Narrow is the Way

by Faith Martin

  Yeah, she’d continue to pay up all right.

  Gregory fanned his face with the wad, and grinned. He liked reasonable women. The smile faded, however, as he contemplated Detective Inspector Hillary Greene – as unreasonable a woman as it was possible to meet. What had possessed her to chase him across the field like that? Even now he broke out in a sweat whenever he remembered the hot, diesel-smelling rush of wind as the train had thundered by just behind him. What if he’d tripped over the track? Got a shoe stuck? He’d have been hamburger meat, and all because of that crazy bitch of a cop.

  Gregory knew for sure that she’d sicced one of her lackeys on to him yesterday, and was damned sure that the fat sod had been the one responsible for the broken window in his back door. He’d have to move the Orne folder, that was for sure. Still, he was fairly sure the cop hadn’t read it. He’d left a fine tracing of powdered sugar on the top piece of paper in the file, which had been undisturbed, and he’d also stuck a single strand of his hair on a photocopy of a lab report further in, which hadn’t been displaced either. (He’d read of both these methods in an old Ian Fleming novel, and had used it religiously ever since. That this was the first time it had ever proved useful simply didn’t occur to him.)

  Yes, all in all, things were looking up. And even if the Kidlington cops did get on to Orne, she’d keep her mouth shut. For the sake of her hubby and what was left of her family, if not for the sake of her own neck.

  So, there was no reason why a cosy future, padded with thousand-pound nest eggs every month, shouldn’t long continue. Especially if he could get the doc to chip in with some readies as well.

  But he’d have to find somewhere safe to keep the file in the meantime. Now that that fat geek of a copper knew where to look, how long would it be before he lifted it and read it through from cover to cover? And that file represented months of hard slog. Why should the cops reap the benefit of his graft?

  Greg stuffed the notes into his wallet, the rest of the cornflakes into his mouth, and stepped outside. There was a raw wind blowing the promise of hail-ridden rain before it, but luckily, no sign of a dingy Fiesta. Greg got behind the wheel and drove to his bank, keeping a careful eye on his rear-view mirror. Still no Fiesta.

  At the bank, he waited in line to deposit the money into his current account, then enquired about a safe deposit box.

  He never noticed a white-haired fat man walk in behind him, but then, neither had he noticed the same white haired OAP pull out and join him at the end of his busy residential street – probably because he’d been driving a sporty red Mini.

  Frank felt extremely stupid in a white wig and fake beard, and it only made him more than ever determined to nail this cunning bastard of a PI.

  One of Frank’s narks was a make-up artist at the Oxford Theatre and had been willing to help out, so that at least Frank would look legit. Frank believed the nark had been too scared to say no when leaned on, but in reality Nobby Barnes, the cosmetician, had been simply too thrilled with the idea of seeing whether or not he could actually make the disgusting sergeant look like an honest-to-goodness human being, that he simply hadn’t been able to turn down the chance to find out. But even he’d been astonished at his prowess. (If only he’d been able to show his boss the transformation, he was sure he’d get the job as chief make-over artist whenever the production of Cats came back to Oxford.)

  Now an artfully unrecognizable Frank carefully moved up to within ear-wigging distance of his mark, and felt the back of his neck prickle at the mention of a safe deposit box. He also carefully noted the rather tatty leather briefcase that Gregory Innes clutched protectively to his chest as he followed one of the tellers into a back room.

  Frank abruptly veered off to one side, much to the surprise of the man in the queue behind him, made a show of picking up a form at random from the stand by the counter, then stepped outside. His chin itched under the glue sticking his fake beard to his chin, and he wanted to scratch his head, but daren’t, in case the wig came off. That bloody poof of a nark had put hair clips all over the place, but it still didn’t feel safe to him. Grumpily, he reached for his mobile and jabbed in some numbers.

  ‘Guv, it’s Frank. The dick just asked for a safety deposit box at his local bank. I think he’s stashing evidence.’

