BLIND SPOT - AND TWO OTHERS

BLIND SPOT PART 4

13

  DI Silver dropped me off at my office and I arranged to meet him back at the police station in an hour. I made myself a coffee and sat myself behind my desk and from my stationery draw assembled the raw components of a new file – a hardback folder and a blank sheet of paper.

  Next, with one of the pens that I kept neatly in my top drawer, I began to write, fluently and rapidly beginning with the date. I made notes of how Simon Nunn had died, the notes of my interviews with Jodi West, Dr Madsen, and Miss Joanna Finn; the conversation with Reverend Harkett, the prognosis of Dr Reed and the actions that I had taken thus far.

  I gave my new case a serial number, which I wrote, along with the legend Unexplained Death – Simon Nunn, on the spine, before stowing the file in its place at the far right of the shelf.

  Back at the station, DI Silver was pouring a mug of coffee from his machine when I knocked at the open door of his office.

  “Sit down, John.” I sat. The Detective Inspector motioned with an empty mug, but I turned down the offer and waited for my good friend to get to his chair and the point.

  “It’s my birthday next week, John.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “I’d like a present.”

  “Not just a card this year then?”

  “I’ve had the Assistant Commissioner on the blower, and he has been bending my ear over this Simon Nunn case.” DI Silver cupped his hands around his coffee mug. “He wants a resolution. Media interest is growing. He says it looks like a straightforward suicide and can’t understand why we haven’t said so.”

  “Because, I don’t think it is.”

  “Why not?”

  “There is no reason,” I said. “He had just booked a holiday. Has no history of depression? Not the usual profile for a suicide, don’t you think?”

  DI Silver’s eyes narrowed. “I can’t go back to the Assistant Commissioner with one of your hunches.”

“At the moment, that’s all I’ve got.”

  “You’ve got forty-eight hours, and then I am making an announcement it was suicide.”

  “I’d better get on with it then.” The Detective Inspector watched me get to my feet. “Let’s go and deal with your time-traveller first, shall we?”

  I waited for Archie to be brought up the cells to the interview room again. For a few moments I watched from the darkness of the observation suite as he carefully walked across the floor, turning, and retracing his steps, trying to put his feet carefully on the same squares of carpet.

  I opened the door and startled him. The look of fear in his eyes had if anything deepened.

  The Legal Aid solicitor followed me into the room and took up her position.

  It was stale and warm in the room and my numbed hands started to throb as the feeling returned to them.

  I said nothing. I moved a jug of water and a stack of plastic cups to one side and placed a foolscap pad in front of me on the interview table and started writing. When I had finished, I turned the pad round, so that the solicitor and her client could see what I had written.

  “What’s this?” Archie asked. His eyes mad with fear.

  “This is how your stolen vehicle became a time machine.”

  He leaned forward and looked again at the foolscap pad.

   11.55

  A minute later:

   11.56

  Two minutes later:

  Still 11.56 instead of 11.58

  A minute later:

   11.55 Instead of 11.59

  And at six o’clock:

    18. OC                                     

  “I don’t understand?” Archie said. He was breathing in rapid, truncated gasps and his forehead was beaded with sweat. “I know what I saw.”

  Rowena Crutchley remained silent and took notes. I could hear the scratch of the pen on paper, the rustle as the pages were turned over, the hum of the radiator and, outside, the creak of the trees.

  I had gone over these words many times in my head on the return journey, and they were starting to sound unreal. With the tiny resonance of a performance, I was an actor repeating lines that I had memorized, listening to my voice as I spoke noting the effect of my words on the faces opposite me.

  “You admitted that the car was unfamiliar to you,” I said civilly. “You probably hadn’t even checked the clock.”

  “No, I hadn’t.” He admitted with embarrassment.

  “It’s okay, Archie,” I told him, pouring a cup of water. “Just relax.”

  He reached forward, needing two hands to raise the cup to his lips. His eyes were watching me as he drank.

  “The clock on the dashboard was digital and the top-right vertical stroke of the last digit was not working.” I jabbed the foolscap pad with my index finger. “That was why you thought you were going back in time one minute and then going forward the next.”

Archie burst out laughing. “My God, what a bloody i***t I’ve been.”

