Cardinal Obsession

by Roy Lewis

  Dead as a doornail. ‘So?’

  ‘The dead man has been identified, sir. His name is Joseph Frederick Rigby.’

  Detective Chief Inspector Cardinal could not suppress a groan. Their link to Gus Clifford was gone.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Grout guessed that there would be a certain amount of pressure on the parking space at Chesters so he left his car at The George Hotel car park and walked the short distance past the stone bridge towards the ancient Roman camp. The narrow road that swung up the hill to his right was part of the old Roman military way that sliced through the hard quartz dolerite hills towards Carlisle. He thought he would like to tramp that road at some time … but when would there be time? Chesters Fort lay beyond the narrow belt of trees ahead of him.

  The parking area beyond the first gate was guarded by two uniformed policemen and the entrance was taped off. Some disconsolate gentlemen of the Press were standing by, clearly niggled by the fact they were denied entrance, and by the paucity of information that had so far been provided to them. Grout made his way past them, only one of them half-heartedly raising a hand and asking a question but Grout ignored him, presented his identity card to the officers, and was allowed to step inside the perimeter sealed off with tape.

  He made his way towards the cluster of officers huddled near the entrance to Chesters Museum and introduced himself. The man in charge, a burly, chubby-featured police inspector looked him up and down. ‘Grout. You’ll be working with Cardinal, down at York HQ, you say.’ The man’s eyes had narrowed suspiciously, squinting against the brightness of the sun. ‘So what’s your interest in this business? This is all a bit away from your normal stamping ground.’

  ‘The dead man is called Rigby.’

  ‘We know that.’

  ‘We were going to pull him in today.’

  The police inspector raised interested eyebrows. ‘Why?’

  ‘We were hoping to get some information from him. An on-going investigation,’ Grout replied reluctantly.

  ‘You don’t say. Well, you’re a bit late, Sergeant. He won’t be telling you much now.’ The inspector writhed back his lips in a grimace. ‘Not with the back of his head bashed in.’

  Grout recognized the truculence in the man’s tone; he was aware of it and to some extent had expected it. In the past he had felt the same way himself, in Leeds, before he had joined DCI Cardinal at York. It was always a matter of manors, of responsibilities, of stamping grounds, of turf wars. He waited, until the uniformed officer spoke again.

  ‘I’m Inspector Waters. We’ll be running the investigation into this killing. You may have been trying to haul this guy in, but he’s gasped his last on our patch. So the rest now is up to us. Just what exactly do you hope to achieve around here?’

  Grout shrugged. His tone was neutral, careful. ‘DCI Cardinal would like to know the circumstances surrounding the man’s death. As I said, Rigby was due to be pulled in for questioning with regard to a national inquiry that’s been under way. It may be there’s something significant our own investigations will turn up. Apart from what you find, I mean. We’d appreciate your co-operation.’

  ‘And you’ll get it,’ Inspector Waters murmured with an underlying lack of conviction in his tone. He paused, reflecting. ‘Rigby… He’s known to us, of course. Petty villainy, bit of a record, and he’ll be no loss to the community. Our guess is he’s been clobbered in some gang quarrel or other… . We better get something straight, though, Grout. You got no real standing here, right?’

  ‘I’m aware of that, Inspector.’

  Waters was little mollified by the quick assurance offered. ‘This will be a locally controlled investigation … until I hear otherwise from the Chief Constable at Ponteland. I’m not interested in what the York office have got on Rigby unless it can bring a quick end to our own enquiries.

  ‘Your investigations are national, you say? Well, I’ve heard nothing about that and I’ve got a dead man on my hands. So this is my responsibility. Now, I’ve no objection to your keeping a watching brief on all this, provided you don’t get in my way, but I want you to be clear about this: I won’t accept interference. This is our operation. Beyond that,’ he waved his hand in a magnanimous gesture, ‘help yourself. Don’t get too close to the crime scene, of course, forensics haven’t finished yet. In short, don’t get in the bloody way. Otherwise …’

  He was about to turn away when Grout asked, ‘Where was the body found?’

