THE NUMBERS GAME: a gripping crime thriller

by JOHN STANLEY

  ‘Don’t tell me,’ said Connor bleakly, ‘Danny broke into the chief’s office and shat in his wastepaper bin?’

  ‘Not quite,’ said England, chuckling at the thought. ‘Some bird called Marjorie Pretty has been onto de Vere saying Danny is supporting the campaign to save Alma Street.’

  ‘Jesus bloody Christ,’ groaned Connor, burying his face in his hands. ‘He’s a one-man sodding train wreck.’

  There was a pause then he looked up his colleague.

  ‘I take it this is the end for him?’ he asked.

  ‘My powers only go so far,’ shrugged England.

  ‘Is there nothing we can do?’

  ‘If you have any bright ideas,’ said England but his voice tailed off.

  Connor knew neither of them had.

  Chapter eight

  With the maelstrom swirling about the police station following Radford’s suspension, Perlow decided next morning that it was time to be somewhere else. His was a basic approach to life and he tended to disregard the political element of the job so he headed out to see the widow of Desmond Creeley. It promised to be an intriguing encounter. At the time of her ex-husband’s death Rita had apparently shown remarkably little emotion at his passing and nothing seemed to have changed as the DC sat in the living room of her terraced house, a half a mile from Alma Street.

  A slim blonde woman, it has to be dyed, mused Perlow as he watched her coming out of the kitchen with a tray bearing two mugs of tea and a plate of biscuits, Rita Simpson was in her late forties. Maybe older, thought Perlow, noticing how she had liberally applied the make-up but not quite concealed the early signs of crow’s feet around the eyes. The skin showed tell-tale signs of wrinkling around the neck and the white t-shirt and loose blue tracksuit bottoms hinted at an attempt to disguise a thickening waist.

  Perlow noticed all this within seconds; if there was one thing he was good at, given the women he dated, it was recognising the tricks of the trade when it came to masking the passing years. Not that it always worked: there had been that time when he smooth-talked himself back to a woman’s flat after a night at a club only to discover that she had a false leg. Trying to banish the image of the leg propped up against the dressing table the following morning, Perlow reached for his mug.

  If Rita’s age was in doubt, her disinterest in her former husband was not and the room only served to emphasise it. There were three photographs on the wall: above the sideboard was one taken in a sunny garden, showing Rita and a white-haired man in a baggy brown suit, presumably her father, standing arm in arm. In the corner alcove was a holiday snap taken at a bar with Rita and a woman about the same age, laughing and holding up wine glasses to the camera. The final picture was the largest. Hung above the gas fire, it had been taken at a formal function and showed Rita with two young men, one in Army uniform, the other in a sharp suit; her sons, guessed the constable. But there was no picture of the late Desmond Creeley.

  ‘Where is Sergeant Gaines?’ she asked, breaking into his reverie. ‘I usually talk to him.’

  ‘He was attacked in Alma Street. He’s recovering at home.’

  ‘Alma Street,’ she said, pondering the words.

  ‘Yes,’ nodded Perlow. ‘Alma Street again. Mrs Creeley…’

  ‘Simpson,’ she said sharply. ‘Miss Simpson. It’s my maiden name.’

  ‘Yes, of course, I am sorry. Miss Simpson, I know talking about Desmond is painful…’

  ‘No, it’s not,’ she said, held up the plate and smiled brightly. ‘Biscuit?’

  ‘Er, no,’ he said, with a waft of the hand.

  ‘You had not been in contact with Desmond for a number of years, I think?’ said the constable.

  ‘There did not seem much point.’

  Perlow raised a quizzical eyebrow.

  ‘Some people just say they love you and fall asleep when they are drunk but Des was one of those that turned nasty.’

  ‘Nasty?’

  ‘Violent.’ She said the word blandly but the eyes registered distress at the memories.

  ‘He hit you?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said quietly. ‘Several times. And he tried to stab me with a kitchen knife one night. His violence was why he lost his job as a teacher, you know. Hit a pupil who gave him some backchat in the lunch queue. The old Des Creeley would never have done that. Mind, they would have sacked him anyway.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘There had been complaints from parents,’ and she snorted. ‘You could have put the world’s best teacher in front of some of those kids and they wouldn’t have learned anything.’

