To Die Alone (16 page)

‘Come on, Gaynor,’ said Matty Gallagher as he stared across the interview-room table at James Thornycroft’s wife, ‘it really is time to start talking.’

‘Let’s start with me saying that I object to being brought to Roxham Police Station, then,’ she said calmly. ‘It seems an unnecessary thing to do, especially when my husband is so gravely ill.’

‘I’m afraid I don’t buy the grief bit, Gaynor. Not after your last little performance. Besides, the sooner you answer my questions, the sooner you can get back to the hospital,’ said the sergeant, glancing up at the clock: it read 11.45 p.m. ‘Although I remain to be convinced that you really care what happens to him.’

‘That’s not fair,’ she said. For the first time in their conversation, she seemed to be struggling with emotion. ‘That is not fair at all. James and I may have had our difficult times, but there is no way I would want this to happen to him.’

The comment caught the sergeant by surprise. She seemed to be genuinely upset at the way he had approached their interview. Was it his imagination or were her eyes moist with tears? He could not be sure.

‘No,’ he said eventually, ‘no, I don’t suppose that you do. My apologies, Mrs Thornycroft. It’s just that the way you talked about him last time led me to suppose that you and he—’

‘Have you ever seen someone fighting for life?’

Matty Gallagher nodded and his mind went back to a darkened hospital room and his mother lying in the bed, struggling desperately for every last shallow breath, her body ravaged by illness yet still fighting for survival. He remembered that helpless feeling of things unsaid, words that she could never hear, of times gone, of times wasted. Noticing Gaynor watching him intently, he nodded.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘yes, I have experienced that.’

‘In which case, how about we start this interview again?’

‘OK,’ nodded Gallagher, irritated at the way he had lost control of the situation, ‘but all of this does not conceal the fact that we think you might have information that will further our inquiries.’

‘I’m not sure what I can tell you.’

‘You can tell me about David Bowes.’

‘I don’t really know the man. I had heard his name a couple of times, but that’s about….’

‘Silly me,’ said the sergeant, slapping his forehead with his hand. ‘You probably know him better as Paul Garratt.’

Gaynor Thornycroft stared at him in amazement.

‘How on earth do you know about that?’ she said quietly.

Feeling weary as his lack of sleep caught up with him, Jack Harris sat in the interview room and stared at Jasmine Riley, who looked down at the table, not meeting his gaze. It was shortly after midnight and she had arrived at Levton Bridge Police Station in a motorway patrol car just a few minutes earlier: the officers who drove her at high speed up from Cheshire said she had spoken little. On arrival, she had spent ten minutes with the duty solicitor who now sat next to her in the stuffy interview room. The only other person present was Gillian Roberts.

‘Before we start,’ said the solicitor, a sallow faced man, ‘I want to make absolutely clear that my client is not under arrest. Is that the case?’

‘As far as we know, she has not done anything wrong,’ said Harris. ‘So no, she is not under arrest.’

The lawyer nodded: he seemed satisfied by the response.

‘Please ask your questions then,’ he said.

‘We would have anyway. You know that.’

The lawyer looked sharply at the detective, who ignored the gesture and instead glanced across at Roberts: he had asked her to help with the interview because he hoped that the female touch would help.

‘Jasmine,’ said Roberts, taking the cue, ‘we really need to know about the events leading up to your fiancé’s death.’

Jasmine looked up and nodded; tears glistened in her eyes.

‘Then will I be able to go back home to Mum?’ she asked.

‘Assuming there is no reason to hold you further, the officers are waiting to take you back to Chester. Am I right that your mother declined the offer of accompanying you?’

‘She gets car sick,’ nodded Jasmine and gave a slight smile. ‘At least it’s not cancer.’

‘A pretty awful thing to have told people,’ said Roberts.

‘I know.’ Jasmine looked close to tears again. ‘I’ve done some stupid things. Look, can we get this over with? I really don’t think I can take much more.’

‘Sure,’ said Roberts. ‘So when did all this start? What made you decide to flee Levton Bridge?’

‘I’m not quite sure when it started. It was little things at first but over three or four weeks, Trevor went from being a fairly laid back chap to one who was jumpy, on edge all the time. By the end….’

Her voice tailed off and she looked down at the table. They could see her shoulders heave as she fought back the tears.

