Hard Going (17 page)

Yes, he drank a lot – don’t know how he could afford it on benefits – but on the whole he wasn’t any trouble. Argumentative, yes, and he could be foul mouthed, but Driffield just told him to put a sock in it if he got too noisy. Mostly he was just a bore, going on and on about that old court case.

What? Oh yes, he talked about that all right. Didn’t hardly talk about anything else! They’d had all the details of it till they were sick of it. Made you feel almost sorry for the feller – Roxwell was his name. Not that Driffield held with nonces – string ’em up, was his view, prison was too good for ’em – but it sounded like Crondace’s precious daughter had been a bit of a madam and probably led the bloke on. And Crondace was all mouth about what he was going to do to this bloke if he ever found him again, but to Driffield’s mind all mouth was about what it was. The more talk the less action, that was what Driffield had observed in a long lifetime of keeping bar and listening to the old humbugs who grew mushrooms on the same stool night after night.

Yes, Crondace had been in Saturday night. No, he seemed about the same – drinking his pints, boring everyone to death. He’d moaned a bit about his old woman – ex-wife, but like he said you’d never know it the way she still bossed him about. He went on about his grandkids never coming to see him. That was all par for the course. He’d had a bit of a shouting match with somebody about football – also par. There was an Arsenal vee Tottenham match coming up and somebody said they thought Spurs might have a chance. Crondace wouldn’t have it, shot his mouth off, Driffield had to shut him up before he got it punched. They were all Arsenal supporters at the Navi, but Driffield wouldn’t have any nonsense if someone wanted to put up a contrary view. Free country, wasn’t it? It was football, not World War Two.

Say again? Oh yes, Bygod – that was the lawyer in the case. They knew all about him. Well, Crondace was always talking about him, threatening to go and sort him out. Said it was all his fault the nonce had got off. On Saturday – yes, Driffield thought he had been issuing the usual threats, but that wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. Mind you, Driffield didn’t stand around and listen, did he? In one ear and out the other, as far as Driffield was concerned, or you’d go barmy.

Well, Crondace was there till closing time, and he went off pretty tanked up, bit doddery on his feet and slurring his words a bit, but that was nothing unusual. About a quarter past eleven, time Driffield had got him out of the gents and shoved him out the door.

No, as a matter of fact, and now they came to mention it, he hadn’t been in since. He didn’t always come in on a Sunday, but most other nights he was there. Practically his second home. Lovely and quiet it had been without him, though the till was probably down, ha ha, because the old bastard could certainly neck a few. Was there something wrong? Not ill, was he? Oh, certainly, of course – if he came in again Driffield would let them know right away. Or if he heard anything. Hoped he wasn’t in trouble of any sort.

They had left a card with Reg Driffield, finished their pints, had a chat with one or two of the customers, who’d had nothing really to add that they hadn’t already heard, and came away.

‘So it does look as though he might have done a runner, guv,’ Mackay concluded.

‘Which might mean he did something he had to do a runner for,’ Coffey added.

And they looked at Slider hopefully.

Porson drummed his fingers on the desk. He was a tall man and had to lean over to do it because he was standing up – he was hardly ever seen sitting – which made him look as though he was about to launch himself into a forward roll.

‘So now you’ve got Kroll with a money motive, and Crondace with revenge.’

‘We haven’t exactly got Crondace,’ Slider reminded him.

‘And Kroll’s still not talking?’

‘Nothing, sir. I had another go at him, but he just sits and glowers, won’t open his lips.’

Porson straightened and paced up and down in front of his window. ‘I like the revenge motive better, and Crondace is the only person we know has actually issued threats against the victim.’

‘And he
is
missing,’ said Slider. He felt like a waiter pushing the dish of the day because they had to get rid of it.

‘Yes, well,’ said Porson thoughtfully. ‘Missing is as missing does. One swallow does not make a meal, you know. There’s any number of reasons he might have gone walkies.’

‘Yes, sir. Except that he’s a creature of habit and it hasn’t happened before. I don’t think his daughter knows where he is, but the wife – or ex-wife, rather – is a different matter. According to Atherton, she’s sly, and a lot sharper than her daughter – probably sharper than Crondace, too. She’s the motivator of the family. If anything’s going on, she’s in on it, I’d bet on that.’

Porson sighed. It was not a sound an investigating officer liked to hear from his boss. ‘Well, we’d better find him,’ he said. ‘What borough’s that, Stratford Marsh? Newham, isn’t it?’

