Midnight Fugue (30 page)

There was a long pause necessary for him to make sure the panic he felt surging up his gut didn’t leak out through his larynx. Then he said, in a tone so controlled it was probably a bigger giveaway than panic, ‘Why do you ask? Are they up there?’

‘Aye, Been staying at the Keldale for a week now. So you do know them then?’

‘Know of them. There’s a Fleur Delay used to work for Goldie Gidman. Looked after his finances for years, both the stuff he let the taxman see and the stuff he didn’t. As he got bigger and went legit, Fleur dropped out of the picture. Spending more time with her family, to coin a phrase.’

‘Her family being this Vince?’

‘That’s right. Got a lot of form, but nothing recently to my knowledge. Listen, Andy, if they’re around, could just be coincidence, but I’d give them a pull. Keep them close. But you’ve probably got that organized anyway, haven’t you?’

He found he couldn’t — in fact no longer wanted to — keep the deep concern out of his voice.

‘Don’t worry, lad,’ said Dalziel. ‘We’ve got ’em in our sights.’

‘Good. And listen, Andy, do me a favour. Put out that call on Gina anyway. Please.’

‘OK, no need to get on your knees. I’ll make sure my lads are out there looking for her. If you make contact first, be sure to let me know, all right?’

‘Straight away. And you’ll get in touch with me, right?’

Of course I will. First on my list. OK, Mick, got to go now. Unless there’s anything else you want to tell me…?’

‘I don’t think so. Andy, thanks for putting me in the picture. I’ll not forget it.’

‘I’ll not let you. And I’ll try to keep you posted. But, Mick, remember this is official now, so at some point we may need to talk to you officially. You hear what I’m saying? Get your act together. Cheers.’

The line went dead.

Purdy switched off, hurled the phone on to his bed, and let out a sobbing, snarling cry that contained all the doubt, anger and fear that had been repressed during the conversation. It made him feel better, but not much.

He retrieved the phone and tried Gina’s number again. Still nothing. He brought up another name and looked at it for a while before cancelling.

Some things needed to be done face to face.

He went back into the bathroom, turned the shower on cold and stripped off. From the wall cabinet he took a small plastic bottle, shook a couple of Provigils into his hand, tossed them into his mouth then stepped under the jets, his head thrown back to let the icy water drive the tablets down his throat.

Until this lot got sorted, until he knew where Gina was and that she was safe, sleep wasn’t an option.

17.10–17.55

Edgar Wield was not a man who boasted about his skills, but he took a quiet pride in his ability to get the best out of a witness. Dalziel’s analysis of his success was typically direct.

‘The bugger’s got a head start, hasn’t he? Seeing yon face t’other side of the table is like being shown the torture kit in the Tower of London. It doesn’t half loosen the tongue!’

After viewing the documentation produced by the new arrival to prove that he was in fact Alun Gruffud Watkins of 39 Loudwater Villas, Wield had rung Pascoe then settled down to extract a detailed statement. The trouble was that, after learning what had happened in his apartment, Watkins’s tongue was not so much loosened as liberated. It was hard to get him to stop talking, which might not have been so bad if he hadn’t moved rapidly from offering answers to requiring them. His favourite, most frequently iterated question was, ‘Why will you not let me see the body?’ and he grew progressively more irritated each time Wield steered him away from the topic.

He was seated in the caravan, Wield facing him, his back to the window, which any fan of crime fiction knows is the approved interrogation set-up with the interrogator’s face in shadow and the light streaming into the interrogatee’s eyes.

It has the disadvantage that the latter can see out of the window while the former can’t. So it was that over the sergeant’s shoulder, Watkins saw an ambulance arrive and two paramedics enter the building, bearing a stretcher.

He stood up, saying, ‘I need a breath of air,’ went to the door, jumped down from the caravan, and then he was off and running towards the Villas.

Wield was fit and had the high muscular tone of a sprinter, but even moving at full speed he didn’t get the man in his sights till he burst through on to the second floor and saw him vanishing into his apartment behind the stretcher bearers.

Jennison was inside, holding the door open, so he couldn’t be blamed for not bringing Watkins to a halt. But once in the room, no human agency was needed.

The sight of the near faceless body lying on the floor stopped him in his tracks.

‘Oh Christ,’ he said. ‘Oh Christ.’

