh ones. ‘I’ll tell you what, though; it really is the worst thing.’ He left Bryn’s fresh bottle on the hearth and sank on to the settee.

‘How did they take it?’

‘Badly, of course.’ Gary took a quick swig. ‘Each time I’ve gone to visit Kaye’s mother, she’s been there all on her own and she’s opened the front door before I’ve even reached it. Like she’s standing behind it just waiting for me. This time I thought she was out. I went with Marks and he waited at the front while I looked round the back. Mrs Whiting opened the door just after I’d gone. She took one look at Marks and knew why we’d come.’ The memory made him wince.

Bryn rolled two of the pages into a tube and nudged a stray sliver of kindling wood from the edge of the fire into its heart. ‘Poor woman,’ he murmured.

Gary thought about Margaret Whiting and the way she’d put her hands first over her ears and then over her face, as if trying to block everything out. Then she’d collapsed into one of her low-seated armchairs. She’d pressed herself against its big soft arm, rocking slightly and groaning, ‘No, no, no,’ until she’d accepted the news enough to ask them what had happened.

Bryn’s newspaper ignited and he still held it like a torch as it blazed above the hearth, until the paper was burning within an inch of his fingers, then he dropped it into the grate. ‘So what happens next?’ he asked.

‘Attempted arson charge?’

Bryn dropped back into the chair and continued to throw paper balls. ‘It’s addictive.’

Gary ignored him. ‘Usual stuff, family and so on, plus finding this anonymous caller. Hopefully she’ll ring back, now the body’s been found.’ Gary paused, about to take another swig, but lowered his bottle again. ‘We’ll see.’

‘Listen to you, waiting for a girl to ring.’ Bryn smirked, and carried on. ‘Then again, she might be a psychopath, in which case you might as well see my sister!’

‘I don’t think so, Bryn, not unless you’ve got another one I haven’t met.’

‘Sorry, just Shelly.’ Bryn’s smile faded.

Goodhew’s did too. ‘Forget I talked about the case.’

‘Of course. But who else have you got at the moment?’

‘You really know how to cheer me up, don’t you?’

They finished off another two bottles before either of them spoke again.

‘Gary, are you in trouble?’

‘No, why?’ Gary frowned, puzzled.

‘Money trouble? I mean, you can’t afford this place on what you earn. I know it’s none of my business but I’ve seen how much renting a flat round here costs. Debt creeps up on people. Is that why you don’t go out much and can’t buy yourself a car?’

‘No, that’s because I’m a boring bloke and I don’t want a car.’

Bryn had been drinking at more than twice Gary’s speed, but the sudden display of concern and puzzlement stood out through the inebriation. His friend’s concern was touching, if misplaced.

‘I inherited some money,’ Gary explained. ‘Enough to move in here.’

Bryn checked Goodhew’s expression, looking for a sign that he was being wound up. ‘That’s not the sort of money problem I’ve ever had.’

‘Exactly. That’s why I haven’t said anything.’

‘Where did it come from, and how much are we talking about?’

‘It doesn’t matter.’ Some old beliefs about money changing relationships began to surface, and Goodhew hoped he wasn’t going to later regret telling Bryn anything.

Bryn drained his bottle. ‘As my mother would say, you’re a dark horse.’ He checked his watch. ‘I’d better go.’

Gary followed Bryn to the door and watched him sway past the rusted Volvo parked directly across the street.

‘I’ll pick it up tomorrow,’ Bryn called back. ‘Unless you want to buy it from me?’ he added as an afterthought.

Gary laughed. ‘Try the scrappy.’

He closed and bolted the front door and returned to the fire. The fading embers puffed and smoked, leaving shrivelled flakes of newspaper and crumbs of scorched wood in the grate. He slid the guard across the hearth, picked up eight empty bottles from around the room and took them up to drop them in the kitchen bin. He then returned to the second floor and sat on the edge of the coffee table, staring into the fire and sipping the remains of his second bottle.

He finally switched out the lamp. Small orange glows bloomed and faded in the fire’s final throes. He finished his drink and closed the door on it, leaving it to die and turn to dust.

Gary propped a five-by-three snapshot of Kaye Whiting up on one corner of his desk. She had been looking straight into the camera lens when it was taken, and now her eyes met his every time he glanced at the photograph. He stared back at her and wished she could communicate, but the forensic report would be the only way she’d be telling them anything now.

Sue Gully and PC Kelly Wilkes sat in the opposite corner of the room, with DC Young perched on the desk next to them. He was regaling them with an account of his house-to-house enquiries. Fragments of it reached Gary. ‘And he answered the door with his flies undone …’ Young continued, grinning broadly, ‘and you won’t believe the next bit …’ He stopped abruptly as Kincaide thumped open the swing door and plonked a wedge of
photocopying
on to his own desk.

