The Lifers' Club Read online

  ‘Yes, I co-directed with Paul, Paul Flynn, Dr Paul Flynn, as he liked to be known.’

  ‘Yes, I remember you said he was a pompous prick.’

  ‘Did I? Perhaps that was a bit harsh.’ He paused then continued, ‘He was a bit of an oddball, but an excellent administrator. Thorough, methodical, good with the financial side of things.’

  ‘So you had a lot in common, then?’

  Alan shared his brother’s grin for a second. Then he refocused. He had to get this right.

  ‘You know how Dad always said; family must stick together, through thick and thin?’

  ‘So that’s what this is about? Guilty conscience because you’ve been too busy digging up bones to bother with your own flesh and blood?’

  ‘No. I mean you’re right about the guilty conscience…’

  Grahame was leaning forward in his chair now, his teasing smile had vanished.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘What if doing the right thing by your family, by their values, was… deeply morally wrong?’

  ‘What’s this all about, Alan? And what the hell has it got to do with Flax Hole?’

  Alan pulled his wallet from the back pocket of his jeans. Carefully he unfolded the newspaper clipping and handed it over. Grahame read it twice, then looked up.

  ‘This happened when you were there? No wonder you’re spooked.’

  ‘It’s not that. I think I knew him. Ali.’

  ‘And you’re worried that he’s going to be banged-up nearby?’

  It never occurred to Alan that his brother might have deeper concerns.

  ‘No, not at all. It’s more serious than that. I don’t think he did it.’

  Grahame broke in.

  ‘Of course you don’t. You’re too soft. You’d give Genghis Khan the benefit of the doubt if you could.’

  ‘You didn’t see them together, Ali and his sister. There’s no way he could have killed her.’

  ‘OK, but have you got any evidence that might help your case?’

  ‘That’s my problem. I’ve got nothing concrete to go on. Just a feeling, that’s all.’

  ‘Don’t do anything stupid, Alan. Go to the police. They’re trained…’

  ‘Yes, I have contacted the police, or rather a friend there…’

  ‘Don’t tell me, Richard Lane. Your digging buddy?’

  ‘Something like that. He’s moved to Leicestershire. He’s now quite grand: a detective chief inspector.’

  ‘So what did he suggest – if anything?’

  ‘He’s going to find me pictures of Ali and his sister…’

  ‘To make sure,’ Grahame broke in, ‘they’re the people you knew on the dig?’

  ‘They’ve got to be. It’s too much of a coincidence.’

  Alan could see the anxiety in his brother’s eyes.

  ‘You don’t think I ought to be getting involved, do you?’

  Grahame let out a short bark of laughter.

  ‘And that’s why you came to see me, so I could talk you out of it?’

  Alan smiled. Even he could see the funny side. As if his cautious, caring brother had ever been able to talk him out of anything.

  Grahame leant over, put his hand on Alan’s shoulder for a moment.

  ‘Just promise me, when it all blows up in your face…’

  ‘You’ll be the first to know, Grahame. You have my word.’

  Grahame went into the kitchen and came back with two more bottles of beer. The brothers sat in silence, watching the storm rage outside the window, both lost in their own thoughts.

  Four

  The next day dawned sunny and the forecast was for twenty-four hours without any rain. This raised Alan’s spirits as he climbed into Brutus for the journey to Leicester. It wasn’t the greatest vehicle to drive in the rain: like all old Land Rovers the wipers were rubbish and the dashboard vents let the water in. The sliding window on the driver’s side was also leaky and the heater was too feeble to de-mist the windscreen in rain or fog. All in all, it was good for combat and cross-country, but not much else. He put his tin of tobacco on the dashboard and helped himself to two cigarettes for the journey. He lit one and inhaled deeply. The rush of nicotine made him feel strangely relaxed.

