Destroying Angel (24 page)

Suddenly the couple froze. Gage felt his pulse quicken as he tried to see what had startled them. All seemed normal, but the girl quickly straightened her knickers and they hurried back into the inky shadows beyond the range of the light.

Gage watched intently. Something had startled them, something he couldn’t see. The scene remained absolutely still for a long moment and then a shadow detached itself from the shade of a clump of sycamores.

Once more Gage’s pulse began to race and he raised the radio to his lips. It was a man: thin, tall and with a pinched face, alone and moving with a caution that Gage considered definitely suspicious. He was also carrying a plastic bag, clearly containing something heavy.

Gage relayed the man’s presence to control, relying on them to spread it to the other officers on the widely dispersed team. As he spoke, the suspect approached the gate, carefully avoiding the area within the sweep of the estate’s closed-circuit cameras.

Now came the critical period. Arresting him was one thing, but getting a successful prosecution quite another. It had always been Gage’s policy to risk property, if not human injury, in return for firm evidence. He had seen too many cases slip away because the police had moved in to make an arrest before the suspect had actually committed a crime. This time, he had no intention of giving the scum such an easy escape route.

Suddenly the figure slipped out of sight through a gap in the fence, suggesting he was moving in the direction of the DIY warehouse. Hastily relaying instructions to his men, Gage left his post and made for the ground.

He smiled to himself as he left the unit and moved cautiously towards the gate. He had anticipated the fire-raiser’s move, realising he would almost certainly strike from outside the perimeter fence, thus avoiding the problem of getting in and out of the industrial estate. The majority of his men were stationed in a wide ring that surrounded the area, with only himself and three others actually inside the estate. Even now they would be moving to cut off the man’s escape, waiting only for his signal to move in. In fact, he had correctly anticipated the fire-raiser’s entire plan of action, a piece of judgement that would look good on his record.

The padlock that held the chain on the rear gates clicked open under his key. Gage slipped through and moved to the gap in the fence through which the man had disappeared. He made his way carefully through the dense undergrowth. Beyond the undergrowth was a stretch of uneven wasteland, across which the suspect would have to move to get within range of his target.

A torch flicked on ahead of Gage. He ducked quickly, but then realised the beam was directed at the ground, barely visible but enough to guide the figure forward. Gage continued to follow, staying low and alert for a change in pattern of the beam’s movements that would tell him he’d been detected.

The figure eventually stopped, and stooped to perform some action on the ground. Gage stopped too, watching carefully and judging his moment. To his right, the wall of the warehouse reared up, dull against the black/orange sky, the windows reflecting the distant lights from the road. To the left and front the small trees and mounds of the wasteland created a jagged horizon. Somewhere out there, other policemen would be closing in on their man, waiting for Gage to decide when there was adequate proof of criminal intent.

Nothing happened for a minute, then the torch went out and the figure rose. There was a rapid motion and an instant later the crash of broken glass as one of the warehouse windows shattered.

Gage was shouting into the radio and calling to the figure to stop even as he scrambled to his feet. There was a cry of surprise and a flicker of flame, then a burst of yellow light. Gage saw the man clearly, illuminated by the flickering wick of a crude petrol bomb, then it was hurtling towards him, the flame trailing back in the air.

‘Jesus!’ Gage swore as he hurled himself to one side. The bomb exploded behind him with a roar and a flash. Something scolded his leg and, for a moment, he had the awful vision of being set alight by the burning petrol. Rolling frantically to the side he slapped at his trousers, but quickly realised he had only been struck by a piece of hot flying glass. He stopped to draw breath. ‘I’ll make the bastard pay for that!’ he cursed savagely.

His radio crackled into life. It was Berner, reporting the successful apprehension of a youth trying to flee the area.

‘Yeah, it was me,’ gloated the cocky arsehole across the desk from Ted Gage. ‘All seven of ’em.’

