Behind Dead Eyes (DC Ian Bradshaw #2) - Howard Linskey Page 0,27

agreed to go for a drink, since that was easier than an argument, even though their walk had barely lasted a hundred yards along the river bank.

As she headed for the pub she found herself wondering whether Tom Carney would have wimped out of a bracing autumn walk like that. No, she thought, he wouldn’t, but he would probably have been just as dismissive of Helen’s romantic view of its post-industrial landscape, with its cranes and heavy girders in perpetual motion on the south side of the river. Tom was like a lot of people she’d met since she’d moved up here: fiercely defensive of the north-east to outsiders but just as likely to do the place down amongst themselves for its lack of opportunities. Absent-mindedly, Helen found herself wondering what Tom Carney was doing right now.

Chapter Eleven

‘When the police first questioned you, you denied you were having an affair with Rebecca Holt.’

‘Yes,’ admitted Bell and Tom waited for an explanation. ‘Well you would, wouldn’t you? I panicked. At that point I thought I was only putting my marriage in jeopardy but denying it at the beginning made me look bad later when it was mentioned in court. I understand that now. The prosecution made it sound like I was an effortless liar who wasn’t even upset to learn the news of Rebeca’s death.’

‘And were you?’ Tom said. ‘Upset, I mean?’

‘Of course!’ Bell said. ‘I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I cared for Rebecca deeply, and when the police told me she’d been killed, well, it was a complete shock.’

‘What did they say?’

‘That Rebecca’s body had been found in her car. That it was parked in a lovers’ lane and she had been murdered.’

‘Did they say how she’d been killed?’

‘Not at first but I asked them.’

‘And what did they say?

‘With a blunt instrument.’

‘How did you feel when you heard that?’

‘How do you think I felt?’ Bell snapped.

‘I have no idea,’ said Tom calmly. ‘Maybe you were shocked and completely devastated or perhaps you were worried the police thought you’d done it. Possibly you were panicking because you didn’t want your wife to find out about your secret lover, maybe you were worrying about everything you could lose: the job, the money, the house, the family. I don’t know, Richard, because I don’t know you. That’s the point and it’s why I’m asking these questions … and if you want me to help you then you really should consider answering them.’

Richard Bell held up a hand to placate Tom. ‘I’m sorry, you’re right, you don’t know me or anything about me apart from what I’ve told you and the stuff you read about in the newspapers.’ He was quiet then and seemed to be recalling the moment when the police knocked on his door. Eventually he spoke: ‘It was like someone had punched me in the guts. I remember having to make a conscious effort of will just to stay standing and not crumple to the ground in front of them.’

‘Did they question you right there on the doorstep?’

‘Pretty much; they asked me about my relationship with the victim. I told them we were friends who had met at the sports club. They then asked me if we were just friends and I assured them we were.’ And he shook his head, ‘I didn’t know they already knew. Otherwise …’ Richard shrugged.

‘You would have confessed to the relationship?’

‘Yes, of course – but at that point I was still hoping it wouldn’t all come out. I was in damage limitation mode.’

‘How did they know?’

‘One of my notes,’ he answered. ‘Rebecca stuffed it into the glove compartment. She must have forgotten to destroy it. Obviously they found it straight away. I don’t think the police ever seriously looked beyond me as a line of enquiry from that day to this.’

‘Why not?’

‘I don’t know,’ and when Tom looked unconvinced, ‘I really don’t. You’d have to ask them. I honestly can’t think why they would assume I’d killed Rebecca and not her husband say or some random nutcase.’

‘Oh yes, the nutcase theory,’ said Tom.

‘Why do you say it like that?’

Tom quoted from Bell’s letter: ‘He’s still out there, waiting to do it again.’

‘Got your attention, didn’t it?’ Bell smiled grimly.

‘That the only reason you wrote it in your letter?’ asked Tom. ‘To get me out here?’

‘There have been reports of a man roaming the area near the lovers’ lane for years. Numerous incidents have been attributed to that man or possibly several men. The