Last Reminder

by Stuart Pawson

  ‘You have a hangover!’ she announced with obvious glee.

  ‘No I haven’t.’

  ‘Yes you have. I can tell. The hard-boiled, hard-drinking detective has a hangover after too much sloe gin.’

  ‘I thought religious people didn’t drink.’

  ‘You choose your religious friends and I’ll choose mine. If you don’t mind me saying so, you were drinking it as if it were lemonade.’

  ‘I didn’t realise it was so strong. I’ll know better the next time.’

  ‘We won’t be invited again!’ she exclaimed. ‘Not after you…after you… Well, you know.’

  ‘Now you are having me on. Listen, Annabelle. Something’s cropped up. A suspicious death. I doubt if I’ll be able to see you for the next two or three nights. OK?’

  ‘You mean a murder?’ Now she sounded anxious.

  ‘I didn’t say that. Can’t say much on the phone; I’ll tell you all about it when I see you.’

  ‘How about popping round for lunch? Surely you are allowed a lunch break.’

  ‘That sounds a good idea. Tomorrow, about one.’

  ‘Let me know if you can’t make it. And Charles?’

  ‘Mmm?’

  ‘Be careful.’

  ‘Don’t worry. It’s not very heavy. Just routine.’

  Except it’s never just routine. I put the phone in my pocket and drove back to Goodrich’s house.

  The body had gone, replaced by a couple of marginally healthier ones from Fraud Squad.

  ‘Not…Maud and Claud, from Fraud?’ I asked when I saw them.

  ‘Not…Defective Inspector Priest?’ the female DS responded. I’d worked with them once or twice before; been for a drink with them a few more times; seen them in the canteen several times a day for the last five years. ‘Where do you want us to start?’ she asked.

  ‘That lot,’ I said, waving expansively at the rows of filing cabinets. ‘Find out what he was up to. Oh, and who killed him.’

  ‘It’s gonna be a long night,’ she sighed.

  I had a wander round the house. If fingerprint experts found a tenth as much evidence as they leave behind we would eliminate crime. Every surface in the place was coated with their powders, creating an impression of neglect. His sitting room was all black leather and stripes. He must have read somewhere that stripes were sophisticated, so he’d gone overboard with them. Or perhaps he had a contact in a deckchair factory. Everything looked expensive and tasteless. A couple of heavy table lamps were held aloft by naked nymphettes, at odds with the large hunting scene above the fireplace. I looked at it more closely. Original, about three thousand quid at a guess, by an unknown artist whose credibility would die with him.

  Upstairs were a junk room, a gymnasium of sorts, a study-cum-library and his bedroom. The gym had an exercise bike, a jogging machine and one of those multipurpose machines of torture that they threatened Galileo with. The speedo on the bike told me he’d cycled eighteen miles on it, and the jogger had done forty-five. Arnie Schwarzenneger was safe.

  The books were unedifying. Mainly thrillers, at the more violent end of the spectrum. He was a Jackie Collins fan. Some Wilbur Smith and John Grisham, lots of book club editions. One cabinet was filled with military histories.

  In the bedroom, above the double bed and on the facing wall, were arty photographs of young men flexing their pecs. Black and white, so the sweat showed. The duvet cover was chequered, almost Black Watch tartan, with matching pillow cases. Two pillows, one on top of the other, sat in the middle of the bed.

  It was the pillows that brought it home to me; pulled me up with a start. It was a human being we were dealing with. No matter what his tastes were, how he lived his life and earned his money, we had a duty to him. I looked through the drawers where he kept his socks and underpants, ran my hand across the shoulders of the suits in his wardrobe. He had more suits than I have bad habits. As I left the room I glanced at the pillows again. I pile mine up like that, except that he made his bed after he got out of it, while I make mine when I climb in.

  I rejoined Maud and Claud, who are actually Maud and Brian, downstairs. Brian was looking at a file, trying to compile a table of basic information from it. Maud was on the phone. She is Afro-Caribbean, and joined the police when, midway through an accountancy course, after they’d sent her abseiling in Borrowdale, she decided she needed more action in her life. She made sergeant, but one night a gang of skinheads cornered her and left her for crippled. When she recovered she was determined that they wouldn’t drive her from the job. She did a spell back in uniform, then Fraud learnt of her background in accountancy and snatched her up.

