Some By Fire dcp-6

by Stuart Pawson

  He slowed and I caught up, but stayed about three yards behind him.

  There's a cairn marking the top, and a wall to give some shelter.

  Kingston moved to his right, approaching the wall in a curve, which struck me as curious.

  Our feet crunched and scraped on the ground, and although we didn't speak our progress was noisy. When we were ten yards from the wall a figure rose and stepped out into the open. He was tall and gangly, and a rucksack hung from his hand.

  "Hello, DJ," I said. "Come to watch the moonrise with us?"

  He reached into the bag and produced what looked like two short walking sticks. They were bent at one end, sharpened into chisel points and wrought from steel. In the tool catalogues they are called wrecking bars, but they are universally known as jemmies. Kingston reached out and DJ handed one to him, bent end first so it would be difficult to pull it from his grasp. They're a formidable weapon. One blow and I'd be down. It didn't have to be the head. An arm, shoulder, knee or foot, it was all the same. They separated, shepherding me towards the slope that went on and on, all the way down to Red Tarn.

  "You won't be watching the moonrise, Priest," Kingston said.

  I walked backwards, glancing from one to the other. The breeze was on my right cheek, flapping the collar of my jacket against my ear. "This is a surprise," I shouted above it. They didn't answer, just moved towards me in slow steps.

  "So how did you two meet?" I tried. The book says keep them talking.

  It wasn't a bestseller. "It's a reasonable question," I argued. "How did you meet?"

  "You wouldn't understand," Kingston replied.

  "Try me."

  "DJ found me."

  "Found you?"

  "Yes. Something brought him to Lancaster and I saw his name on the list of the new students."

  "What were you doing?" I demanded. "Trawling for likely candidates you could corrupt?" The slope was growing steeper and I was aware of a big black nothingness behind me.

  "I said you wouldn't understand."

  "A coincidence," I said. "You were looking for girls with fancy names and you came across Duncan Roberts. It rang a bell, so you looked him up. That's it, isn't it?"

  "There are no coincidences in this life, Priest. We make our own destinies. Fate brought DJ to me because he understands that there is more to our lives than the average person can see. He was looking for something, a way to take control. Like I said, he found me."

  I turned to DJ. "Hear that?" I yelled at him. "You're listening to the words of a madman; a raving lunatic' DJ raised the jemmy. The slope was so steep I had to twist my feet sideways to stand up. "His half-baked ideas killed your uncle, DJ," I went on. "He hooked him somehow, sex and alcohol at a guess, then used him to do his dirty work. What's he supplying you with, DJ? Coke?

  Heroin, and a nice bit of stuff that's thrown herself at you? She wasn't called Danielle, was she? Sex, drugs and promises of wealth and power. Is that it?"

  "Danielle?" DJ said. "He knows Danielle?"

  "Don't listen to him," Kingston argued. "He's a cop. He's been spying on you."

  "Danielle's vanished," I shouted. "She worked for Kingston and we think he's killed her, like he killed your uncle."

  "I never met DJ's uncle," Kingston shouted.

  "Your girlfriend did. Melissa. She picked him out as a likely candidate, and between you you destroyed him."

  "He's lying, DJ," Kingston protested. "Duncan was a good person. He'd have been all right if they hadn't hounded him to his death, always keeping him down, moving him on, never giving him a chance. The pigs killed your uncle, DJ. He killed him. We're doing this for him.

  Remember that."

  I couldn't go any further and the wind was still on the side of my face. Duncan was holding the jemmy by the bent end, resting it on the palm of his other hand. I took a side-step up the hill towards him, and he raised his arm.

  Maybe I could afford to take one blow. I felt in my pocket for the CS canister and turned it in my fingers, groping for the flat side of the button. If I whipped it out and pressed, and it squirted up my sleeve, I'd be in big trouble. DJ hesitated, the jemmy still aloft, ready to strike. Kingston, to my left, kept coming nearer and lower, slowly moving downwind, where I wanted him.

