Some by Fire (12 page)

‘That’s what we said,’ he reminded me. ‘When we found the chalk. How tall did he say she was?’

‘About five feet, five-two.’

‘Bloody ‘ell! We ought to be detectives.’

‘We are detectives.’

‘So Carter saw this punk bird mark the house and Duncan told his brother he was going out with someone with purple hair? It’s got to be the same one.’

‘I’d have thought so. When did punk start?’ I asked him.

‘Umm, about 1980?’ he suggested. ‘Bit before, maybe.’

‘Mid-seventies, according to the library. Their gazetteer says it “exploded” in 1976 and that’s the year the Sex Pistols released “Anarchy in the UK”.
Never Mind the Bollocks
was in ’77. There can’t have been too many of them around in ’75 ‘specially in the
provinces. Maybe she was before her time, like me. How do you fancy a day on the telephone?’

‘Er, I don’t,’ he replied glumly, anticipating what I had in mind.

‘But David,’ I began, ‘it’s essential work, which may lead to the apprehension of a vicious criminal. It’s not just the glamorous jobs, such as mine, that bring results. They also serve who sit in the office all day drinking vast quantities of machine coffee.’

‘Gimme t’list,’ he said, reaching for it.

If you go into any high street shop and buy something, a vacuum cleaner for example, the pimply assistant manager who takes your order will punch your name and postcode into his terminal and say: ‘Is that Mr Windsor of Buckingham Palace Road?’ and you say it is and your full name and address is printed on the invoice. Our system is nearly as good. If you have ever bought anything on credit, taken out a driving licence, voted in an election or owned a telephone, we have you on record. Or maybe you’ve joined a motoring organisation, a book club or the Mormons. Most of these sell each other volumes of names and addresses, and we’re on the circulation list. When we get really desperate we consult Somerset House. If you’ve been born, married or died they’ll know all about it. I gave Dave the three pages of names and addresses that Jeremy had sent me from the university.

‘These are Duncan Roberts’s classmates,’ I told him, ‘with their parents’ addresses. It might be easier to see if mum and dad still live in the same place and ask them. Otherwise…’

‘…otherwise, consult the oracle,’ Dave finished for me.

‘That’s it, sunshine. And these…’ I passed him another sheet, ‘…are names I extracted from the file yesterday. The three with the asterisks are the boyfriends of the women who died in the fire. Let’s not lose sight of the fact that one of them might have started it. And then there are the names on the report that Crosby gave us. It wouldn’t hurt to have a word with that lot. I’ll sort them out. If all else fails with the students, there’s a department at the university called the alumni relations’ office. Old boys’ club to you. They might be able to help.’ His hangdog expression gave me a pain in the left ventricle that I couldn’t ignore. I said: ‘You could, of course, give Annette a crash course in the system and leave her to it.’ Annette Brown was a DC who’d been with us for a fortnight and had already fallen under Nigel’s protective arm.

‘I was going to ask you,’ he replied, ‘but it’ll upset Goldenballs.’

‘He’ll recover. Anything else?’

‘No. Where will you be if I need you?’

‘Chemist’s, to start with.’

‘Chemist’s? What for?’

‘Something for bloody midge bites.’

It cost four quid and didn’t work, and now I smelt like an apothecary’s pinny. I came out of the toilets and went back upstairs to my office. Dave was busy on the phone, pencil poised over a half-filled page. I reread the list of Fox’s shady dealings that Crosby had given us and extracted any relevant names. If they were really on Fox’s payroll we’d need a jemmy to prise it from them, but it was worth a try. They’d be relaxed, not expecting a call from us. When they say they’ll only talk in front of a solicitor you know you’ve struck paydirt.

Dave knocked and came in. He sniffed and said: ‘Cor, have you been using fly spray? I’ve found a couple of locals, if you want to be getting on with it.’

‘Who are they?’ I asked, leaning back.

‘Terence John Alderdice read chemistry at Leeds Uni with Duncan Roberts. He lives in Leeds and will be home after about six, according to his wife. And, wait for it, Watson Pretty, who was the ex-boyfriend of Daphne Turnbull, Jasmine’s mother, now lives in Huddersfield, right on our doorstep. He’s out on licence after serving five years for the manslaughter of one of his subsequent girlfriends. They had a quarrel and she fell down the cellar steps and broke her neck. Oh, and she had a ten-year-old daughter.’

‘He sounds a right charmer,’ I said. ‘What do they see in them?’

