Some By Fire dcp-6 Read online

  "Yes. From Heckley CID."

  "And what's it about?"

  "Before I answer that," I said, 'tell me this: do you have the authority to make an appointment for me to see Mr. Fox?"

  "Yes, I do. Subject to his approval, of course."

  "Right then, listen up. It's about murder. I want to ask Mr. Fox a few simple questions, and one way or another I shall ask them. It might be easier and less embarrassing for all concerned if you could make an appointment for me to see him on his territory, then I won't have to insist on seeing him on mine. Do I make myself understood?"

  "I'll ring you back, Inspector."

  Phew! I'd enjoyed that last bit. It's not too often I get to tell a lawyer the facts of life. No doubt if and when I saw Fox he'd be surrounded by them and they'd have a conference about everything from whether to say good morning right through to having milk or sugar in their coffees. I'd learn absolutely nothing, but I'd have them worried, and that's worth a lot.

  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 J.J. 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 we.

  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 sunburned and enough towels to cushion a stunt man 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.

  Claridgesl 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 corner until my head ached. The microscopic letters read, I think, Aeshna grand is whatever that is. The signature in the other corner was easier. It said J.

  Wilson, who we now know as Mrs. Holmes.

  Chapter 10

  "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 undipped 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 22 A 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, is wife, must be Sharon, I thought. How clever. The Bedford and the Saab were on the drive, but the Fiesta was missing.