by Neal Bircher
FT helped him lift the suitcase into the taxi’s boot, and Noddy got into the back seat. Despite the heat he was wearing his donkey jacket, as there was nowhere else to put it. As the car pulled away his former house-mates waved Noddy good-bye. He felt sadness to be leaving, but only a little. The four of them had shared some interesting experiences, but mostly bad ones. By the time the taxi dropped him at the station he had a smile on his face and hope in his heart, through thoughts of what opportunities his uncertain future might have to offer.
Preservation
Liam Northcott was sprawled out naked. His legs were both scarred from his encounter with Alan Timson, but the scars were all but healed. He poured the last dregs of his bottle of red wine into his glass. It was gone four o’clock in the morning. His black clothes were all bagged up and in the attic, ready to be burned on a bonfire in the morning.The Italian Job (the original) was almost over. His qualms had been replaced by triumphalism. His only regret was that he wasn’t able to finish the job as he’d planned, which was to take out the left rear light as well as the right, and then switch on the Jag’s lights for the night to completely drain its battery. But then he thought that one through, and concluded that it was a good thing: If Alan Timson approached the Jag – either during the night or the next day – then he might not even see anything wrong until he opened the door and got inside it, whereas the lights on thing could have been a give-away. How he wished he could be there to see Alan Timson’s face at that moment. In fact, he determined that he would get down there and walk past lots of times in the morning, in the hope of being in the vicinity when Alan Timson made the discovery (assuming that he hadn’t already). He drained his glass, took a drag on a big imaginary cigar, and then sang along toSelf-Preservation Society. Liam Northcott felt very happy.
11. Fallout
Conclusion
Dave Ferriby had enjoyed his break in Wales. He wasn’t particularly refreshed, as his trip had consisted of rather more drinking than fishing, but at least he’d had a bit of time away from London, and away from “the case”. He hadn’t been able to switch off completely of course, and had spent much of the time running over details, and wracking his brains for an as yet unidentified pattern, or for a small clue to jump out and identify itself as being important. His continued frustration was that he really didn’t have a strong view as to which of the suspects was the guilty party. They each had means, motive, and opportunity, and an amount of circumstantial – but not compelling – evidence tying them to the murder scene. But his brain-wracking, whether conducted in sodden solitude on a rain-swept riverbank, or multiple lagers into a raucous pool-playing marathon in his B&B’s local pub, didn’t throw up anything more than a few thoughts to run by the boss. That lack of inspiration frustrated him as much as did his and his colleagues’ inability to locate any of their three absconding prime suspects. As he sat, trudged, or drank in the misty wilds of the majestic yet foreboding Black Mountains, Ferriby also felt a certain amount of envy for those three suspects, out there somewhere, free – at least for the time being – from the rat race and all the bollocks that came with it. That envy increased when his mind wandered from the case onto his other pet topic, which was his job, and why the hell he was still doing it. There were moments when he’d been tempted to join them: to disappear into the Welsh wilderness and get away from it all, for good.What’s the worst that could happen?
But of course he did return, and when he barged through the door from the reception of Hanforth police station into the CID office area, he was full of enthusiasm to get back on with the job in hand.
Detective Inspector Wilson was even more enthusiastic as he greeted Ferriby, and led him into the inquiry’s incident room to bring him up to speed. The inquiry didn’t have an incident room all to itself; it was shared with two other investigations. It did however have one wall of its own. The wall was adorned with a large map of the Norling area, with large pins and Post-It notes indicating scenes of interest; photos of each of those locations; and of the three known suspects, plus Barry Timson. There were also random further Post-It notes, and thin lengths of red cord linking photos / places / notes. This was all very standard stuff, and was largely unchanged since Ferriby had last seen it. What Wilson was keen to show Ferriby however – he having of course taken no time off from the case at all – was his latest addition to the collage. He had Blu-Tacked a row of flip-chart sheets to the wall, and onto them had drawn up a grid. There were five rows to the grid, labelled down the left-hand side as “Hale”, “G. Timson”, “Kelly”, “Hale & G. Timson”, and “other”. There were many columns to the grid, each entitled with the description a piece of evidence: “the knife”, “footprints”, “confessions”, “black jacket”, and so on. Under each of those titles was also a number, between 1 and 5. Each cell of the grid was either empty, indicating, for example, that “black jacket” had no relevance to “Kelly”, or it contained a Post-It note. Each Post-It note had a number written on it, also between 1 and 5.
