Slice (7 page)

‘Positive, Jack. He’s always been a hundred per cent reliable and if he started telling porkies, he knows I wouldn’t use him again.’

‘Could he be wrong about the time? After all, there’s only an hour between his alleged sighting and Derringer’s reported discovery of the body at 01.15.’

‘He’s adamant it was between 00.15 and 00.20. He’d just left a poker game and was home by 00.30 in time to see the beginning of some soft-porn crap on TV, which apparently started at 00.35. Anyway, if it
was
Derringer who was parked up, why did it take him an hour to report his find? Also, why was his car tucked away in the shadows the way it was?’

Fulton closed his eyes for a second, then stubbed out his cigarette with an air of finality. ‘OK, I agree it all looks pretty suspect. So, first thing we do is get hold of the car Derringer was using. If Lyall was transported in it, there are likely to be DNA traces on the carpets or the boot mat and—’

‘Already in hand, guv,’ Morrison interjected. ‘SOCO are on to it as we speak.’

Fulton nodded his approval. ‘And I want you, Ben, to pull Derringer’s personal file from personnel. Get hold of any other contact addresses and discreetly check that he’s not at one of them. Admin should have the number of his car if he’s been parking it at the nick—’

‘Do we circulate him as missing?’

Fulton hesitated, fully aware of the ramifications of doing that. ‘Not yet. I don’t want anyone – not even the incident room – to know about this until we’re on solid ground, so tell SOCO and Lester to keep their mouths shut too. I think Phil and I will take a look at Derringer’s basement flat first.’

Gilham raised his eyebrows. ‘Search warrant, Jack?’

Fulton snorted. ‘Don’t be silly, Phil!’ he replied.

QUARRY STREET WAS
in a rundown part of town made up of terraces of late Victorian properties, which were now predominantly used as student bedsits. Derringer’s flat was well hidden below the pavement and reached by a flight of stone steps, which crept down between stubby stone pillars to a tiny stone-flagged courtyard.

The front door was old and shaky, with paint peeling from its panels and a taped diagonal crack in the small window at the top. There was no response to Fulton’s thunderous knocking and, peering through the dirty glass, he could see only part of an unlit hallway. He frowned and shook the door handle hard.

Gilham’s unease was palpable. ‘Jack,’ he cautioned, touching his arm, ‘we can’t just go breaking in.’

Fulton threw him a scathing glance and produced his credit card, ignoring his deputy’s groan of despair as he bent over the antiquated lock with the plastic. Seconds later the door swung open and despite Gilham’s hoarse protest, he disappeared inside. Left with no real alternative, Gilham reluctantly followed.

The exterior of the flat might have looked shabby, but inside was a completely different story. The short hallway was surprisingly well decorated, smelling clean and fresh, and Gilham spotted air-freshners plugged into the wall in at least two places. Fulton pushed open doors to the left and right and found the bathroom and a sparsely furnished bedroom. Both were empty, as was the live-in kitchen at the end. He put his hand on a coffee percolator on the work surface. It was cold and, lifting the lid, he saw that it contained just dregs.

Gilham’s uneasiness was getting worse. ‘Jack, we ought to leave,’ he advised. ‘What if Derringer comes back and finds us in here?’

Fulton grunted. ‘Found the door open and thought we’d check it out, didn’t we?’ he growled, inspecting a pile of unwashed crockery in the sink. ‘Doesn’t look as though our missing bobby has been here for quite a while. Sounds like the nosy neighbour was right about last seeing him go out at about 08.30 yesterday.’

Gilham shrugged. ‘Maybe he doesn’t wash up very often. You know, single man and all that.’

Fulton thought of his own kitchen sink and grunted again. ‘Yeah, well it could also be that he left here in a hurry.’

‘But why? Unless–’

‘
That
is the big question.’

Fulton crossed to the large upright fridge-freezer and jerked open the refrigerator door. Inside, it was packed but well ordered, with a couple of bottles of French white wine in the door compartment. The freezer was the same, but he pulled out a couple of frozen parcels and studied their neatly written labels closely for a second before returning them to their basket and closing the freezer door again.

‘Lives well, anyway.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘Premium French wine in the fridge, pheasant and fillet steaks in the freezer. And we already know he drives a bloody Jag. Doing well for a humble beat bobby, I’d say.’

‘Unmarried. What do you expect?’

Fulton treated him to a wolfish grin. ‘That’s the solution then, is it?’ he retorted. ‘Stay single? I’ll bear that in mind. But in the meantime, let’s take a look at matey’s bedroom, shall we?’

The bed in the bright, tastefully decorated room had not been made and a police uniform lay in a heap on the floor, as if it had been left where it had been dropped. Gilham stood in the hallway, partly watching his boss and partly keeping an apprehensive eye on the open front door. ‘Are we done here, Jack?’ he breathed.

Fulton was carefully checking inside the wardrobe and grunted. ‘Now that
is
interesting.’

