“True, but the cap is a different matter, isn’t it?”
The chief inspector frowned and the DC looked up, puzzled.
“The cap?” Vickers asked.
“The cap.” Joe pointed to the printed sheet. “You see, Vickers, according to the details on that paper, I joined the Sanford Dating Agency four years ago, but the cap in that photograph is a dark blue with a tartan pattern. I only bought it last year, and if you need any proof of that, ask my girls, Sheila and Brenda. They were with me when I bought it. Cost me twelve pounds in Marks and Spencer’s, Scarborough.”
Vickers was momentarily flummoxed. He went into whispered conversation with his subordinate. A moment later, he turned back to Joe.
“You could have updated your photograph last year for all we know.”
“Again, true,” Joe replied, “but if you interrogated the database properly, you’d soon learn that, wouldn’t you?”
Vickers frowned. “What?”
Joe sighed. “I thought you were supposed to be a professional, Vickers? At least that’s what my niece told me. If you hack the database on Angela Foster’s system, it’ll tell you what updates have been made to my alleged account, and when they were made. If you then take my computers from home, and check them, you’ll learn that I’ve been nowhere near that site, ever.”
“You could have used an internet café.”
Joe smiled. “With my aversion to spending money? Get real, Vickers. I told you I didn’t need a lawyer to tie you in knots.”
***
Feeling lower than at any time she could ever recall, Gemma stepped into the Sanford Dating Agency to find Des Kibble and Paul Ingleton at the rear of the room working on their laptops. She guessed they were downloading different sectors of the agency’s database.
Kibble greeted her arrival with a barrage of complaints. “According to our information, you’re suspended,” he shouted.
“And for all you know I might be looking for a date,” Gemma snapped. “Just shut up and get on with your work.” She turned to Angela Foster. “I’m sorry to bother you, Mrs Foster, but this business is driving a lot of people round the bend.”
As Angela was about to reply, Kibble left his laptop and marched over to the counter. “Either get out or I’ll phone the chief.”
Ingleton was right behind him. “Steady on, Des.”
“She has no business asking questions here.”
The photographer made another effort to soothe him. “Just cool it, buddy. No need to get excited?”
Gemma glared. “Listen to your partner, Kibble. Ring who you like, but don’t forget my rank. Speak to me like that again and I really will give you a reason to hate women.”
Kibble backed off, moved back to his computer, and picked up his mobile. Gemma could hear him muttering into it.
Ingleton smiled ingratiatingly at her. “Sorry about that, Sarge, but he does have a point. You really shouldn’t be here.”
“I know, but I’m trying to stop your chief inspector from leading the Sanford police up the wrong tree.” She turned to Angela. “Mrs Foster, how is it possible for Uncle Joe’s details to appear on your computer, and how is it possible for these women to be in possession of your business card yet not appear on your system?”
“Well, as I said yesterday, the business card isn’t difficult to get hold of, and I’m sorry, but Mr Murray could have used a false name. It was definitely him, though. I recognised him the moment Chief Inspector Vickers showed me the photograph.”
“Uncle Joe insists he only picked up your card yesterday. Did you give it to him?”
Angela appeared almost insulted by the question. “I most certainly did not. I made it clear that he would be unwelcome as a member.”
“Then how did he get it?”
Angie pointed along the counter at her display of leaflets. “He took one of those. Each leaflet has a business card inside. Leaflets tend to get thrown in the dustbin, Sergeant, but most people will usually keep a business card.”
Gemma took a leaflet and opened it out. Inside were images of young men and women holding hands, holidaying, partying, dining together, and paragraphs of glowing prose, extolling the virtues of a match made through the Sanford Dating Agency.
But Gemma had no eyes for the leaflet. Retracting the business card from the envelope slot into which it was placed, her heart began to pound.
“The boss wants to see you,” Kibble told her. “Now.”
“Yes,” Gemma replied absently. “And I want to see him.”
***
“Ever own one of those retractable dog leads, Murray?”
Joe remained cool in the light of Vickers’ question. “Never owned a retractable dog.”
