Over the Edge (16 page)

‘How did you come to know him?’

‘He was a friend of the family. When I was small I called him Uncle Joe.’

A good one, I thought. Who ever heard of anyone murdering his Uncle Joe?

‘So he was a friend of your parents?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did you continue the friendship after your parents died?’

Nigel is slow but methodical. It gradually emerged that Peter Wallenberg had inherited considerable property interests from his parents. Grace Wallenberg had run the empire after the old man died and now the baton had passed to Peter. No, he’d had very few contacts with Crozier since
then. Yes, he had put a bid in for the Painted Pony, but directly to the other two partners, who were accountants. He hadn’t known at the time that Joe was the third shareholder.

‘So when did you last see Joe Crozier?’ Nigel asked.

A leading question, the answer to which depended on whether his restaurant manager had told him about our little visit, 36 hours earlier. Wallenberg stretched a hand out on to the formica tabletop and drummed his fingers, as if deep in thought. He pursed his lips, looked at me and then back at Nigel. He was wearing a long black coat and had declined to take it off, even though it was stifling in the interview room. Removing his black leather gloves was his only concession to the warmth. After an eternity, drawn out for maximum effect, he gave a big sigh and said: ‘I saw Joe about four or five weeks ago. It was a Monday night. We had dinner together. Is that accurate enough, Inspector, or would you like me to consult a calendar?’

‘Monday the twentieth of October?’ Nigel suggested.

‘Yes. The twentieth does ring a bell.’

‘And you ate at
L’Autre Place
, in Heckley, which you own, I believe.’

‘Correct on all counts, Inspector. Have you ever dined there?’

‘No, it hasn’t been my pleasure.’

‘You should. You won’t be disappointed. Tell Raymond that I sent you and I’m sure he’ll look after you.’

‘Thanks for the offer. So how did Crozier get there?’

‘His driver brought him.’

‘There were just the two of you? No wives.’

‘No.’

‘And what time did he leave?’

‘I’m not sure, but it must have been around midnight. Joe was particularly taken by our Chateaux Margaux, finished nearly three bottles of it. He was legless.’

Nigel looked across at me. I shuffled in my seat, sat upright, and asked; ‘Who organised this cosy little party, Mr Wallenberg?’

He turned his gaze to me. His eyes were dark and the brows almost met in the middle. ‘Crozier did,’ he replied. ‘He rang me, out of the blue, said he’d heard about the restaurant and wondered how things were with me. That’s all.’

I looked at my notebook. ‘Crozier went in the river at nineteen minutes to one on the morning of the 21st,’ I said, ‘and a Range Rover with the same description as yours was seen in the vicinity. Was it yours?’

His expression changed. He’d been in control up to now. Not quite cocky but ahead of the game. Hit
them with a precise time and they start wondering how much you know; had the whole thing been captured on CCTV?

‘No, of course not.’

‘Where were you at that time?’

‘I went home. I’d be getting ready for bed.’

‘You didn’t stay behind to have a nightcap with your manager?’

‘No, I went home.’

‘Can anybody verify that?’

‘My wife, I suppose.’

‘And poor Joe fell in the river.’

‘Yes. As I said, he was well away with the drink. Perhaps he went for a little stroll, or just mistook his directions. The apartments at one side of the river look much like the ones at the other.’

‘That’s what you assume happened, is it?’

‘It must be, mustn’t it?’ but he didn’t sound so sure.

I wanted to hit him with: ‘So how do you explain the tape binding his hands and feet?’ but it was Nigel’s show and it might be expedient to keep that little cookie under wraps for a while longer. Nigel does things patiently and methodically and teases out the answers; I like to jump in and cause confusion and panic and then put the pieces back together. I had the stage, and we’d learnt as much as we’d get, so I decided to go out on a high note.

I said: ‘You mentioned your wife, Mr Wallenberg. The lovely Selina. Is it true that you met her in a whorehouse in Amsterdam?’

That did it. The brief jumped up, Wallenberg’s mouth dropped open and the sergeant nearly exploded.

‘That’s a disgraceful thing to say,’ one of the briefs protested as soon as the power of speech returned. ‘I demand an apology right now, or this interview is terminated.’

