Chill Factor

by Stuart Pawson

“The, er, evening didn’t quite turn out as I intended,” I said.

  “No,” she replied.

  “But the music was good. I enjoyed that.” Annette didn’t respond, so I went on: “We used to go to the Irish Club, years ago. Had some great nights there. It was the headaches next morning that put a stop to it.”

  She turned to face me, and said: “You thought it was him, didn’t you?”

  “Who?” I asked, all innocence.

  “Him. Chilcott. The Chiller, whatever you call him. You thought it was the Chiller following us.”

  “No I didn’t.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “I thought he was a mugger. He’d seen us and decided we’d be easy prey, so he followed us. I thought we’d give him a surprise.”

  “So I had to run as fast as I could to the pub and lock myself in the toilet? For a mugger? I don’t believe you.”

  “Yeah, well,” I mumbled.

  “I saw the look on your face, Charlie,” she told me. “When we were behind the bins. You were…eager. You were enjoying yourself. You were about to tackle someone you thought had a gun, who wanted to kill you, and you were enjoying yourself.”

  “I wasn’t enjoying myself,” I protested. “I was scared stiff and I was worried about you.”

  “But you admit that you thought it was Chilcott?”

  “It crossed my mind, Annette, in the heat of the moment. But now I see the idea as preposterous. He’s a long way away and I’m just history to him, believe me.”

  “I don’t know what to believe.”

  After a long silence I said: “Shall we cancel the cocoa?”

  “I think so,” she replied. “If you don’t mind.”

  I shrugged my shoulders. I minded like hell. I minded like a giant asteroid was heading towards Heckley, and only a cup of cocoa in her flat, listening to George Michael CDs, would save the town. But who was I to make a decision like that?

  As she opened the door I said: “You’re upset, Annette. It was a frightening experience. Go have a nice hot bath and stay in bed until lunchtime. I’ll make it right. Have the whole day off, if you want.”

  She looked at me and sighed. “I think it’s you who needs some time off, Charlie,” she said, opening the car door and swinging her legs onto the pavement. “I’ll be there,” she stated. “Bright and early, as always.”

  I braced myself for the inevitable door slam, but it didn’t come. She held the handle firmly and pushed it shut, so it closed with a textbook clunk. She didn’t slam it. I watched her sashay across the little residents’ carpark and punch her code into the security lock. A light came on and she went inside. She didn’t slam that door, either, but turned and held the latch. For a few seconds I could see her shape through the frosted glass and then she faded away, as if she were sinking into a deep pool. She didn’t slam the door, and that’s the moment I fell in love with her.

  On Tuesday afternoon, when Somerset Bob sat her in an MGB, Eileen Kelly went bananas. The poor woman had never really recovered from the attack and had drifted from one unhappy relationship to another. At the moment she was alone, living in rented accommodation and working in the kitchen of a department store in Bath. He said that she was pleased, at first, to have a change in her routine and go along with him to the house of a Bath traffic cop who had a much-cherished model of the car. On the way there she reiterated her story, glad that at last someone was listening, and no doubt encouraged by the change in attitude over the last eighteen years.

  Her attacker’s car had been parked at the roadside, and she hadn’t realised which it was until he opened the door for her, so she never really saw it from the outside. Bob said he opened the passenger door and beckoned her to get in. As soon as she dropped into the low seat she started shivering and shaking. He climbed in next to her and saw that she had turned white, her wide eyes taking in the instrument panel, glove box and everything else.

  The traffic cop’s wife made them tea and Eileen slowly regained her composure, sitting in their kitchen. “I’m sorry,” she’d sobbed, blowing her nose.

  “There’s nothing to be sorry about,” Bob had assured her. “What can you tell me about the car?”

  “It was one of them,” she’d declared. “Definitely, but it had a little animal on the front, like a Jaguar does.”

  “Find it, Bob,” I ordered, when he finished his story.

  “Might not be easy, it was written off.”

  “Well find where the bits went. We need that car.”

  There was a note on my desk from the twilight detective, who just happened to be Rodger. Two of them alternate, afternoons and nights, because their wives work shifts at the General Hospital, and it suits them. I’d asked for a watch to be kept on Silkstone, when times were slack, and the note said that he’d fallen into the habit of strolling along to the Anglers for a meal, usually between six and seven. I grow restless when a case stagnates, like to jolly things along a little. It was time to go proactive, I decided. We’re big on proactive policing at the moment. First thought was to take Annette with me, but I changed my mind. It would be better if I was alone, my word against his. Except I would have a witness. I rang our technical support people and asked to borrow a tape recorder.

