Scar Tissue (24 page)

‘Would you excuse me a second?’

Before I could scream that this was what had happened before, he simply picked up the phone and dialled, using the word ‘Mispa’ to the person the other end. A Missing Persons check, then. He seemed to be transferred a couple of times, but finally got whom he wanted, repeating my description of a heavily built man with a lot of rings on his fingers and marks of strangulation about his neck. ‘Ah,’ he said at last. ‘That sounds very interesting. I’ll ask our witness if she’d mind identifying him.’

There was a squawk from the other end. Gates fixed those granite eyes on me. ‘She’ll cope,’ he said, overriding what sounded like a stream of protests. ‘Won’t you?’ He smiled at me.

‘You don’t have to and you’re not going to,’ I told Jan firmly, when she wanted to come into the morgue with me. The smell, for a start. Not to mention what I was going to have to look at. I wasn’t new to it, my friends having been in the same profession as me, and running the same risks. Some far worse risks, with literally fatal results. A few years back I’d rather thought the next time I was in a morgue I’d be in the starring role, as it were, but thanks to Taz I’d been spared that. So far, at least.

Nothing prepared me for the sight of a corpse that had been in water as long as this, though, and water with crabs in it to boot. Jesus. I was hard put not to deposit all that wonderful English breakfast on the pristine tiles of the floor.

‘With so little face left it’s hard to tell,’ I said, trying to sound judicious. ‘Though that does look like a nasty bit of bruising on his neck.’ That was about all I could manage. I’d reeled out to the waiting area before my brain clicked in again. ‘What about his rings? Great big things?’

The WPC with us grinned. ‘Would you rather see the photos?’

‘Much rather.’

This time I did judicious much better. ‘Yes, I’d say that those were the same rings or very similar. And I’d be prepared to say so in court.’

‘Very similar isn’t really good enough for a court.’

‘You’ll have lots of other stuff to ID him, though, won’t you? Dental records, DNA – I’m sure you’re like the TV cops.’

‘Smaller budgets,’ she said.

As an expert on small budgets, I didn’t argue.

Whether Paula had had a disappointing date, or whether she was being wisely uncooperative, she certainly didn’t sound keen on bringing over the photos and rope fibres. Well, who could blame her? Apart from anything else, it was the perfect day for painting, warm and dry but overcast, with hardly a breath of wind. Van der Poele still owed us a lot of money which she could only get out of him when the job was finished. Unless, of course, he was arrested first. Hell, what’d happen to our money if he ended in the clink? The RSPCA would no doubt deal with his pooches – but who’d make sure we got paid? I knew the police could confiscate criminals’ money, but would they feel they had to share the spoils?

‘How do you know this cop’s genuine?’ Paula demanded.

‘I don’t. Except they took me to see the corpse of that stiff I found. Very dead.’

‘You’re sure it was him?’

‘Fairly. Tell me, the bedroom we photographed – has van der Poele stripped it? Or has he left it was it was?’

‘He’s stripped the bed. But you can tell this latest plod the curtains and carpet are still there.’

‘He’s not a plod at all, Paula – he’s really so bright he’s quite scary.’ Damn, he came into the room just as I said that. I cut the call, flushing.

‘It’s OK.’ He smiled, rather surprising me how attractive he could look. ‘I like being bright and scary when it comes to being part of the Rubber Heel squad. Squashing bent cops,’ he explained. ‘I like a bit of law and order, Ms Tyler, and I don’t like it when people lie and cheat and kill, especially when they’re police officers.’

That was one thing we agreed on, anyway.

‘I’m afraid my boss doesn’t want to hand over her bits and pieces.’

‘We can subpoena her if absolutely necessary. But I’d rather convince her we were decent, honest cops.’

‘So would I.’

‘Any idea how we can regain her trust – and yours, of course?’

‘The thing is, Mr Gates, I gave Moffatt and Co a lot of information. They appeared to give me a lot back. Moffatt listed all the people and organisations he’d got on the parcel bomb case. MI5, would you believe? Well, I did at the time. But I’m not sure now. Have you got time to sit down and tell me and Jan what’s going on? And I mean truthfully.’

I wonder when the last person spoke to him like that, somebody ordinary like me, not another senior officer or a lawyer. He looked completely taken aback.

