Sabbathman (7 page)

‘Clare Baxter,’ he said, ‘correspondence secretary in the constituency party. Widowed back in the eighties. Not short of a bob or two.’

‘Big fan of Carpenter’s?’

‘Seems so, according to the letters we found. They’d been at it for a good year and a half. Sunday mornings, mostly. He’d pop down to … ah … discuss the week’s post.’

‘Did the wife know?’

‘She says not.’

‘Do you believe her?’

Scarman said nothing for a moment. Finally he shrugged. ‘Hard to say. Carpenter was a devious bastard. Did his best to keep the compartments watertight …’ He paused. ‘The two women certainly knew each other, but that proves nothing.’

‘So what about the wife? How’s she taken it?’

‘Badly. She’s staying with relatives at the moment. Her mother and her step-father. She’s a nice woman. Bright. Cheerful. It’s a real blow.’

‘Any kids?’

‘Three.’

Scarman delved in the drawer again and tossed Kingdom an election pamphlet. On the front, under a big black and white photo, it said ‘Max Carpenter – the Voice of South-east Hampshire’. Kingdom studied the photo. Carpenter looked young, sharp, and pleased with himself, a prosperous estate agent after a particularly good day at the office. His wife, beside him, was sheltering behind a quiet smile. The kids looked uncomfortable. Kingdom
opened the pamphlet. The first paragraph was a sermon on family values. The rest was a promise to cut taxes, raise standards, and return the country to greatness.

Kingdom looked up. ‘So what’s his background?’ he said. ‘Where does he come from?’

Scarman sat back in the chair and began to polish his glasses with the fat end of his tie, a habit Kingdom remembered from their days together at the Yard.

‘Forty-four years old,’ Scarman began, ‘cut his teeth on Richmond Council. Big following in Central Office, adopted by the locals in ’86, won the seat in ’87. Right-wing, pro-Thatcher, bit of a favourite. Missed her terribly, people tell me. Trained as a chartered accountant. Still retained a couple of consultancies, both listed in the Commons register. One’s a construction company. Motorways, dams, that kind of thing. The other’s a big hotel group, London-based. Carpenter did a lot of travelling. Got himself onto various fact-finding delegations. Bit of an eager beaver. Very keen to make a name for himself.’

‘Any promotions?’

‘No. He was tipped for PPS last time round, one of the DTI ministers, but it never happened.’

‘Any idea why?’

‘No.’ He shrugged. ‘He wasn’t a popular man.’

‘Any serious enemies?’

‘Not that we’ve found so far. The odd constituency letter. A lot of fuss about one or two local issues. But nothing to justify this …’

Scarman reached for another of the photos and slid it across the desk. It showed Carpenter’s naked body laid out on a mortuary slab. His face was half-turned towards the camera. There was a gaping hole where his right eye had once been, the flesh torn, the eyeball pulped, a thin trickle of cerebral fluid still glistening in the flashlight from the camera. Kingdom looked at the election pamphlet again, wondering about the journey the MP had made in six short years.

‘Just the two shots?’ he said.

‘Yeah, here.’ Scarman nodded, fingering the soft tissue behind his left ear. ‘Point-blank range. Powder burns. Real mess, as you can see.’

Kingdom nodded. ‘And the SOCO found the bullets?’

‘Yes. The report’s due back this afternoon but they gave me the gist on the phone, Monday lunchtime.’

‘And?’

‘Two softnose 9mm. Nothing exciting.’

Kingdom nodded. The Scenes of Crime Office would have been at the house since Sunday, working slowly outwards from the bed, looking for every last particle of evidence: blood, bone, hair, semen, palm and fingerprints. The bullets, Kingdom assumed, would have lodged in the mattress beneath the pillow. Tweezered out and stored in clear polythene bags, they’d have been taken to the Home Office Forensic Laboratories at Aldermaston. Reports back normally took three days or so, depending on the length of the queue. In this case, they’d obviously pulled their fingers out.

Kingdom leaned back in his chair, the sunshine through the window warm on his face. ‘Anything else?’ he said. ‘Anything obvious?’

‘Not really. Look for yourself.’

Scarman got up and went to the corner of his office. A computer terminal stood on a wooden trolley beside the bookcase. Scarman turned the monitor on and tapped an instruction through the keyboard. The screen came to life and he began to punch through a series of displays. Kingdom joined him, peering over his shoulder, recognising the distinctive layouts. The computer software had been developed specially for storing and cross-indexing the flood of information generated by any murder inquiry, and the programme was known as HOLMES, a laboured acronym for Home Office Large Murder Enquiry System. It had already saved thousands of man-hours in hundreds of inquiries, and had been adopted nationwide.

