Cold is the Grave

by Peter Robinson

  ‘What about now?’

  ‘Not quite so busy. It comes and goes.’

  ‘But you stay open all winter, even though the grouse season is over?’

  ‘Oh, yes. We’re generally booked up over Christmas and New Year, of course. The rest of the time it’s . . . well, quieter, though we get a number of foreign guests. Our restaurant has an international reputation. One often has to make dinner reservations weeks in advance.’

  ‘It must be an expensive operation to run.’

  ‘Quite.’ Lacey looked at her as if the mere mention of money were vulgar.

  ‘Was Mr Clough alone while he was here?’

  ‘Mr Clough, as usual, came with his personal assistant and a small group of colleagues. The season is very much a social event.’

  ‘His personal assistant?’

  ‘A Mr Gilbert. Jamie Gilbert.’

  ‘Ah, yes. Of course.’ Banks had told her, when she had forced his confession about the lunch with Emily, that Emily had imagined she saw Jamie Gilbert in Eastvale the Monday of the week she died. Maybe she hadn’t imagined it after all. It was also interesting that Clough had arrived in Yorkshire only a day or two before Charlie Courage’s murder and left the day of Emily’s, which meant that he had certainly been in a position to supply her with the strychnine-laced cocaine.

  ‘Do you know what time Mr Clough left on the tenth?’ she asked.

  ‘Not exactly. Usually our guests depart after breakfast. I’d say between nine and ten o’clock perhaps.’

  ‘Is there anything else you can tell me about his stay, his comings and goings?’

  ‘I’m afraid not. I am not employed to spy on our guests.’

  ‘Is there anyone who might be able to tell me?’

  Lacey looked at his watch and curled his lip. ‘Mr Ferguson, perhaps. He’s the barman. As such, he spends far more time close to the guests in social situations. He might be able to tell you more.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Annie. ‘Where is he?’

  ‘He won’t be in until later this afternoon. Around five o’clock. If you’d care to come back then . . .?’

  ‘Fine.’ Annie thought of asking for Ferguson’s home address and calling on him there, but decided she could wait. Banks was at lunch with someone from Trading Standards and Annie knew that he would want to be here if she took this line of inquiry any further. She could phone him on her mobile and arrange to meet back at Scarlea at five. In the meantime she would head out to Barnard Castle and investigate a reported sighting of Emily Riddle there the afternoon before she died.

  The news about Clough was exciting, though. It was the only positive lead they had on him since Gregory Manners’s fingerprints on the CD case linked him to PKF, and it was the first real lead they’d had linking Clough with Yorkshire and catching him out in a lie. Yes, Banks would certainly want to be in on this.

  Banks had first met Granville Baird two years ago, when North Yorkshire Trading Standards had asked for police assistance after one of their investigators had been threatened with violence. Since then, they had worked together when their duties overlapped and had even met socially now and then for a game of darts in the Queen’s Arms. They weren’t close friends but they were about the same age, and Granville, like Banks, was a jazz fan and a keen opera-goer.

  They chatted about Opera North’s season for a while, then, jumbo Yorkshire pudding on order and a pint of Theakston’s bitter in front of him, the buzz of lunchtime conversation all around, Banks lit a cigarette and asked Granville, ‘Know anything about pirating compact discs?’

  Granville raised an eyebrow. ‘Does that mean you’re in the market for something? The “Ring Cycle” perhaps?’

  ‘No. Though now you come to mention it, I wouldn’t mind the complete Duke Ellington centenary set, all twenty-four, if you can run some off for me.’

  ‘Wish I could afford it. Does this mean that the police are actually looking at doing something about pirating at last?’

  ‘Apart from copyright infringement, which is hardly a police matter, I wasn’t aware that any laws were being broken. If you expect us to come charging in to Bill Gates’s rescue every time someone pirates a copy of Windows, then you’ve got a very funny idea of what our job really is.’

  Granville laughed. ‘You’re behind the times, Alan. It’s big business these days. If it were simply a matter of copying Windows or the latest Michael Jackson CD for a friend, nobody would bat an eyelid, but we’re talking big operations here. Big money, too.’

