Third Degree

by Claire Rayner

  ‘Well, suppose he was?’ Gus interrupted truculently. ‘I wasn’t going to dun him. I wasn’t even expecting any interest, for Chrissakes! He didn’t have any cause to worry about me.’

  ‘But he was an independent-minded sort of guy,’ she said. ‘You said that. Anyway, we’re only supposing. Let me finish supposing, huh? Suppose someone came along who told him that he’d solve all his problems. Or, wait a minute …’ She sat up more straight. ‘I’m thinking on my feet so bear with me. Suppose someone came along and threatened him? I don’t know what with or how, but suppose – and the only way he could resist them was to hand over his business and –’

  ‘No,’ Gus said flatly. ‘He’d never just hand over his business. If he’d been like that, he’d have handed it over to Don. Or me, even. He was trying to sell, remember? At a good price. That’s why he borrowed. All that mattered to him was to get out on his own. He has this notion he could build up a chain like mine, only south of the water. There’s no way he’d just hand over his main asset, George. I keep telling you that’s why he borrowed from me, for Gawd’s sake! To maximize his assets. You’re barking up a hell of a wrong tree.’

  ‘But Gus, there must be something in his life he’d put in front of all that! A wife? Children?’

  ‘Lenny isn’t the marrying sort,’ Gus said shortly. ‘And he never had any regular blokes, either. So that’s out.’

  ‘Other relations maybe? This brother, is he married? Does he have children?’

  ‘Don’s straight,’ Gus said. ‘He never married but he’s straight. I’ve never heard of any children – or none he admitted to.’

  ‘Well, anyway, he cares about his brother, doesn’t he? Lenny, I mean. Wouldn’t a threat to Don be enough to make Lenny cave in?’

  ‘What sort of threat?’ Gus was listening more carefully now.

  She shrugged. ‘I don’t know! But suppose you were getting too close to someone in this investigation you’ve been on –’

  ‘I was getting more and more information,’ he said. ‘I had no idea who was in the middle of it all, but there was no doubt in my mind that I was dealing with one hell of a big organization. We’ve never had the mob here the way they do in the States, all those Godfathers and so forth, but we’ve had our villains who like to control everything – the Krays and their kind. And it was clear to me that we had that sort of American set-up here on the patch.’ He scowled. ‘And now I’m off my own bleedin’ case and those three’ll never sort it out on their own. The whole bloody lot’ll clear up the evidence we’d collected, smooth it all over and we won’t have a shred of anything to take them to court on.’

  ‘Which is why they needed to get rid of you,’ she said triumphantly. ‘Can’t you see it? The best way to get you out of their hair is to trump up some sort of charge against you. With you fitted up and out of the frame then they can do their tidying in peace. And they chose Lenny to get to you. They found out somehow that you’d be a – that you’d respond to an appeal from him. Doesn’t it make sense?’

  He looked at her for a long time. ‘I suppose it does,’ he said at last. ‘I told you. I’m scared for Lenny. Because these sort of people have as much – well, they’ll do what they want to anyone. And if they did find a way to fit up Lenny so he laid this complaint against me, they’d have to get him out of the way before anyone could question him.’

  ‘Which is why he’s vanished. And to find out where he’s vanished to, the best way is to talk to the people who own the business now. Like I was saying. So, how do I find out who owns a set-up like this Copper’s Properties?’

  ‘Companies House,’ he said. ‘In the City.’ He was clearly abstracted, thinking hard. ‘Has anyone else tried to find Don, do you know?’

  ‘The brother?’ George said. ‘Not me, nor Mike, to my knowledge. I can’t say what the CIB people are doing. Why should they? Do they know about him – the CIB guys?’

  ‘Who knows? Maybe. If I was one of ’em, I’d have found out by now, but I’m not, and who knows if they’re any good?’ He looked sombre then. ‘Though I s’pose they are. They usually choose the best blokes for jobs like that.’

  ‘Well, we don’t know if they know, but we do. How do we find him to see if he knows where Lenny is?’

  ‘It shouldn’t be that hard. You check the betting shops on the patch and the race meetings around the country and put someone on to going after him,’ Gus said. ‘Tell Mike to do that –’ He scowled. ‘You can’t.’