  Annette came into my office just before five, carrying a coffee. “Hi, Annette,” I said, pointing to the spare chair. “Sit down and talk to me.”

  “Coffee?” she asked.

  “No thanks.”

  “You’ve been after me.”

  “Yes,” I replied. “I rang you because I’m going to accidentally-on-purpose bump into Silkstone, in that pub near his place, and I thought it might look more natural if you were with me.”

  “No problem,” she replied. “What time?”

  “It’s OK, there’s been a change of plan. I’ve decided to be alone, in the hope that I can tempt him into the odd indiscretion.”

  “But it won’t be worth a toss,” she informed me.

  “I know, but if it were he wouldn’t say it, would he? We could have a drink after,” I suggested.

  “Socially?”

  “I suppose so. You’ve been avoiding me since…since the weekend.”

  “I don’t think so, if you don’t mind, Boss.”

  “It’s Boss again, is it?” I said.

  “I’m sorry, Charlie,” she replied, shaking her head. “I don’t know what to think.” She looked more unhappy than I’ve ever seen her.

  “I cocked-up on Sunday,” I admitted. “I know I did. Something just happened inside me. I was scared, but for you, not myself. I thought I’d got you into something. Maybe it was the music, or the words of the songs. I don’t know. We need to talk, but this isn’t the place. Let me come round to your place, later.”

  “I don’t know.” More head shaking, her hair covering first one half of her face, then the other, as it tried to keep up. I glanced out of the window across the big office. Nobody was watching us, trying to decipher the touching scene between the DI and the attractive DC.

  “Friday night,” I began. “I thought it was rather special. I thought that, you know, it said something about how we felt for each other.”

  “So did I, but…”

  “But what?”

  She gave a violent shake of the head and started sobbing. I looked out and caught David Rose glance across. He quickly looked away. “I’m sorry, Annette,” I said. “Maybe I read too much into it. OK, it’s back to strictly a working relationship, if that’s how you’d prefer it. I don’t want to lose you as an officer and I can switch it off, live a lie, if you can. Shall we just…call the whole thing off?”

  She sniffed and looked at me for the first time. “Yes, I think we should,” she replied.

  “Right.”

  “I’m sorry, Charlie.”

  “Me too, Annette. Me too.”

  I did paperwork until just after six, then hared off to the Anglers. In the car park I tested the tape recorder, running the tape back to the beginning and
pressing the play button.

  Male voice: “Hi, Annette. Sit down and talk to me.”

  Female voice: “Coffee?”

  Male voice: “No thanks.”

  Female voice: “You’ve been after me.”

  Male voice: “Yes, I rang you because…”

  I pressed the stop button and ejected the cassette. There was nothing there that I wanted to save for posterity; nothing I could play back to her later, and watch the colour rise in her cheeks until I reached out and cooled them with my fingertips. I hooked a thumbnail under the tape and pulled it from the spools, heaping it on the passenger seat until no more was left and ripping the ends free. I clicked the spare cassette into position and concealed the tape recorder in my inside pocket. The microphone was under my tie. It worked, and that was all that mattered. I locked the car and went into the pub.

  I tried the steak and kidney pie but didn’t enjoy it. I was stabbing a perfunctory chip with my fork – there’s something oddly irresistible about a plate of cold chips – when a movement outside caught my eye. Another Ford Mondeo had joined mine in the carpark, and it was closely followed by a Peugeot. The place was getting busy. My phone rang and I grabbed it from my pocket. “Charlie,” I whispered into it.

  “He’s with someone,” I was told, “in a Ford like yours. I’ve done a vehicle check and it’s owned by a Julian Maximillian Denver.”

  “Cheers, I know him.” I looked up at the door as I slipped the phone back into my pocket and saw Silkstone, accompanied by Max Denver, ace reporter of the UK News, heading my way.

  Denver, a grin on his face, was all for joining me, but Silkstone didn’t want to. I’d never been formally introduced to Denver, but recognised him as the character who’d confronted me outside the station a week ago, and his name was plastered all over the articles. He was wearing a belted leather coat a size too big, faded jeans and a slimy smile on one of those faces that has punch me writ large across it. I scratched my armpit and switched the tape on. If Mohammed wouldn’t come to the mountain…

  They ordered drinks and food at the bar and took a table several places away from me. I waited until they were settled and wandered over, glass in hand.

