Chill Factor (12 page)

“Yes, I think we can be certain about that,” the lawyer replied.

Gilbert was looking at me over his spectacles, defying me to launch into a conspiracy theory. “Yep, the evidence points that way,” I concurred.

“Good. Now what about Tony Silkstone?”

“We have one witness, namely Silkstone himself, and some forensic,” the lawyer told us, “and all the forensic
indicates
that he is telling the truth. Have you anything to the contrary, Mr Priest?”

I shook my head. “Nope.”

“So we go for manslaughter.”

“Except I don’t believe it,” I said.

“What you believe, Charlie,” Gilbert snapped, “is neither here nor there. It’s evidence that sways a court.”

“Evidence,” I repeated. “
Evidence
. I wish I’d known that. I’d have brought some along.”

“What makes you think it’s murder?” the lawyer asked.

For murder we needed to prove a degree of
premeditation
, or an intention to kill. Silkstone had almost admitted that he thought his wife might be having an affair, during that first interview when he was trying to show us what a forthright fellow he was, but his brief would have soon made him aware of that folly. I thought about him, images from the little I knew about the man lining up for inspection and moving on as the next one popped up. All that surfaced was that he had a photograph of Nigel Mansell on his wall. Hardly damning. “Nothing,” I replied. “Let’s go for manslaughter.”

“Oppose bail?” the lawyer asked.

“Definitely,” I insisted, as if the alternative were
unthinkable
.

“On what grounds?”

Bail is rarely granted in murder cases, but is fairly
common
for manslaughter. The accused has to show the court that he is unlikely to abscond, interfere with the course of justice or commit another crime. As Silkstone had a clean record up to now, was in gainful employment and could reside in the area once we had deemed his house no longer a crime scene, he’d probably be granted it.

“Psychiatric reports,” I said. “He’s pleading some sort of
mental aberration, red mist and all that rubbish. Of a
temporary
nature, of course, from which he has now miraculously recovered. We need to show that either he never had it or it’s still there. I don’t mind which.”

“Our expert witness will be a registrar from the General on a flat fee,” the lawyer told me. “His will be a whiz kid from Harley Street who lights his cigars with ten-pound notes.” His tie had little Mickey Mouses on it, and a faded patch where he’d removed a stain.

“But Silkstone has killed someone,” I said. “Sticking a knife in somebody’s heart takes a lot of explaining away. They’ll let him out eventually, but let’s hold him for as long as we can.”

The lawyer agreed and said he’d do his best. I felt sorry for him, but not as sorry as I felt for Margaret Silkstone.

“So?” Dave asked when I arrived back in the office.

“Manslaughter,” I told him. “As we expected.”

“Fair enough,” he replied.

“It’s not fair enough if he planned the whole thing,” I retorted. “Involuntary manslaughter and he could be out in a year. He might not even go to jail at all.”

“But Latham was shagging his wife,” Dave stated.

“Oh, so that makes it OK, does it? What law’s this, Sparkington’s law?”

“You know what I mean.”

“No I don’t.”

“Mc-whatsit made the laws. What does he say about it?”

“The McNaughton Rules? He says that to establish a defence against murder they have to prove that the
defendant
was off his trolley, which they probably can do. He came home and found his wife dead in bed, murdered and raped by one of his employees. It’s strong stuff, if that’s what happened. I think we’d best resign ourselves to calling this a double clean-up and get on with keeping the streets safe.”

“Everybody else is happy with that, Charlie. You’re the one wanting to make a meal of it.”

“Yeah, well,” I said.

I went downstairs to find the custody officer. He was in the briefing room, listening to one of the other sergeants, a new guy, regaling the troops with stories from his holiday in Florida. He had a suntan and a big mouth, and was thrust upon us by HQ for reasons we knew not.

“And this hostess was coming down the aisle,” he was telling them. “Typical American – all tits and teeth. ‘Would you like some TWA coffee, sir?’ she asked. ‘No,’ I told her, ‘ –
but I wouldn’t mind some TWA tea!’”

They laughed as only a captive audience can. I caught the custody sergeant’s gaze and he followed me into his
purpose
-designed domain.

“He’s in fine form,” I said.

