My Deadly Valentine

by David W Robinson

  “Tread carefully,” Joe advised. “Don Oughton might have been able to talk me out of suing you, but I wouldn’t bet he can do the same with Stewart Dalmer.” He stood up. “Right, if there’s nothing else, I’ve a business to run. If I think of anything, I’ll let you know.”

  From the police station, throughout the drive along icy roads, something nagged at Joe. It was always the way. Somewhere in the flurry of information over the last few days, something tiny, something apparently insignificant had been lodged in his head and now that he wanted it, he could not retrieve it.

  The key, he knew, was to engage his mind elsewhere. As a consequence, when he stepped through the back door into the Lazy Luncheonette’s kitchen, and found Sheila absent, he put on his whites, and walked into the café, just as the lunchtime trade was picking up.

  “Where’s Sheila?” he asked.

  “The police rang. Her alarm is going off and they found the door open,” Brenda replied. “I told her to get on home and sort it. Cheryl and I can cope.”

  Joe stationed himself behind the counter. “You don’t need to now, do you? The boss is back.”

  Brenda looked around, and then grinned. “Boss? Where?”

  ***

  Sheila braked sharply outside her house, and yanked the handbrake on.

  After a call from the police and an anxious journey from the Lazy Luncheonette, there was no sign of a patrol car. “Typical,” she muttered.

  Her irritation rising, she stared along the path at the side of her bungalow, where she could see the door open. Above the front windows, the blue light of the alarm flashed, its screamer now silenced.

  “You’d think they would have had the decency to wait,” she growled at her car.

  Frowning irritably she climbed out and hurried along the path and into the hall. “Hello,” she called out.

  Behind her, the door slammed shut. She whirled around and found herself staring down the barrel of a pump action shotgun.

  “Good afternoon, Mrs Riley. Let’s go into the living room, shall we? We may have a while to wait.”

  ***

  The time was coming up to two, and with the afternoon lull setting in, Joe sat at table five, leaving the few customers to Brenda and Cheryl, while he ran over and over the events of the day.

  “Trouble at t’ mill?” Brenda asked, joining him.

  “What? Oh. Hmm, yeah. There’s something not right about all this, Brenda.”

  “Stewart, you mean? Well, Joe, there’s no accounting for folk, is there? We only see what’s on the outside. We can never know what’s going on behind the façade.” She yawned. “It’s like looking at a photograph. We see what the camera sees, but we don’t know what’s going on inside, do we?”

  The light bulb lit in Joe’s head. “As usual, you’ve done it, Brenda. Hit the nail on the head.” He snatched up his mobile and dialled.

  “What nail?” Brenda asked.

  He shushed her and called up the photographs on his phone. Highlighting the one used on Angela Foster’s database, he brought it to the screen and angled the phone so both he and Brenda could see.

  His face filled most of the image, his eyes shaded by the peak of his flat cap. Above his head was a dark triangle filling the top left corner. Joe pointed to it.

  “What does that look like?”

  Brenda shrugged. “I dunno. A building of some sort?”

  “Or maybe the top corner of a market stall? You know. Where the roof comes over,” Joe suggested.

  “Hmm. Could be.”

  “No could be about it.” He cleared the screen, called up the directory, selected Gemma’s number, and hit the connect button. A moment later he was through. “Gemma? It’s Joe. Did you bring Stewart Dalmer in?”

  “The boss is grilling him now,” Gemma reported.

  “Progress?”

  “Tough, Uncle Joe,” she replied. “He’s admitted everything but the murders. Says he’s innocent.”

  “And he is,” Joe insisted. “Ask yourself about the photograph of me on the Sanford Dating Agency database. How could Dalmer get hold of it?”

  “Well, I suppose… well, I don’t know, do I? Has he had access to the 3rd Age Club database?”

  “No, and even if he had, it wouldn’t do him any good. That’s not my 3rd Age Club ID picture. I think the photograph was taken on Sanford Market on Monday and it’s one of Rosemary Ecclesfield’s. Do you have the downloads from her camera?”

  There was a pause. “Yes. I’m sure we do.”

