Chill Factor dcp-7

by Stuart Pawson

  I arrived with enough time to do my shopping, which was intentional, and to have a quick breakfast in the restaurant before he arrived, which was an afterthought. Their curries were a pound cheaper than Heckley Sainsbury’s. At ten thirty I walked across the car-park towards the road he would come down.

  It was a warm morning, with people strolling about in their shirt sleeves and summer dresses. Four-wheel drive vehicles with tyre treads like Centurion tanks slowly circulated, following sleek Toyota sports cars and chunky Saabs, all looking for a space near the entrance. In the afternoon they’d do the same outside the health club. The indicators flashed on a BMW like the one that met Chilcott at the station, and an elderly couple in front of me steered their trolley towards its boot. A few minutes later, out on the main road, they drove past me. The driver’s window was down and I could hear the sound of Pavarotti coming from inside it. BMW spend countless millions of pounds and thousands of hours on wind tunnel tests. They install the finest music system money can buy, with more speakers than an Academy Awards ceremony. They design a climate control — that’s air conditioning to the rest of us — better than in the finest operating theatre in the world, and what happens? People drive around with the window down; that’s what.

  I hardly recognised him. Some thrive in prison, put weight on; others are consumed by it. Halliwell’s time inside had reduced him to a shambling shell. Always a gaunt figure, he was now stooped and hollow and looked well into his fifties, although he was only about thirty-six. He crossed the road at the lights, waiting until they were red and then checking that the traffic had stopped, glancing first this way, then the other, but still not moving until everybody else did. He was wearing grey trousers that had been machine-washed until they were shapeless, a blue regulation shirt that was almost fashionable, and cheap trainers. His jacket was gripped in one hand. I stood in the queue for the park- and-ride bus until he’d passed, then fell in behind him.

  There were supermarkets before he went inside, but a man forgets, and the rest of us take progress, if that’s what it is, for granted. He stopped to examine the rows of parked trolleys as if they were an outlandish life-form engaged in group sex, and stared at the big revolving doors as they gobbled up and regurgitated a steady stream of shoppers. Slowly, nervously, he made his way into the store.

  The security cameras were probably focused on this suspicious, shabbily dressed character who wandered about aimlessly, occasionally changing direction for no reason at all, picking up packets and jars at random only to replace them after reading the labels, but nobody challenged me. How Barry Moynihan had followed Chilcott for eight or nine hours dressed like he was, without being spotted, I couldn’t imagine. After a good look up and down the rows Halliwell selected a pair of socks and took them to the checkout. I replaced the jar of Chicken Tonight I was studying — 0.4g of protein, 7.7g of fat — and headed for the restaurant.

  It was a serve-yourself coffee machine with scant instructions. Halliwell watched a couple of people use it before having a hesitant attempt himself. His first try dumped a shot of coffee essence and hot water through the grill, then a woman took over and showed him how to do it. He smiled and made an “I’m only a useless man” gesture and allowed her to pass him in the queue at the till. For a few seconds I was afraid they would sit down together, but she had two cups on her tray and joined a waiting friend at one of the tables. Halliwell headed for an empty table in a corner. I collected a tea and joined him.

  “It’s Vince, isn’t it?” I said, sitting down.

  He looked at me, speechless, for a long time. His eyes were frosty blue, and the ponytail had given way to a regulation crop that still, annoyingly, looked good on him. He could have been a jazz musician on his way home from a gig, or a dissolute character actor researching a part. He had, I decided, that elusive quality known as sex appeal. His jacket was draped across his knees. He fumbled in the pockets until he found a tobacco pouch, and in a few seconds he was puffing on a roll-up.

  “What you want?” he asked, eventually, as a cloud of smoke bridged the gap between us. A woman who was about to sit at the next table saw it and moved away.

  “I was just passing,” I lied.

  “Like ’ell you were. It’s Priest, innit? Mr Priest?”

  “Charlie when I’m off duty.”

  “You still with the job, then?”

  “’Fraid so.”

  “So this is all part of it, is it?”

