“It’s a start anyway,” Bridge insisted.
Smith and Whitton walked in the office. Karen Wood’s eyes lit up when she saw Smith.
“Find anything?” Smith asked.
“A woman ordered thirty ladybird breeding kits in March this year,” Bridge said, “a woman by the name of Joan Slyper.”
“Joan Slyper?” Smith said, “where have we heard that name before?”
“The guitar student,” Whitton said, “she had a lesson the morning that Drake Whitlow was killed.”
“That’s her then,” Smith said, “that’s our killer.”
“A woman?” Bridge said, “Surely it can’t be a woman?”
“Why not?” Doctor Wood said, “You’d be surprised what a woman is capable of if she’s pushed too far.”
Smith, Whitton and Bridge stared at her.
“It’s true,” she said.
Smith’s phone rang in his pocket. He took it out and answered it. It was the water heater company. They were waiting for him outside his house.
“Shit,” he said when he had finished the call, “I have to go home. My water heater is broken and there’s a company waiting outside my house to fix it. Bridge, you and Whitton check out the Post Office. Find out everything you can about this Joan Slyper. Find out if she left any details where we can contact her. How long do you think it takes to fix a water heater?”
“Could be hours sir,” Bridge said, “it depends on what’s wrong with it.”
“I can wait there for you,” Doctor Wood suggested, “I don’t have much else to do now that we’re finished here.”
Whitton glared at her but she did not seem to notice.
“That would be great,” Smith said, “If you really don’t mind.”
“Not at all,” she said.
“I’ll see you back here in an hour,” Smith said to Bridge and Whitton.
As he drove home, Smith realised he knew basically nothing about Doctor Karen Wood. He looked at her sitting next to him on the passenger seat. She really was a beautiful woman. He parked his car behind a white van outside his house. An angry looking man in a flat cap got out of the van.
“Mr Smith?” he asked, “we’re very busy you know. We haven’t got time to be waiting around.”
“Sorry,” Smith said, “I forgot. I’ll show you the heater.”
He opened the front door and went inside. Theakston jumped at his legs.
“Could you put that thing outside?” the heater man said, “those dogs are vicious.”
Smith was about to argue that Bull Terriers were not vicious but he changed his mind. He put Theakston outside in the back garden.
“The heater’s upstairs in the loft,” Smith said, “it hasn’t worked for a few days now.”
“Do you have insurance?” the man asked.
“I think so,” Smith replied.
The man shook his head and walked up the stairs. A young man barely out of his teens followed him with a ladder. He looked at Karen Wood and blushed. Five minutes later the man walked back down the stairs. He had a grave look on his face.
“Heater’s buggered,” he said.
“I know that,” Smith said, “That’s why I called you.”
“You’re going to need a new one,” the man said, “luckily, we’ve got one in the back of the van. We always come prepared you see; it saves time. It’s going to take a few hours to fit it though.”
“Ok,” Smith said, “can you just do it then? I have to be back at work.”
“It’s not going to be cheap,” the man said, “do you have your insurance details? I’m afraid we can’t get started until we get the go ahead from them.”
“I’ll see if I can find my policy number,” Smith said.
He went upstairs to one of the spare bedrooms and opened up the cupboard where he kept his personal records. There were papers everywhere. He made a mental note to put everything in some sort of order when he got the chance. He found his insurance documents at the bottom of the pile of papers. He quickly read through the policy and realised he was not covered for damage to his water heater. He had opted out of this part on the policy. He could not remember why he had not wanted his water heater to be covered. He put the documents back in the cupboard and went back downstairs.
“The water heater is not covered,” he said to the heater man, “how much is this going to cost me?”
“Can’t say for sure,” the man shrugged his shoulders, “depends on how long it takes.”
“Can you give me a rough guess?” Smith said.
“Listen pal,” the man said, “replacing the heater normally takes three hours but plumbing’s a funny old game. No two houses are the same.”
“Please,” Smith was getting impatient, “let’s say it takes four hours. How much am I looking at?”
The man thought hard for a while. He looked like he was in pain while he thought.
“Heater’s four hundred quid,” he said eventually, “plus four hours labour at a hundred an hour. That’s nine hundred quid altogether.”
“Eight hundred,” Smith said, “four hundred for the heater plus four hours labour comes to eight hundred.”
“You forgot about the hour we wasted waiting around,” the man said, “time is money you know.”
Smith felt like asking him to leave but he really did not feel like phoning around to find another company.
“Just replace the heater,” he said, “I need to get back to work.”
“We’ll need fifty per cent up front,” the man said, “we’ve been stung before. You wouldn’t believe how many jobs we’ve done without being paid. Four hundred and fifty quid and we’ll make a start.”
“Four hundred and fifty pounds?” Smith said, “I’ll have to go to the bank.”
He turned to Karen Wood.
“You don’t mind staying here with them while I draw some money out of the bank do you?”
“Of course not,” she said, “I offered didn’t I?”
