The Work of a Narrow Mind

by Faith Martin

  As he walked along the pavement, the little bit of exercise soon put it right, and when he got to the gate in question, all thoughts of his health had disappeared. He made a note of the number, then carried on walking, until he found a street sign that told him that he was on Lime Avenue. He then walked back to his car and opened up his own laptop, typed in his password, and then the name of the street and number.

  Before long, he was looking at a stream of information on the owner of the house.

  And very interesting it was too.

  Inside, Jake Barnes was shaking the man’s hand. Gordon Tate was about Jake’s age, but with a heavy spare tyre of fat around his middle, and sandy-coloured hair that was already thinning on top. He had very round, wide, hazel eyes and a slightly fleshy, sensuous mouth; the way he looked Jake up and down left him in very little doubt as to his sexual orientation.

  ‘You come highly recommended by Crimmins and Lloyd,’ Gordon said, nodding to a sofa, ‘otherwise, I don’t usually do business with strangers. Well, you can never be too careful, can you? But I trust Peter,’ – he named one of the lead investigators with the PI firm – ‘we went to school together. Winchester. Want a drink? I’ve just had some fine Mumms come in.’

  Jake turned down the offer of champagne with a gracious smile. ‘Normally I’d love to, but I’m driving.’

  ‘Oh, of course. The curse of modern living. I always wish that I’d lived about two hundred years ago, myself. Then I’d have a dashing coachman to take me everywhere, and so would my guests.’

  ‘Were they making Mumms back then though?’ Jake asked.

  Gordon Tate laughed. ‘Good point! So. Did you bring the bearer bonds? No cash and no cheques; I hope Peter made that quite clear.’

  He had. Jake nodded and reached into his briefcase. He pulled out the bonds, wondering vaguely why the ‘facilitator’, as Peter Lloyd had referred to Tate, didn’t want cash. Still, that was none of his business. Perhaps Gordon was afraid that the serial numbers on them could be tracked or something.

  ‘Lovely,’ Gordon said, counting the bonds with a deftness and dexterity that left Jake feeling deeply respectful. He doubted that even a minute had passed.

  ‘It’s all here.’ Gordon reached into a drawer in a sideboard and handed over a brown paper envelope. ‘The photographs were a bit of a challenge, though. Did I detect Peter’s work with a telephoto lens?’

  Jake looked back at him blankly and the other man smiled and held up a hand. ‘OK, pax. None of my business. As I said, it was a bit of a challenge to make them look regulation issue, but I think you’ll find that I managed it.’

  As Jake checked out the drivers’ licences inside, he had to admit that it did indeed look as if the snapshots had been taken in one of those photo-booths you saw in post offices and some big supermarkets.

  ‘The birth certificates are especially good work. It’s getting the thinness of the paper just right. They look like the original issue, don’t they?’ Gordon said smugly.

  Indeed they did. Both sets of documents looked authentic. Jake nodded. ‘And you’re sure they’ll stand up to scrutiny?’

  ‘Oh, guaranteed, old boy. I know this little lad who can hack computers like a dream. The social security numbers are golden, I assure you.’

  Jake nodded, well pleased with the results. He held out his hand. ‘Well, it’s been a pleasure doing business with you, Mr Tate.’ Even as he spoke the cliché, he felt slightly absurd.

  Gordon Tate took his hand and held on to it a shade longer than Jake felt comfortable with, and then grinned wolfishly and led him back into the hall. ‘Of course, we never met, Jake,’ Gordon reminded him. As he reached for the front door to open it, something in those wide, hazel eyes made Jake’s blood go cold. ‘And if it ever comes to it, my word will be believed over yours. You understand that, don’t you?’

  Jake, who had been guilty of finding the gay crook somehow pitiful, or at least an object of amusement, suddenly found himself feeling very differently about him indeed. He forced himself to meet the man’s big, hazel eyes.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said flatly. ‘Do I know you?’

  Gordon Tate laughed softly, and patted one chubby hand on Jake’s shoulder. ‘That’s the ticket, old boy.’

  Jake left the house walking far more swiftly than he’d gone in. As he slipped into the E-Type Jag, he was forced to conclude, once again, that he was probably really not cut out for all this. Still, he congratulated himself on the progress he was making. He didn’t have to be comfortable with the people he was forced to use or work with, after all. Besides, it was a good thing to be reminded of just how careful he needed to be.

