It was no big deal. I drove home and collected the mail from behind the door. Six items, all junk. I put the kettle on and hung my jacket in the hallway. It wasn’t nine o’ clock yet but I was tired and felt like going to bed. There’d be no red faces in the office tomorrow, no mumbled apologies as we crossed paths in the corridor. We’d be able to continue working together as a team, and that was a big consolation.
I had loosely promised myself to clean the microwave oven tonight, but it could wait. There’d been a slight accident with an exploding chicken Kiev at the weekend, and the kitchen stunk of garlic, but I couldn’t face pulling on another pair of rubber gloves and setting to work with the aerosol of nitric acid, or whatever it was I’d bought for the job. I was sure it said self-cleaning when I bought the oven, but it isn’t. You just can’t believe anything these days.
I made a pot of tea — more tea — and settled down with Dylan on the turntable, unaware of the fiasco being enacted in the town centre. Last night I danced with a stranger, but she just reminded me you are the one. Spot on, Bob. Spot on.
Dick Lane stretches down to the canal in a part of the town that has been heavily redeveloped. Legend has it that the street gets its name from a worker in the woollen industry who could carry bigger bales of wool than anybody else. Twenty-five stones, or some other mind-boggling figure. More mischievous sources say the name is derived from the row of cast-iron posts that runs across the end of the street. A now defunct Methodist church stands on the corner, and the posts were possibly placed there to deter the carters from taking a short cut to the loading wharves. They were erected by the minister of the day, and it is hard to believe that the foundry that moulded them was not having a joke at his expense, for the posts look remarkably like huge, rampant male members. The developers wanted to remove them, but the council, in its wisdom, slapped a preservation order on them. Dick Lane still has its dicks.
More important than all that is the fact that the posts are exactly sixty-four inches apart. There’s no known reason, practical or mystical, for this. Nobody has come up with the theory that it’s the distance between the Sphinx’s eyes, or the exact width of the Mark IV Blenkinsop loom. It probably just looked about right to the bloke who installed them, nearly two hundred years ago.
At about half past eight young Jamie Walker, now on the run, stole a Ford Fiesta; his favourite car. The owner saw him drive off in it and phoned the police. He was a known drugs user and pedlar on the Sylvan Fields estate and demanded to know what we were doing about the theft of his only means of continuing in business. Control circulated the description, filed a report and went back to the Sun crossword. Ten minutes later one of the patrol cars, conveniently parked in the town centre where they could ogle the talent making its way to the various pubs, saw a green Fiesta with a white bonnet and red passenger door tearing the wrong way through the pedestrian precinct. It was Jamie. They did a seven-point turn and gave chase.
The rules of engagement say follow the target vehicle until the driver is well aware that you require him to stop. Then, if he continues to flee, drop back but try to remain in visual contact until assistance can be organised. The patrol car, siren and lights a-go-go, positively identified the registration number and was backing off when Jamie turned into Dick Lane.
“Gorrim!” declared the driver of the patrol car.
Jamie’s Ford Fiesta was sixty-three inches wide, which gave him a clearance of half an inch each side as he slotted it neatly between the posts at the bottom of Dick Lane. That’s an ample margin when you are escaping arrest, in somebody else’s vehicle. He wiped the wing mirrors off, but he never used them anyway. The pursuing officers saw the Fiesta slow to a crawl and make a right turn on to the towpath, towards freedom.
What was actually said between the driver and his observer is open to speculation, as their stories conflicted at the resulting enquiry. What is known is that: a) They decided to continue the chase; and b) A Ford Escort of the type they were driving is sixty-six inches wide. The iron posts neatly redesigned the front wings of the police car, in a process known to engineers as extrusion, and then held it fast. Alpha Foxtrot Zero Three juddered to a standstill with the posts jammed solid halfway along its front doors.
The advent of closed circuit television has been, it is generally agreed, a wondrous breakthrough in the policing of town centres. Tonight it was to prove a curse. Two very large police officers trying to extricate themselves through the rear doors of a fairly small car makes very good television. The CCTV cameras recorded the build-up and several local yuppies with palm-sized Sonys committed the rest of the story to magnetic tape in much greater detail, negotiating contracts with Reuters and Associated Press via their mobile phones even as they filmed.
After doing some much-needed tidying in the kitchen I made myself a peanut butter, honey and banana sandwich and ate it in the bath, accompanied by Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto number 2 played very loud on the CD. It’s not one of my favourites, but it includes the Brief Encounter music, which amused me. I dried myself and fell into bed feeling reasonably wound down considering the day I’d had, totally oblivious of Jamie’s latest exploits.
“Boss wants you. Now,” I was told as I passed the front desk early Friday morning.
“What’s he doing in at this time?”
“Don’t ask.”
I ran straight up the stairs to Mr Wood’s office on the top floor. First thought in my head was that Silkstone had topped himself in the cells.
“Morning, Gilbert,” I said, after knocking and walking in. “You’re in early.”
“You haven’t seen it then?” he asked without returning my greeting.
“Seen what?”
“Breakfast TV.”
“I’d rather fart drawing pins. What’s happened?”
“Watch this.”
He went over to the monitor on another desk and pressed a few buttons. After a snowstorm of blank tape a well-polished couple with colour-coordinated hair flickered into view. I stayed silent, not knowing what to expect, but it was looking like a Martian invasion at the very least. The Chosen Two shared a joke which we couldn’t hear because the sound was off and the picture changed to black and white.
“That’s Heckley,” I said, recognising the scene. “Down near the canal.”
“Dick Lane,” Gilbert stated.
“That’s right.”
A car jerked towards the camera in ten yard steps, like an early movie. The clock in the bottom right-hand corner said 2123.
“Driven by Jamie Walker,” Gilbert informed me.
“Oh,” I replied. “Last night?”
“Mmm.”
There were some posts across the end of the street. The car — it looked like a Fiesta — was stopped by the camera as it reached them and in the next frame it was through and bits were flying off it. It exited to the left, narrowly avoiding falling into the canal, and another car jumped into the top of the picture.
“Watch,” Gilbert ordered.
“One of ours?”
“Alpha Foxtrot Zero Three.”
“Who up?”