  I pulled the aerosol from my pocket, took four quick steps towards DJ and ducked. I heard the jemmy hiss through the air and felt it thud into my back as I let fly at Kingston with the CS. He screamed and clutched his face, his weapon falling to the ground. DJ had swung himself off-balance and he stumbled to his knees, dropping the jemmy as he scrabbled to stop himself going over the edge. I'd fallen too, but was facing uphill and was soon back up. DJ recovered but he saw Kingston's agony, didn't understand what had happened and jumped away from me. I pointed the CS at him but he was upwind and I'd have got the lot if I'd pressed the button. The threat was enough and he turned and fled. I chased him for about thirty yards, but the gradient and the years were against me. He vanished, crashing and stumbling, into the darkness. I walked back to Kingston and picked up both jemmies, holding them around the middle.

  He was on his knees, rubbing his eyes, and he called me a bastard. I gave him another short burst, at close range, just for the hell of it, and he rolled over, screaming like a pig on a spear. I handcuffed him and walked about twenty yards up the hill. I sat down with my arms around my knees and watched and waited. The moon came up, mysterious and majestic, bigger than I'd ever seen it, with Ullswater like a silver boomerang in the valley. He hadn't been lying about the moon.

  When the sobbing subsided I grabbed a handful of Gore-Tex and hoisted him to his feet. "Walk!" I ordered. He stumbled a few feet and sank to his knees. I yanked him up again and kicked him. "Walk!" I yelled. "Walk! Walk! Walk!"

  We made slow progress. When dawn broke, bright and new, we were only halfway along Swirral Edge. Kingston fell to the ground and said he could go no further. I grabbed him by the hair and stuffed the end of the CS canister into his left nostril. "Get this," I hissed at him.

  "You can either walk out of here or you can be carried. But if I have to carry you the first thing I'll do is empty this up your friggin' nose. So get up on your feet and walkV After that we made better progress. On the bridle path leading into Patterdale a group of walkers approached us. They were all fairly elderly, out to enjoy a day on the fells. As we reached them Kingston turned to one, his shackled wrists held forward in an appeal for help.

  I grabbed his arm and steered him past them with a communal: "Good morning." They all turned to watch us go by, mumbling their greetings, not believing their eyes. This was the Lake District, after all. When we were past them the first one to recover her senses called: "What's he done?" after us.

  "Dropped a crisp packet," I muttered without looking back.

  The cars were still there. I found my mobile in my rucksack and dialled 999. It was the only number I could remember. Fifteen minutes later a Cumbria Constabulary Vauxhall Astra pulled into the car park and two PCs with bum fluff on their chins climbed out with a battle-weary, what's-this-all-about air.

  I showed them my ID. "DI Priest, Heckley CID," I said. "I want him taking to Kendal nick." I pushed Kingston back against their car and wished Sparky could have heard this next bit. "Nicholas James William Kingston," I began. "I'm arresting you for the murder of Jasmine Turnbull. You need not say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention, when questioned…" I couldn't be bothered. "Oh, take him to Kendal," I said. "I'll see you there."

  "But we're from Keswick," one of the PCs protested.

  "If you lose your way, ask," I said. I took a towel from my car boot and dried my face and blew my nose on it. That CS gas gets everywhere.

  I doubted if we'd run Kingston for little Jasmine, but we'd done our best for her. Found her some justice at last.

  The jemmies went to have prints taken from them and I went for breakfast in their canteen. I was having my second tea when the DI that I'd dealt with before came in and j
oined me. "We've just had a report," he said, 'of a casualty on Striding Edge. Male, early twenties, with a broken leg. Anything to do with you?"

  "Good," I replied. "Good. My cup run neth over. He's called Duncan J. Roberts and I want a statement from him."

  "Patterdale rescue team are on their way," the DI told me, 'and the Air Sea Rescue helicopter's standing by. He'll be in hospital in half an hour."

  We agreed that he'd interview DJ, if possible, before the morphine wore off. I suggested that the threat of an attempted murder charge might further loosen his tongue. Kingston was making a full and frank statement, we'd tell him, and blaming everybody but himself. Meanwhile, I'd try the same thing with Kingston.

  DJ fell for it, Kingston didn't. He couldn't remember Melissa, didn't know anything about 32 Leopold Avenue, and stuck to his story about Fox. We brought Francesca in for questioning and searched the house.

