No Spoken Word Read online

  ‘So was Tony Ward working for the service you were referring to?’

  ‘Tony?’ Diana questioned, almost laughing. ‘Oh good Lord, no. Tony wouldn’t have touched those people with somebody else’s bargepole’.

  ‘But you are saying that the service knew that Maria was confiding in Tony Ward?’

  ‘I think they must’ve done’ said Diana. She really shouldn’t have said what she did on that blasted mobile phone. Why couldn’t she have kept her bloody mouth shut?’

  ‘So did the service give Maria the phone?

  ‘No, Tony did’ said Diana, firmly. ‘But the service must’ve got hold of the fact and decided to use it’.

  ‘Why would they do that?’

  ‘Because of Maria’s background!’ she blurted out as if she’d been holding it back for years and years. ‘She always knew she’d been adopted but she it was only this year that her search revealed that her biological father was Vincent Taylor. Surely you must know about him and his personal history? His little adventure to the Soviet Union?’

  ‘Yes, we do’ Barton confirmed. ‘What else did Maria Taylor find out?’

  ‘That her mother had disappeared shortly before Maria was adopted’.

  ‘And just how did she get to know about all of that?’ asked DI Ollie Wright. ‘Had she been researching?’

  ‘No. She received it all in an anonymous letter’ Diana revealed. ‘Everything about her natural father being Vincent Taylor, everything about her mother having disappeared, everything about her father giving her up for adoption because his mission was to defect’.

  ‘Any idea who the anonymous source of this letter might be?’

  ‘No’ said Diana. ‘I have no knowledge of Maria’s family relationships other than I knew that her adoptive parents both died when she was in her twenties. You’ll never really get to the bottom of all this, you know. Not really’.

  ‘Oh I think I’ll get at least one decent conviction out of this’ said Barton. ‘I’m hoping on several’.

  ‘Decent? You think any of this is in any way decent?’

  ‘Any of what?’

  ‘Any of what you think I can tell you’.

  ‘Well you just tell me what you think I need to know and then I’ll decide if it’s decent or not’.

  ‘You’re very sure of yourself’.

  ‘I have the position and experience to be’ Barton retorted. ‘As I believe you have too, well, the experience anyway but no longer the position of course, although having said that your position was always to do with your husband wasn’t it, but the difference here is that I’m on the side of law and order and have the power to make you pay for what you know and have so far withheld from us. So come on, get on with it. I’m getting rather bored with your continued prevarication. You see, you and your husband may be attached in some way to the British intelligence services, an attachment that goes back to your days in Moscow, but in case you hadn’t noticed they aren’t coming charging into here to rescue you from the sins of ordinary law breaking. So as I’ve said before, please get on with it because I am your only way to minimise what you could be charged with’.

  Diana felt her spirits sink like morsels of food she’d just digested. Barton was right in some ways. She had crawled along on her husband’s coat tails which was why she’d done what she’d done. She’d been prepared by all the forward thinking women around her when she was going through her formative years to strike out for womanhood and determine her own journey. They didn’t want her to be merely attached to wherever her man was going. They wanted her to be the mistress of her own destiny. But what they were all forgetting was to listen to whatever she actually wanted. And she wanted a more traditional marriage with all the trappings that an avowed feminist would be apoplectic about. That’s what she’d wanted. That’s what she’d found with James who was a man with the type of career for whom she could keep house whilst he worked. But a posting to Moscow had put an end to any ideas she’d ever had of leading a normal conventional life. And now it had come to the time when some of the debts she owed had to be repaid by potentially betraying yet another agent.

  ‘There was a man’ she blurted out suddenly as if she’d been searching the universe for the right words to carry the right message.

  ‘Can you narrow that down a little?’

  ‘Oh for God’s sake can you please stop trying to better me with your wise cracks or else I will withdraw my co-operation!’

  She sounded desperate, thought Barton. Perhaps he should lay off her a little and just let her come through with what she was willing to reveal.

  ‘Okay’ said Barton. ‘You have a deal’.

  ‘Well stick to it’ she warned. ‘I have no patience for anymore of your games’.

  Barton noticed Rankin’s hand touch Diana’s arm but she pushed it away. The look on Rankin’s face could’ve sliced Barton’s head off with apparent ease.

  ‘My games?’

  ‘You know what I mean’.

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t’ said Barton. ‘But what I do know is that I need you to tell me more about this man. I presume it’s to do with the murder of Maria Taylor and maybe also Tony Ward?’

  ‘I knew there was something wrong that day, so did my husband’ Diana explained, ignoring what Barton had just said. ‘But my husband was well in control of his feelings as he always is. These days they call it emotionally self-contained. They attribute the same quality to President Obama and Chancellor Merkel. That must be one of the reasons why they’ve been able to get as far as they have but anyway, I watched Sylvia leave in her car just after nine o’clock’.

  ‘So you were lying before when you told us you hadn’t seen Sylvia Clarke that day?’

  Diana fixed Barton with the coldness of her eyes. ‘Yes but I didn’t know how much I should tell then and I’m still not sure now’.

  ‘I don’t understand?’

  ‘How much I should tell you of what I know’.