Gilham stepped into the room, his curiosity overruling his uneasiness. ‘What is?’

Fulton opened both doors wide. ‘Look at this.’

His colleague moved closer, studying the suits and shirts hanging from the rail with obvious puzzlement. ‘I don’t see—’

The big man cut him off with a snort of irritation and crossed the room to a large chest of drawers. He opened each drawer in turn to glance briefly inside. Then, leaving one of the drawers open, he grabbed a chair and climbed on to it to peer at the top of the wardrobe.

Gilham was totally mystified and checked out the chest of drawers for himself. The open drawer contained just underpants and T-shirts arranged in neat rows.

‘Aha!’ Fulton suddenly exclaimed, making him jump. ‘Suitcase still here.’

Gilham glanced across at him. ‘He may have had another.’

‘True, but this one appears new and it’s good quality smooth leather, covered in a nice layer of dust, which would suggest that nothing has been placed on top of it for quite a while.’ He clambered down off the chair, brushing his hands with a handkerchief. ‘Furthermore, if he left with a suitcase, why didn’t our nosy neighbour, the Stewart woman, mention it? Pretty significant going out off nights at 08.30 hours, carrying a suitcase, wouldn’t you say?’

‘So you don’t think he’s done a bunk?’

‘Oh I think he’s done that all right – and he seems to have been in one hell of a hurry.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘They obviously didn’t teach you much about observation when you were at university.’

‘Sorry?’

Fulton sighed heavily. ‘Didn’t you see the suits and shirts hanging in the wardrobe? Apart from being expensive designer brands, all are neatly arranged, with the jackets protected by polythene. Then there’s the chest of drawers. T-shirts, and underclothes – all carefully folded, without so much as a single crease out of place. And the bathroom I glanced in earlier – towels carefully folded corner to corner on the towel rails, face cloth a neat square on the basin tray and toiletries in perfect rows on the glass shelves above it. No man this fastidious leaves the kitchen in the state it was in, the bed unmade and his uniform – which even has stitched-in creases – in a pile on the floor, unless he was off on his toes.’

He produced a cigarette and lit up. ‘Oh, our man was certainly running, Phil, and very fast indeed.’

‘So you think he’s our murderer?’

‘I didn’t say that, but he seems to have had one hell of a guilty conscience about something.’

‘Oh, he’s got a guilty conscience all right!’

Gilham wheeled round as the rough unfamiliar voice spoke from the doorway behind him.

The elderly man in the black leather jacket had entered the hall very quietly, catching them both unawares. ‘Well, well, well,’ he said, ‘Mr Jack bloody Fulton.’

Fulton’s face was bleak. ‘Hello, Mickey,’ he said quietly. ‘It’s been a long time.’

Cold blue eyes appraised them from a death’s head face and the new arrival came slowly into the room. Another thickset man, with a completely bald head and the ruined features of the professional pugilist, followed, his faded blue suit straining at every movement.

‘What are you doing here, Mickey?’ Fulton rasped, then glanced quickly at Gilham. ‘Mickey Vansetti, Phil,’ he said. ‘A disease from my crime-squad days.’

Vansetti looked pained. ‘Now that’s not very polite, Mr Fulton, is it? Especially seein’ as me an’ you goes back such a long way.’

‘You’re on private property,’ Fulton responded.

Vansetti grinned. ‘So are you, Mr Fulton.’ He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. ‘Interestin’ how you got in though.’

Fulton turned away from him to answer the strident call of his mobile and engaged in a short earnest conversation with someone at the other end.

Vansetti produced a silver cigar case and lit up a slim black panatella. ‘Does you like a flutter, Mr Gilham?’ he said.

Gilham started, wondering how he knew his name. ‘Not for me,’ he said.

Vansetti nodded. ‘Very wise, Mr Gilham, very wise. See, your Mr Derringer now, he likes a flutter. Wins quite a bit too; talented sort of bloke. Trouble is, he don’t play fair an’ square.’ His smile faded. ‘Owes me at least a couple of grand, Mr Gilham. Perhaps you’d pass on my compliments when you finds him. Tell him Mickey was asking after his ’ealth, eh?’

Treating Gilham to an extravagant wink, he turned on his heel and left, his minder shuffling after him.

Gilham breathed a heavy sigh. ‘Nice beauty,’ he commented.

Fulton closed the cover of his mobile and returned it to his pocket. ‘Local hard man,’ he said. ‘Used to own quite a few backstreet card schools and knocking shops. Was actually a squad target criminal till he got sent down a few years ago. Didn’t realize he was back in business.’

‘At least we now know why Derringer was running.’

‘Maybe,’ Fulton replied, his face grim. ‘But there could be another reason. That was Ben Morrison on the phone. SOCO have found stains in the boot of Derringer’s area car that look like blood.’

‘Gordon Bennett!’

‘I can think of a much stronger phrase to use and I reckon ACC ops will too when he receives the glad tidings.’

The afternoon incident room briefing was a sombre affair. Word had already got out that a local officer was high on the list of suspects and had gone missing. Consequently, Fulton faced a shocked, disgruntled team who waited on his every word and studied him warily through the fug of tobacco smoke that choked the room, as if he had suddenly become the enemy.

After a cold hostile reception from ACC Norman Skellet – who had had to authorize the national all-ports circulation on Derringer as ‘wanted for interview’ and sacrifice a pre-booked evening dinner engagement into the bargain so he could brief the chief constable and be on hand to deal with the anticipated fall-out – Fulton’s own mood matched theirs. But now was not the time for holding back and despite his earlier intentions to keep some information about the progress of the inquiry to himself, he took the decision to divulge everything that had come to light so far, reasoning that his team probably knew most of it from the grapevine anyway.

His strategy seemed to pay off, too, and when at last the briefing ended, his troops were in a much better frame of mind. But his sense of achievement took an abrupt nosedive as he left the incident room.

He had spotted Superintendent Honeywell tucked away in a corner of the room while he was talking and had sensed an impending problem in the grim set of her face. He was not long kept in doubt, either.

‘I understand from my LIO that you instructed him to carry out an unauthorized vehicle check?’ she snapped, buttonholing him in the corridor outside the incident room.

Fulton scowled, inwardly cursing George Oates for his treachery. ‘Did I?’ he said.

She stood her ground. ‘I shall have to report this, Jack. It’s a clear breach of the rules.’

He sighed. ‘Well, you do what you think best, Dee,’ he replied. ‘I’ve got more important things to worry about – and so have you, with one of your own men AWOL.’

‘I am well aware of the possible implications attached to PC Derringer’s absence, thank you,’ she replied, ‘and with my DCI on leave and my area chief inspector on the sick, I have quite enough to do running the police area, without having to check up on what you are doing all the time.’

Fulton shrugged. ‘Then don’t,’ he retorted.

Her jaw tightened. ‘This is a very serious matter, Jack,’ she persisted. ‘You do realize that, don’t you?’

‘So is murder,’ he retorted, angered by her dismissive attitude towards Derringer’s disappearance. ‘And you’d do better putting more effort into finding your own officer than hounding me over trivialities.’

‘Trivialities?’ she choked, but was abruptly silenced by the blast of the police station Tannoy above her head: ‘Detective Superintendent Fulton, please contact control room immediately.’

Anxious to pursue her point, she followed him as he ducked into an adjacent office and picked up the telephone to dial the appropriate extension number. ‘You’ve set an appalling example,’ she continued, ‘and you just don’t give a damn, do you?’

But he was not listening. ‘Fulton,’ he barked into the receiver, turning his back on her as he listened intently to what he was being told by the control room operator.

‘Give me fifteen minutes,’ he said, and slammed the receiver back on to its cradle.

‘And what was all that about?’ Honeywell demanded.

Fulton stared at her as if he were contemplating a scaly insect. ‘Nothing much, Dee,’ he said, pushing past her for the door. ‘Just another murder, that’s all!’

Dusk was already shadowing a watery sun when Fulton swung his Volvo into the entrance to the old cement works and Gilham, sitting tensely beside him, flinched instinctively as the woodland crowding the narrow rutted track seemed to close in on the car and a stray branch scraped across the windscreen like a claw. A hundred yards further on a line of red-and-white cones forced them to come to a halt and a uniformed constable appeared at Fulton’s window – only to step back to kick two of the cones aside and wave them through when he saw who was behind the wheel.

Beyond the temporary security barrier the track opened out into a vast concrete apron, bordered at the far end by derelict brick buildings. Several police vehicles were parked on a broken section of hard-standing to their left and Fulton pulled up sharply behind a dog van, sending the Alsatian inside into a fit of frenzied barking and snarling. ‘Shut up!’ a coarse voice yelled from the driving seat, silencing the dog immediately, and a balding constable in blue uniform overalls poked his head out of the window. ‘Sorry, guv.’ He grinned, nodding towards the low growls now coming from the rear of the van. ‘Trouble is, Satan can’t tell the goodies from the baddies.’

Fulton cast him a cynical glance. ‘Maybe you should get him some glasses then,’ he commented. ‘Who’s in charge here?’

The dog man leaned further out of the window, yelling at the Alsatian again when it resumed its barking, and pointed towards a small group of people standing a short distance from an old Mercedes car parked about thirty yards away. ‘DS Prentice, guv. He’s over there with Sally Ojibwa, the local area beat unit, talking to the guy who found the stiff.’ He grinned, adding: ‘Sally’s the one with the dreadlocks!’

Prentice came to meet them as they approached the car, his face cold and impassive as ever.

‘Guv,’ he acknowledged and jerked his head back towards the elderly man he had been talking to. ‘That’s Mr Duncan Hayes. He found the body.’