‘And he didn’t want to be tried for murder,’ Ariadne added.
Eileen nodded. Geraldine’s theory made sense, but they couldn’t be certain of anything until they found the man who had been with Pansy before she died.
‘If only we had a match for the DNA found under her nails,’ Eileen sighed.
‘All we need to do is test the DNA of every brown haired man in York,’ Ariadne muttered.
‘At least we know he lived in York,’ a constable pointed out. ‘He must do, if he took her home.’
‘He could have taken her to a hotel,’ Matthew said.
Geraldine shook her head. ‘It would be more difficult to remove a dead body from a hotel than from a private house.’
‘He might have followed her into a public toilet,’ Ariadne suggested.
‘Let’s not waste time speculating about the many places the encounter might have taken place,’ Eileen snapped. ‘We need more information.’
She instructed Matthew to organise a team to contact hotels and B & Bs in case Pansy had been taken there instead of to a private home. At the same time CCTV from Saturday night was being checked, to see if anyone had stopped a vehicle near the clearing where Pansy’s body had been abandoned.
‘You’ve got to admit this is a waste of time,’ Ariadne grumbled as she and Geraldine were given lists of guest houses to visit. ‘No one could move a dead body from a B & B without being spotted. No one. Even moving it from a private house without being seen would be tricky. And now we have to go round every little guest house in York, asking the same questions. Why did I ever think police work would be exciting?’
‘It’s necessary though.’ Geraldine replied, smiling. ‘Someone’s got to do it.’
‘You sound like you actually enjoy traipsing around, asking questions of people who obviously won’t have anything useful to say. Honestly, you take the most pointless task seriously.’
‘I guess I just enjoy my work,’ Geraldine replied.
‘We all do, but that doesn’t mean we have to like every boring minute of it. I bet you were enthusiastic about all your lessons at school. Your teachers must have loved you.’
‘Any seemingly useless piece of information might prove invaluable,’ Geraldine began.
‘Oh, spare me the pep talk, for Christ’s sake.’
As she drove to Bootham, Geraldine thought about Ariadne’s jibe. It was true, Geraldine was conscientious over the most apparently tedious aspects of her job, but any particular line of enquiry might prove unexpectedly worthwhile. A seemingly trivial question put to an unlikely source had sometimes thrown up a lead resulting in an arrest. She wasn’t ashamed to admit that she loved her job. She knew that Ariadne did too, and wondered what had happened to upset her friend. Usually cheerful and good-natured, lately Ariadne had become quite crabby. Geraldine had been too engrossed in her own problems with Ian to pay much attention to anyone else. She resolved to question her friend at the first opportunity, and find out what was troubling her.
They spent the day with the team visiting bed and breakfast premises along Bootham. Wherever she went, Geraldine heard the same response.
‘Did a couple stay here for just one night? I don’t think so. When did you say? Let me check the book.’
So far no one had a record of a one-night booking on the Friday night Pansy was murdered, but the enquiry continued rigorously.
‘If he killed her in his own house, we’re going to struggle to find the place without a match for the suspect’s DNA,’ Ariadne said to Geraldine when they met up in the canteen later that day.
‘We just have to keep looking,’ Geraldine replied. ‘Sooner or later something will turn up. Ariadne, you seem a bit down lately. Are you all right?’
Ariadne shrugged. ‘It’s just this place,’ she said. ‘This work. It gets to me sometimes. I mean, I know we do a good job and all that. And I know someone has to get out there and do it. I don’t need to be reminded that we’re the ones who are holding back the tide of violence, and that without our protection society would descend into chaos, and so on. I know all that and I know it’s all true and most of the time it’s enough. But sometimes it just isn’t.’ She sighed. ‘I mean, I can’t help wondering, is this all there is? It might be enough for you, but…’ She broke off with a shrug. ‘Nico thinks I should pack it in, find another job. He’s always on at me about it. He says he doesn’t like the idea of me working with dead bodies.’