“Lockwood and Stiles.”
Jim Lockwood and Martin Stiles were first on the scene when we arrested Tony Silkstone. I felt uneasy, expecting their car to go into the water and drown them both, or roll over and burst into flames. All it did was get stuck between the posts. The coloured picture came back on, with the Golden Couple laughing just enough not to ruffle their coiffures or flake their make-up. I tried to stifle a giggle, but failed.
“You’ve got to laugh, Gilbert,” I chuckled.
“What’s so funny about it?” he demanded.
“It just is.”
“We’re a bloody laughing stock! It won’t be funny when the Chief Constable sees it, I’ll tell you that.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” I admitted. “Nobody was hurt, that’s the main thing. I was expecting to see someone hurt. What’s happening?”
“I’m having them in at nine o’clock. I’ll have to ground them, Charlie. And the car’s probably a write-off. Jamie-fucking — Walker! I’d like to take the little scrote and…and…oh, what’s the point?”
“Who’s investigating it?” I asked. He told me the name of a chief inspector from HQ who I hardly knew.
The super was right: it wasn’t funny. Wrecking a police car is a serious matter. Lockwood and Stiles would be taken off driving while a senior officer made preliminary enquiries. It was back to the beat for them. If he’d committed a prosecutable offence it could be the end of the driver’s career. “Were this a member of the public would further action be taken?” was the question that the investigating officer would be asking. Meanwhile, we’d lost the use of two men and a car.
“The point is, Charlie,” Gilbert said, “we need young Jamie in custody. Number one priority, everybody on it. Right?”
“I am conducting a double murder enquiry,” I reminded him.
“Forget it. Get Jamie. Anyhow, it’s all sewn up, isn’t it?”
“Everybody seems to think so except me. I’ve got my doubts.”
“Here we go again!” he complained, putting his hands on his head. “Listen, Charlie: Silkstone’s confessed; Latham did the other. It all makes sense, no loose ends. Put it to bed, for God’s sake, and concentrate on getting Jamie. We’re going to be asked some searching questions about that young man before this is over, mark my words, so let’s have him in. Understood?”
“If you say so.”
“I do.”
I said: “Fourteen years old, top of our Most Wanted list. Not bad, eh? He’ll be dining out on that for the rest of his life, if anybody tells him.”
“He’ll be dining out in Bentley Prison maximum security unit for the rest of his life if I can help it,” Gilbert responded. “Just…find him.”
We had an informal meeting in the office and I wound down the murder enquiry until Monday. Even the smallest investigation soon develops branches until it looks like some ancient tree, every fork representing a Yes and a No answer to a simple question. “Did you know your wife was having an affair, Sir?” Go left for Yes, right for No. This one was no exception, but we’d have the DNA results in the morning and that would enable us to do some drastic pruning. Then, hopefully, we’d be able to file the whole thing until the wheels of justice came to rest against the double yellow lines of Her Majesty’s Crown Court, or something. I handed the Jamie Walker case over to Jeff Caton, one of my DSs, and gave him full control of all the troops. What more could be done?
Annette went off to find Jamie’s mother. I was hoping to have a quick word with Annette when nobody else was around, just: “Hello, how’s things?” to maintain the momentum, but it didn’t work out. She was wearing jeans with a scarlet blouse and looked breathtaking. Sparky came in as I eyed the pile of paper in my in-tray.
“I’m off looking for Jamie’s mates,” he said. “Anything you want to know before I go?”
“No, I don’t think so,” I replied. “I’ll have a go at this lot and then start on a submission to the CPS.”
“What are you doing over the weekend?”
“Housework, and coming here in the morning. Why?”
“I just wondered. You’re not…you know…?”
“I’m not what?” I demanded.
“You’re not, you know, taking Annette out?”
“No, I’m not. Whatever gave you that idea?”
“Nothing. I just thought you might be.”
“Is that why you rather pointedly left us alone together yesterday?”
“Just trying to help an old mate.”
“Well don’t bother, thank you. Never get involved with a colleague, Dave. That’s my motto.”
“She’s an attractive woman.”
“Yes, I had noticed.”
“And she obviously fancies you like mad.”
“Does she? That’s news to me.”
“Because you’re blind. So you’re free on Saturday night?”
“Sadly, as a bird.”
“Right,” he said. “Sophie finished her A-levels yesterday, and says she’s happy with the way they went, so we’re taking her for a celebratory steak. And, of course, they say it wouldn’t be the same without you. Can’t think why.”
“Oh, that’s brilliant,” I declared. “Well done Sophie. Is she in? I’ll give her a ring.”
“No, she’s gone into Leeds with her mum. I heard Harvey Nicks mentioned, so it could cost me. All she has to do now is get the grades, then it’s Cambridge, here we come. The kid’s worked hard, Charlie. Harder than I ever have.”
“I know. And think of the pressure, too.”
“Well, we’ve never pressurised her. Encouraged her, but win or lose, we don’t mind as long as she’s happy. So shall I put you down for a T-bone?”
“You bet.”
“And, er, will you be bringing a friend?”
“A friend? No, I don’t think so,” I replied.
“But you’ll come?”
“Try stopping me.”
“Why don’t you ask Annette? You might be surprised.”
“Wouldn’t that make Sophie jealous?” I joked. She had a crush on me when she was younger, but I imagined she was long grown out of it. Now she’d see me for the old fogey I really was.
“No, not really. I told her about your prostate problems and she went off you. Oh, and I told her that you bought your clothes at Greenwoods. That clinched it.”
“Thanks. Greenwoods do some very nice jackets.”
“So will it be steak for one or two?”
“One please.”
“Go on, ask her.”
“I’ll see.”
“OK.”
He went off to find his villains and I thought about Sophie. My previous girlfriend was called Annabelle, and she and Sophie became good friends. Sophie copied her style and mannerisms, even to the point of calling me by my Sunday name, Charles. I smiled at the memories. And soon she’d be off to Cambridge.
The internal phone rang. “Priest,” I said into it.
“Just letting you know that the Deputy Chief Constable has arrived, Charlie,” the desk sergeant informed me in a stage whisper.
“Thanks,” I said. “In that case, I’m off.”