Vickers felt his temper rising. “I’m warning you—”
“I run a café, Vickers. Food and dogs don’t mix. Food and coppers trailing through the kitchen don’t mix, either, as you’ll find out when you finally drop this claptrap and I sue you.”
“I’m investigating five murders—”
“No,” Joe interrupted again. “You’re trying to pin five murders on me and I don’t have anything to do with them. But you’re so pig-headed, so bloody determined that right now you’re compromising my reputation and my business. You can’t explain how my details got on the dating agency’s database with the wrong picture, not because it’s difficult to explain but because you won’t accept that you’re wrong. When I cracked that case in Wakefield I said you were an obstinate idiot, and I was right. Trouble is this time, Vickers, I’m not a dumb eighteen-year-old kid. I’m just as stubborn as you and you won’t break me because I’m innocent.”
Vickers half rose. A knock on the door prevented him losing his temper altogether. “In.”
A police constable entered the interview room. While Vickers’ partner muttered into the recorder, the constable said, “Sorry, sir, but Detective Sergeant Craddock is here.”
Vickers nodded. “Interview terminated at…” he checked the time. “Thirteen-oh-five. Take Murray to the cells.” He stormed from the room and confronted Gemma in the corridor. “You are in front of your station commander right now.”
“Sir, I need to speak to you.”
“I said now, Craddock.” He marched along the corridor and Gemma hurried to keep up.
“Fine, whatever you want, sir, but I really need to speak to you first.”
He stopped and rounded on her. “You have nothing to say that I want to hear. As far as I’m concerned, you’ve been meddling with this since the beginning in an effort to keep your uncle’s name out of it. Going into the Sanford Dating Agency after you were suspended is the last straw. Now move it.”
He marched off again and Gemma followed. “Your lookout.”
“No, Craddock, it’s yours.”
***
Chief Superintendent Donald Oughton had been station commander for six years. Sanford born and raised, Gemma always felt he was a popular chief; one who let those below him get on with the job with the minimum of interference. But he was also a stickler for the rule book and while he listened to Vickers’ tale, she could only sit, listen and fume at the injustice, while waiting for her say.
When the chief inspector had finished, Oughton turned concerned, blue-grey eyes on her. “I’ve know you a long time, Gemma. Ever since you were a probationer. You’re a good copper; always have been. I’ve known Joe a great deal longer, and I find it hard to believe that he could commit these crimes, but I have to put personal considerations to one side. On the evidence, your uncle appears to be involved and when Chief Inspector Vickers removed you from the inquiry, you should have stayed away. You didn’t, and he was right to suspend you. What’s worse, you compounded that error by visiting the Sanford Dating Agency while suspended. Right now, you’re facing a possible visit from Professional Standards, so you’d better come up with some pretty persuasive story to cover your actions.”
Hand in her pocket, clinging tightly to the Sanford Dating Agency busines
s card, Gemma drew in her breath. “My aim, sir, was to prevent a miscarriage of justice, and with all due respect, if Chief Inspector Vickers had listened to me in the corridor, we wouldn’t be bringing this before you.”
Vickers almost exploded. “How dare you—”
He was silenced by a raised finger from Oughton. “Let’s hear Sergeant Craddock out, Chief Inspector.”
“I admit, sir, I’m trying to clear my uncle’s name but it’s not because he’s my uncle. It’s because he’s not guilty. I knew all along he wasn’t guilty, and so did most of the town. Joe simply isn’t like that. He was arrested this afternoon because his name appeared on the Sanford Dating Agency database. My inquiries, albeit carried out after I was suspended, have revealed that the Sanford Dating Agency is irrelevant.”
Vickers fumed. “Each of those women had the Sanford Dating Agency business card in their possession.”
“No, sir, they did not,” Gemma snapped. “I saw only the card at Letty Hill’s place. I haven’t seen it from the other women, but the description fits all of them. A plain, white card with the initials SDA printed across the middle. That is not the Sanford Dating Agency card.” She withdrew the business card from her pocket. “This is.”
