The Work of a Narrow Mind

by Faith Martin

  One of the PI’s on her case had seen a photograph of her, taken with a group of working girls who specialized in S&M. The PI had then traced the girls to a stable belonging to Dale Medcalfe, whereupon the company had promptly thanked Jake for his custom, and told him that they would no longer be able to help him.

  Which told Jake all he needed to know about Medcalfe and his reputation.

  It had taken Jake a long time to find another company willing to take on his case, and even Crimmins & Lloyd, who had a reputation for being tough and well connected, were only willing to do the most careful and peripheral of investigative work for him. But it had been enough for them to find out that, though she had once been part of that circuit, and had indeed been one of Dale’s girls, she hadn’t been seen around for some time. Ten months at least, and nobody had any idea where she might have gone. Since girls weren’t normally allowed to just walk away from Medcalfe to start out on their own, or go to a new pimp, it didn’t bode well.

  Now Jake tossed aside the report he was reading and tiredly rubbed his eyes.

  He hadn’t wanted to, but he’d told his mother and Curtis what he’d found out. And although they’d never spoken it out loud, he knew that they had the same grim, dark thoughts that plagued him.

  Jake had promised them that he wouldn’t let it rest, and nor had he. But the more he learned about Dale Medcalfe, the more he realized just how dangerous the man was, and just what he was up against. For a while, the sheer size of the task he’d set himself, paralysed him. He knew so little about that world, or how to begin to deal with it.

  Clearly, a frontal approach was impossible. He could hardly march into one of the bastard’s car showrooms and demand to know what had happened to his little sister. He’d either end up floating face down in the Oxford canal, or one of Dale’s solicitors would sue him for defamation – depending on his mood.

  And it was then that Jake had put his brains to good use, and had started to think laterally. If he couldn’t take on Medcalfe, he had to find someone or something that could. So, after thinking about it, doing his research, and sweating not a little blood over it, he had told his mother to report Jasmine as a missing person officially, and had then answered the recruitment call to join, as a civilian consultant, the Thames Valley Police’s CRT.

  The timing had seemed almost miraculous. That the police service should be advertising for good-quality candidates for civilian work, just when Jake was looking for some sort of an ‘in’ into that world, had been like providence giving him not so much a sly nudge in the ribs, as a giant whack across the back of his head with a two-by-four. So he’d put himself forward, and quickly found himself just where he wanted, and needed, to be.

  It was all taking time of course, but Jake was satisfied that things were coming together at last, and, as an added bonus, he found that he actually liked working for the police. Hillary Greene was not only a thoroughly competent investigator, with a history of bravery, she was a fascinating boss to have, and he was confident that he could win her around to his cause, given time. Until then, he was perfectly placed to take advantage of anything that might help him find Jas. He had already gained access to Hillary’s computer, but it remained to be seen whether he could somehow wangle it so that Jasmine became a CRT priority. It might be that her case wasn’t yet cold enough. A mere missing person might be too small-fry to attract Hillary’s attention. But he wasn’t deterred. If he could find other, older missing case profiles that were similar to Jas’s he might be able to swing it, or, if he could make himself indispensable, he might simply ask her to do it as a favour.

  He was sure, once she got Medcalfe in her sights, that she wouldn’t rest until she’d taken him down. He knew her well enough by now to know that she wouldn’t back down from a challenge. Or maybe, with Superintendent Crayle now off to work vice in some newly formed unit, he might be able to get Jas’s case given a higher priority.

  He just knew that, whatever it was that he had to do to find out what had happened to Jas, he would do it, and with Hillary Greene on board, his chances were so much better. She was as tenacious as a terrier with a rat once she’d been given a case, as he’d seen on their previous investigation. But if he had to work around her, he would do that too. So far he hadn’t had to use her computer again, but when the time came, he would.

  Right now, though, he had another lead to follow. He never did like to have all his eggs in one basket, and it hadn’t taken him long to realize that, if he was to take on Medcalfe, somehow he had to find a way into the man’s inner circle. And Jake, more than most, knew that money was the best way in that there was.

