Some by Fire (25 page)

‘And what was your cut?’ I asked.

‘I didn’t take a penny off her. JJ paid me well, extremely well, and…’ He shrugged and smiled.

‘And what?’

‘Like I said, she was a good dancer and good in bed, and nobody misses a coconut off a fruit stall, do they? JJ liked her to put on a show for him and I was the
warm-up
act. I didn’t need any money from him. Shagging the boss’s ladyfriend just before he does has a certain appeal all of its own, don’t you think, Inspector?’

‘I wouldn’t know,’ I said.

Going home it was the M6, M61 and M62 all the way and I never dropped under ninety. If a traffic car had followed me I’d have given him the secret
signal that says: ‘I’m a cop in a hurry,’ and he’d have dropped back. You just switch your hazard lights on for three flashes and dab your brakes, that’s all. Try it some time. The local chippie opens at teatime on Wednesdays, so I had them again. They were all right, but nowhere as good as the ones Shirley had cooked for us. By six o’clock I’d washed my plate, made a pot of tea and the full evening stretched before me.

I laid a blank piece of hardboard on the drive and started flicking blue enamel on it,
à la
Jackson Pollock. It’s a lot harder than it looks, and
time-consuming
. It doesn’t start to work until the entire field is thickly covered in splashes and squiggles and spots and dribbles. This would give the exhibition judges something to think about, and might even make the
Gazette
, I’d have to think of a name for it, and for its partner, when I’d finished the pair of them. I reached for my tea and found it had gone cold.

I was taking the lid off the red when a sound behind me caused me to turn. Young Daniel, Dave’s son, was freewheeling his mountain bike through my gateway, closely followed by his dad on a lady’s pink model with a basket on the handlebars. Dave was wearing a Heart Appeal T-shirt and jogging bottoms.

‘Hi, Charlie,’ Daniel greeted me. ‘Whatya doing?’ He saw the painting and went: ‘Wow! It’s fantastic!’

Dave dismounted, saying: ‘It’s
Uncle
Charlie to you, young man,’ for the thousandth time, followed
by: ‘Good God, it looks like a bag of maggots.’

I knocked the lid back into place and stretched upright, my vertebrae creaking in protest. ‘Visitors!’ I exclaimed. ‘This is a pleasant surprise. Let’s have a drink.’

‘Can I have a go on your computer, please, Uncle Charlie?’ Daniel asked. ‘I think Dad wants to talk cop talk.’

‘Sure,’ I replied. ‘C’mon, I’ll set you up.’ I left him with a glass of LA lager and lime, zapping aliens, and carried two cans of real beer and two glasses out into the garden, where Dave had made himself comfortable on the seat.

The cans went
psssss!
as we broke the seals. Dave said: ‘It’s just two small messages. First of all Les Isles rang to say that Danielle LaPetite is a torn from Salford, and she hasn’t turned up yet. Aged twenty-two, several convictions for soliciting. But the big news is from Tregellis. He rang just before five to say that Melissa is on her way, with her boyfriend. They arrive in Manchester at nine a.m. tomorrow, and can you arrange for someone to meet them?’

‘Brilliant,’ I said. ‘It’s all coming together.’ I looked at my watch. ‘I ought to ring Tregellis,’ I said, ‘tell him about today.’

‘He said to tell you not to bother,’ Dave replied. ‘He’s out tonight; it’ll do in the morning.’

‘Good.’

Dave took a long sip, held the glass to the light and turned it in his fingers. A blackbird landed on the fence, looked affronted by our presence in his garden and took off again. High above us a jumbo jet filled with holidaymakers did a course-correction, leaving a bent trail across the sky. The sun glinted under its wing as it levelled out.

‘There is one other thing,’ Dave said.

‘What’s that?’ I asked.

He shuffled and crossed his ankles. ‘You remember Peter Mark Handley?’

‘The games master who touched up little girls?’

‘He did more than touch them up, but not any more. He’s dead. Monday night he jumped off Scammonden bridge.’

‘Oh God,’ I said.

‘He didn’t leave a note or anything. He should have appeared before the magistrates that morning, but he didn’t. They issued a warrant. He wasn’t identified until this afternoon.’

‘We drove him to that,’ I said. ‘Or I did. And I caused Fox’s death, too. I put pressure on him and Kingston. Kingston probably killed him to silence him, thanks to me. Judge, jury and executioner, all in one. Sometimes I hate this job, Dave. When we’re old, do you think we’ll be able to sleep at nights?’

