"He's got a dirty muriel on his bathroom wall," I announced, strolling into the kitchen.
"Not bad, is it?" Dave replied.
The photographer had joined him. "Oh, can I go look?" he asked.
I shook my head. "Sorry, Pete, it's against the rules."
"Shirley would love this," Dave said, waving at the appliances. His wife is the best cook I know. "Poggen… pohl? Where are they from?"
"Why the kitchen?" I asked. "She'd probably love the bedroom or the television lounge or every other room in the house."
"Women like kitchens, Charlie," he stated. "Maybe that's where you go wrong."
"Could be," I replied, 'but this is not for us. Give 'em a click, Dave, and let's go."
He undipped his radio from his belt and clicked transmit three times, as we'd agreed. "We'll wait at the gate," I said, 'just in case she comes to the door to wave goodbye." The photographer followed me out and we took the car to the bottom of the drive. Five minutes later Dave, the local DC and the WPC piled into the back seat and we drove back to Kendal nick. On the way we told them that they could let Kingston go.
The fraud boys calculated that Kingston was living way beyond his legitimate income. He appeared to receive frequent but irregular sums of money from somewhere, and he said that he gambled at a casino in Blackpool. Checks they made later showed that he was a member, but nobody there recognised him from his photograph. He must have been the most successful player of roulette ever, but he claimed he had a system, which he had to be careful not to give away. He was, he said, very cautious and low-key when he played. Casino winnings are not tax-deductible, so they let him go and even managed a strained apology.
Kingston was happy, because he thought he'd fooled us, and we were delirious because he was happy. Like they say, nowadays we're a service, not a force. The local team took us to the pub and we had a long lunch, sitting outside in the sun, and Mr. Snappy took a picture of us all.
I was sitting at my desk, just before seven, when Pete the photographer rang me. "We've something to show you," he said.
I pulled my jacket on and ran down four flights of steps to the basement, where the darkroom was. I knocked and he opened the door.
With him was a scientist from the Home Office lab at Wetherton. We'd met before and exchanged pleasantries.
"This is proper photography," Pete said. "There's no arguing with this."
"How do you mean?" I asked.
"Well," he explained, 'with this digital stuff you can fake it. The picture is converted to a million bits of information, little electrical impulses, passed down wires and through silicon chips, then reassembled into something that hopefully resembles what you started out with. With the Hasselblad, the image falls directly on to the negative and from that directly on to the print paper. What you see is what you get."
"He's right," said the scientist, whose name I'd forgotten. "A thousand-pound-a-day barrister would get digital evidence kicked out of court."
"That's something for us to think about," I said. "So what have you found?"
"OK," the scientist began. "Pete shot a roll of 100 ASA through the Hasselblad and printed it on medium-grade glossy fibre paper. The prints you supplied are on similar paper. The border of each picture, as you know, is an image of the frame in the camera that the film is held flat against. Ideally, we should see four dead-straight black edges all the way round. In practice, when seen under the microscope, there are minute blobs of paint and specks of dust that make it irregular. Let me show you."
He switched on an overhead projector and placed a slide under it. The images on the screen jerked around as the shadow of his hand manipulated them, its movements magnified by the apparatus. I could see two black right-angles which he eventually placed side by side. "We took some negatives from your pictures," he said, 'and this is a typical comparison. It's not as clear as under the 'scope, but you can see here…" He pointed to something on the slide, then realised that it was easier to show me on the screen and jumped to his feet.
"Here," he continued, 'and here. These are probably dust particles stuck to the paint that the camera interior was treated with. As it is matt paint we can also show how irregular that looks. See here, and here."
"They look similar," I said.
"That's right. There are also some scratches across the negative, caused by dust in the camera. Similar scratches can be seen on the photographs."
"So what's the bottom line?" I asked. Sometimes the cliche is the easiest way of expressing it.
"The bottom line, Inspector, is that I am quite prepared to stand in the box and say that the pictures you supplied of the groups of partygoers and the film that Peter says was shot through a Hasselblad earlier today were taken on one and the same camera. No doubt about it."
"You'll do for me," I said. "You'll do for me." We could prove that Melissa and Kingston had met, in spite of his denials. I rang Tregellis's home number from my office and told him the good news.
"Great!" he said. "Leave it with me."
The young lovers shuffled forwards in the queue, tightly holding hands.
