Unti Peter Robinson #22

by Peter Robinson

  A tox screen on what was left of Caleb Ross would soon determine whether he had enjoyed a jar or two with his giant Yorkshire. “It sounds as if there’s a great deal of laxity with the ‘official’ requirements around here,” Winsome said.

  Vaughn seemed unconcerned by the criticism. “It’s not much different from any other business in that respect, I should imagine. We accept that biosecurity is essential. We also have some very strict controls on the incinerator. But if you obeyed all the rules handed down by the EU, Trading Standards and Health and Safety to the letter you’d hardly be able to breathe, let alone run a profitable business.”

  “So it could have happened that way? Someone could have added the body parts to his load while he was having his lunch?”

  “It’s possible. If they could gain access to the van. But if his paperwork was in order, it could also easily have happened anywhere on the route. Even if we were obeying all the rules.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that Caleb wouldn’t open any of the bags to check their contents, and they’d go straight into the incinerator here when he got back. Nobody would want to open . . . well, you can imagine. The idea is to dispose of fallen stock as quickly as is reasonably possible and, as I said, we don’t do any testing here. If the farmer wrote down ‘two dead lambs,’ then Caleb would assume that was what was in the bags and the commercial document would bear this out. He’s not going to open them and make sure that’s what’s in there.”

  “Assuming they were already bagged.”

  “Yes, of course. That is usually the case.”

  “And that’s also assuming that one of the farmers Caleb visited must have known what was in the packages and passed them off as fallen stock?” Gerry added.

  “Yes. Highly unlikely, wouldn’t you think? They’re all regular customers. All aboveboard.”

  Winsome didn’t necessarily agree, but she nodded as she watched Gerry scribbling away. In fact, it seemed to her that the whole business was lax, and that it would have been unbelievably easy for someone to have slipped Morgan Spencer’s body parts in with the load. “Someone could have made an exchange at one of the farms, if the fallen stock had already been bagged and listed. Swapped a ­couple of bags and labels. Then no one would have been the wiser, would they?”

  “I suppose not,” said Vaughn. “I really don’t know. It’s not something I’ve thought much about. It’s not something that happens every day.”

  “How do you know?” Gerry asked.

  Vaughn looked at her, openmouthed. “Well . . . I . . . I mean . . .”

  “If you incinerate the bags without checking what’s in them when they’ve been listed on the paperwork, it could have happened any number of times.”

  “Yes, strictly speaking. But you’re splitting hairs.”

  Winsome thought so, too. They were hardly trying to make out that Vaughn was running a murder victim disposal ser­vice. One body was enough. She gave Gerry a curious glance and picked up the threads again. “I suppose it would make more sense if someone sneaked the body parts into Caleb’s load while he wasn’t looking. Most of the drivers are worried about theft, but we have the opposite here.”

  “You have a list of all the farms Caleb visited on his rounds before the accident. That’s about all I can help you with. It’s possible that someone invited him in for a cup of tea, and he left his load unguarded for a short while. None of us is perfect. If you can find out where he had lunch—­if he did—­you might get lucky there.”

  Winsome smiled. Nice of the public to tell them how to do their jobs, she thought, but she thanked him anyway. “If the other possibilities sound remote, is it likely that Caleb Ross loaded the body parts himself?”

  “Caleb? You’re suggesting that Caleb had something to do with this?”

  “Well, he was driving a van containing several plastic bags of human remains.”

  “But like you said before, someone must have added those while he was away from the van, or at one of the farms. It’s ridiculous to think Caleb—­”

  “Is it?” Winsome asked. “Is it, really? Mr. Vaughn, we think this murder is linked with a spate of rural crime in the area, involving not only livestock but expensive farm equipment. The latest victim was John Beddoes, who had a valuable tractor stolen over the weekend.”

  “Yes, I heard about that.”

  “Do you know Mr. Beddoes? Was he a client?”

  “Not often. He keeps some pigs and poultry, doesn’t he? I think we’ve been out there a ­couple of times over the past few years.”

  “Caleb?”

  “I wouldn’t know offhand. We have several vans and drivers. I can check if you really want to know.”

  “If you would, please.”

  Vaughn walked over to the large filing cabinet, opened the top drawer and flipped through the folders. “I’m afraid you’re out of luck,” he said after running his finger down the column for a few moments. “Mr. Beddoes’s last pickup was November, last year, and Todd Griffin and Pat Bingley did the job.”

  “Was Caleb Ross working on Monday?”

  “Yes. It was a normal workday for us all.”

  “Sunday?”

  “Not this week. We do operate a skeleton staff on Sundays—­you have to in this business—­but Caleb had enough seniority that he rarely worked on weekends. What’s all this about?”

  “We think that whoever stole Mr. Beddoes’s tractor must be informed as to which farms are especially vulnerable, where the rich pickings are, and when they’re likely to be minimally managed, as John Beddoes’s farm was last week. Now, don’t you agree that Caleb Ross would have been in a perfect position to know what was going on with all the local farms? After all, you’ve told us everyone knew him.”

  “Well, yes, I suppose so. But you didn’t know Caleb. He was completely reliable. Surely there must be plenty of others in such a position?”

