Some by Fire (7 page)

‘We never close an unsolved case, Mr Crosby,’ I replied.

‘Right. I’ve been trying to decide where to start, not really knowing how much you already know…’

‘First of all,’ I said, ‘how about telling me how you came to own a run-down house in Chapeltown when you lived in your constituency, Heckley.’ If it was a love nest we’d better have it out in the open, then I could go home and mow the lawn.

He nodded, eager to explain. ‘I think it would be better for me to begin there,’ he replied. I turned my chair slightly towards him because the sun was slanting into my left eye. A dappled shadow from the hat’s brim fell across the top half of his face and he gazed comfortably at me through watery blue eyes. I decided to buy a hat just like it.

‘The house originally belonged to a lady I knew as Aunt Flossie,’ he told me. ‘She fostered me when I came to Leeds as a young teenager. Adopted me, almost. We drifted apart as I began to find my feet, because she clung to the old ways – she was orthodox Jewish – while I threw myself into being everything English. She couldn’t understand that, Mr Priest, but
I loved it there. England was like a dream come true for me.’

‘Where did you come from?’ I asked.

‘Germany. A town called Augsburg, in Bavaria.’

A mosquito landed on the rim of my glass and another was irritating my neck. Al fresco has its problems. I wafted them away and took a sip. ‘Go on,’ I invited.

‘In 1975 she died and left me the house, as simple as that. I was the nearest thing to any family she had. We’d kept in touch, it wasn’t a great surprise to me. I put the house up for sale but nobody was buying houses at the time, and a little later a woman came into my Saturday-morning surgery saying that she had to escape from her boyfriend. He beat her up regularly and she feared for the safety of her little girl.’

‘Jasmine Turnbull,’ I said.

He paused, mouth still open, then said: ‘That’s right, Mr Priest. Jasmine Turnbull.’ He had a drink of his beer and I waited for him to continue. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘it seems unbelievably naive of me, but at the time it was a perfectly natural arrangement. I owned a spare house, fully furnished, and Mrs Turnbull, Jasmine’s mother, needed somewhere to go, desperately. We agreed that she could live there for a couple of weeks, see if it was suitable, and start paying me a small rent when she was eligible for benefits. I was horrified
when my agent told me how it would look if the papers got hold of it. Mind you,’ he said, with the first hint of a smile since he arrived, ‘she was a beautiful girl. I think I might have been rather flattered by the accusations. To cut the story short, I had a word with Social Services and they moved another couple of battered wives in. That got me out of the frying pan, but…’ He stopped, realising that his choice of phrase wasn’t appropriate, and started again. ‘Because the place was now regarded as multiple occupancy, we were in breach of the fire regulations. We were arguing about who was responsible – frankly, who paid – when…when…’ He reached for his glass and turned it in his fingers. ‘…when thirty-two Leopold Avenue burnt down,’ he said, very quietly, ‘and eight lives were lost.’

A waitress hovered nearby and when he finished speaking she asked if we’d like to see a menu. I shook my head and she went away. ‘And you had to resign as an MP,’ I said.

He nodded.

‘And now you have some new evidence?’

He gave a little start, as if just waking, and said: ‘New evidence? Oh, I’m not sure.’

‘So what is it you want to tell me?’

He took a handkerchief from a pocket and wiped his brow and neck with it. The forecasters had predicted the hottest day of the year and it was looking
as if they were right. Three elderly women with pink arms protruding from flowery dresses stood debating where to sit and eventually arranged themselves around the next table. They looked like sisters.

‘What do you know about John Joseph Fox?’ Crosby asked.

Now it was my turn to be surprised. JJ Fox was one of the top six entrepreneurs in the country, fighting it out with the others to be the next Murdoch or Rowland, but with half the population expecting him to be another Maxwell. He was a Flash Harry with the Midas touch, famous in the past for his golden Rolls Royces and platinum women, but nowadays courted by politicians of all persuasions because of his media interests. I shrugged my shoulders. ‘Just what I read in the papers,’ I said. ‘What’s he got to do with it?’

‘Do you know how he started in business?’

‘Mmm. He claims to have begun with a barrow in the East End, doesn’t he?’

‘As you say, that’s what he claims. There may be a kernel of truth in it. His real beginning was when he won a boxer in a poker game.’

