Design for Murder (12 page)

‘Raymond Conroy isn’t a
proven
killer,’ Sharon reminded him. ‘We got him off, remember?’

‘But there are lots of people out there who believe the police got the right man, and that Conroy really is the Zodiac Killer.’

‘And this Fraser guy wants to cash in on that,’ Sharon suggested.

Eric hesitated. ‘Well, yes, but I think it’s more than cash, more than just money. Listening to him, watching him, I wondered whether it’s not so much cash as perhaps fame, or really, more importantly, self-belief.’

‘He wants to write a book about Conroy?’

Eric shrugged. ‘A book. Articles. I don’t know. We didn’t get all that far in our discussion. He wanted me to tell him where Conroy was hanging out. I refused to give him any information about it. And the letter to you—’

‘I shan’t answer it,’ Sharon said firmly. She snuggled more closely against Eric’s shoulder. ‘Anyway, let’s get back to my family file. I want to show you something that’s linked to the adventurous and mysterious life of my grandfather, George Chivers.’

She put down her brandy glass and took the file from him. She riffled through the papers, discarding the later information relating to the trust funds and turned up some affidavits and legal documents from the 1970s. ‘This is about the time grandfather George set up the trust in favour of his putative grandchildren. Me and Coleen Chivers, as it turned out.’

Eric frowned. ‘Yes, I’d wondered about that. George Chivers had set up a successful business. When he died, he left a considerable amount of money to his two children, Peter and Anne Chivers. But he also set up a trust fund for his grandchildren. Now, I’ll admit that kind of provision is
not exactly unusual, but was there any particular reason why he should establish separate funds for his children and grandchildren?’

Sharon snorted. ‘Family quarrels, what else?’

‘About what?’

‘That’s where there’s a bit of a mystery. Old George died in 1980. His estate was split between Peter and Anne, his children, with provisions for his widow Flora, including some lifetime settlements. My own mother would never talk about it, but it seems Flora and George were at loggerheads during his last years, that Peter got involved, and tempers rose to such an extent that George made a new will, and also set up the trust fund for me and Coleen. I never saw much of my granddad – he was still spending a lot of time in Scotland at that period – and I just wasn’t around when the quarrels broke out. And my mother kept schtum about it all. I have often wondered since, however, whether it had something to do with what George was doing in Scotland during those years. I know he’d established some light industry up there, a paper mill or something like that, but I’ve also received the impression – from where I can’t tell you, family chat or what – that he was also involved in some cloak-and-dagger stuff. You know, government hush-hush activity. The kind of thing that doesn’t get talked about.’

‘And you’ve no idea…?’

Sharon shrugged, brushing away a lock of blonde hair from her eyes. ‘I don’t know. I’ve never been particularly interested in the political situation in the seventies. But this is what I wanted you to see.’ She extracted a sheet of paper from the file. ‘It’s all rather inconclusive, since it looks to me as though earlier correspondence has been weeded from the file.’

Eric recalled his conversation with the family lawyer
Strudmore. The solicitor had suggested letters certainly had been taken out of the file concerning George Chivers’ romantic activities in Scotland. ‘And you think it was in some way security related?’

‘Uh-huh. I’ve got a feeling about it. Or maybe it was whispers around when I was a child. Anyway, read the letter.’

Eric took it from her. It was on headed notepaper, a firm of solicitors in Glasgow. It was brief and to the point.

Eric frowned. ‘Who was the client?’

Sharon smiled. ‘Who can tell? Maybe it was something started by grandfather George. Or Flora, when she was widowed. I don’t know.’

‘Doesn’t the date tell you anything?’ Eric queried.

‘Oh, this letter was certainly written just after George Chivers died, so it could well be Flora who was the aggrieved client threatening libel action, but on the other hand I would guess the issue had arisen before grandfather George died, so maybe he was the client referred to.’

‘You can’t libel a dead man,’ Eric reminded her.

‘But an action could be possible if the libel involved other people, or suggested nefarious activity on the part of others—’

‘But hardly security issues.’

