by Danny Miller
‘That’s cold.’
‘Ice-cold.’
‘I’ve just got out of prison, I’ve got no intention of going back. And you two, you couldn’t do the time,’ hissed McVale.
‘I’d rather do the time than kill a kid.’
Eddie Tobin agreed wholeheartedly and said, ‘I’ll take my chances. She’s only seen us briefly, and she was crying her eyes out, terrified. A good brief could turn that around: she was scared, crying, confused, she didn’t know what she saw. Forget it, Jimmy, I’ll take my chances in a courtroom.’
‘Me too. Kill a kid? There’s a special place in hell for that kind of shit.’
Their telepathy still intact, Eddie Tobin and Tony Minton rose up simultaneously from their chairs without needing to say a word to each other.
Then Jimmy McVale did likewise.
‘So now what, Jimmy?’
‘Yeah. You carrying the shooter now?’
‘No. It’s in the car, under the seat. The car’s rented. That way if I get pulled over by the Old Bill, I can just deny the shooter’s mine, and tell them that’s the last time I rent a car from Avis.’
They laughed. It was an old one, but a good one. But what hung over them was too heavy to bear, and they stopped laughing as swiftly as they had started.
McVale said, ‘Gun or no gun, this is still a Mexican stand-off.’
‘Dunno, never been to Mexico,’ said Tony Minton.
‘Trust me,’ said McVale. ‘Me and you two, both wanting different things. Only one of us can prevail. Equally matched.’
‘But there’s two of us, only one of you,’ clarified Eddie Tobin.
Tony nodded. ‘Yeah. It’s more like The Alamo. And you’re John Wayne.’
‘Zulu. And you’re Michael Caine,’ suggested Eddie.
All three men’s brows crinkled at that analogy, unsure of that film’s final outcome.
Then Tony Minton shrugged and said to McVale, ‘Either way, you’re fucked.’
‘And you’re fat. The pair of you. I could take you ponces at twenty-five, and I can take you at forty-five.’
‘We’ll see about that.’
‘Will you shut up and stop moving about?’
‘I can’t help it, Harry, I’m itching like crazy.’
Harry Baskin was in the bushes with Bad Manners Bob. Bad Manners Bob, the giant bald bouncer, was in a bad way. Before they’d got in the bushes to hide where they could get a good view of the cottage, he’d slipped on the wet leaves and mud and fallen down what he’d described as a ravine. Though the minute he’d climbed out, Harry had redesignated it a ditch. Whatever it was, it was full of poison ivy. Which was bad news for Bad Manners Bob, who had the complexion of a baby, very pale, yet surprisingly, and pleasingly for Mrs Bad Manners Bob, very soft; but, also like a baby’s, it was red and blotchy at the best of times. And now it was inflamed and itchy. Given his bulk, that was an awful lot of skin to be itching. His hands were working overtime, going like the clappers, reaching into his nylon tracksuit to scratch and pick and soothe his burning and bubbling rind.
‘Stop moving, Bob! You’re rustling, you’re rustling!’
‘I can’t help it … I need some calamine lotion, sharpish!’
Baskin peered intently through his binoculars, zooming in on the door, his front door, an original feature of the cottage he’d bought at a snip, together with a good plot of land. Harry and Bob were perched on a rise, deep in a thicket of bushes and ferns and, as it turned out, nettles.
‘I can’t help it, Aitch, I’m on fire!’
‘Shut up, Bob … I see something.’ Baskin again adjusted the zoom on his binoculars and spotted three men leaving the cottage. One of them was McVale. The other two he recognized, not by name, but by type.
‘Are we sweet, then?’
‘That’s not the word I’d use.’
‘That’s the deal. You walk away from here, and never look back. Don’t think about it or ever contact me again. You were never here and we never spoke. That’s the deal.’
McVale, Tobin and Minton had just stepped out of the house and were making their way over to the dark-blue Land Rover. It was just the three of them, there was no Ruby.
‘I don’t care about the money, Jimmy. It makes me sick to think—’
‘To think about how you two messed up? Have no doubt about it, this is your mess and I’m clearing it up. Your choice.’
