To Make a Killing (10 page)

Chapter 11

Sunday, 20th September, afternoon

Jenkins had received the call from Angus in the late morning, and by lunchtime she had the shop owner, a Mr. Adrian Foster, going through the folders with mug shots. She was crossing her fingers that he would not point out any one, as she was sure the killer was a newcomer.

First folder, fourth page, “That’s him!” said Foster.

“Are you sure?”

“Look at him! There can’t be many people who look like that?” answered Foster.

Jenkins looked. It was Lenny Waltham. She could see what he meant: Waltham’s left ear was bigger than his right, but his right eyebrow was somehow half an inch higher than the left. The bent nose confirmed that she was looking at an ex-boxer. She had heard of him; Connolly had picked him up for questioning less than 6 months ago.

“I should have known it. He went straight for the most expensive item we have, the 42-inch flat screen. No questions. He couldn’t get out again fast enough.”

“I think, sir, he was probably aware of the fact that your shop does not run credit cards through an electronic check.”

“That’s as maybe. When am I going to get my set back?”

“I’m going to put out an order for his arrest immediately, Mr. Foster, and we’ll let you know as soon as we have anything for you. Thank you, for your trouble” Jenkins led him out.

Jenkins called up Connolly and Hassan and about three hours later, they led a hand-cuffed Waltham into the interview room.

“It’s a sorry state of affairs when a man can’t even fly his pidgins in peace” complained Waltham as he slumped onto the wooden chair.

Connolly unlocked the cuffs and replied “We’re not going to be discussing the technicalities of illegal gambling today, Lenny. Empty your pockets on the table.”

The deflated suspect did as he was told. Hassan delved into Waltham’s wallet with gloved hands and removed two credit cards, while Jenkins looked through the remaining items. He read aloud the name on both the cards, “Brett Russell. Have you been looking after these for your friend Brett, Lenny?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“He liked his TV set, did he?”

“Yeah, it’s a good’n.”

“The Brett Russell who owns these cards was murdered in Kensington last Tuesday evening” Waltham looked up in horror, “Where were you last Tuesday evening, Lenny?”

Neither Hassan, Connolly or Jenkins were of the opinion that Waltham was the murderer or even an accomplice, but they knew they would get the truth out of him faster, if he thought he was in serious trouble.

“Nah, nah, I didn’t even know the fella . . .”

“But you have met him?” suggested Jenkins

“Nah, nah, you got it all wrong . . .”

“Knocking off tourists is not your usual game, Lenny” provoked Connolly

“Leave it aht, will ya’. I didn’t knock him off. I just found the stuff, didn’t I”

“Lenny we’ve got a dead man and you in possession of his credit cards – and his ring; it’s time to cough up” said Jenkins

“Alright, alright. I found the stuff in a plastic bag.”

“Go on.”

“I was down on the
Chelsea embankment and I saw this plastic bag’d washed up. Looked funny, cos it ‘ad a knot in it. So I opened it up and there was this wallet inside, ‘n’ a ring, ‘n’ a passport, a stone and some keys. I reckoned someone ‘ad tossed it in finkin’ it’d sink, but it came back up cos a the air trapped inside like. Well, there were two cards in the wallet and I took ‘em out. Weren’t anyfing else a value in it, so I took the cards and the ring and I put the rest back in the bag and threw it in the river again. I knew it would sink this time cos a the ‘ole in it.”

“Describe the plastic bag”

“Just yer average black plastic bag, y’know for rubbish.”

Jenkins, Connolly and Hassan looked at each other, and they knew full well he was telling the truth. They could conceivably drag the Thames, but what would be the point? Fingerprints would be out of the question and there was apparently nothing that they could use to trace back to the killer. And not in their wildest dreams could they see Lenny injecting an exotic poison into someone’s tongue – he would probably miss and inject himself in the effort. And Lenny as an accomplice? This professional killer would not leave such loose ends. Not making sure the bag didn’t sink was perhaps as careless as they could expect him to be.

They would of course go by the book and take the prints off both cards and Russell’s ring, but they knew it was futile.

Connolly and Hassan concluded the interview and the arrest of Waltham. It was a decidedly dejected and sheepish Jenkins that had drawn the short straw to make the call to Keane.

*********

Keane’s lunch at Château Plencque had been unforgettable. The cheeses were exquisite, the red peppers and radishes a perfect compliment, the fresh bread tasted strong and natural and the wine was a chapter for itself. Yet the crowning glory was probably the thrill of enjoying this repast at the very location of the wine’s origin, whilst witnessing the birth of future wines. Keane could not resist paying a visit to the cellars before he left, to make sure he had a memento with him.

He had left around two o’clock, and the first call from Jenkins came at around four o’clock, as he was passing through the Cognac district. Somehow it didn’t disappoint him. He simply hadn’t let the original news get his hopes up. In a strange way he felt vindicated that his trip to Bordeaux had been more fruitful than the sudden rise and fall of an otherwise clear cut link to the murderer.

