Chapter Six
Saturday, 10.07am
Yale was gaining in confidence. His schema was taking shape. Maybe there would be a book in this one day. He could reckon on a warm reception to his tale among his more sophisticated colleagues in Fraud once it was satisfactorily finished by, soon, oh please soon! being handed over to CID. No tale to tell of a day or two in London, but that would come in due course. They had sufficient to pin that shady group down enough, he was sure, to lead to a prosecution. He liked court cases. Financial ones were usually spun out by cohorts of lawyers. Yale was not averse to passing his time in and around well heated and usually well-provisioned places of judicial application. Better on the whole that trudging the streets or perusing corpses.
There had been a downside. He had expected to be in London for more than a day. He had reckoned on the Sunday up there as well. Possibly a day or two extra. Thus, and with sadness, he had turned off Alice for the weekend. No go. Maybe, in view of this not being the first time, no further go either. His bachelor pad might be on the hunt, once more, for a likely visitor. So, in addition to the madhouse he seemed to have been landed in, his weekend stretched away as bleak as the dog show was turning out to be. Bleak or not, he was cheered at having set up a framework. He could be proud of that. Bricks without straw came to mind. Not that the incoming CID would see it that way. He knew that, as a side product, his impressments had added extra spice to the day for Wiseton and for his new ally Ms Mulholland. What was more, despite the restriction on movement in the two rows of benches, there was no sign that the Show was being harmed. People were coming in, and dogs were being shown. True, Trott was unhappy at the strain put upon his staff, but seemed to be coping. He hadn’t appeared since parading down with the first shift, which the Inspector took to be a positive sign that affairs were under control. Doc Meredith had taken the body and the pictures away to some lab where, he had said and had to be believed, he reckoned he could get a preliminary autopsy report that very day. Such speed was in direct contrast to the police side of things. Usually it was the other way around. Over all, not a bad situation to hand over. He decided to advance that longed-for event. He told his legions of his need to consult with his superior and, leaving them to their patrol duties, made his way up to the main office where, he hoped, he could have a quiet but effective chat with his former boss. His mobile battery needed to be husbanded. As soon as he was clear of this mess he had a bit of ringing up to do. The now-free days were not to be wasted, Alice departed or not.
Manager Trott was in, and in some turmoil. Things were not as they should be. He had received the news of the departure of Mr Graveney from his world with some relief. That the punters were beginning to arrive was another worry less but, in its way, a worry more. Sooner or later, and, he felt certain, it was sure to be sooner, they would want to visit the ETT benches. Bound to. He didn’t yet know of the second embargo, that on the adjacent Bichon line. Then what? ‘Why not?’ they will ask of his press-ganged marshals, and it will come out. The news will leak, at first, and then be borne away on a tide of gathering gossip until someone phones the press; texts them. Twitters! These days! Any one can use a touchy-feely mobile and get the story out to the world in less time that it takes a good manager to manage the news. Then there would be TV. There would be TV in any case. Thank goodness that, as things stood, they were not due until later in the afternoon. Putting aside such introspection, Trott was about to turn his mind to more pressing problems, those of the everyday order to which he was accustomed to be in superman command, when in walked the policeman! Now what?
Yale was conciliatory.
“Need to ring my boss. May I?” as he nodded his head towards Trott’s complex of communications paraphernalia laid out, most impressively and, deliberately, for all to see, on his gleaming, organised, semi-curved, best wood sheen desk. “Have to conserve my mobile’s battery.”
Trott had to acknowledge the need, but the intrusion? Yale put him at his ease.
“No need to disappear. There is nothing you cannot listen to. As much in your field as mine.” Trott agreed with that by a facial expression of gracious acknowledgement. This copper seemed to sense his proper place in the hierarchy. What was more, there was no more talk about commandeering an incident room.
“Be my guest.” He waved generously at his bank of phones. “Take the green one. Press 9, and you’re onto the exchange. Then dial away. If you’re sure?” He felt he had to add that polite, but completely insincere, disclaimer. He wasn’t going to leave his fastness to the hands of this Inspector. Yale, in turn, neither had particular wish to bar the man from his own eyrie nor the wish to be tapped into by a more junior member of staff if he did so. Let him stay. In any event, he considered Trott a member of his group, his CID-lite. His men were, after all, part of the team of dog owners loyally implementing his instructions down below. The Manager’s opinion was not canvassed.
He had no difficulty getting through to Grant. It was as if the Super were sitting there, otherwise idle, awaiting his report.
“Glad you’ve rung Simon. What news?”
“I could ask you that, sir.”
“You shoot first.”
Yale paused, then launched into his mentally prepared ‘sitrep’. Wasn’t that the right military idiom?
“Things are in as much order as I can manage, sir. Reckon CID can take over now, except that there is little chance of anything from a crime scene search. It was like Piccadilly Circus for too long after the time Doc Meredith reckons our man died.”
“So I gather. Go on. Fill me in. What have you organised, and what’s happening exactly? Any sort of bracket of suspects?”