Eddie Tobin and Tony Minton, unable to look at each other, to see the same guilt and horror reflected in each other’s eyes, turned their backs on McVale. They had the look of men that had been hung, drawn and quartered, yet were still, just about, alive. They’d made a deal with the devil. But they knew they couldn’t stomach the alternative. They had kids themselves, and the idea of being away from them, banged up in a prison cell, missing them grow up, unable to provide for them, it was too much to bear. Put like that, and the countless other justifications they knew they’d be using for the rest of their lives, it was a sacrifice they were prepared to make. They climbed into the Land Rover and made off down the muddy track that would eventually lead them to a road, the same road McVale had driven up with Ruby earlier.
It was getting dark, or more intensely so. It would be pitch-black soon. The tall trees did a pretty good job of forming a canopy, veiling the sun, feeble as it was for this time of year anyway. It was a darkness that McVale contemplated. It was a darkness McVale wanted to hold back. Would the little girl be asleep, would it be that easy, as easy as he said it would be? A painless death in the dark as she slept, barely a movement as he ensured she would never wake up again. He somehow doubted it, nothing was ever that easy. His eyes flitted away from the trail that the Land Rover had wobbled its way down, and he turned to go back into the cottage. To the little girl that would soon be—
A howl. A howl like a wounded animal seized McVale’s attention. He spun around to see a large figure rolling down the slope in the distance. McVale’s eyes widened, not to adjust to the encroaching darkness, but to the descending figure. It looked like a … a giant baby … bald, pink, bulbous and naked. And it sounded like it was crying. McVale went to his car to retrieve his gun.
The big fat naked baby didn’t run, even when he saw the gun McVale was holding. He just carried on rolling around, scratching himself, looking like he was in tears. McVale realized that the fat man wasn’t actually naked, and when he rolled over Jimmy was able to read the legend embroidered on the back of his flesh-coloured shell suit: ‘The Coconut Gr—’.
‘Don’t shoot!’
McVale turned sharply to his right to see Harry Baskin edging his way down the hill, trying not to slip and fall like his cohort. He too was kitted up in the same flesh-pink tracksuit.
‘Don’t shoot him, Jimmy, he’s with me!’
McVale aimed the gun at Harry Baskin instead. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’
‘You forget, it’s mine, I own the property,’ said Baskin, with his hands half raised in the air in a gesture of surrender. He wondered if he should raise them further, because even though Jimmy McVale had clocked who the two men were, he still had the gun directed straight at Harry’s head. Bad Manners Bob was slumped where he had come to rest, and was too busy scratching himself to even notice the gun pointed at his boss’s head.
‘You spying on me, Harry?’
‘No, we was out running.’
‘Running?’
‘Yeah. Look at me, where else would we be going in this get-up?’
Jimmy McVale ran his narrow suspicious eyes over Baskin, as if seeing him for the first time. He probably would have laughed at the sight of the club-owner and his bouncer if his own situation hadn’t been so grave.
‘What the hell are you wearing?’
‘A tracksuit. Like I said, I’m getting back into sports promotion—’
‘You look like a pair of fat streakers coming down that hill. I thought you were having it off in the bushes up there.’
Baskin, stood in his muddy Dunlop
Green Flash plimsolls, and figure-hugging nylon tracksuit, could understand McVale’s antipathy towards his outfit. ‘It’s flesh-coloured … sort of pink. It’s supposed to be the Coconut Grove team colours. To represent the naked girls at the club, you know, flashing all that skin—’
‘Yeah, I get it. You quite literally look like you’re in your birthday suit. Your birthday tracksuit. You look like a prick. I mean it, you actually look like a prick. It’s disgusting. I should shoot you on principle.’ McVale turned his disgust to Bad Manners Bob. ‘What’s wrong with him?’
‘He fell in some poison ivy.’
‘Yeah? When did this happen, out on your run?’