  Thoroughly, this time.

  In the garage we found a rubber dingy. Not a super-duper neoprene job with a wooden floor and mountings for an outboard, like we might have expected. This was a cheapo plastic one, bright yellow, like you see on garage fore courts for parents to cast their offspring adrift in.

  But Kingston had no children. It was deflated, and pools of water were trapped in the folds, so we took a sample and sent it for analysis.

  Apart from that and a couple of grams of coke, we didn't find much else. I rang Les Isles and told him of my adventures. He said: "I'm coming over."

  It was ten o'clock in the evening when I arrived home, sustained for the drive by adrenalin and canteen tea. I cleaned my teeth, switched the alarm off and crashed out for ten hours.

  "Where've you been?" Dave demanded when I wandered into the office, clean-shaven and crisp-shirted, carrying a Marks and Spark's prawn sandwich for brunch. I told him all about it. My back hurt where DJ had whomped me, and my left arm was stiff. I could have had the bruises photographed as evidence, and filed a report, but I didn't bother. Screwing DJ wasn't on my agenda.

  I did the paperwork and rang Tregellis. It's always easier to do things that way round, then the decks are clear if you are landed with another job. He was delighted, and had some news for me, too.

  "Graham's been doing the rounds with the video you sent us," he told me. "He's shown it to three people who were at that charity bash at Newbury, and they all ID-ed Kingston as the man who accompanied Mary Perigo."

  "Rodger-with-a-d Wakefield," I said.

  "That's right. The case is building up nicely. Melissa's fingered him for the fire, you say this DJ character is spilling the beans on him, he's had a go at you and now we can link him with Mary Perigo. It's looking good."

  "But it's all circumstantial," I said. "He'll spend his time in prison writing books about the injustice he's suffered, about the conspiracy against him because the Establishment regards him as a danger to their way of life. I want him nailing, bang to rights."

  "Circumstantial evidence can be overwhelming, Charlie," Tregellis replied. "I'll settle for that."

  "I suppose so."

  "When does Melissa go back?"

  "Tomorrow."

  "Shame about the wedding. Piers said he couldn't believe his ears when she agreed to come over. Now that she's married they'll have to let her back in."

  "I know, but she was stringing us along, acting innocent, all the way.

  She's got away with it."

  "Win a few, lose a few, Charlie. Don't take it personally."

  "I'll try not to."

  After that it was Les Isles again. "Thought you'd still be in bed, Charlie," he said.

  "Dangerous places, beds," I replied. "People die in them."

  "Thought you'd like to know the good news and the bad news about the dinghy. The water was tap water. He'd either used it in the bath or hosed it off, so we can't tell anything from that. But we know where the dinghy came from, and when. Kendal have traced it to a filling station in Windermere. The girl there knows Kingston by sight; he buys a lot of petrol and can't resist flirting with her. She recognised him as the man who bought it a week last Sunday, which was just before Fox died."

  "Start dragging the lakes, Les," I said. "He dumped Danielle's body from it. He used her to set Fox up, and now he's silenced her. He's a hard man and a midnight swim would be nothing to him. She'd have to be weighted, so he'd need some assistance to keep her afloat until they were over deep water. She's in one of them somewhere, I'm sure of it."

  "And he couldn't abandon the dinghy because he knew we might find it and trace it back to him."

  "Like you have done. Exactly."

  "The frogmen are out, and we've asked our amateur friends to help. You know what they're like; bloody bunch of enthusiastic ghouls. They'll find her."

  I put the phone down. Tregellis was right. We might not go to court with anything that could be called forensic, but overwhelming circumstantial evidence was just as damning. I could imagine the phrase rolling off the judge's tongue, and the jury sitting a little straighter as that word overwhelming helped them come to terms with the thought of locking a man away for the rest of his life. Just the same, a little more evidence would be useful. Wanting to find the body of a young girl made me feel uneasy. "I hope she's not dead," I said to myself. "I truly hope and pray that she's not dead. But if she is, I hope we find the body."