  ‘Down there, near the bath house. Here …’ He called to a young constable standing nearby. ‘Stocks, this is DS Grout. Up from the delights of the fleshpots of York. Stocks will show you the location, answer any questions you got, and keep you out of mischief. That all right, Stocks? OK. But before you leave the site, DS Grout, perhaps you’ll have another word with me. So you can sort of fill me in about what exactly may be DCI Cardinal’s interest in our corpse. In a spirit of mutual co-operation, if you know what I mean. That sort of thing. I’ll probably be inside the museum.’

  Inspector Waters turned away. Constable Stocks nodded affably to Grout and led the way towards the low walls of the bath house, Roman ruins that had been excavated many years ago. They tramped across the sward, avoiding the dusty churned ruts that had baked hard in the sun and wind, skirted the remains of what had been the Roman commandant’s house and crossed the trimmed grass where a screen had been erected. It covered the lower part of the Roman structure that had served as a bath house and latrines. Under cover Grout saw three white-coated technicians at work, with a sports-jacketed civilian overseeing the operation. Grout guessed he’d be the forensic scientist brought in from the forensic laboratory at Gosforth.

  ‘I think they’ll be carting the body off pretty soon,’ Stocks murmured. ‘Looks like they’ve all but finished. Senior pathologist, he’s been and gone already. They’re just tidying up now, I think.’ There was a certain casual self-importance in the constable’s tone, an attempt to leave the impression that this was all in a day’s work for him. Grout doubted that. It was likely this was Stocks’s first murder case. But the constable would never admit that to an outsider.

  The plastic shell was waiting for its burden. Grout stepped into the tent. The body had now been moved from the spot where it had been discovered but that didn’t concern him much. The photographers would have done their job and no doubt he’d be given access to their work in due course. But he was curious to get a glimpse of the man called Rigby. He stepped forward to the plastic shell where the body was being lowered inside its cover.

  ‘Can I take a look at him?’ Grout asked.

  One of the technicians glanced at Constable Stocks, who nodded. The technician unzipped the corpse. Grout leaned forward, the features were fixed and waxen now but he guessed the dead man would have been in his mid-thirties when his life was brought to an abrupt and violent end. About five feet nine, he calculated, hair thinning in the front, cheekbones that now seemed to jut through skin that had become almost transparent in death.

  ‘Back of his head was crushed in,’ Constable Stocks said conversationally. ‘Wouldn’t be surprised that he had it coming to him. Like Inspector Waters said, he’s known to us. I believe he’s got a record, but nothing of recent years. Started as a kid, I believe, twocking cars down in the west end of Newcastle. From that he moved on to a bit of drug dealing in South Shields too, I believe. Stuff coming in from the boats docking at Jarrow. We keep an eye on the Slake, along with the Durham Police, sort of joint operation, but those operations have died down a bit recently as far as I can gather. So we haven’t seen too much of friend Rigby recently. Been quiet, like. Moved into other stuff I don’t doubt.’ Stocks scratched at his ear, reflectively. ‘There’s been talk he might have had a hand in other scummy stuff. Like the East European girl trade and that sort of thing. That’s the chat. Romanian whores. A few Poles. I always think they’re handsome women, those Romanian and Poles. Anyway—’

  ‘Was there anything of significance found on t
he body?’ Grout interrupted.

  Constable Stocks shrugged. ‘Dunno about that, I’ve just been on duty up here an hour or so, but Inspector Waters will be able to fill you in on all that sort of thing. But the chatter is that from what we can make out it looks as though he wasn’t actually killed here. He got his head bashed in somewhere up near the museum. He was dragged down here afterwards. To hide the body I suppose, chance to gain a few hours, I expect.’

  ‘So who found him?’

  Constable Stocks screwed up his eyes, wrinkled his nose. ‘Ah, it was some guy called Gilbert, I believe. Photographer, apparently. He’d been staying at the hotel down by the bridge, The George at Chollerford. His story is he was out for a stroll in the early morning. Our lads have been questioning him down at The George this morning. He may well have been taken into Newcastle by now.’

