Trial by Fire

by David W Robinson

  ***

  The Ronaldo Lombardy Combo, a quartet composed of trombone, guitar, keyboard and drums, were a semi-permanent fixture at Churchill’s. They were working their way through Horst Jankowski’s Walk in the Black Forest as Joe and Denise took delivery of their main course.

  Joe wore his best suit, complete with crisp white shirt and black bow tie, while Denise had settled for a dark, knee-length dress which hung a little loosely on her, an acceptable cross between formal and casual evening wear.

  With typical lack of originality, Joe chose fillet steak, and Denise opted for a mixed grill. He noticed that she ate with gusto, as if this were the first meal she had enjoyed in a long time. He picked and nibbled at his meal. After prison food, it really was the first decent meal he had had in several days, and he was wary of upsetting his volatile stomach.

  Throughout the starter course, they kept the conversation neutral; the recent hot weather, Wimbledon, holidays already behind them, or up and coming. But as they completed their main meal, and worked their way slowly through a dessert of strawberry trifle, Joe gradually brought up the subject of the work she had done on his behalf.

  “There’s no big secret, Joe, and no hidden agenda.”

  “It’s to do with the fire at the original Lazy Luncheonette.”

  “Yes.” Denise sipped a mouthful of house white. “Who burned the place down?”

  “Gerard Vaughan. Not personally. He can’t have done. We know exactly where he was when it started… or at least, we think we do. Blackpool is only an hour and a half away.”

  “He was definitely in Blackpool. His hotel confirmed it, and when I checked their CCTV recordings, he never left the place. The police, naturally, had already made those checks.” She smiled. “For reference, they’d already checked you, too, and we know you were nowhere near Sanford when the place was torched.”

  “All of which means Vaughan paid someone to set it. But I don’t see—”

  “Correct,” she cut in. “That was my belief all along. Obviously I had to investigate you. There was that outside chance you were making mischief. But I never really believed it.”

  “You showed up at the café often enough.”

  Denise’s smile was coquettish this time. “We’ll talk about that later. For now, let’s accept that Vaughan paid someone to do the job. The Fire Service report said it was amateur. A couple of bricks knocked out from the party wall to the minimarket next door, petrol, cooking oil and a candle to set it off. But suppose our torch wanted us to think he was an amateur? Suppose he was a real professional who decided to make it look like an amateur job? How much would he cost Vaughan?”

  “Thousands, I suppose. But what does this have to do with Vaughan’s murder?”

  “Plenty, if you’ll give me time to get there.”

  She took another sip of her wine as Ronaldo and his combo struck up Fly Me to the Moon.

  Raising her voice a little so she could be heard over the music, she went on, “Such arrangements are a two-way street. Vaughan could never go to the police and hand over the torch because he would go to prison for instigating the crime. And the torch could never go to the cops about Vaughan for precisely the same reason.”

  “A Mexican standoff.”

  “Correct. And there’s only one way out of it.”

  The light came on in Joe’s brain. “One kills the other.”

  “Correct again, give that man prize.”

  Denise laughed, and spent a few moments watching one or two couples who had taken to the dance floor.

  “Tempting,” she said, “and I bet you’re mean mover.”

  “I can go some, if you want.”

  “I’ll pass if you don’t mind, Joe. I haven’t had enough to drink yet.”

  Joe laughed. “You need to be drunk to dance?”

  “Not drunk. Just light-headed enough to lose a few inhibitions. Don’t you?”

  He shook his head. “Nope. My old ma taught me how to dance when I was a kid. Waltz, foxtrot, quickstep, even the cha-cha-cha and jive.” He laughed again. “Can’t say I remember them all, but I do remember how boring life was back then with the old man and our Arthur working the café, and me and Ma upstairs with nothing better to do.”

  Denise shook her head in admiration. “You’re full of surprises, Joe. I’ll bet she didn’t teach you an Argentinean tango.”

  “Too naughty. So go on. Your theory on the killing. Did it just come to you right out of nowhere?”

