Dead in the Water

Mullen hesitated. He didn’t like lying, especially to a woman as nice as Lorna. It went against all his instincts. And yet there were other moral imperatives by which he lived, such as protecting the weak. The last thing he wanted t

o do was to cause the police to come round and question her. The whole scenario made him feel uneasy.

“Well?” The old woman wanted an answer.

“Yes, of course I am. Don’t you worry, I will tell them everything.”

Mullen shook her hand and left, promising to come back and tell her all about it when they had caught Janice’s killer. And when he said that, he really did mean it. One lie was enough.

* * *

Outside on the pavement, it was pleasantly warm. A gaggle of students in shorts and t-shirts walked past, heading out of town, talking animatedly. Mullen didn’t take in what it was that had so caught their imagination because his eyes and attention were fixed on two figures who had, like him, just exited a building some 50 metres away, nearer town. The light was beginning to fade, but Mullen’s eyes were keen enough to recognise the profiles — one tall, heavily muscled man in a suit and another shorter one, also in a suit, with untidy hair and an aquiline nose. Fargo and Dorkin. Mullen slipped into the shadows. On another day and in another place, he might have carried on walking right past them with a cheery greeting. But not tonight, not when they had just walked out of the building in which he had lived. What were they doing there? Checking his room? It seemed unlikely. Asking questions about him? It was much more likely that they had been checking him out. When exactly he had moved in and moved out, who he had socialised with, what visitors he had had.

The two detectives started walking towards town, little and large, still talking, to judge from the hand movements, though whether they were discussing work or the World Cup was anyone’s guess. Across the road a couple walked arm in arm in the same direction, hurrying as fast as the woman’s heels allowed. Mullen crossed over and settled in a few metres behind, using them as a protective screen. Not that he needed it. Fargo turned right at the next side street while Dorkin continued straight on without so much as a backward glance. He was walking faster now, a man on a mission to get home maybe.

Or maybe not, because when Dorkin got to the roundabout he turned right and pushed his way into the Cape of Good Hope pub. Mullen had had a pint there a couple of weeks previously, but it wasn’t his sort of place. He’d be surprised if it was Dorkin’s either, but maybe the detective was just thirsty. Mullen paused, uncertain what to do. What was Dorkin up to? Asking more questions? At this time of night in a busy pub? Or just delaying the moment when he returned home.

The couple who had been providing cover for Mullen had moved on, heading over Magdalen Bridge. A group of four Chinese — a man and three women — were standing in a huddle discussing something unintelligible. Mullen slipped behind them and felt in his pockets. He still had a packet of cigarettes left, so he lit one up in the pointless hope that it would somehow make him invisible. Across the road, through one of the large stone-framed windows, Dorkin suddenly came into view as he sat down with two pints. He pushed one across the table to a man Mullen didn’t recognise.

The Chinese group had come to a decision and started to cross the road. Mullen followed them as closely as he dared. He wanted to get a better look at the man with Dorkin, maybe even go into the pub if he could without Dorkin spotting him. Yet if Dorkin did happen to catch sight of him, it wouldn’t be the end of the world. After all, he could just be visiting a favourite haunt.

Mullen detached himself from the Chinese, who headed up the Cowley Road, and continued smoking his cigarette by the pub door. He’d give it a couple of minutes and then he’d go in and take his chance.

* * *

Mullen never did get inside the Cape of Good Hope because Dorkin’s companion appeared in the doorway. He was breathing heavily. He turned round, as if worried that he was being pursued, swore and then shot across the road oblivious of any traffic exiting the Iffley Road. A taxi hooted. The man hurried on, arms flailing, across Cowley Place and onto the southern pavement of Magdalen Bridge. He was heading into the city centre. Mullen tossed his butt onto the ground and followed, but he crossed the Cowley Road taking the anti-clockwise route round onto the northern pavement of Magdalen Bridge, well out of view of Dorkin — or so he hoped.

