The Trawlerman, стр. 59
‘Sunburst red.’
‘His pride and joy. The car his father had died in. That’s another story.’
She nodded. ‘I’ve heard it.’
‘Of course you have. It was the car that killed his father. What you didn’t know is it killed the son too. I saw two feet sticking out of it.’
‘Oh God.’
‘That’s right. He had been changing the gearbox, Curly said. Great cars for being able to tinker with, those old Escorts. Curly said Tina had found him like that a little earlier and had called him in a panic, not knowing what to do about it. It fell on his chest and crushed the life out of him. Alex?’ Bill looked at her, suddenly anxious. ‘Are you OK?’
Forty-two
‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’ Bill said.
Alex realised she had her arms pressed against her chest; she felt as if someone were pulling a strap tight around her. ‘I don’t know what it is,’ she whispered. ‘Do you think I’m getting asthma?’
‘You’re sweating,’ he said.
‘It’s the weather. It’s close.’
She was panting like a dog in a hot car. Bill put his arm around her with a tenderness that she was not used to from him. ‘Take some more deep breaths.’
When she had calmed enough, he stood and returned with an earthenware jug of water, which he poured for her. It wasn’t cold, but he had put a sprig of mint in it to freshen it.
‘Better?’
‘I have these dreams. I don’t really remember them. But I just wake up feeling really short of breath. A little like that.’
He nodded.
‘Like a weight is pressing down on me.’
‘Poor girl,’ said Bill.
Lambs almost as big as their mothers were bleating, demanding milk. A breeze blew dandelion seed into the sunlight.
‘Go on then. Tell me what happened, Bill.’
He waited until she’d drunk all the water. ‘You sleeping badly?’
‘Yep.’
‘Drinking too much?’
‘Rich, coming from you, Bill.’
And now a pair of lambs, foreheads thick with new wool, approached to inspect them, sniffing Alex’s trainers. When she stretched out a hand towards them they skittered away. ‘Get on with it. Tell me, Bill, please. I can’t bear it.’
He settled himself on the wooden steps. ‘Frank Hogben hadn’t died straight away. I could see that. His shins were covered in blood from where he’d been kicking up at the car’s sills. He must have been doing it quite a while.’
‘What made you realise it was murder?’
He turned towards her. ‘Why do you say that?’
‘Because if it was just an accident it would have been simple and you’d have just called it in. You obviously didn’t.’
He ran his hand through his hair, then put his elbows back on the step above. ‘I could see that right away. There were two heavy-duty jacks taking the weight under the engine. Both had been let down. You might get one jack failing, but not two.’
‘Someone let the car down on top of him deliberately and crushed him slowly to death. But you still didn’t call it in as murder?’
‘No.’ He sat up again, plucked a long stem of grass that was growing up through the steps. ‘Of course, she said she didn’t do it. She just called when she found him there. Claimed she wasn’t even there.’
‘Why didn’t she call the police, then?’
‘Well, exactly. And Curly told her to call me. Because we were friends.’
‘She might have got away with it. History of domestic abuse. Juries are getting more lenient about that.’
He shook his head. ‘Given the method of murder, I much doubt it. He was still kicking when the second one came down on him. However much he deserved it, that was absolutely premeditated. She would have gone down for a while. What would you have done, Alex?’
‘You know what I would have done.’
He nodded. ‘Oh yes. I know. But I’m not you and I was there, thinking, what shall I do? That’s when Curly told me about the drugs and how he’d intimidated half the neighbourhood.’
The lambs were back again, still curious.
‘And so you took it on yourself to make sure she walked?’
‘Yep. Nobody was going to accuse Danny Fagg of doing it. And there were plenty of people who turned up at the inquest and swore blind they had seen Frank get on The Hopeful the day he disappeared. Curly had seen to that. Even if people thought there might be more to him disappearing, there was nothing for them to go on.’
‘You helped her get rid of the body? Where is it then?’
He looked at her with sadness. ‘I know we’re different, you and me, Alex. I know you do what you feel you have to do now.’
She nodded.
‘I don’t mind going back to jail. I’ve lost all my bloody money, anyway,’ he said with a small laugh.
‘How will you manage?’
‘I’ll manage. It’s Curly and Tina who I worry about. They’ll go down too, won’t they?’
‘What happened to the money?’ she asked. ‘Frank must have had loads. It has never turned up – if it had, they might have figured out that Frank Hogben had been dealing drugs all this time. You got rid of that as well?’
‘We hid all the money, forged or not; Frank’s and Curly’s, same place we hid Frank. It’s somewhere nobody’s ever going to find it. I told Tina and Curly that I’d help Frank disappear, but they had to promise they would never touch any of the money they’d got from all that. Know what? I don’t think either of them really wanted it anyway. They just wanted him gone so badly. That’s all either of them ever wanted.’
‘What about you? Did you ever want the money?’
He was a man who had worked all his life and who was now sitting on the bare step of a dwelling that was no more than a few square feet. ‘I don’t mind saying it’s been on my mind, recently.’
‘I bet it has. You are flat broke, is what I