We went back upstairs to the restaurant and had a pot of Earl Grey and a Danish pastry each. It was unreal after the unpleasantness of a few minutes earlier. "Did you see it all?" I asked.
"Yes. I'd just popped in to buy a few things and I walked straight into it. Do you often have to put up with such abuse?"
"Oh, now and again."
"Will that woman really report you? It's people like her who give the left a bad name."
"I doubt it, but it will be tricky if she does. Manhandling a sixteen-year-old girl could be construed to my disadvantage."
Annabelle looked grave. "Oh dear. I hope you are not going to be in trouble. I saw it all — I could make a statement on your behalf."
I laughed. "Thanks for the offer, but don't worry about it. She said her piece in front of an audience, that's probably all she wanted."
Annabelle went off to do her shopping and I scrounged a lift back to the station. It had been a mixed sort of an afternoon, and it wasn't over yet. My reputation had preceded me.
"Hey, who's the stunner you were seen with? You've been keeping her under wraps, you crafty so-and-so," were DS Willis's opening words.
"Oh, just a friend, Tony. Any messages?"
"Only a note from Jeff Caton for you. It's on your desk somewhere."
I found the note. It read: "ABC Security is a privately owned company, founded four years ago. Head office at ABC House, Welton, Lanes.
Managing Director named Miss Eunice Grimes."
Big bells were ringing in my head. I was riding on a lucky streak.
Time to spin the wheel once again, but this time we'd do it the easy way. I rang Oldfield CID. There was nobody in that I knew. Eventually I persuaded a young DC to make some enquiries for me. He rang me back, true to his word.
"ABC Security is owned by Eunice Grimes, as you said, but her married name is Cakebread. She's just a front for her husband. He has his finger in all sorts of pies, but he's got a record, so that would rule him out of owning a security company."
"Aubrey Bingham Cakebread?"
"That's the man. His wife's supposed to be an ex-beauty queen, and she breeds dogs as a pastime."
"Dogs? What sort of dogs?"
"Some fancy little foreign things. Shites-something-or-other."
"Shites-on-the-carpet?"
"Not quite, sir, but something like that," he chuckled.
"How about shih-tzu?"
"That's it, sir! Shih-tzu."
"Thanks, pal, you've been a big help. I'll keep you informed."
I went home. The reasonable day had turned into a good one, and I had discovered that wrestling with a nubile schoolgirl was no big turn-on.
I was pleased about that, too.
Mad Maggie announced that she had a copy of the incriminating video set up in the conference room, and would show it to us if we cared to proceed there forthwith. I was delayed on the telephone, and when I reached the conference room it was heaving with bodies. I was amazed by the interest she had drummed up. Everybody, from the canteen ladies to the SDO, seemed eager to view the evidence.
It was a superb piece of camera work. First there were wide-angle shots, showing the overall scene, then close-ups of each of the three girls' faces. I'd seen the next bit, where the umbrella neatly hooked the handbag. It was all done without breaks, joints or patches; as evidence it couldn't be faulted. When I thought it had ended I stood up to leave, but somebody said: "Wait, there's some more." After a few seconds of snowstorm an overall view of the restaurant came into view.
A couple were just taking their places at a table in the middle. The male was being very attentive. The hairs on the back of my neck were already prickling like a bilious porcupine when the camera zoomed in.
"It's Mr. Priest!" somebody exclaimed.
A cheer went up all round the room as they recognised me, followed by wolf whistles when they saw Annabelle.
"Never mind him! Who's she?"
"The jam my sod, nabs the villains and gets the woman!"
I was due in court at ten o' clock, but before that I had arranged for one of the Traffic drivers who had been on the Art Aid convoy to come to see me. I knew him reasonably well, and he had a reputation as a no-nonsense officer.
"Cast your mind back about six months," I asked him, after I'd given him his compulsory mug of coffee, 'to the time you escorted the paintings for the Art Aid exhibition. What can you tell me about the job?"
