Bricks and Mortality: Campbell & Carter 3 (23 page)

‘Yeah,’ muttered Alfie, ‘I know you an’ all.’ He raised his head. ‘You ain’t looking for me, are you? Because I haven’t done anything.’

‘No, I wasn’t looking for you,’ she reassured him.

Alfie required more reassurance than that. ‘You got that sergeant with you?’

‘Sergeant Morton? No, I’m here on my own. How are you getting on now, Alfie? Not got into any more trouble selling drugs around your mates, I hope?’

‘You won’t find nothing on me!’ burst out Alfie with sudden passion. ‘I’m clean. You can search me and you won’t find
nothing
! Not unless you plant it there.’

‘Why would I do that? Search you, I mean. I’m glad to hear you’re not dealing any more. Don’t be tempted to go back to it.’
As if advice from me would make any difference!
thought Jess ruefully.

‘I haven’t done anything!’ Alfie howled. ‘You coppers are all the same. Someone gets in your black book and you try and nail him for everything that happens. I haven’t done anything, right?’

More starkly expressed, this echoed what Gervase had said in the yard of The Royal Oak. As for Alfie? No, Jess had already decided, you’ve done nothing I know about, but you are very jumpy. She could now make out the faded lettering on his shirt.
All Property is Theft
, it read. Did this go with the attempt to grow a beard? Had Alfie taken up politics? ‘Have you got a job?’ she asked.

‘Naw.’ Alfie scowled at her. ‘I lost that and all, didn’t I?’

‘There can’t be much going in Weston St Ambrose,’ commiserated Jess. ‘Perhaps you should try somewhere bigger, Cheltenham or Gloucester. You’d have to move out of here and live there.’

‘I had a place to live in town, didn’t I? Not a job, but I had a place to live. Only I had to leave it. So now I’m living back here with my mum. Only temporary,’ Alfie finished.

‘Well, good luck, anyway, Alfie,’ she wished him.

Alfie took this as dismissal and scuttled away down the street.

Whatever it is he’s into now, thought Jess, the police will hear about it sooner or later. Hope it doesn’t land on my desk.

‘So, what do we make of this, Jess?’ Carter asked.

The note, in its transparent envelope, lay on his desk. Morton, who had been called in for the discussion of this new piece of evidence, said mistrustfully, ‘I don’t buy it.’

‘How about you?’ Carter prompted her.

‘It’s certainly odd,’ she admitted. ‘Why not just use a computer? Who nowadays uses newsprint and glue for this sort of thing?’

‘Someone who hasn’t got access to a computer,’ Carter said. ‘Or wants us to think so.’

‘Got access to a photocopier, though,’ Morton growled.

‘Coin-operated copiers are available all over the place,’ Jess put in. ‘Whoever composed this note knew that we’d test it for fingerprints and DNA. A newsprint and glue job would have provided masses of evidence pointing at whoever made it. So, having made it, the writer took it along to a copier and made a copy. The copy emerges untouched by human hand from the machine and the author, whoever it was, only handles it with gloves – or picks it up with tweezers, something like that. I didn’t handle it. Gervase says he didn’t show it to anyone at the hotel. The only fingerprints or DNA on that will turn out to belong to Gervase Crown.’

‘So, is the author of the note being very clever?’ Carter asked them.

‘For my money,’ Morton had made up his mind already, ‘Crown made that thing up himself. He’s getting worried that we’re going to finger him for being responsible for the fire. OK, he didn’t go to the house himself with a can of petrol and a box of matches. But he organised someone else to do it. It wasn’t Pietrangelo; I admit I went down the wrong road there. No, it’s someone else and Pietrangelo turns up unexpectedly just as the fire-raiser is going to do the business. He gets bopped on the head. The fire-raiser strikes his match and leaves the house and the unconscious Pietrangelo to burn.’

‘I’m sure Crown would find his way to a computer,’ Jess objected. ‘I just don’t see him sitting there, painstakingly cutting up newspapers. Although the hotel puts out a daily paper in the lounge, generally a tabloid. Crown mentioned that himself. So he would have a source of old newsprint to hand. I still think it’s strange the letter was composed that way. It’s – it’s old fashioned.’

‘Not so old fashioned that the author is unaware of modern forensic procedures,’ Carter pointed out.