  Grout nodded thoughtfully. ‘Have forensics come up with a likely time of death?’

  ‘Like always,’ the young constable announced importantly, as though he were an expert in such matters, ‘they wouldn’t say straight off but the lads tell me they did give a rough sort of estimate. They think he was hammered some time about midnight or maybe early hours of this morning.’

  ‘And he was killed up there, near the museum,’ Grout murmured, looking back to the entrance where he had briefly met Inspector Waters.

  ‘Yeah, that’s right. And there’s another thing. You won’t know, of course, but the museum got broken into last night. Could have been Rigby, I suppose, but on the other hand it could have been the man who clobbered him. Thieves falling out, that sort of thing.’

  An unlikely scenario, Grout felt. ‘So was anything taken from the museum?’ he asked.

  ‘Don’t know about that. Can’t say. They’re still checking that out as far as I know. You talk to Inspector Waters, he’ll be the one who can fill you in.’ The constable had reddened somewhat; perhaps he suddenly felt he had been talking too much to an officer he did not know, and one from outside the force.

  ‘Yeah. Maybe I’d better do that. Thanks anyway.’

  Grout took another walk around the bath house as a matter of interest, historical rather than police procedural, for he knew full well it was highly unlikely he would find anything the locals or the forensic team would have missed. Then he made his way back across the field towards the museum.

  The uniformed policeman at the entrance looked bored, standing to one side of the door in the shade. He told Grout that the inspector was to be found in the storeroom so Grout entered the building and wandered through the rooms, glancing at some of the exhibits, seeing nothing exceptionally interesting. He knew there was a more extensive museum now located at Housesteads, complete with facsimile copies of the letters written by the wife of the Roman commandant two thousand years ago, inviting friends to dinner, listing items to be bought for meals, trivia that were fascinating to the modern mind, showing that nothing really had changed in society over the centuries. He moved towards the steps leading down to the storeroom.

  Inspector Waters was standing at the foot of the steps, just inside the doorway, talking to a man Grout assumed was the curator. He glanced up, saw Grout, then ignored his presence. There was dust in the air; the smell of inadequate ventilation touched Grout’s nostrils.

  Grout stood in the doorway, looking over the inspector’s shoulder. Upstairs the exhibits had been carefully arranged, ticketed, described, but down here the items stored had been placed on shelves without description. He noted a few pieces of statuary in poor condition and it was clear that English Heritage had clearly placed upstairs most figurines they regarded of interest to the general public, or had moved them to the more tourist-orientated museum at Housesteads, some miles away, where excavations were still continuing and the replica milecastle had been built.

  Grout was aware that over the centuries, much of the stone of Hadrian’s Wall had suffered from the depredations of farmers and sheepherders who had used Roman-cut stone to build their walls and shelters over the years.

  Inspector Waters turned to glance at Grout. ‘You had a good look around then?’

  ‘Yes, thank you,’ Grout replied quietly. ‘Constable Stocks was most helpful. But I understand there was a break in here as well … as well as the killing up above.’

  The curator muttered indignantly. He was an elderly, balding, small man with a narrow, wind-lined face and tired eyes. Grout guessed he would have been working here for many years, and would not be far off retirement; this was probably the first time events of such a catastrophic nature would have occurred on his watch. He was clearly as upset by the desecration of his kingdom as by the fact of a death at the site.

  ‘Disgraceful,’ he muttered. ‘Quite disgraceful.’

  ‘Has anything of value been taken?’ Grout asked as Inspector Waters, cold-eyed, stood aside.

  ‘Everything here is of value,’ the curator snapped in irritation.

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘Can’t understand,’ the uniformed inspector intervened, ‘can’t understand why anyone would want to break in here. Value, you say?’ he challenged the curator. ‘In my view there’s nothing of real value except maybe to students of history and tourists. Bits of old stone from the Wall. The odd carving with Roman numerals and names. Anyway, as far as we can see nothing’s been taken from down here. Is that not right?’ he challenged the curator again.

