Strike a Match (Book 1): Serious Crimes

by Tayell, Frank

  The commissioner took a seat behind the desk. Mitchell, clearly agitated at the delay, sat in a chair opposite. Ruth sat on the chair next to him.

  “It was never intended that the money should be released onto the market,” Mitchell said. “It was meant to be discovered in order to trigger a mass recall of banknotes. When the public were informed as to the reason why, they would lose faith in the economy, and so in the government. Taken with the Prime Minister’s resignation, this would cause the government to lose the election. This would enable the mastermind behind the crime to take over the leadership of the party, prior to wining in five years.”

  “Well, that’s an interesting theory. I take it you are here because you actually have a suspect? A politician?”

  “Yes, sir. The Home Secretary.”

  “Her? Really?” Wallace said, leaning forward. “What evidence do you have to support this theory?”

  “One of her representatives went to see Turnbull in his cell before he was murdered.”

  “Yes, a lawyer, I believe. What else?”

  “She was the one who wanted Serious Crimes to deal specifically with murder, and our first case was the discovery of Clipton’s body. That can’t be a coincidence.”

  “Probably not, but I need something more tangible than that.”

  “The murder of Clipton and Dr Gupta was staged,” Mitchell said.

  “You’re certain?”

  “It was done very badly,” Mitchell said.

  “How so?” Wallace asked.

  “The gun and knife had been wiped down. There was no blood trail on the floor. Gupta was left-handed, but the gun was in his right hand. Most importantly, the angle of the gunshot and knife wound were wrong for the way the bodies were positioned.”

  “Ah, I see.” Wallace leaned back in his chair. “And why was the crime scene staged?”

  “Probably so that I would waste time trying to find a link between Dr Gupta and the counterfeiting,” Mitchell said.

  “Waste time? Why would they want you to do that?” Wallace asked.

  “I… I don’t know. Turnbull did say something to me about how they were nearing the end.”

  “The end of what?” Wallace asked.

  “The printing, presumably. They must have had enough banknotes,” Mitchell said.

  “And what were they planning to do next?” Wallace asked. “You say the Home Secretary is behind this. Was she going to scatter the forged notes about the streets? What I’m asking is how, precisely, were they planning to destroy the economy?”

  “I don’t know,” Mitchell admitted.

  “Ah. Then no, I’m sorry, but at present I don’t see any connection to the Home Secretary,” the commissioner said.

  “No other politician had access to Turnbull,” Mitchell said.

  “Nor did she, not really. She may not even have known the lawyer in question. There are dozens of them, and legal representatives are allocated according to a rota. No, I really don’t see the link.”

  “All right, what about Serious Crimes being turned into a proper unit? Not only that, but we were assigned to deal with murders. Then, before the ink was dry on those orders, Clipton’s body turns up in a house outside anyone else’s jurisdiction. The killer had knowledge of the scavenger tribes and their customs, and knew the bodies would be reported and left undisturbed.”

  “Yes, but how does that specifically implicate the Home Secretary? Are you saying that there’s no one else it could have been?”

  “I know it doesn’t sound like much—”

  “Honestly, Mitchell, it doesn’t sound like anything,” Wallace said. “I’ve read the coroner’s report on Turnbull. I agree that it looks like murder. With what you’ve just told me about Clipton’s murder, I agree it sounds as if it was staged. Everything else isn’t even circumstantial; it’s barely even speculation. Dr Gupta was killed for a reason. I would suggest we find out what that is, and focus on finding who killed him. He was an important man. His loss is almost as damaging to the nation as the counterfeiting could have been. As to Turnbull, I will personally take over the investigation into his death. Between the two of us, we’ll find something, and then, and only then, will I consider taking this to the Prime Minister. As it stands, however, I really can’t.”

  “Captain Weaver’s already gone to the PM,” Mitchell said.

  “She has? You’ve… spoken to her?”

  “This evening, yes.”

