Joint Enterprise (The Romney and Marsh Files Book 3) (28 page)

‘Fair point. Well, that sort who was patching him up when we arrived must have been in on it too then,’ said Romney, with the air of a man who spends his life being perpetually disappointed by people. ‘What about you?’ he said to Spicer. ‘Find out who’s running a protection racket in the town?’

‘Sorry, gov. I’ve spoken to three relatively new businesses in the town and none of them said they’ve been threatened.’

‘What’s this about?’ said Marsh.

‘I was spoken to last night by the wife of the proprietor of the new Greek restaurant off the precinct. She said three men came to their place a few weeks ago and said they’d be back within the month for a thousand pounds if they wanted to continue trading. She won’t make an official complaint and neither will her fool of a husband. I said I’d ask around. I want us all to do that, all right? I just need a name that I can put a face to for now.’

‘Are they going to pay?’ said Marsh.

‘She said her husband would not, but that he intended to deal with it when the time came.’

‘Oh dear.’

‘Yes. Oh dear. If I can get a name that’s on record, I told her that I’d show her some pictures, and if she confirms it we can have a talk with him at least. What about that box of memories?’

‘Going to make a start now, gov,’ said Spicer.

‘Grimes can go through it with you and please remember you’re not doing it to have a trip down memory lane. There’s no need to waste time going over everything. You’re just looking for anything that might be relevant to his death. Just scan it and put it back. And if any of you have any bright ideas for a new line of enquiry with the murder I’d really be interested in hearing them. They’re going to be burying him soon and we are no nearer finding out who was responsible.’ To Marsh, he said, ‘Finish interviewing those Toms from the list as soon as you can. Make it a priority now.’

‘What box of memories?’ said Grimes.

‘He can explain it to you when we’ve finished here,’ said Romney, meaning Spicer.

Back in his office Romney telephoned the radio station to see if the talk show host from the Edy Vitriol tape was still there. He was. Romney told them he would be over to speak to him within the hour. He should be sure to be available.

*

‘Hello. You must be the policeman who ran
g earlier?’ Roy Parker was an impression of a man. He could have been the thinnest man Romney had ever met. In his fifties he was dressed like someone out of the sixties. He wore a belt with a big silver buckle which threatened to have him over with its weight. His thinning greying hair was pulled back from his head with a pink bunchy-band. He had a handkerchief tied around his neck and John Lennon glasses. He acted camp and he looked ridiculous and Romney took against him immediately. But he was friendly enough.

‘That’s right. I’d like to talk to you about the Edy Vitriol interview you hosted. You know he’s dead, I suppose?’

‘Of course. Very sad business. How do you think I can help?’

Romney saw then that the man was anxious at having to speak with the police and it made him wonder why? ‘We found a cassette of the interview you did with him at his home.’

‘Yeah. We always provide copies for our guests. It’s a courtesy.’

‘We’re still pursuing a number of lines of enquiry,’ lied Romney, ‘and as you were one of the last people to have spoken to him
, I thought it might be worth having a word with you, see if he said anything you think could be important or useful to our investigation?’

Parker looked relieved. ‘Right,’ he said. He gave an
idea of thinking then shook his head and said, ‘I’m sorry, but I can’t think of anything. He didn’t seem like a man worried for his life, or anything like that. A couple of the phone-calls he got in the phone-in afterwards were a little unpleasant, but no-one was threatening to murder him.’ Romney had known before he left the station that he was clutching at straws and that this visit was probably going to be a waste of time. ‘You should speak to Sue though.’

‘
Sue?’ said Romney.

‘Sorry,
Susan Sharp. She hosts our Ladies Hour programme. She was on the tape too.’ Romney nodded at the recollection. ‘She and Edy spent some time together after my show.’

Romney recognised it then – Roy Parker was a spiteful gay. ‘Is she here?’

‘You’re listening to her?’

Romney was back hanging around in reception waiting for
Susan Sharp to finish her live Ladies Hour on White Cliffs FM. She only had ten minutes left of her slot and so he had decided to wait. In fact, after the performance she’d turned in on the cassette, he was rather looking forward to meeting her.

Susan
Sharp unnerved Romney at first sight. She was the fourth woman he’d come across in as many days who he felt an instant sexual attraction for. In the time it took her to enter the room, smile and say hi, Romney found himself wondering if there was something wrong with him. More than likely, he quickly reasoned, this was simply a phase resulting from his lack of recent physical contact with the opposite sex. He was saved having to consider much more by the need to respond to the introduction and out-stretched hand of the woman. She sounded good and smelt better. Romney had a vague recollection of Edy Vitriol hinting on the tape that he’d be interested in getting to know her more intimately. Romney could understand why.

‘Roy says you’d like to speak to me about
that ghastly Edy Vitriol. Sorry to speak ill of the dead and all that, but I for one don’t think that he’s a great loss to the human race.’

‘I listened to the recording made of his interview. I gathered as much,’ said Romney. ‘Roy said you spent some time with him after the interview.’

‘He did, did he?’ Romney understood there was no great affection between the White Cliffs FM hosts. ‘Sorry, yes I did. If you want to know the truth the odious little man seriously thought he might be in with a chance of bedding me. His arrogance was astonishing.’

Romney forced himself not to leer at her rather deep and exposed cleavage.
Susan Sharp was endowed with a wonderful bosom. ‘In the course of your conversation with him, did he say anything that, given the events that have befallen him since, might seem more relevant than it otherwise would have done?’

‘Did he tell me that someone was trying to kill him, do you mean?’

Romney smiled just a little sheepishly. ‘Something like that.’

‘No. Nothing like that. He was cocky and confident. I suspect he might have even been high on something.’

‘Really? What makes you say that?’