  ‘I know I can’t,’ she said. ‘Nor can you. I’m right, aren’t I? While the CIB are doing their job you have to keep out of the way, and so does everyone else.’

  ‘Oh, God,’ he said violently. ‘I think I’ll go out of my mind if this goes on!’

  She risked putting her arms about him but he shrugged her off.

  ‘No time for canoodlin’,’ he said. ‘Got to think. Look, I’ll go to Companies House –’

  ‘But Gus, if you’re found out –’

  ‘Even if they know I’ve gone there, they won’t be able to do anything. I’ve got my own company, remember? I’ve got a business to run while all this crap is going on. I’ve as much right as anyone else to be there. Leave that to me. At least it’s something I can do. And …’ He hesitated. ‘Forget the bit about looking for Don Greeson. We’ll see first what we can get out of this company.’

  ‘But I could try the betting shops,’ she said, ‘couldn’t I?’

  ‘No!’ He said it very loudly. ‘You go around betting shops looking and the whole world’ll know something’s up. You’re not precisely the sort they usually see in places like that. Anyway, it mightn’t be necessary. Once we’ve talked to this company. What sort of company is it? Did the estate agent say?’

  ‘Only that it’s called Copper’s Properties.’

  ‘Hmm,’ Gus said. ‘An interesting name. Well, I’ll get on with that, then.’ He was out of the kitchen and reaching for his jacket, which he’d left on his bed, by the time she caught up with him.

  ‘But Gus, for heaven’s sake. It’s half past eight in the evening! They surely don’t work there at this time of night! A City set-up?’

  ‘I wasn’t going straight there!’ he said. ‘I’m going to talk to a few other people on the patch about ’em first. See what I can get out of the local gossip. It’s just as valuable as the stuff that’s listed officially.’

  ‘You can’t,’ she said. ‘You know that could be misconstrued as interfering in the investigation. It’ll have to wait till you can do it the legal way. You know that.’

  He stared at her blearily, and then very slowly dropped his jacket on the bed.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, I suppose so.’

  She had a lousy night. He refused to let her stay at his flat, telling her he was rotten company and was damned if he was going to drag her down with him into the miseries, and no matter how she argued that she’d be even more miserable on her own, he was determined. So she had driven home and spent the evening ostensibly watching television but actually turning over and over in her mind all the possibilities, and had gone to bed early.

  Only to dream that Gus had set out to solve his own case and to watch helplessly as he was chased by blank-faced figures with knives and ropes in their hands – which were newly dissected ones from her own mortuary, with blood dripping from the fingertips – while she stood clinging to a shelf high above the scene, which was a town with streets laid out like a maze, and could not reach him to help. She had woken at last with a violent start and the dull sick feeling that comes with the hangover of ugly dreams. She had to go out to walk off her discomfort if she could.

  The streets were already stirring, with people walking as purposefully as she was and a few joggers looking solemn and self-absorbed as they sweated their way past her, glazed eyes fixed ahead on some impossible goal. She envied them their single-mindedness. If only she had nothing better to do with her time than to run in silly clothes in that pointless fashion, how pleasant life would be
. As it was she hunched her shoulders against the early sunshine, already hard and hot on her back, and walked on towards the hospital, thinking hard about Gus and what she might be able to do for him.

  She had to face a thought that had been uncovered by her ugly dream and deal with it. The people who had set up Gus with this charge were capable, she feared, of doing more than just ruining his career. If, as she was now quite certain, all this had happened to Gus because someone somewhere wanted to protect himself against Gus’s investigation, surely he wouldn’t stop at destroying only a career? She felt cold and sick as she let the thought form completely. Could they, these shadowy someones she was seeking, could they – or he – attack Gus? Kill him even? Could he be found in a charred bed with his face burned off and –

  She stopped quite still in the middle of the pavement and stared sightlessly ahead. That, she told herself, was an absurd thought to have come into her mind. She had told Mike she suspected there might be a serial killer involved in those two deaths by fire – and it seemed a long time now since her only concern had been to get hold of Gus and persuade him to take on those cases – but those deaths had been very similar. Both young women, both prostitutes – or at least earning their livings on the fringes of prostitution, and good livings at that – both living in expensive well-furnished homes.