‘You’re talking soft,’ he replied. ‘Handley was a pervert and Fox a monster. We’ll never know how
evil he was. They were both all right when they were picking the fruits, but when it came to paying the bill they didn’t like it. We’re the law, Charlie. We just catch them. If they can’t hack it, it’s their fault. What is it they say? “If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime.”’

‘“If you deserve it, serve it.” Handley’s wife didn’t deserve it. She seemed a pleasant enough person, and loyal to him. Now she’s a widow.’

‘And how many little girls will never trust a man again? How many of them has he left damaged? Don’t waste your regrets on either of them, Charlie, save them for more deserving causes. God knows, there’s plenty.’

I fetched two more beers and left another LA with Daniel. He was playing Battle Chess against the computer. The sun had fallen behind next door’s roof but it was still a warm evening. A flock of swallows were diving and swirling like tea leaves used to, before they invented teabags. I topped up both our glasses from one can. The first vapour trail had been dispersed by the Jetstream, but another plane was following the same course, pumping millions of cubic feet of burnt hydrocarbons into the ozone layer. Seven miles above us two or three hundred rat-tempered passengers were wrestling with seat backs and folding tables, or standing in embarrassed queues for the toilets.

Bring back airships, that’s my opinion.

Dave took a sip, sighed, and balanced his glass on the uneven top of the wall round my little rockery. He sat on his hands and kicked his feet up and down. ‘You remember when we were going to Bridlington?’ he said, when he was good and ready.

‘Mmm.’

‘Remember what we were talking about.’

‘Percy Shaw?’

‘After that.’

‘Rhubarb crumble?’

‘You don’t make it easy for me, do you?’

‘I’m sorry, Dave,’ I said, ‘but I haven’t a clue what you’re on about.’

‘Nigel asked why I hadn’t made sergeant.’

‘Oh, that.’

‘Yes, that. Have you ever wondered why?’

‘Once or twice, but not lately. You could have walked it if you’d wanted. With a bit of effort you could have made inspector, and you’d have been a good one. I just assumed that you were happy as a DC and didn’t want to spoil things. You had a family to consider. There’s plenty of others feel the same way.’

‘I am happy, but there’s more to it than that.’

‘Is there?’ I wasn’t going to ask. He’d tell me, if that was what he was leading to.

‘I had a revelation.’

‘A revelation? You found God?’

‘No, I found my limitations. That day, at the fire.’

‘Leopold Avenue?’

‘That’s right. When I saw her at the window, little Jasmine Turnbull, I knew I had no chance of saving her. But the alternative was worse. Just standing there, watching, until the fire or the smoke got her. I could never have lived with myself if I hadn’t tried. Halfway up that first staircase I was in trouble. I was going to grab one more breath and press on, but you tackled me and dragged me out. I’d never have made it; I knew that. For a while, I wondered if you did what you did because you hadn’t the bottle to go after her. But not for long. I soon realised that if it had been the other way round, if I’d been the sergeant and you the PC, there’d have been ten deaths in that fire, not eight. And we’d have missed all this.’ He waved a hand at the garden. ‘So,’ he concluded, ‘I suppose you could say I’m not cut out for authority.’

‘Now you’re talking soft,’ I said. ‘How many times has a situation like that risen since then? None.’

‘But it might, tomorrow.’

‘And you’d do what was necessary.’

‘Well, it’s too late now.’

I shared the fourth can between us. ‘There’s more in the fridge…’ I hinted.

‘Better not. What’s the limit for riding a bike while in charge of a minor?’

‘No idea. Cheers.’

‘Cheers.’

It was good beer. The froth clung to the side of the glass, all the way down. That’s how you tell a good pint. It’s nothing to do with the taste. The widget was the greatest scientific breakthrough since Archimedes invented the overflow.

‘I saw the pictures,’ I said.

Dave licked the froth off his top lip and said: ‘What pictures?’

‘The ones in Kingston’s loo, that you didn’t want me to see.’

‘Oh, those pictures.’

‘That’s right. By Mrs Holmes. She knew him better than she pretended, don’t you think?’

‘You can’t say that. They might have been a Christmas present or anything. Maybe Melissa bought them off her and gave them to him. There’s a thousand possible explanations.’

‘I suppose so,’ I admitted, but I knew different. It had all started at that party to watch the Apollo 13 mission on television. Kingston had been awful to Melissa, Janet had told us, and chased another girl. She’d been that other girl, as sure as Satan made female Morris dancers. Why should Melissa have all the fun? she’d thought, and Melissa had reacted by taking a tilt at Mo, which was what Kingston had intended all along. I’d been to a few parties like that myself. Then it was back to the bedsit and the Leonard Cohen records.

