A Killing Resurrected (3 page)

‘I don't know about that,' said Paget, ‘but she did react quite strongly when I asked if she thought it possible that David Taylor was involved in the robbery, which makes me wonder about their relationship.'

‘She did seem a bit touchy on the subject,' Alcott agreed, ‘but perhaps she's been asking herself that same question after reading young Grant's letters. At least it could be a place to start – with Taylor, I mean. If nothing else, he might know who Grant's friends were back then.' He nudged the file in Paget's direction.

But Paget made no move to pick it up. ‘I think I'm going to need more than that,' he said, ‘and since you were personally involved at the time, I might as well begin right here with you. What can you tell me about Barry Grant's death? Was there any doubt in your mind that it
was
suicide?'

‘None whatsoever,' Alcott said. ‘As far as I was concerned, sad as it was, young Grant was just another unhappy teenager who topped himself, and although we found no note, there was nothing suspicious about the death. Nor was there any suggestion that the lad was involved in any way with these robberies, or in any criminal activities for that matter.

‘As for the robberies themselves, the two earlier ones Barry refers to were done by the same gang of four masked men wearing loose-fitting black clothing, and they did all their communicating by using flash cards. They never spoke the whole time the robberies took place. They struck late at night and got away clean.

‘The Bergman robbery was completely different. It took place in broad daylight, and if it hadn't been for a couple of flash cards they left behind in their hurry to get away, we might never have connected it to the two earlier jobs. They got clean away with something like thirty or forty thousand in cash, gold, and jewellery – I don't remember the figure exactly, but, to my knowledge, none of it ever turned up – and they were never heard of again. All three robberies were investigated, as I said, by Jack Rogers, so if you need more, I suggest you talk to him.'

‘And the suicide?' Paget prompted.

‘As I told you, I investigated that myself,' said Alcott. ‘Barry Grant, nineteen years old, killed himself with a sawn-off shotgun in the packing shed at the back of the house. There was no note, and no one seemed to know why he did it, but neither was there any reason to suspect foul play. The thing I remember most vividly is the trouble the boy took to kill himself. He used an old shotgun that belonged to his uncle, but found it too long to reach the trigger when he turned it on himself, so he used a hacksaw to cut it down. The sawn-off barrels were there on the bench, along with the hacksaw. Stuck the gun under his chin and pulled both triggers. Took most of his head off.'

Alcott's mouth drew down in a hard line. ‘It was not a pleasant sight, I can tell you, and what made it all the worse was it was Mrs Grant who found him. Poor woman was beside herself.'

‘After she discovered his bed hadn't been slept in, according to her letter to Claire Hammond,' Paget said. ‘So when did Barry actually die?'

‘The pathologist put it at somewhere between one and two o'clock in the morning, as I recall.'

‘Didn't anyone hear the shot? If he used both barrels, it must have been pretty loud. Surely someone would have heard it?'

Alcott shook his head. ‘He was inside the shed with the doors and windows closed, and it was some distance from the house and the nearest neighbours. Just about everyone within hearing range would be asleep. In any case, no one admitted to hearing anything that sounded like a shot.'

‘And this happened just a few days after Bergman's was robbed, and two people were killed?'

Alcott sat forward, palms flat on his desk, preparing to rise. ‘Bergman's was hit on the Saturday morning,' he said tersely, ‘and Barry Grant killed himself on the following Monday. But as I said, there was absolutely nothing to connect the two events.' He rose to his feet. ‘Read the files, then go and talk to Rogers himself. He retired to somewhere near Manchester. Pensions will have his address, so—'

He was interrupted by the familiar rap of Fiona's knuckles on the door as she opened it and entered the room. ‘Sorry to interrupt, Mr Alcott,' she said, ‘but it's Dr Miller. He's on the phone, and he says he needs to speak to you right away. I told him you were in a meeting, but he insists on talking to you.'

‘Miller?' Alcott's brow furrowed as he peered at Paget as if expecting him to explain why his doctor wanted to talk to him so urgently, then shrugged and picked up the phone.