Kincaide brushed a couple of specks of hole-punch confetti from his suit. Gully meanwhile checked him over. The hems of his jacket and trousers were sharp, and the brogues unscuffed. ‘New suit and new shoes? What’s the special occasion, Michael?’

Gary smiled to himself. She was always on the ball, and Kincaide never quite rose to her chirpy banter.

Kincaide cleared his throat and straightened his protruding shirt cuff as he replied. ‘As you know, we’re having a briefing at oh-nine hundred hours. If you make your way along to the briefing room now, I’ll be with you in a few minutes.’

They all watched the door swing shut after him, Goodhew and
Gully raised their eyebrows at one another, and Wilkes shrugged in an I-don’t-know gesture. ‘He’s taking his new suit a bit seriously, isn’t he?’

Kincaide was in fact taking the whole day very seriously and from the enquiry room ducked into the gents’ toilet. He ran a dash of water into his palms and smoothed both sides of his black hair, studying himself in the mirror as he twisted his head from left to right.

Looking good.

He’d watched his wife do that whole self-motivation bit plenty of times before; it had always been easy to dismiss, but right now he was getting it. He stood straighter, shoulders back, chest puffed out.

Notes: check.

Thoughts collected: check.

Preparation: check.

Own it.
He gave himself a parting nod, returned to the corridor and strode towards the briefing room.

Marks spotted him approaching and waited. ‘Thanks for your notes, Michael.’

‘No problem.’ Kincaide beamed, and continued to smile as they made their entrance together.

Goodhew glanced at the photocopied notes in Marks’ hand and the set that Kincaide held, and knew at once that they were a duplicate. He then squinted at one of the handwritten sections, and recognized Kincaide’s writing.

He checked his watch and hoped they’d be finished by half-past.

Marks rapidly covered the key points. ‘The priority is to trace Kaye Whiting’s movements from leaving work on Friday 25th until as near to the time of her death as possible.’ He nodded towards Kincaide, Gully, Clark, Charles and Young. ‘I want you to
re-interview
most of those at the grandmother’s party, plus work colleagues and the owners of the lake. Leave the victim’s uncle, Andy Burrows, her brother Steve and her sister’s boyfriend, Carl Watkins. Michael will be picking them up.’

Kincaide was staring at the sheet in front of him, but from where
Goodhew sat it looked as though one corner of Kincaide’s mouth twitched slightly with self-satisfaction.

Marks continued, ‘Gary, go and check out Doreen Kennedy’s lead in Woodbridge. Uniform haven’t come up with anything there yet, but it doesn’t mean you won’t.’

Packed off to Woodbridge.

At the end of the briefing, Goodhew slipped past the others to catch DI Marks in the corridor. He fell into step with him.

‘Good morning, Gary. I thought you might want a word.’

‘Really?’

‘Being sent to Woodbridge, perhaps?’

‘It’s a beautiful place…’

‘But hardly the hub of this investigation.’ Marks wore a quizzical expression.

‘I guess that was Kincaide’s idea?’

Marks nodded. ‘You and Kincaide need to start working in …
harmony
.’ He paused and Goodhew wondered whether he’d had trouble not choking on the word. ‘All right, that’s a poetic way to phrase it, but the point is I’m busy, and not about to waste my time on any petty politics from you two.’

‘No, that’s fine. I mean Woodbridge is fine. It’s about the phone calls actually.’

Marks held the notes in front of him and flicked through them as they walked.

Goodhew shook his head. ‘There was no mention of the calls at all.’

‘Yes, there is.’ Marks halted and flicked through Kincaide’s notes. ‘Here’s the list of leads that Clark and Charles are following up. I think they have it covered, don’t you?’

Goodhew shook his head, again. ‘No, I mean the anonymous phone calls. They’re not highlighted here, and I’d like to look into them if no one else is.’

Marks shuffled Kincaide’s notes again, and scanned several pages of his own. ‘You saw Peter Walsh and there appeared to be nothing more to pursue. All the calls obviously need following up, but these ones already seem dead to me.’

Marks’ eyes hardened and Goodhew knew how much he hated
having his time wasted. Nevertheless he had little in the way of explanation to offer his boss.

Goodhew shrugged. ‘Gave Gully the creeps, sir.’

Marks narrowed his eyes and pursed his lips, as if he was sucking a lemon. ‘That’s pathetic, Gary.’ He glanced at the final page again and then back at Goodhew. ‘Go to Woodbridge first and follow up the calls when you get back.’