I went down the back stairs and into the main office. Every major crime has an appointed exhibits officer and a connected property store, which in this case was a drawer in a filing cabinet. It’s essential that a log is kept of every piece of evidence, accounting for all its movements and recording the names of everyone who has had access to it. There’s no point in telling the court that a knife had fingerprints on it if the defence can suggest — just suggest — that the defendant may have handled it after he was arrested. I didn’t want the knife, just the keys to Silkstone’s house. I said a silent apology to Gilbert for leaving him in the clutches of the DCC and drove back to Mountain Meadows.
The panda cars and the blue tape had gone and the street had resumed its air of respectability. The Yellow Pages delivery man had done his rounds and the latest edition was sitting on the front step of several houses, neatly defining who was at home and who wasn’t. I’d had Silkstone’s Audi taken from Latham’s house to our garage for forensic examination, so there was plenty of room for me to park on the drive alongside the Suzuki. I picked up the directory and let myself in.
First job was a coffee. They drank Kenco instant, although there was a selection of beans from Columbia and Kenya. I watched the kettle as it boiled and carried my drink — weak, black and unsweetened — through into the lounge. I sat on the chesterfield and imagined I was at home.
It was a difficult exercise. This was the most uncomfortable room I’d ever been in, outside the legal system. The furnishings were good quality, expensive, but everything was hard-edged and solid. No cushions or fabrics to soften things. Focal point of the room was a Sony widescreen television set big enough to depict some of TV’s smaller performers almost life-size. I shuddered at the thought. After about ten minutes the wallpaper started dancing and weaving before my eyes, like a Bridget Riley painting. I stood up and went exploring.
There was a toilet downstairs, a bathroom upstairs with a bath shower and rowing machine, and one en suite with the room where we’d found Mrs Silkstone. A room under the stairs with a sloping ceiling was their office, where a Viglen computer and seventeen-inch monitor stood on an L-shaped desk. I sat in the leather executive chair and opened the first drawer.
An hour later I was in the kitchen again. I examined all the messages on the pin board and made a note of several phone numbers. The cupboard under the sink was a surprise: there was still some room in it. I spread a newspaper — the Express — on the floor, emptied their swing bin on to it and poked around in the tea bags and muesli shrapnel like I’d seen TV cops do. Then I went outside, dragged the dustbin into the garage and did it again, big time.
I washed my hands and had another coffee, sitting in the captain’s chair at the head of their dining room table. It was all mahogany in there, with more striped wallpaper. The only picture on the walls was a limited edition signed print of Damon Hill winning the British Grand Prix. Number fifty-six of eight million. His room again, I thought.
I had a pee in the downstairs loo. It was the standard type, like the one in my 1960s house. I pulled the lever and watched the water splash about and subside. I’d have thought that a house as modern as this one would have had those low-level ones, where you watch everything swirling around, convinced it will never all go down that little hole. Personal preference, I supposed. I might even have chosen the same ones myself. I went upstairs into the master bedroom and, lo and behold, the en suite bog was the modern type, in coral pink. I did a comparison flush and decided that maybe these were better after all, but it wasn’t a convincing victory. Just for the record I looked in the main bathroom. Old type, in stark white. Flushed first time, like the others. I didn’t write any of this in my notebook.
I sat in one of the hard leather chairs for half an hour, thinking about things. I enjoy being alone with my thoughts, and the seat was more comfortable than I expected. You had to sit well back and upright, but it wasn’t too bad. Probably good for the posture, I thought. Next time I saw Silkstone I’d check his posture. A brandy and a cigar would have gone down well, or perhaps a decent port.
Jim Lockwood and Martin Stiles were coming out of the front door as I arrived back at the nick. Jim was wearing a suit and tie, Martin a short-sleeved shirt and jeans. They looked worried men.
“How’d it go?” I asked.
“He’s sacked us,” Martin blurted out.
“We’re suspended,” Jim explained.
“He can’t sack you,” I replied.
“He wants us sacked,” Martin declared.
I looked at Jim. “Yeah,” he confirmed. “He made that clear. Mr Wood tried to stand up for us, but the DCC went ’airless. Said we’d made a mock’ry of the force, and all that. It was on TV again this morning, apparently.”
“Well he can’t sack you,” I repeated. “You know that. And next time you’re in for an interview make sure you have the Federation rep with you. Don’t let them two-one you.”
“Right, Mr Priest,” Martin replied.
“Meanwhile,” I flapped a hand at the sky, “make the best of the decent weather. Paint the outside of the house, or something. It’ll be a nine-day wonder, you’ll see.”
“Thanks, Boss,” Jim said, and they skulked away like two schoolboys caught peeing off the bike shed roof.
I made a pot of tea — all that coffee makes you thirsty — and ate the M amp; S cheese and pickle sandwich I’d bought on the way back. The lab at Wetherton confirmed that I’d have the DNA results tomorrow, but otherwise they had nothing to tell me. I rang the CPS and agreed to a meeting with them on Monday afternoon.
The hooligans down in the briefing room had a recording of the Dick Lane Massacre and were delighted to show it to me. It was worse than I expected. Some local chancer had recorded the whole thing on his camcorder and networked it. He took up the story as Jim and Martin were trying to extricate themselves from the jammed car. Unable to climb into the back, they eventually reclined their seats and crawled out of the rear doors on hands and knees. It wasn’t a picture of noble policemen fighting crime against impossible odds with courage and dignity. It was a fourteen-year-old twocker making two fully-grown cops look complete pillocks. The only good thing was that Jamie wasn’t named. That would have made a folk-hero of him. Jim and Martin’s so-called colleagues jeered and catcalled throughout the showing, relieved they weren’t the subjects of such ridicule.
“If the car had caught fire and they’d been burnt to cinders, we’d be saying they were heroes,” I said. I stomped back upstairs, wondering if that was the reason why I hated Jamie Walker.
The troops filtered back, empty handed. Dave called into my office and asked if I’d had a report on the DNA.
“Tomorrow,” I replied. “You know they said tomorrow.”
“Just thought you might have rung them and asked.”
“I did. They still said tomorrow. What about you? Find anything?”
