No Name Lane (Howard Linskey) (38 page)

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

A familiar car pulled up alongside Tom as he was leaving the pub.

‘Get in,’ ordered O’Brien.

‘Again?’ said Tom, ‘get a life, will you.’

‘What’s going on?’ asked Helen.

O’Brien ignored her. ‘Our DCI would like a word,’ he told Tom.

‘So get in before we drag you in,’ added Skelton.

Helen looked alarmed at that but Tom said, ‘It’s okay,’ and Skelton held open the rear door for him. ‘If I’m found hanged in my cell later, it was these two,’ he told Helen then he winked at her and she was left standing there as they drove away.

At least this time they kept to the main roads and Tom was soon back in the town again. Skelton steered his Sierra into the car park of the cop shop, as the police station was known locally. Tom held his tongue as Skelton and O’Brien escorted him to DCI Kane’s office but when he saw the senior officer sitting calmly behind his desk, he could no longer contain his anger.

‘What’s this about? Am I under arrest? On what charge?’

‘Calm down,’ Kane told him, ‘you’re obviously not under arrest. I’d like a word, that’s all.’

‘Really,
well I like to have a choice about who I speak to. I prefer not to be lifted off the street by your goon squad and dragged here. So the answer is no, whatever you want. Now, are you going to take me home, do I have to order a cab, or are these two going to beat me up in a quiet cell somewhere first?’

‘Relax, we didn’t drag you here,’ and then he noticed the sheepish looks on the faces of his two detectives. ‘Bloody hell,’ he told them in exasperation. ‘I said to ask him nicely.’

‘Sorry, Guv,’ answered Skelton.

DCI Kane eyed Tom closely for a moment until the younger man cottoned on. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said, ‘the bruises were there already.’

‘I never doubted it,’ said Kane but he turned to his men then, ‘be good lads and bugger off while I speak to this young man,’ and they trudged out of his office. ‘I’m sorry,’ he told Tom, ‘those two can be intimidating even when they’re not trying to be but they are basically good coppers.’

‘We’ll have to agree to disagree on that,’ replied Tom. ‘I think they’re a disgrace.’

‘It’s not their fault they’ve been keeping such bad company for the past twenty years. It tends to come with the turf.’

‘Don’t you think the lines get a little blurred after a while?’ asked Tom, ‘that the guys tasked with catching the villains can become almost as bad as the men they are after?’

‘No I don’t,’ answered the detective chief inspector, ‘that’s a naïve view and you wouldn’t share it if you’d done
the job as long as they have. There’s a very big difference between them and the villains they lock up. They might ruffle a few feathers along the way but they are on the right side of the law, believe me, which is more than can be said for some of your mob.’

‘Yeah, there’s bad journalists out there right enough, I’ll admit that, but every one of them has two or three coppers on his payroll feeding him stories for beer money,’ said Tom. ‘Now, what exactly did you want to see me about?’

Kane regarded Tom for a long while, as if he was deciding whether to continue. ‘I wanted to speak to you because I hear you are a good journalist, one of the better ones, and you’re discreet.’

‘Flattery will get you everywhere … just not with me. What do you want?’

‘I have a story for you …’

‘Oh here we go …’

‘I don’t want paying for it. It’s not like that.’

‘Go on, then.’

‘This story … it’s a big one, it’ll do you some good and it’s bound to leak sooner or later anyway. I reckon the public have a right to know about it and they can’t hear it from me,’ he shrugged, ‘so they may as well hear it from you; if you are interested of course?’

Tom forced himself to calm down. He told himself the one thing he couldn’t afford to do right now was pass up a good story. ‘I could be,’ he admitted.

‘There’s just one thing.’

‘What?’

‘This conversation,’ Kane looked him right in the eye, ‘it never happened.’

‘Obviously.’

‘I
mean it.’

‘So do I,’ Tom said, ‘a good journalist never gives up his source. Just ask your two goons out there if you don’t believe me.’

‘I did,’ said the DCI, ‘which is why you’re here.’

‘Out with it then.’

Kane leaned back in his desk chair and folded his arms. ‘Well sit down and I’ll tell you.’

