The Victory Snapshot (A Chris Tyroll Mystery Book 1)

by Barrie Roberts

  Norman Berry — sharp dresser, snob (Lord Muckamuck) moved to Kerrenwood Village — fixed Francy’s job with Kerrenwood’s

  Sgt Reynolds: Pissed off by FC’s trick in Bennetts’ robbery

  Still alive — Lime Avenue, Wellwich.

  Sheila switched off the tape and put the little recorder away. I passed her the notes.

  ‘Any ideas?’ she asked, when she had scanned the papers for a couple of minutes.

  ‘Not unless it’s the vengeance of Sergeant Reynolds, no.’

  ‘There’s a couple of references to Kerrenwood’s. That’s where Mrs Cassidy said her grandson worked. What is it? Didn’t she mention a Kerrenwood Village? Is it a place or a firm or what?’

  ‘It’s a firm,’ I said. ‘Kerrenwood Enterprises.’

  ‘That’s right,’ she interrupted. ‘There was a badge in Grandpa’s tin. What did you say it was? CHOKE?’

  ‘Community Health or Kerrenwood Enterprises,’ I recited. ‘They’ve got a huge plant out on the edge of town, between the town and Kerrenwood Village. They ship in chemical waste from all over — Britain and abroad — and reprocess it so it’s supposed to be harmless, then they pour it down eighteenth-century mineshafts that have never been properly surveyed. CHOKE says that sooner or later it all seeps into the water-table and poisons us. They also do nuclear processing. They’ve got rubber-burning facilities and lots of chimneys pumping fumes across Belston.’

  ‘Why aren’t they stopped?’

  ‘Who by? CHOKE is just concerned residents who don’t want to be poisoned. There’s not a single councillor in it. Kerrenwood’s employ a lot of people and buy a lot of services. This town lost all its heavy industry in the early eighties. There are still tower blocks in the Meadows with eighty per cent unemployment. Nobody’s going to shut Kerrenwood’s down and wipe out all those jobs.’

  She looked thoughtful. ‘Do you think Grandpa went up against them?’ she asked.

  ‘Well, he kept his CHOKE button in his little box, so he certainly wasn’t a fan of Kerrenwood’s, but what are you saying? You think Kerrenwood Enterprises killed him — and Francy Cassidy?’

  ‘Maybe he found out something about Kerrenwood’s. Something he wanted to confirm with Cassidy. Something that might close them down or harm them. That’d cost someone a hell of a lot of money, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Well, yes,’ I agreed. ‘Kerrenwood’s is a privately owned company. None of this ‘share-owning democracy’ rubbish there. It all belongs to Lord Kerrenwood and his clan. I suppose they’d have to take a considerable reduction in the champagne budget if any large part of Kerrenwood’s went. But they don’t have to kill people to protect themselves. They buy people. His Lordship’s a huge contributor to the government, personal pal of the PM, grey eminence of the party for years. He doesn’t need hitmen, he’s got money and influence.’

  ‘He reprocesses nuclear waste,’ she said, doggedly. ‘You said Grandpa’s death smelt of — what did you call them? The funnies? What about your nuclear police? Mightn’t they have got after Grandpa and Cassidy to shut something up?’

  ‘I suppose they just might,’ I said, but I didn’t really believe it.

  ‘Have you got any better ideas, then?’ she demanded.

  ‘I don’t know if it’s better, but there’s something that strikes me as odd here. There’s seven men in a pub in 1945 — ’

  ‘Eight,’ she interrupted.

  ‘Eight?’

  ‘Eight,’ she repeated. ‘Somebody took the picture.’

  ‘The landlord,’ I said.

  ‘The landlord? How do you know?’

  ‘Because,’ I said, pointing to the larger picture, ‘that blurred object down the left side is a beer-handle, so it was taken from behind the bar.’

  ‘OK,’ she surrendered. ‘There were seven men and the landlord in a pub in 1945 — this is beginning to sound like the beginning of a joke.’

  ‘You want my ideas, you listen to them,’ I said, picking up the notes. ‘Seven blokes, all mates, partners in crime. What’s happened to them?’ I tapped a finger down the sheet of notes.

  ‘Francy Cassidy — lived to ripe old age, but got murdered; Bernard Cassidy — lived to middle age and died in nick; Martin Cassidy — died in an accident, comparatively young; George Watson, Freddy Thompson — both left the area; Alan Thorpe — murdered comparatively young; Norman Berry — apparently made it good at Kerrenwood’s.’ I looked at her, expectantly.

