Deadly Friends (17 page)

‘As he did know about it,’ Sparky said, ‘he must have had his reasons for keeping quiet.’

‘Perhaps he was waiting his opportunity for
revenge,’ Nigel suggested, adding, ‘she’s a bit older than I expected. I’d have thought the doc could have found someone nearer his own age.’

‘Experience, Nigel,’ I said. ‘There’s no substitute.’ ‘I’ll take your word for it.’

‘Maybe her husband was having it away with someone, himself,’ I suggested, ‘and was happy for her to have her little games with the doctor. Grateful, even.’

‘That’s what I’d wondered,’ Sparky claimed. ‘Or maybe he just couldn’t keep up with her, and was grateful for someone to help him out. It can’t be easy, married to someone like that.’

‘Cor! I wouldn’t mind giving it a try,’ Nigel enthused.

‘Sounds like penal servitude to me,’ I said. ‘Look into it. See what the word is among the nursing staff. What about their alibis?’

‘Engraved in stone,’ Nigel told me. ‘We’ve talked to everybody at the party. They started arriving shortly after seven and stayed until the early hours.’

‘So neither of them pulled the trigger.’

‘No way.’

I altered the number on the chart next to their names to three – foolproof.

Chief Superintendent Isles sent a message via his secretary apologising for not being able to attend my little presentation that morning and wondering if I could give him a quick run-through of the case so far in his office, first thing tomorrow? I said: ‘Yes,’ naturally,
and before I went home I asked Luke to redraw the charts in a more portable format.

I had an hour’s snooze in an easy chair, catching up on the radio news, and dined on chicken tikka makhani. That’s choice pieces of chicken breast, marinated in a garam masala, coriander and fenugreek sauce and served with turmeric rice. It only took six minutes in the microwave. I followed it with tinned grapefruit and a pot of Earl Grey.

Sparky had loaned me the video of Oliver Stone’s JFK. I swivelled the chair round so my feet would reach the settee and settled down, the teapot within easy reach of my right hand. The phone rang in the middle of the newsreel sequence of the assassination, as we saw the fatal shot to Kennedy’s head, the secret serviceman diving on to the cavernous trunk of the Cadillac and Mrs Kennedy trying to climb out of the back. History captured on film, as it happened, and telling us less about the President’s killers than we know about King Harold’s. I found the stop button on the remote control and picked up the phone.

It was Annabelle. ‘Hello, Charles, I’m home,’ she said.

‘You should have told me when you were coming,’ I told her, sinking back into my chair. ‘I could have met you at the station.’

‘I’m sure you have much better things to do. Have you eaten?’

‘No, I wouldn’t have anything better to do, and yes, I’m afraid I have eaten.’

‘Never mind. What did you have?’

‘Frozen curry.’

‘Sounds delicious,’ she laughed.

‘It was OK,’ I told her. ‘I was just settling down to watch a video. Sparky lent me JFK. It’s about a District Attorney from New Orleans, Jim Garrison, who took out a prosecution against some gangsters over the Kennedy assassination.’

‘I’ve heard of it. It’s on my list of “must sees”.’

‘Do you want me to save it for another time?’

‘That would be nice,’ she said. ‘I was going to invite you round for a meal. We could watch it afterwards.’

‘Great. When?’

‘Tomorrow?’

‘Super. That’s something for me to look forward to. How did your trip go?’

‘Very well, Charles. I’ll tell you all about it when I see you.’

We said our goodbyes and I put the phone down a happier man than when I picked it up. I rewound the tape and tried to pick up the threads of The Bill. It wasn’t too difficult.

Les Isles nodded approvingly when he saw my fancy computer-generated diagram. ‘It’s nice to see that my older officers are embracing the new technology,’ he said, grinning.

‘It was on the flip-chart until late yesterday,’ I confessed.

‘Don’t disillusion me, Charlie. What does it tell us?’

I went through the list of characters, starting with Ged Skinner and making a diversion to tell him about Darryl Buxton and the rape. He listened, nodding and sucking his teeth.

‘What’s happening with this one?’ he asked, tapping Rodney Allen’s name with the tip of his pen.

‘The malpractice allegation,’ I said. ‘DS Newley’s contacting Scarborough CID this morning. If he’s available we’ll dash over to interview him.’

‘Is that where he lives?’

‘Mmm, but he originates from Heckley. Apparently he’s a bachelor, not very bright, lived with his mother, hence the grief when she died.’