Tom took the seat opposite Kane and let the police officer begin. ‘You’re familiar with Professor Burstow and his role in the Kiddy-Catcher case.’

‘Of course,’ said Tom but he still wasn’t going to admit to writing the article that had made it public knowledge.

‘His input has been to narrow down our investigation. It is his psychological profile that has enabled us to sift the many hundreds of leads received by Durham Constabulary. The detectives on this case have all basically been working for him, in a manner of speaking. If he tells us a lead is worth following then we follow it, if he says it’s a dead end then we put it to one side, because he represents the new way of doing things, he is the future.’ Kane said that last bit drily.

‘I get the picture.’

‘And it’s not as if he isn’t credible,’ continued the DCI, ‘I mean, he’s got all those letters after his name and that glowing report from the FBI after all of the work he’s done for them.’

‘Where are you going with this?’

‘But what if I was to tell you that Professor Burstow isn’t who he claims to be?’

‘How
do you mean?’ asked Tom. ‘Are you saying some of his CV doesn’t stand up to scrutiny?’

‘Perhaps I’m saying that none of it does,’ Kane admitted.

‘Bloody hell,’ Tom thought for a second, ‘if you’re telling me that the hunt for a multiple child killer has been going down blind alleys because the man who has been directing the investigation is a fraud then I would say that’s a very big story indeed.’

‘I thought as much,’ admitted Kane with classic understatement.

‘How the hell?’

‘He’s never worked with the FBI,’ said Kane, ‘nor helped a police force anywhere on any of their cases, least of all a murder enquiry. He’s not a professor or even a doctor, his qualifications are fake. The man is a fantasist.’

‘Jesus Christ!’

‘It seems we were so desperate that the man who did the hiring didn’t bother to conduct any background checks on Burstow. Instead he read all the testimonials on their headed notepaper, helpfully provided by the FBI and others, and took them on face value.’

‘Oh my God.’

‘All of this only came to light because an American tourist read a newspaper report in London on the Michelle Summers’ case. The story contained a reference to a professor Burstow being heavily involved in solving a previous case in the U. S. Trouble was, this man was an FBI agent who worked that case and knew Burstow had nothing to do with it. Being a civic-minded soul, he called
to let us know. One of our detectives contacted the FBI in Langley and, lo and behold, they had no record of a Professor Burstow involved in that case or any other. It took us about an hour and a half to pick apart every other claim on his CV then we asked the good professor to come into the station and help us with our enquiries. Only this time he was on the wrong side of an interview table. He’s down in the cells right now in fact.’

Tom could scarcely believe what he was hearing. ‘Why did he think he could get away with it?’

Kane shrugged, ‘because he’s barking,’ he said simply, ‘I don’t mean he’s rolling-round-in-his-own-shit-frothing-at-the-mouth crazy, but he’s clearly wired very differently from other people.’

‘Has he admitted it?’

‘He’s not admitted or denied it. He’s just acting like it doesn’t make any difference. He knows who the killer is and he’s going to help us find him, if only we’d listen. Big of him, isn’t it?’

‘Does anybody else know about this?’

‘If you mean other journalists, then no.’

‘Who does know about it?’

‘Half-a-dozen senior police officers and a couple of panic-stricken politicians, including our esteemed local MP.’

‘Wait a minute,’ said Tom, ‘they are not trying to put a lid on this?’

‘What do you think?’

‘But how can they?’

‘Oh I don’t know, get the charges dropped or perhaps have chummy down there sectioned under the mental health act; hope nobody notices.’

‘And
you don’t want that to happen?’ Tom narrowed his eyes, ‘even though this could be very damaging to the force? Now why is that?’

‘There’ll be a shit storm,’ Kane admitted, ‘for a while, but I think there are more important concerns here, don’t you? That man has endangered the lives of every young girl in this county by jeopardising a police investigation into a serial killer. I reckon it’s time we blew the whistle, got it all out in the open. The public have a right to know.’

‘Very noble,’ and Tom regarded the Detective Chief Inspector with interest.

‘What?’

‘Professor Burstow was Trelawe’s man wasn’t he?’