Gage suppressed the rage that had been simmering since the start of the interview. The Fire Ghost had turned out to be a Paul Eady, an unemployed loner in his early twenties. He was making no attempt to deny his crimes, and was clearly enjoying the notoriety. What infuriated Gage was his casual attitude to what he had done; the destruction of property and the flagrant risk to life. Gage also disliked having petrol bombs thrown in his general direction by useless layabouts who weren’t fit to scrape the dog shit from his…

‘Do you realise how much damage you’ve caused?’ he asked, his fury threatening to boil over.

‘Get real,’ Eady answered. ‘It’s all insured. Anyway, you rich sods have always got cash when you need it.’

‘I—’ Gage began, and then quelled the verbal and physical response that would only get him into a great deal of trouble… ‘So you’re prepared to sign a statement to the effect that you were solely responsible for all seven arson attacks attributed to the Fire Ghost?’

‘You are under no obligation to do so,’ the wet duty solicitor interjected.

‘No problem,’ Eady grinned. ‘I wouldn’t want to disappoint my public, now would I?’

‘Very well,’ said Gage. ‘For the benefit of the tape, Sergeant Yates is now passing Paul Eady a pen and paper with which to write his statement.’

Gage sat back wearily as Eady began to scrawl. True, Eady was an annoying little shit and, from the first moment he’d set eyes on him, he’d had a strong desire to punch him. But there was, at least, a satisfaction to counter his anger. He had caught the little prick and was about to get a signed admission to all seven fires, and it also meant he could abandon the line of enquiry that had so nearly cost him his job; the Cooper theory.

Susan MacQuillan annoyed him because she had insisted the last three fires had not been Fire Ghost attacks, yet his feelings toward her were tempered by the way she had declined to drop him in it after being put into a dangerous situation with Cooper’s boys. They were still charging all seven of them with assault, there being no reason not to as long as Berner, Reynolds and MacQuillan held their peace.

Now Julia Keeson would be all smiles and the press would take a very different attitude towards him, now that the Fire Ghost was caught. Now he’d be the hero who’d managed to crack a difficult case against the odds. The fact that he’d only succeeded because of a timely tip-off would be played down. He’d done it and that was what mattered.

Susan put the phone down and inhaled sharply. The morning had not been going well. Paulette was still at Companies’ House, retrieving data on de Vergy Fine Wines, and hopefully would come back with what they needed. Other than that, everything possible had gone wrong. None of the people she’d called had been able to provide any useful information on Alan Sowerby’s movements before he died. Most simply didn’t know, as was the case with the various companies whose tastings he was supposed to have attended. All of them said he might or might not have been there, and the receptionists had been unwilling to let her talk to anybody who might remember. Jacob’s Barn had been nearly as bad; a waitress trying to be helpful but failing completely.

Worse had been the call from Paul Berner to say they had caught the Fire Ghost and that he had admitted to all seven fires. Susan’s protestations that the man was obviously psychotic, and his word could not be relied on, had fallen on deaf ears. They had a confession and that was that.

Not that Berner had been unsympathetic. In fact, he had sorely wished Susan had been right, mainly because he would then have avoided a severe dressing-down from DI Gage. He had even agreed to come over the next day and talk to Susan about the case, although she suspected it was more in the hope of boosting his own tarnished reputation than of helping her.

Susan knew she was right, yet proving it was not going to be as easy a task as she had anticipated. At least they had the samples from Chez Emil, with which it should be possible to prove that de Vergy Fine Wines had been involved in fraud. Paulette would then have her wine scandal, which was something. But Susan wanted Ruddock for murder and arson, and was not prepared to back down until she had him.

The morning’s frustrations left her feeling distinctly insecure and in need of a cuddle from Paulette. But at least there was the prospect of lunch with Oswald MacNaughton, whose impeccable taste in food and wine couldn’t fail to improve her mood.

Paulette watched as Susan filled Oswald MacNaughton’s glass. He went through the ritual of tasting the pale yellow wine, before finally setting the glass down with a slightly puzzled expression.

‘Is it not the same Sauvignon de Touraine you showed me before?’ he asked. ‘Because if it is not, it is certainly very similar.’