  “Dig ’em out,” Joe insisted. “I’m on my way now.” He cut the connection, and moved to the kitchen to collect his coat. “Cash up will you, please, Brenda. I’ll bell you later.”

  For the second time in the space of a few hours, Joe drove into Sanford, but more hurriedly this time, irritably cursing every crawling driver on the road. He rushed into Gemma’s department just after two fifteen, and she had all the photographs displayed as thumbnails on her computer screen.

  “What’s all this about, Joe?” she demanded.

  Joe sat alongside her and scanned the images. There were about two hundred; mostly of him, his car, or the Lazy Luncheonette, but eventually he found the image he had been seeking; a fuller replica of the one on the Sanford Dating Agency database.

  “That is what it’s all about,” he declared. “Rosemary Ecclesfield took that photograph on Monday morning while I was waiting for the Sanford Dating Agency doors to open. She obviously never downloaded it from the camera, so how the hell did it get onto Angela Foster’s system?”

  Gemma thought about it. “We know Rosemary cooked up a story about you and she was missing from about three o’clock that afternoon. Perhaps Angela was in on it.”

  “Then you’d better tackle her,” Joe said. “Gemma, don’t take this the wrong way, but there is another possibility.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “What?”

  “Who unloaded the camera onto your database?”

  “Well, I think… probably Des Kibble, or maybe Paul Ingleton. I don’t know, but it won’t take long to find out.”

  Joe’s mobile chirped for attention. “You see what I’m driving at?” he asked Gemma. “Anyone in this station could have had access to it.”

  “Come off it, Uncle Joe. I know Roy Vickers doesn’t like you, but he wouldn’t—”

  “I’m not talking about Vickers, but anyone. Anyone who might want to cover up his activities by blaming me. And think about it, Gemma. You said the Valentine Strangler never leaves a trace in the victims’ houses. Who would be the best at covering his tracks? A police officer in a forensic jump suit, that’s who.”

  His phone continued to ring. Reading Brenda in the menu, he made the connection.

  “Yeah, Brenda. What’s up, sugar?”

  She sounded worried. “It’s Sheila. I tried ringing her and I can’t get an answer.”

  “Well, maybe she’s busy with the police.”

  “That wouldn’t stop her answering the phone. What if something’s happened to her, Joe?”

  Joe sighed. “All right. I’ll go there next. Stop worrying, Brenda. I’ll bell you from Sheila’s. She’ll be all right. You’ll see.” He cut the connection and concentrated on Gemma. “Sorry, kid, but staff welfare calls.”

  “What’s the problem?” Gemma asked.

  “One of your people rang Sheila earlier and told her she’d had a break in.”

  “Hmm. First I’ve heard of it.”

  Joe laughed and gestured at the photographs. “You have more on your plate. I’ll get going. Let me know if you come up with anything.”

  ***

  With Joe gone, Gemma began to work on the photographs. Within minutes, her intense concentration had turned to a frown of worry.

  She called up other files, and found she was denied access to them. She cut along to reception. “Where’s Des Kibble?”

  “Out,” the constable on duty reported. “Burglary or something.”

  “Where?”

&nbs
p; The youngster shrugged. “Sorry, Sarge, I dunno.”

  Gemma speared him with a glare. “Then find out, idiot.”

  Face glowing red, the young constable turned from the counter and consulted the CID signing book.

  “Sixteen Larch Avenue,” he reported. “Name of Riley.”

  Gemma frowned. “Who reported it?”

  He checked the records again. “Doesn’t seem to have come through here, Sarge. Someone must have called him direct.”

  Gemma’s blood ran cold. “Oh my God, no.” Gazing frantically around, seeing Vinny Gillespie heading for the exit, she barked at the reception constable, “Sign me out to the same address. Vinny. Come on.”

  Gillespie looked surprised. “Me? I was just on me way home, Sarge.”

  “You’re on overtime. Come on. It’s an emergency.”

  Spurred by her orders, Gillespie followed her out to the rear car park where they climbed into his patrol car.

  “Blue lights, siren, the works,” Gemma ordered.

  “Where to?”

  “Sixteen Larch Avenue. Sheila Riley’s place. Move it, Vinny.”