“Nah. Waste of time. His mates think he might be in Manchester, but the little toe-rag’s screwing a bird from the Sylvan Fields, so they say he won’t stay away long.”
“Video games and sex,” I said. “Kids today have it all.”
“What did we have?” Dave asked. “Train spotting and snowball fights. Makes yer fink, do’n it?”
“Do’n it just.”
“I called at this house in the Sylvan Fields estate,” he said, “and there was this great big Alsatian in the garden, barking an’ slavering. A woman was leaning out of an upstairs window and she shouted: ‘It won’t hurt you, love. Just kick its balls for it.’ So I went in and kicked it in the balls and it ran away yelping and the woman shouted down: ‘No, not them! Its rubber balls that it plays with.’”
I laughed, against my wishes, and said: “You’d think they’d learn, wouldn’t you?”
Annette knocked and came in, just as Dave said: “Well, I’d better report to Jeff. Hi, Annette.”
“Hello Dave,” she replied, holding the door for him. “Find anything?”
“Mmm. Ronald Biggs did the Great Train Robbery. Nothing on Jamie, though.”
“Perhaps he’s hiding in Brazil,” she said.
“Could be. See you.”
Dave went and I waved towards the spare chair. She sat in it and crossed her ankles. Her jacket was tweed, what might have been called a sports coat or hacking jacket a few years ago, and her blouse spilled from the sleeves and unbuttoned front in splashes of colour. She looked carelessly dishy, with extra mayonnaise.
“Hard day?” I asked.
“Waste of time,” she replied. “Running about after a will o’ the wisp. Word is that he’s gone to Manchester. When he was in care his best pal was a youth from there called Bernie, so all we have to do is track down all the Bernards who were in care at the same time as our Jamie. Methinks he’ll resurface long before then.”
“Methinks you’re right,” I agreed. She was wearing a ring on the third finger of her right hand. A delicate gold one with a tiny diamond. Wrong hand, I thought.
“So,” Annette began, “I was just wondering if anything had come through from Wetherton about the samples?”
“No, they said tomorrow,” I told her.
“Oh. I thought you might not be able to resist giving them a ring and asking if they’d found anything.”
“I couldn’t,” I admitted, “but they haven’t. We should have the full report at about ten in the morning.”
“Right.”
She uncrossed her ankles, as if to stand up and leave. I said: “Thanks for coming with me last night, Annette. It was nice to have some company for a change.”
“I enjoyed it,” she replied. “Thanks for inviting me.” She smiled one of her little ones, barely a movement of the corners of her mouth, but her cheeks flushed slightly.
“As a matter of fact,” I went on, “tomorrow night I’m going to the Steakhouse with Dave and his family. It’s a bit of a celebration. If you’re not doing anything I’d love for you to come along.”
“Saturday?” she asked.
“Mmm.”
“No, I’m sorry, I can’t make it.”
“Oh, never mind. His daughter has just finished her A-levels, and she’s been accepted for Cambridge if she gets the grades, so we’re taking her out. They do good steaks there. That’s the Steakhouse, not Cambridge. I think she needs two As and a B. Sophie’s my goddaughter. And other stuff, if you’re not a steak eater.” I waffled away. See if I care.
“Sophie?” Annette asked. “Dave’s daughter Sophie?”
“Yes. Have you met her?”
“Of course I have. She used to come on the walks.”
“That’s right, she did. You’d just joined us. I used to wonder what you kept in that great big rucksack you carried.”
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
She stood up, saying: “Remember me to Sophie, please, Boss, and give her my congratulations.”
I pulled a pained face and said: “Annette. Could you please call me Charlie once in a while? Everybody else does. I shan’t read anything into it, honestly. It just helps maintain the team spirit. That’s all.”
She sat down again, and this time the smile was fulsome. “Sorry,” she said. “Charlie.”
“That’s better. I hope you have a good weekend. If you ring me I’ll tell you the results of the tests.”
“Oh, I’ll come here first, in the morning,” she asserted.
“You’ve no need to, if you’re going away. Anywhere special?”
“Um, York, to a friend’s, that’s all. I’ll come here first, for the results.”
“If you say so.”
She went off to report to Jeff about Jamie’s movements, leaving a faint, tantalising reminder of her presence in my office. Annabelle came on some of the walks we’d organised, and the two of them had surely met. Annabelle — Annette, I thought, Annette — Annabelle. A man would have to be careful with two names like that, in a passionate situation. Not that one was ever likely to arise. I wondered about the mystery friend in York and growled at the next person to come into the office.
The forecast for the weekend was good so I told the troops that we’d have a meeting about the murders on Monday. Most of them said they’d pop in Saturday morning, for the results. I still do a few paintings, when the mood takes me or someone commissions one. I only charge for materials. Mr Ho at the Bamboo Curtain had asked for one, for on his staircase, so I decided to make a start on it. It was going to be six feet by four feet six inches, abstract but with a Chinese theme. On the way home I called in the library and borrowed a book on Chinese art.
I had a trout for tea, with microwave oven chips and peas. Not bad. Chinese art is big on impossible cliffs and bonsai trees. I hinted at a few terracotta warriors and coolie hats, for the human touch, and a couple of tanks to show where the power lay. By midnight I’d done the underpainting and it was looking good. What a way to spend Friday night, but better than cleaning the oven. The next part, laying on the colour straight out of the tubes, was the best bit. Therapeutic. I had a shower and went to bed.
I couldn’t sleep. Maybe it was the trout, maybe it was the enquiry. If the DNA results were as expected we’d have that sewn up tomorrow, so no problem there. Maybe I was thinking about the sad life I was drifting into. Maybe I was thinking about a woman. Maybe I should set it to music.
I listened to the World Service for a while, then switched to the local station. There’d been a bad accident on the Heckley bypass, something about a jack-knifed lorry, and traffic disruption was expected to last into the morning. Six o’clock I went downstairs and made some tea.
I was lying on the settee using the remote control to pick out my favourite tracks on The Bootleg Series when the phone rang, right in the middle of Blind Willie McTell. Anybody who interrupts Blind Willie had better have a good reason.
It was the night tec’. “Sorry to ring you at this time, Charlie,” he began.