  He had asked Crimmins & Lloyd to find out all that they could about those closest to Medcalfe. Slowly, and very carefully, they had, and for the past few months had been feeding him reports detailing particulars from the lowliest of pimps to his chief lieutenants. He studied these reports in minute detail, looking out for the weak link, for the slightest chink in the armour that would give him some kind of a starting point.

  Now, with this latest report, he thought he might just have found it at last.

  Medcalfe was protected by a brutal gang of men who were either related to him, or had grown up as his neighbours, and were, in some cases, even more fanatically loyal than his own blood. He rewarded them well, naturally, so now, instead of a life of unemployment and grinding poverty in the Leys, they found themselves driving souped up cars, living in nice houses in nice places, and pulling attractive women. There was always cash for booze or drugs, or the latest cinema-sized telly, and if they occasionally had to do time, they did it with a shrug and a swagger.

  Then, Crimmins and Lloyd found one of his lieutenants who seemed to be just a little different from the rest.

  He’d first come to their attention when they realized that, instead of spending his money on the usual bling and booze, he’d invested it. This led them to dig deeper. He had no police record – not even for juvenile offences like joyriding, shoplifting, and drunk and disorderly. This did not, however, preclude him from having a reputation as a skilled knife man, and he had inevitably come to police attention several times in cases where Medcalfe’s rivals had been found slashed and bleeding. He’d never been caught, though, and nobody had ever testified against him.

  He was also the youngest of Medcalfe’s lieutenants, and trusted with both the near-legitimate financial aspects of the villain’s empire, as well as the dirty end of it. So he was, to a certain extent, a cut above the rest of Medcalfe’s usual gang.

  Jake fervently hoped this meant that he might turn out to be just what he’d been looking for. He might be smart enough to want a way out, and greedy enough to take a risk if the price was right.

  First of all, Jake had to figure out the best way to approach him – ideally managing it without ending up with a knife wound for his trouble.

  Thanks to Crimmins & Lloyd’s report he now knew where he liked to hang out, his family background and his financial dealings. The fact that he was accruing money in a secret bank account that his boss didn’t know about, boded very well indeed. It smacked of a man making plans for his future; and a man like that was surely open to an offer.

  But that didn’t tell Jake nearly enough: he needed to know what made him tick, just what his dreams and aspirations were, and how far he’d be willing to go in order to achieve them. But in order to try and get some kind of psychological insight into the man, he had to get to know him.

  Jake Barnes was no fool. He knew just what a dangerous game he was playing. Pulling a fast one on the police was nerve-racking enough, but this was in a whole different league. If Hillary Greene or Superintendent Crayle ever found out what he was doing, he might get his wrist slapped – maybe even be prosecuted and, worse-case scenario, end up doing some prison time.

  However, if Dale Medcalfe ever found out what he was doing, he could end up dead.

  He would have to be careful, very careful.

  He picked up the report and
studied the photographs which had been taken with a telephoto lens of Darren Chivnor. He knew from what he’d read that Chivnor was twenty-eight, five feet eight inches tall, a skinhead, the darkness of his scalp revealing that he would have had dark hair, had he allowed it to grow. He had dark, near-black eyes, and visible tattoos on his neck and forearms. He was skinny, but fit-looking, and reminded Jake of nothing so much as a vicious weasel.

  All in all, not a character you’d like to meet in a dark alley late at night.

  Nevertheless, he might just hold the key to what Jake needed. Now all he had to do was find a way to get him to hand it over.

  If Jake Barnes had spent most of the night restlessly tossing and turning and thinking of ways to become best buddies with a knife-wielding thug, Hillary Greene spent most of her night wondering how long Steven would be willing to wait for an answer to his proposal of marriage.

  Her own sense of fairness told her that she couldn’t keep him waiting for much longer, but she found herself, unusually, dithering, incapable of coming to a decision.

  Consequently both of them looked heavy-eyed and a shade pale the next morning. Jimmy gave her a quick report on his progress so far, tracking down his mugging and home-invasion cases. She agreed that a few of them warranted closer attention, but neither of them was particularly confident that they’d pan out or lead to anything.