  Hillary, on the phone at the other end, instantly felt her hackles rise, and leaned forward, elbows on her desk. It was not like Frank to be so diligent, let along gung-ho. And how did he know Innes was stashing evidence? Come to that, what had happened to the report he was supposed to have dropped off detailing yesterday’s activities?

  Whenever Frank Ross was up to something – which was fairly often – Hillary’s internal radar always went berserk. It was doing a fine hokey-cokey right now, in fact.

  On the other hand, the poisoned cherub was probably right. A poverty-stricken PI didn’t pay out hard-earned money on a box rental unless he had to. And since he hadn’t had to before being interviewed by the Thames Valley Police, she had no doubts that whatever was in that box would be of immense interest to her indeed.

  But could she convince a judge of that? They needed a court order to open the box, no two ways about it. On the other hand, this was the brutal murder of a young and beautiful girl she was investigating, and judges, despite wide-ranging opinions to the contrary, were only human.

  She racked her brains, trying to think of the softest touch she knew on the judicial bench, and the best time to strike. At least the request would be both simple and to the point and narrow in its dealings. They wanted to examine the contents of a box which had been opened by one Gregory Innes on the morning of the 18th. Nice and simple and no fishing expedition attached. The kind judges liked. She might just be able to swing it.

  ‘OK. Hang tight, I’ll see what I can do,’ Hillary said, grudgingly.

  ‘Right, guv,’ Frank Ross said, and snapped his mobile shut. Hang around here at the bank? In a pig’s eye.

  He found the public gents and removed all the gunk from his face and head, then found a suitably dirty pub, with no noisy pin ball machines going but with plenty of beer stains on the carpet and unemployed men complaining bitterly over their bitter. He promptly ordered a pint. This was definitely Frank’s kind of pub. They didn’t have a telephone directory of course, so he had to go and nick one from a phone box.

  If he was right, Orne wasn’t that common a name.

  His mobile’s battery was running low, but when he tried to change a twenty pound note for ten pences at the bar, he was quickly informed what he could do with his paper money (not a physical impossibility, but painful and smelly nonetheless) and was forced out yet again into the wide cruel world in search of a bank.

  A bank, of all things.

  Finally, all settled down with his pile of change and a second pint, Frank began to let his fingers do the walking.

  Tommy still couldn’t believe he was getting married. He’d carefully picked up Max Finchley’s trail when he’d left home for work that morning, and had followed him all the way to the construction site, still not believing he was getting married. Now he was parked in a row of cars and trying to get comfortable.

  He could make out Finchley in the crowd because of his bright blue construction helmet, his size, and the rolling gait with which he walked. So far he wasn’t doing anything more suspicious than overseeing a cement mixer.

  He scrupulously noted the times that Max stopped for tea from his flask and a bite to eat – which was roughly every two hours – and whenever he disappeared into the portacabin office on some admin quest, or visited the loo.

  But his mind wasn’t on the suspect, but on Jean.

  Last night already seemed as if it had happened last month, and to somebody else.

  When he’d tried to drop Jean off at her mother’s, she’d insisted that he came in with her to spread the good news, which he had, and been thoroughly kissed by an excited Mavis Dixon for his pains. (And somewhat disconcerting that had been too.) Then his
prospective mother-in-law had immediately set about planning the wedding there and then. Consequently he got home late. Naturally, Mavis had rung up her good friend Mercy in the meantime, which meant that Tommy’s mother had been waiting for him with a big grin on her face and suggestions for the wedding of her own – most of which went directly against Mavis’s ideas, from the colour of the bridesmaid’s dresses right down to the choice of caterer.

  The only thing on which the two women seemed to agree was the date – June. A June bride, apparently, had the best luck, or something. So, next June, there’d be a Mrs Tommy Lynch, walking around.

  No matter how many times he said that in his head, he couldn’t make himself believe it. Was that normal?

  He supposed he should have told Janine and Hillary at the office that morning that he’d got engaged, but somehow he hadn’t done so. Of course, gossip and the station grapevine would quickly do the job for him, saving him the embarrassment. Still, he wanted to see Hillary’s face for himself when she heard.

