The doubts started on the way back. ‘It’s not gold,’ I decided. ‘It’s more like a tin box. You know — a cash box.’
‘Maybe it’s a cash box full of gold.’
‘Mmm. Perhaps.’
‘Well let’s see, shall we?’
He switched his headlights on and we crouched in front of them, examining our find. When I realised what it was I gave it a hard bang on the Tarmac and a wad of clay came out in a large loaf-
sized lump. Exactly loaf-sized. The word embossed on the side of the box said: BREAD.
Sparky placed his hands over his head, sitting on the floor, and rocked backwards and forwards, making gurgling noises. I hurled the tin over the hedge, far into a copse. It clattered through the branches before falling to earth.
‘I think you and I ought to come to some agreement about this,’ I declared.
He looked up at me, his nose casting a horizontal shadow in the glare of the headlights, the tears from the eye at the illuminated side glistening on his cheek.
‘Agreed,’ he replied, nodding and sniffing. ‘I won’t say a word to anyone about tonight…if you promise not to ever mention line dancing again.’
‘You got it.’
We cleaned up as best we could and put everything in his boot. Any disappointment at not striking gold was tempered by the fact that we were enjoying ourselves. My appetite had returned. ‘God, I hope there’s a fish and chip shop still open, somewhere,’ I said.
Sparky waved an arm in a northerly direction. ‘There’s a good one next junction up. Little restaurant attached.’
‘Great! Fancy some?’
‘Nah. I had a big tea. I’ll come and let you buy me a cuppa, though. I think I deserve it.’
He led the way. It was busy with the trade from the pubs, but they found us a little table in a corner. A young waitress gave us two menus and returned for our order after a few seconds. There were no big decisions to be made.
‘Haddock, chips and peas,’ I told her. ‘That’s just for one. And could we have a pot of tea for two, please?’
She scribbled on her pad. ‘So that’s haddock, chips and peas for one, and tea for two?’
‘Yes, please.’
‘And would you like bread and butter?’
The poor girl blushed to the roots of her hair, wondering what she had said, as two grown men broke down and giggled like imbeciles.
Sparky left me to it, and I took my time, asking for more hot water for the tea. I felt a lot better with something inside me. When I got back in the car I took the mobile phone from my pocket and placed it on the dash. I don’t remember switching it back on, but I must have done. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have started ringing before I was a quarter of the way home. The road was quiet, so I pulled in to the side.
‘Priest,’ I said.
‘Charlie, it’s Dave. Where are you?’
‘I’ve only been driving five minutes. Why?’
‘When I arrived home Shirley said Nigel had been trying to contact us, so I rang him. He said that the APW he put out on K. Tom Davis has borne fruit. Apparently Davis rang Le Shuttle at Folkestone to ask if they could accommodate a Range Rover. They sold him a ticket and he’s supposed to be there at eleven a.m. tomorrow.’
‘You mean — the Channel Tunnel?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Hey, that’s great.’
‘So what do you want us to do?’
Good question. ‘Let’s have a think,’ I said. ‘If he’s booked on for eleven, he’ll have to leave home, what, about six hours earlier?’
‘At least. And presumably you have to be there an hour before take-off, or whatever, for loading, but apparently you don’t book a place, so he could still go anytime.’
‘Could he? But he specifically asked about tomorrow?’
‘That’s what they said.’
‘Right. It looks as if the time has come to have Mr Davis’s vehicle reduced to its component parts. That’ll please him. OK, my faithful friend, thanks for telling me.’
‘So, what are we doing?’
‘Oh, I can manage.’
‘What are you going to do?’ he demanded.
‘I might just go back and hang around. Maybe he still has to fit the bullbars, or something. If I see him leave I can follow him and rustle up some muscle to stop him. I’d like to be there to see his face. And I want to talk to him about Lisa, while his defences are low.’
Sparky said, ‘Right. Where shall I see you?’
‘You don’t have to come all this way back,’ I told him.
‘I bloody well want to,’ he argued. ‘Why should you have all the fun?’
