The Victory Snapshot (A Chris Tyroll Mystery Book 1)

by Barrie Roberts

  ‘Why do you implicate police officers in your accusations?’

  ‘At the least because the forged documents were created on genuine police forms and a police fax machine and were contained in a real police folder, and the faked fingerprints showed the chemical constituents of police fingerprint tape.’

  His expression never changed. ‘Your accusations are very serious,’ he said.

  I took a two-page photocopy from my file and handed it to him.

  ‘That,’ I told him, ‘is a copy of a letter to the Chief Constable. When I left the office under arrest this morning, my secretary will have carried out my instructions that if I was arrested she was to have copies of all the documents I have given you, together with that letter, sent by courier to the Chief Constable, the Senior Crown Prosecutor at Birmingham and my Member of Parliament. You will see that the letter sets out more detailed allegations of the crimes attempted against me and demands that a full criminal investigation follows. In particular it suggests that the starting point of that investigation should be Detective Inspector Saffary.’

  Saffary reared up out of his chair with a strangled exclamation. For once Howard acted swiftly and decisively, thrusting him firmly back into his seat. I was disappointed; I would have loved Saffary to assault me in front of the video-camera.

  ‘Keep your seat, inspector!’ Howard snapped. His face was now white — not the pale colour of shock, but the hard white of anger. He had been leaned on to put me out of action and had given the task to Saffary, whose beautifully written memorandum explained how well he’d done it. Now his career was on the line and it had to be Saffary’s fault. He stared bleakly at me before speaking again.

  ‘Before I end this interview,’ he said, ‘would you care to explain why, on returning to Belston, you avoided your home and why you sent Mr Rains and his team to carry out their search?’

  I smiled. ‘You operated on ‘information received’, superintendent. I had a gypsy’s warning, and in case you think that answer is non-responsive, I can assure you that in any trial I am prepared to produce the witness who warned me.’

  He looked at me dully, not understanding, then snapped himself back to the official rituals.

  ‘Unless Mr Tyroll wishes to add or clarify anything I propose to end this interview now. Detective Inspector Saffary will give you a form explaining how you can apply for a copy of the video recording of the interview.’

  Saffary pulled open a drawer in the table and thrust a form at me wordlessly. I took it with my brightest smile.

  Howard looked at his watch. ‘It is now 12.43 p.m. and this interview is ended.’

  23

  The custody sergeant stood up at his desk as we filed out of the interview room. ‘All dealt with according to PACE, superintendent?’ he asked Howard.

  ‘The interview has ended and was conducted in accordance with the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, sergeant,’ confirmed Howard. ‘I now propose to bail Mr Tyroll back to this police station four weeks from today.’

  The sergeant pulled a pad of police bail forms towards him. ‘Do you consent to bail, Mr Tyroll?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ I said. The sergeant looked startled, then smiled faintly. In his long years of service he had probably never heard that reply. ‘Then I cannot admit you to bail, Mr Tyroll. You do understand that?’

  ‘I do, sergeant. I also understand that Superintendent Howard must now decide to charge me and bring me rapidly before a court or to release me immediately.’

  Howard looked daggers at me. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Mr Tyroll is discharged from custody, sergeant,’ and he turned on his heel and walked out of the office, closely followed by Saffary.

  Minutes later my personal property had been returned, I had signed the Person in Custody Sheet and Alasdair and I were walking across the front lobby of the police station. Saffary’s unmistakable voice rang out behind me.

  ‘Mr Tyroll!’ he called. ‘A moment of your time.’

  I turned and waited as he came across to us. ‘I should tell you,’ he said, ‘that I have been placed in charge of the Brown and Cassidy enquiries and in that connection I wish to interview your client, Miss McKenna. Where is she?’

  ‘Dr McKenna,’ I said, emphasising the title, ‘is not my client. She is merely the legatee of a former client. She is at present on holiday and I have no idea of her whereabouts. Why do you wish to interview her, inspector? She gave a very full statement to Sergeant Parry.’