  “Part of what?”

  “The test. This is all part of the test?”

  “Oh yes,” I agreed. “This is all part of it. All over York there are people from your past who are going to pop out in front of you, confront you with situations to see how you react. Then there are the markers. Women with clip boards and coloured pens, following you, giving you marks for style, difficulty and performance. So far you’re doing well.”

  He grinned, saying: “They always said you were a bit of a card. Did you set all this up? If you did, you’re wasting your time.”

  He stood up to leave, but I said: “Sit down, Vince, and hear what I have to say.” He sat down again. That’s what eight years inside does to a man.

  The roll-up was down to his fingertips. He nipped it and looked for an ashtray but there wasn’t one, so he put the debris back in the pouch and made another.

  “Could you eat a breakfast?” I asked.

  “Not at your prices,” he replied.

  “No charge. My treat.”

  “No, thanks all the same.”

  “It comes on a real plate, made of porcelain, with a knife that cuts.”

  “I’ll do without.”

  I said: “Listen, Vince. It’s not going to be easy for you. You’ll need all the help you can get, so if someone offers you a free breakfast, take it. That’s my advice.” “You weren’t so generous with your ’elp and advice eight years ago,” he reminded me. “You knew…well, what’s the point.” He left the statement hanging there, dangling like the rope from a swinging tree.

  “I knew it wasn’t your gun. Is that what you were going to say?”

  “And the rest.” He twisted around in his chair until he was half-facing away from me.

  “It wasn’t my job to tell the court it wasn’t your gun,” I said. “It was your brief ’s. It was yours. You could have said whose it was.”

  “And a fat lot of good it would ’ave done me.”

  “It’d have got you five years instead of ten. Aggravated burglary’s a serious offence.”

  “You knew it wasn’t mine. I’ve never carried a shooter, and you knew it.”

  “There’s always a first time, Vince. I wanted you to get fifteen years; keep you out of my hair for as long as possible. Now you’re doing full term because you’ve refused to admit it was your gun. It’s your choice all along, Vince. Take responsibility for your actions. Now, tell me this: How do you like your sausages?”

  A youth in a white shirt was hovering near us. I looked up at him and he said: “I’m sorry, Sir, but this is the no-smoking area.” Halliwell looked annoyed but nipped the tip of his cigarette.

  I said to him: “Go sit over there. I’ll fetch you a breakfast,” and he carried his coffee to a table with an ashtray on it.

  I kept a weather eye on him as I stood in the queue, but he sat patiently waiting, occasionally sipping the coffee, his glance following the succession of people who moved away from the pay point carrying trays and leading toddlers. I placed the plate of food in front of him and walked off towards the cigarette kiosk without waiting for a thank you. When I flipped the packet of Benson and Hedges on to the table, saying: “If you must poison me, do it with something reasonable,” he grinned and said: “Right. Cheers.”

  I sipped the fresh tea I’d brought myself as he ate the first food he’d had in eight years that he could be sure nobody had dipped their dick in. When he’d half-cleared the plate he said: “You not eating, then?”

  “I had mine before you came,” I replied.
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br />   He manoeuvred a piece of egg white on to a corner of toast and bit it off. “So this is all a fit-up, eh? You arranged the whole thing,” he mumbled.

  “I thought you’d appreciate a day out,” I replied.

  “You’re wasting your time.”

  I shrugged. “It’s a day out for me, too.”

  “I’m sticking to my story.”

  “That you didn’t know the name of the bloke with you. You planned a burglary with him, did the job together, and never asked each other’s names.”

  He took a cigarette from the packet and lit it. “Yeah, well,” he said, exhaling. “That’s how it was.”

  “And you don’t grass each other.”

  “That’s right.”

  “He’d have grassed you. They always do.”

  “Not always.”

  “You were a fool, Vince. A twenty-four carat mug, believe me.”

  “Yeah, well, I can sleep at nights.”

  I changed the subject. “How does Eboracum compare with Bentley?” I asked.

  “It’s OK,” he replied.