‘I'll be outside,' said Paget quietly as he rose and followed Fiona from the room. The secretary flicked a worried glance in Paget's direction. She looked as if she wanted to say something, but she remained silent as she took her seat behind the desk.

‘It's probably none of my business,' said Paget, ‘but is something wrong, Fiona?' He nodded towards the door.

Fiona frowned. ‘Not that I know of,' she said, ‘but I've spoken to Dr Miller before, and I've never heard him sound quite like that. He's usually very polite.'

‘But not this time?'

‘Well, he wasn't rude,' Fiona conceded, ‘but he was certainly brusque, and he was very insistent on talking to Mr Alcott
immediately
! He made that very clear. It's just . . .'

Her words were cut off as Alcott's door swung back and he came out of the office, one arm in the air as he struggled into his jacket. ‘It's Marion,' he said. ‘I knew she had a doctor's appointment this morning, but she said it was just to get some more tablets for her cough. But Miller tells me he's put her in the hospital. Sent her over in an ambulance.'

‘Oh, I am sorry,' Fiona said. ‘Did he say what was wrong?'

Alcott looked puzzled. ‘Can't think what's come over the man,' he said. ‘All he would say was that Marion wasn't in any immediate danger, but he refused to say more on the phone. Simply told me to meet him at the hospital, and hung up.'

He turned to Paget. ‘I have to go,' he said, ‘but I want you to get started on this case immediately. Go and see Rogers. I know he'll be glad to help if he can. He'll want to see these killers caught and punished.' Alcott fished a packet of cigarettes from his pocket, stuck one in his mouth and lit it. ‘No need to look at me like that,' he told Fiona sharply. ‘I'll be out of the building in thirty seconds, so there's not much point in calling the anti-smoking police, is there?'

‘Has his wife been ill?' asked Paget as Alcott strode away.

‘Not that I know of, and I'm sure I would have heard.' Fiona's motherly features showed concern. ‘But it doesn't sound good if Dr Miller sent her to hospital in an ambulance.'

D
etective Sergeant John Tregalles checked the reference number of the files once more to make sure he had them all before settling himself in his seat. This was not the way he had intended to spend the afternoon, stuck here in the office, with the temperature hovering close to thirty-three degrees, sorting through ancient files, when he could have been out there at the Westhill Golf and Country Club, talking to members about the petty thievery going on out there. He'd been looking forward to that, but Paget had sent Molly Forsythe out there instead, and he was stuck with this lot.

He opened the first file.

Jack Rogers had led the investigation. A bit rough around the edges, was Jack – a bit
too
rough at times for some of the top brass, which may have had something to do with the inspector's early retirement – but he got results. Usually, that was, but not in this case. Without evidence, without witnesses, and without so much as a whisper from the usually reliable sources on the street, even Rogers had found himself stumped.

Paget seemed to think that this new information might lead to some sort of breakthrough, but Tregalles had his doubts. Thirteen years was a long time, and judging by his own recollection of events compared to what he had just read, it showed just how unreliable one's memory could be.

The first robbery had taken place on Tuesday, January 2nd, when four men, wearing dark clothing and ski masks, burst into the living quarters of the Rose and Crown in Beggars Lane, one of the oldest and certainly one of the most popular pubs in Broadminster. The landlord, a man named Thomas Grady, and his eighteen-year-old daughter, Sharon, were in the kitchen at the rear of the premises, counting and recording the takings from the previous evening, when the men entered by the unlocked back door. Grady, sitting with his back to the door, had told Rogers that the men were inside before he'd had a chance to turn round. In fact, he said, it was the sound of crockery, swept from the Welsh dresser beside the door, smashing on the tiled floor that first alerted him. He said he'd started to his feet, but they slammed him back into his chair and slapped tape over his mouth, while a third man pulled Sharon out of her chair and taped her mouth, then continued to hold her.

And it had all taken place without a word being uttered.