TWELVE
Smith was in a foul mood as he drove to the bank. Why is everything so complicated these days? He thought. Nobody seems to trust anybody. Gone are the days when a man’s word meant something. He parked his car outside the bank and got out. He tried to remember how much money he had left in his account but he was sure it was more than nine hundred pounds. Maybe I should take Lucy’s money after all, he thought but he instantly dismissed the idea. The bank was virtually empty when he walked in. Internet banking had made it so nobody really had any need to visit a bank anymore. He walked up to one of the tellers. She was a woman in her thirties. Smith was sure he recognised her from somewhere.
“Good Day,” he said, “I’d like to withdraw a thousand pounds please.”
He had decided to pay the heater man the full amount so spur him on and get him finished and out of his house as soon as possible. He handed the woman his bank card and she entered his details into the computer.
“What’s my balance?” Smith asked her.
“Two thousand, three hundred and eighty pounds,” she said.
Smith smiled. There was more money in his account than he thought. The woman counted the money and handed Smith a form to fill in. He signed it and gave her it back. As she handed him the money and his bank card there was a loud crash behind them. Smith instinctively fell to the ground. When he looked up he saw that a red SUV had crashed through the wall of the bank. Bricks and glass were spread all over the floor. Smith knew immediately what was going on. Three men wearing balaclavas ran into the bank. They paid no attention to Smith and the three cashiers. They were trying to lift the cash machine into the back of their vehicle. Smith got up off the floor and ran up to them. One of the men turned and stood directly in front of him. He pointed a gun at Smith’s head.
“Don’t be a fucking hero pal,” the man said. He had a strange accent. Smith was sure it was not a Yorkshire accent.
“I’m a policeman,” Smith said and immediately regretted it.
“And I’v
e got a gun,” the man said, “sit down over there and let us finish up here. The only people we’re robbing are bigger crooks than us. Banks and insurance companies. Sit down please.”
Smith did as he was told. He could not believe what was happening. It was all quite surreal. He was caught up in a cash machine robbery where the robbers were courteous. He slowly backed off and sat on the floor. The man kept the gun pointed at his head the whole time. The three tellers were nowhere to be seen. They had ducked behind their counters. They must be trained to do that, Smith thought. He watched as the three men struggled to get the cash machine up onto the back of the vehicle. They closed the back door, got in and the SUV drove off at high speed. The whole robbery had taken less than three minutes. Smith ran to the entrance of the bank and took out his phone.
“Chalmers,” he said, “there’s been another cash machine robbery. Barclays in the city centre. I was at the bank drawing money. They’ve just left. Red SUV. Mitsubishi I think. There are three of them plus a driver and they’re armed.”
“Which direction did they go in?” Chalmers said.
“Towards the Fosse,” Smith said, “I got their license number.”
He gave the number to Chalmers.
Smith walked back to the counter he had been standing at. He had dropped the money and his bank card when the SUV had crashed through the wall. He bent down and picked it up.
“Are you ok?” he said to the woman behind the counter.”
She did not reply. She seemed to be in shock. She just stared at the hole where the cash machine used to be. Smith walked outside. A large crowd of people had already gathered. He looked at his car and his heart sank. The SUV had crashed into it when they had driven off and there was a huge dent in the front bumper. A police car drove up and parked outside the bank. Thompsons Audi parked behind it. Thompson and Baldwin got out.
“What are you doing here?” Thompson asked Smith.
“I was in the bank when they struck,” Smith said, “the bastards put a gun to my head.”
“Did you get a look at them?”
“They were wearing balaclavas,” Smith said, “but one of them spoke to me. He had a weird accent.”
“What kind of accent?” Thompson asked.
“He said don’t be a fucking hero,” Smith said, “but he said it more like this.”
Smith tried to mimic the man’s accent as best he could.
“That sounds like a Scottish accent,” Baldwin said.
She repeated what the man had said. Her version of a Scottish accent was much better than Smith’s.
“That’s it,” Smith said, “that’s exactly how he sounded.”
His phone rang in his pocket. It was Chalmers.
“We’ve got them,” Chalmers said, “It was one hell of a chase though. One of our armed unit guys shot one of their tyres out in the end. The SUV rolled over about a hundred times. The driver’s in a bad way but the other three seem fine. It’s lucky you were there Smith. The Super is going to kiss your arse for this one.”
“Thanks sir,” Smith said.
He rang off.
“They caught them,” he said to Thompson, “they rolled the car but they all survived.”
Thompson suddenly looked angry.
“How do you do it Smith?” he said.
“Do what?” Smith said.
“You always seem to be in the right place at the right time, that’s what. I’ve been busting my arse for months trying to nail these scumbags and you just waltz in, first week back at work and you catch them at it. You must be charmed Smith.”
“Cursed more like,” Smith said, “they held a bloody gun to my head. Look what they did to my car.”
He pointed to his red Ford Sierra.
“I have to get going,” he said, “you can tie things up here. How did it go with Drake Whitlow’s father?”
“Waste of time,” Thompson said, “he didn’t seem to know much about what went on in his kid’s life. Didn’t care either.”
“So he didn’t give you anything else to go on?”
“Nothing,” Thompson said, “all we could gather was he’s a bit of an arsehole.”
