Blood on the Tongue (Ben Cooper & Diane Fry)

by Stephen Booth

  ‘It’s not illegal, you know.’

  ‘Then there’s nothing to worry about, is there?’ said Fry. ‘Lead the way.’

  Lawrence Daley led the way to the foot of the bare wooden stairs, past the sign that said ‘staff only’. The stairs were narrow and unlit, and the boards creaked alarmingly underfoot. Their footsteps echoed in the stairwell, and once they’d turned a corner halfway up, they lost the benefit of the light from the shop. They could see their way only by a naked bulb somewhere high above them, and its reflection in a series of tiny stone-mullioned windows set into the back wall. The light picked out thick strands of blackened cobwebs clinging to the ceilings and the highest corners. The banister rail felt slightly sticky under Cooper’s fingers, but he was afraid to let go of it, in case the stairs disappeared in front of him and he lost his footing.

  He could see that the building had once been a town house for some wealthy family, a tall, rambling place that the bookshop occupied only half of. The stairs they were climbing were so narrow that they must once have been designed only for the use of servants, who were expected to be thin and undernourished. Probably they were expected to be able to see in the dark, too, and survive the winter without any heating.

  Along the skirting boards and on the window ledges, Cooper saw more black mouse droppings. He wondered if Lawrence would be interested in having a cat.

  Lawrence stopped in front of them and jingled his keys. Cooper could make out a dusty corridor ahead. Unsurprisingly, it was piled high with books stacked against the walls. There were two or three doors further down, but they were inaccessible because of the number of books in front of them. To the right, though, there was one clear doorway near the head of the stairs, tucked under a sloping section of roof. They must be close to the eaves of the building.

  Fry stood behind him, just below one of the mullioned windows. Cooper turned to exchange a look. He saw her face was lit by a strange mottled pattern from the light reflected off the dust on the window.

  ‘No wonder people like Eddie Kemp are never out of work,’ she said.

  All the doors were narrow and low, as if they’d been made for the use of midgets. The paint on them was old and peeling, but must once have been dark green, and they had brown bakelite handles that had got chipped over the years. There was no carpet on the floor of the passage, and probably never had been. The floorboards had been painted black, and that was the limit of decoration. Cooper shivered. The passage was cold, as cold as George Malkin’s farmhouse, but with a different feel to the coldness. Malkin’s house had dripped with the chill of emptiness, but this place felt full of phantoms. He could imagine a crowd of pale, thin ghosts in ragged clothes who walked continuously backwards and forwards, day and night, bearing bowls of hot water and candles for their masters.

  ‘Useful-looking attic,’ said Fry. ‘Have you ever thought of converting it into student bedsits?’

  A gleam came into Lawrence’s eye for a moment at the prospect of income from student rents. But he looked at the stacks of books, and his face fell.

  ‘I don’t think it’s practical.’

  ‘Let’s have a look at this room,’ said Cooper. ‘It’s what we came for, after all.’

  The upstairs room at Eden Valley Books was full of aviation memorabilia, much of it of Second World War vintage. One of the most eye-catching items was an RAF pilot’s Irving jacket, which fit Cooper fine when he tried it on. There had been a few repairs to the leather, but the zips and the belt still worked, and the lining was very warm. He could have kept it on and worn it all day.

  ‘Two hundred pounds,’ said Lawrence. ‘It’s still got the MoD label and everything.’

  ‘I’ll not bother.’

  A cockpit clock was dated 1940. The label said it was in working condition, though it currently showed the time as four twenty-eight. It was priced at £75. A leather flying-helmet with attached oxygen mask seemed to be one of the prime exhibits at £450. Cooper could see that Lawrence put more thought into the prices for his collectibles than he did into pricing his books.

  ‘It’s all perfectly legitimate,’ said Lawrence.

  ‘That depends on the origin of the items, doesn’t it? Where do they come from?’ asked Fry.

  ‘People bring them to me.’

  ‘Do they provide any evidence of their origin? What you might call a provenance?’

