Design for Murder (14 page)

He glanced around. One of the women had disappeared. The other, lurching towards the promenade staggered, then seemed to slip, teetering on stiletto heels. She fell on her backside and waved her arms, laughing. Something cold touched Charlie’s spine. The woman sitting in the gutter – he recognized her.

Detective Sergeant Elaine Start.

He sat there, stunned, for several seconds. She was drunk, incapable, smashed out of her mind, giggling in the gutter outside a nightclub. If she was found like that, if it got back to Ponteland, it would be the end of her career in the police. A career she loved. Cursing to himself, Charlie got out of his car and moved quickly across the road towards her, sitting in the gutter, waving one of her high-heeled shoes in the air. The heel was broken. It had probably caused her to stagger and fall.

She was giggling, crooning to herself.

Charlie reached her, got one hand under her left arm and tried to heave her to her feet. She smiled at him vaguely for a moment, then recognized him in delight. ‘Charlie!’ She waved her arms and continued with her singing.

‘Yes, I know the old song,’ Charlie snapped. ‘Come on, get to your feet. We need to get you home.’

‘And the pig got up and slowly walked away,’ Charlie finished for her. ‘Yes, we know all about that. Now pull yourself together. Where’s your car?’

Elaine waved her heelless shoe vaguely in the direction of the promenade. ‘Down there somewhere, down there. You’re my pig, ain’t you, Charlie? My real piggy-pig. But you wouldn’t walk away from me, would you?’

She was certainly in no condition to drive. She had the next day off. She would have to come back and retrieve her car then if she had recovered from the inevitable hangover. He half led, half carried her towards his own vehicle. He opened the passenger door and bundled her into the seat. He had to lift her left leg and push it in as she dangled it outside the vehicle. He closed the door on her, put his hands on his hips, stared around at the silent street. From the promenade he could hear the crashing of sea on the rocks. There was no other person around. He had been alone in witnessing Elaine’s drunken collapse. He bit his lip and stared at the entrance to the nightclub. Raymond Conroy. Still in there.

But Charlie felt he had no real choice. He hurried around to the driving seat, climbed in and started the car. He had to get Elaine home. He knew what the result would be if she was caught like this. A flow of obscenities came from his lips as he headed back into town on the coast road.

When they reached her bungalow he had to rummage through her handbag to get her keys. She had always refused to let him have a set. She was barely awake as he half-carried her indoors. She collapsed onto the bed, lying on her back, eyes wide, staring at the ceiling, and her giggles
had started again. ‘My little pig…. That’s you, Charlie. And you’d never walk away from me….’

He got her undressed with difficulty, pushed her under the sheets and stood looking down at her. He glanced at his watch. Raymond Conroy could still be at the club. More likely he’d have gone home by this late hour. It was pointless driving back to Whitley Bay now: he would have had to go into the club, anyway, to find out if Conroy had left or not. It had been a hell of a day; a worse evening. He heaved a sigh, shook his head, then undressed and slipped into bed beside Elaine. She was on her back, snoring. Charlie lay beside her, angry with her, angry with himself.

Finally, he drifted off to sleep.

It was a broken slumber as Elaine tossed and turned beside him. At seven in the morning he was wide awake. He swung his legs out of the bed, rose, walked through to the bathroom and showered. When he returned and started dressing, Elaine woke up. She opened one eye, watching him with a frown. Her head was probably thumping with pain. He knew the feeling.

When he was dressed, he stood beside the bed. ‘I’ll be going. I’d better report in. Make sure everything is all right.’

She swallowed; ran her tongue around her dry mouth. ‘Charlie …’

‘Yes?’

‘You brought me home?’

‘You were far gone,’ he said. ‘You’ll have to collect your car this afternoon. Get out to Whitley Bay on the Metro – but leave it for a while. You’ve still got too much alcohol in your blood.’

She nodded, winced, turned over and buried her face in the pillow. She muttered something.

‘What?’ Charlie asked, on his way out to the bedroom door.

‘I said I’m going to have to give it up,’ she repeated.

‘Booze?’ he queried.

She turned her head to glare at him in weary contempt. ‘Booze? No! Wearing stiletto heels!’

Charlie closed the door quietly behind him.

At Ponteland he checked in, went to the canteen and got himself some breakfast. He looked through the surveillance rotas and noted the name of the officer due at Conroy’s rented house. He chatted with the duty sergeant, but no comment was made about Conroy and the breakdown of surveillance the previous evening. Charlie felt relieved. He went home at lunchtime: Newcastle United were playing Chelsea on television. His money was on the London side.