‘A boxer?’ I queried.

‘A boxer, Mr Priest. A heavyweight with a glass chin. That didn’t matter; you just backed the other fellow. He moved with a violent crowd in London in the late forties, early fifties. He expanded rapidly, from second-hand cars sold from bomb sites to
bingo and discothèques when the cinemas began to close. JJ Fox became an expert at turning one man’s failure into his success. It’s a lesson he has exploited to the full over the years.’ He paused for a drink. The old ladies were leaning forward, studying menus, their heads bobbing about like cauliflowers in a cauldron. Crosby carefully placed his glass on the table and continued. ‘Unfortunately, as he expanded he attracted attention from the gangs that were becoming a feature of life in south London at the time. He wasn’t really a criminal, just a struggling businessman who had to be flexible with the rules. Ultimately he wanted to be part of the Establishment, not fighting it. So he assessed the situation and decided to move north, lock, stock and barrel. Manchester, Liverpool and Leeds were sitting ducks for someone with his talents.’

‘He created the Reynard Organisation, didn’t he?’ I asked, trying to show off the little I knew about the man.

‘That’s right. He moved into the high streets, with a chain of boutiques; pop groups; music outlets; fast food. He had his finger on the pulse of the times and kept one step ahead of the trends. Now, as you know, he’s big league. It’s the FT 100 and public utilities now, plus the two newspapers, if you can call them that, the football club and controlling shares in a television station. The Reynard bandwagon is unstoppable, and
JJ Fox runs it single-handed from a deck chair on a yacht somewhere in the Caribbean.’

‘He built the big new hotel in Leeds,’ I said.

‘The Fox Borealis,’ Crosby stated. ‘And the office block across the river from it. Leeds is the
fastest-growing
financial centre outside London, Mr Priest, and Fox has a slice of the action.’

I knew it was, I’d read it in the papers often enough, but I didn’t know what it meant. ‘So where is this leading us?’ I asked.

Crosby deflated with an audible sigh, drumming his fingers on the table as he gathered his thoughts. ‘He hasn’t changed,’ he began. ‘He still exploits other people’s bad luck, but he manipulates their luck for them.’

I thought I was beginning to see where he was leading me. ‘You mean insider dealing?’ I asked.

He shook his head. ‘No, it’s much more than that.’ He leant forward, closer to me, and began to speak rapidly in a low voice. ‘Two years ago, Mr Priest, there was a crash on the Northern and Borders Railway. One person was killed and it was put down to a signalling fault caused by vandalism. A month later two trainloads of commuters had narrow escapes when one train cut across the other. The passengers were hurled to the floor as their train braked and some of them saw the other train go by. Five seconds earlier and it could have been the worst disaster in
British railway history. Again it was blamed on vandalism and hundreds of passengers vowed they would never travel by N and B again. Share prices plunged from over five hundred pence, Mr Priest, to below four hundred. Guess who stepped in to rescue the business? That’s right, JJ Fox. They now stand at five-eighty pence. Not bad, eh? Seven years ago they were giving away shares in the Alpha Brig oilfield after borehole samples were analysed and the predictions made the whole thing look like a white elephant. JJ Fox bought up every available share and blow me if it didn’t turn out to be a software fault and the samples were promising after all. Everybody agrees that the water companies have a licence to print money, but last year was the driest on record and things looked dodgy for a while. When a technician put a decimal point in the wrong place and tipped a hundred times too much concentrated aluminium sulphate into the Tipley Valley supply, five thousand people were made ill. Tipley Water shares plummeted but this year they are predicting a record dividend. Guess who suddenly became a major shareholder? I could go on and on and on, Mr Priest.’ He sat back and waited for a reaction.

I wasn’t happy. The midges were bothering me, my beer was warm and I didn’t like his story. I had no doubts that Fox was a crook, but so what? Everybody in his position must have done something mean and nasty as they fought their way up the heap. Nice
people didn’t make it because they couldn’t do it. Well, that was my excuse. ‘So what’s all this to do with the fire?’ I asked.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, leaning forward. ‘I get carried away. It’s all been bottled up inside me for so long. Back in 1975 Fox was just making his mark nationally. He’d been involved in several contracts with a certain company of planners working on town centre developments. I’d been looking into his activities for a number of years, when I was in local government, and didn’t like what I was seeing. I asked questions in the House about him, and wanted him to appear before a select committee to explain his apparent good fortune. Proving what I knew was difficult, as I’m sure you appreciate, and I couldn’t voice my allegations outside the House, but I wanted his replies on record. The fire, like so many events, came at a very opportune moment for Mr Fox.’

