The park was full. Janice’s mobile palace stood proudly above the common herd of low-slung cars, mostly shooting-brakes, as his father still called estates. Buses and larger lorries had their own site, further up the road. Time was short, he didn’t know what he was looking for, and yet he had, in his mind’s eye, an image of his quarry. He wished he had obtained Kem Harriday’s car registration number, as his dear old Dad would have termed the index. Not much use without it. ‘As well you’re no longer in CID, my boy’ he strictured himself. He hoped it would be near Ambrose’s distinctive car, which he expected to spot using Brian’s description. Searching vaguely, he went as far as the end of the field where the later arrivals would have been shoehorned in. Again, for why? The niggle remained. There was something. Something about that fidget of X3’s, which Yale attributed to his asking about the hired car. Had he tried to give the impression that he had come in as a passenger ‘with’ Harriday, or had he driven in behind him? Another piece of luck may come his way, such as the minor success of finding Susan and Madge together. Fortune would not deny him one more little break? Fate would come to his aid, surely?
Whether it was his belief in greater mysteries of life, he was rewarded. He could have called it ‘good police work’ if he had not been in a self-critical mood. In the second row from the far gate, where cars entered, was, he knew at once, what he was looking for. He had almost rung the firm that very morning. Rather than be train tied. He hadn’t. Too early for one thing. Not like the taxi service, on call twenty four/seven, he had turned to instead, and in whose cab he had been traced by Grant. There was the sticker in the back window. ‘Haddow and Son. Car Hire.’ He went up to the car. A Mercedes estate. A model he had envied from the moment he had first seen one. When he had, on previous occasions, used the services of Mr Haddow and his Son, always capital letters, he had been offered a Mondeo as the top of the available range. They knew their clients’ pockets! He peered in, as though no more than admiring the design. He saw what he wanted to see. What he had hoped to see. What, had he believed in those deeper mysteries, he would have prayed for. There, in the luxurious and spacious estate compartment was a folded dog trolley.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Saturday, 4.35pm
Awave to the two custodians of the ticket window, and he sauntered – he had to allow Grant time to probe the secrets, if any, of Anna Goldey – along the route so full of bustle that morning. As he did so, Simon turned over the possible implications of his find. He was aware of the danger of false conclusions. Taking it that it was X3’s hired car, then what? He tried to conjure up that early morning scramble along the now empty road. He was not as much a believer as some of his former CID colleagues in the value of reconstructing scenes of crime. Simon had never felt at one with his history teacher’s desire to ‘empathise’ with Roman soldiers, or Florence Nightingale come to that, but, in trying to visualise what had happened, he was alert to any vibes that might strike him.
In this mood, he approached what had been the fatal gate for Ambrose Graveney. He stopped at the bottom of the slight upwards incline and tried to imagine the jostling and the, he was sure, premeditated use of that mêlée. Trolleys came into it. People would have been striving to keep them upright, to avoid the boxes and cases piled on top from falling off. And the one that Brian Wiseton had not seen. ‘The surprise is that the dog did not bark in the night’ or something like that came up in a Sherlock Holmes story. Or was it one of Agatha Christie’s? No matter. Brian had been surprised at its absence. Simon was intrigued by the one he had seen in the car park a few minutes earlier. If he could be certain that X3 – and surely the car was his? – had not intended to confuse over whether he came in with, in the same car as, Harriday or drove in behind him, he would be easier in his mind. ‘Go and ask’. He smiled to himself at his motto for the day. Mustn’t read too much into it. X3 bred dogs. Small dogs. No surprise, then, that he had a trolley in the back of his car. But, and he had looked, no travelling cage. The trolley was folded. No dog could travel in that. Simon knew that small dogs such as English Toy Terriers, or the longer-legged Toy Manchesters, would not be allowed to travel free in a car. There had to be a travelling cage. There was no suggestion of a passenger with X3 who could have nursed the small dog. X3 had been alone all day. Without a dog. No surprise in that. The American had said that he was only a bystander. Not showing that day. If so, why the trolley? Always carried one, maybe, but in a car hired yesterday?