  She told him to take Wendy with him to interview the victims, since it would be good practice for her, whilst she and Jake went to the market town of Bicester where Sylvia’s youngest, Marigold, lived with her husband. Their three kids, Rupert, Jeremy and Oliver, for some reason, had all chosen to emigrate, and now lived as far afield as Australia, Canada, and South Africa. It made her wonder what it said about their upbringing. If anything.

  ‘Our murder victim must have had a fondness for flowers, guv,’ Jake said, as he pulled up outside a small semi-detached house in the Glory Farm area of the town. ‘Mary Rose, Lily and Marigold, all the girls named after flowers.’

  Hillary nodded. It might, of course, have been Sylvia’s husband who thought of his girls that way, she mused, but didn’t say it out loud. Instead, she contented herself with, ‘Well, let’s see what the youngest flower has to say about it all.’

  Marigold Fletcher turned out to be a thin woman, with hair flamboyantly dyed the colour of her name. Wearing jeans and a multi-coloured knitted kaftan, she had applied her make-up with a liberal hand. She greeted them without surprise, indicating to Hillary that her sisters had pre-warned her about being interviewed. She immediately showed them into a not-too-clean kitchen, where she was, for some reason, boiling an enormous pot of pasta. Perhaps she was the kind of woman who liked to cook in marathon sessions and freeze it for quick, future use.

  In between stirring the pot, she made them tea (bags) and provided biscuits (out of a packet) and lit up a cigarette, which she was careful, Hillary noticed thankfully, to keep well away from the pasta pot.

  ‘I’m glad you’re looking at Mum’s case again,’ Marigold said, blowing smoke industriously. ‘I never thought it was right that someone wasn’t had up for it.’

  ‘Did you have any idea who that should have been?’ Hillary asked promptly.

  ‘Nah. Well, not unless it was that farmer, or more likely that wife of his. Mum never did like old man Gibson, and she was a good judge of character, was Mum.’

  Hillary nodded. She saw Jake write something down, and, reading upside down, was pleased to note he’d written, ‘Farmer’s wife??? That’s new.’

  It was exactly what she’d been thinking, and she was straight onto it. ‘Mrs Gibson? I understand that your mother blamed him for your father’s death, and that she’d gone out of her way a number of times to make life difficult for him, but what did she have against his wife, exactly?’

  Marigold flushed a shade, and looked distinctly shifty. ‘Well, nothing really. That is, Mum had nothing against her, as far as I know. But I saw her, Mrs Gibson that is, flirting with my dad once. Oh, it was yonks ago,’ she laughed, a shade unconvincingly around her cigarette. ‘And I was only a kid. I mean, I dunno, ten or eleven, maybe, and you don’t always know what’s what at that age, do you, so I might have got my wires crossed or something.’ She thought about it for a moment, but evidently didn’t give much credence to her own words, because she shrugged unconvincingly. ‘Anyway, I went into the kitchen – this was up at the farmhouse, yeah, looking for Dad, one summer. I wanted money for the ice cream van I think, and I heard them laughing. When I looked in, she was sat on the kitchen table swinging her legs, and showing plenty of them and all, and Dad was in a chair with a mug of tea. The farm workers often popped in there for drinks, like, in the summer. Got to keep drinking plenty and all that, farming’s a hard, physical job.’

  She frowned, and prodded the pasta with a wooden spoon. ‘There was just something about the way she was gawping at him. It made me mad, that’s all.’

  ‘You believe they actually had an affair?’ Hillary pressed. ‘Or did you get the idea it was just harmless flirting?’ She was not convinced that it was relevant, but any new information was like gold in a cold case.

