A Duty of Revenge

by Quentin Dowse

  As he listened to the conversations from the more experienced detectives in the room querying how PACE had been complied with, why Grantmore had been bailed and how further evidence might be obtained, he realised just how far out on a limb Darnley was.

  Twenty-Six

  That Same Morning

  I returned to my office, happy with the way the briefing had gone and glad that my counterpart in Northumbria had agreed that once we had formally identified and located Frame and his mates, we would not rush to arrest them. I had explained to him how Grantmore was now working to deliver us further concrete information. He was keen to cooperate and looking forward to tomorrow’s meeting. After the previous day’s successes, I’d fallen into a deep and dreamless sleep and it wasn’t until I switched my phone back on at about six thirty this morning, that I saw the missed calls from Granger and listened to his message. Kingston could be a big fly in the ointment.

  I motioned Granger to the only other chair in my room. He sat looking extremely uncomfortable. His acne was flaring up, a sign I now recognised as stress. Without any request from me, he explained what Kingston had said. I didn’t interrupt. I just sat and worried.

  At the end of his tale, he fell into silence without telling me how he had responded. So I told him about Kingston’s threat to me yesterday afternoon. His acne virtually pulsated and from the look on his face, I knew he wasn’t going to give me good news.

  ‘So what did you tell him?’

  ‘I’m sorry, boss. You know what I’m like. I should have just said that I didn’t know what he was talking about and left it at that… but I think I’ve been too clever… again.’ He shook his head as if in shame.

  ‘Fucking hell, Peter, just spit it out.’

  ‘I didn’t tell him anything… just that I had tape-recorded the conversation and was intending to report him for bullying and intimidation.’ His eyes widened and he looked at me as if waiting for me to explode.

  ‘And did you?’

  ‘Did I what?’

  ‘Tape him.’

  ‘No. How could I? But he believed me… he wanted to search me. He went mental, threatened all sorts of stuff to me… to you… to Amy. He really lost it. He says he’s going to see the Chief Constable today and tell him his suspicions about you… he’s adamant you’re bent… his words. He’s going to get me suspended immediately.’ He paused. ‘I should have just denied what he was talking about. I’m sorry.’

  Despite myself, I grinned at my young co-conspirator.

  I asked him about the details of the threats and intimidation he thought Kingston had made and reassured myself he had told him nothing that the bastard could use against me. However, it was pretty obvious he was on my case – and thinking along the right lines. It was equally obvious that someone on my inquiry was feeding him information.

  ‘You are a one-off. If you survive all this, you’ll end up a bloody Chief Constable. I didn’t get to your level of quick thinking… and let’s be honest, deviousness, until I had about fifteen years in the job.’

  He grinned back and in that instant I felt one hundred and ten per cent sure of his loyalty.

  ‘I doubt he’ll go to the Chief… he can’t be sure you didn’t tape him… and without a doubt he overstepped the mark with a junior officer. He’ll bottle it. But I wish we could make sure he does.’

  We both fell into silence. Thinking.

  ‘The fact that you have planted a fear about taping him and threatened to complain will stall him. You’ve put him on the back foot… for the time being. But we need something to distract him further until we get this sorted out.’

  ‘I reckon I know who is Kingston’s man on the inquiry. Could that help?’

  He shuffled uncomfortably in his chair, clearly not happy at what he saw as his impending betrayal of a colleague. I allowed him time to wrestle with his conscience.

  Eventually, he said, ‘It’s DS Naylor… I think. I heard him bad-mouthing you last week to DC Beatty after he’d interviewed Grantmore. He said the inquiry was a cock-up… and he needed to pass it on.’

  ‘And he actually said it was to Kingston?’

  ‘No… and at the time I was just pissed off at what he was saying and gave it no more thought, but last night Kingston implied someone on the inquiry was feeding him information. He knew about the photograph of Grantmore and said something about having informants. The two things just seem to add up…’

  ‘So what’s your thinking? How can we use Naylor?’

