Making A Killing (The Romney and Marsh Files Book 2) (14 page)

Romney read something of these thoughts in the man’s eyes when he looked up to meet his own and it gave the policeman cause for some small sense of remorse for the situation he had engineered and arrived at prepared to gloat and enjoy. He felt momentarily shabby. He wondered if there wasn’t a way through it all without creating a wake of broken lives and destruction.

‘Listen,’ said Romney. ‘Believe it or not, I have no great desire to be a human wrecking-ball, not of families anyway, not over something which is probably essentially nothing more than the regrettable behaviour of a group of drunken men let off their leashes away from home for a few days. There but for the grace of God and all that. I just need to know if these have anything to do with the death I’m investigating. Be straight with me and I promise you that I’ll do all I can to contain them.’ Romney waited while Lane, like a Mr Hobson famously before him, considered his options.

‘It would appear that you have me well and truly by the short and curlies, Inspector,’ said Lane, bravely mustering a smile. ‘Do I have a choice?’

‘Do you have anything to hide?’

‘Only these,’ said the solicitor, gesturing towards the images. He collected them up, carefully replaced them in the envelope and handed it back to Romney.

‘Then you don’t really have a choice,’ said Romney.

Lane told them more than Masters had been able to, but that, he hastened to point out, was because he was certainly less drunk than Masters on the evening in question.

The excursion to the club in the hills which overlooked the surrounding countryside, after hitting a few bars in town, had been Emerson’s idea. In fact, to Lane, with hindsight it seemed part of an agenda. No one knew what was waiting for them. It didn’t even occur to them at first that it was a brothel. But as the night wore on and the hostesses’ clothes began to come off, as they cavorted around with each other and guests and then they started to disappear upstairs with the gentlemen visitors, it became all too evident. But by then each and every one of them, according to Lane, was in a state of unrestrained arousal. He had wondered afterwards, he half-jokingly told them, whether the drinks had been spiked with some sort of aphrodisiac.

Some while after they had returned and it seemed that all had been repressed, if not completely forgotten, Emerson had visited Lane to speak with him about bringing some influence to bear on his behalf with designs he had on some property that the golf club owned. Lane was on the board of club trustees and the committee. Coincidentally, so were three of the other men who had been invited away and gone and taken full advantage of everything on offer. All were family men with plenty to lose.

‘Was he blackmailing you?’ said Romney.

‘No. Not then, he wasn’t. He hadn’t shown me the pictures. He would gently remind me of the secrets we shared. He wanted me to consider helping him. He began by telling me that he’d make it worth my while. I imagine he was using the same tactic with the others, but it was never something I discussed with any of them. I
like to think that blackmail would have been a last option for him. We were friends, do you see?’

‘And did you?’

‘What? Favour him? No, Inspector. I do have some scruples.’ He smiled thinly.

‘What if he’d threatened you with exposure?’

‘I don’t know. Probably I would have succumbed. I’ve too much to lose.’

‘But it didn’t get that far.’

‘No. Somebody killed him before it could.’

‘You realise that all you’ve told me makes you a suspect?’

‘I do, but possibly less of one because you heard it from my own lips. Or maybe that’s just what I’m counting on, eh Inspector? Sorry, shouldn’t be flippant. I didn’t kill him and I don’t know who did. I’m genuinely sorry that he’s dead. We were friends, even if he did cheat at golf. I like to think that Phillip wouldn’t have stooped to blackmail. I can forgive him his deviousness and opportunism regarding our stupidity, but I couldn’t have forgiven him that.’

Lane identified the three other men who were on the board of trustees. Romney assured him of confidentiality regarding that.

‘What are you proposing to do now, Inspector?’

‘Continue our investigations. Of course, I’ll be calling on these three,’ he waved the piece of paper that Lane had written the names on. ‘I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention any of what we have discussed to anyone, especially any of these.’

‘Don’t worry on that score. I have no wish to implicate myself in any of it. I just want it all to go away.’

‘When was the last time you saw Emerson?’

Lane thought. ‘Last week at the club.’

‘And spoke to him?’

‘Same.’

‘No phone-
calls going to show up on his mobile phone records?’ Lane shook his head. ‘I’ll need your mobile number.’

Lane dictated it and Marsh wrote it down.

‘And where were you on the night he was murdered?’

‘Ah,
I wondered if we’d get to that. At home with my family, Inspector. Will you need to verify that?’

‘Not yet.’ Romney stood indicating the meeting was over.

‘Thank you for what you’ve offered,’ said Lane.

Romney said, ‘I can’t make any promises, you understand?’

As they reached the door, Romney turned and said, ‘One thing you can do for me. Speak to Masters. Let him know that none of this Spanish business will come out unless it proves unavoidable. I was a bit hard on him yesterday.’

‘Really?’ said Lane, a hint of a smile at the corners of his mouth. ‘You do surprise me, Inspector.’

*

Exiting the little private car park attached to the law practice Romney said, ‘Now that’s what I call a productive consultation, Sergeant. I’d have happily paid his fat hourly fee for that. I can’t tell you how long I’ve dreamed about getting something on that stuffed shirt.’

Marsh looked at Romney with a mixture of wonderment and sad resignation. ‘And there’s me actually believing that somewhere under that armoured exterior beat a human heart, sir.’

For the second time that morning Marsh was exposed to the disturbing spectacle of her DI laughing out loud.

*

Grimes was waiting to speak with Romney on his return. ‘That drunk from the golf course. The one who found the body. He hasn’t been in to make a statement yet. Want me
to get on to him, gov?’