‘Bob’s going in the ring next week. Needs to lose a few pounds, build up his stamina. You know how these unlicensed fights go. Can be over in the gouge of an eye, the bite of a nose, or they drag on for hours. Like I said, I’m getting back into sports promotion. It’s the final of the darts tournament tonight. Big success. Local boy and Coconut Grove-sponsored athlete, Denton’s very own Mr Talent, Keith “Keefy” Keathson, faces the great Jocky “At the Oche” Wilson.’ Harry Baskin pulled up the cloying nylon sleeve of his tracksuit to reveal his gold Rolex, then read its diamond-encrusted face. ‘I need to get back, Jimmy, make sure all’s OK back at the ranch. I’ll put your name on the door, front-row seats, complimentary bottle of Moët, and I’m sure a couple of the girls would be happy to give you a complimentary blo—’
‘What are those?’
Harry followed the barrel of the gun, which was pointing to the binoculars around his neck. Baskin stuttered and spluttered for an excuse; but McVale beat him to the punch with a pretty on-the-nose explanation.
‘Here’s what I think. I think you’ve sussed, or been told, what I’ve been up to. I knew it wouldn’t take you long. You’re a fat man, Harry, but you move fast, don’t you? Smart as a whip.’
‘No, not me, Jimmy, I know nothing. We’ll be on our way, mate. Bob’s in desperate need of the calamine.’
McVale gestured towards the cottage with the barrel of the gun. ‘I’ll make you a nice cup of tea.’
Never had the invite for a cuppa sounded less inviting. ‘No, we don’t want to put you to any trouble.’
‘Warm up by the fire. It’s cold.’
‘Is it? Hadn’t noticed. All that running’s kept me warm.’
‘Then why are you shaking?’
Baskin looked down at his hands. His armpits were on fire and he could feel the sweat gullying down his arse crack.
Jimmy McVale raised the gun to Baskin’s head and cocked the hammer.
‘So, the dog walked into the pub.’
‘That’s right.’
‘He was a regular, you say?’
‘Plato was a good customer.’
‘Plato?’ asked Frost.
The dog barked.
‘The name of the dog.’
‘Not Pluto?’
‘Why would you call a dog Pluto?’
Frost shook his head. ‘Fair enough. Carry on.’
‘With Charlie Wilkes, his owner, he was in four or five times a week.’
Frost was perched on the corner of the desk, where PC Simms, supervised by DC Hanlon, was taking the details of Mr Malky Balon, landlord of the Coach and Horses. Balon was a bulky, short man in his late fifties with thick, smoky-golden hair, the hue of nicotine.
Simms said, ‘I thought you’d be interested, Inspector, as Mr Charles Wilkes, the owner of Plato, lives in Gisborough, a village just north of Denton—’
‘I’ve lived here all my life, I know where it bloody is.’
‘Sorry, guv. Anyway, Mr Wilkes runs an art gallery—’
‘Art gallery, my arse!’ said the bellicose publican. ‘It’s just a little shop full of his stuff. Charlie Wilkes is a keen amateur painter at best, with pretensions to being a bit of an undiscovered genius.’
At this, the wiry Jack Russell barked again, either in defence of its master’s reputation, or to speed things up. Frost looked down at the beast, which was on its haunches, right by his feet. Frost’s ankle felt exposed.
‘The Coach and Horses is on Mantle Street, near the Denton Repertory Theatre, isn’t it? From Gisborough, that’s quite a distance. On foot, forty, forty-five minutes to an hour?’
‘He sometimes got the bus,’ said Malky Balon, ‘or a taxi. Money was never a problem for Charlie Wilkes. I think he was left a fair bit when his mother died. That’s why he’s able to run his “gallery”. He hated the local village pub, and we’ve got some colourful regulars at our place. Lots of theatricals from the Denton Rep use it: stage hands, actors. We had that fella from Bergerac in the other night; and that sexy-looking lass from Triangle, Kate something, with the big—’
‘And the dog was always with him?’ asked Frost.
The publican nodded. ‘Always had his bowl of water and dog chocolates ready for him.’ The dog made a sad whining sound, like the chocolate treats were now a distant memory. ‘Charlie and Plato, they were always together, he’d never leave him. Something must have happened.’
Frost glanced down at the dog. The dog met his gaze, its head tilted slightly, heartbreak in its guileless little eyes. But Frost glimpsed something else, too.
An hour later and Frost and Simms, armed with torches, and with Plato in the PC’s arms, were outside Charles Wilkes’ cottage home cum gallery.