Yale reeled off his, to his mind, rather fine arrangements. As he described his plan it became, in his mind, an ever better one. An organised response to the situation he had been placed in. He told of Trott’s co-operation in providing the marshals controlling the ETT bench lanes, and of the volunteer ladies in the adjacent Bichon one. He sensed Grant’s start when he mentioned those guardians of the Bichon line. In response to the Boss’s query on a possible field of suspects, he had to admit to trouble. Sure, he had the immediate rows now sealed off, but before that, as the exhibitors were coming in, anyone could have wandered past and done the deed. It was worse than that, as Wiseton had explained. Before the public doors were open, it was possible for a determined free-loader to sneak in through the dogs’ entrance. It practice, all coming in that way had to show their rights of entry. Only dogs properly recorded could be allowed in, with the attached humans being equally well documented. Sounded well controlled. In reality, with the flood at the start and the pushing on the way, and the crush of wheeled trolleys, dragged hounds and accompanying sherpas, someone really determined to could have come in with the initial tide. He sensed the chill at the other end of the phone. Yale searched for an upbeat message to add to his, still in his view, overall positive report. Given the circumstances. With PR in mind, he repeated his praise for the fine help afforded by the Hall’s manager. Trott pretended even more at that point that he was not listening in to every word. Yale kept the earpiece firmly clamped to his head, and that head turned away from the Manager. He could edit what he said to Grant, use an in-built code if needs be. It was not so easy to control what the Super might say to him. Like what came next from his Chief.
“All sounds sensible enough, Simon. Sensible enough. So far as it goes. Does seem a bit messy, guilty-party-wise. However, from this end, there’s some good news and, as you might guess on a day like this, bad news as well.”
“Let’s start with something good. How soon before I get away from here? There really isn’t much more I can, that I should, do here now in advance of the proper team.”
“Yes. Well. That’s not quite where I want to start. The good news is that the Doctor is up to his word. He has been able to use his study group or seminar or whatever it is he is bound up in today, to get specialist input to his search for the cause of death. Took t
he corpse to the mountain, as it were. You’re looking for a syringe. No doubt of it, he says. Whether what was in the syringe was the outright killer, or whether it accelerated some sort of seizure, only a fuller autopsy will tell. More. He’s got permission to go ahead with it, leaving his study group. It’s the only thing that’s working in my favour today. Yet, in a funny sort of way, it’s as one with everything else. Absolutely, bloody, out of the ordinary! Maybe I should get a priest round here with bell, book and candle to cauterise, or whatever it is they do, the demons that are running amuck this morning.”
Yale dared not think what the bad news was going to be. He didn’t think that the CID boys would view the syringe story as good news either once he handed over to them. Good grief! Everybody showing in the place had little cases packed with medicines, sprays, clippers, brushes, paint pots and powders and, he saw no reason why not, syringes. Or something like. A syringe in a haystack job. He was glad it was not to be his. He dared a lead.
“And the bad news?”
“Ah. Yes. Well, you may as well have it straight. It’s like this, Simon. You are not going any place for a while yet.”
As the meaning sank in, Yale choked back a despairing response and steeled himself for what was to come. He knew that Grant would have a reason. He couldn’t have guessed at what it was.
“I said something about an exorcism. I certainly bloody well need one. There are demons abroad, believe me. Demons running amok.”
Simon had no doubt by now that such was the case. What had they been up to, these devils in the diocese?
“You won’t believe this.” Yale knew he would have to. “There is, was, a CID team en route for you. Left here not long ago having been briefed. Honest to God. From F Division. Was, I said. Was. Then we had another street collision. Their car swerved to avoid a pram that was pushed out onto a Pelican as they came speeding to your aid. Buggy just pushed out. Mother, of course, still safe enough on the pavement. I don’t know what they teach people at the advanced driving school these days, but while he may have been a wow on a formal skid pan, this twerp took such a slice across the road to avoid any chance of catching the kid’s chariot with his wing, that he slammed straight into a car coming the other way. One team near written off; what last officer I had was sent pedalling westward to take over traffic control – there’s not a car left even if I’d trust a copper in one again – and then my last promotion hope goes up, or is it down, in a tangle of twisted metal. And a few broken bones. Oh, and some blood. Nobody dead. Maybe in this case, more’s the pity!”
This last ramble startled Yale. Humour was not missing in Grant. This was not humour. It was more nervous breakdown. His hard luck was that he would have to wait even longer for relief. Worse, the case would get ever colder, whatever he managed to do, while this wait went on. But career? Grant’s? He was about to chance a question when the answer, barely breathed down the line so that the Inspector was sure that Trott could not hear it, came in all its horrible simplicity.