‘That’s no way to talk about your colleagues,’ Geraldine said.
Ariadne laughed, but she quickly grew serious again. ‘Nico doesn’t understand. Do you think someone who doesn’t work for the police could ever understand why we do it? What it’s like for us?’
Geraldine shook her head. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Maybe we can only have a successful relationship with another cop,’ Ariadne said.
Thinking of Ian, Geraldine shook her head, more vehemently this time. ‘I’m not sure that’s such a good idea,’ she said.
19
‘Go on then, I’m listening,’ Tod said, affecting to study his fingernails.
Tod glanced up and saw Ian scowling at Frank.
‘Beat it,’ Tod said.
Frank turned to his boss, looking concerned. ‘Me?’ he replied.
‘Well, obviously.’
Muttering darkly, Frank obeyed, casting an evil look at Ian as he left the room. Tod took no notice of Frank’s dismay but continued staring at his fingers.
‘You don’t look like you’re listening,’ Ian said.
He had taken the initiative in the conversation and was keen to retain control of it. Tod leaned back in his chair and looked up. He appeared to relax, but his sharp black eyes never left Ian’s face, and his long fingers tapped a rapid tattoo on the desk.
‘I’d feel more comfortable if you’d come out from behind there,’ Ian said, standing with his back to the door.
‘Comfortable? Why don’t you cop a seat if you want to be comfortable?’
‘Get out from behind that desk,’ Ian snapped.
He couldn’t afford to allow Tod to dominate him. He took a step towards Tod and felt his feet sink into the deep pile of the carpet.
‘Why? You scared I’m going to call in my boys?’ Tod drawled, but despite his defiant words he complied with Ian’s request.
While Ian frisked him for weapons, Tod stared straight ahead and his scar twisted the angry sneer on his lips into an ugly smile.
‘Now go and lock the door,’ Ian said.
‘What makes you think I’ve got a key?’
‘Just do it.’
Tod walked slowly over to the door. Ian was afraid he might leave the room, locking the door behind him, but it was a gamble he was prepared to take to be alone with Tod. Drawing a bunch of keys from his pocket, Tod did as he was instructed.
‘You have clocked that you’re now shut in here with me?’ he said, turning to Ian with a faintly puzzled smile.
‘Sit down.’
Tod took a seat on one of the upright office chairs facing the desk, while Ian remained standing, gazing down at him.
‘Well? What’s this about?’ Tod demanded in a futile attempt to wrest back his power.
Slowly, Ian explained the position, and Tod listened without interrupting. He didn’t show any surprise, but when Ian finished, he frowned and shifted in his chair.
‘So what you’re saying is you want me to ask around and find this bitch’s former dealer?’
Ian nodded. The room was beginning to feel uncomfortably warm, and he could feel a bead of sweat crawling down his forehead. He dashed it away with an impatient gesture.
‘What makes you think I’ll be able to come up with a name?’
‘You’ll find him, because you know what’s going to happen to you if you don’t.’
‘Let me
get this clear. If I find this dealer for you then you’ll leave me alone, but if I don’t, you’ll get me banged up?’
‘Exactly, and with what I’ve got, you’ll go down for life,’ Ian replied steadily. ‘If anything happens to me, the recording goes straight to my chief. At the moment I’m blocking the transmission but it’s all there on the cloud, waiting to go.’
What Ian was saying was a complete fiction, but Tod was listening.
‘I’d say you’re being more than a trifle shady, considering who you are, using one dealer to track down another. I’d say that’s not how a policeman should be carrying on. What are you after anyway? Payback? If you want this fucker dealt with, maybe I can sort that out for you, and there’ll be no mess for you to clear up?’
Ian glared at Tod. ‘My reasons are no concern of yours. I’m not interested in any help from you other than exactly what I asked for. I want you to track down this dealer and tell me where I can find him. Me and him, we’ve got business that doesn’t concern you.’
