Some By Fire dcp-6 Read online

  But O'Keefe wasn't there. He normally sets up shop outside, safe from the protests of the stall holders who pay dearly for the privilege of being on hallowed ground, but he wasn't near either entrance. I saw a shady figure selling gold chains from a suitcase but decided not to ask him. I was strolling around the street outside the hall, half looking for him, half admiring the shadows on the stone buildings, when O'Keefe tapped on the window of a cafe and beckoned me in.

  "Thought I'd missed you," I said, sitting down.

  "Sorry about that, Mr. Priest," he replied. "Sold out. Just waiting for my supplier to make anuvver delivery."

  A waitress came and I ordered us a tea each with another ham sandwich for O'Keefe to go with the one he was halfway through. "Business must be good," I told him.

  "Yeah, well, you know what I always say. It's a bit like sex. Even when it's bad it's good." He laughed just as much as before, giving me another view of his stumps, but this time there were wodges of half-masticated bread and ham clagging the gaps between them and strings of saliva hung down from his top palate. I turned away and gypped.

  "So what can you tell me?" I asked when I dared look back at him.

  He swallowed and scavenged around the recesses of his mouth with his tongue. "Mate o' mine," he began, 'heard a conversation in a pub.

  Might be interesting." He rubbed his thumb and forefinger together in a gesture recognised in every market in the world.

  I said: "Don't muck me about, O'Keefe. I saved you losing your stock on Saturday, not to mention appearing before the beak this morning. If you've got something for me, let's have it."

  "Fair enough, Mr. Priest. Thought it was worth a try, that's all.

  This mate. He was in t'Half a Sixpence, in Dewsbury, about a month ago. He was at t'bar, getting a pint, an' three blokes were leaning on it."

  "Go on."

  "Two of 'em was rough-looking, he reckoned. Not mucky or owl, but tough. "Eavies, you might say. T'other one was a bit of a wide boy.

  Smart suit, sunglasses, 'anky in his top pocket."

  "What did they say?"

  "I'm coming to it." The waitress brought the teas and sandwich. When she'd gone he said: "One of the rough ones asked t'toff if there was anything else. He said, no, just the computer, and 'anded 'im a bit o' paper. The rough one looked at it and said no problem. Then one of 'em said: "I don't suppose you want any elephant, do you?" an' they all 'ad a good laugh."

  "Elephant? What's that?" I asked.

  "I dunno. My mate thought it was maybe a drug. Don't you know?"

  "It could be. They have all sorts of different names for them.

  A computer was bought with the stolen cards from the last robbery, so I'm fairly certain you're on to something, O'Keefe. You'd better tell me who this mate is."

  "He's called Collins. "Wilkie" Collins, but he won't talk to you. He 'ates cops."

  "Would I know him if I saw him?"

  "Doubt it. He only does Dewsbury and Leeds."

  "OK, you'll have to talk to him for me. Tell him that it's only a matter of time before somebody dies and he could help prevent it. Maybe that will change his mind. For a start, I want a better description of all three of them. What time of day was it, did he say?"

  "Dinner time."

  "Right. You've done well for me. Find out what you can and give me a ring. If I don't hear from you I'll come looking, eh?"

  "Glad to be of assistance, Mr. Priest," he replied, grinning.

  I left my tea untouched and drove back to Heckley. I skipped lunch.

  O'Keefe, with his odd eye and bad teeth, had left me without an appetite. He could earn a good living hiring himself out to slimming clubs as an appetite suppressant.

  The outer office was deserted except for Dave, crouched over his desk, telephone to ear. He raised his head and gave me a thumbs-up as I walked through. There was a sheet of A4 on my desk with a message on it to ring DJ Roberts, timed at eleven seventeen, with a number I didn't recognise. I was staring at it when Dave ambled in.

  "Seen this?" I said, waving the page before his eyes.

  "Yeah. One of the girls brought it in and I had a quick look. DJ's the son, isn't he?"

  "Mmm. Wonder what he wants?"

  "Give him a ring."

  "First things first. How've you gone on?"