After a swift gasp, Jan sat back quietly to await developments.

‘I’m still trying to separate fact from fiction,’ he said. ‘The fact that neither Marsh nor Moffatt has uttered a word since they were cautioned doesn’t help. And, of course, we know that there must be other officers involved – a regular chain of command.’

‘Or irregular, as the case may be,’ I chipped in.

‘Actually, yes – I can’t imagine they follow the approved police hierarchy, can you?’ He flashed an impish smile. I was beginning to like him. ‘You listed groups of people that Moffatt told you were involved with your case, one of them being us. Well, he was lying about that, no doubt about it. And about the involvement of the Human Smuggling Unit and Immigration.’

‘No National Crime Squad?’

‘Only when we bring them in. Which will be pretty soon, I should imagine. The only people who seem to have been the genuine article were the ones who destroyed the letter bomb. We’ve got a great deal of unravelling still to do, as you can see.’

‘At least you have hard evidence in the form of the corpse Caffy identified. And harder, if we can persuade Paula to produce the items she’s holding.’ Jan sounded very lawyerly.

‘There may be something else your SOCO teams could find,’ I added. ‘We may not have photos of those poor devils being loaded into a bread van, but I can show you where it was parked. And you know the van exists, and the removal lorry that collected them the first time I saw them. The men were walked along the canal bank – they may have dropped fag ends or something as they walked. The reeds may have caught bits of clothing. And you may find some of the workers at the hotel ready to talk.’

For some reason his laugh sounded a bit forced. Ah. I must be slipping: he was probably the sort of man who liked having ideas first.

To be fair, he recovered quickly. ‘There should be some preliminary reports from the team out at the Mondiale. Excuse me.’ He picked up the phone.

At last, it was clear that what Gates called honest, decent painstaking police work was going to take some time. Someone had to persuade Paula to hand over the photos, and who better than me? But it wasn’t just the thought of the dogs that made me reluctant to go back to Crabton Manor. It was one thing playing schoolgirl detectives hunting for clues about van der Poele: it was another to have the theories taken dead seriously – with, of course, a corpse to substantiate them.

Jan agreed.

‘Surely you could phone Ms Farmer,’ Gates said. ‘There’s no need for you to see her at all.’

‘One, it’s a mobile black spot –’

‘Ah. So we should have landline records of phone calls.’

‘Unless Moffatt got there first.’

‘You told him? Don’t look like that, Caffy. The whole idea of police officers is that you can trust them.’

I nodded. Then I said slowly, ‘Two, I have a living to earn, and Paula has a business to run. Crabton Manor is where I ought to be.’

He shook his head sharply, then paused. ‘I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to pull in van der Poele for preliminary questioning.’

Jan said sharply, ‘So long as you can keep him in. I wouldn’t give this much for Caffy’s chances if he thought she’d grassed him up.’ She snapped her fingers impressively. Years of practice clicking in rhythm with Todd, maybe.

‘He wouldn’t suspect anything if I was just out there in my dungarees painting away as usual.’ I didn’t sound very convincing to my own ears.

‘Dogs,’ Jan said tersely.

I shut up. Briefly. ‘What about doing some preparation at Fullers? Goodness knows there’s enough to be done.’

Gates managed a chilly laugh. ‘Swarming with our people. Genuine ones.’

Jan said sharply, ‘It’s a listed building, not to mention a very lovely one. I don’t want a load of macho lads hunting hidey-holes with axes and rams.’

‘Point taken. Now, Caffy, you might be useful there. You and your friend Paula. Looking for further hidden spaces. We’d pay a fee,’ he added, before I could say a word. ‘For professional services. And we might be a better bet than Mr van der Poele: people of the criminal fraternity don’t always pay their debts.’

‘It’d bankrupt Paula if she didn’t get paid! Or if she had to go through some long legal battle to get money off him while he was in jail.’

‘You forget you have a tame legal adviser,’ Jan smiled. ‘We’ll make sure you all get your money somehow or other. James is very good too –’

‘But his fee –’

‘Would be paid by van der Poele if the court awarded costs – which I’m sure they would,’ Gates smiled.

‘It mustn’t come to that! It’s all very well for someone like you with a guaranteed monthly salary to talk about litigation. Paula doesn’t have that luxury. We don’t have that luxury. Jan, can you make him understand?’