I didn’t mind. It might be a long cold wait, so some company would be welcome. ‘Fair enough,’ I said. ‘Where shall we meet?’
‘And Nigel said he wants to come, too.’
‘Nigel? Where is he now?’
‘At the nick, awaiting further instructions.’
‘OK,’ I said. ‘Sounds as if you two have it all worked out, so let’s make it a Heckley special. We’ll lift K. Tom ourselves, as soon as he leaves home. You get back here pronto, meet me, oh, remember the sculpture called Spindle Piece?’
‘Yep.’
‘Meet me there. We might be able to see any lights at K. Tom’s from there and we’ll be able to get back to the cars quick to catch up with him on the motorway. Have you a radio?’
‘No.’
‘We’ll have to use mobiles, then. Nigel won’t know where we mean. Tell him to keep observation at the end of Davis’s lane. Ring us when he’s there. OK?’
‘Fine. See you shortly.’
I spun the car round and headed back to the pay and display. Fortunately, they don’t charge after five o’clock. Different cars with steamed-up windows were parked in the darker corners. There’s a lot of it going off.
The moon had risen, but spent most of its time hiding behind high cloud. I trudged across the grass for the second time that night, wishing I’d heeded my mother’s constant advice and worn something warmer. An animal, a long way off, gave a blood-curdling scream. Probably a rabbit, meeting its end in the jaws of a fox or a weasel. I made a detour round a flock of grazing Canadian geese, and hoped Sparky wouldn’t blunder straight into them and be pecked to pieces. On second thoughts, I hoped he would.
It was a privilege to be there. Scattered around me were some of — arguably — the finest works of art in the world, and I had them all to myself. I wandered around, like a visitor to a new, benign planet, as the moon drifted in and out of the clouds. Lighting by God, I thought, putting on a show just for me. I witnessed a little magic, that night, in that park.
Davis’s house was in darkness. I watched it for a while from across his paddock, wondering if that would have been a better place to meet Sparky. But then we’d have been a long way from the cars.
He should be nearly here, so I strolled back to our meeting place. ‘Serves you right,’ I told St Sebastian as I passed his contorted outline. Spindle Piece is on a concrete plinth, but it was almost as cold as the bronze. I sat on it for a few seconds before jumping to my feet and doing some exercises to try keeping warm. Interlocking Pieces was about two hundred yards away, up the hill. I sprinted across to it, my legs turning to rubber before halfway, and walked slowly back. Now I felt tired and cold.
I was sitting on my heels, like an aborigine, when I heard the footsteps. The sculptures are hollow, and I’d thought about hiding inside one and scaring the shit out of Sparky, but even I know when the fooling has to cease. Well, sometimes. I was peering in the direction I expected him to approach from, waiting for the moon, when I realised the steps were a lot nearer than I expected, and behind me. I turned, slowly lowering myself to the ground.
The bulky outline that approached wasn’t unmistakable as K. Tom, but I was certain it was him, even though his shape was distorted by the long bundle he carried, remarkably similar to the one Sparky had lugged back to the car two hours earlier. A spade and a metal detector, at a guess. He came straight up to the sculpture, the cold night air rasping in his throat as I held my breath, barely ten feet away, with only the Henry Moore between us. I dared to lift my face heavenwards and saw that the moon was well hidden, for the moment.
K. Tom took about fifteen deliberate strides away from me, heading towards the lights of the television mast on the skyline, and lowered his bundle to the ground. The crafty bastard, I thought. He’s moved the gold.
He was almost lost against the trees, but I saw what I took to be the swinging motion of the detector. He paused, removed the headphones and reached down for the spade.
We both heard Sparky’s footsteps at the same instant. Big men are supposed to be light on their feet, but Dave was the exception. He was as graceful as a hippo with bunions. The line dancers probably suffered heavy casualties the night he went along. Davis was stationary, poised in a crouched position. It looked as if we’d have to arrest him, there and then, and finish looking for the gold ourselves. This time I’d bags the metal detector.
The sickening noise of a pump action shotgun being cocked shattered my equilibrium.