Vickers stared at the card, the background a pale lilac, its edges marked in an array of soft colours, the silhouette of a man and women printed inside a more familiar, rainbow arc. Across the middle was printed, Sanford Dating Agency, with two phone numbers beneath.
“I don’t know what the other card is,” Gemma admitted. “When we found it at Letty Hill’s one of the officers told us it was the dating agency and we just accepted that. But it isn’t.”
Sweat broke on Vickers’ brow. “It could be an old card—”
“No, sir,” Gemma interrupted again. “I checked with Angela Foster. The basic design of her card has been the same for the last twenty years. There have been minor changes to it to accommodate more modern printing techniques, but it has never been a plain white card with just the initials on it.”
A brief silence fell. Gemma and Oughton looked to Vickers. His eyes narrowed, brow creased and his lips moved soundlessly.
“Well, so it’s not the dating agency, that doesn’t mean Murray can’t not have known them all.”
“You’re doing it again, sir,” Gemma snapped. “You’re determined to pin it on Joe. Forget him. He knew one of the victims; Letty Hill. There is nothing to suggest he knew any of the others. Nothing. There is nothing to suggest he was anywhere near Letty on the night she was murdered. You have no more right to throw this at him than you have any other man. Not without some supporting evidence, and right now you have nothing… Wrong. You do have something. A Joe Murray who’ll be determined to crush you out of sight, and I know Joe. When he gets the bit between his teeth, he won’t let go.”
Another silence followed. This time Oughton broke it.
“I think Sergeant Craddock is right, Chief Inspector. I think you’d better release her uncle and make a statement to the press and TV to the effect that as of now, Joe Murray is no longer a suspect.”
“This is not personal, sir,” Gemma insisted. “I had no wish to embarrass Chief Inspector Vickers, and I did ask to speak to him before we came before you.”
Thoroughly beaten, Vickers backed off. “You did, and, of course, you… you were right. I should have listened.”
Silence fell. Vickers brow creased as if he were weighing his options. Gemma and Oughton waited for him to speak.
Eventually, he drew a deep and shuddery breath. “Chief Superintendent, in the light of this fresh evidence, I’m not sure that I’m the right man to take this investigation forward. I would suggest that you, first, reinstate Sergeant Craddock, and second, get onto the CC’s office and ask for someone to replace me. Terry Cummins from York, or Ray Dockerty from Leeds, perhaps.”
“I don’t think that’s necessary, Roy. This is just a hiccup and I’m sure Sergeant Craddock will not hold any of it against you.” Oughton raised his eyebrow at Gemma and she concurred with a nod. “I think you’ve put so much into the investigation that you should see it through.”
“It’s not Gemma I’m concerned about, sir. It’s her uncle. We all know Joe, and right now, he’s mad as hell at me. He’ll shove his nose in whether we like it or not, and it will be with the express intention of making me look a fool. That’s not fair to the lads and lasses who’ve been working with me.”
The superintendent smiled benignly. “Leave Joe Murray to me.”
Chapter Eleven
“If you think Roy Vickers or the Sanford Police have heard the last of this, Don, you’ve another think coming. That bloody fool Vickers, dragged me out of my café not once but three times, and he did it in front of my staff and customers. What has that done to my reputation? How much business has it cost me? And that’s not counting the cost of the damage he may have done walking in through the back door without wearing the proper gear.”
In the face of Joe’s anger, Oughton remained impassive, that faint, almost beatific smile playing at the corners of his mouth. When Joe fell silent, he leaned back in his executive chair, and glanced briefly through the window, out onto Gale Street.
Joe followed his gaze, out into the cold, February sunshine.
There were few people to be seen in this backwater. Gale Street was given over to police headquarters, magistrates’ court, the offices of a few solicitors, accountants and other professionals, and some annexes of the Town Hall, but the rear entrance to The Gallery shopping centre, a reference to the town’s mining past, could be seen from Oughton’s office, and the few people who could be seen dodging the remaining patches of dirty snow, were hurrying towards the warmth of the mall. It was a part of the real world to which Joe fervently wanted to return.
“How long have we known each other, Joe?”
Oughton’s question brought Joe back to reality of the superintendent’s office. “What? Oh. I dunno. Fifty years?”
