A Chance Encounter by Rae Shaw (best ereader for academics .TXT) 📕

in the company of another police officer. Not alone, like this morning.

Bill Clewer had Mark’s eyes and, beneath their wrinkled shadows, Ellen's full lips and narrow chin. The composite of features blurred around his nose and eyebrows, which were thick and wiry. Neither of his kids had his rebellious hair, which coiled around his neck and poked out of his ears in spikes. He was something of a hairy gorilla, which was how Ellen had described him once. As he scraped his chair across the floor and under the table, he bunched his arms into a bundle and leaned forward. If she had expected a handshake, he wasn’t forthcoming. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to touch him, anyway.

‘So, you're Mark's girlfriend,’ he said, the smile creeping up his cheeks. ‘Can I call you Julianna? Or Jules.’

She stopped him there with a frown. ‘Julianna is fine.’

‘So.’ His voice rumbled in his throat. ‘You've come to check me out?’

They were alone in a room, the privilege of special status afforded by the witness protection program. Bill was being constantly moved until his parole began. Then, he would disappear and not even Mark or Ellen would know where he had gone.

‘I've come to ask a question.’ She settled her hands on the table and wove her fingers together into a knot. Her back was upright, knees together and feet firmly flat on the floor. She wasn’t afraid of him, but the defensive posture helped.

‘Ask away.’ He leant back in his seat and stretched his legs out. There was plenty of room under the table for his long legs.

‘Mark is okay, by the way.’

He hauled his feet back and straightened. ‘And Ellie?’

‘They're both okay. Things have settled down, we hope. For you too, now that... he's gone.’ She still shivered when she thought of them both mangled in the smashed car.

‘Will she come and see me? Ellie?’

Julianna shrugged. His grey flecked eyebrows drooped before she answered. ‘Maybe. She's happy where she is. In love, too. I'm sorry, Bill, but she doesn't need you. Don't you think that's a good thing?’

‘I suppose,’ he said. ‘And Mark?’

‘Mark will. He'll come and say goodbye.’

‘Goodbye? I suppose.’ He stared at his hands and sighed heavily, then looked up. ‘Deidre is divorcing me.’

It was news to Julianna, and probably to Mark. His mother hadn’t spoken to him in weeks, ever since the police had knocked on her door asking awkward questions about her supplying cannabis.

‘She's not following you?’

He chortled, obviously not too upset. ‘Deidre? No. She's not keen on the idea of disappearing at all. Once I turned into a supergrass, she gave up on me. The final straw, I suppose. I'm not the man she married.’

Was she now the woman he had married? Julianna didn’t ask.

‘So what's your question?’ He relaxed into his seat, happy to clear up the family issues with a few brisk question and answers. Prison drained people into empty shells, then left them waiting for life to start over again – parole was edging closer for Bill.

‘Thank you for seeing me,’ she quickly said.

He shrugged. ‘I'm always happy to have visitors.’

‘You see when Mark last came here, he was vague about something and it bugs me, a little.’ A lot, really, she nearly said. ‘He's moving on and I'm the kind of person who likes tidy ends.’

Bill rubbed his rough chin. ‘Sure.’ He rolled his eyes northward, seemingly impatient, as if he was sick of interrogations.

‘How did you know about Haydocks?’ she asked.

He presented a revealing, knowing smile. ‘Ah, Henderson you mean.’

‘You met him?’

‘Yeah. He and I used the same bookies. That's where we met, years and years ago. Chance encounter. He liked a flutter. Dogs, though, not horses.’ He grinned. ‘Won a few in my time.’

‘And that's how you found out about Haydocks?’

His versatile eyebrows melded into one bushy line as he wrinkled his forehead. ‘You mean the money? Nah.’ He leaned forward, closing the gap slightly. On the other side of the door was the prison officer, ready to dash in if she needed him. She had flatly refused to have company. She could take care of herself.

‘But you suggested Mark work for him?’

‘I did. Mark, well, he's bright. He reckons it comes from me, but I'm honest enough to know I'm not that clever. It's that grandpa of his, Deidre's dad, who had the nous between the ears.’ Bill tapped his temple. ‘Having Mark go to Oxford was Deidre's goal, not mine.’

‘She wanted him to be a lawyer.’

Bill laughed. ‘She did. He's a numbers man. So I tell Henderson, the fat git,’ – he patted his belly— ‘nice on the surface, not so, underneath, but, I didn't know that at the time. I tell him my son is keen on the accountancy side, going to study numbers and stuff, and Henderson says, send him to me when he’s ready, I'll make something of him.’

Julianna smiled. ‘But not what he planned.’

‘Aye.’ Bill smirked. He scraped a fingernail noisily along the edge of the table. He wanted to say something, she was sure of it.

‘And the laundering?’

Bill's cheeks went a little red. ‘Didn't find out till I got the sentence. Totally out of the blue. I hears this name floating ‘round the clink, how good Henderson is at hiding money, and blow me, I'd only gone and sent my son to work for him.’

She knew it! ‘Coincidence? You set Mark up with Haydocks by accident?’

He nodded, sheepishly. ‘Ironic, yeah? I thought I was giving my son a clean slate with Henderson. Though to be honest, I might have done it anyway, if I'd known whose money it was. But it was a surprise. I never told Mark when he came to see me; I made out it was intentional, kind of. Do