Smith was exhausted when he finally got back to his house to pay the heater man. Karen Wood had somehow managed to persuade him to make a start on the job before Smith got back.
“I told him you were not the kind of man to make an enemy of,” she said, “they’re almost finished.”
“Thanks,” Smith said.
“What’s wrong?” she said, “you look very pale. What took you so long at the bank?”
Smith told her what had happened.
“That must have been terrible,” she said, “is there anything I can do?”
“I need to get back to the station,” Smith said, “if you could stay here until they have finished that would be great. Would you mind paying them for me?”
He gave her nine hundred pounds.
“No problem,” she said, “I’ll drop your keys off at the station later.”
“Keys?” Smith looked confused.
“Your house keys. I’ll need them to lock up after myself.”
“Of course,” Smith said, “my mind is a bit frazzled at the moment.”
He handed her his house keys.
“Thanks again for everything,” he said.
Without knowing why, he leaned over and kissed her on the forehead.
As he drove to the station he thought about the kiss. Why the hell did I do that? He thought. How could I have been so stupid? He did not want to give the wrong impression. Karen Wood was a very attractive woman but there was no way he wanted to get close to anybody at the moment. Lucy had only been dead for two months. The uneasy feeling he had woken up with came back with a vengeance. Something was very wrong. He parked outside the station and turned off the ignition. He sat in his car and thought about what had happened at the bank. It was the second time that year he had had a gun pointing at his head. He shrugged off the thought and got out of the car. He sighed when he looked at the damage to the car. First the water heater, he thought and then the car. What is going to go wrong next?
THIRTEEN
France’s Estate Agents occupied the whole ground floor of the Viking building on Fairfax Street in the centre of York. While many other small estate agents had crumbled during the credit crunch, France’s had boomed. This was due mainly to an idea its founder, Charlie France had had during a brain storming session with his partner Alan Grange. Charlie France had noticed that most of his competition at the time had merely sat back and waited for the storm to pass. They had sat on the spoils of the more lucrative times doing the same thing they had done for years; waiting for people to buy houses from them. Charlie France had realised that times had changed. With house prices plummeting and the banks reluctant to lend, the housing market had stagnated. First time buyers could no longer afford to buy and many home owners were left with negative equity as they owed more than their property was worth. Charlie France’s savings were not growing due to the ridiculous interest rates the banks were paying out. His idea was not without risk but he could not just sit back and watch everything he had worked for dwindle away. With house prices at a record low, Charlie sunk everything he owned and a substantial amount of money he did not own into the property market. People were defaulting on their mortgage payments at an alarming rate and the banks were happy to recoup anything during the crisis. Thus, Charlie France acquired a huge amount of property at rock bottom prices. The majority of this property was rented out, mostly to recipients of housing benefits. France received a guaranteed income for two years while most of his competitors were going under. When the housing market started to show signs of improvement, France had already paid off his investors and was sitting in a win win situation. Most of the properties on his company’s books were his own. In the space of four years he had become a millionaire ten times over.
France was in a particularly bad mood. Wednesday had been his golf day for years
but today, one of his junior estate agents had phoned in sick. He made a mental note to issue him with a written warning when he came back to work. It was becoming a frequent occurrence. In the junior salesman’s absence, France would have to show a house, a two bedroom terraced house in one of the less desirable areas of the city. It was one of many similar properties he had purchased a few years earlier for next to nothing. He thought about rescheduling the appointment; the house was not worth much, but he changed his mind immediately. He had not become rich by cancelling appointments. He looked at his watch, a Tag Heuer he had promised to himself when he had a million in the bank. He had half an hour before he was due to meet the client. He picked up his mobile phone and left his office.
“I’m seeing a client on Fraser Road,” he said to the woman behind the reception desk in the foyer. Her name was Rachel and she had worked for the company for two years.
“I shouldn’t be longer than an hour,” he said, “in case anybody is looking for me.”
“Your wife called,” Rachel said.
“Ex wife Rachel,” he said, “what did the old dragon want this time?”
His wife had divorced him more than three years earlier.
“She asked you to phone her,” Rachel said, “something about having Catherine this weekend.”
“I had her last weekend,” France said, “I’m not due to have her for another two weeks.”
Catherine was France’s twelve year old daughter. She lived with her mother in Pickering. France could see her every third weekend and the arrangement suited him just fine.
“I’m only passing on the message Mr France,” Rachel said.
“That bloody kid’s a pain in the arse,” France said as he left the building.
Fraser Road was a ten minute drive from France’s Estate Agents. France smiled smugly as he drove past houses he either owned or had had a hand in selling. I own half this little town, he thought. He parked his car outside number eighty five Fraser Road. There was a woman with red hair standing outside. France got out of the car and sighed. The woman could not have been more than twenty five years old and it looked like she had caught the bus there. How can she afford the house? He thought as he approached her. Nevertheless, he assumed his best salesman persona. He had learned a long time that appearances can be deceptive. He had once sold a seven bedroom house to an eccentric millionaire who dressed like a hobo.
The York Trilogy: The First 3 DS Jason Smith Detective novels Page 67