‘We’ll bankroll you ourselves if needs be.’

‘Don’t you think I know that? You’re the loveliest and best and most generous people on God’s earth, but you shouldn’t have to, not if this is done properly.’ I think I even stamped my foot in frustration.

Gates coughed gently and gave the sort of smile designed to wrap up a meeting. However, I still had one or two other things to ask first. ‘We had a sort of minder, who painted with us till he got housemaid’s knee. Sid. He dropped a pen in my bag, which turned out to hide a bug. I suppose there’s no chance he was a decent undercover cop?’

Gates made a note.

‘Last seen at the William Harvey Hospital down the road. I suppose he might have had to give a name and address to them?’

‘Which will almost certainly be false. But it’s a lead. Thanks.’ This time he tidied his desk before standing.

‘And Taz – my friend Taz. He won’t have to pick up the tab for my stay at the Mondiale, will he? And he won’t be disciplined for having dealings with Moffatt?’

This time his face was visibly patient, which meant I’d really irritated him. Still, none of this would have been uncovered but for Paula and me, and Taz had done his best to help too. ‘The only thing Constable Moscicki is likely to get is a pat on the back. Tell him that if he finds things on his credit card that shouldn’t be there, he should come direct to me.’

I would if I ever saw him again. ‘Thanks. Just one tiny thing – sorry, I know you’re busy, but when you do a job like mine you think of details – you’ll send an unmarked car for Paula, won’t you? After all, it’s not just her and me at risk if van der Poele gets nasty, it’s Meg and Helen too. And they’ve done nothing except work long hours for little pay.’

He held up his hands in surrender, crow’s feet dancing round his eyes.

I grinned, a big matey grin. ‘Yes, I know I’m a bossy boots. My…my pimp used to tell me I’d make a wonderful dominatrix.’

‘There has to be another way from here,’ Paula said, squatting beside the gaping priest hole in the library, ‘not just down to the canal but also up to your eyrie.’

‘That’s what we reckon,’ said a young woman my age and build wearing a paper suit. ‘But we can’t investigate further from this end till we’ve finished our examination of the tunnel.’ She gestured at lighting cables and polythene bags and all the things my TV watching demanded.

I nodded. ‘Let’s think their way. If you know about the priest hole, you’re going to make sure you exploit all its possibilities. Those men we assume were illegal immigrants – I suppose they couldn’t have come up to the house before Jan and Todd bought it? It’d be easier to collect them from a house than from the roadside. You never know, the builders who did the roof and other structural repairs might have seen something.’ I’d ask Jan to look out their names and addresses for the police – always assuming they hadn’t thought of that already.

‘So we’d better go up to the eyrie,’ Paula said, leading the way via the intervening landing, the end wall of which looked and sounded unremittingly solid. But she’d stopped in the entrance hall to pick up her rucksack, now bulging more than it usually did. Only then had she headed for the stairs, running her hand up that lovely banister as Todd and I had done. Which brought me by a very strange association of ideas to her date the previous evening.

‘It was fine, thanks,’ she said, dumping the rucksack and opening it.

She must have heard the clunk of my brain cells as I worked on a gender-free way of expressing what I really wanted to ask. ‘The late meal didn’t pose too many problems?’

She smiled as she shook her head. ‘Leslie was very understanding.’ Or did she say, Lesley? He or she? Before I could ask, she continued, thrusting a paper suit at me. ‘Here, no reason why we should contaminate a possible scene of crime just because the police forget to equip us properly. The girls send their love, by the way. I reckon they should finish today,
weather permitting. Be nice to have it all done and dusted before the weekend. I’ve got the bill all ready to plonk in his little hot hand.’

‘You’ve got that far even without me and Sid?’

‘Well, he chipped in. But I hope his knees play him up for weeks.’

‘And may all his toenails grow in,’ I added with venom.

We’d drawn a blank before, of course, but I for one was determined that my eyrie’s secrets should be revealed. Without any damage, of course. We tapped and pressed the woodwork, like refugees from a children’s storybook. Perhaps the idea had always been that someone could escape up here from below, not the other way round. But it seemed such a waste.

‘Let’s try the roof-space above here, shall we?’ I said at last.