  ‘Hardly ever. But these people are collectors, or other dealers. The things they bring have been changing hands for years.’

  ‘If you have reason to believe that any of them are stolen or dishonestly obtained – .’

  ‘I don’t.’

  Fry nodded. ‘In that case, you’re right. It’s legitimate.’

  ‘Do you get any medals?’ asked Cooper.

  ‘Sometimes.’

  ‘I was thinking of one particular medal. A Canadian Distinguished Flying Cross.’

  ‘I don’t think I’ve ever had one of those here.’

  ‘Have you ever been offered one?’

  ‘Not as far as I’m aware. I get job lots sometimes. I don’t always sort them out. There might be a boxful of medals around here now somewhere.’

  ‘Are you saying that someone could have browsed through your stock and found a medal like that? A Canadian DFC?’

  Lawrence shrugged. ‘It’s possible.’

  Cooper reached the table at the far end of the room. ‘And what’s this?’

  He’d picked up a bag. It was a leather bag with flaps, like a large satchel or saddle bag. The label said: Original RAF leather money bag, 1945.

  ‘And where did this come from, Lawrence? How much have you been paying Gorge Malkin for his collection?’

  ‘I’m in business,’ said Lawrence. ‘I pay Malkin what I pay other people.’

  There was a tiny window at the back of the room, so high that Cooper could only just see out of it. He rubbed some dirt from the pane, and found he was looking down from the back of the shop into a small yard illuminated by a security light. The backs of tall buildings were clustered all around it. There must be access to the yard somehow, because there was a pair of wooden gates facing him, set into a stone wall protected by bits of broken glass cemented to the coping stones.

  ‘What’s in the yard?’ asked Cooper.

  Slowly, Lawrence selected another key and opened the door. It let a burst of bright light into the room and a cold wind. Cooper could see the top of an iron fire escape, which led down the outer wall of the building. Down there, it was like a junkyard. All sorts of objects lay around. There appeared to be engines, propellers, wheels, and a section of cockpit, but many of the items were unidentifiable. A lot of them were covered in a layer of snow that had frozen on their horizontal surfaces, giving them an enigmatic appearance, like objects in a puzzle, seen from an unfamiliar angle. The snow on the ground was covered in the clawed footprints of birds, which seemed to have wandered aimlessly backwards and forwards, frequently crossing their own path, perhaps looking for food. The aircraft cockpit was one of the larger objects. In the snow on its upper surface, there were bigger, neater footprints prowling among the bird tracks. So there was a cat around, after all.

  ‘I can see the stock,’ said Cooper. ‘But where do the customers come from? How do you advertise?’

  ‘Through the website mostly,’ said Lawrence.

  ‘A website. Of course. Everybody has a website these days.’

  ‘Most of the business isn’t done here, you see – this is small-scale stuff. What the website does is put people in touch with each other, all over the world. We just have to maintain the site.’

  ‘Do you have no control over who uses it?’

  ‘We don’t check on anybody’s bona fides. Even if they have an entire aircraft to sell, we don’t ask any questions.’

  ‘Who’s “we”?’ said Cooper.

  Lawrence fiddled with the keys. He pulled the door shut, as if ashamed of the view. ‘There’s a terrible draught with the door open,’ he said.


  ‘Who else is involved?’ said Cooper.

  ‘I have a bit of help sometimes,’ said Lawrence. ‘A few people who are interested in the aviation archaeology business.’

  ‘We’ll need names.’

  ‘I can’t do that. Confidentiality –’

  ‘Rubbish.’

  ‘Who else has access to the yard, apart from you?’ said Cooper.

  ‘No one,’ said Lawrence.

  ‘What about your business partners?’

  Lawrence seemed to think for a moment. He turned to Fry, but her expression was hard and unsympathetic.

  ‘We need names,’ she said.

  When he finally got back to the flat in Welbeck Street that night, Cooper was in no mood to find that there were two cats in the conservatory instead of one. The cat flap had been treated as an invitation to take in guests. The new occupant was a mackerel tabby with blue eyes, and it was another balloon on legs. He wondered how it had managed to squeeze through the cat flap at all without getting stuck.