  “Perhaps. But was he really so trustworthy? You’ve already admitted to us that he may have falsified official papers. Perhaps he did the same thing for someone else, no questions asked. Maybe he was doing a favor for someone and he didn’t even know he was transporting human body parts? They say every man has his price. And the information he could give about local farms might also have been worth a fair bit. That’s why I asked about financial problems earlier.”

  “But Caleb didn’t lack for anything. He never needed much.”

  “Everything has got much more expensive over the past few years.” Winsome glanced at the electric fire. “Just keeping warm, for example. Or the cost of cigarettes. Someone might have come up with an offer that made sense to him.”

  Vaughn shook his head. “No. I can’t see it. Not Caleb.”

  “Did he have muttonchops?” Gerry cut in.

  Vaughn turned to her as if she were mad. “Muttonchops?”

  “Yes. Sideboards. You know.” She touched her cheeks beside her ears.

  “Ah, I see what you mean. What an odd question. No. No, Caleb didn’t have muttonchops.”

  “Very well, Mr. Vaughn,” said Winsome. “We’ll take your character reference into consideration. Perhaps you might also care to give us the names and addresses of one or two of Mr. Ross’s coworkers? Todd Griffin and Pat Bingley for starters.”

  “They’ll only tell you the same I have.”

  “All the more reason for us to talk to them, then,” said Winsome. “The quicker we’ll be able to cross him off our list. By the way, do you know what a penetrating captive bolt pistol is?”

  “A bolt pistol? Yes, of course. It’s what the slaughterman uses in an abattoir to stun the animals.”

  “Do you own one?”

  “Certainly not. Why would I need one? The animals are already dead when they come to us.”

  “Just wondering. Do you know of anyone who has one?”

 
“I can’t say as I do.”

  “Caleb Ross, for example?”

  “I very much doubt it. Why would Caleb have one? Where could he get hold of one? I take it you can’t just buy them in the shops.”

  Winsome gave Gerry the signal and they stood up to leave. “Just one more thing, sir,” said Winsome, pausing at the door.

  “Yes?”

  “As I said, the human remains had been cut into manageable pieces. It looked like a professional job, according to our pathologist. Would you have any idea how or where that might have been carried out?”

  Vaughn rubbed his forehead. “Me? No.”

  “Don’t know any dodgy butchers? Or slaughtermen?”

  Vaughn was looking decidedly pale now. “No,” he said. “Sorry. That’s not a part of our business ser­vice.” And it seemed to Winsome as if he couldn’t wait to shut the door behind them.

  VENTURE PROPERTY Developments was housed on the sixth floor of a redbrick office complex just south of Granary Wharf, overlooking the tangle of arterial roads south of Leeds city center. The mirrored lift was clean, fast and practically silent. Banks watched Annie “powder her nose” as they went up and was amazed at how quickly she applied a fresh coat of lipstick and brushed her hair into its natural chestnut glory. It had been windy outside, and even the short walk from their parked car to the office had been enough to reduce it to a messy tangle. Banks, of course, had no such problems. The wind hardly made a dent in his closely cropped dark hair. He did notice in the large mirror, though, that the touch of gray seemed to be spreading from his temples.

  “You OK?” he asked Annie. She had been fidgety in the car and had phoned Doug Wilson on his mobile twice to check that Alex Preston was safe. She had told Banks on the way about her visit the previous evening, and about Alex’s phone call from Michael Lane.

  “I’m fine,” she said, with a forced smile. “Ready to rock and roll.”

  The lift doors opened at the reception area of Venture Properties, where an immaculately groomed receptionist, whose name tag read bRENDA, sat behind a semicircular desk under the red company logo on the wall. The area smelled faintly of nail varnish remover.

  Brenda smiled her patent smile of greeting, tinged with a hint of suspicion she no doubt reserved for newcomers, and said, “Good morning. Can I help you?”

  Banks showed his warrant card. “We’re here to see Mr. Norrington.”

  Brenda seemed unimpressed by the official identification. “Do you have an appointment?”

  “Yes,” said Banks.

  “Please take a seat.” She gestured toward a modular orange couch arranged around a glass table, on which was spread a selection of magazines: the Economist, House & Home, along with the Financial Times and a selection of the morning’s papers, all looking untouched.

  Brenda busied herself on the telephone, her voice reduced to a distant whisper. When she hung up, she said, “Mr. Norrington will see you in a few minutes. Can I get you something to drink? Coffee, tea, water?”

  “Coffee, please. Black, two sugars,” said Annie.

  Banks asked for water.

  Brenda disappeared and came back seconds later with a cup and saucer and a plastic bottle of fizzy water. Before Annie had managed to finish her coffee, Brenda’s phone buzzed and she asked them to follow her.