‘He may not be a bloodhound, but the way he was looking at me, he knows more than we do. But when your name’s Plato, you’re bound to,’ said Frost as Simms put the dog down on the pavement and let it lead the way.
Plato turned away from the cottage’s front door and trotted off down the road like Frost had just thrown a stick for it. When it saw the men weren’t at its side, it stopped, turned around and barked at them. Frost and Simms followed its lead like it was Sir Kenneth Newham, the Met Commissioner, himself.
Another thirty or so minutes later and they were in a forest clearing. Plato had raced ahead and was sniffing the ground, making a pained, whinnying sound, and circling an area of grass. Frost and Simms ran over to it. They aimed their torches and saw there was a reddish-black viscous substance on the long grass, glistening under the torchlight. There were some marks, probably from the heel of a man’s shoe. Some of the grass was flattened and torn up, like there had been some kind of violent activity.
‘What do you see, Simms?’
‘Here, just here. He was attacked here?’
‘I’d say that’s about right.’ Frost looked around him. ‘Killed here, but I don’t think he was buried here. It’s open ground, no cover.’ He then looked down at the dog, sat alert at his feet. It looked like it wanted to go.
Plato led Frost and Simms back into the village and to Wilkes’ house, then around to the back where the clever pooch clawed at a loose paving stone where Wilkes kept a spare key. Once inside, they checked every room. Every door that Frost opened, he steeled himself for what he might find. Of course, he’d seen more than his fair share of dead bodies, but being bludgeoned with a hammer held its own special horrors away from the gun, the knife, the rope. He didn’t think he’d ever shake the images of the Wheatons, mother and son, so ferociously dispatched. But then again, if he thought back through the annals of his crimes – because that’s how he thought about them, they were as much his to solve as they were the perpetrator’s to try to get away with – he was sure he could remember in detail every murder victim he’d seen. Maybe they never leave you, he thought, and maybe they never should.
But in the upstairs apartment where Charles Wilkes had made his home, separate from the gallery below, there was no sign of him, or indeed of any crime having taken place. Down in the gallery, Plato the wonder dog had beaten them to it again as far as detective work went; it’d sniffed out traces of blood on the floor and on the doormat where the killer had obviously trodden.
‘Simmo, go to the car and radio this one in. We need scene of crime officers and Forensics, both here and in the woods.’
> Simms gave an efficient nod and went out. Frost quickly scoped the walls of the gallery and the paintings on offer. For some reason he found himself muttering, ‘Not bad, not bad,’ then realized he was doing this for the benefit of Plato the dog, who was sat looking at him attentively. His eye soon wandered over to the wastepaper basket behind the glass display counter; inside it, Frost saw amongst the usual debris of screwed-up paper, pencil shavings, and a brown apple core, a business card. He fished it out. It had been torn, but not quite in half, and was perfectly legible. It was the business card of Dr Stephen M. Parker, of the social sciences department at the university.
Frost smiled. Plato the dog barked. And Simms ran in and told him the bad news.
Monday (6)
It was 9.35 p.m. when Frost and PC Simms arrived at the home of Sally and Ella Fielding. They were met by DC Arthur Hanlon, who made to move towards the yellow Metro, but when it mounted the pavement, quickly jumped out of the way. Frost and Simms – who looked as pale as any passenger of Frost’s would when he was in a hurry – climbed out of the car.
‘You move fast for a big man.’
‘You keep me on my toes, guv. WPC Begbie is upstairs with Ms Fielding.’
‘Which one?’ asked Frost.
‘The grandmother, Vanessa.’
They entered the lobby of Summerhill Court, the small modern block of flats where Sally Fielding and her daughter Ella lived. Frost gestured for Hanlon to get him up to speed, and he complied by pulling out his notebook.
‘It was Vanessa Fielding who called us. Ella and Stephen Parker, who was supposed to be picking Ella up from school, should have been here when she arrived. First she thought there’d been a mix-up and they’d gone to Parker’s house. So she called him at his home, and then at the university, but just got his answerphone. Then she called the school and one of the teachers was still there and told her that Ella was seen getting into a white transit van. Then Vanessa called us.’
‘Did the teacher get a look at the driver?’