  ‘That’s exactly what I’m interested in,’ said Banks. ‘How big?’

  ‘The last raid we carried out netted about a quarter of a million quid’s worth of stuff.’

  Banks whistled. ‘That big?’

  ‘Tip of the iceberg.’

  ‘So it would be a lucrative business for organized crime, would it?’

  ‘Especially as you lot don’t even seem to think it’s a crime.’

  ‘Point taken. Look, we’ve got a case on right now – it started with a murder – and I’ve been putting two and two together and coming up with a pirating business. I don’t know how big yet. In fact, we don’t know much at all.’ Brian’s CD had been the final piece in the puzzle. Seeing its amateurishly produced cover, Banks had thought of the CD case Annie had found at PKF, the CDs she saw at Alex and Carly’s flat, about Gregory Manners’s fingerprints, Barry Clough’s dismissal as a roadie for bootlegging live recordings, and the van worth hijacking, the driver worth killing. They still hadn’t found the van contents yet, but Banks would bet a pound to a penny they consisted of equipment for copying CDs, along with any stock and blank discs that happened to have been there. What Banks needed to know from Granville Baird was whether there was enough profit in the pirating business to make it of interest to Clough, the way smuggling was.

  ‘What do you know?’ Granville asked.

  ‘A phony company leases small units in rural business parks, operates for a while, then moves on. Make any sense?’

  Granville nodded. ‘I’ve heard rumours of such a set-up, yes. And if you had two or three of these operations running at once, around the country, you could be turning over a million or two a year, or more, easy. If you had the proper equipment, of course.’

  ‘Definitely worth his while, then?’

  ‘Whose while?’

  ‘We’re not sure yet. This is just speculation. What sort of things would they pirate?’

  ‘Everything they can get their dirty little hands on. Music, software programs, games, you name it. For the moment, by far the biggest profits are in games. Sony PlayStation stuff, that sort of thing. Everyone’s kid wants the latest computer game, right? We’ve even found pirated stuff on sale that isn’t on the market yet. Some of the Star Wars tie-in games came over from America before the film even came out here.’

  ‘What about pirated movies?’

  ‘There’s a lot of that, but most of it’s done in the Far East.’

  ‘How do they get the originals? Insiders?’

  ‘Mostly, yes. As far as the movies are concerned, though, sometimes all they have for a master is a hand-held video of the film being shown at a theatre full of people. I’ve seen some of the stuff and it’s awful. When it comes to the computer programs and games, though, it’s easy enough for some employee to sneak a disc out, and if he can make a couple of hundred quid from it, all the better. There even used to be a private website where, for a membership fee, you got offered a variety of pirated stuff to download, but that’s defunct. Mind you, it’s very much a matter of caveat emptor. Some of it’s a rip-off. We found a lot of games among the last haul that couldn’t be played without complicated by-passes of internal security systems.’

  ‘The manufacturers are wising up, then?’

  ‘Slowly.’

  Their food came, and they paused to eat. Banks took a bite of his Yorkshire pudding filled with roast beef and gravy and washed it down with some beer. He looked at Granville, who was drinking mineral wate
r and nibbling at a salad. ‘What’s up? On a diet?’

  Granville frowned. ‘Annual check-up last month. Doc says my cholesterol’s too high, so I’ve got to cut out booze and fatty foods.’

  Banks was surprised. Granville looked healthy enough, played squash and was hardly any heavier than Banks was. ‘Sorry to hear that.’

  ‘No sweat. You just go right on enjoying yourself until it’s your turn.’

  Banks, who felt he had led a charmed life thus far, despite the bad diet, the cigarettes and the ale, nodded. ‘It’ll be either that or the prostate, I know. What about distribution?’

  ‘Wherever you can shift it. I’ve even heard stories of the local ice-cream van selling PlayStation games to kids. Gives a whole new meaning to Mr Softee.’

