Devil in the Detail

by Leo McNeir

  “Have you spoken with Dorothy, told her how you feel?”

  “Of course. Do you know what she said, what she actually said? The lady’s not for turning. I’m serious. She thinks she’s another Margaret Thatcher, or even Winston Churchill. What do you think, Marnie? Am I being paranoid?”

  “No.”

  “What does Ralph think about it all? He’s always very sensible.”

  “Last night after we’d gone to bed he said he was worried there could be revenge attacks from both sides, for Brandon’s killing and for Luther’s.”

  “Your pillow talk has really suffered.” There was no humour in Serena’s voice.

  “That’s about as far as it goes these days,” Marnie reflected.

  “Yeah, same here.”

  After disconnecting, Marnie stood in the sunny courtyard, regretting the waste of a beautiful summer spent in conflict and anxiety. Tomorrow would be another fine warm day according to the forecast. She had not told Serena everything Ralph thought about the coming event. Lying in bed the previous night, she and Ralph had remembered the line about the long hot summer and happiness being a warm gun. Ralph remarked it had been the theme tune of the season and reminded her of another famous – infamous – quote, the warning from the politician Enoch Powell years ago:

  The streets will run with rivers of blood …

  31

  Sunday morning dawned bright and clear, and all was calm in the town, at least on the surface. For the police all rest days and leave had been cancelled, and patrols had been doubled ready for a day of anticipated trouble on a big scale. Orders had been given for riot gear to be worn, and reinforcements had been drafted in from neighbouring forces.

  It was barely light when the call came in. A disturbance in a residential area not far from the town centre, sounds of a scuffle and cries heard in an alley behind Victorian terraced houses. The woman who made the call had sounded alarmed. Had she gone out to check what had happened? Certainly not, not after the repeated police warnings to stay away from trouble. The call was as far as her civic duty was going.

  A patrol car had been sent to investigate. The officers left their vehicle blocking one end of the alley and made their way slowly forwards, pressing against each back door, finding every one locked. The only features confronting them were a few wheelie bins and a skip containing builders rubble. As they drew nearer they could see something bundled between the skip and the wall. Approaching with caution they found nothing more sinister than a bicycle, a mountain bike. It was in relatively undamaged condition with no bloodstains or breakages but the paintwork was scratched and scoured. Despite that, it glowed in the shady gap into which it had been squeezed, a bright yellow.

  One of the officers leaned forward to read the words printed on the frame. A trail of painted black pawprints led to the title, Muddy Fox.

  *

  Marnie stood in the doorway of the cottage and yawned. It had been a restless night, and three times she had woken to hear Estelle sobbing. Each time, she had gone to hold and comfort her, each time Estelle had gradually drifted off to sleep again, helped by the residue of sleeping draught in her veins. By some miracle, or probably through sheer mental exhaustion, Marnie too had managed to go back to sleep. Now she stood looking out on the beginning of another fine day, patting her hair, damp from the shower, with a towel as sunlight spread over the courtyard. There was perfect stillness disturbed only by birdsong, and she paused momentarily trying to enjoy the moment, before returning to make Estelle some breakfast.

  Breathing in deeply, she closed her eyes and caught the scent of the roses climbing round the door. So much that was perfect, but so much tragedy. And the worst could be yet to come.

  Opening her eyes, she saw Anne across the courtyard standing by the door to the office barn, a faint smile playing on her lips, an inquisitive raising of the eyebrows. Marnie nodded.

  *

  Bartlett was in the office early and immediately rang Superintendent Harris. It was no surprise that Harris was already on the job. He had arranged for his opposite number in Highways Division to keep careful watch on the approach roads to Northampton for any convoys that might be bringing anti-fascist demonstrators to the town in large numbers. Patrol cars had spotted nothing significant, and the motorway cameras had revealed no lines of coaches or even minibuses.

  Bartlett was grateful for anything that fell short of disaster. “So far, so good then, sir.”

  “Not really, Jack. I’ve been on to Commander Dennison at the Met, their top man on civil disturbances. Apparently these BAN people know every trick in the book.”

  “Oh? Well they’ve still got to move large numbers to make a crowd, and when they get going we’ll be able to spot them, surely.”

  “Not necessarily. For starters, they won’t all be coming from the same place.”

  “We knew that, sir.”

  “And they won’t risk travelling in convoys of coaches. They know their history. They know about the pickets whose buses were intercepted during the miners’ strike and the same for animal rights demonstrators, etcetera, etcetera. You get the picture?”

  “So what’ll they do?”

  “Easy. They’ll travel in individual buses, people-carriers, minibuses, private cars. They’ll choose a variety of routes, some of them coming in on minor roads for the last run into the town. Anyone stopped will say they’re going shopping or just visiting friends.”

  “Or even going to the summer fete at Garfield School.”

  “Exactly.”

  “The cunning sods. They’ll be too dispersed for us to catch them, and anyone we try to pick up will accuse us of police harassment. It’s a lose-lose situation, sir.”

  “You’ve got it, Jack. The only way to defuse this one is to arrest everyone in sight.”

