Golden Mile to Murder (29 page)

‘Would you mind explaining that?'

‘Simplicity itself, my old son. If our laddie had a customer who wanted a cream-coloured Ford Anglia, he'd just ask for it, and it would be delivered in two or three days. And he was guaranteed that wasn't the original colour of the car.'

‘But that means that the thieves must have a stock to draw on,' Rutter said.

‘Just what I thought.'

‘And how did he contact the thieves to place his order?'

‘He didn't. They rang
him
every two or three days.'

Rutter felt the faint ember of hope which had been ignited in his bosom start to cool and die. ‘So you've no idea where the cars were coming from?'

‘I didn't say that, exactly. It was usually a woman who rang our laddie. He's from Whitebridge originally, and he's prepared to swear this woman had a Whitebridge accent herself. So it's just possible the headquarters of the racket is somewhere in your area.'

Rutter thanked the Manchester man and replaced the receiver. So the ring could be operating out of Whitebridge, he thought. What would it need to work properly? Somewhere to store a fair number of stolen cars, for a start – a place where they wouldn't be noticed by passers-by or nosy bobbies. And then they would also need fairly easy access to the kinds of equipment necessary to modify the cars, so that if, for example, they got an order for a cream Ford Anglia and only had a black one in stock, they could spray-paint it without too many problems.

Rutter felt a smile forming across his features. He had only been in Whitebridge for a few days, and he hadn't even been over half the patch – yet he'd seen enough to realise that if he were running that kind of racket, he'd know exactly where to situate it.

Woodend gazed gloomily at Paniatowski across the table in the police canteen. ‘My workin' assumption was that Inspector Davies was so desperate to get special schoolin' for his daughter that he was prepared to do anythin' to lay his hands on the money,' he said. ‘Well, that theory's gone right out the window, hasn't it?'

‘Not necessarily,' Paniatowski countered. ‘He didn't know he was going to win the football pools and he could have been trying other – illegal – ways to obtain the money before he did.'

Woodend shook his head. ‘Nice try, lass, but if that had been the case, he'd have gone to see the principal of his daughter's school as soon as he read about the place in Switzerland. But he didn't – he waited until he'd scooped his first dividend.'

‘But why lie about the money? Why say he'd inherited it?'

‘I've been thinkin' about that. This school he wanted to send Susan to is not only expensive – it has to be exclusive as well. They might well have looked down their noses at somebody who'd won the pools – but bein' left the money in a will is a perfectly respectable way to get rich.'

‘So where does that leave us?' Paniatowski asked, her despondency matching her boss's. ‘Back at Square One?'

‘Not quite. Davies might have been an honest man, but we know that somebody in the Blackpool police has to be bent.'

‘Because of what the manager of the Gay Paree told you?'

‘Exactly,' Woodend agreed. ‘Only nutters admit to crimes they haven't committed, an' Gutteridge's no nutter. So if he says he was paying off a bobby to turn a blind eye to his pimpin', he has to be tellin' the truth. But why finger Punch Davies? Because that way he could protect the feller who's really been puttin' the squeeze on him.'

‘But why should he do that?'

‘Because he's bloody terrified. There's a strong possibility that whoever he's been payin' the kickback to has already killed twice. Even if he hasn't, I'm almost certain
Gutteridge
thinks he has – and he'd rather go to jail than risk bein' the third victim.'

‘So shouldn't we go and see Gutteridge right now, and try to sweat the truth out of him?'

‘No, that wouldn't work,' Woodend said. ‘If he's goin' to crack at all, he's only goin' to do it when we can threaten him with somethin' which is almost as frightenin' as the hold his protector's got over him.'

‘Like what?'

‘Like the prospect of a long stretch in prison, rather than the few months he'd probably serve for what he's confessed to so far.'

‘And how could we convince him that there's a real possibility he'll be sent down for a long time?'

‘We need to connect him with another – more serious – crime.'

‘For example?'

‘I'm buggered if I know,' Woodend admitted.