  Outside, Jimmy closed his laptop thoughtfully, and reached for his phone. He bent down out of sight as Jake’s E-type roared past, and then straightened up again, listening to the dialling tone in his ear being answered.

  ‘Hillary Greene.’

  ‘Guv, it’s me. Can you talk?’

  ‘I’m driving to North Aston with Wendy. We’re going to attend a meeting of the Forget-me-not Club and talk about Sylvia.’

  ‘Oh right. You’d better just listen then. Young Jake went off early. Nothing in that, his hours are flexible as you know, but I just thought I’d tag along behind. He led me to Aylesbury, to a very nice des res that he wasn’t at all familiar with. When I ran it through our database, it turns out that it belongs to one Gordon Tate.’

  ‘OK,’ Hillary said neutrally.

  ‘Do you know the name?’

  ‘Can’t say as I do.’

  ‘No real reason why you should have come across him, guv. He’s not got form,’ Jimmy said. ‘Well, not officially anyway. But, as the old saying goes, he’s known to us. He’s a bit of a fixer. Mostly he provides documents to the needy. Financial aid, that sort of thing. He’s also been known to act as a go-between. For instance, if your Picasso is stolen, and the kidnappers want to ransom it back – and strictly no police involved – you might use Mr Gordon Tate to be the middle man. If you want to disappear, and need a new name and identity that’ll stand up under pressure, again, you might want to talk to our Mr Tate. You want a new face, but don’t know which plastic surgeons are discreet and willing…. Get the picture?’

  ‘Oh yeah.’

  ‘So I reckon our Boy Wonder wants something fixed. And whatever it is, he’s just arranged for it to happen. Want me to go in and have a word with Mr Tate, see if I can persuade him to let us know what that might be?’

  ‘Hell no.’

  Jimmy nodded, with some relief. ‘I was hoping you’d say that guv,’ he confessed, with a smile. ‘From what I’ve been learning about our friend here, he’s well connected. Working both sides of the fence, so to speak, he’s got friends in high places – in both the criminal world, and the so-called respectable spectrum. So I doubt that he would have been much impressed by the likes of me. By the way, he does a fair bit of business with Crimmins and Lloyd, that PI firm Jake’s been using. You could see why a high-flying outfit like them might find Tate useful. It’s my guess that’s how our Jake got put on to him.’

  ‘Sounds logical.’

  ‘You want me to get back to HQ and learn all I can about Tate?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘OK, guv. Talk to you later.’

  In the Mini, Wendy watched curiously as Hillary put the phone away. ‘Anything breaking on the case, guv?’ she asked hopefully.

  ‘Nope. Just admin,’ Hillary said. ‘So, ever been to an old folk’s club meeting?’

  Wendy blinked. Today she was wearing a black pants suit that had a complete, life-size skeleton depicted on it. She was wearing full white face paint and had gone heavy on the kohl-lined eyes. She looked like a member of the walking dead. ‘Oddly enough, guv, no,’ she said.

  When they got back to HQ it was just gone four o’clock. Although the members of Sylvia’s club had been eager to talk about her and to try to help, they hadn’t really been able to add much to the investigation.

  There’d bee
n plenty of tales about their victim though – how tough she was, how fair, how funny, how generous. But nobody had any idea who might have killed her or why. And they were all fairly united in their views on the Ruby/Maurice/Sylvia love triangle, the general consensus being that Ruby would have been the first to back down, and that Maurice would have scarpered sooner or later, once he’d realized just what a handful Sylvia would have been. Hints that either one of them might have had something to do with Sylvia’s death had been met with either hoots of derision or consternation and disbelief.

  ‘I think we can more or less rule out either Maurice or Ruby from the equation,’ Hillary said as she undid her seat belt. ‘Look, it’s not worth you coming back to the office for just for an hour. Why not take off early.’

  ‘Really, guv? That’s great. I’ve got a hot date tonight with a rower from Brasenose. He’s got muscles out to here.’ And Wendy used her hands to demonstrate the size of his biceps.

  Hillary, who’d been in the act of getting out of the car, turned and looked at her curiously. ‘Oh? But I thought you were…. Never mind.’

  Wendy, who easily guessed the direction of her thoughts, grinned. ‘I’m bi. Well, probably. Mostly.’

