The Picasso Scam (14 page)

‘If I can, Inspector, what is it?’

‘Well …’ I tried to sound uncomfortable, but it didn’t require much effort, ‘you see, Mr Hilditch had this book that was evidence in a case; and now we’ve found some fingerprints on it. Trouble is, we can’t be certain that they’re not his. Wouldn’t do for us to release them and have everybody looking for the Chief Constable, would it?’

‘I see,’ she stated, ‘so now you need something with Mr Hilditch’s fingerprints on it so you can eliminate him from your enquiries.’

Phew! Couldn’t have put it better myself. ‘Quite,’ I said. She thought for a while. ‘I’ve washed his cup and the glass he uses. Let’s see what we can find.’

She came from behind her desk and headed for the door into the adjoining office. The tight skirt emphasised the classy chassis. I followed her, tripping over the waste-paper bin on the way.

The Chief Constable’s office was furnished in mahogany and leather. There were law books in a cabinet, drinks in another, and photographs from memorable moments in his career on the walls. Not a loose piece of paper to be seen anywhere. I had a look at the drinks cabinet and discovered that he was a Macallan man. That would gain him some of Gilbert’s respect.

‘What about his paperknife, Inspector?’ Miss Yates was examining his desk. I turned to face her. Hell’s goblins! She’d taken her spectacles off! The desk was totally bare except for a marble-based executive paper knife holder, essential for the job, complete with stainless steel knife. I held it between my fingertips and examined it as if I knew what I was doing.

‘Smashing,’ I said, ‘do you mind if I borrow this for an hour or two?’

She perched herself on the corner of his desk. As I faced her she drew up one long leg and folded her hands around her knee. ‘Not at all, Inspector. Did you say it was an interesting case?’

I dropped the knife into a plastic bag. ‘Very interesting. I’d like to tell you all about it sometime. Meanwhile, I’d better have this examined. Then I can bring it back to you’ – I gave her the smile – ‘personally.’

Fingerprints were in the middle of a panic. Every white male in the city who could run a mile in under five minutes with his trousers round his ankles was in the process of being eliminated from enquiries. The constable laid aside what he was doing and gave the knife a brush-over with aluminium flake. It didn’t show up too well against the bright metal, but he assured me there were some useful dabs present. He pressed strips of Sellotape over the smudges to lift them off. I could see them easily enough then. Chalk and soot are still used sometimes, but they have particles that squash flat when Sellotape is pressed on to them, distorting the
image. This doesn’t happen with the ally flake. The sticky strips are then placed on pieces of clear plastic sheet, to produce instant negatives, thereby eliminating half of the photographic process.

‘Will they do?’ he asked. ‘Or do you want some contact prints making? They’ll take a while, I’m afraid.’

‘Make me some prints, please. There’s no immediate hurry.’ I wiped the powder from the paperknife, put it in an envelope with a note and posted it in the internal mail. The note read:

Or my breathing, I’d thought, as I folded it.

Hard physical exercise; that’s what I needed. I retrieved the gardening tools from the back of the shed and spent the rest of the day digging the old vegetable patch. It looked better for it, but my hands were blistered and my back felt dodgy. That evening I hobbled to the nearest pub for a couple of pints. It’s not my idea of a local, with its polystyrene beams and flickering electric candles. There were only four others in the place, all leaning on the one, short bar. They made little effort to move so I could be served. As I reached between them for my pint I accidentally let it drip on someone’s portable phone. One of them was complaining that he’d had to drive the Rover all the way to Leeds to fill up, because that’s where the company account was. I narrowly avoided puking down the back of his Pierre
Cardigan. It didn’t work: next morning still found me drinking tea in the kitchen at four a.m.