‘I believe Trelawe brought him in, so, yes, he was Trelawe’s man, as you put it.’

‘And what will happen to him?’

‘I’m afraid Detective Superintendent Trelawe has been suspended, pending the outcome of an enquiry.’

Tom finally understood. ‘So your boss could be for the chop and you don’t want this hushed up while charges are dropped, madmen placed quietly in asylums and Detective Superintendents exonerated? That’s how your lot normally operate, isn’t it? But you want to see Trelawe hung out to dry.’

‘Why would I want to see a fellow officer come to harm?’ asked DCI Kane in a deadpan voice.

‘Maybe you don’t care for him or he doesn’t like you. It could be that simple but my best guess is you’re next up,’ Tom told him, ‘who is overseeing the Michelle Summers’ case now that Trelawe has been suspended?’

‘I
am liaising directly with the Assistant Commissioner,’ admitted Kane, ‘for now.’

‘Really?’ Tom shook his head in disbelief, ‘I’ve got to hand it to you, Kane, even if I don’t believe a word of that story about off-duty FBI agents on holiday in London. Do me a favour. You checked out Burstow. You did the leg work your boss couldn’t be bothered with, all the way back to the FBI in Langley. You invented that tip-off to justify it when you went over your boss’s head. You’ve thrown him to the lions.’

‘You’ve never had any dealings with the detective superintendent. If you had, you wouldn’t be so shocked. He’s a very political animal,’ Kane informed him, ‘and so, it turns out, am I.’

‘You shafted him before he shafted you, that it?’

‘Partly,’ admitted Kane, ‘but my main concern is his judgement, or lack of it. A police officer of his rank should have some don’t you think, and that man is an empty uniform.’

‘And when I write up this story, he’ll be finished,’ said Tom.

Kane shrugged. ‘What do you care?’

Tom felt weary all of a sudden. ‘I don’t, not really.’

‘Right,’ DCI Kane’s face hardened, ‘so do you want this story or not?’

CHAPTER FIFTY

This time Tom only gave Alex Docherty half an hour before calling Terry for a second time.

‘Did you give the Doc my message?’

‘Er … yeah, I did,’

‘And what did he say?’

‘Not much,’ admitted the sub-editor.

‘Well what, exactly?’

‘You know the Doc.’

‘What did he say, Terry?’

Terry sighed, ‘ “
Tell him to go fuck himself
.” ’

‘Great,’ answered Tom, ‘that’s just great.’

Tom hung up and dialled Paul Hill at the
Mirror
, then he called Helen.

As Tom made for the old vicarage, he walked past the pensioners’ bungalows and the vacant lot which used to house the old brewery. It was amazing to think a village this size once had its own site for brewing beer but that was long ago and the building had lain empty for years before finally being torn down. The site had been grassed over and trees planted, some tall and mature but the ones nearer the road were more recent additions; little more than saplings, tied to thick wooden supports to keep them aloft while they bent and twisted in the wind.

Tom was in a more buoyant mood following his con
versation with Paul Hill. With another story sold, he felt as if he was managing to build up a war chest, which might help sustain him when the time came for his inevitable dismissal from the paper. At least he could keep the wolf from the door while he worked out what to do next with his life.

He rounded the corner, his mind preoccupied with Mary Collier, which was why he didn’t notice Frankie Turner coming towards him from the other end of the street until it was too late. The older man spotted Tom though and immediately broke into a run. ‘Oh shit,’ mumbled Tom as he belatedly recognised the snarling face powering towards him, ‘not now.’ Caught unawares, Tom had a split second to make a decision.

‘Come here!’ shouted Frankie and Tom made up his mind then. He turned on his heel and fled. ‘Stay there, you bastard!’ roared Frankie.

Tom disappeared back round the corner and Frankie Turner shot after him, determined to catch up with him, not quite believing that Tom had the sheer bloody nerve to stay in the village when he had been warned away. Frankie’s anger lent him speed, ‘Come here, you!’ He was determined to catch Tom and give him another beating. Frankie went barrelling round the bend, praying he’d made up enough ground and hoping to see Tom just ahead of him.