‘Not only that,’ he continued. ‘Robert Kennedy isn’t really part of our brief. If we come across him while locating the tall man who might be the king-pin behind serious crime in the Bristol area and perhaps these killings all well and good. The next question, of course, is how do we find him?’
‘How did he find Jeffers and Ritter?’ I said. ‘Or should one say how did they come to know about him? Paul Reece told us that Ritter worked as a warehousemen for a department store in the city, if only sometimes. Which one? There might be a connection there.’
Patrick ordered coffee and then went outside to phone Reece to ask him. (We have a real thing about people who holler down their mobiles in public places for all to hear.) When he returned there was a quizzical expression on his face.
‘It was one of the last surviving family-owned large retail businesses in Bristol,’ he said. ‘A store by the name of Slaterford and Sons and it’s been on the same site since the Raj, according to Reece. His great-grandmother used to shop there for flannel to make petticoats in the days when the male assistants wore frock-coats. Somehow, it’s survived and although recently taken over is, in his words, still tottering along.’
‘Tottering shops are always interesting,’ I said. ‘Lots of bargains. Shall we go and have a nose around?’
Patrick glanced at his watch. ‘You’re as bad as Greenway. This is London, the shop’s in Bristol several hundred miles away and my expenses don’t stretch to choppers. We nose tomorrow.’
The store was situated on a corner in a side street just off the main shopping area, Broadmead. This was not to say that the buildings were inferior, far from it for here was some of the finest and most imposing Victorian architecture of Bristol; the banks, building society and insurance company headquarters, each trying to outdo the other with their titans, chariots and maidens in seemly drapery. It was obvious that the stonework of many of these buildings had been cleaned and netted to keep pigeons away in recent years but this was not the case with Slaterford and Sons, the exterior of which was various shades of sooty-grey, all ledges loaded with bird-droppings. Here, surely, was where the elderly on limited incomes still came to buy the means to keep warm: Chilproof vests, bedsocks, electric fires and small saucepans to heat milk for cocoa. The windows were arranged with a dreary selection of goods; the kind of striped teacloths and towels and candlewick bedcovers that I had not seen since I was a child.
We entered and immediately found ourselves decanted down a few stairs into a bargain basement atmosphere of cut-price silver plate, appalling knick-knacks, ‘gifts’, tableware, glassware and artificial flowers, all made in the Peoples’ Republic of Eyesore.
‘Next week’s jumble sale fodder,’ Patrick said wonderingly, waving around a wafer-thin silver-plated tray.
‘Please put it down before it folds in half,’ I begged.
We postponed the basement proper – household, lighting, stationery – and wandered up to the first floor to be faced with dowdy dresses, twin sets and other ‘fashion’ items and then went up again to furniture, bedding, carpets and curtains. People did seem to be buying but none of it, other than what was on the ground floor, appeared to be particularly cheap.
I seated myself on an artificial leather sofa in the almost deserted furniture department. It was in a hideous shade of congealed blood. ‘Are you going to make any enquiries about Ritter?’ I asked.
Patrick flopped down beside me. ‘To learn what, though? The man only worked here on and off – or at least in the warehouse. It might be more profitable to ask a few questions there.’
‘This is a weird place.’
He chuckled. ‘Like a set for a fifties Elstree comedy. Surely all this stuff has to be bankrupt stock.’
‘Do you wish to buy that?’ said a woman’s voice suddenly and loudly behind us.
Patrick swivelled round to face the speaker. ‘No, I think we can face life without it actually.’
‘Then get off it. This isn’t a rest room.’
I too turned. She was stick-thin, dressed in black, all knees and elbows, and if she had had another six legs would have more closely resembled Shelob, the giant spider in The Lord of the Rings.
Not wishing to risk further venom, we got out of range.
I expected Patrick to go back down the stairs but he ascended again towards the restaurant and accounts office.
‘Something else to add to one’s nightmare library,’ I commented when we arrived.
‘What is?’
‘That woman. I’ve already had bad dreams about the tall man resembling a scarecrow.’
‘That imagination of yours is going to jump up and bite you one day,’ he said with a broad grin.
‘But at the moment it’s earning me quite a lot of money,’ I pointed out. ‘Tea?’
‘My typhoid jabs aren’t up to date. Are yours?’
‘No, come to think of it, they aren’t.’
Even in passing we could see that the restaurant was in fact a drab-looking café with no customers, the dispirited staff standing around like zombies. Travelling purposefully Patrick headed for Accounts, which turned out to be a glass-fronted cubicle, no one on duty within, and then strode down a corridor marked STAFF ONLY. Another corridor joined it at right angles and this had a notice propped up against the wall with the single word PRIVATE untidily hand-printed in marker pen on it. No one was about.
I tried the handle of the door closest to me. It was locked. Running my eye down the corridor all the doors I could see were fastened with padlocks, not just small ones but the kind of thing that would defeat all but the largest bolt-cutters. I silently drew Patrick’s attention to this.