‘Why not?’ Sharon asked.

‘Slim….’ Eric turned the letter over in his hands. ‘One could always find out the identity of the client by approaching the Glasgow firm.’

‘If one had the energy,’ Sharon admitted. ‘And provided the Glasgow lawyers didn’t feel themselves bound by issues of confidentiality. Anyway, it’s not all that important. I showed the letter to you just to emphasize that there have been several mysteries, a number of skeletons in the family past. What’s certain is grandfather George was a somewhat secretive guy, spent a lot of time in his last years up in Scotland, fell out with his children and probably with Flora as well, could have been involved with government contracts of a security nature … and it all blew up into the setting up of a trust fund, for unborn children, thus finally in favour of two girls who were innocent of involvement in the quarrels, as opposed to passing the whole of his estate to his son and daughter.’ She grinned at him. ‘
Voilà
! Why should I worry, in the end? I find myself a wealthy woman.’

‘Who could have been wealthier if she had held out against her cousin.’

‘Hey, what does it matter? It’s only money!’

‘It clearly matters to Coleen Chivers,’ Eric reminded her.

‘Who’s running her own life, as I’m running mine. And I can’t ignore the sins of the fathers – that is, the depredations of my father James Owen, in breach of the trust he was handling on our behalf.’ She finished her brandy, leaned her head back on the settee and smiled at him mischievously. ‘So, I’ll sign these agreements you’ve brought for me, and then how about taking a wealthy woman to bed?’

Assistant Chief Constable Jim Charteris had been quite clear in the instructions he had issued. There was to be no secrecy involved in the watch to be kept on Raymond Conroy. He wanted Conroy to be fully aware that he was being kept under surveillance. It was simply a matter of increasing the pressure on the man.

‘Let’s be clear about this. I want you people to crawl all over him, closer than bed bugs on a mattress. When he’s at home I want him to see your car parked nearby. When he walks in the street I want you to be at his back. If he goes to a bar for a drink, you’ll get your elbows on the counter within a few feet. If he goes to a restaurant, you’ll be ordering on a table close by. When he goes to bed and twitches a curtain he’ll see you; when he gets up in the morning and looks out, you’ll be there. DCI Spate will organize your rota, and you’ll follow it. You’ll be on Conroy’s tail like dogs sniffing a bitch, and I want him to know it.’

‘You told us he’d left the hotel in Gosforth where he got beaten up,’ one of the detective constables called out. ‘Is he on the move again yet, sir?’

Charteris glanced at Spate and then shook his head. ‘No. Our latest information is that he’s living in rented accommodation we’ve identified. Not a poverty-stricken man, our friend. DCI Spate will give you the details.’

‘Could be Conroy will scream about harassment,’ a detective sergeant suggested.

‘Let him scream,’ Charteris replied grimly. ‘The whole point of this exercise is to make Conroy uncomfortable. So bloody uncomfortable that he gets out of our patch. He’s walked away from the Midlands because things are too hot
for him down there; I want to make sure that the heat gets too much for him up here as well. Conroy has skated away from the charges brought against him here in Newcastle, but if he thinks he can rebuild his life up here, let’s change his mind. I want the pressure on, fierce. And I want him out of our area.’

It was one of the most boring assignments Charlie Spate had ever undertaken.

He organized the rotas for the seven officers assigned to the business; he made sure Elaine Start was not one of them. She showed her appreciation in bed at the end of the first week. After two weeks she repeated the performance. When he lay back finally, exhausted, bathed in sweat, he threw back the sheets from his body and told her about it. ‘The guy just pays no attention to us at all. He follows the same routine, day after day. He leaves the house in the morning and drives down to the shopping centre. He buys a newspaper; he goes to a café – the same café each day – and lingers over a coffee. Sometimes he buys a second cup. By midday he’s on his way to Newcastle. He parks in a side street up near St James’s football ground. He takes lunch at one of the restaurants in The Gate centre. By five he’s back home in his rented house.’

