Murder on Page One (7 page)

‘Despite these concerts?’

Celine raised her head. There were tears in her eyes, which blazed with fury. ‘Denz and I were good friends, very good friends, but no more. There was never going to be anything romantic between us, Inspector, because I am a lesbian. L-E-S-B-I-A-N.’ Her voice raised with each letter she spelled out. ‘Put that in your filthy cigarette and smoke it,’ she added, glaring at the unlit fag hanging out of Osborne’s mouth.

Peters decided to intervene before things got worse. ‘Were you aware of anyone making threats to Mr Burke?’ he asked.

‘No,’ she said quietly.

‘Were you aware of anything at all unusual connected to Mr Burke over the last few weeks?’

She shook her head.

‘Did he have any enemies you knew of?’

‘No.’

Peters glanced at Osborne, who leaned back in his chair, looking steadily at Celine, the fag still unlit. He was smiling.

‘That’s all,’ Osborne said. He got up abruptly, grabbed the papers and strode out of the room.

Peters smiled apologetically at Celine. ‘Thank you,’ he said quietly.

* * *

‘Bracknell is where the lady of the handbag came from,’ Baggo remarked as Flick drove confidently through heavy traffic, heading west.

‘No. That was Grantham,’ Flick corrected.

‘I am not thinking of the great Lady Thatcher, Sarge. I am referring to Lady Bracknell, the Oscar Wilde character. “In a handbag?”’ He put on a passable imitation of a grand Englishwoman with a deep voice.

‘I always thought she was a bit of a caricature,’ Flick replied.

‘Perhaps, but great fun. I saw The Importance of Being Earnest in Mumbai, you know. I was only thirteen, and missed a lot of the jokes, but I laughed myself silly over Lady Bracknell.’

‘We can expect Ralf Wallace to be in a wheelchair,’ Flick said thoughtfully, a few miles further on.

‘In a wheelchair?’ Baggo did his Lady Bracknell voice again.

‘Grow up, Chandavarkar,’ Flick snapped. Instantly, she regretted it. She turned on the radio to restore normality. Her bad mood had carried on over the weekend and was down to two men: Osborne’s unfunny jibes had got to her, and Tom was an idiot to have said what he had on her phone.

Twenty minutes later, speeding along the M3, Flick asked, ‘Do you have Wallace’s Debut Dagger entry there?’

‘Yes, Sarge.’

‘Have I seen it?’

Roughly half the entries had been in e-form. While Flick had dealt with those in hard copy, Baggo had read the ones on his computer, printing any worth a second look. He rummaged in his briefcase and produced a sheaf of paper.

‘No. I printed it this morning. A decorated hero of the first Iraq War, who is also a lay preacher, is blown up on Armistice Sunday. He was preaching a sermon in the local church. The suspects include a disabled ex-serviceman who gets about using a wheelchair and crutches, and the widow of a soldier. Both soldiers were under the dead man’s command. During one incident, they got hit while the dead man, an officer but no gentleman, finished up with a medal. Another soldier was court-martialled, and he appears in the story, too. There are other suspects, of course, but the killer is … guess, Sarge?’

‘The soldier’s widow?’

‘All three. The detective is a nice lady who rumbles them but is quite happy not to be able to prove anything.’

‘I’m finding that one story runs into another, but that’s memorable.’

‘Agatha Christie made a lot out of that basic plot, but Mr Wallace tells you everything at the start. I anticipated the end from reading the first chapter.’

A mile further down the road, Flick said, ‘I’m sorry I was short with you earlier … Baggo.’

‘Don’t worry, Sarge. I sometimes think it is more difficult for you than it is for me.’

They found Wallace’s address without difficulty. 12 Hope Crescent was a drab block of flats in a poor area of town. On the brick wall bounding the car park on three sides, a graffiti artist had described ‘the pigs’ as ‘wankers’. The sexual preferences of someone called Vondo were illustrated by a crude but unmistakable drawing. Flick parked so the car remained in plain view. The smashed windows and missing wheels of a red Fiat showed what might happen if you parked in a corner beside the overflowing bins. Flick was glad they had one of the pool cars.