Rows twenty-one to thirty were boarding flight BA175 from Heathrow to New York, and their seats were 22 A and 22B. They worked for British Airways, in the accounts department, and this was the first time they had used the generous concession on fares that their employer offered.
It was also to be the first time he had ever been abroad and the first time she had been to New York. And slept with a man. It was to be a short stay, two nights, so they only carried hand luggage. Hers contained a selection of tasteful underwear and a transparent nightie; his held enough condoms for the crew of a nuclear submarine on shore leave in Saigon. Expectations were high and sightseeing wasn't in the itinerary.
He offered their boarding passes to the stewardess at the mouth of the tunnel that would transfer them magically on to the jumbo, and wondered why the man with her was peering over her shoulder and paying so much attention to the passes.
"Ah!" the stewardess said, showing a pass to the man.
"Ah!" he responded, saying to the couple: "Could you just step to one side, please. I'm afraid your seats have been taken and we'll have to bump you off this flight."
They turned tearfully away and never noticed the two men who came running through the departure lounge to join the back of the queue. One of them was short and bulky, with an Adidas holdall over his shoulder, and the other, the one with the bow tie, carried a leather Armani flight bag. Both of them were puffing with the exertion. Graham and Piers were on their way.
I did some travelling too, but slower and lower. Friday afternoon, on a whim, I drove 190 miles to Welwyn Garden City and at five forty-five pressed the bell at the side of the front door of Andrew Roberts' house. It was called Sharand. I hadn't noticed that before. Shaz, is wife, must be Sharon, I thought. How clever. The Bedford and the Saab were on the drive, but the Fiesta was missing.
He opened the door, still wearing his Guns 'n' Roses and cut-downs.
"Hello, Mr. Roberts," I began. "DI Priest. I was just passing. Been to a meeting, you know how it is, and thought I'd call to give you the latest."
"Oh, er, right," he replied. "You'd, er, better come in."
The carpets were deep and well-laid, as you might expect, but the colour was out of your nightmares. Day-glo orange and brow ny-orange in geometric patterns that shimmered and swayed like a Bridget Riley painting. The fireplace with its copper canopy dominated the room and the pictures on the walls were numbers one to five in the World's Most Sentimental Prints. The kid with a snotty nose, the Malaysian woman who's just eaten a badly cleaned puffer fish, and so on. Shaz was curled on the settee in a fluffy pink cardigan, watching TV and looking like an inflatable Barbie doll with a slow leak. I rested my eyes on the fish tank bubbling in the corner and sat down.
"Hope I'm not disturbing you," I began, 'but I thought you'd like to know what's happening."
"No, that's all right," he replied. She threw me a smile, on and straight off, and made a token effort to pull the hem of her miniskirt towards her knees.
"There've been a few developments," I began, 'but we're still working on it." I was competing against a peroxide-blonde creep who had a good line in third-form humour and a tits fixation. "Whether your brother Duncan started the fire is uncertain, but if he did he was most certainly put up to it by a girl. We're convinced he was just being used. She's in America at the moment, but we'll be having words with her. The house belonged to Keith Crosby at the time of the fire, and he was sacked. He was an MP, as you know. Apparently there was some bad blood between him and a prominent businessman, someone really famous, but I can't tell you his name just yet. We're talking to him a week on Tuesday and hoping he'll throw some light on things. He's promised to give us his full co-operation. One theory is that the girl did it to please him. So…" I stood up to leave,"… watch the news on telly and hope that he keeps his promise."
"Right," he said, rising. Tanks for coming."
At the door I turned and said: "Isn't young DJ at home?"
"No," he replied. "E's at college."
"I thought it was the holidays."
"Yeah, well, you know how it is. "Spect he has a bird up there or somefmg. He's at Lancaster University. Takes after his uncle in that re spec not me."
"What's he studying?"
"Mechanical engineering. He's a whiz wiv anyfing mechanical."
"He rang me," I told him, 'to ask about Uncle Duncan."
"Who? DJ?" He sounded surprised.
"Mmm. I think he cared about him more than you realised. I was hoping he'd be here, so I'd be grateful if you could pass on what I've told you."
"Yeah, right, I'll give 'im a bell an' tell 'im."
"Week on Tuesday," I said. "Watch the papers."
"Will do. Fanks."
I started the engine and did a three-point turn at the end of their cul-de-sac. He'd gone in before I drove by so I didn't wave. That's put the Fox amongst the chickens, I thought. This hadn't been in the game plan, and Tregellis would probably eat his desk if he found out, but sometimes it helps to stir things up a little. I tried to blink away the green spots that were swirling before my eyes and headed back towards the M1.
