Riddled on the Sands (The Lakeland Murders) (12 page)

Jane Francis was having a frustrating morning. She’d felt none too pleased from the moment she had arrived at work, because being taken off the Bell case felt like a demotion, and her mood hadn’t been helped by having to deal with one of the Fire Service forensic team. She’d almost had to beg him to turn out to look at the site of the garage fire at the O’Brian’s with her. She had no idea what any of the Fire Service actually did between blazes, but it seemed like they must be doing something.

Finally, at just before noon, she left the office and drove to the O’Brians’. Tim Brown, the Fire Service Forensic Officer, was out of his car before she even had the handbrake on.

‘This is a waste of time’ he said, as she was closing the door.

‘Let’s just take a look, shall we, Tim?’

‘No, I mean it’s a waste of time because the site’s been cleared, look.’

‘Oh, for fuck’s sake’ said Jane, ‘There was bloody piles of stuff when I was here before. Most of the garage was still standing, anyway.’

Gary O’Brian opened the door. He was smiling broadly.

‘Can I help you, officers?’

‘Yes’ said Jane, ‘where’s all the stuff from your garage gone?’

‘A mate cleared it for me this morning. He runs a little skip business. We didn’t want the kids messing about in it, you know what they’re like. Little bastards. Anyway, did it all for nothing, my mate did. People really are rallying round.’

Jane Francis didn’t believe a word of it.

‘Bollocks, Gary. What were you trying to cover up?’

‘Nowt. But you’ll never know now, will you?’

Jane walked back to her car and got in without saying another word. As she drove off she regretted her rudeness, but not much, because Tim Brown had always been an ocean-going arse. And if he’d only turned out earlier who knew what they might have found?

Jane needed to clear her head. So she drove to the Helm, parked up and walked fast to the top, then strolled back to the car. She felt calmer by the time she arrived at John Perkins’ house. She smiled at the brass plate by the side of the front door that said ‘Perkins International Trading’. When she rang the bell she looked at the plate again, and noticed that it was actually made of some kind of plastic. She was smiling broadly when his mother opened the door.

The living room was piled high with cardboard boxes. ‘All the stock that I’ve got left’ he said, while his mother put the kettle on. ‘Anyway, have you found out who did it?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Is it because I put in a complaint, is that it? You’re not even trying because you think I’m a troublemaker.’

‘Your complaint really isn’t a concern here’ said Jane confidently, ‘and you’ll be treated in just the same way as the victim of any other serious crime.’

Perkins looked happier, but not by much. Jane’s bad mood was lifting by the second.

‘So what happens now, then? Some kind of man-hunt?’

‘Do you know who it is we should be hunting?’

‘No, I told you. It’s the nutter who wrote that letter who did it. You need to hunt him down.’

‘We certainly will be pursuing that as a line of enquiry. But, as I think you know, the letter itself produced no meaningful forensic evidence.’

‘So how are you going to do it, then?’

‘We start at the other end, Mr. Perkins.’

‘What other end?’

‘I mean with you. You’re the other end. I will be taking a very close look at you, and all your dealings, online and as far as possible offline, over the last few months. I’ll be looking at your email records, your mobile phone usage, and asking neighbours and other people about you.’

‘No way. I’m the victim here. You can’t do all that. That’s just bloody what’s it called? An intrusion, that’s what this is.’

‘It’s just procedure, I’m afraid.’

‘But what if whoever wrote the letter didn’t start the fire? What if it was an accident?’

‘The first of those is a possibility, and we’ll certainly look into it, but the fire was definitely deliberate. Not an especially sophisticated case of arson, suggesting that the perpetrator probably wanted it to be known that you’d been targeted, but arson is arson, Mr. Perkins. And it’s an offence that we always treat with the utmost seriousness.’

‘But I don’t want you going through my email, all that. It’s private.’

‘We’re just looking for anything that’s relevant, that’s all. And I have to tell you that if you don’t want to co-operate, then our investigation will be compromised, and we’d have to make you formally aware of that.’

‘I don’t want you looking at my emails, or my phone records, or talking to my neighbours about me.’

‘OK, I’ll note that now and we’ll produce a formal record of this conversation. But could you spare me a few minutes to tell me a bit more about what you do, to see if we can start to narrow down the field when it comes to suspects. Could you start by telling me about how you came to have well, all this.’ She waved vaguely in the direction of the boxes.

‘Yeah, why not? If it will help.’ Jane had the strong sense that John Perkins liked nothing better than talking about himself. ‘It’s a funny old story really. I was early into the online sales game, Christmas ’98 it was, and I saw the boom coming early. No doubt about that. I was one of the pioneers.’

‘What did you do before? For a job, I mean.’

‘Estate agent. On the way to the top I was, but I saw the crash coming, and I got out.’

‘Which agent was that?’

‘Why do you ask?’

‘Which one?’

‘Simpson & Co.’

‘Oh, I know them, I bought my flat through that lot. Absolute shysters they were. Just lied to me all the way through, made up all sorts, even though they knew full well that I’m a detective.’

‘Typical. Yes, that’s them, and if they say I was sacked that’s not true either. I left, and I haven’t done bad for myself since, have I?’

Jane smiled, but wondered briefly if her life’s work would add up to any more than the contents of a few cardboard boxes. ‘So tell me a bit more about what you do now. You buy and sell stuff online, is that it?’

‘It’s a bit more complicated than that, but yeah. I buy stock, usually from the Far East but sometimes from the UK too, and I sell it all online. No bricks for me, other than these. And strictly speaking this is my mum’s house.’

‘Do you buy any of your stock locally?’

