The Murder House (7 page)

‘His right-hand yob. Nice man: previous for every violent crime except murder.'

Oakley strongly suspected it was only a matter of time before that particular offence was added to Randal's repertoire.

By the end of July, Oakley's persistence in his investigation of the Westbury burglars had paid off, and one evening he and Evans sat together in the Mucky Duck, celebrating.

‘I still don't know how you guessed the Sanderson house was going to be their next hit,' said Evans, leaning comfortably back against the wall. He took a deep draught of bitter.

‘Because of holidays,' said Oakley, pulling a face at his warm lager. It was stuffy in the pub, and the open doors and windows served only to let the hot air inside. ‘Billy Yorke didn't wait for his
victims
to go away; he waited for the neighbours to go.'

‘I understand that now,' said Evans. ‘But I don't know how you saw it in the first place.'

‘It was obvious once one victim had remarked how odd it was that
he
was burgled, but his absent neighbours weren't. It's easy to take away mobile phones and lock a bedroom door to keep house-owners quiet, but impossible to stop the neighbours noticing something's amiss and phoning us.'

‘True. Yorke could control his victims, but obviously controlling nosy neighbours is more difficult. Clever.'

‘Who? Him? Or me for working it out?'

‘Both. And you predicted which house Yorke was going for next, because Sanderson's neighbours had been talking to him for weeks about visiting Mauritius.'

Oakley had puzzled long and hard over the common factor in the crimes. The burglars knew exactly what valuables were in each house – sometimes ungagging their victims in order to demand a particular item. The link
had
to be insurance, despite the victims having different companies.

Eventually he had found his connection: each insurance company employed the same photocopy repair service. This comprised an engineer who did the fixing, and a woman who made multiple copies afterwards, partly to ensure the machine was working properly, and partly as a service to help clients with the backlog that had built up while the copier was out of order.

The repairman was quickly exonerated, but the woman broke down and confessed to photocopying documents for an ex-boyfriend. Her description of him matched Yorke. Oakley had spotted the holiday connection at about the same time, so it had been a simple matter to visit a few potential victims to determine who had neighbours about to go away. The Sandersons were top of the resulting list.

He and his colleagues had spent the best part of a week waiting for Yorke to target the Sanderson house, and even then it had not been easy to snag their prey. The driver was vigilant, and sounded the alarm before the police could act. The gang ran, despite the jewellery and silverware that the police had persuaded the Sandersons to scatter around in an attempt to encourage the criminals to linger. Only one had been caught – a heavy called Keith McInnes – and he refused to give up his accomplices.

In the end, it was a partial fingerprint that had snared Yorke: one of his rubber gloves had split. Yorke vigorously denied the charges, but search warrants were issued and the case began to build. Oakley had arrested Yorke a few hours before and the man was currently on his way to prison, where he would be held until a magistrate determined whether he should be released on bail or remanded in custody until the trial. Oakley was confident bail would be refused, given the serious nature of the crimes and the fact that Emma Vinson was still in intensive care.

‘Yorke is a slippery bastard,' said Evans, wiping greasy fingers on his trousers and screwing up his crisp bag. ‘Did you see his house? He's got a swimming pool! I wish we could have nicked that smarmy brother of his, too – Michael. He might look and sound like he went to Eton, but he's a villain.'

‘Perhaps he did go to public school. Billy has more or less raised him – being twenty years his senior – and he could certainly afford to send his brother to the best of schools on the proceeds of his crimes. He learned from a master.'

‘You mean William Pullen, the corrupt architect?' asked Evans. ‘That was years ago.'

‘Fourteen or fifteen,' agreed Oakley. ‘It was a big case at the time, because of the scale of the fraud. They almost got away with it, too.'

‘We were lucky to catch McInnes though,' mused Evans, returning to the current case. ‘Even if we lose Yorke, the world will be a better place without McInnes on the streets. I only wish we'd got Dave Randal, too. I'm sure it was him who smacked the old lady. How is she, by the way?'