  “Only OK? I’d have thought it would be a big improvement.”

  “Oh, it is. It’s just that, at Bentley, you knew where you stood, what the rules were, if you follow me. At this place, you’re never sure. Some of the screws say one thing, then another will say summat different. ’Ere, what time is it? I’d better be getting back.”

  “That’s OK,” I told him. “They know you’re with me.”

  “You sure?”

  “I’m sure.” I decided to speed things up. “Did you meet Tony Silkstone while you were in there?” I asked. “He’s one of mine, on remand.”

  He grinned and said: “Silko the Salesman? Yeah, I met him.”

  “How come?” I asked. “I thought you’d be on separate wings.”

  “We were, but we had association. Well, not proper association, but we had these classes. Silko took one of them, sometimes, and we all joined. Well, it was an hour out of your room wasn’t it? He couldn’t ’alf talk, about, you know, motivation an’ plannin’ an’ all that. We could all be millionaires, ’e told us, without breaking the law. Mind you, ’e did wink when ’e said that last bit.”

  “That sounds like Tony,” I remarked.

  “Yeah, well. He killed a nonce, didn’t ’e? Good riddance, we all said. Come to think of it, we talked about you, once.”

  “About me?”

  “Yeah. We were in the classroom, me, ’im and this screw, waiting for the others to arrive. I used to get the room ready, clean the blackboard an’ tidy up. I’d just finished when they walked in. ’E was grumbling to the screw, saying that ’e’d be out, now, if it wasn’t for this cop who was ’ounding ’im. This cop called Inspector Priest. I said that it was you that ’ad done me. That you’d…well, you know.”

  “That I’d fitted you up?”

  “Yeah, well, summat like that.”

  “So what did he say?”

  “The screw laughed. He said that you’d just done someone you were chasing for twenty-odd years. It was in the papers, he said. Summat about a fire.”

  “There was a fire in Leeds,” I explained. “Back in 1975. Three women and five children were burnt to death. We just found out who started it.”

  “Blimey,” he said, quietly. “You got the bastards?”

  “We got them. So what happened next?”

  “Yeah, well, like I was saying. The screw thought it was a right giggle. ’E said that if ’e’d done summat wrong the last person ’e’d want on the case was you. ’E said that you never forgot, an’ that ’e ’oped Silkstone was telling the truth, for ’is sake, ’cos ’e’d never be able to sleep at night if ’e wasn’t.”

  “Right,” I said. “Right.” My tea was finished and Halliwell was chewing his last piece of toast. “So did Silkstone have anything else to say?” I asked.

  “No,” he replied. “The others came in, then, an’ we started. Come to think of it, though, he wasn’t as chipper as ’e usually was, that lesson.”

  I lifted my jacket off the back of the chair and poked an arm down a sleeve. “Do you want a lift back?” I asked.

  “No thanks, Mr Priest,” he replied. “I ’ave to be careful what company I keep.”

  “Scared of being seen associating with the enemy?”

  “Summat like that.”

  “I take it you are going back?”

  “Dunno.” A little smile played around his mouth, the wrinkles joining up into laughter lines. “Would it get you into trouble if I didn’t?” he asked.

  “No,” I lied. “Nothing to do with me.”

  “Then I might as well go back.” He stood up, uncurling from the chair and stretching to his full height with a display of effort. “Thanks for the breakfast, an’ the fags. Sorry you ’ad a wasted journey.”

  “I’ll give you a lift, if you want one.”

  “No, Mr Priest,” he said. “I want to walk down that road like all these other people. Past the shops, an’ all. Enjoy my freedom while I can. It’s been a long wait.”

  “I hope it works out for you, Vince,” I told him. “I really do.”

  We walked across the car-park together. As we emerged on to the pavement I said: “Vince.” He turned to face me, his face etched with worry, scared I was about to spring something on him. He’d already had enough excitement for this day.

  “Tony Silkstone took out a contract on me,” I told him. “He offered someone fifty thousand to kill me. Did you hear anything about it?”

