Luck and Judgement: A DC Smith Investigation

by Peter Grainger

  Allen looked as if he might need a little reassurance – perhaps he was having a few difficulties of his own with the unfortunate Mrs Allen. Smith managed a nod.

  ‘And second, we have to consider the wider perception of this operation. Other officers might mis-read what is going on here. It is rather unfortunate… As if we have sort of type-cast DC Butler as a …’

  It had happened, in the end, as it always did if one waited long enough – the superintendent had painted himself into a linguistic corner. In his more generous moments, Smith would come up with helpful suggestions but he didn’t feel that way inclined this morning. He just kept on smiling and waiting.

  ‘Anyway, the final matter is, I’m sure, just an admin thing. You are attending the Officer Fitness Assessment next week, aren’t you, Smith?’

  ‘Absolutely, sir. I’d have been before but work got in the way.’

  ‘Right, well, we can never question your commitment to the job, can we?’

  But he looked vaguely troubled, as if he might have missed something in Smith’s cheerfully given answer.

  ‘You don’t think the cigarettes might have slowed you down a little, eh?’

  This is getting too personal, thought Smith, and I’m not sure how much longer this smile will hold out.

  ‘From up here, you know, one can see the mortuary. One can see anyone having a cigarette down there, in that alcove behind the door.’

  ‘Oh, I do that from time to time, sir. I find it relieves the stress of having to look at the dead bodies. I seem to be getting more sensitive about that as I get on in years. Do you find that, sir?’

  Their eyes seemed to meet in the space halfway across the desk, and neither blinked.

  Eventually Allen said, ‘We are all under stress in this difficult job, all in our own ways.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Will that be all, sir?’

  He took the back stairs that would lead him to Alison Reeve’s office. On the landings he tested the knee, turning on it gingerly, and it seemed OK. But Reeve was not in her room, and he continued on down to the main office, where he found her along with the rest of them – they were gathered in front of Mike Dunn’s monitor. As Smith approached, she saw him and smiled a told-you-so smile.

  ‘Alright, what have we got?’

  ‘A hit on facial recognition – the phone buyer. What sort of flowers would you like?’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘On your grave?’

  ‘Oh, yes, hilarious. Daisies, I expect. Let’s have a look, then.’

  Mike Dunn started clicking the mouse and the screen switched back and forth between the CCTV image and a page from the computerized records system.

  Waters said, ‘Mike, you should be able to get that split-screen, get them side by side.’

  Dunn shook his head and made way. Waters took his place and had managed what he had suggested in a moment. Smith leaned in and studied the right-hand page.

  ‘So… I would like to welcome to the case Philip Anthony Wood. Anyone know of him?’

  He looked up at Murray and Alison Reeve but both shook their heads, and then at Mike Dunn, who did the same.

  ‘Minors from his teens, the usual nonsense. But then he decided he was a bit handy with his fists… Three years ago, a suspended for ABH, nothing since except for a caution for trying to deceive on a benefits claim. He can’t be too clever if he didn’t actually manage to deceive them, can he? Unemployed at the time of his last known offence, and a couple of addresses – neither of which are anywhere near The Towers, which is a shame. But now it’s me jumping the gun. These matches aren’t definite, are they? And the whole thing’s on trial anyway?’

  Reeve confirmed that.

  Waters looked again at the system report and said, ‘The confidence limits are pretty good, though.’

  ‘Mine aren’t. Tell me something in plain English.’

  ‘You could say it’s around seventy per cent certain that it’s him on the CCTV.’

  Smith pursed his lips but he had gone with odds lower than that on many occasions.

  Reeve said, ‘If it is, how did that phone get from him on the Monday morning to Bell’s bedside drawer on the platform?’

  Murray said, ‘And with Bell’s contact list on it.’

  There were no ready answers to that. Smith felt, though, that the pace of the investigation had just picked up again, and he looked at Reeve – when she was here, it was down to her.