“Isn’t he just.”

“Have a brotherly word with him, Bill, or I might have to.”

“Right.”

“We’ve decided to do Silkstone for manslaughter.”

“Good,” he replied, opening a drawer in one of his filing cabinets. “In that case we’d better ring his brief and get on with the paperwork.”

Something was troubling me. Nothing I could name or explain or put in a report to show what a clever boy I was at a later date. There was a loose end – less than that, more like a draught around the edge of a closed window – that was making me feel uneasy. I collected the keys from the
connected
property store and drove to number 15, Marlborough Close, home of the late Peter Latham.

The spaghetti jar still stood on his worktop, next to the pan lid, as if the cook had been interrupted by the ringing of the telephone, and a carton of milk was making unhealthy smells. I took it outside and dropped it in his dustbin. The
woman next door peered at me shamelessly, but didn’t come to investigate. The pile of mail behind the door looked depressingly familiar, with not a single hand-written
envelope
amongst it all. I toyed with the idea of writing:
Dead, return to sender
on everything, but resisted the temptation. They’d probably all send it back asking for it to go to the next of kin.

The bird prints on his walls were Audubons, and good quality. Maybe I’d underestimated Peter Latham. I climbed the stairs slowly, listening for creaks, wondering if he’d ever led Mrs Silkstone up them, tugging at her hand. If walls could speak, what would they tell us? The door to his
bedroom
was ajar. I pushed it open and went in.

The sun cast a big geometric patch of light across the bed and wall, showing off the room as if in an advertising brochure. There’s something inviting and evocative about sunlight spilling across a made-up bed. Three tiny Zebra
spiders
scurried across the windowsill, alarmed by my
intrusion
, but a dead or sleeping wasp ignored me. The
photograph
of the young girl was still there, smiling shyly,
self-consciously
, as she had done for God-knew how many years, and the new Mrs Latham was still gazing down into his eyes. But it was the girl I was interested in.

I sat on the bed and removed a pair of latex gloves and my Swiss Army knife from a jacket pocket. The room was chilly but the sunlight warmed my legs. I wriggled my fingers into the gloves and tried to open the big blade of the knife. Couldn’t do it. My thumbnail wouldn’t engage with the
little
groove. I removed one glove, opened the knife and replaced the glove. You live and learn.

Carefully, I eased back the metal sprigs that held the photo in the frame. There was a stiff backing card, a sheet of acid-free paper to stop the picture discolouring, and then the photo itself. Something about it had reminded me of the one I owned with Sophie and Daniel on. Both pictures were black and white, and exposed to the same degree. Mine was
taken and printed by the
Heckley Gazette.

This one had a similar stamp on the back. Both sides were trimmed to isolate this girl only, and one edge of the stamp had gone, but it told me that the photographer had worked for the
Burdon and Frome Exp
…and the serial number was 2452…? We were in business.

Five minutes later I was on Latham’s phone, dialling a Somerset number. A small intuitive leap had told me that the picture came from the
Burdon and Frome Express
and I was right first time. Sometimes, you have to trust your instincts.

“Gillian McLaughlin,” a voice said, after I’d asked to be put through to the editor in charge. I introduced myself and asked if she were the editor.

“Deputy editor,” she stated. “Mr Binks is not in at the moment. How can I help you?”

“In the course of an enquiry,” I began, “we have come across a photograph which apparently comes from your paper.” I explained what it was and told her the number on the back.

“Shouldn’t be a problem, Inspector,” she replied, and went on to tell me that the number was the edition number and only the digits which identified the actual page and
photograph
were missing. They were now up to edition 3,582.

“So this picture was taken just over a thousand editions ago,” I stated.

“Um, yes, which is about, um…”

“Are you a weekly?”

“Yes, we are.”

“About twenty years, then.”

“Um, yes. Twenty years,” she agreed.

She also agreed to extricate the full article from the archives and fax me a copy. I told her that we were trying to track down a dead person’s relatives, and we suspected this girl might be one of them. If there was a story in it, I assured her, she’d be the first to know.