“No problem, Rodger.” He doesn’t telephone me lightly and his voice was strained. “What’ve you got?”
“There’s been a bad RTA on the bypass.”
“I know. I’m up and heard it on the radio. What happened?”
“Head on, between a Mini and a milk tanker. The Mini’s jammed underneath.”
“God, that sounds nasty.” I visualised the carnage. “How many in the Mini?”
“Just one, as far as we can tell. I’m pretty sure it’s Jamie Walker.”
I didn’t speak for a while. “You still there, Charlie?” Rodger asked.
“Yeah, I’m still here,” I replied. “Dead, I assume?”
“Instantly.”
“Was he being chased?”
“No. We didn’t even know he was in the area.”
“Thank God for that. You got some help?”
“Everybody and his dog’s here. Just thought you’d like to know.”
“Right. Thanks for ringing, Rodge, and stay with it, please.”
Jamie Walker, aged fourteen, wouldn’t be stealing any more cars, and our figures would resume their steady downward path after the recent hiatus. Jamie Walker, who I hated, was eliminated from the equation. I had cornflakes and toast for breakfast and went into the garage to look at the painting. It looked as good as I remembered. At seven, because I couldn’t think of anything else to do, I drove to the nick.
By the time the troops arrived at our office on the first floor they’d all heard about Jamie. It was mainly smiles all round, because Jamie had killed himself. All too often it’s someone completely innocent who pays the price. Rodger came in, looking completely shagged out, and told us the details. Jamie had come round a bend on the wrong side of the road and hit the tanker at a combined speed of about a hundred and ten. The tanker driver was unhurt but in hospital under sedation.
“He’d stolen the Mini from the bloke who lives next door to where he was staying,” Rodger told us. “This bloke works for a security firm, on about eighty quid a week. He has two daughters who are asthmatic, and he runs the car so he can take them to the coast every weekend. Someone told him sea air would do them good. Don’t ask me to weep for Jamie Walker, because I can’t. Good riddance to the little bastard, I say.”
“Go home, Rodger,” I said. “You’ve had a tough night. Take whatever it is that makes you sleep and snuggle up to your Rosie.” But I doubted if there’d be any sleep for him today, or tomorrow, or even the next day. He walked away, jacket slung over his shoulder, and we looked at our watches, waiting for the mail to arrive.
Gilbert rang from home, asking for news, and I promised to let him know as soon as we had anything. Annette came in, wearing a shortish skirt and high heels, which was unusual. Her working clothes are practical, and she only wears a skirt for court appearances. I gave her a wink and was rewarded with a smile. At five past ten a traffic car arrived, with the report. I opened the envelope and read the resume that preceded the detailed stuff.
“What does it say?” someone asked.
“Wait,” I told them, reading.
“They close at four,” someone complained.
“Shurrup!”
“Sorry.”
“That’s all right. OK, it’s as we expected.” I handed the report to Annette, who was sitting directly in front of me. “The semen samples are all from Peter Latham. Hairs were found in the bed from all three of them.”
“Which isn’t surprising, as it was Silkstone’s bed,” Dave told us.
“Pubic hair, in this case, I presume,” someone added.
“Yes,” I agreed, “It does say that.” They started chattering between themselves, so I hushed them, saying: “There is just one more thing.” When they were silent I told them: “According to the lab, traces of a spermicidal lubricant, as used on condoms, were also found in Mrs Silkstone. That’s something for us to think about.”
“In where? Does it say?” someone asked.
“Not sure,” I replied, looking at Annette. She thumbed through the pages, there were about ten, scanning each briefly as she shook her hair away from her face.
“Can you find it?”
“Yes, it’s here. It says: ‘Traces of a spermicidal lubricant, of a type commonly used on condoms, were found in the anus and rectum.’”
“Does it say if any was found on Latham’s dick?”
Annette turned the pages back, looking for the information.
“Is it there?”
“Yes, I think this is it.” She studied the report for a few seconds then read out aloud: “A spermicidal lubricant of a similar type as that found in the female body was found on the subject’s penis.”
I thanked her, saying to the rest of them: “If any of you has a theory about how all this came about, I’ll treat the information in the strictest confidence. Meanwhile, we’ll prepare a condensed version and do the necessary. Any questions that won’t wait until Monday?”
Nobody had one, so I thanked them for coming in and telephoned Gilbert.
“So Silkstone’s story holds water,” he concluded, when I finished.
“It looks like it,” I admitted.
“Good. Let’s have it sewn up, then. And young Walker won’t be causing us any more trouble, I hear.”
“Unless his mother sues us for not arresting him.”
“Bah! Bloody likely, too. But we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Meanwhile, I’m off for an hour’s fishing. Fancy coming, Charlie? Do you good.”
“No thanks, Gilbert. Sticking a hook through a small creature’s nose is not my idea of entertainment.”
“You wouldn’t catch anything!” Gilbert retorted. “What makes you think you’d catch anything?”
“I meant the maggots,” I replied. “Maggots have feelings, too.”
I would have fallen hopelessly, crazily, desperately in love with Sophie as soon as I saw her, except that I already was. She was wearing a blue silk dress and her hair was piled up in a sophisticated style that I’d never seen her wear before. “You look sensational,” I said, pecking her on the cheek. “Cambridge won’t know what’s hit them.”
“She’s gonna be a spy,” her younger brother, Daniel, informed me. “That’s where they train them all.”
“Well that’s better than being a traitor,” she retorted, referring to Danny’s ambition to play football for Manchester United and not Halifax Town.
We went in my car. I’d have to drive home afterwards, so this meant that Dave could have a few drinks. His wife, Shirley, said: “Hey, this is all right, being chauffeured about by the boss.”
“Let’s get one thing clear,” I told her as we set off. “Tonight I am taking my favourite goddaughter out for a meal. You three are just hangers-on.”
“I’m your only goddaughter, Uncle Charles,” Sophie reminded me, and her brother jumped straight in with: “You don’t think you’d be his favourite if there was another, do you?”
“It’s going to be one of those evenings,” Shirley remarked.
I’d made a bit of an effort with my appearance, for once, and was glad I had. Blue jacket with a black check, black trousers, blue shirt and contrasting tie. Dark clothes suit me and add to that air of mystery. I’d even put some aftershave on.