  ‘What are you trying to say?’

  ‘It’s an awful lot to happen to a handful of ordinary blokes who survived the war without getting shot or bombed by Adolf Hitler.’

  ‘But they weren’t ordinary blokes,’ she said. ‘They were all dodgy coves, all crooks. Some of them were always heading for sticky ends and some of them met them.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘This list gives me a feeling that something particular was at work, something with money in it. Ruby says Cassidy won the pools, but his wife never mentioned it. She only said he had better money after he worked for Kerrenwood’s.’

  ‘Maybe Ruby’s wrong.’

  ‘Never known it,’ I said. ‘Somewhere there’s a lot of money in this. More than they made as petty black marketeers, spivs, thieves — ’

  ‘What’s a spiv?’

  ‘If you’re going to come to our country, Dr McKenna, you really should learn the language. ‘Spiv’ — a term from the war, meaning a seller of dodgy goods, forged petrol coupons, what have you. From the old coppers’ abbreviation ‘SP/IV’ — ‘suspected person or itinerant vagabond’.’

  ‘Thank you, Professor Tyroll. Now, carry on about them being small-timers.’

  ‘They seem to have ended up with a lot of money after the war. And too many of them got killed. Two separate murders and a fatal accident among seven blokes. I don’t know what an actuary might make of it, but it smells fishy to me. That’s a murder rate of nearly thirty per cent! We’re supposed to have the lowest murder rate in the Western world.’

  ‘That’s if there really have been two murders. What if Cassidy simply pegged out from old age and boredom?’

  ‘He didn’t,’ said a Scottish voice and there was Dr Mac beside the table, clutching a mug of tea.

  He slid himself on to the bench alongside Sheila and picked up the photographs and notes, glancing at them and dropping them again.

  ‘If,’ he said, ‘you were discussing the late Francis Cassidy, you may accept my word for it — he was murdered.’

  ‘How?’ we both asked at once.

  The pathologist took a long draught of tea. ‘On your hypothesis, John Parry has deeply upset Messrs Ryland and Lloyd, Undertakers, by seizing a cadaver from their pretty wee chapel and having me work my wicked will on it. He has also deeply upset me, by requiring me to try and determine the cause of death of a corpse that had been shaved, waxed, painted and God knows what else. Nevertheless, science has triumphed. Francis Cassidy was suffocated.’

  We waited for more while he reapplied himself to his mug.

  ‘Once the make-up had been removed,’ he said, ‘it was evident that Cassidy was stifled. From the inside of the mouth I removed purple velvet fibres that came from a cushion at Ferngate.’

  ‘Who do you think did it?’ Sheila asked.

  ‘I am by way of being one of the best of my unlovely and unpopular profession, lassie, but I am not psychic. If I was I would suggest that misfortune will come your way if you don’t leave this affair to John Parry and the professionals.’

  ‘Oh, come on, Doc,’ she exclaimed. ‘John Parry has got a boss who’s running interference on someone’s behalf, and you and I both believe there’s a department of the government involved! What’s going to happen if I leave it to the police? I’ll tell you — my poor old grandfather will become just another bloody unsolved murder statistic! Well, I’m not going to have it!’

  Her cheeks had flared. Now she pushed out of the bench seat, nearly throwing Macintyre into the aisle, and marched out.<
br />
  There was a long, sticky silence, then ‘Thanks, Doc,’ I said.

  ‘It’s true, laddie,’ said the old man. ‘This case felt bad from the first. Now it smells bad, and you ought to know better than to let her get mixed up with it.’

  ‘She is mixed up with it, Mac. Walter Brown was her only living relative.’

  ‘Then put her on a plane tomorrow. Let her go back to Adelaide and remember her grandad the way she knew him as a wee girl. She’ll do nae good here.’

  I shook my head. ‘It wouldn’t work, Doc. If I try to persuade her to back off, she’ll go it alone. I couldn’t do that.’

  Macintyre looked up at me sharply. ‘No,’ he said, after a moment. ‘I don’t suppose you could. Ah weel, we were all young and daft once.’

  ‘If the Devil should cast his net … ’ exclaimed a Welsh voice. ‘Jayne said you were probably here. Where’s our gracious Aussie doctor?’

