Brass in Pocket

by Stephen Puleston

  ‘Good afternoon, Inspector.’

  He caught a French lilt to the accent. He nodded and returned the greeting.

  ‘I want you to bring Dr Fabrien bang up to date with everything. She’s to have access to all the records, all the interviews and statements – everything.’

  ‘I have arranged a desk—’ Drake began.

  ‘I shall need privacy,’ she cut in. ‘It would be inappropriate otherwise. A desk in a room, somewhere quiet.’

  ‘Of course, of course,’ Price sounded suitably obliging.

  Drake thought about the various rooms that might be available and who might be inconvenienced. There was a small room at the end of a corridor far away from the Incident Room, full of boxes from a previous case. Drake knew it had to be tidied but if she wanted a room, a room they would provide.

  ‘I suggest Dr Fabrien meets the team and works in one of the conference suites for today until we organise a room.’

  Price sounded enthusiastic. ‘Excellent idea.’

  Once the preliminaries were finished, Drake led Dr Fabrien down the main stairwell back to the Incident Room. The weather was still hot, despite the forecast for cooler temperatures, and it felt sticky and uncomfortable. As he pushed open the door, the conversations and tapping of keyboards and clicking of mice came to a sudden halt.

  ‘This is Dr Fabrien, who’s going to be working with us,’ Drake said.

  ‘Margaret, please,’ she said.

  There were acknowledgments around the room and snatches of greetings as Drake introduced the team.

  ‘Dr Fabrien is going to be working in one of the conference suites, until we organise a room. So Caren, can you take Margaret—’

  Dr Fabrien cut across him. ‘I wonder if I may say a few words first?’ Not waiting for an answer she continued. ‘My role here is to support you as police officers. It’s important that everyone understands that. I spoke with the Chief Constable this morning and I appreciate how important this inquiry is.’

  Winder and Howick exchanged worried glances. Name-dropping the Chief Constable was clever. No pressure.

  Dr Fabrien thanked them all formally and waited for Caren to collect various files and records. Drake returned to his office, picked up the telephone, and called the Incident Room manager.

  ‘We need an office for the profiler. Can you clear the office full of the boxes from that burglary case by the morning?’

  ‘It’s very small,’ the manager said.

  ‘It’ll do,’ Drake replied.

  He sat by his desk, glaring at the computer screen. He didn’t want a profiler messing around with this case – meddling, distracting his attention – it was hard enough without any more interferences. Demanding an office and then implying that she was in charge.

  He turned a biro through his fingers and then tapped it onto the desk, clicking it violently. This was his investigation. He was in charge. He ran through the options in his mind, recalling Price’s comments – I want this madman caught – and dreading the possibility he had missed something and that more deaths would be down to his mistakes.

  Chapter 12

  Tuesday 8th June

  Back in his office, after the funerals of Mathews and Farrell, Drake found it hard to concentrate. The service had been attended by all the senior officers of the Wales Police Service and local and national politicians who looked serious and then gave interviews to the television crews that had taken over the middle of Colwyn Bay. His mind drifted back to the dispassionate stare of Fiona Trick sitting in the congregation. The father of her children had been killed and she gave an Oscar-winning performance as a cold-hearted bitch.

  ‘Caren,’ Drake shouted. She appeared at the door of his office and he waved her in.

  ‘Fiona Trick.’

  ‘What about her?’

  ‘Let’s look into her some more …’

  ‘You don’t think …’

  ‘I don’t know what I think,’ he said. ‘But we need to check out what she said about contact for the kids. It struck me in the chapel that she sat there cold – totally cold. She was married to the man. He was the father of her children.’

  ‘Love can turn to hate so easily.’

  ‘Yes, I know but …’

  ‘What do you want me to do?’

  ‘What do we know about her?’

  ‘Nothing much.’

  ‘Then do all the usual stuff. Background checks, money, friends and lovers, and so on.’