  She said, ‘Right, this does alter things. Serena and I are busy all afternoon and evening. I know you’d all like to come along and watch but it’s out of the question. DC needs to go home early and sort out his wardrobe – we will be taking pictures which will be auctioned off at the next charity evening. We need now to find Philip Wood and get a proper look at him without alerting him at all, so first, get typing – you all know the drill. No-one goes near him until we’ve done all this, so that’s probably going to be,’ and she thought about it, ‘Monday. This is just gathering intelligence – as far as we know, he hasn’t committed any offences. What about McFarlane – anything there yet? Get digging, everyone!’

  She turned to Smith.

  ‘And what about your Mr Aves?’

  Smith shook his head.

  ‘No need, not yet. He isn’t going anywhere. We’ll need someone to write up the summary on Wood and how he came into the investigation – that might go into tomorrow morning. A couple of hours overtime if necessary?’

  She agreed and he offered it to the four of them there and then. It was Mike Dunn who volunteered. Smith knew that Wilson’s team was onto something new next week, and that Dunn would be returning to them. Wilson was there now, the back of his almost shaven head bent over some paperwork, but certainly listening, yet Dunn had offered to help out. If the opportunity ever arose, Smith would take him on.

  He said, ‘Thanks Mike, much appreciated,’ and then to Reeve, ‘Forensics?’

  ‘I’ll ring them – as I haven’t yet, they won’t be too annoyed. Are you alright with what we’re trying to set up at this den of infidelity?’

  She had asked it quietly, and he realized that she had thought it through further than he had himself yet. Of course he would be OK, pretending to have a wife again, just for the evening.

  ‘Yes, fine. Sure you don’t want me there tonight, in the back seat?’

  ‘We always want you there, DC. But I don’t think that we need you there, not tonight.’

  As Serena Butler walked out of the shadows where they had parked the car, and crossed Silver Street, Alison Reeve thought, well, you’re a cooler customer than you let on. There had been not a hint of nerves as the two of them sat in the front seats and went over it one last time. When Reeve had used the radio to check that the uniform car was in place, Butler had said that they wouldn’t be needed; that might have been bravado but when Reeve made her think about what to do if she was invited inside the club, the younger woman’s answers had been clear and sensible, as if she had done this plenty of times before instead of never.

  And she had dressed to perfection, going a little older via the route of sophistication; the above-the-knee skirt just slightly shiny beneath the long, black, open coat, and the red silk blouse unbuttoned to exactly where it needed to be. High heels, and those might even have been stockings – Reeve had fought back the temptation to ask. Serena looked for all the world like what she was pretending to be – an expensive and awkwardly married woman out for a little excitement at the beginning of the weekend.

  Reeve lifted up the miniature binoculars – from the doorway of the Edwardian house, the car itself would barely be visible, let alone anyone sitting inside. They had seen no-one enter during the ten minutes that they had been sitting there, but it was early, surely, at seven thirty; somehow she imagined that the kind of fun people were seeking here was usually sought much later at night. Serena had reached the door, which looked rather grand, sedate even, an odd contrast with what, apparently, went on behind it. There was a bell – Serena had
pressed it and was now waiting, head up, standing straight, not seeming in the slightest bit furtive, and the detective inspector wondered whether she would have carried it off as well.

  Now there was a pause in the proceedings. Studying the building more carefully, Reeve was sure that above the door and to the right was a camera, pointing down onto the spot where Serena Butler was waiting. If they ever needed to prove that Bell had been here, that might be useful. That was a large if, of course. This was, when she thought about it, typical of the places that Smith brought you to, of the situations that you could find yourself in when working with him. She herself was now convinced that Bell’s disappearance was not a straightforward one, if there is such a thing, but how had that led to an operation like this on a Friday night? He had these ideas which somehow seemed to be more than hunches, and a way of making things happen before you realized it – half-suggestions would have momentum before you could blink.