"That's where Percy Shaw lived," Sparky said, presumably pointing down a lane end we'd just passed.
Here we go, I thought. He's in one of those moods.
"Who's Percy Shaw?" Nigel asked, dead on cue. He'll never learn.
"Percy Shaw? You've never heard of Percy Shaw?"
"I'm afraid not."
"Blimey, and I thought you were educated. Percy's a local hero, and his product is used on nearly every road in the country; in the world, probably."
"Oh, I know who you mean," Nigel realised. "The Catseye man. He was clever, no doubt about it."
Sparky was driving my car and I was dozing in the back. We were making our way towards the M62 and then on to Bridlington. It was six thirty a.m." the sun was shining and in the North Sea the fish were swimming on borrowed time.
"He was more than clever, Nigel," Dave asserted. "He was a genius."
"Well, I wouldn't say a genius," Nigel argued.
"Of course he was. It was on this very road that he had his inspiration. He was driving along, one foggy night, and this cat was coming towards him. Percy saw how its eyes glowed in his headlights and when he got home he invented the Catseye.
Nigel didn't comment, but Dave was undeterred. "Next morning," he continued, 'he was driving back from the patent office when he saw the very same cat, but this time it was walking away from him. Percy dashed straight home and invented the pencil sharpener."
I'd heard it eight times before but I had to smile, or maybe Nigel's guffaws were infectious, or perhaps it was just that I was pleased they got on so well together. At first, when Nigel joined us, it was open warfare between them. Then they learned each other's strengths and weaknesses and now they ganged up against me. I regarded it as one of my successes. Dave went through my selection of cassettes, ejecting each after a short burst. "God, you don't half listen to some crap," he pronounced.
The rustling of paper told me that Nigel was struggling with the Telegraph we'd had to stop for. After a while he said: "Hey, this sounds a bargain! P amp; O are doing two on the ferry from Portsmouth to Santander for seventy-nine pounds, and that includes a car!"
"Sounds good," Dave agreed. "I wonder what sort of car it is?"
I wasn't going to get any sleep so I opened my eyes and sat up. Nigel folded his paper and offered it to me, but I declined, so he stuffed it in the door pocket. We were on the motorway, south of Leeds, overtaking a string of lorries through the semipermanent roadworks near the M1 junction.
"Speed cameras, Dave," I warned. "Slow down, or the bastards'll get you."
"No," he stated, 'they'll get you:
"Well slow down the nV He slowed down. We left the roadworks behind and Nigel was admiring the view. "What are those?" he asked, looking out of his window. "I seem them every time I come this way and wonder what they are."
Dave glanced across and I peered out of the back window. "What are what?" Dave said.
"Those buildings, in that field."
Long and low, red brick with slate roofs, they were a familiar sight to me, but to Nigel, from Berkshire, they were a novelty.
Tusky sheds," Dave stated.
Tusky sheds?"
"Rhubarb sheds," I explained. "They grow rhubarb in them. Norfolk has its windmills, Kent has its oast houses, and we have rhubarb sheds."
"Right!" Nigel exclaimed. "Right! And I suppose that's a toothpaste quarry over there, and that old mill is where they used to make blue steam!" He pulled the Telegraph out again and started reading the obituaries.
"They're rhubarb sheds!" Dave snapped at him. "Like he told you."
"Just once," Nigel pronounced, 'just once it'd be nice to get a sensible answer to a sensible question." He read a few more deaths then pretended to be asleep.
"Nigel," I said, assuming my mantle of authority. "They are rhubarb sheds. It grows best in the dark. This area south of Leeds is the country's major producer of rhubarb."
"Have you ever had rhubarb crumble?" Dave asked him.
"No," he snarled.
Dave glanced back over his shoulder. "Ring our Shirl," he told me, 'and tell her to get a rhubarb crumble out of the freezer. Nigel's in for a treat."
The arrangement was that the three of us were going back to Dave's house for fresh-caught fish, and chips made with his home-grown potatoes. I asked Nigel to pass me my phone and dialled Shirley.
We'd forgotten it was not quite seven in the morning, and Shirley wasn't too pleased at being disturbed again. She's a pal, though, and soon forgave me, but couldn't help with the crumble. They were out of them. "Bring some rhubarb back with you," she suggested, 'and I'll make him one."
