Dave Slater Mystery Novels Box Set Three

by P. F. Ford

‘D’you think I’m right?’

  ‘It’s a logical theory,’ he said, ‘and we can’t dismiss it as a possibility, although I think it’s unlikely. If you’d been hiding, undetected, for five years, would you risk everything by coming out into the open to murder someone?’

  ‘Okay,’ she said, unconvinced, ‘but what if Joe was threatening to reveal where Harding was hiding?’

  ‘But why now?’

  Watson gave him a crooked smile. ‘Well, I don’t know,’ she said. ‘You’re the ace detective, you tell me!’ She was clearly quite enjoying this new, relaxed way of working. ‘I must say, I didn’t realise our job could be such fun!’ she added.

  ‘Never a dull moment,’ said Norman. ‘But it’s what you choose to make it. I don’t see why you can’t have a bit of fun while you’re working. I think it makes the job easier, and I know for a fact your new boss thinks the same.’

  Slater shot him a look, but Norman just grinned at him.

  ‘So, what do we do now, sir?’ Watson asked Slater.

  Slater looked at her. ‘What do you think we should do next?’

  She looked shocked. ‘Who? Me?’

  ‘Why not you?’ he asked. ‘You are a detective sergeant, aren’t you? That means you have the power to think. You must have situations where you’re in the office and you have to make a decision.’

  ‘Well, yes, but not when there’s a DI around.’

  ‘But I’m not a DI. I’m just Dave Slater.’

  ‘He means he’s not a DI yet,’ said Norman. ‘But he will be.’

  ‘He might be,’ argued Slater. ‘Don’t try to make my mind up for me.’

  ‘I think we definitely need to do background on William Harding,’ said Watson, uncertain whether or not Slater and Norman were about to break into a full-blown argument. ‘Maybe we’ll get lucky and find a reason he might have wanted to go into hiding.’

  ‘There you go,’ said Slater. ‘That wasn’t hard, was it? But that can wait until tomorrow. I think we’ve done enough for today.’

  Chapter Eleven

  Watson had arrived early and had somehow managed to conjure up a coffee machine from somewhere, much to Norman’s delight. Slater noticed his friend had a spring in his step, but he resisted the urge to ask why.

  ‘I’ve had a message from my boss. He would like to be kept informed regarding the progress of this investigation,’ Watson told them.

  ‘Well, that won’t take long,’ said Slater, with a wry smile. ‘We haven’t really made any progress yet!’

  ‘Does this mean you’re gonna be spying on us?’ asked Norman. ‘Will you be feeding back every little thing about this case?’

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t put it like that,’ Watson said unhappily. ‘He is my boss, after all. I may be here on secondment, but he’s still paying my wages. It’s only natural he should want to know what I’m doing while I’m here.’

  ‘I suppose we can’t complain. He did send Rosie to us in the first place,’ said Slater.

  ‘What makes you think that?’ asked Watson.

  A sudden silence filled the room.

  ‘A police officer in a pinstriped suit told Rosie to come and speak to us. It was him, wasn’t it?’ asked Norman.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘As far as I know, the first time he came here was the day he came down to interview Mr Slater. He didn’t even know where Tinton was before that. I had to show him on the map and book his train tickets.’

  ‘Yeah, but he could have driven down and then played dumb,’ said Slater.

  ‘I would know,’ she said. ‘I’ve been his PA ever since he rescued my career. I know where he is, where he’s been, and where he’s going. And I arrange all his travel, including train tickets. Trust me, if he had come down here I would have known.’

  ‘But you don’t know where he is right now, do you?’ asked Norman.

  ‘I don’t have to as of yesterday, because I’m not his PA any more,’ she explained. ‘My return was always about getting back to doing real police work. We had a deal that I would do the PA thing until a position came up. This is my first venture back, as it were.’

  ‘So, you have a vested interest in Dave here taking this job, right?’ said Norman. ‘Because the position won’t exist if he says no.’

  ‘Oh, the position will still be there.’ Watson looked pointedly at Slater. ‘We’ll just have to find someone else to lead the team.’

