A Very Private Murder

by Stuart Pawson

  ‘OK. The worst scenario is that she’ll be given a reprimand. If she’s contrite, and considering that it was once her own home, we’d probably prefer to forget the whole thing. A reprimand is not a criminal record, but it might stay on the file until she’s about eighteen. It’s a while since I was in uniform and dealt cautions out, and they keep changing the rules.’

  ‘I don’t want her to think she’s got away with it, and what about the youth who she stole them for?’

  ‘She won’t say who he is?’

  ‘No.’

  *

  Which was why, lunchtime Saturday, I was parking as near as I could get to my usual place in front of Curzon House. The overnight downpour had slowed to a steady drizzle and the blossom that had laden the trees for the previous few days was now drifting across the roads, clogging the gutters and lying in sodden, swirled heaps where the streams of water had deposited it. What had been a source of beauty was now an eyesore.

  ‘Is that Ghislaine’s car outside?’ I asked Curzon as we clumped up a wooden staircase, its threadbare carpet held in place with brass stair rods.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘What happened to Sandringham?’

  ‘Cancelled at short notice. His royal nibs has been called to an exercise on Salisbury Plain, playing cowboys and Indians in tanks and helicopters. I think she’s a bit disappointed, but she knows that’s one of the prices she has to pay.’

  We were there. Curzon knocked on her bedroom door and pushed it open. ‘Inspector Priest to see you,’ he announced.

  Toby was sitting in a rocking chair near the window, polishing her spectacles, the latest Harry Potter on her knee. Her father was carrying a tray that held two mugs of coffee and a plate of sandwiches. Toby had been grounded since the offence, sentenced to eat in her room, but had not touched any of her meals.

  ‘It’s “Inspector” today, Toby,’ I told her. ‘I’m on duty.’

  ‘Oh.’

  Her father placed the tray on a low table and backed out of the room. ‘I’ll leave you to it,’ he said, reluctantly, unsure if he was doing the right thing.

  I looked around the room before sitting near the table, across the window from Toby. Apart from being the size of a small country’s airport terminal it was much like any other child’s room that I’d been in, and that was quite a few. Posters on the walls that contrasted oddly with each other: a sweaty Rafael Nadal facing Winnie the Pooh; a boy band – McFly – next to Munch’s The Scream; the inevitable teddy bears and good ol’ Bart Simpson on his skateboard. Not many bears; just enough to remind you that it was the room of a young person at the crossroads. A painting of a seabird with sheer white cliffs in the background hung on the wall behind her bed. I thought about the owners of those other rooms I’d been in. Most of them were never seen alive again. I chose a sandwich and bit into it. Smoked salmon and cream cheese, very nice.

  ‘So what would you like to tell me?’ I asked between mouthfuls, waving the uneaten portion at her.

  ‘Just that I’m very sorry for what I did and won’t let it happen again.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘I … I … They used to belong to us. It’s not fair. I only took what I thought was ours. Daddy used to own all this, once. I did it for the badgers. It costs money to look after them. I didn’t keep any money for myself.’

  ‘What did you do with the egg cups?’ I took another sandwich. Chicken and mayonnaise this time.

  Long silence, then: ‘I gave them away.’

  I told her that technically it was thieving and wrong: the egg cups belonged to someone else. A few nights ago I’d caught her with a shotgun, threatening to shoot someone, and now she’d been caught stealing. If she went to court she’d be branded a criminal and that would stay with her for the rest of her life. I was upset, I told her, because I thought we were friends, but I was a cop and had to be careful about my friends. And what about her daddy? He loved her but was worried stiff that she’d get into serious trouble. He wanted to be proud of her, not ashamed. We all did. It was good that she cared about the badgers, and there were some cruel people about, but the law should be left to deal with them.

  I don’t know how much she took in. When your life expectancy is thirty-seven it probably colours your outlook. The next sandwich was rather tasty beef, sliced very thinly, with horseradish.

  ‘They break their jaws,’ she protested, ‘then set the dogs on them. Or they pull their claws out and chain their legs so they can’t fight properly. They don’t stand a chance.’

