Losing Ground (13 page)

‘You say that this Jason Burke is young?’ said Sloan.

‘His sidekick says so,’ said Crosby.

‘Not that Stuart Bellamy is all that old himself, but he’s older than Burke.’

‘I think,’ said Detective Inspector Sloan, ‘that a visit to Jason Burke is called for quite soon.’

Young and rich was not a common combination and it would be interesting to meet someone who was both.

Jonathon Ayling hobbled out of his office in the slippers the police had left him with and stepped into the reception area of Berebury Precision Engineers. ‘They’ve taken my shoes away,’ he said to the girl there, pointing to his feet.

‘They can’t do that,’ she said.

‘I know they can’t,’ he snapped.

‘Not without arresting you,’ she said, worldly wise.

‘But what was I supposed to do? Say they couldn’t have them and let them draw their own conclusions?’

‘I thought you said you hadn’t done anything wrong,’ she said pertly.

‘I haven’t and therefore I’d be glad if you’d refrain from telling everyone about the police.’

She stared at him. ‘They haven’t gone and arrested you, have they?’

‘Of course not.’

‘Then what were they doing here?’

‘Search me,’ said Jonathon Ayling.

She giggled. ‘They’ll do that next time.’

‘Don’t be like that. Now, I’ve got some important telephone calls to make so don’t let anyone disturb me until I say so.’

‘Very well, Mr Ayling,’ she said in the mocking tones she imagined were used in upmarket offices.

‘Thank you,’ he said turning back.

‘Thousands wouldn’t but I’ll keep the mob at bay for you,’ she said, waiting until he was out of earshot before ringing her best friend to tell her all about it.

‘Only too happy to help you in any way we can, gentlemen.’ Lionel Perry took the chair at the head of the boardroom table at Berebury Homes Ltd with the ease of long practice and waved the two policemen into seats opposite. He motioned Auriole Allen to the seat at his side.

‘Thank you, sir,’ said Detective Inspector Sloan. Having heard this sentiment expressed with varying degrees of sincerity many times before, he immediately dismissed it as worthless. ‘For starters we shall be wanting a note of all the movements of you and your staff this morning.’

‘I quite understand, Inspector.’

‘Especially those of them whose route to work leads past Tolmie Park.’

Perry gave a quick nod. ‘Me for a start, Inspector. Actually, I had a puncture not far from there myself this morning – Robert Selby always comes in that way and Derek Hitchin sometimes.’ He turned to Auriole Allen. ‘You don’t, but I don’t know about that new fellow…you know, the young one.’

‘Ned Phillips,’ supplied Auriole Allen. ‘He’s lodging out beyond Tolmie. In Almstone.’

‘Naturally we were all very sorry here to learn about the fire,’ Perry went on fluently, ‘but I gather from our architect
who is over there now that the damage is not irretrievable.’

‘That’s good,’ said Sloan, mentally registering the fact that the chairman of Berebury Homes was not on site now himself, having shown a marked preference for seeing the two policemen on his own home ground.

That home ground obviously included holiday snaps – quite good ones, too – of Swiss mountains. Sloan noted automatically that he was sitting under a fine view of Mont Rosa. It brought back the holiday he and his wife, Margaret, had had in Interlaken. That had been before the advent of their son, which had put foreign holidays out of reach in more senses than one.

Lionel Perry let them have the benefit of one of those benevolent gestures that figured so prominently in his photograph on the front cover of the company’s annual report. ‘Regrettable as the fire is from our point of view, Inspector, it’s more of an inconvenience than a disaster. We had no plans to demolish the house at Tolmie – indeed we shall be looking to our insurers to cover the cost of any reinstatement.’

Detective Inspector Sloan, who had been considering that the fire might have been a positive bonus to the firm, contrived to look interested.

Auriole Allen stirred at Lionel Perry’s side. ‘Fortunately it had recently been the subject of a full survey.’ She picked up a sheet of paper. ‘I can let you have a copy of the statement we’ve just released to the press, Inspector, if that’s any help.’

Sloan sat back in his chair as he tried to calculate how many years it had been since he had taken anything in a newspaper at face value, while Crosby perked up and asked
Lionel Perry curiously, ‘What’s your sort of disaster, then?’

‘Any developer could tell you that, young man.’ Lionel Perry gave the urbane smile so beloved of his shareholders. ‘Great crested newts.’