‘Tower Hamlets, sir. He’s just on the boundary.’

‘Better. I don’t know anyone in Newham. Hamlets is Trevor Oxley. All right, I’ll get on to him and see what I can work up. Have to be tactful – can’t go in like a bowl in a china shop. Meanwhile, we ought to keep an eye on Mrs Crondace, in case he turns up there, or she leads us to him.’

‘And the Krolls, sir?’

‘Find anything in the house yet?’

‘They’re still looking. Nothing so far.’

‘Well, we’ll keep ’em until the search is done anyway. Although …’ In thought, he cracked his knuckles mightily, with a sound like a road roller going over a bag of walnuts. ‘I’m wondering if Kroll’s not a bit too comfortable. Where he is, the Changs can’t get at him. Wonder if you mightn’t get more of a rise out of him if you threaten to turn him out on the street.’

‘Worth a try, sir,’ Slider said.

‘It could work,’ Atherton said. ‘It’s Mrs K who’s anxious to get home – worrying about her old mum.’

‘Why isn’t Kroll worrying about her?’

Atherton shrugged. ‘Hard to know, when a person won’t speak, guv. Maybe he doesn’t like her. Or he’s in such a funk about himself he can’t think about anyone else.’

Connolly came in. ‘Boss, I’ve talked to all the friends of Bygod I can get hold of.’ She exhibited a sheaf of paper. ‘I can go over all this if you want, but there’s nothing new here. It’s all what a great guy he was and how much we’ll miss him and we don’t know a thing about him. Some friends!’

‘On the specific points I asked you to check?’ Slider enquired.

‘They all thought he was well off. Livin’ on the pig’s back, so he was. But they didn’t know about anything in the house that anyone might’ve wanted to rob. And several of them said the document safe wasn’t kept locked. They remembered because they’d mentioned to himself at some time that he’d left the key in, and he’d said it was just papers in there, nothing valuable, and it was just to keep them safe against fire an’ flood.’

‘It still doesn’t mean there
wasn’t
anything valuable in there,’ Atherton said, ‘or in the house. Only that these friends of his didn’t know about it. And if I had a safe of any kind, I’d certainly put the idea about that there was nothing in there worth nicking.’

‘So what was the point of me asking?’ Connolly demanded indignantly.

‘It’s a very different matter,’ he went on, ignoring her, ‘for a housekeeper who’s in there every day, going into every room, left there alone when the master’s out, overhearing his phone calls, maybe looking through his mail. She’d have a level of information not available to all these so-called friends.’

‘All of which may be true,’ said Slider, ‘but it’s not evidence.’

Gascoyne put his head in. ‘Crondace’s fingerprints are on record, sir,’ he reported. ‘He had his dabs taken when they pulled him in for threatening behaviour.’

‘And?’ Slider asked.

‘No match with anything in Bygod’s house.’

Slider got to his feet. ‘Negative again! I’ve got more negatives than a wedding photographer.’ He went to his door and looked into the CID room. ‘I want evidence. Doesn’t anyone have any evidence for me? Come on, I’m buying here. No offering too small.’

At the far end McLaren was at his desk with Fathom behind him, leaning over his shoulder. They both looked up, Fathom straightened, and McLaren removed the end of a Ginster’s jumbo sausage roll from his mouth (was there something sinister in McLaren’s phallic choice of junk food these days, Slider wondered) and said, ‘We got something, guv.’

‘At last,’ said Slider. ‘Come and tell me. No, leave the hostage.’

‘Sausage,’ McLaren corrected automatically, but he put the greasy love-toy down on his desk, though with a lingering regret. ‘We been looking for Kroll’s motor,’ he reported, as the others gathered round, ‘and we got it all right. I been on the ANPR and Jerry’s been on the TFL, and we’ve got his movements on Tuesday about sussed out.’

‘Well, give, then,’ Atherton urged irritably. ‘Never mind the dramatic pauses. We’re all hanging on your lips. Well, flakes of pastry are hanging on your lips, actually, but we’re right up there among them.’

‘Sweet Baby Jesus and the orphans, would y’ever give him a chance?’ said Connolly to Atherton; and to McLaren, ‘Work away, Maurice. He’s narky as arse when he hasn’t had his nap.’

McLaren barely blinked, having long ago developed, perforce, a carapace against banter. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘We’ve got him going west on the Uxbridge Road at the junction with Horn Lane at a quarter to eight, and the same camera coming east just after half past nine. That fits in with his son Mark’s statement that they went for breakfast in West Ealing, after which Kroll dumps him and goes off. Then we lose him for a bit—’

‘Gloriosky!’ Atherton said, rolling his eyes.

