Grief Encounters (12 page)

A voice inside said: ‘All right, all right, I’m coming.’

I looked at Dave and we pulled approving faces at each other. A bolt slid back, a key turned and the door opened. Dave had delved into his pocket for his ID and he was already holding it at arm’s length as the woman appeared before us.

‘I’m DC Sparkington and this is…’ His words trailed off. She was about sixty, with a pleasant, rounded face and greying hair that hung in a thick ponytail down the front of the dressing gown she was wearing, almost all the way to her waist. She could have been Magda’s sister.

‘…DI Priest,’ I said, finishing Dave’s introduction and producing my own ID. ‘Heckley CID. We’re sorry to trouble you but do you mind if we come in for a talk?’

We should have known it was too good to be true. Her son was a session musician in America, and he’d had a contract in New York so she’d flown out to spend two weeks with him, doing the shows. We’d awakened her from twelve hours’
jetlag-induced
sleep. I told her about Magdalena and why we were there, but she couldn’t help us. We had a cup of tea with her, proffered our thanks and apologies, and drove back to Heckley.

‘Ask the local forces to talk to the other sixteen?’ Dave suggested as he pulled into the yard.

‘Can’t think of anything else, squire,’ I replied, ‘unless you fancy driving the length and breadth of the land and talking to them yourself.’

‘No, we’ll let them do it. What about the serious crime whatsit at Bramshill?’

‘I’ve asked Brendan to prepare a résumé for them.’

‘Sorry Chas. I’m not trying to tell you your job.’

I gave him a sideways look as I released my seatbelt. ‘That’s OK, David. You keep me on my toes.’

Jeff Caton was itching to speak to me. ‘It’s looking good, Charlie,’ he enthused, in my office a few minutes later. ‘Apparently this synaesthesia is a pukka-gen complaint, except it’s not a complaint at all. Mrs Dolan – the blind lady – assures me she can pick him out from his voice. She said he has a green voice, with a bit of brown round the edges.’

‘What colour voice did she say you have?’ I asked.

‘I didn’t ask.’

‘Come off it. What did she say?’

‘Um, I’m not telling you.’

‘Go on. I won’t laugh.’

‘She said I’m pink.’

‘Ah ah! That’s what I’d have said. So what’s happening?’

‘I’ve had a word with CPS,’ he told me, ‘and they’ve spoken with Rodway and Clark’s solicitors. They think we’re mad and would be laughed out of court.’

‘Which is what we want them to think.’

‘Exactly. They’re happy to go ahead, if it’s all done properly, and I’ve fixed it up for eleven a.m. Monday morning, if that’s OK?’

‘It’s fine by me, but let’s discuss the best way of doing it.’

We decided to run it like a normal identity parade, with extra safeguards. We’d supply four voices, the defence could provide another four if they wished, and we’d make it up to a dozen by inviting two in off the street, like we used to do. I went with Jeff to see Mrs Dolan and she was delighted that we were taking notice of her at last. I told her about Kandinsky and she said that Jimi Hendrix was a synaesthete, too. Apparently his Purple Haze was so-named because that’s what he saw when he played the chords. She was a small, attractive woman, with a happy smile that radiated warmth you could almost feel, and lived in a specially adapted ground-floor flat in a sheltered complex near the town centre. She worked part-time at the supermarket, and found her way there and home again with only the help of a white stick. Although she’d been roughly handled and knocked to the ground she thought blundering into the robbery was a hoot.

That night ex-DCS Swainby rang me at home. He didn’t apologise for the late hour but he did introduce himself as Colin Swainby, which was a first.

‘What’s the problem?’ I asked, thinking I’d seen and heard the last of him.

‘He’s not satisfied, Charlie,’ he began. ‘He’s not satisfied with losing me my job – the bastard’s twisting the knife, now.’

‘In what way?’

‘I just had a phone call from the deputy editor of
Britain 2000
. He wanted to know if it was true that I’d resigned to escape prosecution for having indecent images on my computer. He said they’d be running an article next week but wanted to offer me the chance to give my side of the story.’

