Chill Factor

by Stuart Pawson

  “High profile, Charlie,” he explained. “The media are involved. Made a laughing stock of the whole force. I’m seeing them at two.”

  “Right,” I said, nodding in slow motion to indicate how I understood his position.

  To change the subject I told him about the Latham case and how young Caroline Poole had suddenly come into the picture, complicating things. He saw it as two clearups, with a possible third. We’re very extravagant with our clearup figures. Jamie Walker’s death would allow us to put every stolen car for the period he was out of detention down to him, and therefore solved. We’d just have to be careful not to have him doing two at the same time, in different parts of town. Perhaps we’d be able to put Caroline’s murder down to Latham. Somerset would close the file, issue a statement saying that they were not looking for anybody else. There might even be a crumb of comfort in it for her parents.

  After a silence Pritchard said: “Never took you for an astronomer, Charlie. Interested in that Star Trek stuff, are you?”

  “No, that’s fantasy,” I replied. “I’m more interested in the real thing. Science in general, I suppose. Sometimes it comes in useful, like today.”

  “I’m sure you’re right, I’m sure you’re right. And it’s good to have an outside interest. Too much work, and all that.”

  “Yep. That’s what I think.”

  Another long silence, then I decided to give him the works. I said: “Back in the early Seventies, when the space race was in full flow, the Americans sent an unmanned craft to Mars and took a few photographs so the Russians, determined to match or outdo the Yanks, decided to send one to Venus. Unfortunately for them the atmosphere was so hot that the lens cap melted on the front of the camera, and they didn’t get any pictures.”

  “Ah! Serves the buggers right,” he commented.

  “Being Russians,” I continued, “they announced it as a glorious triumph for the Soviet people and vowed to continue the exploration of space on their behalf. The scientists involved were invited to sit on Lenin’s tomb for the next May Day parade. The following year they sent another probe up, at a cost of a few more zillion roubles, but this time with a high melting-point lens cap on the camera. It also carried a device to scoop up some soil from the surface of Venus and analyse it.”

  “Clever stuff,” the DCC said. “Marvellous what they can do, these days.”

  “It is, isn’t it. And this time, everything worked perfectly. The lens cap flew off and the camera took a photo of Venus’s soil, which looked very much like any other soil. Then the arm stretched out and the scoop picked up a sample and brought it back on board for analysis.” I paused to let the pictures form in his mind, then went on: “Trouble was, the scoop had picked up the lens cap. They spent all that money, travelled a hundred million miles, to analyse something they took with them.”

  He looked across at me. “You’re kidding!” he scoffed.

  “According to the telly,” I replied.

  “The daft buggers.”

  “It was hailed as another Soviet success story,” I told him, “and the scientists were awarded the Order of Lenin and given free holidays on the Black Sea.” We’d arrived at the nick. I freewheeled into my space and yanked the handbrake on.

  “Ha ha,” he chuckled. “That’s a good story, Charlie. A good story. With a moral in it, too. Learn from other people’s mistakes, eh.”

  “That’s right, Mr Pritchard,” I said, adding: “And you’ve got to admit, it makes writing-off a Ford Escort sound small beer, don’t you think?”

  He called me a devious sod, but he was grinning as he said it. I hoped I’d done Big Jim and Martin a favour, but I wasn’t sure.

  Dave and the two tec’s from Somerset were in Gilbert’s office, waiting for me. They were a DI and a DS, and were a little taken aback when I introduced Pritchard to them. He’d insisted on being present and they weren’t used to their top brass being so accessible. After handshakes all round and mugs of tea for me and the DCC, Gilbert said: “Apparently, Charlie, Latham is totally unrelated to Caroline Poole and there is no obvious reason why he should have that photograph of her.”

  Dave said: “The picture came from the Burdon and Frome Express, as we know, but they have no record of the buyer. If it was paid for in cash, in advance, and collected in person, they wouldn’t have.”

  “Or he could have used a false name,” the DCC suggested, eager to help, but failing.

