A Question of Pedigree

by Frank Edwards

  “What now?”

  “How are we going to tell them all? All the entrants? Many of them won’t know anything’s amiss. Those in the far benches.” Grant went to object, but Simon pressed on. “How can they? Sure, someone has rung the TV people. If we could find out who, then we could eliminate that one from our list of suspects. Can’t see a killer calling in the press.” He didn’t mention his hopes of the confessional camera. “But the rest? Those outside these benches? Most of them won’t have heard anything about the murder, any more than the paying public have.”

  “Good point. Thanks to your actions, Simon. You’ve done a good job.”

  “I like to think so, but it’s all a bit shoe-stringish. My point is, if we insist that all competitors have to stay until five, then we’ll have to explain why. On what authority. For what purpose. Apart from framing it all in a style acceptable to the ACC”, Grant blanched at the thought of that august, bed-bound figure, “how can we promulgate it? Get round all those other lines of dogs whose owners have spent all day in their own little ring-bound world and can’t wait to get away?”

  “I see that. Can hardly use your Baker Street irregulars for that one. What’s more, we must also get across that no one is to leave before booking out at the show office and leaving contact details. That’ll go down a bundle, too! Must be done, though. Have to rely on Trott, I suppose. Must be a photocopier or printer of some sort under his command. I’ll knock up a hand-out, and then get his door guards to distribute the copies as they make their way to the barricades.”

  Simon felt this was somewhat desperate, if positive, thinking. Time alone made such a move difficult to implement. Grant sensed his junior’s hesitation.

  “What else do you suggest? Can hardly use the public address system, now, can we? Look, we’ve got, what, about,” glancing this time at his electronic timepiece, “a little under an hour before the shutters come down. Half past three must be our target time if all are to stay. I can see no other answer.” Yale had to accept that. His reservations still bubbling in his mind, he agreed that the Super should add the publication of a news sheet to his shopping list with Trott. He was glad it was not to be his task.

  Grant stiffened his backbone and pulled in his chin.

  “I’ll be off, then. I remember the way! While I’m there, pump your 887 a bit harder about how it comes, after all his years in this business, whether he reads Dogs Talk or not, he has not learned, as everyone else seems to have done despite the so called security, that his mate Graveney was the mystery voice of acid comment.”

  Grant strode off office-wards leaving a somewhat worried Yale behind. Had he trusted Wiseton too much? Had he said something to the ex-Corporal which may have been unguarded? Oh, for goodness sake CID, get a move on! Please! Two minds were in accord on that.

  From her tactical position, and having got all she wanted from Miss Greatrex, Althea Gibbons saw the Super’s departure and the consequent isolation of the Inspector. She was ready to pounce. She had sensed, through her ever-tuned radar, that the two policemen were about to split. She wanted to get at Yale on his own. Leaving her crew, long experienced in such things, to close down, fold up, and follow, she whizzed down the aisle, surging through the fans of the celebrity-by-proxy dogs to stop him before she lost sight of him. Her voice, if not loud, was clear.

  “Inspector! Inspector Yale! If you please. I have something that may interest you.” She had found this approach rarely failed to grab the attention. It didn’t. How could it? Also, Yale was a susceptible human, Sky sports watcher or not. Allegiances are no more than transient attractions in the world of mass media. He paused, pleased to have the task of interviewing Wiseton delayed. He was in no hurry to discover what misjudgements he may have made in dealings with him.

  “Ms Gibbons! News of interest? For me? Has someone confessed to you under the glare of your bright lights?” He clung to his hope that the killer would chat to a camera if not to him.

  “Of interest? Sure enough. A confession? No, not quite that good. Can we find a spot to speak? I don’t want to be overheard.”

  “You make your news sound exciting.”

  She gave him one of her winning smiles, eyes a-shine in support of her enfolding strategy.

  “All part of the job. Mustn’t raise false hopes, I know. Needed to catch your attention, though. I think what I’ve got to say’s worth it. Maybe a few comments from you in return? You have been at it from the beginning, haven’t you? This murder, I mean.”