Britain 2000
is a weekly rag that usually promotes raving right-wing views, but isn’t averse to taking a swing at the police when it suits them, and everybody, just everybody, hates a paedophile. Castration is
Britain 2000
’s way of dealing with that little problem.

‘That’s big of him. I don’t suppose he said where the story came from.’

‘I asked, but he wouldn’t say. A source, that’s all.’

‘I’m not sure how I can help, Mr Swainby,’ I said. I’d done what I could and as far as I was concerned he was on his own. I believed him, but he’d been the ruin of many an officer’s career, including plenty of innocent ones. Now he knew how it felt. ‘Your first step is probably to take out an injunction against them publishing.’

‘I will, first thing in the morning, but it will only be an interim. I was just wondering if you had any other suggestions.’

‘Confess to the affair,’ I told him, ‘and lay it on about the jealous husband and his knowledge of IT. That’s about all you can do, I’d say. Some will believe you and some won’t. You won’t come out of it lily white, but nobody cares about extra-marital affairs, these days. These days you’re the
odd-man-out
if you’re not having one. Call it damage limitation.’

‘And what if they took it to court? In today’s climate nobody would believe me and they’d be free to print what they wanted. I could face prosecution. If it went to the CPS they’d be over-eager to appear fair and even-handed. They’d love to put me in the dock.’

‘Yeah, you’re right. In that case, boss, all I can suggest is having a word with the NARPO rep and asking them to recommend a solicitor.’

‘I’m not a member.’

‘Well you’d better join.’

‘I suppose so. I’ll keep you informed.’

Thanks a bunch, I thought, as I replaced the receiver. For once, I’d have preferred being kept in the dark, and I hoped I’d heard the last of him. I’d enough to worry about without taking on his problems.

‘Do you remember old Leach’s dog?’ Tristan Foyle asked, laughing so much he almost spilt his drink.

‘You mean the first time or the second?’ Richard Wentbridge wondered.

‘Oh, God, not the dog again,’ his wife protested.

‘I’d forgotten all about the first time,’ Tristan said. ‘That was somebody else’s show, though. Not ours.’

They were seated in an alcove at the Wool Exchange restaurant, favoured haunt of Heckley’s wealthy locals, visiting pop stars and footballers, and the TV crews that proliferate in the southern Dales. They’d dined well, paid the bill and Richard had asked a waiter to order a taxi for them.

‘It was a good stunt, though,’ Richard admitted.

‘What happened?’ Tristan’s wife, Fiona, asked. She’d heard the story a dozen times before but her attention span rivalled that of a tadpole and she found it fresh and funny with every telling. It was Saturday night, and she was looking forward to finishing the evening with a snort of coke and rough sex with her best friend’s husband, as they had done every weekend for several years. To her, all else was filling in time. She stroked the back of Richard’s hand as it rested on her thigh, and smiled at his wife.

‘Old Leachy took us for Latin,’ Tristan began.

‘Greek,’ Richard corrected him.

‘Was it? They were all fucking Greek to me.’ He laughed again and burped. ‘Anyway, old Leachy had this little dog. Horrible thing it was, fat as a barrel, always scrounging food. We used to sneak stuff out for it and it would eat everything and anything. Then, about once a week, we’d give it a load of laxative chocolate and it’d be crapping all over the place, inside and out. The stair used to stink of dogshit and disinfectant.’

‘I thought you drowned it,’ Fiona stated, her voice tinged with disappointment. The
dog-drowning
story was her favourite.

‘That was later, after we started the Moonlighters Climbing Club. One night we’d been up the South Tower. Hillary Stoneleigh-Palmer was leading. He’s a friggin’ neurosurgeon at St Bart’s, now. Anyhow, the clumsy sod dislodged this bloody great gargoyle and it fell to the ground. It was like a force seven earthquake going off. The whole place shook. Nobody came, so we climbed down and wondered what to do with the gargoyle. It was a griffon’s head; something mythical like that, except it was as real as anything could be. We decided to dump it in the fountain and hope nobody would notice it was missing. So we lugged it across the lawns and were just about to roll it into the water when Leach’s bloody dog arrived on the scene, wagging its tail and hoping for food, scaring the living daylights out of us. Without a second’s hesitation
Stoneleigh-Palmer
hooked its collar over one of the griffon’s ears and rolled them both into the water. It never made a sound. Just a
plop
, and that was that. We thought we were safe, but things looked different in the cold light of day. We’d left a trail of footprints from the tower to the fountain and to our stair and there was a bloody great hole where the gargoyle should have been. Old Leach blamed me and gave me six of the best. Then he added four more because I didn’t admit it. I tell you, he laid them on with all the venom he could muster. I couldn’t sit down for a week.’

