by David Evans
“Okay,” he said, surprising himself.
“… having been in the RAF and the … You would?” A surprised look appeared on her face.
“Obviously dependant on how this investigation goes but, yes, I like quizzes.”
She beamed one of her big smiles. “That’s great.”
“Just let me know where and the time. I’ll look forward to it.” Cyril returned her smile and set off for the checkout.
It was only when he got back to the car that he realised he’d forgotten half a dozen items from his list. Still, all of Doris’s were there, so he decided to pick up the remainder from a different shop on the way home. As he drove, he grinned to himself. He couldn’t remember having ever been propositioned by a woman before – never mind in a supermarket.
18
Friday 3rd September
The sun was just about up, emerging from the sea and sliding into another clear blue sky when Barton pulled into the Seawick Holiday Park. He drew his car to a halt alongside one of the static caravans, a row away from the one owned by Frank Robinson. He knew Robinson senior wasn’t there but the information he had was that his two sons, Victor and David, were. Another two marked police vehicles with six male and two female uniformed officers had drawn up close by, one to the rear and the other a row behind their target. At precisely six am Barton, with DCs Ben Miller and Bill Walker alongside, gave the call for the raid to begin.
With a loud rap on the caravan door and shouts of, “Police! Open up!” the eight uniformed officers circled the van. Inside, curtains moved. Just before a particularly burly member of the Clacton force swung the battering ram into the door, it opened.
A bleary-eyed man stood in the doorway with a towel around his waist.
Barton stepped forward to face him.
“Fuck d’you want?” the man said.
“Mr Robinson? Victor Robinson?”
“It’s David actually.” Five foot eight with dark wavy hair, he scratched the stubble on his cheek, an insolent smile appearing on his face.
“DI Barton from Clacton police. We have a warrant to search these premises.” Barton held up the piece of paper he’d brought with him and attempted to bundle his way past.
Robinson put up his hand. “Just a minute, let’s have a look at that,” he said, taking the warrant from him.
“What’s going on?” Another man appeared behind the first. He was taller with fair hair, and in the act of tying the cord of a silk dressing gown around him.
David smirked, handing the paperwork back to Barton. “The police here think we’ve got something to hide Vic,” he said to the other man.
“Only a couple of sexy birds,” the fair-haired man said.
Both men stood aside to let Barton, Miller and Walker enter.
Barton looked around and took in the plush furnishings of the interior. Static caravans could be well finished but this one was at the top end. He could feel the thick pile carpet below his shoes and noted some of the other details; the lounge area with a television in the corner and two white leather sofas, the breakfast bar fitted out with optic measures, whisky, gin, brandy and other spirits bottles standing around. Behind the bar, he could see the well-appointed kitchen with fridge and freezer and a four-ring gas hob and oven. On one of the sofas in front of the breakfast bar, a dark-haired woman seemed comatose below a blanket.
Barton turned to the brothers and smirked. “Very cosy.”
The taller man spoke. “A couple of friends stayed over.” He held out a hand. “Victor Robinson, by the way … just so’s you know who you’re dealing with.”
Barton ignored the handshake offer. “Is she alright?” He nodded to the prone figure on the sofa.
“She’s just a bit tired,” David answered.
Through the open door to the main bedroom at the rear, a blonde woman shrieked, “What the fuck …?” Pulling a sheet up around her neck, she got to her feet. “’Ere, wha’s goin’ on, Vic?” she continued, in a thick London accent.
“Get some fuckin’ clothes on, Sandra. We don’t want this lot to get too excited,” Victor responded.
Barton’s gaze lingered for a moment before he turned and shouted out to the female uniforms to come and join them indoors.
“Supervise the delightful Sandra getting dressed,” he instructed the first to appear. “And get this one sorted as well,” he said to the second female officer as she stepped inside, indicating the woman on the sofa.
Meanwhile a nod to Miller and Walker was the sign to begin the search of the caravan.