This was a method that Wilson used from time to time to help to rank suspects in order of likelihood when there were, as in this case, several to choose from. The number under each title represented his judgement as to the importance/weight of the piece of evidence. The number on the Post-It represented the extent to which that piece of evidence implicated the suspect concerned: the strength of suspicion. Some calculations then followed. It was an obvious spreadsheet application, but although Wilson was not the technophobe that he tended to make out, sometimes he felt that some things just worked better “Blue Peter fashion”.
Wilson first talked Ferriby through what he’d been up to over the previous three days. He described what Peter Croxton had seen on the bridge, which was two men, possibly arguing, at ten past midnight. He reminded him that another cab driver, Harry Kernovski, who had been travelling in the opposite direction at the same time, had said the same thing, and that a third cab driver, Douglas Hoyle, had seen two men and a woman shortly before that time. Each of these witness observations had its own column on his matrix. Wilson then explained what he’d worked out to be the likely sequences of people leaving the pub / walking along the towpath / crossing the bridge, and what it might mean. Gail and Nick had walked along the towpath towards the Haystack, pausing along the way for a trip into the bushes; Michael Kelly had walked the same way, and not returned – possibly because he had taken a taxi to the kebab shop, possibly because he had walked a different route; Barry Timson had walked the route, and of course not returned; Gail and Nick had crossed the bridge; Michael Kelly and Barry Timson had left the Haystack at about the same time as one another; staff members had left and crossed the bridge; Nick had crossed it alone as he headed home … and so on. The potential implications of each of these actions and of each possible sequence had been analysed, and Wilson shared the results in depth.
Wilson also talked through some thoughts about Norling dump. Harbouring nagging doubts about the black jacket that he still felt that Nick might have disposed of, he’d taken a drive to the “household waste and re-cycling facility” himself. And, during his time on the Saturday afternoon observing the residents of Norling queuing up throw whatever they had to dispose of over the dump’s concrete wall, a small van had drawn up just outside the exit. Its driver had then emerged carrying two stuffed black bin-liners, walked in through the exit and then up to the wall to throw the bags over. Quick conversations with first the van’s driver and then the dump’s operator established that commercial vehicles weren’t allowed in, and that any van counted as a commercial vehicle.
“Even very small vans?” Wilson had asked.
“Yes, any van,” was the reply. Even three-wheeled Reliant vans.
The van’s driver had not walked into the field of the CCTV camera’s vision.
That information did not prove anything at all, but it did give Nick a slightly higher score under the “black jacket” column than he might otherwise have had.
Once Ferrib
y was up to date, the next task was for the two of them to walk through each Post-It note score discussing and debating until in each case they reached a consensus. They pretty much agreed on most scores, but there were some that needed quite a bit of working through. Both Ferriby and Wilson were open-minded to “Hale”, “G. Timson”, “Kelly”, “Hale & G. Timson”, or “other” all still being in the frame, but evidence – particularly the consensus of Douglas Hoyle’s and Peter Croxton’s accounts of what they saw on Dray’s Bridge pointed to the likelihood of the killer being an individual male. That of course made Michael Kelly and Nick the lead contenders, and of those two, Wilson’s suspicions tended to lean in Kelly’s direction, and Ferriby in Nick’s. Wilson’s main argument against Nick was that on his own he didn’t really have much of a motive. In time they reached an agreement on the contents of every cell of the matrix.