  Hillary hastily held up a hand and began to scramble out. ‘None of my business, and I’ll expect you to work off the extra hour some way or other, yeah?’

  Wendy rolled her eyes. ‘Whatever you say, guv.’

  Hillary grinned, but walked a shade wearily towards the entrance. Wendy tooted derisively as she shot off past her, and Hillary gave her a familiar two-fingered salute.

  Her smile quickly left her face, however, as she made her way down into the basement. She made sure to shut the door firmly behind her as she went into the office, and Jimmy reached for a sheaf of papers as she slumped into Wendy’s now vacant chair.

  ‘OK. So tell me what you’ve got,’ she demanded flatly.

  Later that night, over a dinner of pasta and salad, Hillary related to Steven all that Jimmy had learned about Gordon Tate.

  ‘And that’s not all,’ she went on, taking a sip of orange juice. ‘Jimmy managed to find a match on that skinhead Jake met up with at the fireworks display.’ She reached for the file and handed it over. ‘His name—’

  But Steven, who’d just caught sight of the photographs, pulled in a sharp breath, and beat her to it. ‘Darren Chivnor.’

  Hillary’s eyes hardened. ‘You know him?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Steven said grimly. And told her exactly how.

  For a long while then, they were both silent, their dinner going cold in front of them. Finally Hillary sighed heavily. ‘Just what the hell is Jake playing at?’

  Steven leaned back and rubbed a hand across his face. ‘Whatever it is, it can’t be good. Chivnor is seriously bad news, Hillary. I don’t think Jake can possibly have any idea what he’s getting himself into.’

  ‘No. I agree. But just what does he want with one of Medcalfe’s right-hand thugs, and a top-of-the-range Mr Fixit? I just can’t see the connection between them,’ she said in frustration. ‘Gordon Tate is way above Medcalfe’s league. He’s used to doing deals with Arabian princes and South African diamond dealers, for pity’s sake. He works for museums who want to recover “lost” items, and arranges it for Mafia Dons to disappear to Chile or where-the-hell-ever it is that the supergrasses go to die. Medcalfe’s just a common or garden scumbag, and he would be way too dodgy for someone like Tate to risk doing any business with him.’

  ‘Hillary, it is just a coincidence, isn’t it, that Jake Barnes joins the team just as I’m getting this new job?’ Steven asked quietly.

  Hillary, who’d been just about to take another sip of her drink paused, and straightened up in her chair. Then her frown cleared. ‘It has to be. Jake Barnes was already installed at the CRT before Donleavy picked you to head up the new task force. He might be many things, but I don’t think Jake is clairvoyant. Nor does he have a crystal ball. And in real life, coincidences do happen. So let’s not get paranoid and start seeing conspiracy theories everywhere,’ she said dampeningly.

  Steven saw the sense in that and let out a breath of relief. ‘OK, fair enough.’ He thought about it some more and then frowned again. ‘In which case, perhaps it’s the other way around,’ he tossed out diffidently. ‘Could my getting this new job have triggered whatever it is that Barnes is up to?’

  Again Hillary thought about it for a while, then shook her head reluctantly. ‘I just can’t see how. Unless Jake’s got some sort of vigilante complex. You know, you’ve been set the task of taking out the sexual predators, so he’s decided to become some sort of real-life Batman and help you out under the guise of harmless playboy millionaire.’ She laughed. ‘Somehow, I really don’t think the Boy Wonder actually truly believes himself to be, well, the Boy Wonder. I don’t think he’s crazy, Steven.’ She took a swallow of the juice and forced herself back to reality. ‘I think we’d have spotted it, if he was actually bonkers. No, he joined the CRT with something specific in mind. We just have to find out what it is, and before the silly sod goes and gets himself killed. We both know that Medcalfe and Gordon Tate have the clout, albeit in very different ways, to arrange to have that done.’

  ‘We need to wrap this up sooner rather than later, Hillary,’ Steven warned her sharply. ‘We can’t keep Donleavy in the dark for much longer. You promised that we’d go to him when we had something more solid to go on. Well this’ – he tapped the file of photographs and data significantly – ‘definitely qualifies as that.’

  ‘I know,’ Hillary said flatly. ‘And I agree. It’s beginning to get out of hand. Just give it another day or two, then we’ll tackle Jake together. See if we can’t get him to spill it to us first.’