  “So what does Silkstone have to say?” I asked.

  The DI was a huge man in a light grey suit, with a clipped moustache and nicotine-stained fingers. He said: “We’ll start before that, if you don’t mind. The reason that we decided not to come up yesterday morning was because we’d done some preliminary investigations in the Caroline Poole files. Or, to be more precise, Bob here had.”

  Bob, the DS, nodded.

  “Bob discovered that the names Latham and Silkstone were in there, would you believe.”

  “Go on,” I invited. It had been a big case, and probably every male in Somerset was in there.

  “A car was seen in the vicinity of the last sighting of Caroline. A dark one, British Leyland, possibly a Maestro. In the next three months the owners of eighteen thousand dark Maestros were interviewed, without any success. Two of them belonged to Latham and Silkstone. Or, to be more accurate, to the company they worked for: Burdon Home Improvements.”

  When we talk to people in large numbers like that, there’s not a great deal you can ask. “Where were you on…” is about it. We insist on an answer, and then ask if anyone was with them, to confirm the story. If there was, and they do, that person is eliminated from enquiries, as we professionals say.

  “This is where it gets interesting,” the DI was saying.

  “Just one thing,” the DCC interrupted, to prove he was awake, and interested, and really on top of things. “Are the files computerised?”

  “After a fashion,” Bob replied. “It’s an ancient system, from before the mouse was invented, but it works, once you find someone who knows about these things. At the moment, because it was an unsolved case, it’s all being updated to the latest HOLMES standard.”

  “Good, good. Sorry to chip in.”

  “That’s OK, Sir. Like I was saying, this is where it gets interesting. Caroline was last seen walking home from a school play, at about nine fifteen. Latham said he was in a pub at the time in question, twenty miles away. He gives one Tony Silkstone as his alibi, plus two women they just happened to talk to. When Silkstone was interviewed he gave Latham’s name, plus the two women.”

  “Were the women traced?” I asked.

  “Yep. It’s all here.” He rattled his knuckles against the file on the desk.

  “But you won’t have had time to find them again?”

  The DI shook his head but didn’t speak.

  “Right. So what does Silkstone say now?”

  “Silkstone says,” he began, “that he was out with his current girlfriend at the time in question, a lady called Margaret Bates. He was a married man, and this was an illicit affair. He later left his wife and married Margaret. She became the late Mrs Silkstone.”

  “Cherchez la femme,” the DCC mumbled, nodding as if everything was suddenly clear. I was beginning to wish I hadn’t brought him. Gilbert caught my eye and winked.

  “Meanwhile Latham, we are informed, was playing fast and loose with another woman, called Michelle Webster, who was a friend of Margaret Bates. According to Silkstone he was terrified that his wife would find out, but Michelle was his only alibi for the night Caroline disappeared. He asked Silkstone to say that he was with him, and that they just happened to meet two women in a pub outside Frome, The Lord Nelson. Silkstone agreed, he says, and persuaded the two women to say that they’d all met, briefly, at the pub.”

  Dave said: “They were married to two sisters, weren’t they?”

  “Yes,” the DI confirmed.

  “And then they were knocking off two mates?”

  �
�That’s right.”

  “It all sounds a bit cosy.”

  “It does, doesn’t it? But the important thing is that Silkstone’s story tallies with what’s in the files. He was with Latham, Latham was with him, in the Lord Nelson. The two women confirmed seeing them there. Bingo – eliminated from enquiries, even though it’s a pack of lies.”

  “Margaret Silkstone’s dead,” I said. “What about the other one?”

  “Michelle Webster?” Bob replied. “We haven’t found her yet, but she’s our next priority.”

  “It’ll be interesting to hear what she has to say,” I stated.

  “Ye-es, very interesting,” the DCC agreed.

  It was Iqbal’s last day with us, Allah be praised, and Annette came to tell me that the troops were meeting in the Bailiwick at home time, to give him a send-off. I told her to make two coffees for us, and bring herself back to my office. Maybe she’d appreciate the assertive approach.