  Once Caren left, he loosened his tie and undid the top button of his shirt. Although the papers and notes were multiplying on his desk and his inbox littered with emails needing his attention, he would spend ten minutes on the morning’s sudoku.

  Geraldine Evans returned promptly for the formal interview and she looked rested. Drake concluded that the catharsis of telling someone what she had done had been beneficial – even her skin looked healthier.

  She sat on a chair in the interview room while Drake and Caren fussed with the tape recorder before starting the formalities.

  Drake pushed over the first of the death threats with a typed copy of the text.

  ‘Can you confirm that you sent this death threat?’

  Geraldine looked down the collection of newspaper cuttings. Then she whimpered and put a hand to her mouth before confirming that it had been her.

  ‘Why did you send this message?’

  ‘I couldn’t sleep. And I blamed him for everything that had happened in my life. I didn’t want him dead. I just wanted to frighten him.’

  Geraldine barely paused for breath as she explained about the circumstances. Occasionally tears welled up in her eyes and she sobbed before pausing to take deep lungfuls of breath. It was an hour later when Drake had finished and the picture of the North Wales Archery Association as a venue for singles and couples meeting for casual sex and fun was complete. Tudor’s innuendos had been replaced by names and events and lists of people connected to the club.

  ‘For the record could you please confirm that you also sent the other threats?’ Drake said, pointing to the papers on the table.

  Geraldine paused, furrowed her brow and looked up at Drake.

  ‘I had nothing to do with these,’ she said.

  Drake sat, nonplussed for a moment, so Caren took the initiative.

  ‘This is very important, Geraldine. Did you send all of these other death threats?’

  ‘No. Definitely not.’ She blew into a handkerchief. ‘Only one.’

  ‘Are you certain?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Did you tell anyone that you’d sent the message?’

  ‘No. Of course not,’ she said, before adding, ‘will I go to prison for a long time?’

  Drake stared into her eyes and he knew that he wasn’t looking at the murderer.

  Caren spent the rest of the day working through the personal papers of Paul Mathews. She sorted everything into piles, postponing a decision about their relevance until she was finished. This was the part of any investigation that she liked the least.

  Bank statements were placed in one neat pile, next to them details of Mathews’s car loan, a stack of mail from an insurance company and all the guarantees for the television and hi-fi equipment. From the mass of papers, a pile of letters from solicitors began to accumulate, but reading them out of turn made no sense. She shuffled them into date order before starting at the beginning. A picture emerged, enabling her to blank out the noise from the room. She picked up the telephone and made three calls. When she finished she knew progress had been made. She smiled to herself – Drake had been right, again.

  Drake sat looking at the lists on his desk.

  There were lists of officers who had worked with Mathews and Farrell. Another list of cases where Mathews and Farrell had been together and supplementary lists of cases where they were involved with other officers. A list of the members of the public that had complained about them and now lists of members of the North Wales Archery Association, and also lists o
f people that Geraldine Evans knew.

  It struck him that in the middle of these lists was the name of a person who wanted both officers dead. The scale of the task struck him as Winder almost fell into his office.

  ‘The car’s been found, sir.’

  ‘Where?’

  Drake was already on his feet as Winder spoke.

  ‘Bangor, burnt out.’

  Winder gave Drake a summary of how the car was discovered as he hammered along the A55 until the turning for Bangor. Drake sat silently, hoping there’d be some evidence in the car. Something the killer might have discarded, forgotten in his or her rush.

  The industrial estate was a sprawling collection of builders’ merchants and timber yards. Half a dozen men in hard hats and dirty high-visibility jackets stood by a burger van looking towards a car park where the remains of the car smouldered. A fire tender was parked nearby and a couple of uniformed officers guarded the entrance.

  Drake hurried from the car as the Scientific Support Vehicle parked alongside the Alfa.

  ‘When was it found?’ Drake said to Winder.

