The Pursuit of Truth Read online

  ‘I’ve changed my mind about Bird, though, sir. Officious little git I thought, but he turns out to be quite a wise old you know what.’

  ‘I don’t know what. What?’

  ‘Bird!’ Teague uttered the word as if in triumph.

  ‘Christ, Teague, you made that joke yesterday. If you could call it that.’

  Teague appeared chastened. ‘Sorry, sir. But, seriously, he’s no fool. Knows a lot that’s been going on. That Ms Walters, for example. Her and a German woman are a pair, he says.’

  ‘Yes, I know that. Walters told me herself this morning.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Did he say anything about Wright?’

  ‘Stuck up little bastard is what he said. Nothing else.’

  ‘And Crouch?’

  ‘His name didn’t come up.’

  ‘What about Reyes?’

  ‘Wouldn’t trust him an inch.’

  ‘Did he say why?’

  ‘Greasy oriental.’

  ‘That’s helpful. Did you find anything new in the statements?’

  ‘No, not really, sir.’

  ‘When you see him next, ask him if anyone on the staff does the rounds at night. Did anyone go up on the tutors’ corridor on Friday night. Now why don’t we get something to eat?’

  While they waited for their food – a prawn sandwich for Healey and a double cheeseburger and chips for Teague – Healey told his sergeant what he had learned that morning. They were the only people in the lounge, and when he spoke about the bank statements, he took them out of the envelope and pushed them across the table. ‘Why don’t you look at them yourself and see what you think.’ Teague took them and studied each of them carefully.

  ‘Well?’ asked Healey. Before Teague could respond, the barmaid arrived with their food, planting it on the table, together with salt, ketchup and brown sauce. Teague took the plastic ketchup container and began to shake it vigorously, before suddenly stopping.

  ‘Sorry, you asked me …’

  ‘Never mind. Let’s eat first.’

  They had hardly begun to eat, however, when over Teague’s shoulder Healey saw the door open and Peter Farrell appear. ‘Put them away,’ muttered Healey. Teague looked puzzled. ‘The statements,’ hissed Healey. As Farrell approached, Teague rolled them up and stuffed them into his inside jacket pocket.

  Farrell stopped a few feet short of them. ‘You’re working,’ he said.

  ‘No,’ replied Healey. ‘Sit down. Let me get you a drink.’ He motioned towards the seat beside him. ‘What’ll it be?’

  ‘Half of shandy would be nice, thanks.’

  While Healey went to the bar, Teague ignored Farrell and concentrated on his food. When Healey got back, he handed Farrell the shandy and raised his own almost empty glass. ‘Cheers,’ he said.

  ‘Cheers.’ Farrell sipped at his drink. ‘I had to get away from the Hall. Everyone’s after me. Now we haven’t got Neville, I’ve had to distribute his participants among the other tutors but they’re all complaining. The tutors, I mean. Seem to think I should take on his group myself. Ha! As if I didn’t have enough to do. I asked Chris this morning if he’d help out, but he says he’s too busy working on his book. Don’t blame him really, though the BC would pay him.’

  ‘BC?’ asked Healey.

  ‘British Council.’

  Healey nodded. ‘That reminds me. The forms they send you on the participants, I wonder if I could look at the one for the Filipino, Reyes.’

  ‘You’re welcome to, but I don’t have it myself. Tim will. I gave them to the tutors.’

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘A problem?’

  ‘No, it’s just that I spoke to him this morning and he could have told me he had the form.’

  ‘I suppose he just didn’t think.’

  ‘Perhaps not,’ said Healey, though he thought exactly the opposite. ‘Do you think you could get it from him for me?’

  ‘Of course.’ Farrell stood up. ‘Thanks for the drink. I’m going to walk back home now. Time for a siesta, I think.’

  ‘Do you want a lift?’

  ‘No thanks. The walk will do me good.’

  ‘Then do you mind if I walk back with you? I could do with the exercise myself.’

  ‘Not at all. But what about your sandwich? Do you want me to wait?’

