by Jill McGown
Lloyd had gone through the roof then, telling her she was even speaking like the ACC now. And she had indeed been quoting his defense of the strategy. But she still thought it was a good idea.
And Tom Finch could always be relied on to input all his data from investigations, something that had surprised Judy. The man who hated paperwork so much that he sometimes didn’t even go near his desk for three days at a time had no problem with sitting down at a computer and filling in the spaces in the questionnaire that she and Joe had devised to try and pick up on the things that didn’t find themselves in a collator’s report.
She would have thought Tom would regard it as a waste of time inputting details of people and incidents that had nothing to do with the actual crime, but apparently not, which was interesting. Last night’s shout, as he called it, had been entered already, right down to complaints about gangs of youths from the London Road estate making nuisances of themselves. Presumably he actually found it easier to work with the computer, which gave the system some chance of success if everyone thought like he did.
The part that was to make it work—the cross-referencing that ought to mean that anything chiming with another report elsewhere would be highlighted—was the program they would eventually have installed at great expense if her committee recommended it and if it was, to quote the ACC again, street-legal. She had avoided using that expression when telling Lloyd about it. But in the meantime they were trying to find out whether the system would be of use by checking each piece of information, every name, individually. It was slow, painstaking work, and entirely unexciting until she got it to seek Eric Watson. The ABH was there, of course, but there was more than just that.
Up came a copy of a letter from the Malworth Borough Council, informing the police purely as a precaution that they had had a complaint about Eric Watson taking photographs of his next door neighbor, Mrs. Bignall, as she was sunbathing in the garden. It wasn’t against the law, and it wasn’t something the council could actually do anything about, but if an officer could perhaps have a word with him, it might keep matters from escalating. The officer in question had not seen fit to input his or her findings, so Judy didn’t know who had been sent.
And Joe’s search of the newspapers found something else: he had scanned in a cutting from a local paper in a neighboring county, with the headline BARELY CREDIBLE, about a raid by Welchester County on the West End Photographic Studio in Welchester. Officers, acting on information that pornographic magazines were on sale to youngsters, descended on Eric Watson’s studio only to find that all that was on offer were photographic magazines. Looks like someone’s handwriting could do with polishing up!
Or, as Joe had pointed out in a note, that an ex-colleague of Watson’s had tipped him off about the raid.
She e-mailed Tom Finch with the information; it might not mean anything, but you never knew.
The phone was ringing when Carl let himself into the house; he had been in such a daze of confusion last night that he had taken only his immediate needs, and of course Meg was insisting that he stay over Christmas. He let the machine answer it, and heard someone say how horrified he had been to hear what happened.
He stooped to pick up the Christmas cards, then walked along the hallway, glad of the Leewards’ offer; he had no desire to stay here now. He would sell the house as soon as he could. But there were things he needed to do; bureaucracy demanded certain things of him, as did society; he had a lot of phoning, a lot of letter-writing, and a lot of form-filling to do.
He needed clothes, underclothes, his address book, insurance policies—dozens of things. At least it would give him something to do while he was under orders to stay away from work. Something that would make the well-meaning Meg leave him alone. He’d had the excuse this morning of having to pick up his car from the Riverside Center, and let the police have his fingerprints, but he had the whole holiday to survive, and there would be very few chances to get out of her clutches. He was sure that keeping busy would be approved of.
He stopped at the telephone table and played back the messages, ignoring them all but one: Janet Gibson, who, after offering her sympathy, begged him to return her call, which he did. He thought she wasn’t going to answer the phone, but just as he was about to hang up, it was answered by a breathless Janet.
“Oh, Dr. Bignall, thank you for calling back. I just got back from the police station.”
Carl sighed. Other people were being dragged into this, and it wasn’t fair. “Oh, yes,” he said. “They asked me for your address. They only want your fingerprints so they can eliminate them. I gave them mine this morning.”