  "Pretty good," he said, settling on to the spare chair and smoothing a sheet of paper on the desk. "Listen to this. Melissa Frances Youngman was born in Anlaby Maternity Home on New Year's Day 1951. She attended Cathedral Grammar School, Beverley, where she became head girl and passed ten O levels and four A levels. I spoke to the school secretary, she was very helpful. Melissa passed her driving test in 1968 but has never registered a motor vehicle."

  "Probably given driving lessons for doing so well at school," I suggested.

  "If that's a dig then I resent it," he snarled.

  "Sorry."

  "I should think so. In 1969 she enrolled at Essex University to study palaeontology and her mother died shortly afterwards, in August 1970.

  She was only forty-two."

  "Did you find cause of death?"

  "Accidental overdose."

  "That must have been unsettling for Melissa."

  "It must, mustn't it? Her father, incidentally, died in 1995. Melissa only did one year at Essex, but there's a note on her record to say she applied to Edinburgh and the Sorbonne for a place there. That's in Paris." He spun the sheet of paper round and pushed it towards me, so I could read his notes for myself.

  "I thought it was in Scotland," I said, but he ignored me. 1969, Essex, I thought. Then Edinburgh or the Sorbonne, and Leeds in 1975 or 1974. "It looks as if she decided to become a professional student," I declared, adding: "I wonder what her influences were? Why would a small-town girl like that, with a decent intellect, dye her hair purple back in those days, when it was considered pretty outrageous?"

  Dave said: "I'm only a couple of years older than her and when I was at school loads of the kids had their heads dyed purple."

  "That was by the Nit Lady," I reminded him. "You had to have a dose of malt every day, too, for rickets."

  "No, we had some white powder for them."

  "Rickets, not crickets. So what do you think?"

  "What do I think?"

  "Mmm."

  "I think you want me to start all over again at Edinburgh University and the Sorbonne, but you want me to volunteer because you daren't ask me yourself."

  "That's about it," I admitted. "Man with dog never has to barV "I might have to recruit Sophie's help again with the Sorbonne.

  Sheparlais better French than me."

  "So do Interpol," I suggested.

  He nodded his agreement. "Why didn't I think of that?"

  "There's one thing we could check," I said.

  "I know! I know! I hadn't forgotten. Has she any form? I'll do it now." He stood up and went out into the big office, where one or two of the others had returned from wherever they'd been. I looked at my piled-up in-tray, grimaced, and reached for the top item. It was a report predicting the benefits of synchronised traffic lights on road congestion in the town centre. I ticked my name on the distribution list and slung it in the out-tray. If only they could all be so simple.

  Dave was smiling when he came back five minutes later. "Two convictions," he told me. "Possession of a small quantity of a Class B drug, namely cannabis, in 1970, while living in Essex, and possession with intent to supply in 1974, when she was, believe it or not, a student at Durham University."

  I said: "Durham! Jesus! She gets around."

  "Small fine for the first offence. Community service order for the second."

  "That's been a good day's work," I told him. "Well done."

  "Cheers. Have you rung him?"

  "Young Duncan? No, I'll do it now." I found the telephone number and dialled, convinced that the code was one I'd never used before. A girl answered almost immediately.

  "Is Duncan there, please?" I asked.
r />   "Duncan? You mean DJ?" she asked.

  "Yes."

  "Who wants him?"

  "He wants me. He left a message."

  "I'll get him."

  I put my hand over the mouthpiece and hissed: "Woman; she's fetching him." I pointed to a phone in the outer office, and dialled the number to make it a party line. Dave went out and picked it up.

  "Is that Inspector Priest?" said a voice I'd last heard talking about carburettors.

  "Yes. How can I help you, DJ?"

  "I, er, was just wondering about my Uncle Duncan. My dad told me you came to talk about him, free weeks ago, when I was fixing the bike."

  "That's right. Did you get it going?"

  "Yeah. No problem. It's just that, I, er, was a bit closer to my uncle than my dad knew, what with being named after him an' all. Went to see him now and again. I just wondered if you could tell me anyfing about how he died, and why. If you know what I mean."

  "You used to visit him at… his flat?" I said, narrowly avoiding saying 'squat'.

  "Yeah."

  "I went to have a look for myself, about a week after I saw you. Nice place he had."