‘Thought you’d never ask. Come on!’

However used to it you’d think we’d get to sizing up spaces, it took us a moment to orientate ourselves. Picking our way to the area we eventually settled on, we peered carefully round. It would be easier to reach it on our hands and knees, because the roof, with its profusion of beams, sloped so much, not to mention the fact that the spaces between the joists weren’t uniform.

‘A chimney? Where did that spring from?’ Paula demanded. ‘I don’t remember one down below.’

‘You wouldn’t. The one from there comes up over there. This is a little fake, I’ll bet.’ Saying it was one thing, proving it another. Eventually we discovered that the bricks the furthest side had hardly been mortared. A quick wiggle or two, and they came away in our hands.

‘Looks like an ordinary chimney down there. It’s even sooty.’ Paula showed a blackened palm.

‘Even so, I reckon there’s room to get down there.’

‘Only for a child. OK, OK, I know you’re skinny. But I tell you, you’re very tall for a child!’

‘All the more for the Fire Brigade to get hold of if I get stuck.’

For a few long minutes it was touch and go. But then my feet round metal rungs driven into the wall, and – provided my shoulders would squeeze a bit smaller – yes! I could climb down.

‘Torch!’ I yelled.

Nothing happened. No torch. No voice. Nothing.

‘A phonecall! What sort of excuse is that!’ I demanded when I’d let myself out of the space in my eyrie. It wasn’t difficult. The rungs stopped at exactly the right level, and as I turned to steady myself my hand rested naturally on a smooth round knob. I didn’t need to do anything – it slid gently down, there was a click, and a panel tipped towards me.

‘I’m sorry.’ It was clear she wasn’t. She looked like one of those Halloween pumpkin faces, all lit up from inside. Lesley or Leslie, no doubt.

‘Well, now you’ve got your date for tonight sorted, let’s have a proper look, shall we? If you’re up to passing me the torch, that is?’

This time it was part of the floor we had to move, not easy in a confined space. It didn’t lift, either, but slid, as easily as if it had been oiled, no mean feat in a house where every old timber was slightly out of true. Steep steps descended
presumably to the library. But we couldn’t use them. Someone had decided they worked well as shelves. Stacked on each were more bags of what I was sure was cocaine, plus a few packs of what was almost certainly heroin. As I played the torch, we gasped as one. Trussed like a Christmas turkey with blue rope, the sort of rope we used, the sort of rope that had throttled van der Poele’s guest, was a stiff.

We said it as one. ‘Mr Granville, I presume.’

The young woman from SOCO was one of the first on the scene. ‘You talked about intelligent use of available space, didn’t you? That looks pretty intelligent to me. Except you found him. I suppose the smell would have given him away sooner or later.’

Another bit of a play crept up on me, something about nosing someone as you go up the stairs into the lobby. It wasn’t the best bit of the speech, as I recalled – that was where the baddie was told that the victim was in heaven. ‘If your messenger find him not there, seek him in the other place yourself,’ I murmured.

‘But who is yourself?’ asked a voice behind me. Gates.

‘I’d like it to be Moffatt. Or van der Poele, of course. Or both, aided and abetted by Marsh. But I’ve no idea why.’

‘It’d would be a nice clean sweep. Unlike you, I have to say!’ The grey eyes twinkled. ‘But we’ve no idea why, either. Well, we shall see. Meanwhile this further bit of hard evidence should prove useful. By the way, your cycling friend Mal sends his thanks. As you observed, he was about the only native English speaker in the place. And one or two of his overseas colleagues are singing quite happily. Well done,
Caffy. We shall be inviting forensic accountants to look at the Mondiale’s books. I think they might make illuminating reading. Money laundering,’ he added, as I looked blank. ‘Drugs money has to be made respectable – and how better than in a hotel, especially one offering bureau de change facilities?’ He smiled again.

I got a vibe. Not an unpleasant one. And one I was reciprocating, if you can reciprocate a vibe. Imagine me fancying a bloke after all this time. Half-fancying. I’d never wholly fancy a man whose eyes could be as cold as his.

‘I wonder if you’d do another quite unpleasant thing for me, Caffy. We shall have to leave our friend down there for some time while he’s photographed and so on. But we shall need someone to identify him, if not formally. Would you do the honours?’