  ‘He’s known to us, Mr Priest,’ she said, clicking the phone off.

  ‘Like how?’ I asked.

  ‘Allegations of fraud resulting from his bankruptcy. Nothing concrete. We’re waiting for something more specific from the receiver.’

  ‘He went bankrupt six months ago,’ I protested. ‘How long does it take?’

  Maud shrugged her shoulders. ‘Solicitors,’ she stated, explaining everything.

  Sparky popped his head round the door. ‘Hi, boss. There you are. How’s it going?’

  ‘Slowly, David,’ I replied. ‘But hopefully you are now going to give us the breakthrough we’ve been waiting for.’

  He came in and sat in a typist’s chair that looked as if it might collapse under him. ‘Hardly that,’ he said. ‘Talk about keeping yourself to yourself. It’s a wonder this lot round here ever get round to breeding. Mr Goodrich’s neighbours lead very discreet lives. Never look through their lace curtains, never take their eyes from the road ahead when they are forced to leave their desirable little castles. I’ve had more cooperation on the Sylvan Fields estate.’

  ‘But…’ I said.

  ‘Whaddya mean, but?’

  ‘But you wouldn’t have come back if you didn’t have something to tell me.’

  ‘We’ve been working together too long,’ he grumbled. ‘But there was just one thing. Young girl at the end of the street. Works shifts at some fast-food joint. She says there are sometimes posh cars in Goodrich’s drive as she passes in her car. All times of night and day.’

  ‘So what? He’s a businessman. Works from home. It would have been odder if there hadn’t been.’

  ‘She particularly noted one about a month ago, in the afternoon.’ He glanced awkwardly at Maud, who was standing next to me, part of the conversation.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘He parked in the road, so she noticed his number plate as she drove by. She says it was a BMW, a big one. They were playing a George Michael song on Radio Two, and the registration number stuck in her mind. It was W-A-M, WAM.’

  ‘Wham?’ I repeated.

  Maud said, ‘They were a pop duo. Not your type. George Michael was the leading light until he went solo.’

  ‘I’m not totally decrepit, Maud,’ I stated. ‘But shouldn’t there be an aitch in there, somewhere.’

  ‘Christ, Charlie,’ Sparky retorted. ‘She remembered part of his number. Give her some credit for that, don’t criticise her spelling!’

  ‘OK, I’m sorry. W-A-M. Any idea where that might be from?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did she notice anything else about the car? Or him?’

  Sparky looked embarrassed, something I’d never seen before. ‘There was one thing,’ he said.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘According to her… He, er, was a black guy.’ The best way to meet any sort of a problem is to charge at it, headlong. I turned to the DS from Fraud Squad and said, ‘Sounds highly suspicious to me, Maud. What do you reckon?’

  Expressionless, she replied, ‘No doubt about it. With a car and a complexion like that he must have been a drugs dealer. Let’s try to find this BMW, top priority.’

  It was ten o’clock when I arrived home. The fish and chip shop was closed, I was out of cornflakes and the bread needed defrosting, so I went upstairs to have a quick shower and then crash. I needed
a good night’s sleep more than food. Tomorrow’s big meeting wasn’t scheduled until nine thirty, so I’d have time for a full English in the canteen, first thing. You could lubricate a JCB with a canteen breakfast, but to hell with the risk.

  I was sitting on the end of the bed taking my trousers off when the phone rang.

  ‘Priest,’ I intoned, rather pleasantly, in the hope that it was Annabelle.

  ‘This is Inspector Lockett from Lingwell. Is that DI Priest?’

  ‘The one and only, Mr Lockett. How can I help you?’

  ‘Ah, good. Good evening.’

  ‘Good evening.’

  ‘We have a problem with a hostage situation, and I’ve found your name on the list of trained negotiators. Could you possibly come and take over?’

  ‘A hostage?’ I queried, adding, ‘I didn’t know I was on any list of negotiators.’

  ‘Well, you are. Once every three months, for a week.’

