by Faith Martin
‘Hmmm, not very helpful, is it? Death due to a combination of massive shock, loss of blood, inhalation of water and trauma. The pathologist seems to think practically everything killed him.’
‘That’s not what I meant,’ she said. ‘Did you notice the injuries all seem to centre on the pelvic area?’
Regis hadn’t. He read again. ‘Well, I suppose if you went overboard in a narrow lock, it would be the pelvic area that would take the most gyp, wouldn’t it?’
Hillary wasn’t so sure. If you were in the water and struggling for your life, wouldn’t your head, neck and shoulders be likely to take the most punishment? Unless the lock was empty at the time and Dave Pitman was standing on his feet, not free-swimming at all. In which case—
‘Sir, I’ve just heard something interesting.’ Frank Ross’s voice, rich with self-congratulation, made both of them take notice.
‘In which case, we’d better have DCI Mallow here,’ Regis said, but Mel had already seen the little gathering at Hillary’s desk and was making his way over.
Tommy Lynch and Janine Tyler sidled closer.
‘What’s up?’ Mel asked, carefully avoiding Janine’s eyes and meeting Frank’s gloating orbs instead.
‘Sir, one of my snouts has just come up with something juicy. Apparently, Fletcher suspected Gascoigne of skimming.’
Even Frank was satisfied with the reaction this got. Regis, especially, pricked up his ears.
With relish, and care, Frank recited how he’d got Jackson to talk, skipping over Jackson’s mental defects and perhaps slightly emphasising his “in” with the Fletcher outfit.
‘So that’s why Alfie Makepeace asked especially for Pitman,’ Mel said, causing Hillary to do a double take. Had he? Obviously it was something Frank had reported directly to Mel, who hadn’t seen fit to tell her. If she’d known that yesterday, she might have had the wedge she needed to crack Makepeace open a little.
‘Because if Gascoigne was skimming,’ Regis followed his line of thought out loud, ‘and Fletcher had put Alfie, his regular eyes and ears, onto the task of getting proof one way or the other, Makepeace would need some backup. Someone with muscles and a rep.’
‘And The Pits had a reputation for being a hard bastard,’ Mel chimed in.
Regis glanced at Hillary.
‘DI Greene?’ he said softly, but it had the effect of turning all eyes on her. ‘You don’t agree?’
Hillary shook her head helplessly. The moment they’d started to talk, her mind had turned back to the interview yesterday. Gascoigne had started to run the moment he realised Makepeace had company. OK, that was to be expected. It was a villain’s natural instinct. But he’d come back. OK, perhaps that could be explained by the simple fact that he’d had time to realise that there was nothing to be scared of. The drugs had already been offloaded, after all.
During the interview he’d been bolshie and sneering, which, no doubt, were mere manifestations of his usual charming personality. But it had been Makepeace who’d overruled him about letting the police do an unofficial search of the boat. It had been Makepeace who’d done all the talking. Without doubt, it had been the older man who was in charge.
In short, Gascoigne hadn’t responded like a man with guts enough to skim from Luke Fletcher.
She shook her head. ‘I don’t know. Gascoigne didn’t strike me as a worried man.’
Frank Ross snorted. ‘Course it was Gascoigne. The nark called him “Knifey.” And we all know Gascoigne has a rep with the knife.’
Hillary paid him no attention at all. Mel merely scowled at him. Regis was still staring at Hillary thoughtfully.
‘He didn’t strike you that way?’ Regis said eventually. ‘Interesting. If Gascoigne had been skimming — which was almost suicidal anyway — he would surely have been suspicious of Alfie Makepeace asking for Dave Pitman to come along for the ride. If this earlier nark of Ross’s had heard that Makepeace had asked specifically for Pitman, then surely Gascoigne would know about it too?’
‘Oh, come on, it all fits,’ Ross said. ‘Gascoigne was skimming, Fletcher suspected, so he sends Alfie Makepeace, his regular little watchdog, to find out. He sends Pitman to be Alfie’s muscle, in case things go pear-shaped. And Pitman gets clobbered. It’s obvious, innit?’
Mel tended to agree.
The fact that Hillary wasn’t so sure, and Regis seemed inclined to agree with her, didn’t much matter.
