A Very Private Murder

by Stuart Pawson

  ‘You don’t sound too sure.’

  ‘Well I am. But I can see where you’re coming from. It’s not me, though.’

  ‘Do you have a hooded top?’

  ‘Yeah, like everybody I know.’

  ‘And a baseball cap?’

  ‘Likewise.’

  ‘You’ve spent a lot of time at the Centre, Oscar, behind the scenes, and we’re convinced that it was an inside job, to coin a phrase. Does the figure in the photos remind you of anybody?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘How do you think he got in and out without meeting anybody or triggering an alarm?’

  ‘No idea.’

  ‘You must have given it some thought, Oscar. From what I’m told you’re the expert on security at the Centre. So how did he do it?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Dave said: ‘Would you tell us if you did?’

  ‘Probably not,’ Oscar replied. ‘We need another shopping mall like we need a dose of clap. If I could do anything to put the mockers on it, I’d be in there. I hope whoever did it gets away.’

  ‘But you’ve no objection to working here, taking the man’s money,’ I said.

  ‘It’s to pay off my student loan, and there’s an irony to using their own money to work against them.’

  I saw a way to run the interview and I’m sure Dave saw it, too. Get him on his hobby horse, well away from the enquiries, and eventually he’d let slip whatever it was that made young Oscar Sidebottom tick.

  ‘So it’s all about green issues, is it?’ I asked, closing my notebook and sliding the photos back in their envelope, as if we were concluding the meeting, but I was too late: his training kicked in and he came out with response number seventeen, chapter five, of the anarchists’ handbook:

  ‘No comment,’ he said. ‘I think I’ve answered enough of your questions.’

  ‘You’ve been very patient with us,’ I told him. ‘Where will you be staying the rest of the week, in case we need to talk to you again?’

  ‘No comment.’

  ‘Have they taken the plaque down?’

  ‘No comment.’

  ‘Are all the alarms on the fire doors and emergency exits activated?’

  ‘No comment.’

  ‘OK, you can go.’ I flapped an arm to dismiss him and looked across at Dave. He pulled his don’t look at me expression and pushed his chair away from the table.

  Young Sidebottom stood up and headed for the door. As he reached it Dave called after him: ‘Oscar.’

  He stopped, one hand on the handle and looked at us.

  ‘Come and sit down,’ Dave said, and he did as he was told, his self-assurance crumbling as he realised we hadn’t finished with him yet.

  There was a water cooler in the corner, half full, and I walked over to it and filled two beakers. Oscar declined when I asked him. I took a long sip and it tasted good. I told him that, as before, he still wasn’t under caution and could terminate the meeting any time. ‘Where were you on the morning of Monday the twenty-first?’ I asked. ‘That was a week last Monday.’

  ‘No comment.’

  ‘In case you haven’t realised it, that was the morning Arthur George Threadneedle was shot.’

  ‘No comment.’

  ‘Did you know him?’

  ‘No comment.’

  ‘Had you ever met him?’

  ‘No comment.’

  I said: ‘Your allegiance to the cause, whatever it might be, is commendable, Oscar, but murder is a serious offence and the advice given to you by whatever tame lawyer your group uses is, believe me, bad advice. If you continue to be uncooperative I shall be forced to arrest you and interview you under caution. The least that could happen then is that you’d spend two nights in the cells with a bunch of drunkards. So, did you know Arthur George Threadneedle?’

  ‘No comment.’

  ‘Did you know his wife, Janet?’

  ‘No comment.’

  ‘Somebody answering your description was seen helping her with her shopping on the morning in question. Was it you? If it was, believe me, we’ll find out.’

  ‘No comment.’

  ‘OK,’ I said. ‘We get the message. You can go. Bugger off.’

  He looked mystified, raised himself from his chair but paused half stooped over the little table. ‘I can go?’ he asked, as if he hadn’t heard properly.

  ‘That’s right. We haven’t time to play games with tosspots – we’ve a murderer to catch. Don’t leave the country.’ He was out of the door before you could whistle the overture to Iolanthe.