A peed-in lift took them to the second floor. They exchanged glances then rang the bell of Wallace’s flat.

Baggo’s finger was poised over the button to ring again. Flick shook her head. ‘Remember he’s disabled,’ she mouthed. A minute later, the letter flap lifted.

‘Is that Tesco?’ a male voice asked.

‘No. Is that Mr Wallace? We are police, Sergeant Fortune and DC Chandavarkar.’ Flick replied, bringing out her warrant.

‘About time, too,’ the voice said. The door opened until a chain stopped it. At letter-box height, a face peered out. The officers heard a snort then the door opened fully. A pale-faced man of about thirty glowered at them from his wheelchair. He wore a thick pullover and smart corduroy trousers. ‘Close the door behind you,’ he said, executing a deft turn and leading the way into a room to the left of the hallway.

The fresh, antiseptic smell of the flat suggested that it had recently been cleaned. Sunlight streamed through the living room window. The top few inches were grimy but the glass lower down was polished. By the window, a table held a computer, monitor, keypad and paper, two piles of A4, side by side. The typescript on the top sheet was scored by pencil markings. A waist-high bookcase occupied one wall. The books were precisely arranged by height, their spines forming a straight line like guards on parade. One shelf held nothing but carefully arranged items: a blue badge and timecard, a bunch of keys, a box of pens and pencils, an old-fashioned Nokia mobile phone and some notebooks. Two wooden chairs, placed together, occupied the corner diagonally opposite the TV. Everything in that room had its place; nothing that was useful was stored above waist height. There were a number of photographs, framed and hanging on the walls. One showed a football team, Bracknell Town FC; another showed a group of soldiers, posing somewhere hot and dry. Above the computer monitor was a photograph of a group of three. In the centre, a smiling young man in formal military uniform, a sergeant’s stripes on his arm, stood proud and strong. He was flanked by his parents, both a head shorter than their son, and not smiling as happily. Ralf Wallace had known better days.

He wheeled himself to the window and turned. The officers stood in the middle of the room, squinting into the sun.

‘…and when I tell them off, they give me damned cheek.’ Wallace continued the diatribe against local youths he had begun as soon as the detectives entered.

‘Mr Wallace, we’re not here about that,’ Flick said firmly.

‘Well, when will you police start doing your job?’

‘We are inquiring into a series of murders.’

‘Murders?’

‘Yes. In the last two months, three literary agents have been killed. They all had a connection with you.’

‘Go on.’

‘Do you ever go up to London, sir?’ As Flick asked the questions, Baggo took notes.

‘From time to time. Am I a suspect?’ Wallace’s voice was cold and matter-of-fact.

‘We are at the stage of making general inquiries, sir. And no, you are not a suspect. We are trying to eliminate people from our inquiries. When you do go to London, how do you travel?’

Wallace raised his eyebrows. ‘By car. I have a specially adapted one. It’s in a garage under the building. If I left it in the car park, it would be gone in five minutes. Do you want to check it for blood or body parts?’

‘That won’t be necessary, sir. Do you drive it yourself?’

‘Yes.’

‘How do you get in and out?’

‘I use arm crutches.’

‘Do you live alone?’

‘Yes. I get help.’

‘Can you help by telling us where you were last Friday evening?’

‘I was here.’

‘Can anyone confirm that?’

‘No.’

‘What about the evening of Monday eighteenth January?’

‘I’ve no idea. Are you sure I’m not a suspect? Why are you asking these questions?’ His voice became louder.

‘To eliminate you. Did you accuse Lorraine McNeill of discriminating against disabled people during a phone call?’

Wallace’s hands twitched on the wheels of his chair. ‘So it’s blame the spazzy, is it? I give a stuck-up cow a piece of my mind and I become the prime suspect.’ Breathing deeply, he rocked his chair in rage. ‘What the hell is wrong with this country? We get sent out to Iraq without proper boots or body armour, or even bloody bullets. At Az Zubayr, the Shi’ites ambush me, then yobs who need a good thrashing make life hell for decent people here in Bracknell. I want out of this hovel, so I write a book. I tell it like it is and some posh London cow says it didn’t start with enough narrative drive, whatever the fuck that is. When she gets topped, you lot come to me with your questions and don’t bother your arses about the yobs. Well, fuck off. Fuck off. Now!’ The last word would have carried across a parade ground.