  “To…to kill you?” he stuttered. “Fifty thousand to kill you?”

  “That’s right. Who did he talk to?”

  “Dunno, Mr Priest. First I’ve ’eard of it.”

  “He hired a man called Chilcott. You ever heard of him?”

  “Chiller? Yeah, I ’eard of ’im, but ’e wasn’t in Bentley.”

  “I know. He was abroad. You didn’t hear any talk?”

  “No, Mr Priest, not a word. Honest.”

  “If you remember anything, get in touch.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “OK. Thanks anyway. Mind the road.”

  I began to turn away but I heard him say: “’Ere, Mr Priest.”

  “Mmm?”

  “Is this what it was all about, an’ not the other job?”

  “That’s right, Vince. The other job’s history, as far as I’m concerned. We knew who was with you, just couldn’t prove it.”

  “So I told you what you wanted to know?”

  “You gave me the reason that Silkstone had for wanting me dead. Yes.”

  “You devious bastard.”

  “I’m a cop,” I said, as if that was a full explanation.

  “Fifty Gs, did you say?”

  “That’s right. Would you have taken the contract, if you’d known?”

  “No,” he replied. “Not my scene. But I’d ’ave chipped in.”

  He had the grace to smile as he said it. I flapped a hand at him and we walked our separate ways. Me back to the car and Heckley, him to his room in jail and the calendar on the wall that said that in two years he’d be let loose, with nobody to order him around, nobody to feed and clothe him.

  The sun was in my eyes on the way back. I drove with the visor down, listening to a tape I’d compiled of Mark Knopfler and Pat Metheny. There’d been a shower and the roads were wet, so every lorry I passed turned the windscreen into a glaring mixture of splatters and streaks. I stayed in the slow and middle lanes, driving steadily, doing some thinking, my fingers on the wheel tapping in time with ‘Local Hero’ and ‘The Truth Will Always Be’. These days, in this job, you rarely have time to think. Something happens and you react. Time to reflect on the best way to tackle the situation is a luxury.

  Halliwell said he would have contributed towards the fifty thousand if he’d known about it. If he’d guessed the truth he’d have donated the full sum. We knew who his accomplice was because we’d arrested him the day before, and he’d turned informer,
gushing like a Dales stream about the Big Job he was doing the following night. Halliwell was set up by the man he refused to grass on, and we were waiting for him. The gun was a bonus; we hadn’t expected that. It was found afterwards, thrown behind a dustbin on the route Halliwell had taken as he tried to flee the scene. He denied it was his, and we admitted in court that we hadn’t found his fingerprints on it. Because he wouldn’t say who his accomplice was the judge credited him with the weapon and gave him ten years.

  I’d give my right arm to be able to make music like that. Not to have to deal with all this shit. Nobody asked us about the bullets. The gun had been wiped clean but we found a fingerprint on one of the bullets. It belonged to the accomplice, who just happened to slip through our fingers. This was eight years ago, before the law changed, and like I said: nobody asked.

  Gilbert had some good news for me. A British couple starting their annual holiday had been held up at gunpoint outside Calais and their car stolen. The hijacker answered Chilcott’s description. As I had grumbled to him every day about my bodyguard Gilbert reluctantly agreed that Chilcott was probably making his way across France and Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum could safely return to their normal duties. I didn’t point out that it would also help his staff deployment problems and overtime budget, but I did tell him about my confrontation with Vince Halliwell. Gilbert gave one of his sighs and peered at me over his half-moon spectacles. “You’re saying that Silkstone took the contract out on you because he wanted you off his case. You have a reputation for never forgetting, and he wanted to be able to sleep at nights. Is that it?”

  “In a coconut shell,” I replied.

  “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why does he want you off the case? He’s admitted killing Latham.”

  “Because he’s a worried man. He has something to hide. Everybody else is saying: ‘Well done, Tony. You rid the world of a scumbag.’ I’m the only one saying: ‘Whoa up a minute! Maybe he was there with Latham when Margaret died.’”