  His mouth twisted into an unpleasant smirk. ‘My review of the file suggests that, as the sole heir of Brown’s estate, she had a motive for doing away with him. I propose to examine that aspect of the matter.’

  ‘I suggest,’ I said, ‘that you examine the airline records of flights from Brussels on the day of Walter Brown’s death. You’ll find her on one of the passenger manifests. She was not even in the country when her grandfather died.’

  ‘That does not mean she was not involved, Tyroll,’ he said. ‘I intend to interview that young woman.’

  ‘Then if she contacts me I shall make a point of telling her that, inspector. See you in court, as they say — in the dock, I trust.’ I turned and left before he could respond.

  As we stepped into the sunlit shopping precinct outside the station, Alasdair said, ‘Was that a threat, governor?’

  ‘It was,’ I said, ‘but I shouldn’t worry about it. Saffary isn’t going to trouble anybody but his Chief Constable much longer. Come on, I need some of Ruby’s tea and wads.’

  From the Rendezvous I phoned Jayne with the good news, then slumped behind a table and attacked a plate of the usual and a large mug of tea. Alasdair sat opposite, sipping a cup of Earl Grey with lemon and rolling his evil-smelling cigarettes.

  After a while he said, ‘You were pretty good in there, boss.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘You weren’t so bad yourself. How do you remember all those case references?’

  ‘Nothing much else in the head.’ He grinned. ‘It was lucky, though — you spotting those tape marks on the diary. Without that they’d have had you on toast.’

  I shook my head. ‘Not luck,’ I said. ‘I was warned,’ and I told him the whole story of Queenie’s warning.

  ‘What happens next?’ he asked.

  ‘I wish I knew. We’ve won the battle, Alasdair. They probably won’t try me again, but Saffary was making clear that they’ll try it with Sheila if they get the chance.’

  I drank my tea, while Alasdair observed, ‘You don’t look like a bloke who’s just screwed the most bent inspector in the force.’

  ‘It’s a deeply depressing thing to have hired killers trying to cripple you or burn you alive and bent coppers trying to jail you and ruin you professionally. Especially when you don’t know why.’

  I was depressed. I should have been exhilarated at the complete rout of Howard’s and Saffary’s vicious little plot, but I had been through too many days of strain, lately without the inspiration of Sheila beside me, and the present victory seemed very hollow.

  ‘They won’t try you again, will they governor?’ my companion asked.

  ‘Not if I keep to the middle of the pavement, public places and bright lights. My material with the Chief Constable will stymie any further police action or anything that an astute journalist might connect with today’s events, but that doesn’t mean the funnies aren’t already arranging a convincing accident for me.’

  ‘Doesn’t seem to worry you,’ Alasdair remarked.

  ‘If they’re going to try it, Al, there’s little I can do to stop it, so there’s no point in worrying about it. I’m more worried about Sheila. If I have convinced them into leaving me alone, they may turn their attentions on her, and I don’t even know where she is at present.’

  As soon as I said it I realised the truth of it. I might have saved myself at the price of exposing Sheila, and maybe that was what Saffary had meant. Now I was even more depressed.

  We finished up and made for the office, entering by t
he front door from the square. A home-made ‘Welcome Back’ banner was pinned across the hall and while we stood and stared at it my teenage receptionist woke from her afternoon daydream and poked buttons on the intercom to warn the office of our return. Seconds later the narrow hall was full of the secretaries, Alan Reilly, Claude and the junior all beating Alasdair and me about the shoulders, applauding and cheering. In spite of my grey mood I was touched.

  The mob flowed into the general office, which had been hastily draped with paper chains and balloons in a crude ball and chain pattern. Jayne’s assistant, Mary Kendall, a solid, stocky redhead who could be just as formidable as Jayne but in a more ponderous and sinister style, produced a large cake, the iced top of which bore broad arrows and the inscription ‘Property of Her Majesty’s Prison’. Alan Reilly, who cultivates the bland appearance of a young, bemused curate, was thrusting glasses of white wine on everyone. When all had been supplied there were cries of ‘Speech! Speech!’