It wasn’t until Monday lunchtime that Charlie, along with other officers involved in his team, learned the unpleasant truth.

Raymond Conroy had put in no appearance at his house, and his car was missing. They had lost track of the man they believed to be the Zodiac Killer. It was as though he had vanished into thin air.

On Charlie’s watch. 

Assistant Chief Constable Jim Charteris shouldered his way into the room. His face was grim, his lips drawn in a thin line of displeasure. He sat down behind his desk then waved Charlie Spate to a seat facing him, without looking at him. There was no welcome in the gesture. He sat there for several seconds, then raised his head, staring at Charlie with hostile eyes, before he pushed a file across the desk. His tone was harsh. ‘You’d better take a look at this. It came in last night, by email, from ACC Rawlins in the Midlands.’

Charlie took the file and opened it. There were several sheets inside, colour photographs that had been brightly lit by arc lamps. He looked at each of them in turn, slowly.

The first consisted of a photograph of a room. It was long and narrow; at the far end there seemed to be some kind of stonebuilt sink, while along one wall was a long narrow table. In the centre of the room was a second table, littered with implements. Charlie turned to the second photograph. It had concentrated on the stained sink, the dripping tap, the dark chips in the surface. The third photograph was of the table along the wall: it was scattered with knives, scalpels,
scissors, and he could make out small, dark bottles of what were probably inks. Charlie looked up, caught Charteris’s cold, lidded gaze. He turned to the next photograph in the folder.

It showed the concrete floor of the room. It was possible to make out iron rings that had been cemented into the concrete. Beside them at intervals were small metal eyelets. The floor was covered in dark stains. Charlie guessed the stains had been caused by blood.

There was another photograph of a section of the wall. Hanging from the stained wall were leather straps, heavily buckled. Charlie could guess at the purpose for their use: women had been held there, spread-eagled, arms wide, breasts straining, while the attacker who used the dungeon had concentrated on his grisly work. Charlie glanced back at the earlier photograph of the floor: there were several pieces of dirty rag lying there. They could have been used to mop up blood, or ink. He took a deep breath and looked up again at the assistant chief constable.

‘Conroy?’

ACC Charteris frowned and folded his arms, his mouth twisted in distaste. ‘It’s a little early to be certain,’ he said slowly. ‘The dungeon was discovered by chance, a cellar underneath a deserted warehouse. But the officers who’ve visited it are pretty sure that it was the cellar used by the Zodiac Killer. They’re cock-a-hoop now, because although they haven’t yet received a report from the forensic labs, they’re certain that there’ll be more than enough DNA samples to link the murdered women with the killer. And they’re pretty certain they’ll soon have the evidence to fix on Raymond Conroy. Incontrovertible proof. There’ll be no repeat performance, no collapse of the trial against Conroy next time. Assuming, of course, there will be a trial.’

Charlie made no reply. He could guess what was coming.

Charteris was silent for a while, his eyes fixed disdainfully on Charlie. At last, he said slowly, ‘ACC Rawlins was on the phone to me this morning. He was excited, relieved, at what they had discovered. That is, until I told him that we weren’t able to put our hands immediately on Raymond Conroy. I had to tell him we no longer had the bastard under surveillance. Rawlins was not pleased, I can tell you, DCI Spate. And neither am I. So what the hell happened?’

Charlie shrugged, laid down the file of photographs and spread his hands. ‘Well …’

‘From the beginning,’ Charteris ground out.

Charlie hesitated, aware of the sluggish ache in his chest. ‘We’ve had Conroy under regular watch, sir. As you ordered. The rota got a bit disturbed because of the bug that’s been going around—’

‘Don’t give me bloody excuses! You knew the priority I put on this,’ Charteris snapped. ‘To hell with bugs!’

‘We were thinly spread on the rota,’ Charlie replied stubbornly. ‘But we kept an eye on him and he knew we were watching him. It would have been better, maybe, if we could have kept a lower profile, if we could have kept our presence less obvious….’

He paused as he saw the cold anger in Charteris’s eyes.

‘Anyway, we kept watch on him,’ Charlie continued. ‘Then on Friday evening last he changed his routine. Didn’t go to the usual pubs he frequented. Drove out to Whitley Bay.’ Charlie hesitated. ‘That’s why, when the report came in, I went out to Club 95 myself. I told the duty officer he could go home: he wasn’t well. The bug again. So I finished the shift in his place.’