Nothing was spoiling back at the nick so I went home.
My house wasn’t as tidy as Latham’s, I decided, so I made the bed, just in case, and washed and dried a two-day pile of crockery. When you live alone you don’t notice how the sloppy habits slowly overtake you. The decay starts in the unseen corners, then spreads like mould on a bowl of fruit. For tea I had boil-in-the-bag cod with pasta. If you put the pasta in the same pan as the cod it saves on washing up. The telly cooks never tell you useful stuff like that.

Big Jim Lockwood was leaving the car-park as I arrived on Tuesday morning, wheeling an upright bicycle that was last used when
Whitehall one-two one-two
was the number you dialled after the villains had said: “It’s a fair cop, Guv.” I wound the window down and spoke to him.

“Back with us, eh, Jim?”

“Looks like it, Mr Priest,” he replied, “but we’re still grounded.”

“Have they said how long for?”

“Indefinitely. Calling it a new initiative. Bobbies in the community and all that. It’ll get me fit, lose some weight.”

“That’s one way of looking at it.” I drove into my space, shaking my head at the stupidity of it.

Gillian McLaughlin’s fax was waiting for me when I came out of the morning prayer meeting. “Come and dig this,” I said to all and sundry as I bore it into the office. They
gathered
round and peered at it. There were four girls on the photo, all carrying the letter B on their chests. They were, the text told us, the victorious Under 13s relay team at the recent Burdon schools sports day, and the girl second from the left was called Caroline Poole.

“Caroline Poole,” I heard Annette whisper. “Where are you now?”

“With looks like that,” someone said, “I’m surprised she’s not on t’telly. I bet she grew up into a right cracker.”

“She’s certainly a bonny ’un,” another agreed.

“Let’s find her, then,” I suggested. “And the others.
Should be easy enough. They’ll be in their early thirties, now.” I turned to Annette. “Can I leave that with you, Ms Brown?”

She smiled, saying: “No problem, Boss.”

“No hurry,” I told her. “There’s nothing in it for us, more than likely. She’s probably a relative of Latham’s, that’s all.”

Four of us, including Annette, went down to the canteen for bacon sandwiches. “Mr Wood’s sent Jim Lockwood and Martin Stiles out on the beat, on bikes,” Jeff Caton stated.

“It wasn’t Mr Wood,” I disclosed. “The order came down from above.”

“What, God?”

“His deputy.”

“Bloody crackers, if you ask me.”

“It’s a new initiative. Get the bobby back on the beat.”

“On a 1930s bike that weighs half a ton and has rotting tyres. They’ll be laughing stocks.”

“They became that when they got the car stuck.”

We chuckled at the memory. “You’ve got to admit it was bloody funny,” Jeff said.

Annette and Dave came back from the counter carrying the teas. Annette placed a mug in front of me, saying: “No milk or sugar for you, Charlie.”

“Wait a minute. Wait a minute,” Jeff demanded. “How come you know that the boss doesn’t take milk or sugar?”

“The same way as you know,” she told him, without
hesitation
.

“Oh. And did you know he liked his belly rubbed with baby oil?”

“Cut it out,” I said. “You might not be embarrassing Annette but you’re embarrassing me. I don’t want
everybody
in the station knowing my little foibles.”

I was sitting with my back to the canteen counter, and a phone started ringing behind me. I raised a finger in a
listen
gesture, and after a few seconds was rewarded with a call of: “Mr Priest, it’s for you,” from the office manageress.

The other three stirred, with mumbles of “I’ll get it,” but I beat them to it.

“Priest here,” I said.

“Detective Inspector Priest?” The voice was new to me.

“That’s right. How can I help you?”

“This is George Binks, editor of the
Burdon and Frome
Express
. I’ve just discovered that my deputy has faxed you a photograph that you were interested in.”

“Hello, George. That’s right. Ms McLaughlin found what I wanted. Pass on my thanks to her, please.”

He said he would, and asked me why I was interested. I gave him the sanitised version, without mentioning dead bodies, and then he explained why he’d rung. I was
sprawling
across the canteen counter, leaning on my elbows because the phone cord wasn’t long enough. “Wait a
second
,” I told him, putting the phone down and going behind the counter. I picked it up again, found a seat and said: “Go on.”