Blackwater (DI Nick Lowry) (17 page)

-34-

5.30 p.m., Monday, Queen Street HQ

DC Kenton sat with the phone glued to his ear, waiting for the man on the other end to return. He stared at his reflection in the black rectangle of the window. The day was far from over, and the harder he worked, the less success he seemed to achieve, and hanging on the telephone for a second-hand car dealer wasn’t exactly helping them find Philpott. He doodled pictures of cars on a notepad underneath the name Barnes and sighed: something else he had to do. He considered himself diligent, but the prospect of obeying Lowry and going cap in hand to Uniform for titbits on a lowlife like Philpott filled him with gloom. Despondently, he glanced up at the window again and his heart quickened. In the glass he saw WPC Jane Gabriel coming his way with a colleague from Uniform in tow. The twinge of excitement grew and he absently swapped the telephone receiver to his other hand and patted down his hair.

‘’Ello? ’Ello?’ a cockney voice said down the phone. ‘You there, mate?’

‘Err . . . Can you hold on a sec?’

‘’Old on? ’Old on for what?’

Gabriel was almost at Kenton’s desk.

‘I’ve been waiting a good five minutes for you, so please allow me the courtesy of a minute.’ He placed the phone on the desk, conscious that he was risking losing his man, but for the moment he didn’t care.

‘Hi,’ said the soft voice behind him. ‘Is Detective Inspector Lowry here?’

It was obvious he wasn’t, so was this just an excuse to come and talk to him without inspiring gossip?

‘No, he’s up top.’ Kenton turned and thumbed towards the chief’s garret. ‘Anything I can do?’

‘No, it’s okay . . .’ Uncertainty passed across her face. The WPC behind her tugged her sleeve.

‘Are you sure?’ Disappointment seeped into Kenton’s voice.

Gabriel hurriedly gave an account of having bumped into Sparks on the street, and of a subsequent phone call from a witness he didn’t know, but it appeared unrelated to the Greenstead murders, so was of little consequence to Kenton. Instead of listening to her, he watched her mouth, the flick of a curl on her top lip – so sensuous.

‘Well?’ she asked, jolting him out of his daydream.

‘Err . . . we think we’re close to finding the Greenstead murderer.’ He smiled, trying to appear authoritative.

She frowned, then glanced at the telephone receiver lying on the desk, a tiny voice coming from the earpiece. Her colleague whispered that they should go.

The two women marched off, as if they had lost patience. Feeling slightly foolish, Kenton picked up the telephone and engaged with the surly car dealer on the other end. He had no truck with rudeness, but he didn’t want to let this chap go: he’d promised a good price on the Spitfire. He was resolved to sell it, for if he wanted to ask Gabriel to go on a date, it was unlikely she’d be happy to go in a car she was too tall for.

*

‘Someone is scaring Leslie Birch.’

Lowry nearly collided with Jane Gabriel, who stood at the bottom of the stairs alongside a stocky WPC. Lowry couldn’t remember her name but knew she didn’t stand for any nonsense. She had once clouted a Red Cap for hurling abuse at her in the high street.

‘Leslie Birch?’

‘The girls who met Jones and Daley on New Year’s Eve. One works in the video shop. WPC Hughes, here, just took the call.’

Lowry paused to recollect: Jones had given him the name, from the hospital bed. Lowry had been so consumed by the murders in Greenstead that the details of the incident on New Year’s Eve had slipped to the back of his mind.

‘According to Birch, a man barged into the shop, furious, demanding to know why she had been talking to the police,’ Hughes said, indicating Gabriel. ‘The same man had been after her on Sunday, too – she reckons he saw WPC Gabriel sniffing around on Papillon Road.’

‘Did she know him?’

‘Vaguely – she was ambiguous. Probably frightened.’

Lowry frowned. ‘Did she know him or not?’

‘She thinks he was a friend of the dead soldier,’ Gabriel said.

‘Any description?’

Hughes flipped open her notebook. ‘A big man, looked like he’d been in a fight and stank of drink,’ she said matter-of-factly.

‘Narrows it down – in a town fit to burst with men full of booze,’ Lowry said, ‘and where the whole place has taken to beating the crap out of each other.’

‘He was Irish,’ Hughes added, ‘and probably a soldier.’

Lowry nodded. ‘In the same regiment as Jones, no doubt.’ It sounded like their man from Saturday night’s brawl hadn’t got the message. Lowry wouldn’t be going home early, after all.

The WPC had more: ‘He told her that if she spoke to the police again she could tell them Sparks was for it – “Dead Meat”, he said – and pointed to his face.’

‘Did I hear my name mentioned?’ came a booming voice. The chief had appeared on the stairs behind Lowry. The WPCs looked embarrassed.

‘Sounds like that lad you took a swing at the other night has come over all tired and emotional,’ Lowry said.

‘What is it about the festive period? Seems an excuse for everyone to turn into a big girl.’ Sparks looked indignantly at Lowry, and then at the two women, clearly oblivious to their discomfort.

‘Should we call Oldham? Put him to some use for a change?’ Lowry suggested, thinking of how helpful he’d been earlier that day.

Sparks shook his head. ‘No chance – he’ll whisk him off before we get a how’s-your-father.’

‘I thought we were all for cooperation?’ the inspector pushed.

‘There’s a time and place for that. I thought you’d have realized that by now,’ Sparks said sharply. ‘So, do we know where this poor drunken lamb of a soldier is now?’

Hughes piped up. ‘After he left the shop, the witness saw him enter the Bull pub, sir.’

Sparks clapped his hands. ‘Well, we’d better get on down there!’

Lowry hesitated. ‘There’s no need to go mob-handed – I’ll handle it.’ Then, after a moment’s consideration, he added, ‘I can’t think of better place to question an inebriated soldier harbouring a grudge against the police.’

-35-

6 p.m., Monday, Crouch Street

The police must not be seen to shirk the military area of town; this, Lowry knew. What better place to reassert their authority than the Bull, the huge pub just across Southway, used by locals and army alike. It was right on the edge of the civilian side of town, and just a stone’s throw from the video store further along the road.

Sparks had been determined to come along but Lowry had managed to persuade him against it. There was still an uneasy truce between squaddies and civilians and, while they needed to take things in hand, it was vital not to go too far. To have a chief superintendent turning up on military turf and reading the riot act to an off-duty NCO he had recently clumped could easily spark off tensions. A disgruntled Sparks eventually backed down, and Lowry set off with Kenton and the two WPCs.

The pub was in darkness apart from the lights behind the long bar, making it difficult to work out how many were in the shadows. The Bull was an old-fashioned drinker with sawdust on the floor and little in the way of home comforts.

‘Not a place for the ladies,’ Kenton whispered as they crossed the threshold.

‘You go to the rear, in case he tries to make a bolt for it,’ Lowry said. He turned to the WPCs. ‘You two wait at the door.’ He headed towards the bar, where a familiar-looking silhouette was perched on a stool. He sidled up. ‘All right, soldier.’ The cavernous bar fell quiet.

The man took no notice of Lowry, continuing to drink silently, the pint glass resembling a child’s beaker in his huge fist. Lowry turned to the barman. ‘What’ve you got in the way of sherry?’

The request made the soldier laugh in a boyish, scoffing manner, throwing his head back to reveal a shaving rash. He gave Lowry only a cursory glance, but it was enough for him to see dilated pupils, the youthful face afflicted with menace.

‘Having trouble deciding what film to rent, were you?’ Lowry said, alluding to the outburst in Videodrome. Quinn remained silent. ‘I must say, I’m surprised you’re out and making a nuisance of yourself already.’ His eyes now accustomed to the darkness, Lowry scanned the other drinkers, who looked to be mainly civilians. The soldier was on his own, it seemed.

‘I was out there, you know,’ he stated simply. By ‘out there’, Lowry knew he meant the South Atlantic, and though they’d all heard it many times in the last twelve months in similar circumstances, there was no appropriate rejoinder he could think of. Not that Lowry was unsympathetic towards servicemen such as Quinn; they had his admiration. Silence was a mark of respect in his book.

The barman doubtfully raised a bottle of Harvey’s Bristol Cream, and Lowry nodded.

‘Not a mark on me – until now.’ The soldier pointed to his eye, should Lowry have missed it.

‘That’s unfortunate,’ Lowry said.

He shrugged. ‘Colie is a dangerous place for a soldier, these days.’

‘Oh? And why would you say that?’

‘Those lads at the castle.’

‘An accident.’

‘Some say.’

‘And what do you say?’

‘I knew Jones.’