  She toyed with her glass as she answered. “No. It came from Ray Dockerty, although he doesn’t know it because he’s not interested in the original fire.”

  Joe’s eyebrows rose. “I’m all ears.”

  Denise was quiet for a moment, as if she was formulating her words. “I think the man who murdered Vaughan is the same one who torched your old place. And he did it because he wanted out from the hold Vaughan had over him.”

  Joe whistled inaudibly over the noise of Ronaldo and his pals running into Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue.

  “You don’t believe me?” Denise asked.

  “It’s a possibility, but there are others. Tell me where it came from.”

  “The hard drive was missing from Vaughan’s laptop. After I showed Ray that it couldn’t have been you getting out of that car on Monday night, he went through the whole case with me, and the moment he mentioned the missing hard drive, I understood. Where would a man like Vaughan keep evidence against an arsonist he had employed? On his laptop. Probably locked up with a really strong password. Difficult to break into, but if Vaughan is already dead, it’s simpler to spend a bit of time removing the hard drive.”

  “It would have been even simpler to take the laptop away with him.”

  “Not if he wanted to pin it on you, Joe,” Denise argued.

  “Good point,” he agreed.

  “You said there are alternative theories?”

  “One or two, but I think we’ve talked enough shop for tonight, don’t you?” He checked his watch. “It’s getting on for nine, what say I settle the bill and we move to the Miner’s Arms?”

  “You’ll have to show your face, I suppose.” Denise made it sound as if it was the last thing she wanted him to do.

  “The party is in my honour.” He stood up, collected her cardigan, and helped her into it. “What the hell do you want with a woolly on a night like tonight?”

  “Purely for show.”

  After a brief delay while Joe settled the bill, they stepped out into the hot night and Denise promptly removed her cardigan. Because his car was still with the police, he had arrived by taxi. Now they climbed into her car for the short journey to the pub.

  Slotting the key into the ignition, she started the engine, and faced Joe. “If I have even one more drink, I won’t be able to drive home.”

  “I’m sure we’ll find somewhere for you to sleep.”

  “At your place?”

  Joe blushed. “Well er, sure. Why not? It’s small, but cosy you know. And I can always doss on the settee for the night.”

  Denise smiled tipsily, and tossed her cardigan over her shoulder onto the back seat. “Oh no. I may need something to keep me warm in the night.”

  And Joe blushed again.

  Chapter Twelve

  The sun blazed onto the front approach to Queen’s Court when Joe sat in the widow of his third floor flat the following morning. He was not entirely at peace with the world, but he was a good deal more cheerful than he had been for the last few days.

  And a part of that increased optimism stepped into the living room wearing one of his shirts to protect her modesty.

  “Can’t remember when I’ve had such a good time,” Denise said, joining him at the table.

  “Just goes to show you. Keep your Leeds. You wanna good night out, dine at Churchill’s then come and join the fun at the Miner’s Arms with the Sanford 3rd Age Club.”

  “I think it could be a good night in with Joe Murray, too.”

  Her words re
called the passion of the previous night. Joe deliberately suppressed it.

  “So,” Denise went on, “it looks like we have a lot of work in front of us if we’re gonna clear your name.”

  “We?” Joe raised his eyebrows inviting elucidation.

  “You don’t think I’m going to cut and run now, do you? I have a lot of money invested in the fire at your old place.”

  Joe sipped his tea. “You still think the two events, the fire and Vaughan’s murder, are linked?”

  “You don’t?”

  Joe shook his head and put down his beaker. “Only in passing. They may be linked, I don’t know, but it doesn’t necessarily follow.”

  Now Denise raised her eyebrows, and Joe clasped his beaker in both hands.

  “You investigated Vaughan as well as me. You must know what kind of man he was.”

  “Very smooth,” Denise replied. “Suave, sophisticated, upright pillar of the community, and an honest businessman to look at his public profile.”

  “And given to dirty tricks to get what he wants.”

  “Okay. I’ll go with that. You said you had alternatives.”