With all this buzzing around his head, still standing at the lower end of the approach to the competitors’ doorway, Simon could find no answer to that poser about premeditation. He wished he had Mrs Goldey’s notes with him as an aide-mémoire; he had passed them over to Grant – she now wilting under the skilled cross-examination of the Superintendent. Recalling what had been said in the second round of interviews, he homed in on his speculation that Ambrose had arranged a final exchange of – of what? views? threats? blackmail terms? – something, with the one who turned out to be his killer. If so, Ambrose either had no sense of danger, or had considered the busy entrance to be as safe as anywhere could be. On that assumption, Ambrose knew that his contact would be waiting for him and, on arrival, would have manoeuvred to get near. To bargain with. Plead with. Threaten. Which? It mattered not. Whichever, it had failed. That person struck. Ambrose, encumbered by his trolley, probably hemmed in by others pressing up against him – but would he risk a conversation in that setting? The murderer had never intended to hold one, that was it – could do little to avoid or react before the flood carried him on into the Hall. Once in, he reached his bench where he succumbed to the toxic effect of the injection. The killer, especially if free to move between closely packed bodies, could in two steps be clear away from the dying man. Someone such as Harriday, free of trolley or luggage, or Anna Goldey using the opposite condition as a screen. No fan of Varro, she. Lumbered with two trolleys, thus causing Harriday to help her, as she drew alongside Graveney, she could have used his intervention to push one of her trolleys at him and at the same time a needle into the neck of her neighbour. Both scripts were feasible. Not the only possibles, either! He needed to talk to Grant. Would he have finished with Anna by now?
He saw the two together after he re-entered the Hall. He kept his distance. The last thing Simon wanted to do was to cut in at the very moment that Mrs Goldey let slip something significant. He had something to talk over with his boss. With any luck, Grant would have gathered enough to support one of his reconstructions. The trouble was that in the case of both Anna and Kem, the policemen had no firm handle on what it was Graveney was about to expose. How they needed to read those articles! One had warned of a planned malpractice. Had to be. Ambrose had been sure enough of his ground to announce, in an article for anyone in the dog world to read, his suspicion. His accusation? For such an article, his editor, gossip or not, would surely have taken legal advice. Journalists were as aware of the litigation society as were coppers. Maybe, then, cleared for publication, the editor took comfort that it would take a knowledgeable insider to decode what was planned and by whom. Who was involved. They badly needed a lead on that. ‘Luck be a lady tonight!’ Simon was once more on the verge of breaking into song, but not one of unalloyed joy.
He waited, looking at the posters proclaiming the thrill of seeing the dog personalities of the silver and telly screens. He could see Grant, still talking to Anna Goldey, but also looking at dogs. He guessed, correctly, that the serious business was over. Anna was extolling the wonders of her Buster and the wisdom of J.K. Rowling to choose such a beast to star in her Harry Potter books. She was telling the Super that her show, after a sluggish start – and who was to blame? – had been a decided success. What with that, and the further help she had given to the Chief Superintendent, Anna was visualising her name in the next New Year’s Honours List. And well deserved!
“Simon. Come and join us. Any new ideas?”
“Yes, sir. I think so.” Simon knew that no othe
r answer was expected in that company.
“Good. Mrs Goldey has been most helpful and informative. She’s also shown me round her exhibits. I particularly like the posters. A relevant one in each booth. Seen shops selling the things, but never understood why anyone would want to buy them, the occasional teenager’s bedroom wall aside. And they soon grow up to Che!” He snorted. “Now I can see one very good use for them. Quite a display. You’ll have to take them down with care, Mrs Goldey. Give strict instructions how they are to be packed and carried. Can’t imagine they’re easy to replace. Your initiative won’t be limited to this show, I warrant. Will you be displaying at Crufts?” Anna laughed. She seemed completely relaxed, noted Simon. Grant was a good inquisitor.
