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

by P. F. Ford

  ‘Yeah, I suppose that’s okay,’ said Slater. ‘As long as we don’t end up drinking too much.’

  ‘That’s settled then,’ she said.

  The barman came over to take their order.

  ‘Can we start a tab?’ she asked. ‘Only we’ll be here for a while and we’d like to order some food as well.’

  ‘Sure,’ he said, obviously recognising them both as police officers from previous visits. ‘What can I get you?’

  ‘I’ll have a double whisky with loads of ice,’ she said, ‘and a fruit juice for my friend here who’s worried about drinking too much.’

  ‘Whoa. Hang on minute,’ protested Slater. ‘That’s not what I said at all. I’ll have a pint of lager, please.’

  The barman smiled and went to get their drinks while they studied a menu.

  ‘Are you sure you can handle it?’ Goodnews teased Slater. ‘Only I understand you have trouble holding your drink.’

  Slater sighed. She was referring to an incident a while ago, when Slater had got drunk and his partner DC Naomi Darling had ended up taking him home. She had stayed the night at his house, and next morning he wasn’t quite sure if anything had happened between them. In the event, nothing had happened, but at the time Goodnews had been horrified to think he might have taken advantage of his much younger partner. It had taken all Darling’s persuasive powers to convince her nothing had happened.

  Their drinks arrived and they ordered their food, then she led them across to a corner table.

  ‘You’re never going to let me forget that night, are you?’ he asked, as they sat down.

  ‘Wouldn’t dream of it,’ she said, with a wicked smile. ‘It’s always handy to have something I can use when I need to be persuasive.’

  ‘Isn’t that called blackmail?’ he asked.

  Her smile widened even more. ‘Aye. I believe it is.’

  ‘You’ve cheered up all of a sudden,’ he said.

  ‘Aye, I have that,’ she agreed. ‘It’s getting away from the job. Sometimes you live it and breathe it 24/7, and if you don’t have anything outside to take your mind off it, it takes over completely. You live alone, you must know what I mean. This is like a night out.’

  Slater knew well enough what she meant about the job becoming all consuming, but he wasn’t convinced spending the evening talking about an investigation constituted a night out. He thought perhaps Goodnews must be seriously lonely, but he didn’t think it would be wise to say so.

  ‘Well, yeah,’ he agreed, ‘if you’re not careful, the job does take over your whole life.’ His thoughts flitted to Cindy, his last girlfriend, and he felt glum suddenly. His dedication to his work had pushed her away and when she had come back, she’d chosen the morning DC Darling was there. And of course Darling had been wearing precious little when she had opened the front door. And then, of course, he had shouted, ‘Put some toast on for me, Darling,’ down from upstairs while Cindy stood on the doorstep. He’d tried to explain it away to her but she’d had none of it and he hadn’t heard from her again.

  ‘Anyway, what’s happening with Darling?’ he asked, pushing Cindy out of his head.

  ‘Nothing, at the moment,’ Goodnews said. ‘Unfortunately for her, she’s going to have to wait. I’m not having that idiot Grimm demanding everyone’s attention while we’ve got such an important case to deal with.’

  ‘But the poor kid’s suspended,’ he said. ‘It hardly seems fair to keep her suspended.’

  ‘Your “poor kid” beat the crap out of a suspect in front of a witness,’ she said. ‘He may never be able to father any children because of what she did to him. She’s probably going to be charged with grievous bodily harm. At least all the time she’s suspended she still has a job and a salary.’

  ‘You think they’ll kick her out?’

  ‘I don’t think they’ll have a choice. It doesn’t matter which way you look at it, you just can’t have a police officer behaving that way.’

  ‘If only I hadn’t been in hospital,’ he said. ‘Maybe I could have done something.’

  ‘Trust me, you wouldn’t have stopped her,’ she said. ‘She hunted the guy down when she was supposed to have been off-duty. Are you telling me you spend your evenings with her too, and you would have been there to stop her?’

  ‘No, of course I don’t,’ he said. ‘I just find it so hard to believe. I mean, there’s nothing of her, and that guy’s twice the size of me!’