  Banks laughed. That made a lot of sense, he thought as he ate. Clough could use the same distribution network he had set up for the smuggled cigarettes and alcohol – small shopkeepers like Castle Hill Books, to whom DC Winsome Jackman should be talking this afternoon, market stallholders, pubs, clubs, factories. After all, the customers would often be the same people, none of whom thought they were really doing anything wrong in buying the odd packet of smuggled fags or a pirated computer game for their kid’s birthday. Half the cops in the country were smoking contraband cigarettes and drinking smuggled lager. Banks even knew a DI with West Yorkshire who drove to Calais every few weeks and filled up his trunk with booze and cigarettes. He made enough selling them at the station to cover the expenses of his trip and keep himself in the necessities till the next time.

  So, why not? people thought. Big deal. They were getting a bargain, Bill Gates already had too much money, and the tax on booze and fags was extortionate. Now the EU had also cut out duty-free purchases among its members. In a way, Banks agreed, the consumers had a point – except that now people like Barry Clough were getting rich from them.

  He tried to work out how events might have occurred. Clough’s men pay off Charlie Courage, whose ability to sniff out wrongdoing and try for a slice of the pie was legendary, then Charlie sells them out to a rival, who hijacks the van and steals the equipment and stock of pirated CDs to set up somewhere on his own. Only it goes wrong. Clough’s men torture Charlie. Does he give up the hijacker? You bet he does. And what happens to both of them?

  ‘It makes sense,’ he said to Granville. ‘Especially if there’s the kind of money in it you’re saying there is.’

  ‘Take my word for it. There is. And if your man’s really organized, he’ll have multi-disc-copying writers so he can churn them out by the dozen.’

  ‘That’d be an expensive piece of equipment, I should imagine?’

  ‘Indeed it would. An investment of thousands.’

  That answered one question that had been puzzling Banks. If the PKF van had been carrying a few pirated discs, it would have hardly been worth hijacking, not to mention killing Jonathan Fearn. But if it had been carrying industrial standard multi-disc-copying equipment, that was another matter entirely. ‘A very healthy return, I’d imagine, though, if you’ve got the start-up capital,’ Banks said.

  ‘Indeed.’

  And Clough certainly had the capital to invest. From his gun-restoring racket, the music business, his club, his smuggling operations and whatever other dirty little scams he was involved in, he had plenty of money. The problem was how to prove his involvement. It was as Burgess had said about Clough’s smuggling activities: there was plenty of ground for suspicion, but scant evidence of actual guilt. Everything was done through minions and intermediaries, people like Gregory Manners, Jamie Gilbert and Andy Pandy; Clough never got his own hands dirty. His only contact with anything but the profits was entirely circumstantial.

  Or was it? Had Emily Riddle posed some sort of threat to him? Did she have knowledge he considered dangerous? Clough didn’t like to lose, didn’t like people walking out on him, especially if they took something with them, be that money or knowledge.

  It was beginning to seem entirely possible to Banks that the two cases were connected, and that Emily Riddle might have been killed by the same person and for the same reason as Charlie Courage. But who was it? Which of his minions had Clough used? Andy Pandy, who already had a grudge against Emily, the kind of grudge you develop from a hard kick in the balls? Jamie Gilbert, who Burgess had referred to as a psycho? Or someone else, someone they hadn’t encountered yet? Gregory Manners might be able to help them, if they could find him.

  Banks finished his Yorkshire and lit another cigarette. He had about a third of a pint left, and he decided not to have another one. ‘You said you’d heard rumours about a big local operation,’ he said. ‘Anything in them?’

  ‘There’s always something, don’t you think? No smoke without fire, as they say. It’s mostly a matter of finding a lot more pirated goods flooding the markets around North Yorkshire, which reeks of the kind of organization you’ve just been talking about. You say they’ve moved on?’

  ‘Their van was heading for another business park near Wooler, in Northumbria, when it was hijacked. Everything disappeared, and the driver was in a coma for a few days before he died. No prints at the scene. Nothing. All we have is a CD case from PKF’s Daleview operation which bears the fingerprints of one Gregory Manners, convicted for smuggling, and a known associate of our Mr Big.’

  ‘That’s the thing,’ said Baird, leaning forward. ‘They’re getting into these new areas, the big guys, like cigarette smuggling and pirating games. There’s a pile of money to be made if you do it right, and the risks are far less than dealing in drugs. Besides, drugs are cheaper than they’ve ever been these days. With smuggling and pirating, you just sit back and rake in the profits. That’s what we’ve been trying to tell you lot for ages. And the more you squeeze the drug dealers, the more they’re likely to find more creative ways of making their fortunes.’