  He gently eased the beast into the prosperous outer suburbs of Leicester’s eastern approaches. Brutus looked very out of place here, its chipped matte khaki paint thickly spattered with mud from the quarry site. The houses belonged to senior management types. Most of the cars were hidden away in garages, but a few were out in driveways. Some were being washed by youngsters, probably students on their summer vacations. Apart from the odd Jag there was barely an English car to be seen: just Mercs, BMWs and big Volvos. Alan hadn’t visited Lane’s house in Leicester before, but he’d printed a map off the internet which was propped on the ledge behind the steering wheel. The estate had been built in the late 1920s, probably shortly before the ’29 stock market crash – and it had survived well. The gardens which had been laid-out in prosperous times were large, with mature trees and shrubs. The houses, too, were attractive, if very suburban, with big porches and fine bay windows.

  He steered Brutus into a leafy cul-de-sac. Alan smiled, in Tubney they’d have called it a dead-end. Number 17 was halfway along, on the right. He drew up outside. As Alan stepped down to the pavement he spotted someone kneeling by the front door. She stood up on hearing his door slam shut. It was Lane’s wife Mary.

  She pulled off a pair of rubber gloves to reveal neatly manicured fingers, which she was wiping on her Head Gardener apron. There was a small trug of weeds on the path beside her. As the rest of the garden seemed entirely weed-less, Alan couldn’t imagine where she’d managed to find any. She kissed him on both cheeks, then held him by the shoulders at arm’s length, inspecting him, like a prodigal son.

  ‘You haven’t changed one bit, Alan. Your life seems to suit you.’

  Alan was slightly embarrassed. He wasn’t used to flattery. He should have returned the compliment, but instead said:

  ‘I’m sure Richard’s the same. It’s about doing a rewarding job, I suppose.’

  ‘I wish it was. He’s just been put in charge of an internal reorganisation of the County CID. A thankless task. Lots of backbiting and politics and very little gratitude. And that’s why he’s not here…’

  Alan’s heart sunk.

  ‘He was called out early this morning and should be back,’ she glanced down at her watch, ‘in about half an hour. He texted me ten minutes ago.’ She picked up her trug and put it down on a bench in the porch, then opened the front door. Alan followed her in.

  Alan could see at a glance that Mary was very house-proud. Everything was dust-free, neat and tidy, but the place had that slightly sad feeling of a home that once used to house children, who had now departed.

  ‘How are the twins?’ Alan asked, as they sat down in the kitchen.

  ‘Both at uni. Jane’s here at Leicester, Harry’s at Sheffield.’

  ‘And doing science, I assume?’

  ‘Yes, they’re loving it.’ She paused while she poured boiling water into a teapot.

  Alan remembered the twins well. Bright, enthusiastic ten year olds, they had inherited Lane’s curiosity and Mary’s easy sociability. They used to bring him ‘finds’ from the back garden: a rusty nail, a bottle top, a broken plant pot; all had to be subject to the most thorough forensic analysis over the kitchen table. And now they were all grown up, setting out on careers of their own. Meanwhile Ali was destined to spend his best years locked up. And Sofia was dead.

  Mary placed a cup of tea in front of him, breaking his reverie.

  ‘But you haven’t come to see Richard about his kids, have you?’

  She placed a brown envelope on the table before him. This was unexpected. Alan’s pulse rate suddenly increased.

 
‘Are those the pictures?’

  ‘He said you’d want to see them as soon as you got here.’

  Alan opened the envelope and tipped two colour photos onto the table. The young man’s picture was a prison mugshot, complete with date, number and name cards. He stared blankly ahead, expressionless. The young woman smiled out of the photograph at him, her bright eyes a contrast with the dead gaze of the convict. The scarf covering her hair only accentuated her striking bone structure. She was beautiful. For a moment, Alan was overwhelmed by a sharp, surprisingly painful stab of grief.

  Mary let him look at the pictures for a couple of minutes. Then she spoke.

  ‘It’s them, isn’t it? The kids from Flax Hole?’

  Alan was slow to reply, as if waking up gradually after a late night.

  ‘No doubt about that. None at all.’