  ‘You should tell us exactly what you know, Mrs. Matthews. There should be no debate about that’.

  ‘Yes, well, you’re very lucky that you’ve never had to avoid so much of the truth in your life’ said Diana.

  ‘And what do you mean by that?’ asked Barton but then thought better of it. ‘Actually, don’t answer that. You’ve wasted too much police time as it is. Just carry on please and don’t be selective about how much of the truth you tell us because by doing that you’d be committing a serious offence’.

  Diana took a deep breath as an alternative for going for Barton’s throat.

  ‘Like I said before, I knew something was wrong’ Diana continued. ‘Sylvia never went away for the day like that, and leaving so early, but they had been having problems so I thought it must be something to do with that, you know. Then when I walked over to the shop to see Maria she confirmed that Sylvia had taken a drive so that they could have a bit of space from each other and a few hours apart to sort their heads out. Throughout the morning and early afternoon I kept looking up at the shop from my kitchen window looking for signs of anything untoward going on. I went to the shop three times but Maria said she was fine. Then in the afternoon my husband James went to pick our granddaughter Hannah up from school and bring her back to ours. It was a little after three in the afternoon when I first saw the man’.

  ‘Can you describe him to me?’

  ‘He was tall. He had light brown hair and was in his late twenties. I didn’t get that much of a clear view of him and don’t forget I was riven with fear’.

  ‘You just saw a complete stranger and immediately decided it was some bloke who’d come to murder your best friend?’ Barton questioned sarcastically.

  ‘I saw him cut the CCTV camera lines and that’s when I got really nervous’.

  ‘So why didn’t you call the police?’

  ‘I don’t know why! I know it was madness but I made my way up to the shop as quickly but as carefully as I could to try and not be noticed. I heard the shots and saw the man r
un out of the back door. Maria was dead’. Her voice faltered and broke. ‘I’m sorry’.

  ‘Take your time, Mrs. Matthews’ said Barton.

  ‘Then I saw Tony Ward come running towards the man. He raised his gun but the man was ahead of him and shot him dead. It was on the edge of the small wood behind our properties. That’s when I backed off. I was absolutely horrified at what I’d seen being played out. It terrified me. I watched the man running off and I ran back to my house. I closed the door and tried to catch my breath. I’m sorry, detective. I know I should’ve spoken up earlier’.

  ‘So why didn’t you?’

  ‘Because I was afraid. Haven’t I told you enough?’

  ‘It doesn’t work like that, Mrs. Matthews! You’re a suspect so you talk until there’s nothing left for you to reveal. Now what you’ve told us may turn out to be very useful but you still haven’t said how you got hold of the mobile phone and why you chose to hide it in your home?’

  ‘I picked it up from beside her body. I wanted to protect her’.

  ‘Protect her from what?’

  ‘Whatever was going on that could hurt her even after her death’.

  ‘Mrs. Matthews, what exactly is your involvement with the intelligence services?’

  ‘That’s something you really will have to ask my husband about’.

  NO SPOKEN WORD

  NINE

  ‘So even if I was a member of the intelligence services, or even just involved with them in some way, do you really think I’d sit here now and tell you all my dirty little secrets?’

  Barton had brought James Matthews in for questioning and he was sitting on the other side of the desk from Barton and DI Ollie Wright in the interview room. Matthews had waved his right to a solicitor but like his wife Diana had been at the start of her interview he was acting all casual as if this was all a mere inconvenience and he’d be home in time for tea and cake. Barton thought he must be used to just clicking his fingers and getting whatever he wanted. He supposed that’s what came when you’d spent your career representing your country to a foreign land.

  ‘Your wife made us quite certain that of the fact that you were involved with the security services’ Wright pressed on. ‘Could she have got something as big as that so mistaken?’

  ‘I don’t know what my wife meant’.

  ‘She referred to the two of you having done enough for the service on that mobile phone message. Any idea what that meant?’

  ‘No’ said Matthews. ‘I’m afraid I don’t’.

  ‘Did you know that the mobile phone used by Maria Taylor was in your house?’

  ‘No’ said Matthews, emphatically. ‘I knew nothing about it’.

  DI Wright then produced a photo-fit of the man described by Diana Matthews as the one she’d seen on the afternoon of the murders of both Maria Taylor and Tony Ward. Barton would be loathed to admit it but it was the only real lead they had so far. And now they had to sit talking to this pompous little twat who must’ve disappeared up his own arse sometime after his second promotion in the diplomatic service. It was easy for Barton to see him in these terms but he had to remember that he may just have something useful to tell them.

  ‘Do you recognise this man?’ DI Wright asked.

  ‘No’.

  ‘With all due respect, Mr. Matthews, you haven’t looked at the photograph’.

  Matthews sighed wearily and looked at the photo-fit that had been placed in front of him. This is what can happen when people like his wife start talking. They end up telling the truth.

  ‘I say again that I don’t recognise this man’.

  ‘You’re sure about that?’

  ‘How many times do I have to repeat it?’

  ‘Until I believe you’re telling the truth’.

  ‘But what makes you doubt me?’