  "Yeah, wicked."

  "Mr. Wong, the landlord, showed me round," I lied.

  "Did he?"

  "Mmm. Right, DJ, I'll tell you what we know. Your Uncle Duncan telephoned someone just before he died, confessing to starting a fire in Leeds, back in 1975. Eight people died in the fire, and it's still on our files as an unsolved crime it was arson, started deliberately.

  I've been trying to link your uncle with it but so far can't find anything at all to suggest he was anywhere near or had anything to do with it. He was a sick man, DJ. Maybe he knew someone who died in the fire, someone he loved, and thought he could have saved them somehow.

  It might have been preying on his mind all these years. Perhaps, in the phone call, he didn't say he started the fire, perhaps he said he was to blame for it, and the person he was talking to misinterpreted his words. Do you follow what I'm saying?"

  "Yeah, I fink so."

  "I don't know if that helps at all. Anything else you want to ask me?"

  "No. That's about it. Fanks for ringing."

  "No problem, DJ. And any time you want to talk, you know where I am."

  "If you find anyfing else will you let me know?" he blurted out as an afterthought.

  "Will do."

  "OK. Fanks again."

  We all replaced our phones and Dave joined me again. "You handled that very, er, sensitively, squire, if you don't mind me saying so," he told me.

  "Li'l ol' smooth-talkin' me," I said. "Trouble is, he was lying through his teeth. Someone put him up to that call."

  "Oh. Who?"

  "I don't know. His dad? His mum?" I reached into a drawer for my planner diary and turned to the back page where I write new telephone numbers. I said: "The code for his parents, in Welwyn Garden City, is… here we are… 01707. And the code for wherever I've just rung him at is… 01524. Where's that?"

  "Hang on," Dave told me and went back out. I watched him walk over to the bookshelf where we keep all the telephone stuff and extract some pages stapled together. He consulted them for a few seconds, put them back and retraced his steps into my office.

  "Lancaster," he said.

  "Lancaster!" I echoed. "He's in Lancaster?"

  "It sounds like it."

  "What the chuff's he doing there?"

  We were discussing possibilities when Nigel and Jeff came in. Jeff was carrying a rolled-up tabloid, which he spread on my desk, saying: "Seen this, boss?"

  We were on the front page, or the Transit was. Find This Van ran the headline, over a full-page picture of a Transit doctored to look like the one we needed. That took care of page one. Inside, we learned that East Pennine police were putting lives at risk by not disclosing details of the vehicle used by villains who had terrorised old people right across the north of England, tying them to their chairs in their own homes while they ransacked, violated and desecrated. It was powerful stuff; interrupted only by Angharad on page three who wanted to be a brain surgeon and had nipples that stuck out like a racing dog's balls. If we were indifferent to the safety of the people, it went on, they, the UK News, would gladly take that responsibility upon themselves by publishing full details of the vehicle used in these dastardly crimes. They offered a 10,000 reward for anyone who found it, providing, of course, that they weren't policemen and it led to a conviction.

  "See!" I declared. "I told you to go public' "Urn, no, boss," Jeff replied. "The way I, um, recollect things, you used your golden vote to overrule us all."

  "Did I!" I exclaimed. "MoiV Dave said: "Blimey! You could hang your cap and a walking stick on them."

  "It might work," Nigel told us. "Perhaps someone will ring in."

  "Don't hold your breath," Dave told him. "Yuk News readers probably think they're talking about something on television. They'll all be looking for a Transit in EastEnders tonight."

  "So what do we do?" Jeff asked.

  "Nothing," I replied. "If the other papers don't pick it up we might get away with it. Chances of the villains seeing it are fairly small, and the Yuk News's credibility is about as low as mine at the moment.

  Give something bland to the publicity department for them to hand out if anyone asks."

  "Right," Jeff said, rolling the paper up and tossing it into the bin.

  "Are you happy with that?" I asked him.

  "Sure. No problems."

  "OK," I said. "Here's another for you. What is elephant?"

  "Elephant?" they replied, not quite in unison.

  "That's right. Elephant."

  "Big grey animal," Dave told us. "Pulls bunches of grass up with its tail and stuffs them up its arse."