  ‘Well, if he didn’t send Rosie to us, how did he know what case we were working on?’ asked Slater, refusing to be drawn on what he was going to do in the future. ‘He knew about Joe, and me, and Norm. He even knew about Jenny and Jane Jolly!’

  Watson’s face flushed. ‘I can’t tell you how he knew about the case,’ she said, ‘but I can tell you how he knew all about you two – and your ladies.’

  ‘So that was you, was it?’ asked Slater.

  She looked suitably embarrassed. ‘He asked me to look into your files so he had plenty of background before he came to speak to you,’ she explained.

  ‘What? Both of us?’ asked Norman.

  ‘I just do my job. It’s not my place to ask what, or why.’

  ‘I guess, if I try really hard, I can just about accept that as an excuse,’ said Norman. ‘What about you, Dave?’

  ‘I suppose someone has to do the background check,’ admitted Slater.

  ‘Anyway, it’s not all bad news,’ said Watson. ‘He’s also tracked down someone who might be able to help us with this case.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘He’s a retired DCI called Dennis Stockholm, used to work for the Met.’

  Slater looked at Norman.

  ‘The name doesn’t ring a bell,’ said Norman, ‘but that’s one huge force. There must be dozens of DCIs I’ve never heard of.’

  ‘What’s this guy’s address?’ asked Slater. ‘If he’s willing to talk, we might as well go and see the man.’

  ‘Ah. I’m afraid it’s not quite that simple,’ said Watson. ‘When I say the boss has “tracked down” someone, I mean it. Former DI Stockholm is currently on a three-month holiday visiting family in Australia.’

  ‘Australia!’ echoed Norman. ‘That’s not gonna be much help.’

  ‘Actually, the outlook’s not quite as gloomy as you might think,’ she said with a knowing smile. ‘Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, we can actually speak to him a little later by video link.’

  ‘Isn’t it night over there?’

  ‘There’s a twelve-hour difference,’ she said, ‘but that’s not going to be a problem. We’re linking up at ten-thirty this morning.’

  ***

  ‘As you know,’ said Dennis Stockholm later, when Watson had hooked them all up and they’d got used to the slight time lag, ‘Chief Superintendent Bradshaw suggested I should speak to you.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Slater. ‘He suggested you could help us, although he hasn’t exactly told us how.’

  ‘He’s doing me a bit of a favour letting me talk to you, really,’ said Stockholm.

  ‘What kind of a favour?’ asked Norman, suspiciously.

  ‘I used to deal with robberies,’ explained Stockholm. ‘The bigger they were, the more I enjoyed them. I had a pretty good record, but there’s always one that gets away, you know? Have you ever heard of a gangster called Ronnie Scanlon?’

  ‘I’ve never crossed paths with him, but I seem to recall the name from years ago,’ said Norman. ‘Wasn’t he from the East End of London?’

  ‘That’s him,’ said Stockholm. ‘He was a nasty piece of work who wasn’t averse to a bit of armed robbery whenever he got a bit short of funds. Anyway, back in the eighties, ’86, I think it was, he organised this big diamond heist. The gang got away with millions. We never did know the true value of what was stolen because the diamond merchants didn’t want to admit how much they’d lost, but my guess is they lost somewhere in the region of twenty million quids’ worth.’

  Slater whistled. ‘Jesus, just a
small handful, then?’

  ‘Did you catch ’em?’ asked Norman, who was always willing to exchange stories with guys like this.

  ‘Every one of them,’ said Stockholm, proudly, ‘but we never even got a sniff of the diamonds.’ The tone of his voice showed the disappointment still rankled, even now, some thirty years later.

  ‘What? Nothing?’ asked Norman. ‘Did they smuggle them out?’

  ‘I don’t think so. We always thought they’d been stashed away, and if we followed Scanlon when he came out of prison he would lead us to them.’

  ‘What about his family?’ asked Norman. ‘Someone else could have collected years ago.’

  ‘We thought of that. His wife has been under surveillance for years, and so has their son Stevie, since he grew up. When I retired, Robin Bradshaw took over the surveillance. He’s kept me informed because he knows I’d like to see the case closed, but there’s never been even the slightest suggestion the family’s fortunes have improved.’

  ‘This is all very well, Mr Stockholm,’ said Slater, ‘but why are you telling us all this?’

