The Merchant's House (23 page)

Steve asked the routine question, trying to keep the boredom out of his voice, expecting the usual negative reply. It hardly registered when the manager answered in the affirmative.

‘Yes, there’s a bloke called Chris – brickie. I suppose he fits your description. He’s casual, like. Hasn’t been in for a couple of weeks. Domestic commitments, he said.’

Steve looked at Johnson and grinned in triumph. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve got his details, have you?’

The manager went over to a battered steel filing cabinet and pulled out a card. ‘Here we are. Christopher Manners.’ He gave the address too – it was the flat in Morbay.

‘He’s moved on since then. Have you got his new address?’

The manager looked surprised. ‘No. He never said he was moving. He’ll let me know when he comes back to work, I suppose.’

‘What sort of man is he? What’s he like?’

‘Doesn’t say much, doesn’t cause trouble. Good worker – that’s why I keep employing him. Keeps himself to himself. Strong silent type, I suppose. You can ask any of the blokes, they’d all say the same.’

‘Is he married?’

‘Don’t think so, but he mentioned a girlfriend once. Needed some time off, said she hadn’t been well.’

‘Was her name Sharon?’

‘Don’t know. I told you, he didn’t say much.’

‘That guttering … where did you get it?’

‘Chris got it for us. Knew somewhere giving a good deal.’

‘Is that usual?’

The manager shifted uncomfortably in his chair. ‘It happens. You save a bit on materials. It benefits everyone, doesn’t it?’

‘Not when they’re nicked it doesn’t.’

The manager sat there open-mouthed, pretending innocence very convincingly.

Wesley looked forward to getting out of the office. It was far more pleasant to wander round Tradmouth than to trudge the streets of London. Today he was torn between buying a sandwich from the cake shop near the police station or a pasty from the little dark shop on St Margaret’s Street that sent out such inviting smells whenever he walked past. The pasty won. He sank his teeth into the soft flaky pastry and wondered why he’d never sampled this delight before.

As he was in St Margaret’s Street already, he told himself, he might as well go and say hello to Neil. Jane was hard at work in a trench when he let himself into the site. Darren stood watching, obviously fascinated. Jane handed him a small trowel and he gave her a brush, like a theatre nurse assisting a surgeon. Darren’s metal detector lay discarded in a far corner of the site. It seemed that Neil’s experiment in community service was a success.

It turned out that Neil wasn’t there. Matt was in the hut and he invited Wesley in to view the latest finds: a buckle; a small pile of leather shoes, preserved but so matted together that they were unrecognisable; some pottery. Neil had gone to Exeter to organise the reconstruction of the skeleton’s face with Professor Jensen.

As Wesley wandered back to the station, his hands greasy with the remains of his pasty, he wondered about the conversation Rachel had had with Dr Downey. It was strange that the doctor had denied having met Sharon Carteret without checking through his records. Wesley’s memory wasn’t that good – he could hardly recall every person he’d ever had dealings with in the course of his career; and his career hadn’t been as long as Dr Downey’s and many of the characters he had met were far more memorable. Either Dr Downey possessed a remarkable memory or he was lying.
He would mention it to Heffernan, see if he shared his misgivings.

When Wesley returned to the station the inspector was pacing up and down his office floor. He shouted to the sergeant to come in.

‘I’ve had a thought, Wes. I can’t get an answer from Stan Jenkins at the moment but I’m going to check if that woman – the nutter, the one who keeps saying she’s seen the missing kid – if the house where she saw the kid with his dad is the same one as this Chris character was living at with this mysterious child of unknown origin.’

‘You think there’s a connection? You think the kid might …’

‘Hang on, Wesley, I don’t know what to think yet. It’s just a thought. Probably nothing in it. Even if it was Chris it still doesn’t mean … Oh, I wish someone’d find this kid and put Stan Jenkins out of his misery. The mother’s back down here and apparently she’s started looking for the kid herself. Stan’s got himself in a right state about it. He’s talking of early retirement.’