  ‘I know,’ I said. ‘There are some wicked people out there, but there are laws to deal with them. You’ve got to decide which side of the law you want to be on: inside or outside. You can’t take them on all by yourself, Toby. Tell what you know to the professionals and leave it to them.’

  She sat back in her chair and rocked it to and fro, the light from the window reflecting off her spectacles so I couldn’t see her eyes. ‘Did you do the painting?’ I asked, nodding towards it.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s very good. A puffin, isn’t it?’

  ‘Thank you. Yes, they’re my favourites. Daddy was going to take me to see them at Bempton, but I don’t suppose he will, now.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. I’ve a feeling you can twist him round your little finger.’ That was why he’d called me in: to represent the stern face of the law, but I was failing miserably. I tried again: ‘Whose idea was it for you to steal the egg cups?’ I asked, through a mouthful of sarnie.

  ‘It was mine,’ she replied, head down, hardly audible.

  ‘But someone encouraged you?’

  ‘They were only stupid egg cups.’

  ‘They belonged to someone else.’

  ‘We needed the money.’

  ‘The badger protection group?’

  ‘Mmm.’

  ‘What’s the group called?’

  ‘We don’t have a name. Newt … our leader … says names only make it easy for people to label us.’

  ‘Do individuals have names?’

  ‘No, not proper ones.’

  ‘How do you address each other?’

  ‘We have noms de guerre.’

  ‘War names. Is that how you see it, as a war?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘So what’s your leader’s war name?’ She didn’t answer, sat looking down at the carpet. ‘It’s decision time, Toby,’ I said. ‘What’s his name? I need to know that you’ve broken away from the group, that you are sincere when you say you’re sorry.’

  ‘He’s called Newt.’

  ‘As in Newton?’

  ‘No. As in Triturus vulgaris, the common newt.’

  ‘Latin,’ I said. ‘I only know one Latin name for anything.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Turdus … something or other. Can’t remember what it was, though.’

  She gave a little laugh and I had a glimpse of the Toby of old. ‘That’s a thrush,’ she told me.

  ‘I’ll believe you. What’s your war name?’

  ‘I don’t have one, yet. I’m not important enough.’

  ‘But you’d like to be?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘How old is Newt?’

  ‘He’s nearly twenty. It’s his birthday next week.’

  ‘Where does he live?’

  ‘I think he has a flat in York.’

  ‘How do you keep in touch?’

  ‘By our mobiles.’

  I think she told me all she could. Newt claimed he was a pal of Swampy, the legendary protestor who made his name by digging tunnels under the new runway at Manchester airport. Democracy was fine, Newt told them, but if you wanted to change things, direct action was the only way. I remember reading Chairman Mao’s ‘Little Red Book’ when I was a student, and it all sounded frighteningly familiar. What goes around comes around.

  I said: ‘The antiques dealer who bought the egg cups gave Newt five pounds each for them. How do you feel about buy
ing them back for the collection, at, say, seven pounds each? Do you have thirty-five pounds?’

  ‘I’ll save it out of my pocket money.’

  ‘Good girl,’ I said. ‘So how about if I arrange for you and I to be taken out in a traffic car, if they’re not too busy?’

  ‘What’s a traffic car?’

  ‘A police Volvo, with luminous stripes and flashing blue lights.’

  ‘Seriously!’

  ‘If they’re not too busy.’

  ‘Wow! That’s great. But it should be you and me.’

  ‘Of course, my apologies. Anything you want to ask me?’

  ‘Umm.’ She looked at the plate and its meagre contents. ‘Could I have a sandwich, please?’

  I drove down to Driffield and spent an hour at a borrowed desk in the police station, making phone calls. The local collator said she’d ring me back and while I was waiting I sweet-talked the traffic chief inspector into sanctioning a ride for a certain Miss Curzon.

  There was a local file on the badger protection activists, the collator reported when she called me, with a character known as Newt listed as the leader. I didn’t ask if a Toby Curzon was in there because if I had the collator would have pencilled her in. The civil disobedience and anti-terrorism squads didn’t have anything on them, nor did MI5. That made them very small beer. These days a letter to Saga Magazine can earn you a file at MI5.

