by Jo Bannister
They stared at one another for long seconds and neither of them blinked. Travis edged, metaphorically, between them. ‘Gentlemen, we have to reach a decision. Do we pay the ransom or not?’
‘Pay,’ said the Mayor. ‘Or somebody’s going to die.’
‘Consult the insurers,’ said the chairman of the Chamber of Trade. ‘If they’re agreeable, we pay. It’ll cost less in the long run.’
Kenneth Simpson didn’t move in high-powered company. But fate had singled him out as more than a bit-player in this, entitling him to as much of a say as anyone. He took a moment to organize his thoughts.
‘I don’t just sell combs, condoms and cold remedies. I’m a pharmacist. I trained for a lot of years so that when someone’s GP decides they need thyroxine they won’t find themselves taking amioderone by mistake. People put their lives in my hands every day. I’m not boasting, I’m just trying to explain that taking responsibility for people’s safety is fundamental to what I do. My shop is the repository of powerful drugs, all of them dangerous if used incorrectly, some of them lethal. I can’t afford to make mistakes. I could kill someone.’
He took a breath and looked round but nobody was drumming his fingers. Most of them knew Simpson, but for the first time they saw him as more than just a fat man in a white coat with a nice line in toiletries. He was a highly qualified professional doing his best to find a way through the ethical maze.
‘I hate this,’ he said vehemently. ‘I hate thinking that the next product I sell could put someone in hospital. I’ve been over my stock with a magnifying glass – that isn’t a figure of speech, I actually did it – but I can’t guarantee I didn’t miss something. I could close the shop, but if he can’t use mine he’ll use another one where maybe they haven’t been as thorough.
‘So I’m going to stay open because I think it’s the best I can do for my customers. For the same reason I’m not willing to pay a ransom. If we hold out this madman may hurt, may even kill, more people before Mr Shapiro finds him. But that’ll be the end of it. If we pay we open the floodgates. Every greedy immoral thug in East Anglia will beat a path to our door because if we paid out once we’ll do it again. I think we owe the people of this town better than that. I think we have to take risks now so as to protect them from worse in the future.’
In the silence that followed Dick Travis nodded gently, approvingly. ‘We still seem to be in two minds. But if the police, the biggest retail outlet in town and the most directly affected small business are all opposed to buying this man off, I’m not sure those in favour can proceed. Finally it comes down to this: if the cash isn’t there the ransom can’t be paid.’
Tyler had expected to have to hold this line alone. By planting his standard beside that of Sav-U-Mor, Kenneth Simpson had given him the strength to compromise. ‘What we need is time. Suppose we agree to hold out for a further, limited period to give Detective Superintendent Shapiro time to do his job?’
‘And meanwhile anyone who buys anything in this town risks an encounter with acid, cholera or worse?’ growled the chairman of the Chamber of Trade. ‘I don’t see why my members should be put in that position.’
‘It isn’t just the traders,’ Travis pointed out, ‘it’s the whole town. You think an adulterated potion is a disaster? What if he manages to infect the swimming pool? Or a bus, or the water supply at the hospital? We could have dozens of casualties. This is not purely a financial matter.’
‘All right,’ said Tyler with mounting impatience, ‘you want a solution? You want to keep people safe until the police find this man? Shut the town down. I mean it. Shut every business, every public facility, every school, every food outlet, every means of transport. If people have nowhere to go they’ll stay home and they’ll be safe.’
The others stared at him as if he’d proposed nuking the town. Then the heads started shaking. ‘We couldn’t’ ‘We haven’t the authority.’ ‘Imagine the cost!’
‘Maybe you don’t have the authority,’ said Tyler. ‘And maybe you don’t need it. If the shopkeepers choose not to open, the shops will be closed. If the council keeps its facilities closed, no one can use them. If everybody co-operates you won’t need powers you may or may not have.’
The two policemen traded a bemused look. Neither had expected this. They thought about it now. It was radical but it would probably work; as long as the blackmailer was in custody at the end of it. If he wasn’t there’d be hell to pay. Shapiro suspected that the first sign of it would be a gold watch inscribed with his name.
Tyler looked round them expectantly. ‘It isn’t complicated, you don’t need an expert evaluation. Round this table are the civic leaders of Castlemere: you have the right, and the duty, to make a decision. So make it. If it seems like a good idea, go for it.’
Still they hesitated.
Shapiro cleared his throat. ‘You appreciate, the police don’t actually have a say in this. We’re a long way short of a state of emergency. But that isn’t what Mr Tyler’s proposing. He’s suggesting a sort of Wakes Week – a town holiday. There will be firms that can’t comply, where shutting down and starting up continual processes would just be too difficult. All the same, if those shops and businesses and public facilities that can take three days off were to do so, it could save lives. It would certainly show that we’re taking the threat seriously and that might help keep the lid on the pressure cooker. If it can be done I think it would be a good idea.’
After a brief pause Dick Travis nodded. After a longer one, Donald Chivers did too.
‘All right,’ said Tyler, satisfied. ‘I’ll tell Seattle what we’re doing. I suggest we meet here again on Wednesday morning and review the position. If the police still haven’t caught this maniac and the body count’s rising, I’ll ask my head office to reconsider their opposition to a pay-off.’
He looked round them again, a man of action trying hard to play the diplomat. ‘OK?’
There was muttering, some grunting, but in the end every one of them, willingly or unwillingly, consented to Tyler’s proposal.
‘Wednesday, then,’ grunted Chivers. ‘Assuming we’re all still standing by then.’
As Shapiro showed them out, Tyler hung back. ‘You’re wrong. I don’t think this is a hick town. I think it’s probably a decent place to live. I hope you can keep it that way.’
‘You’ve made your contribution,’ said Shapiro. ‘At least we’re not going to be known as the place where you get kicked to death for having both a drug habit and a sweet tooth.’
‘Frightened people do stupid things,’ said Tyler. ‘That won’t be the last unless we find this man and stop him.’
8
It was like Twelfth Night, watching the decorations come off the Christmas tree. As the word spread, first one shop closed, drawing down the blinds and turning off the lights, then another. Owens Electricals in Bridgewater Street was about the first: all the televisions in the window went suddenly blank. Then Mr Reubenstein put up the steel lattice in front of Rubens the Jewellers in Castle Place. The leisure centre off Cambridge Road took longer to clear, but first admissions were stopped and then a succession of disgruntled swimmers, still damp and trailing towels, began to emerge. The bowlers were evicted from the municipal green at Belvedere Park, some of the old guard complaining that the place hadn’t closed even during the Blitz and trying to drum up support for retaking it by force.
On the whole, though, the reasons for the decision had been understood by the people inconvenienced by it, and on the whole they thought it was a good idea. The car-parks that would be gridlocked on a normal Saturday steadily emptied from about eleven o’clock onwards. By noon the town looked as if it had been hit by a neutron bomb, the sort that wipes out populations but leaves buildings intact.
At Queen’s Street Superintendent Giles was addressing the briefing room. ‘The town may look quiet now but we’ll have trouble enough before today is out. All those people who should be safely occupied shopping, taking the kids swimming
or propping up the bar at The Fen Tiger’ – he raised an interrogatory eye-brow: Sergeant Bolsover astonished him by nodding that yes, even The Fen Tiger had closed – ‘will have time on their hands and a good proportion of them will get up to mischief.
‘Wherever possible, I want to catch the trouble while it’s still brewing. I want every available body on patrol, every car out, and if we still have bicycles we’ll use those too. I want us to be seen; and I want us to know who else is out and about. We can’t afford another incident like the one under the castle. If the alternative is a few wrongful arrests, so be it – there’ll be time to process the paperwork after this is over. Until then we must maintain order. Responsible citizens will recognize that: they’ll all be home by now. Anyone still on the street is probably up to mischief. This is as good a time as any to try our hand at Zero Tolerance Policing.’
