by Salkeld, J J
‘What about the posh landowner types who live on the plot?’ asked Mann.
‘The Plouvins?’
‘Aye, them. Folk like them always have something to hide, don’t they?’
Hall hesitated. ‘I’m not sure proximity to where we found the body means anything at all, does it? Even if Tonto is right there must be hundreds of people living locally who’d know that the site is Protected, so wouldn’t normally be dug up. So unless the house-to-house suggests a connection I think we can leave them alone for now.’
‘One law for us, another for them, is it Andy?’
‘Come on, Ian. Don’t be chippy, mate. I’m not saying that they’re eliminated from the enquiry, of course I’m not, but apart from some rather unusual domestic arrangements I can’t really see how they could be connected to our body. It’s not their brother, if that’s what you’re thinking, because our man is too tall for a start.’
‘Aren’t the two blokes identical twins? One of the lads said you can’t tell them apart.’
‘Yes, that’s right. It’s uncanny that two people can look and sound the same, right into adulthood. You’d think that one would get fatter than the other, or something, by now.’
‘That’s it sorted, then’ said Mann, laughing. ‘One of the brothers did it, wearing the other one’s favourite jumper. The perfect crime. Thank Christ for Hall of the Yard.’
‘Thank you, Miss Marple’ said Hall. ‘We’ll all meet in the drawing room in five minutes and let you sort it all out, shall we? Save me the bother. Seriously, you both know how this will work. We’ll find out who our man is all right, one way or another, and then the gears will mesh and we’ll be off. We’ll start with him, sort out a timeline, work out exactly when he died, then start looking for who to connect. It’s probably not going to be quick, but we’ll get there using procedures and databases, not little grey cells.’
‘What makes you so sure that we’ll get there at all?’ asked Jane, before she could stop herself.
‘The quality and dedication of my team, mainly’ said Hall, deadpan. ‘But it would certainly be useful to know if he was shot there, or if it was elsewhere and he was moved to the Long Meg later. I’m trying to get Sandy or the Doc to commit either way, but I’m not sure that we’re going to get a definitive answer. The Doc seems to be leaning towards him having been shot and buried immediately, while Sandy thinks he was moved. They were having a stand-up row about it, last I heard.’
‘Brave man, the Doc’, said Ian Mann.
‘Yes, who’d have thought it? Anyway, let’s eat up and get back to it. With a bit of luck I’ll have digested all this wholegrain scone by the time we bring charges. Because one thing is absolutely bloody sure and certain. This wasn’t suicide.’
Wednesday, 5th June
Over the years Andy Hall had developed a theory that incident rooms were like organisms, or anthills, and the noise they made told you something about the health of the whole. But he didn’t like to dwell too long on the smell. So when he opened the door to the incident room at 0855 he hesitated on the threshold for a second or two and listened. The sound was muted, a low hum at best, and Hall wasn’t surprised. He made sure that every single sworn officer on the case, irrespective of rank, had access to every single report and item of information. He’d been reading today’s new batch since half seven, and he hadn’t seen much that had encouraged him.
Jane had driven in separately, and had been in before him.
‘Jane, how are your MISPERs looking so far?’
‘Not promising. Using all the known facts, sex, height and approximate age plus approximate date of disappearance we get no hits in the county, 19 in the northern region, and 68 nationwide. Throw in the tatts and that comes down to 30 nationally, none in the north. And none of those were habitual wearers of gold chains, or at least they weren’t when they went missing, that’s for sure.’
‘OK, so have we got dental records yet?’
‘Not yet, and chances are most of them are alive and well anyway. Earlier on I spoke to a DCI down in Guildford about one of them, and he said that his bloke is alive and well and living with his wife’s younger sister. He said, and I quote, ‘I’d really like him to be your stiff, because the whole family is a right pain in the arse, but it’s not.’
‘Thanks, Jane. Let me know if we turn up anything from dental records.’
