Shooting Elvis

by Stuart Pawson

  ‘Eddie,’ I said, looking at him. ‘Have you found anything out about them?’

  ‘A bit, guv, but not much.’

  ‘Well come up here and tell us all about it.’

  ‘I had a word with the Serious Organised Crime Agency,’ he told us after he’d come to the front, with all the aplomb of someone who conferred with them every day. ‘They have an expert on biker gangs. Hell’s Angels is a pretty loose term in this country, unlike America. Over there, they were formed by ex-Second World War bomber crews, disillusioned when they returned home. Call yourself an Angel over there and you could get killed. Over here it’s much less organised, but there are three main groups: one is based on the south coast, around Brighton; one up in the North East; and one in the east of England, where our suspect lives. Unfortunately for them the British climate is not conducive to riding around for hours with your arms and legs spread like a jump suit on a washing line. They usually ride old British bikes, mainly Triumphs, on which they lavish great attention. The members themselves are often ageing remnants of the rocker scene, hippies and greasers. There’s no doubt that they peddle drugs, but what part of society doesn’t? They are not to be confused with the Harley Davidson Owners Group, who like to refer to themselves as Hogs. Harleys start at about ten grand, so these are usually well off, born-again bikers living in a fantasy world. They call themselves bad asses and go to Rotary every Wednesday evening.’

  ‘So how would you summarise?’ I said.

  ‘In short, guv, the Angels are a bunch of scumbags who’d rob their grandma of their granddad’s ashes if they thought they could get a bob or two for them.’

  Someone said, ‘The weather’s warming up, so they’re probably coming out of hibernation.’

  Yeah,’ Eddie agreed. ‘They’re all coming out from under their stones.’

  ‘OK,’ I said. ‘There’s a strong possibility that Bousfield recruited one of his Angel friends to nobble Alfred. Unfortunately, Lincoln is a long way away, so we can’t dash down there at the drop of a nun’s wimple, and while we might have enough to bring him up here for a long and meaningful talk, if he stays shtoom we have no chance of charging him. We’ll have to ask Lincoln to do some legwork for us, and maybe spend a day or two down there when we have some names. Anybody fancy a break amongst the sprout fields of Lincolnshire?’

  I’d hardly warmed the chair in my office, upstairs, when Dave brought me another coffee. ‘What’s all this about?’ I asked. ‘I’ve only been here an hour and I’m onto my third drink.’

  ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘I thought you’d be grateful. Would you rather I didn’t bother?’

  ‘I am grateful, but you’re killing me with kindness. I’m spending more time going for a pee than I am working.’

  ‘Sorry, Chas. I’m only trying to oil the wheels.’

  ‘You’re certainly succeeding in that. Could I have the next one at about ten, please, if we’re still here?’

  He went out and I started looking at the reports from the appeal. One or two demanded immediate attention, so I deployed the troops to look into them. Maggie came in and I told her to sit down.

  When I’d finished making a note I said, ‘What’s going off with Dave, Maggie? He’s behaving strangely.’

  ‘Strangely,’ she repeated. ‘In what way?’

  ‘He brings me a cup of coffee about every ten minutes. I could float a battleship on all the coffee I’ve drunk since yesterday afternoon.’

  ‘It started yesterday afternoon?’

  ‘That’s when I noticed it.’

  ‘Right, well that explains a lot.’

  ‘It doesn’t to me.’

  Maggie looked at me, tight-lipped, for several seconds, then said, ‘When Dave came back in yesterday afternoon, someone had done a drawing on his blotter.’

  ‘A drawing? What of?’

  ‘A poodle.’

  ‘I see. The inference being that he’s my poodle.’

  ‘It looked that way.’

  ‘He’s been called that before.’

  ‘I know, but this time it rankles.’

  ‘Eddie?’ I asked. Maggie shrugged her shoulders. Crooks are not the only ones who don’t grass. It was my problem. I said, ‘So Dave’s way of dealing with it is to go over the top. Good for him. It’s better than pushing him down the stairs.’

  ‘What will you do?’

  ‘Is Eddie upsetting any other members of the team?’ I asked.

  ‘You know Eddie, Chas.’

  ‘I’ll take that as a yes. I don’t know what I’ll do, Maggie. Have a word with him, I suppose. Again.’

  The phone rang. ‘Are you in Chas?’ I was asked. ‘It’s your bank manager.’