David and Victor Robinson seemed relaxed at the early morning intrusion, too relaxed Barton thought. As Miller and Walker worked their way systematically through the cupboards and fitted units in the lounge, Barton searched the sofas, bedding and discarded clothes on the floor. Nothing of any significance was found.
Outside, the uniforms were searching the various external storage bins and the underside of the van itself.
“Can I get you some refreshment, DI Barton?” David Robinson asked, the same smirk on his face that Barton would love to wipe off.
“Not on duty,” the DI responded.
By the time Miller and Walker had progressed to the kitchen area, searching the food cupboards as well as below the sink unit, Barton was rifling through the cabinets in the bathroom. David Robinson was watching from the doorway.
“What are these?” Barton held up a tube of pills.
“Victor’s,” he responded. “He has a little embarrassing problem. Don’t worry, they’re on prescription.”
The dark-haired woman was now on her feet, a pink dressing gown wrapped around her, standing behind David Robinson. She giggled drunkenly. “Has he been a naughty boy?”
Barton ignored the comment and continued searching the bathroom, even lifting the toilet seat. Finally, he made to leave the small room “Excuse me,” he said, squeezing past Robinson. As he did so, the woman leaned into him. “Sorry, am I in your way,” she whispered into his ear.
One of the uniformed officers put his head in through the van door and caught the DI’s attention. A gentle shake of the head told Barton that the external search had turned up nothing. He suspected inside would follow suit. The cocky attitude of both brothers, the attempts by both women to cause embarrassment led him to believe they had known this visit was coming.
Another ten minutes and they had completed the search of the two bedrooms, bedclothes removed, wardrobes explored, all to no avail. Finally, Barton led the way back to the lounge area and watched as his officers left.
In one final act of irreverence the brothers dropped their towel and robe to the floor. “Don’t you want to search us too, Inspector?” David Robinson said.
Barton felt the colour rising in his face; not through any embarrassment, but pure anger. “We’ll see ourselves out,” he said, striding from the caravan.
“Let’s get out of here,” he said quietly to his DCs.
The door to the caravan was thrown shut and a burst of raucous laughter came from inside.
Back to his Rover, Barton climbed into the driver’s seat and slammed the door. Miller joined him in the front with Walker in the back. There was an awkward silence as Barton fumed. Finally, he pulled a cigarette from his packet and lit it. Miller watched him before deciding he wasn’t going to be offered one, so produced his own packet.
“Did either of you two tell anyone about this raid?” Barton asked.
“How could we, guv?” Miller responded, “You didn’t tell us what this was all about, only to get our arses in early this morning.”
“No whispers at the nick?”
“No.” Walker wound down his rear door window to give the smoke from the cigarettes more room to escape.
“They fucking knew.” Barton insisted.
Miller had a smile on his face as he turned to his boss. “Still, those two birds looked like goers. I bet they’re in there shaggin’ the …”
“Fuck’s sake, Miller.”
“I’m only sayin’.”
“Well don’t!”
“Anyway, what about Winco, Sir,” Miller persisted.
“What about him?”
“Well, did he know about this morning? Could he have let it slip?”
Although Cyril knew a search warrant for the Robinson caravan was being pursued, he was the one officer Barton felt could be trusted implicitly. The fact that Miller questioned that fell nicely into what he had planned.
“Where is he, by the way?” Miller went on.
“Win-, look, he’s on another line of enquiry,” the DI responded. “And, do me a favour, show a bit of respect, Miller; don’t call him Winco.”
Miller turned in his seat to exchange looks with Walker.
Barton started the engine. “Let’s get back to the nick.”
19
“Where to now, Skip?” WPC Annie Cauldwell asked. Originally from Newcastle, her Geordie accent had been softened by the twenty-odd years she’d spent in Essex. In her early fifties, married with two teenage boys, she was a very experienced officer and Cyril felt she was the ideal person to accompany him on his visits.