There was a silence before she spoke again. “Don’t you know what the police are saying?” she asked.
“No,” said Carl warily. What the hell was Lloyd doing now? If he was accusing Janet Gibson of some sort of complicity, then he would have the man removed from the inquiry. This was intolerable. “What are they saying?”
“They’ve arrested Ryan and Dexter,” she said. “Oh, I know Ryan’s no saint, Dr. Bignall, but I swear to you, he would never have done anything like that to Mrs.—” She broke off in tears, then pulled herself together and continued. “They think I just won’t face facts, but I know him. He wouldn’t do a thing like that. And you know Dexter! He’s never been in any sort of trouble.”
Carl was still trying to take it all in. “Calm down, Janet,” he said. “Please, take a deep breath.” He waited a moment. “Now,” he said. “Have they told you why they think it was Ryan and Dexter?”
He listened as she told him what she had learned from the police interview with Dexter, his eyes growing wider as he heard what sounded like a very good case against the boys. And Dexter had apparently fallen, or been beaten up, depending on whether you believed every word he said or none of it. Apparently Denis hadn’t believed him, and he would know the difference between a fall and a beating, so that meant Dexter had been up to something.
Carl had no idea what to say to Janet. He found himself mumbling things about it being early yet, and not to worry too much, and the investigation still had a long way to go, and other equally useless platitudes. And then a thought struck him.
“Janet—did Dexter say why he was here?”
“He wouldn’t give them a proper answer. Just kept saying he was out walking. That’s what he told me and Ryan, but Ryan didn’t believe him. They asked him if he’d gone to see Mrs. Bignall, but he said no. And I thought he might have gone to see Mr. Watson, but he just keeps saying he was out for a walk.”
“Watson? Why would he be visiting him?”
“He works for him,” said Janet.
No. Surely not. Carl had dismissed it, had put it down to Estelle’s fevered imagination.
“Dr. Bignall? Are you still there?”
“Er … yes. Look, Janet, try not to worry. There’s probably a perfectly simple explanation. Fourteen-year-old boys are always up to something.”
He said his good-byes and put down the phone, feeling more confused than ever. Someone had been in here last night, and for all he knew, it was Dexter and his brother. He had never done more than nod to the fabled Ryan, but Dexter talked about him all the time; if Ryan had suggested breaking in, perhaps Dexter would have gone along with it. He was easily led. But that seemed very unlikely, and Estelle had told him something that he had dismissed as paranoia, as fantasy, and perhaps it wasn’t. He might know why Dexter was here last night, and he would have to tell the police what she told him; he had no option.
The doorbell startled him; he wasn’t here, officially, so somehow he’d assumed everyone would know that. But, of course, they didn’t. He opened the door and, with a sinking heart, saw Marianne.
“Carl, darling, I can’t tell you. This is just so dreadful.”
He nodded, and stood aside to let her in. He could hardly close the door in her face.
“Are you managing all right, darling? You don’t look very well. Do you need anything? You know, you’d be
more than welcome to come to me.”
He nodded again. “Thank you,” he said. “But I’m actually staying with Denis and Meg—my partner and his wife. I’m just back to pick up some things.”
“Oh, you poor darling. You must be distraught.”
“To tell you the truth, I just feel confused.” He might as well tell the truth. He kept thinking that eventually everything would fall into place and he would understand. Until it did, he couldn’t really think about how he should be feeling.
“Oh, I know,” she said. “I know. Have you eaten?”
“Yes,” he said quickly, before more food was forced on him. “Meg made sure of that.” They were all fussing over him as though Estelle had been some sort of solid prop rather than the exhausting, mercurial, and unpredictable woman she had been. Marianne, of all people, knew what she was like. He realized then that under all her gushing, Marianne must be feeling Estelle’s loss. “Oh, dear,” he said. “I’m being very selfish. This must have been just as much of a blow for you.”
