by P. F. Ford
‘Any ideas what the key opens?’ asked Slater.
‘Not a clue.’ Norman fished in his pocket again. ‘There’s a note here that talks about two little ducks. That’s twenty-two in bingo talk. He tells Rosie she’s gotta work out what it’s for, but she says she doesn’t have the faintest idea what he’s on about or why twenty-two would mean anything to her. There’s also the envelope it was delivered in, but the postcode is so badly smudged I doubt anyone will be able to decipher it, so we don’t even know where it was sent from.’
‘Alright,’ said Slater. ‘We might not have the details yet, but this key seems to confirm he was definitely hiding something from someone, and now we’ve spoken to Dennis Stockholm, we know it was probably Ronnie Scanlon he was hiding from.’ He looked at Norman. ‘I’ve got to say, Norm, if this is what happens when Jane works with you, I suggest you get her signed up and working as soon as you can.’
‘Yeah, I’m working on that,’ said Norman. ‘But let’s not get too carried away. We haven’t solved anything yet. There’s still the small matter of where the twenty-five grand came from. We know it wasn’t taken from William Harding’s current account, so where the hell did Joe get that from?’
Slater sighed. ‘Yeah, and what about William Harding? Where does he fit into this? It would be quite handy if we could find another bank account, or some sort of savings account, and twenty-five grand had been withdrawn from that, but I have a nasty feeling I’m just being way too optimistic.’
‘I can always try searching a little deeper,’ said Watson, turning her attention back to her computer. ‘You never know what I might find.’
‘That can wait until Monday. You’re supposed to be catching a train to go home for the weekend, aren’t you?’
Chapter Fifteen
Slater swung his car into the parking space, pulled on the handbrake, and switched off the engine. As he climbed from the car, he idly pondered the merits of having his name, DI Slater, adorning his own space in a new place of work. He still couldn’t quite believe he and Norm could well be going in different directions, and he stopped to look at the small, but handsome, red brick building that was now probably going to be Norman’s office, but not his.
For the umpteenth time, he wondered if walking away from this was really what he wanted. He had spent hours talking it through with Jenny, who thought the new job would be perfect for him, but even so, he still wasn’t sure. However, he had to admit he had been very impressed with Watson, and Friday had certainly felt a bit like the old days.
He pushed open the door and walked inside. Norman had entrusted the interior decor to Jane Jolly, who had chosen colours that managed to achieve just the right balance between formality and friendliness. Slater felt it every time he came through the door. He thought it would be just perfect if Norman could persuade her to bring her beaming smile along so it was always the first thing anyone saw when they walked through that door.
‘Morning, Watson,’ he said, ‘How are you today? Is everything working out with the hotel?’
‘I’m very well, and everything is working out just fine, thank you, although I did enjoy being home for the weekend.’
‘Has Norm been in yet?’
‘He was here before me,’ she said. ‘He’s making coffee, obviously keen to make a good impression.’
Norman appeared in the kitchen doorway. ‘I heard that, Watson. I think it was a great idea of mine to have you on secondment for this case, but I could just as easily have you unseconded if you get too cheeky.’
‘Is that really a word?’ she asked Slater.
Slater shook his head. ‘He makes them up as he goes along. It’s a lot like the way he works.’
‘Careful now, Watson,’ said Norman. ‘Don’t listen to him, and don’t push your luck too far.’
She looked at Slater, obviously not quite sure if Norman was joking. He gave her a reassuring wink and nodded his head at Norman.
‘Yeah, sure, Norm,’ said Slater, ‘of course it was a great idea of yours.’ Then, to Watson, he said, ‘You’ll find he always claims credit for all the good ideas. I’m just here to make up the numbers.’
‘Listen,’ said Norman, looking pointedly at Slater, ‘you need an innovative thinker like me – it makes up for the duller members of the management team.’
Slater looked at Watson. ‘As temporary office manager, I wouldn’t blame you for taking offence at that remark.’
Norman guffawed. ‘She knows I didn’t mean her.’