“Let’s see if we can have a word with Vicky, the late Jem’s partner,” he said as they walked away from Adam Fletcher’s house down the path to the car.
On the way to Great Bentley, Cyril and Annie discussed the half hour they’d just spent with Carol Fletcher. They’d gleaned very little from Adam’s wife. She’d remained fairly tight-lipped giving non-committal one word answers for the most part as Cyril tried to delve into Adam’s financial state. The house seemed comfortably furnished, no signs of any tight budgets but, there again, who knew what went on below the surface.
No, so far as she knew there was no pressure over money. His job paid well enough to cover their outgoings and yes, he sometimes went out for the evening on his own. So what? Most men like to have a couple of pints with their friends, she’d argued.
“She did seem genuinely upset over Jem’s death though,” Annie concluded.
“Only to be expected,” Cyril said, drawing to a halt outside Jem Fletcher’s mid-terraced house for the second time in a few days. He looked up at the scaffolding and wasn’t surprised to see the painting operation exactly as it was when he and Barton had first called. “Don’t suppose she’ll be here but we’ll try it first,” he said and got out of the car.
His knock on the door was answered a minute later by an attractive woman in her early thirties with blonde hair tied back in a ponytail and wearing jeans and a tee shirt. Her eyes looked puffy.
“Vicky, is it?” Cyril asked.
She nodded.
“DS Claydon. And this is PC Cauldwell from Clacton police.” He held up his identification.
“Come in,” she said, standing aside to let them pass. “Excuse the mess, we’re …” she caught a breath. “We were getting this place sorted but … well now …”
“I understand.” Cyril stepped directly into the living room. “Look, I know it’s a difficult time for you but, if you feel up to it, I’d like to ask you a few questions if that’s alright?”
“Sure. Can I get you anything to drink, I’m sure there’s tea and coffee, not sure about any cold drinks though?”
“We’re fine, thank you.”
Vicky fussed around clearing newspapers off the velour settee. “Sit down a minute,” she said.
Cyril and Annie sat down as Vicky sat on the arm of the matching chair opposite.
“I’m not sure if anyone’s said anything to you,” Cyril began, “but it looks like Jem’s death was a tragic accident. There was a fault with the plane’s engine.”
Tears pricked at the woman’s eyes and she drew a paper tissue from her pocket to dab her cheeks.
He carried on, “Did you know Jem was taking a plane up that day?”
Vicky wiped her nose and put the tissue away. “Not especially. But that was his business, a mechanic, I mean.”
“Did he ever talk to you about his job? Who his customers were? The sort of things he had to sort out?”
“I probably wouldn’t understand if he did.” Vicky began to look puzzled. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”
“We’re just trying to get a picture of Jem and what happened leading up to the accident,” Cyril replied.
“But that’s just it. You said it was an accident. A fault with the engine. What more could there be to it?”
Cyril stood and walked over to the fireplace. “It’s just we need to make the report as complete as we can.” He picked up a photo of Jem and his brother smiling at the camera in front of a light aircraft. “They look pretty close,” he commented.
“I suppose they are … I mean were. Jem looked up to Adam. But Adam liked to look after Jem too. That’s why he was giving us a hand here.” She stared off into an unseen distance, “Now, I’m not sure I can stay here.”
Cyril glanced to Annie and she joined in the conversation. “Well, I wouldn’t make any hasty decisions,” she said. “Give it time and see how you feel.”
Vicky looked sharply across at Annie. “How I feel? I’ll feel the same as I do now. Jem’s gone and this was his place really. I don’t think I want to stay here.”
Cyril quickly interceded. “You say Jem and Adam were pretty close. Did they do many things together? I mean, did they have nights out? Do favours for each other? I know Adam was helping out here.”
“Recently, they seemed to have been closer …” Again a puzzled expression came over Vicky’s face. “But why all this interest in Jem and Adam?”