  ‘Nothing taken? That’s not the point!’ the curator observed angrily, rubbing his hand over his bald head in frustration at the policeman’s attitude. ‘The fact there’s been a break in at the museum, that’s enough! As for anything being taken, you’re a bit premature, Inspector Waters. I haven’t really had time to make an absolutely detailed check.’

  ‘You told me—’

  ‘I said it doesn’t look as though any of the exhibits up above have been touched,’ the curator muttered defensively.

  ‘What about down here?’ Grout asked, after a short silence.

  The little man shook his head, rubbed a doubtful finger against his nose and looked back behind him. He heaved a disconsolate sigh. ‘There’s been some disturbance here, but nothing seems to be missing. You must realize all items of real significance, material the public would be interested in seeing, or for research, are kept up above. Down here in the storeroom we have items that are still open to study, or which can be used by students from university archaeological departments as examples … like that Mithraic stone over there. I remember the day when they found the Mithraic temple on the Wall. Before that everyone thought he was just a minor deity of Persian origin, but once the temple was unearthed it soon became clear that Mithras was a powerful god, the favourite deity of the Roman army, a god who—’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Waters intervened brusquely. It was clear to Grout that the inspector had already been subjected to a barrage of unwanted historical information by the little curator. ‘That’ll do for now, at any rate. The thing is, to assist in our investigation you’ll need to carry out a thorough check both upstairs and down here. That way we can be certain that nothing really has been taken. The sooner you can let us have a definitive statement, the better. It may well be the break in is linked to the murder, but on the other hand it might have been someone other than the killer, or even Rigby himself, who was messing about here. In which case, who knows? Maybe we have a witness to what went on up above.’ Softening somewhat at the pained expression on the curator’s lined features, he patted the little man on the shoulder. ‘Anything you can come up with, let us know. It could be important.’

  The curator nodded unhappily, then led the way back up the stairs after closing the storeroom door. It was left unlocked, Grout noted. At the top of the stairs, Inspector Waters watched the curator amble off with slumped, disappointed shoulders to his office, presumably to retrieve the books in which records of the holdings would be kept. He sighed, gazed around him. The tiny dust motes drifted about them, dancing and flickering in the sunlight that came in through the high w
indow.

  Waters shook his head. ‘Beats me why anyone would want to break in here and lump out any of this lot. Could have been kids, of course, just out to vandalize the place. Maybe they were disturbed by what went on with Rigby, and scarpered back to wherever they came from. Chances of finding them are remote, is my guess. Young layabouts from Chester-le-Street, or the west end of Newcastle. …’

  ‘It would surely be a long way for them to come, to break in here,’ Grout pondered. ‘And I can’t imagine what they might have been hoping to find. What could they possibly be after?’

  ‘Entrance money? I got no idea. Who knows what goes through the heads of kids these days?’

  Grout looked about him uncertainly. ‘You’ve thought of the possibility that it was Rigby himself who broke in?’

  Inspector Waters stared at Grout for a few moments, then shrugged doubtfully. ‘Maybe. But I can’t see it would be his style. The forensic boys may come up with something to support that idea. I mean, what the hell would a villain like Rigby expect to find in this Godforsaken place?’

  Carefully, Grout suggested, ‘My information is that he’s been involved recently in some dicey dealings involving works of art.’

  Waters stared at him. ‘I see. That’s why Cardinal is interested in Rigby, hey? Art thefts. But there’s no bloody Picassos or da Vincis here, believe me. Nothing I can see here which would be tempting to an art thief. It’s just lumps of stone and bits of tiles. Still … you had a brief look around the site. While you were wandering around with Stocks, did your own perfectly trained investigative eye,’ he added sarcastically, ‘pick up anything us local yokels might have missed?’

  Grout shook his head. ‘I just wanted to check out the location. I’m sure your team will have done all that’s necessary.’

  ‘Pleased to have your approbation,’ Waters grunted unenthusiastically. ‘Anyway, I’m through here for the time being. I’m off back down to The George Hotel. We’ve been taking statements from some of the staff down there, to find out what they were all up to around the time we think Rigby was killed. I’d better see how things are going.’