The east coast suffers from what are known as sea frets. One hundred yards inland it can be a scorcher, but a thick mist rises off the water, blotting out the sun and turning July into November. Today we had a mother and father of one.
We groped our way along the pier, between plastic-clad holiday makers forced to desert their rooms while the maid changed the sheets, and were accosted by the touts who work for the boats. Seven blokes in scruffy clothes hadn't come to sample the fun fare and we were putty in their hands. Dave put up a struggle, giving nearly as good as he got, and insisted that we go in a boat that was only half-filled. Just before we cast off, however, we were ordered to switch into the boat tied alongside, which was also half-full, so now we were in one that was crowded.
On the trip out I explained to Nigel how to put a bunch of mussels on his hook and how to feel for the bottom with the big lead weight.
Because of the weather, and because it was just a three-hour trip, we would only go into the bay. We shivered, shoulder to shoulder, and waited for the boat to stop.
The skipper switched the engine off and gave the order to start fishing. The boat, bristling with rods, looked like a floating hedgehog. I felt my weight hit the bottom, reeled in a couple of turns and showed Nigel how to do the same.
"Now wait for a bite," I said.
"And then what?"
"Strike and haul it up."
"That simple."
"Yep."
The first tangle came after about ten minutes of waiting. Someone at the other side of the boat started winding in, a chap along from me struck and started winding, then Dave, me, Nigel and everyone else in the boat.
"Stop reeling in!" yelled the skipper.
It took him nearly fifteen minutes to unravel the ball of spaghetti that we eventually lifted out of the water. We repeated the exercise six more times and that was the three hours up. "Is it always this much fun?" Nigel asked.
The other four made straight for the pub while we went looking for a fishmonger. "I don't suppose you have any cod with the heads and tails still on?" Dave asked in the most promising one.
"Sorry, sir," the man replied. "It's all been filleted."
"Oh. In that case, can I have six large portions, please?" Shirley and their children, Daniel and Sophie, would be eating with us.
I noticed that the salmon was only ten pence dearer than the cod. "I think I'd prefer a piece of salmon," I said.
Dave turned on me. "You can't have salmon. We've supposed to have caught it."
"Well, I caught a salmon."
"They don't catch salmon."
"Of course they catch it. Where do you think it comes from?"
"It comes from a farm. They farm it."
I turned to the fishmonger. "Was the salmon wild?" I asked him.
"It wasn't too pleased," he replied. Everybody's a stand-up comedian these days.
We couldn't find a rhubarb shop so we joined the others in the pub and let them have a smell of our fish. Dave and Nigel had a couple of pints and I settled for halves because it was my turn to drive. They talked about the job most of the way home while I concentrated on staying awake. "So were you two on the Ripper case?" Nigel asked.
"On it's putting it a bit steep," Dave replied. "We were there, that's all."
"So what were you doing?"
"Stopping cars, mainly. Anybody out late at night got used to being stopped. Other crime fell dramatically."
"And how long did it go on for?"
"Oh, about two years. I'm not proud of it, but the Ripper paid the deposit on my first house."
"We worked hard, Dave," I said. "Some paid for their entire houses and did a lot less than us."
"Mmm, I know."
"You were lucky, weren't you, when you caught him?" Nigel asked.
"Dead jam my Dave agreed.
"It was good policing," I argued.
"We could do with a bit more luck like that," Dave said.
After a silence Nigel asked: "So why haven't you ever gone for your stripes, Dave?"
Dave didn't reply. "You're on a touchy subject, Nigel," I warned.
"Why?"
"I don't know, but he has his reasons, daft as they probably are."
"So why haven't you?" Nigel persisted.
"Leave it," I told him. Dave has fluffed his sergeant's exam several times, but I don't know why. He claims he just freezes in the exam room, but I don't believe him. I've seen him take on more than one whiz kid barrister and do all right.
We were passing a sign saying the next services were ten miles ahead.
"Wouldn't mind stopping for a pee," Dave said.
"Me too," Nigel added.
Nigel was explaining to Dave how J.J. Fox gained control of various companies even though he had less than fifty per cent of the shares.
"He has a reputation second to none for making companies profitable," he said. "OK, so he sacks people and asset-strips, but the shareholders don't mind if they are reaping the benefits. If he has, say, thirty-five per cent of the shares, he can attract the proxy votes of the smaller shareholders who can't be bothered to vote themselves.