‘Not really. Like the plate on the door says I’m trading internationally. My business literally never sleeps, because somewhere in the world there’s always a deal being done.’

‘But you do trade locally sometimes? I ask because maybe this person is a disgruntled customer, and that letter was delivered by hand, remember.’

‘No way is it a customer. Trust me. My stuff is the dogs’, literally. I get very few returns, which is why I’m a Trusted Trader.’

‘What kind of selling prices are we talking about?’

‘Like I said, I’m in the volume business. So probably 90% of my sales are in the five to twenty-five quid range. Nothing for anyone to get worked about, honest.’

‘Any high value items?’

‘No, not really, unless I’ve got really lucky and picked something valuable up cheap somewhere. It happens occasionally.’

‘Like what?’

‘Well, I got some signed books last year, and I made a bundle on those.’

‘Who were they signed by?’

‘The author, like.’

‘Yes, but which author?’

‘I don’t remember, I didn’t read them. Just used his initials I think, not his first name. And it wasn’t J K Rowling. I would have remembered that, like.’

Jane thought about it for a minute. ‘Eliot? T S Eliot?’

‘Yeah, that’s him.’

‘And the signature was real?’

‘Oh aye, the bloke who bought them from me was from the States. So I’ve been doing a bit for the economy.’

‘And you haven’t had disputes with customers? Anything that’s turned nasty?’

‘You always get the odd one, don’t you? And I do give refunds if I have to, like. But yeah, the odd one shoots their mouth off. Usually over some kids’ toy that cost a tenner, the losers.’

‘Would you go through your emails and messages and give us print-outs of any that were abusive, or threatening? That would be a start for me, at least.’

‘I suppose so. How far back do I need to go?’

‘A year, say. How many do you think there’ll be?’

‘Not many, twenty perhaps. And you only want ones where people got really stroppy, yeah?’

‘That’s it. If you’re not sure, just send it to us and we’ll decide, OK? Now, what about people you buy from, any disputes there?’

‘Nah. Like I said it’s usually bankrupt stock, people retiring and closing up shops, that sort of stuff. If I hear of one closing down, selling anything that sells well online, I always try to get in before everyone else does, pick up what I can. Record shops, bookshops, collectible and gift shops, all sorts. Like I say, if it sells well online, I’m interested. But only at the right price, obviously.’

‘And what’s the right price?’

‘As little as I can get away with. That’s capitalism though, ain’t it? There’s a reason these old farts go bust, though they can’t see it. They’re just not competitive. It’s that simple. I always tell them, but they don’t ever seem to listen.’

‘Have you bought from anyone local recently?’

Perkins thought about it for a moment.

‘One or two. I did a shop clearance in Barrow a year or so ago, and I bought some stock off an old bloke in Kirkby Lonsdale a while back. Oh yeah, and there was one in Penrith as well, another retirement that one was, I think.’

‘And were they all happy with the deals you did?’

‘Delighted, I reckon. Otherwise the stuff might easily have ended up in skips, and they’d have got bugger all back. They were all dinosaurs, and they knew it. They should have been grateful.’

‘So weren’t they?’

‘You know what people are like, always moaning about something. But it’s not my fault that the internet came along, is it? Adapt or die, I say.’

‘I’m sure you do. So was any of this moaning threatening at all? Did it turn nasty?’

Perkins thought hard.

‘Nothing I haven’t heard a hundred times before. Water off a duck’s back it is, honest.’

‘I’d better take their names anyway’ said Jane. ‘And you will let us know if you get any more letters, won’t you?’

‘Of course, I’m not bloody stupid. So will I get someone outside now, keeping guard? Now I’ve helped you like this.’

‘I’m afraid not, Mr. Perkins. I thought my Superintendent had explained that.’

‘She did. And what a scary woman she was. I wouldn’t want to cross her, I really wouldn’t.’

Friday, June 21st

Andy Hall was in the office early, and it wasn’t a hardship. The sun had been up before him, and the fact that he was due to meet with Superintendent Gorham at eight was an extra motivation to get in and get properly caught up. She might be a pen-pusher, or rather a mouse-pusher, but Hall was still impressed by her fantastic grasp of detail. She’d have made a good copper if she hadn’t decided to become a politician, he’d realised that some time ago, and he was even starting to find their meetings useful. Because before they met he always had to differentiate very clearly between what he could prove to be true, and what he merely knew was true. And that was a useful process in itself.

As it turned out the main item on that morning’s agenda was not the product of his instinct, but of careful analysis in the lab.

‘I’ve just had a call from Sandy Smith, ma’am’ he said, ‘full details to follow. They’ve recovered DNA from one of those bullets, and the initial results show a match with Jack Bell’s. They’ll know for certain tomorrow, but Sandy says we can be extremely confident that it’s his.’

Gorham nodded. ‘So he was hit, then? No surprise, I suppose. But where does that take us now, Andy?’

‘I was hoping it might mean an upgrade of the case classification.’

‘I rather thought you might be. But tell me this, if you had extra bodies, what would you do with them?’

‘I’ve been thinking about that. A couple of things. First, I’d like a few of the data analysts from HQ to come down here, just for a few days, to look in more detail at the mobile telephone traffic in the Bay area last Friday. I checked, and there’s good signal right out onto the Bay, even way out where Jack’s tractor was found. I’d also like a bit more support for Ray Dixon, who is working his way through everything on this Pete Capstick character. Despite knowing the value of his pension to the nearest penny on any given day Ray’s not all that great on the finance side, so I’d like some fresh eyes on that.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Yes, I’d like to request that we bring a couple of the drug team from HQ in on this.’