He stood, turned off the television at the plug, left the room. He checked that the front door was locked, the windows were secured, the back door was locked. He went upstairs. The bedroom was in darkness, so he began to edge his way round the end of the bed, able to judge the route exactly because of the many times he’d returned in the middle of the night.
‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘I only turned the light off a moment ago.’ She switched on the wall light above her side of the double bed. ‘Was it a good programme?’
‘How’s that?’
‘Was the programme worth staying up for?’
‘I didn’t watch it.’ He reached under the pillows for his pyjamas.
‘Fell asleep, I suppose.’
‘I was thinking and kind of forgot.’ He began to undress. ‘Remember you were going to see Gloria one day, but couldn’t because something turned up and so you nipped round to their place later on and asked Mike to take the fruit and he said to phone Gloria and have a word with her – when you told me, you mentioned he’d had a Caller Display unit installed, didn’t you?’
‘It was the first I’d seen.’
‘And you mentioned another bit of equipment which you wondered what it was for?’
‘Did I?’
‘You can’t remember?’
She shook her head.
He climbed into bed. She usually read before sleeping, he never did. ‘You can switch the light off.’
‘Aren’t you going to kiss me goodnight?’
He kissed her, with deep affection and complete lack of passion.
She switched off the light. He thought about his retirement. A cruise to celebrate it? He knew what her reaction would be to any such suggestion. Spend that much money on themselves for just a few days?… Images of ships, sea, and conch shells began to drift through his mind.
‘I’ve just remembered,’ she said.
‘I was just falling asleep.’
‘Sorry, but you did ask and I’ve been trying hard to think back. There was another little black box by the side of the telephone and it had just a yellow button on it.’
The description was too vague for him to be certain, yet he’d little doubt that what she’d seen had been an alert unit, supplied by the bureau. Carr had not requested the bureau’s help through official channels as he would have done had he been receiving anonymous calls that were connected with some case he was handling and which needed to be traced, so why had the two units been installed? Those ugly, disloyal suspicions returned to make certain sleep did not come quickly.
23
Wyatt despised himself for his suspicions, but they would not disappear. He reached across the desk for the phone, withdrew his hand. He stood, walked over to the window and stared across the street at the leafless sweet chestnut trees that ringed the vicarage garden on the opposite side. Mike might have had cause to ask for an alert unit and forgotten to log his request. There might well be something special about his house or the area that was responsible for an increase in value that was not universal. And, above all, what conceivable motive could there be to cause him to act so completely out of character? Honesty compelled Wyatt to admit the answer to that last question. In hospital, Gloria had become so depressed that there had been fears for the safety of her unborn child and of herself. Carr had been convinced – rightly as it turned out – that if only she could be moved to a nursing home, she would recover from the depression. He had been desperate to find the money to move her.
Wyatt returned to the desk, sat, lifted the receiver, dialled the Malicious Calls bureau and when the connection was made, gave the reason for his call.
‘That’s right. We installed the two units last month.’
‘For what reason?’
‘Why d’you think? Because they were requested.’
‘Sure. But what reason for the request was given?’
‘Hang on.’
Wyatt drummed on the desk with his fingers. This call had to be arousing the other’s curiosity. Pray God that such curiosity didn’t spill out and fuel anyone else’s suspicions …
‘Detective Constable Carr said he’d been receiving certain calls and needed to know who was making them. The installation was OK’d by his superior.’
‘Who was that?’
‘Detective Inspector Hoskin. What’s the problem? The right hand doesn’t know where the left hand is, let alone what it’s doing?’
‘Something like that.’
After replacing the receiver, he continued to drum on the desk. Mike might have had a genuine reason for the request, Hoskin might have OK’d it, no one remembered to log the facts. Whether that were so was very easily determined – ask the DI. But to do that would be to expose Mike to an open suspicion of guilt … Wyatt realized he was allowing friendship to blind him to the fact that if Mike had sold himself, he might well have information that would identify the kidnappers and therefore the possibility that he would suffer the trauma of being unjustly suspected could be of no consequence whatsoever.
He left the station and drove up to the High Street and then halfway down Gower Street to the new Sainsbury’s, on top of which was an open car park. From there, he walked back to the High Street and into an estate agent whose trade was mainly in the low to middle price bracket.
The receptionist showed him into an office in which worked a woman, younger than he, smartly presented and professionally brisk. She asked him how she could help. He explained.
‘I think I need to know the exact area if I’m to be reasonably accurate.’
‘Watts Road,’ he answered reluctantly, as if even to name the road would identify Carr.