His legs were buckling and Wield and Jennison had to practically carry him back down the stairs and out into the open air, which he drew into his lungs in great rasping gulps.

A constable came hurrying from the caravan.

‘Sarge,’ he said, ‘there’s a TV crew turned up at the barrier.’

It was bound to happen sooner or later, thought Wield. Sooner, if Mrs Dutta had anything to do with it. Thank God he’d ordered the tape to be replaced by a metal barrier and removed Hector from duty. He’d have probably waved the TV van through!

But even from a distance their cameras would be nosing up close.

He said, ‘Let’s get you back into the caravan, sir. What you need is a cup of hot sweet tea. Give him a hand, lad.’

By the time Pascoe arrived a few minutes later, the Welshman was looking a lot better, but he hadn’t spoken another word. Wield had seen this kind of reaction before — imminence to tragedy triggering logorrhoea, sight of a bloody corpse producing lingual paralysis. But Wield’s skill at plucking relevant facts from a flood of verbiage meant he already had plenty of information to offer the DCI.

The two policemen stood outside the caravan. It had a door at the back as well as at the side, so they were able to descend unseen by the inquisitive media cameras. Sunset was over an hour away, but the day was clearly in decline. A light mist rising from the river turned the derelict mills on the far side into romantic ruins. The air still retained something of its earlier warmth but there was in it a hint of a chilly night to come.

Pascoe said, ‘Right, Wieldy, so now it looks like we’ve got ourselves a dead journalist. Let’s have the grisly detail.’

Wield said, ‘Like I told you, the guy in the caravan is this Alun Gruffud Watkins the Duttas told us about. Age twenty-three, he works as a rep for Infield-Centurion, the agricultural supplies company. The dead man, subject to forensic confirmation, seems likely to be Gareth Jones, nineteen, a reporter with the
Mid-Wales Examiner
. He has been staying with Mr Watkins since Friday last.’

He paused, seeing that Pascoe had a question. He knew what the question was going to be, but he also knew that, whether dealing with superiors or suspects, it generally paid to give the impression of genuine dialogue.

Pascoe said, ‘This Watkins, how’s he look?’

Not an enquiry after the man’s health but his status. Witness or suspect.

Wield said, ‘Mr Watkins has been working this weekend. He left on Friday lunchtime and has not been back since. I have the address of the farm he claims to have been visiting this afternoon. It’s just south of Darlington. I’ve got the locals taking a statement, but a telephone call has confirmed Mr Watkins’ story that he was there from two until four thirty, which takes him out of the frame.

‘He was here when Jones arrived on Friday morning. The young man’s old banger just made it and Watkins got a local garage to send someone round to check it. They took one look and said they would need to take it in, start work on it straight away and hopefully finish on Monday morning. Mr Watkins didn’t want to leave his friend without transport so he offered him the use of the Yamaha which he normally takes with him in the back of his van on his trips.’

‘So we’ve got Watkins out of the frame,’ said Pascoe. ‘And we know how Jones came to be riding his bike. But why, if his friend was coming for the weekend, did Watkins take off and leave him?’

‘Because Jones invited himself,’ said the sergeant. ‘He rang up mid-week to say he had to be in Mid-Yorkshire at the weekend and asked if he could doss down on Watkins’s floor. Watkins said he could do better than that, Jones was welcome to his bed as he was going to be away. I asked him if he knew why his friend was coming here. He said Jones indicated he was working on a story. No details and he didn’t press.’

Pascoe said sceptically, ‘Didn’t press? And him an old mate?’

Wield said, ‘Seems that Jones’s older brother, Gwyn, is an investigative reporter…’

He paused to see if this rang a bell.

Pascoe said, ‘Gwyn Jones, you mean, on the
Daily Messenger
?’

‘That’s the one,’ said Wield. ‘Mr Watkins knows the Jones family well, he’s from the same village, three years younger than Gwyn and the same older than Gareth. When Gwyn started in journalism, he was always quoting some famous reporter who said, Never tell your story till it’s ready to be told. That became Gareth’s motto too when he started following in big brother’s footsteps. So Watkins reckoned asking questions was pointless. Also, he was in a hurry.’

‘Does he work a lot at weekends then?’ asked Pascoe.

