The Murder Map

by Danny Miller

  ‘Jack, me old mucker, long time no see!’

  Frost groaned. It was Sandy Lane of the Denton Echo. ‘What can I do for you, me old muckraker?’

  ‘What’s this I hear about murder and mayhem in Denton Woods? I’m hearing rumours, Jack, everything from a mad axeman running around killing people, to a wild animal on the loose, eating people! Big Foot? An escaped big cat, a gorilla?’

  ‘You’ve had the press release: a thirty-three-year-old man was found dead in his caravan. We’re still investigating, a full statement will be available when we—’

  ‘Spare me the press releases, Jack! Give me something I can splash on the front page. Either that, or I’ll have to run with you falling down a hole. That’s what I heard, Jack. A stumbling detective got chased by a madman with an axe then fell down a hole.’

  ‘For the record, that’s all true, but I was being chased by Godzilla.’

  Frost slammed the phone down. But he knew they’d have to give the press more information soon. They’d held off because they didn’t want to link the murders of the Wheatons with the abduction of Ruby Hanson. The public was still a major factor in the case, any sightings from them could be invaluable and their vigilance was still needed. Any speculation about a serial killer on the loose would change the emphasis and focus.

  He stuck his hand in the pocket of his leather bomber jacket and pulled out the photo that had been on the Hansons’ fridge. He didn’t ask to take it, he just did. That was to be his next call, but he was beaten to the punch by the phone ringing once more.

  ‘DI Frost.’

  ‘We need to talk. Not at the station. Somewhere private.’

  ‘Who is this?’

  ‘Somewhere you don’t usually go. Do you understand, eh?’

  The voice was deep and throaty, and indicative of the upper classes with its clipped authoritative tone.

  ‘Again, who is this?’

  ‘Who is this, you ask?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘As well you might, as well you might.’

  The man laughed huskily; it sounded like it could easily segue into a hacking cough. Frost cut through the phlegm-fuelled guffawing with a loud and impatient sigh, and was about to hang up.

  ‘Don’t hang up! I’m sorry. Should have said. This is the only person alive who knows what really happened in 1967.’

  Sunday (2)

  He went to smash the hammer down on to the dog’s skull. There was a yelp of pain. But not from the dog – from him. Banes cursed. The little bastard saw it coming just in time, let go of his leg, then shot off into the undergrowth to make its escape. Banes had cracked himself right on the shin bone, and was now rolling around on the grass grabbing the pummelled limb; it throbbed, it bled.

  Banes wanted to scream out in pain but knew he couldn’t. They were deep in some copse, but still, he probably wasn’t alone, there were likely to be other dog walkers with equally vicious little bastards off their leashes not too far away.

  He rolled up his left trouser leg to inspect the damage. There were four puncture wounds where the terrier’s fangs had sunk in. The damned thing had put its heart and soul into the bite, and it wouldn’t have been satisfied until the top set of teeth had connected with the bottom and it had made off with a lump of his leg. Luckily, me hammering down on me own leg stopped that happening, thought Banes, with enough irony to elicit a brief and bitter chuckle. The bruised skin around the bite marks would soon be a lavish mix of blues and purples. He was sure he’d chipped the bone. There was a serious numbness at the epicentre of the pain.

  Banes straightened up, and cursed as he saw the tough little terrier disappear further into the thicket. It had been watching him.

  He hadn’t planned on such a ferocious attack from the dog. It wasn’t an Alsatian, a Dobermann or a Rottweiler, it was a small terrier. But it knew how to jump and it knew how to bite. And it had done all of that in a sustained, if brief, spell of terror inflicted on Banes. He felt waves of indignant rage pass through him, like the hot throbbing pain in his leg. He felt like he was the victim.

  At least Wilkes, the dog’s master, lay on the grass thoroughly dead. He had been easy: Banes just snuck up from behind, the long damp grass cushioning his footfalls. Before the dog could bark into action, the hammer had gone down on the back of Wilkes’ head. Then some follow-up blows until Banes saw what he knew was irretrievable damage. There was no coming back from that kind of injury, it was direct trauma to the cerebral hemisphere, you were gone. All in a matter of seconds.

  Banes steeled himself: he would blank out the pain. He had too much work to do.

