living room.
‘Anything?’ asked Gallagher hopefully.
‘Not really.’
Gallagher nodded gloomily and the forensics officer walked out into the hallway and left the cottage.
‘Maybe this is a waste of time,’ said the sergeant. ‘Maybe we’re looking for a connection that doesn’t exist. Maybe it’s a good old fashioned loony out to kill the first person he sees. Wrong time, wrong place.’
‘You’re the second person to have said that today.’
‘There you are then.’
‘And you’re both wrong.’
‘Ah.’
‘This feels deliberate,’ said the inspector, replacing the book on the shelf and walking over to stare out of the window. ‘Someone was out to get Trevor Meredith.’
‘I don’t suppose that you have any evidence to support the theory, by any chance?’
‘Don’t complicate things.’
Gallagher surveyed the back of the inspector’s head for a moment: in the year since he had reluctantly forsaken his beloved London to set up home with his fiancée in Levton Bridge, the sergeant had struggled to come to terms with much about his existence in the northern hills. At times, the silence of the hills themselves threatened to stifle the life out of Matty Gallagher after the bustle of the Capital – he sometimes thought that he would kill to hear a car horn in the middle of the night – but the thing which most exercised his mind was the difficulty he experienced in reading Jack Harris. Wondering now if the inspector was joking – everyone knew that Harris was perfectly capable of cutting corners – the sergeant eyed the DCI uncertainly.
The inspector walked over to sit on the settee. Feeling strangely weary, he remembered that he had not eaten anything for hours apart from a chocolate bar up on the moors. Maybe, he thought, looking over at the sergeant, who had now returned his attention to the bureau, a curry might not be a bad idea after all. It was time the inspector bought a pint for the sergeant.
‘So where do we go now then?’ asked Gallagher, lifting up some of the papers before letting them drop haphazardly: several floated on to the carpet. ‘We’ve got nothing here.’
‘Let’s go through what we do have then.’
‘That shouldn’t take long,’ said the sergeant, settling down in one of the armchairs and flicking through his notebook. ‘Trevor Meredith, forty-two, forty-three next month. Manager, and also a director, of Levton Bridge Dog Sanctuary, a not-for-profit company largely dependent on grants and donations.’
‘I gave them fifty quid when I got Scoot there,’ nodded Harris, gesturing to his dog, whose ears pricked when he heard his name.
‘Then you will know that it’s hardly the kind of place where murderous tensions run high. And nothing we hear about Meredith makes me think anything else. If he did have a secret life, he sure as hell kept it well hidden.’
‘I imagine that’s why it was a secret life.’
‘You know what I mean.’
‘What else do we know about Meredith?’
‘Precious little. He came to Levton Bridge ten years ago – looks like he moved here when he got the manager’s job,’ said the sergeant, flicking over a page of his notebook. ‘Here it is – he started work on October the ninth, 1999. He was made a director three years ago. A reward for loyal service – they’d had four managers in three years before that because the pay was so poor and they were delighted that he had stayed.’
‘Where had been before he came here?’
‘The staff reckon he’d been travelling for a few years.’
‘Travelling where?’
Gallagher looked up as Butterfield walked into the room.
‘Ask the lady yourself,’ he said.
‘They didn’t know,’ said the constable, sitting down in the only vacant armchair and stretching out her legs. ‘One of them reckoned it might have been Europe.’
‘It’s a big place,’ said Harris. ‘Couldn’t they be any more specific?’
‘Not sure anyone was interested, guv.’
‘Doesn’t that
‘Anything?’ asked Gallagher hopefully.
‘Not really.’
Gallagher nodded gloomily and the forensics officer walked out into the hallway and left the cottage.
‘Maybe this is a waste of time,’ said the sergeant. ‘Maybe we’re looking for a connection that doesn’t exist. Maybe it’s a good old fashioned loony out to kill the first person he sees. Wrong time, wrong place.’
‘You’re the second person to have said that today.’
‘There you are then.’
‘And you’re both wrong.’
‘Ah.’
‘This feels deliberate,’ said the inspector, replacing the book on the shelf and walking over to stare out of the window. ‘Someone was out to get Trevor Meredith.’
‘I don’t suppose that you have any evidence to support the theory, by any chance?’
‘Don’t complicate things.’
Gallagher surveyed the back of the inspector’s head for a moment: in the year since he had reluctantly forsaken his beloved London to set up home with his fiancée in Levton Bridge, the sergeant had struggled to come to terms with much about his existence in the northern hills. At times, the silence of the hills themselves threatened to stifle the life out of Matty Gallagher after the bustle of the Capital – he sometimes thought that he would kill to hear a car horn in the middle of the night – but the thing which most exercised his mind was the difficulty he experienced in reading Jack Harris. Wondering now if the inspector was joking – everyone knew that Harris was perfectly capable of cutting corners – the sergeant eyed the DCI uncertainly.
The inspector walked over to sit on the settee. Feeling strangely weary, he remembered that he had not eaten anything for hours apart from a chocolate bar up on the moors. Maybe, he thought, looking over at the sergeant, who had now returned his attention to the bureau, a curry might not be a bad idea after all. It was time the inspector bought a pint for the sergeant.
‘So where do we go now then?’ asked Gallagher, lifting up some of the papers before letting them drop haphazardly: several floated on to the carpet. ‘We’ve got nothing here.’
‘Let’s go through what we do have then.’
‘That shouldn’t take long,’ said the sergeant, settling down in one of the armchairs and flicking through his notebook. ‘Trevor Meredith, forty-two, forty-three next month. Manager, and also a director, of Levton Bridge Dog Sanctuary, a not-for-profit company largely dependent on grants and donations.’
‘I gave them fifty quid when I got Scoot there,’ nodded Harris, gesturing to his dog, whose ears pricked when he heard his name.
‘Then you will know that it’s hardly the kind of place where murderous tensions run high. And nothing we hear about Meredith makes me think anything else. If he did have a secret life, he sure as hell kept it well hidden.’
‘I imagine that’s why it was a secret life.’
‘You know what I mean.’
‘What else do we know about Meredith?’
‘Precious little. He came to Levton Bridge ten years ago – looks like he moved here when he got the manager’s job,’ said the sergeant, flicking over a page of his notebook. ‘Here it is – he started work on October the ninth, 1999. He was made a director three years ago. A reward for loyal service – they’d had four managers in three years before that because the pay was so poor and they were delighted that he had stayed.’
‘Where had been before he came here?’
‘The staff reckon he’d been travelling for a few years.’
‘Travelling where?’
Gallagher looked up as Butterfield walked into the room.
‘Ask the lady yourself,’ he said.
‘They didn’t know,’ said the constable, sitting down in the only vacant armchair and stretching out her legs. ‘One of them reckoned it might have been Europe.’
‘It’s a big place,’ said Harris. ‘Couldn’t they be any more specific?’
‘Not sure anyone was interested, guv.’
‘Doesn’t that
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