by L M Krier
‘I now know of at least two of them who took their own lives because of what happened to them.
‘I don’t know if Trevor would ever agree to testify in court about any of it. But there are a number of us, now. Parents of Warboys’ victims, who are coming together to get justice.
‘Warboys is still very much alive. In his seventies. Retired long since and living the high life on a very good pension. It’s time he was called to account. In a court of law.
‘So will you help us, Ted? Will you advise me now on what to do next? How to proceed? And will you go further than that? Because if anyone could ever persuade Trevor to testify about what happened, it will be you.’
‘Padre. You’re late, again. I’m going to have to go very shortly and there are things we need to talk about.’
Warren had been mopping the same section of the chapel floor, over and over. No humming this time. No leisurely swirl of the mop. All his gestures were sharp, angry. The classic signs of a control freak sensing his grip on things slipping away from him.
The chaplain looked worse than ever. If he had slept at all since Sunday, it had certainly not done him a great deal of good. He appeared haggard. Wrung out. A haunted man.
‘I’m sorry, William, I can’t help you any more. It’s gone far beyond what I agreed with you. Too far. I’m sorry. You said you could control things. That we could trust him. But he’s betrayed that trust. It has to stop.’
‘We can’t stop now, padre. We’ve come so close. It would be a very bad move for both of us. We just need one more push and we’re there.’
His eyes had an intense manic gleam to them now which chilled the chaplain to the bone.
‘I can control him, and I will. He just made one small mistake. He won’t do it again.
‘Besides, I’ve been talking to a new convert I’m going to send your way. Martin. He’s very much in need of your kindness and your guiding hand. I’m confident that he’s just the right person to get us all back on track. Back within sight of our objective.’
‘Hey, you,’ Trev’s voice in Ted’s ear when he answered the phone, jerked him awake from where he’d been starting to doze off in front of a political programme on the TV. ‘Have you had a good day?’
‘So-so.’
‘Ted? What have you been up to?’
Trev knew him so well he could instantly pick up on his mood, even from a few hundred miles away.
‘Nothing. Just work stuff. Difficult cases. Anyway, what about you two? Are you having fun?’
Trev laughed. ‘You are such a rubbish liar. Something’s clearly bothering you, more than the usual work stuff. But yes, thanks, we’ve had a billirant day. Laurence arranged for us to go riding with friends of hers, then they invited us for a meal. Eirian’s gone to bed, poor love. She’s exhausted.
‘Are you sure you’re all right?’
‘I will be. Once you get back. I’ll tell you all about it then. We’ll sit down and have a long talk.’
‘Can I please speak to Ted Darling? I seem to be speaking to someone boring and middle-aged. Usually when I get back from any time away, the last thing on earth you want to do is sit down and talk,’ Trev told him.
‘True. But after that, we’ll sit down and talk.’
Chapter Twenty-six
Ted was on the phone to Doug, the senior Forensics Crime Scene Manager, first thing in the morning before the team briefing. Doug was having a hard job of it, trying to oversee all the crime scenes at which they were currently working. Which was why he didn’t start off with the usual cat conversation.
Doug listened in silence to what Ted had to say. After Ted had finished, he was quiet for a moment. Then he said, ‘Boss, have you fallen off the wagon? Or have you been sampling seized drugs? You’ve had a few wild theories before, but I have never, in all my career to date, heard anything quite so far-fetched. And I would never have expected to hear it from you.’
‘I know, Doug, I know. But it’s so wildly improbable that it might be true.’
‘Well, you know my motto from our side. The impossible we do today; miracles may take a little longer. It’s theoretically possible, at a pinch, apart from the blindingly bloody obvious stumbling block. How in the name of all that’s holy are you going to get a search warrant for this job? With absolutely nothing to go on except a hunch?’
‘Aah. You spotted the obvious flaw in my cunning plan. I’d have to convince Jim Baker, for starters, and that’s not going to be easy.’
