Shooting Elvis (18 page)

‘Well, one day, back in about ’93, I caught Alfred doing some photocopying. Order lists, sales projections, that sort of thing. I couldn’t imagine what he wanted them for at first, then I realised: he was passing information about our customers over to our rivals.’

‘So you reported him to the boss.’

‘Um, no.’

‘Why not?’

‘I was going to, but he threatened me.’

‘What with?’

He ignored the question, found something outside to attract his attention and looked towards the window.

‘Violence?’ I suggested, but he still didn’t answer. ‘Or did he threaten to expose your own little scam, Mr Smallwood, whatever it was?’

Smallwood stood up and straightened the Shepherd print hanging above the fireplace. ‘I didn’t do anything. I told you that.’

‘I know, but I don’t believe you. What were your feelings about Alfred?’ I asked.

He turned to face me. ‘My feelings?’

‘Mmm. Did you like him, hate him, think he was alright, or what?’

‘None of those. He did his job and I did mine. We didn’t socialise, if that’s what you mean.’

‘You were indifferent towards him?’

‘Yes. Indifferent.’

‘So you didn’t compare notes. You just both kept robbing the company in your separate ways.’

‘No. I never took anything. It was only Alfred.’

‘And you didn’t kill him?’

Panic flared in his face. ‘No. No. Of course not. Is that what you think?’

‘It’s a possibility,’ I said, pushing myself up from the chair. ‘Don’t leave the country, will you?’

But it wasn’t a possibility. It takes certain qualities to get somebody drunk, wire him to the mains and put the power on. I don’t know what the qualities are, but I was convinced that Smallwood didn’t possess them.

Back at the station there were more loose ends to clear up. Lincoln had been talking to the Hell’s Angels and Bousfield’s alibi was as tight as a 747’s wheelnuts, with just enough slack in there to make it believable.

The economic crime unit were more cooperative after a word from the boss, and had discovered that after leaving Ellis and Newbold’s Alfred had gone to work for their rivals, AJK. They, in turn, had sacked him during a period of belt-tightening after that company started going down the tube. As Alfred had probably been selling their secrets, there was a certain irony there. He’d left with a stainless reputation after less than a year in office, and his bank deposits had quickly dried up after that. There was nothing to suggest that his paymasters put any pressure on him: he hadn’t paid any money back, changed accounts or moved house.

I was cutting corners, painting with a broad brush, but decisions had to be made. If Alfred wasn’t killed because of his industrial espionage links, and if the Angels and Bousfield were in the clear, we were swimming in treacle.

But was Alfred the intended victim or was he killed because of his unfortunate similarity to Terence Paul Hutchinson, the Midnight Strangler? Hutchinson and Jermaine Lapetite both came from the shallow end of the gene pool, so were they both murdered because someone was doing unofficial pool maintenance? It was a strong possibility.

I went down to the incident room and did a big chart on the whiteboard, linking all the scenarios. After a few seconds admiring it I reached out and
erased Smallwood’s name. I was about to do the same with Bousfield but hesitated. Instead I left it there but drew a line through it, so it wasn’t gone completely.

Sonia had developed a routine with the training. Mondays and Wednesdays, if I was home in time, we’d drive to the golf club and do our laps; Tuesdays and perhaps Thursday she’d go to the track for some serious stuff against the clock; Saturday and Sunday mornings we’d go for a jog from home. My presence was optional, but I was there when I could manage it. Her next race was another 10K, in Durham at the weekend.

On this Monday I couldn’t face it. I arrived home just as Sonia was about to leave, so I drove her to the golf club and sent her off on her own. The lady with the dog returned from her walk shortly after Sonia started her second lap and mouthed
hello
to me as I sat in the car, making notes, with Vaughan Williams on the CD player. I smiled and waved back. She walked to her car, opened the back door so the little dog could leap inside, and came back to me. I wound the window down and rolled the volume right off.

‘Has Miss Thornton gone off running without you?’ she asked.

‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘She’s too fast for me so I decided to have a rest.’

‘She’s a wonderful athlete,’ she told me, as if I
didn’t know. ‘I told you I saw her win a race at Roundhay Park, in Leeds. I used to run there myself, many years ago, on Children’s Day. Just the hundred yards sprint. I never won, but I’ve loved athletics ever since. I was so disappointed when Sonia didn’t go to Atlanta.’