“Oh dear me no! In any event, I’ll be more than busy enough there. Showing my own dog and doing my stint on a stand in the Discover Dogs display.”
“Mrs Goldey’s got cover, allowing her to watch the flyball final, Simon.” Grant turned to Anna. “We hope to see it, too. Join you there.” With a smile of friendly dismissal, the Super took Simon by the arm and led him out of the good lady’s earshot.
“Now then? What of your great doings?”
“I’d rather you tell me of what you’ve learned first, sir, if you don’t mind. It may affect what I have to say. Are we really going to fit in the highlight of the day?”
“If we can, we will. Important things first. Before I recount the Goldey saga, let’s clear the other names on our list. Have you spoken to John Pugh yet?”
“No sir. I didn’t see him as being in the frame, although still in the picture so to speak. Left him till I’d spoken to the others.”
Who’s a Pretty Boy? (Buster)
“Quite right. From what the two Bichon ladies have told me, he was well in front of them. Must have been the first, or very near the first, out of the car park and into the Hall. They both swear they saw him booking in while they were behind him and caught in the blockage. At the time the syringe went in, I am happy enough that he was already on the ‘phone to the Manager complaining about his entry in the programme. Trott can confirm that. Not the sort of affront he’d forget. For my part, I’ve yet to get round to Stimson. Get him and Pugh at the end if we feel the need. Most probably leave them for Bannister. They were some distance from Graveney when Stimson tapped Wiseton on the shoulder. Get him and Pugh at the end if we feel the need. Not only Brian’s testimony for that. It’s a thing Miss Greatrex is positive about. The only thing she is confident about! When she looked to see what had caused the halt, she is certain she saw the two old chums meet up. At the same time, Ambrose Graveney was more on the edge of the crowd. Talking to Anna Goldey, she thinks, but here her certainty fades. ‘Hardly a place to have a chat now, was it?’ as she put it.” Yale’s point exactly.
Committed fully to playing Grant’s game of ‘spot the killer’, Simon was as ready as the Super to delete as many as possible from that scribbled page of his. A short list of X3, Harriday – and in that context he would not yet rule out 887, fond of him though he had become – and Anna Goldey, suited his deliberations fine. What mattered now was what Grant had to say of his interview with Anna. More or less subconsciously, Simon glanced across to the still-blockaded doorway. Trott was being true to his word. He would barricade it until five. Almost time up! Was Bannister about to make his entrance?
“That narrows the field, sir. What did Mrs Goldey have to say?”
Before he answered that, Grant summarised what else, as he continued to term them, the two Bichon ladies had said. In essence, their accounts fitted Yale’s bill well, and backed up Brian’s report. Janice’s purposeful eye had been especially helpful. She had seen Ambrose speaking to Harriday; she had seen Harriday approach Anna ‘to help free her up by taking one of her trolleys’; she reckoned that the three of them were close together if not next to each other for some moments at one time as the press of people eddied back and forth. She was firm on this as she reckoned that the cause of the unpleasant seize-up was in or around that spot. She had not seen anything of X3, a person she did not know but, having had him pointed out to her, she was sure she would have remembered spotting had he been there.
Simon strove to take all this in and fit it to his burgeoning theory. What was to come next might settle it. He was keen to put his supposition to Grant before Bannister’s arrival. He hid a sudden impatience as the Super went on to tell him, as he had to and as Simon had requested, of his talk with Mrs Goldey.
