The Judas Sheep

by Stuart Pawson

  I wrote a long one to Fearnside, all about the fire and the chase. I enclosed Fin 23 and Fin 33 expenses forms and devoted the last chapter to explaining them. I imagined some little man in a windowless office allowing the ghetto-blaster to pass, but drawing a line through my electric blanket. After that I read everything on my desk about Nicola’s murder, but didn’t learn much.

  I’d skipped the morning meeting to sew up the loose ends of the drugs case and ring the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Centre at Swansea, but now I was free to concentrate on catching Nicola’s killer. I’d asked the DVLC to put a stop on the Jaguar number. That meant that if anyone rang enquiring about my address, they would be politely referred to the Police Liaison Officer. At just after nine o’clock the others started to wander in from the meeting.

  Nigel was in earnest conversation with a DCI from Liverpool called Trevor Peacock and his DS. They’d taken the Harold Hurst enquiry off us. Peacock was built like a council skip, but he shook hands like a cocker spaniel. I suspected that this was deliberate, having crushed a few fingers in the past.

  ‘Hello, Trevor,’ I said. ‘What are you doing here?’ I think he’d have preferred me to call him Chief Inspector, which was why I addressed him as Trevor at every available opportunity.

  ‘If you came to the meetings you’d know,’ he replied, smiling, but he meant it.

  ‘Sorry about that. I had a few loose ends to tie up with N-CIS.’ Advantage Priest.

  Nigel butted in. ‘I’ll fill in Mr Priest,’ he volunteered, ‘if you want to be on your way …’

  ‘That’s OK,’ he replied. ‘If we go over it enough times it might start to make sense to my small brain. It’s a complicated story.’

  ‘You mean, he’s struck before?’

  ‘’Fraid so. The sample he kindly left inside Nicola was a perfect match with one we found in the dead prostitute in early January. The one wearing Marina Norris’s wristwatch. That’s, what – over three months ago. Same MO: strangled first, then raped. Incidentally, it’s the first match we’ve had from the data bank; looks like it’s starting to produce the goods. So Nicola is linked to the murdered prostitute by a DNA sample and the prossie is linked to Mrs Norris by the watch.’

  Nigel said: ‘And Mrs Norris’s husband made the cigarettes that were hijacked, and the driver was shot with the same gun that killed Harold Hurst.’

  ‘In other words,’ I declared, ‘the same gang hijacked the cigs, kidnapped Mrs Norris and murdered her chauffeur, strangled the prostitute and killed poor Nicola. We’re looking for a necromaniac with a smoking problem. I wonder if there’s a gene for that?’

  ‘We can’t be sure Mrs Norris was kidnapped,’ Peacock said.

  ‘True,’ I conceded.

  The Sergeant decided to have his say. ‘Don’t forget the gun has also been used in Northern Ireland, back in 1988.’

  Nigel excused himself, to deploy the troops, leaving me with the DCI and DS from Liverpool. I suggested having a brew in the canteen, and they agreed. When we were settled, with mugs of tea and toasted currant teacake for me, bacon sandwiches for them, I said: ‘Do you think there is an IRA link, then – turning their skills to something more profitable? Or the other lot, maybe?’

  Trevor nodded. ‘The so-called Loyalists? It’s a strong possibility. We’ve sent the files to the appropriate people – Special Branch, RUC – but they haven’t told us much.’

  ‘Then there’s our own side,’ the DS said. ‘We’ve plenty of disillusioned ex-Army on the streets. They have the skills, too, and a lot of them have difficulties when they’re thrown back on Civvy Street.’

  ‘That gives you plenty to go at. And think – up to this morning we thought we were looking for some psychopath who’d just discovered what makes the world go round and who lives locally.’

  ‘’Fraid not, Charlie,’ Trevor said. ‘We’re looking for a gang of professionals, with some good contacts. It just happens that one of them is a psycho. Maybe he’ll lead us to the rest.’

  ‘I’d prefer it if they led us to him.’

  ‘Yeah, that would be better, but he’s the one who’s making all the mistakes.’

