by J M Gregson
‘But I simply wouldn’t be any good at this. I’ve never—’
‘You black blokes have a great reputation, haven’t you? Big dongers, everyone says. But we haven’t time now for you to demonstrate that, George. We’re here on business. And business says we need black girls in our sexual portfolio. There’s a demand for them, see? It’s a niche market, black girls. But a lucrative one: you’d be surprised how many white and brown men want to try a black girl. Maybe lots of times, or maybe just once, to see if they really do go like steam engines! No offence intended, and none taken, I’m sure. But you’re being offered a great opportunity here, George. You’ll be in on the ground floor. You’ll supply us with, say, half a dozen black girls, to start with, and then there’s no knowing where you might go. We’ll give you guidance, to get you started. There must be black girls in a care home somewhere near you: that’s always a good place to start. A dozen next year, then maybe twenty or thirty. You could eventually have other people working for you. The sky’s the limit. We aim to supply all tastes.’
Martindale tried not to show the revulsion which was rising within him. Any sign of weakness would be a mistake with these men. He was sure of that, but of nothing else in this nightmare scenario. He fought down his nausea and said, ‘I haven’t the contacts. I wouldn’t be any use to you in this sort of—’
There was a sudden tremendous noise on the stairs he had recently climbed so carefully. Then the door was kicked open, so violently that it crashed against the wall beside it, and a voice yelled, ‘Don’t move. Stay exactly where you are!’ The light which now suddenly blazed into the dimly lit room was blinding. Yet Martindale was conscious only of the black muzzles of the two weapons in the doorway: he could see nothing of the men behind them. The voice said, ‘You are under arrest. Lie flat on the ground on your bellies. Move slowly. Any attempt at resistance could result in your being shot.’
They were handcuffed and frisked. The plump Asian was relieved of a pistol, the thin one of a wicked-looking knife. George Martindale was flung with them into the police van.
His arrest brought to him a strange feeling of relief.
EIGHTEEN
John Lambert gave the murder team their assignments for the day, then called DI Rushton and DS Hook into his improvised office at Twin Lakes.
‘New developments overnight. George Martindale was arrested in Bristol last night. It’s part of the investigation into a sex-crimes ring based in Oxford. They think it has connections with the gangs already exposed in Rochdale and Telford and Derby. Vulnerable teenage girls being taken from other places and touted around the back streets of Oxford, as well as subjected to all kinds of other abuse. It’s well organized: men are travelling by prior arrangement from considerable distances and paying big sums for their pleasures.’
‘And Martindale was involved in this?’ Bert Hook could not keep the surprise out of his voice.
‘He was arrested with two of the Asians who’ve been directing operations and have been watched now for many months.’ He glanced at Rushton. ‘Mark Patmore was working undercover and was instrumental in exposing all this. He’s now been withdrawn and sent to a safe house well away from his scene of operations.’
Chris Rushton said curtly, ‘He’s a good man, Mark Patmore. I couldn’t do the things he’s done.’
He had trained with Patmore many years earlier. They had been companions in distress during the rigours of cadetship, had compared notes on the problems presented to them and the ridiculous expectations of the powers that be. They had kept in touch for a while after they had become full-time officers, united by the common experience of training and their early-career steps in the police service. But they had been very different personalities. Rushton’s determination to play by the rules and take the logical route to an inspector’s job had contrasted with Patmore’s more maverick and unpredictable approach to authority and to the whole ethos of police work.
Lambert grinned. ‘Not many people could do the things Patmore’s done, Chris. Under-cover work demands a special kind of personality. You have to be brave and resourceful. You could manage that. You also have to be unscrupulous at times, and it helps if you’re not quite sane. You and I wouldn’t be much good at that.’
Chris felt consoled by the great man’s words. He had always envied the initiative, resourcefulness and naked courage of men like Patmore. They made him feel very puny. Chris was intelligent, very thorough, and he had an absolute integrity which Lambert recognized and valued but never mentioned. Rushton was dimly conscious of his own strengths, but they seemed very humdrum against those of his erstwhile colleague. It takes all sorts, he told himself unconvincingly.
