Over the Edge (32 page)

All rooms smell when they’ve been locked up for a week or so, but it doesn’t usually hit you before you pass over the threshold. I sniffed, set my expression to one of distaste and gingerly stepped
into the room, like a cat exploring a new home.

It was a businesslike room. Some businesses require computers and desks, or ladders and power tools. When sex is your business all you need is a bed and a bathroom. A coat was flung carelessly on the floor, with a jacket next to it. A black coat. I stepped between them and worked my way around the bed.

He was curled up in a corner, between the bed and the wall. His shirt was unbuttoned all the way down and his trousers and underpants were around his ankles. One hand was clutched over his genitals and the other was in front of his face, palm outwards, the fingers spread wide to offer maximum protection from whatever he was hiding from.

‘Come and look at this,’ I whispered.

‘Jeeezus!’ Dave exclaimed as he came alongside me. We stood in silence for several seconds. ‘Wallenberg?’ he wondered.

‘Yeah, it’s Wallenberg,’ I said. ‘Look at the expression on his face.’

‘I’ve heard of people being scared to death,’ Dave said, ‘but this is the first time I’ve seen it.’

The SOCO arrived and we sent for the pathologist. Officially it was a suspicious death, so we had to set the machinery in motion again. I had the coat put in an evidence bag and whisked off to the lab.

‘Right, where shall we start?’ the SOCO said after the professor had given his permission.

‘How about there,’ I said, indicating the middle of the door that led into the bathroom.

‘Good as anywhere,’ he replied, and dipped his squirrel-hair brush into the aluminium powder. Ten seconds later he said: ‘Blimey. First time lucky.’ An hour later he ran out of lifting tape and had to send for replenishments.

I didn’t go to Rosie’s funeral. I don’t know why; it didn’t seem necessary. Funerals are for the living, not the dead. They’re a statement of closure, I suppose, but Rosie and I had closed a week before she took the fatal dose. The funeral director we’d assigned the arrangements to rang me from Scarborough and asked what I wanted him to do with Rosie’s ashes. I asked him if I could collect them after hours and he said no problem, so straight from work I dashed over to Scarborough and brought Rosie home.

I’d arranged to have Wednesday off. When I dug up the roses in Rosie’s garden I noticed a freshly planted rambler with the ticket still on it. Something had jolted inside me when I read the name: it was called High Hopes. At first light I drove over to her house and dug that one up, too, and placed it in the car boot, next to her ashes. Four hours later I swung off the M5 and started
looking for the signs for Uley.

The vicar is called Duncan and we’d met before. We shook hands and he said it was a sad story. He collected a spade and we went down the graveyard next to the church, to where Abraham Barraclough, Rosie’s father, was buried. It was informal, which is what she would have wanted, with no prayers and no hymns, just two of us with our private thoughts. I asked Duncan if he minded me planting the rambling rose in the hedge, and he said of course not. I felt better after doing that. Like I said: funerals are for the living.

Have a day off and the work piles up, especially when you are trying to sew up two, or was it three, murders? The report I’d asked the lab to rush through for me was on my desk. The overcoat belonging to Wallenberg bore microscopic traces of blood and brain matter, all down the left-hand sleeve and shoulder. The inference was that he’d been walking to the right of Krabbe when the fatal blow was struck, which meant that Duggie Jones must have done the deed. Further tests were being done to prove the coat was Wallenberg’s and the blood was Krabbe’s, but there was little doubt.

Joe Crozier was Nigel’s case, but I like to keep a fatherly eye on him. Jones had already confessed to helping Dale Dobson dispose of Joe’s body and now we had him for murder. Without a complainant we
couldn’t touch him for the rape charges, but we’d confront him and he’d claim he was just the driver. Hopefully we’d learn a lot more from him about Wallenberg’s empire. He’d be wearing communal underpants for the rest of his life, but if he was a good boy and cooperated with us he might be allowed to wash them for himself.

Which left us with the late Mr Wallenberg. I inspected my
In
tray and looked under all the papers on my desk, but there was no PM report from the pathologist. I don’t like to harass the prof so I went down to the incident room to start on the paperwork. Jeff Caton was in there, sorting through the reports, putting to one side any that were obviously irrelevant now that we had a suspect.