  Alan looked up to find Mary staring at him intently. For a moment the thought crossed his mind that Richard Lane had deliberately stayed away for half an hour, to give his wife time to ask him the sort of questions women are better at asking than men.

  ‘Had Richard told you why I wanted to see him?’

  ‘I must admit it does all sound most intriguing. However, if you start digging around in an old case like this, it’s going to put the county force in a difficult position…’

  ‘But surely not Richard, he won’t be affected – he didn’t join them till much later, did he?’

  ‘I know. But he has to work with the people who made the decisions. So you’re going to have to make allowances for him.’

  Alan’s hackles rose. It was the same old story. Don’t rock the boat. Don’t upset the powers that be. He swallowed back his anger, for Ali’s sake. For Sofia’s. He needed Lane, and to get Lane on side, he’d need Mary too.

  ‘I understand. But I can’t just walk away as if nothing happened. I knew Ali quite well. I’m quite convinced nothing would have made him kill his sister. Nothing.’

  ‘Not even family honour? I mean, you don’t know what these Middle Eastern families can be like. Blood’s a lot thicker than water out there, you know… Families are everything.’

  ‘Yes, but the two kids are, were, very westernised. They had mobile phones. They went to local schools. And Turkey isn’t the same as the Middle East…’

  He tailed off. It sounded feeble.

  ‘You obviously liked him,’ Mary said gently.

  ‘Yes I did. He was a nice kid and he just had so much… potential.’

  Mary studied Alan closely. When she spoke, her words were quiet but insistent.

  ‘The thing is, Alan, how do you know he wasn’t putting on an act? The fact is he was convicted of murder. Maybe he had indeed killed his sister and needed to dupe someone like you who’d be a credible character witness in court.’

  It wasn’t what Alan had expected. Mary, who had always seemed so kind, so tolerant, pushed on with her argument.

  ‘Richard told me the newspaper reported that the killing happened in 2002. So how come nothing happened for nearly seven years? To me that suggests an organised cover-up.’

  Alan took a deep breath. Mary was just reporting the facts, as she saw them. As her husband, the policeman, had relayed them to her. Don’t shoot the messenger.

  ‘You didn’t meet him, Mary. He was an open and honest lad. I just don’t believe he was capable of that level of deception.’

  Mary smiled and shook her head.

  ‘He was a teenage boy, Alan. Deception is as natural to them as breathing, believe me.’

  ‘There’s bunking off school and then there’s murder, Mary. Hardly the same thing.’

  ‘But if it was an honour killing then presumably he was acting on instructions from senior members of the family. It wouldn’t have been entirely his own idea?’

  She was trying to soften the blow. Alan was having none of it.

  ‘The trouble is, I still don’t understand the facts of the case. All I’ve seen is that cutting. That’s why I’ve come to see Richard. For one thing, an honour killing suggests fanaticism. He didn’t seem to care about religion at all. I don’t think he even went to Mosque on Fridays.’

  ‘OK, so what did motivate him?’

  Despite his mounting frustration, Alan had to swallow back a smile. Is this what happened when you spent twenty five years married to a policeman? Did the lingo of the job become part of everyday conversation?

  ‘He loved history, old things.’

  Mary smiled at him sympathetically.

  ‘So that’s what it’s all about? The student that got away?’

  For a second, Alan was back in the finds store at Flax Hole, placing artefacts in a sequence, with Ali, bright-eyed and enthusiastic, standing beside him as Alan explained how every object did indeed tell a story.

  Alan shook the image from his mind and refocused on Mary.

  ‘It’s not that simple. His granddad was a wealthy business man. Ali was expected to follow suit. I don’t think he had a choice.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Towards the end of the dig he passed his driving test. His grandfather, Mehmet, bought him an old white Marina van with “Ali’s Delivery Service” painted on the back. And that was that.’

  ‘So he never even had the option of going to university?’

  ‘Family came first. I think they saw it as a useful new branch of their rapidly growing business network. I should have been more persuasive, supported him in exploring other options.’