  Miss McArdle hadn’t been answering her phone, but it seemed a shame not to give her a visit while we were in the building. Much to my surprise Dave’s knock was answered by her shouted invitation to enter. She still hadn’t found herself a secretary.

  Miss McArdle was standing behind her desk and a middle-aged man was standing opposite her. From the expressions on their faces it looked as if we’d interrupted some form of disagreement and saved them from scratching each other’s eyes out. ‘Ah!’ Miss McArdle exclaimed. ‘We were expecting someone else.’ She turned to the man. ‘Very well, Turner, I’ll arrange for your pay to be docked. That will be all.’

  Turner, ashen-faced, stormed past us and slammed the door in his wake. I winced and Dave pulled a face. Miss McArdle invited us to sit down. ‘Apologies for the unpleasantness,’ she said. ‘We thought you were his Usdaw rep. How can I help you?’

  ‘We were in the building,’ I told her. ‘We’ve just had a talk with your son, Oscar, about his whereabouts when the graffiti was done, and we showed him the photographs. We advised him to invite a solicitor along, which he declined, and suggested as an alternative that you sit in on the interview, which he again declined. He answered all our questions with a “No comment”. He’s not doing himself any favours by refusing to cooperate.’

  ‘I thought we’d dropped the enquiry, Inspector. Are you saying that Oscar is a suspect?’

  ‘Everybody is a suspect until someone leaps into the frame. Oscar might be completely innocent, but he knows the people who work here, may even be able to point a finger at the culprit. The fact that he refuses to, or even denies being able to, casts suspicion on him. You know what the official caution says, Miss McArdle: it may harm your defence, and all that.’ I turned to Dave and explained that Miss McArdle was an avid reader of crime fiction.

  ‘In that case, help!’ he retorted, and immediately jumped up as his mobile phone started to vibrate in his pocket. ‘Excuse me,’ he said, glancing at the display, and stepped outside the office, closing the door behind him.

  ‘What did we do without them?’ I wondered out loud, rather lamely.

  ‘I’d be lost without mine,’ Miss McArdle confessed.

  ‘Tell me …’ I began, then hesitated, not sure about the diplomacy of my words. ‘Tell me, did you know the Curzons at all?’

  ‘No. I knew of them, but never met them.’

  ‘But you lived in that neck of the woods, didn’t you, when you were working in York?’

  ‘Yes. We lived in Malton, which is not far away from them. I was born there; moved away when I went to university.’

  ‘What about Oscar? He’s a bit young for Ghislaine and too old for Toby, but he may have had … oh, I don’t know … a holiday job at the house; or used it in a school project; or played tennis there. Anything like that?’

  ‘He’s my son, Inspector, and I’m not happy answering these questions. I suggest you ask him.’

  ‘OK, I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘You’re quite right.’ Except, of course, that sweet baby Oscar wouldn’t answer our questions and was as forthcoming as a dead clam. I decided on one more try. ‘Tell me this, though,’ I said. ‘Did your son ever meet Mr Threadneedle? Or his wife? We need to know for elimination purposes.’ I like saying that: for elimination purposes. It’s always assumed that we’re talking about eliminating the person in question, but it could equally mean every other person in the world except him.

>   She puffed herself up with a deep breath and blew it out slowly, her mind racing, deciding which avenue to take. She’d read the books, and if her beloved son had left his prints or DNA anywhere incriminating it would help his case if she disclosed that he regularly frequented that place. Her hair had changed since our previous meeting. It was jet black, close cut in an asymmetrical shape, like a helmet, and nearly obscured her left eye. It probably cost a fortune but it looked good. No doubt about it: Miss Carol McArdle was back in the race. So when she answered my question I’d forgotten what I’d asked.

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  ‘I’m sorry …’

  ‘Yes, he did.’

  ‘Right. Good.’ I hadn’t a clue what she meant, but had faith that the patron saint of detectives would come to my rescue, and there she was, right on cue.

  ‘Oscar is quite a musician. He plays the guitar, like so many young people, but wanted to take it more seriously. I mentioned it to Arthur and he suggested his wife, Janet, could give him lessons. Her principal instrument was the flute, but she was a respectable pianist and knew all the theory, of course, so he went to their house for lessons.’