  I stood up. “You were a bloody i***t when you tried to help your mates steal the car and rob the post office.” With an air of finality, I walked to the door and spoke back into the room. “Don’t worry about it though, Archie. You’ll have plenty of opportunity to make up for lost time.”

14

  On Sunday morning, Kimberley and I decided to get away from it all by staying in bed. I nipped out early for croissants and papers from the local corner shop, and we ate breakfast from a tray on top of the bed covers, sharing sections of the newspapers, discarding more than we read.

  There was no mention of the Simon Nunn case. The hearing wasn’t until Wednesday so there would be nothing in the nationals, but I knew there would be something about it on the local radio news, so I was quite content for once, when Kimberley turned the bedside radio to a classical station.

  I’d managed four hours sleep after re-reading the case files and there was a warm pleasure in curling up against the body already asleep and even more pleasure in pushing Charlie off the bed as I did so.

  “We’re eating out,” Kimberley said now.

  “When?”

  “Lunch today.”

  “Where?”

  “That place out at Oxmarket St Mary.”

  “The Chinese Restaurant?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “I’ve heard it’s excellent.” I paused. “About lunch. . . I have got some work to do concerning Simon Nunn’s death.”

  “Oh no, you don’t.”

  “Kimberley, there’s been a -”

  “A development?”

  “Yes.”

  “John, I want you to find out what happened more than anyone but there will always be developments as far as you are concerned and there will be some developments here if we don’t start spending some more time together.”

  She was right and after booking a table, by midday I was driving along a pot-holed road which led from a pair of rotting gateposts into the farmyard. The house itself, an undistinguished arrangement of mud-coloured bricks, stood in a drift of sodden leaves and stared blankly from symmetrically grubby windows. Colourless paint peeled quietly from the woodwork and no smoke rose from the chimneys.

  The Chinese restaurant was in a converted barn, and you could see where the owner of the farm had invested his money. The décor was rustic but clean and a waiter was upon us at once and led us to a table for two. A waitress smiled with her eyes as she handed us each a menu. The waiter returned with the wine list which he placed beside me.

  “Would you like a drink while you are deciding?”

  I looked at Kimberley for guidance. “Gin and tonic,” she said without hesitation.

  “And a pint of Calvors for me,” I said without thinking.

  “So, what’s this development then?”

  “There isn’t one really,” I admitted. “And that’s the problem.”

  “You’ll get there eventually,” she said encouragingly.

  “I hope so,” I said, not totally convincingly. I was still studying the menu and had decided that Kimberley could order for both of us.

  The waiter returned with our drinks.

  “Are you ready to order?”

  “I already know what I want,” Kimberley said. “What about you, John?”

  “You choose,” I said, sipping the beer.

  She smiled and made her selection for both of us.

  Now, I know how to use chopsticks but for some unknown reason I suddenly found myself unable to pick up a noodle or a sliver of duck without the thing sliding out of my grasp and falling back to the table, splashing sauce across the tablecloth. The more it happened, the more frustrated I became and the more it happened. Finally, I asked for a fork.

  “My coordination’s all gone,” I explained. Kimberley smiled in understanding (or was it sympathy?) and poured more tea into my tiny cup. Over a starter of crabmeat, the talk had been safe, guarded, but I could sense she was impatient to tell me something. I stabbed my fork into an unresisting slice of meat and looked at her ready to listen.

  “I took some flowers to the crime scene on Friday,” she told me.

  I knew that by seeming to concentrate on her words, that I had an excuse for staring at her beautiful face, consuming it with eyes more proficient than any cutlery.

  “I went there yesterday,” I told her, “but there was too many people there. Press, TV and the public.”

  “What were you hoping to find?”

  “Answers.”

  Kimberley took a sip of her tea. The restaurant, though hectic, might have been empty. The table was our territory. I took a gulp of the still-scalding tea. Tea! I could kill for another glass of cold Calvors.

  “Why Simon Nunn fell.”

  Kimberley shook her head. “You’ve lost me.”

  “Every day, Simon Nunn left his home and walked along the coastal path. He had trouble with his eyesight but that never phased him. Admittedly, it was foggy, but that wouldn’t affect him.” I paused. “Yet, he fell to his death.”

  “And you’re no nearer to finding out why?”