  “I did. Let’s imagine for one minute that his death has nothing to do with the old Lazy Luncheonette. He had plenty of projects all over Yorkshire, so let’s imagine it was to do with something else. That street he lived on, for example. Eastward. The old Sanford Main Pit was located in the south of the town, but for the sake of argument, let’s say one of the galleries ran in the general direction of Eastward. Now, I don’t care how good your foundations are, there will be some subsidence. The pit bottom was between five and six hundred yards below ground, but even so, there will still be some slip in it. To take this argument further, let’s imagine one of the other residents on Eastward complained to Vaughan about cracks in the walls, sink holes in the gardens, and so on. And let’s further imagine that Vaughan gave them the bum’s rush.” Joe put on a false, classless accent. “‘Yes, yes, Mr X, I’ll get it seen to’.” He reverted to his normal, Yorkshire, tones. “Eventually, Mr X gets fed up and decides he’s gonna bump off Vaughan. The fire at the old Lazy Luncheonette was big news in this town. I still have the cuttings somewhere. My arguments with Vaughan and the way Ballantynes’ took him over were just as big. I made sure of that. So Mr X decides he’s gonna make me the patsy. He murders Vaughan and torches the house in the same way as The Lazy Luncheonette, and points the finger at me.”

  “Interesting idea,” Denise agreed after giving it some thought. “But which development, and who?”

  Joe left the table, crossed to a display unit, and took out an envelope folder. Bringing it back, he removed several documents, one of which was a technical drawing detailing the galleries of the old Sanford Main Colliery, and beneath it was a town plan.

  Placing the technical plan on the map, he pressed hard down on it so the map could be seen through the thin upper sheet.

  “I wasn’t entirely idle in the nick, and Harvey Thornton let me photocopy the plan of the mine workings. I’m lining this up as well as I can,” he said, “but look where the Aire Gallery runs.”

  The gallery was one of four marked on the plan, and it ran slightly northeast, and beneath it, they could just make out the sweeping drive of Eastward.

  “Clever,” Denise agreed. “Now all we need is the who… and, obviously we need the answers to some pretty searching questions. Like, how did he get hold the knife and pen? How did he get hold of your car keys? How did he get hold of the two keys for the outside glory hole? Is he six feet four?”

  “It doesn’t matter who we look at, or how we think he did it, all those questions need answering. And the car key is easy to answer. We lost one a few weeks ago. At least we thought we did. Only it wasn’t lost. It was nicked.”

  “Who could have taken it?”

  “Fire, police, workmen, even Vaughan. I don’t know.”

  “Which means you can’t answer the questions you’ve just posed.”

  “Neither can Dockerty, which is why I’m still top of his hit parade. Come on, Denise, if you’re helping here, you’re help… Hang on a minute. How much is this going to cost me?”

  She smiled. “Nothing. I told you, I’m hoping it’ll lead me to the torch who burned down The Lazy Luncheonette.”

  “And if it doesn’t?”

  “Then you can owe me, and I’ll take payment in kind.”

  Joe sniggered. “If you’re sure. Now, let’s think about the pen and the knife. How did they get from the ruin of the old café to Vaughan’s house. Plenty of options. Vaughan himself could have taken them as a souvenir, and his killer found them and used them. There are others who could have taken them, too. The demolition crew, the firemen, cops, council-employed health and safety wallahs who were round the place that morning. Mr X could have bought them off someone when he planned to incriminate me.”

  “And your car?” Denise demanded. “What we saw on the CCTV could well have been a ringer, Joe. A stolen car with your plate put on,” she went on obviously uncertain whether Joe understood the term ‘ringer’. “But the fact remains he did get into your car to leave the mark of the drum and the trace of oil in the boot. He would need a key for that.”

  “Would he?” Joe asked. “What I know about breaking into cars is zip. But I do know that my car has only an immobiliser fitted. No alarm. You need a chipped key to start the engine, but do you need it to open the boot?”

  “He would still need a key that fitted. When I inquired, only one key cutter owned up to cutting and chipping a key for a Ford Ka. And he remembered the customer… you.”

