Gone to Ground (37 page)

Will found the offices without difficulty.

His warrant card was sufficient to fetch Raymond James hurrying from his office. "Detective inspector, is there some way in which I might help?"

"A few words with Mr. Prince," Will said. "It needn't take long."

"Ah." James fingered the lapel of his jacket. "That might be a little difficult to arrange. Mr. Prince has a meeting with the Development Agency a short while from now. I could look at his diary for this afternoon and see..."

"Now then, Raymond. What's up?" Prince strode forward purposefully from the end of the corridor. "Grayson—it is Grayson, isn't it?—what are you doing here?"

He was either wearing the same gray suit Will had seen him in last time, or he had several made to fit in the same style.

"The detective inspector wanted to speak with you," James said, "but I've told him you've a meeting already scheduled."

"Give 'em a call," Prince said. "Tell 'em I'll get there as soon as I can."

"Of course," James said, unruffled, and went off to do his master's bidding.

"Man's a bloody marvel," Prince said. "Runs this place like clockwork. Run me like clockwork if I'd let him."

Will followed him up a double flight of stairs toward the first floor, and they sat in easy chairs in a sort of anteroom to what Will assumed was Prince's own office.

Prince didn't waste any time. "I thought it was the Fraud Squad," he said. "Sniffing round. But it's you, isn't it? Back tracking. Asking questions. Seeing who you can get to dish the dirt."

Will said nothing.

Prince pointed a finger. "Let me tell you something. This business. Any business. There's always someone with a knife ready to stick in your back. Some petty grievance. Some contract they thought should have gone their way, went to you instead. Jealousy, that's what it is, more often than not. Shouldn't give it too much credence, if I were you."

"I'll bear that in mind," Will said.

"So, anyway," Prince said, "let's get to the point."

"Lee Maitland," Will said.

Prince stared back at him blankly.

"One of your employees. That hotel going up in the Lace Market."

Prince laughed. "If I knew the name of everyone working on our construction sites, I'd be on fucking
Mastermind.
"

"This particular employee, there's a reason to remember."

"How's that?"

"He was arrested under suspicion of setting fire to a property in Forest Fields that you'd recently acquired. One in which the sitting tenants were otherwise proving difficult to shift."

Prince jutted out his chin. "Arrested and then released. Without charge."

"So you do know who he is?"

"Yes, I know who he is."

"When the incident took place, the fire, he was working for you then?"

"No. No, he was not. But he came to me afterward and asked for a job. Enterprising of him, I thought."

"And you didn't have any qualms about taking him on?"

"Why should I? Been cleared, hadn't he? And besides, he was a strong-looking lad. Looked as if he might be useful. Good with his hands." Prince held Will's gaze, letting him make from that what he would.

Whatever Will thought, he kept it to himself. "He's worked for you ever since?" he said.

"Off and on. I don't keep close track."

"He's gone missing."

"Since when?"

"Last night. Sometime early this morning."

"Out on the piss. Crashed on someone else's floor." Prince gestured carelessly with his hands. "It happens." He looked at his watch. "You want to talk to him about anything special?"

"A number of things."

The silence was broken only by the hushed sounds from other parts of the building, the opening and closing of other doors.

"That murder you were investigating," Prince said. "The writer who kept pestering me. Bryan. You get anyone for that?"

"Not yet."

Prince looked at his watch. "This meeting..."

"Last time we spoke," Will said, "I asked you if you'd ever made a phone call to Stephen Bryan."

"And I told you then..."

"This would have been a couple of days before he died."

"And my answer's still the same."

"You never phoned him at his home."

"Correct." Prince was halfway out of his chair.

"How about calling round?"

"What?"

"Calling at his house to talk to him. Have it out with him, maybe. Explain your reasons face-to-face."

"I'm leaving," Prince said. "I'm already late."

"You did go round to see him, Mr. Prince, didn't you?" Will said. "And he wasn't in. The first time, he wasn't in."