  He was sitting, appropriately enough, in one of the green leather chesterfield armchairs by the fireplace. He already had a tumbler of whiskey going. There were others in the lounge of the Prince Albert Hotel, but with his officer-class carriage and impressive moustache, Frost could tell right away that this was his man. He was also wearing the brass-buttoned blue blazer with the crest of his regiment and the old school tie that he said would mark him out.

  ‘Captain Cavanagh?’

  ‘Ah, Inspector Frost,’ he said, rising to his feet with the spring and agility of a pole vaulter, and not a man in his seventies. Firm handshakes were exchanged, with Frost putting in some extra effort to keep up. ‘I’ve heard great things, great things, from our mutual friend, the delightful Tony.’

  ‘Inspector Anthony Dorking?’

  ‘Ha! Bless him, that old fraud, he’s no more a detective than I am!’ Cavanagh said, lowering himself back into the armchair. Frost sat opposite him, and some more whiskeys were ordered.

  ‘Before we start, Captain, I am intrigued – you said Anthony Dorking is no more a detective than you are?’

  ‘Ah, yes, that was wrong of me, I’m being cruel. Anthony may well have taken some exams to become a policeman, but initially, he was like me, a civilian, brought in by the Yard because of his expertise in fine art and antiques. In fact, I recommended him. He was writing the catalogue at Sotheby’s at the time, which naturally enough I think he found incredibly dull, and rather fancied himself as a Bulldog Drummond type. But me? No, I was never a detective. I was a captain in the Guards, but never took any police exams, or even had much in the way of formal training. An old chum of mine in the robbery squad gave me a badge and some paperwork. After all, can’t go knocking on a crook’s door without the right credentials. You see, Inspector, you can train a policeman to detect the crooks, but it takes a special knowledge to identify the goods they trade in. Tony and I have that knowledge.’

  ‘So, 1967.’

  ‘Yes. The end of an era, and now, for me, it’s finally come to pass. When Anthony told me about Ivan, I knew it was finally over. And of course, Conrad dying before him, by only a matter of weeks, I hear. Both driven to the grave by their demons. But certainly, that was just the end result, the inevitable result.’

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘The past, of course. A past they couldn’t outrun, and the one action that ultimately set them on their path to destruction.’ Captain Cavanagh gave a sorrowful shake of his head, picked up his freshly replenished glass of Bushmills whiskey, took a sizeable sip and then turned his attention back to Frost. ‘How much do you know, Inspector?’

  ‘To be honest, I feel I know nothing. Just rumour, conjecture, hearsay, and a fair bit of mythologizing.’

  ‘Yes. People tend to look back at the ’60s through rose-tinted spectacles. What do they say: if you can remember it, you weren’t there.’ Frost nodded. Vanessa Fielding had said the very same thing to him. ‘Well, I was there, Inspector, and I remember it like it was yesterday.’ Cavanagh put his glass on the table. Frost leaned in.

  Cavanagh began: ‘On May 25th 1967, Conrad Wilde was at work. A job in Belgravia, Eaton Square. The job was lined up for him in the usual fashion by his partner in crime, Ivan Fielding. Conrad was confident that the house would be empty. He knew that the owner would be at a shooting party in a pile out in Berkshire that weekend, because i
t would be the same party that Ivan, along with his wife, Vanessa, would also be attending.

  ‘Conrad was after a particular painting that night, a Vermeer that had been stolen from the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam just over a month before. It was hot, and it was being lined up to be sold. Conrad, through his usual athletic daring, had managed to beat the alarm system which was, in consequence of the owner’s reputation and what he was guarding, rather sophisticated for the time. He’d also located the secret room in which the painting was stored. It was a largish room that was rather stuffed with stolen antiques and artworks. The entrance to the hidden room was behind a wall lined with bookshelves. Pull out a first edition of Oliver Twist, and Open Sesame.

  ‘So there Conrad stood, swathed in black – black evening suit, black calfskin gloves, a black silk scarf and black Oxfords with a rubber sole so as not to be heard on the marble staircase. And there, the prize, the Vermeer on the wall in front of him. Of course, there were other items he could have filled his pockets with that night. Wasn’t there a diamond and sapphire suite of jewels resting in a velvet case from Van Cleef & Arpels? You bet there was, Inspector Frost, you bet there was. However, Conrad Wilde was a professional, and heeded his friend Ivan’s advice, always go for the prize, and just the prize. Don’t get distracted by other items, time is of the essence. Ivan never sent Conrad in blind, everything was meticulously worked out, and the goods he was after were already sold. “The only people who get caught, are people who want to get caught,” he’d say.’