I lunched in Whitby, after a three-hour drive, then went walkabout in the rain, looking for the address Longfellow had given me for Cakebread’s flat. It was in an imposing Victorian terrace, on the north side, near Captain Cook’s monument. I sat outside for over an hour, watching for comings and goings. Nobody came, nobody went. Whitby was as depressing as the weather, but without the possibility of changing in the near future. The front door of the building was not locked, so I entered and climbed the stairs. When I reached his door I took out the third key that had been in the envelope Gloria had given me. It wouldn’t even go in the lock. If it had fitted I don’t think I would have opened the door, but it would have been useful to know that I had the means to, at a more favourable time. Never mind, this wasn’t the real purpose of my journey. I went back to the car and set off up the coast.

I’d scoured the Ordnance Survey maps and the only PM I found was a place called Port Mulgrave, near Staithes, to the north of Whitby, and only thirty miles from Teesside airport. Captain Diaz had suggested we ask ourselves why Cakebread flew to Teesside. I was working on the lines that the drugs were dropped to accomplices waiting in a boat. He’d be flying in unrestricted airspace, and could easily divert twenty miles out to sea. It’d been done before. Port Mulgrave looked the perfect spot to bring the booty ashore.

The east coast doesn’t have the reputation of, say, Cornwall, as a hotbed of smuggling, but it happens. Not too long ago a major racket was exposed involving the importation of illegal immigrants, and recently a ton of cannabis was found on an oil rig service boat. The more I thought about it, the more I became convinced that I’d cracked the note’s last riddle. ‘Nineteenth-century port, used for exporting iron ore. Never commercially successful’ was the only reference I’d been able to find in the library. It was time to investigate first-hand. In the car I had my old walking gear and a pair of binoculars; today I was an ornithologist.

It was mid-afternoon when I parked about a mile down the road from the turn-off to Port Mulgrave. The rain was coming down as if the second flood was already here. I changed into my waterproofs, stuffed the binocs down the front of my cagoule, and went for a walk. Half an hour later I arrived at the clifftop overlooking the port. There was a hotel that would have been a perfectly sensible place to park. The cliffs here are not like the ones at Bempton or Dover. Although the overall height might be just as great, they don’t rise vertically from the sea. They slump against the land, at about forty-five degrees. Another noticeable difference is that they are not carved from chalk. Their chief component is mud.

A narrow path zigged and zagged down towards the broken little pier that jutted into the unwelcoming ocean. Skeins of rain flurried across the surface of the
water. There were no buildings down there, just a couple of what looked like garden sheds, and a pair of boats dragged on to the shingle. I was hardly halfway down the path when two figures came out of one of the huts. I stopped and took out the binoculars. I had a good scan round, at nothing in particular, and proceeded downwards. I hadn’t looked at the two men; I’d already noticed that they were carrying shotguns.

We met where the path levelled out. ‘Afternoon! Not that it’s a very good one,’ I bellowed with enthusiasm.

They stood blocking my progress. ‘Wouldn’t go any further, if I was you,’ one of them said. If Wales really does produce fine tenors, the East Riding should be famous for its baritones. This one sounded as if he gargled with bitumen.

‘Oh, really. Why’s that?’ I asked.

‘Shooting,’ he stated. They were both wearing Barbour jackets that were pale with age, and the rain was running off their hats.

‘Oh, thanks for the warning. What are you shooting?’

‘Rabbits.’

‘Hard luck on the rabbits,’ I laughed. I stood looking around for a few moments, then pointed past them and said: ‘Will it be safe if I just look for fossils for a minute or two, down near your boats?’

They exchanged glances, and the spokesman said: ‘Aye, that should be all right.’

They followed me down. I told myself that this was
England, not Beirut, but I had to admit it was a good setting for a murder. They both went back into the shelter of the hut, but kept the door open, so they could watch me. I wandered up and down and kicked a few pebbles over. Once I took out my knife and squatted on my heels, closely examining nothing in particular. A squadron of guillemots came whirring over the
wave-tops
, as if on a suicidal torpedo run. I pulled out the binoculars and followed them until they vanished against the blackness of the rocks. It seemed a crazy place to build a port for the exporting of bulk cargo – they’d have to lug everything down the cliffs. But then I noticed the tunnel.