‘It sounds better all the time,’ Les declared.
Middle-aged
men living with their parents always attract suspicion, even if their only crime is to be unlucky in love.

‘It does, doesn’t it?’ I agreed.

‘And then there’s this lot.’ He pointed to the box marked ‘Abortions’. ‘God knows what we can do about them. Keep working at all these alibis, Charlie, but cross your fingers that Rodney doesn’t have one. It’s him, I can feel it in my water.’

We’d all said that about Ged Skinner, but I didn’t remind him.

Nigel was in the office, typing a report. I clicked the switch on the kettle and asked him what was happening.

‘Waiting for Scarborough to ring me back,’ he
replied. ‘I’ve faxed the details to them. Sparky and Maggie are paying a return visit to the White Rose Clinic, encouraging the nursing staff to gossip about their medical director.’

‘Dr Barraclough,’ I sighed, for no reason other than to give a name to the title. In this job, we deal with individuals, not positions.

‘What did Mr Isles have to say?’ Nigel asked.

‘He’s happy enough. Thinks it’s Rodders what did it. Carry on as we are, no extra staff.’

‘Great.’

‘It won’t be great if we don’t arrest someone soon and it goes to review. Then it’ll be: “What have you been playing at for all this time?”’

I brewed myself a mug of tea, paused with the teabag dripping off the spoon as I looked for somewhere to put it, said: ‘Oh, sod it,’ and dropped it in the bin.

Nigel was on the phone when I turned round, looking as if the lottery unclaimed prizes crew had finally tracked him down. ‘Scarborough CID,’ he hissed at me, briefly covering the mouthpiece as he listened. ‘One moment,’ he told them. He moved the instrument away from his face and said: ‘They sent a DC round and he’s now in hospital. Rodders laid about him with what he thinks was a double-barrelled shotgun and he’s barricaded himself in. Fancy a trip to Scarborough?’

‘You bet!’ I told him.

‘We’re on our way over,’ he told them. ‘It’ll take
us about two hours. You’d better give me some directions.’

We needed a breakthrough and this looked like it. You have a murder on your conscience, there’s a knock at the door and when you answer it a detective flashes his ID at you and asks your name. You panic. The more I thought about it, the better it looked. I drove while Nigel phoned City HQ to get a message to Mr Isles. No harm in letting him know that his hunch was paying off.

It’s a fast road to Scarborough, on a Tuesday in winter. As soon as the days lengthen and the sun comes out for more than an hour it clogs with caravans and a procession of coaches and asthmatic family cars that have seen more polish than petrol. But not today. Driving can be a pleasure on empty roads, even when the temperature is hovering just above zero and sleet is in the air. Going to catch a murderer adds a sense of purpose to the journey.

A Scarborough panda was waiting for us in a layby on the outskirts of town. I pulled in behind him and Nigel dashed out to introduce himself. They led us to a little estate of bungalows, ideal for retired couples, on the north side.

‘Brrr! It’s freezing,’ Nigel had complained as he got back in. His coat was spotted with raindrops.

It was circus time on the estate. The street was cordoned off but everyone was out to watch the excitement, wearing big anoraks and woollen hats
against the weather. I expected the ice-cream man to pull round the corner anytime, jingle blaring, desperate for a sale. The wind was coming straight off the North Sea, and tasted of salt. I pulled my down jacket on and we went looking for whoever was in charge.

‘DI Charlie Priest, from Heckley,’ I told the uniformed inspector, when we found him, ‘and this is DS Nigel Newley.’ I explained our involvement, and why we wanted to talk to the man barricaded in the house, namely Rodney Allen. He was grateful for the information. Up to then, he’d been struggling to know what it was all about.

‘How’s the DC who was assaulted?’ I asked.

‘Not too bad, Charlie,’ he replied. ‘It’s just a scalp wound.’

‘But Rodney hit him with a shotgun?’

‘That was the first story, but since then the DC has changed his mind. He thinks it might have been a length of pipe, wrapped in a plastic bag.’

‘What, to look like a gun?’ Nigel asked.

‘Possibly. The DC can’t be sure, but now he says it didn’t feel like a shotgun.’

We all smiled. ‘Is he an expert on how it feels to be bashed on the bonce with various tubular devices?’ I wondered.

‘I think I know what he means, with the emphasis on the think, but we can’t take chances.’

‘Of course not,’ I said. ‘Have you seen Rodney?’