Baggo dropped his notebook. He bent to pick it up, watching out of the corner of his eye in case Wallace should run his chair at him.

Flick tried a counter-attack. ‘It was Ms McNeill’s receptionist you gave grief to. Like it was Ms Stanhope’s assistant you were rude to. Don’t speak to us as if we were new recruits you can bully. Sir.’ She held her ground in the middle of the floor and tried not to look into the sun. ‘So, can you tell us your whereabouts on the evening of Monday seventh December?’

Wallace said nothing. His face was now red. A tic beside his left eye made him appear to be winking.

‘And you did not much care for Mr Denzil Burke,’ Baggo suggested.

‘Not a man of his word. Is he dead too?’

‘He is.’

Wallace shrugged. ‘I thought I told you to fuck off.’ He wheeled himself towards the door, forcing the officers to move. Baggo nearly tripped over his briefcase, which he had set down on the floor beside him. He looked towards Flick, who gave a nod.

‘Thank you for your time. We can see ourselves out. Sir.’ Flick’s tone was icy.

‘I do hope your car’s all right,’ Wallace replied, then watched as they closed the door behind them.

Leaving the block of flats, they noticed four hoodies sitting on a wall, swinging their legs, watching. A Tesco van drove in and parked. The driver and his mate both eyed the youths apprehensively.

On the open road, Baggo said, ‘I should feel sorry for him, but I don’t.’

‘But he’s not our murderer,’ Flick replied. ‘He will probably be strong in his upper body, but he’s too weak in his legs to have killed three able-bodied people.’

‘He is lethally trained, Sarge. And when I dropped my notebook, I could not help noticing that the soles of his shoes are worn.’

‘Oh really?’ Flick said. ‘Interesting.’

* * *

‘When are you going to arrest someone, Osborne?’ Everything about Chief Superintendent James Cumberland, known throughout the Met as ‘Jumbo’, was big. Except his voice, which was high and squeaky.

Osborne shifted in his chair. He and Palfrey had been summoned to Scotland Yard to report on the literary agent murders, and there was little to say.

‘It’s a challenging inquiry, sir,’ Palfrey said.

At least she backed me up here, Osborne thought.

‘More challenging for some than for others,’ Cumberland snorted. Apart from being physically intimidating, he did not hide his dislike of Osborne.

‘It’s not an easy case to crack, and that’s assuming we have only one killer,’ Osborne said. ‘But good, old-fashioned police work will get us there in the end.’

‘The press have started to give us a hard time.’

‘I can’t help that.’

‘Do you have any leads?’

‘We’re following up one this afternoon, but it’s too early to say how it’ll go.’

‘There’s just this literary agent angle, isn’t there?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Nothing that could be sensitive, like race or religion?’

Osborne suppressed a groan. Jumbo was the Met’s High Priest of political correctness. ‘No. If there is, I can’t see it.’

‘I’m keeping a very close eye on that aspect,’ Palfrey interjected.

Cumberland looked thoughtful. ‘Who’s on your team?’

Osborne said, ‘There’s Sergeant Fortune …’

‘She’s very sound. An English graduate,’ Palfrey interjected.

Osborne carried on, ‘Then there’s the DCs, Peters, Bag … Chandakarvup. And uniform, of course.’

The Chief Superintendent’s eyebrows shot up his pallid, dome-like forehead.

‘You mean Chandavarkar,’ Palfrey hissed.

‘Oh, sorry, ma’am. He likes everyone to call him Baggo, though.’

Cumberland sighed. ‘So you say. At least it sounds like a well-balanced team. But I expect results, Osborne. Before someone else gets killed. And before either of you asks, I don’t have the resources to give you any more detectives.’