The Picasso Scam dcp-1
Page 24
Upstairs it was more of the same, for about a minute, then we got down to business. I was brought up to date with happenings in the division and told where to give priorities. The rustlers were still at their dirty deeds, but more so.
"It's not just someone knocking off the odd lamb for the deepfreeze,"
Gilbert told me. "It's on a commercial scale now. The hill farmers are already going through a bad time; this could break some of them.
Put it higher up the list, will you, Charlie?"
When I went down to the office again Sergeant Jenks was waiting with Helen. He said: "It's good to have you back, Mr. Priest. I made a list of all the people who rang to see how you were. Thought that perhaps you might like to thank them. Mind you, most of 'em are villains. That lady Mrs. Wilberforce she rang every day at first, when it was touch and go."
"Okay, I'll ring her, er, them. Thanks for the list." He left and I turned to Helen. "Right, Helen. It's your first day with us and my first day back. What have you decided we should concentrate on?"
She pursed her lips and tilted her head in a thoughtful manner. "We could always go see Mrs. Wilberforce," she suggested.
"Er, no, that can wait. I was thinking more along the lines of… you know, crime."
I was close to her now, as we pored over the print-out. I took a long, deep inhalation. The ganglia along my nasal passages went on to red alert. Helen pointed at various of fences mainly burglaries, and spoke intelligently about them.
I took another slow breath. Airborne molecules reacted with receptors and sent impulses spinning to my brain. I could smell… summer breezes wafting across the meadows of Provence; the forest at Kielder after a rain shower; all the spices of Araby. Pheromones bombarded my senses, triggering reactions in other parts of my body. That bastard Newley had been winding me up.
"Yes," I croaked, struggling to adhere to the company's guidelines, 'that's all good stuff. However, we've been instructed to give more priority to the sheep-stealing. It's getting out of hand. So far, we've concentrated on the sharp end of the crime: kept observations, looked for tyre tracks, that sort of thing. Maybe we ought to be investigating the disposal end of it."
"Talk to the butchers, see if they've been offered cheap lamb chops," she suggested.
"That's the idea. I'll show you where most of the of fences were committed, to give you an inkling of what we're up against; introduce you to the fanners; then you can do the leg work. Okay?"
"That's fine by me, sir."
"Rule number one and we don't have many cut out the sir." I pulled my jacket back on, curled the corner of my lip and said: "Okay, Frank.
Let's go."
Helen looked at me, nonplussed. "Pardon?" she said.
I shrugged my shoulders. "Steve McQueen," I explained, "He said that, in Bullitt."
She thought about it. "No he didn't. In the film he was called Frank Frank Bullitt. He didn't say it to himself; his partner said it to him."
"You're right." I stabbed at her with a forefinger. "Okay — you can be Steve McQueen, I'll be the little Mexican. Let's go!"
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Document ID: fbd-489ac4-ff8a-874b-57a0-907d-6dda-bc6d4a
Document version: 1
Document creation date: 11.08.2012
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