Chill Factor

by Stuart Pawson

  “Who’s investigating it?” I asked. He told me the name of a chief inspector from HQ who I hardly knew.

  The super was right: it wasn’t funny. Wrecking a police car is a serious matter. Lockwood and Stiles would be taken off driving while a senior officer made preliminary enquiries. It was back to the beat for them. If he’d committed a prosecutable offence it could be the end of the driver’s career. “Were this a member of the public would further action be taken?” was the question that the investigating officer would be asking. Meanwhile, we’d lost the use of two men and a car.

  “The point is, Charlie,” Gilbert said, “we need young Jamie in custody. Number one priority, everybody on it. Right?”

  “I am conducting a double murder enquiry,” I reminded him.

  “Forget it. Get Jamie. Anyhow, it’s all sewn up, isn’t it?”

  “Everybody seems to think so except me. I’ve got my doubts.”

  “Here we go again!” he complained, putting his hands on his head. “Listen, Charlie: Silkstone’s confessed; Latham did the other. It all makes sense, no loose ends. Put it to bed, for God’s sake, and concentrate on getting Jamie. We’re going to be asked some searching questions about that young man before this is over, mark my words, so let’s have him in. Understood?”

  “If you say so.”

  “I do.”

  I said: “Fourteen years old, top of our Most Wanted list. Not bad, eh? He’ll be dining out on that for the rest of his life, if anybody tells him.”

  “He’ll be dining out in Bentley Prison maximum security unit for the rest of his life if I can help it,” Gilbert responded. “Just…find him.”

  We had an informal meeting in the office and I wound down the murder enquiry until Monday. Even the smallest investigation soon develops branches until it looks like some ancient tree, every fork representing a Yes and a No answer to a simple question. “Did you know your wife was having an affair, Sir?” Go left for Yes, right for No. This one was no exception, but we’d have the DNA results in the morning and that would enable us to do some drastic pruning. Then, hopefully, we’d be able to file the whole thing until the wheels of justice came to rest against the double yellow lines of Her Majesty’s Crown Court, or something. I handed the Jamie Walker case over to Jeff Caton, one of my DSs, and gave him full control of all the troops. What more could be done?

  Annette went off to find Jamie’s mother. I was hoping to have a quick word with Annette when nobody else was around, just: “Hello, how’s things?” to maintain the momentum, but it didn’t work out. She was wearing jeans with a scarlet blouse and looked breathtaking. Sparky came in as I eyed the pile of paper in my in-tray.

  “I’m off looking for Jamie’s mates,” he said. “Anything you want to know before I go?”

  “No, I don’t think so,” I replied. “I’ll have a go at this lot and then start on a submission to the CPS.”

  “What are you doing over the weekend?”

  “Housework, and coming here in the morning. Why?”

  “I just wondered. You’re not…you know…?”

  “I’m not what?” I demanded.

  “You’re not, you know, taking Annette out?”

  “No, I’m not. Whatever gave you that idea?”

  “Nothing. I just thought you might be.”

  “Is that why you rather pointedly left us alone together yesterday?”

  “Just trying to help an old mate.”

  “Well don’t bother, thank you. Never get involved with a colleague, Dave. That’s my motto.”

  “She’s an attractive woman.”

  “Yes, I had noticed.”

  “And she obviously fancies you like mad.”

  “Does she? That’s news to me.”

  “Because you’re blind. So you’re free on Saturday night?”

  “Sadly, as a bird.”

  “Right,” he said. “Sophie finished her A-levels yesterday, and says she’s happy with the way they went, so we’re taking her for a celebratory steak. And, of course, they say it wouldn’t be the same without you. Can’t think why.”

  “Oh, that’s brilliant,” I declared. “Well done Sophie. Is she in? I’ll give her a ring.”

  “No, she’s gone into Leeds with her mum. I heard Harvey Nicks mentioned, so it could cost me. All she has to do now is get the grades, then it’s Cambridge, here we come. The kid’s worked hard, Charlie. Harder than I ever have.”

  “I know. And think of the pressure, too.”