The cliffs were banked with scree comprised of shale, heaped up like mining spoil. Rusty rails ran back from the pier, and pointed up the scree towards the blanked-off entrance. The iron ore wasn’t brought down the cliff; it was transported from inland by tunnel. I marvelled at the simple ingenuity of it: the tunnel would slope gently down, and the weight of the full wagons descending would pull the empty ones back to the top. Energy required, nil. I continued sweeping the binoculars, stopping here and there, but slowly drawing them towards the opening. I paused. The mouth was blocked off with a wall made of stone blocks. In the middle a stone had been left out, as if to allow some ventilation, but down at the bottom left-hand corner, partly concealed by scrub, was a bigger gap, large enough for a man to crawl through. Both openings
were now sealed with breeze blocks. I continued the sweep, then put the binocs back down the front of my anorak.

The rain was even heavier than before. I stood gazing out to sea and took several long, deep breaths. Ah, wonderful! If nature had devised a better way to catch pneumonia, I’d yet to find it. I beat my fists twice against my chest, shouted ‘Good afternoon’ to the morons in the hut and set off briskly towards the cliff path. Out of the corner of my eye I could see that there was another, well-trodden path, leading up to the tunnel.

On the way down the mud had encroached up my legs until it reached my crotch. Going up, it made it to my armpits. Once I was back on the road the rain diluted it somewhat, but did little to improve my overall appearance. I couldn’t have cared less, as I swung my arms jauntily on the way back to the car.

I had a lot of time to waste. I did some exploring in the car, heater at full blast to dry me out, and even managed a nap. It was well after opening time when I parked outside the Lobster Pot in Staithes. I’d chosen well, this was the pub that the old fishermen used. There weren’t many of them, but it was a tiny place and their pipe smoke made the air so thick that the flies were hang-gliding. I leant on the corner of the bar with a half-pint and a packet of crisps. I was soon exchanging pleasantries with the landlord. Towards closing time, when most of the old-timers had stumbled away, he
came to lean on my end of the bar. I bought us a Bell’s each.

‘Don’t suppose you’ve a room vacant?’ I asked. I’d seen the ‘No vacancies’ sign when I entered.

‘Afraid not, sir. We’ve two small rooms, but an American family have taken them. Never guess what they’re called.’

After a few seconds I said: ‘Cook?’

‘Correct. You could try the Cliff Hotel up the hill. Would you like me to ring them?’

‘No, it’s all right, thanks. I’ll go home. I just had a fancy for getting quietly drunk on your whisky, then crawling upstairs to bed. It’s a foul night outside.’

‘I know what you mean. Have you far to go?’

‘No, only to Malton. I’ve just had a day’s birdwatching; probably have flu in the morning.’

He busied himself drying a few glasses. When he returned I said: ‘How much fishing goes off, these days?’

‘Virtually none,’ he replied, ‘just lobster-potting and some long-lining. It’s a waste of time.’

‘What about from Port Mulgrave? I had a strange experience there today.’

He looked interested, but not excessively so. ‘What sort of experience?’ he asked.

‘Oh, nothing bad. I walked down the path and two blokes with shotguns warned me off. Said they were rabbiting, and I might get shot. It seemed funny weather to be rabbiting.’

He wandered round the room, collecting the ashtrays. Everybody else had left. I drained my glass.

‘One for the road?’ he enquired.

‘No thanks; if I’m driving I’d better not.’

He came to stand next to me, and in a conspiratorial whisper said: ‘The Lazenby brothers fished from Mulgrave. And their fathers. And their grandfathers. Last year they sold their boats, word has it, for ten times what they were worth. Bought a posh bungalow in Redcar and haven’t been seen since. Some divers use the port now. You know what they’re into, don’t you?’

‘Er, no.’

He lowered his voice even further, as if afraid that the walls might be listening. ‘Wrecks.’

‘Wrecks?’ It wasn’t quite what I was hoping for.

‘Wrecks. War graves. There’s dozens of ’em off this coast. And who knows what other things they’re into?’