  I shook my head, scooping more rice into my bowl. “All I’ve got to go on is a foggy morning and an unanchored buoy.”

 Kimberley toyed with her food but ate nothing. The remainder of the meat in her bowl had a cold, gelatinous look. “I checked his workload. He wasn’t working on anything high level. He didn’t have high enough security clearance.”

  “What was he working on?”

  “Continuous improvement projects,” she said looking at her bowl.

  “I was expecting more jargon,” I teased her.

  The waiter had come to clear away our dishes. I sat back, wiping my lips with the serviette.

 “Any coffees or liqueurs, sir?”

  I looked to Kimberley. “I think I’ll have a Courvosier.”

  “Just coffee for me,” I said. “No, hold on, what the hell, I’ll have the same.” The waiter bowed and moved off, his arms heavy with crockery.

  “It’s an ideal pushed by Bio-Preparations,” she sat forward in her chair, the palms of her hands pressed to the tablecloth. “The contract with the Ministry of Defence is up for renewal next year, and we have to make sure that we are not resting on our laurels.”

  “Sounds interesting,” I told her.

  “It’s bullshit, really,” she laughed. “But it’s what we have to do.”

  After drinking our liqueurs and two cups of coffee and paying the bill, we walked off lunch by taking a stroll round the farm despite the drizzle that hung in the air like gossamer, coming across a couple of outbuildings, where one contained a tractor covered with about six years’ mud. In another, a heap of dusty-looking coke rubbed shoulders with a jumbled stack of old broken crates and sawn up branches of trees. A larger shed housed dirt and cobwebs and nothing else.

  While we wandered, a large man in a striped knitted cap with a scarlet pom-pom came around a corner at the far end. He also wore a vast sloppy pale blue jumper, and filthy jeans tucked into heavyweight gum boots. Fair haired, with a round weather-beaten face, he looked cheerful and uncomplicated.

  “Hullo,” he said. “I hope you enjoyed your meal.” His voice was light and pleasant, with a touch of local accent.

  “Yes, it was very nice,” Kimberley answered.

  “Duncan is an excellent chef,” he told us.

  “Duncan?” I repeated. “Duncan Parry?”

  “The very same,” he grinned. “Do you know him?”

  “By reputation only,” I said.

  The man took a few steps forward and shook our hands. “I’m Adam Plume. I own this place.”

  “John Handful,” I said, “and this is my fiancée, Kimberley Ashlyn Gere.”

 “John Handful?”

  “That’s right.”

  “The private detective?”

  “Yes,” I was afraid where the questioning was leading.

  “Come up to the house,” he requested, “I might have a little mystery for you to solve.”

15

  He led the way into the house through the half-opened back door, where a clock ticked with a loud cheap mechanism and the smell of wellington boots richly acquainted with cow-pat vigorously assaulted the nose. Someone had dumped a parcel of meat nearly the kitchen table from which a thread of watery blood, having by-passed the newspaper wrapping, was making a small pink pool on the stone floor.

  There was a small television fixed to the wall where the match between Arsenal and Spurs was on. Kimberley tagged at my arm and I rather begrudgingly turned away from the action.

  Adam Plume did nothing about the dripping meat and added to the wellington smell by clumping across the floor to the farthest door, which he opened.

  “Lisa?” He shouted. “Lisa!”

  “She’s around somewhere,” he said, shrugging, and coming back. “Never mind. Want some coffee?”

  We both said no, but when he prepared a large pot and left it percolating on the Aga we changed our minds. He found some mugs, sugar, and milk, and after he turned the television off, we all sat at the kitchen table and I took out my notebook and pen.

  “What are you doing?” He looked at me with a flustered expression. “I just want you to listen.”

  “No problem,” I said easily, removing my mobile phone from my pocket, and replacing the notebook and pen.

  “Before I start,” he said, grinning, as though this concession made up for his objection to the notebook. “Let’s go into the living-room. It’s a bit more comfortable.”

  Adam Plume’s idea of comfortable was certainly different to Kimberley’s and mine. It was as well-worn and untidy as the rest of the house. Drifts of clutter, letters, newspapers, clothing and toys, and indiscriminate bits of junk lay on every flat surface, including the chairs and the floor. There was a vase of dead and desiccated chrysanthemums on a window sill, and some brazen cobwebs networked the ceiling. Cold ash from the day before filled the grate. I was glad we hadn’t seen this room before we had eaten in the restaurant because it was a toss-up whether one called the house, lived-in or squalid.