  “Well, we’ve never pressurised her. Encouraged her, but win or lose, we don’t mind as long as she’s happy. So shall I put you down for a T-bone?”

  “You bet.”

  “And, er, will you be bringing a friend?”

  “A friend? No, I don’t think so,” I replied.

  “But you’ll come?”

  “Try stopping me.”

  “Why don’t you ask Annette? You might be surprised.”

  “Wouldn’t that make Sophie jealous?” I joked. She had a crush on me when she was younger, but I imagined she was long grown out of it. Now she’d see me for the old fogey I really was.

  “No, not really. I told her about your prostate problems and she went off you. Oh, and I told her that you bought your clothes at Greenwoods. That clinched it.”

  “Thanks. Greenwoods do some very nice jackets.”

  “So will it be steak for one or two?”

  “One please.”

  “Go on, ask her.”

  “I’ll see.”

  “OK.”

  He went off to find his villains and I thought about Sophie. My previous girlfriend was called Annabelle, and she and Sophie became good friends. Sophie copied her style and mannerisms, even to the point of calling me by my Sunday name, Charles. I smiled at the memories. And soon she’d be off to Cambridge.

  The internal phone rang. “Priest,” I said into it.

  “Just letting you know that the Deputy Chief Constable has arrived, Charlie,” the desk sergeant informed me in a stage whisper.

  “Thanks,” I said. “In that case, I’m off.”

  I went down the back stairs and into the main office. Every major crime has an appointed exhibits officer and a connected property store, which in this case was a drawer in a filing cabinet. It’s essential that a log is kept of every piece of evidence, accounting for all its movements and recording the names of everyone who has had access to it. There’s no point in telling the court that a knife had fingerprints on it if the defence can suggest – just suggest – that the defendant may have handled it after he was arrested. I didn’t want the knife, just the keys to Silkstone’s house. I said a silent apology to Gilbert for leaving him in the clutches of the DCC and drove back to Mountain Meadows.

  The panda cars and the blue tape had gone and the street had resumed its air of respectability. The Yellow Pages delivery man had done his rounds and the latest edition was sitting on the front step of several houses, neatly defining who was at home and who wasn’t. I’d had Silkstone’s Audi taken from Latham’s house to our garage for forensic examination, so there was plenty of room for me to park on the drive alongside the Suzuki. I picked up the directory and let myself in.

  First job was a coffee. They drank Kenco instant, although there was a selection of beans from Columbia and Kenya. I watched the kettle as it boiled and carried my drink – weak, black and unsweetened – through into the lounge. I sat on the chesterfield and imagined I was at home.

  It was a difficult exercise. This was the most uncomfortable room I’d ever been in, outside the legal system. The furnishings were good quality, expensive, but everything was hard-edged and solid. No cushions or fabrics to soften things. Focal point of the room was a Sony widescreen television set big enough to depict some of TV’s smaller performers almost life-size. I shuddered at the thought. After about ten minutes the wallpaper started dancing and weaving before my eyes, like a Bridget Riley painting. I stood up and went exploring.

  There was a toilet
downstairs, a bathroom upstairs with a bath shower and rowing machine, and one en suite with the room where we’d found Mrs Silkstone. A room under the stairs with a sloping ceiling was their office, where a Viglen computer and seventeen-inch monitor stood on an L-shaped desk. I sat in the leather executive chair and opened the first drawer.

  An hour later I was in the kitchen again. I examined all the messages on the pin board and made a note of several phone numbers. The cupboard under the sink was a surprise: there was still some room in it. I spread a newspaper – the Express – on the floor, emptied their swing bin on to it and poked around in the tea bags and muesli shrapnel like I’d seen TV cops do. Then I went outside, dragged the dustbin into the garage and did it again, big time.

  I washed my hands and had another coffee, sitting in the captain’s chair at the head of their dining room table. It was all mahogany in there, with more striped wallpaper. The only picture on the walls was a limited edition signed print of Damon Hill winning the British Grand Prix. Number fifty-six of eight million. His room again, I thought.