Patrick went to explore further but then paused, sniffing the air. He caught my eye and jerked his head back in the direction we had come.
‘What is it?’ I hissed but he shook his head and did not reply.
Back by the accounts office he stopped to look at a plaque on the wall, the usual legal requirement of company name, head office address and so forth. It looked new and was smaller than its predecessor, an unpainted strip of wall all the way around it. Then, wordlessly, we retraced our footsteps until we were outside in the street.
‘The head office was listed at an address in Walthamsden,’ I said. ‘That’s peculiar. Wasn’t that where Reece said that London hoodlum who might be a relative of the man running the gang down here was supposed to hang out?’
‘And someone was privately smoking cannabis somewhere in their own private Fort Knox,’ Patrick said. ‘Even more peculiar. Shall we come back and have a proper look round tonight?’
‘You no longer have MI5 carte blanche,’ I reminded him, not for the first time. ‘You can’t just break into places you think might be iffy.’
This appeared to go in one ear and out of the other. ‘There was a security camera right at the end of that corridor but we were probably too far away for our faces to be recognizable,’ he said and then turned to me with a gleam in his eye. ‘When you think about it the shop might have been acquired as a vehicle for money-laundering. What was behind all those locked doors? Stolen property?’
‘And Mr Tall Man was sitting in an office somewhere down that corridor gloating over his loot? I thought I was supposed to be the one with the vivid imagination.’
Patrick merely smiled and, when we were back outside, set off at speed down a narrow lane that separated the shop from the building next door. Grimly, I ran to catch up with him.
There were the usual clutches of fire hydrants, emergency exits, a staff entrance manned by a security man, another wide, dark opening into what I guessed was an underground car park with steel-barred gates across it and, at the far end, a large goods-inwards and outward delivery area fronting partly on to a wider lane that served as access.
Patrick paused, crossed the side road and looked about. ‘There’s nowhere we could watch the entrances and exits from without creating suspicion. No, damn it, let’s leave, I’ve just spotted more cameras.’
<
br /> ‘D’you really think the store might be part of a criminal set-up?’
‘You have to ask yourself how such a dreadful establishment survives without some kind of underhand activity taking place. Do they sell stolen goods? The business rates must be sky-high here so if you only tend to sell three cups of tea and a fly-swatter most days …’ He broke off with a shrug. ‘No, perhaps I have caught it from you. If there was anything going on here surely the local CID would have sniffed it out by now.’
We had fruitlessly spent most of the morning at the city centre police station talking to anyone and everyone who might have something interesting to say about the store. We had heard only comments along the lines of ‘it was a wonder the place still survived’ and how nothing had been done to improve it by the new owners.
I was thinking that the business of not having such a free rein was going to be a real hindrance to this new career when Patrick suddenly removed his leather jacket, thrust it at me and, with a quiet request to stay where I was and keep my eyes open, set off again back in the direction of the main road. Just before he turned the corner there was a transformation into someone else, a stooped, twisted man with downturned head and heavy limp, hands waving around like crabs’ claws.
Ye gods, anything could happen now; anything.
Approximately twenty seconds later the fire alarm within the store went off; bells and a wailing siren, the latter seemingly emanating from the mouth of the underground area. Then the gates to this began slowly to rumble aside, the small wheels which supported them squealing in the metal groove they were slotted into. No one was in sight so I crossed the road again and went inside, my cats’ whiskers yelling at me that this was not a good idea at all.
The concrete surface of what was in effect a curving tunnel sloped quite steeply downwards. I still saw no one, there was no security point here, in fact it was so gloomy that anyone on duty would be hard-pressed to spot an intruder. There did not seem to be any cameras either and, gazing around looking for the existence of these I noticed that there were light fittings but they were covered in dirt and obviously not functioning. But what about heat sensors? And if there were any would anyone notice another alarm with this racket going on?
To save carrying it I slipped on Patrick’s jacket and then, realizing that a large dim space was opening out before me, went quickly over to the right-hand wall where it appeared to come to an end and peered around a huge pillar that marked the corner. The siren wailed on.
The large space thus revealed – as far as this was possible in the lack of light, that is – was indeed a carpark and in the gloom people were moving, running, between the vehicles seemingly to reach their own. I slipped round to the right to conceal myself behind a large people carrier for a few moments, praying that I would not meet the owner head-on coming the other way, and then, bending low, hurried along the row of cars nearest to the wall, came to a corner quite quickly, turned left and, cautiously, headed in the direction of where I guessed the pedestrian entrance into the shop was situated. Some of the cars were in motion now, their headlights on, the already stuffy air thick with exhaust fumes. Luckily, all were facing away from me and over on the far side, near the exit to the lane. Reserved spaces perhaps, for senior staff only.
Caution forced me to pause in the lee of a parked van. Ahead, I could see a dimly lit opening, a doorway through which one or two people were still emerging. Then a small group appeared, four men. One of them was very thin and at least six foot six inches tall. He stared about, examining his surroundings as though sweeping the area for danger. I shrank back behind the van. Here was someone who expected danger. When I dared to look again the four had gone and, heart pounding, I moved on in case they had spotted me and had split up in order to perform a pincer movement. The worst thing was not being able to hear anyone’s approach. But no one came and shortly afterwards another set of headlights swung out and away in the direction of the exit.