‘It was a long time ago,’ Dave said. ‘She was young. We all make mistakes.’

Daniel came out of the open doorway, saying: ‘I’ve logged off, Uncle Charlie. Thanks for letting me play on it. We ought to be off, Dad, before it gets dark.’

‘Kids,’ Dave muttered to me, standing up. ‘Who’d have ’em?’

I watched them pedal away in an impromptu race, and thought: I would.

Thursday morning Manchester airport told me that Delta flight number DL064 from Atlanta was delayed two hours, which suited me just fine. I had long sessions on the phone with Les Isles and Tregellis, and a progress meeting with Mr Wood. I was working for three bosses and it was hard to juggle things so everyone was equally informed and no feelings were hurt. Fortunately, Tregellis was a long way away, Les trusted me and regarded me as an extension of his team, and Gilbert gave me a free hand, so I was able to do what I wanted.

One of our motorcyclists was waiting for me when I returned from Gilbert’s office. He was nursing two videos. ‘Ah, well done,’ I said as I took them from him.

‘My pleasure, sir,’ he replied with a grin.

‘Nice little ride, was it?’

‘Smashing.’ His helmet and leathers were shimmering with the carcasses of dead flies.

‘Well, take it steady, and thanks.’

The old idea of an identity parade, with the suspect lined up alongside seven other short, bald-headed men, is rapidly fading. They were always a pain to organise and expensive in time and money. Video film and links are taking over. We can use recordings of the suspect, mixed in with images of similar-looking characters off the files, and let the victim examine them at his or her leisure. They don’t even have to be in the same city. The security cameras in Kendal nick had captured Kingston’s likeness on tape during his two visits, helped by a little careful manipulating of his position. The ID team had produced a video for me showing several stills of him, together with an assortment of similarly built policemen in civvies, visiting solicitors, and various friends, relatives and villains. I posted one straight off to Tregellis, via the internal mail, and watched the other in the main office. It was good.

I’d intended to take Annette with me to Manchester because I wanted her to be our contact with Melissa and her boyfriend, but Gilbert had asked her to produce some figures for a survey about overtime and sick leave. The Home Secretary had been given warning of a question he was about to be asked in Parliament, so everything had to stop until we had an
answer. The sun was still shining, but the temperature had dropped by quite a bit. It was bright and pleasant, rather than oppressive. I gave myself plenty of time and stopped for a chicken burger at the services. As usual, when I used the loo I found that someone with pubic alopecia had beaten me to it.

I was still early. I called in at the Immigration office and they confirmed that Melissa was on the flight, which was a pleasant surprise. Piers had told me that she didn’t seem to realise that once she had left the USA it was unlikely that they’d let her back in. He hadn’t tipped her off about this small point and we were looking forward to breaking it to her after she’d given us what she wanted.

I wandered up to the spectator’s gallery to watch the big jets taking off, and caught myself humming ‘In the Early Morning Rain’. There’s a shop up there that sells aviation magazines, spotters’ guides and plastic models of famous crashes. Hanging in a corner was a sheepskin flying jacket, circa WWII, marked down from £300 to £199. Wow! I thought, this’ll work wonders for my image. I’d wear it to the office tomorrow, regardless of the weather.

But the sleeves were miles too short. The rest of it fitted, but I held my arms forward to demonstrate the problem and exchanged disappointed smiles with the sales lady. I went back to Arrivals and stood with the blank-faced straggle of people waiting for flight
DL064. Shifty-looking taxi drivers held boards under their arms with scrawled names across them, and a well-dressed elderly man in a chauffeur’s cap stood patiently to attention. Once he’d been the terror of the parade ground, and now he was someone’s lackey. That’d be me soon, I thought. The rest were
bleary-eyed
sons-in-law or parents, come to pick up their loved ones after yet another holiday of a lifetime.

I’d have recognised her at half a mile, but she still took my breath away. I stepped forward in front of them, and the immigration official shadowing them gave me a nod and peeled off. ‘Miss Youngman?’ I said.

‘The former Miss Youngman,’ she said, almost smiling. ‘Now I’m Mrs Slade. Meet my husband of twenty-four hours, Jade Slade.’

‘How ya doin’?’ he said.

‘Fine,’ I lied. ‘DI Priest.’ Shit fuck bugger, I thought. She’s done us.