Bob Rutter drove past the abandoned shell of the Calcutta Mill, and pulled on to the forecourt of Grimsdyke's Garage. He had expected the old man himself to appear when he ran over the bell-wire, but instead it was his granddaughter, Jenny, who came out of the office. And she was not dressed in her usual grease monkey's overalls that morning, but instead was wearing a sombre black skirt and sweater.

‘We're closed,' she said – but without any of the fire in her voice Rutter had heard the last time they'd spoken.

‘Your grandfather?' he asked gently.

The girl nodded. ‘He died in his sleep last night. It was all very peaceful.'

Rutter got out of his car. ‘I'm sorry,' he said. ‘I liked him. He was a nice old man. But I've still got business here. You know that, don't you?'

The girl nodded again. ‘The first time I saw you, I knew you were going to cause trouble. But it doesn't matter now. Not with Grandad dead.'

‘Shall we go and look around the mill?' Rutter suggested.

Jenny Grimsdyke shrugged indifferently. ‘Why not?'

She walked round the side of the garage, then turned towards the back of the mill. She came to a halt in front of a large up-and-over metal door. The paint was peeling from it, and it looked as if it had not been used for years, but when Jenny pressed the button the engine hummed smoothly and the door began to open without even a squeak.

‘This was the loading bay in the days when the mill was still a going concern,' the girl said. ‘Tons and tons of cotton used to be shipped out of here every day. Not any more.'

The motor had completed its operation, and the door now lay flat against the ceiling.

Jenny and Rutter stepped inside. The loading bay was huge, and even with the couple of dozen cars parked in it, there was plenty of space to spare.

‘How did you get into this racket?' Rutter asked.

‘A man approached me. He said his name was Jack. He asked me if I wanted to earn a bit of extra money. I knew it was a question of either accepting his offer or closing the garage down – and closing it down would have broken my grandfather's heart.'

‘How much did he pay you?'

‘Not as much as he offered at first. I wouldn't take it. I didn't want a lot of cash – just enough to keep the garage open.'

‘Tell me how it worked,' Rutter said.

‘I'd get a phone call to say a new car was being delivered. Once it arrived, I'd be here to hide it. Every few days I'd ring the car salesrooms in Manchester and Liverpool to see what they wanted. The cars had already been resprayed before they got here, but if the customer had a special request – say he wanted black when all we'd got was green – I'd change the colour for him.'

‘But they'd
already
been resprayed?'

‘That's right.'

‘So there were other garages involved?'

‘There's a chain of them throughout the North West. It's a very slick operation. The only reason they needed me to be part of it was because I was the one with the storage space.'

‘Do you know the names of any of these garages?'

‘A few.'

‘And would you tell me the names? It might persuade the judge to go easy on you.'

The girl shrugged. ‘Why not? There's no honour among thieves, so they say, and I don't owe them anything. They were using me just as much as I was using them.'

Rutter took a quick sideways glance at Jenny Grimsdyke. For all that she'd been involved in a car-theft ring, she was still little more than a kid. And she hadn't even done it through greed – she'd just wanted her grandfather's last days on earth to be happy ones. It was awful to think of her going to prison for that, and he found himself wondering what Charlie Woodend would have done in his situation.

‘I think I may have found a way out for you,' he said.

The girl looked puzzled. ‘A way out?'

‘It's obvious that somebody from the garage was connected with this racket – but it doesn't have to have been you.'

‘What are you suggesting?'

‘Your grandfather's dead. The law can't touch him now.'

‘Grandad would never have been involved in anything like this!'

No, Rutter thought, though the old man must have suspected something of what was going on, otherwise he'd never have said what he had when they'd met by accident in the pub. But there was no point in telling the girl that – no point in letting her know that her attempt to keep the old man in blissful ignorance had been at least a partial failure.

‘I'm sure your grandfather wouldn't have become involved,' he said, ‘but who's to know that for sure, except the two of us?'

‘I won't do it!' Jenny Grimsdyke said firmly. ‘And I won't allow you to do it for me.'