  When she was seated opposite me I told her all about the Silkstone interview. She listened gravely, and offered the opinion that lack of alibi and possession of a photograph was hardly enough to convict a man for murder.

  “Except that he went on to kill again,” I said.

  “That’s not evidence,” she stated.

  “No,” I agreed, “but the Somerset boys can go back and look at the case again, with Latham in mind. We haven’t seen the file. There might be a load of stuff in there that will all fall into place, now.”

  Annette was right, though. We have to be careful. You can’t arrest a man because he has a scar on his cheek, and then announce to the court that he has a scar on his cheek, just like the witness said. Latham was only in the frame for Caroline because he possessed her photograph. We couldn’t then use that piece of non-evidence to clinch his guilt. I heaved a big sigh and took a bite of chocolate biscuit.

  “You look tired, Charlie,” she observed.

  “Yeah, a bit.”

  “So where does all this leave us?”

  “Us?” I queried.

  “I meant the Latham case. Our Latham case.”

  “Everybody agrees that it’s sewn up,” I told her. “Latham killed Mrs S. Mr S came home and found her, then he killed Latham. Balance of mind, manslaughter, three years top whack, free in one.”

  “I thought you weren’t happy about it.”

  “I’m happy,” I protested. “The evidence is good. Why does everybody want me to be out of line?”

  Her face lit up in a smile. “Because that’s where you belong,” she said.

  We sipped our coffee in silence for a few moments, her left hand absentmindedly straightening the papers near the corner of my desk until they were exactly parallel to the edges. “Do you think of Georgina Dewhurst very often?” she asked.

  I wasn’t expecting it, and it took me a few moments to reply. Georgina was a little girl, murdered by her stepfather. “Yes,” I admitted. “Probably more often than is healthy.”

  “I was a WPC on that case,” Annette told me.

  “I know. You were with the Child Protection Unit.”

  “Good grief!” she exclaimed. “I’m amazed you noticed.”

  I grinned, saying: “As SIO, it was part of my remit to keep a fatherly eye on all the young WPCs.”

  Her smile was warm and comfortable, the best I’d ever seen her give. “That’s when I decided I wanted to be a detective,” she said. “Not just be a detective, I wanted…well…oh, never mind.”

  “Wanted what?”

  Her smile was still there, fighting to be seen through the blush that crept over her face like a desert sunset. “Oh, nothing,” she said.

  I didn’t insist on an answer. People with red hair and freckles blush easily, but it was strange that she never did when answering questions about our clients that some people would find embarrassing. Then, she was totally professional. It was only when…Ah, well, it was something for me to ponder over.

  “Tonight,” I began, “after we’ve given Iqbal a send-off. We could go for a Chinese again, if you’ve nothing on. Or a curry. I’m just as well-known in the Last Viceroy as I am in the Bamboo Curtain. You missed a good steak on Saturday, by the way.”

  She nodded and said: “Right. See you in the pub.”

  I did paperwork and made phone calls until after half-past six, then walked over the road to the Bailiwick. The lab had done a micro-analysis of various samples taken from the Silkstone bedroom and their report was in the post. Expecting me to wait for it was like asking a child to wait until Easter for his Christmas presents. I asked for a condensed version over the phone.

  They’d found skin flakes from all three involved, but not too many from Tony Silkstone. The sheet and duvet cover were probably clean on that day, which had made things easier. The footprint scans were relatively straightforward, too, as the whole house had been thoroughly vacuumed. All three of the protagonists had climbed up and down the stairs a couple of times, and last one down was Silkstone himself. No signs of a struggle, no tracks left by trailing heels. All good stuff, which led us nowhere. Mrs Silkstone liked a tidy house and clean sheets for when her lover called, and that was about it. The jammy sod, I thought. Pity about the dagger in the heart.

  Jeff and Iqbal were sitting in a corner, behind half-empty glasses, the barman was reading the Mirror and the cat was asleep on the jukebox. All-day opening has closed more pubs than any temperance society ever did.

