Chapter 8: Gary Fenn
Ray drove.
I sat in the passenger seat and watched the countryside flatten out as we left the city, the same road Claire would have taken that night, the same bends, the same hedgerows pressing close on either side.
We didn't talk much.
There wasn't much to say.
Gary Fenn lived in a static caravan on a plot of land behind a farm supply depot.
There was a rusted transit van parked outside and a satellite dish bolted crookedly to the roof.
Ray had told me on the way that Fenn was fifty-three, worked occasional cash-in-hand jobs, and had no known connection to my family beyond the phone record.
No known connection.
Ray knocked.
The door opened after a long pause.
Gary Fenn was a lean man with the look of someone who had spent years being careful and was tired of it.
He looked at Ray first, then at me, and something shifted in his face — not recognition exactly, but the particular wariness of a man who has been waiting for a knock he knew was coming.
"Mr Fenn," Ray said.
"We'd like to talk to you about a phone call you received about three years ago."
Fenn looked at me again.
"Who are you?"
"My name is Daniel Hartley.
Claire Hartley was my wife."
He closed his eyes for one second.
Then he stepped back and opened the door wider.
Inside was cramped and dim.
He sat on a bench seat along one wall and we took the two chairs across from him.
He didn't offer tea.
He didn't say anything for a long moment.
"I've been thinking about coming forward for two years," he said finally.
"I didn't.
I was scared."
"Tell me what happened," I said.
He looked at his hands.
"A woman called me.
Older.
Very composed.
She said she'd been given my number by someone I used to know — she didn't say who.
She said she needed a job done.
She said a car needed to be run off a road.
She said she'd pay ten thousand upfront and ten thousand after."
The caravan was very quiet.
"She said it needed to look like the driver lost control on a wet road.
She knew the route.
She knew the car.
She knew what time it would be on that road." He swallowed.
"She knew everything."
"Did you do it?" Ray asked.
Fenn looked up.
His eyes were red at the edges.
"I said yes.
I took the money.
And then I — " he stopped.
"I followed the car.
I was behind her on that road.
I had a vehicle.
I could have done it.
I was right there."
He pressed his hands flat on his knees.
"I couldn't," he said.
"I saw the car and I thought about whoever was inside it and I couldn't.
I pulled off at a layby and I sat there for an hour.
And then I heard the sirens."
I went very still.
"She went off the road on her own," Fenn said.
"The bend, the rain, I don't know.
It happened without me.
And I have spent two years not knowing whether that makes me guilty or not." His voice broke on the last word.
"I took money to kjll someone.
I just didn't do it.
Does that make it better?
I don't know."
Ray leaned forward.
"The woman who called you.
Would you recognise her voice?"
"Yes."
"Would you be willing to make a statement to the police?"
Fenn looked at me.
"Will it matter?
She's still d*ad.
It happened anyway."
"It matters," I said.
"Because my daughter deserves to know the truth.
And because the woman who hired you is still walking around.
Still coming to my house.
Still putting her hands on my child."
He was quiet for a long time.
"All right," he said.
"I'll make a statement."
On the drive back, I sat with the window down even though it was cold.
Ray didn't say anything until we were back on the main road.
"She didn't cause the accident," he said carefully.
"Legally, that matters."
"She hired someone to cause it," I said.
"She paid him.
She planned it.
She knew the route and the time and the car."
"Yes."
"Claire d*ed on that road.
Whether Fenn did it or the rain did it — she put Claire on that road knowing what was supposed to happen."
Ray nodded.
He didn't argue.
I called Patricia from the car.
"We have a witness," I said.
"He'll make a statement.
He has details only someone with direct knowledge could have.
And he still has the first payment.
Cash, but he kept it."
Patricia was quiet for a moment.
May you like
"Come in tomorrow morning," she said.
"We're going to the police."