  “Murder?” Yale had to play his script. Also play for a little time to think.

  “Come now! A murder. Surely that cannot be denied. Your Chief Super seems to think there’s been one.” Yale conceded the obvious.

  “Yes. True. As the Chief Super has probably also told you, we are at the early stage. There will be a press conference tomorrow.”

  “For everyone. Fair play! I was here first. On the scene. With a deadline to meet. Film to edit. Just a few words, surely? You’ll come across well on the screen.” He couldn’t deny a tiny thrill of anticipation at the idea. The policeman in him dismissed it.

  “Not my place to make statements. Yes, I’ve been here from the start. Only as a stand-in though. The Chief Super’s in overall charge, and the investigating CID Inspector will be here any moment. It will be that officer you’ll want to talk to.”

  Not in the least abashed, Althea pressed on.

  “I see all that. Sure. But now is now and you are in the hot seat. Can’t you give me a few sentences to camera? Needn’t be anything new. Just enough to give that calm, authoritative summary my viewers look for. Might even be the beginnings of a new career for you. Fan club and all that. You never know.”

  How can a journalist seduce a policeman in full view of his employing public? Simon Yale began to see how. They moved towards the competitors’ entrance, quiet now, and long abandoned by the checkers-in and the programme sellers. In contrast to all that was going on so noisily and actively throughout the Hall, this spot was calm, left behind litter strewn by the passing humanity. Where the public no more went, nor at that time the resources of Trott, dedicated to the on-going priority of keeping the toilets clean. The Manager knew well the PR value of this task. His teams knew him, and that he would prowl around on supervisory strolls, not above such invasive oversight where it mattered to the image.

  “What’s this gripping information? If you expect me to say anything”, that cheered Althea Gibbons, “you must go first. Fair play, as you just said.”

  “Right then. Now, it may mean nothing, but I’ve got some of it on film so it can be checked. I don’t think Mrs Goldey had much love for the murdered man.”

  Yale’s heart sank. First he may have misplaced his trust in Wiseton, now this! Good Lord! How had Anna Goldey recorded his interviews? He hadn’t read those notes with any care before signing them off. He had concentrated on the questioning, leaving the rest to her. She had seemed particularly competent. Now what? Might she have doctored the records? Left the odd item out? Amended something? Or, such maybe traceable actions apart, had she learned something to her advantage, allowing her to cover her tracks? ‘Cover her tracks! Steady on, Yale. What are you fantasising about?’ He tuned back into the face of local TV.

  “She had good reason for disliking him. A lot, if I’ve got it right.” Althea, carefully conflated the two interviews she had. The one with Mrs Goldey, not only filmed but witnessed by Trott if gold-plated confirmation were required. The Manager had managed to edge himself into the picture behind Anna’s shoulder. The other, with Miss Greatrex, she did not declare. She explained how Mrs Goldey’s great initiative had been ‘savaged’, her word, by the dead man in an article in Dogs Talk.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Saturday, 2.47pm

  The mobile rang at a welcome moment. Grant had found his negotiations with Manager Trott far from easy. Not easy at all. He feared he had become too desk-bound, used to paper solutions to delicate problems, keeping matters at a co
mfortable in-tray distance. Not that he had forgotten all the lessons learned in dealing with people. His apprenticeship had been long and varied. It was that he no longer had the patience to pally along with heel-dragging bureaucrats. As Trott, he concluded, was. Grant wanted an embargo on competitors leaving until given police clearance, and certainly not at four o’clock. He requested help in the little matter of running of, and distributing, how many? – fifty? a hundred? Trott would know – explanatory leafets. Trott saw the proposals as an unwelcome and unofficial drain on his loo-cleaning resources and an unestimated cost to his office budget. His man-management skills would be tested. His office girls would be starting to put on their leaving make-up any moment now. Extra typing and printing were not in their schedules. They liked keeping to schedules, in common with their lord and master.