‘His manner and his mannerisms. My ex-husband fell victim to a cocaine dependency. I know the signs.’ This brought a new dimension to things. Romney made a mental note to check with pathology whether any unusual substances were evident in the dead man’s system. If he was into drugs, then he’d be into a dealer. And that was a whole new can of worms. ‘Sorry that I can’t be more helpful,’ she said.

Romney smiled at her and said, ‘Maybe you have been.’

‘I’d like that. I’ll tell you something else I’d like. I think it would be a wonderful and fitting gesture if some wealthy and enlightened philanthropist could buy up the entire stock of that rogue’s ‘book’ and bury them all with him.’

‘I gathered you weren’t too enamoured with it.’

‘It was an affront, a disgrace to the ar
t form of the printed word and Womankind. Now, I’m very sorry, but, if there is nothing else, I really do have an important previous engagement that I am already late for.’

‘Thank you for your time.’

‘My pleasure, Inspector. Can I give you my card. You might think of something else that you need to ask me. You’ll see it’s got my personal mobile number on it.’ The thick slash of bright red lipstick bent into a smile to reveal nice even teeth. She turned and walked away with her well-formed rear bouncing obediently after her. And the detective in Romney believed that her exit was calculated to leave an impression upon him. It had. And it was in danger of leaving an impression in his trousers.

*

Romney’s mobile trilled accusingly while he was sitting in his vehicle sniffing Susan Sharp’s business card. He could just detect the faintest hint of the fragrance she had been wearing. He jumped, dropped the card into the foot well and cursed. He fished out his phone and answered it.

‘Marsh here, sir. I’ve been trying to get hold of you for over an hour.’

‘No reception,’ he said, brushing something off the business card and slipping it into his jacket pocket. ‘What’s up?’

‘We’ve found something interesting in that box of Edy Vitriol’s.’

‘How interesting?’

‘Very.’

‘I’ll be there in fifteen minutes. Don’t let Grimes near it.’

‘Actually, he found it.’

***

17

When Romney broke through the double doors of CID, Grimes, Spicer and Marsh were gathered around Spicer’s workstation on which stood Edy Vitriol’s cardboard box. Papers were strewn about the surface and a lively discussion was in progress. At least, thought Romney, they were able to work together. He couldn’t have imagined a similar scene with ex-
DS Wilkie’s divisive presence polluting the environment.

‘What have we got then?’ he said, approaching the group.

A hush descended before Marsh said, ‘A connection between Paul Henry and Edy Vitriol.’

Romney was unable to conceal the full extent of the astonishment this news brought. This was quite obviously one of the last things he had expected to hear. ‘Is that it? A connection between the two dead men. I thought we had a breakthrough.’ He scowled.

‘We might have, sir,’ said Marsh.

Absently-mindedly,
Romney perched on the edge of Spicer’s desk and then made a noise and stood up quickly. The three of them looked at him. He leant against the desk as though nothing was wrong. ‘Well, I’m waiting.’

Marsh continued to explain. ‘It’s more than a simple and tenuous connection. It’s something unusual, specific, solid and it might just give us a suspect for the killer of Edy Vitriol.

‘We knew that Vitriol was one of those few directly implicated regarding culpability in the capsizing of the Herald of Joint Enterprise. What we didn’t know was that so was Paul Henry. He was a French seaman working on the car deck that night. The two men must have known each other.’

Romney’s brow knitted as he assimilated this new information. ‘Hang on. You’re not saying the two deaths are related are you? Jez Ray has already confessed to killing the Frenchman. You’re not going to tell me he didn’t kill him are you?’

‘No. What we’re suggesting is that maybe Jez Ray killed Edy Vitriol too.’

The group went very quiet. The three of them studied Romney’s face for his reaction to their theory and he returned the favour looking for signs of madness or that they were having fun with him.

‘I hope you have at least one good reason for saying that other than the fact that they were both involved in the tragedy?’ He wanted to hear it all before he passed judgement and moved on to his drugs angle.

‘Actually, we’ve got three, sir,’ said Marsh.

Grimes held up a list of names of all those who had perished in the maritime disaster. He pointed towards the end of the list that was in alphabetical order and read from the ‘Rs’, ‘Sarah Ray, aged twenty-six and Phillip Ray, aged twenty-eight.’

Spicer displayed a newspaper cutting from a twenty-five year old newspaper. There was a poorly reproduced photograph of a crying baby, wrapped in a blanket and being cradled by a policewoman. It was yellowed and torn around the edges. He read a short extract,
‘Two year old baby boy, Jez Ray, was the youngest survivor of Britain’s worst peacetime maritime disaster since the sinking of the Empress of Ireland in 1914. Both his parents perished in the capsizing of the Herald of Joint Enterprise off the Belgian port of Zeebrugge on the night of 6th March 1987, leaving him an orphan.’

Marsh provided Exhibit C, which Romney could see was a collection of handwritten letters. ‘These are all letters from Jez Ray to Edy Vitriol. They span nearly ten years. From his early to late teens. He mentions in several of them that one day he is going to kill him for what he did.’ She waited.

‘I know that look, Sergeant Marsh, you’ve got more to say so spit it out. I’m listening.’ Romney was thinking that his drugs theory might stay private after all.

‘What if Jez Ray was b
eing honest to a point about what happened on the battlefield? I don’t doubt he was there for the reasons the group gave. But what if he knew Paul Henry by sight and...’

‘How would he know him?’ b
roke in Romney. ‘He was a baby when it happened.’

‘We’ve just had the twenty-five year anniversary of the sinking. There was a gathering and a wreath laying by those involved. From what
Peter says, it’s likely that Paul Henry would have attended. As a survivor who lost both of his parents, I’m guessing Jez Ray would have been there too. It would be easy to check. I’m sure there were lots of photographs taken.’