There was a bit of chatter, and Hall raised his voice slightly. That was unusual enough to have the desired effect. ‘As you’ll all know by now there’s no DNA match either, but we’ve still got lots to go on. It’s still early days. So Ray, how about that necklace?’
‘No luck yet. I’ve spoken to a couple of dealers down in Brum, and a couple of others in Manchester. They say it’s probably changed hands a number of times over the years, because it’s as good as cash in the bank, and although it’s valuable that kind of heavy chain isn’t really fashionable nowadays, even with the rapper types. It’s the type of links apparently. And two of them said ‘traveller’ straight away, boss, without me even raising it.’
‘All right, Ray, point taken. Keep at it. So am I right in assuming that there’s nothing distinctive about the design or manufacture?’
‘That’s right. That shape of link has been in production since the eighties, and was widely made. Sorry, boss.’
‘Not your fault, mate. Don’t worry about it. OK, so where are we at? The thing that strikes me is that we’ve haven’t had a solid line from the MISPERs. So why isn’t he showing up, do we think?’
‘Maybe his mother doesn’t love him’ someone called out. No one laughed.
‘He was involved in criminal activity, and that led to his death, directly or indirectly’ said Mann.
‘Yes’ said Hall, ‘that’s possible. But why hasn’t a relative or someone not reported him?’
‘He was from overseas, perhaps’ said Jane. ‘Are we sure that the clothes were all sold in the UK? Looking at the list they were all brand names, so maybe he could be foreign? Dark hair, brown eyes. It might fit.’
Hall nodded. ‘Yes Jane, that’s good. Tell you what, why not get your team looking at the origin of the clothing, and send out the details of our man internationally too, let’s see if we get any possibles.’
‘How international?’
‘EU for now, please. And Ian, your idea is worth following up too. Get onto Intelligence will you, and just check if any of their targets has dropped off the radar in the last year or so? And while you’re in the spotlight, what’s the story at the locus as of this morning?’
‘The fingertip search hasn’t turned up anything, except a few shotgun cartridges just beyond the field boundary. They’re being examined and printed now, but you’d expect them to turn up anywhere really. So we shouldn’t get our hopes up.’
‘Have you checked with the Plouvins to see if they or people known to them have been shooting on their land in the last year or two?’
‘No, I haven’t. You want me to get on to it?’
‘Don’t worry. I need to drop in there later, so I’ll do it. Any luck with the house-to-house?’
‘Sod all. Not a single person so much as nibbled on the picture of our man, and as to guns going off, it’s a common enough occurrence apparently. No strange goings on reported, nothing of any interest at all really. I’ve observed each of the cops who have been doing the interviews and they’ve done the job well. I’m sure they haven’t missed anything.’
‘Fair enough, Ian. Well done. It’s an isolated spot, isn’t it? No reason why any of the locals should have seen anything, more’s the pity.’
Hall looked round the room. He knew that what he was about to say wasn’t going to go down well, but there was nothing he could do about that.
‘Priority number one is still to get this man identified, so unless we get this sorted in the next twenty four hours we’re going to have to go public, big style.’ Hall held up his hands to silence the groans. ‘I know, I know. We’ll all be chasing l
eads, and I use the word extremely loosely, provided to us by the great British public, God bless ‘em. And I don’t fancy that any more than you do. So let’s use that appalling prospect as a motivator. Let’s really crack on, and find out who this bloke is before we end up having to ask the bloody audience.’
Jane had already discovered that she didn’t find it hard to give instructions. The lamination on her new Warrant Card was hardly dry, but she already knew for certain that giving orders was much more enjoyable than taking them. It’s what she’d expected, but it was nice to be sure. She wasn’t especially happy to be stuck with the paper-trail detection, which sometimes felt rather too much like boring old admin, but even she admitted that she was the least experienced DS, so it was fair enough.
