A Skeleton In The Closet (Dave Slater Mystery Novels Book 7)

by P. F. Ford

  They drove out of town for barely ten minutes, Norman successfully stonewalling all of Slater’s questions about where they were going, until he swung the car off the road and into a lay-by that disappeared behind some trees.

  Slater gave Norman a questioning look, but Norman just smiled.

  The lay-by curved away from the road for a short distance and then ran parallel to it. It was basically a collection of pot holes connected by uneven tarmac, and it took more skill than Norman was prepared to invest to negotiate a smooth passage. Consequently, they rolled and rocked their way along, and Slater began to look slightly queasy. In the fading evening light, up ahead to the left, a large, battered van could be made out. A small chimney poked from the roof and smoke could be seen pouring from it.

  ‘What the hell is that?’ asked Slater.

  ‘Mobile Chinese kitchen,’ said Norman. ‘Trust me, this guy is one hell of a cook.’

  ‘That van looks like a health hazard. Is it even roadworthy?’

  ‘Will you stop complaining? Just close your eyes and you won’t notice.’

  ‘Is it legal?’ asked Slater.

  ‘I wouldn’t know,’ said Norman, ‘and as long as the food’s awesome, I don’t care.’

  ‘But I might get food poisoning.’

  ‘Jeez, listen to you! Will you just stop complaining and enjoy the food? Have I ever asked you to eat crappy food?’

  ‘Well, no, I guess not,’ admitted Slater.

  ‘Right, and I’m not going to now. Shenzi makes the best Singapore noodles I have ever tasted, and his steamed dumplings are out of this world.’

  ‘Well, if you say so,’ said Slater, doubtfully. ‘It’s just a pity we have to get seasick on the way.’

  ‘Oh, come on,’ said Norman. ‘Surely that’s enough complaining for now! I suppose there is one positive thing about it though. At least it’s taken your mind off that case for a while.’

  He smiled happily as he stopped the car just behind the van and led them around the back of the van. A light had been rigged on that side of the van, facing away from the road, and a serving hatch could be seen about halfway down.

  ‘Hi, Shenzi,’ said Norman, as an ancient, wizened Chinese face appeared at the hatch. ‘How are you today?’

  Shenzi’s face lit up when he saw Norman. ‘Ah! Mister Norm. It’s good to see you. How are you today, my friend?’

  ‘I’m feeling good,’ said Norman, ‘but I’ll be even better when you serve up my favourite food.’

  ‘And your friend?’ asked Shenzi, looking past Norman at Slater.

  ‘Oh, yeah, he’ll have the same.’

  Slater nodded uncertainly. ‘Yeah, why not?’ he said.

  ‘You go take a seat,’ said Shenzi. ‘I’ll bring your food over when it’s ready. You want a beer?’

  ‘Make that two,’ said Norman.

  Shenzi slapped two bottles of beer on the counter, deftly flicked off the tops, and pushed them across to Norman, who picked them up and headed off towards the front of the van where a couple of sets of plastic patio tables and chairs were set up.

  ‘Surely he’s not licensed to sell beers, is he?’ asked Slater.

  ‘Are you off-duty?’ asked Norman, as he pulled out a chair at one of the tables and sat down.

  ‘Of course I am,’ said Slater, taking a seat opposite Norman.

  ‘So what do you care if he’s got a licence? And in any case, did you see me pay for the beers?’

  ‘I haven’t seen you pay for the food yet,’ said Slater.

  ‘Well, when I do, you’ll see the price is slightly inflated,’ said Norman. ‘That’s because he gives away the beer. I don’t think you need a licence to give beer away, do you?’

  ‘And this was your advice, was it?’

  ‘I may have made the odd suggestion. Anyway, can we stop worrying about Shenzi and how he operates his business? Why don’t you tell me about this case?’

  Norman listened as Slater related the whole story from start to finish, going through all the evidence they had uncovered. The only time he stopped talking was when Shenzi arrived with a tray full of dishes, which he quickly arranged all around their table.

  ‘And there’s one more thing I haven’t mentioned yet,’ said Slater. ‘I think it’s probably why Becksy got murdered but we’ll know soon enough.’