‘Take your time, luvvie,’ said Roberts.

Jasmine straightened up, dabbed her eyes with her handkerchief, and nodded.

‘Ask your questions,’ she said.

‘Trevor’s behaviour,’ said Roberts. ‘it was out of character?’

‘You know,’ said Jasmine slowly, almost as if the thought had just occurred to her, ‘the more I think about it, there had always been something about him. Funny how you only notice these things afterwards. What’s that saying, that you can’t see the wood for the trees?’

‘A somewhat unfortunate phrase to use given the circumstances of his death,’ said Harris.

She looked at him sharply.

‘Sorry,’ he said, but did not sound apologetic. ‘What was it about Trevor that made you think things were not quite right?’

‘The way he always avoided personal matters.’ Suddenly she seemed eager to talk, eager to unburden herself. ‘At first I put it down to him being a man. They always shy away from that kind of stuff, don’t they?’

Roberts glanced at Harris.

‘Sure do,’ she said.

‘But with Trevor,’ continued Jasmine, ‘it was more than that. Whenever I asked where his parents were, for instance, he would change the subject to something else. He never ever talked about them – he did once let slip that he had a brother but he said that they did not talk to each other.’

The words were coming in a rush now.

‘He seemed to regret mentioning it the moment he had said it,’ she said. ‘When I asked what his name was and where he lived, was he married, did they have kids, was I going to be an aunty, that sort of thing, Trevor just would not reply. Said there were some things I shouldn’t know. He said it was better that way, that what I did not know couldn’t hurt him. That was one of his favourite sayings.’

‘Did this brother ever call?’ asked Roberts.

‘No.’

‘It would really help if we could find him.’

‘To be honest, I am not even sure that he even exists.’ She looked at them, as if the thought had just occurred. ‘The more I think about it, I knew so little about Trevor but you sort of drift into these situations. I mean, I don’t even know what he did before he came to Levton Bridge. I would ask him but he would say nothing. Except once. Once, he said he had been in Africa but when I asked what he had been doing….’

Her voice tailed off again.

‘Jasmine, my love,’ said Roberts, reaching over and touching her hand, ‘I think you need to prepare yourself for a shock. Would it surprise you if we said he was not called Trevor Meredith when he was in Africa?’

‘I suppose I always knew there was something like that.’

Harris, who had been examining her closely during the conversation and had come to the conclusion that she was genuine, leaned forward, intrigued by her calm response to the question. He had expected more of a reaction: shock, tears, something, but not this. Not nothing.

‘What do you mean by that?’ he asked.

‘It was one night,’ said Jasmine, her eyes assuming a far-off expression ‘About eighteen months ago. It had been such a happy day. Trevor had been off work and we’d been out walking in the hills. We’d taken Robbie.’

‘So what happened to ruin it?’

‘It didn’t ruin it so much, just got me thinking. That night, we were clearing a cupboard out in my house, getting ready for moving in together.’ She hesitated, fighting back strong emotions again, tears glistening once more in her eyes.

The detectives let her compose herself.

‘I found my birth certificate.’ she said eventually. ‘We were laughing at my middle name. Trevor said that Jemima was an awful name. Jasmine Jemima, what a mouthful, he said, what were my parents thinking?’

She smiled at the memory. So did the detectives. The solicitor did not react.

‘Then?’ asked Harris.

‘I asked Trevor if he had his birth certificate so I could find out if he had an embarrassing middle name that he had not told me about. It was just a joke, you know – we’d both had a couple of glasses of wine and were mucking about. Suddenly, Trevor changed, had that guarded look about him again.’

‘I assume he did not have the passport then?’ said Roberts.

‘He said he had lost it.’ She looked at the detectives. ‘What was his real name?’

‘Robert Dunsmore,’ said Harris.

‘I should have guessed Trevor was not his real name,’ said Jasmine quietly. ‘I am not sure why, but the fact that he did not have a birth certificate really troubled me – I mean, people lose things all the time but the fact that he did not have one sort of made him a non-person.’

‘You’re not the first to have said that,’ said Harris. ‘So, if you had all these reservations, why stick with him?’

Jasmine gave the detective a bewildered look.

‘I’m not sure,’ she said. ‘I really am not sure.’