  As the car tore out into the streets, Gemma rang Joe and got no answer. She tried again, and then a third time.

  “No answer. Typical Joe. Won’t answer the bloody phone when he’s driving. Vinny. Step on it.”

  While the car lurched, swayed and sped along the busy streets, Gemma dialled the station and after a brief argument with the desk, finally got through to Vickers.

  “What the hell is it, Craddock?” the chief inspector demanded. “I’m in the middle of questioning Dalmer.”

  “It’s not him, sir. It’s Des Kibble.”

  The announcement was greeted with a brief silence, followed by an explosive, incredulous, “What?”

  “He collects antiques, sir, and the woman he was involved with in Bradford? She disappeared just after Valentine’s Night. Maybe there was some truth in the rumours.” Frantically she garbled on, leaving Vickers no choice but to listen. “Think about it, sir. He can move around without leaving any trace of himself, and now he’s called Sheila Riley out to a burglary that no one but him seems to know about. I’m on my way there now with Constable Gillespie.”

  “I’ll release Dalmer on bail. Keep me informed.”

  ***

  Much the same thoughts occupied Joe’s mind as he weaved his way through the outer suburban streets of Sanford, but he was less centred on Kibble, thinking more of the police in general.

  With hindsight, everything pointed to a forensic officer, one sufficiently skilled and in possession of the necessary equipment to let him hide all traces of himself. Antiques pointed at Kibble, but less than twenty-four hours earlier, they had pointed at Stewart Dalmer, and before that, other factors had been aimed at him.

  It could, he admitted to himself, be any one of twenty or thirty officers.

  Turning into Larch Avenue, seeing the dark Ford parked outside number twelve, he changed his mind. It was Kibble.

  Pulling further down, parking ahead of Sheila’s compact Fiat, he sat behind the wheel for a moment, debating with himself how best to approach the problem.

  Sheila’s silence was explained. Kibble had lured her here and, for all Joe knew, she could already be dead, strangled like the others.

  He was surprised by the pain and anger that thought sent through him. He, Sheila, Brenda and the likes of George Robson and Owen Frickley had been the best of friends since the schoolyard, but he had never felt any particular attachment to any of them. He’d dated Brenda for a while as a teenager, and he would defend the two women to the last if he had to, but beyond that, there had never been any emotional ties to either of them. And yet, the thought of her dead, or worse, murdered, hurt.

  It also annoyed him. Kibble, he knew, was still in the house. Should he charge in there, hold him, make a citizen’s arrest until the police arrived?

  Joe, even as a kid you couldn’t punch your way out of a paper bag.

  Brenda’s words came back to haunt him. It was the truth. He had never been a scrapper, and Kibble was at least twenty years younger than him.

  Even so, he could not let the man simply walk away after another murder.

  He made up his mind, climbed out of the car, opened the boot and took out his wheel brace. A chrome-plated, telescopic handle, about eighteen inches long, it was made of mild steel, and it would be more than adequate to deal with Des Kibble.

  Filled with fresh determination and anger, he marched up the garden path and rapped on the door.

  “Come on out, Kibble. I know you’re in there.”

  Nothing happened. Joe tried the door and to his surprise found it unlocked. He pushed it open and walked cautiously in, his wheel brace at the ready.

  He crept along the hall to the open living room door. “I’m warning you, Kibble, I’m armed.”

  He turned into the room and stopped dead, staring at a shotgun aimed at his chest.

  A broad grin backed up the gun. “Armed, are you? Well so am I.”

  ***

  Siren still blaring, Gillespie’s car screamed into Larch Avenue and came to a screeching halt behind Kibble’s vehicle. Almost as it stopped, Gemma leapt out, one eye on the ageing estate car a few spaces ahead.

  “Joe’s here already,” she said, hurrying along the pavement and turning into Sheila’s gate.

  She stopped dead as one of the front windows opened and Joe, looking terrified, leaned out.

  “Get lost, Gemma. Just go away. This guy means business.”

  As if to reinforce the message, the barrel of a shotgun appeared alongside him.

  “Go,” Joe urged his niece. “Get out of here, girl. Now.”

  ***

  It took less than half an hour to get Vickers, Oughton and an armed response unit to the street.