‘And you saw Conroy go home?’ Charteris asked.

Charlie was slow to answer. He thought back desperately
to the events of that night. There was no way he could tell Charteris that he had left the scene to protect DS Start. In any case, Conroy could have gone home some time after Charlie had left – but must have left again because when the surveillance had recommenced on Saturday morning Conroy’s car had not been in the drive. He avoided the question.

‘The next shift started at seven in the morning,’ he continued hurriedly. ‘The unmarked car stationed itself outside the house; Conroy’s car wasn’t in the drive. As you’ll have seen from the report I submitted this morning, the officer stayed on watch, uncertain what to do, thinking maybe Conroy had got drunk, taken a taxi home, so he thought little of the fact that Conroy didn’t emerge from the house for his usual breakfast in the town centre. After all, it was known Conroy had been at Club 95, and it was reasonable to think that the guy was taking a rest, having a lie-in after maybe drinking too much at the club.’

‘Go on,’ the assistant chief constable said ominously as Charlie hesitated.

Charlie pushed the folder of photographs back across the desk to Charteris. ‘From that point onwards, there was some uncertainty. There was no sign of Conroy, and though a search was made around the Whitley Bay area, there was no sign of the car initially. It was finally located up near St Mary’s lighthouse. Only when I got that report did I authorize the lads to approach the house. The officer knocked, checked doors and windows, but there was no sign of life.’

‘And no report in to me,’ the assistant chief constable remarked bitterly.

Charlie’s mouth was dry. ‘We weren’t certain how to act. I originally thought maybe Conroy had driven home, then
gone out again that morning. Finding the abandoned car threw us off track. I thought maybe we should still check his usual haunts. That’s what we did most of Sunday. Then, finally—’

‘You thought fit to report in.’ Assistant Chief Constable Charteris seemed on the point of exploding; his mouth was hard set, colour rising in his cheeks. He took a deep breath, trying to control his temper. ‘You’ve made a complete
balls-up
of this, Spate. We had Conroy in our sights – I’d issued specific orders that he was to be kept under surveillance at all times – and now, just as we seemed to have made a breakthrough with the discovery of the murder site, your incompetence has let the bastard slip through our hands. It’s perfectly clear to me what’s happened. Conroy went to that club. When he came out he realized there was no surveillance. That’s the bloody truth, isn’t it? You weren’t there! The thing is, why?’

Charlie hesitated, not knowing what to say. If he explained about Elaine, both of them would be in trouble. He set his jaw. ‘He went home, sir,’ he lied. ‘I saw him.’

Charteris couldn’t dispute it, but he clearly didn’t believe Charlie. ‘So how come we find his car at St Mary’s? He drove back there, to jump off the cliff, maybe? I wish! The fact is Conroy dumped his car, and vanished. We’ve no bloody idea where he’s got to!’ Charteris clenched his fists in frustration. ‘I can tell you, Rawlins is hopping mad, Spate, and I’m in the same mood. You’ve put us in the situation where we’ve failed in our responsibilities. You, nobody else. So you’d better get things right. Within the week, Rawlins assures me, they’ll have the first reports in from the forensic labs on the range of DNA found from samples taken in that hellhole. If, as they suppose, there’ll be incriminating evidence relating to Raymond Conroy, you’d better be in a
position where we can produce the man himself. In
custody
. You understand what I’m saying?’

Charlie understood perfectly. He had to get tabs on Conroy immediately: he had only a few days to find the man and put him in a holding cell until proceedings could start again.

That meant he had to pull out all the stops. He needed to seek help from all the people who might have had contact with the man during his stay in Newcastle.

Even the lawyers who had brought about Conroy’s release from prison.

Susie Cartwright caught Eric as he was leaving the office. She wrinkled her nose in distaste. ‘DCI Spate has been on the phone. He wants you to call out to see him at Ponteland: he wants to talk to you.’

‘Not today,’ Eric said briskly. ‘Or the next couple of days for that matter. I have to get these papers signed to close down the Chivers Trust and then I’m off to catch the train to London immediately afterwards. And I expect to be there a couple of days.’

‘Mr Spate made it sound like it was urgent.’

‘Urgent for him, maybe, not for me,’ Eric replied. ‘You’ll have to put him off. It’ll be Friday at least before I can see him.’