He thought for a moment, then said: "Not much to tell, really. It started out pretty routine; we thought there was a touch of overkill, but I suppose you can't be too careful with money like that involved.
We waited in the big lay-by on the Lancashire side of the border and took over from the West Pennine boys. Then, coming down this side, the armoured van broke down. We were suspicious, but not worried enough to sign out the gun we were carrying. The chopper had been standing by, so we whistled it up for extra cover. We hung around for two hours until a breakdown truck arrived, then towed the lot straight to the Leeds Art Gallery. It was a bit ball-aching: we were only doing twenty miles per hour, and trying to watch every which way at once. The pictures weren't transferred to another vehicle or anything like that.
They stayed in the armoured van throughout."
"This was an ABC Security armoured van?" "That's right," he replied.
"Up to breaking down they'd been very impressive. Well drilled everybody seemed to know what they were doing. The breakdown cocked it up, though. We were about three hours late when we finally arrived."
"Did anybody try to find what the trouble was?" "Yeah, I'd forgotten that. The driver had a look under the bonnet. The oil filter had fallen off and wrecked the engine. He was well watched. I can guarantee that he didn't squirm down the prop shaft, up through a hole in the van floor and swipe a couple of paintings. He just pronounced the vehicle un repairable and radioed for help." He shrugged his shoulders as if he had nothing further to offer. "What's the problem, Mr. Priest? Has a picture gone missing?"
"I'm not sure," I replied. "I think there may have been a switch, but so far I'm crying in the wilderness. I take it someone rode in the back of the armoured van."
"That's right. Two ABC guards. I saw them when they unloaded."
"Can you remember what they looked like?"
"No. They were wearing helmets and visors. One was fairly small, though, and the other was about my size. We were keeping our eyes on the cargo."
"Mmm. Well, thanks for what you've told me. Sorry to keep you away from swarming up and down the motorway. If you think of anything else I'd be glad if you'd let me know."
He thought for a few seconds. "Just one small point," he said. "The two in the back liked country and western music. Played loud. All the time we were waiting it was coming out through the ventilators. Nearly sent me barmy."
I drove down to the courthouse and parked in the reserved parking. I was early, but I'd wanted to escape the distractions of the office. I sat in the car and took stock of what I knew so far. It didn't amount to a shoe box full of polystyrene beads. Truscott was linked to the paintings, and ABC had moved them.
I'd always imagined Truscott to be a non-smoker, he was so fastidious in other ways, but he'd had a small cigar when I saw him at Beamish, so he could have set fire to his own armchair. True, he was small, like the security guard, but lots of men were small. Small people weren't usually attracted into the security industry, though. He definitely wasn't a country and western lover: he probably thought the term referred to Cornish folk dances. String quartets were more his style.
I thought about our meeting at Beamish and went through it, step by step, word by word. Something didn't gel, and eventually I thought I knew what it was.
I'd left the rest of the day free for the trial, but I'd been given an inkling that it wouldn't take long. At the last minute the accused changed his plea to guilty, so there was no need for me to tell the court how I'd arrested him with the left halves of ninety-six pairs of expensive training shoes in his car boot. I came out and gunned my car over the hill into Lancashire. It was time to have a look at Mr.
Breadcake on his own territory.
Forty minutes later I was sitting outside ABC House, nerve centre of the Cakebread empire. The building was an old warehouse, the side of which gave directly on to the pavement of a narrow cobbled alley. There was a big sliding door, with a small door let into it, otherwise it was just a huge, blank brick wall. The small door had a Yale lock and a deadlock. Round the front it was much more open. The building was set well back from the main road, with a tall mesh fence enclosing the area to the front and other side. At the side were parked several security vans with the ABC logo on them. In front were presumably the staff's cars. The entrance to the compound was protected by a lowered barrier controlled by a gatehouse. Prominently situated, as close to the door as it was possible to park, was the familiar Rolls Royce with the personal registration number.