  *

  Anne did not want to butt in on Marnie’s efforts to console Estelle, thinking it best to let her administer TLC by herself for now. When Marnie went back into the cottage, Anne made a mug of coffee in the office kitchen area and sat at her desk to drink it, nibbling a biscuit. She had had a restless night and felt jaded.

  Reaching for the coffee, she had been assailed by a yawn and misjudged her aim, with the result that she nudged the mug and sent the liquid slopping over the brim onto the folder lying in the middle of her desk. She grabbed for a tissue and began mopping it. As a precaution, she quickly opened the flap and pulled out the papers. They were unmarked.

  On the top of the collection of bills and receipts, she was looking down at Estelle’s signature, a strong, confident flowing hand that seemed to taunt Anne with its irony. It was a Visa card bill for a simple lunch in a trattoria in Assisi. Anne flicked through the pile and saw that Estelle had been as punctilious as always. She read the names of the hotel, the car hire firm and the restaurants and could feel Italian sunshine rising from the paper. The receipt showed that Estelle had eaten insalata al tonno with a bottle of San Pellegrino mineral water and rounded off with a cappuccino. When she had signed the bill, Anne could imagine her happy and looking forward to the rest of her life, unaware of the nightmare that awaited her at home.

  Anne began automatically putting the receipts in order, spotting her own signature on the fax note confirming the change of flight. The idea struck her that if Estelle had flown back on the day originally planned, perhaps the death of Luther would have been avoided. She felt a lead weight in her stomach. Staring at the fax and its chatty ending – Hope you’re having a good time, See you, Anne – it felt to her as if she had unwittingly signed Luther’s death warrant.

  Anne shuddered, hastily pushed the papers back into the folder and closed it. For some minutes she sat with her head in her hands, eyes shut tight, feeling wretched that a simple change of plan could have had such tragic consequences.

  The sound of the door opening and a voice speaking to her were in a distant land. Anne opened her eyes and sat up, bringing Marnie into focus, framed in the sunlit doorway.

  “Sorry
?”

  Marnie crossed the floor quickly and knelt beside her. “Are you all right?”

  “Fine.”

  Marnie touched her face. “You’ve been crying.”

  Anne pressed her fingers against her damp cheeks. “I didn’t realise, didn’t think I had any tears left. I thought I’d used them all up.”

  “Anne, I can’t tell you how sorry I am. It’s no wonder you’re feeling like this. We’ve all been under a huge strain.”

  “It’s not that, well of course it is, but it was Estelle’s travel expenses.” She glanced at the folder. “She was having such a nice interesting time in Italy, never knowing what was going to happen to her, and Luther, their whole life together destroyed.”

  Marnie eased herself back. “Don’t worry too much about the travel claim. I’ll deal with it.”

  “No. It’s my job.”

  “Then just add up the bills and let me know the total. I’ll write her a cheque and we can forget all about it, just stick it in the accounts.”

  “Okay.”

  “Anne, why don’t you take the day off, go home and see your folks? You haven’t been back for ages.”

  Anne shook her head. “No. I’m not leaving. Whatever happens today, I’m going to be here to see it through.”

  *

  DC Cathy Lamb was driving Sergeant Marriner in the Cavalier. Bartlett had gone direct to county police headquarters for a senior officers’ meeting with the Assistant Chief Constable.

  Lamb cruised the streets in the town centre. For early on a summer Sunday morning there were plenty of people about and more traffic than they had expected, but no armies of demonstrators on the move. There were walkers and joggers on the old racecourse. Dogs were charging about in the sunshine, chasing sticks and balls. Everything looked normal, and Lamb began to hope that the opposing forces had had enough after two violent deaths and were pulling back from the brink.

  Marriner told her to cut through to the Wellingborough Road and take the turning to Garfield Primary School. In the side streets things were quieter, though they saw several police cars patrolling, a stronger presence than usual. Turning the corner of the school site, they were immediately struck by a stepping up of activity. The playground was a-buzz with people, parked cars and vans with doors and boot-lids wide open as goods and provisions were being ferried to stalls in preparation for the big event of the day.

  In the middle of the bustle, across the playground, the scouts in their uniforms were assembling in lines, and as Lamb parked the car they saw the boys and young men snap to attention and salute while the union flag rose slowly up the pole to hang limply in the still air. Lamb momentarily held her breath. It was only the routine flag-raising parade, but to her it seemed as if a battle line was being drawn.

  *

  Anne hoped that a stroll through the spinney would help to clear her head. Even among the cool greenery she could feel it would be another hot day. A rustling in the undergrowth announced that Dolly was on her morning prowl, and the cat duly appeared, winding herself between Anne’s ankles before falling into step with her on the familiar track to breakfast.

  It was a morning of encounters. Anne had gone barely three paces when Ralph marched briskly across her path on his customary walk, cheeks glowing.

  “How are you feeling?” he called.

  “All right. You?”

  “Same. What are your plans for today, Anne?”

  A shrug. “To go to the summer fete and help, I suppose. Aren’t we all?”

  “You don’t think it might be wise for you to take it easy after what you’ve been through these past few days?”