He addressed himself determinedly to his own problems. ‘So we now know that Martindale’s a villain. Can we add murder here to what he’s been up to elsewhere?’ There was satisfaction in his voice: he hadn’t taken to the popular George Martindale, the family man who was so extrovert and approachable as to be almost the opposite of how Chris saw himself.
‘We shall keep an open mind on that. We don’t know exactly what he’s going to be charged with yet. He’s admitted to being a small-time drugs dealer, but nothing more as yet. Apparently Mark Patmore, who’s been getting nearer and nearer to this sex-grooming ring over the last six months, knows nothing about Martindale and has never come across him before. He thinks the men involved might have been trying to recruit him, but that’s still to be established. I’ve had a long conversation with the Serious Crime Investigation superintendent down in Bristol and explained exactly where we are up to in a murder investigation here. He’s agreed to release Martindale on bail and send him back here. He was a little reluctant, but I think he’s far more interested in the two Asians who were arrested with him.’
Rushton reflected that there were advantages after all in having a celebrity detective in charge of your team, however reluctant John Lambert might be to accept that role. ‘Last night’s arrest and questioning should have softened the bugger up for you. You might get a confession out of him today.’
‘Only if he did it. We shall keep the open mind I mentioned.’ Lambert felt very priggish with his iteration of that principle. ‘The Serious Crime Unit superintendent gave me some much more interesting information. They think that Richard Seagrave is one of the big men behind this sex-grooming business, which has been going on in northern and midland towns as well as Oxford. There’s big money in it, but there’s also big money needed to set it up. It sounds like the most evil and despicable business you could envisage and the network is extensive and efficient. It’s needed brains to set the whole thing up and money to finance it. Seagrave has both. He also strikes me as completely amoral. Does that sound like a better candidate for murder than Martindale?’
‘Definitely. But of course we must keep an open mind.’ Rushton didn’t make many jokes. He wasn’t even sure that this repetition of Lambert’s injunction qualified as a joke, but he’d enjoyed it. ‘We’ve checked the alibis of everyone else on site. Unless we care to assume a mass conspiracy, your suspects are confined to the ones you’ve been concentrating on. Which means the people that Walter Keane was trying to blackmail. Have you managed to eliminate any of them?’
Lambert looked at the silent Hook, then shook his head. ‘We plan to see Martindale and Seagrave again today. Wally seems to have known as much about Seagrave as the Serious Crime Squad. Of course, they have to prove things, whereas Wally could operate on mere suspicion. It looks as if he succeeded in taking Seagrave for a very large sum of money.’
‘Which would also be highly dangerous, from Wally’s point of view. Seagrave isn’t the sort who’d meekly accept paying out money to a blackmailer.’ Bert Hook spoke up for the first time. He knew whom he favoured for the killer, whatever John Lambert said about open minds.
Lambert nodded. ‘Seagrave says he spent all the key hours of Friday night with his partner, Vanessa Norton. Whatever we think about alibis provided by spouses and partners, they’re v
ery difficult to break.’
Bert frowned. ‘A man like Seagrave doesn’t do his own dirty work. He has people to do it for him.’
‘True enough. But this death doesn’t on the surface look like one perpetrated by a contract killer or professional muscle. This looks like something improvised on the spot – perhaps whoever met Keane on Friday night didn’t initially intend to kill him. The victim was hit over the head and strung up on a rope, which was almost certainly already on site. The bullet through the back of the head is more the method of the man or men hired to kill.’
Rushton said thoughtfully, ‘You’re right about that. The MO in this death looks like the work of an amateur.’
Lambert nodded thoughtfully. ‘We’re almost all of us amateurs when it comes to killing, Chris. It’s possible that even Seagrave, whom we now know as a vicious criminal, has never killed a man himself before. He has other people to do his dirty work.’