  I took up a position in front of the photocopier and raised my glass. ‘I would like,’ I said, ‘to thank my legal adviser, Mr Alasdair Thayne, the second-best criminal lawyer in the Midlands, for his moral back-up during my recent ordeal, and Mr Gordon Rains, aka Claude the Phantom, for his sterling efforts on my behalf. As to the rest of you, I am deeply grateful for your support, which I shall wear always … ’

  ‘I like the old jokes, too,’ muttered Claude.

  ‘ … and merely wish to say that, if this was paid for out of the petty cash, it’ll come out of your wages on Friday.’

  More laughter and applause, above which Jayne announced, ‘Actually we looked in the petty cash, but you took it all when you went to Wales, so we dipped into the lottery fund.’

  The cake was cut and passed around. ‘Mary,’ I asked, ‘how come you baked a cake?’

  ‘Typed some of the stuff for the Chief Constable, didn’t I?’ she said. ‘And Jayne told me what she thought was going on, so I thought there might be a bit of a party when it was all over.’

  ‘And what would have happened to this excellent cake if I’d been locked up?’ I queried, through a mouthful.

  ‘There’s a hollow in the bottom for a file. We’d have brought it to the nick!’

  The tail end of the afternoon passed in a blur of white wine and more old jokes, until Alan began to sing ‘Midnight in Invertotty’ and people began putting on coats. Soon there was just Alasdair and me, finishing off the last bottle of wine. I had already helped a number of other people finish off a number of other bottles during the afternoon, but I was not as drunk as I needed to be.

  The fax machine beeped and began to creak into life, excreting a copy of a document headed by the impressive shield and supporters of the Central Midlands Police (Motto, Fiat Justitia — ho, bloody ho!). It was from an illegible signature on behalf of the Chief Constable, informing me that my letter and documents had been received and that, in view of the material they contained and my serious allegations, the Chief Constable had ordered ‘urgent enquiries’. I would be informed of the result.

  I passed it to Alasdair. ‘Not bad,’ he said when he’d read it. ‘What do you imagine the result will be?’

  ‘The result at the moment is that they’re all sitting around in the bar at headquarters calling me filthy names and wondering how they can wriggle out of this one. The result that they’ll tell me about in several weeks’ time will be that they can’t identify the fingerprints, their scientists don’t agree with mine, they can’t find who did it and that Howard has been sent on a twelve-month course with the FBI and Saffary has been moved to the post of Public Relations Officer.’

  I drained my wine and Alasdair stood up. ‘You sound as if it’s time you went home,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, it is,’ I agreed, ‘it is. Come and help me move out of that damned hotel.’

  ‘You’re going back home?’ he asked, surprised. ‘Do you think that’s a good idea?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’ve been driven into Wales, chased all over the Principality, scared ragged, forced to live in the Victoria, and this morning I’ve had to look Howard and Saffary in their mean little eyes for ages. I’ve had enough, Al. Besides, I wouldn’t put it past the sods to break in again tonight and plant some fresh bugs, Shergar’s corpse, the missing Irish Crown Jewels and the proof that I was Jack the Ripper.’

  He grinned. ‘You’re not old enough.’

  ‘I feel it, Al. I feel it,’ and I did.

  An hour later he delivered me to my front gate. He was still anxious about my return, offering to stay with me. Normally I’d have welcomed his presence, but I needed to be alone with my worries and my guilt. We had a coffee in the kitchen, where Alasdair carefully dropped all the blinds before switching on the lights. Then he left.

  I was desperate for Claude to call with Sheila’s callback number, but he hadn’t done so by half-past seven. Just before eight he rang to say there had been no message from her this evening. I remembered why we had gone to Wales in the first place, because they wanted to snatch her, and Saffary’s veiled threat this morning. Suddenly I was afraid that they’d got her and there was nothing I could do about it.

  I had thought that I was going to drop into my favourite armchair with a bottle of whisky and fret about Sheila till alcohol overwhelmed me, but it didn’t work. If you’ve ever drunk alcohol to quell the pain of a toothache you’ll know what I mean. You can absorb huge quantities of liquor without either getting drunk or dulling the pain.