  Why the hell was I asking him? I was the senior officer and manipulator-in-chief.

  ‘Well, when he was slagging you off, he also talked about that job that was in the local papers and on Look North last week about the inquest on the cyclist. The one where all the shit’s flying.’

  I’d heard a bit about the case but had been too busy to absorb any details. I shrugged my shoulders to indicate he should continue.

  ‘There was a chap found dead in a ditch next to a minor road near Pocklington, September or October time last year. His pushbike was on top of him. It was written off by traffic as a road accident, but no other vehicle was ever proved to be involved. The family have always said we never investigated it properly. There’s been a lot of local media interest since the inquest, rubbishing the police investigation as inadequate, disinterested… you know, the usual stuff.’

  My interest was aroused. ‘Go on… where does Naylor fit in?’

  ‘He was saying that he got sent to the scene when the rural bobby was suspicious about the cause and asked for CID. Well, at the inquest when he gave evidence, he was criticised for not taking the inquiry further, or alerting a more senior detective… and this is where it gets interesting.’

  ‘I’ve not heard about this at all.’

  ‘He was talking to DC Beatty… who I should say was not taking any part in slagging you off. He told him that he’d called Kingston who was duty senior detective… and he refused to come out. He claims Kingston told him to just call traffic.’

  ‘Did Naylor tell the inquest about Kingston refusing to go to the scene?’

  ‘No, he reckoned he was caught unawares with the line of questioning and didn’t say anything. Probably scared to drop him in it. The inquest recorded an open verdict, strengthening the family’s hand, who are now demanding further police investigations.’

  I could sense he was warming to his tale being a potential answer to our dilemma, so I just let him continue.

  ‘He told Beatty that after the inquest he asked Kingston what he was going to do about it and he totally denied he had taken a call from him. Naylor’s incensed that Kingston’s shafting him.’

  ‘But his call to Kingston will be shown on the command and control log.’ I was really getting interested.

  ‘That’s what Beatty said. But he didn’t go through the Command Centre, just rang Kingston direct and when he wouldn’t come, Naylor handed it over to traffic as he’d been told. I suppose he never dreamt it would come back to bite him and it’d be his word against a detective superintendent’s.’

  ‘Bugger. Pity it’s not on the incident log.’

  But he had more.

  ‘Naylor told Beatty that when he rang him, Kingston got stroppy at being disturbed, saying there was no way he was trekking across the county for a bloody traffic accident… when he was out to dinner for his wedding anniversary at Oscar’s Barn… you know, the posh place on the south bank.’

  He looked at me, positively beaming.

  ‘And I’ve checked… he was there in a party of four. The booking was made in his name.’

  I felt ridiculously proud of him. A born detective.

  ‘Bloody hell. With the family up in arms there’ll have to be a reinvestigation, and whether Naylor’s lying or Kingston’s covering his own arse, the truth will come out. There’ll be mobile phone records for a start. And if
it was his anniversary on that evening… or even thereabouts… how could Naylor make that up?’

  I was beginning to enjoy this scenario – and was already cooking up a plot.

  ‘There’s more, boss. Naylor implied that Kingston had some sort of hold over him and he told Beatty that he was pretty sure that all the shit would roll downhill and hit him. He knows there will be some sort of reinvestigation due to the fuss the family are making and he’s shitting himself about it.’

  ‘Did he say what Kingston’s got on him?’

  ‘No… do you want me to find out?’

  Ten minutes later, PC Granger left my office to renew his quest to find Graham Morley. He left, I’d like to think, feeling pretty confident that any threats from Detective Superintendent Kingston were about to be neutralised. He also left trying to tell me how worried he was about being unable to find Graham Morley, but I was too preoccupied to listen.

  He left me thinking I was not only about to enjoy myself – but also kill three birds with one stone.