‘You'll go to jail then.'

‘I don't care.'

‘For God's sake, the old man's gone!' Rutter said exasperatedly. ‘His reputation won't matter to him now, one way or the other.'

‘I know it won't,' Jenny agreed. ‘But it still matters to me.'

‘Aye, well, it's your choice,' Rutter said, thinking, even as he spoke, that he'd only been in the North for a few days, but already, when he opened his mouth, the words which came out sounded like Charlie Woodend's.

It was just after two o'clock in the afternoon when Woodend marched – unannounced, as usual – into Chief Inspector Turner's office.

‘I think my lad, Rutter, might have solved one of Punch Davies' cases for you,' he said, without preamble.

‘The hit-and-run?'

‘Talk sense! Bob's in Whitebridge, and the hit-an'-run took place in Fleetwood. He's a bloody good detective, but even he couldn't crack an investigation from that distance.'

‘Then it must be the stolen car ring.'

‘That's right,' Woodend agreed. ‘A couple of hours ago he raided a garage in Whitebridge an' came up with the names of several other garages involved in the racket. One of them is right here in Blackpool. So what are you goin' to do about it? Raid the place – or sweep it under the carpet because it wouldn't be good for the town's image to expose some home-grown crime?'

Turner's face flushed with anger. ‘That was uncalled for!' he said.

‘That's only your opinion,' Woodend countered. ‘Well, are you goin' to raid the place or not?'

Turner reached for the telephone. ‘Yes, I'm going to raid it,' he said through clenched teeth.

‘Well, if you don't mind, I think I'll come along for the ride,' Woodend told him.

‘And what if I do mind?'

‘I'll come along anyway.'

‘You're here to investigate two murders, not a car-theft ring,' Turner reminded him. ‘This is none of your business.'

‘It was my lad who did all the footwork, an' I want to make sure that nothin' happens to take any of the credit away from him,' Woodend said.

Turner's face was bright red, and the veins on his forehead so prominent that they looked as if they might explode.

‘Are you saying that you don't trust us?' he demanded.

‘Funny you should mention it,' Woodend replied, calmly. ‘That's exactly what I'm sayin'.'

T
he Excelsior Garage and Used-Car Salesrooms was located on the edge of Blackpool, just beyond Boundary Park. It had a smart, freshly painted frontage and a plate-glass window which positively shone in the sunlight. A number of fairly new second-hand cars stood on the forecourt, all of them – Woodend was prepared to bet – legitimately acquired.

‘I do like criminals who use their brains – they're a lot more fun to catch than the other sort,' the chief inspector said.

‘I beg your pardon, sir?' said Monika Paniatowski, who was sitting behind the wheel of the unmarked police Humber.

‘I like the ones who use their brains,' Woodend repeated. ‘Look at this place. It seems to be a successful business in its own right, an' if you're involved in anythin' crooked, that's exactly how your business
should
seem. The best place to hide a piece of straw is in a haystack, an' the best place to hide a stolen car is in a busy garage.'

An innocent-looking black van appeared in the rear-view mirror. ‘Here come the local lads,' Paniatowski said.

‘Aye, let's hope they've enough sense to carry out a raid without trippin' over their own feet,' Woodend replied.

A second black van was making its way along the road behind the garage, which was parallel to the one they were parked on. Both vans stopped simultaneously and the back doors were flung open, disgorging a couple of dozen men in pointed blue helmets.

The second their feet touched the ground, the policemen broke into a run, heading for the garage. ‘They're not makin' a bad job of it for local flatfeet,' Woodend admitted.

Some of the officers had already entered the front of the building. Woodend reached across and opened his door.

‘Right then,' he said, ‘let's go an' see what treasures Aladdin's cave has got to offer us.'

By the time the chief inspector and his sergeant had reached the building, the uniformed officers had fanned out. Some of them were already keeping a watchful eye on the half-dozen mechanics whose work they'd disturbed. The rest were scouring the area for anybody who might have gone into hiding.