‘Hi Chas,’ he said. ‘Have a good day off?’

‘Hello Jeff. No, not really.’

‘Go anywhere?’

‘Mmm. I went down to Gloucestershire; took Rosie’s ashes to the cemetery where her father is buried.’

He looked embarrassed. ‘Sorry, Chas…’

‘That’s OK. It had to be done. It was just a long drive, that’s all. What have we got?’

‘These,’ he said, pointing to the photos of Body One. ‘And the other girl – Body Two. Presumably these are still ongoing.’

‘Hmm, I’d think so. We can try for forensic links to Wallenberg, but I doubt if we’ll find any. I
suspect he’s involved, though, but I doubt if we’ll ever know. What’s the expression we use:
a police spokesman said they are not looking for anyone else
.’

‘Did you see my report for yesterday?’ Jeff asked.

‘No, not yet.’

‘I spent most of the day at the flat on Juniper Avenue, talking to the tenants. Wallenberg owned the end three, would you believe. Jones had a room in the end one and all the other rooms are taken by ladies of the night. He was taking about
£
200 a week each off them, which works out at something between one and two thousand, over and above the rents. Not bad if you can get it. He had similar operations in Bradford and Leeds and God-knows where else.’

‘Jesus. We’re in the wrong line of work.’

The phone rang and it was the call I’d been waiting for. ‘Hello Prof,’ I said. ‘What have you got for me?’

‘The body from Juniper Avenue…’ he began.

‘Oh, that body,’ I interrupted.

‘You know very well which body I mean, Charlie. The time of death has proved most awkward to define. The heating was on in the room, but quite low, and as the room was fairly well sealed and as it’s this time of the year there was little entomological corruption. I’ve had Sulaiman over from York but there’s not much for him. We both agree that he’s
been dead for about two weeks. Say a minimum of ten or twelve days, but it’s very imprecise.’

‘As long as that? What about cause of death?’

‘Ah, now we are on firmer ground. Cardiopulmonary arrest. A massive heart attack to you. No doubt about it.’

‘Brought on by what, would you say?’

‘A bad dose of arteriosclerotic hypertensive disease.’

‘Yes, Prof, but what caused him to have that heart attack at that time?’

‘No idea. I’m not a bloody soothsayer.’

‘You’re the nearest to one I’ve ever met. Dave said he looked as if he’d been scared to death.’

‘He did, didn’t he? But a heart attack is a pretty scary experience, especially if you’re alone.’

‘No other marks on his body?’

‘No, none.’

‘Natural causes?’ I suggested.

‘That’s what I’ve put.’

I thanked the professor and replaced the phone. I’d wondered if a cattle prod left marks, but evidently it didn’t. And I wondered if the prof had been right about Wallenberg being alone.

‘Natural causes,’ I said to Jeff. ‘He died of a heart attack.’

‘So he cheated us.’

I shrugged. ‘Maybe, maybe not.’

I rang Lorraine and passed the information on to
her that Pony’s Tail was dead and Doo-gie had been charged with murder. There might be a crumb of comfort in it for Ludmilla. ‘How is she?’ I asked.

‘She’s doing well,’ Lorraine told me. ‘She’s lodging with a family from her own country and they can give her a job as a waitress.’

‘Good. I hope it works out for her. Remember me to her, please.’

I was passing the front desk when the sergeant covered the mouthpiece of his phone and told me there was a call for me. ‘One of your women, Charlie,’ he said with a conspiratorial wink.

‘I have no women,’ I growled. ‘That’s why I’m such an aggressive so-and-so. I’ll take it in my office.’

I ran up the stairs and reached across my desk to grab the phone, expecting it to be Lorraine again. ‘Priest,’ I snapped into it.

‘Is that…Inspector Priest?’ a voice enquired, hesitantly.

‘Yes,’ I replied, sidling round to my chair. ‘How can I help you?

‘It’s Sonia Thornton, Charlie. How are you?’

Sonia! My kidneys leapt into an impromptu congo and my spleen accompanied them on duodenum. ‘Hi! I’m fine. How about you?’

