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‘Well, I have no idea. He works for me on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I have no idea what he does on Fridays. I have no idea about him at all really. He’s a very nice man. But I think he has some issues.’
‘What kind of issues?’
‘Well, drink, mainly. He’s a drinker. Spent some time in prison too over the years, I believe. And just generally a bit of a loner.’
‘And has he ever said anything to you about having been a musician? In his youth?’
‘No. No, he hasn’t. But I have seen him once or twice in the village pub playing the tambourine with a local band. It wasn’t his tambourine, he just picked it up and joined in. As if he was sort ofdrawnto it, you might say. So that’s something that makes it seem likely, don’t you think?’
‘Yes. I think it does.’
‘And there was another thing in the article that caught my eye,’ Cath Manwaring continues. ‘It said something about the house where they think Birdie might have died, about a suicide pact and people poisoning themselves with a homemade tincture. And Justin has offered on occasion to resurrect our herb garden. He says he used to be an apothecary. That he spent years living on a smallholding growing herbs and making potions. I tried to find out more about it, but he didn’t seem to want to expand on it.’
I make some noises down the line to express my interest in what Cath Manwaring has just said, and I make notes that are not actually notes but lively pencil doodlings which express the thrill that is beginning to consume me. I believe that this manisJustin Redding. I believe it with every iota of my being.
‘But listen. Like I say, he’s very nice man. But very damaged. A man on the edge, you might say. And if it is him, if he is Justin Redding, I wouldn’t want him getting hauled in and dragged over the coals for something he didn’t do. I would feel terrible. I mean, do you really think he did it?’
‘Mrs Manwaring, at this point, I really cannot say. But I strongly suspect that he will know something about the house where Birdie died and, at the very least, he will be able to help us move our investigation along.’
‘Are you going to come out? To Cowbridge?’
‘Yes. I am going to come out to Cowbridge.’
According to Google Maps it will take me three and a half hours to drive from here to Cowbridge. A seven-hour return journey. But Libby Jones and Miller Roe are due to meet me here at the stationat 3 p.m. and even if I were to leave right now, I would have no time to do anything other than turn right round and come straight back if I want to stand any chance of making the meeting. I call Donal.
‘Donal. I have a big request. When Miss Jones and Mr Roe arrive this afternoon, please could I ask you to step in and oversee the conversation? I have to go to Wales. I will be back to join you as soon as I possibly can.’
Donal of course says yes. He loves to interview. And I take the car from outside the station, type the name Cowbridge Business Park into my satnav and go.
The British countryside is a beautiful thing, especially in June. The blinding fields of rape. The puffball trees on swollen hills. The tumbling baskets of flowers hanging outside country pubs. I have some music playing, a mix of pop songs and some jazz from the 1920s; you can hear the crackle of the needle on the vinyl. I have my window open, and my heart is full of anticipation. I asked Cath Manwaring if she perhaps had a phone number for Justin Ugley and she told me that, as far as she is aware, Justin Ugley does not own a phone. So I am coming to him unannounced and he will be unprepared and, really, that is the best way for me to find him. Newly born.
I pull off the A road a few metres past the business centre and take a farm track as described to me by Cath Manwaring in the closing moments of our phone call. After a few minutes I see the shape of a van reveal itself to me over the top of a hedgerow and I know that I am there.
The camper van is painted black and gold and has a canopyattached, under which there is an armchair, a threadbare rug and a table piled with books. Also the remains of a lunch: an apple core, an empty crisp packet, some crumbs and a crumpled napkin.
I see movement behind the tiny letterbox windows at the back of the vehicle and step out of my car. The movement stops at the sound of my car door closing. I fold up my sunglasses and I walk towards the van. The side door is open so I call out: ‘Justin Ugley?’
It takes a long moment for him to appear and then when he does, I am taken somewhat aback by his appearance. Equally, I can see that he is very taken aback by my appearance as I strongly suspect that there are not very many men of colour to be seen in this corner of the world. Justin’s appearance is alarming because he is very dirty. Not dirty like a person who doesn’t wash, but dirty like someone who has been in dirt. His clothes, his face, his hair, his hands.
‘Hello?’
‘Good afternoon, Mr Ugley. I am DI Samuel Owusu. I work in the special crime division at Charing Cross, in London. I wondered if you had time to answer some questions?’
‘What about?’
He wipes his hands on a wet rag and I see tattoos reveal themselves. I notice pieces of jewellery on his face that catch the light, in his eyebrows, his nose, and in his ears. His hair is long and tied away from his face with a rag. He looks like a man from another time, another age. But even beneath the dirt and the hair and the piercings I can see that Cath Manwaring was correct. This is clearly the man in the photographs of Birdie’s band, the Original Version.
‘About a woman called Bridget Dunlop-Evers. Or Birdie. I believe that you were once in a relationship with her?’ I say.
‘How the hell do you know that? I mean, how did you find me? I don’t understand. I haven’t seen Birdie for, like, twenty years. Longer. What’s happened to her? Is she OK?’
‘No. I’m afraid not, Mr Ugley. She was reported missing by her family in 1996 and was never found. About two weeks ago her remains were found on the bank of the River Thames.’
I watch his face. He looks genuinely shocked. But whether that is because his former love is dead or because a crime he committed twenty-five years ago and thought he had got away with has come back to catch him out, I cannot tell.
‘Seriously?’
‘Yes. I’m afraid so.’