  Gemma and Gillespie had backed off, away from the house, and while waiting for reinforcements, they had manned each end of the street, preventing other vehicles from entering.

  When the team arrived, she crouched with Vickers and Oughton in the shelter of a patrol car, and briefed them.

  “I don’t know for certain who’s in there, sir, other than Uncle Joe and one man armed with what looked like a pump action shotgun. Mrs Riley’s car is there, so, too, is Kibble’s. I don’t know if Mrs Riley is still alive, but I’m betting it’s Kibble behind the shotgun.”

  “Guess again, Sergeant,” Vickers suggested, and handed a couple of sheets of computer printouts to her.

  Gemma read them with amazement. “I don’t believe it.”

  Vickers shrugged. “What’s not to believe? Came home on Valentine’s Night ten years ago, found his wife with another man. Des Kibble. Three days later, his wife walked out on him. Never been seen since. Remember what I told you about tongues wagging behind Des’s back?”

  “They should have been wagging behind his back,” Gemma grumbled.

  “True,” Vickers agreed, “but he wasn’t a cop then. He didn’t join the service until two years after that.”

  The sergeant in charge of the ARU scurried to join them. “All exits covered, sir. He won’t get out.”

  “Can you get at him through the windows?” Oughton demanded.

  The sergeant shook his head. “First off, sir, they’re sealed units, double glazed. As if that’s not bad enough, the outer panes are leaded. If we hit the lead anywhere on the pattern, it may deflect the bullet, and there’s no telling where it might end up. Finally, he has Joe Murray stood with his back to the window. We couldn’t guarantee not hitting Joe.” Grim-faced, the sergeant went on, “We could try taking out the doors, but he’d have enough time to kill one or all his hostages, depending on how many he has, or alternatively, he could be waiting for our boys to walk in and open up on them.”

  “If that’s a legal pump action, it can only hold three cartridges,” Oughton pointed out.

  “We have no way of knowing whether it’s legal, Don,” Vickers pointed out. “Our only hope is to ne
gotiate with him.”

  Still reading the reports, Gemma tapped Vickers on the shoulder. “Sir, how come Kibble never made the connection between his girlfriend and our man? I mean if they were married—”

  “I checked when you rang me,” Vickers interrupted. “Des was questioned when the woman disappeared. He knew her by her maiden name. Ainsworth. Not Ingleton.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Joe’s shock at facing the shotgun soon settled to surprise when he saw the face behind it. Dressed, as Joe had anticipated, in forensic overalls, it was not Des Kibble but Paul Ingleton.

  Herded into the living room, he found Kibble backed against the rear wall, near to Sheila’s display cabinet of fine china, while Sheila herself, was tied to a dining room chair, her skirt pushed up, underwear on show. Both the fingerprint man and Sheila appeared terrified.

  The display cabinet was open, and on the highly polished dining table stood the Meissen figurine of Pagliaccio. Joe had no doubt that Ingleton would have a copy of it somewhere.

  Joe had never been so frightened. His mind, normally so agile, so quick to respond to any situation, froze and all he could think of was death.

  Standing in the centre of the room, next to Sheila, his hands raised, he tried to speak, but no sound would come. Swallowing hard, he cleared his throat and opened his mouth.

  At that moment, Vinny Gillespie’s car screamed to a halt outside. Ingleton checked, saw Gemma hurrying towards the house, and motioned Joe to the window.

  “Tell them to get away,” he ordered. The shotgun swung erratically on Sheila and Kibble. “Move and I’ll blow you away: both of you.”

  Joe did as he was told. He was too scared to do anything but. When Gemma and Gillespie ran, Ingleton ordered Joe to stand with his back to the window.

  “You’ve screwed everything up, Murray,” he complained. “Now I have to think how to handle this.” He glared at Kibble. “I think you’re gonna have to shoot him. Before you shoot yourself.”

  The fingerprint man shook his head. “I’m shooting no one.”

  With a smug, superior smile, Ingleton tutted. “You forget, Des, I work in forensics, too. Do you think I can’t strangle her, shoot him, then you, and not have the ability to make it look like you did it?”