  But Gus wasn’t a bit like them. If there was a serial killer at work, he would go for the same sort of victim and use the same MO. That was what gave such people the label of serial killer. Even if Gus were to be – hurt, was the only word she could bear to let into her mind now – even if Gus were to be hurt, it would be totally unconnected with those two cases.

  And yet she had thought of them as part of this present mess. She frowned hard against the glitter that was increasing with the strength of the morning sun as she tried to sort out her feelings. If she had learned one thing in the last big cases she had worked on with Gus, it had been not to ignore the value of her own gut reactions. And this morning her gut had told her there was a link between the two deaths by fire and the charge against Gus that had been laid by Lenny. She didn’t know why she had made the connection but she’d done so, and though she wouldn’t talk to anyone about it – least of all to Gus himself, who always wanted evidence – she wouldn’t forget it. She wouldn’t be able to, she thought, with another frisson of fear. Risk to Gus’s life was too painful to contemplate.

  She began to walk again, a little more purposefully. There was much work to be done on the case, and done soon, and she chewed her lower lip as she thought about the lab and what was on the schedule there today. Tuesday: a busy day always, with specialist clinics like cardiology and endocrinology, which put a heavy pressure on the department for immediate assays and tests of various kinds. Yet somehow she had to get some time to herself. And then as the solution came to her she began to run towards the bus stop. The sooner she got over the river to the hospital, the better. She’d be waiting on Ellen’s doorstep as soon as she got there. That she told herself wryly, remembering her long-ago days in the school operatic society, would provide a little corroborative detail to add verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative.

  ‘How long for?’ Ellen said. ‘It won’t be easy, you know. Alan hasn’t been with us long, and –’

  ‘Ellen, I really don’t know.’ She lied with all the fervour of total candour. ‘All I can tell you is that she’s my dearest friend and I really can’t let her down. I’ve never sought compassionate time, ever, since I’ve been here, have I? Only been off sick once, that time a couple of years ago when I had a needle-stick injury in my hand that went bad. Surely you can give me a few days now.’

  ‘I’ll have to talk to the Professor,’ Ellen said.

  ‘You know as well as I do he won’t argue. You’re the Business Manager and you do more to run this directorate than the clinical people do.’

  ‘And Mr Herne –’

  ‘None of his business. We’re running the lab – he runs his own job. As long as all the work is done, he’s happy.’

  ‘You think Alan can cope?’

  ‘I’m sure he can,’ George said, crossing mental fingers. ‘It’ll be good for him. And anyway, he won’t be alone. He’s got Sheila, who can be tiresome, I know, but is the heart and soul of the lab. There’s nothing she doesn’t know about what’s going on and how to deal with it. And Jerry, of course.’

  ‘Yes,’ Ellen said dryly. ‘There’s always Jerry.’

  ‘He’s a great guy!’ George said quickly. ‘Really one of the best. Just a bit…’

  ‘Bloody-minded,’ Ellen said sweetly. ‘Look, Dr Barnabas, if you must you must. And I do know that post-partum depression is hellish. My own sister had it. Cried for weeks.’

  ‘This is more a post-partum psychosis,’ George said. ‘Her husband was in despair when he called me. She’s threatening to kill her baby, the whole thing.’

  ‘Shouldn’t she be in hospital then?’ Ellen looked at her sharply.

  ‘Possibly. But I can’t know till I get there and see for myself.’

  ‘Yes … Well, all right. But please, leave a phone number so that we can reach you.’

  ‘I’d rather not. It might cause disturbance to an already upset household if you ring at a difficult time. I’ll – er – I’ll call in regularly for any messages and problems.’

  ‘But in emergencies, how will you know we need to talk to you?’ Ellen said. ‘I’ll lend you a bleep, I think. Yes, that’s the best thing. Not your usual one, but one of those outside ones we use for the district midwives. I’ll get one out of the Human Resources people as soon as they get in. Can you hold on till then?’