  “Ah, Inspector Charlie!” Iqbal exclaimed as I entered. “What can I purchase for you?”

  “Oh, a pint of lager would go down nicely, please,” I replied, and Iqbal went over to the bar.

  “Where is everybody?” I whispered to Jeff.

  “Dunno. Playing hard to get, by the look of it.”

  “Annette said she’d be here.”

  “I saw her leave, in her car.”

  “Oh.” I tried not to sound disappointed.

  Iqbal returned with my drink. He placed it carefully in front of me, saying: “Jeffrey was just explaining how the legal system in your country, and therefore in mine also, dates back to the twelfth century, and that there are still several anomalies in the statutes book that have no relevance to the modern world.”

  “So they say, Iqbal,” I replied, adding: “Cheers,” and taking a long sip of Holland’s major contribution to international goodwill. It was an old chestnut that poor Jeff had dug up to keep the conversation flowing.

  “For instance,” he continued, “Jeffrey tells me that it is still permissible, due to an oversight or perhaps lack of time in Parliament, for the driver of a vehicle who is taken short to urinate against the front offside wheel of the aforementioned vehicle. Is that really so?”

  “Not quite,” I told him. “It’s the front nearside wheel.”

  “Offside,” Jeff asserted.

  “Nearside,” I argued.

  “Offside.”

  “Uh-uh. Nearside.”

  “It’s the offside. I looked it up.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Positive.”

  “Oh heck. No wonder I got some funny looks in the High Street this morning.” One or two of the others arrived, so Iqbal’s send-off wasn’t a complete disaster. I was just starting my third pint, which is about double my normal intake, these days, when Annette arrived. She was wearing a blue pinstripe suit with a shortish skirt and high heels. I smiled at her and moved along to make some room, but didn’t speak. I wasn’t sure I could control what might come out if I tried to talk. Someone fetched her an orange juice.

  At half past eight people started to make excuses and drift away. We all shook hands with Iqbal, telling him what a delight his stay with us had been, wishing him well for the future. I pointedly asked Annette if she’d like a Chinese, and she said: “What a good idea.”

  I opened the invitation to the others but they all politely declined. Dave had eaten, he said; some had meals waiting for them, and Jeff had defrosted a vegetarian lasagne for himself and Iqbal. “Just us, th
en,” I told Annette, and our ears were burning like stubble fires as we walked away from them all.

  “Your reputation is now in tatters, you know,” I said as I fastened my seatbelt in her Fiat.

  “That’s what reputations are for,” she replied, clunking the car into first gear.

  We went through the menu and had fun. I introduced Annette to wontons and Mr Ho introduced both of us to various other delicacies he kept bringing from the kitchen. “Umm, delicious, what is it?” Annette would giggle, and he would reply in Chinese.

  “What’s that in English?” she’d demand.

  “You no rike if I tell you in Engrish,” he’d laugh.

  I grabbed the bill when it came. “This was my idea, and I earn more than you,” I told her, not allowing her the chance to object.

  “Oh, er, right, thanks,” she said.

  “My pleasure. Any chance of a lift home?”

  She wouldn’t come in for coffee. We were sitting outside my house with the car’s headlights still on and the engine running. Switching off, stopping the engine, would have been a statement of intent. It didn’t come.

  “At the risk of being politically incorrect,” I began, “you look stunning, Annette.”

  “Oh, I can take political incorrectness like that,” she replied with a smile.

  “Good. I’ve enjoyed tonight.”

  “Mmm, me too.”

  After a silence I said: “Are you going away this weekend?”

  The smile slipped away and she fiddled with a button on the front of her jacket. “Yes,” she replied, very softly.

  One of the neighbours came walking down the pavement with his little dog on a lead, returning from its evening crap at the other end of the street. I have very considerate neighbours. “Is he a good bloke?” I asked.

  Annette turned to face me. “How do you know it’s a bloke?” she asked.

  I shook my head. “I don’t, but it usually is.”

  “Normally. You mean normally.”