‘That’s the understatement of the decade. And even if you do get a warrant, have you any idea of how big an operation this would be, and what other outside agencies we would need to bring in? The RSPCA for one, I imagine.’
‘But if all of that could be overcome, is it even feasible?’
Doug sighed. ‘Anything is feasible, with a bit of luck and a following breeze. But this is about as far from a guaranteed result as anything I’ve ever worked on. Not to mention the minor inconvenience of me not having enough people to work the scenes we already have without a big circus like this would be. But if you can get the go-ahead – and that’s a mighty big if – my team and I will, as ever, give it our very best shot. With the caveat that nothing is guaranteed.’
‘Thanks, Doug, I appreciate it. And I haven’t said anything to anyone else about this yet ...’
‘I’m not surprised,’ Doug interrupted him. ‘They’d have you carted away and sectioned.’
Ted laughed. ‘I know. I’m clutching at straws here and hoping it doesn’t come to a gamble like this would be. And I don’t suppose there’s anything on the Paras badge from our arson victim, yet?’
‘Miracles, boss. Remember? Always hard to lift anything of much use from something like that. But once it’s been exposed to the high temperatures of an intense fire, almost impossible. You’ll have to look elsewhere for inspiration on that one. And don’t worry. Your secret’s safe with me.’
DC Charlie Eccles was the first to speak at the start of the morning briefing. When Ted had first worked with him, he’d not shown a lot of promise because of the way his senior officer at the time had run his enquiries. First pick a suspect – any suspect – then look for anything and everything in the shape of evidence with which to stitch them up. He was doing better since Ted had sorted him out. Charlie, and Graham Winters, had been working on the lists Ted had brought back from the prison.
‘Boss, the most obvious common denominator in these is the priest, Father Archer. But that might be too obvious, because he runs this Listener scheme that Warren’s involved in. And it’s through that scheme that Warren got to know this Duncan Dooley lad who still visits him. They put Dooley with him in his cell when he was having a hard time of it.
‘Some of them would be referred direct to Warren by prison officers on duty. But some of them, at least, would have been chapel-goers. So is it worth trying to find out, from prison records, which of them were RC and/or went to the prison chapel?’
‘We certainly need to speak to the chaplain, boss,’ Jo put in. ‘He’s not likely to tell us very much, but we should at least talk to him. Do you want me to take that one? As another practising Catholic, I might at least know the best way to ask him things.’
‘We should definitely speak to him,’ Ted agreed. ‘Thanks, Jo. Duncan isn’t looking like much of a possibility, with tight alibis for most of the fires. Plus his DNA is on file from his burglaries and we didn’t get a match for him from the cigarette stub found at the first fire scene.
‘Who do you want to take with you, Jo?’
‘As there’s no perceived threat involved in talking to him, as far as I can see, I’d rather go on my own, boss. I doubt it’s going to be easy to get him to say much, if anything, but I might manage better on my own. I’ll see if I can visit him in prison, perhaps in the chapel there. It might give him a relaxed environment to talk in.’
Once again, Eric Morgan had encouraged Amelie to present their findings from the previous day. Virgil’s list fr
om the parks department had shown that Tam Lee had been the contractor for dealing with tree maintenance along the road where the home Lucy Robson was sent to was situated.
‘When the boss started talking about pollarding and the like, I remembered I’d seen trees like that when I first went to the home with you,’ Amelie had told the sergeant as they drove there.
‘Well spotted, young Amelie. I must have seen them subconsciously without registering it. We’ll make a proper copper of you yet.’
The manager wasn’t free, but another member of staff, who had known Lucy in her time there, had agreed to talk to them. It hadn’t taken much prodding from Eric Morgan for her to put the kettle on and break out the biscuits.
‘This is a strange question,’ Amelie began in an apologetic tone. ‘It’s about Lucy again. Lucy Robson. I know when we came before no one seemed to know anything about her involvement with this man Byrne.’