  I didn’t know I had a bank manager. Well, I suppose I had one, someone must manage the place where I use the cash machine, but we weren’t on telephone-calling terms.

  ‘It’s my bank manager,’ I whispered to Maggie, pulling a face.

  She stood up. ‘Shall I leave you to it…?’

  I shook my head ‘no’ and she sat down again. ‘Put him through, please.’

  ‘DI Priest,’ I said, after the click. ‘How can I help you?’

  ‘Is that Inspector Priest in charge of the murder enquiry?’ a fairly refined voice asked.

  ‘That’s right. How can I help?’

  ‘My name is Jarvis, Inspector, and I’m manager of the Heckley branch of the York and Durham.’

  He paused for effect. I bank with Barclays. ‘I’m listening, Mr Jarvis,’ I said.

  ‘I heard your appeal, last night,’ he continued. ‘Well, saw it, actually. I’ve been on holiday for three weeks, out of the country. Hiking in the Dolomites.’

  ‘That sounds fun.’

  ‘It was. Nothing too strenuous, you understand, but quite energetic enough for someone with my heart condition. I never usually watch television. Not these days. All these reality shows and makeovers. A load of moronic nonsense, if you ask me.’ I hadn’t asked, but I agreed with him. ‘Just put it on to catch up with the headlines,’ he went on. ‘And that’s when I saw you.’

  It’s amazing how many people never watch television but just happen to see everything that’s on it. ‘So what can you tell me,’ I urged. Cutting to the chase, as we say in Heckley.

  ‘The dead chap, Alfred Armitage. I thought the name rang a bell, so I went in this morning although I wasn’t scheduled to return until tomorrow.’

  ‘That’s conscientious of you,’ I admitted, rolling my eyes at Maggie. ‘And what did you find?’

  ‘Just as I thought. He was a client of ours.’

  ‘Good. Good. Was he a regular client?’ It was another piece of information in the riddle that was the world of Alfred Armitage. We now knew where he banked. Big deal.

  ‘At one time he was. And we are the executors of his will.’

  I sat up. ‘He left a will?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Can you tell me who he left his estate to?’

  ‘No problem. He left it all to the Church of the Nazarene. Apparently his wife worshipped there.’

  ‘Blimey!’ I exclaimed. ‘And did he have much to leave?’

  ‘It depends on if you call £342,000 much,’ he replied.

  ‘Jeeesus! I think I’d better come round to see you, Mr Jarvis. Will about ten minutes be OK?’

  ‘Yes, that will be fine, Inspector. Officially, I’m not here, so we shouldn’t be disturbed.’

  I turned to Maggie. ‘Get your coat, Maggie,’ I told her. ‘You’ve pulled.’

  Chapter Six

  We walked, so were a few minutes late, but I saved 35p on parking. Mr Jarvis’s office was sparse and utilitarian. A plain desk with computer terminal, typist’s chair and abstract prints on the wall knocked up by the decorator with a roller and some leftover emulsion. I’d expected a book-lined office in mahogany and leather, with a signed photo of Mrs Thatcher prominently displayed, but I’m behind the times with these things. The bank had recently announced record profits
after sacking half its employees in this country and opening a call centre in Ulan Bator. Jarvis’s position in the company was probably more precarious than that of the polite young receptionist who led us to his office.

  We declined coffee and asked him what he could tell us about the financial affairs of Alfred Armitage. He could have refused, or at least put up a few obstructions until we hit him with a warrant, but he was sensible and cooperative, and the subject of the enquiry wasn’t going to complain.

  ‘Mr Armitage opened a savings account with us in 1962,’ he told us. ‘Nothing special, bread and butter stuff. Saving to get married, I suppose. We helped him with various loans over the years and he made regular payments, never defaulted. He didn’t have a mortgage with us. It was all steady business until 1986, when he started making deposits over and above his regular salary. In 1997 he took advantage of our will-making service and appointed us as his executors.’

  ‘His wife died in 1997,’ Maggie explained.

  ‘Tell us about the deposits, please,’ I urged, anxious to get to the meaty part. Jarvis pondered for a second, then dived into one of the drawers that supported his desk. ‘If you won’t have a coffee, can I tempt you with one of these?’ he said, thrusting a box of Thorntons Continental towards us. Maggie chose a walnut whip and I went for the caramel truffle because the Turkish delight was missing.

  ‘One of your weaknesses, Mr Jarvis?’ Maggie asked.