  “Sit down if you can find somewhere,” Plume said. “Don’t know what Lisa has been up to.”

  We sat on the end of the sofa after he had swept a crumpled jumper and a pile of newspapers and magazines onto the floor and waited for him to explain what he wanted from me.

  “I have four lads working for me,” he explained. “Frank, Trevor, John and Franco. I thought I could trust them. But one of them is stealing from me.”

  “What are they taking?” Kimberley asked.

  “Eggs.”

  “Eggs?” I asked, trying to hide the merest trace of irony.

  “The yield of my hens is down by nearly thirty per cent.”

  “Could there be another reason?” Kimberley pressed.

  “I can’t find one,” he sniffed. “I’ve had the vet look them over. He couldn’t find anything wrong with them. Cost me a bloody fortune.”

  “Have you questioned the lads?” I suggested.

  “Of course,” he said.

  “What did they say?”

  “Frank said it was Trevor. Trevor said it was Franco. John said it definitely wasn’t him and Franco said that Trevor was telling porkies. Any suggestions.”

  I sipped my coffee. “Probably only one of your lads is telling the truth.”

  “Only one?” He quizzed.

  “Only one,” I repeated.

  “So, who is stealing the eggs?” Kimberley asked me.

  “John.”

  “John?” John Plume exclaimed. “Bloody hell! He’s been with me the longest.”

  The door opened and a large woman in a brown dress came in. She had thick fair down on her legs and a pair of puffed ankles bulged over the edges of some battered blue bedroom slippers. Nevertheless, she was very light on her feet and she moved slowly, so that her progress seemed to be a weightless drift: no mean feat considering she must have topped twelve stone.

  A mass of fine light-brown hair hung in an amorphous cloud round her head, from which a pair of dreamy eyes surveyed the world as though half asleep. Her face was soft and rounded, not young, but still in a way immature. Her fantasy life, I guessed uncharitably, was more real to her than the present. She had been far away in the past hour, much farther than upstairs.

  “Did you call me earlier?” She asked her husband.

  He stood up several seconds after me. “Lisa, this is John Handful, the private detective and his fiancée, Kimberley Ashlyn Gere.”

  “Hello.” She transferred her vague gaze to the pair of us. “Pleased to meet you.”

  “Where have you been?” Her husband said. “Didn’t you hear me calling?”

  “Calling?” She shook her head. “I was making the beds, of course.” She stood in the centre of the room, looking doubtfully around at the mess. “Why didn’t you light the fire?”

  I glanced involuntarily at the heap of ashes in the grate, but Lisa Plume saw them as no obstacle at all. From a scratched oak box beside the hearth she produced three firelighters and a handful of sticks. These went on top of the ashes, which got only a desultory poke. She struck a match, lit the firelighters, and made a wigwam of coal. The new fire flared up good-tempered on the body of the old while Lisa took the hearth brush and swept a few cinders unattainable behind a pile of logs.

  Fascinated, I watched her continue with her housework. She drifted across to the dead flowers, opened the window and threw them out. She emptied the water from the vase after them, then put it back on the window sill and shut the window.

  From behind the sofa where Kimberley and I sat she pulled a large brown cardboard box. On the outside was stencilled Kellogg’s Cornflakes, 12 x Family Size and on the inside it was half filled with the same sort of jumble which was lying around the room. She wafted methodically around in a large circle taking everything up and throwing it just as it came into the box, a process which took approximately three minutes. She then pushed the box unattainable again behind the sofa and plumped up the seat cushion of one of the armchairs before sitting on it. The room, tidy and with the brightly blazing fire, looked staggeringly different. The cobwebs were still there but one felt it might be their turn tomorrow.

  “I’ve asked Mr Handful to help me find out who is stealing the eggs.” He told her, eventually. “He thinks it is, John.”

  “And how did you work that one out?” She asked me unconvinced.

  “He is the only one not to blame the others,” I told her. “It is almost a subconscious admittance of guilt.”

  “I don’t understand,” she said.