‘I’ll go up to Inspector Jenkins’s office, sir, see if anyone knows if it’s the same address.’

Heffernan nodded and Wesley changed the subject and told his boss about Dr Downey.

‘When’s your wife’s op?’

‘Tomorrow. Nine thirty.’

‘We’ll send someone round at eleven, then, to look through the records. Can’t have the good doctor upset before he slices your nearest and dearest open, can we?’ He grinned wickedly. ‘Doesn’t matter if he kills a few in the afternoon. Tell Rachel well done, will you.’

Wesley left Heffernan’s office and went up to the second floor where the search for Jonathon Berrisford was being co-ordinated. After a few words with a detective sergeant assigned to the case, he had the information his inspector was looking for. He hurried down the stairs back to the office, wondering what Heffernan would make of it.

Elaine Berrisford went over to Queenswear on the car ferry. She was feeling more positive than she had for weeks. The
car thudded over the ramp as she drove off the ferry, and she thrust the gear lever into second to negotiate the steep street to number 38. She parked up on the pavement outside the house; there was still room for cars to get past.

She hesitated by the front door then rang the top bell, still unsure whether she was doing the right thing. She had kept away since it happened. Should she be back there now?

The footsteps from inside the house drew closer. Elaine felt like running back to the car and driving away before the door opened. But she stood, waiting.

When Mrs Hughes opened the door, she stared at Elaine for a few seconds before standing aside to let her in. Once in the hall she put her arms around her and Elaine, exhausted and past tears, clung to the older woman.

‘Elaine, I’m so sorry. Why didn’t you come when it happened? You should have come.’

‘I couldn’t. I couldn’t face anyone. Oh, Mary, you don’t know what it’s been like.’

Mrs Hughes led her through to her living room and sat her down on the sofa. She knelt on the floor beside her.

‘If I’d known all this would happen …’ She stood up and walked to the fireplace, her back to Elaine. After a while she spoke again. ‘Oh, Elaine, I blame myself for all this, I really do.’

In the shop today Mistress Webb did remark upon Jennet’s figure and did look most knowingly at my wife. Elizabeth did speak to me of it and asked if Jennet was courting a young man. I did say I knew not.

Jennet hath never reproached me nor spoken of the child. It can not be long before Elizabeth doth discover the truth of it. I am afeared and I have begged Jennet to conceal her condition.

Extract from the journal of John Banized,
14 August 1623

‘You were right.’ Wesley looked triumphant as he strode into Heffernan’s office. ‘It is the same address. It was Chris that that woman saw with the kid.’

‘I think it’s worth another visit to Morbay. I could do with a trip to the seaside. I’ll come over with you.’

They set out in the late afternoon sunshine. It was a pleasant drive across the river on the car ferry then through the field-lined country roads until they hit the outskirts of Morbay. The journey gave Gerry Heffernan a chance to gather his thoughts.

‘So what have we got, Wes? A young woman has a baby two years back and nobody knows. Baby disappears and there’s no record of its birth. She continues to see her boyfriend, who we can assume is the baby’s father – there’s been no suggestion otherwise. She carries on in her job till
the middle of August then she packs it in and gets a flat with her boyfriend and a child who’s about the right age to be the one she had. Any ideas, Sergeant?’

‘The child is hers. She either had it adopted or someone looked after it for her. She gave up her job and her flat in anticipation of getting the child back.’

‘So why was she killed? And why did the boyfriend disappear as soon as he knew she was dead? And what about the money? Those payments into her bank account?’

‘Could she have sold the child to someone, sir, then changed her mind?’

‘I think you might have something there, Wes. You’ve been through it yourself, you can imagine how desperate some people get for a child of their own. Would you buy a child, Wes? How far would you go?’