Prince turned angrily, the colour high in his cheeks. "The two of us here, you can make all the insinuations you like. But any time you want to make them in public, make sure you've got evidence, make sure you've got witnesses, because I'll have you broken down to constable if you don't."

He took the stairs two at a time and Will waited until he heard the slamming of the front door before making his own way out.

"What on earth did you think?" Helen said. "That he was going to break down and confess?"

They were in a pub near where Helen lived, early evening—early doors, as the saying went—Helen nursing a gin and tonic, Will making his way slowly through a pint of Greene King.

"Without a better witness than we've got, I thought it might be a good idea to force the issue a little. Provoke some kind of reaction, at least."

"And was it?"

"A good idea?"

"Yes."

Will smiled. "Not especially. Although—I don't know—that remark he made about Maitland..."

"About him being strong?"

Will nodded. "Good with his hands. As if he was deliberately pointing me in his direction."

"And away from himself."

"Why do that, though? If Maitland were responsible for Bryan's death, the only way it makes sense is if he's doing it on Prince's say-so. He's only bringing it all back on himself."

"Maybe he sent him round to put the frighteners on, and things got out of hand?"

"It's possible." Will picked up his glass. "Then again, it could be Prince is just playing mind games, messing me around."

They sat for a while, comfortable in one another's company, chatting, drinking, talking about other things.

"Those prints," Helen said, "from that piece of wood—any news?"

Will shook his head. "Still waiting."

"Taking their bloody time."

Will shrugged.

Helen finished her gin. "Get you another?" she said, pointing at Will's glass.

"Best not."

"Time for home and family?"

"Something like that." Looking at her, he smiled. "Sooner you're back at work, the better."

"For whom?"

"Both of us?"

***

Lee Maitland showed up for work the next day. Mid-morning, he saw the two police cars approaching along the broad swath of road that led up toward the ice stadium, turning off then toward the site. No sirens, no flashing lights. Low-key.

The two uniformed officers who came through the entrance were young, younger than Maitland himself, early to midtwenties, talking first to the site foreman, a degree of nervousness about them, wondering, with all the other workmen looking on, how it was going to play.

There were a couple more, Maitland knew, waiting in the other car. He took a couple of paces toward them and stopped, took off his green hard hat and held it before him. Both his jeans and his T-shirt were covered in dust and grit. Dust in his dark hair. A blue tattoo on his neck, beginning to fade; another, in the shape of a dragon, along his left arm.

"Lee Maitland?" the taller of the policemen said, moving a step closer.

"So?"

"We'd like you to come with us."

"Party, is it, then? Fancy dress."

One of the workmen laughed, loud and raw.

"Come with us to the station, sir, if you don't mind."

As the officer took another pace forward, Maitland dropped his helmet to the ground, and, ducking, feinted to swerve to the right.

"Hey!" the officer shouted, reaching out a hand, and, grinning, Maitland rocked back onto his heels and straightened, then relaxed. "Just fooling," he said.

More laughter; a few whistles of approval.

A smile on his face, Lee Maitland was led away.

They left him cooling his heels for the best part of an hour, before a uniform showed him into one of the interview rooms and told him to wait. Another fucking age, Maitland thought, but then, after just a few minutes, Chris Parsons walked in, taking off his jacket and draping it carefully over the back of a chair, smoothing his hands along the shoulders as he did so.

"Where's the other one?" Maitland said. He'd taken the opportunity earlier to wipe most of the dirt from his face, but there was still a streak of something white up by his left eye.

"Which other one's this?" Parsons said.

"I thought there were always two of you. You know, good cop, bad cop. Pinky and Perky."

Parsons remembered Pinky and Perky from when he was a kid: two chubby pink piglets with high squeaky voices singing "How Much Is That Doggie in the Window?," "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?" How Lee Maitland had heard of them, he had no idea.

"Stuck in traffic somewhere," Maitland suggested.

Parsons hoped not; he hoped Will was on the A52 and making good progress, somewhere the right side of Grantham.

"Something of a comedian, I hear," Parsons said, affably.

"How d'you mean?"