  ‘Weeping in her hotel room, I imagine,’ said Macintyre, ‘because, Sergeant Parry, she believes that you’re not going to solve her grandad’s murder.’

  ‘I have come,’ said the detective, ‘to tell you that your suspicions were correct, but I see I have been forestalled.’

  ‘Any idea who did it?’ asked I.

  ‘Well, now, I suppose I shouldn’t tell you, but I will since you put us on to it. The ‘Mr Brown’ who called at the home was a tall athletic gent with a posh accent.’

  ‘Did he, by any chance,’ I asked, ‘have an equally posh sports jacket with a missing button?’

  ‘He certainly had a sports jacket,’ said Parry, ‘though nobody counted the buttons. He also had a blue saloon that waited for him on the forecourt. What about that?’

  ‘It waited for him?’ I repeated. ‘You mean it had a driver? Let me guess — it had a driver who was dark and unshaven and wore a leather jacket, right?’

  ‘Right,’ confirmed Parry.

  ‘Why are you telling me this?’

  ‘So you can explain to the lady that you were right, that Her Majesty’s funnies or someone very much like them killed Walter Brown and that she’d be well advised to forget it and go home to Lucky Oz.’

  ‘She has been well advised,’ I said, ‘by our Scottish pal here. She stormed out of here after forcibly expressing the view that you would never solve the case because your boss wouldn’t let you.’

  I dropped a handful of coins on the table and stood up, picking up the photos and notes.

  ‘You’re buying grief, boy,’ warned Parry, ‘you’re buying grief.’

  ‘Sheila’s got grief. She didn’t buy it. Some bastard gave it to her.’

  It was my turn to stride out of the Rendezvous.

  11

  I didn’t follow Sheila to the hotel. I went back to the office and tried to do some work. It was useless. All I could think of was Sheila and her problems. A lot of my thinking was about the lady rather than the problems. It had been a good many years since a woman had appealed to me so strongly, and I cursed my ill-luck that it should be an Australian who was only going to be around for weeks at the most. At the same time, I could see the truth of the warnings from Parry and Doc. Whatever had brought about Walter Brown’s death was complicated and secret. Maybe Sheila was right, perhaps it did have to do with Kerrenwood’s nuclear involvement — I’d read all the rumours about the ‘nuclear police’ and their alleged use of deadly force.

  Whatever my feelings towards Sheila, I knew that I ought to persuade her to go home. Someone had killed twice to protect something. They might have killed three times if I hadn’t still been able to vault my own front gate. Nuclear police or not, someone was using deadly force, and I knew I’d never forgive myself if any harm came to her.

  I sat at my desk while the office shut down for the day. Jayne and the other staff popped their heads round the door to say goodnight and I responded mechanically.

  I would never persuade Sheila to go home. However much I wanted to, I’d seen enough of her feelings for her grandfather and enough of her tough, enquiring personality to know that she would never walk away while Walter Brown’s death remained unresolved. What I had said to Macintyre and John Parry was true and that meant there was only one answer. I had to help her.

  The next move? I recalled the men in the photograph. All dead or vanished except — except Norman Berry. I picked up the telephone directory. There were eleven Berrys listed. I rang each one, introducing myself and trying to suggest that there was an inheritance in the offing. Nobody took the bait. None of them had a relative called Norman.

  I didn’t know where to go next. We could not ask Parry for further assistance. It would place the sergeant in an impossible position. I thought for a moment, then picked up the phone again and punched out the number of Belston police station.

  The police switchboard put me through to the duty desk and I was pleased to hear the familiar voice of Sergeant Crow.

  ‘Duty desk. Sergeant Crow speaking. What can we do for you?’

  ‘Good evenings sergeant. Chris Tyroll here.’

  ‘Mr Tyroll! What can I do for you? We haven’t got any of yours in tonight.’

  ‘Good, I hope it stays that way. I was looking for some information, actually. Have you ever come across a retired sergeant called Reynolds?’

  Crow laughed. ‘Everybody on the force knows Reggie Reynolds. We call him our oldest living inhabitant. We’ve got a fund up in the bar. We all put into it and each one draws a month between now and Reggie’s hundredth birthday. If he makes his century the money’ll go to a big party for him. If he snuffs it before the big one hundred then the bloke with the right month wins the pool.’

  ‘I wouldn’t let that get about, if I were you, sergeant. If he drops off suddenly some suspicious copper might think the winner had fixed the result.’