‘Not good,' said Oakley. ‘Why do you reckon Randal hit her? Why not McInnes?'

‘Randal's that kind,' said Evans. ‘Pity
his
glove didn't split.'

‘I'll settle for nabbing Yorke. Randal and the others won't stay out of trouble for long without him to look after them. We'll get them. Except Michael – we'd be lucky to catch
him
making a mistake.'

‘I can wait.' Evans' expression hardened. ‘What was the super going on about before we left? He seemed worried.'

‘Bail,' said Oakley. ‘By rights, Yorke shouldn't get it, but the word is that Paxton is representing him. The super thinks he's got something up his sleeve.'

‘Christ! Not again!'

‘He reckons Paxton only takes cases he's sure of winning, and thinks there might be a reason why he agreed to represent Yorke. He's afraid that Paxton's going to pull some stunt that'll see Yorke get bail.'

‘A Butterworth's Blunder,' mused Evans. Even though he hadn't known the DS, the affair had become a by-word for well-meaning but misguided actions.

‘I don't see how. Everything's been done by the book this time. No one at New Bridewell will pull a stunt like that again.'

Evans thought for a moment, then waved a dismissive hand. ‘Taylor's paranoid. Paxton's got nothing on us this time. He's got to lose a case sooner or later, and this will be it.'

‘I suppose,' said Oakley, although a vague sensation of unease had settled in his mind, and it was still with him when he bade Evans goodnight and drove home to his empty house.

It was evening, and I was sitting outside in a deckchair, enjoying one of those weak French beers that are so refreshing on a hot day. I'd started work at six that morning, and at quarter to two, just fifteen minutes before I was due to finish, Wright had sent me to deal with a juvenile shoplifter.

For once I didn't mind that this forced me to work three extra hours, as I was saving for a trip to Peru. Well, why not? If I didn't see the world soon, I was going to miss it. I was twenty-seven, and it was time I did something interesting.

I'd been in the job for more than five years, and it was obvious that I wasn't going to amount to much. I'd finally yielded to pressure from Superintendent Taylor and taken my sergeant's exams, although it didn't take a genius to see that he wanted my success to look good on his station's statistics, not because he thought I was any good. But, to be honest, the prospect of promotion filled me with dread. I'd started to look for other jobs, and had even applied to do postgraduate work at Newcastle. I'd been happy there, and although I wasn't naïve enough to think it would be the same if I went back, anything had to be better than being pushed around by Sergeant Wright.

When the phone rang I assumed it was my mother. It was half past eight, the sort of time she usually phoned. I went cold all over when I heard James' voice at the other end.

‘Hi, Helen,' he said breezily, as though the episode on the train had never happened.

‘What do you want?' Time had done nothing to blunt my anger towards him.

‘Actually, I wondered whether you'd pop over,' he said chirpily. ‘It would be nice to see you.'

‘What do you want?' I repeated icily.

‘Helen, Helen!' came his mocking voice. ‘What makes you think I want anything?'

I hung up.

When the phone rang again a few seconds later, I snatched it up and was about to tell him where to go when I heard my mother speaking. I flopped back in my deckchair and listened to her burbling about my brother's latest sporting success and my sister's newest baby. She talked for a good half hour, without needing much input from me, then rang off. I put down the phone, and answered it without thinking when it rang again seconds later.

‘Come over,' came James' voice crisply down the line. ‘I was going to do this nicely, but you're being a bitch so I won't. I've still got those photos I took of the Noble file. I heard there was quite a to-do over that. Fur and feathers all over the place. So get off your arse and come over.'

‘We had a deal. I'm not going anywhere.'

‘You'll do as I say unless you want your colleagues to know that you gave police files to a defence lawyer.' James' voice was frigid.

‘You can tell me what you want on the phone,' I said, frightened now. ‘I'm not going anywhere, especially your flat.'