  *

  When Richard Wilde had taken the call from Matt Darnley the previous night, reassuring him that Russ Holland had been warned off, he had been drunk. He had literally been drowning his sorrows. First thing Monday morning, another round of redundancies had been announced and one of the casualties was Richard’s best mate. He had been a reporter about a year longer than Richard and having just emerged from his trainee role was due a substantial pay rise – but instead had got the boot. While trying his best to reassure his mate that he was good at his job and bound to get another soon, all Richard could really think was – me next. So when Darnley had rung with the news about Holland, the details hadn’t actually registered in his drink-sodden brain.

  But now he was in the newsroom, nursing a stinking hangover and trying desperately to recall exactly what Darnley had said. All had been sorted officially? All danger had passed? But Richard couldn’t shake the notion that it didn’t matter anyway as his career was knackered – his friend’s future was his future – there wasn’t one. At least not as a journalist. So what the hell did it matter?

  Following the revelations from Morley and after confronting Darnley on Friday, he had spent the weekend in an agony of indecision. Going over and over what Morley had told him and how Darnley had appeared to have answers that lessened the impact of Morley’s bombshells. Was he colluding with a corrupt senior police officer? What if Holland finished Grantmore off? He knew he’d sat on what he knew for too long and, even worse, continued to do the detective’s bidding – his dirty work. The more he pondered, the more the message drummed into him from day one at the Mail haunted him.

  ‘You are junior reporters and if you get the merest sniff of something nationally newsworthy, intriguing, corrupt, dodgy, difficult, dangerous, etc., etc., etc., tell a senior member of staff immediately.’

  Morley’s information about taking the photograph of Grantmore at the Silver Cod fitted that bill easily enough – it was about a murder. But that had developed into him having information that an ex-army hero, living under a false identity, had injected bleach into the eye of an infamous local gangster manacled to a bed in a whorehouse. Now that was news.

  But still he’d told no one. Done nothing. Come Monday morning, he had determined that his only viable course of action was to say nothing and hope that the shit never did hit the fan and bollocks to journalistic ethics and standards. The more he thought about it, the more he concluded that Darnley had much more of a reason to make sure this never got out than he had. He had more to lose. And he seemed to be something of an expert at subterfuge, double-dealing and skulduggery. Having opted to keep his gob shut and his fingers crossed, the staff meeting was called and the additional redundancies announced. From that point on, his worries about Darnley, Holland, Morley and Grantmore slowly submerged in a sea of Carlsberg as he got pissed with his mate.

  Now, on this Tuesday, his hangover was resulting in hopeless lethargy – Who gives a shit? I’m finished anyway. Staring unseeing at his computer screen where he was supposed to be writing an article about the current wave of shed burglaries in Holderness, he was suddenly jolted awake by the vibration of his mobile on his desk. He checked the screen and for a split second considered not taking the call. But he picked up the phone and left the room. For this, he needed privacy.

  *

  I’d decided to keep things light. I was convinced that my cub reporter was back onside after my reassuring call last night. So when he answered, I acted as if we’d never had the conversation last week and all was well with the world.

  ‘Morning, Richard, how are you?’

  There was silence on the other end.

  ‘Richard?’

  I could almost hear his brain whirring. I guessed everything wasn’t “well with his world”.

  But then he responded in a tremulous stutter: ‘But… but… but what exactly has changed… is Holland… has Morley…?’

  I interrupted him. ‘No time for that now… I told you, it’s no longer a problem. It’s sorted. Trust me.’

  My God, how many times had I trotted out the “trust me” crap lately? But before ringing him, I had determined to act in a positive, controlled and confident manner, as I needed him to absorb my news and act exactly how I told him. I wanted him to be sure things were okay. Sure he could really trust me.

  His next response was only slightly less pensive. ‘But aren’t you worried about what Morley told me?’

  Clearly, more reassurance was needed.

  ‘Richard, listen. As I explained last night, Holland is off Grantmore’s back. I cannot afford to let him get to him and so I’ve sorted it… officially. In addition, I can’t do anything with what Morley says about Holland attacking Grantmore, because he won’t give evidence… and anyway, that’s my problem not yours. You don’t need to worry about that. Come on, Richard, it’s sorted.’

