Authors: Faith Martin
Tommy walked across the wet, muddy ground, wishing he hadn’t got himself into this. He still had no clear idea what he was going to do or what he was going to ask. It was all right for the police manual to talk about using your initiative, – and Tommy, who’d sat the written papers for his sergeant’s exams only last month, had actually written a long essay on just this subject – but in real life, how did you know if you were being clever, or were just about to make a damned great big muffin of yourself?
He knocked on the site-manager’s door and heard an abrupt summons to come in. He did so, finding himself instantly
insulated
from the cold wind by a stifling electric fire and the humidity of a constantly boiling kettle. The office had a large desk littered with papers and walls lined with pinboards that were, in turn, covered with maps, specs and lists. It even had a secretary, a rather pretty young redhead who looked up from a typewriter (Tommy hadn’t seen an actual typewriter for years) and seemed surprised to see him.
A plaque on the desk identified its owner as one Stan Biggins, Site Foreman.
Once again Tommy dragged out his identification.
‘Something up? Anything I can do?’ Stan Biggins said at once and stood up. He was a smallish man, aged anywhere between 45 and 65, with iron-grey hair, a bristly moustache, and one of those honest, straightforward faces that probably
(just to completely flummox you) housed an honest and straightforward personality. Tommy knew that construction sites and scams often went hand in hand though. And he wasn’t at all sure that talking to the foreman was the clever move. But here he was, using his initiative.
‘I’m here about one of your employees, sir. A Mr Max Finchley?’
‘Max?’ Stan said, sounding surprised.
Tommy supposed that Stan was no stranger when it came to dealing with the police, owing to the construction industry’s penchant for hiring, as Frank Ross would no doubt oh so delicately put it, low-life navvies. But the foreman was obviously surprised at the mention of Max’s name, which told Tommy that whatever it was that Max Finchley was up to, Stan Biggins hadn’t caught on to it.
Yet.
‘Yes, nothing serious sir. Or at least, nothing definite,’ Tommy said, aware that he was breaking out in a bit of sweat. Not only was the office unduly warm, but he was desperately casting around for some sort of gambit which would allow him to back out gracefully. ‘I take it you’ve no complaints about Mr Finchley’s work? Known him long have you, sir?’
When in doubt, ask something general.
‘Going on ten years, I suppose. Good mixer, not much of a brickie. Got a good head for heights though, and he’ll really only start to earn his keep when the scaffolding goes up. What do you want with Max?’
‘Oh, I can’t say yet, sir,’ Tommy said gently. ‘That big
iron-looking
building at the far end of the site,’ he said, ‘can you tell me what’s kept there?’ He’d seen Max go there just recently, and it seemed an innocuous thing to ask about.
‘Explosives,’ Stan said.
Tommy blinked.
‘Oh,’ he heard himself say.
And then, into his mind, came a picture of Max Finchley carefully,
very carefully
, setting his big, old-fashioned lunch box down on the ground. A tin lunch box with a hinged lid.
A fireproof lunch box.
‘Oh,’ he said again. And smiled.
Max Finchley looked surprised to see the boss heading his way with a big black man in a cheap suit striding along beside him.
Then he began to look distinctly unhappy.
‘Max,’ Stan said, shouting a little to be heard over the grating noise of the cement mixer. ‘This is DC Lynch. We want to see what’s in the lunch box, Max.’
Max Finchley fainted.
He just went pale, opened his mouth a couple of times like a fish, gaped in horror from his boss to Tommy then back again, and then just keeled over.
Tommy wasn’t quite quick enough to stop him landing
face-first
into a puddle of dirty yellow mud. Then again, at least he hadn’t fallen into the cement mixer. Now that really would have been a bummer.
Suspect dies in a cement mixer whilst being arrested by police
. Tommy was still imaging the possible
headlines
as he helped Stan to lift the inert man off the ground.
‘Bugger me,’ Stan said breathlessly. But whether this comment was meant to indicate the weight of the construction worker, the state of his now filthy clothes, or the fact that he’d fainted in the first place, Tommy wasn’t quite sure.