‘It’s all part of Crown’s game,’ was Morton’s opinion. ‘He’s smart. He hopes we won’t think he did it, because it’s an old-style threatening letter as would be composed by someone who doesn’t have a computer; and either can’t be bothered with punctuation or doesn’t understand how to use it. Crown wants us to think this is someone without much education, not a public-school man like himself. But,’ Morton raised a forefinger to mark his next point, ‘he also realises we might just conclude that he’s out to trick us like that. So, he photocopies the original as a hint to us that the composer isn’t just a simple, old-fashioned nut. It leaves us not knowing what to make of it. Also, any traces leading back to him on it are put down to his handling it as it is now, not to his sticking the letters on to the paper. He’s running rings round us, or trying to.’

‘I think you’re on to something there, Phil,’ Carter agreed.

Morton looked startled at having one of his ideas approved at long last.

‘Someone is certainly trying to put us off the scent. But is it Crown himself? You could say Crown’s a manipulator. He’s manipulating us, right now. Or he’s on the level and he really did find the note in his room. What do you think, Jess?’

Jess took her time replying as the other two waited. At last, she said, ‘I think Crown was a worried man when we spoke. He put up a good front, but he was genuinely rattled. At the end of the day, there was a dead man in the ruins of his house. Perhaps he thinks we aren’t taking the threat to his personal safety seriously enough. So it is possible he created that note to make us do more than we are to protect him. But if it is real, then someone is using that to frighten him. Someone wants him to leave Weston St Ambrose. By the way, he was very keen I should understand that Kit Stapleton couldn’t be responsible. He discounted Petra Stapleton and the sisters’ mother, as well.

‘I agree that Petra’s in a wheelchair and couldn’t have got upstairs at The Royal Oak. They don’t run to a lift. Also, a wheelchair is noticeable. None of the hotel staff would have paid any heed to a local person who came in to the hotel this morning on their own two feet, but someone would have noticed a wheelchair – or a person using crutches as Petra does to move out of her chair. Kit Stapleton has already been there once to tell Gervase to stay away from her sister. Kit’s a tough nut, very determined, in my judgement. If Gervase shows no sign of going, she might do something to encourage him.’

‘Like this?’ Carter indicated the note.

Jess looked unhappy, ‘I wouldn’t have thought it Kit’s style. But who knows? She’s tried direct confrontation with Crown. He’s brushed that off. She could be trying something else.’

‘Mother Stapleton?’ he suggested.

‘Too much of a lady, in Gervase’s view.’

‘It might be worth having a word with her, even so.’

‘Send Stubbs,’ suggested Morton. ‘He’s very good with old ladies. They make him tea and feed him biscuits and get out the family photo album.’

‘DC Stubbs it is, then. Tell him to get along there. Also, we mustn’t forget the Foscotts,’ Carter murmured, looking down at the note again.

‘Reggie?’ Jess was astonished. ‘He’s Gervase Crown’s solicitor, and his wife is Crown’s cousin.’

Ian Carter had an answer for that. ‘Families have been known to go to some extraordinary lengths to preserve a good name. A threatening letter isn’t the worst. Crown caused a lot of grief when younger. His lifestyle suggests he might still be a loose cannon. It might suit the Foscotts to have cousin Gervase back in Portugal where he can’t cause any trouble here.’

‘Or they suspect he was behind the fire at the house,’ Morton clung to his theory. ‘Foscott’s reputation as a solicitor might be clouded by an association with a fire-raiser.’

‘There is another possibility, admittedly an outside one but it ought not to be overlooked.’ Carter paused and they looked at him expectantly. ‘Reggie Foscott is Gervase Crown’s solicitor, as you reminded us, Inspector Campbell. That means he will almost certainly have drawn up Gervase’s will. He must know what it contains. It does not appear to be an extensive family. Serena Foscott is Gervase’s cousin. Gervase is a rich man.’

‘He might have left it all to her?’ Morton exclaimed.

‘If not all, then why not at least a substantial sum?’ Carter drew a deep breath. ‘I’d say they need the money. It struck me when I called on Serena that the Foscotts might, well, not be living beyond their means exactly. But they are certainly living up to the limit of them. They have a large property on which, it wouldn’t surprise me, there could still be a mortgage. Their daughter has a pony. No stable on the premises. The animal must be kept at a livery establishment, costing an arm and a leg. I’d put my money on young Charlie attending a private school. They will need to maintain and keep on the road two cars. The furniture in that house is good, but old and dilapidated and my guess is that much of it was inherited in the first place. No decorating has been done inside or out for some time. And they can’t afford outside garden maintenance. The drive is full of weeds. It was the increased cost to maintain Key House that put Reggie Foscott off his wife’s idea to buy it. It was buy the house or keep the pony, they couldn’t do both.’