The extravagances of the seventies had been toned down, and of course, our tastes have developed over the years. Her hair was red again, cropped short and carelessly styled, but nothing that you wouldn’t see any day in any small town. She wore a nose ring and extravagant eye make-up – not heavy lashes and shadow, but paint and speckles all around them – with black lipstick. Underneath the muck was one of those faces that can launch a young girl to fame
and fortune or blight her life with a string of wrong men because the decent ones don’t think they stand a chance. She was beautiful, and ageing well, and I could understand anybody falling for her. Nancy Spungeon had become Zandra Rhodes.

He was something else. Short, pot-bellied, with one of those hillbilly beards that looks as if it’s just been shampooed. He wore faded denims held up by a broad belt heavily inlaid with silver and turquoise. She was in a brown leather suit. I led them to my car and told them about the Station Hotel, in Heckley, where we’d booked them a room for the week.

‘Do they have a pool?’ he asked.

I apologised for the lack of a pool.

On the motorway I said: ‘I understand you write poetry, Mr Slade.’

‘That’s right,’ he replied.

‘Will I have heard any?’

‘Do you read redneck poetry?’

‘No.’

‘Then you won’t.’

I told Melissa that she was booked into Heckley General Hospital tomorrow at about four thirty, to have her teeth fixed. Then, if she was up to it, we’d do a taped interview with her the following day, Saturday. All leave was cancelled for the first team. She mumbled responses in the right places and we rode the rest of the way in silence. He said: ‘Jeez!’
under his breath when he saw the Station Hotel, and that was the sum total of our conversation. I didn’t mind; I had no desire to be on first-name terms with either of them. I wrote Annette’s name and number on a page of hotel notepaper and left them to unpack.

Back at the nick I rang Tregellis but had to settle for Piers. ‘The eagle has landed,’ I said. We talked for a while about tactics and when he’d hung up I rang Les Isles and had the same conversation all over again.

Agent Mike Kaprowski wasn’t in his office but a colleague introduced himself and told me that he was familiar with the case. ‘I just met Melissa Youngman off the plane,’ I told him, ‘except that she’s not called Youngman any more because she’s got herself married. To this poet feller, Jade Slade.’

‘Aw, shit!’ he exclaimed. ‘You know what that means?’

‘We’ll have to buy them a present?’

‘Yeah, and that, goddammit! OK, Charlie, thanks for letting us know. I’ll tell Mike and he’ll get back to you. Adios.’

‘Adios.’ I put the phone down.

‘
Adios
’ said a voice behind me. ‘
Adios
’ Who was that, Speedy Gonzales?’

I half-turned and grinned at Sparky. ‘Just my friends in the FBI,’ I told him.

He flopped into the spare chair. ‘What did they want?’

‘They’ve run out of white chalk, wondered if we had any to spare. Actually, I rang them. Melissa’s arrived, but she married her boyfriend in a touching little ceremony in the airport lounge just before they left the USA.’

‘What difference does that make?’

I told him.

‘The crafty little cow,’ he said.

‘It does look as if we underestimated her,’ I admitted.

‘Charlie…’ he began.

‘Mmm.’

‘When you interview her…what’s the chances of being in on it?’

I looked at him and said: ‘I wouldn’t have it any other way, Dave.’

He gripped his knees and said: ‘Thanks.’

‘But just remember she’s cooperating with us.’

‘I will,’ he replied, ‘but I still reckon she’s in this up to her ears. She’s gonna get away with murder, probably literally.’

‘I think you’re right,’ I replied, ‘but it’s the only way we’ll get Kingston, and he’s the senior partner.’

‘I’ve been thinking about Kingston,’ he told me. ‘If he killed Fox to silence him, I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t kill Danielle whatsername, the hooker, too,
for the same reason. In the past he killed, or caused people to die, for financial gain. Now he’s killing to save his skin. He’s in a panic, thinking on his feet.’

‘And that will be his downfall, Dave. Do you think he might have a go at Melissa?’

‘Possibly. Does he know she’s over here?’

‘We haven’t told him.’

‘But she might, if she knows where he lives. Just for old times’ sake.’

‘Great,’ I said. ‘We’d better keep an eye on her.’

We booked a DC into the Station Hotel, posing as a travelling Punch and Judy man, and Annette went round to introduce herself to our guests. Friday afternoon she took Melissa and Jed Clampitt to the hospital to get for free what would have cost them a fortune back home. It was a cloudy day and I spent it in the office, typing my notes and memories into a more accessible format. Six of us had pie and chips for lunch in one of Heckley’s more traditional pubs.