  ‘You’re still hoping you’ll be able to get him out if it, whatever it is, with his skin intact, aren’t you?’ Steven said softly, leaning across the table and covering her hand with his. ‘Well, who’d have thunk it?’ he drawled. ‘Hillary Greene is just an old softy at heart.’

  She cocked her head to one side and regarded him through narrow, sherry-coloured eyes. ‘Actually,’ she said coolly, ‘I was hoping that he’d spill the beans to us, because if Jake somehow has managed to get an inside scope into Medcalfe’s empire, it might prove very useful to you in your new job. Just think how much glory you’ll get if, during your probationary period no less, you’re able to give Donleavy Medcalfe’s head on a silver platter.’

  And then she smiled sweetly. ‘But if you choose to be delusional and go about thinking I’ve got a soft heart, you go right ahead, sweetheart.’

  Steven grinned. ‘I knew there had to be a reason why I love you.’

  ‘I knew there must be one, too,’ she said smiling softly. ‘Now let’s go to bed.’

  The next day, Wendy went in early. Since she had to make up her hour from yesterday, she thought she might as well make a start. Even so, Hillary was in before her.

  ‘I hope you notice the time,’ Wendy said, knocking on the door to her tiny office and sticking her head around.

  Hillary pretended that her watch had stopped. ‘How about we early birds see if we can’t catch Farmer Gibson at home?’

  ‘Back to Caulcott then?’ Wendy said, with a groan. ‘Well at least, for once, the sun is shining. Think we might have a nice weekend for a change?’

  ‘I wouldn’t bank on it,’ Hillary laughed. As they drove off in the fitful sunlight, Wendy regaled her with tales of a wild night spent watching a six-foot rower getting into high jinxes with the rest of the rowing team. But when it came to an incident involving eight blotto men, one highly surprised neighbourhood cat, and a can of squirty cream, Hillary stopped listening.

  Or pretended to.

  Randy Gibson was in the sheep pens, eyeing a lame ewe when they eventually tracked him down. Around Hillary’s own height at five feet nine or so, he was in his mid-sixties, with pale-brown hair rapidly turning grey. A thickset man, dressed in dirty blue overalls, as Hillary and Wendy s
tepped into the odoriferous barn, he looked up, spotted them, and sighed. ‘The missus told me you lot were hanging around, asking questions. I wondered when it would be my turn.’

  Hillary nodded. ‘I hope this isn’t a bad time, Mr Gibson,’ she began pleasantly, although she wasn’t particularly worried if it was. ‘We won’t keep you long.’ As they’d been talking, they’d walked up to the pen and now Wendy drew in her breath sharply as she saw the woolly sheep limping around.

  ‘Oh poor thing. Will she be all right? Have you called the vet?’ she asked, leaning over the metal bars and tweaking her fingers together, making little sucking noises through her lips. The ewe, not surprisingly, gave her an alarmed, wall-eyed look and backed away, intent on having nothing whatsoever to do with her.

  ‘I don’t know, and yes I have.’ The farmer – with a somewhat sour look – answered her questions in order. ‘In fact, he’s due to arrive soon, so perhaps we can get on with it.’

  Hillary nodded, and decided to go straight for the jugular. Sometimes it paid off. ‘Do you know that your wife suspects that you killed Sylvia Perkins?’ she asked, almost amiably.

  Wendy stopped the sucking noises she was making to the sheep and gawped at her. Randy Gibson gawped at her. Even the ewe, after some consideration, seemed to gawp at her.

  ‘What? What are you on about? Of course she doesn’t, why would she?’ the stupefied farmer finally spluttered.

  Hillary shrugged. ‘I’ve been a police officer for more years than I care to think, Mr Gibson, and I’ve become pretty adept at reading people. So I think you’ll find that she does. You might want to talk to her about it, especially if she’s worrying about nothing. Is she?’

  Randy continued to gawp.

  ‘Did you, in fact, murder Sylvia Perkins, Mr Gibson?’ Hillary pressed.

  ‘No. Of course I bloody well didn’t.’

  ‘You didn’t call on her that day? Tackle her about certain issues?’

  ‘What? No. What issues?’ he asked, obviously struggling to keep up with the sucker-punches she was shooting his way, and failing.

  ‘We’ve heard all about how Sylvia blamed you for her husband’s death,’ Hillary said flatly. ‘And we know she went out of her way to slander you and cause you, shall we say, inconvenience, whenever she could.’