  “I’ll be okay. The last thing I need is to sit around on my own, moping. Better to be doing something with other people.”

  Ralph refrained from pointing out that the ‘other people’ might include New Force and the BFP. They reached the end of the spinney, and through the gap between Sally Ann and Thyrsis, Anne could see X O 2 still tied up at her mooring.

  Ralph turned to go for his shower. “I don’t suppose you’ve heard anything from Donovan lately?”

  “Not a word.”

  *

  The police had cordoned off the alleyway at both ends, blocking it with cars and vans. They had roped off the area around the skip with incident tape and were giving it the full treatment of a crime scene. When Marriner and Lamb reached the barrier a photographer was systematically recording every inch of the site. Scene-of-crime officers in luminous orange jackets were inspecting every cobble at close range, two of them perched on the rim of the skip examining the contents, carefully moving aside plasterboard, broken bricks and strands of ancient electrical wiring.

  The officer in charge was a detective sergeant from the town, Martin Croyland, who knew Marriner from way back and filled him in on the situation. Marriner sent a text message to Bartlett’s mobile.

  A uniformed constable made his way towards them, pointing over his shoulder to the end of the alley.

  “Sarge, reporters from the local rag and the radio station. They want to know what’s going on.”

  “Surprise, surprise.”

  Marriner was pocketing his phone. “Must have had a tip-off.”

  Cathy Lamb touched his arm. “More than just a tip-off, I think.” She looked up at the windows of the houses backing onto the alley. From several of them faces were peering down. “If I’m not mistaken, one of those people up there is pointing a large camera lens in our direction … a professional?”

  Sergeant Croyland grunted. “We’d better give them something to chew on before they start making up their own stories.”

  Marriner agreed. “Wild speculation’s the last thing we need right now.”

  “The trouble is, what do we tell ’em?”

  The answer came immediately; a call from the edge of the skip.

  “What is it?”

  “I think you’ll want to see this, sarge.”

  The object in question had been uncovered not far below the surface in the middle of the rubbish. It was a baseball cap, filthy, torn and badly crumpled. On the front above the peak was a shield depicting a prancing black horse on a yellow background. Like most Ferrari merchandise, the cap was red.

  *

  Anne could not remember the last time she had eaten something and actually tasted it. She went through the motions of having breakfast on Sally Ann with Ralph. Marnie joined them while they were listening to the radio news programme.

  Ralph looked up. “Is Estelle bearing up?”

  “I persuaded her to take fruit juice and a piece of toast and go back to bed. She looks strung out, but at least she’s relatively calm now.”

  “The sleeping pill has probably –”

  Ralph was interrupted by Anne suddenly extending a hand across the table. “Listen!”

  They all froze.

  … are investigating a skip in an alleyway less than half a mile from where Garth Brandon was murdered on Thursday. What is clear is that the police are obviously treating this as a crime scene. We know that they were phoned in the early hours of this morning by a neighbour whose house backs onto the alleyway, and who heard some kind of disturbance. We believe they’ve found something wedged between a skip and the boundary wall of one of the houses. What they’ve found is not yet known, but their attention is now focused on the skip itself. Minutes ago there was an increase in activity, one officer calling the others to examine something found in the skip. Was this the moment of discovery?

  “That’ll be a headline,” Ralph muttered.

  … are now erecting screens round the skip in an atmosphere of expectancy. We’ll keep you informed of developments as they occur, but this is undoubtedly regarded by the police as important. There’s no official statement at present, but speculation must be that they have uncovered something very serious. Could it be another victim of the racial violence that has been rife in recent weeks?

  “Damn!” Marnie exclaimed. “I hate it when they do that. Why must they
always speculate? Don’t they realise they’re stirring things up, making things worse than they are already?”

  Ralph nodded. “I wonder if that’s possible, I mean to make things worse than they are already.”

  He was soon to find out.

  *

  The two constables sat in their patrol car in a lay-by on the outer ring road trying to work out if what they were seeing was suspicious. Traffic was flowing steadily and mostly keeping within the speed limit. The problem was that a fair proportion of the vehicles contained three or four passengers.

  “Well I think it’s not normal. Look at that. Three cars in a row, all of them full.”

  His companion was unconvinced. “So?”

  “So I’m just saying it doesn’t look right. We’re supposed to be watching out for anything unusual, and I’m saying it’s not normal for so many cars to be full.”

  “It’s a summer weekend. People are going out for the day to do things.”

  “What things? The football season hasn’t started. You don’t get crowds for cricket, not cars full of supporters like that.”

  “Well I think this is daft. How are we supposed to know what’s going on if we’re not allowed to pull ’em over and ask questions? You could be right. They might all be racist activists going to town to make trouble.”

  “Or anti-racist activists with the same idea.”

  “Right. But how are we meant to know? Do you see anyone wearing a Ku Klux Klan hood or carrying a red flag? This is ridiculous. We ought to be nearer to the centre. Then we could pull over any suspicious cars and check ’em out.”

  “The guv’nor said it’d be too late then. We’re supposed to be watching for coachloads of trouble-makers.”

  “Do you see any coaches?”