Marianne looked dramatically torn. “Yes, and no,” she said eventually. “I read her palm once, you know, and the lifeline …” She finished the sentence with a small shrug. “I didn’t say anything to her, of course.”
“Of course,” said Carl. When did etiquette allow you to open the door and get rid of flaky condolence callers?
But she wasn’t that flaky. He could see her sharp eyes taking in the hallway and as much of the rooms off it as she could see through their open doors. “They don’t even seem to have taken very much,” she said.
“No. Just the presents under the tree and some small items from the dining room.”
“Oh, it’s just too dreadful.” She looked at him, her head tilted to one side. When he was little, he’d had a dog that did that when it wanted to go out. He hoped it meant the same thing with Marianne, but apparently it didn’t. “Would you like me to stay, darling, while you get your things together? I don’t like to think of you here all alone.”
“No, thank you, Marianne. It’s very kind of you, but I’m fine. Really.” Now, surely, he could move to the door.
“Do you think I could use your loo, darling?”
She was like the dog, after all. Carl stood aside and waved a hand at the stairs, watching her as she went up. But he knew that she had no pressing need to use his facilities; she had a pressing need to see whatever there was to see. And he had no reason to stop her, though, much like Lloyd, she seemed to think he might have. He felt a little sick, especially about Dexter. He wanted everyone to leave him alone and let him sort all of this out.
She was taking her time, he thought as the minutes passed. Having a good look around, no doubt. As soon as he heard the toilet flush, he was on alert, and was right on cue as she came back down. “Thank you so much for coming, Marianne,” he said, walking purposefully to the front door, opening it as she hit the bottom tread. “It was much appreciated.”
“Not at all,” she said. “And you know if you need anything—”
“I know,” he said, “and I’m very grateful.” And, heaving a sigh of relief, he closed the door with Marianne firmly on the other side.
He shook his head, went into the dining room, opened the boarded-up French window, and went out into the garden, bringing his notepad with him. He’d see what needed to be done out here before he put this place on the market, and the fresh air might help him think how best to approach Chief Inspector Lloyd about his thoughts on Dexter.
Eric Watson watched as Carl Bignall came out into his garden and walked around, making notes in a pad, picking his way carefully through the neat piles of bricks that he had only yesterday spent all afternoon creating.
The bricks had been delivered at lunchtime, the whine of the hoist attracting Eric’s attention as it lifted the pallet above the wall. He’d watched with amusement as the driver, with the entire garden to choose from, carefully deposited it right in the middle of Bignall’s driveway. When Bignall arrived home about an hour later, he had to leave his car on the street and manhandle the polythene-wrapped bundles into a wheelbarrow to be carted over to the existing wall. One of the piles must have been dislodged; the bricks had broken free from their polythene, and Bignall was piling them back up as Eric watched.
Eric doubted that the wall would even be built now, because he’d seen people doing this sort of thing before. Checking on what needed straightening up before they got someone like him in to photograph the place. If he didn’t miss his guess, number 4 was going on the market, and it would be quicker to get the bricks taken away than to build a wall. Or perhaps there would be a special offer—free bricks to wall up your neighbor included in the purchase price.
Dr. Bignall wasn’t exactly prostrate with grief, then. There he was, taking care of business, and rightly, too, in Eric’s opinion. He was well rid of that crazy woman. Worse than Geoffrey Jones for meddling and interfering and watching people through the curtains, and completely loony into the bargain. Bitch. All he’d done was photograph some blue tits using his bird feeder, and the next thing he knew, he had a bloody copper on the doorstep.
Oh, she’d been very polite. It wasn’t against the law, she’d said, but it was important to get along with one’s neighbors, or these things could escalate. Once he’d established what it was he was supposed to have done, he tried to explain that he hadn’t been taking photographs of Mrs. Bignall, that he had at no time pointed the camera at her, and that he had indeed barely been aware of her presence.
The policewoman had been very understanding, but suggested that he try to ignore the blue tits when Mrs. Bignall was sunbathing.