Rushton frowned. ‘What do you think of the idea that this killing could be a joint effort? Most of the people you’ve been interviewing are paired. Most of them had a joint interest in seeing Keane off the face of the earth.’
‘That’s true. The pairs who are providing each other with alibis are also possible joint murderers.’
‘And with most of the pairings, at least one of them seems capable of violence. Martindale and Seagrave we already know about. Jason Ramsbottom almost killed a man when he was much younger and is clearly desperate that he shouldn’t lose his wife and family. Freda Potts has her marriage and her career at stake after sleeping with one of her pupils, and her husband is SAS trained, which means he has been taught how to kill. Tiler and Norrington don’t have a history of violence, but they are very concerned to conceal Norrington’s past abuses under another name. If we accept the idea that whoever met Keane on Friday night didn’t initially intend murder, one or both of these two might be the likeliest candidates.’
Rushton was unusually pessimistic. ‘There are too many candidates. And with all these pairs supporting each other, too many dodgy alibis that we’ll find it impossible to break.’
The three senior men had an unexpected visitor waiting for them with the female detective constable in the murder room. Lisa Ramsbottom rose and said nervously, ‘I’d like to speak to Detective Sergeant Hook, please. Alone, if that’s possible.’
Bert looked at Lambert, who nodded his assent. He took Lisa into the improvised interview room at the end of the mobile home they had commandeered. She looked round it curiously and said, ‘This is an exact replica of the second bedroom in our unit. It seems odd to be talking to a policeman in here.’
It was no more than a diversion, a means of putting off what she had come here to say, and they both knew it. Bert said gently, ‘I don’t want to hurry you, but I have to ask you to be as brief as possible. We have other people to see today.’
‘Of course. I’m sorry and it’s probably nothing.’ But it wasn’t. It was highly important. Important for her alone, she hoped. If not, the consequences were too awful for her to contemplate. She took a deep breath and said, ‘I need to know what Jason said when he came to see you yesterday.’
‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you that, Lisa. All our exchanges with the public are confidential. Sometimes we have to talk to other people as a result of what they reveal to us. This is not one of those occasions.’
‘But I’m his wife. He doesn’t have secrets from me.’
How often had he heard that, and how often had it been absurdly wide of the mark? ‘I’m sorry. Perhaps you should ask him about it yourself.’
‘I’ve done that and he won’t tell me. That’s why I’m here. We’re neighbours when we’re in our real homes in Tewkesbury, Bert.’
‘And in this case that makes no difference. I’m sorry.’
She stared out of the window for a moment, watching a wagtail hopping away from them over the close-cut turf. ‘What did you make of my suggestion that it might have been Wally Keane who sent us those ridiculous threatening notes?’
Bert had a problem. He couldn’t reveal confidential information, but he sensed that Lisa Ramsbottom had something to tell him. Something which for all he knew might have a vital bearing on the case. He wanted to offer her something, so as to encourage her to keep talking, but he had precious little available to him. He said rather stolidly, ‘It was an interesting suggestion. We haven’t ignored it. But I can now tell you that we don’t think that those letters came from Wally Keane.’
‘It was Jason who made up those messages, wasn’t it?’
‘I can’t tell you about that. Perhaps you should talk about it with Jason, if that’s what you think.’
‘Jason was appalled when I brought you here to talk about those notes back in May. He tried to pretend he wasn’t, but I know him too well.’
Too well and not well enough, Bert thought. He said stiffly, ‘If you think that, you should discuss it with your husband. I’m sorry we can’t help, but I’m sure you understand.’
She nodded absently and continued to look out of the window, staring without reaction towards the spot a hundred yards away where a young spaniel leapt high in the air after the ball with which a ten-year-old boy was teasing it. Bert said softly, ‘I think you came here to tell me something. Something you feel is important. I think you should tell me that now.’
She glanced fiercely at him for a moment, then resumed her gaze through the window. She was looking beyond the boy and his dog, towards the hill which rose gently away behind them as she said dully, ‘Jason went out on Friday night. I can’t be sure of the time. It was on the edge of darkness.’
