Murder of a Dead Man (19 page)

‘Four socks?’

‘Four socks,’ Trevor held them at arm’s length with his bagged hand and dropped them on top of the sweater.

‘Two pairs of underpants.’

‘This is getting sick,’ Anna turned her back on the grey rags Trevor lifted from the case.

‘What did you expect? Silk boxer shorts?’

Trevor discarded them on top of the growing pile of clothes.

‘Newspapers?’ Dan queried.

Trevor pulled out a yellowed, brittle bundle secured by an elastic band. He checked the date on the outside one. ‘This goes back two years.’ He opened it out and read the headlines.

ESCAPED KILLER ON THE RUN.

‘Weaver?’ Dan asked.

‘Who else?’ Trevor unrolled the others. They all carried the same story. He dropped the bundle on top of the clothes. There was little else in the case.

Two tins of beans, one of sausages, a lethal-looking, rusty tin opener with a spiked end – a plastic bag that had once held bread but now contained half a bar of gelatinous soap, and an unsanitary piece of ragged towel.

‘Is that it?’ Trevor looked at Dan who’d been ticking the items off the list.

‘They found photographs in the lining.’

Trevor rummaged in the case.

‘Try inside,’ Anna suggested. ‘They may have replaced everything as they found it.’

Trevor found two photographs stuffed into the spine of the case. One was a studio portrait of a beautiful blonde wearing a beguiling smile and a plunging neckline. Anna knew who she was. She’d torn a similar photograph to shreds when she’d found it in Adam’s wallet before he’d walked out on her ten years ago. The other was of a child about six or seven years of age. She’d inherited her mother’s exquisite blonde hair, blue eyes, and captivating smile – only her smile was minus a few baby teeth.

‘Weaver’s family?’

‘Presumably the wife he killed and his daughter.’ Dan took the photographs from Trevor.

‘We’ll know more when we get the files. If we’re lucky we might find something that was missed at the time.’

‘And Adam Weaver?’ Anna asked.

‘I have every man on the beat and every undercover officer on the force looking for him, or rather him with Tony George’s face,’ Dan replied.

‘How did he escape from prison?’

‘No one ever found out. Presumably he greased palms. The when is easier and could be significant.

He disappeared from his cell in the early hours of the morning the day after Tony George died.’

‘Good timing for a transplant operation using George’s face,’ Trevor agreed.

‘What did your doctor friend say about the conditions required for face transplants?’

‘They’re similar to those that apply to organ transplants,’ Trevor sat down behind his desk. ‘The face has to be carefully removed, and there has to be a tissue match between donor and recipient.’

‘Do we have medical details on George and Weaver?’ Anna asked.

‘They should be in their files.’

‘If you give me whatever papers you have and a pencil with a blob of Blu-Tack on the end, I’ll start looking.’

‘Why the pencil?’ Trevor asked.

‘To turn the pages. I have no hands, only a mouth, remember.’

‘You took your time getting here.’ Peter was sitting, dressed and impatient in the day room of the ward when Trevor walked in. He was wearing the same clothes he had worn to go undercover, only now they were covered with soot and stank of smoke.

‘Sarah telephoned at two. It’s only twenty past.’

‘You should have been here at ten past.’

‘I was, but the sister wanted to speak to me about you.’

‘Really?’ Peter raised his eyebrows. ‘Had a lot of complaints did she?’

‘A few.’

Peter held up the newspaper he’d bought that morning. ‘I see we’re painted as the villains of the town again. We do nothing when one vagrant is burned. Will we do anything when an entire squat-full go up in smoke?’

‘I don’t read the rags.’

‘I should have more sense.’ Peter tossed the paper into the bin on the way out.

‘How about I drive you back to my place?’

Trevor suggested as they took the lift to the ground floor.

‘Need a lodger to help pay the mortgage?’

‘The sister said you shouldn’t be left on your own. Your concussion needs watching.’

‘And you’d rather watch it than quarrel with Lyn?’ Peter guessed.

‘I’m trying to help.’

‘And I’m too street-wise to get caught up in an argument between you and your lady love. Take me to my flat. I’ll do a quick change then you can drive me to the office.’

Trevor looked at the bandage that bulged beneath Peter’s shirt and sweater, the sling on his right arm and the pained expression on his face.

‘You’re in no condition to work.’

‘You’d rather I died of boredom in my flat?’

