Tony continued. “It’s a bit of a cliché Katherine, but do you know if your father had any enemies? Or if he’d fallen out, or he’d had an argument with anyone recently?”
“He was a detective for thirty-odd years, I guess he made loads of enemies over that time. If you mean did I know of anyone who hated him that much to do this to him, then the answer is no. However I do know something was troubling him of late.”
Tony’s eyebrows raised.
“What do you mean, troubling him?”
“Well, as you will have gathered, I’ve been spending quite a lot of time with him, especially over the past month. He’d deteriorated quite a lot in that time. He’d lost a lot of weight and he was in a lot of pain and had trouble sleeping. The nurses had increased his morphine dosage to help him and I found he was chatty more than normal when I went round to sort it out, you know, tidy round a little and get him some of his meals although his appetite had dropped off. I guess that was to do with the morphine.” She handed them their hot drinks. “Sorry, I’m going off at a tangent. What I’m getting round to is that I switched off most of the time. I thought he was just rambling on because of the drugs, but some of his words stuck with me. I thought that some of what he said was a bit strange.”
“Strange?” said Tony.
“Yes. He’d say things like I’ve done some bad things in my time Katherine. I’ve done things when I was detective that I shouldn’t have done. He’d say other stuff like he’d not been a good husband or a good dad but he’d keep going back over the fact that he’d done something bad when he had been a detective.”
“Did he mention exactly what that was?” Tony was asking the questions as Carol took notes.
“To be honest, I don’t exactly know. The last month he was so high on the morphine they were giving him. Some of the time he didn’t always make sense. He’d start with one thing and then start rambling on about something completely different, so I only half-listened to what he was saying. I do recall him saying that he was going to put things right.” She paused for a second, deep in thought. Then she shook her head. “Sorry, I don’t think he expanded on that.” She pulled a face. “I feel awful now that I didn’t listen properly or push him to tell me more.”
“When you say he said he was going to put things right, did he say how he was going to do that?”
Katherine tightened her mouth and shrugged her shoulders. “Sorry. I feel terrible. I wish I’d have listened better to what he was saying.”
“Don’t worry about it. It’s one of those things. You weren’t to know this was going to happen. Would there be anyone else he might have talked to about this? Any other visitors? Close friends?”
For a couple of seconds she stared at the ceiling, as if searching for the answer. Then she returned. “I’m not quite sure. I know he kept in contact with a couple of his ex-colleagues. I’ve turned up a couple of times with bits of shopping for him and he’s been on the phone. I picked up on him reminiscing about jobs he’d been involved in and just guessed it was people he’d worked with. I know he was particularly close to someone from the old days. It’s a good eighteen months ago now, but there were a couple of times when he’d mentioned he’d had a run out in his mate’s car and they’d stopped off at a pub and had a couple of beers and lunch. I think he said his name was Alan, I’ve never met him. Other than that, he seemed to keep himself very much to himself. I’ve only really got to know him since I moved back here five years ago.” She looked up, swallowed hard and returned her gaze. “He’s been living alone since he and mum got divorced back in nineteen-eighty-four. I don’t think there was anyone else in his life, but to be honest that’s not something I would discuss with him. It’s taken quite a lot of time getting to know him again. It’s not been easy for him or me. I went with mum when she left him. We moved to Skegness. We had a caravan there and lived in it for a while. Mum wouldn’t talk about why they’d split up and so I just shut myself off from it all. I was seventeen at the time. I swapped schools for a year, got my A levels, and then I went to uni, where I made a new life. While I was away mum met Derek, my stepfather, and moved in with him and they married. I went back to Mum’s for a short while but it just didn’t feel right. Not that I didn’t get on with Derek or anything, but being away for three years you know I’d moved on. Then I got a job as a sports injury physio at Skegness hospital and moved out. I met Sean, he was a colleague in the same department. It was a bit of a whirlwind romance. We were married within eighteen months. Amy, our daughter, came along a few years later and that was it, I had my own family to focus on. Dad never seemed to feature. He never came to the wedding and never saw his granddaughter until five years ago. Quite sad really. It’s taken a lot to get to know each other again. I only came back this way because Sean and I separated and I saw a job advertised at Barnwell General. It just seemed right to return to my roots.” She stirred her tea, licked the spoon before setting it down and took a long sip of the hot drink. “We’ve never really picked up on the lost years. I had my new job and new house. Don’t get me wrong, I did nip round a couple of times every week and he would have Amy quite a lot when I did my private work in the evenings. And he did my garden regularly. I returned the favour with some home cooking. But whenever I’d raise anything to do with mum or the divorce, he’d just say he’d rather leave that alone. After a while, I just stopped asking him questions.” She switched her gaze between the two detectives. “Don’t we all lead such complicated lives?” It was a rhetorical question. “If only we could go back eh? The sad thing is I was always going to ask why he never came to my wedding and why he never acknowledged the birth of Amy his granddaughter but it never seemed to be the right moment. Even when I knew he was going to die with cancer.”
She took another sip of her tea.
“Sorry to push you Katherine. Just to take you back a little to where your dad mentioned about putting things right. You said that you had overheard some of his phone calls with his old colleagues, reminiscing about jobs. You mentioned one of those colleagues as being called Alan. Do you recall anything from those conversations?”
She shook her head. Her dark bob of hair released itself from behind her ear and fell to the side of her face. She stroked it back.
“I can’t focus at the moment. I’ll think all this over and if anything comes to mind I’ll tell you. There’s so much to take in you understand? It would be worth your time speaking with my mum. Like dad, she’s never really discussed why they split up. I have broached it a few times but all she used to say is what’s done is done. I’ll give Mum her due, she never slagged him off when I was around. ”
“We’ll be doing that as part of our enquiries. And don’t worry about not remembering, something might come to you later. Think about it in your own time. Now just to take you back to Saturday. What time did you last see him?”
“It would roughly be about quarter past four. I’d done a bit of shopping for him with Amy. I was chatting to him as we put it away. He was watching football on Sky.”
“Can you recall anything of what was said?”
“Not exactly. I’m afraid I was going off on one. I told him off about the full ashtray again. Cigarettes are what caused his lung cancer.” She took another sip of her tea, cupping her mug with both hands. “But I do remember the conversation we had on Saturday night when he rung me late on. I remember it because of what he said before he hung up.”
Tony raised his eyebrows. “Tell me about that.”
“When the phone rang, I’d only just poured myself a glass of wine and put my feet up. I let Amy stay up a little later on Saturdays, so it was just after half past ten. To be honest I’d not long tucked her up and got out of the bath myself so I was going to ignore it, until I saw Dad’s name displayed and I thought he might have taken a turn for the worse. I was surprised when I answered because he seemed quite chirpy. He apologised for the time it was and then asked me if I could take him for a run out, the next day, to The George and Dragon pub in Wentworth, he had to meet up with someone Sunday lunchtime. I told him I couldn’t, I had a couple of private work appointments. He said no worries and that he’d get a taxi. I asked him if it was anything important and he said no, that he felt a little better and wanted to sort something out with an old colleague. I feel a bit guilty about it now especially because of what’s happened.”