Dead in the Water

The youth took a final pull on his cigarette before tossing the butt onto the pavement. Then he took the note and looked at it intently, as if suspicious that it might have been printed that morning in Mullen’s backroom. Then he began to rip it up. One, two, three. He let the pieces flutter to the ground. “I don’t sell out my neighbours, dickhead.” He stared Mullen full in the face. It was a challenge, full of stupid bravado. Mullen knew he could flatten him with one blow, but what good would that do either of them? Actually, at some level he admired the cocky bugger for standing up to him.

The youth sneered, pleased with his performance and Mullen’s feebleness. Then he retreated inside his front door. Mullen heard the lock click into place and the rattle of the security chain. Not so confident after all.

Mullen stayed where he was, sucking in a lungful of smoke. It was the second cigarette he had smoked that evening and the second since he had left the army nearly three years previously, but oddly enough it felt a bit of a let-down. He didn’t miss the nicotine rush any more. Coffee was a different matter: he couldn’t live without the buzz of caffeine at least three times a day. But fags had never held him in their thrall. Smoking had been something he had done while drinking a pint, nothing more. He tossed the butt towards the youth’s door. It was petty, he knew, but if he got a telling off from his mum or dad in the morni

ng, it would serve the cocky punk right.

Mullen wasn’t done yet. He had had an idea. As ideas went, he couldn’t see much wrong with it. He checked up and down the pavement: not a dicky bird. There was no sign of activity from either the youth’s house or that of the man he had been stalking. The curtains were drawn in both front rooms. There were no twitching fingers to be seen and no curious faces peering out. Both houses had their recycling bins facing each other, as if by mutual agreement, down the side of their houses. Mullen padded quickly over to the one by his quarry’s house and opened it. He peered into the shadows and then plunged his hand down. It was like the bran tub of childhood fetes. When he pulled his hand out, he had in his fingers a sheaf of papers. These included several envelopes and letters discarded without any attempt to tear or shred them. Which was careless, Mullen reckoned. But how many people bothered to shred their post, despite all the scare stories about ID theft? Mullen flicked through his haul and was reassured. He closed the bin’s lid quietly and headed off up the road. He had lost twenty quid and his last packet of fags. He had had his chain pulled by a spotty sixth-former. But in other respects it had been a successful evening. All he had to do was catch two buses home.

* * *

The mystery man’s name was Charles Speight. The envelopes recovered from the bin in Victoria Road were addressed variously to him, a Mrs Rachel Speight and a Jane Speight — a daughter presumably. Back in Boars Hill, Mullen made himself a mug of strong tea and opened up his laptop. It didn’t take long searching the internet to identify Charles Speight in greater detail. He was a pathologist, privately educated at a school that even Mullen had heard of, and he had a string of letters after his name. There were several references to him in the Oxford Mail and Oxford Times, all of which indicated that he worked closely with the Thames Valley police in cases involving violent death. There were even a couple of photographs of him which, despite their formality, tied in with the rather agitated figure Mullen had first seen in the pub.

Mullen sipped his tea and wondered. Why had Speight and Dorkin met in a pub, out of hours and well away from their normal places of work? Was it Speight who had examined Chris? The newspapers hadn’t said as much. Probably at this stage the police wouldn’t release the information. But it seemed to Mullen a pretty good bet that he had. And if he had and if that was why he and Dorkin had met up, how come Speight had looked so on edge? Or had they been talking about Janice? Less than twenty-four hours after her death? Unless they were great buddies — and to Mullen it looked like they were anything but — why would they be meeting in a pub? And why had Speight stormed out of the pub so quickly and unhappily? The only way to find out would be to ask him, Mullen concluded, though that would surely get him into a whole shit heap of trouble if Speight went and bleated to Dorkin. Which he surely would, Mullen told himself, unless of course Speight had nothing to hide and nothing to feel guilty about.