‘I’m fine, too, thanks. I see you’ve got someone for Tony’s murder.’

‘Yes. Two of them, but one’s already dead. Listen, Sonia. I still have your photograph albums. I’ve had one picture copied but you can have the rest of them back. I was going to ring you and return them one day.’

‘There’s no hurry, but, well, I wanted to ask you a favour.’

‘Ask away, Sonia. I’ll help if I can.’ Providing it didn’t involve swimming with great whites or
skydiving
without a parachute, I was at her disposal.

‘There’s this function,’ she began. ‘Yorkshire Sports Personality of the Year. It’s at the weekend and will be on television. They send me tickets every year but I never go. It’s not on live TV. They record it and show it in the New Year. All the local sports people will be there, with some famous TV celebrity I’ve never heard of fronting it. It’s mainly footballers, of course, and cricketers. But there’s athletes there, too.’

‘Sonia…’

‘Leeds rugby union team did well this year, so they stand a good chance of the team award. Or Bradford Bulls. Jane Tomlinson should win the individual award. I hope so. She deserves it.’

‘Sonia…’

‘There’s a meal, to start with, I believe, before the TV bit starts. And after the speeches.

‘Sonia!’

‘Oh, sorry, what?’

‘Are you asking me if I’ll vote for you?’

‘Vote for me? Of course not.’

‘Don’t tell me you want to nominate me?’

‘No. Didn’t I say? I was wondering…I was wondering…well, if you’d like to come. I know it’s short notice, and I don’t know if you are…you know…going with anyone. Or even married, but I don’t think you are.’

‘Sonia! Are you inviting me, as your guest?’

‘Well, yes, I think so. Was I gabbling?’

‘Just a bit.’

‘Sorry.’

‘Will I have to wear a dinner jacket?’

‘No. There’ll be lots of footballers there in wide suits and kipper ties. And chewing gum. You could bring your three football medals along to show them.’ She gave a little giggle at that thought. ‘Sorry, am I gabbling again?’

‘Yes.’ She remembered the football medals! She remembered my medals!

‘I always do when I’m nervous.’

‘And are you nervous?’

‘Mmm. I’ve never done this before.’

‘Really?’

‘No.’

‘In that case, Sonia, I’d better say that I’m thrilled to bits that you thought of me and I gladly accept the invitation. Saturday, did you say?’

We’ve been seeing each other ever since. We had Christmas lunch with Dave and Shirley and spent Boxing Day with Sonia’s parents in Ilkley. From there we drove to the Lake District and had four days in a log cabin owned by one of the sergeants and did some walking. Sonia was worried about her knee but it stood the strain without any problems.

First time we entered the cabin I said: ‘Allocation of tasks: you do the cooking and washing up; I’ll chop logs, empty the ashes and keep the fire going.’

‘It’s a gas fire,’ she replied as she switched the light on.

‘Blow me down, so it is!’

‘Huh! So what’s your favourite meal?’

‘Peanut butter, bacon and banana sandwiches.’

‘Is that three sandwiches or one?’

‘One.’

‘I’ll try to remember. Is there anything else I need to know about you, Charlie Priest?’

‘Just one thing,’ I said, dropping our rucksacks in a corner and turning to her.

‘What’s that?’

‘I’m too embarrassed to mention it.’

‘Force yourself.’

‘OK. I’m, well, the truth is, I’m scared of the dark.’

‘Really?’

‘Yep. Terrified.’

She reached out and placed her arms around my
neck. ‘Oh dear,’ she said. ‘We’ll just have to see what we can do about that, won’t we?’

It was a Saturday morning near the end of January when I found the letter and photographs from the Home Office Immigration Department. Sonia was working at High Adventure and I was sitting in Gilbert’s chair, going through his
In
tray. He was playing in a four ball, or a ten ball, or left-handed with your laces tied together. Something like that. It was addressed to the East Pennine Chief Constable, with copies to Distribution list D, and the CC had passed it on to Special Branch. SB had appended a brief note and bounced it to CID, which was me.

I swung my feet up on to the desk and started to read. It said:

The letter from the Home Office read: