Scene of Crime (16 page)

“And it turned up where?” asked Tom, holding the phone to his shoulder with his chin as he used both hands to leaf through the papers on his desk. He was in the incident room, where those assigned to the Bignall case were busy sifting through statements and receiving calls from the public as a result of the appeal for witnesses to the youth running away. They had put out the appeal before Dexter admitted it was him, but it might turn up something about Ryan.

“In a stolen car found in an office car park,” said Sims. “The car was reported stolen at half past eight last night, and the traffic police spotted it this morning. They told us, and when I went to check it out, I found a rechargeable razor still in its box, under the backseat. We’d been told to watch out for one being offered for sale, so I thought I’d better call it in.”

Tom looked at his list, and asked Sims for the make. “It’s the one,” he said. “At least, it fits the description exactly. What did you do with the car?”

“I arranged with Inspector Saunders to get it taken to Forensics, because it was too early for anyone to be around in CID,” said Sims. “I waited with it until Forensics came. I’ve informed the owner that it’s been found and it’s in good nick, but that he can’t have it back just yet. And I got his prints for elimination in case they found anything in the car.”

“And the car was taken from where, exactly?”

“From outside a house on London Road. On the other side of the wood from the service road behind Windermere Terrace.” Sims gave Tom the name and address of the owner, who had been visiting at the house in London Road when his car was stolen.

“Great,” said Tom, beaming. He wondered if Sims had ever thought about CID. They could do with someone like him.

“He’s a representative of a credit agency,” said Sims.

“A debt collector, in other words?”

“Yes—he was making calls on reluctant payers. He reckons he couldn’t have been in the house five minutes. Came out, and his car had gone.”

Oh, that sounded like Ryan, all right. He could steal ten cars in five minutes. “Here’s hoping they do find prints,” said Tom, “because I can save them an awful lot of time if they do. Thanks, mate.”

He looked at his monitor, which was telling him he had e-mail, but he wanted to talk to Forensics first. He hit the rest, and dialed out, impatiently listening to the ringing tone. “Dave? Tom Finch here. Any luck with that car you took in this morning from Malworth?” His face lit up when he heard the answer. They had indeed found something—prints on the steering wheel that didn’t match the owner’s. “Right,” Tom said. “Get them checked against Ryan Chester’s prints. Do you want to place a small wager on it?”

Dave didn’t, and Tom grinned, bringing up his e-mail with a triumphant click of the mouse. Among the boring stuff was one from Judy Hill, which was a little less boring, but it didn’t seem all that important. Gary Sims had said that the Bignalls were about to build a higher wall between their house and Watson’s, and now they
knew why. Watson might be a bit of a voyeur, and possibly a porn merchant on the side, but he wasn’t in the frame for Mrs. Bignall’s manslaughter. That was down to Ryan Chester, whatever anyone said. Still, he’d better do what Judy asked, Tom decided, and at least let her have the rest of the info on that incident.

It was while he was trying to find out who had dealt with it that the call came through from Forensics.

“You were right,” said Dave. “They are Ryan Chester’s prints. No question.”

“Yes!” Tom metaphorically punched the air, having had one too many pained looks from his Chief Inspector when he did it for real. Though he’d seen Lloyd do it himself, when he thought no one was looking. Just like some other things Tom could mention. Whatever it was, it was all right for Lloyd to do it, but Lloyd gave him grief if he did it. Lloyd could be a pain in the ass sometimes.

It didn’t take Tom long to track down the WPC who’d gone to see Watson; he knew her, having worked with her when he arrived at Stansfield. She was based in Malworth these days, and he dropped in to see her on his way to interview the owner of the car that had been stolen. What, he asked, had she thought of Watson?

“He was a bit creepy,” Sarah said. “But to be fair to him, I think he was just photographing the birds. He’s got photographs of birds all over the walls.”

Yes, Tom had seen them. “A bit creepy how?” he asked.

She grimaced. “I don’t know,” she said. “He sort of looked at me a bit—you know. As if I was a stripagram or something.”

Tom grinned. “Maybe he thought you were,” he said.
“Kept waiting for you to rip your uniform off and sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to him.”