“You look handsome tonight,” Shirley had told me when I arrived. “Dave said you might bring a friend.”
“He speak with forked tongue,” I’d replied.
“Annette Brown. He reckons she has the hots for you. She’s a lovely girl.”
“Tomorrow, he die.” I explained that she wasn’t my type; I didn’t want to be involved with another officer and as far as I knew she was already in a perfectly happy relationship.
“So you asked her.”
“I didn’t say that!”
Four of us had fillet steak and Dave had the speciality mixed grill, which includes a steak and just about every other bovine organ known to science. Two bottles of a Banrock Shiraz helped it down quite nicely. We talked about Jamie Walker and the Silkstone case, without being too explicit, and I had my favourite apple pie for pudding. I asked Sophie why she’d chosen Cambridge and not Oxford, and she said: “Everybody goes to Oxford.”
We had more coffee back at their house and sat talking until midnight, when the kids went to bed. Dave fell asleep on the settee, snoring with his mouth wide open, which I took as a good time to leave. It was a warm evening, and Shirley walked out to the car with me.
“Thanks for inviting me, Shirley,” I said. “It was considerate of you.”
“You’re part of the family, Charlie,” she replied. “You were married to Dave before I was.”
“Well, I wouldn’t have put it quite like that, but I appreciate it.”
At the gate I said: “He was quiet tonight. Not his usual self.”
“No,” she replied, “he wasn’t, was he?”
“Has the Jamie Walker business upset him?”
“A little, perhaps. Daniel was that age not too long ago, but I think it’s mainly because of Sophie.”
“Sophie?”
“Mmm. Going to university, leaving the nest and all that. If it’s not Cambridge it will be somewhere else. She’s just finished with her first boyfriend, but there’ll be more. Danny was always my son, but Sophie is Dave’s daughter, and he’s losing her. It hurts. You worry about them, Charlie. The temptations, the pressures, the mistakes they’ll make. You want to live their lives for them, but you can’t. You have to step back and let them do it their way, and sometimes it’s painful.”
“It’s called love,” I told her.
“Yes, it is.”
We kissed cheeks and said goodnight.
At home I cleaned my teeth and hung up my clothes. I poured a glass of the plonk that was open, to catch up with the others, put Vaughan Williams on the CD and went to bed with the curtains open, so I could watch the clouds drifting past the window, like the backdrop of a silent movie. There was a new moon, and it and Thomas Tallis gave magic to the night. The wine and my thoughts probably helped.
But there’s a dark side to the moon, and clouds are fickle. New faces came to me, pushing aside the ones I cherished. Young Jamie Walker was dead, and I didn’t care. His death had lifted a weight off me, eased the tourniquet that tightened around my spleen whenever I’d heard his name. Monday morning someone would come out with a Jamie Walker joke — “What does Jamie Walker have on his cornflakes?” — and I’d laugh with the rest of them. I didn’t hate him for being a thief. I didn’t hate him for the grief and misery he caused people who were as poorly off as he was. I didn’t give a shit about our crime figures. I hated him for making me not care about his death. For doing that to me, I could never forgive him.
Sunday I gave the microwave a wash and brush-up. The fine spell was holding and the weather forecasters were predicting a good summer because the swallows were flying high and the grasshoppers were wearing Ray-Bans. I went to the garden centre to buy some new blades for the hover mower and had to park in the next field. Forget banks, knock-off a garden centre.
In the evening I watched a video about the space race that Daniel had loaned me. Apparently the USA bagged Mars first, so Russia decided to concentrate on Venus. They didn’t know until they sent the first probe there that the atmosphere was comprised largely of sulphuric acid. As my mother used to say; “There’s always someone worse off than yourself.” Danny is envious that his dad’s generation witnessed the moon landings, as they happened. To him it’s just another event in history, like World War II or the Battle of Hastings. I’m eternally grateful to the Americans for taking a television camera on the trip. OK, they did it for self- publicity, because they needed public approval for all that expenditure, but it was a brave thing to do. It could have all gone dreadfully wrong.
I have a photograph of Daniel and Sophie, standing alongside my old E-type. It was taken at Heckley Gala a couple of summers ago, after we’d taken part in the grand cavalcade, and published in the Heckley Gazette. I knew roughly where it was and soon found it. Sophie was all legs, posing elegantly with one hand on the car door, and Danny was wearing his trade-mark grin. The photo was in black and white, ten by eight, and slightly over-exposed. I turned it over and looked at the Gazette’s rubber stamp mark on the back. The copyright was theirs and a serial number was written in ink in the appropriate box. The date space was empty. I propped it against the clock and wondered about framing it.
Margaret Silkstone had consenting sex with Peter Latham on her marital bed. He wore a condom initially but removed it later. A disagreement arose between them and he strangled her. That was about as much as we could be sure of.
“Maybe she objected to him removing the condom,” Gilbert suggested.
“Or to his, er, sexual proclivities,” the CPS lawyer said, adding, “putting it another way, she didn’t want it up her bum.”
“Why does other people’s love-making always sound so bloody sordid?” I asked.
“Because you’re not getting any,” Gilbert stated.
“Putting it another way! I like that,” the lawyer chuckled. He was young and bulky, in a charcoal suit that bulged and gaped like the wrapping of a badly made, slightly leaky, parcel. Prendergast would eat him for breakfast, but he was the best we had. I looked at him and wondered who the anonymous genius was who coined the phrase big girl’s blouse.
“Whichever it was,” Gilbert stated, “we’ll never know. But it does look as if Peter Latham murdered Margaret Silkstone. All agreed?”
“Yes, I think we can be certain about that,” the lawyer replied.
Gilbert was looking at me over his spectacles, defying me to launch into a conspiracy theory. “Yep, the evidence points that way,” I concurred.
“Good. Now what about Tony Silkstone?”
“We have one witness, namely Silkstone himself, and some forensic,” the lawyer told us, “and all the forensic indicates that he is telling the truth. Have you anything to the contrary, Mr Priest?”
I shook my head. “Nope.”
“So we go for manslaughter.”
“Except I don’t believe it,” I said.