This might give him, say, a sixty per cent holding, so he's effectively in control."
"Shareholders want to see their investments doing well," I said as I cruised past the slip road to the services. "You can't really blame them for ignoring the man's ethics."
"Not only that," Nigel added. "Most of the investors are probably pension schemes. They're obliged to strive for the best available for their members, so they can't afford to be choosy."
"Aargh! You've passed them!" Dave complained.
Five minutes later we were back in the rhubarb triangle. "How desperate are you?" I asked.
"Quite," Nigel said.
"Bloody," Dave added.
Away to my left I could see a pair of sheds, side by side in the middle of some allotments, with a Land Rover standing outside them. "Right,"
I said. "In that case we'll kill two birds with one stone." I pulled across into the slow lane and indicated that I was leaving at the next exit.
"Where are we going?" Nigel asked.
"To some rhubarb sheds," I replied. "There was a Land Rover outside.
You can have a pee and I'll see if he'll sell me some rhubarb."
I took left turns until I was driving back alongside the motorway, and turned left again down a cobbled street that looked promising. We were between two rows of terraced houses, left isolated for some reason when the area had been cleared. They were occupied and looked tidy, with clotheslines across the road and some children kicking a ball about.
We'd stepped back in time.
The cobbles gave way to a dirt track that led through the allotments, fenced round with a mishmash of old doors, wire netting and floorboards. Blue smoke drifted up from a pile of burning sods and a piebald pony tied to a stake reached for fresh grass outside the bald circle it occupied.
"There they are," I said, nodding towards the rhubarb sheds. There were two of them at the far side of an area of uncultivated ground, backing against the motorway embankment. More gypsy ponies were tethered nearby, but the Land Rover had vanished.
"He's gone," I said. "Never mind." I drove up to the sheds and stopped. We all got out and Dave and Nigel wandered round the back to relieve themselves.
Several abandoned cars were strewn down one side of the buildings, like wrecks on the seabed, slowly returning to nature. A Morris Minor had almost rotted away, its oil-soaked engine putting up the only resistance. Tall grass and willow-herb grew through tyres that were scattered around, left where they fell. I kicked one and two goldfinches flew up from a patch of thistles.
The door at the front of the first shed was wide enough for a trailer to be backed through, and written on it in cream paint that had dribbled was the name J. Nelson and Sons, with a telephone number. The padlock on the door was a big Chubb made from some exotic steel that must have cost about a hundred pounds, and a picture of a Rottweiler's head bore the legend: Make my day. Rhubarb's a valuable crop, I thought.
I heard Dave call my name so I walked round the side. He emerged from behind the building, at the far end, and shouted: "Come and look at this."
I picked my way through the nettles and debris and joined them at the back of the sheds, up against the embankment. "What have you found?" I asked.
There was a post-and-rail fence marking the boundary of the motorway, and Dave pointed at a rail. "See that," he said.
The rail was sawn through, almost all the way, close to the post.
"So?"
"And here, and here." All three rails were similar. "It's the same at the other end," he told me.
I walked the four yards to the next post to see for myself. "What do you make of it?" I asked.
"Someone might want to get away in a hurry," Nigel said. "They could charge straight through the fence and up the bank on to the motorway."
"Now why would they want to do that?" I wondered. There was a junction five hundred yards away, with a choice of five different directions for them to flee down.
"Come and listen," Dave said, adding: "But mind the wet grass."
I followed him to the boarded-up window in the back wall.
"What can you hear?" he asked.
"Traffic'
"No, from inside. Listen."
I cupped my hand around an ear and put it close to the window, sealing the other with a finger. There was a low hum coming from inside. "Sounds a bit like a generator," I said.
"Why would he want a generator?"
"Lighting?"
"Rhubarb grows in the dark. So do mushrooms."
"Heating?"
"It's the hottest summer on record, and generators are not that powerful."
"Right," I said. "So maybe we should take a closer look. The lock on the front door looks as if it came from Fort Knox."
"Leave it to me," Dave said, and wandered off to rummage amongst the wrecks. He came back in less than a minute carrying a half-shaft.
We were in a secluded spot behind the buildings, out of sight of the traffic or the nearby houses. What we were doing was illegal, there was no excuse for it, but we did it just the same. Every pane of glass in the window was broken but it was boarded up on the inside. Strands of barbed wire were stapled around it as a further deterrent. Dave took a swing at the end board and a dog inside started barking. It sounded big, and fierce, and very angry.