“He’d wait a long time,” she said, with an involuntary shiver. “He’s got this big garden. It’s lovely, mind you—he’s a really good gardener. But he showed me where he was standing when he was using the camera, and how she couldn’t have thought he was pointing it at her, and all the time he was telling me about all these flowers, and saying this one was very good up against a wall, or that one preferred being in a bed with lots of others, and stuff like that. All nudge-nudge wink-wink stuff. Creepy.”

“Did he say anything about Mrs. Bignall?”

“Well—he cracked a joke about cold weather and blue tits, but other than that, he just said he didn’t know why she’d got it in for him. Maybe she just found him creepy, too. I wouldn’t blame her if she did.”

“Did you know he had a record?”

“No,” she said. “I didn’t think to check—it was just a neighbor’s dispute, really. If I’d known, I’d probably have taken someone with me. What sort of record?”

“Well, the only thing that might qualify as creepy was a report that he was selling pornographic literature to minors in his Welchester studio,” Tom said. “If he was, he got rid of it before the raid.”

“Doesn’t surprise me.”

Tom nodded. “But you believed him that he hadn’t tried to photograph her?”

She nodded. “I don’t think he knew what I was talking about at first. Did he have something to do with what happened to her?”

“No,” said Tom, his voice thoughtful. “I doubt it. But—thanks.”

He was sure Ryan Chester had burgled number 4 Windermere Terrace, but Lloyd thought there might have been a sexual motive, and burglary and sexual assault did often go hand in hand. If there was, it would eliminate Ryan as a suspect, because he was no sex offender. Watson wasn’t either, of course, but he seemed to be a bit iffy from that point of view; Sarah wasn’t the sort to get the jitters just because a man made suggestive remarks.

The things that had been taken weren’t the usual souvenirs of a sexual assault—it was more often than not underwear and other personal things, but Lloyd was always saying that things weren’t always how they looked, and you never knew. If they got nowhere with Ryan, it might be worth keeping Watson in mind.

In the meantime, he was going to have a word with the owner of the car that Ryan Chester had appropriated.

Reg Hutchinson was not the muscled heavy Tom was expecting when he’d been told of his calling; he was fortyish, small, rotund, with a shiny face, gelled fair hair, and a three-piece suit. He was less than pleased about the police holding on to his car; as luck would have it, he was on holiday beginning that day, but he would have to rent a car if he didn’t get his own back after Christmas.

“How long have you been doing this job?” asked Tom.

“Three and a half years now,” said Hutchinson.

“And what did you do before that?”

Hutchinson looked suspicious, but he answered, after a fashion. “A bit of this and a bit of that,” he said. “Why do you want to know?”

“Oh, just making conversation,” said Tom.

Hutchinson shook his head. “My car gets nicked, and I get a detective sergeant wanting to know what I did for a living three and a half years ago? That’s not making
conversation. What’s going on? And why can’t I have my car back?”

Tom had checked up on him; Hutchinson didn’t have a record. But he behaved as though he did. “I’m afraid part of the proceeds of a burglary were found in your car,” he said.

“Oh, you’re kidding me.” He sighed. “I’ll never get the bugger back, will I? It’s the break-in where that woman got killed, right?”

“I’m sorry, I can’t comment on that,” said Tom.

“Do you think I had something to do with it?” he asked.

Tom shrugged. “Anyone can report a car stolen. If you can tell me where you were at around eight-fifteen, I’ll be out of your hair.”

“Eight-fifteen?” Hutchinson looked ill at ease.

Tom grew interested. “
Can
you tell me where you were?” he asked.

Mrs. Hutchinson walked past the small room, which had been turned into an office, where Tom and her husband were talking. Hutchinson got up and closed the door. “Well, I could,” he said. “But we promise our customers confidentiality.”

“It’s up to you,” said Tom. “But your car seems to have been involved in a serious crime, so I can’t cross you off until I know where you were when that crime was committed, can I?”

Hutchinson sighed. “I suppose I have no choice.” He opened the briefcase that was lying on the desk, pulling out a clipboard with a printed sheet on it, handing it to Tom. “The names and addresses, the time and duration of visit, and the amount paid,” he said, running his finger along the top of the sheet. “You can see where I was all
day.” He looked shifty. “Will you have to check up on me?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” said Tom, who’d had no reason to think he should until Hutchinson had said that. “I might. Why—does that bother you?”

