The Price of Butcher's Meat (39 page)

“So we’ll need prints from everybody who was at the party,” said
Pete.

“In hand,” said Wield.

“Where else would they be?” said Pete.

They did a nice double act, those two, and it got an appreciative
laugh.

“Questions, comments,” Pete invited.

Bowler got in quick.

“Sounds like someone had been having a bit of a party in the hut,
then did a tidy up, got rid of any glasses or bottles. Wonder why.”

“And what’s the result of your wondering, Hat?” asked Pete.

“Could be there was someone else there as well as Ollie Hollis, but
they didn’t want to draw attention to it,” he offered.

“Good point,” said Pete. He’d got there already, of course, but like I
say, he loves to make the buggers think.

Novello now got in on the act. Nothing like feeling upstaged by your
rival for putting the brain cells into overdrive.

She said, “If Ollie Hollis suffered from asthma, it’s not likely that he
smoked, is it?”

I was pretty sure Pete would have worked this out for himself too, but
he gave Ivor a big smile and said, “Excellent point. We’ll check it out.

Not so many smokers around these days. Something to ask everyone you
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interview. Now let’s think about motives in both cases, which may or
may not be connected. I don’t want anyone making assumptions till we
have firm evidence of a connection. So, motive.”

According to Pete, there were two main lines, the most obvious the
usual one: money. Who profited? Daph’s lawyer, Beard, wouldn’t discuss
the will over the phone but was on his way north already. Meaning there
has to be serious dosh involved. Them London briefs charge an extra
one percent for every mile they go north of Hampstead.

Till he got here, the only person definitely benefiting from Daph’s
exit was Hen Hollis. (When he were mentioned, Novello shot young
Bowler a grin and I saw him wince. Besides not getting to Witch Cottage early enough, seems he’d also run into Hen last night without
knowing it. Crap never hits you in single dottles, it comes in volleys!)
Jug Whitby, who it seemed to me were a lot guiltier than Bowler for not
getting to Ollie earlier, were told off to fetch Hen in. Don’t hold your
breath, I thought.

The other line was animal rights activists. Hollis’s Ham had been
targeted, Daph herself had been personally threatened, and various alleged attempts on her life were being examined. (Caught my eye as he
said this, like he were signaling, Keep quiet about your part in this—so
I did.) Placing her body in the hog roast cage suggested a possible link
here.

Now Pete paused again for questions and comments. Straight off,
the young ’uns were at it again, scoring brownie points. Bowler tried to
make up some of his lost ground by bringing up Tom Parker’s bro,
Sidney. Way he dresses, the car he runs, obviously lives high on the
hog. Pete winced—doesn’t like jokes in bad taste—but I reckon it
were an accident. Happens to me all the time. Bowler pressed on: As
the victim’s financial adviser, maybe it was worth looking at the way
he was handling her money? Novello chipped in with the notion that
maybe Sid Parker and Ted Denham had some deal cooking behind
Lady Denham’s back. She just happened to know that they’d had a
secret meeting at Denham Park, and she speculated that it could have
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been about the possibility of turning the Denhams’ stately home into a
gambling casino or a care facility. Instead of asking her where the fuck
all this were coming from, Pete nodded approvingly, so he must have
some idea.

“Let’s look hard at these Parkers,” he said. “Lots of connections
with the victim, with some suggestion of tensions in the Sandytown
consortium between its two leading members, Tom Parker and Daphne
Denham.”

Seems Seymour had interviewed dotty Diana and her chum. Dennis
had been sitting there, playing with his laptop, not getting involved as
the younger DCs bickered about who were king of the castle. Pete asked
rather sarcastic if he had owt to add to the “somewhat pithy” statements
he’d taken. It didn’t faze the lad. He just gave his big friendly grin and
said, “Not really. Struck me Miss Parker were a flush short of a toilet,
but harmless with it.”

“Well, thank you for your always helpful analysis, Dennis,” says Pete,
and I saw Novello and Bowler glance at each other, this time in harmony, agreeing that old Dennis weren’t a threat in their private little
Olympics.

Then Seymour said, “One thing, though, sir, this animal rights
angle . . .”

“Yes?” said Pete.

“I were looking through the case file earlier and I noticed that stuff
about Lady Denham having a record . . .”

I could see this were news to most of them there.

Wield said, “Hit a hunt protester with her riding crop, got bound
over to keep the peace. This were thirty years ago, don’t see how it can
be relevant now, unless you can tell us different, Dennis?”

With Pete, that would’ve sounded sarcastic, but with Wieldy you
never can tell.

“Just thought I’d check it out,” said Seymour. “The protester were a
sixteen-year-old lass, Alexandra Lambe. She were squirting some spray
stuff up the hounds’ noses to put them off the scent when Lady Denham
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hit her. Back then she’d likely have got off, case dismissed, except the
girl turned up in court with a severely blackened left eye.”

“Dennis, I’m losing the will to live,” said Pascoe. “Get to whatever
point there is to your tale, will you?”

Seymour said, “Thing is, sir, this Mrs. Griffiths I talked to at Seaview
Terrace, her first name’s Sandy.”

He paused and gave us his smile, like he were expecting a kiss on
both cheeks and a medal.

“The point,” said Pete wearily.

“I got a niece called Alexandra, she always gets Sandy,” said Seymour.

“And your niece is relevant how? Convictions for murder? An urban
terrorist, perhaps?” said Pete.

I saw Novello and Bowler grinning like a pair of chimps.

“No, sir. She’s only eight,” said Seymour. “It were just that this Mrs.

Griffiths had a funny eye. Not funny ha ha, but it didn’t move in sync
with t’other.”