  Dave and Bri were on duty and they gave me sideways grins when I introduced them to Miss Toby Curzon, but she won them over within seconds and they would have let her drive if she’d asked. We sat in the back, Toby in the middle seat so she could see as Bri explained all the technical stuff to her.

  ‘This is the ANPR,’ he said. ‘That’s the automatic number plate recognition. If a car goes by that isn’t registered or insured, or is reported stolen, the ANPR lets us know.’

  ‘Wow!’ Toby exclaimed. ‘And what’s that?’

  ‘That’s the video recorder. It films whoever we might be following and records their speed.’

  ‘Wow! And what’s that?’

  ‘It’s a system known as Lantern. We can take a suspect’s fingerprints on it and check them against the seven million we have on record, in about five minutes.’

  ‘Wow! And what’s that?’

  ‘That’s called Tracker. It gives a signal if we’re within about twenty yards of a stolen car that’s fitted with it.’

  ‘Wow! And what’s that?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That.’

  ‘It’s a cup holder.’

  ‘Wow!’

  We did a short burst at one hundred and twenty-five miles per hour on the M62 with the lights and siren on before they took us back to Curzon House. ‘Thanks, Dave, thanks, Bri,’ Toby said as she climbed out. ‘It’s been smashing. Do you want a cup of tea?’

  ‘No, we’d better get back to catching criminals. Nice to meet you, Toby.’

  I thanked them and walked to the house with her. ‘That was great. Thanks, Charlie,’ she said; then, after a pause: ‘Do you know how fast a Chinook goes?’

  ‘A bit faster, I’d say.’

  It didn’t matter, though. Big sister Grizzly might have flown in a Chinook but she’d never ridden in a cop Volvo.

  I’d justified the trip east by thinking a talk with the vet, Martin Chadwick, was overdue, but Mr Wood was on holiday and the lure of a triple-decker beefburger with Dave’s family was stronger than the pull of instant coffee in Chadwick’s showcase kitchen. I put my foot down and made it back to Heckley before they’d placed their orders.

  ‘They’re doing the tests,’ Dave told me after I’d wished Dan a happy birthday, ‘and it’s looking good. Serena’s left a message on your ansaphone.’

  ‘We’re talking pit bulls?’

  ‘That’s right. All the samples are viable and they’ve promised a report by Tuesday morning. Jeff’s told them to be in the nick with their briefs by ten o’clock.’

  ‘Tuesday?’ I queried. ‘What’s wrong with Monday?’

  ‘It’s a bank holiday, and they’re civilians. They’re allowed a day off, now and again.’

  ‘Great. But they’ll have something for us on Tuesday?’

  ‘That’s right. Now, are you ready for the bad news?’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Superintendent Kent wants to be in on it.’

  ‘You’re kidding.’

  ‘Cross my heart and hope to die. She wanted to know where you were.’

  ‘Sugar! What did you tell her?’

  ‘That you were grouse shooting with your friend the chief constable. She was impressed.’

  I hoped he was joking, but with Dave you never can be sure. The burgers came. Dave’s wife, Shirley, said: ‘That’s enough shop talk. Eat your burgers,’ so we did.

  Sunday morning dawned bright and dry, so nine a.m. found me strimming the garden, annoying the neighbours. Served them right for complaining to the council. I fell asleep in front of the television, waiting for the Formula One to start, woke up in the middle of the champagne-spraying ceremony.

  Tuesday we set up interview room one with a video link to next door, so we could watch the procedure. I’d decided that Jeff and Serena would do the interview and I’d observe from next door, with Ms Kent, if she made it. Gareth Adey, my uniformed counterpart, volunteered to sit in with us, for which I was grateful. He’s better at cop-speak than I am. Carl and Sean Pickles were using the same solicitor, so he was in for a busy morning. Carl was the alpha gorilla, so Jeff decided to interview him first, with Sean in the cell furthermost away, well out of earshot. The long-awaited lab report arrived, rushed over by a traffic motorcyclist, and we had six copies made.

