Chapter 57
The stranger introduces himself as retired Detective Constable Gordon Webber, formerly with Notts Police and now a civilian investigator serving with something called the East Midlands Special Operations Unit.
He has some sort of official ID but it looks unconvincing and my instincts are still tingling: there is something about this man that doesn’t feel quite right, something in his manner, the tension in his shoulders.
The sharp movements of his eyes. Although the Rolex looks like the real one—the one I had found upstairs—not the fake I’d bought online a couple of days ago.
“We can talk out here on your drive if you want,” he says. “But I don’t think you’ll want your neighbors to overhear what I’m going to tell you.”
“How long have you been retired?”
“A few years.” His expression remains blank. “Like I said, you have to surrender your warrant card when you finish. Otherwise there would be a million retired coppers all running around, using their IDs to stick their noses into God knows what.”
“Just like you’re doing now?”
“Give me ten minutes and I’ll tell you why I’m here.”
He takes his phone from his pocket, taps the screen a few times, and holds it out to me.
The display is filled with an old story from the BBC East Midlands, the layout blocky and basic in the style of an old web page.
I can’t see the date but the image seems to be of him reading a statement outside a large concrete-clad building—albeit a younger, leaner, less gray version of him.
The caption says: “Detective Gordon Webber made a public appeal for information.”
“That was me,” he says. “Back in the day.”
I hand the phone back to him. I’ve had enough strangers in my house for one week, but there is still that old familiar itch of curiosity to hear what he’s got to say.
“They do really good coffee at the Trip,” I say. “And I could use the caffeine. If it’s all the same to you?”
Webber shrugs his big shoulders. “Fair enough.”
He doesn’t seem to have a car, so I drive us down the hill onto Castle Boulevard, then pull a left and park outside the Olde Trip to Jerusalem pub.
We pass the couple of minutes’ journey in silence and he follows me into the garden seating area, past the familiar claim on the white-painted wall—the oldest inn in England—to a table in the far corner.
It’s not busy, still a bit too early for the lunchtime crowd, but it feels better to be in a public place.
I get the drinks in and bring them out to the table, where he sits with his back to the wall puffing on a small black vape. The smoke has a sickly sweet cherry tinge to it.
He gives me a nod of thanks, taking a long pull on his pint of bitter. “Been a few years since I was in here.”
“It never changes,” I say. “Apart from the staff getting younger.”
He takes the Rolex from his jacket and lays it on the stained wooden table between us. As when he’d first shown me on the doorstep, the watch is sealed inside a clear plastic bag.
“So,” he says quietly. “Where did you get this, Adam?”
“It’s not stolen, if that’s what you think.”
He gives me a strange look. “Not recently, anyway.”
“What does that mean?”
“Did you buy it from someone?”
I take a sip of my Americano, relishing the instant dark hit of caffeine.
“I take it you got my details from the manager of the jeweler’s shop in town?”
“Correct.”
He had been looking for this particular watch, he says, for years—setting up online alerts on all the big internet trading websites, registering what he called an NIPC advisory—a Notice of Interest in the Proceeds of Crime—with jewelers and pawnbrokers all over the Midlands.
Checking in with them all every so often in case they had come across a Rolex Explorer with a very specific engraving on the back.
“I knew it would surface sooner or later,” he says. “A valuable piece like that, it was only a matter of time before someone decided to cash in.”
“Seems like an awful lot of trouble to go to for a wristwatch. No matter how fancy it is.”
“I’m interested in why you suddenly wanted it back,” he says, “only a few days after getting rid of it. I’m guessing it’s something to do with the cuts and bruises on your arms? Those fresh stitches in the back of your head?”
Feeling suddenly exposed, I lean back in my chair.
“Tell me,” I say. “What sort of police work did you used to do?”
“A mixture. Thirteen years in uniform then CID. Ended up on major crime, retired when my thirty years was up. But this was always the case that stayed with me, the one that I could never let go of. So when they offered me the gig as a civilian investigator with the Special Operations Unit, I jumped at the chance.”
“What case? A stolen wristwatch?”
He shakes his head, taking another deep puff on the vape and blowing a thick stream of gray smoke above my head. “You’re not in any trouble, if that’s what you’re wondering.”
“That’s a matter of opinion.”
This seems to get his attention. He studies me over the lip of his glass, small blue eyes holding me with an unblinking stare.
“How did you get that bang on the head, Adam?”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to lie, to skirt around what had really happened rather than open myself up to this man, this stranger who had found his way to my door.
But then I think of Jess and the children, of the threats to burn down my house, the seeming inability of the police to do anything to protect us, and can’t see what else I’ve got to lose by just telling the truth.
“Someone came into my house,” I say. “On Saturday night. They cut the power and when I confronted them, they kicked me down the cellar stairs. I was knocked out cold for a bit.”
He sits up straighter in his chair, setting his pint glass down hard on the table.
“I see,” he breathes. “So they found you already? Did they take anything?”
“Who is they, exactly?”
“In a minute. Tell me everything first—start from the beginning.”
I drink more of my coffee and briefly run through the other events of the past ten days, including the pursuit and crash last night.
He taps the plastic-wrapped watch that lies between us.
“So it wasn’t just this?” he says. “You found other items too in this chest of drawers? It would help if I could examine all of it.”
“Hold on,” I say. “You’ve barely told me anything about your interest in all of this. Your turn to give me something, I think.”
“You’re right. And it’s also my round.” He points to my nearly empty coffee cup. “Same again?”
I nod and he stands, lumbering off between tables toward the side entrance of the pub. The black briefcase, I notice, he’s left behind next to our table. But the watch had disappeared back into the pocket of his voluminous suit jacket.
The pub garden has started to fill up a little now that it’s gone past midday, office workers from Castle Wharf bringing drinks out to occupy more of the tables in the warm spring sunshine, a handful of tourists comparing selfies taken with the Robin Hood statue just up the hill.
After spending half an hour with Webber, I’m still not sure whether I trust him, whether he’s telling me the whole truth, and he’s still not really explained why he’s taken the trouble of tracking me down after acquiring that Rolex.
He re-emerges into the garden with a fresh drink in each hand, sets the steaming black coffee down in front of me, and eases down into his own seat with a second pint of bitter.
As before, he takes the watch from his jacket pocket and puts it carefully on the table. But this time he lays it facedown, smoothing out the plastic so he can point to the finely tooled inscription on the back of the casing: EJS 11–29–75.
“This Rolex,” he says, “belonged to a man called Edward John Stiles. It was given to him on his eighteenth birthday, in November 1993, a gift from his maternal grandfather. Quite the favorite grandchild, Edward was, from what we could glean later. And he wore this watch on special occasions. Never replaced it, always took good care of it, and had it serviced every year. Does the name Edward Stiles mean anything to you?”
“It’s not familiar.” I shake my head. “Should it be?”
“Perhaps not. It was a long time ago.”
“Was he a… suspect in a crime you were investigating?”
“No. Not a suspect.” He studies me for a long moment, taking a slow drink and wiping a film of beer froth from his mustache when he’s done. “Edward Stiles was murdered. And his killer was never caught.”