Scene of Crime (12 page)

Judy could see Lloyd moving into full-theory mode.

“Meanwhile, inside the house Mrs. Bignall comes down when she hears the breaking glass. Ryan trusses her up in the kitchen and carries on. What he doesn’t know is that Mrs. Bignall has a cold and can’t breathe.”

“It seems a very strange thing for Ryan to have—” Judy began, but Lloyd wasn’t listening.

“And Dexter’s voice hasn’t broken!” he said triumphantly. “So if he did get cold feet, and Ryan got angry—they would have an argument. In Bignall’s garden. Before Ryan broke in. And Jones could easily think it was a man and a woman.”

“Question,” said Judy. “Why would Ryan call his brother a fucking bitch?”

“Ah,” said Lloyd. “All right—the argument is still a puzzle. But the rest of it’s okay, isn’t it?”

“I can’t see why the intruders wanted to tie Mrs. Bignall up if they were only going to take a few items,” she said. “And, for what it’s worth, I can’t see Ryan tying someone up at all. Gagging them. If he was ever surprised
by a homeowner, he might knock them over so he could get away from them, but that was all.”

Lloyd smiled. “I’ll forgive your truly appalling grammar,” he said, “for solving this case so exceptionally speedily. I think we can forget Carl Bignall. Sometimes things really are just the way they seem.”

“It’s still all pure theory,” she argued. “We don’t even know that it’s the same Mrs. Gibson. And even if it is, you can hardly go steaming in on the basis that a black boy whose description you don’t even have was seen running away, and Dex didn’t turn up for rehearsal.”

“We’ll need a touch more evidence than that,” Lloyd agreed. “But I think it’ll be forthcoming. Because unless Ryan Chester has changed his M.O. radically since I last had anything to do with him, he’ll have tried to sell some of that stuff tonight. And I’ve got Tom on that.”

Jimmy’s nicotine-stained fingernail rasped over a three-day growth as he perused the list. “Aw, come on, Mr. Finch!” he said, looking up. “CD ROMs? Personal organizers? This sort of stuff’s being offert roon’ every night! Ye cannae tell where it came frae just by lookin’ at it.”

Tom smiled. “You find
out
where it came from, and if it’s from a burglary that took place tonight, you tell me.”

“Why me?”

“Because you’re a stool pigeon, Jimmy. A grass. That is your job.”

“Jimmy” was the inevitable name his informant had been given when he had arrived in Malworth. Despite living just ten miles from cosmopolitan Stansfield, which had become a home away from home for many nationalities and the Scots in particular, the citizens of Malworth still found the Scottish accent exotic and impenetrable,
and the Scots themselves alarming. Calling them all Jimmy was their way of coping with that.

“No’ sae loud, Mr. Finch!” Jimmy used his hands to reinforce his request, like a conductor during a quiet passage. “Ah’d no’ be much use tae ye wi’ ma heid bashed in.”

Tom smiled again. “Jimmy, we’re sitting on a damp bench on a bridge over a river in a very well-bred part of Malworth in the wee small hours. There isn’t another person up and about for miles.”

In the pool of light created by the fake Victorian gaslight, Jimmy looked around as though expecting mafiosi to loom out of the murky middle-class night at him, violin cases at the ready. “A’ the same,” he said, “ye cannae be too careful in ma position.” He waved a dismissive hand at the list. “And that stuff’s no’ worth runnin’ a risk fur. Ah’ll tell ye that fur naethin’.”

“It’s worth more than you think. There’s good money in it for you.”

Jimmy pulled cigarettes and a throwaway lighter from his pocket and reconsidered. “How much?” he asked.

“That depends on what you give me. If you get offered any of this stuff—or see it being offered—I want to know. And I don’t want some half-baked story. I want to know who’s selling it and where I can get hold of him. Quickly. Got it?”

Jimmy looked at the list again, frowning, absently putting a cigarette in his mouth. “Whit’s sae special aboot this lot?”

Tom wasn’t about to tell him. Jimmy was no hero—if he thought he might be dealing with someone who had killed, however inadvertently, he would be off like a shot. “Mind your own business,” Tom said. “Just do the
rounds of the pubs and clubs and report back to me. Ring me. Whenever. I don’t care if it’s five o’clock in the morning.”

“Why are you gettin’ yersel’ in a state aboot computer games and videos?” Jimmy spoke with the unlit cigarette between his lips. “Is it wan o’ your pal’s hooses that’s been turned over?” He grinned. “Is it yer ain hoose?”

“Which part of ‘mind your own business’ are you having trouble with?”