Lowry nodded and sipped his sherry from a chipped schooner. He knew this from Saturday night. Now lost in some reverie, the man had obviously forgotten their conversation (though not the beating dealt out by Sparks). Jones must be the connection with the girl at the video shop.

Conversation resumed around them; the punters assumed a brawl had been averted.

‘Did you see Jones with Leslie Birch and another girl on New Year’s Eve – the night of the accident?’ Lowry wondered whether there might be some feud over an ex-girlfriend.

Quinn said nothing, though he swayed ever so slightly. The man was doing his utmost to maintain an air of control and sobriety – something one had to do in the military.

‘Come on, you must have – why hassle the girl now?’

‘She’s got no business talking with the likes of you.’

‘Why?’

Quinn pushed his empty glass forward and grunted to the barman, but Lowry reached for it to prevent the barman refilling it. ‘Why?’ he repeated. ‘You know Leslie, don’t you? How? Why threaten her? Did you see her with Jones on New Year’s Eve?’

‘I did not see Jones on New Year’s Eve,’ he said firmly, but not mentioning the girl.

‘Do you know Leslie Birch?’ Gabriel had come into the pub.

‘Who?’ Quinn was confused, lost to the booze.

‘Okay, how about Philpott?’ Lowry wasn’t giving in yet. ‘You said you knew him, the bloke you thumped on Saturday night? Care to elaborate?’

Corporal Quinn turned and looked at Lowry as if for the first time, noticing his missing tooth but saying nothing. Lowry could see him sizing up his options and, keen to avoid another punch-up, said softly, leaning forward, ‘The back and front is covered – make a bolt for it and we’ll have you. So, tell me – you knew the man you hit the other night, didn’t you?’

‘Philpott.’

‘Yes, Jamie Philpott. Remember him?’ Lowry said. ‘Did you see him on New Year’s Eve, too?’

‘Nah.’

‘So why’d you punch him? Was it really because he spilt your drink?’

‘Time of year, too much booze,’ he said, without irony.

‘One final question: who were you with on New Year’s Eve?’

‘I didn’t see no one on New Year’s.’

‘Oh? And why was that?’

The barman had served him another pint, and Quinn took the pint glass gratefully, and said with relief, ‘I was in the Glasshouse, weren’t I. You can check with Captain Oldham if you don’t believe me.’

*

‘What do you make of that then, sir?’ Shadow covered Gabriel’s face as they stood outside the pub. The pavement was slushy with sleet.

‘Not sure what to make of it,’ Lowry admitted.

‘Lesley Birch said they were a tight-knit bunch.’

‘Who were?’

‘Jones, Daley, Quinn and some others. Yes – they were quite a crew until the Falklands.’

‘And some were killed, no doubt.’ Lowry padded his jacket for cigarettes on reflex.

‘No, not that any were killed, more that they’re not in the army any more
—
’

‘Did she mention anyone else, a name we’re not familiar with?’

‘No, I
—
’

‘Go back; get their names. If they’re that close, who knows what you might unearth.’

She stood uneasily, awaiting further instructions, thinking he meant now.

‘Tomorrow is fine,’ he said. ‘Good work.’ He smiled in the dark. He needed time to think. He asked her to notify DC Kenton, at the rear of the pub, that they were done here, and said goodnight.

Although the police had not pressed charges, it struck Lowry as unusual that the military authorities had allowed Quinn out following his involvement in the weekend’s unrest. Two broad-shouldered men with crewcuts passed him to enter the pub. Lowry heard the hiss of a whisper as they pushed the heavy door open. There was something missing, some connection out there they weren’t seeing, he was sure . . .

6 p.m., Southway

Sparks had left Lowry to it and gone home. He badly needed his bed; he had another big do tomorrow. He needed a break, he conceded. He swung the heavy car lazily on to Lexden Road, and thought of Antonia curled up on the sofa in the lingerie he’d bought her for Christmas. He smiled to himself in the dark; yes, take her and the brandy up to bed. The year had got off to a bumpy start, with no sign of a breakthrough on Greenstead – he needed to clear his mind to enable him to focus better. On the passenger seat he had the football fixtures for the North Essex league to mull over. The police team had performed adequately, but only adequately at the end of the year – middle of the first division. Football was a perfect diversion from the current barracks aggro: the army were not permitted to compete, as it was a county league. No, here it was other police teams and his arch-rival, the fire service.