  Nigel came for me after work, with Dave already in his car, and we went for a few bevvies in one of the pubs high on the moors. These days you can have an animated conversation in one with little fear of being overheard. Cheap booze from the Continent keeps the punters at home, sipping Australian lager from the can and watching Australian soaps on TV until the blue kangaroos coming down the chimney tell them they've had enough. The landlord blinked with surprise at the sudden influx of trade and tried to remember the prices.

  The inquiry had fizzled out, that was the problem. Fox was dead, Kingston was in custody and Melissa was going home. We'd never know the full extent of their evil. Crosby had met the War Crimes people and told them all his early memories, right down to the colour of his grandma's cat. If it were proved that he was the original Johannes Josef Fuchs it would give us a good insight into Fox's character and the papers would go into a feeding frenzy at his expense. And that was about it.

  "Where's Annette?" I asked, after a good long sip of proper beer.

  "Out on a date," Nigel replied, glumly.

  "Oh. Do we know who with?"

  "He sells computers."

  "That could be anything from Bill Gates's chief executive to behind the checkout at Computers-R-Us."

  "He rings her on his mobile."

  "Sounds a right prat," I pronounced. "Doesn't he, Dave?"

  Dave was studying a miner's lamp hanging in a little niche. "Er, sorry?" he mumbled.

  "I said he sounds a right prat."

  "Who?"

  "Oh, go back to sleep. Just leave your wallet handy."

  "I was thinking."

  "Well, no wonder you're tired."

  "She's got away with it, hasn't she?" he said.

  "Annette?"

  "No! Melissa."

  "Got away with what?"

  "I don't know, but she has."

  I said: "It's normal to be reasonably specific about the offence before we put someone before a judge and send them to jail. Juries take a dim view if we just say that we don't know what they've done, but they must have done something."

  "Listen," he began. "Mrs. Holmes painted a bleak picture of Melissa.

  Said she was capable of anything. So did the black lawyer you met…"

  "Mo," I interrupted.

  "Him. And look how awful she was with her parents. For God's sake, she drove her mother to her death. Then there's her friendship with Kingston. She's admitted that she was at Leopold Avenue with him, and that was six years after they met. Six years! What were they up to in between? She and Kingston were partners, equal partners, I'm sure of it. She's as bad as him, maybe worse." He underlined his words by
picking up his glass and draining it. "And she's got off, scot-free."

  He plonked the glass down on the formica table to indicate that he'd said his piece.

  I looked at Nigel and he gave me a brief shrug of the shoulders, as if to say: "He's been like this all day. What more can we do?"

  I went to the bar for refills. "Quiet tonight," I said to the landlord.

  "It'll liven up later," he replied.

  Dream on, I thought. A blackboard behind the bar said that Friday was quiz night, with free beer for the winners. Free beer for the losers would have stood a better chance.

  I carefully placed the glasses on the beer mats and sat down. They both took sips and offered the customary salutation. "We needed Melissa's evidence, Dave," I began. "Without her we'd never have got off the ground. We're not prosecuting Kingston for all the crimes he might have committed for Fox, we're doing him for the ones he committed to cover his tracks. Without Melissa we couldn't have linked him to the fire, or to Duncan."

  "She still gets away with it," he complained.

  "We tried," I said. "We thought she'd be refused readmission to the States. That would have hurt her, but she was one step ahead of us."

  "She's mixing with some crazy people over there," Nigel said. "There's a good chance one of them will shoot her, one day."

  "That's something to look forward to," Dave agreed. He pushed his glass a few inches across the table and wiped condensation from it with a thumb. "I'm sorry, Charlie," he said. "You've done brilliantly, and I sound ungrateful. It's just that… I wish we could have got Melissa. It doesn't feel finished. Tomorrow she'll be back with her hillbilly friends, and…" He lifted his glass and left it at that.

  And live happily ever after?

  "I know how you feel," I told him, raising mine to join him in a drink.

  "And why. I was at the fire too, remember. We've only done half of the job, but something tells me we haven't heard the last of Melissa Youngman."

  "Slade," Nigel said. "Melissa Slade."

  "Don't remind me," I hissed at him across the top of my glass.