  George looked at her watch. ‘I guess I’ll have to,’ she said. ‘Anyway, I have to talk to the people in the lab and explain to them.’ She was beginning to feel guilty about this tissue of complicated lies she was building up, but her guilt was well controlled by her gratitude that the scam was working so well. ‘But I’ll have to be on my way no later than nine.’

  ‘Whereabouts in the country do they live?’ Ellen was reaching into her desk drawer for a folder and not looking at her, which was just as well, because George hadn’t thought about such a question and found herself scrabbling for an answer.

  ‘Um – er – Chislehurst,’ she said plucking the name out of some recess of her mind after a long moment, long enough to make Ellen look up at her in some surprise. ‘That’s it. Chislehurst.’ She smiled widely at Ellen. ‘I can never remember some of these English place names, even after a dozen years here.’

  ‘I’d have thought it was as easy to remember Chislehurst as it was Poughkeepsie or Peoria,’ Ellen said a little dryly, and for a dreadful moment George thought she had been caught out. But Ellen went on smoothly enough. ‘Before you head for Kent, though, let me give you a quick update on the St Dymphna’s situation.’

  George, relieved, said quickly, ‘Please do. I’m really concerned about that.’

  And indeed she was. The thought of having the lab closed down was almost insupportable. But she was so used up worrying about Gus that she barely had the energy to worry about that too. She looked hopefully at Ellen. ‘A reprieve?’

  ‘Not precisely,’ Ellen said. ‘But definitely a stay of execution. It’s gone to a sub-committee to consider – there are two people from St Dymphna’s, one from the Region and two of our NEDs: Mickey Harlow and Lewis McCann. They’ll need a few months before they come back with anything, especially as it’s high summer and they’ll all be sloping off on holiday any minute now. So there’s time on our side. But the battle’s still to win.’

  ‘And we’ll win it,’ George said with a confidence she didn’t feel. ‘Thanks for being so understanding, Ellen.’ She escaped, to hurry across the courtyard towards the lab, ashamed and exhilarated in equal measure. To have lied so successfully was part of her excitement, but most important of all was the fact that now she would be free to be a full-time battler on Gus’s behalf. She’d get this bloo
dy mess sorted, to use Gus’s own language, if it killed her. And somewhere at the back of her mind a quiet little voice murmured: do you know, George, it just might at that? But she ignored it.

  20

  Before she left the lab, after making sure that Alan and Sheila knew all they needed to know to enable them to cope for the next week or so on their own (and Sheila swelled like an excited puffer fish at the thought of so long a time in which to bully everyone and get extra close to Alan Short) she called Mike Urquhart.

  He listened in silence as she told him her plan as succinctly as she could, then continued to be silent as he digested it.

  ‘I’m no’ sure it’s a great idea,’ he said eventually. ‘You’re no’ precisely experienced in such things, are you? And anyway –’

  ‘Well then, you do it!’

  ‘I canna possibly,’ he said. ‘I’ve got my own work. Inspector Dudley’d be down on me like a load o’ manure if he thought I wasna busy about what he sent me to do. I’m interviewin’ every Tom for miles around for leads on the burnings.’

  ‘So, there you are. Someone has to. You can’t. Gus can’t. I must.’

  ‘I canna see the compulsion,’ he said a touch sharply. George made an exasperated sound through her teeth.

  ‘Of course I must. I can’t let these CIB people have it all their own way. They’ll be looking for evidence against Gus, remember. I won’t.’

  ‘I know, but all the same –’

  ‘I’m doing it,’ she interrupted. ‘Listen, I need that address, remember? Monty Ledbetter.’

  ‘Oh, that, sure. I got it here. He’s on the register. He’s over at Gidea Park.’

  He dictated it and George wrote it down. Then she asked, ‘What register?’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘You said, ‘’he’s on the register’’. What register?’

  ‘Oh. They keep a list here of informers. People you can get a bit of guidance from, you know? That’s all.’

  ‘Oh.’ She wasn’t surprised. Gus had said Ledbetter knew everyone there was, so everyone knew him. ‘So I should get a good deal of help from him. Thanks, Mike.’