“Is it like in the films?” said Jimmy, ignoring him. “This wee cat—is it stuffed fu’ o’ H or coke or somethin’?”

“Very funny, Jimmy. Just try and find it. It’s hardly the sort of thing that’s being offered round every night, is it?”

“Aye, aw right, Mr. Finch. Leave it wi’ me.” Jimmy removed the cigarette and grinned, showing crooked teeth. “Ah’ll get back to you, as they say.”

Tom got up and walked toward his car, opening the driver’s door and looking back as Jimmy’s face was lit up by the lighter flame.

“Oh, here, hang on a minute,” Jimmy said, expelling smoke with the words. “Jade’s green, is it no’?”

“It is.”

“Big Baz was gaun on aboot a green cat. Ah thought it was wan o’ thae cuddly toys, but maybe it wisnae.”

“Baz Martin?” Tom closed the car door and went back to where Jimmy sat.

“Aye. A pal o’ his sold it tae somebody in the Starland. Big Baz couldnae get over it, because the guy didnae want a green cat, but he bought it anyway. Said his pal could sell condoms to nuns. Said it aboot five times—he thought it got funnier the mair he said it. Ah telt him it wisnae funny in the first place, but that didnae stoap
him.” He took a drag and looked up at Tom. “But, aye, it was a green cat he was on aboot, right enough.”

Ryan Chester was the pal, presumably. It had to be—Baz didn’t work with anyone else but his smarter cousin Ryan. No one else would have him. “So where can I find Baz now?” Tom asked.

“He’ll still be in there. He was tryin’ to get aff wi’ some bird.” Jimmy looked expectantly at Tom. “So, Mr. Finch. Whit’s that worth tae ye?”

“I don’t know yet, do I?”

“Aw, Mr. Finch!”

“Don’t worry, Jimmy,” said Tom as he went back to the car. “If your information’s sound, I’ll pay out. Even though the risk to your health is what you might call minimal.” Ryan and Baz were not about to leave Jimmy battered on the pavement.

“Ye’d better.” Jimmy got up. “Oh—and Mr. Finch?”

“Yeah?”

Jimmy held up a greasy lock of his own hair and shook his head. “The barnet does naethin’ fur ye.”

Ten minutes later Tom pulled up in the empty taxi stand outside the Starland nightclub and winced as he walked into the smoky, laser-lit depths and the music assaulted his ears. He must be getting old; he used to like this sort of thing. Now he found himself automatically checking for iffy substances being peddled, and tutting under his breath at the way the girls dressed, at the overt sexual overtures being made by both sexes to both sexes, not necessarily in the conventional configuration.

And he couldn’t help worrying about his own children, not that much younger than some of these girls, whatever the club policy was supposed to be, and how soon they would be exposed to this. Sex, drugs, and—
well, whatever that music was. Not rock and roll, that was for sure. And not glam rock or punk or anything he could put a name to. This stuff would have some silly name that made it sound more like an estate agent’s brochure than music. Garage, house—something like that. He didn’t understand pop music anymore, and he had always sworn he would never get like that.

After a moment or two his eyes became accustomed to the half-light, and he made his way through the dancers to where he could see big Baz Martin trying and failing to perform the same actions to the music that everyone else was. Tom smiled as the overamplified sound resolved itself into a recycled pop song from his teenage years, and he watched them all doing the hokey-cokey, in effect. Now that he came to think of it, it was more like summer camp than Sodom and Gomorrah. But maybe that just made it more sinister.

Baz gave up and draped himself around the young woman he was dancing with instead, his tongue halfway down her throat by the time Tom reached them. At least she looked old enough to be out on her own.

“Sorry to break this up,” Tom said.

Baz surfaced and looked at him, his eyebrows drawn together. “Who the hell are you?” he said, then his face cleared. “Sergeant Finch? What’s happened to your hair?”

“A word, Baz,” said Tom, steering him off the dance floor. “Excuse us,” he threw over his shoulder at Baz’s date, who looked less than impressed. Tom led the protesting Baz outside.

“I’ve got nothing on me, honest!”

“I should hope not,” said Tom. “You’re in court on Wednesday, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Relax, Baz. I’m not looking for controlled substances. But I do want to know all about a jade cat.”

“A what?” Baz craned his neck to see inside.

“A green cat. Your mate sold it tonight.”

“It wasn’t nicked,” said Baz, his eyes still searching what he could see of the dance floor through the half-open door and the enormous bouncer. “Honest. He bought it. He said.”

“Yeah? So who is this mate of yours?”

“I don’t know his name.”