  ‘No, I don’t really want it.’ Healey stood up.

  At this point Teague, who had thus far studiously ignored their conversation, looked up at Healey expectantly.

  ‘I’ll catch you later, Teague,’ was all that Healey said.

  On the way back to their respective houses, Farrell asked Healey if he fancied meeting up for a pint later. Healey was initially non-committal, but as they got to Farrell’s gate and were about to separate, he said that yes, he wouldn’t mind going for a pint and Farrell said that in that case how about going at ten. ‘Ten’s fine,’ said Healey. ‘I’ll call by for you.’

  Once in his house, Healey called out his wife’s name. There was no answer. He slipped off his shoes, went into the front room, and switched on the cricket. He could watch a few minutes and then walk back to the Hall to check the incident room, speak to Teague, and pick up his car. The next thing he knew, however, his wife was shaking his shoulder. ‘Dick,’ she said. ‘Didn’t you hear the phone? It was the Super. You were supposed to meet him at three.’

  ‘What! No I wasn’t.’

  ‘Well he thinks you were.’

  ‘Oh, no.’ Healey staggered to the phone in the hall, feeling suddenly quite sick. It took him a moment to realise that the receiver had already been put back on its cradle. ‘What did you say to him?’ he called out.

  ‘I said I didn’t know where you were.’

  Healey followed his wife into the kitchen, intending to tell her that as usual she had said the wrong thing, but when he saw that she was already making him the cup of tea he so desperately needed, he said nothing.

  The sensible thing to do now would be to go back to the Hall, call the Super from there, and hang around, browsing through the files. But what would be the point, except to make him look better in other people’s eyes? Whose eyes? The Super’s? Teague’s? Gifford’s even? No, to hell with them. He would phone the Super from home and then sit down and think the whole thing through and plan for tomorrow. That was what he was paid to do, and whether he did it in the office, at the Hall, or here at home didn’t matter one jot. He’d leave the car where it was, down the unmade road beside the Queen’s Head.

  better … better … better today

  Crouch, that shit

  I had to

  I was right to

  After supper, Healey went down to the bottom of the garden, through the gap in the Leylandii, and into his shed. After the heat of the day it was stifling in there and smelled strongly of the pine that it was built from. He took the handles of his old rotary mower and backing towards the door pulled the machine out with him. He pushed it through the gap and onto the lawn, and then proceeded to walk with it up towards the house and then back again, making the stripes that gave him such pleasure. Methodically, as the box on the front of the mower filled with clippings, he took it off and carried it down to the bottom of the garden and emptied its contents onto the compost heap, pulling out the last few blades of grass, enjoying their warmth on his hands. The lawn mowing ritual was soothing, and he remembered watching his father doing just the same thing thirty years before. He paused as he thought of this, and of his wife saying that he was becoming more like his father every day, which was not intended as a compliment, but was not something that troubled him.

  Standing there, he became aware of the scent of burning wood. Looking over the fence to his left, he saw a plume of smoke rising lazily and uncertainly from a garden perhaps fifty yards away. Could well be Peter Farrell’s, he thought. Funny to think of them having lived so close for years and never spoken to each other, and now, all of a sudden, it was as if they had known each other for ages. As he continued up and down t
he lawn, and was thinking of cutting along the edges of the curves of the flower-beds, the light began to fade and lights went on in the children’s bedrooms. He pushed up towards the house and saw through Jamie’s bedroom window his son jumping up and down, using his bed as a trampoline. So much zest for life, he thought; I hope he doesn’t lose it.

  By the time he had finished the lawn, it was almost ten and time to go out. He had a quick wash, put on a clean shirt, and looked into the telly room, where his wife was watching a film. ‘Just off, love,’ he said. ‘Going to the pub with Peter Farrell. Won’t be late.’

  ‘Okay. You won’t bring him back here, will you?’

  ‘Shouldn’t think so. Why?’

  ‘It’s just that I’ll have to clean the bathroom and tidy up and …’

  ‘No, don’t bother. I won’t ask him in. See you later.’