  ‘Randy, who’s your fat friend?’ he said.

  Randy brushed himself against Cooper’s legs as if introducing the other cat. Cooper put out his hand to stroke the newcomer, and immediately saw the drooping belly and engorged teats.

  ‘Oh no. I hope you belong to somebody. You’re not having your kittens in here.’

  But Cooper looked out of the window at the frozen snow still lying in the garden and the icicles hanging from the branches of the trees, and knew he was just as soft as Mrs Shelley.

  ‘Well, as soon as they’re born, you go,’ he said firmly. Both cats gazed at him and purred. He could have sworn they were laughing.

  One thing that had been missing in his life was a physical relationship, and animals provided it. But why were they so like humans about some things? Why did animals never learn that it was dangerous to give their trust so readily?

  33

  DCI Tailby turned his head to look at the whiteboard where DI Paul Hitchens was writing names with a big black marker pen, occasionally switching to a red pen to draw lines connecting the names. The board squeaked as he produced curves and little circles, then completed the pattern by decorating his chart with a series of red dots.

  ‘Can you see what it is yet?’ said Hitchens.

  ‘You propose to detain all these people?’ said Tailby.

  DI Hitchens was firing on all cylinders, ready to take over the morning meeting, given half a chance.

  ‘We’ve liaised with our friends in the Ministry of Defence Police,’ he said. ‘And together we’ve drawn up this list of persons believed to be involved in the activities Sergeant Easton was investigating. If we pull them all in now, we expect to be able to start piecing together what happened.’

  ‘As I understand the situation, the RAF Police have been observing a number of servicemen who are suspected of the illegal sale of aircraft parts. Easton was attempting to establish who their contacts were on the outside.’

  ‘Yes, sir. And these names are people involved in a circle of aviation memorabilia collectors. They have a well-established network, both by word of mouth and on the internet. DS Fry has identified the location where the memorabilia trade is based and where the website is run from. From what we’re told, it seems to be a lucrative trade in itself. The prices for some of the items are extraordinary – but that’s collectors for you. They’ll pay the earth for something they really want. Strictly speaking, many of the items of memorabilia are probably illegally obtained, but it might take a lot of work to gather the evidence.’

  ‘It doesn’t sound worthwhile,’ said Tailby. ‘The CPS would say a prosecution wasn’t in the public interest.’

  ‘Yes. And it’s insignificant compared to the trade that Nick Easton was trying to uncover,’ said Hitchens. ‘We’ve looked at the website this morning, and it’s difficult to tell where the legal business ends and the illegal begins. Not all the collectibles are Second World War vintage by any means. There are items for use in restoring more modern aircraft, and interspersed among them there are a number of contemporary and definitely illegal items being traded. Some of the messages on the bulletin boards are probably coded anyway. And the addresses given are international.’

  Tailby sighed. ‘That’s going to be out of our hands. But it’s just run from a bookshop, isn’t it? Here in Edendale.’

  ‘That was what Easton was looking for, but we don’t think he ever found it. We think he was killed before he reached the centre of the operation. We have no evidence to suggest he ever visited the bookshop.’

  ‘What about the owner?’

  ‘Lawrence Daley,’ said Fry. ‘We think he was drawn in because of the money involved in the aviation memorabilia trade. We conducted an initial interview with him last night. He genuinely doesn’t seem to be aware of any other type of business going on via the website or the bulletin board other than the memorabilia. One of his partners runs the internet side, which seems to be a mystery to him.’

  ‘A gullible victim pulled into something illegal out of greed?’ said Tailby.

  ‘Yes. But he finally confirmed these names for us, which DI Hitchens has listed. These are the men principally involved. It seems possible that they killed Easton when he got too close to them. But we have no evidence to support that idea.’

  ‘It’s disappointing that we’ve haven’t located Easton’s car yet. That would be very helpful.’

  ‘It will turn up somewhere eventually,’ said Hitchens. ‘With a bit of luck, we’ll still be able to get some evidence from it.’

