Trophies: a gripping detective thriller (The Wakefield Series Book 1) (17 page)

“If we feel it’s relevant to our enquiries, sir, I’m sure you can understand that.”

There was a second of silence as Atherton turned to Carr. “It’s okay,” Carr said, “I don’t mind answering that.” He sat back in his seat and folded his arms. “I have interests in a number of businesses. I’m involved in a mini-cab firm, I’ve a share in a night-club in Leeds, for example.”

“And you dabble in finance as well, do you not?” Stainmore added.

“Well, all my interests involve finance in one shape or another.”

Kirkland took up the questioning again, “What about lending? Aren’t you involved in that line of activity also?”

Carr shrugged.

“And wasn’t Fred Williams one of your ‘customers’?”

“I’m afraid my client …” Atherton began but was cut short.

“I’m sorry,” Carr said, “but that sort of information is confidential.” He held out both hands in a gesture he thought would reinforce the impression of honesty. “I mean, where would my reputation be if my customers knew I was giving out details of their personal business?”

“Mr Carr,” Stainmore stated firmly, “this is a murder investigation and we will follow every line of enquiry we can to find out the truth. Now, if that means retrieving ‘confidential information’ about your clients we will do so. Once more, did Fred Williams borrow money from you?”

Carr sighed in resignation. “I believe he had a small loan last year.”

“How much?”

“I think it was for five hundred pounds.”

“Has that been paid back?” Kirkland asked.

“His account is now closed.”

Stainmore came back immediately, “How well do you know Kenny Stocks?”

He was surprised at the change of tack and looked from Stainmore to Kirkland and finally to Atherton before answering. “I know of him, as a bloke around town I mean.”

“So he doesn’t work for you in any capacity?”

“Well, no, of course not. What could a character like that possibly do for me in business?”

Stainmore shrugged. “You tell us. It’s just we have reason to believe you employ him on a, shall we say,
casual
basis.”

Carr folded his arms again. “No.”

Kirkland then joined in, “What about as a customer? Has Kenny Stocks ever borrowed money from you – like Fred Williams?”

Carr made a point of giving the question some thought. “He may have done but I can’t be sure.”

“Well, would you like to check your records and let us know?” Kirkland asked.

“I’m sure my client is prepared to give you all the information you may need, constable,” Atherton responded.

“Tomorrow will be fine.” Stainmore jotted down a few notes. ”How much did Fred Williams pay you back on that five hundred pound loan?”

“I ... er ...” Carr stumbled.

“That’s okay. As I said, tomorrow will be fine.” Stainmore stood up. “Well thank you for your time, Mr Carr. Mr Atherton. DC Kirkland will show you out.”

Carr and Atherton exchanged looks, then rose from their seats.

27

“Look at this, £4.75 for a bowl of soup and a roll! I tell you, if anything in this world’s criminal, the price of food at motorway services definitely is.”

“So why don’t you do an exposé on it, then?”

“I might just do that,” Souter said, opting for a jacket potato instead. “But first, I’ve got the Summers investigation to bottom out.”

Strong ignored that comment and collected two individual pots of tea from the bored-looking young girl behind the counter and placed them on the tray Souter was guiding round the shelf. “I’ll get this,” he said. “You can get them next time.”

It had been a drive of just over two hours for Strong to arrive at the service area on the A1 where he and Souter had agreed to rendezvous. A fairly stressful journey had been made even more so by the incessant rain and the spray, particularly from the lorries. He’d passed two accidents on the way up from West Yorkshire and would bet this combination was a major factor in both cases.

Souter, on the other hand, related his drive up to Newcastle for a nine-o’clock interview with some European Union minister who was visiting the area with a view to deciding the level of European grant that might be made available to the north east in the forthcoming financial year. It would be a challenge to write a piece that would grip the average reader.

They arrived within a few minutes of one another and, once parked, made their way to the cafeteria. They chose a table by the window and squeezed into the immovable seats.

“How do they ever expect fat buggers to sit at these tables?” Strong thought aloud.

“At these prices nobody’s going to get fat in here anyway,” Souter said.

“There you go, another aspect of motorway life for your article.”

Souter struggled with the foil seal on the top of the plastic milk pot, poured it into his tea then looked at Strong with a serious expression. “So, what progress on the Nicholson case?”