  ‘I see.’

  She looked at him curiously.

  ‘Why are asking me all this again? I told all of this to Michael Gaines.’

  ‘There has been another murder in Alma Street.’

  ‘It was in the newspaper,’ she nodded. ‘Robert Garnett.’

  ‘I think your ex-husband knew him?’

  ‘They drank together down at the golf club. I take it you think there might be a link between the murders?’

  ‘It is too early to say.’

  ‘The only link was the bottom of a glass. They were a couple of soaks. Oh, don’t look so shocked. I’m sure you’ve heard it all before.’

  ‘You just seem a touch bitter.’

  ‘Too right I’m bitter. We had a good life but Des threw it all away.’

  ‘But surely something could have been done to help him?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ and the dry laugh was back. ‘In fact, he went to a couple of AA meetings. Stood up, said he was Des Creeley and an alcoholic and got lots of understanding smiles then went out and got smashed at the nearest bar.’

  ‘But…’ began Perlow.

  ‘Come on, you’re a policeman, you know you can’t reason with a drunk.’

  Perlow nodded, his mind going back to his uniform days as a young bobby and too many Friday nights wrestling alcohol-fuelled yobs into the back of police vans. Some officers enjoyed the excitement of it all but such nights did not appeal to Perlow and were the reason he sought a career in CID. Instinctively, his hand went up to his right cheek and the small scar caused by a drunk’s wedding ring during one fracas.

  ‘Did Des ever talk about Robert Garnett?’ he asked, bringing his mind back to the matter in hand.

  ‘No, not really. To be honest, I did not take much interest in his drinking buddies.’

  ‘Does the name Brian Chambers mean anything to you?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘He lived in Alma Street.’

  ‘So did a lot of people. Surely you are not going to ask me about them all?’ Her smile was gently mocking.

  ‘I need to eliminate some people, that’s all.’

  ‘Like this Chambers man?’

  ‘It would be wrong of me to say anything,’ said the constable cautiously, sensing a slight change in her voice. ‘Why, is there something you would like to tell me?’

  ‘No, nothing,’ she said. ‘I was just asking out of idle curiosity.’

  As he walked down the street a few minutes later, those last words kept reverberating round Perlow’s head.

  Even Perlow, whose relationships tended to be conducted on the physical and opportunistic level rather than the emotional level, was struggling to come to terms with Rita Simpson’s dispassionate manner. And he was not the only one; as he fished in his pocket for his car keys, the constable resolved to pop in on Gaines later that day to discuss it. Perlow unlocked his car door but, before he could climb into the driver’s seat, he heard a shout.

  ‘Hey you!’

  He turned to see Marjorie Pretty striding across the road, holding up a hand to halt an approaching car, whose driver hauled on the brakes to avoid hitting her.

  ‘Oh bloody hell, that’s all I need,’ sighed Perlow, then nodded at the stationary car and its fuming driver. ‘I take it you’re not on the road safety committee then, Marjorie?’

  ‘This is no time for jokes,’ she said sternly, ignoring the driver’
s obscene gesture and taking a newspaper out of her coat pocket. ‘What’s this rubbish about Operation Heron being abandoned?’

  ‘What can I tell you?’ shrugged Perlow. ‘Some geek with a calculator decided it was costing too much money.’

  ‘Despicable,’ said the councillor with a shake of the head. ‘Absolutely despicable. I shall be writing to the chief constable and I shall be organising a public meeting to protest about it as well. This is just not cricket.’

  ‘All support gratefully accepted,’ said Perlow blandly.

  ‘Listen,’ said the councillor, fixing him with a keen look. ‘I want you to get a message to Radford for me. Can you do that?’

  ‘Well,’ said Perlow uncertainly, ‘it may be possible although certain circumstances mean…’

  ‘Certain circumstances? Don’t pussyfoot around, man, I know he has been suspended.’

  ‘How do you know that? That’s not been in the paper.’

  ‘Jungle drums, dear boy, jungle drums. Anyway, tell your chief inspector that we are all rooting for him.’