‘Do you want me to deliver him to you laid out or breathing?’ Tod asked with a half-smile.
‘Alive. He’s no good to me otherwise. I need to find him. You stand a better chance than me of doing that, and doing it quickly.’
He did not explain that he was impatient to arrange for Geraldine to see her sister again. Since he had ultimately been responsible for her separation from her sister, he was desperate to do everything he could to reunite them. Now a way seemed to have opened up for him to do just that. If he was successful, there was a strong chance Geraldine would forgive him. He and Geraldine had been good friends for a long time before they became lovers, and he missed her more than he would have thought possible. With Geraldine, he had begun to see a future where he could finally be happy; only now that dream had been snatched away from him by someone very like the man now sitting in front of him.
The situation was complicated. The dealer who had been behind Helena’s drug habit had been arrested, and would no longer be interested in one random user, but now Ian needed to persuade the middle man who had delivered the drugs to Helena to leave her alone so that she could see Geraldine again without fear of reprisal. He could have arrested Tod there and then, and felt a brief sense of relief at getting some revenge for his troubles, but he was playing a longer game. In order to succeed, he had to work with Tod, however repugnant that was.
‘Why don’t you ask your boys to find this fucker for you?’ Tod asked. ‘You got the whole of the filth to do your dirty work. Why do you need me to hook you up?’
‘Do you think I want to come to you for help? I’ve asked around, but none of my colleagues knows where he is. I’m guessing you do, and if you don’t yet, you can find out. Besides,’ Ian said, ‘it’s complicated. I’ve had to be fairly discreet in my enquiries because I don’t necessarily want all my colleagues to know what I’m doing, so this needs to be done quietly.’
Tod grunted. ‘Well, I can’t say as I’m on terms with your mates, so you don’t need to sweat it that I might blab to them. I have to say, Archie, the way you’re carrying on doesn’t sound at all shady.’ He grinned at his own sarcasm.
‘I don’t give a toss what you think of me or my actions or my motives, I just want you to find this dealer for me.’
‘And then I’m free of you?’
Ian nodded. ‘That’s the deal. And from where I’m standing you don’t have any choice in the matter.’
‘So you and Tallulah?’ Tod asked. ‘You just used her to get to me?’ He shook his head, watching Ian closely. ‘Poor bitch is going to need some consoling when I spill the beans to her.’
‘You leave her out of it,’ Ian began and then thought better of it. Any attempt to protect Tallulah might make Tod suspect she was another undercover cop. ‘At least until I get what I want,’ he added. ‘A tart who works for someone like you deserves whatever she gets.’
When Tod said he needed time to think about the proposal, Ian shook his head. ‘I want his name and address by tonight or it’s game over for you. There’ll be no second chances. I can give you details of where he was in prison and when he was released, and his real name, although he may be using an alias. That should be enough for you to find him.’
Tod nodded. ‘Very well. Give me the dirt on this dealer and I’ll see if I can discover where he’s at.’
‘Good,’ Ian said. ‘I’ll be back in here tomorrow, and you’d better have something for me when I return. Otherwise, you know what’s going to happen.’
‘Yeah, yeah, you’ve told me more than once. Chill. Didn’t I just say I’ll do what I can? But I’m not a bloody miracle worker. I can’t make any promises.’
‘Neither can I,’ Ian thought.
20
‘The killer must have left some trace behind,’ Eileen fumed. ‘People don’t just vanish, especially not if they’re carting a dead body around. How did he get her to the woods without leaving any trace?’
They knew from the carpet fibres in the dead woman’s hair and clothes and from the regular shape of the injury where she hit her head, that she had most likely been killed indoors, somewhere with a carpet and furniture.
‘If she wasn’t killed in the woods, how the hell did her body get there?’ Eileen repeated her question.
‘In a van?’ a constable asked.
‘Yes, obviously, in a vehicle of some description,’ Eileen replied irritably. ‘I didn’t imagine he flew her there on a magic carpet. But what vehicle? And where is it now?’