Now, Scarman paused on the Special Inquiry file. Each of the house-to-house calls generated a separate pro forma. Anything requiring further investigation was handed to teams of CID officers. So far, by the look of it, the Special Inquiry teams had been less than busy. Scarman glanced over his shoulder, closing down the system again. Both he and Kingdom knew that the lack of leads was a bad sign. Murder inquiries tended to be solved early – the first couple of days – or not at all.

The two men went back to the desk. In his pocket, Kingdom had a photocopy of the first of what Allder was now calling the Sabbathman communiqués. As far as he knew, the Commissioner at the Yard had now been onto the three respective police forces at Chief Constable level, pointing out the possible links, leaving further action to their own discretion. Given the contents of tomorrow’s
Citizen
exclusive, he could hardly do otherwise, but Kingdom was uncertain exactly how far down the system the news had filtered. He looked at Scarman a moment, wondering whether or not to tell him. Scarman beat him to it.

‘I take it you’ve heard,’ he said.

‘About?’

‘Our Fleet Street friend. This Sabbathman.’

Kingdom nodded, feeling slightly foolish. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I was about to mention it.’ He produced the photocopy and passed it across.

Scarman studied it. ‘Is this kosher? The real thing?’

‘It’s a photocopy.’ He nodded. ‘But that’s what it looks like in the flesh, yes.’

Scarman read it again, then put it carefully to one side. ‘Do you believe it?’ he said, looking up.

Kingdom shrugged. ‘I believe he was there in Jersey, yes. Whether he pulled the trigger, God knows. But he was definitely there.’

‘And Newcastle?’ he gestured vaguely out of the window. ‘Hayling?’

‘I haven’t seen the messages, whatever it is the guy wrote. But if it’s as specific as Jersey, then …’ he shrugged again, ‘… yes.’

Scarman gazed at his desk a moment. ‘Fits,’ he said at last. ‘Fits with the MO. Beautiful job. Thorough recce. Own key. Gloves. Balaclava. No other witnesses. Nice and discreet. In and out …?’

Kingdom nodded. ‘Class act,’ he agreed.

Scarman laughed. ‘That’s what Five said.’

‘They’re here?’

‘Yesterday. They’ve got an outpost in Portsmouth. Couple of blokes in an office near the docks. They liaise a lot with the Immigration people, and the Navy boys.

‘And they’ve taken a line? Already?’

‘Of course, but you know the way they work. Conclusions first, evidence second–’

‘–glory third.’

‘Exactly,’ Scarman laughed, ‘plenty of that.’

‘And they’re saying Northern Ireland? They think the Provos would pull this sort of stunt?’

‘That’s the drift.’

‘But why no call? No code-word? Why aren’t they letting the world know how clever they are?’

Scarman shrugged. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I didn’t believe it either but when Chief called me up last night and read me the text …’ he tapped the photocopy, ‘… all this guff, I must say I began to wonder.’ He paused, looking Kingdom in the eye. ‘They’re pulling our peckers, aren’t they? Planting something as obvious as “KZ”? Making it look like some crazed ex-squaddie.’ He paused. ‘What would you say, Al? Scale of ten? Gut feeling?’

Kingdom shook his head, refusing to be tempted. Special Branch and MI5 were meshing closer every month, an uncomfortable shotgun marriage, and although he trusted Scarman he wasn’t keen on gossip trickling back through the system. Allder, after all, had been specific. He was to concentrate on the facts. He was to collate the real evidence. And contact with MI5 was to begin and end with Annie Meredith.

‘Couldn’t manage a car, could you?’ Kingdom said, changing the subject, ‘just for a couple of days?’

‘With a driver? Could be a problem.’

‘No,’ Kingdom shook his head, ‘just me.’

Scarman gazed at him a moment, not answering. ‘Congratulations,’ he said at last, ‘I understand you’ve made DI.’

‘That’s right,’ Kingdom grinned, ‘as of yesterday.’

‘Promotion on deposit?’ Scarman said heavily. ‘Or something you’ve actually done?’

‘God knows.’

Kingdom buried the inquiry with an extravagant yawn, apologised, and then stood up. The view from the window, in the limpid autumn air, was sensational: the maze of city centre streets, the jumble of rooflines, the squat grey bulk of the cathedral, and much further away, on the edge of the city, a huge chalk scar in the flank
of a distant hill. Kingdom stepped across to the window, narrowing his eyes against the glare of the sun. He could see tiny yellow machines, criss-crossing the chalk, and a milky cloud of dust, hanging over the hill. At the foot of the hill, half-concealed behind a line of trees, was a long queue of traffic, lorries mostly, tiny points of light where the sun lanced off their windscreens.