  Phew! Hallelujah! I said: ‘Wasn’t that … you know … a bit dangerous?’

  ‘That’s what I said, but he just laughed, thought it added something to our relationship. He told her that Oscar was the son of one of his employees and she believed him.’

  Psychiatrists say that the risk of being caught adds a certain something to illicit sex. They also say that psychopaths build castles in the air, schizophrenics live in them and psychiatrists collect the rent. Dave knocked and came back in, mumbling an apology.

  Walking back to the car he told me about the phone call. ‘Three messages for you,’ he said. ‘A Miss Toby Curzon wants to speak to you. Said nobody else would do. Then Special Branch returned your call. Have you been chasing them?’

  ‘Yep. And the third …?’

  ‘Ah! This is the one you’ll love. Superintendent Krypton Knickers herself would like an audience, if it’s not too much trouble.’

  ‘Karen Kent? Jeez! What does she want?’

  ‘Well, she is the boss. What shall I tell control?’

  ‘Huh! Tell them we’re in East Yorkshire, doing follow-ups. It’s about time you were familiarised with the locality.’ We’d reached the car. I zapped the door locks and we climbed in.

  Dave is the nearest I have to family. We go back a long way, have shared a few scrapes, covered each other’s back on more than one occasion. We even played in the same football team for a while. I’m his daughter’s godfather. As we pulled onto the motorway I said: ‘So Sophie didn’t make it to Dan’s birthday?’

  ‘No, she sent him a card with a cheque in it.’ He made it sound as if they’d laced the money with the anthrax virus.

  ‘I suppose they have their own lives to live,’ I said.

  Sophie went to Cambridge University and was Dave’s golden girl. Mine too. She got pregnant and married during her second year, and now Dave and Shirley never see her or the baby.

  ‘They manage to see his parents often enough,’ Dave told me. ‘Young Courtney’s growing up and Shirl’s missing his best years. She’s pretty upset about it. We didn’t even see him for his first birthday. They sent us a photograph and that was that.’

  A sixteen-wheeler came steaming by and I pulled out into his wake. It’s not often we get the chance to gossip on a personal level. In the car, with the radio turned off, is the best we can do. The overtaking lane was clear so I moved over and put my foot down. We talked about holidays and young Dan’s job prospects. He’d walk a decent university, but his sole ambition is to play for Manchester United.

  ‘I’m a bit concerned about Karen Kent taking over the enquiry,’ I admitted.

  ‘Whatever for?’ Dave asked. ‘You could eat her for breakfast.’

  ‘Hmm. On the whole, I think I’d rather have a full English. It’s just that, you know, you can always find something that you should have done, or could have done better. She’s never led a murder enquiry, but it would look good on her CV, so she’ll be anxious to put her stamp on the job. Hindsight, and all that.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Well, for a start, if it was young Oscar helping Mrs Threadneedle with her groceries in the supermarket car park …’

  ‘Which it almost certainly was,’ Dave asserted.

  ‘… which it probably was,’ I concurred, ‘his prints would have been all over the bags. But we didn’t check for them.’

  ‘There was no reason to,’ he said. ‘She’d been to the supermarket and done some shopping. Big deal. You can’t dust everywhere for prints.’

  ‘Will you explain that to KK or shall I?’

  ‘OK, so the bags will probably have gone to the dump but all the stuff she bought will be in her fridge and larder. He’ll have left his mark on something that will prove he was there.’

  ‘Too late,’ I said. ‘While you were answering the phone outside her office Carol McDoodle told me that Janet Threadneedle was giving young Oscar piano lessons. His prints could be anywhere in the house.’

  ‘Oh, right. Back to the drawing board.’ He sat silently for a while, then turned to face me. ‘Would that be piano lessons or “piano lessons”?’ he asked, making that quotation marks gesture with his fingers.

  ‘Surely not,’ I said. ‘She’s old enough to be his mum.’

  ‘Charlie, where have you been for the last hundred years?’