A team had been tasked with checking CCTV in the areas surrounding the woods, and later that morning Eileen called a meeting. A van had been spotted near the woods where Pansy’s body had been found. Peering at the screen, Geraldine saw a grey van driving along the road leading away from the woods.
‘We saw it going in the other direction, towards the woods, about half an hour before this,’ one of the visual images and identifications detection officers said. ‘It was driving really slowly on the way there, as though the driver was searching for a particular place. Unfortunately we haven’t been able to trace the vehicle’s route to and from Acomb Wood Drive. It appeared from a maze of side streets where it disappeared again afterwards, and we don’t know where it came from, or where it went after this. But we did get a shot of the registration number.’
There was a muted buzz of excitement at this news.
‘Good work,’ Eileen said, flashing a smile that softened the contours of her square face.
‘The van is registered to a Bill Riley,’ the visual images identifications detection officer said.
She read out an address near Heslington, and Eileen immediately sent Geraldine and Matthew to bring the suspect to the police station for questioning. No one dared voice the hope that they had found Pansy’s killer, but Eileen seemed quietly confident. Geraldine and Matthew drove to Bill Riley’s lodgings in silence, accompanied by a patrol car and enough officers to surround the house and prevent the suspect from slipping away. A stout woman in a white apron came to the door.
‘Bill Riley? Yes, he’s my lodger,’ she replied when Geraldine asked for Bill.
‘Is he in?’
The woman nodded warily before turning and yelling out Bill’s name. A thickset man with a mop of tousled mousy hair came trotting down the stairs to join them. He looked scared when Geraldine and Matthew introduced themselves, but rallied quickly and challenged them with an air of defiance.
‘What do you want with me?’
‘We’d like you to come with us to answer a few questions,’ Geraldine said.
Bill shook his head and reached to slam the door, but Matthew put his foot out to prevent him from closing it.
‘You need to come with us,’ Matthew said sternly. ‘It will be better for you in the long run if you co-operate with us and, in any case, we’re not leaving here without you.’
Eve
n Geraldine felt mildly intimidated by her colleague’s gruff authoritative air, while Bill quailed and turned pale. ‘I’ll just get my keys,’ he murmured before shuffling away down the corridor, followed by Matthew.
By the time they were all back at the police station, and seated in an interview room, Bill appeared to have recovered some of his earlier defiance.
‘I know what I did, right? I just hadn’t got around to notifying anyone yet,’ he admitted. If that seemed like a strange turn of phrase under the circumstances, his next grumble was even less appropriate. ‘I never realised it was such a big deal.’
‘Not a big deal?’ Matthew muttered, frowning. ‘What planet are you on? We’re dealing with a nutter,’ he added under his breath to Geraldine. ‘Or else he thinks he can plead temporary insanity.’
‘Bill Riley,’ he said, ‘I am arresting you for the–’
‘Arresting me?’ Bill interrupted him, sitting very upright and glaring at Matthew. ‘What the hell for? You’re having a laugh, aren’t you? What? Need another arrest to meet your targets? Listen, you muppet, whatever it is you’re trying to pin on me, you’re making a big mistake.’ He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms, looking thoroughly shifty. ‘Go on, then, arrest me, but don’t be surprised when you get sued for wrongful arrest.’ Bill’s eyes narrowed suddenly. ‘What’s this all about anyway? You haven’t brought me here because of what happened last weekend, have you? We told the police at the time it was an accident. I mean, we were all over the limit, but my mate’s already admitted he was driving. It’s not as if anyone was hurt. In any case, it’s not a crime to be a passenger when the driver is over the limit. How was I supposed to know? He said he was all right to drive and I believed him. We all did. Shit, even he didn’t realise he was over the limit. How was anyone else supposed to know?’
‘Where were you the Friday before last?’ Matthew asked.
‘Hanging out with my mates,’ Bill replied promptly.
Deep Cover Page 10