One column that sparked much discussion was one entitled “the gun”. There wasn’t any disagreement on this one, but the subject was perplexing. If a candidate could be linked to the gun then they would instantly become a very strong odds-on favourite. But there was no evidence to connect any of them to it. Gail scored 2 out of 5 because of her previous involvement with handguns, Michael Kelly scored 1 because of his previous illegal possession of knives, and Nick scored 0. It was one of the most frustrating aspects of the case for Wilson and all of his team that such a strong piece of evidence hadn’t actually so far been of any use to them.
Other columns were easier. “Confessions” gave only Michael Kelly a good score. He also scored better than the others on “the knife”, although that too was one where there was no direct connection to any suspect. The knife, like the gun was another clue that just didn’t quite deliver on its promise. Just who did it belong to? The easiest column was “absconding”; all of the named suspects got 5 out of 5 for that one, which actually made it pretty useless.
Once Ferriby and Wilson had agreed on all the scores then they had to multiply the numbers on each Post-It by its column’s weighting and then add up the totals for each row to record them in another column, entitled “sub-total”.
To the right of the sub-total column was a column entitled “previous”. It wouldn’t have any place in court, but for this exercise it was perfectly valid: a factor to multiply a suspect’s score by according to their level of previous criminal activity. Gail didn’t score anything on that count, the only previous time that the police had recorded her name was when she had visited Norling station to pick up her daughter who, at the age of thirteen, had been caught shoplifting. Nick had the one conviction for possessing counterfeit money, sixteen years earlier, when he was at college. So, Michael Kelly was the “winner” in this column, his string of previous convictions and arrests giving him a much bigger score than either of his competitors. There was another column before the grand total, and it was called “adjustment”. The whole process wasn’t very scientific, it was just a way of collating largely subjective judgements in a structured manner, and this column gave further power to the art of subjectivity by enabling the scorer(s) to amend the tally for each suspect by a factor of their choosing if they felt that the process so far had not got the relative proportions in line with their gut feel.
Wilson and Ferriby went through the calculations. They didn’t put anything in the adjustment column as they felt that the process had done a good job. The process didn’t of course provide any new information, but would help Wilson to focus the inquiry’s efforts in the short term. He completed the final grand total figure against each suspect with relish.
There was a clear winner. Or, in other words, there was a clear prime suspect.
They both stood back to admire their handiwork, leaning against a table that was placed in the middle of the room and which was covered with a map from one of the other investigations.
“Just got to find the bugger, now,” said Ferriby.
There was nobody else in the room.
Wilson and Ferriby each supped at their plastic cups of lukewarm machine coffee. Both continued to look at the numbers on the wall. Then Wilson spoke.
“You know, Dave, I was thinking.” Then he paused and cleared his throat.
Ferriby glanced over at him, but Wilson was still looking ahead at the wall. Wilson continued.
“I was thinking that once we’ve put this one to bed I might think about calling it a day.”
Ferriby swivelled his head in wide-eyed surprise. He surely didn’t mean retiring!
Wilson went on.
“I couldn’t retire as such … it wouldn’t be enough money, what with the mortgage, and the boys at university. But, you know, do something else … bit of security work or something.”
Ferriby’s mouth opened almost as wide as his eyes. It was his turn to say something. He too cleared his throat before speaking.
“No way! … Are you sure? I thought you’d be here another ten years yet.”
Wilson was still looking at the wall, and he wiped his eyes with his neatly-ironed white handkerchief.
“No.” His voice was a little croaky. “No, I’m not sure. It’s just a thought. We’ll see once this is over.”
He turned his head in Ferriby’s direction, and briefly smiled.
“Could be good news for you though.”
Ferriby felt another mild shock. Was Wilson seriously suggesting that he might be a contender for Inspector? He’d better speak again. First he let out a little chuckle.
“I don’t think that the powers that be would be behind that one, boss!” It was a statement with a hint of question lurking inside it.
Wilson was looking ahead at the wall again.