All eyes fell on me. I held up a placatory hand. ‘I apologise,’ I said, ‘unreservedly. My information is that Mrs Wallenberg, in a previous existence, made a lucrative living administering sexual services to the rich and famous. I am apparently misinformed about Amsterdam, for which I apologise.’

‘We’re not standing for this,’ the brief proclaimed. ‘And I’ll be having a word with the chief constable. Let’s go, Mr Wallenberg.’

They were all on their feet, now. I said: ‘Did you know your wife was having an affair, Mr Wallenberg?’

‘Yes,’ he replied as they ushered him towards the door. ‘Yes, I did. We have an open relationship.’ He didn’t say: ‘So there,’ but I could feel it in his tone.

‘And don’t you mind?’

‘No. We go with whom we please. We trust each other. You should try it, sometime.’

‘C’mon, Peter,’ the brief urged. ‘That’s enough.’

‘Did you know who it was with, though,’ I shouted at him. ‘Did you know that her bit of rough trade was one of your heavies?’

It hit him like a double-decker bus travelling downhill back to the depot at the end of the shift. With no brakes. He twisted round and shrugged out of the brief’s grip. ‘What did you say?’ he hissed at me.

‘You heard,’ I told him. ‘I said did you know it was one of your semi-house-trained thugs she was having it off with?’

The briefs put themselves between us and pushed him towards the door. ‘Ignore him, Peter,’ one of them said. ‘He’s winding you up. They’ve nothing to go on so he’s having to resort to desperate measures. Selina’s not like that.’

‘You’re a liar, Priest,’ I heard him shout. ‘And a disgrace. I’ve raised half a million for cancer research. What have you ever done, eh? Answer me that. Answer me that.’

The voices faded down the corridor and Nigel turned to me, a big grin on his face. ‘Well, you fucked that up good and proper, boss,’ he said.

‘Sorry,’ was the best I could do.

Appendix 1

Crash Analysis Report

Speed at instant of impact:
60 miles per hour (96 kph)

This equals: 88 feet per second (27 mps)

Impact + 0.1 second

Plastic bodywork at front destroyed

Crumple zones deformed

Impact + 0.2 second

Air bags deployed

Active seatbelts deployed

Driver and front seat passenger thrown forward against seatbelts

Front of vehicle crushed

Engine forced forward through radiator

Coolant hoses, petrol pipes ruptured

Windscreen projected out of frame and other glass shatters

Rear of car projected upwards

Impact + 0.3 second

Engine torn from mountings

Roof buckles inwards

Vehicle floor buckles upwards

Driver’s arms and legs strike interior surfaces. Legs broken; internal injuries caused by seatbelts; head injuries against roof

Similar for front seat passenger

Fuel tank torn from mountings

Doors thrown open

Impact + 0.4 second

Front wheels, suspension and steering gear forced into cabin space

Engine forced into cabin space

Car body stationary

Occupants at limit of forward travel; begin to rebound. Severe whiplash injuries to neck of driver and of front seat passenger

Impact + 0.5 second

Car body rebounds

Rear of vehicle falls back to ground

Impact + 1 second

Vehicle comes to rest

Occupants fatally injured

Coolant, petrol and brake fluid released

Danger of fire

‘Have you seen the accident examiner’s report?’ Dave asked as he seated himself in the visitors chair.

‘Mmm, I’ve just been looking at it. What’s this other thing in with it?’

‘It’s a paper he did for Police that he flashes around at every opportunity. It’s his great crusade for road safety. If we all knew what happened in a crash in gruesome detail we’d drive more responsibly. That’s the theory.’

‘Looks a good way to go, if you ask me. One second and you’re dead. Finito.’

‘I agree. He reckons Dale Dobson was doing about a ton. There was a dip in the road and then a brow just before where he crashed and he says the car would have taken off at that speed.’

I pinned the sheets of the report back together and handed them to Dave, saying: ‘Stick them in the file, please.’

‘I think Nigel should spin Wallenberg’s place,’ Dave stated.

‘I don’t think he’d get a warrant,’ I replied.

‘You could get one.’

‘I’m flattered, but I doubt it. What would he be looking for?’

‘The remains of the rolls of masking tape.’

‘Hmm. And what would we be looking for? I presume we’d tag along for a look-see.’