I wished that we had the power of parliamentary privilege to shelter behind, and said: ‘You’re saying he started the fire to discredit you?’

‘Not personally, Mr Priest. He didn’t start the fire personally. He has a network of recruits to do his dirty work for him, but he gave the orders. It’s the only explanation. The technician with Tipley Water is currently on a Reynard management training scheme. The computer programmer with Alpha Brig escaped the sack and moved to a systems analyst
post in the Reynard Organisation, until he died in an accident. Fox looks after his friends, one way or another.’

‘Can you put all this in writing for me?’ I asked. It’s a simple enough theory. Someone pops in and gives you a lifetime’s work, so you bounce it straight back at them by suggesting they put it all in writing. Often, you never hear from them again.

‘It’s all here,’ he said, delving into his inside pocket and producing a bundle of papers and envelopes.

Ah well, I thought, it was never much of a theory. I pointed at his empty glass. ‘Same again?’

‘Oh, er, yes please.’

I meandered to the bar and ordered a pint of orange juice for myself. I’d tell him I’d ask around, do what I could, but I’d only be stalling him. Fox might be as guilty as hell, we might even prove it, but we’d never get near a conviction. His lawyers would tie us in knots, spin things out for years, cost the taxpayer a fortune and we’d be accused of wasting public money by pursuing a man who gave employment to thousands. He would be left whiter than white. Perhaps, they’d concede, some of his staff were over enthusiastic in their desire to see Reynard do well, but that was the unfortunate reverse side of loyalty… We were on a hiding to sod-all.

I placed his beer in front of him and sat down. The three ladies were poring over the menus again,
their empty dinner plates in a considerate pile for the waitress to collect. The fence around the garden was lined with tubs of blooms, blazing with colour. Fat bees stumbled between them, overladen with pollen. ‘The flowers are gorgeous,’ I said, nodding in their direction.

‘Geraniums,’ he told me, although I was already fairly sure of it. ‘They bring back memories for me.’ He looked unhappy, his thoughts filled with oomphah bands and lederhosen, and thanked me absent-mindedly for the beer. After a silence he said: ‘Did you see the television programme a few years ago about Fox’s early life?’

‘No.’

‘It was a harrowing account, Mr Priest, even after making allowances for it being a Reynard production. It told of how the storm troopers came to arrest his parents a few days after the Kristallnacht, the Night of the Broken Glass. His name then was Johannes Josef Fuchs, he said, and his father was an outspoken lawyer, hated by the Nazis, and a Jew, of course. Young JJ was bundled out of the back of the house with as much money as they had, plus a few items of jewellery, and told to find his way to France and then England. He was twelve years old. He caught a train that he hoped would take him to Strasburg, but a party of Hitler Youth boarded it at the next station and began to torment him. Eventually they
beat him up, stole everything he possessed and threw him off the train. He walked the one hundred and fifty kilometres to the border, being looked after by several people on the way, farmers mainly, some gypsies, and eventually made it into France and then on to Britain. When he was settled here he Anglicized his name and became the John Joseph Fox we all know so well.’

I wasn’t sure what the point of the story was. I’d been expecting a last attempt to win my sympathy, but this justified some aspects of Fox’s character. ‘In a way,’ I said, ‘it explains why Fox has turned out the way he has: determined to succeed; single-minded; responsible to no one. Experiences like that must be ingrained in your character for the rest of your life.’ I had a good long drink of my orange juice. After the warm beer it tasted good. ‘Tell me,’ I went on. ‘Why have you suddenly resurrected all this, after twenty-three years? What’s happened to bring it all back again? What do we know now that we didn’t know before?’ I had a feeling he was using me, and that’s a feeling I don’t like.

‘This came last Tuesday,’ he said, extracting a crumpled envelope from the sheaf of papers. ‘I made you a photocopy.’

I took the page he offered me and read it. There was a Welwyn Garden City address at the top and it went on: