Some by Fire (21 page)

He kept his word. At four o’clock he confirmed that Fox would be opening the Reynard Tower in a fortnight. He’d arrive at the Fox Borealis Monday afternoon and stay for one night. Tuesday morning he was having a power breakfast with the Lord Mayor of Leeds and other dignitaries, and would see me at ten, before his next appointment at half past. I said my thank yous, like I’d been brought up to do, and wrote it in my diary, with a fluorescent marker-pen circle around it. We were on our way!

I’d been neglecting Keith Crosby, so I rang him from home, after chicken pie and new potatoes. I didn’t give him any details or names, but assured him I was working full-time on the case and the Serious Fraud people were interested and involved. He thanked me profusely. After that I finished most of the painting that I’d started on Thursday night. Every summer the police put on a gala in the park to raise money for the children’s ward of the General. The dogs and the horses show what they can do, and we stage a mock bank raid, with flashing lights and cars skidding on the grass. One of the stands is for paintings by cops or their families. Most of them are of the Dales, some amateurish, some extremely
skilled, but all slavish to the scene as viewed. The PC who has organised the show for the last ten years brought me a wad of entry forms for the troops and I told him to put me down for a couple of paintings. If I could knock up a couple of big abstracts I’d enter them, just for the notoriety. Anything for a laugh, that’s yours truly. And Janet would be back by then; perhaps she’d come with me.

When I saw Kingston he’d talked about walking in the dark, and the more I thought about it the more it appealed to me. Most of the time it would be ordinary, like walking in fog, but if you did it often enough you’d eventually have one of those magical experiences that make all the dull trips worthwhile. I could imagine being above the clouds, with the stars blazing across the sky like you’d never seen them before. I’d have to give it a try, when all this was over.

Tregellis was on the phone at eight thirty next morning and kept me talking for nearly an hour. It was worthwhile, though. He agreed that Graham should go to America and thought that Piers should accompany him. If Melissa agreed to kiss and tell about Kingston he could reassure her that she was safe from prosecution, or if he thought that that was out of the question and she insisted on having a team of hotshot lawyers present he could stop them running rings around poor Graham. The legal
staff employed by the SFO have a special status. A Prosecution Service solicitor would never visit a client, but one with the SFO can because he is part of the investigative team, and the SFO can order a suspect to answer questions. There’s a downside to that. A cornerstone of British law is that a suspect is not expected to incriminate himself, so any information extracted this way cannot be used in court. It’ll be different in America, of course, so Piers would have to do some swotting on the plane.

Meanwhile, we agreed I’d talk to JJ Fox on the pretext of gathering information about Kingston, who we knew worked for him. At this point we were displaying no suspicions about Fox himself. We’d nail his minions first, then see how they sang.

‘What if,’ Tregellis asked, ‘my two trusty manservants go all the way to the US of A and Melissa denies all knowledge of Kingston? She was never in one of his classes, was she?’

‘No, but I’ve been thinking about that,’ I replied. ‘How does this sound?’

When I’d finished he said: ‘Right, I’ll have a word with the brass in Cumbria and tell them to liaise with you.’

I put the phone down, rubbed my ear and rotated my shoulder. Who’d be a telephone girl? Maybe I should be more sympathetic to them in future.

Eight a.m. on the Thursday morning a contingent from Cumbria Constabulary led by my oppo from Kendal arrested Nicholas Kingston on suspicion of defrauding the Inland Revenue. Eight a.m. was a compromise. They’d said seven, I’d suggested ten. Sparky, myself, one of their DCs and our photographer sat sipping coffee from a flask in Dave’s car at the end of the lane as Kingston was lifted.

‘There’s seven of us for Saturday,’ Dave said.

‘Saturday?’ I queried. ‘What happens Saturday?’

‘Fishing. Don’t say you’d forgotten.’

‘What? To Bridlington?’

‘That’s right. Nigel and myself are going with you, and Jeff’s got a car-full.’

‘Oh. Right.’

‘They’re coming,’ Dave hissed, and I ducked down out of sight. I didn’t want the Kingstons to associate me with this. I was from another force, miles away, and on a different inquiry.

‘They’ve gone,’ he said, and I sat up.

‘Got the warrant?’ I asked, twisting round. The DC waved it in front of my face and I said: ‘Right. Let’s go.’

A WPC had been left with Mrs Kingston to ensure that she didn’t destroy all their records before we arrived. That was the story. The main thing was that she ensured that the gates were open for us. Dave parked right in front of the door and bailed out,
followed by the other two. I spread myself across the seats, lying low again, and waited.

I opened my eyes as the door was wrenched open. Dave said: They’ve taken her down to the gazebo. We’ve the place to ourselves.’

‘It’s not a gazebo, it’s a belvedere,’ I told him, arching my back and stretching my legs.

Inside the house the photographer was standing beside the camera cabinet, green with envy. ‘I haven’t touched anything,’ he said, ‘but I asked her to unlock the door.’

‘It’s OK,’ I told him. ‘Stick your film in it and shoot away.’

He extracted the Hasselblad with professional ease and undipped the back. In a few seconds the roll of film, huge by modern standards, was on the spools and the camera was back together again. He shot off half of it against a mahogany door and then went outside and took some pictures of the sky.

Dave went for a wander around the house while I watched through the back window for the others returning from the belvedere. I was in the kitchen, which was white-tiled and reminiscent of a
high-tech
operating theatre, with lots of stainless steel and glowing digital displays. Only a half-eaten bowl of muesli and a mug of cold coffee on the breakfast bar spoiled the image. I doubted if Mrs K spent much time in there. Beyond the belvedere, Goat Fell looked
benign and welcoming in the morning light. They’d miss their walk today. I pushed the coffee mug nearer the centre of the bar and placed the muesli spoon at a more natural angle. That was better. Now they could let the
Vogue
photographer take his snaps. A black and white woodpecker landed in the garden, pecked at something and flew off, rising and falling like a small boat on a rough sea. ‘Look out,’ I whispered after it, ‘or the man will get you.’

‘Bloody hell!’ I heard Dave say behind me as he wandered into the room. ‘Talk about how the other half live.’

‘Does it meet with your approval?’ I asked.

‘I’ll say. Wouldn’t mind a week here myself. Do they take boarders, do you know?’

‘I doubt it, but with luck it’ll be on the market, soon. See anything interesting upstairs?’

‘Not really. He has a telescope poking out of a window.’

‘He’s into astronomy.’

‘Is he? Then why is it focused on the bedroom window of the farmhouse?’

I sighed. ‘Like you said, Dave, he’s a charmer through and through. Everything he does is bent.’

‘So let’s make it his undoing.’

‘We will. And I’ll tell you something else about him. Given plenty of time his planning is immaculate. If he’s done the jobs we think he has then he hasn’t
left a trace. He’s a clever man, but he can’t think on his feet. When I interviewed him he was floundering, sent out all the signals that he was lying. Ask him a question that was irrelevant and he’d dictate you a textbook on it, then come to the point and it was
one-word
answers.’ I turned away from the window and said: ‘Keep an eye out for them. Did I see a loo along the corridor?’

‘It’s, er, out of order,’ Dave replied, stepping after me and placing his hand on my arm. ‘Use the one upstairs. You’ve never seen anything like it. The tiles are right up your street. Top of the stairs, on the left.’

I’d seen an enamel sign, probably Victorian, on a door. It read WC. Underneath, in matching letters, blue on white, was one saying:
Gentlemen adjust your dress before leaving the urinal
. I took Dave’s advice and used the one upstairs.

It was nothing special. Toilet, bidet, huge
free-standing
iron bath, full-length mirrors that made you look sunburnt and enough towels to cushion a stuntman’s fall. It could have been mine. The tiles were a mural of a classical scene. Aphrodite tempting Lesbos or something, with a swan taking an unhealthy interest in the proceedings and only a few vine leaves keeping it this side of depraved. A high-tech exercise bike with more dials than a light aircraft stood in a corner and two black satin dressing gowns hung
behind the door. I had a slash, washed my hands, smiled at myself in the mirror, decided that a tan suited me and went downstairs.

I walked past the downstairs loo, then changed my mind. It was hard to imagine anything in this house being out of order. I bet they sent for an electrician to set the video. I read the sign, checked my flies and pushed the door open.

There was no window, but the light switch was handy, operated by a china bauble dangling on a string. For a downstairs loo it wasn’t bad, about the same floor area as my upstairs one. The sink was full-size, not one of these miniatures added as an afterthought, and there was a shower cabinet in the adjacent corner. I flushed the low-level toilet, which worked, and washed my hands again. The towel warming on the heated rail had the letter C woven in gold braid in the corner.
Claridges?
I wondered. I shook my head in disbelief and turned to leave.

There were three tiny pictures on the wall alongside the door, and they attracted me like marmalade to carpet pile, as pictures always do. At first I thought they were abstracts, but then I saw they were the wings of something like a dragonfly. I lifted one off its hook and took it under the light.