Strong took a mouthful of his cheese and tomato sandwich. “Well, tell me what you know and I’ll see if I can fill in some of the gaps.”

“Piss off, Col! Stop holding out on me. If it wasn’t for me we wouldn’t be here. You owe me something.”

“Okay.” Strong decided Souter was right. He couldn’t expect any further cooperation without giving him some snippet of recent events. “For what it’s worth, I’m beginning to suspect Summers didn’t commit the attack on Irene Nicholson.”

“So what’s happened to make you change your mind?”

“Look, this is strictly confidential. I shouldn’t be telling you any of this.”

“Come on, if we’re going to work together on this, there’ll be Brownie points in it for both of us.”

“You can’t use any of this in print.”

“Well not yet anyway,” Souter acknowledged. “But trust me, Col.”

Strong’s expression indicated that trust might not be the feeling he had in his friend at the moment but he decided he had to give Souter something. “All right. During the course of another enquiry, we
found something belonging to Irene Nicholson. As it turns out, it was an item of jewellery she was wearing on the night of the attack that, for some reason, she didn’t realise she’d lost until much later.”

“So what was it?” Souter looked exasperated. “Christ it’s like pulling teeth!”

“A silver chain.”

“And let me guess, you found it in Fred Williams’ flat.”

“You obviously heard about that.”

“Of course, it’s my job.” Souter took a drink of his tea. “Was there anything else found at the same time?”

“You know, don’t you?”

“Listen, there’s not that much difference between our jobs. I always try to ask questions where I’m pretty sure of the answers as well, you know.”

Strong looked puzzled. “Where the hell are you getting your information?”

Souter just tapped the side of his nose. “I never reveal my sources. You should know that.”

They ate the rest of their snacks in silence. At last, Strong drained his cup. “Come on then, let’s get this show on the road.”

Sunnyside Residential Home turned out to be an impressive Edwardian house converted for the purpose in the sixties. Situated in an elevated position about a mile inland from the coast, it would, on fair days, enjoy panoramic views over the North Sea. Today, the leaden sky merged with the grey sea making the horizon scarcely discernible.

Both cars pulled onto the gravel driveway and followed the signs to the rear for the visitors' car park. Strong pulled on his overcoat and watched Souter zip up his leather jacket and jog over to him.

“Now listen, Bob, if this book-writing story of yours starts to go sour,” Strong warned, “I’ll resort to making it police business, all right?”

“It’ll be all right, trust me.”

Strong wasn’t as confident as his friend appeared to be.

Although the rain had ceased, now they were this near to the coast, a biting wind was trying its best to cut them in half. They made a dash for the main entrance.

Once inside the storm doors, their ring on the bell was answered by a smartly dressed middle-aged woman. Souter introduced themselves and confirmed his earlier telephone conversation with Samuel Montgomery.

She smiled at the mention of his name. “A bit of a character is our Sam,” she said with a knowing look. Ushering them through the hallway and past the right hand side of an elegant wooden staircase, she brought them to a door marked ‘Lounge’.

The door led into a large oak panelled room with, at one end, a feature fireplace housing a gas-fired imitation coal fire and, to the side, French windows revealing extensive gardens. Four occasional tables each with two or three comfortable chairs stood around the room. Three elderly ladies sat playing cards at one whilst a grey haired man with glasses sat at another reading a copy of the day’s Telegraph. The man looked up at the interruption of their entrance.

“That’s Sam there.” The woman indicated the old man. “I’ll leave you to get on.”

“Mr. Montgomery?” Souter said, as he and Strong took seats at his table. “Thanks for agreeing to see us.”

“Please, call me Sam, everyone else does.” He folded his newspaper. “Besides, I don’t get much in the way of visitors these days. When you get to my age, the first thing you do is check the paper to see if anybody you know has passed on. I’ll be bloody upset if I ever read my name there.”

Strong half smiled.

“So how can I help you?”

“Well,” Souter began, “I’m Robert Souter and this,” he paused slightly, looking at his friend, “is my colleague, Colin Strong. As I said on the phone, I’m writing a book on recidivists, you know, serial offenders.”

“I do know what a recidivist is, Mr Souter,” Sam interrupted.