‘Oh, yes, he keeps appearing at the window,
brandishing what could be a gun, or a piece of pipe in a bag. There’s a phone in there, but he won’t answer it.’

‘So what’s happening?’

‘Nothing until we get some reinforcements. I’ve sent for a negotiator, too. Up to now we’ve just concentrated on housing him. Soon as I’ve a few more bodies I want the street clearing and some form of communications setting up. In the light of what you’ve told us I’d say we need the TFU, as well.’

‘What do the neighbours say about him?’

‘That he’s a bit simple. Lived with his mother until she died, now he’s alone. He’s a voluntary patient at North Bay House – that’s a psychiatric hospital on the edge of town. We’ve sent someone there to find out if he has a doctor or anyone who can come and talk to him.’

‘Do you mind if I ring him?’ I asked.

‘Be my guest.’ He dictated the number and in a few seconds I was listening to the ringing tone, but he didn’t answer.

I turned to Nigel. ‘Fancy a burger?’

‘We passed a place down the road,’ he replied.

‘Mind if we leave you at it?’ I asked the local man. ‘You know where we’ll be.’

We lingered over the burgers. I rang Annabelle to tell her where I was in case I was delayed, although I was determined not to be, but she wasn’t answering, either. We had a couple of hours at the scene of the
siege and briefly saw Rodney at a window, brandishing his weapon, whatever it was. A superintendent took charge of proceedings and used a loud-hailer to no avail. I tried on the mobile again, with similar lack of success. Rodney was deaf to our efforts. Unsmiling policemen from the tactical firearms unit, in baseball caps with chequered bands around them, took up positions in gardens and windows. They brandished their Heckler and Koch MP5s as if they were the latest fashion accessories. We had another cuppa at the burger house, which was rapidly becoming the siege canteen, and went for a last look at Rodney’s neat little bungalow, with its pocket handkerchief lawn and plastic window boxes.

‘Ah, there you are,’ the superintendent said, when he saw us. ‘This is Dr …’ he stumbled over a name with too many syllables – it sounded like ‘ram in a woolly jumper’ to me, ‘… who is Allen’s pychiatrist at North Bay House.’

I shook hands with a plump grey-haired lady who wore a fur coat over pantaloons. ‘How do you do, Doctor,’ I said, wondering if the fur was fake, deciding it wasn’t. We sat in her car and I told her what I understood about the post-mortem on Rodney’s mother, about the malpractice charges and Dr Jordan’s subsequent murder.

When I’d finished Nigel asked: ‘What exactly are Rodney’s problems, Doctor?’

She chose her words carefully. ‘Exactly is not an
expression we recognise in psychiatry,’ she replied. ‘Rodney came to us for the first time after the death of his mother. He had a morbid fascination for her, possibly brought on by dwelling on the details of the post-mortem. He suffers from anxiety, panic attacks and depression. There may be incipient schizophrenia. He has not been sectioned and we do not regard him as violent in any way. He comes to us on a voluntary basis, usually as an out-patient, at the recommendation of his GP. Most of the time he gets by in the community, which is as much as we can hope for, these days. We take him in if we can, when things are getting too much, but generally speaking we don’t have room for him and he is quite capable of existing by his own resources.’

‘Would you say he was capable of shooting the doctor?’ I asked. No point in beating about the cabbage patch.

‘No more than you or I, Inspector,’ she replied, which wasn’t very helpful but made a lot of sense.

Nigel said: ‘Has he sufficient nous to travel to Heckley by public transport?’

‘Oh, yes. He has certain difficulties, what you might call being slow, but can function normally in society. He’s sick, not stupid.’

She started her car engine and set the blower on maximum to clear the condensation. The lenses in her spectacles were thick enough to start a forest fire on an overcast day. It was dark outside, and flakes of sleet
slid down the windows. A floodlight illuminated the outside of the bungalow.

‘When did you last see Rodney?’ I asked.

‘New Year’s Day,’ she replied, without hesitation.

‘You were open New Year’s day?’ I queried.

‘We’re not a corner shop, Inspector,’ she admonished. ‘We are there for the benefit of our patients. Holiday times can be particularly stressful for them.’

‘And the rest of us,’ I sighed.

‘Actually,’ she said, ‘we do not have out-patients at holiday times, but sometimes we have vacancies and can take certain vulnerable cases in for a few days. We felt Rodney fell into that category.’

Why did Nigel shuffle uncomfortably in his seat? Why did I suddenly wish I was somewhere else, like having a prostate biopsy?