  ‘Actually, no,’ he replied. ‘Before I went on holiday I bought them for a girl who was leaving. Unfortunately she finished two days early and left me a note calling me a fucking wanker, so I kept them. I’ll give the rest to the staff. Sorry about the French, miss.’

  ‘I’ve heard worse.’

  ‘The deposits,’ I reminded him.

  ‘Ah yes. Unfortunately I haven’t had a chance to investigate our paper records in the ledgers because we don’t keep them here, but we started our computerisation programme in 1974 and I’ve made a few notes. It would appear that Mr Armitage has been making irregular but frequent deposits for a long time.’

  ‘How large and how frequent?’ I asked.

  ‘Between five hundred and a thousand pounds every week or two. They started tapering off about 1998 and had dried up by 2000.’

  ‘Cheques or cash?’ Maggie asked.

  ‘Cheques.’

  ‘So you can tell us who was paying him,’ I said.

  Jarvis looked uncomfortable. ‘Sorry, but no,’ he replied. ‘As you know, when a deposit is made a deposit slip is completed, but this does not record who the drawer was, unless the customer actually wrote it on the back.’

  Actually, I didn’t know. My salary goes in, my bills are paid and I draw money from a cash machine. Occasionally someone gives me a cheque for a painting, which I hand over to the uninterested girl behind the glass, she gives me something to sign and that’s it. Presumably it appears on my account, but I rarely look.

  ‘I don’t suppose Mr Armitage wrote anything on the back,’ I said, hoping to be proved wrong.

  ‘I’ll have to check, but I doubt it. We keep the deposit slips, of course, stored at our central collecting point for ten years or so. After that they’re destroyed to make room. The cheques themselves are sent back to the drawer’s bank. The sort code identifies which branch.’

  ‘Would all Alfred’s deposit slips be stored together?’ I asked.

  ‘Sorry, Inspector. They are bundled by the day. We’d need a date to make it easier. Have you found any of his accounts?’

  I shook my head. ‘No. Weren’t your suspicions ever aroused about the account?’ I asked.

  ‘No, Inspector. Why should they be? For a start, the payments were established long before all the fuss about suspicious cash transactions by drug dealers was made, and these weren’t cash transactions. As far as my staff were concerned he was just another businessman doing quite nicely.’

  ‘Depositing a thousand pounds a week with no outgoings?’ I said.

  ‘It was his profit. He was netting thirty or forty thousand pounds per annum. As far as we were concerned he could have been a salesman or anything. It’s not our job to pry into these things. We will no doubt have sent him our small businesses pack, and invited him in for a chat, but as far as I know he never took advantage of our services. As for suspicious cash transactions, I’d say our record at reporting them is as good as anybody’s.’

  ‘No doubt you’re right, Mr Jarvis,’ I admitted. ‘But I have to ask.’

  The running was becoming serious. Sonia decided she needed more professional coaching than I could provide and had started going to a track session at Huddersfield. It was serious stuff, against the clock. I’d forgotten that Thursday was one of the nights, so was disappointed when she wasn’t at my house when I arrived home. I watched TV until seven, to give the takeaway’s wok time to warm up, then fetched one of their specials.

  She rang me just as I finished it, to say that she ought to go to her own house tonight, so she’d see me after work tomorrow. I asked her how the training went.

  ‘Fine,’ she replied. ‘Ten intervals, only two seconds outside what I used to do them at. We’re getting there. It’s not as enjoyable as running round the golf course with you, but it’s good to measure yourself against the others. I’d better stay at home tonight, if you don’t mind. I have the mail to pick up and the rubbish to put out. They collect it Fridays. I’d better turn the thermostat down, too, now that the warmer weather has arrived, or it’ll be like an oven in there. It’s a good job I only have cactus plants. I suppose I’d better water them while I’m there. What about you, Charlie? What sort of a day have you had?’

  ‘Oh, so-so.’

  ‘Have you caught the murderer yet?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Do you have any ideas who it is?’

  ‘He’s short and fat and wears spectacles. We’ve arrested Elton John.’

  ‘Really!’

  ‘I’m pulling your leg, Sonia.’

  ‘Oh, sorry.’

  ‘That’s all right.’

  ‘Chas…’ she began. She usually reserves Chas for more intimate moments.

  ‘Yes, Sonia.’

  ‘Have you any holidays to come?’

  ‘Months.’

  ‘How do you fancy a fortnight in South Africa?’