  The door opened, and a man in a dark suit and a bow tie was there. Serena was talking – Reeve could see only the back of her head – and the man was listening. Then he laughed at something the woman in front of him said, and began talking himself. Sod Allen and his penny-pinching - a wire would have been priceless now. The man asked her to wait, that much was obvious, and he disappeared from view. Thirty seconds later a woman was there, and during the wait Serena never once turned around to look back across the road. The woman inside was tall, slender, middle-aged, short dark hair, dressed in black – a short-sleeved top and fitted trousers. She said something to Serena and then stepped aside, inviting her in. The door closed behind them.

  In this eventuality, they had agreed on fifteen minutes. Reeve checked the time on her phone, closed it and then her eyes. Please don’t be in there the whole fifteen minutes – it’s going to feel like fifteen hours. She ought to do something, tell someone. She opened her eyes then and spoke to the uniformed men in the car parked one hundred metres behind her, knowing that someone at control would hear that too, and make a note of it – somehow that was reassuring. After a pause and a crackle, a voice came back to her – ‘Got that, ma’am. Waiting on your instructions.’

  If Smith had been sitting in the back seat, it would have helped. There was nothing to be done but wait, but doing it alone was worse. He would have found something to say, something daft, and she tried to imagine what it might have been. Then she tried to imagine what he might be doing then, after work, probably at home alone. Watching television? Reading? Ironing? The possibilities on her list, simple and innocent in themselves, led her somehow into a moment of sadness, not only for Smith but for herself and all the others. This job, she thought… This job.

  She looked at her phone again. Three minutes gone.

  He scraped the pasta out of the pan and into a bowl. Then he took the bowl to the fridge and thought, that will do for tomorrow night as well. It was perfectly possible and perfectly healthy, if one took care in one’s choice of menus, to cook just three times a week instead of every day.

  Back in the lounge, he sat down with last Sunday’s paper, almost through it all now, and looked at the clock on the mantelpiece. Seven thirty. If the phone rang, he realized, he would need to be careful how he answered it – if, that is, Serena Butler had got inside and to the point of giving any contact details. Someone might just ring that number… He sat and thought about it some more, not actually reading the paper, still on duty. What about the other people involved? Not the possibly dodgy ones, but Lucy Bell and the little girl – they were the real victims in all this, because it wasn’t going to end happily, the ne’er-do-well husband and father was not going to stroll back in through the door saying sorry, been off on a bender with my old mates from the tarring gang. How could he, Smith, be so sure? Well, he reasoned, how can we be sure that the sun will rise in the sky tomorrow? We cannot but he’d take the odds that it will – and he would take almost any odds that Jimmy Bell was not coming back to the flat in The Towers and the hopeless little life that his wife had tried to make for them there. Had Ann Crisp been in touch with them yet? She was sound, she would have been, but he’d still need to check on Monday, as well as-

  The phone was ringing in the hall. Seven forty five.

  He stood up slowly, thinking it through – pick it up, say nothing, listen.

  ‘David?’

  He thought he recognized the voice but went through the motions with an impersonal tone.

  ‘Who is calling?’

  ‘It’s Jo,’ and after another pause, ‘Evison.’

  ‘Sorry. It might have been someone else…’

  ‘I suppose there is always that possibility.’

  Last Sunday morning, the lift to the station, a coffee on the platform before she left, all seemed like a lifetime away instead of five days, and this call had taken him by surprise.

  ‘Is this a bad time?’

  ‘No – sorry. I was in the middle of something, that’s all. Thinking, always dangerous but more so as you get older.’

  ‘“The unconsidered life is not worth living”? But no doubt you were thinking about work. The same case? The unlikely suicide?’

  ‘Yes. Looking even less likely now.’