  “I see.” Wallace drummed his fingers on the desk. “And Weaver concurs, does she? She agrees with you?”

  “She does.”

  “Ah, that’s a shame.”

  “Sir?”

  “Give me a moment to think this all through,” he said, his eyes fixed on Mitchell. “Yes. I see,” he muttered. “There are many other conclusions that could be drawn from your evidence. Though I will admit yours is a plausible one, but there is another that is more likely.”

  “What’s that?” Mitchell asked.

  “Your theory is based on the assumption that the public will be made aware that a vast fortune was forged. That would require the newspaper to actually print the story. It won’t. There will never be a trace of this in the press if for no other reason than the collapse of our society would be terrible for their circulation. The editor enjoys the kickbacks from the advertisers, no matter that they are paltry amounts compared to the bribes in the old world. No, they won’t print a word, and so the public will never know about this.”

  “But you have a better theory?” Mitchell asked.

  “I do,” Wallace said. “One you seem to have overlooked. It is all about this trade deal. The ambassador and the PM may talk about idealism and the future, petrol and coffee, food and antibiotics, but the key word is trade. That is dependent on a functioning economy. You see, while this matter will never be made public there really is no way of keeping it from the Americans. When they learn that our currency can be devalued by someone wiring together a few old copiers, the deal will collapse. But you are right that it is a politician who will benefit. I have something that might tie all of this together.” He leaned down and pulled open a drawer. “Yes. Here it is. I think this is the answer.”

  He straightened. Mitchell started moving before Ruth saw the gun in the commissioner’s hand. As Wallace raised the pistol, the sergeant stepped away from the chair. There was a single, percussive shot, and Mitchell collapsed to the floor.

  “Pity,” Wallace said, moving the gun to point at Ruth. “There are some questions I would have liked him to answer. Principally among them is why he wanted you assigned to his unit. Do you know? Do you? No, I can see from your face you don’t. I thought it might be explained by some family resemblance, but there isn’t one. Perhaps you take after your mother, but it hardly matters now.”

  Mitchell gave a grunt. Wallace shifted the barrel to point down at the man. Ruth stood. The barrel moved again.

  “No. Don’t,” Wallace said.

  There was a groan from Mitchell. Then a twitch that curled him almost into a ball. Then he was still.

  “A shame,” Wallace said, “but it would have happened sooner or later. I told you, cadet, he really wasn’t suited to this type of police work.”

  “You… Why…?” she stuttered.

  “I doubt you would understand. Why does a farmer wake up in the morning? There are far easier ways of earning a crust. Each of us has a role to play, some plough, some make, others lead. That didn’t change in the last ten thousand years, so it should be no surprise it hasn’t changed in the last twenty. Without leadership, fear grows. It festers. Order collapses. It was ever thus. It is unfortunate that you’ve told Weaver, and that she has gone to the Prime Minister. A lot more people will die tonight because of it. Now, let us start with whom else you have told. Constable Riley? Of course she knows.”

  Ruth looked down at Mitchell’s corpse. Except he wasn’t dead, not yet. Blood was spreading across his side, but his arm was slowly moving towards his foot.
/>   “You shot him!” she yelled, trying to keep Wallace’s attention.

  “Yes. Quite. But save yourself the trouble of asking any more cogent questions than that. It’s only in bad fiction that heroes get an explanation at the end. This is not fiction, and you are not the hero.”

  “But… but you’re the commissioner!”

  “So? Emmitt would have shot you back at that house if I hadn’t wanted the money found. Yes, of course I wanted the money found, and found by Mitchell. That was the point of Serious Crimes and everything else. I knew I could rely on him to blunder around and get in the way of any real investigation. Of course, that man, Anderson, had to steal those notes, and Clipton bungled his execution so you arrived at the scene a few days earlier than I had planned for. But you found it without much prompting. We adapt. We always adapt. Emmitt was correct about Standage, at least he was correct about Mitchell following her. Do you know what happened to the woman and her family?”