‘That pile of sawdust and the other end of the ice axe.’

‘I think the tape and the end of the shaft will be miles away by now. Probably in a landfill site.’ I sat back in my chair and thought for a few seconds. ‘There was another car accident,’ I said, eventually.

‘Another one?’

‘Yeah. The one involving Krabbe and Sonia Thornton, back in ‘97. I’ve been thinking about it. Have a word with traffic; see if you can find who covered it. Two celebrities like that; they’ll remember.’

I stayed behind for an hour, filling in the diary and catching up with report reading. There was one from Jeff Caton saying that the package that Parcel Force had tried to deliver was from a company in India. According to Jeff it contained ‘lots of little animals carved out of that smelly wood,’ and it was clean. I took a Chinese takeaway home and ate it sitting at the kitchen table, listening to The Archers. After I’d washed my plate I rang Rosie and left a greeting on her ansaphone. It was the fortieth anniversary of JFK’s assassination over the
weekend, and there were several programmes on TV covering it. I intended watching as many as I could and Dave had promised to tape them. Friday’s was a straightforward documentary outlining the build-up to the president’s visit to Dallas, with a graphic reconstruction of events and much playing of the Zapruder film. There was no conspiracy, I was sure of that. No big conspiracy, that is. There may have been somebody behind it all, encouraging him, but Oswald alone did the deed. There was just one little doubt in my mind: how did he manage to land a job in the book depository just four weeks before the president was due to pass under the sixth floor window? There was something we all agreed on, though: a little bit of each one of us died on that day in Dealey Plaza.

I was ready for bed when the phone rang. Rosie, I thought, but it was a man’s voice.

‘Are you Inspector Priest?’ it asked, barely audible over the background noise. There was a hubbub of conversation overlaid by a strangled tenor murdering Will you go, lassie, go?

‘Who’s calling?’ I replied.

There was a long silence, and I’d have thought the connection had been broken if it hadn’t been for the background noise. Eventually he said: ‘It’s not important who I am. I read about you in the paper. You’re conducting the enquiry into Tony Krabbe’s murder.’

‘That’s right. Do you have some information?’

‘I…um, I’m not sure. I might have.’

‘Can I have your name, please?’

‘No. My name doesn’t matter.’

‘OK. So what do you want to tell me?’

‘I’m not talking on the phone. I want to see you.’

‘Tonight?’

‘No, tomorrow.’

‘Right. Where are you?’

‘I’ll be at Nine Standards Rigg at about one o’clock.’

‘Where?’ I asked.

‘Nine Standards Rigg.’

‘I can’t hear you.’ His voice was soft and hesitant, and Pavarotti in the background wasn’t helping.

‘I said Nine Standards Rigg.’

‘Where’s that?’

‘It’s, um, up near Kirkby Stephen.’

‘That Nine Standards Rigg. It’s miles away.’

‘It’s not that far. Tomorrow, one o’clock.’

‘How do I know…?’

‘You don’t,’ he said, and put the phone down.

Tomorrow was Saturday, so I rose early, called in the office to deploy any troops who turned up, and sneaked away. It was over a two-hour drive, right up to the northern-most outpost of the county, and then along roads designed for nothing wider or faster than a horse-drawn hay cart. That, however,
doesn’t stop the locals driving their four-by-fours at breakneck speeds. It had occurred that it might be a hoax, or that somebody wanted me out of the way, but if I hadn’t gone I’d have never learnt what it was all about. It might have been dangerous, too, but I doubted it, and a little danger never hurt anyone. What the heck, it was an excuse for a day out, and I needed a day out.

I stopped in Keld, which is an ancient Viking name meaning place-where-the-ground-is-
soggy-and
-the-clouds-perpetually-sit-on-the-earth-
where-the
-people-are-as-morose-as-the-sheep, to check the map, then took it slowly until I reached a turnoff signposted to Ravenseat.

The last stretch was on an unfenced strip of tarmac laid across the moor like a discarded bootlace for two miles until it ended in a farmyard. There was a stream with an ancient bridge that had been widened in years gone by, but still wasn’t wide enough for modern agricultural vehicles. A ford next to the bridge catered for them. I parked outside the farm, next to a rusting cattle trailer, and took stock.