"Earlier. Putting on a bit of a show for your mates."

"Just a laugh, yeah?"

"You weren't at work yesterday."

"No crime."

"Where were you?"

"Nowhere special. Just didn't fancy it. Threw a sickie."

"Weren't at your flat last night, either."

"Stayed round a mate's."

"Which mate's this?"

Maitland gave him a name.

"Address?"

Maitland gave him an address.

"We thought you might have done a runner."

Maitland looked at him. "Why should I do that?"

"You tell me."

He told him nothing.

There was a knock at the door and Will Grayson entered, a quick nod at Parsons and he took the seat alongside him. Maitland looked as if he were about to make some crack about small pink pigs but, perhaps wisely, held his tongue.

Parsons asked him about his younger brother, Gary, who were Gary's friends and associates, who he spent time with, Will content to listen, biding his time.

As far as Gary went, it seemed Lee knew little and cared less.

"For one," he said, "he's ten years younger than me. We never hung out much together when he was a kid and we don't now. And for another, he's stupid. Want someone to play chicken on a level crossing, wait till the train's almost there and jump out in front of it, ask Gary. Want someone to play dob, chasin' across the fuckin' motorway, ask Gary. Whatever you reckon he's done, it was never his idea, I can tell you that."

"Not like you, then," Will said quietly, speaking for the first time.

"Sorry?"

"I said, not like you."

"That's right."

"Your own man."

"There a point to all this?" Maitland asked. "I'm losing money, sitting here."

The muscles in his arms were well defined, Will thought. If he struck someone, struck them full force, serious damage could be done.

"Howard Prince," Will said, "you've known him a long time?"

"Known him?"

"You work for him."

Maitland shrugged. "Don't mean anything."

"He did you a favour, taking you on. Paying you back for a favour you did him."

Maitland narrowed his eyes, as if taking Will in for the first time.

"That fire you and your pal set in Forest Fields."

"I never set no fire," Maitland said.

"What I heard," Will said, "the only reason you and—what was his name? Knight? Mark Knight—the only reason you and Knight walked free was some kind of technicality."

"Yeah, well," Maitland said, leaning back, "what you hear's bollocks."

Will smiled. "Depends who I'm talking to."

Maitland sneered. It was a good sneer, Will thought, just the right mixture of cockiness and disdain. Practiced in front of the mirror, he didn't doubt, starting around the age his youngest brother was now. And it worked. It made Will want to give him a good hard slap round the face and tell him to stop pissing him around.

Instead, he said calmly, "Knight, he was the one into fires, wasn't he? You probably just went along for the ride, the crack. Add a bit of muscle if it were needed."

"I keep telling you, I wasn't there."

"And I imagine Prince liked that," Will went on, as if Maitland hadn't spoken. "Found it useful. Kept you around, on tap. Handy. Should any other little jobs come up requiring a bit of muscle." Will winked. "Gash in hand. No questions asked."

"Fuck this," Maitland said, for a big man quick and easy to his feet.

"Sit down," Will said. "We're not through."

"I'm through."

"Cambridge, first," Will said. "Tell me about Cambridge."

"What about Cambridge?"

"A man named Stephen Bryan."

"Never heard of him."

"Lived there. Cambridge. Worked there, too. A lecturer. Liked his movies. Someone beat him so badly around the head, even his own parents couldn't recognize him.

"Your boss. He might have said, go over there. Have a word with him. Get him to see reason."

"I don't know what..."

"Use a little force if you have to."

"Bollocks! This is all bollocks! I haven't got a fuckin' clue what you're talkin' about. This bloke, this bloke you said was murdered. I never heard of him. Never seen him. All right? Never fuckin' seen him."

The pupils of his eyes were dark with anger; the muscles on his upper arms were like tightly coiled rope beneath the skin.

"How about Lesley Scarman?" Will said, much as if he'd been asking about the weather.

"Who?"

"Lesley Scarman. She was attacked a few days ago now. Nottingham. Knocked to the ground."

"Too bad."

"A young man, she said. Fit and strong."