  Mary gently took Alan’s hand in hers.

  ‘This isn’t your fault, Alan. Can’t you remember when you were that age? I bet you changed every few weeks. I know I did. One minute I loved my parents, the next I thought my mother was a possessive old bitch who was trying to relive her frustrated life through me… If I hadn’t been able to escape to university, make my own life… ’

  As she spoke he felt his resolve stiffening. It seemed like something beyond his control. But he still chose his words carefully.

  ‘It’s hardly the same thing.’

  ‘Isn’t it? An intelligent young man, forced into a menial job by his family. He’s going to be angry, volatile…’

  ‘It’s all conjecture, Mary. You’ve got no proof.’

  ‘No, personally I haven’t. But have you? The boy was given a fair trial. The law’s started its course. He’s locked up and’ll be in prison for years. Let it be.’

  And at that, the front door opened noisily. DCI Lane was back home.

  * * *

  Lane sat down opposite him at the table. No handshake, no small talk, just that steady even gaze.

  ‘So Mary showed you the pictures?’

  ‘It’s them.’

  ‘No doubts?’

  ‘None.’

  ‘We enlarged the girl’s picture from a family snap. Take a look.’

  Lane unzipped a leather file case and produced a copy of the original. Alan looked at it closely. At first his eye was drawn by the smiling face of the pretty girl, but then he found he was looking at two of the men beside her: her brothers Abdul and Little Mehmet. He remembered Abdul: a stern, ever dominant presence. And their younger brother: still just a kid, but bright and lively.

  ‘Yes, that’s her. And the old man on her right’s Mehmet, the grandfather. That’s Ali, and her other brothers, Abdul and Little Mehmet.’

  ‘Again, no doubts?’

  ‘No, none.’

  Alan, who was examining the picture closely, asked:

  ‘And when was it taken?’

  ‘According to the case notes it was found in the attic, with some other stuff of hers, when we searched the house. As you can see, this is a copy. The original one has the date “July 17th, 2001” pencilled on the back. Probably in her handwriting.’

  Alan examined the picture closely. Forensically. It had been taken immedia
tely outside Mehmet’s café and everyone was wearing their best, but nobody dared compete in magnificence with old man Mehmet, whose huge buttonhole of scarlet carnations clashed confidently with the crumpled silk handkerchief in his breast pocket. Behind this group, and at a respectful distance, were the slightly out-of-focus shapes of other suited guests.

  He looked up and found himself wondering what Lane must be thinking. It was obvious from his expression and body language that he’d hoped the pictures would prove Alan’s quest a wild goose chase. No policeman wants to see the Force proved wrong. Then, and as if to confirm this, Lane opened the conversation with what sounded like a government health warning. His words seemed somehow rehearsed and unnatural.

  ‘There’s one other thing you should know. I’m sure you won’t go talking about this to the world, but do keep everything to yourself at this stage.’

  ‘Good heavens, I wasn’t planning to say a word.’

  Lane brushed this aside, and continued.

  ‘At the time the Leicestershire force managed to keep Ali away from the press and TV cameras. It was felt at a very high level that to make him into a monster would whip up prejudice and do huge harm to community relations not just here in the city, but right across the country. And like everyone else in the force, we in the CID did our bit to calm things down. And we also knew that notoriety would make it much harder for a very young man ever to reform.’

  There was a short pause. Alan knew this was important. Now was the time to make a positive response.

  ‘Yes, I agree. It sounds like you did exactly the right thing, considering the circumstances.’

  Lane visibly relaxed and continued, his voice now lighter, more natural.

  ‘Despite our earlier disagreement you might like to know that I don’t always agree with high level meddling, but in this instance I think the powers that be were probably right.’

  Another pause.

  ‘Yes, I agree. But what I don’t yet understand is quite simple…’

  Alan hesitated. This needed to be phrased with care. There was nothing to be gained, and everything to be lost, by opening up old wounds.

  Lane couldn’t conceal his impatience.