  ‘Aye, it’s pretty scary to think she could do that. Sadly, she’s become another black mark for me. I was the one who put her forward for the fast-track programme. She should have been taking her DS exams now, not being suspended from duty. The CC says it brings my judgement into question.’

  They sipped their drinks in silence for a few moments.

  ‘Right,’ said Goodnews. ‘That’s enough talk about an inquiry that’s out of our hands. Let’s talk about the one we’re trying to solve. Or at least, the one we’re trying to solve until the chief constable takes it off us and calls in some smug arsehole from Winchester.’

  ‘It’s that what he threatened?’

  ‘That was just one of many threats he made,’ she said, grimly. ‘He used to see me as a shining light, but right now, after all the recent happenings, I think I’m just a dying ember.’

  ‘It can’t be that bad,’ said Slater, encouragingly.

  ‘Oh, it can. Even if we solve this without any more cock-ups, it’s brought to light so many other issues I think I’ll be lucky to survive.’

  ‘He can’t blame you for everything.’

  ‘Oh, sure he can,’ she said. ‘Darling was my protégé. The piss-poor security at Tinton has to be down to me, because I did the review. The forensics lab I fought tooth and nail to save will cost a fortune to repair, so that’s not likely to happen, and he’ll say if it had been closed, like he wanted, this would never have happened. Then there’s the question of a forensic expert who may have been crooked. That could mean every case we’ve closed in the last three years could be reopened. And now there’s the fingerprint that seems to have vanished into thin air. He’s even blaming me for the fact the database may have been hacked.’

  She gave him a sad little smile. ‘Shall I go on? Do I need to?’

  Slater found it hard to argue with her assessment. When you added it all together, it was a pretty damaging list for anyone to try and put right. But that didn’t mean they had to throw the towel in.

  ‘Okay,’ he admitted. ‘When you put it like that, it doesn’t look too good.’

  Goodnews laughed quietly. ‘You’re quite the master of understatement, do you know that?’

  ‘I can’t believe you’re going to throw the towel in,’ he said. ‘From what I’ve seen, you’re a lot better than that. I think you should try to ignore all that other stuff and focus on this case. That’s what we came here for, right?’

  Goodnews sighed. ‘Aye, I suppose you’re right. Are you sure you don’t want to leave the sinking ship?’

  He frowned at her. ‘Piss off.’

  She tried to looked shocked, but didn’t really succeed. ‘You can’t speak to me like that! I’m your senior officer,’ she said, in mock outrage.

  ‘I think you’ll find we’re off-duty,’ he said. ‘At least I am.’

  ‘I’m never off-duty.’

  ‘You should try it some time. It’s that time you spend with people called friends. Friends are all equal in rank, and are allowed to be frank with each other, and, speaking as a friend, I’m telling you to stop talking like that.’

  She looked doubtful, as if she had never considered such a possibility, but before she could speak, Slater was off again.

  ‘Do you really think I’d be here if I didn’t want to help?’ he said.

  ‘And you see me as a friend?’ she asked.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘But we seem to spend a lot of time arguing.’

  ‘So we don’t agree about everything,’ he said, ‘but we still get the
job done, don’t we?’

  She nodded. ‘Aye, I suppose we do,’ she admitted

  ‘Well, in my opinion that’s the sign of a healthy relationship,’ he said. ‘And anyway, it’s not just about helping you. Ian Becks was a good bloke. If I don’t do everything I can to help solve this case, I’d be letting him down. And another thing – feeling sorry for yourself has never solved anything for anyone, and it won’t help you now, so can you please stop it?’

  She sat back and her mouth dropped open. ‘Well, that’s told me, hasn’t it?’ she said.

  ‘Like I said, friends are supposed to be able to speak frankly to each other. Don’t you agree?’

  ‘I’m not sure I’ve ever looked at it like that,’ she said. ‘As your boss I’m supposed to keep a distance between us.’

  ‘Well, have you ever thought that maybe part of your problem is that the distance you maintain is much greater than it needs to be?’ he asked.

  ‘Bloody hell. What are you, the police psychologist all of a sudden?’

  ‘Look, I’m just trying to help. If you don’t want me to, I can quite easily go home.’

