Dead Ringer (The Eddie Malloy series Book 6)

by Joe McNally

  What should I do? How could I help her? I put the laptop out of sight in my floor safe. Even handling it made me afraid after seeing Mave’s reaction. As a child I’d read Greek mythology, and the Gorgon came to mind.

  Standing by Mave’s bedroom door, I listened, hoping to hear the even breathing of sleep, but fearing the sound of crying. There was nothing. I pictured the room, trying to remember if there was anything there she could harm herself with, then I chided myself for believing she might.

  I went back to sit in silence, and half an hour later, I heard the bed creak. Mave came into the room, the shock gone from her gaunt face, replaced by a furrowed brow and clenched jaw. ‘Where’s the laptop?’

  ‘I locked it away.’

  ‘Go and get it.’

  ‘Sit down. Give yourself a day or two.’

  ‘I don’t need to. I want to examine the metadata in those files. There should be leads to others. It must have been some kind of ring. I want to get the rest of them.’

  ‘The rest of the people involved?’

  ‘Yes.’

  I was about to tell her they could be all over the world, but her eyes were telling me she wouldn’t be listening. I went and got the laptop.

  She put it on the desk and pointed at me. ‘Stay back. Don’t look at these. I won’t be looking at them. I’ll search the file data for each.’

  ‘Okay. You want a whiskey?’

  ‘No. Thanks.’

  ‘Coffee?’

  ‘Please.’

  I brought a mug of coffee and some chocolate biscuits. ‘Thanks. Go away, now, please.’

  ‘Are you going to be all right?’

  ‘I’m going to get these bastards.’

  ‘I’ll leave you to it. I’m going to see Jim Sherrick. I need to know before I go if Jimmy might be involved here.’

  ‘None of the pictures I saw had Jimmy Sherrick in them. From your descriptions, I’m pretty sure it was Watt and Kilberg, neither of them at the same time, so I’m assuming one was taking the pictures.’

  I watched her, that fierce expression still on her face. ‘Mave, as much as I don’t want to, I’m going to have to see those pictures. I need to be certain that it’s Watt and Kilberg, and I have to check that Jimmy’s not in any.’

  ‘Eddie, there are hundreds of pictures. I only saw maybe twenty.’

  ‘I’m prepared for it, Mave. I’ll try to look at nothing but the men in it.’

  She got up and went into the kitchen. ‘Call me when you’re done.’

  I moved to her chair, more nervous than I’d felt before any Grand National. I raised the lid and tried to force my vision into a narrow channel as I scrolled through pages of coloured photos taken at high resolution.

  Watt and Kilberg. Watt and Kilberg.

  Page after page.

  No Jimmy Sherrick.

  I closed the lid, feeling exhausted by concentrating on looking only at the faces of the adults. ‘Done,’ I called to Mave. She walked through, and stood in the doorway watching me. ‘I’m okay,’ I said. ‘I managed not to look.’

  She walked to me and put a hand on my shoulder and smiled sadly. I hugged her and we stood in silence for what seemed a long time.

  43

  On the drive to Jim Sherrick’s place, I knew I still could not be certain about Jimmy. I’d have bet my life without hesitation that he wasn’t a paedophile. The police had found nothing on his laptop. The mirrored laptop that was left at his house had nothing of that sort on it.

  So what did the blackmailer have on Jimmy? How had he shut him up over the ringers? But when I thought back to those newspaper cuttings I’d found at Jimmy’s house, only two had been of the ringer. Maybe it was after the second one that he realized what was happening and had called me to say “Things aren’t right” and that he was packing the job in. A day later he was dead. Maybe he hadn’t been blackmailed.

  Mister Sherrick was as welcoming as he’d always been. It was a late visit, but I wanted to make sure Jimmy’s dad would hear it from me first. And I needed to cement the story the police had agreed to, then tell Mac it had been done. That way, Sara Chase could have no second thoughts.

  ‘Coffee?’ Mister Sherrick asked, filling the kettle in the small kitchen.

  ‘Please. How have you been?’

  ‘Fine, thanks. I’ve got a gig, as you youngsters say.’

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘Fiddling.’

  I smiled. ‘As in violins, I take it?’

  ‘I’d never call myself a violinist, but I can carve out a few jigs.’

  ‘A jig gig, then?’

  He laughed. ‘In the Church hall, playing for the old folks on Friday evenings.’

  Old folks. He didn’t see himself as an old man. I briefly wondered what age I’d be before regarding myself as an old man.

  ‘Are young folks welcome, too? I’d like to hear you.’

  ‘I’ll make special arrangements.’

  Five minutes later, in our usual chairs by the fire, Mister Sherrick was trying to take in what I’d just told him. ‘In Bayley Watt’s hay barn?’

  I nodded. ‘In a bed of hay cleared out from the middle of a huge stack of bales.’

  ‘Still in his coffin?’

  ‘No, he was wrapped in fleece blankets.’

  He stared at his shoes, shaking his head slowly. ‘Why would Watt have done that?’

  ‘This should bring us a step closer to the answer.’

  ‘How did the police find him? Someone else must have been involved.’

  I told him about Mave’s hunch with the transmitter. ‘So the bug was in Jimmy’s watch, same as mine?’

  ‘We think so.’

  We sat a while in silence then he said, ‘When can Jimmy be re-buried?’

  ‘I’m going to speak to Peter McCarthy in the morning. I’ll ask him.’

  He looked up at me. ‘There won’t have to be another funeral, will there?’

  ‘No, no, I’m sure there won’t. Just quietly lay him to rest for good this time.’

  His head went down again. I got up and crossed to him, put a hand on his shoulder. ‘I’d be proud to come with you if you want me to, to the cemetery. When the time comes.’

  ‘You’ve been like a son to me, Eddie.’ He spoke quietly, still staring at the floor.

  ‘And you’ve been like a father to me.’

  He looked up. ‘I’ve done nothing.’

  ‘You’ve taught me a lot about courage and dignity and respect.’

  ‘Three things you needed no lessons on, Eddie, least of all from me.’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s easy to imagine how you would act, I mean me, not you, when certain things happen, but doing it’s much harder. Jimmy would have been proud of you.’

  He got up and turned to me. His eyes were wet but he wouldn’t let the tears fall. He reached to shake hands with me, then put his left hand on my arm and squeezed. I wanted to hug him, but he was not of the hugging generation, and his back stiffened and his head went up and he stood tall in his grief yet again.

  Mave was in the kitchen when I got home, drinking whiskey, ‘I helped myself. Hope you don’t mind.’

  ‘Of course not. How are you feeling?’

  ‘Like shit. But I’ll be better tomorrow.’

  I nodded, wanting to ask what she’d found, but wary of raising it, and she sensed my hesitation and spoke. ‘The pictures were originals. There’s no sign of them having been emailed anywhere or put online. The last time they were opened, by someone other than me was July last year. When did you see Kilberg in that room?’

  ‘The night Bayley died. A week ago, Friday.’

  ‘Whatever he was there for, it wasn’t to look at those pictures.’

  ‘Maybe he was just checking the laptop was still there?’

  ‘Could be.’

  His marriage to the sixteen-year-old now made sense. Disgusting sense, but now I could see the logic in it from his side. And in hers, for running back to Romania. ‘So we need to
get Kilberg’s PC and see what’s on that,’ I said. ‘If they weren’t viewing the pictures on Watt’s, they must have had access elsewhere.’

  ‘You going to tell the police?’

  ‘We have to, don’t we?’

  ‘Sooner the better.’

  I called Mac.

  44

  On the way to Fakenham for three rides, I tried four times before I raised Mac on the phone. I’d forgotten to tell him the night before that Jimmy’s dad had accepted the story about the hay barn. Mac said he was with Sara Chase at that moment and he’d probably have some news for me by the time racing had finished.

  ‘What kind of news?’

  ‘Well, we’re not sure yet. Another autopsy is being carried out on Jimmy. He wasn’t wearing a watch.’

  I stared through the windscreen, passing a line of bare beech trees, trying to make sense of what Mac had just told me. ‘Where was the bug?’

  ‘We don’t know yet.’

