Impression (DI Gardener 4)

“I’ve had a call from a Vincent Baines.”

“Who’s he?” Gardener asked.

“Someone who claims to know the identity of the killer.”

Chapter Twenty-nine

Robert Quarry, Frank Fisher’s social worker, made the tea and took it into the living room. He opened a couple of windows.

Fisher was sitting in his wheelchair in the corner. The place was a tip. Not that Robert expected a disabled man could do much cleaning, but he’d never quite seen it as bad. A stale odour prevailed, a mixture of old food and someone who hadn’t had a shower in a long time. Cardboard boxes littered the carpet. Why Fisher had them, he didn’t know. How he managed to wheel his way around was a mystery to Quarry. Frank’s desk was a mess: papers were strewn all over it, sweet wrappers littering the surface. Files lay open, no doubt their contents mixed up. Had he been working too hard?

Time and again he’d tried his best to organize help and support, but Fisher was independent and stubborn, flatly refusing any offers. In fact, he became quite abusive when approached about it.

“Come on, Frank, let’s have a cup of tea and you can tell me all about it.”

“What’s the point?” came the sullen reply. “All you’ll do is sit there and listen to me drone on, then you’ll consult my doctor and he’ll prescribe tablets. I won’t take them, and you’ll come back and the whole sorry fucking process will carry on repeating itself until I’m dead. Why not cut out all the crap and let me just get on with dying?”

“You know I can’t do that.”

Fisher grabbed his cup and took a sip of the drink.

“No, you can’t, can you? It’s your job. I forgot about that.”

“You know it’s more than that, Frank. You’ve come a long way since you left hospital.”

Quarry thought about the man in front of him: a carpenter by trade, self-employed, sharing business premises with a builder. The pair worked hand-in-hand, often winning contracts based on the help the other could supply. But a serious accident at work had left Fisher disabled, living in sheltered accommodation in Richmond Hill on Sussex Street in Leeds.

Fisher slammed his cup on a coffee table in front of him, tea spilling over the edge on to the surface.

“And all for nothing. I’ll never get out of this chair, will I?”

Quarry thought he had a point, but not a good enough reason to give up altogether. They’d been here before and lived to tell the tale. Fisher’s accident hadn’t been the only thing to affect

his future. At the time, he’d had been happily married to his wife Anna for twenty years. The happiness had only run one way.

Fisher was a pretty typical Yorkshireman who enjoyed a pint with his mates down the pub. Weekends were spent at the local social club, where he could sink a few more pints, and then have fish and chips on the way home. He usually took two weeks’ holiday a year, always the same two weeks, always the same seaside resort of Whitby.

Anna had wanted more. She’d constantly nagged him to broaden his horizons. But it had been good enough for his parents, so it was good enough for him. At the time, Anna was a self-employed accountant. Finally realizing she couldn’t shift him, she’d moved herself instead.

Fisher had had no idea she’d been having an affair with another local businessman, Phillip Elmore. It had been going on for two years. Eventually, with enough money for a deposit on a flat, she was preparing to leave Frank when the accident occurred.

Working late one Friday evening some shelving units he had been working under collapsed, unleashing several bags of concrete. Frank ended up with both legs and an arm broken and a punctured lung. He’d also suffered damage to his spleen.

Operations were needed. The spleen had been removed altogether, the legs patched up, and the lung was left to repair itself. Eventually he was informed of the spinal injuries, and the fact he would never walk again. His doctors also brought up the possibility he may need to use a nebulizer for breathing, much like an asthmatic.

The news alone had been bad enough, but his world collapsed completely when Anna had told him she was leaving him.

Fisher had been devastated, requiring months of therapy. Despite being wheelchair bound, he’d eventually returned to work at the insistence of the builder who he had previously worked with, where he could oversee the accounts and the day-to-day contracts. The builder had insisted on paying for everything to cover the courses Frank would need to qualify properly, including his transport costs. Everywhere Fisher went, he did so in a taxi on an exclusive contract with a local company.

“You shouldn’t think like that, Frank,” said Quarry. “You have so many things to live for.”

“Name one.”

“You still have your life. Your job.”

“Not enough,” shouted Fisher, almost leaping out of his wheelchair. “I haven’t got her, have I?”

Quarry was unnerved by Fisher’s outburst. His patient was heading for one of his depressions, and to Quarry, it was the worst he had seen. There had to be something more to it.