  ‘But why would you want to help me?’

  ‘Because I care,’ Slater said. ‘It’s what friends do. Now, are we going to discuss this case or not?’

  Goodness looked rather stunned by what he had said. ‘I think I need another drink, first,’ she said.

  ‘Right,’ said Slater, their drinks replenished, ‘let’s get started.’ He had decided it might be better if he led the conversation and, to his surprise, Goodnews didn’t seem to have a problem with that.

  ‘We know a courier arrived on the night Ian died and delivered a parcel to someone stood on the front steps that he thought was Ian, but we now know wasn’t. Let’s call this bloke the Mystery Man, for want of something better. Mystery Man signs for the parcel and then takes it inside to reception where he meets Ian Becks. Becks appears to know the guy and takes him through the back doors, presumably to his lab.’

  ‘First question,’ said Goodnews. ‘Why would he do that?’

  ‘My best guess so far,’ said Slater, ‘is he wanted to show off. He was really proud of his job and the way he ran things. This was a chance to show someone from outside and impress them.’

  ‘Next obvious question. Who is Mystery Man?’

  ‘Could be he was someone Ian had met at the gay bar?’ suggested Slater. ‘Then again, he could be someone sent from Serbia.’

  ‘But he wouldn’t know someone from Serbia, would he?

  ‘You’ve got me there,’ said Slater, ‘so let’s go with the gay friend theory.’

  ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Go on.’

  ‘The Mystery Man comes back upstairs, and because he’s wearing Ian’s crash helmet and red leathers, the duty sergeant assumes that’s who it is and the guy walks out unchallenged.’

  He took a drink from his pint before he continued. ‘The next thing we know is the explosion. An incendiary device goes off in the forensics lab. It causes damage, but not that much when you think the entire place could have been reduced to rubble and the entire building brought down on top of it.’

  ‘So why not do that?’ asked Goodnews. ‘Why not bring the whole lot down? It would have made sure we didn’t find the body, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Yeah,’ agreed Slater. ‘I was stumped by that one, but then we didn’t know about the fingerprint going missing before. What if the whole point of the fire was simply to destroy that fingerprint?’

  ‘You seem to be forgetting the suicide note,’ she said.

  ‘Just bear with me for now. I’m not convinced that’s for real.’

  ‘But we know he was crooked. It all adds up,’ she argued.

  ‘I don’t believe that, either,’ said Slater, adamantly. ‘What about if someone was trying to frame him?’

  ‘Where on earth has that come from?’ asked Goodnews.

  ‘Just let me run with this for a minute. Let’s suppose this Slick Tony, the Serbian gangster guy, is behind this. You asked Ian to send a fingerprint to Interpol, right? Now we know he had at least one mole in there, who is supposed to have been removed, but suppose there’s another one? As soon as the fingerprint appears, the mole tells his boss. They know it’s Ian Becks who sent the enquiry, so they need to stop him.

  ‘They intercept a package to Ian Becks and make the delivery themselves. Ian takes the guy down to the lab, where the guy bumps him off, finds the hard copy of the print, and plants a device to destroy the evidence and Ian’s body at the same time. They also steal some evidence from the lab and plant it at Ian’s flat, along with some serious cash to make him look bent.’

  ‘What about the suicide note? Where does that come in?’

  ‘Maybe Mystery Man forced him to write the note before he died. Then they use it to back up the idea he was guilty about being crooked.’

  ‘It sounds good,’ she said, ‘until you start poking at it, and then holes start to appear. I think you’re making the evidence fit your theory about Serbian gangsters.’

  ‘What holes?’ he said.

  ‘Well, first you say he’s met someone at the gay bar, and now you want him to be a Serbian gangster. Then there’s the suicide note. You think it’s a fake of some sort, but there’s no proof. We can get it analysed by a handwriting expert, but I wouldn’t hold out too much hope. Then there’s the matter of our kidnapped cleaner. Where does he fit in?’

  Slater knew she had a point. He had seen the holes appearing as he had been explaining it to her.

  ‘Yeah. Okay, so I haven’t figured it all out yet,’ he admitted.