She thought for a moment. ‘I seem to remember…’ She swivelled her chair round and brought out a box file from a cabinet. She opened the file, checked through the papers inside, brought out two pages clipped together. She skimmed through the pages. ‘I thought so,’ she said, not without a trace of satisfaction. ‘Three years ago, we handled a house in Chepstowe Lane, which is immediately behind Watts Road, and sold it for forty-one thousand. It came back on the market in May at sixty thousand, even though we advised the owner that in the current market, that was an unrealistic price. There were a few inquiries, but no offers, and as the owner’s job had moved up north and he wanted his family up there, but they couldn’t be until he sold, he agreed to bring the price down. The house finally found a buyer at forty-eight thousand.’
‘So it’s unlikely that someone who has to know about property values would accept that a house in Watts Road had increased its value by more than three thousand pounds in the recent past?’
‘Very unlikely.’
He thanked her for her help, left. He had to accept that he was faced by an irony. The negation of his suspicions would clear Mike, yet the proof of them might point the way to evidence that would identify the kidnappers.
The building society’s branch office was halfway along the High Street, in one of the oldest buildings which, thanks to an unusually responsible attitude, had had its exterior repaired but left unaltered and its interior modernized in such a way as not to destroy character.
The middle-aged manager had a quick smile, a firm handshake, and a manner that was straightforward, but often strangely formal.
‘I understand,’ Wyatt said, ‘that your predecessor retired at the end of last year.’
‘He retired nearly five years ago.’ He studied Wyatt. ‘My answer seems to disturb you?’
‘Only because … Frankly, my inquiry is both difficult and confidential.’
‘So you said at the beginning. Perhaps if I point out that the ability to respect confidences is an integral part of my job?’
‘This is … different.’
‘If you could be more explicit?’
‘Michael Carr has a mortgage with you.’
‘Without checking, I cannot comment, but for the moment I’ll accept that.’
‘I need to know whether at the end of last year he was gr
anted a second mortgage for three thousand pounds.’
The manager began to stroke his square chin with his thumb. ‘You have a court order calling on me to divulge the information?’
‘No.’
‘Then you must know I cannot give it without the client’s permission.’
‘It takes time to get an order.’
‘That has to be a matter for you, not me.’
‘The information could save someone from being murdered.’
The manager dropped his hand away from his chin. ‘You’re not exaggerating?’
‘I wish I were.’
‘And someone may be put in even greater jeopardy if I insist on a court order?’
‘Yes.’
He studied the far wall. He fidgeted with the corner of a sheet of paper on the desk. ‘Very well,’ he finally said. ‘If I have your word that what you’ve told me is fact?’
‘You have it.’
Less than five minutes later, Wyatt learned that Carr had applied for a second mortgage and this had been refused because his house did not hold sufficient value.
* * *
The drive to the Hoskins’ house had Wyatt questioning his move time and time again; a less stubborn man might well have turned round.
Miranda opened the front door. ‘Hullo, Sergeant Wyatt.’
Virtually every time he met her, he wondered whether Freda was wholly right and Miranda’s manner was the result of shyness and not an overwhelming sense of superiority. ‘Is the guv’nor in, Mrs Hoskin?’
‘I’m afraid he isn’t at the moment.’
‘When do you expect him back?’
‘Very soon.’
‘Would you mind if I waited for him?’
She hesitated. ‘He is very tired. Couldn’t the matter wait until tomorrow?’
‘I’m afraid not.’
‘Then you’d better come in.’ As he entered, she said: ‘Don’t forget to mind your head.’
‘I won’t.’
‘It’s turned quite cold, hasn’t it? And the forecast said that snow’s possible later in the week.’
He ducked under the lintel and entered the sitting room. The two children were watching the television and when she told them to turn it off and go through to the kitchen and watch the set in there, they looked at Wyatt with undisguised resentment as they left. She offered him a drink, poured it, and talked about the social life of the division, asking him for his opinion on the proposed changes in the annual dinner dance. Since she appeared to believe it was popular, he found great difficulty in giving any sort of an opinion. Conversation had become difficult by the time they heard the sound of the front door’s being opened and closed.
‘There’s Bevis,’ she said, not quite concealing her relief.
Hoskin entered. ‘I thought it was your old banger parked outside. My God, but the wind’s beginning to get knives in it!’
‘Would you like a drink?’ she asked.
‘As I’m not doing any more driving, a really stiff whisky, but I’ll get it.’
‘Better make it a small one, Guv,’ Wyatt said.
‘Trouble?’
‘Could be. In six foot high capitals.’
‘Then we’ll go through to the other room.’
The study was a small, heavily beamed room with a single window. Comfort was the theme, not smart chic. The easy chair had seen hard wear, the desk was an antique only in age, not value, the carpet had several stains, and the curtains were too short. Hoskin sat on the edge of the desk. ‘So what’s got you looking like a man who’s lost the winning lottery ticket?’
‘It’s … it’s difficult to know how to begin.’
‘Try at the beginning.’