"Blimey, I'm not going in there," I said. I worry about dogs.
The more Dave hammered the more demented the dog became. It sounded as if it might rip us limb from limb. "Don't make the hole too large," I pleaded. "It might leap out."
When the first board had moved a little he used the half-shaft as a lever. Nails screeched as they were uprooted. Dave knocked some bits of glass out and moved higher up the plank of wood, feeling for a new purchase.
"Let's have a look," I said. He stepped aside and I peered through the triangular gap. "It's light inside," I told them. "Looks like fluorescents, take it right out."
One minute and a ripped shirtsleeve later the plank fell to the floor.
The dog barks had subsided to a hoarse staccato, but no slavering face appeared at the gap. It must have been tied up.
"Bloody hell!" exclaimed Nigel. "Is that what I think it is?" Inside was a jungle of foliage, illuminated from above by bluish strip lights.
"I knew it!" Dave declared triumphantly. "I knew it! Cannabis!
Cannabis sativa. At a guess the variety commonly known as skunk."
"Ah," I said, 'but what's that I can see at the far end, just inside the doors?"
"Friggin' heck!" he exclaimed. "A white van."
"Of the variety commonly known as a Transit," Nigel added, and his grin made Sparky's ruined shirt completely worthwhile.
Everybody agreed that the fish and chips were superb. There was no substitute for fish taken straight from the sea. It made a big difference. We were late, but Shirley's annoyance soon evaporated when she saw our buoyant mood.
"So who caught them?" asked Daniel, Dave's son, as he pushed his empty plate away.
"I did," his father replied; "We caught one each," I said; "We bought them," Nigel confessed, all more or less simultaneously.
Nigel had left his car outside my house. He came in with me and we did some phoning. James Nelson was sixty-three years old and had no criminal record. It was different for his sons, Barry and Leonard.
They'd been in trouble all their lives, starting with shoplifting and progressing right through to burglaries, via a couple of fracas. Up to then they'd concentrated on breaking into industrial premises and shops, which is regarded as a less serious offence than burgling domestic premises, and carries a lighter sentence. They'd had the lot: cautions; probation; community service; fines; and extended holidays at the Queen's expense.
Sometimes the system doesn't work.
Or perhaps it did. They'd both kept out of trouble for over two years, which were personal bests. Alternatively, perhaps they'd paid attention to what their teachers said at the Academy of Crime, and thought they were now a lot cleverer. If so, they were mistaken. Jails are filled with the failures, the ones we catch; the smart ones we never even know about.
I rang Jeff Caton to tell him the good news, but his wife told me that he wasn't home yet.
"Not home!" I exclaimed. "Not home! We've been home hours' She agreed to tell him to phone me as soon as he arrived.
When it's on my patch I have the final say, so we met at ten on Sunday morning. Dave and myself went to see James Nelson while Nigel, Jeff and a DS from the drug squad met at the rhubarb sheds, armed with a search warrant.
Nelson lived in a run-down farmhouse just a few hundred yards from the row of terraced houses. More abandoned vehicles littered the yard and a German shepherd dog, chained to a wheel-less Ford Popular, gave an early warning of our approach. Judging from its teats it had just had pups. I moved to the other side of Sparky as we passed it.
"Are you James Nelson?" Dave asked the leather-skinned man who opened the door. He looked at least seventy, so we couldn't be sure. He wore a vest and dangling braces, and wouldn't have looked out of place in a documentary about Bosnian refugees.
"Aye," he replied warily.
"I'm DC Sparkington from Heckley CID, and this is my senior officer, DI Priest. I think you'd better let us in."
My senior officer] Dave was at his Sunday best and I was impressed.
The inside of the house was all Catherine Cookson. Not the wicked master's house, and not that of the poor girl who is left orphaned and has to dig turnips every day with only a broken button-hook to raise a few coppers to feed her six younger brothers and sisters and keep them from the lascivious clutches of the master. This belonged to the stern but kindly blacksmith who throws her the odd horseshoe to make soup with, who is in love with her but knows that she is really the master's illegitimate daughter and can never be his.
There was a big iron range, with a built-in set-pot and a fire glowing in the grate. Pans and strange implements hung from the beams and two squadrons of houseflies were engaged in a dogfight around the light bulb, which was on because the curtains were closed. The temperature must have been in the nineties. We sat down, and a black cat which I hadn't seen bolted for safety from under my descending backside.