  Then he told Norman all about Goodnews’s decision to approach Interpol.

  ‘She’s done what?’ yelled Norman. It was the first time he had actually stopped eating since their food had arrived. ‘Jesus, we’ll have that crazy Russian guy back over here any time now.’

  ‘He might already be here,’ said Slater.

  ‘You think he topped Ian Becks?’

  ‘It has to be a possibility, don’t you think?’ asked Slater.

  ‘Why not go after Goodnews?’ Norman shook his head in frustration.

  ‘I was thinking about that,’ said Slater. ‘Maybe it’s just the case that a forensics guy sends out a warning without attracting the flak that would go with murdering a senior officer.’

  ‘You think you’re next?’

  ‘I’m assuming they don’t necessarily know you’ve quit,’ said Slater. ‘So there’s a good chance they think we’re both behind it.’

  ‘I hope not,’ said Norman. ‘I quite like living in a pub. I wouldn’t want to see it burned down.’

  Slater looked sideways at Norman. ‘Yeah, I can see your waistline likes living in a pub too.’

  ‘Yeah, whatever,’ said Norman, dismissively. ‘What about Becks being on the take? That has to be some sort of joke, right?’

  ‘I was there in the morning and there was no pile of cash. Steve Biddeford goes in the afternoon and there’s a huge pile of it.’

  ‘And you’re quite sure you didn’t miss it?’ asked Norman.

  Slater began to protest.

  ‘Yeah, I know,’ interrupted Norman, ‘but I have to ask. You were there when one of your mates got blown up. Don’t tell me you’re so special you weren’t affected by it, because I can see in your face that you have been. Is it possible you could have missed it?’

  ‘No,’ said Slater, adamantly. ‘From what she told me, they found the cash in one of the desk drawers. I went through them all that morning. I know it wasn’t there.’

  ‘So, someone’s planted the stuff to make him look crooked,’ said Norman. ‘There can be no other explanation. You don’t think Steve Biddeford—’

  ‘No,’ said Slater. ‘He might be an idiot at times, but he wouldn’t do anything like this.’

  ‘What about this courier thing?’ asked Norman. ‘How can the guy be inside on CCTV but swear he never went inside. And how can he be literally on his bike, on the way home, when we can see he’s inside going down to the basement?’

  ‘He can’t be lying,’ said Slater. ‘We put his registration number into the ANPR system. He was caught on camera speeding into Winchester at 18.26. I reckon he could just about do that if he was speeding all the way, but there’s no way he could have done it if he had still been inside the building like we think he was.’

  ‘Has the station CCTV tape been tampered with?’ asked Norman.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Slater. ‘But I’m going to have to check. There has to be an explanation.’

  ‘Of course there does,’ said Norman. ‘But assuming the CCTV’s okay and your courier guy is genuine, there’s only one conclusion that works, right?’

  ‘Well, if there is, I’m too bloody tired to see what it is.’

  ‘There has to be a second courier,’ said Norman, with a wink and a smile.

  Slater looked across at Norman. It was plain from his expression he was wondering why he hadn’t thought of that himself, but Norman just chuckled.

  As they finished their food, Norman looked Slater over appraisingly. His friend looked utterly exhausted. ‘I think you need to get home and catch up on some sleep,’ he said.

  ‘Yeah, you’re probably right,’ said Slater. ‘Thank
s for lending an ear. I feel a lot better already.’

  ‘No problem,’ said Norman. ‘You know what they say about a problem shared and all that. You know where I am any time you feel the need.’

  Chapter Fourteen

  Slater was in bed by midnight but he couldn’t sleep. Maybe he was just too tired and had gone past the point where he could sleep, or maybe it was the idea Norm had suggested about there being two couriers. Whatever it was, it kept him tossing and turning until gone 3am, at which point he abandoned all ideas of sleep and decided instead to get up and do something useful.

  It was 4am when Slater pulled into the car park at Tinton Police Station. He could see Goodnews’s car was still parked in the same place it had been for the last forty-six hours, and he wondered how on earth she managed to still function with almost no sleep. He looked up at her office window as he climbed from his car. There were no lights on. Perhaps she had pulled out the camp bed after all.