Other things; that sounded more like it. ‘What other things?’ I asked.

Just then the door burst open and Mr and Mrs Cook and their two offspring dashed in. They took off their raincoats and the landlord hung them somewhere to dry. The kids were packed off upstairs to brush their braces and go to bed, while Captain Cook and his mate settled down with a nightcap. I said my goodbyes and left. I had work to do.

I parked at the same place I had used earlier in the day, but this time I didn’t don my waterproofs – they made too much noise when I walked in them. The steady rain
had given way to the fine sort that just hangs suspended in the air, managing to soak your sheltered surfaces just as thoroughly as the top ones. Instead of walking up the road, past a string of houses, I cut directly across the fields. The night was blacker than a tomcat’s soul. When I reached the clifftop I groped along the fence until I found the stile. I had my second pee, hoping that my bladder was responding to nervousness or overindulgence, and not incipient prostate trouble, and climbed over.

It was nearly impossible to keep to the path. Cattle grazed on the cliffside, and left numerous tracks that went off in different directions. I stared down at the ground, and placed my feet on the darkest patches I could see, sometimes with messy consequences. It took me a long time to reach the bottom. I did a left turn until I crossed the rails, then made another, up towards the tunnel entrance. The sheds were, thankfully, in darkness.

A hundred years of erosion had left the opening stranded several feet up. I did the last bit climbing on my hands and knees, pulling myself upwards with handfuls of grass. At last I made it on to a ledge at the entrance, and paused to regain my breath. Everything was as quiet as a tomb. The sea stretched out before me, still and lifeless, like southern beer. I took out a little torch and, cupping my hands round it, examined the opening. It was bigger than I had thought, but the breeze blocks weren’t cemented in. I put the torch away
and explored the joints with my fingertips. The topmost block had no weight on it. Quarter-inch by quarter-inch I worked it towards me until I was able to grip it and lift it out.

When I’d removed four I decided the gap was big enough. One by one I passed the loose blocks through the opening to the inside, then crawled through after them. Working by touch, I rebuilt the wall, slowly blocking off the pale patch of sky until the darkness was total. Then I switched on the torch.

It was a disappointment. The tunnel stretched away for about fifty yards, terminating in a fall of rubble that reached the roof. The first few yards were muddy, then it was firmer underfoot. The torchlight glinted on something in the mud, at the foot of the wall. It was a discarded condom, trodden into the ground after its brief moment of ecstacy. I couldn’t imagine anybody going through what I had gone through to come in here for sex.

‘Inconceivable,’ I said to myself.

The dim light cast shadows at the far end. I walked towards them to investigate. A number of pallets were laid side by side, as if to form a dry base to stand something on. Alongside, roughly folded, was a large sheet of polythene, possibly used to protect the same something from drips from the roof. Whatever it had been, it wasn’t here now. I closely examined everything, but failed to find anything incriminating. I felt certain that this was where they brought the stuff,
but defence barristers usually had difficulty in accepting my word. I stood looking at the roof-fall for a minute or two, then turned and walked slowly towards the entrance.

As the torchlight swung up and down, the shiny white end of the condom winked at me. There was a machine in the pub near my house that sold flavoured ones. The banana had caught my imagination, and I’d wondered if the reason was because I liked bananas, or something more Freudian. When I reached the wall I bent down and examined the contraceptive with vicarious curiosity. I’d only ever seen the standard pink ones before. It was a different shape at the end, too …

It wasn’t a condom; it was a glove. The thin, rubber type that surgeons wear. We keep a stock of similar ones, for if we have to handle certain items of evidence or search unsavoury prisoners, and the scene-of-crime officers carry them around with them. They’re widely available, sold in DIY stores for yuppie decorators who don’t want to get eau de nil on their cuffs. I took out my knife and carefully scraped the mud away. I pulled a plastic bag inside-out over my hand and gently picked the glove up, unfolding the bag around it. Maybe my journey had not been totally in vain, after all.