Jess said slowly, ‘Gervase is safe from harm all the time he remains in Portugal, out of reach. When he comes back here, it’s on flying visits. That gives anyone who wants to get at him a very limited window.’

Morton took up the hint. ‘So, if anyone meant him any harm, they’d have to lure him back to this country for a stay of more than a couple of days. Burning down his family home could do that.’

‘But surely the Foscotts wouldn’t go to those lengths? Not if Serena really wanted to buy it!’ argued Jess. ‘The Foscotts would be the last people to want it in ruins.’

This interesting line of speculation was cut short. A knock on the door heralded the apologetic face of DC Bennison.

‘Sorry to interrupt again, sir, but I thought you might like to know that there was an attempted raid on Briskett’s bank this morning. Two guys rushed in, wearing stocking masks, and one brandishing a shotgun. A third, the getaway driver, waited outside.’

‘Briskett’s bank? Sarah Gresham works there!’ Jess exclaimed.

Bennison’s braids bobbed enthusiastically. ‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘What do you mean by “failed”?’ asked Campbell tersely.

‘Someone hit an alarm button, sir. The guy with the shotgun panicked and fired off the weapon but only hit one of those paying-in machines and blew a hole in that. Then the raiders fled empty-handed. Bit of a shambles, really.’

Campbell turned to Morton. ‘You’d better get over there, Phil, and find out what’s going on. What about the girl, Sarah Gresham?’

Bennison was informative about that, too. ‘Apparently she’d broken down in hysterics by the time the uniformed officers got there, ma’am. Not because of the shock, although you wouldn’t blame her. But it’s because she got a glimpse of the getaway car. It was a Renault Clio and she swears it’s the one belonging to her boyfriend, the missing Clio, even though the number plate was different. Something about a dent she recognised. A witness outside in the street did manage to jot down a partial number and it doesn’t match Pietrangelo’s. But Sarah Gresham is still insisting it’s his!’

‘She’s going to think every Clio she sees is her boyfriend’s car, poor kid,’ said Carter with a sigh. ‘That doesn’t mean this bungled bank job one isn’t his though. The number plates could’ve been changed. Robbers are well aware of new vehicle recognition technology in the hands of the police. It’s been made public we’re looking for Pietrangelo’s car. If they used it, they’d have given it different plates. OK, Phil, on your way. Take DC Bennison here with you.’

A little over half an hour later, Morton called in, all but crowing in triumph.

‘We have the bank raider’s car, sir. It was abandoned on the outskirts of Cheltenham. It is a Renault Clio. The number plates have been changed but not the identification marks, and it’s the missing one, Matthew Pietrangelo’s car! His girlfriend was right.’

‘Good! exclaimed Carter with satisfaction. ‘So now we have to find out how it got from Key House, where Pietrangelo had presumably parked it, to waiting with the engine running outside Briskett’s bank in town.’

Morton suggested, ‘Either the murderer drove it away from Key House, or someone else came along and found it. A joy-rider?’

Jess said slowly, ‘It may mean nothing. But when I was in Weston St Ambrose this morning, I met Alfie Darrow in the street. You may remember him, sir? From the Balaclava House case?’

‘I certainly do,’ said Carter. ‘Shifty little tyke, as I recall. I wonder if he’s still peddling those pills.’

‘He says he’s not,’ Jess told him. ‘But he wasn’t happy to see me. He’s out of a job at the moment and, if he’s really not pushing drugs now, he’ll be short of cash. He used to work in a garage. He likes cars. He was definitely jumpy. He couldn’t have been involved in the robbery; he just hasn’t the nerve and the other members of the gang wouldn’t be able to rely on him. Not that they could rely on each other, from the sounds of it! Anyway, Alfie was wandering along the street in Weston St Ambrose at a loose end not a couple of hours later, out in the open for anyone to see, even me. But I believe he isn’t unacquainted with Key House. He’s got a T-shirt with “All Property is Theft” written on it. Roger Trenton told me he spoke to one of the druggies using the house, and he was wearing a T-shirt like that. If Alfie had wandered up to Key House to stash some of his stock of pills, say, and he saw a nice car like the Clio parked with no one around …’

‘Say no more, Jess,’ said Carter. ‘We’ll invite Mr Darrow to come and have a chat with us. Alfie might not have been pleased to see you this morning, but he will be when he realises you could turn out to be his alibi.’