The second call (from Angus) came a couple of hours later, as he approached the Loire district. Angus had received the results from the phone company’s records. It turned out that no calls had been made from Marie Passant’s flat while she was staying there, and the handful of calls that came in were from Omar Khater or calls mistakenly made by acquaintances of the previous tenant. It was another dead end. So Angus decided to cheer up Keane with detailed highlights from his round of golf.

All this meant that Keane could once again focus on his own discoveries: The murderer had previously attempted to woo (for want of a better word) the owner of a famous French château. In fact not just any château, he had apparently selected Château Plencque. Why? And why did he first woo her, then murder her? Was it in order to murder her that he approached her? Had he been hired by a rival château? Keane decided to reign in his fantasy – these ideas were beginning to sound too much like Hayes’ ideas. No, his guess was that this man was working on his own, and his plan had turned sour. But what was his plan? It would have had to bring about a lucrative conclusion for him in some way. Was he just a common blackmailer? If he was, how could that tie in with Russell’s murder?

And so he continued to speculate all the way to Paris and Elaine’s flat. It frustrated him immensely that the nearest parking space was never less than 200 yards from her doorstep; all the more so in this case, where he had so much to deliver to her.

At least he didn’t have to wait out on the street for Elaine to buzz him in; the door to the street was never locked. He made his way up the stairs to the first floor, which of course in France was referred to as the second floor; ‘c’est logique’!

“Daddy, it’s you!” shouted Elaine as she answered his knocking and opened the door. She seemed very surprised to see him. “Mummy called to say you were coming, but I thought you would be here earlier. I thought you’d given it a miss”.

“Of course not, dear. Can I come in and put this down?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, come in.”

He placed his deliveries on the dining table and gave her a hug. “How are you, dear?”

“Oh, I’m fine” came the prompt response.

Keane looked around, “Is Linda here?”

“No, she’s visiting her parents this weekend.”

“She’s travelling light I see” said Keane looking over at the luggage on the floor in the corner of the room. “You should take a leaf out of her book: come home occasionally and put your mother’s worries to rest.” Keane smiled warmly to his daughter. She smiled back, but seemed somewhat distracted.

“That’s typical of Linda; I’ve been getting on at her to empty those cases ever since we moved in.”

“Look Elaine, I would love to stay longer, but I’m sure you’ve got lectures to prepare for, and I’ve got an early start tomorrow and there’s still a few hours driving ahead of me.”

“I understand, Daddy.”

“As soon as this case is over we’ll come and stay for a few days and take you out to all those restaurants and museums you keep telling us you can’t afford to go to.” He moved over to the doorway.

She came over and gave him a long, tight hug. “Bye, Daddy. Kiss Mummy from me, and tell her thanks for the Red Cross package.” she looked as if she was suppressing a tear or two. Perhaps Jenny was right. Perhaps Elaine was finding it hard to live away from home for the first time, but just wouldn’t admit it.

“I’m going to have a word with, Robbie. He’s been neglecting you, and I’ll tell him in no uncertain terms how many suitors I had to fight off just to get into your flat!”

“Oh, Daddy!” she smiled and gave him a friendly push out of the door, “Drive carefully!”

“Bye, dear” he smiled and waved going down the stairs. On the way back to the car it was his turn to get tears in his eyes.

Chapter 12

Monday, 21st September, early morning BST

Knowing that his flight would be arriving in Adelaide shortly before midnight local time, Hayes had optimistically hoped to stay awake throughout the 23-hour flight. He’d done well until 14 hours into the flight, when he gave in and asked a stewardess to wake him after 3 hours. This she did, but he fell asleep again minutes later and slept another 4 hours. So by the time he arrived at his hotel, he was wide awake and cursing his feeble will power. Even watching old episodes of “Skippy” at 3 in the morning didn’t help. He decided to try and pick up some choice Australian expressions from the TV, and ‘bored shitless’ was the first he noted. Finally he managed to nap for a couple of hours.

He arose to a beautiful Australian spring morning. He left the hotel in good time after ‘brekkie’, but the Monday morning traffic was not as bad as he had anticipated, and the taxi delivered him at Penrith Winery a good hour before his scheduled meeting with Trevor Williams. So he took the opportunity to wander around the areas that were accessible to the general public and get an impression of the winery.

At 10 o’clock precisely, Hayes was led into Trevor Williams’ office. It didn’t help Hayes’ enquiries that Williams was the spitting image of the Kevin Kline’s character “Rod McCain” in the film “Fierce Beasts”. Williams was in his late 50’s, 6 foot tall, heavily built, greying hair brushed back and held in place with grease. He had thick, square glasses, grey steely eyes, and a thick moustache. He was wearing an untidy, dark grey suit with a dark red tie.