  Parked near Farrell’s house stood the big old Rover in which Carter had driven them from the pub on Saturday night. Healey looked at it admiringly before approaching the door and ringing the bell. Pam Farrell answered.

  ‘He’s in the back garden.’ she said, ‘Just go through.’ Healey went through the side gate, past the kitchen door, and into the garden, which was given over entirely to a scruffy, patchy lawn, near the bottom of which stood Farrell, beside a rusty old incinerator in the form of a metal basket on legs, from which smoke was billowing, obscuring most of the shed that stood behind it. So he’d been right. Farrell strode towards him.

  ‘Sorry, I hadn’t realised the time. Been talking to Chris. Did you see him? He just left.’

  ‘No, but I saw his car.’

  ‘Oh, he must have gone through the house. I won’t be a minute. Why don’t you come inside.’

  ‘Thanks, but I’ll wait here, if you don’t mind.’

  ‘Of course not.’

  Farrell went into the house and Healey walked down to the incinerator. The smoke no longer smelled of wood but of the grass clippings that must have just been put on the fire. In the fading light, Healey thought he saw a glimpse of something red beside the incinerator and stooped down to look. At that moment, however, Pam Farrell appeared behind him. ‘Peter said to give you this,’ she said, handing over three or four slim booklets. ‘He said you might like to have a quick look at them before you leave.’ It was too dark to read in the garden and Healey followed her back to the house, glancing at the booklets once he got to the light coming from the kitchen. They were for the part-time courses that Farrell had spoken to him about.

  The Three Tuns was largely empty, most people having chosen to sit at the benches on the tarmac at the side. Healey and Farrell were sitting in a corner near one of the doors that had been jammed open in an attempt to create a draught through the otherwise hot and airless lounge. After two pints of Guinness, and with a third in front of them, they were feeling comfortable, untroubled by the heat. ‘So did you ever see the Beatles at the Cavern?’ asked Farrell.

  ‘Just once. I’m not sure I’d even heard of them. A girlfriend took me. Said I had to see them. It was that very cold winter. There was thick snow. The buses stopped running and we had to walk home. ‘Love me do’ they sang. I can remember the walls running with condensation, people jumping up and down, Coke bottles in their hands – don’t know what was in them, though. Did you ever go?’

  ‘To the Cavern, yes. But I didn’t see them. A bit too young. Still, great days.’

  Healey laughed. ‘You make us sound like old men.’

  ‘Well, we aren’t that young. How old are you, Richard?’

  ‘Forty-three. And you?’

  ‘A mere thirty-five.’

  ‘Lucky man. Life doesn’t begin for you for another five years.’

  ‘Four years and a few days, actually.’

  ‘How old is Chris Carter?’

  ‘A year older than me.’

  The two men lifted their glasses in silence, as if pondering these revelations. It was Healey who spoke first. ‘How long have you been married, Peter?’

  ‘Fourteen years.’

  ‘Do you find, I mean, I do … ’

  Farrell grinned. ‘Find what?’

  Even emboldened by drink, Healey wished he hadn’t begun to ask the question but he had to go on with it. ‘That as you get older and you’ve been married longer, other women seem more and more attractive?’

  ‘Than?’

  ‘Than they did before, I suppose.’

  Farrell shook his head. ‘No, I can’t say that’s true for me. But that’s something to do with the fact that since the age of ten I’ve spent most of my life thinking about them.’ He grinned again. ‘And in our job there’s plenty to make you think. A new batch every year. I don’t know how I get through a lecture sometimes, seeing them there sitting in front of me.’

  Healey knew he couldn’t ask Farrell the question he wanted to. Instead he said ‘Does it ever happen, between students and staff, I mean?’

  ‘Well it happened to Chris. That’s not a secret by the way. It was my first year here and I didn’t really know him. He kept very much to himself, as he does now mostly. Anyhow, there was a young Moroccan lady on the MA. They took to each other. Nobody knew it was going on, at least not among the staff. It seems the students all knew but they were very discreet. Anyhow, a year after the course ended she came back to do a PhD. And not long after that she became Mrs Carter. Mrs Carter the second. She works in the Department now.’