‘Newts?’ echoed Crosby in spite of himself.

‘Great crested newts. They don’t – er – relocate easily. Or – nearly as bad as newts – is having important archaeological remains found on site,’ said Perry. ‘The regulations say that no development shall take place until the applicant or the developer has secured the implementation of a programme of archaeological work in accordance with a written scheme…how does it go on, Auriole?’

‘Written scheme of investigation,’ she said, deftly taking up the thread, ‘which has been submitted to and approved by the local planning authority.’

Perry sighed. ‘So you see, young man, we can always be undone by the Romans.’

‘Not refusal of planning permission, then?’ put in Sloan before Crosby could complain about being addressed as a young man. It was a sensitive issue with him.

Perry smiled again. ‘You can appeal against unreasonable refusal of planning permission, Inspector. There are procedures and guidelines and so forth plus a certain amount of logic…’

Not a lot of it, thought Sloan to himself, if his own experience of bureaucratic life had anything to do with it. Logic was usually thin on the ground.

‘…especially if you can cite sustainability,’ went on Perry. ‘But there’s no appeal against newts or a Roman villa.’

‘And what’s sustainability, then?’ asked Crosby.

The chairman of Berebury Homes, Ltd leant back in his chair with the air of a man giving a familiar lecture. ‘Sustainability is meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet theirs.’

Since Detective Constable Crosby looked quite blank at this, Auriole Allen explained kindly, ‘It’s achieving the best possible balance between environmental, social and economic issues in the district.’

Crosby’s face cleared. ‘I get you. What you want but not too much of either.’

‘Well put,’ said Lionel Perry, metaphorically patting him on the back. ‘Anyway, we have no plans to demolish the house. All we want to do is carry out some sympathetic restoration and create a number of attractive living units…’

‘Houses and apartments,’ translated Auriole Allen swiftly.

‘But I understand you haven’t got actual permission yet,’ advanced Detective Inspector Sloan, putting in his oar. His oar was, after all, the one that counted.

‘An application for outline planning permission is with the Berebury Council as we speak,’ said Lionel Perry.

‘All still in the balance, then,’ said Crosby chattily.

‘The highways people have raised no objections as far as the traffic situation is concerned,’ said the chairman. ‘That’s most important.’

Detective Constable Crosby’s head came up with a jerk at the mention of the word traffic since his main ambition in life was to join F Division’s traffic section. This wish was only exceeded by the determination of the traffic section not to have him there.

‘The Calleshire County Council has an input, too,’ Auriole
Allen obliquely supplemented Lionel Perry like the good employee she was, ‘but we understand that they’re ready to go along with our plans.’

‘And, importantly,’ added Perry, ‘no neighbours have raised any objections with the planning authority.’

‘There aren’t any neighbours,’ protested Crosby.

‘Exactly, constable,’ said Perry with the air of a schoolmaster giving a pupil full marks.

Detective Inspector Sloan leafed through the pages of his notebook. ‘We are in the process, sir, of investigating some – er – additional material found at the site.’

‘Really? What sort of material? Tell me.’

‘We wonder if you could throw any light on why there should have been a pile of bones in the middle of the billiard room floor.’

‘Bones? Good God! You mean there was a person there when the building went up?’ The colour of the man’s face went from healthy pink to a deadly ashen.

‘Just a pile of bones,’ said Sloan.

Lionel Perry looked genuinely stricken. ‘As far as we were concerned, Inspector,’ he said, recovering himself a little, ‘the building had been empty for a couple of years at least. I have absolutely no idea why there should have been anyone there.’

‘There wasn’t,’ said Detective Sloan quietly. ‘The bones aren’t human.’

Lionel Perry sank back in his chair, patently relieved. ‘Thank God for that.’

‘What we would also like to know, sir, is why those bones should have been sitting on a pile of lobster shells.’

The change in the man was startling. ‘Lobster shells?’ he
echoed shakily. His face, which had been starting to resume its usual colour, reverted to an ashen-white.

‘Genus Homarus,’ said Detective Inspector Sloan, automatically noting that the chairman’s hands had now acquired a distinct tremor.

‘I’ve no idea at all,’ Lionel Perry said in a voice now grown quite husky.