  Carl was wearing his best shell suit and hadn’t bothered to bring an overnight bag. I wondered if Terry Bratt had nipped round to comfort their mutual relative but decided there was no hurry – he’d have her all to himself in an hour or so. We’d had words with him and he’d made a statement about loaning his dog to the brothers. He thought they were just taking it for walkies and we’d agreed to go along with that. Poor Serena was dwarfed by the men, but the Manila envelope on the table in front of her would give her an edge when the time came.

  Jeff made the introductions and was officially cautioning Carl when the door behind me opened and Karen Kent appeared. ‘Sorry I’m late,’ she said in a hushed voice. ‘Heads of agreement meeting.’ Superintendent Karen Kent is the acceptable face of the force for the twenty-first century. Six feet tall; double first in law and psychology; black belt in kick-boxing; fast-tracked through the ranks; looks good in uniform; engaged to an EU human rights lawyer.

  Never made an arrest single-handed. Never kick-boxed anyone more belligerent than her instructor; never investigated the flashing lights on a trading estate at two in the morning, without backup. I introduced her to Gareth and turned back to the video monitor.

  Jeff said: ‘This interview is being recorded by sound and video. It concerns a series of aggravated burglaries that took place on the following times and dates at the following addresses.’ He read them out and the brief took notes. ‘Can you tell me where you were at those times?’

  ‘Round and about. Nowhere special,’ Carl replied.

  ‘You’ll have to do better than that.’

  ‘Can I phone a friend?’

  ‘Do you deny you were anywhere near those locations at those times?’

  ‘Never been anywhere near them.’

  Jeff went into a series of questions about specific events in the robberies, all of which Carl denied. He’d never visited a cash machine with one of the victims; never threatened the husband; never terrorised the children. He became cockier by the minute, convinced that we had nothing to link him to the crimes. At one point the brief warned him about his answers but he ignored the advice. He was enjoying himself, and Jeff was content to keep on paying out his rope. Alongside me, Ms Kent made the occasional tutting noise to indicate her disapproval of Jeff’s technique.

 
‘Have you done a psychological profile of the suspects?’ she whispered to me.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Or taken any advice on how the interview should be handled?’

  ‘No.’

  Jeff was asking about the dog. ‘Are you acquainted with the pit bull cross known as Bruno?’

  ‘Yeah. It belongs to my nephew, dunnit.’

  ‘Does your nephew have a name?’

  ‘Terry Bratt. The dog’s his.’

  ‘Do you ever borrow it?’

  ‘We take it for a walk sometimes.’

  ‘Did you take it for a walk on the dates I mentioned earlier?’

  ‘No. Haven’t taken it for weeks.’

  ‘Do you often take other people’s dogs for walks?’

  ‘Not often. We was thinking of buying it off him, wasn’t we?’

  ‘But you didn’t?’

  ‘No. We ordered a pup, though, if it ever fathered any, didn’t we? Pick of the litter, like me.’ Big grin.

  Jeff sat in silence for a while, ran his fingers through his hair. The video camera was high on the wall, so we were seeing a distorted, wide-angle view of the room. Jeff and Serena were under the camera with their backs to it, so they suffered the most distortion. Carl and the brief were full-frontal. The interview rooms were designed with a pair of CCTV cameras each. One fixed and one that could be manipulated. We quickly learnt that the moveable camera was intrusive, while the fixed one was quickly forgotten by the suspect in the heat of an interview. We were using only the fixed one today.

  ‘Have you ever heard of SmartWater?’ Jeff asked, aiming the question at the brief as well as the suspect. Heads were shaken, blank looks exchanged.

  ‘No? In that case, I have a few leaflets here which may enlighten you.’ He delved into his briefcase and produced the leaflets and a SmartWater kit. The solicitor took his copy and fumbled for his spectacles.

  ‘As you will see,’ Jeff continued, ‘SmartWater is a clear, proprietary liquid that is used in crime prevention. When painted on an article it will remain in situ for years. Anyone who comes into contact with it will pick up a small amount, which can then be easily detected by UV light.’

  The brief tossed the kit onto the table to emphasise his disdain for it and said: ‘If you are wanting to subject my client to a UV test, the answer is no. There are dozens of substances that react to UV light.’