  ‘I took the course, about five years ago. I always imagined I’d failed it. I wasn’t exactly a natural.’ I only signed on because I’d approved a uniformed WPC called Kim Limbert for it and I was crazy about her at the time. Kim was our first black WPC, and she made Naomi Campbell look plain. The thought of three days sitting in the next desk to her was more than I could resist. I took her for a drink once or twice, but it was strictly business, dammit.

  ‘Will you help us, please? I’ve been ringing round for nearly half an hour.’

  It’s difficult to turn them down when you are their last hope. ‘Who’s he holding hostage?’ I asked with a sudden burst of interest.

  ‘Well, actually, it’s a dog.’

  ‘A dog! Are you winding me up?’

  ‘No, Mr Priest. Let me tell you the story.’

  ‘I think you’d better.’

  ‘It’s a youth. Don’t know who he is, yet. He was disturbed at the top of a ladder, as he came out of a second-floor flat that he was burgling. He grabbed the dog and now he’s at the top of the ladder, threatening to throw the dog and himself down. A bit of a crowd has gathered, so we want to play it by the book.’

  ‘What is it, a Rottweiler?’

  ‘No, thank goodness. A Chihuahua.’

  ‘When you say second floor, do you mean second floor?’

  ‘That’s right. It’s a long ladder. He’s about thirty feet from the ground.’

  Dogs and people don’t bounce from that height. I said, ‘OK, give me the address.’ I wrote it down. ‘Be with you in about twenty minutes. Try to keep the ghouls back and don’t harass him – he might come down on his own. Oh, and one other thing…’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Order some sandwiches and a flask of coffee, please. It might be a long night.’

  ‘Will do, Mr Priest. And thank you.’

  I swapped my decent trousers for jeans and drank half of the mug of tea I’d taken up with me. Then I put my trainers and leather jacket on, swapped the contents of my pockets round and went outside. The car interior was still nice and warm.

  On the way over I tried to remember what I’d learnt on the course, apart from the fact that Kim thought I was a schmuck. A likeable schmuck, but still a schmuck. One, create a safe environment. That was it. Five, try to build a rapport with the hostage-taker. In between was something about empathy. Like I said, I wasn’t a natural. The overriding memory was of having to suppress your instincts and do nothing. Enforced inactivity, like lying in a hospital bed with your legs in traction while all the other patients partied with the nurses. Be calm, and let nature take its course. Time heals everything. Well, stuff that for a box of soldiers.

  He was right – it was a long ladder. Three extensions, fully out. The crowd was growing all the time, their faces, yellow in the glow of the sodium lights, turned up towards the unfortunate youth. One or two shouted for him to jump, trying to build up the rhythm of a chant. They’d do better in about half an hour, when the pubs turned out.

  ‘Charlie Priest,’ I said, identifying myself to Inspector Lockett.

  ‘Inspector Lockett,’ he replied, giving me a limp handshake. He looked younger than I was when I made inspector. Bet he wouldn’t break my long service record, though.

  The youth was sitting a couple of rungs from the top, facing outwards. That was a feat in itself. Don’t think I’d have dared do it. He was level with the street lamps, and they cast shadows either side of him, like the floodlights at a football match.

  ‘Where’s the dog?’ I asked.

  ‘He’s got it down the front of his bomber jacket.’

  ‘Anyone from the RSPCA here?’

  ‘No. Do you want me to call them?’

  ‘Er, no. Not yet.’ Definitely not yet.

  The window he’d come out of was open, and a couple of policemen were inside, but they’d stopped trying to persuade him to surrender.

  ‘Tell them to close the window and stay away from it,’ I told Lockett, pointing upwards.

  ‘Right,’ he said, and started giving orders on his portable.

  ‘Where are the sandwiches?’ I asked when he finished.

  ‘Oh,’ he replied brightly, ‘we shouted up to him, asked him what he wanted, and he declined.’

  ‘He declined! He declined!’

  ‘Well, told us to go and, er, eff ourselves, actually.’ He dropped his voice as he said ‘Eff’, presumably so God couldn’t hear.

  ‘Sod him!’ I gasped. ‘They were for me. I haven’t eaten for fourteen hours!’

  ‘Oh, sorry, Mr Priest. I must have misunderstood. I’ll arrange some now. In fact, maybe I should order the mobile canteen?’

  ‘Just a couple of ham sandwiches will do.’