The fire brigade were the reigning champions and the police team had not won a match against them in two years. Those Trumpton tossers had the perfect fitness regime – running up and down ladders while on duty and jawing all night, propped up at the brigade bar, when not on call, and regular drills in between. Untroubled by the complexities of the often sedentary art of crime solving, they were in a different league, fitness wise. Sparks’s boys might be able to go ten rounds in the ring, and even row across the Blackwater in respectable time, but ninety minutes on the football pitch was a different matter.

As he pulled up to his Lexden townhouse, his mind was pondering the need for young, energetic talent on the left wing. A youthful face sprang to mind: Dodger’s boy at Mersea, maybe? Jennings. The lad might not be all that bright but he was young and had young, long legs. He’d call the Dodger at home immediately.

‘Hi, honey.’ His fiancée’s silky voice greeted him from somewhere inside the warmth of his home. He wiped his shoes and frowned. There was the risk that Bradley would bring up that other business, though. Young Kenton had been disturbing the natives. It was all well and good bringing college boys into the force, but the well educated often lacked the moral diversity required in a well-rounded police officer. That, and the inherent problems of mixing those who think too much with those who don’t at all.

He briefly entered the lounge to indicate his intentions to Antonia, who smiled alluringly at the prospect of an early night (in fact, he found her eagerness a little daunting), then made for the recently kitted-out office at the front of the house and popped open his address book. Locating the Dodger’s number, he sank down into the leather recliner and stared at his Siamese fighting fish in the newly installed aquarium. Often, he’d sit here, as now, without the light on, entranced by the fish, so elegant.

‘Ah, hello, Gertie; the Dodger there?’

‘’E’s not, as you well know.’

‘How’s that?’

‘’E’s out on the boat.’ She cleared her throat. ‘At sea.’

‘Really? What on earth for, this late in the day?’

‘Beats me. Thought you’d know, being the boss an’ all.’ She cleared her throat again. ‘Better be careful he don’t hit an iceberg – bleedin’ cold enough for one out there, night like this. Inspector Lowry was here . . .’

What the hell was going on? He leaned closer to the tank. The fish fluttered like silk scarves in the wind.

8.15 p.m., Queen Street HQ

Lowry took the stairs two at a time up to his office in an effort to stretch his stiffening legs, Kenton trailing behind him. As they entered the foyer, they were greeted by the night sergeant sitting in the glow of a desk lamp like a lone nurse on a sleeping ward.

The lights on the first floor flickered uncertainly to life to dimly illuminate the deserted, untidy office. The encounter with the soldier had come at Lowry sideways, but it also brought to mind that he’d not got hold of Tony Pond. Maybe he’d try him at home tonight, give him a rattle for dicking them all around.

‘So, what do we have?’ Kenton asked, interrupting Lowry’s thought processes.

‘Nothing. Jealousy, perhaps: Quinn had a crush on Birch and, though for different reasons, is looking for her, like us, and finally finds her on Sunday and discovers that the police are asking questions about Private Jones. He puts two and two together and realizes she was out with Jones while he was banged up on New Year’s Eve . . . The agonies of young love.’

‘What about Quinn knowing Philpott?’

Lowry picked up a missing-persons fax from County HQ he’d only just noticed lying on the desk. ‘Colchester’s not such a big place – the fact that he knows Philpott, or denied knowing him, means little. The fact that Philpott has gone to ground is possibly more significant – jumping out of a hospital bed after being glassed. It leads me to believe he’s been up to no good. What do you think?’

‘I’ve never had the pleasure, so I couldn’t comment . . .’

‘He’s still not at home, that much we know, which is more of a concern.’ Lowry sat down at the desk, his calves protesting as he did so, and flicked on a desk lamp. ‘Now, what do we have here?’

Before him was a grainy photograph of the man found slumped in a plateful of vindaloo with his throat slit on the Greenstead Estate. The man had been identified: Jason Boyd, twenty-five years old, Brightlingsea. He waved the fax at Kenton, but realized he was no longer there. ‘Where’d he go? Never mind.’ Boyd had been unaccounted for since Friday morning, but it was not until he was missed at work again today that concern grew, and the fact that he’d not turned up at teatime prompted his mother to contact the police in Brightlingsea. The desk sergeant there immediately contacted Queen Street. ‘Everyone is accountable on a Monday,’ Lowry remarked to himself, realizing it was the second time he’d said that today. ‘Even on a Bank Holiday.’