‘We’re running an investigation, not a hospital.

We’ve already got Anna demanding nursing care.’

‘She turned up this morning?’

‘By taxi. Her excuse is that with her hands bandaged she can’t feed herself. When I left, Dan was pushing a sandwich into her mouth.’

‘That’s one task I can take off your hands seeing as how I’ve still a hand left.’

‘What is going on between you and Anna?’

Trevor ventured.

‘Nothing that need concern you.’

‘I thought we were mates.’

‘This coming from the man who doesn’t drop a hint about spare females when he has them queuing for his favours.’

‘It’s not like that,’ Trevor protested.

‘It never was like anything between you and Daisy, if I remember rightly. You were content to worship her from afar.’

‘Last night was strictly business.’

‘Since when has dinner been business?’

‘This may come as a surprise to you, Peter, but some people can take a lady to dinner without tumbling in the sack with her afterwards.’ Trevor opened his car.

‘You must tell me how to manage it sometime.’

‘Didn’t you take Anna out to dinner when you booked an overnight?’ Trevor asked in an attempt to deflect Peter’s attention from his love-life.

‘Liquid dinner.’

‘And that’s different?’

‘Everything I do is different from what you do.

I’m wiser, especially when it comes to women. But how about you give me an update on the case so I’ll know exactly where we are when we go in.’

Trevor took the file on Adam Weaver as soon as it came in and went into Dan’s office to read it, out of sight of Peter and Anna. They were sitting side by side at Anna’s desk checking on the findings of the inquiry that had investigated Adam Weaver’s breakout from prison. Dan had been called into an emergency meeting with the super, hastily convened after the press reports on the fire in the old factory had appeared.

Leaving the connecting door open so he could hear any incoming telephone calls, Trevor propped his feet on a spare chair, opened the file and began to read. The Weaver murder case had received heavy press coverage at the time because of Adam’s television connections, and whoever had investigated it had been meticulous in keeping press cuttings. There was a wad of them, liberally spattered with theatrical studio photographs. Adam Weaver had possessed the typical leading man’s good looks. Tall, rugged, dark-haired and -eyed, he had been courted by Hollywood before tragedy and scandal had put paid to his career. The photographs of his wife matched the photograph they’d found in the suitcase and Trevor speculated on the mental state of a convicted killer who carried a photograph of his victim. The child’s photograph they’d found in the suitcase matched the ones of Weaver’s daughter in the press cuttings. Trevor made a note to check her whereabouts in case Adam/Tony made an attempt to contact her. He compared the ages in the file with the press cuttings. She was now nine and he wondered if she’d been told anything about her father or the way her mother had died.

‘If Weaver and Tony are one and the same, and with the fingerprint evidence I don’t see how he can be anyone else, the key’s in the transplant,’ Peter shouted through the open door.

‘Daisy looked into it. No official transplants were carried out in this country until eighteen months ago.’

‘Then there has to have been an unofficial one,’

Peter stated the obvious. ‘Do you know how many doctors were around at the time of the theft of Tony’s face who were capable of transplanting a face?’

‘Daisy’s compiling a list for me.’

‘Call in on her on the way home and check if she’s made any progress,’ Dan ordered as he walked into the room.

‘Nice meeting?’ Peter asked.

‘Isn’t it always with upstairs and the super after they’ve seen more on the midday news broadcast from the local station than we’ve been able to tell them? And you’ll be pleased to hear that a selection of Valance’s shots is going out on the early evening nationwide network. I’ve seen them. You make an attractive heroine, Anna. And you, Peter, a very helpless victim.’

‘We should have smashed Valance’s camera when we had the chance,’ Trevor muttered.

‘Anything come of the meeting besides a dressing-down for the department, sir?’ Anna enquired.

‘No. We viewed Valance’s footage and, from the way he’s edited it, I’ve no doubt he’ll be offering it to Hollywood next. And the Fire Service reported the seat of the blaze was on the central, second floor staircase.’

‘Cardboard boxes and newspapers,’ Anna recalled the pile of rubbish they’d passed on the way up to the cloakroom.

‘Hang about.’ Peter looked at Dan. ‘Central staircase?’

‘There were three on each floor. One set against each wall and one central.’

‘Anna and I went up by the one set against the right-hand wall as you look at the building.’

‘That’s the end you were hauled out of,’ Dan agreed.