Grady said one of the men behind him had slid a metal bar beneath his chin and gripped it on both sides, forcing his head back against the top of his chair, half choking him, and he had the bruises to prove it. The man who appeared to be the leader took a white card from his pocket and held it up for Grady to see. The words on it were printed in bold capitals. They read:

DO AS YOU ARE TOLD AND NO ONE WILL BE
HURT
OPEN THE SAFE

When Grady had shaken his head, his statement said, the man behind him shoved his head down on the table, then slammed the bar down so hard beside it that he'd felt it brush his hair. ‘Then they all started doing it,' he said, ‘smashing those bars down like they was beating a drum. They hit the table so hard that the tray from the till flew off the table, and coins and notes were scattered all over the floor. You only have to look at what they did to the table to see what I mean. I don't mind telling you, I was so shit scared I gave them the combination. God knows I didn't want to. We had the takings right from the Friday night through New Year's Eve and New Year's Day, and I'm sure those bastards knew that.'

‘You say you gave them the combination. Who opened the safe?'

‘I did. He made me do it.'

‘Did he
tell
you to do it?'

‘I
told
you, they never spoke, not once,' Grady said, and went on to say that one of the men had hauled him out of his chair and led him to the safe. ‘They had gloves on, leather ones, and the bloke beside me kept smacking the iron bar in the palm of his hand like he was beating a drum. He didn't say anything. He didn't have to, because I had a bloody good idea about what would happen if I refused to cooperate.'

Using hand signals, the leader had made Grady take the cash from the safe and put it in a cloth bag, then he'd held the bag open and pointed to the money on the table and on the floor.

‘The one who had hold of Sharon made it very clear that she would be hurt if I didn't do what they wanted,' Grady continued, ‘so I got down on my hands and knees and scooped that money into the bag as fast as I could. I'm not easily scared, but those bastards had me going, and with Sharon there I wasn't going to take any chances. All I wanted by that time was for the two of us to come out alive.'

When asked for descriptions, neither Grady nor his daughter could come up with anything worth circulating. ‘It was hard to tell with them all dressed in black and the clothes being so baggy and all,' Grady told Rogers.

The inspector had tried another tack. ‘You're a fairly big man,' he said, ‘yet you say you were hauled out of your chair by the man behind you. Was he bigger than you? Was he particularly strong? Did you notice any smell? Tobacco? Aftershave? Body odour? Anything at all?'

‘The way he was using that iron bar, the bugger didn't need to be strong,' the landlord growled. ‘One tug on my collar, and I got the message. Sorry, but I can't tell you more than that – except they had a car waiting.'

‘Colour? Make? Registration?' Rogers had asked, and was told that neither Grady nor his daughter had actually
seen
the car; they were too shaken to go to the door until they were sure the men had gone.

Sharon had said it had sounded more like a van to her. ‘Heavier motor, more like my boyfriend's van.'

Rogers had taken the reference literally and checked on the boyfriend, but he'd been working that night, and had an airtight alibi. Several days later, the burnt-out remains of a van, reported missing the night before the robbery, was found in a gully on a piece of wasteland on the Welsh border. Forensic had it for a week, but found nothing to connect it to the robbery.

Nothing more had been heard of the gang in the months that followed, and the general feeling by midsummer was that the robbery had been a one-off, probably prompted by someone learning that the money taken over the holiday weekend wouldn't be banked until the following Tuesday. So, with no further activity and with no new evidence to go on, the case was quietly shelved and more or less forgotten.

Until shortly after one o'clock on a Saturday morning in July, when four men, dressed in black, baggy clothes, wearing ski masks, and each carrying a short iron bar, burst into the home of a local solicitor, where he and a small group of business friends were enjoying their weekly poker game. The stakes weren't large by some standards, but there could be chips worth several hundred pounds on the table at any given time, and the rule of the house was that all bets had to be settled in cash at the end of the evening.

Four men and one woman were at the table: Walter Roach, the host of the weekly card game; Paul Preston, owner of a leasing company dealing in heavy earth-moving equipment; Roy Appleyard, who owned a plumbing business; Alice Nelson, owner-manager of the Broadminster Volvo dealership; and Dr Gerald Warden one of the partners in the Broadminster Medical Clinic.