  Norrington’s office was at the end of the corridor. It was larger than the entire Eastvale squad room, and the far wall was one giant picture window. The sky was gray, so the venetian blinds were up. Unfortunately, the window didn’t look out over the city center, but toward the south, a flat and dreary wasteland of other office buildings, arterial roads, factory yards and retail warehouse outlets. Banks could even see the sprawling shopping park at Crown Point. Beyond that, lanes of traffic sped on the M621 as it coiled through the run-­down urban areas of Hunslet and Beeston. Perhaps the view was an inspiration to property developers, Banks thought, a spur to bigger and better things. To most, though, he imagined it would be depressing.

  Norrington himself had the look of a man who was comfortable with his environment. As he stood up and came forward to greet them, Banks noticed he had hung his suit jacket on the back of his chair, had his shirtsleeves rolled halfway up his arms and his tie loose at the collar, the way Banks liked to wear his when he had to wear one. His thinning gray hair was swept back and his nose slightly bulbous. His manner was open and polite. He even gave a little bow when Banks introduced Annie, and for a moment Banks thought he was going to kiss her hand. Instead, he offered more refreshments, which both Banks and Annie declined, then bade them sit. Their chairs were wide and comfortable, and faced the large window. At that angle, they could see only the sky, not the wastelands of south Leeds.

  “One of our colleagues rang you yesterday, I believe?” Banks said.

  “She talked to Geoffrey Melrose, not to me,” said Norrington. “He’s my partner, to all intents and purposes. I’m afraid he’s had to go to London on business today, but I can help you with anything you need.”

  “I hope so. My colleague said she got rather short shrift.”

  “Geoff’s a busy man. He told me it was something to do with the Drewick development.”

  “That’s right. The old airfield with the hangar. How long have you owned the property?”

  “About four years now. It was run-­down for years, going cheap, so we bought it for the land. Ever since then we’ve been trying to get zoning laws and investors in line for a new shopping development. It’s a long haul, I can tell you.”

  “Do such things usually take so long?”

  “It depends. You certainly need patience in this business, though.”

  “While you’re negotiating all this, who takes care of the property?”

  “Again, it depends on the property.”

  “In this case.”

  Norrington leaned back in his chair and started stretching a rubber band. “In this case, nobody, really. There seemed little point in employing a night watchman or a security company, as there was nothing there to watch. The chain link and gates were already in place. We put up all the required signs and padlocks. I suppose some schoolkids might have managed to sneak in through a hole in the fence, but even a night watchman probably couldn’t have prevented that. Kids get everywhere.”

  “Too true,” Banks agreed. “And anyone can take a pair of bolt cutters and replace your chain and padlock with their own. Did you ever consider whether the premises were being used for criminal activity?”

  “Why would I? We have many properties awaiting development, and it’s never been an issue before.” Norrington put his rubber band down and wagged his finger. “Now, I do hope you aren’t trying to lay the blame for anything like that at our feet? Is this a matter of liability?”

  “Well, as a legal issue, I suppose it might interest the lawyers and cost everyone else a fortune. But nobody’s blaming anyone. That’s not why we’re here.”

  “I’m very glad to hear it.”

  “So what’s the answer?”

  “Of course we didn’t know anything about criminal activities. I’m shocked to hear that you think we did.”

  “Not only that, Mr. Norrington,” said Annie, “but the area is now also a crime scene, a possible murder scene, in fact. What do you think of that?”

  “I don’t know what to think. I find it very hard to believe, as a matter of fact. Besides, you can’t blame any of this on us.”

  Banks stood up and walked over to the window. Norrington swiveled his chair so he could keep his eyes on him.

  “Believe me, it’s true,” Annie went on. Norrington didn’t seem to know who to look at. He finally decided on Annie.

  “But what can I possibly do to help you?” he asked. “I’ve already told you, we’ve been involved in negotiations to develop that property for years now. It’s not as if we stand guard over it or
anything. Sometimes these things move very slowly.”

  “What’s the matter? Not managed to grease the right palms yet?” said Banks, reclaiming his chair again. “Not found the right city councillors to enlist in the cause?”

  Norrington reddened. “I resent that.”

  “Of course you do. But it happens in your business, doesn’t it?”

  “As a matter of fact,” Norrington went on, “that’s not the problem at all. Not that we’d resort to such a thing.”

  “’Course not. What is the problem, then?”

  “Not that it’s any of your business, but it’s investors. Lack thereof. To put it crudely, we’re still a bit short of the readies to make a start, even with the requisite planning permission, which we are on the verge of acquiring.”

  “I’m surprised you can’t get anyone to invest in the building of a major shopping center where there isn’t any competition for miles around.”

  “It surprises me, too, but that’s the way it happens sometimes. Man plans. God laughs.”

  “I’ve had that feeling myself, often,” said Banks. “Wouldn’t it help if you rented the place out for some private venture in the meantime? Perhaps that would bring in the cash you need? Help you keep your heads above water until it’s time to proceed?”

  “Too much hassle,” said Norrington. “Then we would have to hire security and worry about it all the time. We’ll get the money. And by legitimate means.” Norrington glanced from Banks to Annie and back. “What exactly is it that you want from me, Mr. Banks? I do have things to do, you know. Important things.”

  “I’m sure you do. And we’ll try not to keep you much longer. For a start, I’d like to know if you have any idea who has been using the old airfield and hangar as a transfer point on a trafficking route.”