Scarman joined him by the window, following his pointing finger.

‘Twyford Down,’ he said, ‘our claim to fame.’

Kingdom glanced across at him. The name was familiar, the ancient hill that lay in the path of the M3’s missing link. Plans to carve the hill in half had become a national issue, a symbol of the juggernaut eighties. Kingdom remembered the news reports, the ragged army of young protestors standing in front of the first bulldozers. They’d talked of Mother Earth, and Iron Age burial sites, and when the security men threw them off they’d simply regrouped and started all over again. Watching, Kingdom had rather admired them. Terrible odds. Real beliefs. And guts, too.

‘Those kids,’ Kingdom murmured, ‘they had a name.’

‘Dongas.’

‘Yeah, Dongas …’ He looked at Scarman, hearing a new note in his voice, raising an eyebrow. ‘So what’s with them?’

‘Nothing.’ Scarman frowned. ‘Except …’

‘What?’

‘Carpenter.’ Scarman turned away. ‘He’d taken a view as well.’

‘Theirs?’

‘Hardly.’

‘What, then?’

Scarman was back behind the desk. He was scribbling something on a notepad. He passed it across to Kingdom.

Kingdom looked at it. ‘Who’s Jo Hubbard?’

‘Junior Registrar at the A and E centre. The Queen Alexandra Hospital. Down at Portsmouth.’

‘What’s she got to do with the Dongas?’

Scarman didn’t answer for a moment. Then he folded Kingdom’s photocopy and passed it back across the desk. ‘She was on duty when they brought Carpenter in, and she’s got a lot to get off
her chest.’ He smiled, his eyes back on the view from the window. ‘About Twyford Down.’

Kingdom left police headquarters at twenty-five past three, driving a red unmarked Astra on a couple of days’ loan. Before he’d left, Scarman had given him a three-page digest, the fruits of the first Special Branch trawl through Max Carpenter’s public and private lives. He’d also phoned ahead to the Incident Room at Havant Police Station, warning the DCS in charge of the investigation that Kingdom was on his way. Kingdom could tell from the tone of the conversation that Allder had already been in touch from London. It wouldn’t have been Allder’s style to bother with the finer points of interforce protocol, and Kingdom was uncertain how welcome he was going to be. He’d never met Arthur Sperring, the Detective Chief Superintendent in charge of the Carpenter inquiry, but the man hadn’t become Hampshire’s top detective for nothing, and even Rob Scarman chose his words with care.

‘King Arthur?’ he’d said, shepherding Kingdom out of the office. ‘Real museum piece.’

‘Past it?’

‘Christ, no. Anything but.’ Scarman had paused by the lift, punching the down button. ‘Just don’t mention Sheehy.’

Kingdom arrived at Havant forty minutes later. The police station occupied a corner of a spacious civic development behind the railway station. It was an unexciting sixties building, flat-roofed, enclosing a small courtyard. Two Volvo estates, parked outside, carried the logo of the local TV station. Max Carpenter, it seemed, was still making the news.

Kingdom showed his ID at the desk and waited to be escorted through. The Carpenter inquiry was being co-ordinated from a suite of rooms on the top floor. The main office lay at the end of the corridor that ran the length of the building. The door was shut and there were two pieces of paper sellotaped beneath the small square window. One of them had been laser-printed. In bold, black capital letters, it said ‘WELCOME TO CAMELOT’. The other was hand-scribbled in red Pentel. ‘SILENCE.’ it read, ‘FILMING IN PROGRESS.’

Kingdom peered in through the window. The room was oblong. There were blinds on the windows, and a dozen or so small desks arranged around three walls. On each of the desks was a computer terminal, and most of the terminals were manned, the operators bent over thick sheaves of inquiry reports, cross-checking names and addresses, entering details. In the middle of the room, a large, bulky man sat on the edge of a conference table. He was wearing a silver grey suit and a dark red tie. His grey hair was cropped short and his eyes were narrowed as he squinted into the TV lights. A young reporter stood beside a TV camera. She had a clipboard pressed to her chest and she was using her free hand a great deal, the way people do when they’re nervous.

Kingdom watched the performance for a moment or two, the man in the suit totally impassive, following the question with the merest nod of his head, a suggestion of amusement in his face when he began to answer. The face went with the body: the big square head, the skin pouched under the eyes, the heavy jowls, the folds of flesh beneath his chin.