Bert’s tone altered not an iota. He remained as low key as ever as he said calmly, ‘And how long was he out for, Lisa?’
‘About half an hour, I should think. Maybe a little longer. It was quite dark when he came in.’
‘We need to speak to you on your own, Mr Seagrave.’
The powerful figure stood above them in the door of his holiday home and showed no inclination to relinquish that dominant position. ‘I think I’d like Vanessa to hear this. Just to make sure you don’t twist anything I choose to say to you.’ He looked down on Lambert and Hook and made his derision quite clear in the smile which he allowed to twist his broad features.
Vanessa Norton appeared suddenly beside him in the doorway. ‘It’s all right, Richard. The officers might have things to say to you in private, and I understand that. I can busy myself on the golf course. I’ll probably have more frustrations there than you will endure here.’ She slipped past him, descended the three steps, then lifted the lid on the storage bin beside the wall. She lifted out a bag of golf clubs, as if providing evidence of her honesty. She slung the bag over her shoulder and departed without another glance at the trio behind her, an attractive figure in yellow shirt and green slacks. On this bright summer morning, her tall, willowy figure seemed a personification of innocent activity in that outdoor world which was so alien to the man she had left behind her.
Hook, staring after her, wondered if this was her declaration of non-involvement.
Seagrave said heavily, ‘I suppose you’d better come inside and sit down.’
He motioned to the sofa in the living room, then sat down heavily in the armchair opposite them. Its seat was two inches higher than theirs; his superiority was preserved. It wasn’t important or significant, but the idea of it pleased him.
The CID men waited, stretching the silence to see if it would unsettle him. He was too wily a bird for that. He’d played these games before, he told himself. He was an educated man, wasn’t he, and far too intelligent for these jumped-up plods?
Lambert said, ‘We’ve been examining again the full details of what Walter Keane had recorded upon his computer. He had collected some interesting and highly damaging facts abut you, hadn’t he?’
‘Mere speculation. I treated Keane with contempt. I’m not going to pretend I’m sorry he’s dead. I don’t go in for that sort of mealy-mou
thed sentimentality.’
‘No. The Serious Crime Squad is well aware that you are not a man who shows sentiment. Grooming helpless young girls for sex with callous and perverted older men shows a complete absence of sentiment.’
Lambert detected the first flash of fear in the narrowed brown eyes. Seagrave said, ‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about, Chief Superintendent Lambert.’ He invested his enunciation of the rank with a sneer of contempt.
‘Oh, but I think you have. The whole network is about to be exposed. It covers many cities and towns, as you are well aware.’
Seagrave made himself take his time. There was never anything to be gained by being too hasty. They had to be bluffing. No doubt they were trying to get him to give them facts they needed but were never going to have. ‘I’ve read a little about these sex rings. Quite interesting stuff. Little sluts being introduced to the game early. Apprentice tarts being taught their trade, as far as I can gather. It’s an alien world to me, of course, as a respectable businessman.’
‘Yes, it would be.’ This time it was Lambert who did not care to conceal his contempt. ‘These activities have been financed by businessmen like you. A lot of money’s gone into this. You must have been anticipating rich rewards.’
‘What a vivid imagination you have, Lambert! Unusual in a policeman, I’d say. And likely to get you into a whole lot of trouble, when I sue for defamation. “Who steals my purse steals trash. But he that filches from me my good name makes me poor indeed.” Othello says that, Chief Superintendent.’ Let the bastards know they’re dealing with an educated man here, not some thug with pretensions, Richard thought.
The riposte came from the man he hadn’t even deigned to consider. Bert Hook regarded his adversary steadily as he said, ‘That’s not an exact quotation, but near enough. And it comes from Iago, the villain of the piece, not Othello. The greatest of all villains, most people think. The kind of man who might set up innocent kids to provide for the sexual tastes of rich villains.’