Susan held up a finger for patience and extracted a second bottle from the case by her side. As with the first, it was wrapped in brown paper, the label hidden. She poured, and MacNaughton declared it to be the Chenin they had tasted on their previous visit. The third white wine he identified as the Choray co-op’s southern French Chardonnay, the three reds that followed as their Gamay, Cabernet and southern French blend.

‘I confess to bafflement,’ he declared as he set the last glass down. ‘These are the same wines as we tasted before.’

‘Not according to the labels,’ Paulette said as Susan removed the paper sheath from the first bottle. ‘What you have just tasted are de Vergy Fine Wines’ selection of French classics: Sancerre, Vouvray, Chablis, Beaujolais, St. Emilion and Châteauneuf-du-Pape respectively.’

‘Good God,’ MacNaughton replied, picking up the supposed St. Emilion bottle and looking at it as if disinclined to accept its existence.

‘And there we have the scam,’ Susan said. ‘They were importing a range of cheap French wines, relabelling them as classics, and selling them at prices that would have been close to impossible, had they been the real things. They knew they could always undercut their competitors.’

‘So they sold to restaurants that were only interested in getting the famous names at the lowest prices,’ Paulette took over. ‘Which means most of them, in my experience. Their profit margins were huge and they were safe, as long as they kept their books in good order. De Vergy Fine Wines’ VAT and tax returns are immaculate, and the authorities are happy as long as the paperwork looks good.’

‘Good God,’ MacNaughton repeated. ‘Well, I suppose at least they made their fakes true to the original grape varieties, but still.’

‘It also explains why they were so keen to avoid becoming well known in the wine establishment,’ Susan continued. ‘Presumably you’d have spotted these as fakes immediately.’

‘Well, to be honest, no,’ MacNaughton admitted. ‘You see, the wines are made from the right grapes, so they do taste vaguely right. If I came across them at a tasting, I’d simply have taken a couple of sniffs and returned the glass politely to the table. In fact, they’re not that bad. The reds are palatable; I’ve tasted worse Sancerre and Vouvray; and it’s only the supposed Chablis that’s really poor. It’s a brave man indeed who stands up and denounces somebody as a fraud in the middle of a tasting. It’s far simpler to just pass on to something else, and that’s what would have happened if any experts tasted these wines.’

‘Except Alan Sowerby,’ Paulette put in.

‘Except poor old Alan,’ MacNaughton agreed, ‘but again, even though he was sure the wines weren’t what they said they were, he assumed they’d been made on the cheap and that it was de Vergy Fine Wines who were being cheated, not that they were the cheats themselves.’

‘He was also infatuated with Annabella de Vergy,’ Susan added, ‘and he got on very well with Philip Ruddock.’

‘Annabella is wonderful,’ Paulette put in, ‘but you should see what he wrote about her in his diary.’

‘So,’ Susan continued, ‘they were bringing the wines into the warehouse, changing the capsules and labels with their machine and sending them out as these fake classics. When Sowerby started to investigate, they must have realised he would eventually get to the truth. So, knowing his taste for exotic food, they made up a fancy pâté with Destroying Angel and poisoned him. The initial symptoms are identical to those of ordinary food poisoning, which anybody who ate like he did had to get now and then. The symptoms then wear off for a day or two, only to come back with a vengeance. By the time he got to the liver and kidney failure stage, it was presumably too late.’

‘Good God,’ MacNaughton said once more, looking doubtfully at the block of Foie Gras he had put out on the table.

‘Their list,’ Susan continued, passing the copy she had stolen from Chez Emil to MacNaughton, ‘does not include brandy, and Annabella told us they only imported from France. Yet when the fire happened they had a pallet of cheap Greek brandy by the office. Therefore, they must have decided to wrap up the scam before Paulette and I visited Annabella. The run of Fire Ghost attacks provided an excellent opportunity to destroy the evidence and collect on the insurance, allowing them to either call it a day or set up again once things had quietened down. We also know this because the World of Pine furniture warehouse burnt down before we visited Annabella—’