  ‘Because that nice Mr Scanlon’s been out of prison for nearly two years now, and the word is someone else has got the diamonds and our old gangster is not very happy about it!’

  ‘But why would that have anything to do with our case?’ persisted Slater. ‘Are you suggesting our dead man is involved? Only you said you didn’t recognise the man in the photo we emailed to you.’

  ‘That’s right, I don’t recognise him,’ agreed Stockholm, ‘and before you say it, yes, I know plastic surgery can change appearances. Anyway, if that was all we had, I wouldn’t see a link myself.’

  ‘You obviously know something we don’t,’ said Slater, ‘so why don’t you get to the point.’

  ‘I understand you got involved because a lady came to you,’ said Stockholm.

  ‘That’s correct. She was a neighbour, and probably the only friend our dead man had.’

  ‘But why did she come to you?’

  ‘Because some mysterious police detective sent her to us.’

  ‘Well, that’s the thing, you see,’ said Stockholm. ‘That was no detective – and he’s no mystery. That was Ronnie Scanlon’s son, Stevie.’

  ‘Wow! That kinda raises the stakes a little,’ said Norman.

  ‘Does Bradshaw know this?’ asked Slater.

  ‘Of course he does, but he wanted me to tell you, because it was my old case.’

  Slater turned to Watson. ‘Did you know about this when Bradshaw sent you down here? Only he obviously knows a lot more about this case than he’s letting on, doesn’t he?’

  ‘Well, I can’t deny it’s beginning to look that way, but if he does know a lot more, I promise you he hasn’t told me,’ she said, awkwardly.

  ‘I don’t get it,’ said Norman. ‘If he knows so much about this case, why doesn’t he just share what he knows with us?’

  ‘I’m just a small cog in a big machine,’ said Watson, unhappily. ‘He only tells me what I need to know.’

  ‘Would he tell me if I ask him?’ asked Slater.

  ‘I’m sorry, only he can tell you the answer to that question.’

  ‘What’s the best number to get him on? I want to know what’s going on here.’

  ‘There’s something else you should know, before you forget all about me and charge off to start an argument.’ Stockholm’s voice filtered through the computer. ‘The reason we caught them all was because one of the gang’s drivers turned grass in exchange for a very short sentence and a new identity.’

  ‘Well, in that case, I’d put my money on him knowing where the diamonds were,’ said Norman. ‘He gets everyone else put away for twenty-odd years, while he serves a token sentence. Then he collects the loot when he comes out and he’s got a head start of twenty years in which to disappear, sell the goods, and spend all that moolah. It makes sense to me.’

  ‘What are you saying, Mr Stockholm?’ asked Slater. ‘Do you think Joe Dalgetty was this man? Only he was living like a pauper, not like someone who had twenty million stashed away.’

  ‘Going by that photo you showed me, no he’s not the man, but maybe he knew who it was.’

  ‘Who was this driver?’ asked Norman.

  ‘His name back then was Kenny Wingate,’ said Stockholm, ‘but I was never allowed to know what his new identity was. I suppose that’s the whole point of the protected witness scheme, but it’s bloody frustrating. Like you say, he could have known where the diamonds were, but we weren’t allowed to watch him.’

  ‘If you don’t know his identity, how can you be so sure it’s not Joe Dalgetty after plastic surgery?’ asked Slater.

  ‘If your description is correct, your dead man is about six inches shorter than Kenny was. Plastic surgery can change a face, but you can’t just chop six inches off a bloke’s legs, can you?’

  ‘But if this Kenny Wingate, or whatever his name is now, has made off with the diamonds, that means it could have nothing at all to do with our victim,’ said Slater.

  ‘Of course, that’s a possibility,’ admitted Stockholm, ‘but just suppose, for a minute, you were Ronnie Scanlon. You knew you were getting close, and you thought there was a possibility you were being followed. What would be a great way to continue the search without arousing suspicion?’

  ‘Get someone else to do it for you,’ said Watson. ‘And who better than two private detectives who have just started working together and might be keen to take on a job.’

  Slater turned to Norman and exchanged a look of horror, then he turned back to Stockholm on the screen.