But, as Detective Inspector Sloan was later to report to Superintendent Leeyes, ‘He was lying.’

Derek Hitchin, Berebury Homes’s project manager, walked well away from Randolph Mansfield in the grounds of Tolmie Park, fished out his mobile telephone from his pocket and punched in the number of the direct line to the planning officer at Berebury Council.

‘That you, Jeremy?’ he said.

‘It is,’ said a voice cautiously.

‘Derek here.’

‘You don’t have to tell me that.’

‘Are you alone?’

‘As it happens, yes, but remember that it’s something you can’t always count on.’

‘Look here, Jeremy, we’re going to have to put in some revised plans for Tolmie Park.’

‘Word had reached us,’ said Stratton neutrally.

‘Not a big amendment.’

‘You surprise me.’ The planning officer did not sound at all surprised.

‘Nothing too significant.’

‘I see. Just a little local difficulty, then,’ said Stratton ironically.

‘Don’t be like that. Randolph’s bound to be in touch and then take his time over his blasted drawings. Elegant they may be but quick he isn’t.’

‘I don’t know any architects who are,’ responded Stratton. ‘Occupational disease of the profession.’

‘I don’t need to tell you, Jeremy, that there’s a lot riding on our getting the project started soon,’ said Derek Hitchin.

‘And I don’t need to tell you,’ said Stratton, ‘that that, of course, is not really the concern of the local authority.’

‘There’s a very great deal riding on it, actually,’ said Hitchin. ‘Including my job.’

‘Listed building consent always takes time, too,’ said Jeremy Stratton obliquely.

‘What matters most,’ said Hitchin tightly, ‘is the planning committee’s decision…’

‘But Derek…’

‘And what matters to the planning committee is the opinion of their chief planning officer. They listen to him, all right. Even I know that.’

‘Berebury Council can’t speak for English Heritage…and you should know that, too.’

‘They’re no trouble,’ said Hitchin confidently. ‘After all, we’re saving an old building. Our worry is that the fire is the work of Calleshire Construction – delaying things while they limber up for a takeover.’

‘Strictly speaking, that is not the concern of the local authority either.’

‘Well, it’s certainly ours with bells on. And if it wasn’t them who did it then my money’s on the Berebury Preservation Society.’

‘They are indeed a very active local interest group,’ said Jeremy Stratton guardedly.

‘Their Jonathon Ayling really gets my goat.’

But Jeremy Stratton was much too much a local government servant to be drawn into comment on that young man over the telephone.

Or on anything else.

It was purely a question of following routine that made Detective Inspector Sloan telephone his opposite number in Calleford. ‘We’re checking on something over here at Berebury,’ he said, ‘and we’d like the low-down on an outfit over your way.’

‘Fire away.’

‘Calleford Construction. It’s a building firm.’

‘I’ll say it is,’ said the man warmly. ‘The biggest and best in Calleshire – that’s according to them, of course.’

‘And is it?’ said Sloan, who hadn’t been born yesterday.

He could hear his opposite number sucking his teeth. ‘Biggest, certainly. As for being the best, I wouldn’t know. I don’t live in one of their houses.’ He sniffed. ‘Probably the only person round here who doesn’t.’

‘Like that, is it?’ said Sloan.

‘If there’s room on the land to build a house then Calleshire Construction’ll build two there. Or three.’

‘Anything known?’ enquired Sloan since overcrowded building was only an aesthetic crime.

‘No funny business – that’s as far as we’ve heard, of course.’

‘Of course.’ That was a given in all police work.

A cackle came down the phone line. ‘No need for funny
business, anyway. Money running out of their ears. Must be, with this housing boom.’

That, thought Sloan, was a sad reflection on business morality if ever there was one. Although, he reminded himself, on the other hand, the association between crime and pressing need applied to drug-taking clearly enough. He contented himself with saying, ‘There’s a suggestion this end that Calleshire Construction might be planning a takeover of Berebury Homes.’

‘Eat or be eaten,’ said the voice from Calleford. ‘Law of the jungle.’

No head of a criminal investigation department, however small that department, needed to be told about the law of the jungle. ‘So a takeover might be on the cards then?’

‘Calleford Construction could probably have them for breakfast.’ Food was clearly still in the mind of Sloan’s opposite number. ‘It would be an obvious move for them. There are the economies of scale for starters…’