Upstairs, Shapiro was searching through the reports and witness statements for The Clue – the important one, the one he’d missed, the one that would topple the dominoes and let him use the time bought at such expense to good effect. Tyler’s moratorium was brave and imaginative and would keep a lot of people safe. But it could only be a short-term measure. He had until Wednesday to repay the trust placed in him.
He found himself looking again at the letter: the second one, the tetchy one, the one that read like an overdue gas bill and was posted in Cambridge. Why?
Well, because he couldn’t do what he did before, which was slip it under the wiper of a temporarily unoccupied police car. It worked beautifully once, but now they’d be watching for him. The post was good, it was anonymous and innocuous, but of course it was slower. If he mailed it at a main post office at six o’clock last night it would probably be delivered this morning, but he couldn’t absolutely count on it, first-class stamp notwithstanding. It could have been another day on the way; it could conceivably have been longer.
So time wasn’t the primary consideration. Of course he wanted his money, of course he wanted to be finished with this, but another day here or there wasn’t vital to him. Which seemed to fit in with the long gap since the last booby trap was laid. Probably the last thing he did was the school showers on Monday afternoon. No, he really wasn’t in much of a rush, was he?
Or was there some reason he couldn’t do more than send threatening letters since then? Because – because – he was busy at work? It wasn’t impossible. A man this clever could have an important job, a job he couldn’t take time off from without being missed. It was important he stick to his usual routine.
Perhaps he had work in Cambridge. Or maybe not Cambridge itself but somewhere beyond, that made it easy to post his letter on the way through. If Shapiro got close enough to him to ask his employer whether he was in Cambridge on Friday the answer would be no: if he’d been working in Cambridge he’d have posted the letter in St Neots or Saffron Walden. But not in Castlemere. People here were too twitchy: the postman who emptied the pillar box would spot that distinctive writing and it would be possible to put the blackmailer on a certain street corner in a certain portion of a single day. And he wouldn’t want that.
Shapiro sat back in his chair and looked at the dogeared map on his wall. Newmarket, Norwich, Great Yarmouth, King’s Lynn, Peterborough – or any of several hundred small towns and villages stretching across East Anglia to the North Sea coast. Without knowing what he did for a living it was impossible to say where he might do it. Shapiro needed more. He needed The Clue.
But if it was there he couldn’t spot it. So – back to square one. Re-interview the witnesses. It was a tedious business, but it was always worth doing when all the trails had gone cold. Someone might remember something they hadn’t mentioned before; or an inconsistency in someone’s story might highlight a new suspect.
Perhaps; and perhaps it wouldn’t. But the case wasn’t going to solve itself and he couldn’t think of anything more likely to kick-start the process again. Unfortunately, to redo all the interviews he needed a full team.
Liz’s mobile was engaged. A moment later his own phone rang, and when he answered it was her. She passed on the news about Donovan’s dog.
One of Frank Shapiro’s strengths was an uncanny ability to say the right thing. ‘He’ll be sorry when he hears about that.’
Liz smiled. ‘Yes, he will.’
‘Any luck yet?’
‘No. We doorstepped the whole of the north bank, we’re about halfway along the south bank now. Nobody saw anything, heard anything, knows, thinks or suspects anything. I suppose we could still get lucky …’
Shapiro sighed. ‘I’m sorry, Liz, I need you back here. Both of you. We have to redo the interviews.’
She’d counted on having the rest of today and tomorrow. But he wouldn’t have pulled the plug if there’d been any choice. ‘We’re on our way in.’
Kenneth Simpson, Miranda Hopkins, Sheila Crosbie, Tony Woodall, Miss Simmons the sports mistress, Mr Duffy the caretaker, Brian Graham. ‘I’ll take Brian,’ Liz volunteered. ‘I’ll interview him over lunch. It’s the only way I’m going to see him this weekend.’
They divided the rest between them. Shapiro took Woodall, Simpson and Miranda Hopkins; Liz took Sheila Crosbie and the people from school. She held on to Dick Morgan; Shapiro was going to take Mary Wilson, at the last minute changed his mind and called Scobie. If the lad was finally beginning to show promise as a detective Shapiro wanted to give him every encouragement.