‘Right, we’ll take this as our working hypothesis,’ Mel said, rubbing his hands —both literally and figuratively — with glee. ‘Well done, Frank,’ he added, flatly.
Watching Frank Ross gloat was a salutary experience for everyone.
CHAPTER 12
Things had been happening while Hillary had been in London, a fact that was rammed home to her when she got to the office the next day.
Janine smiled a hello, and then frowned when Mel came out of his office, Regis and his near-silent sergeant hot on his heels.
‘Hillary, how did it go?’ he asked, but it was perfunctory at best, and he hardly seemed to listen to her report. It didn’t add much to their investigation, save, perhaps, to give a little extra weight to press down on Gascoigne and Makepeace. It might pay a few dividends in their bid to get them to admit that they even knew Dave Pitman, let alone that he was their boat-mate for most of the journey from London to Oxford, but nothing more.
‘We’re just off to see Marcus,’ Mel said, when she’d finished. ‘We’re going to ask to bring in Makepeace and Gascoigne for formal questioning. With what you got from London yesterday, and Frank’s snout coming across with the info that Makepeace asked for Pitman specifically, it’s worth sweating him, especially.’
Hillary nodded, without enthusiasm. She saw Mel give Janine a searching look, realised it had more in it than mere concern about an injured colleague’s wellbeing, and bit back a surge of annoyance.
If there was one thing Janine didn’t need right now, it was a confidence-sapping bout in Mellow Mallow’s bed. She was almost certain it would lead to nothing more than her boss cutting yet another notch in his belt, leaving Janine the butt of office innuendo and gossip.
She’d have to hint that he should keep it buttoned in his trousers — never a task guaranteed to win friends and influence people.
If he even bothered to listen to her.
She looked up from shedding her jacket, only to find Regis giving her a long, knowing look, which made her want to grin and scowl at the same time.
‘You don’t think it would do much good?’ he said. It took her a moment to realise that he hadn’t been reading her mind, but was talking about the proposed plan to sweat Makepeace and Gascoigne.
She snorted. ‘Not really. I think Gascoigne, if he has been up to no good, will have at least enough sense to go hedgehog. And as for Makepeace — let’s face it, he’s as old a pro as you can get. He wouldn’t be one of Fletcher’s pets if he wasn’t.’ She glanced at Mel, who was trying not to look down Janine’s cleavage. ‘So, when are we bringing him in?’
Mel opened his mouth to tell her there was no “we” about it, then didn’t have to. Instead his expression iced over by several degrees. With a sinking heart Hillary looked over her shoulder at the approaching Yorkie Bars.
‘Oh, marvellous,’ she said softly.
* * *
Mel went off quite happily to set about bringing in and interviewing their main suspects, while Regis, to his credit, looked less sanguine.
Hillary found something comforting about the way he shot her an amused smile as she set off with the internal investigation officers, and she found herself thinking about him when she should have been thinking about Paul Danvers and Curtis Smith.
DS Smith looked slightly hungover, and she wondered, idly, what he’d been celebrating the night before. She doubted he was married with kids, so probably not an anniversary or one of the sprogs getting into uni.
She took a seat in the small interview room, not unaware of the irony of being
an interviewer forced into interviewee mode. She wondered, even more idly, how cops went about interviewing other cops, knowing that the person they were trying to wangle information out of knew just as many tricks of the trade as they did.
Paul Danvers was looking as smooth as his partner looked rough. His blond hair was newly washed, and fell across his forehead in a way that many women would have found very attractive indeed. He was wearing a good-quality dark blue suit that complemented his eyes.
Eyes that were watching her closely.
Belatedly, the hairs on the back of her neck stood up.
* * *
Mel’s luck in having got rid of Hillary without being the bad guy was the last piece of good fortune he was going to have that day.
He knew it when he heard that Gascoigne, who was supposed to be tucked up cosily on board the Time Out, was in fact nothing of the sort.
‘I thought we had a watch on him,’ he said sharply to a miserable PC, who shifted uncomfortably on size elevens.
‘We did, sir. But there were only the two of us, and it was dark. There’s not a street light in sight out there.’