‘Not my flat,' said James, his tone indicating that he would never again deign to have the likes of me setting foot inside its hallowed portals. ‘A friend's house – number nine, Orchard Street, not far from you. Be here in five minutes, or Oakley's going to get a package in the post that'll tell him that the officer he's been nurturing so tenderly is a viper in his nest.'

The phone went dead.

I knew Orchard Street well, as I walked past it most days on my way to work. He was right: it wasn't far.

But should I go there to meet him? Part of me wanted to finish my beer and read my book, just to show him that I wasn't afraid or intimidated. But the truth was that I was terrified. It wasn't just about the Noble file – it was more complex than that. I'd grown to like Oakley, and I didn't want him thinking badly of me. Nor did I want the issue of how James knew about Butterworth's Blunder opened up again.

I took a deep breath and tried to think rationally. I'd have to go, but I wasn't going to march blindly into a situation I didn't understand. For all I knew, Noble might be there, ready to exact revenge on the officer who'd arrested him – or to grin at the camera while James took snaps of us. I took my nightstick, and to protect myself against James' smartphone, I donned a hideous dark red spotted scarf that a friend had once given me for Christmas. I looked like a Russian peasant, but it hid my distinctive hair. I also wore a cheap, dark blue pack-away mac. It came well below my knees, nicely hiding my other clothes.

I walked briskly to Orchard Street, lest my courage failed and I'd arrive at work the following morning to find Oakley waiting with an envelope from Urvine and Brotherton and an expression of sad disbelief in his dark brown eyes. The area had once been respectable, then down at heel, and was now slowly becoming trendy again in the way of many inner cities – home now to teachers, nurses and managers. Much of it was comprised of Victorian terraces, but some, like Orchard Street, were post-war semis. I preferred the Victorian terraces, which had a certain antique charm with their carved lintels and bay windows. The semis were functional and without character, although still horrendously expensive to buy, given their proximity to the city centre.

I kept my head down when I reached the bottom of the road, then strode up it with exaggeratedly long steps, so that James would have problems persuading people it was me if he was recording my arrival. It was dark – well past nine – and the lighting had never been much good in that particular street, which suited me just fine. I felt slightly ridiculous, like someone in a spy film, but I was angry enough not to care. I realized I should have known that James would be back for more once he'd seen how easy it was to bludgeon me, and I was mad at myself for not anticipating him.

I found number nine, an uninspired semi with nasty black and white mock-gothic decoration. I wondered whether it was divided into flats, but there was only one doorbell, so I rang it, careful to keep my face in shadow. James answered almost at once, and I pushed past him into the hall while he closed the door, keen to be away from public view. He was wearing a suit and a white shirt, but he'd dispensed with his tie, probably because the house was stuffy and hot.

The place stank of strong cleaning fluids, and would have benefited from the windows being opened to air it out. James' hands were in his pockets and so, presumably, was his phone.

‘Nice outfit,' he remarked, eyeing the plastic mac and scarf.

‘Well?' I demanded. ‘What do you want?'

He indicated I was to enter the first room on the right, the lounge. It was sparsely furnished, with a sofa, a coffee table, two armchairs and an empty bookcase. The carpet was functional beige, and I decided it was a rented house. The mantelpiece was its only interesting feature – or rather, what was on the mantelpiece was interesting. A geologist or rock collector must have lived there at some point, because it featured all kinds of attractive or unusual stones. There were several of those purple-blue spiky things that they sell at the seaside, a huge fossil in the shape of a whelk, and a big chunk of something pale and chalky, probably Portland limestone. A football-sized ammonite graced the grate below.

‘It belongs to one of my clients,' explained James. ‘He lets it to visiting scholars at the university. I use it occasionally for distasteful meetings.'

So I was distasteful, was I? I watched him help himself to a drink from the bottle of Scotch that stood on the table, and shook my head when he offered some to me. Keeping my hands in my pockets, I started to wander around, pretending to be interested in the place, but in reality looking for signs that he was recording the meeting.

‘I've got an awkward case coming up,' he said, flopping on the sofa and stretching his legs in front of him. ‘I thought you might be able to help me, like you did last time.'