By now others were gathering round.
‘He had a heart attack then?’ one cheerful Irish voice asked.
‘Nah. He didn’t clutch his chest,’ someone else said. ‘They always do that.’
Max Finchley, hanging like a piece of unwanted meat between Tommy and Stan, neither of whom knowing quite what to do with him, suddenly groaned and lifted his head. Hastily they put him back down, and he managed to get his feet under him before looking around groggily.
Tommy, once he was sure that he wasn’t going to keel over again, reached down and carefully, very carefully, picked up the lunch box.
‘Your office, I think, Mr Biggins,’ he said, and Stan nodded, awkwardly patting Max Finchley on the back. Without any
protest, the construction worker trooped off between them.
Inside the office, Stan offered to open the box and Tommy let him. Max Finchley, white-faced and wide-eyed, watched this procedure and said nothing. Tommy peered down over Stan’s shoulder and blinked.
‘That looks like dynamite,’ he said, after taking a couple of swallows.
‘That’s because it
is
dynamite,’ Stan agreed grimly. ‘I think I’d better go and have a word with Pete.’
Pete, it turned out, was the demolition expert in charge of the dynamite who, when tackled, immediately started to swear, upside and down, that he didn’t know nothing about any missing dynamite.
Tommy went back to his car and reached for the radio. ‘Guv, it’s me, Tommy. I think you’d better come down here.’
Hillary, who’d just nobbled a very nice judge (well, he was nice today,) wasn’t in the mood. ‘Can’t, Tommy. I have to get up to Solihull. Frank’s caught a break.’
Now there were words she didn’t have to say often.
‘Guv, I’ve caught Max Finchley stealing dynamite,’ Tommy said, a shade helplessly. That wasn’t something he had to say often, either.
There was a small silence on the other end of the line which indicated that, for once, Hillary Greene had been rendered speechless.
At last there came a heavy sigh. ‘OK. Bring everyone in here. Witnesses, everything. And try and be quick.’
‘And the dynamite, guv?’
On the other end of the phone line, Hillary blinked. Yeah, dynamite. Just what the hell
did
you do with dynamite? On the one hand it was evidence, but you could hardly keep it stored in the police lock-up. For a start, the sergeant on duty down there would throw a hissy fit.
‘Shit! I’ll get on to the bomb squad, see what they have to say. Get a uniform down there to sit on the dynamite,’ she grinned, in spite of herself, ‘not literally, of course. It might hatch. I’ll have someone come down and collect it.’
She glanced at her watch and wondered, nervously, what Frank Ross was up to. Left to his own devices for too long, Frank had a habit of getting creative. ‘I’ll brief Janine on this, and she can handle the interviews. Get back here as fast as you can.’
She wanted to see what was in that safe deposit box.
Janine had just reported back to Hillary that she’d been unable to find anything dodgy about Dr Crowder, either
professionally
or personally speaking, and that as far as his patients were concerned, he seemed to be a fairly well-liked and respected GP.
The blonde sergeant was still not happy at being forced to lend that poisonous git Frank Ross her car. She was more than just a little sceptical about that story of his about his own motor refusing to start that morning. In fact, she wouldn’t put it past him to have been made by the PI yesterday, thus making a change of vehicle imperative. Not that he’d ever admit it, of course. But why didn’t the boss lend him
her
car? It was years and years old, so what would it matter if Ross pranged it?
But when Hillary hurriedly filled her in on Tommy’s
situation
and asked her to take it over, she didn’t feel inclined to grumble, despite already being out of sorts. Although it meant being kept out of the main loop, the bait was irresistible, mainly because she’d never had a case that involved stolen dynamite before, and it sounded intriguing.
She also knew that the powers that be were only human, and could be relied upon to be intrigued by it too; and catching the word dynamite on a report was bound to snare the eye of the top brass, and bring attention to the officer who’d handled it. (So to speak.)