Rats leaving what they thought to be a sinking ship, or what?
Seven
‘Well, I have to say I’ve never heard of what one must assume to be senior management doing a runner when a fire alarm goes off,’ Superintendent Reece said. ‘Unless they were rescuing their cars. But their real responsibility lay in first ensuring that the staff and customers were safe, surely.’
‘Who all filed out either through the main doors at the front or from the delivery area at the rear,’ Patrick reported.
‘I understand there was an official complaint to the local nick from the store saying that the alarm had been set off maliciously,’ Reece continued. ‘The culprit had been clearly identified as a man described as severely physically and mentally handicapped who also assaulted a member of staff. The caller wanted him caught immediately and consigned to a suitable care home – only that wasn’t quite how he worded it.’
Patrick laughed. ‘I didn’t stop at smashing the glass of the first fire alarm I spotted. There was a lumpen security geek just inside the main doors standing by a small desk. Having lured him away from it with a few choice gestures I then heaved him into a display that turned out to be mostly cardboard boxes, had a look at his work station and pressed any number of buttons on a console partly concealed beneath it. Then I made myself scarce. I have to say I didn’t expect what Ingrid witnessed.’
‘Was the phone call recorded?’ I enquired.
‘Yes, probably,’ Reece said. ‘Could you describe this tall man you saw?’
‘I only saw him in silhouette against the poor light in a doorway that must have led into the basement of the store,’ I told him. ‘Assuming that the men he was with were of average height he must have been at least four inches taller than Patrick, who is six foot two. I would say he was thin, possibly with slightly rounded shoulders and had a small head – although it might have looked like that because his hair was thin or smoothed flat. Despite his long legs he walks with a short stride, which looks a bit odd, jerky. That’s all really – I didn’t dare look any longer in case they saw me.’
‘Gut feelings though?’ Patrick prompted. This was for Reece’s benefit; he already knew what these were.
‘This man is very wary,’ I said. ‘The men with him were probably his bodyguards and I got the impression they were being careful too – the manner in which the four moved together makes me think that. Their body language towards him was deferential and they all drove off in the same vehicle. He’s the boss and there was something about the way he surveyed the car park before he left the comparative safety of where he was standing that spoke of someone ice cold and ruthless.’
Before Reece could comment Patrick said to him, ‘Don’t discount the last bit – Ingrid might write books but her vibes about situations and the people in them are copper-bottomed.’
Gold-bottomed actually for most of the time, I thought. Sometimes they’ve saved your life.
The superintendent said, ‘The problem is that none of this is evidence – although I have to say the business of all those people bailing out like that was very suspicious. I can’t really arrange a close watch on this man on the strength of what you’ve seen.’
‘And for heaven’s sake don’t!’ Patrick implored. ‘If he is a hardened criminal with an expert set-up he’ll be waiting for other Cliff Morleys to show up. One of those buttons I pressed was probably the early warning system of a police raid – or anything that looked like one. They might be twitchy enough to suspect my little incursion as coming from an undercover department of the law. I suggest you let things settle down for a few days.’
‘What about your ruse of us making a phoney arrest?’
‘I think that ought to go on hold as well. It’s too risky right now – and not necessarily, on reflection, a good idea.’
Not with an outfit that wasn’t MI5 anyway.
‘Meantime you’ll get back to your boss?’
‘He’ll expect me to tell him what’s going on.’
‘We can’t have too many cooks spoiling th
e broth, you know.’
‘Sometimes you have to let the chefs get on with it,’ he was bluntly told. ‘By all means investigate Morley’s death – that’ll be expected of you. Give his colleagues every means and encouragement to catch his killer. You may well find a connection with the man Ingrid saw. But I beg of you to build the bridges properly, by normal methods and by gathering proper evidence, or you’ll have more funerals to attend with no results.’
‘Do you have the authority to talk to him like that?’ I asked Patrick a little later when we were sitting in the car. Just a little worried, that’s all.
He shook his head. ‘No. He probably called me an arrogant bastard when we’d gone but once in a while your conscience forces you to tell it how it is. He’s under no obligation to take a moment’s notice of me.’
Patrick then rang Greenway whose orders were immediately forthcoming: go and have a good look round that warehouse – without whoever was running Slaterford and Sons knowing.
By any standards this was not going to be easy. All too aware of his urging Reece to let things quieten down for a short while Patrick had told Greenway he would follow his own advice and endeavour to do the job the following Sunday, in two days’ time.
‘We don’t even know where it is yet,’ I remarked.
‘We do. While all the fuss with the fire alarm was going on I went round the back and asked a bloke at the goods-inwards door pretending I had a parcel to deliver there. It’s down near the old docks.’
‘You’ll need all your cordon bleu skills for this one.’
Blood Substitute Page 8