Tom smiled. “A real close mate, is he? He wouldn’t be your cousin Ryan, by any chance?”

“Ry? No.” Baz shook his head, and turned away to see what was going on in the club. “I’ve not seen Ry for weeks. It was just a mate.” He looked back at Tom, his eyes imploring. “Look, Sergeant Finch,” he said, pointing over his shoulder. “I’m on a promise. Can I go back in now?”

“No, I don’t think so, Baz. I think you’re going to have to come to the station with me and help me with my inquiries.”

Baz’s mouth fell open. “But Sergeant Finch—” he said, motioning toward the dance floor.

“Or you can tell me who your mate is. It’s up to you.”

“I dunno his name.” Baz shook his head, and Baz was very stubborn. “Honest, I don’t.” He glanced into the club once more, and turned back, his eyebrows meeting with anxiety. “Sergeant Finch,” he said, practically squirming with desperation, “I’ve got to get back inside.”

Tom could have taken him in and spent the next two hours failing to worm Ryan Chester’s name out of him in any form that could be called a statement, but he felt a
carrot would be more likely to produce results than a stick. “Well, if you won’t tell me who your mate was, you can tell me who he sold it to. Is the purchaser still in the club?”

Baz looked a little mutinous, which meant that he was. Now Tom knew he had some real bargaining power. “Let’s go back in, then,” he said. “Introduce me to him.”

Baz’s face, which had lit up with Tom’s first statement, fell with his second. “You’re joking, aren’t you?”

“No. Either you tell me who bought it, or you don’t go back in at all.”

Baz was seeing his hoped-for night of passion slip away. “But I can’t do that,” he said. “I’m not a grass.”

“I thought you said it wasn’t nicked?” Tom said. “That’s not grassing, Baz. Just point him out to me, and you can get back to what you were doing. Or you can spend the night with me. It’s your choice, but you might be banged up come Wednesday, so it could be your last chance for a while. I know which I’d go for, if I were you.”

Baz struggled with his conscience, and his libido won. “Okay,” he said, diving back into the club so fast that Tom was left standing. He caught up as Baz nodded through the gloom to an older man who sat at a table with a group of people. “He’s the one with the tie on,” he said. “His name’s Wayne. Don’t tell him I told you.”

Wayne, once the situation had been explained to him, and the word death had been introduced, proved more than willing to come to the police station voluntarily to help Tom with his inquiries.

Half an hour later Tom saw him off the premises and looked at his bowdlerized and sanitized statement. Wayne had, of course, bought the items in good faith, and was
only too happy to hand them over. He wouldn’t normally buy things in a drinking establishment, but he had assumed they would be the vendor’s to sell, Baz being someone whose judgment he trusted, and it being Baz’s cousin Ryan who was selling them. Tom smiled. Wayne must be the only man in Malworth who trusted Baz Martin’s judgment, but given that Baz and Wayne’s combined IQ fell short of double figures, it might even be true.

So Jimmy had earned his money, and now Tom had to plan a surprise visit for Ryan Chester.

A dawn raid. Long before dawn, actually; it was only just getting light now. Ryan had never been the subject of one before, despite his calling; he had been woken in what seemed like the middle of the night by Detective Sergeant Finch telling him to get out of bed, demanding that he open his locked closet. At first he hadn’t recognized Finch; the last time he’d had dealings with the detective, his hair had looked a bit like Dex’s, only blond. Now he’d had it cut so short it didn’t curl.

“It doesn’t suit you,” he had said.

“Your opinion doesn’t interest me very much,” Finch replied. “Get up.”

He and his colleagues had searched his room, and when they found the candlesticks he was going to give to his mum, they arrested him on suspicion of burglary and manslaughter, which left Ryan open-mouthed with disbelief. He had hoped for quite some time that he was dreaming, but he was beginning to accept that it was reality. The really surreal bit was that they’d arrested Dex, too, as soon as they saw him, which Ryan didn’t understand at all.

Dex had been in bed when he’d gotten home, his mother
having called the doctor just in case it was worse than Ryan had thought. The doctor had sent him to bed, so Ryan had to wait to talk to Dex. And he hadn’t exactly been given the chance this morning, so he was none the wiser about who had beaten Dex up, or why, and now Dex had been arrested, just as his mother had predicted.

His mother had been in tears, and blaming him, of course. Saying she knew he’d been up to no good, knew he’d been getting Dex into trouble, and that had not helped his case with Finch. Then, when she realized they were saying he had killed someone, she went right off the deep end. Her son would never do a thing like that—the whole bit. Finch just raised his eyes to heaven and ignored her.