  Crow laughed again. ‘Could be,’ he said. ‘Anyway, what’s your interest in old Reggie?’

  ‘I’ve been looking into some old Belston cases and someone thought Sergeant Reynolds might be able to help. How old is he?’

  ‘Older than God’s dog,’ he said. ‘Well, he’s well past ninety, any road. He was a sergeant sixty-odd years ago. Standing joke round here when anyone puts their stripes up, we always tell them if they’re not careful they’ll end up wearing them as long as old Reggie.’

  ‘Is he all right — I mean, is he still compos mentis?’

  ‘Well, he was last time I saw him. We always have him up the bar on his birthday and give him a bit of a treat. Couple of months ago we had the force helicopter in and took him for a spin. Lapped it up, he did. Oh, he’s sharp as a tack most of the time, just rambles a bit. If you listen long enough you’ll hear about every crime committed in this town since the Great War.’

  ‘He lives in Lime Avenue, I think?’

  ‘That’s right. I can’t just recall the number, but it’s a double-fronted house on the right as you go up from town. If you see him, give him my regards.’

  ‘Thanks, sergeant.’

  I flipped the receiver rest then punched in another number, for the Victoria. Sheila answered from her room. She sounded withdrawn, wary.

  ‘I wondered,’ I said, carefully, ‘if I might feed you again tonight?’

  ‘Not if you’re going to tell me to push off home like a good little girl,’ she said. ‘I don’t need a meal that badly.’

  ‘I think you’ve got me mixed up with a certain detective and a mad old Scotsman,’ I said. ‘I don’t know if I’m smarter than them or a lot dafter, but whichever it is, I’m not going to tell you to go home.’

  ‘On that understanding,’ she said, ‘I’ll see you in the residents’ bar about seven thirty.’

  She looked tense and pale when we met. Normally she knew that she needed little make-up, but now she had made up her eyes to conceal the redness at their rims. I said nothing until the food had been ordered. ‘You’ve been crying again,’ I said, softly. ‘Yes, I have,’ she said, shortly. ‘And you say half a wrong word and I’ll start a
gain, right here. That’ll give your posh Pommy pals something to gossip about!’

  ‘You had to cry for your grandfather,’ I said.

  ‘I wasn’t crying for him. I’ve done that. I was bloody crying for me. Some ratbag chopped my grandpa down and rolled him under a bush like junkies rolling an old tramp. Walter Brown was worth better than that and I want those bastards nailed — I don’t care if they’re Her Majesty’s funnies, the nuclear police or the Prime Minister’s nephews, I want them locked up for every second the law allows, and all anyone’ll tell me is ‘Give it up and go home.’’

  She was close to tears again. I reached across and clasped my hand around hers on the stem of her glass.

  ‘I’m not saying that,’ I said. ‘I agree with you — whoever it was should suffer for it, but what Parry and Doc said was true. It’s extremely dangerous, but you know that. I just wanted to say that I’ll help you any way I can, but you’ll have to forgive me if I spend some time now and then worrying about you getting hurt.’

  She rolled her hand in mine and clenched my fingers fiercely. ‘Strewth!’ she said. ‘A real, old-fashioned Pommy gent!’

  ‘All solicitors,’ I said, solemnly, ‘are gentlemen. That’s why so many crooks join the game. It gives them status without responsibility. Now — can we talk about who wrote ‘Waltzing Matilda’ or why Australians talk funny?’

  So we did, and four hours later, when I took a cab from outside the Victoria, I knew that if there’d ever been any doubt I was now certain: there was nothing on earth I less wanted Sheila McKenna to do than go back to Australia — ever.

  I usually stay awake into the early hours — sometimes I’m working till three — but that night I fell asleep quickly. The phone shattered my romantic dreams at three o’clock in the morning. It was John Parry.

  ‘You’d better get down here, Chris! Your office is on fire. We think it’s arson.’

  When a cab dropped me in the square I saw John Parry, standing with his superintendent alongside the fire engine. The night was close and warm and the thick, dark smoke that was still pouring out of the entry to the building was spreading across the square like a dark ground fog, drifting around the engine and the feet of the small crowd that, despite the hour, were being urged back by a couple of uniformed policemen. The blue and red strobe lights from the fire appliance and the police cars, flickering on the drifting smoke, and the throbbing of pumps and generators made the whole thing look and sound unreal, more like a clip from Top of the Pops than an urban fire scene.