  Banks looked at his watch. Just gone half past two. Time to check on what was happening in the incident room, then ACC McLaughlin and Detective Superintendent Gristhorpe would be waiting for an update. ‘I’ve got to go now, Granville,’ he said, ‘but could you do me a favour and keep your eyes and ears open?’

  ‘My pleasure.’ Granville paused, then said, ‘I heard about Jimmy Riddle’s daughter. Terrible business.’

  ‘Yes, it is,’ Banks agreed.

  ‘Your case?’

  ‘For my sins.’

  ‘Anything in those rumours in the papers? Sex and drugs?’

  ‘You know what it’s like, Granville,’ said Banks, stubbing out his cigarette and getting up to leave. ‘There’s always something in it, isn’t there? No smoke without fire.’

  Annie’s news about Clough being seen in the area around the time of both murders gave Banks that tingle of excitement he hadn’t felt in a while as he headed for Scarlea House late that afternoon, taking the unfenced high roads, where the only things that slowed him down were wandering sheep. He put Richard and Linda Thompson’s Shoot Out the Lights on the car stereo and turned it up a bit louder than usual.

  Annie’s purple Astra was parked outside Scarlea, and she was waiting in the lobby when Banks arrived. Gerald Ferguson had reported for work ten minutes ago, according to George Lacey. He pointed the way, and Banks and Annie walked down the gloomy hall to the double doors at the far end.

  ‘Anything on that sighting in Barnard Castle?’ Banks asked.

  Annie shook her head. ‘False alarm. Witness was an elderly woman and she admitted all teenagers looked alike to her. Soon as I showed her the photo again she began to have doubts.’

  Banks pushed open the heavy doors – it took more strength than he expected – and they entered the magnificently appointed dining room. Once a banquet hall, he guessed, it had a number of large windows looking out over the valley bottom to the steep dalesides criss-crossed with drystone walls. It was too dark to see anything now, of course, but breakfasting grouse shooters could no doubt look at the view and anticipate the joys of the coming day’s slaughter as
they ate their eggs Benedict or juice and cereal.

  There would probably have been one large central banquet table before the place had been turned into an upmarket restaurant, Banks thought, but now there were a number of tables scattered about the room, each covered by a spotless heavy linen tablecloth. At the far end were more doors, probably to the kitchen, and a long bar took up one wall, all dark polished wood and brass, the rows of bottles gleaming on shelves in front of the mirror at the back. Banks had never seen so many single malt whiskies in one place before. Most of them he had never even heard of.

  A man in a burgundy jacket stood with his back to them fiddling with the optic on the gin bottle when Banks went over and introduced himself and Annie.

  ‘Charmed to meet you,’ the man said, glancing back at them. ‘I’m Gerald Ferguson, and this bloody thing is a pain in the arse, excuse my French, love. I’ve told them to buy a new one but they’re too bloody tight-fisted. The hell with it.’ He left the optic and leaned on the bar to face them. ‘What can I do for you?’

  He was a little round man of about fifty, with a red face, mutton chop sideboards and a soup-strainer moustache. His jacket tugged a bit at the gold buttons around his chest and stomach, and Banks thought one deep breath would pop them. ‘We were hoping you might be able to help us with some information about a guest, Mr Ferguson,’ he said.

  ‘Gerald. Please.’ He looked around then put his finger to the side of his nose. ‘Fancy a wee dram?’

  Banks and Annie sat on the high bar stools. ‘We wouldn’t want to get you into any trouble, said Banks.

  Gerald waved his hand and looked towards the door they had entered by. His fingers were surprisingly long and tapered, Banks thought, the nails neatly clipped and shiny. Perhaps he played piano as a hobby. ‘What he doesn’t know won’t harm him. What’s your poison?’

  It was an unfortunate turn of phrase, Banks thought, as he scanned the row of bottles and settled on the cask-strength Port Ellen.

  ‘Detective Sergeant Cabbot?’