‘It’s possible Mike Carr’s been grassing to the mob who’ve snatched the Lumley girl,’ Wyatt said in a rush of words.
‘Have you gone bloody mad?’
‘No.’
‘Shit!… Let’s have it, then.’
Hoskin listened without once interrupting, then said, voice harsh: ‘Most of that’s supposition or circumstantial.’
‘If you’d seen his expression when he learned Shropshire were asking about MacClearey and again when I told him Morrell had been tortured and murdered.’
‘It obviously didn’t say anything to you at the time and it’s only now when you find either occasion significant. Damnit, you know as well as me that expressions can be the biggest liars out.’
‘He was desperate to find some way of affording to move Gloria.’
‘Who wouldn’t have been?’
‘Where did the money come from?’
‘Have you asked him?’
‘I’ve only now confirmed the fact that he didn’t obtain a second mortgage, as he’s told everyone, including his wife.’
‘Then you’re quick to slag the man!’
‘The facts…’
‘You’re saying that an officer who’s proved himself to be keen, efficient, intelligent, and straight, suddenly decides to turn crook; that knowing what the mob did to Victoria Arkwright, he nevertheless is ready to work with them.’
‘I know him well enough to be certain it can’t have been voluntarily.’
‘Goddamnit, you’ve been saying just that.’
‘What I mean, sir, is that he’d never have intended things. But once he couldn’t avoid working for them for whatever reason, he used the money they paid to help Gloria.’
‘In other words, the mob had something on him and used this to force him to grass. What’s that something?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘There’s a sight more you don’t know than that you do.’
‘Surely there is one certainty? If he’s been working with the mob, he should be able to provide a lead?’
‘Which you imagine he’ll willingly pass on after making a full confession because of delayed conscience?’
‘It could happen.’
‘Only in once-upon-a-time land … Use that phone there to ring him and tell him to get to the station now.’
24
Carr replaced the receiver. Something big might have occurred that had nothing to do with the kidnapping; something big might have occurred that was connected to the kidnapping, but in no way directly involved him; but he sensed with icy fear that he was under suspicion.
‘Who was it?’ Gloria called from the kitchen.
‘I’ve got to get back to the station.’
‘Now?’
‘’Fraid so.’
She appeared in the doorway. ‘But you haven’t been back half an hour.’
He shrugged his shoulders.
‘Is something wrong?’
‘Why d’you ask?’
‘You look as if … Well, as if something worrying has happened.’
‘It has. My supper’s going to be delayed.’
‘That really is all?’
‘May I be turned from a handsome prince into a frog if I’m lying.’
She smiled. ‘You’re getting ideas above your appearance.’ Then, her smile gone, she said: ‘You promise me nothing’s happened?’
Before he could answer, there was a wail through the loudspeaker in the kitchen that sent her hurrying upstairs. For once he was grateful for a son with powerful lungs.
He drove to the end of the road, turned right, right again at the T-junction, and drew up by a call box. He’d known too many cases where well-laid plans had gone astray through unforeseen circumstances not to have worked out an emergency plan. He inserted a call card, dialled. His mother answered. He sympathized with her latest aches and pains and the neighbours who would keep shouting, promised the family would be up to see her very soon, said: ‘Mum, d’you remember me asking you a little while back to support me if that became neessary?’
‘Naturally I do.’
‘Also that I told you how you could help?’
‘I may never see sixty again, but I’m not quite in my dotage yet.’
‘Of course you’re not. Then it’s to
say you lent me the three thousand.’
‘Very well, dear. And who’ll be asking me?’
‘Detective Inspector Hoskin.’
‘I met him at one of your parties. Rather a nice man, isn’t he?’
‘Part of the time.’
A couple of minutes later, he said goodbye and rang off. She had shown no curiosity. A loving mother, she believed in him implicitly, and would never doubt him. Which showed how wrong loving mothers could be.
In the station, he parked alongside the DI’s Mondeo. The DI was sharp, but fair and because he offered those under him the same degree of loyalty he expected them to show, he would be very reluctant to believe one of his DCs had turned crook. So play on that reluctance …
He took the lift up to the fourth floor, conscious of rising tension and fear. He believed he had covered himself, but didn’t every criminal think that before he was arrested.
Hoskin sat behind his desk, Wyatt stood by the window. The desk light had the effect of drawing shadows on the DI’s face which highlighted the harshness of some of his features. ‘Sit down.’
Carr sat on the chair in front of the desk.
‘You know why you’re here, of course.’
First rule of interrogation. Make the suspect believe you know more than you do; first defence of the suspect, admit nothing. ‘On the contrary, sir, I have no idea.’
‘Come on, don’t waste my time.’
‘If it isn’t impertinent, I’d like to ask if perhaps you aren’t wasting the time of both of us?’
That annoyed Hoskin, but also elicited very brief, professional respect.
The Price of Failure Page 13