‘I don’t know about me. But Pam; I reckon she’d go as far as it takes.’ He thought for a moment. ‘But the boy-friend’s still got the child … well, we can assume he has. If someone – the person who adopted or looked after the child killed her to get him back, the plan went wrong.’

‘Or maybe this is all speculation. The child Sharon had might have died at birth. She might have had it in that flat in Queenswear and Mrs Hughes helped her cover the whole thing up. Maybe once Sharon and Chris were living together with this kid – maybe his by another girlfriend – things snapped. They had a row and he bashed her head in. Simple domestic, like most murders.’

‘Why give up her job … and change flats?’

‘Presumably so they could have this kid living with them.’

‘Would she give up her job to look after someone else’s kid?’

Heffernan shrugged. Wesley had a point. They had arrived at 33 Albert Road. Wesley stopped the engine.

‘There’s an old lady lives upstairs; a Mrs Willis. Have you got the photograph, sir?’

The inspector nodded. ‘Will we get tea, do you think?’

‘According to Rachel as much as you can drink.’

Mrs Willis looked genuinely pleased to see them. ‘Oh, come in, come in. Haven’t you brought that nice policewoman with you? Come upstairs. I’ll get the kettle on.’

Settled comfortably with tea and chocolate biscuits, Gerry Heffernan produced the photograph.

‘The little boy who lived downstairs … is this him?’

She studied the picture and handed it back. ‘It’s like little Daniel but his hair was darker.’

‘You’ve not had a visit from the police before about this child?’

‘No. I’ve been away at my daughter’s, but my neighbours mentioned the police had been round. Some poor woman who keeps claiming that every child she sees is this missing child, I believe.’ She was sharper than Heffernan had given her credit for. ‘That is a picture of that missing boy, isn’t it – that Jonathon Berrisford? You think little Daniel may have been Jonathon.’

‘Is it possible?’

‘Anything’s possible, Inspector. But I must admit it never occurred to me; Sharon seemed so … loving with him, just like any other young mother, and he seemed happy with her. Hardly how a kidnapped child would behave. I think you can forget that idea, Inspector, I really do.’

Heffernan was comfortable. He was reluctant to get up out of the ancient sofa that had moulded itself to his body like a living entity. But they had to leave. There was an important question he had to ask Stan Jenkins.

Rachel had an aversion to building sites and it was the third she had visited that afternoon. Messy, muddy places populated by leering male chauvinists. She let Steve lead the way.

The bricklayer glanced up from the neat section of wall he was creating. He looked warily at the warrant cards they showed.

‘Chris Manners? Yeah, he works casual, like. I don’t know him well, mind, but I know he sometimes goes in the Anchor on a Saturday night. You might find him there.’

At last, something solid. Rachel decided to push her luck. ‘Do you know much about him?’

‘Oh, he keeps ‘imself to ‘imself, like. He sometimes gets materials cut price, I know that. And he works off and on. Comes and goes.’

‘Is that usual?’

‘Not usual. Most of us work when we can – we’ve got mouths to feed. I reckon he only works on a site when he runs short. All right for some. But as I say he gets these materials – reckon that’s where he gets his living.’

‘Where does he get them?’ Steve asked sharply.

The bricklayer became wary. Rachel cursed Steve. Just when things were going so well.

‘Don’t rightly know… couldn’t tell you. I don’t ask no questions. Boss buys ‘em, we build with ‘em.’

‘Are there any of his materials on the site now?’

‘Couldn’t tell you, mate. I just lay the bricks.’

Rachel tried to retrieve the situation. ‘The Anchor? The one in Tradmouth?’

‘That’s right, my luvver. And don’t tell him I told you.’

The bricklayer turned away from them and resumed his work, as if to make a point. The interview was over.

‘Why the sudden interest, Gerry?’ Stan Jenkins looked up from his computer screen.

‘To tell you the truth, Stan, there are a few coincidences. The kid your favourite witness saw and swore was Jonathon Berrisford just happens to be the kid living with Sharon Carteret’s boyfriend.’