  DCI Tailby looked around the room. ‘It’s all circumstantial. Do you think we have sufficient evidence to bring them in?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Hitchens.

  Tailby looked at the MDP officers. ‘And you, Sergeant Caudwell?’

  ‘We’re in favour.’

  ‘Very well. I suppose you’ll need more resources, Paul?’

  ‘Whatever we can get, sir.’

  ‘We’ll call in the task force again. They’ve drawn a blank on the missing baby, so at least we can give them a bit of action.’

  As the meeting broke up, Fry saw Sergeant Caudwell approaching.

  ‘You win,’ she said, showing her dimples. ‘But, if I could make a suggestion, you might want to question what some of your officers have been getting involved in recently.’

  Cooper picked up Alison Morrissey from outside the Cavendish Hotel and drove her as far as Bamford, to the big pub at the crossroads. He didn’t want to be seen in Edendale, not today.

  Morrissey had a blue folder tucked under her arm. Not another file, surely? There had been enough of those, and some of the information had been misleading and wrong.

  ‘What have you got there?’ said Cooper.

  ‘It’s something Peter Lukasz sent to me. He says his father wrote it.’

  ‘Ah. His account of the crash of Sugar Uncle Victor.’

  ‘So you knew.’

  ‘I saw Zygmunt writing it. At least, that’s what Peter told me it was. I’m sure it will be very interesting if you can get it translated. But I don’t suppose it really matters now.’

  ‘Perhaps not,’ said Alison. ‘But Peter Lukasz has read it, and he thought there was one thing in it I ought to know straight away. Everyone said my grandfather was to blame for the crash because he ignored his navigator’s instructions. But according to Peter Lukasz, Zygmunt’s account is different. He says that Klemens Wach made a mistake. It was his fault that they were so far off course. But everybody trusted Klemens, including my grandfather.’

  ‘Have you heard a rumour that Danny McTeague was drunk when he crashed into Irontongue Hill?’

  Morrissey frowned. ‘The old man, Walter Rowland, put that rumour about, according to Frank. It was something Rowland had heard Zygmunt Lukasz say, something to do with celebrating the night before. Danny McTeague had been celebrating the birth of his first child – my mother.’

  ‘There was certainly no reference at the inquest to the
possibility that your grandfather might have been drunk. That might have been discretion, though, the withholding of allegations that might cause distress to relatives. Perhaps it would have been a different matter if McTeague had ever been found.’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  Cooper wondered if Rowland had mentioned the rumour about McTeague to George Malkin’s father. He gazed past Morrissey at the wall of the pub, where there was a print of Chatsworth House, not unlike the one that Marie Tennent had kept under her bed. It was a favourite view for tourists. It appeared on all the postcards and in every guide book.

  ‘Alison, how did you come to meet Frank Baine?’ he said.

  ‘Via the internet.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘I found a bulletin board for aviation archaeology enthusiasts, and I put up an appeal for anyone with knowledge of aircraft wrecks in the Peak District. Frank saw the message and e-mailed me. He was a godsend. He had so much knowledge, and he was willing to research the details that I needed. At that time, I barely knew where the Peak District was, though my mother had mentioned it often enough. I’m doing all this for her, you know, as much as for me.’

  ‘Baine says he’s a journalist.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I phoned around a few editors this morning. None of them had even heard of him.’

  ‘Perhaps he just writes a few articles for magazines here and there.’

  ‘Perhaps. And is that a living?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I haven’t helped you,’ said Cooper. ‘We’re no nearer knowing who sent your grandfather’s medal. George Malkin had parted with everything except the money. Walter Rowland has nothing. If it somehow ended up in Lawrence Daley’s shop, he didn’t know about it – and from there, it could have gone anywhere. So, unless Zygmunt Lukasz has anything to say about it in his journal, I don’t know where else to look. And I can’t see Zygmunt hanging on to something like that – he believes people who collect souvenirs from the aircraft wrecks are vultures. Even his own grandson, Andrew. They argued about a cigarette case that had belonged to Klemens Wach.’