When Jane had finished doling out the tasks for the rest of the day she realised, to her quiet amusement, that she hadn’t actually left anything for herself. No wonder the bosses seemed to enjoy the job so much. She was just about to take a task back from one of the DCs when she had an idea. And then she found herself glancing round the room, just for a second, before she opened the Bose file. What were the registration numbers of the cars that had been on the ferry with Rita Bose? Were they all recorded somewhere? They were, and Jane saw that there were 18 registrations listed. That’s not too bad, she thought. It won’t take more than twenty minutes to just check them all out.
Jane was just about to type in the first registration on the list when she had another thought. Could she tell which vehicles had two or more people aboard, just to narrow the list down a bit? Because assuming that the attacker had slipped in to Rita’s vehicle while it was on the ferry then there must have been another person, as well as the offender, in the other vehicle. There was no other way, because all of the vehicles that had driven on were also driven off, it was there on the tape. So Jane called up the CCTV and watched it through. All but two of the vehicles looked to have at least two people aboard, but at least that was two to strike off the list.
Next she ran the remaining 16 through the PNC in an effort to find the owners. Four were company cars, and of the remaining 12 all were registered to private owners, one of whom was Rita’s dad. Jane took the remaining names and ran them all, men and women, against the PNC for priors, and then looked at the results. Nothing jumped out at her. A couple of criminal damages, years ago and down south somewhere for one of them, and a couple of cautions for D&D for another. None of them were disqualified from driving, and all the vehicles showed up as insured.
So far nothing had caught Jane’s attention, so she went and made a round of teas for her team. It was the least she could do, she thought, and they seemed genuinely grateful. Then Jane sat down and looked at the local names, just three of them, and all with no previous. One lived in Kendal, one in Staveley, and the third in Windermere.
Days later, when Andy Hall asked her about it, she couldn’t quite explain why she had written the three names and addresses in her notebook, having already decided to call in on all three on the way home from work that night. But that was the decision she’d reached, one way or another, and DS Jane Francis was not the kind of woman who changed her mind easily, or often.
By mid-afternoon DCI Hall needed a change of scene. The full PM report was through, and other than the fact that the dead man had been a heavy drinker and had an inherited condition that Hall couldn’t pronounce and decided not to Google for, the report didn’t move the investigation all that much further forward. However, Doc Beech was now certain that the man had been buried very soon after death, which made it more likely that he died in or near the stone circle. Hall read the report again, then took his jacket and went in search of Ray Dixon.
‘No’ Dixon was saying to someone on the phone, ‘I’m not looking to sell you this chain. I’m from the Police. The Police. I’m asking if you’ve ever sold one like it.’
Hall stood back and listened, amused.
‘No’ Dixon said again. ‘That’s not something I can help you with. Have you spoken to someone from your local nick about it?’ Dixon listened again. Hall made a throat cutting gesture and Dixon pretended to hang himself with his tie. ‘I see’ he said eventually, ‘so can you help me with this enquiry at all?’ This time the pause was brief. ‘No? Well thanks again for your time.’
‘How would you like to get away from all this and indulge one of your hobbies, Ray?’
‘Mud-wrestling with ladies, is it, boss?’
Hall smiled. ‘No, Ray. I was thinking more of hanging around in pubs, chatting up the locals and shooting the breeze.’
‘Would a pie be involved? On exs, like?’
‘Yes, Ray, there would be pies.’
‘You’re on. What do you want asking?’
‘Our man was a big drinker, according to the doc, so I want to know if he’s been seen in any pubs roundabout.’
‘What’s the search area?’
‘As many as you can get round tonight. Just start from the locus and then use your initiative.’
‘Can I start in Appleby, boss? People will be turning up for the Fair now, and the pubs will be full.’
‘You never give up, do you, Ray? OK, tell you what. Cover the pubs in the villages around the locus, make sure you do plenty, and then take a drive up to Appleby. With that in mind, do you want to do it two-up? You know that quite a few folks who go to the Horse Fair aren’t too keen on us, to put it mildly, and I’d hate to see your retirement ruined by a spell in traction after you’re run over by a horse and cart.’