‘So coming back to what has happened over the past month,’ said Harris. ‘What made him so edgy? We think he might have been investigating dog fighting. Might it have been that?’

‘It said on the television that Trevor’s dog was dead,’ she said. ‘Is that true?’

The question caught the detectives by surprise. Harris nodded and Jasmine Riley sighed.

‘He was a lovely chap was Robbie,’ she said. ‘Doted on Trevor. You can trust dogs, you know.’

‘Some dogs,’ nodded Harris, thinking of Scoot, curled up by the radiator in the CID room. ‘We think Robbie was attacked by a fighting dog. I ask again, did you know Trevor was investigating dog fights in the area?’

‘He did not tell me that.’ She gave a mirthless laugh. ‘Now there’s a surprise. Mind, he did not have to tell me. I had already guessed something strange was happening – he had been going out at odd times for months. Said he was taking the dog for a walk then he would be out for several hours.’

‘I do that with Scoot,’ said Harris.

‘That’s why I did not think too much of it – I know what you men are like with your blessed dogs. Then he was away overnight a couple of times and wouldn’t tell me where he’d been. Out, he would say, always just out whenever I pressed him on it. I thought he was having an affair, then James Thornycroft told me that Trevor was wrapped up with dog fighting. They’d known each other for years, did you know that?’

‘We do now,’ nodded Harris.

‘Well, I bumped into James in the shop a few days ago and he asked me to go outside with him. He said that he was telling me as a friend that Trevor was putting himself in danger.’

‘Did he say from whom?’

‘No.’

‘And how did Thornycroft know all this?’

‘Why don’t you ask him?’ asked Jasmine.

‘Because James Thornycroft was attacked in his home this morning. It’s not certain that he will live.’

She seemed genuinely shocked.

‘Did you tell Trevor about what James had said?’ asked Roberts.

She nodded.

‘How did he react?’

‘Just brazened it out. Said that if Thornycroft was going round blabbing lies like that, there would be big trouble. He seemed really shaken.’

‘Does the name Gerry Radford mean anything to you?’ asked Harris.

‘I answered Trevor’s mobile on Thursday night,’ nodded Jasmine. ‘Trevor had forgotten to take it with him when he went out with the dog. When I asked the caller his name, he said to tell him that Gerry had called. Gave me a number where he could contact him.’

‘We found it,’ nodded Harris. ‘He’d hidden it in a book. Do you know who Gerry is?’

‘Not at first, but when I asked him about it the next morning, Trevor said it was this Radford man. I think he regretted it because, after that, he went all quiet. I looked Radford up on the office computer.’ She turned dark eyes upon the detectives. ‘Do you think he killed Trevor?’

‘We’re not sure,’ said Harris.

‘Well, Trevor was certainly frightened enough. He was panicking, saying we might have to leave.’

‘Who else did he tell? David Bowes, I assume?’

‘How on earth do you know that?’

‘Instinct. Did they meet?’

‘At the King’s Head, I think. They were both part of the poker game there. Trevor had always liked gambling. He always did the online poker, and we went to the races a couple of times. Trevor enjoyed that – we laughed about it because he came out ahead both times.’ She smiled at the memory.

‘And you think he went to see Bowes about what had happened with Radford?’

‘I think so. I got the impression that they had known each other before Levton Bridge. Trevor was delighted when he came to live up here, said he was a man he could trust.’

The inspector leaned forward again.

‘Did he at any stage,’ he said quietly, ‘ever tell you that David Bowes is actually a man called Paul Garratt?’

Jasmine gave him a sad smile.

‘What do you think?’ she said.

‘So, do I assume that your husband talked about this Paul Garratt fellow?’ asked Gallagher, staring intently across the table at Gaynor Thornycroft.

‘James said he was a man not to be trusted,’ she nodded.

‘Why would he say that?’

‘I got the impression that James was frightened of Garratt, that something had happened in their past.’

‘Any idea what?’

‘All I know, is that James did not want to talk about him. Whenever I mentioned Garratt’s name, James would walk out of the room.’

‘And you? How did that make you feel?’

‘I was past caring by then, Sergeant. I could see my world crumbling around me. Everything I had worked for over the years, everything I had relied on – my marriage to James, financial security for our future, everything was disappearing.’ She hesitated, tears glistening in her eyes. ‘I was losing everything, Sergeant.’