I need spectacles. It comes to everyone, with the passing of years. I peered at the caption in the bottom right-hand comer until my head ached. The
microscopic letters read, I think,
Aeshna grandis
, whatever that is. The signature in the other comer was easier. It said J. Wilson, who we now know as Mrs Holmes.

‘He’s got a dirty muriel on his bathroom wall,’ I announced, strolling into the kitchen.

‘Not bad, is it?’ Dave replied.

The photographer had joined him. ‘Oh, can I go look?’ he asked.

I shook my head. ‘Sorry, Pete, it’s against the rules.’

‘Shirley would love this,’ Dave said, waving at the appliances. His wife is the best cook I know. ‘Poggen… pohl? Where are they from?’

‘Why the kitchen?’ I asked. ‘She’d probably love the bedroom or the television lounge or every other room in the house.’

‘Women like kitchens, Charlie,’ he stated. ‘Maybe that’s where you go wrong.’

‘Could be,’ I replied, ‘but this is not for us. Give ’em a click, Dave, and let’s go.’

He unclipped his radio from his belt and clicked transmit three times, as we’d agreed. ‘We’ll wait at the gate,’ I said, ‘just in case she comes to the door to wave goodbye.’ The photographer followed me out and we took the car to the bottom of the drive. Five minutes later Dave, the local DC and the WPC piled into the back seat and we drove back to Kendal nick. On the way we told them that they could let Kingston go.

The fraud boys calculated that Kingston was living way beyond his legitimate income. He appeared to receive frequent but irregular sums of money from somewhere, and he said that he gambled at a casino in Blackpool. Checks they made later showed that he was a member, but nobody there recognised him from his photograph. He must have been the most successful player of roulette ever, but he claimed he had a system, which he had to be careful not to give away. He was, he said, very cautious and low-key when he played. Casino winnings are not tax-deductible, so they let him go and even managed a strained apology. Kingston was happy, because he thought he’d fooled us, and we were delirious because he was happy. Like they say, nowadays we’re a service, not a force. The local team took us to the pub and we had a long lunch, sitting outside in the sun, and Mr Snappy took a picture of us all.

I was sitting at my desk, just before seven, when Pete the photographer rang me. ‘We’ve something to show you,’ he said.

I pulled my jacket on and ran down four flights of steps to the basement, where the darkroom was. I knocked and he opened the door. With him was a scientist from the Home Office lab at Wetherton. We’d met before and exchanged pleasantries.

‘This is proper photography,’ Pete said. ‘There’s no arguing with this.’

‘How do you mean?’ I asked.

‘Well,’ he explained, ‘with this digital stuff you can fake it. The picture is converted to a million bits of information, little electrical impulses, passed down wires and through silicon chips, then reassembled into something that hopefully resembles what you started out with. With the Hasselblad, the image falls directly on to the negative and from that directly on to the print paper. What you see is what you get.’

‘He’s right,’ said the scientist, whose name I’d forgotten. ‘A thousand-pound-a-day barrister would get digital evidence kicked out of court.’

That’s something for us to think about,’ I said. ‘So what have you found?’

‘OK,’ the scientist began. ‘Pete shot a roll of 100 ASA through the Hasselblad and printed it on medium-grade glossy fibre paper. The prints you supplied are on similar paper. The border of each
picture, as you know, is an image of the frame in the camera that the film is held flat against. Ideally, we should see four dead-straight black edges all the way round. In practice, when seen under the microscope, there are minute blobs of paint and specks of dust that make it irregular. Let me show you.’

He switched on an overhead projector and placed a slide under it. The images on the screen jerked around as the shadow of his hand manipulated them, its movements magnified by the apparatus. I could see two black right-angles which he eventually placed side by side. ‘We took some negatives from your pictures,’ he said, ‘and this is a typical comparison. It’s not as clear as under the ‘scope, but you can see here…’ He pointed to something on the slide, then realised that it was easier to show me on the screen and jumped to his feet. ‘Here,’ he continued, ‘and here. These are probably dust particles stuck to the paint that the camera interior was treated with. As it is matt paint we can also show how irregular that looks. See here, and here.’

‘They look similar,’ I said.

‘That’s right. There are also some scratches across the negative, caused by dust in the camera. Similar scratches can be seen on the photographs.’

‘So what’s the bottom line?’ I asked. Sometimes the cliche is the easiest way of expressing it.