“G’day!” welcomed Williams with aggressive, unequivocal gestures, as he leant over his desk to shake Hayes hand.

“G’day” replied Hayes very uneasily. Being an amateur actor he loved to mimic people’s voices and mannerisms, but he knew had to stay in character for this interview. “I’ll get straight to the point, Mr. Williams. We think Mr. Randolph, and the fact that he has disappeared, are somehow tied up with the murder of Mr. Russell.”

“I see.”

“Could you tell me anything about their relationship?”

“Well they weren’t poofters for starters. Couple a’ root rats they were. Single, the lucky bastards. They were good buds. It was Mickey who got Brent in here. Good thing, too. Brent did a good job for us. Still, washed-up cricketers are ten-a-dozen down here. It’s gonna be a tougher job replacing Mickey, if he don’t come back.”

“What exactly was Mr. Randolph’s job?”

“He was a genius, that’s what his job was. Bloody genius. He could make good wine out of bad wine; table wine into fortified wine; wine into whisky!”

“But what did he actually do? What was he responsible for?”

“Mickey was in charge of the research team that makes our new wines, and he’s made us some real beauts over the years, I’ll tell ya’.”

“Can you tell me what he was working on when he disappeared?”

“No idea. You’d better talk to Shirley” Williams buzzed his secretary and summoned ‘Shirley’.

“Er, there was one final thing” rushed Hayes, realizing that his interview was coming to an abrupt end. He took out his evidence. “We found a part of a wine bottle capsule in connection with our investigations, and we are trying to find which wine it comes from.”

Williams grabbed the plastic bag out of Hayes’ hands. “Good bloody luck, mate!” he laughed

“Would it be possible to look at the wines you produce here?”

“Talk to Shirley about it, and let me know if you find out anything about Mickey” concluded Williams, shaking Hayes’ hand with one hand, and showing him where the door was with the other.

Once outside the office, Hayes took a seat and waited five minutes for ‘Shirley’ to arrive.

“G’day. I’m Shirley Callaghan. I’m sorry, but I’ve no idea who you are, or why I’m talking to you.” she laughed. Hayes loved Australian frankness; he even had to laugh at the bum’s rush he had got from Williams’ office.

Hayes guessed that Shirley Callaghan was in her late twenties. She had thick, fair, shoulder- length hair parted in the middle. He felt instantly attracted to her: the pretty, blue eyes, behind the glasses with thin blue metal rims, her healthy complexion, the small nose and full lips. It had to be her naturally bubbly and frank nature that had made an impact on him, because she was certainly not going to win any beauty pageants wearing that white lab jacket, jeans and comfortable, but sloppy low-heeled shoes.

“I’m Detective Sergeant Hayes from Scotland Yard . . .”

“Strewth, that’s bloody marvellous!” squealed Shirley. This was not the response Hayes was used to.

“I’m investigating the murder of Brent Russell . . .”

“Oh, yes” her delight turned to an appropriate sadness.

“In that connection we are trying to find out more about his friend, a Mr. Mickey Randolph. Mr. Williams said you would be able to tell me what projects Mr. Randolph was working on when he disappeared, and also that you could direct me to your cellars, where I can try to find a match for this” he held up the bag with the evidence.

She looked at the bag and thought for a moment. “Right. Listen. I was actually in the middle of something when the ‘figjam’ rang. Now I’m not blowing you off or anything, but if I take you to the cellars, you’re gonna need at least an hour trying to find a match. That’ll give me time to finish my stuff, and then I’ll show you what Mickey was working on. Does that sound alright?”

“Yeah, that’s fine” smiled Hayes. She led him off towards the cellars. “Does Mr. Williams like fig jam?” wondered a mystified Hayes

She laughed. “I’ll tell you about it later”.

When they got there, Hayes was aghast to see the size of his task. “Do you have a torch and an extra set of batteries?” he asked.

“You’ll find loads of torches and batteries over in the corner, there” she pointed “I’ll come and see how you are doing in an hour” and with that she left Hayes alone with over a million bottles of wine.

Fortunately for Hayes the number of different wines was nowhere near a million, and he had easy access to the majority of them. Still, there was no way of telling how large any given batch was; some were even negligible and clearly the remnants of a once larger production.

By the time Shirley came back he had more or less completed his fruitless search.

She sympathized with him and took him over to a different part of the plant. On the way he asked her how well she knew Randolph and Russell, “I stayed well clear of them – they were always cracking on to me, the perves” She changed the subject as they approached the new building.