“Sorry, Sam, I didn’t mean any offence. And, please, call me Bob.”

“Well, I don’t know what you’ve heard but, far from bein’ a recidivist, I’ve never even had a parking ticket in my life.”

The room door opened and a woman in her twenties dressed in a green overall entered and approached them. “Can I get you and your friends some tea, Sam?”

“That’d be lovely, Karen, thanks pet.”

“I’ll be back in a few minutes then.” She smiled at the three of them and took her leave.

“D’you know, she’s a smashin’ lass that,” Sam said, studying her legs. “Big improvement on the last one we had. Although she did have a couple of good points, if you know what I mean. Every time she came in the room all us lads would sit up and pay attention. It was like a dead heat in a zeppelin race. Trouble was she’d got a right attitude on her as well.”

Strong looked away to hide his amusement whilst Souter struggled to keep a straight face. If Strong had any concerns over the old man’s sanity, they’d been well and truly dispelled. He was beginning to enjoy this meeting.

“If I can just explain, Sam,” Souter continued, “the subject of the book will be the study of repeat offenders and why they became such. I’m looking into the backgrounds of several examples to see if there are any common influences or significant events which may have guided them on their chosen path of full-time crime, so to speak.”

Strong was impressed with that little speech but hid it well.

“Ah, let me guess,” Sam seemed enlightened. “You’re talking about our Billy.”

“Well,” Souter hesitated, “he has had a fairly full criminal career but … yes I am. Obviously, anonymity is a given. Is that okay, Sam?”

“I haven’t seen our Billy for years, not since he used to visit his mother and she’s been dead since 1982.”

Strong joined in. “Perhaps you could tell us about Billy when he was younger, Sam.”

“Well, he was a typical wee boy, you know. He was always laughin’ and jokin’. He’d got a great sense of humour. He was a great mimic as well, always takin’ people off. He used to get into a bit of trouble with that now and again. Not serious, just upset people if they overheard him takin' the pee out of them.” Sam paused and chuckled slightly. “I don’t know, maybe it was nothin’ to do with how things turned out for him but, I suppose you could say, lookin’ back, I wasn’t there for him.” Sam became serious. “You see, I was a marine engineer and that meant I used to go to sea with the ship conducting all the commissioning operations before we handed her over to the owners. That was when we had a shipbuilding industry in this country, mind. Well, I used to be away for six or eight weeks at a time, maybe three or four times a year.”

The door opened again and Karen came in with a tray of tea. When she headed towards Sam’s table, she was subject to some banter from the old ladies playing cards, wondering what they had to do to get the same sort of service.

“It’s only what we do for all visitors, Mary,” Karen retorted, as she set the tray down in front of Sam. “You’ll get yours at the usual time in about half an hour.”

“Take no notice, Karen, pet,” Sam teased. “They’re only jealous of our little understanding. And anyway, when are you coming up to see me in my room?”

“You’re terrible, Sam,” she laughed. “Besides, me mam always told me I’d got to be careful.”

“You’ve got no worries there, pet. I’ve told you before, you won’t get into trouble with me. I’m perfectly safe. One of life’s natural vasectomy victims me, you know.”

“Away with you.” She walked away laughing, her rear view attracting Sam’s admiration once again.

“D’you know,” he said, “if only I was ten years younger…”

“If you were ten years younger,” Mary called out from the nearby table, “you’d be seventy-six, ya daft old bugger!”

“Selective hearing working perfectly well again, I see Mary,” Sam responded, drawing huge guffaws from her friends.

“Sorry, Sam,” Strong said, stirring the tea in the pot and attempting to bring the conversation back on track. “But did I hear you correctly just now …”

“Ah, you mean the crack about the vasectomy?” Sam said quietly. Strong nodded and Sam continued in low tones, “Well, that was one of the family secrets, shall we say. You see, Billy isn’t really my son. Don’t get me wrong, when he was born, I thought he was and I’ve always treated him as if he was all through but, it wasn’t till I went in for a minor operation when he was, oh what, twelve, that I discovered I could never have kids. I just thought it was nature’s way, you know, only having the one but, no, they told me my tubes had never
been connected in the first place. Apparently, it’s more common than you’d think but, well, as you can imagine, it caused some difficulties between me and Betty, my wife.”