  ‘I’d love it, but not in the middle of a murder enquiry. What brought this on?’

  ‘Nothing. Well, not much. I have contacts at the University of Cape Town. They hold training camps, and I’ve been invited. You could come, too.’

  ‘Sorry, Sonia. No can do. Not at the moment. You go, though, if that’s what you want.’

  ‘I’ll see.’

  ‘Don’t be late home tomorrow.’

  ‘I might be. I still need a dress for Saturday.’

  ‘Just go in a shell suit, like me.’

  ‘Uh! You’d better not!’ she exclaimed.

  ‘Goodnight, love.’

  ‘Goodnight, Charlie.’

  I put the phone down. We’d been thrown together by tragedy, and that’s not a good basis for a relationship. For a while we’d spent seven nights a week in each other’s company, and I’d enjoyed every second of them. But now she was going to the track twice a week, mixing with other athletes. He’d be there: the guy who came third in the 10K and invited her over to train with them. ‘You need more speed work,’ he’d told her, and, ‘Perhaps we’ll see you at the track?’ And now he was seeing her there.

  I took a photo of Alfred Armitage’s face, taken post-mortem, out of my briefcase, found a pad of cartridge paper and sharpened several 2B pencils. I taped a sheet of paper to my drawing board, propped the photo against a jar of coffee on the kitchen table and started the drawing I should have done a fortnight ago.

  For eighteen days we’d only seen Alfred with his eyes closed. I opened them on the drawing and tried to put the spark of life in them. For the first time I saw the human being that had been Alfred Armitage: the man who’d been a lov
ing husband and gone to pieces when his wife died; the man who’d worked for forty-five years with the same company until temptation became too much for him. The man who was hurt when someone called him an insulting name, and who died for no other reason than he resembled someone else.

  But I put something else there, too. Something that wasn’t in the photograph. I drew a sadness in his eyes, in the curve of his mouth, in the hang of his jowls. A sadness that transcended the ridicule he’d endured all his life. Where it came from, I dreaded to think.

  It was a good drawing. One of the best I’d ever done, but it wasn’t for public consumption. There was too much of Alfred in it, and too much of me, too. I carefully tore it into quarters and dropped them in the swing bin. The digital clock on the oven was showing midnight and my eyes were burning.

  Drifting in a canoe on a lake in Canada, the water’s surface mirroring the big sky and the only disturbance the occasional salmon taking a fly. Walking on the moors with the sun setting behind and the lights of a Dales pub beckoning. Lying on a beach. Sitting in a conservatory drinking tea and listening to Dylan, with the rain dancing on the glass roof. I don’t sleep well, so I have my favourite places to go when I lie awake, waiting for the dawn to come skulking over the hill. Some of them I keep to myself.

  Tonight it was the Olympic Games 1,500 metres final. Starting the final lap I was lying last, but I accelerated as the bell rang and took the lead with 300 metres to go. I held them off down the back straight, let them gain on me round the bend, but I’d programmed myself for one last kick at the hundred-metre mark and won by three metres. I jogged to the girl with the flowers and gave her a kiss on the cheek as she handed me my bouquet. Behind me, the rest of the field was spread-eagled on the track, exhausted. It was a new world record. Two, if you included the fact that I was the oldest winner ever.

  Nine o’clock Friday morning I rang Smart Solutions. Bernie Smart was an old superintendent of mine who left under a cloud after a bribery scam involving one of his sergeants. Bernie’s as straight as Watling Street, but mud sticks and he left. He formed a security company called Hawkeye Security, but soon learned that a more low-key profile was required for the work that was coming his way, and Smart Solutions was born. I rang him because I needed information about industrial espionage. It was something we rarely became involved with. I’d always imagined it was high-tech stuff, involving computer files, micro-photography and sleepers planted in companies for years, but now I was having second thoughts. I remembered reading about Russia’s Tupolev 144, which was their answer to Concorde. It looked just like the Concorde, which wasn’t surprising as, if the stories are true, a French spy had furnished them with the blueprints. The Tupolev flew a couple of months before the Concorde, but it ended in tears at the Paris air show in 1973 when it crashed, killing the crew and several people on the ground. Know-alls and conspiracy theorists claim that faults had been deliberately built into the stolen blueprints, and the Russians had copied the plans, faults and all, with fatal results. It’s probably all bunkum, but that’s the sort of world I imagined industrial spies to move in. I was wrong.