  I spent the rest of the day reading the reports on the other murders and the hijack, and discussing them with Gilbert and Nigel. Hijacks are usually inside jobs, so it might be useful to know of any employees of the transport company who had links with the Army – a lot of ex-soldiers become lorry drivers – or with Northern Ireland. Or who had criminal records, or took days off at the appropriate times, or whose eyes were too close together. No doubt Peacock would be handling all that.

  Our end of the investigation was concentrated on Nicola’s last movements, and trying to learn of any strangers in town on the Friday in question. Late in the afternoon I received a phone call from Jean, the DC in Bristol.

  ‘Good news, Mr Priest,’ she told me. ‘Pauline came in about an hour ago, with her husband, Leon. She’s made a full statement incriminating her stepfather, so you’ll be able to pull him in as soon as you receive it.’

  I’d enjoy doing that. Annabelle had invited me round for what she called vegetarian chilli con carne, so I left early and called at the florists on the way. She’d guessed we were being followed the night before, and was frightened, although I suspected that she was just a little bit excited by the chase. I’d driven straight to my house and taken her home in the Cavalier. She wouldn’t stay the night with me. I’d handled the whole thing badly, but perhaps some flowers would make amends. I selected a small bunch of fuchsias that looked just right. As I was fumbling for the money I noticed the Interflora poster and said to the girl behind the counter: ‘I’d like to send a bouquet to someone else, too, but I don’t know the address. If I pay for them now, could I phone it to you in the morning?’

  ‘Of course, sir, no problem.’ She started to fill in the appropriate order form. ‘Who shall we say they are from?’

  ‘Er, leave that blank, please.’

  ‘And what message would you like?’

  ‘Er, no message,’ I said, adding: ‘They’re for a lady in Bristol,’ as if it explained everything.

  As soon as I’d had a chance to have a good think about the case, I rang DCI Peacock and had a long chat with him. We’d come into it late, and were looking at things in reverse order. I needed some clarification.

  ‘So presumably the first episode, from your point of view, was when we circulated details of the body we’d found. Harold Hurst’s,’ I said.

  ‘Well, before that,’ he replied, ‘Hurst’s wife had walked into her local nick and said that her husband hadn’t come home the night before. We did nothing, as per, until she came in again the next day and became hysterical. Then we received your notification about the unidentified body and things fell into place.’

  ‘Have you talked to Norris?’

  ‘Yeah, a couple of times. He was quite open about things, more or less repeated what I’d read in your reports. Said their relationship was going downhill; she had a boyfriend, but he didn’t know who; thought she’d walked out on him. He wasn’t exactly cut up about it, and assured us there was nothing going off between her and the chauffeur.’

  ‘Still no ransom notes?’

  ‘He says not.’

  ‘Do you think he would have enough day-to-day knowledge to be the inside man on the cigs hijack?’

  ‘You’ve a wicked mind, Charlie. He probably would have. He was a hands-on employer, the worst kind. Knew everything about everything and kept them all on their toes by working all hours and expecting everyone else to do the same.’

  ‘I used to be like that,’ I confessed.

  ‘Yeah, me too. That’s why they all love me.’

  ‘And what about Hurst? How much did he know?’

  ‘Good question. He took the Roller into the lorry depot nearly every day and washed it. Nobody is saying they ever saw him speak to anyone, though, and we can’t find any links with other employees. He led a quiet life.’

  Norris had n
o money worries by normal standards, but he was on a different planet to anyone else I knew. He was a ladies’ man, but it was all hearsay, no names. I asked DCI Peacock if he had any objections to my straying into his patch and asking a few questions of my own.

  ‘What have you in mind?’ he asked warily.

  ‘Well, to tell the truth, I’d like another go at the manager of the department store – Town & County – where his wife was last seen. And the security staff. A bit more background about Norris himself might be useful, too. I might pick up something new, maybe only a different nuance. You know how it is.’

  ‘OK, be my guest, but keep us informed. And I’d like you to keep away from Norris himself. He knows more than he’s admitting, but he’s a crafty bird. Leave him to us, please. Mind you, he’s in America at the moment, so you’ll have to, unless your expenses allowance is better than mine.’