  ‘Fire brigade was called in the small hours.’

  A thick smell of burning plastic hung in the air. Drake walked round the car and knelt by the driver’s side. The driver had emerged from this door. Did he have the crossbow with him? What was he wearing?

  He heard Foulds talking to the CSIs as they moved boxes of equipment.

  ‘Looks like he did a good job on torching the car,’ Foulds said, leaning over Drake. He pointed to the footwell.

  ‘See where it’s been burning. Most people who torch a car just throw petrol on the seats which means the footwell still has lots of evidence we can collect. But it looks like the footwell was torched here.’

  ‘So he knew what he was doing?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Both men stood up and walked round the car. Drake stopped by the boot. The metal still had the faintest hint of red paint.

  He called over to Winder.

  ‘We’ll need to know where the car had been from CCTV.’

  ‘That could be practically—’

  Drake stopped him. ‘Start where the car was stolen. Identify any CCTV locally and then work up a radius. Then get all the CCTV coverage for the last two weeks. He must have filled the car with petrol somewhere.’

  Winder looked stricken. It would be a marathon job.

  ‘This could take days, sir.’

  Winder would have to learn that police work meant grind, and lots of it.

  ‘Doing anything else?’ Drake said.

  Foulds crowbarred the boot and they stared inside at the charred remains of a crossbow.

  Chapter 13

  Wednesday 9th June

  He parked under the sagging branches of a tall sycamore at the far end of the car park. He peered into the rear-view mirror and adjusted the ponytail. He took off the baseball cap and adjusted the strap on the back before replacing it on his head until it fitted perfectly. He studied the view of the car park reflected in the mirror.

  In the distance, by the side of a gleaming BMW, he saw him kneeling and then struggling with the long laces of his boots. A tall, thin woman with pronounced teeth was standing, arms folded, looking at the fumbling hands. He guessed that the teenagers kicking their heels behind him were the two boys he’d read about. He knew a great deal about the man adjusting his laces, the reason he was here, now, at the foot of Snowdon. He knew where the man lived, what car he owned, where they shopped as a family and the destination of their last holiday. There was a scrapbook at home full of press cuttings and comments. It wasn’t that he was obsessive, he concluded – it was thoroughness.

  Being prepared.

  It was because of who the man was that he had to prepare. The others would be easier. Like Mathews and Farrell had been easy. Easier than he had thought. It had given him extra confidence. Not that he was weak – he had to be strong, for her. It was the right thing to do.

  He watched as the family set off. The woman looked irritated and there was a flustered look on the man’s face. Then he waited. Ten minutes at first, then fifteen. A bus turned into the car park and disgorged a group of tourists.

  The sun was warm and the air humid when he leant down into the boot for his walking boots, neatly stored in a plastic bag alongside the rucksack. He moved to one side of the car, out of sight, and knelt to lace up his boots, as he had done a hundred times before. He checked the contents of the rucksack, pulled it over his shoulder and fastened it carefully in place. A final tug of the cap, the ponytail adjusted again and dark sunglasses thrust high onto his nose finalised his transformation. The thought that even she might not recognise him now brought a brief smile to his lips.

  A glance at his watch and a mental calculation told him they had a twenty-minute head start. He could usually do the summit in two and a half hours from Llanberis but he guessed that the family in front of him would need at least three, plus a couple of stops on the way. He could have walked the paths in the dark and still have found the right boulders to stop and rest at, the sheer cliffs to avoid and the places to watch the moonlight dance off the peaks.

  He strode down past the terraces leading to the mountain path, keeping his head low and his eyes straight ahead. He passed an elderly group already complaining about the temperature, and then fell in behind a group of scouts until the need to be alone became overwhelming and he strode ahead of them.