  ‘OK, I will,’ nodded Perlow, suddenly desperate to end the interview as it moved into dangerous political waters.

  ‘Good man.’

  To his relief, the councillor turned on her heel and strode back across the road, this time holding up a hand and bringing a bus to a halt. Perlow shook his head and climbed into his car. Forty minutes later, he was standing at the door of a derelict terraced house not far from Alma Street. Dilapidated and ruined, the house stood next to a freezer shop on Greenbank Road, once a thriving commercial centre but now tired and run-down, several of the old shops unoccupied and vandalised, the remainder converted into bedsits or taken over as squats.

  The idea had come to him as he sat in his car, chomping on a hot dog and slurping tea bought from a chuck wagon parked on a nearby industrial estate. Pondering on the events of the morning, Perlow had started thinking about his chief inspector. Conscious that solving the murders was the best way he could help save Radford’s career - Perlow prided himself on having few principles but loyalty to colleagues, even his bosses, was one of them - he had been filled with the desire to achieve a breakthrough. And he remained convinced that the drunks knew more than they were letting on.

  As he pushed his way through the half-open front door and walked down the gloomy hallway, he could hear the dull murmur of voices. He entered the darkened room back room; sprawled across the ragged sofa and chairs were several men, all dressed in tattered clothes, all drinking from cider bottles, all clearly drunk even though it was not yet noon. They all looked up as he walked in - but with the slow motion of the drunk - and he recognised Harry Caygill.

  ‘Harry,’ he said affably. ‘Fancy meeting you here. Is this your local?’

  Caygill feebly waved a hand in what Perlow assumed was a greeting then slumped back on the sofa.

  ‘What do you want?’ asked another of the winos, who was clutching a bottle of cider and sitting on one of the armchairs.

  ‘I’m a police officer. I want to find out who killed Des Creeley and Robert Garnett.’

  ‘A sad business,’ said the wino, standing up.

  ‘I take it you knew them?’ asked the constable, not moving from the door.

  ‘We all did.’

  ‘I need to catch their killer,’ said Perlow, ‘and I think you people…’

  ‘You people,’ and the down-and-out’s voice had a slight edge. ‘Now there’s a phrase, what does ‘you people’ mean exactly?’

  ‘You know what it means and I think some of you know more than you are letting on.’

  The wino considered the comment - the others took no notice - but said nothing.

  ‘According to Ernest Kemley…’ began the constable.

  ‘That man is a fucking idiot,’ said the wino. ‘Thinks everything can be solved with fish fingers.’

  One of the other vagrants giggled.

  ‘You may be right,’ nodded Perlow, ‘but he reckons there has been a stranger kicking round Alma Street in recent weeks. Any idea who he might be?’

  ‘There’s lots of strangers,’ shrugged the man.

  ‘But if I could find him, that might lead us to who killed your friends.’

  ‘I wish you luck,’ said the wino, swaying slightly and lifting his bottle of cider in an exaggerated salute.

  Perlow sighed, left the house and headed for a nearby pub for a fortifying snifter and to ponder his next move. It took him, early that afternoon, to the city centre office of Terry McManus, the editor of the local evening newspaper, following up something Radford had mentioned the night before.

  A former hard-living Fleet Street man, McManus had drawn on his tabloid background to turn the staid publication into a brash and ballsy affair. Part of his revolution had been a campaign calling for a crackdown on rising crime in Leyton, particularly offences committed by vagrants. Jason de Vere had supported it enthusiastically, arguing that their presence was damaging the reputation of the city. Indeed, many police officers believed that the campaign was his idea. They regarded the newspaper’s involvement as opportunistic, a way of boosting sales rather than driven by a genuine concern for the city, and it had taken relationships between police and newspaper to an all-time low. Not that McManus, a Londoner who had never been to Leyton before his interview, seemed to care; the rising circulation figures were testament enough to the wisdom of his approach. So, it was with some misgivings that Perlow eyed the journalist.

  For his part, McManus’s reaction was one of fascination as, sitting behind the large oak desk, he surveyed the constable. McManus, an overweight balding man in his late forties, was dressed in a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up and the dark tie at half-mast. He nodded at the office walls, which were lined with framed front pages.