Mullen pushed away his half-drunk mug of tea, conscious of a return of the pain at the back of his head, thumping like a bass drum. He had to speak to Speight. That was the bottom line. The only outstanding questions were how, when and where? He hoped the answers would become clear after a decent night’s sleep.

Chapter 6

Mullen’s mobile rang while he was asleep. He was back in the army, in Ben’s bedroom. He had just opened the door. Ben was sitting at his small table with the red, blue and white angle-poise lamp his parents had brought him on their last visit. He had been so pleased with it. And then Ben had turned round. “Hello, mate,” he said. Which was pretty odd because he didn’t have a mouth to say anything with. There was just a huge black hole in his face. His nose had disappeared into it too. Only his eyes remained and they were closed. That was when the fire alarm had sounded right behind Mullen’s head, except in reality it was his mobile phone.

For several seconds Mullen didn’t move. Then he sat up and realised his pyjamas were drenched with sweat. He picked up the phone. It was a number he didn’t recognise. It was 7.45 a.m. Who on earth rings people up at that hour of the day? He looked at the number for several seconds and then he powered the phone off. He took off his pyjamas, tossed them on the rug and got back into bed, pulling the duvet over his head.

He didn’t get back to sleep. He lay there pretending to himself that he was asleep, because if he was he wouldn’t have to do or think anything. Maybe at one point he almost did drift off into a half-doze. Or maybe not. Perhaps he would have stayed there all morning or even all day. It wouldn’t have been the first time. But there was a heavy knocking on the door. That was what a brass knocker did — gave the visitor a chance to make a lot of noise. Mullen pulled on a pair of pants and his brown towelling dressing gown, before stumping down the stairs as the knocking reached a third crescendo.

“All right, hold your horses whoever you are!” Mullen shouted the welcome as he struggled to undo the bolts at the top and bottom of the door. Nothing seemed to be working right this morning. The chances were it was either the police again or — most likely, Mullen reckoned — Becca Baines, all primed to give him an ear-bashing because he had passed her name on to Dorkin and the police had hauled her into the station. But what alternative had he had?

Mullen wrenched the door open. He was wrong. The person banging the knocker as if his life depended on it was Derek Stanley. He was smartly dressed as usual — pale blue chinos, yellow and white striped shirt and linen jacket — but he seemed on edge. Behind and below him, one delicate foot on the bottom step, stood Margaret Wilby, dressed in a blend of light blues — blouse and slacks, cardigan and sandals.

“Hope we didn’t wake you up, Mr Mullen?” she said.

“Can I help?”

“Why don’t you go and make yourself decent,” she said, advancing until she was millimetres from him.

Mullen retreated. He could see no option.

She sniffed. “Maybe even have a quick shower,” she said. “We are not in a rush.”

* * *

By the time Mullen had taken a super-quick shower, thrown some clothes on and got downstairs again, his two visitors had made themselves comfortable in the large kitchen with mugs of tea.

“One for you too,” Margaret Wilby said, pointing to a mug on the table in front of an empty chair. Mullen sat down. The two of them were positioned opposite him, neat and stern, appraising him and finding him wanting. Shades of the Apprentice programme on TV. Mullen had watched it occasionally and been fascinated by the ridiculous nastiness of it all. In this case Margaret Wilby was the Lord Sugar figure while Derek Stanley was one of his minions, ready to add his two pennyworth when asked, but otherwise eminently forgettable.

“We were wondering how your investigations were going, Mr Mullen.”

“Into Chris’s death, you mean?”

“Of course.”

Mullen picked up his mug and took a sip. He continued to hold it in both hands, a barrier against the woman’s inquisition. “I only discuss the progress of the investigation with the person who hired me. In this case, your daughter.”

“As you know, Mr Mullen, several people in the church contributed to your fee.”

“Did you, Mrs Wilby? My impression was that you disapproved.”

Margaret Wilby’s lips pressed tight in irritation. Disapproval seemed to be part of her DNA.