Romney shook his head disappointedly and tutted. ‘That’s the general public for you. Even a gruesome murder can’t stir them into their civic responsibility. What chance have we got? Find him and get it done.’

Romney could hear the raised voices in CID before he pushed open the fire door. Wilkie was having a go at one of the younger constables who stood meekly before him. Spying Romney, he dropped his voice, gave him a last finger wagging and sent him on his way.

Romney walked over. He didn’t like disharmony in his department, especially when it was so obvious and loud. ‘What was all that about?’

‘Nothing serious, sir,’ said Wilkie. ‘Just a respect issue.’

Romney left it. ‘You look like shit, Brian.’

‘Thanks very much, sir. Baby’s not sleeping. I’m not getting much either.’

‘Well, good luck with that. I remember mine at that stage. Misery. Try not to bring it work though.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘They sorted you out another computer yet?’

‘I’m just off to chase them up.’

Romney watched Wilkie walk away and out of t
he office. Looking down at the sergeant’s workspace, he noticed some crumpled balls of paper littering it. He picked one up and unfurled it. It was a crudely printed photograph, probably taken with a mobile phone, that showed a man who looked like Wilkie asleep at his desk. Underneath, a scrawled caption read,
Police at full stretch in hunt for The Parking Medal Man.
Romney looked closer at the image. He couldn’t imagine that Wilkie had posed for it. He wasn’t even sure that it was him, but he was wearing his clothes and it was clearly his desk – there was no computer tower for a start, so it must be recent. Romney didn’t want to believe that Wilkie had fallen asleep at work. He crumpled the paper back into a ball and tossed it back where it came from before walking back to his own office frowning and troubled.

Romney looked at the three names Lane had given him. Peter Newing, Graham Cox and Ivan Baker. None of them meant anything to him. Seeing Marsh enter the department
, he tossed the paper to one side and beckoned her in.

‘Sit down. Yesterday at the cafe you were going to say something about Wilkie. Is there something I should know?’

Coming out of the blue, the question momentarily threw her. ‘No, sir.’

‘He doesn’t look well to me. You heard anything?’

‘We tend to stay out of each other’s way. We’re busy with separate things.’

‘Talking of which,’
he handed her the list of names, ‘take a look at these three will you? Offer them a chat at the station, or we can call on them at their homes, preferably today. Phillip Emerson’s been dead over forty-eight hours now and for all we know we might have been barking up the wrong tree for most of them. Find out what you can about them before we see them.’ Marsh rose to leave. ‘Are we missing something?’ said Romney.

She sat back down. ‘About the murder?’

‘Yes, about the murder.’

‘I think the CD avenue of enquiry looks promising. We’ll know more when we’ve spoken to these three perhaps. After that, there’s always his business and his home life to put under the microscope. One thing I’d stake my pension on though is that given the circumstances surrounding his death, he was murdered by someone he knew.’

*

When Grimes called, Romney was sitting in with Superintendent Falkner, having been invited up to the top floor to report on how things were going.

‘What is it?’ said Romney.

‘I’ve found Duncan Smart, gov.’

‘You called me to tell me that?’

‘No, gov. I called to tell you he’s dead.’

***

9

On the way to t
he address in neighbouring Deal that Grimes had provided, Romney experienced inner turmoil and outer exasperation. A mixture of self-doubt, anxiety, puzzlement and uncertainty flowed through the chambers of his consciousness. It affected his driving, which wasn’t exemplary at the best of times, and his patience, which in turn made Marsh edgy as he took his feelings out on the pool car and other road users who clearly weren’t hurrying to murder scenes. Marsh had to bite her tongue just to stop herself from offering to drive.

For the third time since they’d left the station Romney said. ‘Can there be a connection?’ The thought was expressed with the same incredulity he might have
employed if told that the Queen of England was actually a man.

As much interested in distracting Romney from abusing other legitimate road users as furthering her own knowledge of the development
, Marsh said, ‘What did Smart actually say about the phone-calls?’

‘Just that he’d been receiving anonymous calls threatening lots of violence. I’m sure he said they’d started the day after his divorce. I lost interest after that.’

‘Did he say whether it was a man or a woman?’

‘I didn’t ask him. I told him to speak to a uniform when he came in to make his statement.’ Romney shouted through the windscreen at the old car in front. ‘Bloody hell! Come on! I could reverse quicker than this.’

Romney took his half-chance and began an overtaking procedure that had Marsh wishing she’d gone to the toilet before they’d left the station. Not content with simply trying to pass the vehicle, as another bore down on them the other side of the road, Romney drew alongside making gestures that the old couple occupying the front seats seemed to misinterpret as friendly, for they waved back, smiling. Marsh noticed that they were both wearing woolly hats and overcoats. With an exasperated scowl, Romney accelerated the car into the open road ahead, seemingly oblivious to the flashing headlights of the oncoming van and the contorted features of another angry motorist screaming obscenities that would never be heard by their intended audience.

‘I do remember
he told me he didn’t know Emerson, or rather that he knew him by reputation only. Do you know how many murders there are on average in the Dover area in a year?’

‘Last year there were three.’

‘Right. So with two in three days, the fact that they were both members of the same golf club – and let’s not forget the not insignificant matter that one found the other’s remains – what is the likelihood that they are unrelated?’

‘When it’s put like that it would seem a logical and compelling argument. But, with respect
, sir, I don’t think we should automatically assume a connection.’

‘I do hope you’re not going to remind me again t
hat we should keep an open mind?’