‘The bottom line, Inspector, is that I am quite
prepared to stand in the box and say that the pictures you supplied of the groups of partygoers and the film that Peter says was shot through a Hasselblad earlier today were taken on one and the same camera. No doubt about it.’

‘You’ll do for me,’ I said. ‘You’ll do for me.’

We could prove that Melissa and Kingston had met, in spite of his denials. I rang Tregellis’s home number from my office and told him the good news. ‘Great!’ he said. ‘Leave it with me.’

The young lovers shuffled forwards in the queue, tightly holding hands. Rows twenty-one to thirty were boarding flight BA175 from Heathrow to New York, and their seats were 22A and 22B. They worked for British Airways, in the accounts department, and this was the first time they had used the generous concession on fares that their employer offered. It was also to be the first time he had ever been abroad and the first time she had been to New York. And slept with a man. It was to be a short stay, two nights, so they only carried hand luggage. Hers contained a selection of tasteful underwear and a transparent nightie; his held enough condoms for the crew of a nuclear submarine on shore leave in Saigon. Expectations were high and sightseeing wasn’t in the itinerary.

He offered their boarding passes to the stewardess at the mouth of the tunnel that would transfer them
magically on to the jumbo, and wondered why the man with her was peering over her shoulder and paying so much attention to the passes.

‘Ah!’ the stewardess said, showing a pass to the man.

‘Ah!’ he responded, saying to the couple: ‘Could you just step to one side, please. I’m afraid your seats have been taken and we’ll have to bump you off this flight.’

They turned tearfully away and never noticed the two men who came running through the departure lounge to join the back of the queue. One of them was short and bulky, with an Adidas holdall over his shoulder, and the other, the one with the bow tie, carried a leather Armani flight bag. Both of them were puffing with the exertion. Graham and Piers were on their way.

I did some travelling too, but slower and lower. Friday afternoon, on a whim, I drove 190 miles to Welwyn Garden City and at five forty-five pressed the bell at the side of the front door of Andrew Roberts’ house. It was called Sharand. I hadn’t noticed that before. Shaz, his wife, must be Sharon, I thought. How clever. The Bedford and the Saab were on the drive, but the Fiesta was missing.

He opened the door, still wearing his Guns ‘n’ Roses and cut-downs. ‘Hello, Mr Roberts,’ I began.
‘DI Priest. I was just passing. Been to a meeting, you know how it is, and thought I’d call to give you the latest.’

‘Oh, er, right,’ he replied. ‘You’d, er, better come in.’

The carpets were deep and well-laid, as you might expect, but the colour was out of your nightmares. Day-glo orange and browny-orange in geometric patterns that shimmered and swayed like a Bridget Riley painting. The fireplace with its copper canopy dominated the room and the pictures on the walls were numbers one to five in the World’s Most Sentimental Prints. The kid with a snotty nose, the Malaysian woman who’s just eaten a badly cleaned puffer fish, and so on. Shaz was curled on the settee in a fluffy pink cardigan, watching TV and looking like an inflatable Barbie doll with a slow leak. I rested my eyes on the fish tank bubbling in the corner and sat down.

‘Hope I’m not disturbing you,’ I began, ‘but I thought you’d like to know what’s happening.’

‘No, that’s all right,’ he replied. She threw me a smile, on and straight off, and made a token effort to pull the hem of her miniskirt towards her knees.

‘There’ve been a few developments,’ I began, ‘but we’re still working on it.’ I was competing against a peroxide-blonde creep who had a good line in
third-form
humour and a tits fixation. ‘Whether your
brother Duncan started the fire is uncertain, but if he did he was most certainly put up to it by a girl. We’re convinced he was just being used. She’s in America at the moment, but we’ll be having words with her. The house belonged to Keith Crosby at the time of the fire, and he was sacked. He was an MP, as you know. Apparently there was some bad blood between him and a prominent businessman, someone really famous, but I can’t tell you his name just yet. We’re talking to him a week on Tuesday and hoping he’ll throw some light on things. He’s promised to give us his full cooperation. One theory is that the girl did it to please him. So…’ I stood up to leave, ‘…watch the news on telly and hope that he keeps his promise.’

‘Right,’ he said, rising. ‘Fanks for coming.’

At the door I turned and said: ‘Isn’t young DJ at home?’

‘No,’ he replied. ‘’E’s at college.’

‘I thought it was the holidays.’

‘Yeah, well, you know how it is. ‘Spect he has a bird up there or somefing. He’s at Lancaster University. Takes after his uncle in that respec’, not me.’