‘A lot of people were.’

‘Is she fit again, now?’

‘She’s getting there.’

‘I have my camera in the car,’ she said. ‘Do you think she’d let me take her photograph?’

‘Oh, I don’t think she’d mind. She’s quite shy, but I suppose she’d be flattered.’

‘Oh, good. Shall I wait for her to get back, or would she prefer it some other evening? She might be upset to have it dropped on her, so to speak.’

‘Might as well wait,’ I replied, ‘if you have the time.’

She went to sit in her car and wait, and ten minutes later Sonia came steaming up the hill for the second time. I jumped out with a towel and a drink and told her, nodding in the appropriate direction, about the lady with the Scottie. As predicted, she turned a pale beetroot colour.

‘Me?’ she said.

‘Yes.’

‘A photograph?’

‘Yes. She’s a fan.’ I waved to the woman and she came across to us.

‘Do you mind?’ she asked.

Sonia laughed, still blushing. ‘No, of course not.’

The woman produced a small digital camera and spent several seconds making adjustments until things were to her liking. Finally she gave the ‘smile’ command and pressed the button.

‘Let me take one of the two of you,’ I said, and reached for the camera. Sonia posed next to the woman, although posed is hardly the word. She stood like a prize fighter, feet slightly apart, whereas a model would have placed one ankle neatly behind the other to produce a tapering effect. The sun was low, casting the yellow light that photographers love. I repositioned myself so it was illuminating their faces and squatted down, one knee on the ground. By now their smiles had slipped and the two of them looked as if they were up for execution.

‘For God’s sake SMILE!’ I shouted, they laughed and I pressed the button.

The woman took her camera back with profuse thank you’s, and I drove Sonia home. ‘There,’ I said as I buckled my seatbelt, ‘that’s two people you’ve made happy today.’

Tuesday morning we had a big meeting in the Portakabin we were using as an improvised incident room. Professor Foulkes was one of the first to arrive and we asked each other about our love lives. His was going through an extended rocky patch; I reported that mine was doing quite nicely, thank you.

‘And what does it feel like to be a celebrity?’ he asked. ‘You know that it’s a drug, don’t you? The more publicity you attract, the more you want.’

‘Don’t you start, Adrian,’ I said. ‘It’s all uninvited, I assure you.’

‘Ah, you say that,’ he went on, ‘but would the delightful – and she is truly delightful – Miss Thornton, aka
La Gazelle
, still find you attractive if you were a nonentity?’

‘That’s the least of my worries.’

‘Is it? So what is the most of your worries?’

I laughed out loud. ‘Good try, prof, but mind your own business. I’m not on your couch.’ It was the twenty-year age gap, and no amount of psychobabble could alter that.

‘Just warming up my finely tuned analytical muscles, Charlie. But if you ever do happen to fall out with her, remember an old friend, won’t you? What time does this meeting start?’

It started then. While we talked the team, plus extras, had drifted in, armed with notebooks and beakers of coffee from the machine. I’d brought us two from the office, made with real Nescafé. Chairs scraped as they were manoeuvred into position and everyone made themselves comfortable. Dave came in and headed for me, a folded newspaper in his hand.

‘Have you seen this, Charlie?’ he asked.

‘No. What is it?’

‘
UK News
. You’d better read it.’

I took the tabloid from him. It was supposedly a report about the finding of Jermaine Lapetite’s body, but the headline read:
Dead druggy’s penis amputated
.

I turned the page towards Adrian so he could read it.

‘Amputated,’ he said. ‘That’s a big word for the
UK News.
Is it true?’

‘Not that I know,’ I told him. ‘I never looked. It’s not the sort of thing I do.’

‘Does it say it was stuffed in his mouth?’

‘Yeah,’ Dave replied. ‘Lower down.’

‘Even you would have noticed that, Charlie,’ Adrian said.

‘I’d have thought so,’ I agreed.

‘Maybe old sawbones will know if it was chopped off,’ he suggested.

‘The pathologist? He’s not coming but I have his report here. He doesn’t mention it.’

‘Hmm. I imagine it’s the sort of thing he would mention. Sounds like poetic licence to me. Or wishful thinking. It’s the sort of rough justice that would appeal to a
UK News
reader.’