I'd no plan. I just wanted to get the feel of the place, so that if I ever came back it wouldn't be a surprise to me. I'd hang around a while, then maybe look for his home, The Ponderosa. What other names could he have chosen for his mansion, I wondered? A combination of their respective mo nickers would be about right. Eunaub had a certain style to it. Or maybe they'd prefer something a little more up-market, like… The Summer Palace.
Suddenly he was there, getting into the Roller. He was even fatter than I remembered him. The gate man came out of his little office and raised the barrier and the Rolls swept imperiously through, the way that Rollses do.
He could have forgotten his cigar clipper and come back for it, so I waited ten minutes before driving up to the little gatehouse that stood between me and the secrets of the Cakebread empire.
"I've come to see Mr. Cakebread; he is expecting me," I told the gate man "I'm afraid you've just missed him, sir, he left a few minutes ago."
"Oh dear. I've a rather important message for him." I tried to look suitably downcast and waved my ID card in his direction. "Do you think I could have a word with his secretary?"
"Certainly, sir. Do you know where to find her?"
"Yes, I think so, thanks."
He raised the barrier and I was through. I tried to watch him in the rear-view mirror but didn't see anything. He hadn't had the opportunity to read the name on my ID, but it was a fair bet that he wrote my registration number in his log book.
What the hell, I thought, no point in letting it grow cold, and parked in the spot marked ABC, so recently vacated by the man himself. Just inside the front entrance was a receptionist's desk, combined with a switchboard. I gazed at the blonde sitting behind it with awe.
Geological forces were at work underneath her blouse. The thin material was struggling to conceal a demonstration of plate tectonics.
Continents were in collision.
"Can I help you?" she asked with a brassy smile, as she looked up from her True Romances.
"Er, yes," I stumbled out, endeavouring to hold her gaze. Oh, to have the eyes of a chameleon, one to look here, the other to look there. "I, er, was hoping to see Mr. Cakebread."
"Oh! you've just missed him. He left about five minutes ago, for the airport. He's flying to Spain. He has his own plane, you know, flies himself all over the place. I think it's ever so exciting." She went glassy-eyed with the romance of travel, then the receptionist training resurfaced: "Would you like to speak to anybody else, Mr…?"
"No, it had to be Aubrey. I'm a policeman, and I needed a word with him. Any idea when he'll be back?"
A look of shock spread across her face, and she exclaimed: "Oh my God!
The policeman, where did I put it?" and started rummaging frantically in her desk. "Here it is!" she cried triumphantly, holding aloft a manila envelope. She looked at the front of it and read: "Mr.
Hilditch, is that you?"
"Yes, that's me," I lied, taking the envelope and putting it in my pocket. "Now you know my name, you have to tell me yours."
She gave me the warm, confident smile of someone who has narrowly missed making a cock-up and doesn't yet know they have made an even bigger one. "Gloria," she told me, coyly.
"It suits you," I said. "How long have you worked for Aubrey?" We were interrupted by the telephone. While she tried to connect somebody I had a glance round. No Van Goghs or Monets were hanging on the walls, dammit.
"Only about a month, well, this is my third week. I started in the office, then he made me his receptionist."
"Do you like working for him?"
"Ooh yes, ever so much. Did you know he's a multimillionaire? He's got a plane and a boat, and flats all over the place. Says he'll take me on his boat one day." She was looking dreamy again.
"Whereabouts in Spain has he gone? Do you know, Gloria?"
"Marbella, I think. He's got a boat there. Don't know where it is but I've heard of it. Sounds ever so romantic. Do you ever go to any of his parties, Mr. Hilditch?"
"It's Ernest, you can call me Ernie. Yes, I've been to a couple at The Ponderosa. Old Aubrey certainly knows how to throw a party."
"Oh, I'd love to go to The Ponderosa. I meant the parties he holds here, in his suite upstairs."
"No. To tell the truth, I didn't know he had a suite here.
Crafty so-and-so's kept it a secret from me. Probably scared I'll pinch all the girls."