  There was no response, so I pressed on, sounding relaxed, confident and breezy. ‘Now I’m ringing up to make your day… you are going to have a cracking Tuesday…’

  Then Richard Wilde, budding crime reporter, decided to go with the flow – to trust me.

  I told him what to do.

  *

  By 5pm that evening, Richard Wilde’s fortunes seemed to have turned dramatically. He was now sitting with the crime editor and the newspaper’s editor-in-chief – a man few employees at his level ever got to talk to, but here they were in the boardroom, each nursing a fine malt whisky.

  Richard had immediately cottoned on to the context of Darnley’s telephone call. He had been the reporter in Hull coroners’ court when the family of fifty-four-year-old Keith Donavan had raised a right stink when the coroner returned an open verdict upon his death. He had witnessed the embarrassment of Detective Sergeant Naylor in the witness box, when berated by the family’s legal representative for not treating the incident seriously. Following the inquest, he’d been tasked with investigating the surrounding circumstances of Donavan’s mysterious death. He had already visited the ditch where he had been found, and spoken, albeit off the record to the local beat bobby who was first on the scene. He had also met the family and was convinced that they had both the resources and the will to continue their “campaign for justice for Keith”. The reporter could recognise the potential newsworthiness of the story. How on earth did Keith Donavan end up in a ditch with his bike on top of him? The cause of death was drowning – in just over a foot of water. Neither he nor his bike was damaged and although he had been drinking, he was not drunk.

  Even from his limited experience, Richard knew that many aspects of what the police were asked to investigate were never fully explained – mysteries were common. But families always want to know why and often until they did, they looked for someone to blame. In this case, Humberside Police were in the firing line. Already the newspaper had run a short article on the mounting controversy, an
d the family were keen to start a campaign and had asked the paper to support it.

  Now Darnley had inexplicably provided him with a whole new angle. An angle the family would seize upon and really use to stir the shit – and that would sell newspapers.

  Clearly, Darnley had an axe to grind with his fellow detective superintendent.

  The detective had not explained but implied it was a gesture of goodwill – an example of the tips he would continue to give him to further cement an ongoing professional relationship. It was essentially a bribe. Keep your mouth shut about Morley, Grantmore and Holland and you’ll get more insider information. He decided to go with his gut – perhaps subterfuge, skulduggery and manipulation really were the way to career advancement. He’d go with the flow and ride this particular wave while he could.

  Wilde was wise enough not to reveal his source to his boss, who was suitably impressed with not only the fact that this young lad seemed to regularly come up with crime-related scoops but also that he withstood his own and the crime editor’s efforts to find out who his source was. Both were keen to know. The crime editor recalled the similar tip-off that young Wilde had gained on the Daggett murder before Christmas. He knew that Richard Wilde’s job on the newspaper was as secure as it could be, even before this latest piece of excellent investigative journalism, but he had no intention of telling him. He believed in keeping his junior staff keen and hungry.

  He had listened to Richard’s account of how Detective Superintendent David Kingston, the high-flying, Special Course “blue-eyed boy” had probably dropped an almighty bollock. He was assured that the source was reliable and that he had personally rechecked the restaurant booking to confirm his source’s veracity. He also revealed that he had Kingston’s home address. While they planned their strategy, another reporter was dispatched to Oscar’s Barn in an effort to find out if Kingston, who was on call and therefore to all intents and purposes on duty, was inebriated. A staff member who wished to remain anonymous confirmed that the whole party were pissed. With that little gem seen as the icing on the cake, the door-stepping that Darnley had asked Wilde to arrange was authorised. Accompanied by a more senior colleague, Richard had asked Kingston to comment on the allegation that he had refused to attend the scene of a potential murder, as he was too busy drunkenly celebrating his wedding anniversary at one of the region’s top restaurants – when he was meant to be on call.