“You might be surprised.” He coughed. “I’d give you my backing.”
The two men supped at their empty coffee cups.
Wilson stood up from the table.
“Well, can’t hang around – got work to do.”
Ferriby stood up and cleared his throat again.
“Me too. I, er, said I’d go and speak to that landlord at the King’s Head.”
He walked briskly from the room, as he left throwing over his shoulder a rushed “See you later” that wasn’t answered.
Ferriby got into his car and drove off. His heart was racing and he felt strangely stressed. Inspector?! He’d spent the last five years telling himself that it wasn’t for him. That’s why he would never be considered. And he’d spent the last three days convincing himself that his future lay outside of the police. He took his packet of Marlboroughs from his jacket pocket. There were two left. He placed one between his lips. He had a throwaway lighter in the car door pocket. It was all but empty. He shook it, and coaxed one last weak flame from it. The fag lit. He took a long drag and then exhaled the smoke which drifted across the car’s windscreen. Of course he really didn’t want the job … did he? And anyway, the question was academic, as they’d never put him forward any way … would they?
“Shit!”
He banged his hands on the steering wheel. He needed a drink. He would call up Gary Brooks, and if Brooks couldn’t make it he’d go for the drink on his own.
It wouldn’t be at the King’s Head.
A Perfect Setting
Brayburn was a small village that was little more than a hamlet, and Gail and Nick arrived there early one Tuesday afternoon. It was at the top end of a small craggy loch, and each of its thirty or so dwellings – a mixture of ancient stone cottages, and less ancient snowcemmed bungalows – enjoyed a view over the loch, peering out from lofty positions through a lush mix of conifer and deciduous trees that carpeted a steep hillside as it rose from the water’s edge. The village sported one shop – a tiny general store / post office that sold pretty much nothing – and it had one inn, which was the only place with visitors’ accommodation. Every building other than these two was a private dwelling, Brayburn’s population not being large enough to support such things as a church or a doctor’s surgery, or even any kind of takeaway food establishment. A narrow B r
oad tracked the top half of the loch’s shore, and wound steeply through the middle of Brayburn. That was the only proper road in the village, the homes that weren’t directly on the road being accessed through a series of tracks and alleyways. Gail and Nick loved the place. It all but epitomised their target location, with even the inn – the Black Horse – having an ideal car park tucked neatly out of sight around the back. It had though been more than two weeks since the Queen’s Head incident, when they had overheard the Yorkshire woman reading about “Granny Gail” in her newspaper. The incident had briefly made them more cautious, but they had quickly let that guard back down and were becoming more casual again with their approach to stealth. Maybe it was the thrill that was subconsciously making them take greater risks, or maybe not having been discovered after nearly two months had given them a confidence that they never would be. If it was the latter, then inevitably they would at some stage of course be proved very wrong.
On their arrival the bar part of the Black Horse was not open, but a door on the side of the building, marked “Reception”, was unlocked, and their stepping through it rang a little brass bell. Gail and Nick stepped further forward into a dimly-lit hallway, and stood around wondering what to do next for a few moments, before the sound of footsteps descending some carpeted stairs was followed by the arrival of a middle-aged woman, who smiled politely and asked, in a southern English accent, whether she could help them. She had a careworn face, rather wild grey-white hair, and she didn’t look to be in the best of health. Gail did the talking in a procedure that was getting to be old hat – No, they didn’t want to have a look at the room first, thank you – and then Sharon and Chris Davidson were duly booked in. The names were entirely random; they had run out of ideas for name references, but hadn’t yet become quite bold enough to use their own. Their evening meal would be served at six-thirty, which was three and a half hours away. Nick suggested they explore the village on foot, and when they had done that, ten minutes later, they went down a steep path to the loch’s edge. They stood on its pebbled shore and gazed out over the water, hand-in-hand. A low mist was forming over the still water, and – it being rural Scotland in December – the temperature was dropping very quickly.