  I had a pee in the downstairs loo. It was the standard type, like the one in my 1960s house. I pulled the lever and watched the water splash about and subside. I’d have thought that a house as modern as this one would have had those low-level ones, where you watch everything swirling around, convinced it will never all go down that little hole. Personal preference, I supposed. I might even have chosen the same ones myself. I went upstairs into the master bedroom and, lo and behold, the en suite bog was the modern type, in coral pink. I did a comparison flush and decided that maybe these were better after all, but it wasn’t a convincing victory. Just for the record I looked in the main bathroom. Old type, in stark white. Flushed first time, like the others. I didn’t write any of this in my notebook.

  I sat in one of the hard leather chairs for half an hour, thinking about things. I enjoy being alone with my thoughts, and the seat was more comfortable than I expected. You had to sit well back and upright, but it wasn’t too bad. Probably good for the posture, I thought. Next time I saw Silkstone I’d check his posture. A brandy and a cigar would have gone down well, or perhaps a decent port.

  Jim Lockwood and Martin Stiles were coming out of the front door as I arrived back at the nick. Jim was wearing a suit and tie, Martin a short-sleeved shirt and jeans. They looked worried men.

  “How’d it go?” I asked.

  “He’s sacked us,” Martin blurted out.

  “We’re suspended,” Jim explained.

  “He can’t sack you,” I replied.

  “He wants us sacked,” Martin declared.

  I looked at Jim. “Yeah,” he confirmed. “He made that clear. Mr Wood tried to stand up for us, but the DCC went ’airless. Said we’d made a mock’ry of the force, and all that. It was on TV again this morning, apparently.”

  “Well he can’t sack you,” I repeated. “You know that. And next time you’re in for an interview make sure you have the Federation rep with you. Don’t let them two-one you.”

  “Right, Mr Priest,” Martin replied.

  “Meanwhile,” I flapped a hand at the sky, “make the best of the decent weather. Paint the outside of the house, or something. It’ll be a nine-day wonder, you’ll see.”

  “Thanks, Boss,” Jim said, and they skulked away like two schoolboys caught peeing off the bike shed roof.

  I made a pot of tea – all that coffee makes you thirsty – and ate the M & S cheese and pickle sandwich I’d bought on the way back. The lab at Wetherton confirmed that I’d have the DNA results tomorrow, but otherwise they had nothing to tell me. I rang the CPS and agreed to a meeting with them on Monday afternoon.

  The hooligans down in the briefing room had a recording of the Dick Lane Massacre and were delighted to show it to me. It was worse than I expected. Some local chancer had recorded the whole thing on his camcorder and networked it. He took up the story as Jim and Martin were trying to extricate themselves from the jammed car. Unable to climb into the back, they eventually reclined their seats and crawled out of the rear doors on hands and knees. It wasn’t a picture of noble policemen fighting crime against impossible odds with courage and dignity. It was a fourteen-year-old twocker making two fully-grown cops look complete pillocks. The only good thing was that Jamie wasn’t named. That would have made a folk-hero of him. Jim and Martin’s socalled colleagues jeered and catcalled throughout the showing, relieved they weren’t the subjects of such ridicule.

  “If the car had caught fire and they’d been burnt to cinders, we’d be saying they were heroes,” I said. I stomped back upstairs, wondering if that was the reason why I hated Jamie Walker.

  The troops filtered back, empty handed. Dave called into my office and asked if I’d had a report on the DNA.

  “Tomorrow,” I replied. “You know they said tomorrow.”

  “Just thought you might have rung them and asked.”

  “I did. They still said tomorrow. What about you? Find anything?”

  “Nah. Waste of time. His mates think he might be in Manchester, but the little toe-rag’s screwing a bird from the Sylvan Fields, so they say he won’t stay away long.”

  “Video games and sex,” I said. “Kids today have it all.”

  “What did we have?” Dave asked. “Train spotting and snowball fights. Makes yer fink, do’n it?”

  “Do’n it just.”

  “I called at this house in the Sylvan Fields estate,” he said, “and there was this great big Alsatian in the garden, barking an’ slavering. A woman was leaning out of an upstairs window and she shouted: ‘It won’t hurt you, love. Just kick its balls for it.’ So I went in and kicked it in the balls and it ran away yelping and the woman shouted down: ‘No, not them! Its rubber balls that it plays with.’”