  Tommy snorted at the fantasy that shot immediately through his mind and ran a hand across his eyes. So what if her face did fall? What if a puzzled, hurt look should make her eyes darken. What if his wildest dream actually came true, and she suddenly, in one fell swoop, realized in the best Mills & Boon tradition, that she’d fallen head over heels for her handsome DC, without even knowing it.

  What would he do then? Realistically? Call the newly ecstatic Jean, her mum, his mum and all of Jean’s friends (who’d know by now) and tell them it had been a mistake?

  Yeah, right.

  Besides, it would never happen. Hillary, when she did finally learn of it, would be happy enough for him, give a moment’s thought to a possible wedding present, and then promptly forget it all.

  Tommy sighed and reached for his own thermos. It was nearly one o’clock, and time for lunch. He glanced inside his orange Tupperware lunchbox and discovered that his mother had made all his favourites – cheese and pickle sandwiches, a slice of coffee and walnut cake, and a couple of kiwi fruits. Now when the hell had she had the chance to bake the cake, Tommy wondered, bemused. He felt like a 6-year old being treated to an ice-cream after scraping his knee.

  The cake tasted good though.

  Through the chainlink fence, Max Finchley also was chowing down, though from the way he’d been dipping into that big old-fashioned lunch box of his all morning, Tommy wondered what could possibly be left.

  He drearily noted the time Max went back to work – on the dot of two – and then, a half-hour later, went off with his lunch box further into the site, where he disappeared into a heavy iron-clad shack. Did the man do nothing but eat? No wonder he looked like a walking barrel.

  Tommy leaned back in his seat, and tried not to think about getting married. But that was impossible. Instead he watched Max Finchley return with his lunch box, set it straight down on the ground in front of him, then start to shovel sand into the cement mixer.

  Suddenly Tommy sat up straighter. Wait a minute. There was something off again. Something that was niggling him about the man’s demeanour. What was it exactly? Tommy tried to pinpoint it. Something about the way he put the lunch box down on the ground so carefully? Come to think of it, why did he keep it with him at all times anyway? None of the other construction workers guarded their food so assiduously.

  Slowly, Tommy got out of the car, wondering if he should report in. But say what, exactly? He wandered over to the gate, where the man on duty looked up at once and fixed him with a gimlet stare. No doubt a big youth was just the sort of tea-leaf he was paid to watch out for. Tommy found himself reaching for his ID in self-defence before fully realizing what he was doing. Now how was that for a Freudian moment? ‘DC Lynch, sir. Is the site foreman around?’

  The guard nodded quickly. He was a flabby forty-something, but had sharp eyes and probably sharp ears as well. He also had an Alsatian that was lying at his feet, eyeing Tommy as if he were an interesting lunch option.

  ‘Sure. Wanna have him come out here, or do you want to go in?’

  ‘I’ll go to him,’ Tommy said. ‘He’s in the portacabin, right?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  The guard watched him go with open curiosity, wondering what gives. Nothing had gone missing from the site as far as he knew. Well, nothing had walked lately. Well, nothing really, really valuable.

  Tommy walked across the wet, muddy ground, wishing he hadn’t got himself into this. He still had no clear idea what he was going to do or what he was going to ask. It was all right for the police manual to talk about using your initiative, – and Tommy, who’d sat the written papers for his sergeant’s exams only last month, had actually written a long essay on just this subject – but in real life, how did you know if you were being clever, or were just about to make a damned great big muffin of yourself?

  He knocked on the site-manager’s door and heard an abrupt summons to come in. He did so, finding himself instantly insulated from the cold wind by a stifling electric fire and the humidity of a constantly boiling kettle. The office had a large desk littered with papers and walls lined with pinboards that were, in turn, covered with maps, specs and lists. It even had a secretary, a rather pretty young redhead who looked up from a typewriter (Tommy hadn’t seen an actual typewriter for years) and seemed surprised to see him.

  A plaque on the desk identified its owner as one Stan Biggins, Site Foreman.

  Once again Tommy dragged out his identification.