‘What are you doing here this early anyway,’ asked Slater, ignoring the insult. ‘Did someone set fire to your bed?’
Norman grinned. ‘Was that a joke? If it was, it kinda proves my point about some members of the management here being dull.’
‘Did I miss something?’ asked Slater, good-naturedly. ‘Is it a special get-at-Dave-Slater day?’
‘That’s never been a special event,’ said Norman. ‘It’s more like second nature. Anyway, let’s not discuss your feeble sense of humour. Watson has something you should take a look at.’
Slater walked across to Watson and peered over her shoulder at the screen. ‘What have we got, then?’
‘I’ve been looking deeper into William Harding. Apparently, he used to work for a bank, so I wondered if maybe he had something to hide and that’s why he disappeared, but there’s no suggestion he’s ever had his hand in the till. In fact, it would appear he’s squeaky clean.
‘I’ve also looked at Joe Dalgetty again, but there’s definitely no sign of him anywhere from the time he dies as a little boy until he appears in that house.’
‘What if I was wrong about him telling Rosie about that TV series?’ said Slater, moving across so he could see the monitor over her shoulder. ‘Perhaps he really was out in Germany with a bunch of Geordie lads back in the eighties, and maybe he stayed out there. Perhaps it was six years ago when he came back.’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Watson, turning to Slater. ‘If he had come back there would be a record somewhere. When I say I’ve got nothing, I mean I’ve literally got nothing. He isn’t just dead – according to the records, he has never existed!’
‘That’ll be on account of him being run over when he was eight years old,’ called Norman, from the kitchen.
Slater patted Watson on the shoulder. ‘Good work. Let me and Norm think about this for a few minutes.’
He headed for the kitchen and joined Norman.
‘Right,’ said Slater, ‘what the hell have we got here? It seems to me we started off with a nice, simple, possibly suspicious, death. Now we’ve got one guy who’s not who he says he is and has no past, except as a dead schoolboy, and somehow he’s linked to another guy who seems to have vanished into thin air yet is still paying the rent and utility bills!’
Norman beamed happily. ‘And they may well all have been at school in Windsor. Then, of course, there’s a possible connection with an old London gangster, who may have sent a phantom locksmith along just to make things even more confusing. I think it’s pretty cool, don’t you?’
‘Cool?’ said Slater. ‘I’m not sure that’s what I’d call it, but it’s definitely intriguing.’
‘So where do we go from here?’ asked Norman.
‘I’ll start by getting Watson to do a search on this Kenny Wingate.’
‘I still have a couple of mates in the Met,’ said Norman. ‘Shall I see what I can dig up about Ronnie Scanlon?’
‘That sounds like a plan,’ said Slater.
Chapter Sixteen
‘Here we are,’ said Watson, reading from her laptop screen, ‘Kenny Wingate a.k.a. Kenny the Driver. Born in Hackney in 1952. Sentenced to sixteen years, reduced to six months, in 1988.’
‘Well, well,’ said Slater, peering over her shoulder. ‘What did he do to get his sentenced reduced so drastically? Do you think it was because he shopped all his mates?’
‘Well, I hope it was worth his while,’ said Watson, ‘because most of the people he double
-crossed aren’t the sort who would forget about it in a hurry. I’m sure there would have been a pretty price on his head.’
‘Maybe he thought twenty-million quid’s worth of diamonds made it worth the risk,’ muttered Slater. ‘Is there any way of finding out what happened to him when he was released?’
‘There’s nothing here to confirm he ever was released,’ she said. ‘He just seems to have been erased from the system after that.’
‘That confirms Stockholm’s protected witness idea then,’ said Slater. ‘If only there was some way of finding out who he became after that.’
Watson had been busily poking at keys on her laptop. ‘This is interesting.’ She leaned closer to the screen. ‘It appears Kenny Wingate wasn’t kept in solitary confinement.’
‘Really?’ said Slater. ‘That was risky. I thought these guys were always kept in solitary for their own protection. Do we know who he was sharing with?’