‘How long after this Tony ran out on us did you smell smoke?’ Peter asked Anna.

‘Probably not more than five minutes.’

‘Wouldn’t it take longer than five minutes to set a fire?’ Peter demanded.

‘I have no idea, I’ve never had pyromaniac tendencies,’ Trevor said flatly.

‘What was set alight?’ Peter looked at Dan.

‘All the fire department could tell us was the blaze was hot enough to melt the ironwork on the staircase, so if it was set in rubbish…’

‘With petrol?’

Dan pursed his lips. ‘Could be,’ he mused, following Peter’s train of thought. ‘They’re still carrying out tests. I’ll mention the possibility.’

‘If Tony was responsible, and petrol was used, he must have a couple of containers stashed away somewhere.’ Trevor carried the file he’d been reading out of Dan’s office and over to his desk.

‘Why was the victim in Jubilee Street, Philip Matthews – or whoever he was – wearing clothes Tony had been seen in?’ Peter asked no one in particular.

‘Because Tony wanted to exchange one set of rags for another,’ Anna suggested.

‘Or because Tony – whoever he is – wanted people to think he was dead,’ Trevor sat on the edge of his desk. ‘Those boots were distinctive and he picked on Matthews because he was the same height and build as himself. Perhaps he hoped that we wouldn’t look too closely at the death of a vagrant.

Treat it as an open and shut case.’

‘The question is, did Tony have time to set the fire between attacking us and leaving the building, because I certainly didn’t smell smoke before,’

Anna said.

Peter rubbed his aching arm. ‘I was out cold, remember?’

‘We could try asking the man,’ Dan suggested.

‘First we have to find him,’ Trevor pointed out.

‘Exactly, and that’s just what the super wants –

preferably before Valance gets hold of him, and puts him on a television chat show.’

‘Which means we’re all out on the streets tonight?’

‘You, Trevor. But not you two,’ Dan looked at Anna and Peter. ‘Off home, the pair of you, right now. After a good night’s rest you might be some use to me.’

‘Nice to know you care, sir’ Anna left her chair.

‘If you feel like you look, Anna, there’s no need for you to come in tomorrow,’ Dan conceded, wondering if he’d been too hard on her.

‘Where else would I go?’ Anna walked towards the door, her bandaged arms and hands stretched out in front of her.

‘What I’m trying to say is, although I appreciate your help, we can manage without you. I’ve succeeded in getting Andrew and Chris Brooke co-opted on to the team.’

‘Mr Keen and Eager,’ Anna groaned.

‘And Mr Over The Hill,’ Peter chimed in.

‘I wouldn’t let Andrew catch you saying that.

Now that the original murder inquiry has expanded to take in arson and more victims…’

‘How many more?’ Trevor asked.

‘They found another five in the wreckage this morning.’

‘That’s nine with the ones last night.’

‘Ten,’ Dan corrected. ‘One died in the hospital this morning.’

‘That’s one way of clearing the streets.’

‘I don’t want to hear you saying that outside of these four walls, Peter,’ Dan warned.

‘It’s the truth. You know as well as I do no one gives a damn about homeless kids. Not even their parents. If they did, the poor sods would spend their nights tucked up in warm, dry beds at home, not dossing in squats.’

‘You’re talking about kids…’

‘Rejects who were going nowhere.’

‘Maybe not all of them, but now we’ll never know different, will we?’ Silence reigned. Dan looked from Peter to Trevor. ‘Trevor, call in on the doctor to see if she has any news on a possible surgeon, then back here for a briefing. We’ll work the streets in pairs tonight, Andrew with me, Chris Brooke with you. All officers to report into Central Control every ten minutes. Every available man will be out tonight.’

‘Then we’ll expect to see Tony here tomorrow morning,’ Peter declared as he opened the door for Anna.

After dropping Anna and Peter off outside Peter’s flat, Trevor drove to the General Hospital. He parked in a bay marked RESIDENTS ONLY, entered the palatial foyer of the Burns Unit and asked at reception for Dr Randall.

‘Dr Randall isn’t in the building,’ the girl manning the desk informed him stiffly.

‘Is she home?’

‘I really wouldn’t know.’

He walked across the car park to the staff quarters of the hospital and climbed the stairs to Daisy’s door. He rang the bell, and waited. Minutes ticked past. He rang it again, not expecting a reply.