Shit, I thought, not even a double-barrelled number. He had seven shots. And, just to make it easier for him, the moon came out to have a look, bathing the park in frail light, as if to give the big lighting man in the sky a better view of the drama.
Sparky was hunched up, hands deep in pockets, his head moving from side to side as if he were whistling or humming to himself. I looked from one to the other, praying that Dave would raise his head and see K. Tom. When the range was less than thirty yards Davis lifted the gun.
‘DAVE!’ I screamed. ‘SHOTGUN!’
K. Tom whirled and loosed a blast off in my direction. The pellets hit Spindle Piece and buzzed off into the night as I dived to the ground. He’d missed me. I jumped up and skipped sideways as he re-cocked the gun, trying to keep one of Henry Moore’s finest between us. I risked a quick glance in Sparky’s direction, but he’d vanished.
That’s when I realised that Henry Moore’s most famous characteristic was also his big failing. All his works have bloody great holes through the middle. They’re useless for hiding behind from mad gunmen. I dodged one way and then the other as soon as I glimpsed K. Tom to the right or left of the sculpture, or through the middle, and all the time I was retreating, up the hill, putting precious yards between us.
But that was another mistake, and K. Tom realised it at exactly the same instant as I did. The further I moved back, the more I had to move sideways to keep that great shapeless useless mass of bronze between us. Suddenly, I’d gone off Spindle Piece.
K. Tom calmly walked round it and levelled the gun at me.
Three explosions burst into the left side of my head. I hit the ground and rolled over, my brain filled with a muffled, screaming silence, and looked for my new adversary.
Nigel was standing there, as immobile as anything in that park. His arms were reaching forward, the hands clasping a big, beautiful, police-issue Smith and Wesson. 38 revolver, silhouetted against a pall of white smoke that drifted off into the darkness.
I rolled on to my knees. K. Tom was on the ground, with Sparky running towards him, then toeing the shotgun away from his body. I stood up and turned to Nigel. He hadn’t moved.
‘Easy, young feller,’ I panted, reaching for the gun. I grasped it by the barrel and pointed it skywards, prising his fingers open. The barrel was warm, and the smell of cordite burnt my nostrils, pungent in the cold air. He suddenly released it and lowered his arms, but remained staring in the direction of the fallen body.
‘You did well,’ I told him. ‘You did well. Come over here.’
I led him by the arm and sat him on the plinth of the sculpture. ‘Just sit there,’ I said and turned to Sparky. ‘How is he?’
‘Not sure, but he’s breathing.’
‘I’ll ring for assistance.’
When I’d finished, Sparky said it was only a shoulder wound, and the patient was conscious. Two bullets had missed. If I’d been there alone I’d have been sorely tempted to finish the job, once and for all.
The adrenaline rush faded with the danger, and reality returned. I had a police. 38 in my pocket, with three spent chambers, and a wounded prisoner. I unloaded the gun and walked back to where Nigel was sitting.
‘You OK?’ I asked.
He nodded. ‘Will he live?’
‘It looks like it. Come for a little walk. I want a word.’
I led him up the hill until we were out of K. Tom’s earshot. ‘Nigel,’ I began. ‘How come you had a gun?’
‘What’s it like when you kill a man, Charlie?’ he asked.
‘You haven’t killed anyone,’ I reminded him.
‘He might die.’
‘OK. It’s not very nice. You have to convince yourself that you had no other option, and learn to live with it. K. Tom might die, but if you hadn’t fired when you did, you’d be going to two funerals next week. Never forget that. Some of us are very grateful you were here, tonight, and did what you did. Now answer my question, Nigel. This is important. Why did you have a gun and where did you get it?’
He brushed his hair out of his eyes. ‘I was waiting in the nick,’ he replied, ‘for Sparky — Dave — to ring me back. I decided to check if Davis is licensed to hold a shotgun. He is. It occurred to me that he might have it with him, so I drew the thirty-eight from the armoury.’
‘How, Nigel?’ I insisted. ‘How did you withdraw it?’
‘Inspector Adey was on duty. He signed it out for me.’
‘Off his own bat?’