“Ever since primary school, eh?” Oughton laughed. “Nobody who went to that school ever forgot you and your gang. George Robson, Owen Frickley. You still hang out with ’em now, don’t you?”
“They’re members of the 3rd Age Club,” Joe confirmed.
“Thieves, rogue and vagabonds.” Oughton laughed again and as his laughter subsided, he became more wistful. “A lot of people in this town have cause to be grateful to you, Joe. As a private investigator, you have no equal. I don’t know how much money you’ve saved local businesses solving their little problems without a fuss, and you’ve never take a penny from them.”
“As long as they let me write them up,” Joe concurred.
“By the same token, how much do you owe the Sanford police?”
Joe frowned. “As far as I know, nothing.”
Oughton wagged a finger at him. “Ah, come on, Joe. That parking ticket Vinny Gillespie should have given you the other day is only the latest in blind eyes, and you know it. A bit of fly tipping here and there, getting rid of unwanted food where you shouldn’t, MOT out of date on your car, a burglar alarm that kept crying wolf a few years back, dodgy tobacco bought from an even dodgier supplier, and I shudder to think how many times you’ve been nicked for an illegal lock-in with Mick Chadwick at the Miner’s Arms. Not one, single prosecution. A ticking off at worst.”
“Come off it, Don. I’m not the only one, and it’s not like I ever dropped the police in it.”
“Correct, and it’s not like Roy Vickers has dropped you in it this time. He’s on local TV as we speak, officially clearing you as a suspect. He’ll also apologise personally.”
“He already did.” Joe leaned forward more aggressively. “But he was out to get me.”
“I don’t think so,” Oughton disagreed. “Certainly, you’re not his favourite person, but Roy is a professional police officer. He wouldn’t let his antipathy towards you interfere with an investigation. He allowed himself to be misled by an error which was not his. The business card led u
s all to conclude that the Sanford Dating Agency was the key to this issue, and it’s only thanks to your niece that we were shown the error of that approach. Roy has accepted he was wrong. He even offered to step down in favour of another chief inspector, but I refused to let him do it. What I’m saying to you, Joe, is that you should accept his apology in the spirit of sincerity with which it is offered and let’s move on from there. And don’t give me any flannel about cleaning your kitchen. If I sent Environmental Health round there, I’m willing to bet they’d find a lot more than policemen’s muddy footprints.”
“That’s a bit below the belt, Don.”
“No. It’s an observation. I’ll no more send Environmental Health than I’ll pay you for your hurt feelings and extra floor mopping. You haven’t lost any trade, either. In fact, if Gemma is to be believed, this business has boosted your custom. And Vickers got the Sanford Gazette to pull Rosemary Ecclesfield’s piece on you before it ever went to press. Now come on, Joe. Let’s call it a draw. In the spirit of friendship, I’m asking you to let it drop.”
“Friendship? Me and Vickers?”
“No. You and me. You and the Sanford police.”
Joe chewed spit. “You drive a hard bargain, Don.”
The superintendent laughed. “Me and you both. We’re Yorkshiremen, aren’t we? Isn’t it what we’re best at; grinding the price down? Besides, I’ve no doubt you won’t let the pursuit of the Sanford Valentine Strangler drop, and we may just need those eyes of yours.” Oughton turned in his seat once more, and gazed through the window. “There’s a killer somewhere out there, Joe. Four times he’s struck, now. Five if you count Rosemary Ecclesfield. We need to get him and to do that, we need all the help we can get.” He turned back and grinned. “Even if that help comes from a surly, miserable little toerag like you.”
For the first time Joe, too, smiled. “If I want insults, all I have to do is stay at the Lazy Luncheonette.” He got to his feet. “All right, Don. Fresh start. But, do me one favour. You’re right; I’m not gonna let this case drop. I’ll be pushing to find the Valentine Strangler. It’s personal, remember. He murdered Letty Hill before I had the chance to get to know her better. I’ll keep Vickers and his people posted on anything I turn up but, allow Gemma to keep me up to date with your end.”
My Deadly Valentine Page 13