Dave shrugged his shoulders. ‘Want me to see Alderdice tonight?’ he asked, but my phone rang before I could answer.

I listened, raising a finger to Dave to signify that this was interesting. ‘Grab your coat,’ I told him as I put the phone down and unhooked mine from behind the door.

‘What is it?’ he shouted after me as we ran down the stairs.

‘Halifax Central have just arrested someone for using Joe McLelland’s Visa card in Tesco. He’ll be in their cells by the time we get there.’

If my geometry was any good he wasn’t the one in the video. He had the build, but was only about five feet six. They brought him from the cell to an interview room and sat him down with his packet of fags before him. He was about twenty, wearing torn jeans and a T-shirt from the Pigeon Pie English Pub on Tenerife. They served Tetley’s bitter and Yorkshire puddings and I could hardly wait to go.

‘So where did you get the card?’ Sparky demanded. I’ve told him before about being too circumspect.

‘I found it.’

‘Where?’

‘In t’car park.’

‘Which car park?’

‘Tesco’s.’

‘When did you find it?’

‘Just then.’

‘Before you went shopping?’

‘Yeah.’

‘What were you doing in the car park?’

‘Goin’ shoppin’! What do you think I were doin’?’

‘You had no money on you.’

‘I’d left me wallet at ‘ome. I didn’t realise until I was in t’shop. I was goin’ to ‘and t’card in, but I’d filled me trolley by then and I din’t know what to do, so I used t’card.’ He whined his well-rehearsed story as if it were the most self-evident explanation in the world.

‘You fell to temptation,’ I said.

He swivelled to face me and jumped on my words as if they were a life raft. ‘That’s it! I fell to temptation!’

‘Does your weekly shop normally run to four bottles of Glenfiddich?’ Dave wondered.

‘We’s ‘aving a party,’ he replied, lamely.

‘And six hundred cigs?’

‘I’m a ‘eavy smoker.’

‘And two packs of fillet steak?’

‘You’ve gotta eat.’

Dave was silent for a few seconds, then he asked him if he had form. He had.

‘What for?’ Dave asked.

‘Thieving.’

‘Have you done time?’

‘Yeah.’

‘How was it?’

‘’Orrible. I’ated it.’

‘You could go back in for this.’

‘It was a mistake! ‘Onest! I din’t mean to use it, it just ‘appened. Things just ‘appen to me. Like ‘e said, I was tempted.’

I clunked my chair back on all four legs. ‘You made a good job of Mr McLelland’s signature,’ I said.

‘I just copied it.’

‘Whoever stole this card from Joe McLelland left him tied in his chair, and his wife, for ten hours,’ I told him. They are both elderly. It’s a miracle they were found. This was nearly a murder case. Now I’m prepared to believe that it wasn’t you who tied them up. I’m prepared to believe that someone sold you the card. That’s what I think, so if I’m right you’d better tell me a name, or we’ll just have to assume you took it off them yourself. What do you say?’

His elbows were on the table, his fingers interlocked and both thumb-nails between his teeth. He chewed away for nearly a minute, then looked straight at me
and said: ‘I found it. If I’m lying may my little lad be dead when I go ‘ome.’

It’s always someone else they want dead. ‘He might be,’ I replied. ‘Of old age.’

I pulled into the nick car park and suggested we have a fairly early night. Dave said: ‘I could do another window frame round at the mother-in-law’s, or I could cut the grass.’

‘You’re spoilt for choices,’ I commented.

‘Or…’ he began, ‘…or I could nip into Leeds after tea and talk to Mr Alderdice, former student at Leeds University and erstwhile friend of Duncan Roberts.’

‘Uh-uh,’ I said, shaking my head.

‘Why not?’

‘Because I don’t want your Shirley blaming me for you never being there.’

‘I can handle her. I’d like to find out about this punk bird, fast as poss. It’s niggling me.’

‘I know what you mean,’ I replied. ‘Fair enough, you see Alderdice and I’ll have a word with Mr Pretty. That’ll be two names fewer to investigate. Do you want to meet in a pub afterwards and compare notes?’

‘Er, no, if you don’t mind. I know I said I could handle her, but there are limits.’

When he’d driven away I locked the car and walked into the town centre and had a teatime special
in the Chinese restaurant. I enjoyed it, all by myself, with no one to entertain or worry about. Maybe this was my natural state, I thought.