As they headed out to the cars SOCO missed them by a whisker. Another officer might have given chase but not Sergeant Tripp. In his experience there wasn’t much that couldn’t wait an hour, including the mildly surprising results of a forensic test.
‘You think it’s me. I know you think it’s me.’ Tony Woodall looked at Shapiro as though he might have brought a rope with him. ‘You’re wrong. I can see why you’d think it, but you’re wrong.’
‘Mr Woodall, I’m not here to charge you. I’m not ready to charge anyone.’ Shapiro kept his words ambivalent, his tone non-committal. If the man had something to hide there was enough there for him to worry about; if he hadn’t there wasn’t enough for him to complain. ‘But you’re right, your youthful indiscretion is a bit of a problem in the present circumstances.’
‘I can’t turn the clock back!’ said Woodall in despair. ‘I wish I could.’
‘I’m sure you do,’ nodded Shapiro. ‘But the best you can do now is help us get at the truth.’
‘I’m helping, I’m helping,’ whined Woodall. ‘At least, I’m trying to.’
‘Your son,’ said Shapiro. ‘James? How long has he been playing rugby?’
Woodall blew out his cheeks, surprised. ‘He’s fourteen now. Three years, I suppose.’
‘And how long has he been playing for the school?’
‘Since they went back after the summer holiday.’
Shapiro was nodding again, thoughtfully. ‘So I dare say Monday was the first chance you’d had to go and see him play?’
Something seemed to warn Woodall the question was loaded. He picked it up carefully, checked the breach and the chamber, and put it down where he thought it couldn’t do any harm. ‘Actually, no.’
An elevated eyebrow marked Shapiro’s surprise. ‘Really?’
The under-manager of Sav-U-Mor thought he was digging himself out of a hole. There was a note of faintly tremulous satisfaction in his voice. ‘They played their first home match three weeks ago. I was there for that one too.’
Sheila Crosbie had a flat at the top of Arrow House, sandwiched between the Brick Lane timber yard and a monumental mason’s. The lift worked on alternate Thursdays. Four flights of stairs left Liz breathing hard and all she was carrying was her handbag. She imagined doing it with a pram and bags of shopping. Whatever the government’s view, being a single parent was not the easy option.
For a moment, when no one answered the bell, she thought it was all for nothing and they’d have to come back later. Then she heard footsteps, the thump of wheels and a
breathless monotone swearing on the stairs: Sheila and the baby on their way home. Still red-faced and sweating himself, Morgan trudged back down the last flight to help her with the pram.
Sheila remembered Liz, assumed there’d been developments. Fiddling with the front-door key she demanded, ‘Have you got him? Did you get the bastard?’
Liz shook her head. ‘Not yet.’
‘Then—?’ The door opened and Sheila pushed the pram inside. After a second she stood aside to admit the police officers.
‘We’re trying to make sure we haven’t missed anything. We’re talking again to everyone involved. I wondered if anything else had come back to you. If you saw anything odd in the chemist’s. Someone acting suspiciously – watching you, leaving in a hurry, watching from a car or across the road? Anything out of the ordinary.’
‘If I’d seen anything suspicious,’ the girl growled, lifting the baby from his pram, ‘I’d have said so before now.’
‘Probably,’ agreed Liz. ‘But people do forget things. They’re concentrating on what’s just happened, they report what seems important; later they remember some detail that turns out to be what we were waiting for. Can we go through it again? Make sure there’s nothing you’ve missed, or that we have?’
The girl gave a grudging shrug. ‘All right. But you’ll have to wait while I change Jason.’
‘No problem.’ Liz followed her into the tiny second bedroom, watched her busy expertly with wipes and powder and nappies and doll-sized clothes with improbable openings. Liz had never changed a baby in her life. She told herself she was an intelligent woman, she could drive a car and operate a computer, she could even programme the video: she could master the controls on a baby if the need arose. But the careless efficiency of this young girl left her wide-eyed with admiration.