He stopped talking, the memory of those cane strokes almost as painful as the real thing had been.

‘But we got our own back, didn’t we, Trist?’

‘Oh, yes, Ricko old boy, we got our own back.’

‘And the game was born.’

‘Yes, the game.’

Teri said: ‘But you were expelled.’

‘I was,’ Tristan admitted. ‘But it was a relief. Best thing that happened to me. What about you, Teri? You were playing the game before we met you.’ He reached across the table with the wine bottle and poured the last few drops into her glass.

‘I suppose I was,’ she agreed. She’d been seventeen, making her way in a tough business, and had just started a sexual relationship with a potential business partner. Except that when he met one of Teri’s trainee beautician colleagues he decided to pursue her, too. Teri realised she was being exploited and the business deal was going down the pan so she casually remarked to him that Debra, the girl he was hoping to seduce, was upset because she’d been told that she could never have children. To Debra she confided that Guy, the wayward partner, had been rendered sterile by a dose of shingles.

‘The twins will be, what, ten or eleven years old, now,’ she told them as she finished her story. ‘Another six and he might be able to stop paying child maintenance.’

A waiter caught Tristan’s eye and indicated that their taxi had arrived. As they filed out he said to Richard: ‘We haven’t talked about your schoolmistress friend, yet. Have you thought any more about her?’

‘You bet,’ Richard told him. ‘I saw her last Tuesday for a quick drink, just keeping up the acquaintance sort of thing. I’ve worked it all out. I’ll give you the nitty-gritty at home, but keep next Thursday free. It’s her birthday, and I’m planning a little surprise for her.’

I definitely need less sleep than I used to. I’ve always been an early riser, but when you have a blackbird in the garden that greets each new dawn with a fanfare to rival anything Aaron Copland wrote, plus a family of collared doves in the rhythm section, sleep is difficult to achieve. Add the bloke down the street who works Sundays and has a dodgy exhaust, and difficult becomes impossible. Never mind: like I said, I don’t need much sleep.

I pulled on jeans and shirt and opened the curtains. The sun was shining and had driven away the morning mist. It looked like being a scorcher, which was good news for the organisers of the gala. I breakfasted on flakes and banana, with copious tea, and loaded the paintings into the car. A tentative touch with a finger told that they were dry enough. They looked good in the bright sunlight. I was pleased with them. I’d suggest a price of about
£
50 and donate any proceeds to the Lord Mayor’s appeal. If they didn’t sell I’d hang them in the hallway and probably paint over them for next year’s show. They usually sold.
£
50 isn’t much to ask for a modern masterpiece.

At ten o’clock I drove to the showground and off-loaded them. A woman I’d seen before was taking a collection out of a battered transit and arranging them on the scaffolding erected to display the paintings. I left mine in the hands of the organiser, who said words of approval when she saw them. She gave me a programme and I drove into town. Sainsbury’s do a decent brunch, so I had one to set me up for the day, and I called in the nick to tidy up a few loose ends.

When I was up to date with the reports I pulled the programme from my pocket and looked for the important bit. There I was. It said:

Fame at last. I looked down the list of entries and saw all the usual suspects. One or two of them do cracking watercolours; a sergeant at HQ specialises in Western art, all injuns and horses; a PC does portraits of rock musicians and another does pencil drawings of old street scenes. I’m always amazed by how much talent there is, where you don’t expect it. Another list was new. The Association for Prisoners’ Art was there in force, with twelve exhibits by unnamed artists. I’d look forward to seeing them but knew what to expect: crucifixion scenes and pictures of Mum.