‘There’s only two ways to go on a towpath, son.’ Mel gritted his teeth, wishing he hadn’t asked Janine out yesterday. Or rather that she’d said yes instead of no.
‘There’s up, and there’s down,’ he carried on, in rare sarcastic vein.
The PC flushed. ‘Yes, sir. But there’s plenty of gaps in the hedges, and miles of open fields. There wasn’t even a moon.’
‘All right, all right,’ Mel said irritably. ‘I take it the old man is still on board?’
‘Yes, sir. He had his bedroom light on all night, and I could see in. He didn’t stir from the time he went to bed at about ten, until seven-forty this morning.’
‘Fine. Think you can radio to your replacements and get them to bring him in?’
The PC flushed again. ‘Yes, sir.’
* * *
‘Ever heard of a Captain Ryan MacMurray?’ Detective Sergeant Curtis Smith said, glancing across at his (technically at least) superior officer.
Hillary hadn’t. ‘No,’ she said flatly.
‘Doesn’t ring any bell at all, huh?’ Curtis smiled amiably.
Hillary, knowing he was trying to rile her, smiled pleasantly back. ‘’Fraid not. Is he a naval captain, pilot of a BA jumbo, or captain of the local rugby team? A hint might be helpful.’
Paul Danvers bit back a grin. Hillary was looking particularly good today, he thought. A plain white blouse pulled enticingly tight across ample breasts, and her nut-brown hair had a sheen to it.
He wasn’t to know that Hillary would have been horrified to know her blouses were getting too tight for her, and her hair shone simply because she’d run out of shampoo (and shower water) and had heard that beer was a good substitute. So she’d used a bottle from the fridge, then had to spend an hour filling the water tank because she’d forgotten how much beer stank.
‘He’s the captain of a fishing vessel up in Ayr. Ever been to Ayr? A nice port. Very picturesque,’ Curtis said. He leaned back, mentally acknowledging the fact that she was too savvy to lose her temper, and switching tactics.
‘I’ve never been to haggis land full stop.’ Hillary was deliberately dumbing down. What her old English professor back at Ruskin would have said about the words “haggis land” made her shudder to contemplate.
‘Oh. Strange, that. Because Captain MacMurray seems to know you,’ Curtis lied smoothly.
It was just a pity that his superior officer shot him a surprised look. And it was even more of a pity (from their point of view) that Hillary caught it.
She felt, suddenly, extremely tired. Why the hell was she here playing silly buggers with the Yorkie Bars when she had work to do?
‘The man must have good eyesight then, to be able to see me all the way down here,’ she said flatly.
‘He knows your husband very well,’ Paul said, deciding he’d let Curtis rule the show for long enough. ‘In fact, Captain MacMurray has been very talkative.’
‘Why? Catch him out doing something naughty?’ Hillary said dryly.
Paul smiled. ‘Bingo. Captain MacMurray was caught with some very illegal goods on his boat the evening before last. Caviar, would you believe. Claims he bought it legitimately off a mate of his on a Russian trawler. He’s a fisherman too, by the way. You’d be surprised what good ol’ Cap’n MacMurray brings in with his catch of the day. Everything from silk to illegal used aeroplane parts.’
Hillary grimaced. Great. Ronnie used a skell who’d even sell duff aeroplane parts. She wondered, with a shiver of real loathing, just how many people had died in plane crashes because of MacMurray and the people who bought from him.
‘I take it Ronnie used him as part of his animal-parts smuggling operation?’ she said, getting straight to the point. ‘Or why else would you be talking to me about it?’
Paul inclined his head. ‘It seems the not-so-good fisherman and your ex did a lot of business together, yes.’
‘Yeah? Well, like I said, I’ve never been north of the border, so why don’t you go fish elsewhere? Now, if that’s all . . .’
She placed her hands firmly on the table and hoisted herself up.
‘So you won’t mind if we show your photograph around the harbour, then?’ Curtis said, giving her a tight smile.
Hillary laughed. ‘Knock yourself out,’ she said pleasantly, wishing that they really would.
* * *
Hillary learned about Gascoigne doing a runner from Tommy, who’d just come in for his shift, and had been gossiping with one of the PCs who’d pulled the now infamous night duty in question. Not surprisingly, he was feeling a little woebegone and hard-done-by, and Tommy Lynch, for all his size, was known to be a bit of a soft touch.