Tommy, returning to HQ, was thinking nervously about his upcoming Boards. He knew examiners liked to keep up to the minute in their subject matter. What if they asked him what he would do if he was confronted by a suspect, all wired up with explosives in the middle of a busy shopping precinct, who was demanding to speak to the Prime Minister?
Tommy, who had no idea what he’d do in such
circumstances
, wondered if he wouldn’t be happier as a lowly DC all his life. Others stayed at that rank and didn’t seem to suffer any ill effects. But then, since he was getting married, and kids usually followed, he’d need the rise in pay that came with making sergeant.
He’d have to start swotting up on hostage-taking
procedures
he supposed gloomily. And then, knowing his luck, the Boards would ask him what to do with a kidnapped pedigree poodle being held to ransom at a dog show.
Hillary took Tommy with her to Solihull, (thus saving him the trouble of coming up with scenarios to rescue purloined pooches) and he filled her in on the Max Finchley bust as he drove.
‘So all you had to go on was the way he handled his lunch box?’ she asked incredulously, when he’d finished.
Tommy nodded, beginning to break out in a sweat.
Hillary blew out her a breath in a whoosh. ‘Rather you than me, sunshine,’ she said with some admiration. ‘I’d never have risked my neck on something so iffy.’
Tommy gulped. ‘No guv,’ he said. He knew it. He just
knew
he’d been wrong. If he ever got the urge to use his initiative again, he’d give him himself a firm kicking in the backside.
‘Still, it got you a result, so what do I know?’ Hillary added judiciously, watching a raincloud offload its contents onto a nearby field of winter-growing barley.
‘By the way, I’m engaged, guv,’ Tommy said, keeping his eye firmly on the road, and switching on the windshield wipers.
‘Really? Jean, isn’t it? A pretty girl. Congratulations, Tommy. When’s the big day?’
‘June,’ Tommy said promptly. And turned on the headlights.
For some reason he felt suddenly depressed.
Janine was faintly disappointed with Max Finchley. For a start, the man immediately copped to everything, which took all the fun right out of an interrogation. He told her that the
explosives
man had been in on it from the beginning and regularly got his cut. He told her that he sold the dynamite on to a man called Reg Harris, a well-known safe-cracker up Witney way, and even sold some of it on the internet.
The bloody internet? Janine was sure you couldn’t sell
dynamite
on the internet.
But Finchley, led to a computer terminal, quickly showed her just how it was done. For a start, you didn’t call it
dynamite
, of course, and you had to spread the right coded words around certain chat rooms. But it could be done all right.
Janine filled nearly two notebooks on Max Finchley’s
activities
, and then another one that covered his perfect alibi for the night of Julia Reynolds’ murder.
Apparently, he’d been winning a darts match at his local pub when Julia was being killed. And not just any darts match either but the big one. The cup. As witnessed by any number of regulars, not to mention the losing darts team. Everyone had been only too willing to confirm that Max had left the pub well after closing time, totally drunk and incapable, and in the loving bosom of two equally drunk and incapable friends.
Just to clinch it, Janine, on talking to a stricken (and extremely drunk) Mrs Finchley, was sure that the news of her husband’s dynamite pilfering was just that – news. Which meant that she couldn’t possibly have passed the details on to her hairdresser.
Thus it was that Max Finchley was officially crossed out of the Julia Reynolds murder case.
Of course, the thief-takers who’d long since wanted to nab Reg Harris the Witney safe-cracker, and even Special Branch, (who had more than a passing interest in Mr Finchley’s
dynamite
-buying internet customers,) had plenty of other cases Mr Max Finchley could move on to.
Janine supposed philosophically that, all in all, it couldn’t hurt to have Special Branch owe her a favour or two, and
willingly
passed him over.
Roger Greenwood pushed open the swinging double doors of the main kitchen and looked through into the dining-room. They were still there, all the usual suspects.