“The car that your CID relief hit, to the hospitalisation of the three, yes three!, officers inside it, was that of the ACC. On his way here to see, as I understand it, ‘Just what the blazes is going on.’ He’s ended up with them in the General Hospital. Not in the same ward. I am off down there now. Don’t ask. Don’t think. Just act. Find that flaming killer. You’re a dog man. Get to the bottom of it. On your own. With your Dad’s Army. And your Mum’s army, come to that. Recruit your own Dad himself if you think it will help. Fly him down from God’s county by helicopter. This is no time to stint on the expense. But for the sake of Heaven, get me a killer before the day is out or I’ll be out. More than likely end up as your junior in Fraud. If I’m lucky. If I’m spared. I’ll have my mobile. You know the code number. Give me, oh, say, 45 to 50 minutes then update me. And, please Simon, make it a positive update, there’s a good fellow. I need a good fairy now as never before.” The line went dead.
This was not what Simon Yale had planned on when he had told his minions of his wish to consult with higher authority. That higher authority, about to buy flowers and grapes, sounded in no state to be of much guidance for a darn sight longer than the next forty five to fifty minutes. He tried to put a positive smile on his face as he turned to give the red-hot instrument back to its managerial owner.
“All well?” Was Trott putting in his pennyworth? Yale played it cool.
“Fine. Just fine. A slight delay in the arrival of the scene of crime team. Most unusual, but they have been temporarily diverted to other things. Not to worry. I’ll start the interviewing process. Couldn’t lend me one of your secretaries I suppose? To take notes?” He paused. He looked. He went on. “Oh well, I quite understand. If my good fortune holds, I’ll find that one of the ladies down there was a cryptic translator during the war at Bletchley Park. Even a private PA to Churchill. They seem an indestructible lot. Just hope that my luck holds.”
Once more he groaned inwardly. He should demand a stenographer. Hells bells, this was a murder enquiry! But a sort of inevitable ennui was beginning to seep into his soul. His earlier bout of confidence waned. No one was ever going to come to his aid. There were powers afoot that took away all logical action and correct procedures. Nothing would ever work properly again. So, where was the loss? Find someone with a twenty pence notebook and a biro, no doubt a leaking biro, to follow him round as he steadfastly, loyal-to-the-end-like, plodded from one exhibitor to yet the next and the next asking the same old thing and getting the already known answer. No need, at least, to ask where they were at the time of the murder. They were all there at the time of the murder. No need to ask if they had seen anything. They had all seen the same thing so far as, in the milling around and the urgent setting up of grooming platforms and arranging the final admin details, they had had eyes for anything other than their own ends. Little need to ask if they knew the deceased. Most did. All the ETT owners would, for sure. They kept meeting at dog shows and searching for their ‘tickets’ and doing each other down behind their backs if they felt there was any malpractice afoot. Which there always was. His father had taught him that, if nothing else. Either malpractice aforethought or a fiddle with a judge. Or a judge who was fiddled into the slot. Or. Or. Always another ‘Or’. Maybe he should ring up his Dad and commandeer a helicopter. It had the right smack of desperation about it to match all that he had heard in the Chief Super’s voice. What a day it was turning out to be! He had even forgotten Alice, or her possible replacement, under the sheer weight of unbelievable mayhem. ‘Get me a killer’. That was his one clear directive from above. With as cheery an adieu to Trott as he could summon, Inspector Simon Yale set forth to do just that.
Chapter Seven
Saturday 10.32am
As the Chief Superintendent made his way to the hospital and Inspector Yale his back to the trenches, Mr Alan Jenkins felt his feet getting sore. This was too early in the day, but there it was. Maybe he should lose a little weight. Get something off his feet, as it were. That was not going to happen in the here and now, although the overhead, generous fluorescent lighting was warming up. Along with the growing public body heat, the consequent rise in temperature wasn’t helping. Hadn’t the Hall authorities heard of Global Warming, Climate Change, Carbon Footprint? The sort of things only properly written about with capital letters? It seemed not. How he longed for the open air. Championship meetings such as Kelso and the one in Wales at Builth Wells. He always referred to it as Builth Wells. Locals used the unpronounceable name of the next-door village which actually housed the complex. The point was, names and locations apart, that if a Show was in the open air it was all so much more pleasant. It could rain, of course. Often did. My goodness! Builth Wells two years ago! Yet, if it did, the marquees and the market sheds were there. Also, in the rain, air moved about, through the doorways and gaps of the temporary housing. But here, as at Stafford, it was all indoors. Mr Jenkins did not like indoors. Neither did his feet. Nor did he like being kept waiting on them.
He prided himself on his efficiency. He had got through the six puppy dogs, the four junior dogs and the two novices in good time. Never hurrying. He prided himself on the care he took. Start at the back. That’s what he did. Check the point of buttock, and the testicles – in the case of the dogs, naturally. Then work along the topline, feel the ribcage, shape depth and length, and then – oh well! It was a well rehearsed routine. Nothing must be missed. Nothing left to chance. He’d never get away with it if he tried. The Bichon Frisé brigade would never let him. Eagle-eyed as they watched him, he also knew that the keenest would spend half that evening studying video recordings of their dog’s, and others’, performances. He would get away with nothing.
A Question of Pedigree Page 5