‘No. He rang Force Control. The officer in charge sanctioned it.’
‘You’re sure about that?’
‘Yes. It’s all right, Charlie. We did it by the book.’
‘Thank Christ for that,’ I sighed. Good old Nigel had played it by the book. I should have known better than to imagine he’d do it any other way. Suddenly, I felt weary. I sat down on the grass and stretched out, lying on my back staring at the moon. I could have lain there all night, except the revolver was sticking in my kidneys, and the helicopter was chomping in over the treetops, flashing and banking like something out of Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
K. Tom survived. Considering the range, and the bad light, it was good shooting by Nigel, but outside the normal parameters for taking out an armed assailant. By the rules of the game Davis should have been dead. I spent Tuesday morning giving evidence to the investigating officer brought in from another division to look into the shooting. He shook his head once or twice, but nothing worse.
After that I needed a cup of tea and a pork pie, badly. I was running down the stairs when I met Inspector Adey.
‘Hi, Gareth,’ I said as I passed him.
‘Everything OK, Charlie?’ he called after me, concerned.
‘I think so,’ I shouted back over my shoulder.
‘Charlie!’ he yelled.
I stopped and looked up at him.
‘Thought you might like some good news,’ he said.
‘That would be most welcome. What is it?’
‘This morning Fingerprints rang us about a match they’d made. We’ve just arrested a youth for killing the swans in the park, thanks to that beer can you found there.’
‘Hey, that’s great. Is it anybody we know?’
‘We don’t know him,’ he replied, ‘but apparently he’s an old friend of yours.’
‘Oh,’ I said, taking a step back up towards him. ‘I think you’d better tell me all about it.’
In the afternoon Superintendent Les Isles and I held a case review meeting in his office. Makinson was with us, too, but he didn’t have much to contribute. K. Tom Davis was in Heckley General, under armed guard. He was sitting up and had been charged with attempted murder.
‘First of all,’ Les began, ‘let me tell you about Michael Angelo Watts. I have a miracle to report — his memory has returned. We fed it to him that Davis had been arrested and the remainder of the gold recovered, and he decided that it might be helpful to us if he made a statement. The gist of it is that he’d left his portable telephone — more correctly, his father’s telephone — at K. Tom Davis’s house on the Wednesday before Lisa was killed. I asked him if there was anybody who could corroborate that and he suggested Mrs Davis. I told him that was a no-no. She denied ever seeing the phone, and he looked uncharacteristically glum. He brightened a little when I disclosed that I had a witness who might help him.’
‘Me,’ I said.
‘Mmm,’ Les continued. ‘I told Watts that you had made a statement saying how you saw him visit Davis at the appropriate time, and suggesting that his behaviour indicated that he had taken the wrong phone with him. In other words, you’d got him off a murder rap.’
‘Did he express his gratitude?’
‘Not exactly — don’t forget you had helped put him behind bars for dealing. I made it plain that we’d been fair with him, and that making threats against your girlfriend was bang out of order. I’d be lying if I said he looked sheepish, Charlie, but I think he took it onboard.’
‘Great,’ I said. ‘That’s good news. It was worrying me.’
‘I’ll bet it was. Now let’s have a look at Davis. I’m afraid the outlook is not so rosy from now on. We’ve only recovered the one bar of gold, for a start. Either he spread it around, or that’s all there is left.’
‘Twenty kilograms, or one hundred and twenty-five thousand pounds’ worth, out of ten million quid. That’s not bad going.’
‘These drugs barons have expensive tastes. Mr and Mrs Davis — K. Tom and the desirable Ruth — have had sudden pangs of remorse, too, and they have both decided to fully cooperate with us. Their tales, sadly, differ in one important area. He says that he stayed in on the night Lisa was killed, but that she stormed out in a paddy. Ruth Davis says more or less the opposite.’
‘What are the stories?’ I asked.
‘Well, according to K. Tom, Lisa rang him about her business, as previously stated. Ruth was insanely jealous, he claims, convinced they were having an affair. After the second call she dashed out of the house, saying she would settle things — wait for it — “once and for all.”’