I thought, Christ, that explains her weird stare. Here’s my big ego
putting it down to meeting me, while uncomplicated Dennis spots
straight off it’s her eye! Not only that, he jumps to a connection, ’cos now
he was saying, “When I checked out this Lambe girl, it turned out a few
years later, she lost the use of the same eye that got blacked. On the record

’cos she wanted to claim compensation and her brief asked for court records of the case and police evidence. Never came to anything. Too much
time had passed, and they couldn’t find a doc to swear that was the
cause anyway.”

Now the DCs had stopped grinning and Pete’s voice had lost that
sarky edge as he said, “So what you’re saying is, maybe this Sandy Griffiths and this Alexandra Lambe are one and the same person?”

“No, sir. Not maybe. Just got confirmation on my laptop. Defi nitely,”

said Seymour. “Got married in 1987, widowed eight years later. Bit more
too, sir. She’s got a record. Animal rights activities, so she didn’t grow out
of it. Bound over a couple of times, three fines, four weeks community
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service, and six months suspended for harassment. She’s a member of
some group called ANIMA. So unless it’s just a coincidence she’s holidaying in Sandytown . . .”

Got to admire Pete. Not the slightest eye flicker in my direction even
though he knew as well as I did that ANIMA were the protest group
founded by my Cap!

“Good work, Dennis! The rest of you take notice. You can’t make
this kind of useful connection unless you’ve taken onboard all the facts.

Let’s have her in, see what she has to say for herself. Dennis, it’s your
shout, you do the honors.”

“Should I go too, sir?” said Ivor Novello. “A woman’s touch might
come in handy.”

Doesn’t want to miss out, I thought.

“No,” said Pete. “I’ve got another job for you. Okay, people. That’s it.

Check with Sergeant Wield here if you’ve any doubts at all about what
you’re doing. And, like I said, let Dennis be your shining example. I
want results! Shirley, a word.”

He gathered his bits of paper together, jerked his head at me, and
wandered off through a door behind him. Novello followed. So did I.

Must have been the flat’s bedroom. No bed now, just a table, couple of
chairs, and a recorder. Made our interview rooms back at the Factory
look like suites at the Ritz.

Pete registered my presence but said nowt.

To Ivor he said, “I want you to head on up to Kyoto House and invite
Miss Heywood down for a chat.”

Ivor said, “Yes, sir. Sir, about the e-mails . . .”

“No need to mention them, Shirley,” he said. “Off you go.”

The lass left.

“What e-mails?” I said.

“A Miss Heywood, whom I believe you have met, is presently a
guest of the Parkers and she has been sending a fairly detailed e-mail
account of her time here to her sister. She is, it seems, a psychology
student, and Novello, thinking that her outsider’s view of the setup
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here in Sandytown might be of interest, persuaded her to let her
glance at the e-mails. And very interesting they are too, for all kinds
of reasons.”

He patted a stack of printouts on the table.

“Let me guess,” I said. “Ivor did the all-girls- together thing and got a
hold of those on the understanding they were for her eyes only. No wonder she ain’t looking forward to seeing young Heywood again.”

“Shirley’s a Catholic, they know how to deal with guilt,” said Pete
indifferently. “She is also, I’m glad to say, a very sharp, very ambitious
young detective. Anyway, Andy, it’s really good to see you here. You’re
looking a lot more like your old self this morning. You slept well?”

“Yes, I did. And yes, I’ve been, and yes, I take sugar,” I said. “Nice of
you not to worry me poor invalid mind with more bad news afore you
took off last night.”

He shrugged and said, “Andy, I’ll be glad of any input you can offer,
and you’re very welcome to sit in on briefings, as you’ve just done, but I
can’t be making diversions to bring you up to speed on every new development.”

Me, I didn’t rate two steps back into my room as diversion, but I
guessed the poor sod were under enough stress without me piling it on.

No need to let him off scot- free, but.

I said, “Desperate Dan been in touch, has he?”

He winced and said, “Yes, the chief constable and I spoke briefly
early this morning.”

“And how about Sammy Ruddlesdin? He been round for his daily
briefi ng yet?”

I thought I’d pushed him too far, but he’s a hard man to topple over
the edge.

He said, “No doubt Sammy and I will talk later. Meanwhile, as I say,
Andy, I’d be really pleased to have any input you may care to offer.”

He sounded so sincere, I’d have bought a time-share off him.

I said, “You didn’t mention Roote out there.”

“I couldn’t see how he might be relevant.”

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“No? There were a time when we couldn’t talk about an outbreak of
shoplifting in Woollies without you bringing Roote into it,” I said. “Now
we’ve got him on the scene at a murder and you don’t want to talk
about him!”

“Wieldy’s spoken to him already, as you know,” he said. “And I’ll be
talking to him myself later. Don’t worry, Andy, if I feel that he’s involved
in any way, I shall know how to do my duty.”

I clapped my hands a couple of times. There’s not another bugger
I know in the Force could have delivered that line like Pete Pascoe!

“Right, that’s that sorted,” I said. “So are you going to let me take a
look at Charley Heywood’s e-mails then?”

He looked doubtful and said, “Not sure if I should do that, Andy, in
view of the personal connection.”

“Eh?” I said.

“You know her father, I believe. And also you are mentioned in the
text.”

“Jesus is mentioned in the Gospels, that mean he can’t take a look
and see what they’ve been writing about him?”

“A persuasive parallel,” he said. “But we really shouldn’t forget the
assurance of confidentiality that Novello gave Miss Heywood. Shirley
has passed them on to me under the same condition. In other words,
they won’t be passed around every Tom, Dick, and Harry. Miss Heywood sounds an interesting girl.”