‘Oh yes,’ said Watson, turning to him with a broad grin. ‘Does the name Brian Harding seem familiar?’
‘Oh, well done, Watson!’ exclaimed Slater. ‘Now that is a bit of a coincidence, isn’t it?’
Watson turned back to her screen, her face slightly pink, and began tapping away at the keys again. It was barely two minutes later when she spoke again.
‘Here we are, sir. Brian Harding, born October 1943, and can you believe it, he has the same parents as William. They were brothers, with ten years between them. He’s got a record of petty theft, burglary. He’s the complete opposite of his younger brother.’
‘Sounds like the black sheep of the family,’ said Slater. ‘I wonder where he is now? Perhaps he knows where William is.’
‘Let’s see if I can track him down,’ said Watson, looking as if she was in her element.
Slater’s phone began to ring. It was Norman, who’d gone across to the pub to make his calls in private.
‘I just spoke to a guy I know. The word is, Scanlon’s officially retired, and his son’s in charge these days but, unofficially, it’s also a well-known fact he’s still looking for his diamonds, and he’s the guy who put a price on the head of Kenny the Bigmouth Wingate all those years ago – and it still stands.’
‘They’ve changed Kenny’s name,’ said Slater.
‘Yeah, well, they don’t want him to do a driving job any more,’ said Norman. ‘The name’s a reflection of what he’s best known for these days.’
‘That’s good stuff, Norm. It’s all helping to build the picture. Watson’s just found out Kenny had a buddy sharing his cell when he did his six months.’
‘That’s unusual. Maybe they were hoping he’d tell them where the diamonds were if he had someone to speak to.’
‘Get this,’ said Slater. ‘The buddy was Brian Harding, William’s older brother.’
‘Wow! What are the chances of that?’
‘Yeah, just a tad coincidental. D’you think you could go and see Rosie and ask her if she knows anything about William’s older brother?’
‘I’m on my way. I’ll speak to you later.’
***
Half an hour later, Watson called Slater over. ‘Our Mr Brian Harding has been a bit of a nomad,’ she said. ‘It’s as if he’s visited almost every town in the country since he came out of prison. For the best part of twenty years, he never stayed anywhere for longer than a couple of months.’
‘But he was released in 1991,’ said Slater. ‘That was twenty-five years ago.’
‘Yes, but he’s quite elusive. He comes and goes within the system, sometimes disappearing for a year or so and then popping up again. This goes on up until seven years ago, when he disappears once again. Only this time, there’s no trace of him ever reappearing.’
‘Christ not another one who’s disappeared,’ muttered Slater. ‘I wonder why he moved around so much. And why would he disappear at that particular time?’
‘Perhaps he was hiding from someone?’ said Watson. ‘And maybe they found him, and made him disappear.’
‘You mean they bumped him off? It’s a possibility, I suppose,’ mused Slater, ‘but here’s another idea. What if he wasn’t running away from someone, but was actually searching for someone? Remember, he shared a cell with Kenny Wingate. Now, suppose Kenny was one of those people who couldn’t help but brag about how clever he was? What if he told Brian Harding he was getting a new ID, and he had a little nest egg waiting when he came out? That might be an incentive to search for someone, don’t you think?’
‘So, all we need to do is find Kenny Wingate, who has a new identity we know nothing about, and Brian Harding, who vanished about seven years ago, and we’ve solved the case!’ said Watson.
Slater gave her a wry smile. ‘Yeah, I guess that just about sums it up. It’ll be a piece of cake!’
Chapter Seventeen
Norman walked down Rosie’s path and climbed back into his car. It had been a fruitless journey, as Rosie was quite sure William had never mentioned having a brother. He pulled the door closed and started the car, but before he could pull away, his mobile phone began to ring. He looked at the caller ID and took the call.
‘Hi Jane, is everything okay?’
‘Yes, I’m fine,’ she said. ‘I’ve just been down to that storage place on the trading estate and rented a unit.’