  ‘And Mrs Carter the first?’

  ‘She had a breakdown. She’s been hospitalised ever since. Fair Mile.’

  ‘The psychiatric …’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘They must have divorced.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Willingly on her part?’

  ‘Who knows?’

  ‘Terrible thing. Presumably it was because of what happened?’

  ‘That she had a breakdown?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Chris doesn’t talk about it. The only thing he ever said to me was that she was always like that. The affair didn’t change anything.’

  Healey took their now empty glasses and stood up. ‘Another?’

  ‘Thanks.’

  The pub had filled up and Healey had to queue at the bar. It was a while before he got back with their Guinness. ‘OU again,’ said Farrell. ‘Must have just finished a meeting or something.’

  Healey sat down, took a long drink, then asked, ‘So, Chris Carter, he’s quite a powerhouse, isn’t he?’

  ‘Certainly is. Makes me tired just to think of the work he gets through.’

  ‘What drives a man to work so hard?’

  ‘Ambition, but don’t ask me where that comes from. I know I don’t have it. But you’ve also got to have good health, the right metabolism, and a lack of inhibition – know what you want and go for it.’

  ‘So you’ve thought about it.’

  ‘You couldn’t help but think about it, seeing it in front of you every day.’

  ‘And don’t you need to enjoy what you’re doing? And believe in it?’

  ‘I suppose so, though I’m not sure. I suspect believing in yourself and enjoying your success is probably enough. One thing I’m sure of, though, is that it’s like a drug, for Chris at least. I’ve seen him once or twice when he wasn’t able to work for one reason or another, and he was in a miserable state. Withdrawal symptoms. I suppose you get people like that in the police as well.’

  Healey thought immediately of one former colleague who was now the youngest assistant chief constable in Britain. ‘Yes. I imagine you get them in all walks of life. What about Neville Crouch? Was he ambitious?’

  ‘Neville? He may have had ambitions but he was never going to achieve them. I said about inhibitions. Well he was riddled with them. He was a perfectionist but he didn’t have the ability to get even near what he thought was perfection. He never finished anything. I hate to say this now he’s dead, but he should never have been given the job. Even his lectures, which he spent days preparing, the stude
nts didn’t like. If you don’t do good research, you have to be a good teacher to survive. And Neville was good at neither.’

  ‘And the book he wrote with Chris Carter?’

  ‘You know that Chris rewrote most of what Neville had done?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘In fact, I think that was hard on Neville. I know he found it humiliating but he was so keen to get published that he just accepted it. Actually, he showed me what he had written and I didn’t think it was too bad at all. Pretty solid really. But not up to Chris’s standards. He can be quite ruthless in things like that.’

  Healey digested this information before asking, ‘What about women?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Was he keen on them?’

  ‘Neville?’

  Healey nodded.

  ‘I suspect Teresa was the first woman he ever had. Without paying, that is. Have you seen her?’

  Healey nodded and Farrell continued. ‘I don’t think he could believe his luck. A woman like that. No, he wasn’t going to risk losing her, even if he had the chance, which I doubt. He did everything for her. Was always buying her presents, a lot of jewellery apparently. At least that’s what I heard. And then there was his daughter. He was besotted with her.’

  ‘What about Teresa? Do you think she ever thought of … of other possibilities?’

  Farrell seemed to stiffen slightly. ‘I don’t know, but somehow I doubt it. He’d rescued her from a fate worse than death, by all accounts, or at least from life as a Manila bar girl. Besides, she never seemed to go out, so I don’t know who she could have met. Never came to departmental parties. Neville always came on his own. They never had people to their house either.’

  ‘You say he bought her lots of presents. Jewellery. Presumably not cheap. Where would he get the money for that? Did he do outside work?’

  ‘Not that I know of. He got a bit on top of his lecturer’s salary for the administration he did. You knew he was the Departmental Administrator?’