‘No indeed! But, as you can imagine, we’ve all been talking about it since we heard of it. Lucy was always a funny little thing. Very closed. Polite enough and no trouble but very hard to get her to open up about herself at all. A very private little person. Self-contained, you might say. Not very bright, and a bit immature, which is why we were all even more surprised to hear of her involvement with an older man like that.’
‘By any chance, have you ever seen the people who come to see to the trees in this road? I think they get cut back every couple of years or so.’
‘Well, that’s a strange question,’ the woman commented. ‘But now you come to mention it, I did notice one time when they were here that it was a lady with the chainsaw, doing the high up work. She had a young man with her helping, like, but it was clear that she was the boss. I thought it was unusual to see a woman doing that kind of work.’
‘She’s done it for quite a few years now in this area, according to the council records,’ Amelie told her. ‘So they must be pleased with her work. Is it possible, do you think, that Lucy might have met her somehow, when she was working in this road?’
The woman frowned. ‘I don’t really see how. I mean, the tree people tend to come in the daytime, when Lucy would have been at school. I can’t say I noticed, if she ever did meet them.’
‘What about in the school holidays?’ Amelie persisted. ‘Perhaps she might have met her then?’
‘Well, it’s possible, I suppose. Like I said, Lucy didn’t share much with us. And it’s four years or so since she left us. Is it important for you to find out? I could ask the other staff and perhaps let you know?’
Amelie summed up for the team on what they’d found out the day before, then finished with, ‘I gave her my card and told her to get in touch if she heard anything, sir. But it seems to indicate that we can’t rule out a link between Lucy and this Tam Lee, dating from her time at the home.’
‘Sir,’ Steve spoke up next. ‘I’ve been trying to find any recorded change of name for Lucy Robson. There’s no deed poll enrolled in her name with the Royal Courts of Justice. But she could well have done it unrecorded, and that might be enough for her. And of course there’s no requirement to register a change of name by marriage. Speaking of which, I haven’t been able to find any recorded document of an official wedding ceremony or civil partnership between Tam Lee and Cyane Lee either. I tried under Lucy Robson and Cyane Robson just in case, but nothing.’
Maurice Brown was stifling yet another expansive yawn when Jezza gave him a shove. Then she started to speak.
‘Boss, something Maurice and I started looking at yesterday, which is showing some promise, to do with this stolen tree surgery equipment.
‘Question: how do we know it was ever stolen in the first place?’
Blank looks.
Jezza made one of her noises of annoyance. ‘If anyone says “because she filed a report on the theft” they seriously need to go back to basic training. I’ve been going over the statement she made when she reported the theft, with the help of my trusty assistant. When he stayed awake long enough. There are anomalies, which may or may not be significant.
‘First off, the circumstances of the theft. She arrived on site with this bloke who works for her, though not in the same vehicle. Jimmy something. I couldn’t read the spider-scrawl of whoever took down the details.’
‘Crick,’ Virgil supplied helpfully. ‘Who doesn’t like to be called Jiminy Cricket. And who can blame him?’
‘Right, so Tam Lee and Jimmy arrive at the place where they have some trees to cut down and dispose of to improve visibility and therefore road safety. It’s a rural area. Not many houses. But it’s a main road, with quite a volume of traffic. Hence the need for the work. So they go to do a recce.’
She looked round at them expectantly, but no one reacted.
‘Well, there’s the first thing which makes no sense. Have you any idea what a professional chainsaw costs?’
Eric Morgan put his hand up and said ironically, ‘I know what I paid for mine, miss. A bloody lot of money, and it’s not professional standard.’
‘Exactly! The chainsaw itself cost more than eight hundred quid, without even mentioning the other kit. Would you really go and leave that unattended? And why would it need both of them to do the recce? They must have seen the site already to quote for the work. Is it likely things would have changed that much?’