  “If it were Frank, John and Franco would both be telling the truth. If it were Trevor, then each of the other three is being honest. And if it were Franco, then neither Trevor nor John is telling lies. But if it’s John, then only Trevor is not fibbing.”

  In the short silence that followed I suddenly realized everyone was looking at me. I started to feel uncomfortable as I noticed a look of malicious amusement appear on Lisa Plume’s face. I guessed that it would needle her if I crossed what she evidently saw as an invisible line between us; she did not think that sitting at a table with her gave me the right to her conversation. I noticed Lisa’s quick smirk at her husband. I had the impression that she had been looking for an exchange of complicit glances but her husband was too busy rushing to fill the uncomfortable pause.

  “How certain are you, Mr Handful?” He asked me. “I don’t want to start accusing someone if he’s not guilty.”

  “Look for signs in his body language,” I told him. “Unless John is a skilled liar, there are many clues which may indicate whether he is lying. Many people think the avoidance of eye contact is an indication of dishonesty. However, this may not necessarily be true; it can be a result of cultural differences, shyness, or low self-esteem. Regardless, there are many other tell-tale facial signs.”

  “Go on.”

  “His eyes may momentarily and unconsciously flicker to the left or right,” I began, “Pupils of the eyes may narrow. Lying is stressful. It can cause certain areas of the body to become dry. He may lick his lips or run his tongue across his teeth. He may swallow hard. He may have inappropriate facial reactions in comparison to what he is saying. He may have a fake smile. When a smile is sincere, all the facial muscles are used. When a smile is insincere, only the muscles around the mouth are used. For instance, if a smile is insincere, the smile wrinkles around the eyes usually do not appear. Furthermore, when a smile is forced, the teeth usually do not appear. He may have a blank expression. Eyes move down and to the left or right.”

  “How am I going to remember all this?”

  “There is more,” I continued, “He may act nervous, fidgety, or tap his foot. He may rub his forehead near the temples. People may feel threatened when they lie. He may keep the arms close to the body as a protective measure. He may perspire more. A thin layer of perspiration may appear on the face and palms. His face may become flushed. He may bite his lower lip or suck in his cheeks. When a person is stressed, tissues in the nose will fill up with blood, and their nose may itch. When a person lies, they may revert to childhood reactions like covering their mouth, touching their head, or wringing their hands. He may hide his palms or put his hands in his pockets. He may fiddle with objects or place objects between you and himself. He will be less likely to face you directly and may turn his face or body away from you. He may cross his arms or legs. He may subconsciously try to hide his guilt by shaping his body in a way that occupies less space. His posture might not be straight. He may slouch and pull his chest in. He may breathe heavier or use fewer hand gestures. He is less likely to correct imperfections in his story and more than likely he’ll use second and third personal pronouns like we and they rather than I.”

  I noticed by now I had the wife’s attention and Kimberley just looked at me admiringly. “The way a person talks can also reveal if they are lying. When people lie, they normally get defensive and raise their voice. Their voice tone may also be lower, and they appear less confident. They may answer a question with another question. For example, if you ask John if he took the eggs. He may answer, ‘No. I did not take the eggs.’ To get out of an uncomfortable situation, he may talk rapidly. A guilty person usually becomes defensive, whereas an innocent person becomes offensive. John may speak more slowly; pause in between words; use stilted language or use filler words like uh, um, and ah while trying to choose his words or think of an explanation. He may say too much or too little. He will be more likely to give short responses. He might tend to use fewer contractions. For instance, if you ask him, ‘Did you steal the eggs?’ He may answer, ‘I did not steal the eggs.’ He may use terms like ‘to be perfectly honest’ or ‘to tell the truth.’ He may take longer before answering a question, and he will be more likely to ask a question to be repeated. Although none of these signs are conclusive by themselves, when you notice several signs, the chances are fairly good they are lying. One thing to remember when you are assessing behaviour is whatever tell-tale sign you observe, it normally coincides with the moment the lie is being told. Furthermore, baseline behaviour is important. If you know what a person acts like normally, it is easier to spot differences. Compare how they act before and after the suspected lie. Were they more relaxed before or after the suspected lie?”

  John Plume stood up, delved into his back pockets, and produced a hundred pounds in five-pound notes and handed them to me.

  “Thank you, Mr Handful,” he said. “You have been a great help.”