“I’ll try,” he’d said, “but let’s hope she doesn’t take to sunbathing topless on a cold day.…”
The policewoman, who had a triple sense-of-humor bypass, said it was that sort of attitude that could get him into trouble.
“And it turned up where?” asked Tom, holding the phone to his shoulder with his chin as he used both hands to leaf through the papers on his desk. He was in the incident room, where those assigned to the Bignall case were busy sifting through statements and receiving calls from the public as a result of the appeal for witnesses to the youth running away. They had put out the appeal before Dexter admitted it was him, but it might turn up something about Ryan.
“In a stolen car found in an office car park,” said Sims. “The car was reported stolen at half past eight last night, and the traffic police spotted it this morning. They told us, and when I went to check it out, I found a rechargeable razor still in its box, under the backseat. We’d been told to watch out for one being offered for sale, so I thought I’d better call it in.”
Tom looked at his list, and asked Sims for the make. “It’s the one,” he said. “At least, it fits the description exactly. What did you do with the car?”
“I arranged with Inspector Saunders to get it taken to Forensics, because it was too early for anyone to be around in CID,” said Sims. “I waited with it until Forensics came. I’ve informed the owner that it’s been found and it’s in good nick, but that he can’t have it back just yet. And I got his prints for elimination in case they found anything in the car.”
“And the car was taken from where, exactly?”
“From outside a house on London Road. On the other side of the wood from the service road behind Windermere Terrace.” Sims gave Tom the name and address of the owner, who had been visiting at the house in London Road when his car was stolen.
“Great,” said Tom, beaming. He wondered if Sims had ever thought about CID. They could do with someone like him.
“He’s a representative of a credit agency,” said Sims.
“A debt collector, in other words?”
“Yes—he was making calls on reluctant payers. He reckons he couldn’t have been in the house five minutes. Came out, and his car had gone.”
Oh, that sounded like Ryan, all right. He could steal ten cars in five minutes. “Here’s hoping they do find prints,�
� said Tom, “because I can save them an awful lot of time if they do. Thanks, mate.”
He looked at his monitor, which was telling him he had e-mail, but he wanted to talk to Forensics first. He hit the rest, and dialed out, impatiently listening to the ringing tone. “Dave? Tom Finch here. Any luck with that car you took in this morning from Malworth?” His face lit up when he heard the answer. They had indeed found something—prints on the steering wheel that didn’t match the owner’s. “Right,” Tom said. “Get them checked against Ryan Chester’s prints. Do you want to place a small wager on it?”
Dave didn’t, and Tom grinned, bringing up his e-mail with a triumphant click of the mouse. Among the boring stuff was one from Judy Hill, which was a little less boring, but it didn’t seem all that important. Gary Sims had said that the Bignalls were about to build a higher wall between their house and Watson’s, and now they knew why. Watson might be a bit of a voyeur, and possibly a porn merchant on the side, but he wasn’t in the frame for Mrs. Bignall’s manslaughter. That was down to Ryan Chester, whatever anyone said. Still, he’d better do what Judy asked, Tom decided, and at least let her have the rest of the info on that incident.
It was while he was trying to find out who had dealt with it that the call came through from Forensics.
“You were right,” said Dave. “They are Ryan Chester’s prints. No question.”
“Yes!” Tom metaphorically punched the air, having had one too many pained looks from his Chief Inspector when he did it for real. Though he’d seen Lloyd do it himself, when he thought no one was looking. Just like some other things Tom could mention. Whatever it was, it was all right for Lloyd to do it, but Lloyd gave him grief if he did it. Lloyd could be a pain in the ass sometimes.
It didn’t take Tom long to track down the WPC who’d gone to see Watson; he knew her, having worked with her when he arrived at Stansfield. She was based in Malworth these days, and he dropped in to see her on his way to interview the owner of the car that had been stolen. What, he asked, had she thought of Watson?