  Declaiming the background of a myriad of other tasks, which had grown with the crowds and would surge further when they departed, Mr Trott found many words to embellish his reasons for seeing the requests – he would never bow to demands – as too demanding on the time of his floor staff, and too imposing of office staff good will.

  “You must see how awkward and, if I may dare say so, Superintendent, unauthorised these requests of yours are. I have a Hall to run. A Hall to empty. A Hall to clean. A Hall to get ready for the next event. We’ve got a Catholic charity coming. They don’t like the lingering scent of dogs to disturb their incense.”

  Grant took this last to be an attempt to ease what had threatened to become an impasse. Though not best pleased at the notion of his requirements being unauthorised, he took, as he hoped it was, the olive branch offered by Trott.

  “We’ve no more wish to impose on you and your staff than risk the wrath of the Pope. I do need help to do my job. This is, we cannot forget, a murder enquiry. Kept low key so far, as much by good luck as management. Not that it’s any fault of ours.” He meant Yale and himself. His views on the performance of the wider Force would await later debriefings. “Whether any of us likes it or not, this is a crime scene. CID, when they arrive,” echoing Yale’s prayer, “any moment now, may consider sealing the whole Hall of for two or three days.” This was not good news to Trott; it was a good ploy by Grant, who went on:

  “If, however, I can clear things up as far as I can and am able to hand over to the investigating team a finished piece of work then, for the sake of a little inconvenience now, it could well be that they will agree that we have done sufficient here, and carry on their work of-site.”

  Grant was chancing his arm. Yet it was true that the investigating team would take up where he and Simon left of. So long as key witnesses were available for interview, there wasn’t much else they could do in the Hall itself. Thus he reasoned. The site was so contaminated as to be most unlikely to provide forensic evidence. He was an experienced officer, desk bound or not.

  “It’s only the competitors; we wouldn’t try to entomb the paying public. No problem, for you, in closing their car park I take it? A private company?” Trott nodded. “Fine. I’ll make sure the attendants are briefed.” A quick dash down there for someone. “Te leaflet makes clear, and I shall insist, all dog owners must obey. If any try to creep out, that will be my concern not yours. No one, but no one, will be allowed out before five o’clock. At the earliest.”

  “Earliest!” Trott picked up on the pertinent word. “Should I be able to supply you with door guardians, Superintendent, until five, that will be all. Once the public starts to leave, it’s all hands to the pumps. Literally so in some of the loos, I fear. You would be surprised how some people behave in them. Why…” Grant broke in.

  “I do see that. To be faced when we get there. I cannot speak for the incoming CID team. It will be their case. What I can say is that should we need to extend the curfew beyond that time, I am sure that there will be reinforcement officers sufficient to take over the doors as well as inform the people concerned. I assume that the people who run the car park can carry on refusing exit for as long as it takes? The entrants must hand in special parking tickets before they can leave, is that right?”

  “Correct. The charge is part of their entrance fee.”

  “So then, any extension to five o’clock will be easy to enforce. I don’t imagine any walked here. Quite enough trolley pushing and shoving for them as it is. Can I, then, take it that from three forty five the gate will be closed to all Show personnel? Tree thirty if possible, though, your staff will need that extra quarter of an hour to hand the leaflets out. Yes? Good,” he answered his own question in an up-beat way, “I must let you get on with that vital task.”

  Trott grumpily acquiesced, or so Grant took it, for it was at that moment his mobile rang. A welcome sound, neatly ending this wearisome diplomacy. Oh for the days of giving crisp orders! He looked at the screen. He had directed Lawrence, in the office, to give his number to no new enquirers. This was an old acquaintance. He was pleased to see, though apprehensive at what he may hear, that the call was from Doc Meredith. At last, some movement!

  Excusing himself with many an elaborately emphasised thanks for the wonderful and wholehearted co-operation he was about to receive, cooperation that would, he was sure, contribute positively to a swift and final outcome of this sad affair, Grant pressed the green button, gave a short ‘Hang on, Doc. I’ll be free in a moment. Don’t, there’s a good chap, go away whatever you do’, and left the Manager to get on and manage.