“What you believe, Charlie,” Gilbert snapped, “is neither here nor there. It’s evidence that sways a court.”
“Evidence,” I repeated. “Evidence. I wish I’d known that. I’d have brought some along.”
“What makes you think it’s murder?” the lawyer asked.
For murder we needed to prove a degree of premeditation, or an intention to kill. Silkstone had almost admitted that he thought his wife might be having an affair, during that first interview when he was trying to show us what a forthright fellow he was, but his brief would have soon made him aware of that folly. I thought about him, images from the little I knew about the man lining up for inspection and moving on as the next one popped up. All that surfaced was that he had a photograph of Nigel Mansell on his wall. Hardly damning. “Nothing,” I replied. “Let’s go for manslaughter.”
“Oppose bail?” the lawyer asked.
“Definitely,” I insisted, as if the alternative were unthinkable.
“On what grounds?”
Bail is rarely granted in murder cases, but is fairly common for manslaughter. The accused has to show the court that he is unlikely to abscond, interfere with the course of justice or commit another crime. As Silkstone had a clean record up to now, was in gainful employment and could reside in the area once we had deemed his house no longer a crime scene, he’d probably be granted it.
“Psychiatric reports,” I said. “He’s pleading some sort of mental aberration, red mist and all that rubbish. Of a temporary nature, of course, from which he has now miraculously recovered. We need to show that either he never had it or it’s still there. I don’t mind which.”
“Our expert witness will be a registrar from the General on a flat fee,” the lawyer told me. “His will be a whiz kid from Harley Street who lights his cigars with ten-pound notes.” His tie had little Mickey Mouses on it, and a faded patch where he’d removed a stain.
“But Silkstone has killed someone,” I said. “Sticking a knife in somebody’s heart takes a lot of explaining away. They’ll let him out eventually, but let’s hold him for as long as we can.”
The lawyer agreed and said he’d do his best. I felt sorry for him, but not as sorry as I felt for Margaret Silkstone.
“So?” Dave asked when I arrived back in the office.
“Manslaughter,” I told him. “As we expected.”
“Fair enough,” he replied.
“It’s not fair enough if he planned the whole thing,” I retorted. “Involuntary manslaughter and he could be out in a year. He might not even go to jail at all.”
“But Latham was shagging his wife,” Dave stated.
“Oh, so that makes it OK, does it? What law’s this, Sparkington’s law?”
“You know what I mean.”
“No I don’t.”
“Mc-whatsit made the laws. What does he say about it?”
“The McNaughton Rules? He says that to establish a defence against murder they have to prove that the defendant was off his trolley, which they probably can do. He came home and found his wife dead in bed, murdered and raped by one of his employees. It’s strong stuff, if that’s what happened. I think we’d best resign ourselves to calling this a double clean-up and get on with keeping the streets safe.”
“Everybody else is happy with that, Charlie. You’re the one wanting to make a meal of it.”
“Yeah, well,” I said.
I went downstairs to find the custody officer. He was in the briefing room, listening to one of the other sergeants, a new guy, regaling the troops with stories from his holiday in Florida. He had a suntan and a big mouth, and was thrust upon us by HQ for reasons we knew not.
“And this hostess was coming down the aisle,” he was telling them. “Typical American — all tits and teeth. ‘Would you like some TWA coffee, sir?’ she asked. ‘No,’ I told her, ‘ — but I wouldn’t mind some TWA tea!’”
They laughed as only a captive audience can. I caught the custody sergeant’s gaze and he followed me into his purpose — designed domain.
“He’s in fine form,” I said.
“Isn’t he just.”
“Have a brotherly word with him, Bill, or I might have to.”
“Right.”
“We’ve decided to do Silkstone for manslaughter.”
“Good,” he replied, opening a drawer in one of his filing cabinets. “In that case we’d better ring his brief and get on with the paperwork.”
Something was troubling me. Nothing I could name or explain or put in a report to show what a clever boy I was at a later date. There was a loose end — less than that, more like a draught around the edge of a closed window — that was making me feel uneasy. I collected the keys from the connected property store and drove to number 15, Marlborough Close, home of the late Peter Latham.
The spaghetti jar still stood on his worktop, next to the pan lid, as if the cook had been interrupted by the ringing of the telephone, and a carton of milk was making unhealthy smells. I took it outside and dropped it in his dustbin. The woman next door peered at me shamelessly, but didn’t come to investigate. The pile of mail behind the door looked depressingly familiar, with not a single hand-written envelope amongst it all. I toyed with the idea of writing: Dead, return to sender on everything, but resisted the temptation. They’d probably all send it back asking for it to go to the next of kin.
The bird prints on his walls were Audubons, and good quality. Maybe I’d underestimated Peter Latham. I climbed the stairs slowly, listening for creaks, wondering if he’d ever led Mrs Silkstone up them, tugging at her hand. If walls could speak, what would they tell us? The door to his bedroom was ajar. I pushed it open and went in.
The sun cast a big geometric patch of light across the bed and wall, showing off the room as if in an advertising brochure. There’s something inviting and evocative about sunlight spilling across a made-up bed. Three tiny Zebra spiders scurried across the windowsill, alarmed by my intrusion, but a dead or sleeping wasp ignored me. The photograph of the young girl was still there, smiling shyly, self-consciously, as she had done for God-knew how many years, and the new Mrs Latham was still gazing down into his eyes. But it was the girl I was interested in.
I sat on the bed and removed a pair of latex gloves and my Swiss Army knife from a jacket pocket. The room was chilly but the sunlight warmed my legs. I wriggled my fingers into the gloves and tried to open the big blade of the knife. Couldn’t do it. My thumbnail wouldn’t engage with the little groove. I removed one glove, opened the knife and replaced the glove. You live and learn.
Carefully, I eased back the metal sprigs that held the photo in the frame. There was a stiff backing card, a sheet of acid-free paper to stop the picture discolouring, and then the photo itself. Something about it had reminded me of the one I owned with Sophie and Daniel on. Both pictures were black and white, and exposed to the same degree. Mine was taken and printed by the Heckley Gazette.