‘I’ll bet that’s pleased Mel,’ Hillary said after Tommy, with some amusement, had reported the fiasco to his boss. ‘Have they brought in Makepeace at least?’
Tommy nodded. ‘Interview room twelve. You gonna take a look, guv?’
Hillary shrugged. She wanted to tell him no. She wanted to tell him that they were still supposed to be looking into other, non-drugs-related reasons why someone might want to off The Pits.
But curiosity won out over piqued professionalism. ‘Sure. Why not. Wanna come?’
Was the Pope Catholic?
* * *
Mel and Regis were up, Mel playing good guy to Regis’s more believable bad guy. But from the moment she walked into the viewing room, she could tell that both men’s acting prowess was utterly wasted on Alfie Makepeace.
He was wearing a blue and red checked shirt, unbuttoned at the top, and a pair of dark brown slacks, shiny at the knees. He was looking as comfortable as any cat in front of a warm fire in the interview room’s ergonomically designed chair. His eyelids were half-closed. He looked like he could sit there for twelve hours straight, not that current interviewing procedures would ever permit it. Then there were the meals he was entitled to, the refreshments, the presence of his lawyer, and anything else he might need to make his stay at Thames Valley Police Headquarters a pleasant little interlude.
‘Come on, Makepeace, why don’t you admit Dave Pitman was on board, at least up until the night of the eighth? We know he was. We have a signed witness statement from someone in London who saw all three of you aboard the boat when it left its moorings.’ This was Mel, sounding reasonable.
‘What was it? Did you think you were invisible, perhaps?’
This was Regis, sneering and spoiling for a fight. ‘Or did you just think we couldn’t backtrack you that far?’
Makepeace said nothing.
With a sigh, Mel ostentatiously pulled a folder towards him and made a great show of reading it.
‘Alfred Daniel Makepeace. Born 17/8/1953. Educated at St Helen’s Primary, then a stint at the local comprehensive till you were fourteen. Left to work in a shoe factory. Then moved on and up to a boat-building yard, followed by a stint in the m
erchant navy.’
Regis snorted. ‘Is that why Fletcher put you in charge, Alfie? Did you like being captain of HMS Cokehead? What was he in the navy, Mel? I’ll bet he was a stoker. One of those grease-monkeys that never see the light of day.’
Makepeace said nothing.
Tommy stirred restlessly beside her. Although nowhere near as experienced as Hillary, he was obviously getting the picture that the two DIs were wasting their time in there.
Makepeace looked about as worried and intimidated as yesterday’s leftover canteen rice pudding.
‘We’ve had the dogs out at the boat, guv,’ Tommy said. ‘Nothing. The handler reckons they’ve gone over the whole boat with disinfectant.’
Hillary nodded, not at all surprised.
‘So why did you ask for The Pits, then, Alfie?’ Regis said, trying to catch Makepeace off guard. If Makepeace lifting his eyes from the table to give him a slow, thoughtful stare could be said to have worked, then it worked.
‘Oh, yes, we know all about that,’ Regis laughed, a very nasty laugh that sent definite trickles down Hillary’s back. Very nice trickles. Of course, if she’d been a perp they wouldn’t have been so nice, but she was a policewoman, and, moreover, one who’d been celibate for far too long. And Regis, though hardly your standard issue Hollywood tall, dark and handsome, nevertheless had that something that set a girl detective’s toes a-tingling.
Now, wouldn’t Detective Inspector Paul Danvers of the North Yorkshire Riding Constabulary be disappointed to know that?
Hillary barely stopped herself from snorting out loud.
‘We know a lot about Luke Fletcher and the little problems he’s been having lately,’ Regis carried on, curling his upper lip like a Doberman spotting a stray cat.
‘Not so little now, though, are they?’ Mel slipped in mildly. ‘His problems, I mean. After our raid in Oxford, I imagine he must be feeling the pinch.’
Makepeace said nothing.
Tommy sighed heavily beside her. ‘He’s not going to crack, is he, guv?’
She shook her head gloomily. ‘Not in a month of Sundays.’