‘What’s he studying?’

‘Mechanical engineering. He’s a whiz wiv anyfing mechanical.’

‘He rang me,’ I told him, ‘to ask about Uncle Duncan.’

‘Who? DJ?’ He sounded surprised.

‘Mmm. I think he cared about him more than you realised. I was hoping he’d be here, so I’d be grateful if you could pass on what I’ve told you.’

‘Yeah, right, I’ll give ‘im a bell an’ tell ‘im.’

‘Week on Tuesday,’ I said. ‘Watch the papers.’

‘Will do. Fanks.’

I started the engine and did a three-point turn at the end of their cul-de-sac. He’d gone in before I drove by so I didn’t wave. That’s put the Fox amongst the chickens, I thought. This hadn’t been in the game plan, and Tregellis would probably eat his desk if he found out, but sometimes it helps to stir things up a little. I tried to blink away the green spots that were swirling before my eyes and headed back towards the M1.

‘That’s where Percy Shaw lived,’ Sparky said, presumably pointing down a lane end we’d just passed.

Here we go, I thought. He’s in one of those moods.

‘Who’s Percy Shaw?’ Nigel asked, dead on cue. He’ll never learn.

‘Percy Shaw? You’ve never heard of Percy Shaw?’

‘I’m afraid not.’

‘Blimey, and I thought you were educated. Percy’s a local hero, and his product is used on nearly every road in the country; in the world, probably.’

‘Oh, I know who you mean,’ Nigel realised. ‘The Catseye man. He was clever, no doubt about it.’

Sparky was driving my car and I was dozing in the back. We were making our way towards the M62 and then on to Bridlington. It was six thirty a.m., the sun was shining and in the North Sea the fish were swimming on borrowed time.

‘He was more than clever, Nigel,’ Dave asserted. ‘He was a genius.’

‘Well, I wouldn’t say a genius,’ Nigel argued.

‘Of course he was. It was on this very road that he had his inspiration. He was driving along, one foggy night, and this cat was coming towards him. Percy saw how its eyes glowed in his headlights and when he got home he invented the Catseye.’

Nigel didn’t comment, but Dave was undeterred. ‘Next morning,’ he continued, ‘he was driving back from the patent office when he saw the very same cat, but this time it was walking away from him. Percy dashed straight home and invented the pencil sharpener.’

I’d heard it eight times before but I had to smile, or maybe Nigel’s guffaws were infectious, or perhaps it was just that I was pleased they got on so well together. At first, when Nigel joined us, it was open warfare between them. Then they learnt each other’s strengths and weaknesses and now they ganged up
against me. I regarded it as one of my successes. Dave went through my selection of cassettes, ejecting each after a short burst.

‘God, you don’t half listen to some crap,’ he pronounced.

The rustling of paper told me that Nigel was struggling with the
Telegraph
we’d had to stop for. After a while he said: ‘Hey, this sounds a bargain! P&O are doing two on the ferry from Portsmouth to Santander for seventy-nine pounds, and that includes a car!’

‘Sounds good,’ Dave agreed. ‘I wonder what sort of car it is?’

I wasn’t going to get any sleep so I opened my eyes and sat up. Nigel folded his paper and offered it to me, but I declined, so he stuffed it in the door pocket. We were on the motorway, south of Leeds, overtaking a string of lorries through the semipermanent roadworks near the M1 junction.

‘Speed cameras, Dave,’ I warned. ‘Slow down, or the bastards’ll get you.’

‘No,’ he stated, ‘they’ll get you.’

‘
Well slow down then!
’

He slowed down. We left the roadworks behind and Nigel was admiring the view. ‘What are those?’ he asked, looking out of his window. ‘I seem them every time I come this way and wonder what they are.’

Dave glanced across and I peered out of the back window. ‘What are what?’ Dave said.

‘Those buildings, in that field.’

Long and low, red brick with slate roofs, they were a familiar sight to me, but to Nigel, from Berkshire, they were a novelty.

‘Tusky sheds,’ Dave stated.

‘Tusky sheds?’

‘Rhubarb sheds,’ I explained. ‘They grow rhubarb in them. Norfolk has its windmills, Kent has its oast houses, and we have rhubarb sheds.’

‘Right!’ Nigel exclaimed. ‘Right! And I suppose that’s a toothpaste quarry over there, and that old mill is where they used to make blue steam!’ He pulled the
Telegraph
out again and started reading the obituaries.

‘They’re rhubarb sheds!’ Dave snapped at him. ‘Like he told you.’