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* * *
The ‘little chat’ took place in Branston’s office, which Dorkin had established as his centre of operations for the evening. Branston had been banished and a seriously young uniformed PC stood in the corner of the room trying to look more important than he was. Mullen sat down on a plastic green chair with a comfort value of zero and waited. Dorkin undid the buttons of his jacket and dumped himself into Branston’s office chair. He adjusted its height — up, down and then up again — until he was satisfied. He jiggled from side to side, as if settling himself in for the long haul. Then he unleashed a grin.
“So, Mr Mullen. What have you got to say for yourself?”
Mullen shrugged. As questions went, it didn’t exactly demand a reply.
“You see,” Dorkin continued, “there’s something I don’t quite get, Mr Mullen. You come across a dead body in the river. You fish him out. Like a good upright citizen you dial 999. But then, when questioned, you fail to mention the fact that you know him.”
During the time Dorkin had been settling himself into Branston’s chair, Mullen had been thinking hard about this question. He knew that if Dorkin was an even half-competent detective, he was bound to ask something along these lines. But despite this opportunity to prepare an answer, Mullen doubted that it was going to cut much ice with the laughing policeman here.
“I didn’t exactly know him. I’ve only been coming here for six weeks, on Fridays. Chris was just one of a hundred people thronging the place.” He hoped it didn’t sound quite as feeble as he feared.
“But you’ve spoken to him here, right?”
Mullen paused. Was this a fishing expedition? Was Dorkin just casting a line and hoping for a bite?
“Branston definitely thinks you have.” The detective sat very still, watching Mullen as if they were playing ‘Who blinks first?’
Mullen shrugged. He knew he had to say something. “I’ve probably spoken to half the people here. In the sense of passing the time of day, apologising that I don’t have a spare cigarette, or telling them to tone things down. That doesn’t mean I’d recognise them all if I found them floating face-down in the river.”
Dorkin’s eyes narrowed. “I’d have thought that as a private eye you’d be good at remembering faces.”
“I’ve not been doing it long, have I? Still wearing my L plates.” Mullen smiled, trying to laugh off the question, but Dorkin was having none of it.
“Don’t get smart with me, Muggins. I could make life very difficult for you.”
A warning light flashed somewhere in Mullen’s brain. He had once knocked out a squaddie who had teased him about his name. He clenched his hands over his stomach and reined in the impulse to do the same with Dorkin. “Okay, the fact is I didn’t recognise Chris. Maybe you’re right. Maybe I should have. But I didn’t.”
Dorkin leant back in his chair and gave Mullen another of his full frontal grins. He seemed to be pleased with what he had achieved. “As far as I am concerned, Muggins, you can clear off back to work. Just so long as you tell me what it was you and Chris talked about.”
Mullen smiled back, now fully under control. He had an answer, a very credible one. “The World Cup,” he said.
* * *
Across the other side of the city, at pretty much the same moment as Mullen was checking in for his shift at the Meeting Place, Janice Atkinson was waking up on her sofa. She wasn’t used to drinking alcohol in the middle of the day, especially on an empty stomach, and it had made her ridiculously light-headed, and dopey to boot. She was conscious that she had made a bit of a fool of herself with Doug Mullen, so much so that he had downed his pint and exited the pub with indecent haste. She had, briefly, hated him for that. He could at least have bought her a drink. She had paid him enough. As it was, she had had to buy herself a second large glass of white wine and then drink it on her own. She had picked up a newspaper which someone had left on a nearby seat and had tried to concentrate on reading it, but her brain refused to co-operate. A gaunt young man with a body odour problem had sat himself down on the other side of the table without so much as a ‘do you mind’ and attempted to chat her up. As it happened, she had minded, so she drained what was left in her glass and left, feeling very sorry for herself.
Back home, she had lain down on the sofa and fallen asleep, waking only when the grandfather clock chimed five. She went to the toilet — very necessary — and then checked her mobile in the kitchen. A new text message from Paul informed her that he was going out to play squash later, so only wanted a light meal. She snorted, but set about preparing it anyway. At 5.55 p.m. he arrived home in an upbeat mood. They ate in the kitchen with the TV news on in the background. They exchanged pleasantries and actually agreed that the prospect of four weeks of World Cup football dominating the headlines and the TV schedules was just too much to bear thinking about. Afterwards Paul went upstairs to change and gather together his kit. By seven he had left to meet up with his friend Charles Speight.
Or so he said. Janice wasn’t convinced. All this fussing about his gear could have been a pretence. She had never been so gullible as to believe everything that her husband said and recent events had made her even more sceptical. She waited ten minutes while she made herself a coffee — she really did need a clearer head — and then she put in a call to Rachel Speight. Ostensibly this was to ask her if she’d like to meet for lunch the following week, but in reality it was to establish if Charles was indeed playing squash with her husband that evening. He was. Or at least th
at was clearly what Rachel believed.