I said, ‘Gosh, well, that proves it. Did he mention the phone?’
‘Reckons he never saw it. She must have found it and planned the whole thing to put the blame on poor old Watts.’
‘So he claims that her motive was jealousy, and the desire to protect her loveless marriage.’
‘Cor-rect.’
‘And what’s her story?’
‘Ah. Mrs Davis wants to eat her cake and have it. Her tune has changed since she learnt that, whatever happens, she keeps the conservatory. She claims she was in bed with migraine…’
I chipped in with ‘Not DC Migraine from Huddersfield?’
Makinson scowled while Les smiled and went on. ‘That’s the one. Her loving husband brought her a cup of tea and two aspirin, at about ten thirty, and said he was popping out for the last half hour in the pub.’
‘The woman’s a living lie,’ I stated. ‘Can’t accept that they hate each other’s guts. They’re held together by mutual greed. You said she hadn’t seen the phone, either.’
‘That’s right. Says he must have found it and planned the whole thing…’
I finished it off for him. ‘To incriminate poor old Michael.’
‘That’s right. And then there’s the problem of motive. We believe he killed Lisa to stop her spilling the beans about the gold, but we’ve only your word about that, Charlie.’
Makinson shuffled in his seat and was about to speak when a PC came backwards through the doorway, carrying a tray with coffee and biscuits.
‘About time,’ Les said, jovially, pushing papers aside to make room on his desk.
We shouted our thanks after the departing uniform and I looked for the sugar. There wasn’t any. I took a sip. It was like drinking neat creosote.
When we were ready again Les asked Makinson what he’d been about to say. He was called Tim. He wiped a crumb of chocolate digestive from his chin and sat back. ‘I was just about to make an observation,’ he mumbled. ‘As I see it, we have two suspects, and one of them almost certainly killed Lisa Davis. Unfortunately, we can’t present them both to the court and say, “Take your pick.” We have to decide which case is the stronger, and go with that. The evidence against him is minimal. She has the stronger motive, but would come across as a harmless housewife. Taking them individually, I’d say we didn’t stand a chance of a conviction.’
‘Mmm. What do you think, Charlie?’ Isles asked.
I lifted the cup to my lips and decided I didn’t really need it that badly, so I lowered it again. ‘I’d say that Tim has just made a very fair assessment of the situation,’ I admitted. ‘But I’m not leaving it at that. K. Tom Davis might be going away for a long time, but that doesn’t help Justin Davis. He wants a conviction. He needs someone to blame, to focus his hate on. He needs to make sense of what happened to his wife. If this goes to court on a not guilty plea, Lisa’s reputation will be dragged through the mire, laid open for the vultures to pick over. How’s that gonna make her husband feel?’
‘Not to mention,’ Les added, ‘the suspicion that his mother killed his wife. It’s like bloody King Lear.’ His Shakespeare was worse than mine but I know what he meant. After a sip of coffee he dunked a biscuit, saying, ‘Aah. It’s taken a long time, but I’ve got them making it just how I like it.’
‘So Forensic haven’t come up with anything?’ I asked, forlornly, already knowing the answer.
‘Some tyre tracks,’ Makinson informed me. ‘Small sample of the same type as on Davis’s Range Rover, but nowhere near enough to be conclusive. Oh, and some really good ones that are a perfect match with your Cavalier.’ He enjoyed telling me that.
I stood up and turned to Les. ‘Is it all right if I have a go at K. Tom?’
He looked at Makinson, who shrugged his shoulders. ‘Be our guest,’ he replied.
‘Cheers. Maybe I can appeal to his better nature, convince him that a confession would be in order.’ Winking at Isles, I added, ‘Failing that, I’ll kick the shit out of him.’
I could have done it, I know that. Last night, in the Sculpture Park, I coud have put the gun to Davis’s head and blown his brains out. And in the years afterwards, whenever I woke in the night filled with doubts about what I’d done, I’d have conjured up that image of Lisa, lying in the bath of blood, and fallen back to sleep again.