  ‘So, you’re suggesting Ronnie Scanlon has duped an unsuspecting Rosie Hewitt into asking us to find his missing diamonds. Is that right?’ asked Slater.

  ‘Exactly.’

  Chapter Twelve

  Slater had spent a fruitless fifteen minutes pacing up and down in the car park, trying to get hold of Bradshaw before finally deciding it could wait. When he came back into the office, Watson beckoned him over to her desk.

  ‘There was a flyer for a locksmith in amongst your notes,’ she said, ‘so I thought I ought to get in touch with him and see what he knows.’

  ‘Good idea,’ Slater said. ‘Did he say how many keys there were for that front door?’

  ‘I haven’t actually spoken to him yet,’ she said, ‘and I don’t expect to any time soon.’

  Slater’s brow creased. ‘Why not?’

  ‘It appears Mr Locksmith doesn’t actually exist.’

  Slater sighed. ‘Not another fake identity. What the bloody hell’s going on? Are there actually any real people in this case?’

  ‘It’s not so much about a fake ID,’ she said. ‘This business just doesn’t exist, and it never did as far as I can make out. And quite honestly, looking at this flyer, it’s the sort of thing anyone could knock up on a PC.’

  ‘So what you’re saying is—’

  ‘It’s some sort of scam,’ Norman said, arriving from the kitchen with three mugs of coffee.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Watson. ‘I bet this is one of those cases where some enterprising con artist has printed out a batch of these on his home computer, pushed them through all the letterboxes in the street, and waited for someone to call him. It’s a good cover when you think about it – someone who fits locks would be perceived to be honest. Once inside, he has a look around and steals what he can, or he decides to come back later if it’s going to be worth his while.’

  ‘Bugger,’ said Slater, vehemently. ‘I was hoping that was going to lead us somewhere.’

  ‘We could still talk to the guy if we can find him,’ said Norman.

  ‘How are we going to do that?’ asked Watson.

  ‘Maybe another one of the neighbours around there called him in. If we can get a description, I could ask Naomi if they know anything about it.’

  ‘Why not ask her anyway and save some time?’ said Slater. ‘If someone has reported it, she’ll probably know. We might get
really lucky and find they know who it is.’

  ‘I’ll give her a ring,’ said Norman, reaching for his phone. Slater and Watson waited as he had a short, mumbled phone conversation, then he ended the call and looked across at them.

  ‘Naomi agrees it definitely sounds like a scam, but if it is, it’s not one they’re aware of. No one has reported anything like that, and it’s not on their watch list.’

  ‘It must be seriously low key and localised if it’s not even on the watch list,’ said Watson. ‘Maybe it was just a trial run in that area and there weren’t enough takers to make it worth the risk of scaling it up.’

  Norman thought for a moment. ‘Maybe we should get out there and ask some of the neighbours.’

  ‘I’m not so sure you’ll turn anything up, but I suppose it wouldn’t hurt,’ said Slater. ‘When do you want to do it?’

  ‘There’s no time like the present! I think most of the neighbours around there are retired, so I expect most will be at home.’

  Slater started to move but Norman beat him to it. ‘It’s okay, I’m sure I can manage this one on my own. You’ve got plenty to do here.’

  ‘What are you up to?’ asked Slater, knowing very well there wasn’t really a great deal he could do that Watson couldn’t do better – and quicker. ‘You’ve been looking particularly pleased with yourself ever since we got here this morning.’

  ‘Who, me? I’m not up to anything. Nothing at all.’

  ‘You can’t fool me with that innocent little boy act,’ said Slater. ‘Come on, what are you up to?’

  Norman sighed. ‘Okay,’ he said, reluctantly. ‘I should have known you’d see right through me. You know I’ve been trying to convince Jane she should come and work for me? You even said as much yourself yesterday. Well, I suggested to her that if we had a little house-to-house to do, she might like to come along and see how she felt.’

  ‘You mean like a trial run?’

  ‘Exactly! I’m sure once she gets back in the saddle, she’ll be fine,’ said Norman. ‘It’s just getting over that first hurdle, and this’ll be a piece of cake, right? Just knock on a few doors, show a flyer, and ask a simple question. What could be easier? It’s the ideal situation.’