  By midnight I wasn’t drunk and the pain wouldn’t go away. In desperation I switched on the television, hoping that the late movie would bore me into a stupor. I’d missed the beginning, but it was about a bloke and his girl being chased all over a mountain and shot at. When the baddies captured the girl I switched it off.

  There was nothing left to do but stare at the wall and imagine the worst. That was very successful, each worst I imagined being much worse than the one before.

  Then there was a noise outside. Whatever alcohol was in my bloodstream drained in a flash. Someone’s foot had pressed very stealthily on the path at the side of the house, but not stealthily enough. The gravel had slid sufficiently to make a sound.

  I doused the lamp on the table by my chair and soft-footed through into the kitchen. The drawn blinds made it almost pitch dark in there. Only the window in the back door gave a little light, but the tall bushes beyond it shaded it.

  I crouched in the deep shadow behind the big kitchen table, watching the dim, striped oblongs of the right-hand blinds for a sign of somebody approaching outside. If someone had gone round the side path they must pass that window soon.

  My imagination leapt back to life. I had been joking when I told Alasdair that they might break in again. I didn’t really believe the police would have another try. But what about the smoothy, the expensively dressed character with the posh accent who chopped down old men and firebombed sleepers? Was he out there with a knife or a gun or his deadly, well-manicured hands? Had he dealt with Sheila and was he now about to tidy up the last loose end?

  I could see the headline in tomorrow’s Express and Star, telling how a Belston solicitor had been left dead when he disturbed a burglar at his home. I darted across the kitchen and coiled myself under the worktop alongside the back door. Maybe I could trip him as he came in and get some kind of advantage.

  With one hand I reached up and groped on the worktop for a weapon. My fingers found a small chopping knife. Ideal for close stabbing, short and very sharp with a good point. I tried to remember every thriller I had ever read. Where was the best place to stab him? If he went down face upwards, should I stick it in his belly? In his heart? In his throat? If he fell the other way, what then? Wasn’t there a point under the skull where you could stab directly into the brain? What if he didn’t fall?

  A faint movement caught my eye, reflected in the glass of the cupboards opposite. Someone was creeping past the window. I reached out again and softly turned the key back in the lock. I did
n’t want to make him force the door. I didn’t know how long that might take. Let him walk in, unsuspecting. That would give me the best chance.

  The pale oblong on the tiled floor where the dim light from the door fell seemed darker. He was standing at the door. I breathed deeply.

  There was a rap at the door. A ‘shave-and-haircut-five-bob’ knock. Loud and cheerful. Do hitmen knock before they enter? Is it part of the training? The knock came again, louder. Now I understood. He was finding out if I was awake, if there was going to be a struggle or whether he could kill me in my sleep.

  I heard the doorknob rattle slightly and a pale line appeared on the floor as the door edged open. Then it swung wide, thudding against the cabinet on the other side. He was standing outside and I wasn’t going to get a chance to trip him. He was too wary. In a moment he’d leap in, gun or deadly hands at the ready, and if I didn’t hit the right spot with my knife immediately I was done for. I took another deep, silent breath and tensed myself for action.

  Then there was a voice, a soft, low voice, calling, ‘Chris? Chris Tyroll? Are you home?’

  I uncoiled from my hiding-place as Sheila stepped through the door and switched on the light. In a second she was in my arms and I was clutching her and kissing her and weeping tears of relief down her neck. That went on for some time before I was able to let go of her and ask, ‘What the hell are you doing here?’

  ‘It’s the boomerang in me,’ she said. ‘We always come back however far you chuck us.’

  24

  ‘You’re drunk!’ she accused, sniffing my breath.

  ‘Oh no, I’m not,’ I said. ‘I might have been ten minutes ago, but the fright you gave me scared me stone cold sober! What the blazes made you sneak round to the back?’

  ‘Paddy said he always came round the side and tapped the kitchen door.’