Nine o’clock in the evening Annette rang me to say that Melissa had been through the wringing machine and they’d decided to keep her in overnight. She’d be discharged in the morning, no problem, but an interview might be asking too much of her.

‘In that case,’ I decided, ‘tell her Monday morning, at Heckley nick. You make sure she’s there, please, Annette.’ I rang the others to tell them that they
could have the weekend off after all.

Saturday I did an hour in the office, then went home to finish the Jackson Pollock painting. It took me until ten at night plus two visits to B&Q for materials, but it looked smashing. If JP had done it you’d be talking above five million for it. I’d ask for fifty quid, for the kids’ ward, and probably not get it. Sunday I completed the one that had originally been inspired by the tapeworm drawing done by Janet Holmes. It was ragged blocks of oranges and yellows, with a jagged flash of lime green coming up from the bottom left corner that danced before your eyes. I was pleased with that one, too. They’d look great surrounded by all those scenes of Malhamdale in autumn.

She still hadn’t sent me a postcard.

Monday morning I rose early. I hadn’t slept very well, worrying that Melissa might be taking us for a ride. After a cup of tea I decided that it was unlikely. We were, after all, offering her immunity from prosecution on charges of God-knows-what. I was just running the shower when the phone rang.

‘It’s Jeff,’ it said, breathlessly. ‘The Transit’s on the move.’

‘It can’t be,’ I complained, looking at my watch. ‘I’ve an appointment at nine.’

‘We can manage. I’ve scrambled the chopper
and alerted the ARV. Now I’m just rounding up the troops.’

I was going to miss this, and I was annoyed. ‘OK,’ I said. ‘Take everybody you need, plus a few more, but not Sparky and Annette; and alert our neighbours. We can’t afford to lose them, so the more the merrier. Lift them whenever it’s convenient. In the garden but before they enter the house would be ideal, but on no account let them get in the house. It would be nice, though, to know what their target was. Nobody hurt, that’s the priority, Jeff, unless, of course, it’s them. No, I didn’t say that. Anything you want me to do?’

‘Not at the moment, boss.’

‘Get on with it then. I’ll be in the control room if you need me.’

Dammit, I thought. Dammit. I’d wanted to scramble the chopper. Jeff had decided that the best thing was for him to ring Mr Nelson at seven o’clock every morning. If the boys were there, he’d say wrong number; if they’d come home and left the house Jeff would tell him to report the van stolen and give him a crime number. Mr Nelson then had to ring the Tracker people and report it missing. They would double-check with us before activating the transponder in the van, enabling the receivers in our vehicles to pinpoint it. Tracker only acted after a report of theft; we didn’t have carte blanche to follow anyone who had the device fitted.

I had a hasty shower and nearly broke the speed limit on the way to the nick. The car park was surprisingly devoid of police cars but Dave’s Escort was in its usual place.

He was in the control room, listening to the action. ‘We could put Melissa back an hour,’ he suggested, temptingly.

‘No,’ I replied. ‘They can handle it.’

The radios were on talk-through, so we could hear everything. ‘Target heading south,’ someone said, which was bad news, because everyone had gone straight to the motorway, which was north. Jeff came on and directed all the unmarked cars in the right direction, sharing them out between the different routes. At this stage they just wanted to be close. The pandas and the ARV were told to take their time.

‘Zulu ninety-nine, we have contact with target,’ came over the airwaves, against a background of the chum-chum-chum of the chopper’s blades. ‘On A616, just beyond Debberton, travelling slowly.’

Jeff asked for the positions of his cars, and rerouted where necessary. We studied the big map and the duty sergeant made a guess about some posh houses between Debberton and Holmfirth. I told him to pass it on to Jeff.

Zulu ninety-nine told us that the van had stopped in a lay-by and they were veering off to avoid being spotted.

‘Lima Mike. Just passing target.’ That was Maggie.

‘Ten twenty.’

‘Lima Oscar, we have target under observation. Zulu ninety-nine stay away until they move again.’

‘Ten twenty. Do you copy, Zulu ninety-nine?’

‘Zulu ninety-nine, ten twenty.’

‘Lima Mike standing by.’

Gilbert came in and asked for an update. I showed him where they were on the map. ‘Unlike you not to be out there, Charlie,’ he said.

‘Oh, you know how I like to delegate,’ I replied.

‘Lima Oscar, target on the move.’ We all turned to the control desk, as if looking at the loudspeakers would give us a picture of the scene.