  “Well well,” I said, pulling a chair from an adjoining table and placing it at the end of theirs. “I’d have thought this was a bit downmarket for a pair of hotshots like you two.”

  “I was thinking the same myself,” Silkstone sneered.

  “Sit down, why don’t you,” Denver invited, somewhat superfluously as I already had done.

  “Thanks. On the other hand, in your reduced circumstances, Silkstone, I’d have thought you’d have taken advantage of the two-for-one, before six o’clock.”

  He turned to Denver, asking: “Do we have to listen to this?” but Denver would listen to anyone, and the more aggro the better.

  “Or is this little treat on your new-found friend’s expense account?” I asked. “Signed a contract with him, have you?”

  Denver said: “Killed any unarmed men today, Priest?”

  “No,” I replied, “but there’s time.” I turned back to Silkstone. “How much is he paying you then? Enough to replace the fifty thousand you donated to the Kevin Chilcott holiday fund?” A red shadow spread from Silkstone’s face, stopping as it reached his bald head, like the British Empire on an old map of Africa. Denver looked from me to Silkstone and back again, his brow beetled in mystification. “What!” I exclaimed, “hasn’t he told you about the fifty thousand?”

  “Because it’s a pack of lies,” Silkstone hissed. “Another of the stories you invented to blacken my name because…because…because you haven’t got a leg to stand on and you know it. Why don’t you leave me alone and…and…”

  “And go out and catch a murderer?” I suggested. I drained my glass and placed it on their table. Denver twisted in his seat and raised a hand to the girl behind the bar, but she turned away because they don’t do waitress service.

  “Ah, maybe you’re right,” I conceded. “It’s this job.”

  Denver got to his feet and shouted to the barmaid, asking if he could order some drinks, but she ignored him again. He wanted a drink in my hand, but he didn’t want to leave my side, in case he missed something. “Don’t worry,” I told him, “I’ll get it.” I strolled to the bar and ordered myself another pint.

  “You know,” I began, when I’d rejoined them, “I took an instant dislike to you, Silkstone.” I looked at his companion and explained: “You have to, when you’re investigating a murder. But then, as I looked around your house, I decided that you had at least one redeeming feature.” I picked up my glass and drained nearly half of it, licking my lips and pretending it wasn’t as unappetising as the cold urine it resembled.

  “And what was that?” Denver prompted.

  “He’s a Jaguar man,” I replied. “Had a 1964 Mark II. Great car, highly desirable.” I had another drink, before adding: “Can’t be much wrong with a man who owned a car like that, I said to myself.”

  “It hasn’t stopped you persecuting me,” Silkstone declared.

  “Top brass,” I told him. “You know how it is.” I finished my drink and Denver snatched up the glass almost before my fingers had left it.

  “Another?” he asked.

  “Why not?” I replied.

  “Lager?”

  “Please.”

  “Which one?”

  “Labatt’s.”

  He dashed off to the bar as I said to Silkstone: “Once upon a time I had an E-type. A three-point-eight. Fabulous car. I loved it. Drove it to southern Spain, once. Boy, did that machine turn heads. And pull birds. Felt like a bloody film star when I was in it.”

  Denver placed the replenished glass in front of me and I thanked him. “I was just telling Mr Silkstone that I owned an E-type Jag, a long time ago. It nearly broke my heart when it was stolen. A scrote from Sylvan Fields took it and torched it. I’d have strangled the little bastard if I’d got my hands on him.” I took a sip of the Labatt’s. It was a big improvement. I’d sold the car when prices were at their highest and made nearly ten grand profit, but they didn’t need to know that. “What happened to yours?” I asked.

  “I crashed it,” Silkstone informed me.

  “Crashed it? Were you hurt?” Some men are embarrassed if they have the misfortune to crash their car, see it as a mistake; others never accept the blame and enjoy relating all the gory details. I had little doubt which group our friend belonged in.

  “No. I was lucky.”

  “What happened?”

  “Hit a patch of black ice on the A37. The gritters hadn’t been out.”

  “And it was written off?”

  “Yeah. I rolled it over three times. Would have cost too much to repair, so it went for scrap.”