The Hayrick Inn dining room was a distinctly pleasant place to eat, with every rafter lovingly maintained, every original floor-tile in place, the table linen a rich and heavy cream, the flowers fresh and changed every day. Even the cutlery was real silver, and assiduously counted after every course. (So far, Roger’s father had never had the embarrassment of having to call in the cops over a knife-nicker. But Roger assumed it would only be a matter of time.) The lingering aroma of the chef’s special fought with the haze of cigar smoke that hung heavy in the air. A few lingering diners slowly quaffed glasses of decades old port and assorted liqueurs. The Hayrick didn’t do passing pub trade.
Increasingly, Roger was finding that he loathed the Hayrick’s clientele. The old men with their memberships of posh London clubs, their bespoke tailored suits, and their old sports cars retuned to take unleaded petrol, all seemed to him to be so obsolete he wondered how they kept going. Had no one told them it was the twenty-first century? Still, he supposed that the Hayrick, which had parts of its building going back to before Good Queen Bess, probably wasn’t the best place to contemplate the modern era.
At least the yuppies, his father’s pet-hate, had all but been made extinct now. Since the boom and bust of the eighties,
there seemed to be some sort of uneasy peace amongst the upper echelons. Roger hoped they all choked on their amaretto biscuits and coffee, which was probably not a good attitude for a hotelier’s son who still had hopes of taking over the family business when the old man finally retired to Marbella.
Roger noticed that his father, lingering expansively over coffee with a group of civil servant types, was looking
particularly
pleased with himself today. Smug. As if he’d just done the deal of the century. And since he’d not long since signed a deal, amid much mutual back slapping, with Owen Wallis, Roger supposed that he probably had. Not that he’d seen fit to fill his son in on any of the details.
Still, Roger knew his father’s plans for their empire well, thanks to Julia. Julia had almost been able to read the gaffer’s mind when it came to things like that, and had often explained things to Roger that he hadn’t understood.
Julia. Roger sucked in a harsh breath. His father seemed to have forgotten that Julia was dead. The woman his son had loved had been murdered, not even a week ago, and yet here he still was, empire building. Laughing, living the high life and sipping his bloody Napoleon brandy. Did he not care? Did any of them not care?
Julia had always said that his dad was heartless. Even at the party, when Wallis and his father had disappeared into the den during the anniversary celebrations, Julia had laughingly said that they were probably up to no good, and she’d have to see if she could find out what they were up to.
She’d probably been right. In spite of her youth, she had a way of sniffing out corruption. She despised it as much as he did, and yet, unlike himself, she’d seemed capable of
incorporating
it into her own world without any apparent sign of guilt.
He wondered if she really had overheard their business talk that night. He wondered, with a real pang, if she’d cared about the backhanders his father must have tossed the farmer’s way, along with those already greasing the palms of planning
officers
and who knew else?
With a snort, Roger let the swing doors close and moved back upstairs. He’d be back at college tomorrow, so if he was going to do something, now was the time.
He reached for the phone number his mysterious caller had left, and dialled. It had to be a home number. Not smart. But then again, the caller probably hadn’t been trying to remain particularly anonymous.
‘Yeah?’ the female voice sounded tired, and oddly slurred. Perhaps she was drunk?
‘It’s Roger Greenwood. We spoke a while ago. You said you had information on the death of my girlfriend.’
‘Yeah. Information. You mean, I know who did it and why. Sure. Ready to pay?’
‘How do I know you know anything?’ Roger asked helplessly. As the son of a wealthy man, he’d been bought up to suspect scams, to be wary of people trying to separate him from his money.
‘Because when you check out the info I give you, you’ll find it’s right, you dummy. You thick or something?’
Roger blinked. ‘I’ll give you a hundred.’
There was a harsh bark of laughter and then the buzz of the dial tone. Roger sighed, hung up and redialled.
‘Five hundred, and not a penny more. The cops seem to be doing a good job. I could just sit back and wait for them to get on with it,’ he said shortly. And this time was prepared to hang up himself. Or so he told himself.
‘Sure. OK, five hundred. But I want another five hundred when it pans out. Yeah?’