Ted was impressed, as usual. Jezza had a way of picking holes in things which often advanced them in a case. He found himself regretting once again her stated preference to stay as a DC, while being pleased she wanted to remain with the team.
‘Next, according to the council, they finished the work contracted for well within the allotted time. In other words, the so-called theft of their equipment didn’t slow them down at all.’
‘So they had spare kit with them which didn’t get nicked,’ Mike Hallam suggested. ‘If there are two of them working, they might well have two of everything. Another chainsaw they took with them, perhaps?’
‘Seriously? Like I said, you’re looking at about eight hundred quid a pop. It’s a small firm. Could they afford two of those? And why leave one on the truck? Why not take both with them? Or one of them stay with the vehicle and the kit, at least. Something just doesn’t add up here.’
‘Rob, tell us what you made of Tam Lee when you spoke to her. How did she come across?’ Ted asked him.
‘A bit glib, boss. An answer for everything. When we asked her about Lucy Robson she denied knowing her and said it without a flicker, but I don’t know. There was something about her. Virgil, what do you think?’
‘Like you. Not a hundred per cent convinced about her. I think we could do worse than try getting to speak to Jimmy Crick on his own, to get his version of what happened with the so-called stolen kit that day. He may possibly tell a different story.’
‘If there’s even the slightest hint of an insurance fraud here, I want to know about it as soon as possible, please. I’d really like to get a thorough search done of Tam Lee’s premises, but at the moment I don’t have anything at all to justify a search warrant. And I still want us to find out more about Cyane Lee. We don’t know anything about her and I have a feeling we need to. Let’s check with the school Lucy Robson went to, for instance, to see if it could be the same person.’
Amelie opened her mouth to speak but changed her mind and said nothing.
Virgil risked a joke. ‘Boss, Tam Lee said Cyane was a telephone sex worker. I could try finding some cards and ringing round a few of them.’
‘Much as I admire your selfless devotion to duty, Virgil, I think we’ll pass on that line of enquiry for now. We’ve got Jimmy Crick’s home address, from the company listing, haven’t we? I think the best idea might be for you and Rob to pay him a visit after work, since he already knows you two by sight. See what you can get out of him about the alleged theft incident, without Tam Lee being there to cramp his style.
‘You might have seen or heard already on the local news that the appeal’s gone out about our h
omeless victim, still known to us only as Dirty Len. Let’s hope that brings us some results. Jo, anything from military records on that yet?’
‘They were surprisingly helpful, boss. I’ve arranged a cross-match check to see if the DNA from the body matches anything they have on record, but they warned it could take a while. They also said, which is slightly more hopeful, that head injuries of the sort the Professor found on the victim might make it easier to trace, if the man really was ex-military. They’ll let me know what they can dig up.’
The movement of the mop was calmer again. Purposeful. The wielder back in control. Or at least feeling himself so.
Glide, circle, dab.
Glide, circle, dab.
Warren was once more humming the refrain. Softly, under his breath. Over and over.
The chaplain came hurrying down the corridor. Breathless. Agitated.
‘William,’ he started to speak before he even reached where Warren was working.
The prisoner raised his head and let a slow smile form.
‘Hello, padre. You seem to be in a great hurry for something.’
‘It’s been on the radio, William. The man who died. They think he might have been a homeless veteran ...’
‘Hush, padre,’ Warren told him calmly. ‘Surely you must know by now that the walls in here have ears. You don’t want to be saying anything like that where you might be overheard.’
He didn’t look in the least concerned, which served only to increase the chaplain’s anxiety.
‘But William ...’
Warren’s face changed. Like slipping on a mask. Closed. Stony.
‘I said hush. Get a grip of yourself. What’s done is done and cannot be undone.’
‘But you don’t understand, William.’ The tone of the chaplain’s voice went up. Anguished. ‘There’s a policeman coming to see me tomorrow. He wouldn’t say what it was about. Just that he needed to speak to me. Here. In the chapel.’