But I didn’t really believe it. Back in the car I rang Jacquie and told her I was on my way to a meeting. We could grab a quick drink later, if she wanted. I moaned about my midge bites and she said: ‘Lavender oil.’

‘Lavender oil,’ I repeated. ‘What will that do?’

‘It’s aromatherapy. Lavender oil will cool you down and de-stress you, then you need aloe vera to soothe the damaged tissue. I’ll show you, when you come round.’

‘Ooh! I can hardly wait,’ I said.

Watson Pretty lived on the edge of Huddersfield town centre, not far from where I did my probationary training. Not much had changed. The main difference was that now both sides of every street were lined with cars; some worth much more than the houses they stood outside, some rusting wrecks standing on bricks, awaiting the invention of the wheel. The doctor’s surgery was in the same place, but with wire mesh over the windows, and the greengrocer’s was now a mini-market. I smiled at the memories and checked the street names.

He invited me in, speaking very softly, and told me to sit down. He was wearing pantaloons, a T-shirt
with a meaningless message emblazoned across it and modest dreadlocks. He must have been fifty, but was refusing to grow up. The room was overfurnished with stuffed cushions and frills, and primitive paintings of Caribbean scenes on the walls. At a guess, it had belonged to his mother. He was out on licence, so I knew he’d be no trouble. One word out of place and he could be back inside to serve the rest of his sentence. Well, that’s what we tell them.

‘I’m looking for a girl,’ I began. ‘A white girl with purple hair.’

‘I know no such girl,’ he replied.

‘How about back in 1975? Did you know her then?’

‘No, I not know her.’

‘You had a girlfriend called Daphne Turnbull.’

‘Yes.’

‘She died in a fire.’

‘Yes.’

‘And you didn’t know a girl with purple hair?’

‘Who is she, this girl?’

‘That’s what I’m trying to find out. You remember the fire?’

‘I hear about the fire, but I live in Halifax at the time.’

He was a founder member of the Campaign for Simplified English. The first rule is that you only speak in the present tense. ‘With Daphne?’ I asked.

‘We live together for a while, but she leave me.’

‘Why did she leave you?’

He shrugged and half-smiled. ‘Women?’

‘Was her daughter, Jasmine, yours?’

‘No.’

I’d read the interviews with him and knew he had a good alibi, but he could have hired someone to start the blaze. At the time he’d been my definite
number-one
suspect, although I’d never met him. Now I wanted to eliminate him, but I still wasn’t sure. I rarely have hunches and don’t trust my feelings about people. Evidence is what counts. I quizzed him about his relationship with Daphne and kept returning to the girl with purple hair, but he was adamant that he didn’t know her. Talking about the fire didn’t disturb him at all. It was just history to him.

I thanked him for his help and left. I’d parked at the top of his street and as I neared the car a woman came round the corner. There are some women you see and you think: Cor! She’s beautiful; and there are others who deprive you of even that simple ability. You gawp, slack-jawed, and realise you are flatlining, but don’t care, because this would be as good a time and place as any to drop down dead. Her hair shone like spun anthracite and she wore a white dress with buttons down the front. It was short, above her knees, and the seamstress had been very economical with the buttons. She turned to wait and a little girl with
braided hair and a matching dress followed her round the corner, gravely avoiding the cracks between the flagstones.

I mumbled something original and amusing, like: ‘Lovely morning,’ and was rewarded with a smile that kicked my cardiac system back into action. In the car I gazed at the digital clock and wondered if there was any hope for me. It was seven forty-three in the evening. I sat for a few seconds, deciding whether to go through the town centre or do a detour, and started the engine. Neither. I did a left down the street parallel to the one Pretty lived in and a left and another left at the bottom of the hill. I pulled across the road and parked.

The woman and her little girl were now coming down towards me. Mum was tiring of the slow progress so she took her daughter’s hand and led her for a while. They passed a few gateways then turned into one and mounted the steps. She knocked, the door opened almost immediately and mother and daughter disappeared inside. I stared at the door for a couple of minutes, long enough for a welcoming kiss and for her to settle in the easy chair I’d just left, and pointed the car homewards. Oh dear, I thought. Oh dear oh dear oh dear.

What would I do without Jacquie to come back to? She smiled and kissed me in a mirror-image of the scene
I’d imagined forty minutes earlier. We had coffee and shop-bought cake and talked about our days. One of her assistants was causing trouble and the rents in the mall were going up. I rambled meaninglessly about what went off behind closed doors, in this wicked world we lived in.