  Ruth wasn’t going to answer that, but she had to keep him talking. “You wanted the money found?” she asked instead.

  “Stop repeating me. Yes, and it all worked as planned. Now, other than Riley and Weaver, who else have you told?”

  Ruth shook her head and as she did, she saw Mitchell’s hand curl. Was he trying to signal something? She turned back to Wallace and looked the man squarely in the eyes. Her revolver was in the holster, the button down, and she couldn’t now remember if it was loaded. It didn’t matter. She’d never draw it in time.

  “Has this really all been about power?” she asked.

  “If that is an explanation you understand, then fine, why not. Please, this is your last chance. Start with the names of everyone you’ve told. If you don’t, more will die just so that I can be certain that no one was left out.”

  She shook her head.

  “The world must seem like such a simple place to someone of your age, divided into good and evil, with no room for anything else. It isn’t like that. It never has been.” He raised the gun.

  There was a shot. And another. The commissioner collapsed wordlessly to the floor.

  “But maybe it should be like that,” Mitchell croaked, as the gun he’d drawn from his ankle holster dropped to the floor. “Do you think you can give me a hand?”

  “You’re alive!”

  “State the obvious,” he muttered as Ruth bent down. His shirt was soaked in blood. She tore it open. There was something rigid underneath. The bulletproof vest.

  “I don’t think it stopped the bullet,” she said.

  He winced as he prodded at his side. “No. It’s stopped too many bullets, and this was the one that finally got through, but I think it slowed it down.”

  “I’ll get help,” she said as she helped him into the chair “It’s not far to the hospital.”

  “Wait,” he said.

  “I won’t.”

  “The bullet’s lodged just the under the skin,” he said. “I can feel it. It’s fine.”

  From the amount of blood, she doubted that.

  “Check the desk, see what he was working on,” he said.

  She picked up the top sheet. “It’s a speech,” she said, “for the signing ceremony. I didn’t know he was meant to speak. No, wait. It’s a script with timings for the broadcast. It’s what the Prime Minister is going to say, then the ambassador, then the presenter before they switch to the reply from America.”

  “Anything else?”

  “There’s a map of the spot where they’re doing the broadcast,” she said. “And I think these are the details of the trade deal.”

  “Let me see.”

  She handed them to him. “Sir. He said… he said he wanted to know why you wanted me in your unit.”

  “Yes,” Mitchell replied. “Yes, I heard.”

  “He said something about a family resemblance.”

  “We’re not related,” Mitchell said.

  “But—”

  “There’s a time and place for questions like that,” Mitchell said. “It isn’t now. Check his desk. The drawers.”

  “I really should get you—”

  “Please,” he said. So she did.

  “What am I looking for,” she asked, as she opened one drawer, and then another.

  “The next part of his plan, the final part that ties all of these smaller pieces together. Failing that I’d settle for a list of whoever he had working for him in the police department.”

  She took out papers, letters, and blank sheets. It was possible that there was some clue hidden within them, but not that was obvious at a casual glance.

  “Maybe he’s got a safe like Weaver has,” she said as she turned to the last drawer, the one in which the commissioner had kept his gun.

  “Yeah, maybe. I should have realised,” he said. “A staged crime scene that looked like it had been done by a copper who’d never seen a real one. A politician with access to police records. It’s obvious now, but then it always is after you’ve been given the solution.”

  There were more papers, but any of them could be innocent or incriminating and she doubted she would ever know which. She lifted them out and placed them on the desk. There was something else, lodged at the back of the drawer. It looked like an old coin. She bent down and picked it up just as Mitchell groaned, more loudly than before.

  “That’s it,” she said. “I’m going to get help.”

  This time, Mitchell didn’t object.