‘You mean a vardo, don’t you, boss?’
‘If you say so, Ray. Although it’s a bit of a worry when you’re the office expert on any minority group. Just be careful, and don’t go stepping on anyone’s toes.’
‘I’ll do my best, Boss. Can I get off now, then?’
‘Yes. Write up what you’ve got on that gold necklace, then push off home and get your drinking trousers on.’
Then Hall drove to Long Meg, and parked behind the mobile incident unit. Inside he found Ian Mann talking to a uniformed sergeant who he didn’t recognise.
‘Door to door wrapped up, is it?’ asked Hall, when the Sergeant had gone.
‘Yes. Except for the holiday homes we’ve done the lot, and no-one saw our man. Not so much as a bloody nibble, in fact.’
‘So he wasn’t a regular visitor around here then. OK, well that’s something I suppose.’
Mann didn’t look convinced. ‘No progress anywhere else?’
‘No, but we’ll find out who he is. It might just take a bit longer, that’s all. The nightmare scenario is if he’s from an accession country.’
‘Romania?’
‘Yes, amongst other possibilities. I really don’t want us to have to spend too much time and money on it though, because we can’t even begin the murder investigation proper until we know who he is.’
‘So you’re really going to go public, Andy? You know what will happen. Every nutter from Newcastle to Norwich will be in touch saying it’s their missing uncle, or even their auntie. They won’t let the facts get in the way of an opportunity to be utterly mental at our expense.’
‘You’ve made me feel so much better, Ian, thanks. But yes, if we don’t get an ID soon then we will have to go public. It’ll be all hands on deck manning the phones.’
‘Oh aye, and does that include you, Andy?’
‘Me? Not a chance. You do know that every single caller, except the one we need, will be as mad as a March hare? I’d almost rather join a Home Office working party than have to work the phones.’
‘You don’t mean that, Andy’ said Mann, grinning. ‘About the working party, I mean.’
‘You’re right. Look, I’m just about to see the Plouvins. You fancy tagging along?’
‘Which one? Posh Plouvin or posh poofter Plouvin?’
‘Ian, for God’s sake. As far as we know the bloke’s sexuality has nothing to do with the case, so just forget it, OK?’
‘All right, Andy. Point taken.
But it’s a funny set up, isn’t it? One twin lives with the older brother’s wife and kids, who will end up inheriting the whole bloody lot one day, what with the older one being, you know.’
‘Yes, Ian, I know. But what if the older one has a child, or adopts one?’
‘No, that won’t happen. It makes my flesh creep, that sort of carry-on.’
Hall smiled. ‘Well you’ll be pleased to know that we’re going to see David Plouvin, so your delicate sensibilities won’t be offended. Plus, you get to talk about guns, and maybe handle a few, so what’s not to like?’
It was Barbara Plouvin who answered the door. Hall introduced himself again because she seemed to have no recollection of their previous meeting.
‘I hope it’s David you want. I’m just on my way out.’
‘That’s fine, Mrs. Plouvin. Is your, is David about?’
‘Come in. Don’t bother to wipe your feet. No-one else does, least of all David. Yes, he’s about somewhere, hang on.’ Barbara Plouvin shouted ‘David’ a couple of times.
Hall was just about to introduce Mann to Barbara when David Plouvin appeared. Hall wondered if he’d been drinking.
‘Right, I’m off. Nice to meet you both’ said Barbara Plouvin.
‘It’s just a quick question, sir’ said Ian Mann, holding out his Warrant Card to David. ‘Have you been aware of shooting going on over in the field on the far side of Long Meg?’
‘Oh yes, of course. A few of the lads do a bit of rough shooting, you know. Keeps the bloody rabbits down.’
‘I see. And do you take part yourself?’
‘Rough shooting? Good God no. I do a bit of grouse shooting with a few old school pals, but that’s about it. I can’t see the point in taking pot-shots at rabbits and pigeons. Where’s the sport in that?’