  He sensed her thinking herself at the end of the line. She would have called with some purpose – they were not ‘friends’ who called each other up for a chat at the week’s end. In fact, he could not have said what they were but already there were memories – the sight of the side of her face white with snow by the time they reached the car in the dunes that first afternoon, the undisguised pleasure she had taken in the food at Sandrine’s, the turning away when he had played ‘Layla’ for her.

  She said, ‘I can tell you’re busy. You know I’m meeting with the Richardsons this weekend. I wondered whether I could drop in and see you. I’ve got something for you.’

  ‘If it’s a proposal for a ten-part serial with the BBC, I’m not interested. And my superintendent wouldn’t agree unless you had him being played by George Clooney anyway.’

  ‘I was thinking of George Clooney for you. No, it isn’t that, just a peace offering after you-know-what.’

  ‘Not necessary, thanks.’

  ‘Well, it’s too late, already done. I won’t stay long.’

  Saturday would be alright, he said. She didn’t know how long the interview would take, and so she had driven up this time, not expecting to stay over. She would phone him again tomorrow, to confirm if she was calling in on the way back, and then she was gone and the house was quiet again.

  Funny, the things we think of afterwards. It would be late afternoon or the early evening, if she came at all, and there was not enough pasta left for two.

  Eighteen minutes gone. She had to allow some leeway because Serena could not keep glancing at her watch or her phone. If it gets to twenty, she told herself, I’ll need to make a decision. At twenty two minutes she had her finger poised over the radio when the door across the street opened. Serena appeared, turned and spoke to someone inside and then began to walk back to the car. The door half closed but someone was still there, watching through the opening – Reeve could not see who it was. They must be waiting to see where this woman goes, who, if anyone, is waiting for her.

  They would not be able to see Reeve herself at this distance and in this lighting, but was the car right? Another tiny detail that no-one had considered. Surely it was – the 3-series Coupe could as easily say tragic middle-aged businessman as it could career-minded, single detective inspector. There was something a little troubling about that but Serena had reached her now, and the internal light came on as she climbed inside – Reeve turned her head away until the light was off again. The door was still slightly ajar. Drive or not drive? Yes, let them see the car.

  Once out of sight, she slowed and told Serena to report in on the radio that they were in the clear, and that everyone else – which was just the two uniformed officers – could go about their normal business. Ahead on the left was the drive that led to the pa
rking in front of the Laurels Hotel and Conference Centre – Reeve pulled in and parked there.

  Serena Butler said, ‘They were really nice.’

  ‘Oh, good. Did you get a look round?’

  ‘No. They took me into some sort of office but it’s all pretty plush. There’s money in it somewhere.’

  ‘There always is, somewhere. Any names? What was actually said?’

  ‘He was Sean and she was Sarah – I got the feeling they are a couple. They sort of interviewed me but it was low-key. They offered me a drink, which I took – sorry. In role it seemed the right thing to do.’

  Reeve waved that away.

  ‘A couple? This is a bit weird, isn’t it? I don’t know what DC is going to make of it!’

  Serena Butler looked a question at her.

  Reeve said, ‘He’s a bit old-fashioned, or he does a convincing impression of being so – it’s hard to tell. So what did they ask you? Did they make it clear what sort of club it is?’

  Serena said that they had done so but not in an explicit way – they clearly wanted to give the impression that this is somewhere rather exclusive for people of a certain class with certain tastes. They used the word ‘adult’ a few times with looks that seemed to be saying, you understand what that means, don’t you, and she had responded with an equally knowing smile – or at least she believed that she had.

  ‘And how did you leave it with them. Was anything arranged?’

  ‘We can call in and meet a few people before we commit. They didn’t talk money, so I assume it isn’t cheap, but we get a free sample.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘I said tomorrow night, about nine o’clock.’

  Reeve was quiet for a moment.

  ‘Well, you’re a fast worker, I’ll say that for you!’

  There was no reply and she thought, that really wasn’t the smartest thing to say – maybe the superintendent had a point, after all. But she could not take it back and the woman had willingly accepted the job.