Cyril sat back down on the settee. “Oh, don’t worry about me. I’m just nosy that’s all.” He opened his notebook. “The morning of the accident, can you tell me what time he left?”
Vicky relaxed slightly. “It was early. I mean it was still dark, so it must have been around five.”
“Was that usual?”
“Well …” She seemed to give the question some thought. “He had been out at that time on a few occasions recently.”
Cyril looked up from his notes. “Recently? So this was a bit unusual?”
“I think he’d gone out a couple of times before like that. Said a customer wanted him to check out the plane as he wanted to use it later the same day. So he thought he’d give himself time to do a proper … check.” She paused and looked at Cyril as if realising something. “But if he’d done a proper check, he wouldn’t have crashed, would he?”
“Like I said, we believe it to have been an accident and it may have been something he wasn’t likely to spot. But if I can just focus on what you said, can you remember when he was out that early before?”
She furrowed her brow then replied, “Maybe about four or five weeks ago and then about a week later.”
“So three times in the last month or so?”
“Yes.”
Cyril made some notes in his book. “And you say Jem and Adam seemed closer recently?”
“I suppose they have.”
“Say … in the past month or so?”
Vicky frowned as her suspicions appeared to surface once more. “Are you linking that to the early morning departures?”
“We just don’t know. It may not be connected, just an avenue we’re exploring before we conclude our enquiries.”
“So what’s Adam saying?” she asked.
“Well …” Cyril paused, “… not a lot actually, that’s why we wanted to chat to you.”
The conversation finished a few minutes later with nothing further of any use. The period they could keep the existence of another corpse in the plane at the time of the accident a secret must be running out but Cyril didn’t want to be the one to tell Vicky.
20
When Cyril returned to the CID room from his morning’s activities talking to Carol Fletcher and Vicky, the two DCs were at their desks. Walker was quietly studying some files. Miller, a smouldering cigarette in his ashtray was typing something on the old typewriter on his desk. Both were silent and nei
ther looked up when he entered.
“Everything okay?” he asked.
A mumble and a shrug of the shoulders were all that his question elicited. The door to Barton’s office was shut and he could see the DI sitting at his desk poring over some paperwork. Something had happened. He walked up and knocked on the door.
“Yes,” came the grumpy response.
Cyril walked in and closed the door behind him.
“Something gone down?” Cyril wondered.
“Just the bloody opposite.” Barton indicated for Cyril to take a seat. “Sweet Fanny Adams in fact.”
Cyril sat down, puzzled.
“The Robinsons’ static,” Barton began to explain. “They were expecting us, I’m sure of it. Cocky bastards.”
“I knew you were applying for a warrant but I didn’t know you were going to raid them this morning? How come I didn’t …?”
Barton held up a hand to stop him. “That was deliberate,” he said.
Now Cyril was confused. “Deliberate? You mean you kept me out of the loop on purpose?” He could feel his anger rise. The incident where he was left to make his own way back from Great Bentley, Barton’s disappearances without telling him what he was up to. And now this.
Cyril got to his feet. “So is this all window dressing then?” he went on. “Following through with a raid that you knew would give you nothing? Because you’d already tipped them off.” Somehow, he stopped himself from telling him to find some other mug to keep in the dark.
Barton also stood. “Look, I know you think I’m an arrogant obnoxious twat. God knows I’ve seen it in your face often enough, but I am not bent.” He walked round the desk. “I came into this job to put the bastards away, not line my own pockets or protect them.” He was face to face with Cyril, hands on hips. “Now, you either believe that and help me find out just who is keeping those bastards one step ahead …” He indicated with his thumb. “…or you can fuck off back to uniform.”
The silence was heavy. The two men held each other’s gaze, only about a foot apart. Barton seemed wound tight as a coiled spring. Cyril weighed him up; the lack of respect, his bluntness and poor manners, but was he ‘bent’, as he put it? No, Cyril’s instincts told him he wasn’t, he only hoped they didn’t let him down.