  Yale had been holding a less contentious but more cautious conversation with Althea Gibbons as Grant’s negotiations had proceeded. The reporter was pressing hard for a statement, following on her dramatic revelation. For the policeman, Mrs Goldey’s antagonism towards the dead man was no more than information, adding one more name to the list of those the gentle-seeming Ambrose Graveney had seriously upset. According to Althea, as she practised her first newscast on the Inspector, Ambrose had written a violent piece objecting to the proposed Dogs from the Shows display. He had described it as an exploitation of dogs in the manner once reserved for circus freaks. She quoted Miss Greatrex’s ‘prostitution’ of the animals. Her deductions from the conversations with the two women were flavoured by her journalistically sound interpretations, compiled from remarks half-heard while keeping an eye out for Yale. He, seduced or not by the glamour of her world, was far from being a virgin in the art of glamorised statements. Some accountants he had dealt with since joining Fraud would have been able to show Ms Gibbons a clean pair of heels, talk-tongue-wise. However, her report did add to his worries. Had his innovative policy of empowering local assistant sheriffs been misjudged? There could be repercussions. Damn it, though, he had had to do something! He’d never asked to be dumped here at eight o’clock of a Saturday morn. How much to tell the eager Gibbons at his side? Nothing if he could avoid it. He hadn’t actually promised her a contribution. Had he? His self-confidence was under pressure. That pressure grew as he saw Grant coming his way. Purposefully.

  In the short term, the Super’s appearance was a relief. Simon moved to greet him.

  “Sorry! Must go. The Super wants me. Important no doubt. No!” He stopped her question before it arose. “I don’t know what it is, but it will not be for you. Not yet. Sorry, and all that. Hate to give up my one chance of fame. Tomorrow? Nine? See you then. Or, rather, Chief Superintendent Grant will. Not my case. As I said. Must go. And,” he posed a stern appearance, looking into the very deep, attractive – how else could he describe them – soul-searching eyes of the betrayed and let-down presenter, “you must be coming up to your deadline. Look”, he uttered as a last placating gesture to ensure she left him free to meet his boss, “you can hint, no more than that, mind you, but hint that we are on the track of someone thanks to something that you were able to find out in your interviews. With the general public, of course.”

  Althea took the jibe and Yale, partly in relief and certainly of growing necessity, moved away. Let of the hook, he turned to Grant.

  “I’ve not yet got round to Wiset
on, sir. Had that TV woman pestering me. Mind you, she has dug something that might be useful from interviews at the Dogs from the Shows stand.”

  “Right. Not now. Come to it. It’ll keep, I take it?” A nod. “Right then. Have had Doc Meredith on the phone. Something to go on at last. Something positive. Can’t talk here. Too public.”

  Yale, now practised, led his superior back towards the competitors’ exit where he had been speaking to Althea Gibbons.

  “Best spot at the moment. Did you get the doorkeepers?” Grant nodded. “And the letters?”

  The Super was too eager to get on with his news to explain more. He nodded again. They were now alone enough for him to talk freely. That was all he wanted.

  “Yes. Something has gone right at last today. Let’s hope it’s a good omen, a sign of a change in things to come. The Doc’s on-the-spot autopsy failed to find the cause of death, other than it was not of natural causes. Having a class of students with him, he turned the thing into a teaching session. Even then, despite the body being sent to the right place and to the right people with as much speed as we could have hoped for, it has taken until now to get at the truth. The source. The reason why Graveney died. He was poisoned.”

  “Sure.”

  “Indeed sure, Simon. Poisoned. By nicotine.” Grant’s voice matched Yale’s surprised face. The Inspector ventured a:

  “Was he that heavy a smoker?” before realising it was an ill-placed observation. Grant ignored it.

  “Nicotine poisoning by syringe injection.”

  “New one on me.”

  “Me, too, I’ll admit. In all my years. There it is, though. Nicotine.”

  “How…?”

  Grant interrupted Yale’s question.

  “The Doc gave me a short lecture.” Yale recalled the one he had received about rigor mortis. How many years ago?

  “He’s good at that.”