“No,” he said. “Not really. Just try not to alarm them. I call on them because they’re behind with their repayments—my relationship with them is important if I’m to get any money out of them. And I do all right with the softly-softly approach, so I don’t want anyone messing it up for me.”

Tom frowned. “Why would I alarm them? It’s you I’d be checking up on.”

“These people are in debt up to their eyebrows. If they see you walking up the path, God knows what they’ll think you’re there for.”

It took Tom a moment to work out what the man meant. He wasn’t used to producing this reaction in people; he had wanted a harder image, but he wasn’t at all sure he liked it now that he’d gotten it.

“Look …” Hutchinson went over to a small safe, opened it, and took out a leather bag. “This is the money I collected,” he said. “You can count it—check that it tallies, that I really did call on all these people. I’d rather you did that than you went out and talked to them.”

“No,” Tom said, handing back the schedule. “I’ll take your word for it. That’s fine, thanks.”

Back in his car, he looked at himself in the mirror. Who was it who wrote a poem about seeing yourself as others saw you? He thought he looked all right. It was true that when he’d gotten home after having his hair cut his wife asked when he was getting the swastika tattoo, and he’d had to put up with remarks of a similar nature from his
colleagues, but he’d put that down to people having to get used to the new look. The trouble with that theory was that Hutchinson had never seen the old look.

And that worried him.

“At 10:10
A.M
.,” said Sergeant Finch. “Present are Detective Chief Inspector Lloyd and Detective Sergeant Tom Finch. Also present is Mr. Stanley Braithwaite.”

Ryan couldn’t believe the time. They’d gotten him out of bed at six o’clock this morning, and he felt as if it must be lunchtime. Was it really only ten past ten?

“Mr. Chester, I must remind you that you are not obliged to say anything, but it could harm your defense if you do not mention now something which you later rely on in court.” He put a bag on the table. “I am showing Mr. Chester evidence bag GS 1,” he said. “Do you recognize this item, Ryan?”

Ryan looked at it. It was that rechargeable razor he’d been talking about earlier. “No comment,” he said.

“Have you ever seen it before?”

“No comment.”

“You have already admitted having in your possession items which were stolen during a burglary on number 4 Windermere Terrace,” Finch said. “This was the only item which had not at that point been recovered from that burglary. I’ll ask you again. Have you seen it before?”

“No comment.”

Lloyd, true to form, was wandering around looking as
though he was deeply interested in every poster, every dog-eared booklet that hung from the notice board, every crack in the plaster. Ryan knew that he was waiting for the moment when the interview took a turn he felt he could exploit. That was why making no comment was important.

“Would you like to know what we’ve found your prints on, Ryan?”

“Well, you haven’t found them on that razor,” Ryan said, despite himself, and received a gentle nudge from Stan.

“A car,” said Finch. “A car that was taken and driven away without the owner’s consent from London Road last night at half past eight. And would you like to know where we found that razor?
In
the car that was stolen from—”

“Yeah, all right,” said Ryan. “I’ve got the picture. The razor must have fallen out when—”

This time it was no gentle nudge, and Stan’s foot caught him right on the anklebone.

“Are you admitting that you took the car?” he asked.

“No comment.”

Carl had spent the morning calling people to acknowledge their phone calls, to tell them what had happened, and to find out what happened next.

He still had to talk to the registrar and Estelle’s solicitor, and to this end he was sorting through the bureau drawer that contained birth and marriage certificates, insurance documents, wills, and the rest of the papers that documented a person’s life.

But his mind kept going back to what Mrs. Gibson had said. The problem was that Estelle could very easily
have known that Dexter worked for Watson, and woven a fantasy around that fact; he had no wish to set the hounds after some innocent hare. But it might be true, in which case something clearly had to be done about it.

Okay, he thought, sitting back. Here’s the deal. As long as the police continued to think that Dexter and Ryan had something to do with the break-in, he needn’t do anything. Watson wouldn’t be active while the police were taking a deep interest, not only in Dexter, but in him as a witness. But if they came to the conclusion that Dexter had not been involved, then he would have to tell them.