  We were in a parking area in front of the block of flats. Nearby were several builders’ huts and skips of rubbish. The youth must have found the ladder there. These flats are under a constant renovation programme, starving the rest of the housing of funds. Three police cars were parked, their flashing lights reflecting off the front of the building. I studied the situation and tried to remember Isaac Newton’s first law of ladders. My memory wasn’t much use to me tonight. I was tired, shouldn’t have taken this on. Never did learn how to say no. Didn’t he say something about a ladder being exactly the same length upright as it was when lying on the ground? Sounded reasonable to me. I did some elementary geometry in my mind, and when Lockett finished on the radio I asked him to move the crowd another fifteen feet back.

  He had about six uniformed PCs with him, and they pushed and jostled until I was satisfied. The crowd were good natured, some of them on personal terms with the bobbies, but the mood could soon change. A fire engine with a turntable ladder came warbling down the road.

  ‘Right,’ I said. ‘Now turn those blues off and tell Thomas the Turntable to go hide somewhere. We’ll let him know if we need him.’

  When it was quieter, the environment as reassuring as I thought I could make it, I strolled towards the foot of the ladder. The crowd stopped jeering.

  ‘Gerraway!’ the youth yelled at me. ‘I’ll chuck fuckin’ dog darn if tha comes any closer.’ He pulled the terrified hound from within his jacket to reinforce his words.

  I took an extra couple of strides and stopped. ‘Hi!’ I shouted up to him, with all the sincerity of a reluctant recruit at the Mormon training academy. ‘My name’s Charlie.’

  ‘I’ll jump!’ he yelled back, rising to his feet. ‘I’ll chuck me-fuckin-sen off.’

  He was leaning against the wall. ‘Please, be calm,’ I pleaded. ‘We don’t want to hurt you. Can we just talk?’

  ‘Warrabout?’

  ‘Well, I’m called Charlie. What are you called?’

  ‘Joe Fuck!’

  ‘Do you live round here?’ I asked, adding, ‘Mr Fuck,’ under my breath.

  He didn’t bother answering, but he put the wriggling dog back inside his jacket. It was calmer in there.

  I was about six feet from the foot of the ladder. I shuffled forward, my hands in my pockets. ‘Is it your dog?’ I
called out. I’m usually reasonable at interviews, but this was different. The spectators had brought their video cameras along, and tomorrow I could be on the news. He ignored my question.

  ‘Do you like dogs?’ I tried.

  ‘They’re all right.’ That was an improvement.

  ‘I expect you prefer bigger ones?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘What sort’s that one?’

  ‘How the fuck do I know?’

  He was an articulate so-and-so. I was at the foot of the ladder now.

  ‘Don’t come any fuckin’ closer,’ he warned.

  ‘No, I won’t,’ I assured him, taking my hands from my pockets.

  He was agitated. ‘I’ll fuckin’ jump. I’m warnin’ thi.’

  They say a drowning man clutches at straws. I wondered if a falling one would cling on to a dog. It was worth the risk – it wasn’t my dog. With one easy movement I placed my right foot on the bottom rung of the ladder, grasped the fifth rung in both hands and heaved. As the foot of the ladder came off the ground it started to accelerate away from the wall with a velocity that shocked me. I jumped aboard, and was propelled backwards towards the hushed crowd, like a surfboard rider, my arms flailing wildly. He scraped down the wall at exactly the same speed, emitting a long wail of fear and surprise.

  My end stopped, and I fell backwards into a mess of arms that pushed me upright again. His end bounced a yard into the air, ejecting him like water off a sheepdog’s back. The Chihuahua scampered away, between the legs of the cheering crowd, and into the open doorway of the flats. He’d had enough excitement for tonight.

  I drew a breath and turned to Inspector Lockett. His eyes were wide and his mouth gaping, but he couldn’t form any words.

  ‘Cancel the sandwiches,’ I said.

  The youth could have had a gun or a knife, or even a fractured spine, so I approached him warily. He was about nineteen, undernourished and under average. On drugs at a guess. He had landed in a sprawled position, his shoulders against the wall, the residual fear still pulling at his face. Or maybe it was a new fear.

  ‘Are you hurt?’ I asked.