  As he pushed on up the gradient of the first steep section out of the town, his calf muscles burnt. A short detour away from the main path took him onto a promontory where he removed his rucksack and, taking out a pair of binoculars, began scanning the path snaking up the mountain. They should have been in his eye line and he moved the binoculars smoothly up and then down the path, trying to suppress the growing sense that he had given them too much of a head start. He stopped and squinted up into the distance and, seeing the line of smoke from the train ascending the mountain, followed the smoke trail until he picked up the path. All he could see were couples and large groups. Had he missed them on the way? Had they actually begun the walk as had been planned?

  Hurriedly he yanked on the rucksack and once back on the path he lengthened his stride. Soon a bead of sweat ran down the small of his back and a dampness spread over the fabric at the base of the rucksack. Another half an hour took him to the next section where he’d planned to stop and scan the path. Nothing again. His heartbeat increased and he contemplated the possibility of failure. He dismissed the notion. They had to be on the mountain. He had seen them prepare. Even if they were still in Llanberis, talking or doing the things important people do, there would be another time: he would make certain of it. He strode on, his pulse thumping, the anxiety at failure beating in his head.

  When he saw the halfway café, he stopped in his tracks.

  There they were. Playing happy families.

  For a moment, he stood rigid. Realising people were walking round him, he restarted as if nothing was out of place, keeping a sure footing, head looking forward, but with his eyes fixed on the family eating bananas and chocolate bars. They looked happy, like he should have been. The boys were drinking from cans of Coke and the woman was looking at the man as he fumbled with a Smartphone.

  After five minutes, he stopped and walked away from the path. He sat down, his back against a rock, the rucksack at his feet. Slowly his breathing returned to normal and the anxiety subsided, replaced by the hatred that had become his closest companion. He reached into the rucksack and pulled out a flask. The coffee was lukewarm and he opened the wrapper of a chocolate bar. He ate and drank, thinking about the summit ahead of him.

  He waited until he’d seen them pass. The boys were joking that their father was struggling and he noticed the damp patches across the man’s chest and the streaks of perspiration through his hair. Now he kept his distance but was always close enough to know where they were and to anticipate when they’d arrive at the summit.

  The heat
of the sun burnt his skin. Birds of prey swooped around the cliffs, soaring up on the hot-air currents before diving away far below him. He passed a train full of tourists heading for the summit and another descending, full of laughing, smiling faces. Near to the summit station, he watched the ramblers walk towards the peak and he scrambled down to the railway tracks and walked alongside them until he reached the platform. He ignored the sullen look from the driver of the train about to leave.

  The door into the summit café opened easily as he pressed his weight against it. Standing by the entrance, he moved to his right along the wall, then stopped and scanned the inside. Nothing looked out of place. There were small queues waiting at each till for teas and sandwiches. He heard the chattering voices and faces looking out over the view. Swirling clouds passed overhead and cast warm shadows over the window. In the far corner there was a small shop doing a brisk business in maps and books about Welsh legends. It was exactly as it should be. Exactly as he remembered it and exactly as he wanted it to be.

  He put the rucksack down slowly by his feet and rested his back against the wall, directly beneath the only CCTV camera. Then he waited.

  They walked in sooner than he had anticipated. Maybe time had gone quicker than he’d reckoned. They sat down at a table in the middle of the floor. The woman took out some fruit and passed it over to her husband and the boys, before getting up and walking over to the counter.

  He looked away, fearing that she’d notice him.

  Soon she returned with steaming mugs.

  He moved his hand down towards the rucksack, sensing it was time, as he watched the man take off his fleece, his paunch falling out over the belt of the trousers. His heart beat faster and the blood vessels pounded in his neck.

  Suddenly, his body tensed.

  The man was moving. He’d swung his legs over the side of the bench and was talking animatedly to his wife who nodded back. Then he stepped towards the door.

  It was time.

  He adjusted his footing and swung the rucksack up and then smoothly onto his shoulder. Within a few steps, he was behind him. He had no idea he was there or who he was or why he was there. They left together through the doors at the opposite end of the café.