  I was doing ninety-five in the fast lane and a BMW was tailgating me. I pulled to the left and he accelerated away.

  ‘What did you want Special Branch for?’ Dave asked. Special Branch are not some super-special, hi-tech cloak-and-dagger outfit, dedicated to protecting citizens of our fair country at considerable danger to themselves. For a start, they rarely make arrests. Every force has its own Special Branch, whose members spend most of their working day loafing around airport arrival lounges, looking at faces, checking passenger lists. They gather intelligence. Once, they were concerned with normal, routine, cross-border crime; then drug smuggling became flavour of the month; now it’s international terrorism that keeps them awake at night. The jobs they used to be involved with, like organised crime and VIP protection, have been offloaded onto specially trained firearms officers, under the watchful eye of CID, which means me.

  ‘Barry Sidebottom,’ I said. ‘The aggrieved husband. He’s supposed to be in Portugal but I’d like to know his recent whereabouts. It’ll be interesting to learn if SB have anything on him.’

  *

  We’d had a cold, cloudless night, courtesy of high pressure off North Utsire, wherever that is, and now the fields were steaming as the sun burnt off the early-morning dew. But the rivers – the Wharfe and the Ouse – clung to their smoking blankets and at Stamford Bridge we plunged into gloom as we crossed the narrow humpback over the Derwent, where, nearly a thousand years earlier, history had reached a tipping point. Here, one September morning in 1066, the final page in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle was begun. The Vikings were routed but the Normans were mustering in the South, and nothing would ever be the same again.

  There’s a steep hill leaving the town, which has been the scourge of generations of caravan-pullers, but the engine revved like a turbine, taking us charging up out of the valley and in seconds we were bursting out into the sunshine again. The birds were singing, the sky was straight out of a holiday brochure and we were doing what we do best.

  ‘Look!’ I said, thumping a dozing Sparky on the arm.

  ‘W-What?’

  ‘Buzzard.’ It had showed itself briefly above the trees, soaring on the updraught, and been lost behind us.

  ‘Oh, right.’

  I said: ‘Do you think the Curzons came over with Bill the Conqueror?’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘I bet they did. I bet they were given a few thousand acres for services to William.’

  ‘So they were the enemy, back then.’

>   ‘Most likely.’

  ‘Are we nearly there yet?’

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  I drove to Dunkley first, pointing out the Alice Hawthorne, which had that desolate look reserved for pubs that are closed, and the little housing project where old Motty Dermott lived. I parked outside his house and rang the bell, just once, but he didn’t appear. A neighbour came out and told me it was Springfield House day. I chatted to her for a while and learnt that the old-timers went there twice a week for a hot meal and game of bingo. Otherwise, she didn’t want to talk. This was a small village, and I looked like a policeman, and curtains were already twitching.

  At Curzon House I stopped in my usual spot, bang in the middle of the park. About ten visitors’ cars were parked sensibly near the entrance, and a minibus with Barbara Castle Comprehensive emblazoned along its length was in the shadows at the end of the house. As I stretched myself upright I heard the chatter of children coming from that direction. The tennis court was down there, so they were probably having a tennis lesson.

  ‘Where’s the old deserted village?’ Dave asked.

  I pointed. ‘That way. About quarter of a mile, that’s all. It’s called Low Ogglethorp, without an ‘e’ on the end. High Ogglethorpe has acquired the ‘e’. It’s probably a Victorian affectation.’

  ‘And you’re hot on Victorian affectations.’

  ‘They’re my speciality subject. What’s the interest?’

  ‘Sophie did her thesis on lost villages. There are hundreds of them, all over the place. I took her round a few. Not this one, though. Became a bit of an expert, though I say it myself.’

  Sophie read history at Cambridge. First one in the family, and all that. Dave plays the disappointed father but underneath he’s as proud as Punch of her, and quite rightly. Me? I’m merely a neutral observer. It must be something in her perfume that makes my hormone levels go haywire every time I see her. I pulled myself together and said: ‘Let’s go look at it, then.’

  ‘It’ll do later,’ he said. ‘We’re supposed to be on an investigation.’