  ‘The one about your boss might go up there,’ said the editor, eyes twinkling with mischief.

  ‘I am not here to talk about Danny Radford.’

  ‘A little dicky bird tells me the chief constable has suspended him. Any chance you might want to comment on that?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘We’ve got the story anyway. It’ll be in our City Final.’

  ‘You know why I am here, anyway.’

  ‘Ah, yes, Brian Chambers,’ said McManus, reaching into his in-tray and bringing out a sheaf of papers covered in red ink. ‘These are his latest offerings.’

  ‘‘What are they about?’

  ‘You name it. Law and order, the demolition of Alma Street, Jason de Vere, the lack of trees on Hammerton Road, the colour of the statue in Kindersley Avenue. Anything and everything but mainly, I have to say, Alma Street.’

  ‘May I?’ asked Perlow.

  ‘Be my guest,’ said McManus, handing over the letters. ‘I was going to shred them anyway.’

  They were written in a crabby hand and stretched over page after page. There were also numerous cuttings snipped from the paper, covered with abusive annotations relating to poor grammar, spelling mistakes and factual errors.

  ‘Do you publish any of them?’ asked the constable.

  ‘The odd one but most of it is libellous. We almost got sued last year when he said something dodgy about an ex-council officer. I only spotted it on the final page proof.’

  ‘Which ex-council officer?’

  ‘It wasn’t Robert Garnett, if that’s what you are thinking.’

  ‘Pity,’ said Perlow. ‘Have you ever met Chambers?’

  ‘Only once. Collared me in reception. Harangued me for twenty minutes about something or other. Alma Street, I think it was. Often is,’ and he looked shrewdly at the DC, ‘pray why so interested in him?’

  ‘I can’t say.’

  ‘Surely, he is not a suspect?’ said McManus.

  ‘I can’t say anything,’ said Perlow, standing to go and holding up the papers. ‘So I can I keep these?’

  ‘Be my guest,’ and the editor flapped a hand. ‘Oh, look at the one dated the fourth or fifth of last month,
I think it is.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It’s the first time he threatened violence.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah, I wrote a leader saying that those people trying to force a last-gasp abandonment of the Alma Street demolition were off their rockers. Friend Brian objected. You will see from his letter that he would like to get me in a dark alley, assuming de Vere hasn‘t bulldozed it. All words, of course, but interesting what with bodies turning up, is it not?’

  ‘It certainly is,’ nodded Perlow, forgetting where he was, then adding sharply, ‘but I don’t expect that to get in the paper.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I know the score. Besides, the last thing we want is you nicking someone too soon.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Once you nick him, it’s all sub judice and we can’t report much because the lawyers get twitchy. If it remains unsolved, we can get loads more stories out of it. Nothing sells papers like crime.’

  ‘This isn’t a game.’

  ‘But it is, isn’t it?’

  Perlow said nothing but made to go.

  ‘Oh, one more thing,’ said McManus. ‘Brian Chambers turned up on my chief reporter’s doorstep one evening last month. Complained about an Alma Street story she had written. I tell you, the man is a loony and he’s getting worse.’

  ‘I am beginning to think that you might be right,’ said Perlow, recalling the stranger watching his house the night before.

  And with the letters tucked under his arm, he walked out of the editor’s office.

  Chapter nine

  ‘Frankly, I object to the tone of your questioning, Constable,’ said the president of the golf club.

  ‘It’s not a particularly offensive question, surely,’ replied Perlow.

  ‘I think it is deeply intrusive.’

  ‘All I am asking for is a copy of your membership list, Mr Montgomery. It’s not as if I am asking if you beat your wife.’

  ‘My wife,’ said the president stiffly, ‘died two years ago.’

  ‘Ah.’

  It was 10.30am the next day and they were sitting in the office at The Lake Golf Club. Built on an old docklands area close to the city centre, the redevelopment had been vaunted by the council as a shining example of regeneration and the club had been officially opened by Nick Faldo. Perlow, though not a great sporting enthusiast, remembered the occasion because he had been in uniform in those days and was deputed to help control the crowds.