  Frost didn’t know if he totally agreed, but he was hungry for more information and didn’t argue the point. ‘Go on, Captain,’ encouraged the DI with a smile; it wasn’t every day you got to use that title.

  The captain dispatched his Bushmills, and like some masterfully prearranged operation, or in a West End play, a fresh Bushmills was brought to the table with barely a nod to the waiter. Frost had only had a sip or two of his and refused another. Pointless going up against a captain, he thought.

  Once refreshed, Cavanagh continued: ‘Conrad was just about to take the picture off the wall when he heard someone take the first edition of Oliver Twist off the bookshelf. As luck would have it, there was a black lacquer six-panel screen in the corner, just waiting for someone to hide behind it. Wilde, quick as lightning, did exactly that, and in stepped the owner of the house and another man. The owner of the house was one Charles D’Arcy QC.’

  Of course, Frost knew the name.

  ‘D’Arcy, a barrister from one of the smartest of the smart Lincoln’s Inn chambers. A legal genius, one of the best in the business, soon to be appointed a judge. But with a fatal flaw. He liked to own beautiful things, no matter how briefly, and had a self-destructive urge that had led him into trading in the beautiful – but stolen – things he so coveted.’

  ‘And the other man with the barrister?’

  ‘Jimmy McVale.’

  Frost acknowledged this with barely a blink. Of course he’d read all about the slain barrister, the murder that got McVale a sentence of twenty-five years. He’d served seventeen. Even though, as McVale would have it, there was no hard evidence proving that he’d committed the crime and it was a fit-up.

  The captain carried on, hardly missing a beat. ‘Of course, Conrad was shocked to see D’Arcy, he was supposed to be absent, and of course, Ivan had had no means of warning Conrad. The bent barrister had slipped away from the house party to take care of this piece of business, and once taken care of, he probably planned on slipping back to Berkshire.

  ‘Charles D’Arcy then took a painting off the wall to reveal a safe. Now that the job had gone so off-piste, this obviously piqued Conrad’s attention: a safe within a safe?

  ‘Conrad knew of McVale by reputation. As well as being extremely vicious and violent, he was known for pulling off very big robberies. As far as high-value crimes were concerned, he was a serious man.

  ‘Conrad, eagle-eyed at the best of times, thanks to a gap in the screen was able to use a pocket-sized telescope to watch the barrister spin the tumbler and work out the combination. McVale was also dressed in black, but he looked drained, absolutely exhausted, his forehead covered in sweat. Conrad recognized the look: McVale had just come from pulling a job. And a big job at that, Conrad assumed …’

  Captain Cavanagh was smiling now, his old grey eyes lit up and animated. Maybe it was the Bushmills loosening his tongue, making him loquacious, or maybe he was a natural-born storyteller. Or maybe, just maybe, thought Frost, this is the story he’s been dying to tell for almost two decades, and he isn’t going to let the opportunity go to waste.

  ‘… Anyway, with the safe open, McVale then handed D’Arcy what he was clutching in his hands. It was a small leather holdall. D’Arcy put it in the safe, closed the door and spun the lock. D’Arcy replaced the painting on the wall and he and McVale left the “secure room” without exchanging a word. Conrad waited for their footsteps to fade to nothing on the marble staircase, and the solid glossy black front door to close behind them with a reassuring thud, before he stepped out from his hiding place … his vantage point, as it were. He took down the painting, and turned the tumbler … Hey presto! Conrad took out the bag, unzipped it and saw what was inside. A box.’

  ‘A box?’

  The old soldier flashed a teasing grin at the detective, who was now on the edge of his seat. ‘He never told me what it was made of. Just said it was a box. Maybe that’s something we’ll find out. But needless to say, when he opened up the box and saw what was inside … Well, he knew straight away, Vermeer or no Vermeer, this was the real prize. So he made off with the box without a second thought for the Vermeer he’d been sent in to steal.’