This one had a similar stamp on the back. Both sides were trimmed to isolate this girl only, and one edge of the stamp had gone, but it told me that the photographer had worked for the Burdon and Frome Exp…and the serial number was 2452…? We were in business.
Five minutes later I was on Latham’s phone, dialling a Somerset number. A small intuitive leap had told me that the picture came from the Burdon and Frome Express and I was right first time. Sometimes, you have to trust your instincts.
“Gillian McLaughlin,” a voice said, after I’d asked to be put through to the editor in charge. I introduced myself and asked if she were the editor.
“Deputy editor,” she stated. “Mr Binks is not in at the moment. How can I help you?”
“In the course of an enquiry,” I began, “we have come across a photograph which apparently comes from your paper.” I explained what it was and told her the number on the back.
“Shouldn’t be a problem, Inspector,” she replied, and went on to tell me that the number was the edition number and only the digits which identified the actual page and photograph were missing. They were now up to edition 3,582.
“So this picture was taken just over a thousand editions ago,” I stated.
“Um, yes, which is about, um…”
“Are you a weekly?”
“Yes, we are.”
“About twenty years, then.”
“Um, yes. Twenty years,” she agreed.
She also agreed to extricate the full article from the archives and fax me a copy. I told her that we were trying to track down a dead person’s relatives, and we suspected this girl might be one of them. If there was a story in it, I assured her, she’d be the first to know.
Nothing was spoiling back at the nick so I went home. My house wasn’t as tidy as Latham’s, I decided, so I made the bed, just in case, and washed and dried a two-day pile of crockery. When you live alone you don’t notice how the sloppy habits slowly overtake you. The decay starts in the unseen corners, then spreads like mould on a bowl of fruit. For tea I had boil-in-the-bag cod with pasta. If you put the pasta in the same pan as the cod it saves on washing up. The telly cooks never tell you useful stuff like that.
Big Jim Lockwood was leaving the car-park as I arrived on Tuesday morning, wheeling an upright bicycle that was last used when Whitehall one-two one-two was the number you dialled after the villains had said: “It’s a fair cop, Guv.” I wound the window down and spoke to him.
“Back with us, eh, Jim?”
“Looks like it, Mr Priest,” he replied, “but we’re still grounded.”
“Have they said how long for?”
“Indefinitely. Calling it a new initiative. Bobbies in the community and all that. It’ll get me fit, lose some weight.”
“That’s one way of looking at it.” I drove into my space, shaking my head at the stupidity of it.
Gillian McLaughlin’s fax was waiting for me when I came out of the morning prayer meeting. “Come and dig this,” I said to all and sundry as I bore it into the office. They gathered round and peered at it. There were four girls on the photo, all carrying the letter B on their chests. They were, the text told us, the victorious Under 13s relay team at the recent Burdon schools sports day, and the girl second from the left was called Caroline Poole.
“Caroline Poole,” I heard Annette whisper. “Where are you now?”
“With looks like that,” someone said, “I’m surprised she’s not on t’telly. I bet she grew up into a right cracker.”
“She’s certainly a bonny ’un,” another agreed.
“Let’s find her, then,” I suggested. “And the others. Should be easy enough. They’ll be in their early thirties, now.” I turned to Annette. “Can I leave that with you, Ms Brown?”
She smiled, saying: “No problem, Boss.”
“No hurry,” I told her. “There’s nothing in it for us, more than likely. She’s probably a relative of Latham’s, that’s all.”
Four of us, including Annette, went down to the canteen for bacon sandwiches. “Mr Wood’s sent Jim Lockwood and Martin Stiles out on the beat, on bikes,” Jeff Caton stated.
“It wasn’t Mr Wood,” I disclosed. “The order came down from above.”
“What, God?”
“His deputy.”
“Bloody crackers, if you ask me.”
“It’s a new initiative. Get the bobby back on the beat.”
“On a 1930s bike that weighs half a ton and has rotting tyres. They’ll be laughing stocks.”
“They became that when they got the car stuck.”
We chuckled at the memory. “You’ve got to admit it was bloody funny,” Jeff said.
Annette and Dave came back from the counter carrying the teas. Annette placed a mug in front of me, saying: “No milk or sugar for you, Charlie.”
“Wait a minute. Wait a minute,” Jeff demanded. “How come you know that the boss doesn’t take milk or sugar?”
“The same way as you know,” she told him, without hesitation.
“Oh. And did you know he liked his belly rubbed with baby oil?”
“Cut it out,” I said. “You might not be embarrassing Annette but you’re embarrassing me. I don’t want everybody in the station knowing my little foibles.”
I was sitting with my back to the canteen counter, and a phone started ringing behind me. I raised a finger in a listen gesture, and after a few seconds was rewarded with a call of: “Mr Priest, it’s for you,” from the office manageress.
The other three stirred, with mumbles of “I’ll get it,” but I beat them to it.
“Priest here,” I said.
“Detective Inspector Priest?” The voice was new to me.
“That’s right. How can I help you?”
“This is George Binks, editor of the Burdon and Frome Express. I’ve just discovered that my deputy has faxed you a photograph that you were interested in.”
“Hello, George. That’s right. Ms McLaughlin found what I wanted. Pass on my thanks to her, please.”
He said he would, and asked me why I was interested. I gave him the sanitised version, without mentioning dead bodies, and then he explained why he’d rung. I was sprawling across the canteen counter, leaning on my elbows because the phone cord wasn’t long enough. “Wait a second,” I told him, putting the phone down and going behind the counter. I picked it up again, found a seat and said: “Go on.”
Annette had said something funny and they all laughed out loud as I approached the table. They quietened as they saw me and Jeff pushed a chair towards me with his feet.
“Are you all right, Chas?” Dave asked. “You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”
I shook my head and sat down.
“What is it, Charlie, bad news?” Annette added, concerned.
“That was the editor of the Burdon and Frome Express,” I told them. “He’s just seen a copy of the fax on his desk. Apparently, the girl in the photograph…Caroline Poole…four years later, in 1984, when she was sixteen…she was raped and strangled. Nobody was ever done for it.”
Annette said: “Oh God no!” and her hand reached out and covered mine. She pulled it back as I said: “I’m afraid so. We’d better take another long hard look at Peter John Latham.”