  He walked in through the back doors and into reception to sign the log.

  ‘What the bloody hell are you doing here?’

  ‘Sandy,’ said Slater. ‘I can always guarantee a pleasant greeting when you’re on duty.’

  ‘You’re supposed to be at home getting your beauty sleep,’ said Sandy Mollinson. ‘And looking at you, I’d say you’ve had nowhere near enough.’

  ‘And I love you too,’ said Slater, blowing him a kiss.

  ‘You can’t function properly without sleep,’ said Mollinson. ‘Or are you and Goodnews competing to see which one of you has the least sense?’

  ‘Is she around?’ asked Slater.

  Mollinson grinned. ‘Ha! I heard you’d had a bit of a bust-up. Trying to avoid her, are you?’

  Slater rolled his eyes. ‘Yes, we did have words, but right now we have a big case to solve, so no, I’m not avoiding her. I’m just wondering how she manages to keep going without sleep.’

  ‘She’s upstairs in her pit now,’ said Mollinson. ‘Apparently she has a camp bed up there, although how the hell she can get comfortable enough to sleep on it baffles me. My instructions are she’s not to be disturbed unless another bomb goes off.’

  ‘That suits me,’ said Slater. ‘I’m going to watch some videos.’

  ‘If you’re hoping to watch some of that seedy stuff that was brought in the other week, you’re too late. It’s all been boxed up and sent off to Winchester.’

  ‘Oh balls,’ said Slater, feigning disappointment. ‘I guess I’ll have to make do with the CCTV footage from the night Becksy died.’

  ‘I thought that had been done?’ said Mollinson.

  ‘We’re missing something. How else can a courier be in two places at once?’

  ‘Magic?’ Mollinson suggested.

  Slater made his way to the tech suite. It was true Steve Biddeford had already been through the footage from inside the reception area, but he really felt the need to go through it again. Goodnews was right, Biddeford had missed things on CCTV before. Slater just hoped he hadn’t done it again.

  He figured he would probably be wasting his time looking at anything after 18.30. He would start with the reception area from 18.00 to 18.30 when it seemed everything had happened. Then he would take a look at the outside views. He could worry about looking for any later activity afterwards.

  He settled into his chair, opened his notepad, pressed play, and watched. Half an hour later he pressed stop. He looked at his notepad. He’d more or less noted down what Steve Biddeford had said earlier, but with one or two additional notes he’d highlighted with an asterisk.

  The first note he’d written was Grimm is a complete arse. It’s no wonder Tom Sanders didn’t see much of what was going on in the room.

  The second read courier red leathers too. This had struck him as important, although he wasn’t sure why yet. He wondered how many bikers actually wore red leathers. In his experience, most of them wore black. He felt red leathers would be expensive and he was pretty sure the only person he’d ever seen wearing red was Ian Becks, and yet here was a courier wearing the same. Did couriers earn that much? Maybe up in London but out here in the sticks? It seemed unlikely. No, this seemed to be too much of a coincidence to be ignored.

  The third note read Becks knows courier. Slater was quite sure, from the way Becks had greeted the courier, that he was not only expecting him to arrive, but he had known him as a friend. From their body language, Slater felt quite sure that Becks hadn’t asked the courier to carry the package down because it was heavy. They now knew it was an envelope full of documents, and that certainly was what it looked like, so Becks wouldn’t have needed anyone to carry it for him. In his opinion, Becks had taken the courier down to his lab for some other reason and Slater thought he knew what it was. Becks was immensely proud of his work and the way he ran his lab (some would even say he was big-headed about it). What if this courier was a friend and Becks had just been unable to resist showing off?

  I seem to have found more questions than answers, thought Slater, as he searched for the footage from the outside cameras. He found the timestamp he was looking for and settled down again, pencil poised over his notepad.

  On the screen, timestamped at 18.09, a motorcycle pulled up outside the station. Ignoring the double yellow lines and the notice telling him to park around the back, the rider stood his bike up on its stand, took a package from the pannier, and carried it up the steps towards the front doors. Slater knew it was supposed to be a manuscript, but even so he noted that the package was the right size to be documents, or maybe a thick technical report, the sort of thing Becks would probably have considered light reading.