“She had two trolleys, as Brian said. One for Buster. Not in it, of course. He’s far too big. That was a further complication. She had him on a short lead. Plus the two trolleys. The one, the dog one as it were, she was using for all her personal paraphernalia for the day. ‘My handbag, for one’, as she explained. The lady had to survive a long day with little relief. The other was a specialist cart, containing the folded-up stand for her Dogs from the Shows display. Thus encumbered, with no one offering a helping hand, not a shock to me seeing how loaded down all these human beasts of burden are, she was far from flexible. Have you, by the way, seen some of the contraptions now standing in the dog bench lines ready for the off? Like some old style Le Mans start. Hardly any of their vehicles would pass an MoT, leave alone the plimsoll line test.” Simon had seen. He said nothing. He wanted the story to move on. Fast.
“When they were forced to halt, she continued, she had a scare. First for damage to her precious dog, and then that her less stable dog trolley would tip over and spill her personal contents onto the floor. With no spare hand, and at risk from hundreds of pressing feet, she was sure she would come to grief. Harriday, who had been talking to Graveney, seeing her predicament, came across. He, she noted, had nothing to carry or to pull. That saved her. She had been looking around for succour, someone to give her a helping hand by freeing one of hers.”
“So Anna had a free hand.”
“Yes, but if her intention had been to stick a syringe in someone, she’d have hardly set out with two trolleys and a dog on a lead.” Simon acknowledged the analysis.
“Also, this is the point where Janice says she saw Ambrose moving over to assist Anna. Or so it appeared.”
“Might have wanted to speak to her.” Simon had his assignation theory in mind.
“Again, hardly a place for a cosy chat.” Simon winced. His theory was fading fast, before he’d had time to propose it. He didn’t want to give up on it.
“Could be that Ambrose merely wanted to say ‘see you inside; something to tell you’.”
“Don’t see why. With Harriday in attendance and spillage in the air, unlikely moment for such a message.”
“Had Anna spoken to Harriday and/or Graveney in the car park?”
“Funny you should ask that. I didn’t ask. She volunteered that she had exchanged a few words of greeting with the two as they unloaded their cars. ‘That’s why Kem knew that I had so much to handle. It’s why he came to my aid when that trouble arose. Sweet of him, wasn’t it.’ So she said.”
“Did she say if Harriday had a trolley with him then? Or anything else of what either said to Ambrose in the car park?”
“I didn’t ask that either. Had no reason to. Their early morning greetings are largely irrelevant. I concentrated on what happened at the door.”
Believing that what was said at that first meting could be critical, Simon took the plunge.
“I understand that, but let me tell you what I think happened. Along with what you’ve told me, if I’m right between us we’ve cracked it.”
Not for the first time that day, Simon’s conversation with Grant was interrupted, this time as Manager Trott, like a galleon in full sail, glided across the fast-emptying floor towards them.
“My good friends,” he began.
’Now what?’ was the unspoken response of the two.
Mr Trott had an alcove, an enclosure, small but perfectly placed to watch activities in the main ring. It was one of his deserved managerial perks. A mark, among others, of his
pedigree. A place from where to mix with his customers, at an appropriate remove, and to keep one of his many critical eyes on activities in the various parts of his empire. Five or six could comfortably stand in this delectable enclave; a chair or two could be managed should ladies of sufficient rank qualify for invite. Today, in fine man-management style, Mr Trott had offered to escort the two ladies from the typing pool to his observatory to watch the flyball final. He felt it his noblesse oblige role and their democratic due. As an acknowledgement of the fine work, the extra work, they had done for the police. That the space would be empty until he and his party arrived was not in doubt. Whatever the demands on manpower, loos and doors included, Mr Trott always managed – what other word could he use? – to ensure that there was a warden on duty to keep the area sacrosanct until his arrival.
To his sadness, the two typists had declared that they had other things to do. Mr Trott managed a near-Royal wave to them as they went off on their pressing social errands. Deprived of an audience to admire his generosity, allied to there being so little time before the dogs were off, he had spotted the two policemen. In his continuing gracious mien, he came across and issued the invitation that he was sure they longed for. What else could they be doing at this hour of the day? The final it was, and they were to be his honoured guests.
A Question of Pedigree Page 20