  I laughed, against my wishes, and said: “You’d think they’d learn, wouldn’t you?”

  Annette knocked and came in, just as Dave said: “Well, I’d better report to Jeff. Hi, Annette.”

  “Hello Dave,” she replied, holding the door for him. “Find anything?”

  “Mmm. Ronald Biggs did the Great Train Robbery. Nothing on Jamie, though.”

  “Perhaps he’s hiding in Brazil,” she said.

  “Could be. See you.”

  Dave went and I waved towards the spare chair. She sat in it and crossed her ankles. Her jacket was tweed, what might have been called a sports coat or hacking jacket a few years ago, and her blouse spilled from the sleeves and unbuttoned front in splashes of colour. She looked carelessly dishy, with extra mayonnaise.

  “Hard day?” I asked.

  “Waste of time,” she replied. “Running about after a will o’ the wisp. Word is that he’s gone to Manchester. When he was in care his best pal was a youth from there called Bernie, so all we have to do is track down all the Bernards who were in care at the same time as our Jamie. Methinks he’ll resurface long before then.”

  “Methinks you’re right,” I agreed. She was wearing a ring on the third finger of her right hand. A delicate gold one with a tiny diamond. Wrong hand, I thought.

  “So,” Annette began, “I was just wondering if anything had come through from Wetherton about the samples?”

  “No, they said tomorrow,” I told her.

  “Oh. I thought you might not be able to resist giving them a ring and asking if they’d found anything.”

  “I couldn’t,” I admitted, “but they haven’t. We should have the full report at about ten in the morning.”

  “Right.”

  She uncrossed her ankles, as if to stand up and leave. I said: “Thanks for coming with me last night, Annette. It was nice to have some company for a change.”

  “I enjoyed it,” she replied. “Thanks for inviting me.” She smiled one of her little ones, barely a movement of the corners of her mouth, but her cheeks flushed slightly.

  “As a matter of fact,” I went on, “tomorrow night I’m going to the Steakhouse with Dave and his family. It’s a bit of a celebration.
If you’re not doing anything I’d love for you to come along.”

  “Saturday?” she asked.

  “Mmm.”

  “No, I’m sorry, I can’t make it.”

  “Oh, never mind. His daughter has just finished her A-levels, and she’s been accepted for Cambridge if she gets the grades, so we’re taking her out. They do good steaks there. That’s the Steakhouse, not Cambridge. I think she needs two As and a B. Sophie’s my goddaughter. And other stuff, if you’re not a steak eater.” I waffled away. See if I care.

  “Sophie?” Annette asked. “Dave’s daughter Sophie?”

  “Yes. Have you met her?”

  “Of course I have. She used to come on the walks.”

  “That’s right, she did. You’d just joined us. I used to wonder what you kept in that great big rucksack you carried.”

  “Did you?”

  “Yes.”

  She stood up, saying: “Remember me to Sophie, please, Boss, and give her my congratulations.”

  I pulled a pained face and said: “Annette. Could you please call me Charlie once in a while? Everybody else does. I shan’t read anything into it, honestly. It just helps maintain the team spirit. That’s all.”

  She sat down again, and this time the smile was fulsome. “Sorry,” she said. “Charlie.”

  “That’s better. I hope you have a good weekend. If you ring me I’ll tell you the results of the tests.”

  “Oh, I’ll come here first, in the morning,” she asserted.

  “You’ve no need to, if you’re going away. Anywhere special?”

  “Um, York, to a friend’s, that’s all. I’ll come here first, for the results.”

  “If you say so.”

  She went off to report to Jeff about Jamie’s movements, leaving a faint, tantalising reminder of her presence in my office. Annabelle came on some of the walks we’d organised, and the two of them had surely met. Annabelle – Annette, I thought, Annette – Annabelle. A man would have to be careful with two names like that, in a passionate situation. Not that one was ever likely to arise. I wondered about the mystery friend in York and growled at the next person to come into the office.