Janice double-checked that the front door was locked and slipped the security chain across. The last thing she wanted was for Paul to return unexpectedly. She settled back down at the kitchen table. She had a couple of hours at least to come up with a plan. She laid out several of Mullen’s photographs and studied her husband chatting to, laughing with, touching and even kissing the woman. Becca Baines. She had thought at first that Mullen wasn’t going to give her the bitch’s name. And especially not her address. But he had caved in soon enough when he saw the envelope of money in her hand. He wasn’t so tough after all. Show a man you aren’t going to take any nonsense and you soon discover what he’s made of. Marshmallow in Mullen’s case. Presumably he had been worried she might go round to Wood Farm armed with a rolling pin or piece of lead piping and inflict some serious damage on the fat cow.
That was the thing she most resented: the woman with whom her husband was messing about — she tried not to think of them as actually having sexual intercourse — was fat. In fact, she reckoned Becca must, technically speaking, be obese. But that thought made Janice feel even angrier. What had Becca got that she hadn’t? Janice downed her coffee, imagining it to be a giant-sized gin and tonic, and swore into the silence of the kitchen. The answer to her unspoken question was simple. What Becca had was youth. It was undeniable. She must be ten years younger, maybe fifteen. But she also wobbled like a jelly. Janice told herself that, unlike Becca the Fat, she had looked after herself diligently over the years: a personal trainer; a boutique hair-dresser in Jericho; daily applications of all sorts of creams to revitalise her skin and put off the inevitable onset of ageing; she had even put herself through seaweed wraps on several occasions. She had avoided Botox. That, as far as she was concerned, was going too far.
Janice focused again on the task in hand and picked up one of the photos from the table. She studied it: Becca’s giggling face was close to Paul’s, as if telling him a dirty joke or possibly making an obscene suggestion about what they could be doing up in the hotel room Paul had booked. Janice spat at her rival’s face and watched with pleasure as a gob of saliva hit her full in the eye. If only she could do that to her in person — or worse! Except that deep down she knew that even if she had the opportunity, she would almost certainly bottle out.
She put the photo back in its place on the table. What was she going to do with them? She ought to have confronted Paul as soon as he got home. She should have laid the photographs out on the table so that he saw them as he walked into the room. Instead she had delivered his supper to him like the perfect Stepford wife and chatted to him about trivialities. What was the point of paying out money to get the photos if she wasn’t going to follow it through?
She put her head in her hands and groaned. What on earth was she going to do? Walk out on him with just her pair of matching suitcases? What good would that do her? He’d probably laugh at her, move Becca in and cancel her monthly allowance. Should she change the locks when he was out at work? But how would she stand legally if she did? Paul and his solicitor Nick Newey were as thick as thieves. She would need to find her own solicitor first and get her advice — her advice because the last thing she was going to do was hire a man to represent her. She selected another photo. In this one Paul and Becca were kissing and his hand was touching her bottom. Janice felt the bitter taste of bile rising in her throat and fought it back down. No, she told herself, I will not be beaten. Not by him. Not when he’s the one in the wrong.
She stood up and went through to the small study which in theory they both shared, though Paul preferred to lounge on the sofa while checking his emails and do all his internet stuff in front of the giant TV. She opened the third desk drawer and pulled out a brown envelope. She picked up a rollerball pen in her right hand and wrote — rather slowly since she was left-handed — her husband’s name and work address on it. Out of the same drawer she located a first class stamp and stuck it on. She went back to the kitchen and inserted that single photo into the envelope, which she sealed. She returned the rest of the photos to Mullen’s envelope and hid them in the utility cupboard behind all the cleaning materials. Paul would never find them there. Then she made her way to the front door. There was a mail box at the end of the road and five minutes later the envelope addressed to Paul Atkinson was safely inside it and she was back home.
She went to the fridge, extricated a bottle of white wine — there was always a bottle of white wine chilling in Janice’s fridge — and poured herself a large glass. She would probably regret it later, but she didn’t care. She deserved it. The die was cast. She had crossed the Rubicon. She imagined Paul at work on Monday, opening the envelope, his jaw dropping when he realised what the contents were, his Adam’s apple bobbing crazily in his throat. Or suppose it wasn’t him who opened his post? She had a sudden ghastly thought. Suppose the dragon lady Doreen opened his post for him? Perhaps she should have written ‘confidential’ on the envelope? What would Doreen say or think? She tried to picture the moment as Doreen, all pursed lips and tasteless fashion sense, handed over the offending article to Paul, thumb and forefinger holding it by the corner as if she might infect herself.
Then Janice began to laugh hysterically. It was a great picture.