‘Does he go out in the evenings?’ Elaine asked in a tone notable for its lack of real interest. ‘Does he hit the town?’

‘Well, as far as we can see he has a snack at home most evenings, probably watches television, but there’s been seven occasions when he’s gone out to a pub. He takes three drinks: two halves of lager, followed by a brandy and soda. Then he goes home.’

‘So what does our revered assistant chief constable make of the reports that are handed in?’

Charlie sighed, turned over onto his side, slipped an arm
across her naked breasts. ‘He’s said nothing. But he must be as bored reading them as we are in keeping tabs on this character Conroy.’

‘At least there have been no more reports of the Zodiac Killer returning to his unpleasant games.’

‘I think that’s one of the things that Charteris has at the back of his mind. He wants Conroy off our patch. The last thing he wants is to have a killing in the area that could be laid at the door of Raymond Conroy.’

The boring routine continued for another twelve days. Meanwhile, unknown to Charlie, in the Midlands new developments had changed the picture completely.

They had been watching the clubs for weeks, undercover officers merging into the background, half-screened by strobe lights, half-deafened by pulsating, throbbing dance music. They had moved among the gyrating dancers, kept watch on the suspects they were pretty sure had been moving the drug scene on, until finally they felt they had enough evidence to crack down.

But the orders from above were to wait a little longer, until the shipment arrived.

It came in on a freighter which docked at Liverpool. The packages left the Mersey in a lorry ostensibly carrying machine tools and spare parts for the car industry. The distribution was due to take place in a deserted warehouse scheduled for demolition near the canal, and several of the pushers were in attendance. Contact was maintained by wireless between the customs officers, who had been tracking the shipment, and the local police. The operation had been rehearsed, finely scheduled, and in the event it worked like clockwork. As the packs of cocaine were unloaded from the lorry a police Land Rover smashed into
the decrepit wooden doors of the warehouse. It was followed by two other vehicles: they skidded through the debris of the doors and blocked the entrance, while men in riot gear poured out of the rear doors.

Shouts rang out and the panicked dealers scurried like rats in a cellar, running in all directions but only three managed to escape the cordon, smashing their way out of one of the dirty, stained windows on the floor above, and dropping to the alleyway at the back of the warehouse.

Detective Sergeant Parsons recognized one of the men, who was running down towards the darkness of the canal towpath. His name was Dawkins: he was a skinny
twenty-year
-old with a history of violent crime going back over seven years. He had escaped time and again, first at the instigation of weak judges who thought he could be rehabilitated, later by pure luck, lack of evidence and pusillanimous solicitors in the Crime Prosecution Service. But this time young Dawkins was caught bang to rights. And DS Parsons had no intention of letting the young thug escape again.

In spite of the darkness he was able to follow his quarry easily enough. Parsons had been brought up in this area and knew every alleyway and narrow street on the patch. He soon guessed that Dawkins was heading for a maze of decrepit streets where he hoped to vanish, perhaps into a pub, perhaps into some dark corner where he would huddle until the pursuer lost him, gave up the chase, was exhausted by the hunt. Then he would emerge, find a safe house.

Except there would be no safe house, because DS Parsons knew the identity of the man he pursued, and if not tonight, there would be another time to take him into custody.

But DS Parsons was a stubborn and impatient man. He didn’t like Dawkins. He meant to get him, and lay hands on
him tonight. He was still aware of distant shouting as the rest of the gang was rounded up but he was concentrating on Dawkins. All was suddenly silent ahead of him, and Parsons slowed, stopped, listened. The streets were dark. There was a pub not more than 200 yards away where lights shone, but even they seemed muted, dimmed, as though everyone in the area was waiting with bated breath as DS Parsons stalked his prey.

At last he reached the spot where he guessed Dawkins was lying low: it was an entry between two tall, disused buildings. He thought he detected a scuffling sound and he moved forward carefully. He picked up a light creaking at the end of the entry and he flicked his torch: the beam lit up the damply dripping walls of the alleyway and the rickety door at the end wall.