‘Let’s hope you’re right.’ I turned to Dave. ‘Ring the paper, Dave,’ I said. ‘See where they got it from.’

‘Can I tell them it’s not true?’

‘No problem. Let’s get on with it.’

I jumped up onto the little stage and everybody stopped talking. ‘Good morning,’ I said. ‘This
won’t take long. First of all can I introduce Professor Adrian Foulkes, from the psychology department at Heckley General. He’s here for background knowledge and then he will hopefully look into the parts we mortals can’t reach. If you’re very good he’ll make his bow tie rotate.’ Adrian gave a languid wave of acknowledgement. ‘The pathologist can’t be with us, unfortunately,’ I continued, ‘but I have his report here.’ I gazed down at the front row and picked on Brendan. ‘Here you are, Brendan,’ I said, handing him the folder, ‘this morning you can be the patho. Read that and be ready to answer questions.’

‘We’re here to discuss the death of Jermaine Lapetite,’ I told them. ‘As you know, he was found suspended upside down from a roof joist. Two holes had been knocked through the plasterboard ceiling to access the joist. We haven’t found the tool that did it and one would expect the perpetrator to be covered in plaster. The victim was hanging by an old clothes line, knotted around his feet with the other end around the toilet overflow pipe.’

‘Have you seen this morning’s
UK News
, boss?’ somebody asked.

‘I have. Dave brought it in.’

‘Is it true?’

‘No, apart from the bang to his head there was no sign of mutilation. Maybe this is a good time to hear what the PM disclosed. Brendan, it’s your stage.’ He stood up and half-turned towards his
audience. ‘Just the relevant stuff,’ I said.

‘Right,’ he began, rearranging the pages of the report. ‘Time of death was approximately thirty hours before the body was found, say sometime Friday evening. Cause of death was a single blow to the head, probably struck from behind by a
right-handed
person. There are marks on the victim’s neck as if manual strangulation was applied, again from behind, until the killer was certain the victim was dead. The murder weapon was a heavy, blunt instrument about four centimetres wide, with a rounded end.’

‘Sounds like a cosh,’ we were told.

‘It does, doesn’t it. Anything else relevant, Brendan?’

‘No, boss, that’s about it. He had score marks on his arms and various other scars. That’s all.’

‘What did he weigh?’

‘Hang on, it’s here somewhere. Um, 67 kilograms.’

‘What’s that in old money?’ I asked.

There was a rustling of papers until someone shouted, ‘Ten stone four, boss.’

‘Thanks. He wasn’t what you’d call strapping, was he? Would it be possible for one man to lift a body of that weight on that clothes line?’

There was a silence while they thought about it. After a while they agreed that it was possible but difficult. ‘Do we have anyone who weighs just over ten stones?’ I asked, and one of the SOCOs raised a nervous hand. I beamed down at him. ‘How do you
feel like being hung up by your feet over a toilet?’ I asked, and he agreed to be the guinea pig.

‘Just be grateful he didn’t have his willy chopped off,’ one of his colleagues told him.

After that we had the technical teams give us their findings. Bloodstains showed that the killer blow was struck downstairs, in the hallway. There was very little blood but a trail had been found leading up the stairs to the bathroom. According to the ESLA expert only one person had dragged the body up the stairs, no mean feat in itself. Unfortunately he’d worn shoes with smooth soles, not trainers. That was nearly a first, but not much help. ‘We’ve taken the stair carpet away to look for trace evidence,’ he reported.

Hundreds of fingerprints were found, but there was no concentration on the stairs or in the bathroom that might have come from the killer. Just the opposite. It would be expected that he’d steady himself against the wall as he dragged the body, but only smudges were found. The bad news was that it looked as if he’d worn cotton gloves.

The clothes line was ancient and the knots in it were amateurish. Just a double granny at his feet, and looping over and over several times around the pipe. We weren’t looking for a sailor or a boy scout.

‘Any questions?’ I asked, and pointed at the first raised hand.

‘Do we think this killing is linked to the Alfred Armitage one, boss?’

‘We don’t know, but that’s why Adrian is here. Now that he’s filled in with the details I’m hoping he’ll tell us all sorts of things, but we’ll have to give him time.’

I pointed again. ‘Yes, George.’

‘Have you dismissed that it might be a gangland execution, boss?’

‘No, we haven’t dismissed anything. It could be, but it’s not the normal gangland MO.’