I went down to the canteen for a mug of sweet tea, and succumbed to a vanilla slice while thinking about how to handle K. Tom. I decided to cause him as much grief as I could. That way, there’d be no need for acting.
The hospital is only a couple of streets away from headquarters, and parking spaces there are auctioned by Sotheby’s since they sold most of their land for office developments, so I walked. The afternoon visitors had left and meal trolleys were monopolising the lifts, so I climbed three floors rather than wait. My, I was catching up on my exercise today.
The PC on guard duty was sitting outside Davis’s private little room. ‘They’re changing his dressings,’ he told me, after I showed him my ID.
‘Has he much to say?’ I asked.
‘Not to us, sir, but he’s plenty of chat with the nurses. Has them eating out of his ‘ands, running about, doing favours for him. Sometimes I feel as if I’m the villain. Takes me all my time to get someone to fetch me a cup o’ tea from the machine.’
‘Right. We’ll see about that,’ I said, pushing the door open.
Three figures turned to me, two of them wearing nurses’ uniforms and the third an expression of loathing.
‘Detective Inspector Priest,’ I announced, showing my card.
‘Sorry, Inspector,’ the older nurse said, straightening up, ‘we’re just changing Mr Davis’s dressings. I shall have to insist that you leave.’
‘That’s all right,’ I replied, looking at him. ‘I don’t faint at the sight of other people’s blood. Neither do you, eh, Tom?’
‘What do you want?’ he hissed.
‘I came to see where you were shot. The officer who fired at you has a certificate for marksmanship — I’m thinking of revoking it.’
The older nurse came to the foot of his bed as I positioned myself at the other side. He was propped up on several pillows, bare chested except for the bandages on his right shoulder. His right arm was across his body, rubbing the top of his other arm, the way he’d done in the snooker room.
Boss nurse said, ‘This is highly irregular, Inspector. It isn’t a matter of you fainting. We have to consider the patient’s privacy and the risk of infection. I’d be…’
‘Look,’ I interrupted, ‘from now on, he has no privacy. As for infection, I’ve had all my jabs. I’m staying, so why don’t you just get on with it?’
She made a few tutting noises and muttered threats about taking it further, but went back to the task of snipping away the old bandages. The young nurse, who was only a green belt, noticed Davis massaging his arm and said, ‘Is that still bothering you? Would you like the doctor to look at it?’
‘N-No. It’s n-nothing,’ he stuttered, holding his hand still but not removing it.
‘Have a look at what?’ I demanded, grabbing his wrist and yanking it away.
‘How did you get that?’ I asked, as he pulled his hand free from my grasp and placed it back over the mark on his upper arm.
He glowered at the young nurse and the older one took a step backwards, holding a pair of scissors towards me. Davis hyperventilated, his face reddening alarmingly, and his body jerked backwards and forwards.
‘I asked you a question, Davis,’ I yelled at him. ‘How did you get the mark on your arm?’
He took a long slow breath, staring at the pattern on the quilt over his legs. ‘I banged it,’ he replied. ‘In the garage. I banged it.’
The PC outside had managed to find himself a cup of coffee. ‘You haven’t time for that,’ I told him, holding the door to Davis’s room open so I didn’t lose sight of him for a second. ‘Radio HQ straight away. Tell them to get a photographer here, as soon as possible. Then find out where Superintendent Isles is and tell him Charlie Priest wants a word, urgent.’
He dashed off to a window, where the reception was better, and I went back inside. It wasn’t necessary — he was already under arrest for attempted murder — but I did it just the same. I wanted to see their faces. I said, ‘K. Tom Davis, I am arresting you for the murder of Lisa Davis. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention, when questioned, something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be taken down and used in evidence.’
There was a chair for a visitor in the corner. I sat on it, hoping the photographer wouldn’t be long. The marks had been on Davis’s arm for twelve days but I didn’t want my case thwarted by a miracle recovery. I rocked back on two legs, leaning against the wall at an impossible angle, watching him, wondering if I’d still be able to make it to Annabelle’s for supper. I wanted to — I deserved it — but there was work to do, and people to talk to. Happy, happy, happy, happy talk.