"Are Barry and Len in?" Dave asked.
Mr. Nelson shook his head.
"Where are they?"
"They'm don' live 'ere. What they'm done now?"
"Is there a Mrs. Nelson?"
"No. She passed away, twelve years sin'."
"I'm sorry. So where do Barry and Len live?"
"Abroad. Tenerife."
"How long have they lived there?"
"Bout two year, why?"
"Do they ever come home?"
"Oh, aye, now an' agin."
"When were they last home?"
"Dunno."
"How about six weeks ago?"
"Aye, about then, I suppose."
"And about a month before that?"
"It could o' been."
"What do they do for a living in Tenerife, Mr. Nelson?" I asked.
He switched his gaze to me and clenched his hands together, squeezing and relaxing his fingers, as if milking a cow. "They'm 'ave shares in a bar, or so they'm tells me. Dunno for sure."
"When are you expecting your sons home again?" I said.
He shrugged his shoulders and glanced at his hands and back to me.
"Dunno."
"Do they write or phone to tell you?"
"No, they'm just turn up."
"Without warning?"
"Aye."
"Do you look forward to their visits?"
He didn't answer.
"You had to raise them yourself," I stated.
"I did me best."
"But they gave you a hard time?"
No answer. His fingers were long and swollen at the joints, and one nail was blackened and about to fall off. He wore a wedding ring, but it had been relegated to his pinky because of the swelling. And all the time he squeezed and relaxed his hands, as if the rhythm gave him some comfort.
"Mr. Nelson," I began. "Do you own the rhubarb sheds that back on to the M62?"
The kneading increased in fervour. "Aye," he replied, his head down.
"What do you grow in them?"
"Rhubub," he replied, looking up at me. "I grows rhubub. My boys, Barry and Len, they'm use the other 'un. Don' ask me what they'm grows in it."
"But you've a good idea, haven't you?"
He lowered his head again. "Aye, I suppose so."
"What do you think it is?"
He shrugged his shoulders.
"Pardon."
"Drugs, I reckon."
"So why haven't you reported it to the police?"
He looked at me as if I'd asked him if he ever sniffed when his nose dribbled. "Cos they'd do for me," he replied.
"Are you scared of your sons?" I asked.
He looked at his hands and didn't answer.
"Do they knock you about?"
He mumbled something I didn't catch. "Could you say that again, please," I insisted.
"They've given me a tap, now an' again," he said.
I looked across at Dave. He said: "Put the rest of your clothes on, Mr. Nelson. We have a warrant to search the sheds and we'd like you to come with us."
If only to hold the flippin' dog, I thought.
The other three were scattered around, looking for birds' nests or that long-lost part of the vintage car. As we pulled up they emerged from the greenery and congregated around us. Jeff and the others had arrived home from the fishing trip after midnight, and his eyes resembled the proverbial piss-holes in the snow. In the car Mr. Nelson had explained that he came every day, to feed the dog and fill the generator. There was an automatic irrigation system, so he never had to touch the plants.
The dog leapt about with joy when he unlocked the door, and after a great deal of fussing it settled down with what looked like a dustbin lid full of cows' feet. I measured the length of its chain and added a yard for safety.
"Oh my Gawd!" exclaimed Jeff when he saw the Transit. He pointed at the aerial, the tax disc and the mark on the windscreen.
"Oh my Gawd!" he repeated, then: "It's it. This is it. You jam my so-and-sos."
"Good policing," I told him. "Jammy's nothing to do with it."
"I'll ring for a SOCO," he said, producing a mobile phone.
The plants were in orderly rows, close together and about chest height.
We spread out and walked between them, trailing our fingers through the fronds and all wondering what they were worth and if there was any harm in it. At the far end Dave hammered some new nails through the loose plank so the local youths couldn't steal the evidence. Jeff rejoined us. "He's on his way," he said.
I pulled two leaves from a plant, gave one to Jeff and popped the other in my mouth. "Make you feel better," I told him. Strolling back through the rows I plucked another. At the far end Jeff emerged from the adjacent row and poked his tongue out at me. On it was a chewed-up ball of what might have been spinach. I did the same to him and we both giggled like schoolgirls in an art gallery.
Dave and I took Mr. Nelson back to the station. Some use the Nice Cop and Nasty Cop routine; others rely on the bastinado, beating them on the soles of their feet until they co-operate. We seduce them with a bacon sandwich and a mug of hot sweet tea. After that, he'd have told us anything.