‘Business and pleasure, I gathered. Farming’s a seven-day job, so the farmers don’t mind. And I’d guess he’s got at least a couple of girlfriends scattered around the county that he likes to keep happy. He’s a bit of a chancer, I’d say. That so-called apartment’s pretty basic, and he’s got a camp bed in the back of his van. But when I was checking his laptop, I found he’d got templates for the letterheads and account invoices of good class hotels all over the North, plus several local garages. Looking at the expense claims he makes to Infield-Centurion could be instructive.’

‘Perhaps, but not to us. Not unless we need something to put a bit of pressure on the guy,’ said Pascoe. ‘Let’s concentrate on making sense of what we’ve got, which appears to be a young journalist come all the way from Wales to snoop around this woman, Gina Wolfe. Does that make sense to you?’

‘Mebbe. Snooping around’s what journalists do, isn’t it?’ said Wield.

‘I can’t see how there’s anything here to interest the readers of the
Mid-Wales Examiner
,’ retorted Pascoe.

‘What if he weren’t working for his local rag? What if he were doing a bit of moonlighting on brother Gwyn’s behalf?’ said Wield. ‘Something to do with the Gidmans, for instance? That would really get the
Messenger
’s sensors twitching.’

‘Maybe,’ said Pascoe thoughtfully. ‘I’ve got a feeling we need to tread carefully here, Wieldy.’

‘Not worried about treading on someone’s toes, are you?’ said the sergeant, regarding him doubtfully.

‘No, but I’m worried about being warned off anyone’s toes before I’ve had the chance to give them a good treading,’ grinned Pascoe. ‘Didn’t you say that when you started digging for info about Macavity, you felt things had been very carefully tidied up? From what I’ve read about him, this Goldie Gidman wields a lot of influence now. Any whiff of a scandal touching him, them buggers in London will be covering themselves like tarts in a raided brothel!’

Wield hid a smile. There were times when Pete sounded so like the Fat Man it was hard to tell the difference.

‘What?’ demanded Pascoe, eyeing him sharply.

This was another area where they’d grown together, thought the sergeant. Was a time when only Dalziel came close to being able to read his face, but now the DCI was starting to get the knack.

As he opened his mouth to prevaricate, the caravan door burst open and DC Bowler jumped down the steps, his face split by a huge smile.

‘Just had a bulletin from the hospital, sir. Seems Shirley’s woken up and they say she knows who she is and where she is and everything. Probably too woozy to answer questions before tomorrow, but she’s definitely off the critical list. She’s going to be all right, sir!’

It was good to see his pleasure. Bowler and Novello were fierce rivals in their work, each determined to be the leader in the race for advancement. But when it came to mutual support and comfort in times of trouble, neither had ever been found wanting.

‘Great news, Hat,’ said Pascoe. ‘Spread it around, will you.’

‘The Super will be mighty relieved to hear that,’ said Wield after the DC had gone back into the caravan.

‘Yes. I must remember to tell him,’ said Pascoe, but not in a tone which suggested putting the Fat Man out of his misery was a high priority.

Oh dear, thought the sergeant. He’s really got it in for Andy at the moment. OK, so the fat sod has it coming to him, but the sooner these two get themselves sorted, the better it will be for all of us.

As he mused on how he might contribute to establishing peace in our time, Pascoe’s phone rang.

‘Talk of the devil,’ he said, glancing at it. ‘Hi, Andy. How’s it going?’

Friendly informal, or familiar impertinent? wondered Wield.

Then he saw Pascoe’s expression change as he listened, and he knew it didn’t matter which.

‘No, Andy, for God’s sake, wait for me to… Andy? Andy!’

He took the phone from his ear and said, ‘The bastard’s rung off.’

‘What did he say?’ demanded Wield.

‘He said he thinks he knows who killed Jones and attacked Novello, and the guy’s staying at the Keldale, and he’s on his way there now. He rang off before I could tell him to stay put till I whistled up an Armed Response Unit. You know what that means, Wieldy!’

‘He’s being John Wayne again,’ said the sergeant. ‘I’ll organize the ARU and look after things here. You’ll want to get back to the Keldale quick as you can, Pete.’

Sometimes you didn’t have the time to wait and let them speak for themselves.

‘Right, Wieldy. Thanks. I’ll keep you posted.’

He headed off towards his car, trying not to look in too much of a hurry in case that aroused the watching journalists’ interest.