Roger smiled. Now who was being naïve? The girl sounded young. And still drunk. Or maybe just high.
‘If it pans out,’ he lied.
‘You know that burger joint on the Market Square in Bicester?’ the girl asked. ‘Meet me there in an hour. And bring cash.’
Roger shrugged as yet again the dial tone buzzed in his ear. So what if he was being conned? He’d only be out five hundred. And wasn’t Julia worth that? In fact, wasn’t he
already feeling guilty that the worst of his grief hadn’t been grief at all, but only shock?
Already he’d stopped crying at night. Already he was eating properly again. Already, he was beginning to accept the fact that he’d never see Julia again – and that fact wasn’t breaking his heart any more. He didn’t love her. Perhaps he never had. He knew that now. Otherwise his life wouldn’t feel as if it was still well worth living. Had she not been killed, he knew now that he’d never have married her. And she’d have been right pissed off about it, but that didn’t mean he didn’t still owe her. That it wasn’t still a tragedy.
All that fire and life, gone.
Yeah, he owed her a few hundred quid on a long shot.
And besides all that, he felt, deep down in his bones, that the anonymous girl actually knew something. There was a certain ring of confidence in her voice – a sly I-know-
something
-you-don’t quality that made him hope, even as it grated.
Resolutely, he left the Hayrick and headed for the market town of Bicester, and the nearest ATM.
Frank finally struck lucky just as the pub called closing time at 2.30. Trust him to get stuck with a pub that bothered to close. He drank up and then emptied his bladder in the toilet before stepping out on to the mean streets of Solihull with the name and address of one Mr T.A. Orne scribbled down on a sheet of paper.
Most of the Ornes he’d tried had been out, of course, at this time of day. Those that had been in were either retired, young mothers, the unemployed or malingerers. None had reacted to the name of Gregory Innes, however.
Then he’d exhausted the Birmingham environs and gone on to Nuneaton. There, someone had taken the bait. Not that the woman who’d answered had admitted to knowing Gregory Innes – she hadn’t, but the hesitation, the moment of startled silence before the denial had been all that Frank had needed.
Now he glanced at his watch, wondering what to do. Hillary and probably Janine were on their way by now, and the
guv had told him to sit tight at the bank. But Frank doubted they’d be here just yet. Besides, what was the harm in checking out Mr T.A. Orne before meeting up with the witch from Thrupp? It would do Ronnie’s old lady good for once, to know that Frank Ross wasn’t one of her lackey, know-nothing
arse-lickers
.
If Innes wanted to keep T.A. Orne’s existence a secret from the police, then Frank wanted to know what was so
all-damned
important about him. He couldn’t see how it could possibly link-up with the Julia Reynolds’ killing, but if that git of a PI wasn’t up to something, Frank would eat his hat.
Or, since he didn’t own a hat, he’d eat somebody else’s.
Whistling tunelessly, Frank crossed over to Janine Tyler’s Mini and climbed in. He was rather fat, and the Mini was rather small, but he didn’t care. The look on Janine’s face when he’d asked to borrow it had been reward enough. Not that she’d agreed, of course, but for once, Hillary had backed him up. There probably hadn’t been any cars free in the motor pool anyway.
He could still remember the blonde bimbo’s threats about what she’d do to various parts of his anatomy if he should so much as put a scratch on her baby, and he almost
contemplated
dinging a wing just to see her howl.
But he had an idea Hillary bloody Greene would make him pay for it personally so that Janine wouldn’t lose her no-claims bonus, so when he pulled away from the kerb, he did so
carefully
. He wondered what car he’d buy for himself if he could just get his hands on some of Ronnie’s money. He’d already put the word out to friends at Gary Greene’s station in Witney to keep an eye on him, and to report back to him if the young constable suddenly started spending way beyond his means.
Not that he thought Ronnie would have raised his son to be so stupid, but you never knew your luck.