  “And you walked away from it?”

  “Without a scratch.”

  “Blimey.” I had another drink.

  “So what’s the state of the investigation now?” Denver asked, trying to drag the conversation back to something he might be interested in.

  “The file’s with the CPS,” I told him. “It’s up to them.”

  “But aren’t you following any lines of enquiry?”

  “No,” I lied. “It’s up to them, now,” and I gave a little belch, for emphasis.

  “Why don’t you charge Mr Silkstone?” Denver challenged me.

  “What with?” I asked.

  “You’re the one making all the wild accusations. Saying he murdered his wife and that woman in Halifax.”

  “Marie-Claire Hollingbrook.” I said. “She has a name, Denver – God knows, you’ve typed it often enough.”

  “So why don’t you charge him?”

  “I told you, it’s the CPS’s decision. Me, I’m just here for a quiet drink. Can I remind you that I was here first. But as we’re all together I thought that talking about cars might be a pleasant diversion. I thought that was what people like us were supposed to do. You know, lads’ talk. Did Silkstone e
ver tell you that he had an MGB after the Jaguar?” I turned to him saying: “That’s right, isn’t it?”

  “If you say so,” he replied.

  “Not me, the DVLA,” I responded. “I had to check your records. Was it any good?”

  “The MG?”

  “Mmm.”

  “It was alright.”

  “But not in the same league as the Jag?”

  “No.”

  I decided to backtrack, not pursue the MG. Maybe it was a mistake, bringing it into the conversation. I looked at my glass, studying the bubbles clinging to the sides, wondering whether they brought the lager all the way from Canada or just the name. Outside, a narrow boat glided by, heading for the open canal, fulfilling someone’s long-held dream. I hoped it wasn’t a disappointment. “When my car was burnt out,” I began, “I salvaged the little pouncing jaguar mascot from the bonnet. Actually, the garage where it went took it off and saved it for me, which was thoughtful of them, don’t you think?” The expressions on their faces suggested they didn’t, but I pressed on. “I still have it. I mounted it on a piece of mahogany and had a little metal plate engraved for it. It stands on my mantelpiece, reminds me of the life I once led.” I smiled at the memory, a little wistful smile, which was difficult because I’d just invented the whole story. “What about you?” I asked, looking at Silkstone. “Weren’t you tempted to do something similar?”

  “What’s all this about?” he snapped. “Why all this interest in my cars, all of a sudden?”

  “It’s just conversation,” I protested, turning to Denver as if appealing to him to intervene on the side of reason. “I just wondered if he’d removed the mascot from his car, like I did.”

  “Fuck off!” Silkstone growled.

  “Nice friend you have,” I told Denver.

  “He’s right,” Denver said. “Just what are you after, Priest?”

  “He wants me to say something he can twist round, for his own purposes,” Silkstone declared. “While my brief isn’t here. Well, I’m not saying another word. Why don’t you just piss off, Priest, and leave us alone. You’re not welcome.”

  I’d blown it, that was for sure. Ah well, I thought, if he wasn’t going to say anything incriminating the least I could do was give him something to ruin his sleep, and maybe sow a few doubts in his new friend’s mind. Perhaps I could provoke Denver into doing some investigating of his own. He had resources that I didn’t possess, and could take liberties that would have me carpeted. With luck, he’d do my job for me. “There was an attempted rape in Somerset,” I told Denver, “two years before the girl called Caroline Poole was murdered; and another extremely serious assault just a year before. One of the victims has given evidence that suggests her attacker’s car was an MGB.” I paused to let it sink in. So what? they were thinking. “An MGB,” I added, “that just happened to have a pouncing jaguar mascot screwed on the bonnet. Can’t be many of those about, can there?” They didn’t appear to have an opinion on that. Silkstone looked away and Denver was lost for words, so I pressed on. “Silkstone and Latham gave each other alibis for Caroline’s murder,” I said, addressing Denver. “Margaret Silkstone and a woman called Michelle Webster verified their stories.” From the corner of my eye I saw Silkstone flinch at the mention of Michelle’s name. “She sends her regards,” I told him. “She also says that she lied about the alibi. Her new story is that Margaret asked her to cover for you and Latham. I was being less than truthful a few seconds ago when I said that we weren’t following any new lines of enquiry. We now think that you killed Caroline Poole, too, as well as Margaret and Marie-Claire.”