Chapter 17 #2
‘She said they were shagging,’ Lauren says, after the call has ended. ‘Do you reckon that falls under cross-training?’
‘If it does, I’m signing up for an ultra.’
‘Oi!’ Lauren bashes his thigh.
‘She might be covering for him.’
‘After finding out he’s living with another woman?’ Lauren shakes her head. ‘Doubt it. Men!’ she says again, deliberately this time, throwing Fraser a sidelong glance to see if he’ll rise to the bait.
He doesn’t.
‘Not all men, obviously,’ Lauren adds, because she likes to be balanced, even in jest, and because the majority of men in her life are good ones. Unfortunately the job has made her cynical, and she approaches life now with a cautiousness – almost a suspicion – that she never had before she joined.
They’re heading back into the city centre and, as the traffic slows to a crawl, Lauren sees a street sign up ahead. ‘Take the second left,’ she tells Fraser. ‘Princes Street is where the Lord Admiral pub is.’
‘Ah, date night . . .’
‘I can’t see the Lord Admiral making it into my top ten romantic destinations,’ Lauren says, taking in the boarded-up shops and the graffiti-laden walls around them.
The pub itself butts up to a residential house with walls pockmarked by stubbed-out cigarettes, and a pint glass planted in its barren window box.
The pub isn’t open, but a narrow alleyway takes Lauren and Fraser to a small courtyard at the back of the building.
On the opposite side of the yard is a door into what might once have been a coach house or stables.
‘Hello?’ Lauren tries the back door of the pub. It opens and she calls again. ‘Anyone there?’
‘We’re closed,’ comes a voice. A few seconds later a man appears, wiping his hands on a tea towel. He opens his mouth – perhaps to ask what the hell they’re doing, walking into his pub – but closes it when he sees Lauren’s warrant card. He eyes them warily. ‘I had an inspection last week.’
‘We’re not from licensing.’ Lauren drops her lanyard. ‘We’re investigating a murder. Do you have any CCTV?’
The landlord shakes his head. ‘It puts off the punters.’
Fraser holds up his phone, which shows a photo of Jamie Golding. ‘Do you recognize this man?’
‘Never seen him before,’ the man replies, so automatically that Lauren imagines she could show him pictures of his own mother and she’d get the same answer.
‘We believe he might have been here a couple of weeks before he was killed,’ Lauren says. ‘We’re trying to establish who he was meeting.’
‘We don’t take bookings unless it’s for food.’ The landlord tucks the corner of the tea towel into his belt. It’s badly stained and Lauren feels slightly queasy at the thought of the Lord Admiral’s menu.
‘I’d appreciate your checking,’ Lauren says. ‘The name’s Jamie Golding, and it was November 17th.’
The landlord makes to go, then immediately turns back. ‘The 17th, you say? We were closed. Private function out the back.’ He nods to the building across the courtyard.
‘You’re sure?’ Fraser says.
‘Hundred per cent. They wanted drinks and pork baps, and my barmaid was sick, so I had to close the bar.’
‘What was the booking?’ Lauren turns towards the function room, which is dingy and dated.
She imagines telling her mother that she and Fraser are holding their reception here instead of at Foxleigh Manor, and the thought reminds her she needs to confirm numbers with the caterer.
Maybe they should move to the Lord Admiral.
Eighty pork baps would be a damn sight cheaper than goat’s cheese tartlets and salmon done three ways.
‘It was for a meeting,’ the landlord says. ‘The Freemasons. Name on the booking was the Beacon Lodge. All very cloak-and-dagger, isn’t it?’ He looks at Fraser as he says this.
‘I wouldn’t know.’
‘Trouser legs up, secret handshakes, all that crap? I thought you coppers were all masons.’
‘Not this one,’ Fraser says.
‘Mind if I take a look?’ Lauren’s already walking across the courtyard. Had Jamie been a Freemason? Nadeeka hadn’t mentioned it, but perhaps he hadn’t told her. Could joining a Masonic Lodge have been the secret Nadeeka was convinced Jamie had been keeping from her?
‘Funny bunch.’ The landlord takes a key from his pocket and opens the door. ‘They had one of their lads fetch all the drinks – wouldn’t let me so much as carry a tray. I wasn’t fussed. More fool them, paying me to sit on my arse in an empty bar.’
Lauren looks around the function room, where around fifty mismatched wooden chairs are laid out in rows. ‘How did they pay?’
‘Cash.’
Lauren’s phone rings. If that’s my bloody mother . . . she thinks. But it’s Bahnaz.
‘Boss, I’m at the British Legion. The night Jamie was here, they were closed for a private function.’
‘Freemasons?’
‘How did you know?’
‘Same at the Lord Admiral.’
‘Kenric says they booked the King’s Arms too. There’s a function room out the back, apparently. Matt’s checking out the cinema now.’
‘Can you do some digging into the Freemasons?’ Lauren takes her phone into the courtyard, away from the curious ears of the landlord. ‘Find out how many local lodges there are and start making calls. I want to know if Golding was a member.’
After Lauren ends the call, she stands for a moment in the courtyard, her breath misting the cold air.
A few days ago, they didn’t have a single lead.
They didn’t even have a crime scene. Now Lauren’s head is overflowing with threads she can’t seem to bring together.
Adam Bennington. Scott Hadley. The masons.
Could the Freemasons be responsible for an orchestrated -cover-up to protect a member’s crimes?
It all feels fantastical, like something from a Dan Brown thriller.
She hears Fraser’s footsteps behind her and turns around.
‘Are you all right?’
‘Better now I’m outside.’ Lauren stretches her neck from side to side. ‘That room was giving me the heebie-jeebies.’
‘No windows.’
‘It wasn’t that, it just felt . . .’ She shivers. ‘It felt like something bad had gone down there.’ Lauren sees Fraser’s mouth twitch. ‘Oh, sod off. Just because you don’t believe in intuition doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.’
‘The landlord said the room’s been used a couple of times since the 17th. I’ve had a look around and the place looks surprisingly clean, but let’s see what forensics say.’
Lauren calls CSI as they’re walking back to the car.
‘Speak of the devil!’ Tony Watkins says. ‘Your ears must have been burning. We put Golding’s name into the system with a comparison request against any unidentified bodies, but no joy so far. He’s not languishing in any mortuary, I’m afraid.’
Lauren wonders if this will be one of those murders where the victim’s body is never found; where the perpetrators dumped it at sea or chopped it into pieces and fed it to pigs. Poor Jamie, she thinks. Poor Nadeeka. Grief comes tenfold without the closure a body brings.
‘We also ran a comparison against outstanding crimes,’ Tony says.
‘A few weeks ago, there was an arson at a convenience store a few streets away from Cedar Walk. Uniform found a discarded bottle of lighter fuel nearby, and this is where it gets interesting.’ Tony pauses.
‘The prints on it belong to Jamie Golding.’