“Basically you should think of this place as a kitchen with a freezer,“ said Shirley as they stepped into the research section. “Each crop of grapes from each vintage has its own peculiarities and it’s our job to work out which ingredients are going to work together. Of course the ‘baking’ can take several years. We also play God a bit; we tamper with acidity levels in the soil, and before long we’ll be manipulating the genes of the vines. That’s our ‘freezer’ down there” she pointed to what looked like the entrance to another wine cellar. “That’s where you’ll find the results of Mickey’s projects. I can show you some of his work notes, but it’ll probably all be double-dutch to you. No offence.”

Hayes looked at the notes briefly and confirmed her opinion. He wished he could ask just one educated question, but he was way out of his depth. He paused and tried to step back – mentally – for a moment, trying to scan the whole case for any detail that could be brought to bear in this location that was probably at the root of the mystery. “Russell made a comment to another passenger on his flight to London”, he checked his notes, “Quote: he was going to introduce a new wine which his vineyard had made, and he was excited about it because he thought they’d make a killing, unquote. That would have to be a wine that had finished ‘baking’ right?”

“Yeah, it would, but it wouldn’t be one of those wines” she replied, looking towards the cellar.

“Why not?”

“Because we never export experimental wines. We test them on the home market, and if they’re a success we put them into production.

Knowing Keane was a stickler for thoroughness, Hayes was obliged to ask, “Can I have a look at those wines, anyway? I need to be able to count them out – for my report, you see.”

“No worries. Give us a cop at that plastic bit again and I’ll help you check them.”

They set about the task and after just one minute, Shirley called Hayes over, “Here ya go”. She pulled out a bottle and gave it to Hayes. He took it back out of the cellar where the light was better, and held up his plastic scrap alongside the top of the bottle’s capsule. It was a match.

“Well, I’ll be . . . stuffed” said Hayes “What is this wine?”

“Let me just check this tag.” she held the tag up against a list on her notepad. “It’s a blend of Cab Sav, Merlot and Cab Franc, like a claret.”

“Why is there no label on it?”

“Well, first we have to see if it’s popular and then the marketing fellas come up with a good name for it, and then we make the labels.”

“Could there be other wines with this same capsule?”

“In theory yes, but in practice no, because Penrith like to market their wines as being individual, if not unique.

“Can I take three of these as evidence?”

“You’ll have to clear that with Mr. Williams”

Hayes thanked Shirley and gave her his card and details of his hotel, in case she should recall anything important. She helped him find his way back to Williams’ office and left him with a new word: Hooroo (goodbye).

He had to sign some papers for Williams, but otherwise there were ‘no worries’. The next step was to find out more about
Randolph, so he took a taxi back to the police station in the city.

Hayes spoke to a number of officers at the station as no one person in particular seemed to be in charge of Randolph’s case. In fact, Hayes got the clear impression that no-one considered there was a case. Randolph had just “gone walkabout”, probably “to get away for some Sheila he’d knocked up”. Either that or he’d “skipped the country for some spiffy job abroad”. A man like Randolph would be in demand all over the world. It was plain to see: no signs of violence at his house, passport gone and car missing, too. He’d just done a runner.

So the Australian police were very laid-back about it, so much so that they gave him directions and the key to Randolph’s house, and said he could go and have a good “fossick” himself. That might well have been a personal insult that he wasn’t supposed to get, but he didn’t care; he’d got what he came for.

He took another cab ride and on the way stopped off for a bite to eat. By the time he arrived at the lonely house it was 4 o’clock in the afternoon and the meal, the heat and the lack of sleep were getting to him. He’d been dozing on the back seat of the cab, and he felt downright groggy as he paid the taxi driver, and asked him to come back and pick him up again around 9 o’ clock that evening.

There was something very eerie about stepping into a complete stranger’s house, in a country on the other side of the world, and not knowing if that person was alive or dead, or worse still: at home and dead! He looked immediately for any heavy object he could swing at anyone that might try to attack him. Embarrassingly all he could find was a rolling pin. He stalked cautiously around the single storey house, ready to ‘flatten’ any ‘nerdologist’ that might jump out at him.

He checked the garage and the shed to be quite sure. If anyone was hiding in the house and waiting to get him, they were either invisible or so small that he fancied his chances should it come to the crunch.

He sat down on the sofa and began to relax. It was quite a neat place. He could just imagine . . . Hayes’ head fell back on the cushion, and he was out like a light. The fatigue finally overwhelmed him.

He woke with a start 2½ hours later. It was noticeably darker (almost dusk) and he was quite disoriented at first. Then he remembered where he was and immediately looked for a light switch. With the light on he made his way to the bathroom and turned on the tap to splash his face. A most evil-smelling thick brown liquid forced itself out of the tap. He stepped back in disgust. Well, at least that had done the trick: he was awake now! And thirsty! In the kitchen he found the fridge was still working, and there were a couple of cans of beer. He took one and drank straight from it. It was invigorating, just what he needed. But what time was it? It was 7 o’clock. Shit, thought Hayes. Keane would be arriving at work right about now and expecting his report.