Following the man couldn’t have been easier. Along the curve of the High Street, turn right up through the pedestrianised Cornmarket, across Broad Street and into Magdalen Street. The man queued for a Kidlington bus and immediately struck up a conversation with a much younger woman he obviously knew from somewhere. Mullen slipped into the queue behind a pair of French-speaking youths. When the bus arrived, he bought a ticket for Kidlington. The man and woman — she was mid-twenties Mullen reckoned and, to judge from their conversation, his dental nurse — sat together. Mullen moved past them and slumped down in the seat behind. He got out his mobile and pretended to check for emails. Not that he had any emails to check because he hadn’t got round to linking his emails to his smart phone. He really should get a bit smarter with it, he told himself. What was the point of having it otherwise? At least he knew how to use the camera. He knew how to turn off the flash. He knew how to turn off the sound. In sum, he knew how to take a photo of two people talking animatedly to each other without either of them noticing.

The man got off just north of Summertown. The woman stayed seated, apparently bound for Kidlington. Mullen got off and followed the man at a distance down Victoria Road. The guy seemed too distracted and too lubricated with alcohol to have twigged him, but Mullen couldn’t be sure. The man was halfway along the road when he slowed up. He had been swinging his arms like pistons, but now they dropped to his side and fell still. He pushed open a small gate, but went no further. The houses in Victoria Road are easy money for the local estate agents and the man was hesitating outside a particularly impressive one in Edwardian style. Money and status it said, which made Mullen all the more curious as to why a man like him should have been meeting Dorkin in a pub. He sure as heck wasn’t a low-life informer. Mullen waited. The man, he realised, was being greeted by a woman, his wife presumably, though Mullen knew you should never make such assumptions nowadays. The man made as if to kiss her, but she appeared to duck away. She was talking and gesturing at the same time. An angry wife. An unhappy homecoming. These were reasonable deductions in the circumstances, Mullen told himself. Not that it mattered whether he was right or not because he had no intention of knocking on the door at this time of night. But he did want to know who the man was.

Mullen waited for the two of them to disappear inside and for the door to slam. He wandered along the pavement until he was in front of the house. There was a blue Audi A4 parked on the forecourt. He pulled out his phone and photographed the registration plate. As for the house number, that was easy enough to memorise. He hovered outside. The front curtains were drawn. What now? Maybe he would return next morning and follow him to work. Mullen was reviewing his options when a noise made him turn. A young man came out of the neighbouring house, slamming the door. He was thin and on edge. He immediately lit up a cigarette. That was one option. Ask him. Why not? Mullen got out his remaining packet and extricated a cigarette.

“Excuse me, mate,” he said. “Can you spare a light?”

The youth looked at him as if he had been asked if he knew the quickest route to Timbuktu. Mullen held the cigarette up, a man miming the act of smoking. The youth shrugged and handed over his box of matches. Mullen lit his cigarette, choked violently like a schoolboy having a first smoke behind the bike sheds and handed the box back.

“You know who lives here?” He tried to make it casual and unimportant.

“He’s my neighbour. Of course I do.”

“I thought I recognised him. Not that Richard Dawkins fellow is he?”

The youth laughed as if that was the funniest thing he had heard all week. “Why should I tell you? And who the hell are you anyway?”

Mullen had been half expecting the response. In the youth’s shoes, he would have said exactly the same. Mullen put his hand into his pocket and pulled out the cigarette packet again. And added a twenty pound note. There was no point in skimping.

He held them up, out of reach of the youth. “Who is he and what does he do? I can always ask someone else.”

The youth was tempted, Mullen could see that. The money would buy him something a bit more exciting to smoke than tobacco if that was what he liked. Mullen was pretty sure he did like.

The youth held out his hand. “You first.”

Mullen hesitated, and then handed over the cigarettes. The youth checked the packet and thrust them into his back pocket.

“First name: Alexander.” The youth held out his hand again.

Mullen held out the £20 note.