  ‘You’d never believe me, Trevor, you’d never believe me. I’ll keep you informed.’

  I wrote down various addresses and drove over the Pennines into Lancashire – or should I say Greater Manchester and Merseyside? Injun country.

  First stop was Norris’s palatial mansion in Lymm. The boundary wall and the electrically operated front gate looked impressive, but that was as far as I got. A motor mower was buzzing away inside, but I leant on the bell and shouted into the phone to no avail. A month ago I would have climbed over the wall, but I resisted the temptation. I was wearing decent trousers, all part of my new tidy-at-work image. Next time I’d come in jeans and trainers.

  At least Town & County would be open, unless Thursday was half-day closing. I risked it, and was lucky. They probably stayed open on Christmas Day. The manager’s secretary asked me if I would like a coffee and this time I said: ‘Yes, please.’

  He greeted me like a longlost cousin and invited me to sit down. No doubt he was hoping to learn some titbit that he could take home to his family to revive the sagging saga of his boss’s wife. If I didn’t disappoint him maybe he’d open up.

  ‘Thanks for seeing me again,’ I told him.

  ‘Any time, Inspector. We were beginning to think that the trail had gone cold.’

  ‘Lukewarm,’ I replied, ‘until now. Last week, a fifteen-year-old girl was murdered in Heckley. Incidentally, that’s where Harold Hurst’s body was found. You may have read about it in the papers?’

  He nodded. ‘Yes.’

  ‘It was a particularly vicious crime. You may also know that we recently started a data bank for DNA samples. Well, it’s beginning to show dividends. Samples from Nicola’s body indirectly link her killer with the person who killed Mrs Norris’s chauffeur. We are working in cooperation with Liverpool police, of course, and I know you have gone over everything with them, but I hope you don’t mind answering a few questions for me.’

  He leant forward, interested. ‘Certainly, Inspector,’ he replied.

  ‘How well did you know Harold Hurst?’ I asked.

  ‘Hardly at all. I didn’t know his second name until after he was dead. I’d ridden with him a couple of times and we’d chatted about our families. Mr Norris would sometimes invite me over to Lymm for a meeting, and he’d send the Roller. He was like that.’ He smiled at the memory.

  I said: ‘You sound as if you like Norris.’

  ‘He’s OK. Super-efficient, but you know where you are with him. You hear horror stories about American businessmen, but he seems keen to retain the family atmosphere we have amongst the staff. We hadn’t expected that.’ His cheeks were creased with amusement.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ I asked.

  Coffee and biscuits arrived. I’d forgotten to ask for it without milk. ‘About a week before she vanished,’ the manager said, ‘Norris came in and the first thing he noticed was that we’d moved one of the security cameras. The ground-floor one. We’d redirected it so you could see the pavement outside the front door. He said: “Hey! Now you’ll be able to see when Marina’s paying you a surprise visit.” We didn’t tell him that that was exactly why we’d moved the camera, but I think he’d guessed.’

  ‘He sounds a wily old goat.’

  ‘Wily’s not the word. He doesn’t miss a trick.’

  ‘I should have asked about the security videos then when I saw you before. Did they capture Mrs Norris?’

  ‘Mmm. Worked a treat. Every floor knew she was here before she’d barely come through the front door.’

  ‘Your early warning system.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Any chance of me having a word with the person who actually saw her arrive?’ I asked.

  He grinned sheepishly and pressed his fingertips together. ‘It was me,’ he admitted. ‘I was down in Security, watching the monitors when she arrived.’

  ‘So what happened?’

  ‘Nothing out of the ordinary. The chauffeur, poor Harold, opened the door for her and she got out. That’s all I saw.’

  ‘What about when she left?’

  ‘I walked out with her, saw her into the Rolls. Harold was dozing, didn’t see her come. That didn’t improve her temper.’

  ‘She was in a bad temper?’

  ‘Yes. She’d given a salesgirl a ticking off over nothing. She usually found something to complain about.’