"It's fabulous," she gushed, 'carpets up to your knees, and the colours are gorgeous everything matches. He showed me round it once. Says he'll invite me to the next party."
"I might see you there, then." The clock behind her head showed a quarter to twelve. "How about letting me take you for a bite of lunch?
What time are you free?"
Her smile looked almost demure. "That will be lovely," she cooed.
"About half past twelve; is that all right?"
"That's fine. Where shall I pick you up? Can you get out of the door at the side?"
"No, I don't think so. I'll meet you just outside the gatehouse, if that's okay."
"Perfect. So I'll see you in three-quarters of an hour; it's a long time to wait."
I drove away feeling like a prospector who isn't sure if he's struck gold or diamonds. I headed out of town until I found a suitable pub that served food, so that it looked as if I knew my way around. I parked and took the lumpy envelope from my inside pocket. It contained three keys and a note. One, a nondescript door key was on its own; the other two, a Yale and a Chubb, were on a keyring. The note read:
Ernest,
PM Tue. PM Thur.
Alarm 4297 It was signed with a stylised ABC, similar to the logo on the vans.
He'd obviously spent many hours practising it.
When I arrived back at ABC House I parked just outside the side door.
Looking as if I had every right to be there I tried the Yale key in the lock. It turned. Then I tried the Chubb and that fitted, too. I left the door as I'd found it and set off round to the gatehouse to wait for Gloria. That's when the diamond mine fell in.
As I stopped in the road just short of the entrance, a maroon Daimler did a right turn across the front of me. It was driven by the one and only, the inimitable, appearing for the first time in person, Ernest Hilditch, Chief Constable of the East Pennine force. After a brief word the barrier was raised, and soon he was, no doubt, addressing the considerable charms of Gloria. After a couple of minutes he came storming out and slammed the Daimler's door behind him. As he tore towards the exit the barrier was raised, but he screeched to a halt and leapt out to accost the gate man After a few violent gestures they went into his office. Chief Constable Hilditch was playing at being a policeman, collecting car numbers. Somebody was up Shit Creek with a duff outboard, and it looked like me.
My appetite had gone, so I went straight back to the office. Nigel and Tony Willis were in, going through some cases, solved and unsolved, looking for common denominators.
I gave them a terse "Any messages?" as I hung up my jacket. It was my I Mean Business entrance.
"Two," Nigel told me. "Your friend at the Fraud Squad said to tell you that rumour has it that the American private eye firm, Winkler's, are over here and asking a lot of questions in the shady market. He thinks you may be on to something."
"Good, and the other?"
"Limbo said be sure not to miss her promotion do tomorrow night."
I caught Tony's gaze and flashed a glance up at a poster on the wall.
It was headed: "Racism and Sexism', and went on to say that these would not be tolerated, and any officer hearing racist or sexist language should address it immediately.
"Who's Limbo?" I asked him.
"WPC Limbert, Kim Limbert. She moves to the city on the first, as sergeant."
We sat in silence for a few moments, then I asked: "Have you ever thought that she might find being called Limbo offensive?"
"Gosh, no," he confessed, 'it never occurred to me. Everybody calls her Limbo."
"Not everybody," I stated.
Nigel was embarrassed at being caught out, and fell silent. I wouldn't have let him off the hook, but Tony was working with him, so after a while he threw out a lifeline. "Do you still fancy Kim, Charlie?"
I thought about it, leaning back in my chair and looking up at the ceiling. "Yes, I think I do, but I've stopped dreaming about her.
Unless I dream about her and forget."
"Not enough meat on her for me. I prefer something you can dig your fingers into."
Nigel was looking from one of us to the other, growing visibly agitated.
"Naw," I disagreed, "I like them tall and skinny. It's like wrestling with a boa constrictor, lots of points of contact and intertwining limbs."
Nigel could contain himself no longer. "What about sexism?" he demanded, "When are you going to start addressing sexism?"
"Good point, boss," Tony admitted. "When do we start addressing sexism?"
I thought about it for ten seconds before making my pronouncement:
"Mariana," I said.