  I ignored him and related the conversation that O'Keefe's pal, "Wilkie'

  Collins, had overheard in the Half a Sixpence. "So what did he mean?"

  I asked.

  "Horse is heroin," Nigel said. "Could be the same. Elephant, sounds reasonable. Or perhaps it's simply E for Ecstasy."

  "It must be drugs," Jeff agreed. "Herbal cannabis looks a bit like elephant shit."

  "Have you ever seen elephant shit?" I asked.

  "Well, no, but it looks like it ought to look. And shit's cannabis."

  "Trouble is," Nigel said, 'they change the names all the time. It's best to just use the proper name when you talk to them. If you try to be clever and streetwise you end up looking foolish."

  "It's not Ecstasy," Jeff declared. "It's too butch for Ecstasy."

  Nigel, thinking aloud, mumbled: "Elephant… elephant… elephant… s'foot umbrella stand."

  We were getting nowhere until Dave made a contribution. "It's rhyming slang," he said.

  "Go on," I urged him.

  "I don't know what for. Elephant something… then something else that rhymes with it, like, oh, er, horse and cart… fart."

  "Earthy as always, David," I said. "So keep going."

  He thought for a few seconds, then offered us: "Elephant's trunk… um … skunk."

  "That's cannabis," Jeff told us.

  "Elephant's trunk, junk," Nigel suggested.

  "That's heroin," Jeff confirmed.

  I said: "Sounds highly likely it's one or the other. Have a word with O'Keefe, Jeff, and see if he's anything to add. Have a few liquid lunches in the Half a Sixpence; they sound a distinctive trio, you might recognise them. And let Drugs know about it; maybe they'll have some ideas of their own."

  "Right," he replied, adding: "My money's on skunk. The place is flooded with it."

  Things were moving, and that gives me a good feeling. I'd have liked to have kept working on the burglaries but I had to let go and give Jeff a chance. If he caught them I'd still get the credit, but all the satisfaction of feeling their collars would be his. We now had a name for the girl with purple hair, and that would lead to other names, dozens of them, one of whom might hold the key to eight agonising deaths. I'd be more than
satisfied if we could solve this piece of unfinished business.

  Interpol came back to us on Tuesday afternoon. They had a file on Melissa Youngman because of her drugs conviction and some doubtful associates, and had faxed us a resume. She'd attended seven universities, including the University of California, Los Angeles, but had never graduated. Not in any of the named subjects, that is. Her studies had given her foundation courses on palaeontology, very useful; modern languages; psychology; politics and business studies. No bomb-making, but a well-rounded education by any standards. The last bit was most interesting. When at UCLA she had contacted a right-wing group of militiamen and was believed to be currently living in the States. Consult FBI for further details, it said, which was all the encouragement Dave required.

  "They're five hours behind us," Dave reminded me when our paths crossed and he had an opportunity to tell me how hard he'd worked. "Somebody called Agent Kaprowski is attending to it and will ring back. I'm taking the kids to the baths, so I've given him your home number and our office hours. Is that OK?"

  "You've been a little beaver on this, Dave," I told him, knowing that sitting in the office using the telephone was not his favourite style of policing. "I appreciate it."

  "That's because I've a ghost to lay," he replied grimly.

  We' dnever talked about me dragging him out of that burning building all those years ago. I'd always suspected that a little bit of him blamed me for not letting him try to rescue Jasmine Turnbull, but he'd never said anything. I didn't feel guilty about it; he hadn't stood a chance. "I know, old son," I said. "I know you have." I reread the fax and that old restless feeling began to swell inside me. We were on to something, I was sure of that. "Some time tomorrow," I said, 'have a word with Graham at the SFO and tell him where we're at. If we're dealing with the FBI and Interpol we should keep them informed, and no doubt they have some better contacts than us. Give him some of it to do, if you want."

  "Did you say he's a DS?"

  "Yeah."

  "Right. No sweat."

  I called at the supermarket and bought a fresh trout and a ready-made salad, determined to improve my eating habits. Smothered in margarine and four minutes in the microwave and the trout would be delicious. The oven was pinging to say it was ready when the phone rang. "DI Priest, Heckley CID," I barked into it.