  ‘I see. Did she say where she was going next?’

  ‘No, I’m afraid not.’

  ‘What sort of a person was she?’

  The secretary came in to collect the cups. The Inspector wants to know about Mrs Norris,’ the manager said to her.

  ‘Then tell him,’ she threw back as she left.

  He smiled again. ‘She was a cow,’ he declared. ‘She’d been a model, so she thought she knew all about the business, but she was useless. God gave her a good figure and a nice face, but I’m afraid he economised on the brain cells.’

  ‘What was their marriage like?’

  ‘Can’t really say. He had an eye for the ladies. I think he bought into this place just to keep her happy; give her an interest. Not bad, eh?’

  ‘Not bad at all. When I saw Norris he told me that he called in on the Saturday morning and saw you. Did he want anything in particular?’

  He looked puzzled. ‘Well, yes. He wanted to see the security videos.’

  Now I looked puzzled. ‘The videos?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Was that unusual?’

  ‘Unusual, but not a surprise. It was his style to arrive unannounced and ask to see something out of the ordinary. One week it might be the figures for staff sick leave, another, the footwear accounts or the kitchens. He believed it kept us on our toes.’

  ‘And did it?’

  ‘You bet.’

  ‘So what happened?’

  ‘Not much. It’s a twenty-four-hour recording system, switching round the cameras at five-second intervals, unless we want to stay with any selected camera. He sat down with the Friday’s cassette and asked me how things worked, then told me to leave him to it, which I gladly did.’

  ‘And by now it will have been recorded over a few times,’ I suggested.

  ‘Well, no. We thought you had it.’

  ‘Us? The police? Why did you think that?’

  The manager shook his head. ‘We didn’t realise it at the time, but he probably took it with him. We normally have seven tapes in use, and put a new one in at nine o’clock every morning. The day before’s goes to the other end of the rack, so we hold a record for a complete week at a time. The following week we realised that one was missing. Security told me, but by this time we knew about Harold and the papers were suggesting that Mrs Norris had been kidnapped. It explained why Norris had called in, and we presumed he’d given the tape to the police.’ Suddenly he looked unhappy. ‘It was the last picture he’ll have seen of his wife. Maybe he’s kept it.’

  ‘Yes. That’s the probably explanation,’ I agreed.

  His in-tray was piled high with documents – some green, some yellow, and a few an urgent pink; he’d been working late tonight. The b
ack of a photograph frame was towards me, and I wondered how resigned the faces on the other side would be towards his absence. Sometimes I envy colleagues who have photos of their families on their desks; other times, I think they’re pillocks.

  ‘Did anyone else see the tape of Mrs Norris’s arrival?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, one of our security staff, Sylvia. She’s been with us for years.’

  ‘So you employ your own security?’

  ‘Yes, always have done. Town & County had been in the same family for seventy years until five years ago. Most of us have been with them all our careers.’

  ‘But times are changing?’

  ‘Sadly, yes.’

  ‘If it’s any consolation, you’ve escaped for longer than most. Is Sylvia at work?’

  He did some telephoning, then told me that she was on the early shift, and had therefore left for home.

  ‘I’d like a word with her,’ I said. ‘Will she be working in the morning?’

  ‘Yes, seven till three.’

  ‘Fine. How about if I catch her tea break at, say, ten?’

  ‘I’ll tell her to expect you.’

  We shook hands. At his office door I turned and asked him to treat our conversation as confidential. ‘Particularly what I said about the DNA links,’ I added conspiratorially. He nodded with enthusiasm.

  Outside I tried to ring DCI Peacock, but he’d gone home, too, so I joined the crush of traffic and threaded my way back towards God’s Own Country. Marina Norris had been a model, and fashion photographers shoot off films like Don King shoots off his mouth. Somewhere there would be drawers, trunks, attics, filled with glossy prints of her in every pose imaginable, wearing the latest offerings from the world’s most expensive couturiers. The image of Bradley Norris poring over five seconds of flickering video, a lone tear trickling down his cheek to drop into his Jack Daniel’s, didn’t move me. So why did he need that video?