Hillary glanced around as she climbed out of the car, which Tommy had parked illegally on a double yellow line right in front of the bank. There was no sign of Janine’s red Mini,
which meant Frank had either found a legal parking spot (extremely unlikely) or had slouched off somewhere, probably to the nearest pub. (Much more likely.)
Tommy put the official police notice in the car window and locked up. He’d only ever had a parking ticket once, when displaying the sign, and he hoped the traffic wardens around Solihull were copper-friendly. It wasn’t always the case.
Inside the bank, Hillary quickly identified herself, was shown into the assistant bank-manager’s office, and watched the thirty-something survey the court order anxiously and minutely. After a brief chat with his superior, he led them down reluctantly to an underground vault, and located the box in question.
Because Hillary had no key, he had to use both himself, as if unhappily underlining the breach in etiquette.
Hillary hefted the box on to the table provided, told the unhappy executive she’d call him back when she was finished, and watched him go.
Tommy took the seat opposite her, feeling a brief surge of excitement as Hillary opened the box. Of course, there were no hoards of diamonds, or packs of money, or even a treasure map inside, just a plain, thick, buff-covered folder.
Hillary, though, looked as if she’d just come across the whereabouts to Eldorado, and quickly opened the file and began to read.
Frank parked behind a Reliant Robin car, and stared at it for a few seconds. Did losers still buy these three-wheeled trikes? Apparently so.
The surrounding suburb, though, didn’t look like the kind that approved of Reliant Robins. Most of the houses were detached, with big, well-kept gardens, neat fences and hedges, well-maintained paintwork and no loose kerbstones. The
residences
themselves were that curious kind of mock-Tudor come country-cottage, so beloved of developers. Frank knew he’d never have been able to afford a mortgage on one of these babies if he lived and worked until he was ninety.
Perhaps the Reliant Robin owner had a sense of humour. Or, more likely he was one of those sorts who simply went to pieces on a driving test.
He glanced up at the house he wanted, speculating on Mr T.A. Orne. He must be doing fairly well in the world, or he wouldn’t be living here.
So just why did the middle-classes hire PIs nowadays? With divorce so painless and commonplace he doubted it was a domestic issue. If you wanted to know if the missus was sleeping around, just assume that she was. Statistically, you were almost bound to be right.
So what else. Missing kid?
Frank could have used the radio and asked for a computer check, but he didn’t have time. Besides, it might alert Hillary to what he was up to, and he didn’t want to have his wings clipped just yet.
He hiked up his trousers, which kept slipping past his bulging belly and threatening to drop, and set off up the
pavement
. He’d have to buy some jeans with a bigger waist, but Frank resented spending money on such fripperies as clothes. Beer, fags, women, betting. But clothes? He supposed he could trawl the charity shops though.
At the neat, wrought-iron garden gate leading to the Orne
residence
, Frank stopped and considered his options. The straightforward approach never appealed to Frank much. He always assumed everyone was up to something, and for a copper, taking the sneaky approach was second nature anyway. So he pushed open the gate, ignored the front doorbell and trotted around the side. The pretty displays of Michaelmas daisies,
late-flowering
asters, chrysanthemums and dahlias went unnoticed. As did the man who was standing just inside the open door of a garden shed, listlessly scraping damp earth off a shovel.
Terry Orne was the gardener of the family, although lately it had been more of a chore than a pleasure. Something to get him out of the house, a way to pass the time thinking of other things. Something apart from the fact that his son had died and there had been nothing he could do about it.
After the funeral, taking care of the flowers had meant that Vivian, his wife, would have a steady supply of fresh blooms to take to Barry’s grave. His small, small grave.
Terry had been scraping the shovel clean for nearly five minutes now. His wife was inside, maybe crying, maybe sleeping. The doctors had given her pills, but she’d stopped taking them about a week ago.
He was staring sightlessly out the dirty shed window, only half his brain registering the fact that there was a stranger walking carefully alongside his house, looking over at the neighbouring gardens and then up at the neighbouring houses, as if checking nobody was watching.
Burglar.