  ‘And I still don’t understand why they would use such a tiny bomb,’ continued Goodnews. ‘Yes, it was enough to start a small fire, but it was never going to be enough to destroy the body.’

  ‘Look, it’s a theory,’ he said. ‘I admit I don’t know where all the pieces fit yet, but what did we have before?’

  ‘It’s a good try,’ she said. ‘But you know as well as me, it doesn’t really fly, does it?’

  ‘I admit we have some pieces that don’t seem to fit, but we’re still waiting for the toxicology report and we haven’t heard from the cleaner yet. What he has to say might make all the difference.’

  Their conversation was interrupted by the arrival of their food. A massive steak and chips for Goodnews and a curry for Slater.

  ‘Right,’ she said to Slater. ‘That’s it now. No more talk about this case until tomorrow. Let’s just enjoy our food. I don’t know about you, but I’m bloody starving.’

  Slater marvelled at the size of the steak on her plate. ‘You’re never going to eat all that, are you?’ he said, staring at it. ‘It’s so big it’s overhanging the plate.’

  ‘Just watch me,’ she said. ‘I eat like this all the time at home. This is just a snack.’

  She began to carve into her steak and took a huge mouthful. Slater took a discreet look at her slim figure.

  ‘I can’t see where you put it all,’ he said, dipping into his much smaller curry. ‘If I ate like that I’d end up as big as Norman.’

  ‘I put lots of energy into everything I do,’ she said. ‘I’ll soon burn this off.’

  She took another huge mouthful, and sat back to enjoy it. Slater watched her out of the corner of his eye and remembered when she had first arrived at Tinton. They had worked a case together, and he recalled how she had impressed him with her fitness, easily keeping up with him when they were chasing a suspect. He had been the one left gasping for breath, while she hardly seemed to have any problem. Then a wistful look crossed his face as he remembered something else that had happened on that case. She caught him watching her and saw the look on his face.

  ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘What are you thinking about?’

  ‘Nothing special,’ he said guiltily. ‘I was just remembering how you outran me when you first came here.’

  ‘Oh aye,’ she said. ‘I try to keep myself fit. Anytime you want a rematch, just let me k
now.’

  ‘No, it’s okay, I’ll pass on that if you don’t mind,’ he said.

  Slater looked at her again. She seemed to be positively glowing with vitality now, as if all her worries had somehow been lifted from her shoulders. Then again, it could have been the amount of whisky she had consumed.

  ‘I seem to recall something else that happened when we were working on that case,’ she said.

  ‘Oh no,’ he said. ‘Not again. This is something else you’re never going to let me forget, isn’t it?’

  ‘It’s not every day a DI gets grabbed by a DS and kissed,’ she said, a wicked grin firmly back in place on her face.

  Slater squirmed with embarrassment. ‘Look, I’m sorry, okay,’ he said. ‘The guy was walking straight towards us. He would have recognised me for sure. I had to do something.’

  ‘So you say,’ she teased.

  ‘It was one of those spur-of-the-moment things, driven by desperation,’ he said.

  ‘Driven by desperation,’ she said, pretending to be appalled. ‘Is that what you tell all the women you kiss?’

  ‘I didn’t mean it like that, and you know it. If you must know, I thought it was a bit of inspired, out-of-the-box thinking.’

  She threw her head back and laughed out loud. ‘Oh it was out of the box, alright,’ she agreed. ‘I’ve read all the manuals on avoiding detection when following a suspect, and I can assure you, grabbing your DI and sticking your tongue down her throat doesn’t appear anywhere.’

  ‘I didn’t use my bloody tongue,’ he said, testily. ‘I’ve said it about a hundred times before, but I’ll say it again anyway. I’m sorry I kissed you, alright? I’ll make sure it never happens again.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t want you to apologise,’ she said.

  ‘You made enough fuss at the time.’

  ‘That was because you took me by surprise. I didn’t know what was happening.’

  ‘I didn’t exactly have time to explain, did I?’ he said, exasperated.

  ‘Och, I know that,’ she said, before looking coyly at him. ‘Anyway, I don’t think I’ve ever said I didn’t enjoy it.’ She got to her feet and collected their glasses.