He didn't know when his sons were coming back, but agreed to tell us as soon as they did. If he had the opportunity. The burglaries had coincided with their visits and he had wondered if they had committed them. We assured him they had, and he shed a few tears.
When Jeff and Nigel returned we sat Mr. Nelson in an interview room with another sarni, making a statement to a nice police lady, while we had an operations conference in my office. I wasn't happy about asking him to grass on his sons. Blood, as they say, is thicker than prison soup.
"The alternative," Jeff said, 'is to put out an APW on them and hope someone tells us when they come into the country, or mount an observation operation."
"One's unreliable and the other's expensive," Nigel said.
"We could just watch out for the van moving," Jeff suggested.
"Still expensive," Nigel countered. "We could be waiting weeks. I think we should rely on Mr. Nelson."
"We're asking him to shop his sons," I said. "It doesn't seem fair.
Plus, he might not get the opportunity. Or he might change his mind; he's obviously scared of them."
"Let's ask the technical support boffins to fit the van with a bug,"
Dave suggested.
"Sadly, it belongs to Len," I said. "If it's not Mr. Nelson's van he can't give us permission."
"We could say we didn't know."
"It would be inadmissible," Nigel told him.
"So what? We'll still nab them."
"And it'll get kicked out!"
"We can't fit a bug," I said, 'but there is a way Mr. Nelson could."
They all looked at me.
"He could just happen to drive the van into Electronic Solutions on Monday morning and ask them to fit it with a Tracker," I explained.
"Who would pay?" Nigel asked.
"We would," I replied.
"They cost about two hundred pounds."
Dave turned on him. "If you don't mind me saying so, Nigel," he began, 'you're growing into a right management cop."
"Nigel's right," I said before an argument could develop. "Money's tight, but I'll make a case out for it. Jeff, how much would a surveillance operation cost?"
"God knows!" he gasped.
"Think of a number."
"Er, ten thousand pounds."
"That'll do. Two hundred for a Tracker is a bargain. Have a word with Electronic Solutions in the morning, see if they'll do it cost price.
Or, better still, free. Tell them we'll take our fleet business away from them if they won't. Then ask Mr. Nelson to take the van in."
Electronic Solutions are auto electricians in Halifax. They tune our pursuit cars and fit various gizmos to them. The Tracker is a patented device that is more usually fitted to top-of-the-range vehicles like Porsches and Jags. It is secreted away somewhere and is completely passive until activated by a signal from a tracking station. If the car is reported stolen the signal is transmitted to it, and from then on its movements can be followed to within five yards. According to the literature some owners have had their vehicles found within minutes. Sadly, we're not allowed to plant bugs in vehicles without the consent of the owner. It's regarded as unsporting. Going to court with evidence gathered in such a manner would be misguided and overoptimistic, like ringing the Scottish Assembly and asking to reverse the charges. These days we're not allowed to gain evidence by trickery, subterfuge or deviousness. Confessions are acceptable, most of the time, but not always, and video evidence is good. Courts love video evidence, because TV doesn't lie. Get a decent tape of a crime in progress, show it on Look North, and the villains queue up to shout:
"It's me!" They're the same inadequate souls who appear on afternoon TV shows like Ricki Lake and Jerry Springer, confessing to owning a Barbour coat or having sexual relations with an armadillo. After that, putting your hand up for blagging Barclays Bank is positively high class. No, we couldn't fit the Transit with a bug, but Mr. Nelson could.
"It's not continuous monitoring," Nigel warned. "They need alerting that the vehicle is on the move before they activate the bug. And they'll want a crime reference number."
"Give them the last burglary number," Jeff suggested. "And once it's activated it should run forever. It's connected to the battery, I think."
"OK," I said. "Let's go for belt and braces. First of all, find out exactly how the Tracker works, Jeff. Then, if you think it necessary, put out an APW on the brothers. That might give us some notice that they are in the country. Lastly, if you're still not convinced, ask Mr. Nelson to give us a nod when they are around. OK?"
"Yep."
I sent Mr. Nelson home with the WPC. His home, that is, not hers. As I walked to the door with them I said: "I believe you told us that your sons held shares in a bar in Tenerife, Mr. Nelson."
"Aye, so they'm tell me."
Any idea what it's called?"
"Aye, it's called t'Pigeon Pie."
"Really?" I said. You could have knocked me down with a Sally Lunn.