  The courier walked to the top of the steps and then disappeared from view. Less than a minute later he reappeared, walking down the steps. He walked to his bike, climbed on board, started it, kicked it off the stand, and roared away. Slater stopped the tape, rewound it, and watched it again. He watched it for a third time, scratching his head and paying particular attention to the timestamp as well as looking for anything that would suggest there was a technical problem with the footage.

  He went back to the footage from the reception area and watched it again, then he walked out of the tech suite and back down the steps to reception.

  ‘Sandy,’ he said. ‘Tell me if I’m wrong, but there’s no way the timestamp could be wrong on one of the CCTV tapes is there?’

  ‘They all run at the same time and use the same source for a timestamp,’ said Mollinson. ‘So the time can be wrong, but it will be wrong on every single tape. They’re all in sync time-wise.’

  ‘That’s what I thought.’ Slater walked across the reception and went out through the front doors and down the steps. He turned and looked up at the CCTV camera positioned above the doorway. He studied it for a minute or two, then walked back up the steps right up to the doors and looked up at the camera again, paying particular attention to the angle at which it was positioned. He took a couple of steps back and looked up for a third time.

  ‘Shit!’ he said. ‘Shit, shit, shit!’ He ran back through the doors into reception.

  Mollinson yawned expansively as he watched Slater rush in through the doors.

  ‘Are you busy?’ Slater asked him.

  Mollinson made a big deal out of looking around the room to make sure there was no one there, then he turned to Slater. ‘Not especially. Why?’

  ‘Can you watch the CCTV from out the front for a minute? I want to know when you can see me.’

  Mollinson looked doubtful and raised a single eyebrow. ‘Really?’

  ‘Just humour me,’ said Slater. ‘It’ll only take you a minute, and you’ve just said you’re not busy.’

  ‘Well, make it quick. We’re in enough shit over the front desk security without you taking me away from it.’

  Mollinson walked through the open doorway into the back office, where there was a monitor watching the front of the building. He stood and watched as the back of Slater’s head appeared, followed by the rest of h
is body as he walked away. Then he turned and waved at the camera and began to walk towards it. He disappeared from view and Mollinson watched to see if Slater reappeared. When he didn’t, Mollinson expected to hear the warning beep as the front doors opened. It was a good minute before he heard the sound.

  ‘So, what did you see?’ asked Slater when he was back inside.

  ‘Some idiot waving at me,’ said Mollinson.

  ‘Is that all? You didn’t see me giving you two fingers?’

  ‘No, just waving.’

  ‘Thanks, Sandy. That’s just what I thought.’ Slater made his way to the doors at the back of reception and pushed his way through.

  Mollinson shook his head in disgust. ‘Time-waster,’ he called to Slater as he disappeared through the door. ‘I’ve got better things to do, you know.’

  Chapter Fifteen

  It was just after 6am as the door swung shut behind Slater. Mollinson yawned yet again and headed into the back office. There was just time to make another brew before his shift ended at 7am. But before he could switch on the kettle, he was alerted by a warning beep as the front door opened. He walked back to his counter. The door was about halfway open and a little old lady was peering rather tentatively around it. She seemed to be unsure if she should come in or not.

  ‘Can I help you?’ asked Mollinson. He walked from behind the counter, made his way across to the door, and swung it open for her.

  She gave him an uncertain smile. ‘Oh dear,’ she said. ‘I’m sure you must be busy, and I don’t want to waste your time.’

  ‘Now why would you think you’re wasting my time?’ he asked. ‘You must have something on your mind, or you wouldn’t be here.’ Gently, he took her arm. ‘Come on inside, love,’ he said, leading her through the door. ‘It’s much warmer in here than it is out there.’

  ‘It’s probably nothing,’ she said, anxiously. ‘He’ll probably say I’m making a fuss about nothing.’

  ‘You come and sit down,’ said Mollinson, leading her across to his counter. ‘I was just going to make myself a cup of tea. Why don’t I make us both one, and then you can tell me what’s worrying you.’