  ‘Mac, come on. What was he carrying? He was buried in a suit and tie, wasn’t he? Was he still dressed?’

  ‘He was dressed.’

  ‘In a suit and tie?’

  ‘Suit, shirt, tie, socks, shoes, underwear. No watch. No pens. Nothing mechanical or electrical.’

  ‘It must be in his clothes somewhere! Maybe it was a standalone bug, a tiny battery-driven thing.’ I heard Sara Chase say something to him.

  ‘Eddie, look, we expect to have an answer soon. You’re at Fakenham today, aren’t you?’

  ‘On my way now.’

  ‘Call me after the last. Goodbye.’

  ‘Mac!’

  He’d gone.

  I pulled over and scrolled through for Mave’s number then went back on hands-free as it rang.’

  ‘Mave, listen, you’re not going to believe this, I just spoke to McCarthy and-’

  ‘Eddie! Eddie! Listen! Don’t talk on your mobile about this. Find a payphone. Ring your home number.’

  ‘Okay. Sorry. I might be a while. Not many payphones in this part of the world.’

  ‘I can wait. And don’t ring anyone else. And tell McCarthy not to talk about this on mobile either. He should know better.’

  ‘Right.’

  Twenty minutes later I was in an old hooded payphone in the lobby of a country hotel pumping coins into the slot. I told Mave what Mac had said. She hardly needed a moment’s thinking time. ‘It’s in his body. The bug must have been implanted, probably in his neck, or under his collarbone, close to the vocal cords.’

  I pictured it, thought of the voice recordings patched together, and of the conversation in the car that night when Jimmy had said he wanted to meet because things weren’t right with Bayley. ‘You’re a genius, Maven Judge.’

  ‘I’m an idiot, actually. The ringer scam was based on moving the chip implanted in a horse’s neck. It hardly takes a huge leap of the imagination to transfer the theory to putting a chipped mic in a human neck. I should have guessed this weeks ago.’

  ‘So that’s how he was picking up what Bayley said, and Kilberg?’

  ‘That would be my bet.’

  ‘But if they knew they were carrying recording chips, why would they have blabbed so much?’

  ‘Maybe they didn’t know.’

  ‘Mave, come on, even I would notice if somebody cut a hole in my neck and shoved something in there.’

  ‘But what if you were told it was for something else?’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like treating cancer.’

  45

  Driving home in the freezing dark was usually easier when you’d had a winner. But on none of my rides round the tight undulating Fakenham track had my mind been on the job. Not even when I’d got that old gelding Excalibur up on the line to win the handicap ‘chase. Excalibur had been the horse I’d ridden at Ascot the day before Jimmy died, and here I was awaiting Mac’s call to find out if Maven Judge was right about the bug buried in his corpse.

  When Mac finally phoned, I pulled over. I didn’t want to mishear anything.

  ‘Eddie, the autopsy was completed about an hour ago. They found the bug.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Close to where you suggested. It was fixed on the inside of a titanium collarbone.’

  Titanium. I remembered Jimmy had busted his right collarbone so often it had been replaced a few years ago. Mave had been spot on and I was frustrated that she could get no credit here, even though that was her choice.

  ‘Sara Chase is well impressed with you.’ Mac said.

  ‘Well, if it wasn’t on Jimmy, it had to be in him. That was the only logic left. When will the other two be done?’

  ‘Bayley Watt tomorrow, then Blane Kilberg, maybe tomorrow. Depends how long the first one takes.’

  I leaned back in the seat and sighed. ‘Jeez, Mac, what is going on here? Who is this guy? He can’t be doing all this himself. Who performed the surgery on Jimmy? There must be a record somewhere?’

  ‘There are records for the op to replace the collarbone, but there’s nothing after that.’

  ‘Well speak to the surgeon who did the replacement. That’s got to be specialist work. Find out how many are in that field. Maybe one of them was bribed or blackmailed or something.’

  ‘It might take a specialist to do the replacement, but it’s not exactly brain surgery, Eddie, fixing a tiny piece of plastic and metal to what is effectively a metal bar.’

  ‘True.’

  ‘Let’s see what comes up in the other two autopsies.’