  “So, it could have been a ringer, as you put it, and he could have had a key which fitted my boot. See, Denise, as far as I’m concerned, my car never left the car park here on Monday night. I parked it at the end of the building on Monday and it was still there Tuesday. It never moved. I know these are tough questions, but we have to ask them.”

  “It’s Sunday. We won’t get much done today, but tell me where you want to start.”

  “On Eastward.”

  “Why there?”

  “Because it seems to me a huge coincidence that this witness, this Rodney Spencer sort, spotted a car like mine on Monday night. What was he doing out there before the fire started?”

  Denise chuckled. “A disgruntled house buyer?”

  “Right.”

  She laughed again. “Okay. If I can take a shower, let’s get out there.”

  “There is one problem. I have no car. The cops still have it.”

  “No problem. We can use mine. I’ll bill the insurance company for the mileage.”

  He tutted. “If I tried to fiddle my insurance company like that, I’d have you all over me.”

  Denise paused in the doorway and looked over her shoulder. “After last night, Joe, you can have me all over you anytime you want.”

  ***

  Rodney Spencer was as angry to be disturbed by Joe and Denise as he had been when the police dragged him out of bed on Tuesday morning, and Joe took an instant dislike to him.

  In his mid-fifties, if Joe was any judge, he was short and rotund, his distended midriff aggravated by a light grey T-shirt with narrow, red, horizontal stripes, and a bagging pair of jogging pants. Beneath his thinning head of curly, grey hair, a pair of dark framed glasses were perched indignantly upon his bulbous nose.

  When they explained why they were calling, he did not invite them into his spacious bungalow, but harangued them on the doorstep.

  “I told the police all I know, now go away.”

  “You told them you’d seen my car at Vaughan’s house,” Joe retaliated.

  “No. I told them I had seen a Ford Ka. If they choose to imagine it’s yours, that’s their affair and you should discuss it with them. Now—”

  “So what were you doing wandering the streets at eleven o’clock Monday night?” Joe interrupted.

  “I think that’s my business,” Spencer snapped.

  “Not if it turns out yo
u torched Vaughan’s place and tried to blame it on me.”

  Spencer’s outrage increased. “I happen to be the investment manager for the Leeds branch of a national bank. I don’t murder people.”

  “No, you just rob them blind with management charges.”

  “How dare you?”

  Having stood by watching with amusement, Denise now stepped into the argument in an effort to quell it. “Would that be the Westmoreland and North Riding Bank, Mr Spencer?”

  “Yes. What of it?”

  “They’re partnered with North Shires Insurance.” Denise aimed a thumb at Joe. “He’s insured with that company, and I do a lot of work for them.”

  “Do you indeed?”

  She sighed. “Mr Spencer, you’ll forgive me, but if you deal with your customer queries like this, you’d be hauled over the coals. Now, I’m investigating both the fire at Mr Murray’s old premises, and the fire at Mr Vaughan’s. Mr Murray has been cleared of any involvement… almost, and we’re keen to help the police in any way we can. I’m sure Mr Murray didn’t mean to accuse you of the crime, but it would help if you could tell us how you came to see this Ford turn up at Vaughan’s place?”

  “I was walking my dog, if you must know. He’s getting on in years, and I always walk him late at night to ensure there are no, er, accidents, if you take my meaning. Now if that’s all…”

  Spencer left the idea hanging, hinting that they should go away.

  “Not quite,” Denise said. “May I ask, did you or any of your neighbours have, er, problems with Vaughan? You know, house subsiding or anything like that?”

  “I can’t speak for my neighbours, but for myself, from a business point of view, I never found Gerard Vaughan anything but professional. We knew before we bought the house that it was built over old mine workings, and such minor problems as we did have with subsidence, were put right quickly and with the minimum of fuss. He was, as I say, thoroughly professional.”

  “He was a crook who burned my café down,” Joe argued.

  Spencer looked over his glasses and down his nose. “That is matter for the police, I should imagine.”