  ‘Oh I dunno about that.’ Marigold backed off quickly. ‘I mean, I never saw them actually kissing or anything. And, like I said, I was a kid at the time, so who can say? I might have been overreacting. I know Mary Rose and Lily thought that Dad never looked at anyone else. And I don’t think he did, not really. Mum certainly never did. That is, she never accused him of it, or anything like that. I mean, we’d have known if there had been any major rows going on in the house, wouldn’t we? Kids have a way of knowing. It’s just that….’ Marigold sighed. ‘I just never liked her after that – Mrs Gibson, I mean. And I still reckon she’d have been up for it, if he’d given her the nod, like. But then….’ she shrugged. ‘Perhaps it was just me after all. I was always Daddy’s favourite, being the youngest.’ She laughed at herself, and shook her head, scattering ash on the kitchen floor. Absently, she ground it into the lino with a trainer-clad toe.

  Hillary decided to let the matter lie there for the moment. Two of the daughters thought their dad was the faithful type and one had grave doubts, but that was often the way of it: conflicting testimony was a way of life in her job.

  If Marigold was right, it might just be relevant. Sylvia’s murder could be linked to her long-dead husband having had a fling with the farmer’s wife. What if she’d somehow only just found out about it, and confronted the ‘other woman’ with the knowledge? Suppose Sylvia had threatened to use it as yet another weapon in her on-going vendetta against Randy Gibson? It was just possible that Mrs Farmer Gibson might get it into her head to whack her old love-rival over the head with a poker to prevent her husband from finding out that she’d been unfaithful. But all these years later, would it really be so murderously bad? With Joe Perkins dead and gone, could Randy Gibson really be so jealous that his wife was that afraid of how he’d react? It was impossible to tell without gauging the man’s character for herself, which had to be a matter of priority now.

  As far-fetched as it might sound, it was certainly going to be interesting to find out what the lady in question had to say about it all.

  ‘OK. When was the last time you spoke to your mother before she died?’ Hillary asked, patiently going through the routine list of questions, taking the youngest daughter over the same ground as that of her sisters for the next half an hour.

  Unfortunately, there were no more revelations, and when Hillary and Jake left, Marigold was on her fifth cigarette and was cooking a vast vat of tomato sauce to go with pasta.

  ‘Next stop the farmer’s wife, guv?’ Jake asked with a grin, and Hillary smiled over at him wryly.

  ‘Getting to know my methods well, aren’t you, Jake?’ Hillary mused mildly.

  Jake smiled modestly. ‘Doing my best, guv,’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ Hillary murmured. ‘I noticed.’

  Jake shot her a quick, questioning look, but she was looking b
landly out of the passenger window. And with a mental warning not to read too much into it, Jake pulled away from the kerb.

  Hillary Greene’s lips curved into an enigmatic smile.

  CHAPTER SIX

  DS Steven Crayle had the usual difficulty in finding a parking space in Oxford, but since he’d factored it in, he wasn’t late for his visit to the police station at St Aldates. Situated almost in the shadow of the famous college of Christ Church, it was an old building, but large and spacious, and the powers that be had decided that they wanted the new unit to based there, rather than at HQ in Kidlington, partly, he supposed, because the citizens of the world-renowned university city were still reeling about the revelations concerning the moral welfare of their young people, and the top brass thought that it would reassure them to know that something was being done about it. So, having the unit set up, very visibly, right in the heart of the old part of the city was bound to be a public relations triumph for them.

  But Steven also suspected, far more cynically, that budget-based factors were concerned in the thinking somewhere. The unit would be a small one, but very dedicated, and therefore wouldn’t need much space. Perhaps it was simply cheaper to have them operate out of, what some might think, an under-utilized police station. Not that he was complaining. It made a change to be able to look around and see the cathedral’s stained glass windows, or the quirky and quaint moving parts of the clock tower in Carfax, rather than a somewhat ugly municipal-building car-park.

  He walked into a foyer smelling just slightly of disinfectant, where a desk sergeant looked at him curiously. His beady eyes brightened and sharpened after he’d inspected Steven’s ID. No doubt the locals were keen to get a grasp on the new high-flyer being thrust upon them. It was hard to say what the desk sergeant made of him, though he could sense the man pricing the cost of his suit as he assessed him.

  ‘Yes, sir. Superintendent Inkpen is expecting you. Straight up the stairs, take the immediate corridor to the left, and go down almost to the end. You can’t miss his office.’