  ‘Something up? Anything I can do?’ Stan Biggins said at once and stood up. He was a smallish man, aged anywhere between 45 and 65, with iron-grey hair, a bristly moustache, and one of those honest, straightforward faces that probably (just to completely flummox you) housed an honest and straightforward personality. Tommy knew that construction sites and scams often went hand in hand though. And he wasn’t at all sure that talking to the foreman was the clever move. But here he was, using his initiative.

  ‘I’m here about one of your employees, sir. A Mr Max Finchley?’

  ‘Max?’ Stan said, sounding surprised.

  Tommy supposed that Stan was no stranger when it came to dealing with the police, owing to the construction industry’s penchant for hiring, as Frank Ross would no doubt oh so delicately put it, low-life navvies. But the foreman was obviously surprised at the mention of Max’s name, which told Tommy that whatever it was that Max Finchley was up to, Stan Biggins hadn’t caught on to it.

  Yet.

  ‘Yes, nothing serious sir. Or at least, nothing definite,’ Tommy said, aware that he was breaking out in a bit of sweat. Not only was the office unduly warm, but he was desperately casting around for some sort of gambit which would allow him to back out gracefully. ‘I take it you’ve no complaints about Mr Finchley’s work? Known him long have you, sir?’

  When in doubt, ask something general.

  ‘Going on ten years, I suppose. Good mixer, not much of a brickie. Got a good head for heights though, and he’ll really only start to earn his keep when the scaffolding goes up. What do you want with Max?’

  ‘Oh, I can’t say yet, sir,’ Tommy said gently. ‘That big iron-looking building at the far end of the site,’ he said, ‘can you tell me what’s kept there?’ He’d seen Max go there just recently, and it seemed an innocuous thing to ask about.

  ‘Explosives,’ Stan said.

  Tommy blinked.

  ‘Oh,’ he heard himself say.

  And then, into his mind, came a picture of Max Finchley carefully, very carefully, setting his big, old-fashioned lunch box down on the ground. A tin lunch box with a hinged lid.

  A fireproof lunch box.

  ‘Oh,’ he said again. And smiled.

  Max Finchley looked surprised to see the boss heading his way with a big black man in a cheap suit striding along beside him.

  Then he began to look distinctly unhappy.

  ‘Max,’ Stan said, shouting a little to be heard over the grating noise of the cement mixer. ‘This is DC Lynch.
We want to see what’s in the lunch box, Max.’

  Max Finchley fainted.

  He just went pale, opened his mouth a couple of times like a fish, gaped in horror from his boss to Tommy then back again, and then just keeled over.

  Tommy wasn’t quite quick enough to stop him landing face-first into a puddle of dirty yellow mud. Then again, at least he hadn’t fallen into the cement mixer. Now that really would have been a bummer. Suspect dies in a cement mixer whilst being arrested by police. Tommy was still imaging the possible headlines as he helped Stan to lift the inert man off the ground.

  ‘Bugger me,’ Stan said breathlessly. But whether this comment was meant to indicate the weight of the construction worker, the state of his now filthy clothes, or the fact that he’d fainted in the first place, Tommy wasn’t quite sure.

  By now others were gathering round.

  ‘He had a heart attack then?’ one cheerful Irish voice asked.

  ‘Nah. He didn’t clutch his chest,’ someone else said. ‘They always do that.’

  Max Finchley, hanging like a piece of unwanted meat between Tommy and Stan, neither of whom knowing quite what to do with him, suddenly groaned and lifted his head. Hastily they put him back down, and he managed to get his feet under him before looking around groggily.

  Tommy, once he was sure that he wasn’t going to keel over again, reached down and carefully, very carefully, picked up the lunch box.

  ‘Your office, I think, Mr Biggins,’ he said, and Stan nodded, awkwardly patting Max Finchley on the back. Without any protest, the construction worker trooped off between them.

  Inside the office, Stan offered to open the box and Tommy let him. Max Finchley, white-faced and wide-eyed, watched this procedure and said nothing. Tommy peered down over Stan’s shoulder and blinked.