McLaren was unmoved. ‘But there’s a lot o’ betting shops along the Uxbridge Road, and Mrs K says he was still trying to get on the ponies on Tuesday, so we reckon he could well have been parked up somewhere while he went in one or more of ’em.’

‘OK, where
do
you pick him up again?’ Slider asked.

Fathom answered. ‘I got him on a TFL control camera, guv, just after ten, waiting to turn right down Askew Road, then five minutes later on Goldhawk Road, turning right down Hammersmith Grove.’

‘So he’s headed in the right direction,’ Connolly said, a little current of excitement in her voice.

Fathom nodded, pleased. ‘Yeah. And we reckon he must’ve cut through the Trussley Road tunnel—’

‘Fathom, you absolute moron,’ Atherton interrupted, ‘never mind the Baedeker tour, get him somewhere we care about!’

Fathom looked wounded. ‘I’m coming to it. We got him at the junction of Lena Gardens and Shepherd’s Bush Road. There’s a TFL camera practically outside Bygod’s house.’

‘Yes,’ said Slider. ‘I saw it.’

‘He pulls out into the middle of the road to turn down Sterndale, and then he’s facing the camera and you can see him in the driving seat.’ He looked round them triumphantly. ‘He must’ve gone down Sterndale to park up, because we’ve got nothing on him for a bit.’

‘If he did park in Sterndale Road he might have got a parking ticket,’ Swilley offered. ‘It’s all residents’ parking down there, and they’re pretty hot on it.’

‘Look into that,’ Slider said. He saw McLaren had more to say and turned back to him. ‘Go on.’

‘This is the best bit, guv,’ McLaren said. ‘There’s this gift shop place – Ludlow Hearts and Crafts, it’s called.’

‘Yes, I remember,’ Slider said.

‘It’s between Sterndale Road and Bygod’s flat, and it’s got this kind of poncey wooden dressing-table thing in the window with a mirror on it. And Kroll stops in front of it and he looks in the mirror and kind of brushes his hair back, and walks on. The shop’s got a security camera pointed at the door, and it’s caught it all.’

‘I thought you were checking security cameras,’ Swilley said. ‘How come you didn’t get that before?’

‘Because I told him to start at two p.m.,’ Slider said. ‘We had no idea, if you remember, when the murder took place.’

‘That’s right, guv,’ said McLaren, ‘and it wasn’t until Jerry got the van in the area at twenty past ten that I went back and looked.’

‘Was that the time?’

‘Ten twenty-two on the CCTV film,’ said McLaren. ‘And where’s he going, if he’s not going to Bygod’s, where his wife’s going to let him in to kill the old boy and rob whatever there is to rob?’

‘Yes,’ said Slider. ‘You’ve done marvels. Well done, both of you.’

‘We got him bang to rights, didn’t we, guv?’ Fathom said excitedly.

‘Yes,’ said Slider, wanting to be generous. He knew how tedious it was to go through hours of blurry CCTV footage, how hard to keep your attention honed through it all. And they had certainly caught both Krolls out in the lie that Mr Kroll had never been near the flat. But the time was wrong – wasn’t it?

‘Get back to work and find when the van moves again, and where it goes. I must go and ring Doc Cameron,’ he said.

‘Half past ten?’ Freddie said thoughtfully. ‘That would make it twenty-four hours from when I saw him. I said twelve to eighteen, didn’t I?’

‘You did,’ Slider confirmed.

‘Hmm. Well, you know it’s not an exact science. So many factors to take into account. I’d have thought twenty-four was a bit on the generous side, but anything’s possible.’

‘Possible,’ Slider said. ‘Can I quote you on that?’

‘You sound like a man with a hot tip.’

‘Our top suspect’s been nailed almost to the door at that time.’

‘Oh, I see. Well, it’s perfectly possible—’

‘
Perfectly
possible, now. Any advance on that?’

‘You have to woo me, not force me,’ Cameron warned daintily. ‘Okay, allowing there may have been some chitty-chatty up there first and the fatal blow may not have been struck until, say eleven thirty or even twelve, and there’s not that much difference between twelve and two, and two is more or less two thirty …’

‘And it’s not an exact science anyway,’ Slider concluded for him. ‘Thanks, Freddy. I’ll take your perfectly possible and see what I can do with it.’

‘Can’t threaten to let him go now,’ Porson said, with a hint of regret.