  ‘Your wife’ said DI Wright. ‘Her testimony seemed to have the ring of truth about it’.

  Matthews still didn’t quite know what to make of his wife Diana’s predicament. The police must know that they will never be able to make a charge of accessory to murder stick on the evidence of one mobile phone that Maria had been using to call that useless fool Tony Ward. God how Matthews wished he’d never set eyes on the idiot who he dismissed as being no intellectual equal to himself or Maria for that matter. Or even Diana or Sylvia. And yet he was always there muscling in on whatever the rest of them were doing and always accompanied by that staggeringly awful wife of his. She was always banging on about something or other to do with the perspective of the far left. She was even worse than her husband on occasions and once took great exception to being called a lady in a Manchester restaurant where they’d all met for dinner. She rounded on the waiter and firmly informed him that she was a woman and not a lady and that he could keep his sexism to himself. The poor young man had retreated having been roundly scolded and never made the mistake of using the ‘l’ word again. Matthews didn’t break his heart over Tony Ward’s death but he wished that fate had taken his stupid wife with him.

  ‘You know you’ve got nothing on my wife’ Matthews sneered. ‘That’s why you let her go. You know, even with my vast experience of working with police forces both here and abroad, your level of incompetence really does stand up with the best of them’.

  ‘Sniping at us isn’t going to get you anywhere, Mr. Matthews’ said DI Wright who shared the very low opinion of James Matthews that his boss had. But he also had half a mind this morning on events in his private life. He and his partner were going for their first interview later to become adoptive parents and since making the decision to adopt they’d grown more and more intent on becoming a ‘family’.

  ‘Well what exactly am I doing here?’

  ‘We want to know what your wife meant by referring to the service and by urging us to ask you about any involvement with the security services’.

  ‘And I don’t know the answer to any of that’.

  ‘And we don’t believe you! Why would she make it up so randomly?’

  ‘You really will have to ask her that’.

  ‘How many years have you been married?’

  ‘Which has to do with what exactly?’

  ‘Well you’re saying you don’t know why she said something so fundamentally important to your life after you’ve been married how long ...?’

  ‘Forty-one years’.

  ‘Exactly’ said DI Wright. ‘It just doesn’t ring true’.

  ‘Or maybe it does for someone who may have led some kind of double life all these years?’ said Barton. ‘Looking at your career history it isn’t hard to make assumptions about what might be going on’.

  Matthews smirked. ‘Oh this will be interesting. It’s not as if I’ve never had this kind of crap thrown at me before but go on if it amuses you’.

  ‘I’m just wondering why you were kept in your Moscow post longer than was normally the case with your contemporaries at other postings and then when you were promoted to ambassador to Estonia you suddenly resigned after a few short months’.

  ‘I see’ said Matthews as calmly as he could. He hadn’t expected them to be that thorough. ‘You really have done your home work’.

  ‘We just like to widen the net of the investigation as far as we can, Mr. Matthews. I’m sure you can appreciate that’.

  ‘And I’m sure you can appreciate that my career is a matter of public record and is without a blemish. Now I know what you’re trying to do. You’re trying to big up my background because it’ll make your investigation sexier than usual and bring some kind of different sparkle into your boringly tedious crime fighting lives. Well if you can find a link between allegations about my private associations with the murders of two local people, both of whom were friends of mine then I will take back my accusation of incompetence’.

  ‘The wording of that little speech proves to me that you do have something to hide, Mr. Matthews’.

  ‘Really? And your pursuance of this oh so tenuous line of investigation shows me that yo
u’re clutching at straws and haven’t got a bloody clue where to take this investigation next, so unless you’ve got anything else you want to try and aim at me I’ll be on my way’.

  DS Adrian Bradshaw and DC Joe Alexander made their way into the centre of Manchester to go and see Kath Ward at her second hand book shop at the bottom of Newton Street, just off the northern end of Piccadilly Gardens. They’d parked just south of the square and walked across in the unusually warm sunshine, past the coffee shops and restaurants and the great variety of modern Mancunian life. Alongside the stalls selling all kinds of takeaway food from Arabic to Caribbean to Malaysian to Japanese were the traditional men in beards with microphones telling everyone they should give up their souls to Jesus or they’ll end up in Hell. Then there were the ones with the begging bowls for whom the development of Manchester over recent years into a European centre and a global city had left behind. Prosperity, Bradshaw silently noted, seemed to have to go hand in hand with deprivation and failure. That’s why he’d been working more intensely as a parent lately. He wanted his kids to end up on the side of the winners and since the passing of his wife there was only himself to make sure it happened for all three of his kids. In his job he’d seen so many useless shits who’d had children but were never parents. Theirs were the kids who ended up either with a begging bowl or spent their whole lifetime only one step away from it.

  They turned the corner into Newton Street and the book shop was a couple up on the left. Inside it was packed to the gunnels with books, books, and more books. The frontage of the shop was the traditional display window on either side of the entry door into the treasure trove inside. There were slim, medium and downright obscenely enormous tomes relating to any subject you could mention from fishing in the Derbyshire lakes and rivers to carpentry for those with intermediate skill to collections of knitting patterns from God knows when and of course the usual rich array of novels.