Jane had been threatening to pack all her husband’s stuff into boxes and put it into storage for weeks, but Norman had thought she had been quite reluctant to actually go through with it. Much as he had wanted to voice his opinion, he had resisted the temptation to get involved on the basis that it had to be her decision – and hers alone. This had come as quite a surprise.
‘Oh, right! So you’re really going to go through with it?’
‘I’ve been putting it off long enough,’ she said. ‘And now I know he’s going to be coming out soon, I’ve had to do it. If he came out and found his stuff was still here, he might think everything’s okay, and that just wouldn’t be fair, so now I’ve got the unit arranged, all I have to do is move the stuff.’
‘You know I’ll help you with that, don’t you?’ he said. ‘Just tell me when and I’ll take a day out.’
‘You know, I was hoping you were going to say that. You really are very kind. I just need to find out when I can hire a van, and then I’ll let you know.’
‘I always help people I care about,’ said Norman. ‘And I care about you a lot, so it’s a no-brainer.’
There was an awkward, slightly embarrassed, silence before Norman spoke again. ‘Is that what you called for?’
‘Oh, sorry, no. Can you get over here? There’s something you need to see. It might be nothing, or it might be a coincidence, but I think you should call in and have a look.’
Ten minutes later, Norman was being ushered inside Jane Jolly’s house and through to her kitchen.
‘What’s this big secret thing you need me to check out?’ he asked.
‘There.’ She pointed to the table.
Norman looked at the brass key that lay on the table. He looked at Jane and looked at the key again. ‘It’s a key, right?’
‘Well, obviously,’ she said. ‘Perhaps I’m wrong, and I’m wasting your time, but don’t you think it looks familiar?’
He looked at it again, then picked it up and turned it over in his hand. ‘I suppose it does, now you come to mention it, but there must be millions of plain brass keys knocking around. Where did you get it?’
‘That’s the key to my room at the storage centre. They have dozens of different units, some are room-sized, and some are just small safes set into walls, but they all have the same sort of key, and they all look just like this.’
Norman looked up at her face. ‘You think the key Joe sent Rosie is from the storage centre?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said, uncertainly. ‘I thought it was when I first saw it, but now you’re asking questions, I’m beginning to doubt my intuition. You’re probably right, of course. In fact, the more I think about it, the more
I think it’s just too obvious, isn’t it?’
‘Yeah, but isn’t the most obvious place often the best place to hide something?’ said Norman. ‘No one ever thinks to look right under their nose, right?’ He took her shoulders, pulled her to him, and gave her a quick kiss on the forehead. ‘You’re brilliant,’ he said, letting her go. ‘And don’t ever doubt your intuition.’
‘But what if I’m wrong?’
‘You’re still brilliant,’ he said. ‘And anyway, what if you’re right? Jeez, we could be halfway to solving this case if you are! Can I take this key and compare it with the one we have at the office?’
‘Of course. But don’t forget I need it back.’
‘How do you know which room this key fits?’ he asked.
‘They’re all numbered. From one to one hundred and ninety six, I think the man told me.’
‘So, if two little ducks is twenty-two, we could have the key to storage unit number twenty-two. What number’s yours?’
‘Thirty-eight.’
‘Look, I have to go,’ said Norman. ‘This is brilliant, honestly. It could be the break we’ve been looking for. I’ll call you later, okay?’
***
‘So, you and Jane think the key Joe sent to Rosie came from the storage centre here on Tinton trading estate?’ asked Slater.
‘Yeah, why not? Jane says there are nearly two hundred units and they all have the same style of brass key. Now you have to admit when you put those two keys side by side, they look the same, right?’
Slater looked at the two keys. They certainly did look the same, apart from the design cut to fit into the lock, and the piece of tape Norman had stuck onto Jane’s key so they didn’t get mixed up.
‘What do you think, Watson?’ he asked.
She briefly looked startled by the question, but quickly regained her composure. ‘I have to admit, they do look similar,’ she said. ‘Maybe we could get some sort of forensic examination done.’