  Cavanagh arched his unruly and wiry white eyebrows to emphasize that fact, and left a hefty pause for Frost to absorb the information. In that pause he soaked up the last of his Bushmills.

  ‘I know it’s obvious,’ said Frost, eventually, ‘but just for clarification, and my own sanity, I need to hear someone actually say it.’

  The captain let out an explosion of laughter followed by a salvo of small coughs. ‘I understand, Inspector, I understand. I’ll lay it out for you, as much as I know, which is as much as anyone. Jimmy McVale and his gang definitely pulled off the Bond Street robbery of ’67. On Friday at 5 p.m. the gang took up their position and got to work. They gained entry to the private bank, and the high-value vault, at precisely 6.30 p.m. on Saturday evening, and McVale was at the Eaton Square home of Charles D’Arcy at 9.15 p.m. Conrad Wilde was out of there by 9.25 p.m.’

  ‘The robbers were robbed?’

  ‘Indeed. A bitter pill for any criminal to swallow, never mind a man like Jimmy McVale. The first victim was Charles D’Arcy. His head was found wrapped in a shopping bag and washed up on the banks of the Thames, by the Royal Festival Hall. His torso befell the same fate, further downriver in Wapping. His limbs were never recovered. It was clear he’d been horribly tortured before being dismembered. One can almost feel sorry for D’Arcy, he’d got in over his head – no pun intended – and paid the price.’

  ‘And what happened to Conrad?’

  ‘Here’s where things get really interesting, and tragic. Scotland Yard were hot on Conrad’s heels, not for what had just happened, but for a previous burglary. And the man who’d informed on Conrad was none other than his best friend. Ivan gave him up because they were after him, the brains behind the operation. And Ivan knew that he couldn’t do the prison time. Like I say, Ivan and Conrad both knew the jig was up, and stealing the Vermeer was to be their last job. So when Conrad turned up empty-handed, Ivan thought he’d double-crossed him, pocketed it for himself. Of course he hadn’t. He was, in fact, protecting Ivan.

  ‘McVale wasn’t taking his losses lying down. He was keeping a close eye on proceedings, carrying out his own violent investigation, kidnapping and torturing those who he thought might have information about who had stolen the prize from him, listening intently to the underworld rumour mill. And if it became
known that D’Arcy’s stolen Vermeer had turned up, the trail would easily lead to Conrad and Ivan. Conrad had a choice: steal the painting or open the box. And of course, like with Pandora, once the box had been opened, there was no going back. He had to have them. If this was to be his last job, believe me, Inspector, there could be no bigger haul. In fact, that was to prove the problem, it was too big. It didn’t take long for Conrad to realize that he had bitten off more than he could chew.’

  Frost gave the captain a reassuring nod. ‘So, then Conrad got arrested, right?’

  ‘Eventually. But not before burying the treasure, because that’s what it was, you know. Treasure. The Crown Jewels, but better. The Crown Jewels would need to be broken up, the stones re-cut, the gold melted down. But these beauties could not be tampered with. Conrad’s plan was simple, don’t pass Go, don’t collect two hundred pounds, go straight to jail.’

  Captain Cavanagh laughed good and hard, like he’d been sitting on the joke for about seventeen years – which he probably had.

  ‘But of course, Frost, the good thing was, he’d never been caught before. So as a first-time offender, as it were, he was assured he’d only get about five years, seven at the most. Then, by the time he was released, hopefully the heat would have died down and he’d be able to sell the haul and disappear abroad. Australia, South America, Canada – with that kind of money he’d be able to live like a king wherever he was.

  ‘Conrad was a lion of a man, never happier than scaling up a wall and leaping across the roofs of Knightsbridge to commit a burglary. Very much an outdoors man, a man of action, a commanding presence who wouldn’t let anyone push him around. Seemed cruel to box him in, cage him. And he couldn’t take it. The minute he was pushed around, he lashed out.’

  ‘You sound like you were very fond of him, Captain.’

  ‘I profess I didn’t know him very well, not like I knew Ivan, obviously. More by reputation. But I’m not a bad judge of character and, let me put it this way, if I was going into battle I couldn’t think of anyone finer I’d want at my side. And I served with some very brave, tough men.’