  ‘You want a bet now you’ll find the same bug somewhere around the voice box area?’

  ‘No thanks.’

  ‘Mac, what is this guy up to? Judging by Watt’s laptop, it’s blackmail with Watt and Kilberg, and somehow Jimmy got roped in by them. But blackmail for what? Where’s the money angle, the betting angle?’

  ‘We’ve come up empty on that. No betting outside the average, no laying of others in those races. We asked all the major bookmakers today to double check. Zilch.’

  ‘What about bookies in the far east? You know, online only?’

  ‘We’re working on that, with more than half the reports in. Nothing.’

  ‘What about Ms. Chase or Miss or whatever, has she any ideas?’

  ‘She’s working through her contacts.’

  ‘That means no, Mac, doesn’t it? I wish you wouldn’t give me all this bullshit defensive crap. You need to get away from that prick Buley you work for. What’s wrong with just saying no sometimes? No, we don’t know. We’re none the wiser. We’re fucking human like everyone else.’

  ‘I’m going to let you go, Eddie. You’re getting tired and emotional.’

  I drew a deep audible breath and stretched my arms straight, gripping the steering wheel. ‘I’m sorry, Mac.’

  ‘Forget it. Let’s talk tomorrow.’

  ‘Call me after Watt’s autopsy, will you? And remember to get them to check that leukaemia claim.’

  ‘I will. Take it easy on the way home.’

  ‘Mac…remember Jimmy’s dad in all this, will you? And please ask Ms. Chase to do the same. The guys who dug Jimmy out of that muck heap are going to want to be telling the tale.’

  ‘If one of them disobeys an order from Sara Chase, he won’t know what’s hit him. Trust me.’

  ‘I’ll drop by Mister Sherrick’s place on the way home and tell him about the bug. If you keep me up to date, I’ll keep him up to date. Saves any chance of Sergeant Middleton or that weirdo Wilmslow ballsing it up with him.’

  ‘Okay. But try and stay this side of the paranoia border, will you?’

  ‘I crossed it a long time ago, Mac. It’s helped keep me alive.’

  ‘If that’s what you call living. Speak to you tomorrow.’

  He hung up.

  If that’s what you call living.

  Huh.

  46

  Mave sat at my desk in the dark, light from the PC screen on her face and her long hair. This was the first time I’d seen her w
ithout her hair tied back. ‘What news?’ she asked, and just nodded when I told her she’d been right about the bug. ‘I should have sussed it at the start, when you asked me to analyze that recording. I can’t believe I missed it.’

  ‘Well, you got it way ahead of her majesty’s police force. Want a coffee?’

  ‘Please.’

  I talked as I walked to the sink. ‘I’ve just been to see Jimmy’s dad, to ask him if he can set up a meeting for me with Jimmy’s ex-girlfriend.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It’s something I should have thought of at the start. If he was likely to tell anyone what was going on, it would be her.’

  ‘Well he didn’t, did he?’

  ‘How do you know?’ I asked.

  ‘Because she hasn’t turned up with a bellyful of cyanide.’

  ‘She might have done, for all we know. He split up with her a while ago. She wasn’t in racing. She could have moved to Wales or Scotland or somewhere.’

  ‘So how’s Jimmy’s dad supposed to find her?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  I carried the drinks to the desk and pulled up a chair. ‘Put the lamp on at least, will you?’

  Mave scowled. Without looking away from the screen her fingers moved, seeking the switch on the small desk lamp. It clicked on and she narrowed her eyes. I watched her, thinking of last night, wanting to ask if she was okay. But I sensed she wouldn’t talk about it. She had dealt with everything while curled up in bed, a pillow over her face. Life had to resume now.

  I opened the drawer and got my doodle pad and pen and started with my usual crossed lines, hatching, filling in the corners. Mave glanced across. ‘High tech, eh?’

  ‘It suits me. My mind doesn’t work like yours.’

  ‘Two words too many on the end of that sentence.’

  ‘Very funny. It helps me to write things down and try and relate them.’

  She clicked twice with the mouse and opened a mind map on screen. ‘Try this, you’ll find it much easier.’