Susie smiled in satisfaction. She would, Eric knew, take considerable pleasure in frustrating the detective chief inspector. She had never liked the man, and this was a petty triumph she would enjoy. ‘I’ll see to it at once, Mr Ward.’

Eric left the office with his briefcase tucked under his arm and walked to the car park. The drive to Chivers Properties Limited, which lay just off the A1, took only ten minutes since traffic was fairly light. There was an electronically
gated car park outside the modern office building at the edge of the Town Moor: Eric spoke into the phone at the gate, giving his name and announcing his appointment with the chief executive. A few moments later the gate slid back smoothly to allow him entry.

The uniformed guard at the desk in the hallway informed him that Coleen Chivers maintained an office on the second floor, overlooking the Town Moor. He gestured towards the lift after Eric signed into the appointments book. Coleen Chivers did not keep him waiting long in the elegantly furnished, thick-carpeted reception room outside her office: the secretary made a quick call and then nodded, replaced the phone, rose and led Eric to the panelled, polished walnut door.

Coleen Chivers was standing behind her desk, arms folded across her bosom, staring out over the Moor. She turned her head as he entered, and stared at him. She remained silent for several seconds and it gave him time to observe her. She was slightly taller than her cousin Sharon, Eric calculated, dark haired, carefully coiffed. Her blue eyes were wide-spaced and challenging; and he gained the impression she would be more than competent in holding her own in a man’s business world. There was a confident directness in her glance, an appraisal in her eyes as she looked at him. She was a handsome woman, somewhat sharp-featured, perhaps, but her figure was good: he guessed that in her late thirties now, she would work out regularly to keep in shape. She was dressed in an Armani suit that had probably been designed to emphasize her competence and her success. ‘Mr Ward,’ she said in a quiet tone. ‘Please take a seat.’

She did not offer a handshake. Perhaps she felt dealing with a lawyer did not permit her to descend to such intimacies.

‘You have the papers?’ she asked.

Eric nodded, fished in his briefcase, and brought them out. He placed them on the desk in front of him. Coleen Chivers sauntered away from the window, picked up the papers and began to read them, wandering almost aimlessly around the room. Eric felt it was something of a performance, an actress dominating the stage of her own making. He heard the rustle as she turned over the pages but he did not look behind him: he waited quietly as she finished her reading of the documents.

‘Everything seems to be in order,’ she said at last, and came around behind her desk, pulled out her leather
high-backed
chair and sat down. She took a fountain pen from its holder. It was expensive: he caught the glint of gold. She fixed her glance upon him. ‘Mr Ward … you have a practice down at the Quayside, I understand.’

‘That’s right.’

She was silent for a few moments, but the glint in her eyes when she glanced up at him from the papers was still appraising. ‘Do you undertake much business in this line? Trust matters?’

Eric shook his head. ‘Not really. This is being done for a friend.’

‘My cousin,’ Coleen Chivers commented, the smile hardening slightly at the edges. ‘Yes. So what kind of work do you normally do?’

Eric shrugged. ‘It’s a criminal practice mainly. Small stuff. Though I also do a certain amount of work for various government departments.’

‘Hmm. You were formerly married to Anne Morcomb, weren’t you?’ she asked casually as she finished signing the documents in the appropriate places. Without waiting for confirmation, she added, ‘I’ve met her once or twice.
Business matters. Attractive. An efficient woman. And wealthy.’ Her glance flicked up to Eric, in deliberate calculation. ‘Anne Morcomb. And now my cousin. Is that the kind of woman that turns you on, Mr Ward? Women well-endowed financially?’

Eric found the question offensive but made no reply. He guessed none was expected. For some reason Coleen Chivers was seeking to taunt him. Perhaps test him. There was a short silence, then the chief executive of Chivers Properties Limited pushed the signed documents across to him, after extracting the few she needed to retain for her own files. ‘So that’s that. End of negotiations. They’ve been somewhat protracted. I’m pleased all is settled, at last.’

Eric gathered up the papers he would need to hand over to Sharon. ‘I think you’ve managed to obtain what you felt was due to you, Miss Chivers.’

She was amused, smiled faintly, leaning back in her chair. ‘I always fight for what I want. And I had right on my side. The depredations of Sharon Owen’s father had to be accounted for. I’m pleased that my cousin also saw it that way.’ She paused, eyeing Eric thoughtfully. ‘So what’s she like, Sharon Owen?’