  Chapter 16

  The Broadcast

  23rd September

  Ruth stared at the coin that she’d taken from the drawer of the commissioner’s desk. On one side was something that almost looked like a backwards ‘L’. Around it, with each word separated by five stars, were the words ‘THE TRUTH LIES IN THE PAST. It was an odd thing to put on a coin. Odder still that it was in English. On all the old coins she’d seen, the inscription was always in Latin. Perhaps it wasn’t a coin, but some heirloom or keepsake from Wallace’s childhood. It didn’t matter. She’d give it to Weaver later, but for now, she put it back in her pocket and picked up her fork.

  Yesterday, she’d run to the hospital, and raced back with the ambulance. They’d loaded an increasingly pale Mitchell inside just before Riley arrived, looking to see what was taking them so long. If things had moved quickly before, they’d sprinted after that. She’d explained what had happened to Riley, and then to Weaver, and then to an admiral and a man in a suit who worked for the Prime Minister. Fortunately, she didn’t have to speak to the woman herself though Weaver had. Around two a.m. the captain of the SS Britannia, who was supervising the sailors searching Wallace’s house, told her she was in the way. She’d gone home.

  Maggie was still up, and when Ruth had told her what had happened, her mother had left the house with barely a word. Ruth didn’t understand why, but had been too exhausted to care. Despite that, she’d not slept well, and woken long before dawn to an empty house.

  She’d stared at the cold stove for a long minute before donning her uniform and heading into town. Dawn was barely breaking by the time she’d arrived at Police House. The cabin in the yard was as dark and empty as her home had been. The rest of the building was buzzing with rumours though even the most implausible weren’t as outlandish as the truth. She’d dodged questions from Simon Longfield and a dozen others who’d learned that she was somehow involved. More by accident than design, she found herself at Wallace’s office. It wasn’t empty. Weaver was there along with half a dozen men and women in Naval uniform, all methodically tearing the room apart.

  “I didn’t know where else I should go,” Ruth had said. “So I came to work.”

  “Good for you,” Weaver had replied. “But you can’t be in here. This is a crime scene.”

  “What are you looking for?” Ruth had asked.

  “I know Wallace didn’t kill Turnbull himself, but a man as arrogant as that is bound to have left a clue that will lead us to the murderer. It’s why the Navy is here. We don’t know who we can
trust.”

  That had cut through Ruth’s confused fog like a knife through the heart.

  “You can trust me,” she said. “And I can help.”

  “I can, but you can’t. It’s a matter of procedure. Appeals procedure,” Weaver qualified. “I don’t want the killer getting off on some technicality.”

  “Oh. Yes. Of course. I’ll… um… do you know where Riley is?”

  “She’s guarding the stage by the antenna. From what you said about your confrontation last night, and from what I found in Wallace’s home, I think he might have been planning to disrupt the ceremony. But you can’t help with that either. Take some time off, cadet. You got caught up in something big, something you weren’t prepared for. By rights you should have had time off after Emmitt shot that woman in front of you. Certainly you shouldn’t have been allowed back to work after you killed that man in the alley. Had Wallace not wanted to keep you around to inform on Mitchell, you would have been forced to take some leave. Go home. Go fishing. Go anywhere that isn’t here. There will be plenty of work to do in the days to come.”

  Ruth had left the office with Weaver’s words ringing in her ears. The captain was right, of course. Ruth had merely been caught up in something, and had done nothing to actively help in the investigation. She’d killed a man, yes, but that only meant one more suspect they couldn’t interrogate. She’d been the one to suggest it was the Home Secretary who was behind the conspiracy. That had led to her and Mitchell going to the commissioner’s house, but it didn’t qualify as ‘help’. She’d asked a lot of questions, and got very few answers back, and now it seemed unlikely she would get any more. The only tangible good she’d done was to keep Wallace distracted long enough for Mitchell to shoot him. It wasn’t much, and she couldn’t help think that her presence had distracted the sergeant from realising the truth earlier. In fact, she was certain of it, because, on leaving Police House, she’d gone to the hospital. There she’d been confronted with the most confusing sight of the past few days. Maggie had been sitting by Mitchell’s bedside.

  “How is he?” Ruth had asked.