A Very Private Murder (18 page)

‘What’s that?’

‘
Turdus
… something or other. Can’t remember what it was, though.’

She gave a little laugh and I had a glimpse of the Toby of old. ‘That’s a thrush,’ she told me.

‘I’ll believe you. What’s your war name?’

‘I don’t have one, yet. I’m not important enough.’

‘But you’d like to be?’

‘I suppose so.’

‘How old is Newt?’

‘He’s nearly twenty. It’s his birthday next week.’

‘Where does he live?’

‘I think he has a flat in York.’

‘How do you keep in touch?’

‘By our mobiles.’

I think she told me all she could. Newt claimed he was a pal of Swampy, the legendary protestor who made his name by digging tunnels under the new runway at Manchester airport. Democracy was fine, Newt told them, but if you wanted to change things, direct action was the only way. I remember reading Chairman Mao’s ‘Little Red Book’ when I was a student, and it all sounded frighteningly familiar. What goes around comes around.

I said: ‘The antiques dealer who bought the egg cups gave Newt five pounds each for them. How do you feel about buying them back for the collection, at, say, seven pounds each? Do you have thirty-five pounds?’

‘I’ll save it out of my pocket money.’

‘Good girl,’ I said. ‘So how about if I arrange for you and I to be taken out in a traffic car, if they’re not too busy?’

‘What’s a traffic car?’

‘A police Volvo, with luminous stripes and flashing blue lights.’

‘Seriously!’

‘If they’re not too busy.’

‘Wow! That’s great. But it should be
you and me
.’

‘Of course, my apologies. Anything you want to ask me?’

‘Umm.’ She looked at the plate and its meagre contents. ‘Could I have a sandwich, please?’

I drove down to Driffield and spent an hour at a borrowed desk in the police station, making phone calls. The local collator said she’d ring me back and while I was waiting I sweet-talked the traffic chief inspector into sanctioning a ride for a certain Miss Curzon.

There was a local file on the badger protection activists, the collator reported when she called me, with a character known as Newt listed as the leader. I didn’t ask if a Toby Curzon was in there because if I had the collator would have pencilled her in. The civil disobedience and anti-terrorism squads didn’t have anything on them, nor did MI5. That made them very small beer. These days a letter to
Saga Magazine
can earn you a file at MI5.

Dave and Bri were on duty and they gave me sideways grins when I introduced them to Miss Toby Curzon, but she won them over within seconds and they would have let her drive if she’d asked. We sat in the back, Toby in the middle seat so she could see as Bri explained all the technical stuff to her.

‘This is the ANPR,’ he said. ‘That’s the automatic number plate recognition. If a car goes by that isn’t registered or insured, or is reported stolen, the ANPR lets us know.’

‘Wow!’ Toby exclaimed. ‘And what’s that?’

‘That’s the video recorder. It films whoever we might be following and records their speed.’

‘Wow! And what’s that?’

‘It’s a system known as Lantern. We can take a suspect’s fingerprints on it and check them against the seven million we have on record, in about five minutes.’

‘Wow! And what’s that?’

‘That’s called Tracker. It gives a signal if we’re within about twenty yards of a stolen car that’s fitted with it.’

‘Wow! And what’s that?’

‘What?’

‘That.’

‘It’s a cup holder.’

‘Wow!’

We did a short burst at one hundred and
twenty-five
miles per hour on the M62 with the lights and siren on before they took us back to Curzon House. ‘Thanks, Dave, thanks, Bri,’ Toby said as she climbed out. ‘It’s been smashing. Do you want a cup of tea?’

‘No, we’d better get back to catching criminals. Nice to meet you, Toby.’

I thanked them and walked to the house with her. ‘That was great. Thanks, Charlie,’ she said; then, after a pause: ‘Do you know how fast a Chinook goes?’

‘A bit faster, I’d say.’

It didn’t matter, though. Big sister Grizzly might have flown in a Chinook but she’d never ridden in a cop Volvo.

I’d justified the trip east by thinking a talk with the vet, Martin Chadwick, was overdue, but Mr Wood was on holiday and the lure of a triple-decker beefburger with Dave’s family was stronger than the pull of instant coffee in Chadwick’s showcase kitchen. I put my foot down and made it back to Heckley before they’d placed their orders.

‘They’re doing the tests,’ Dave told me after I’d wished Dan a happy birthday, ‘and it’s looking good. Serena’s left a message on your ansaphone.’

‘We’re talking pit bulls?’

‘That’s right. All the samples are viable and they’ve promised a report by Tuesday morning. Jeff’s told them to be in the nick with their briefs by ten o’clock.’

‘Tuesday?’ I queried. ‘What’s wrong with Monday?’

‘It’s a bank holiday, and they’re civilians. They’re allowed a day off, now and again.’

‘Great. But they’ll have something for us on Tuesday?’

‘That’s right. Now, are you ready for the bad news?’

‘Go on.’

‘Superintendent Kent wants to be in on it.’

‘You’re kidding.’

‘Cross my heart and hope to die. She wanted to know where you were.’

‘Sugar! What did you tell her?’

‘That you were grouse shooting with your friend the chief constable. She was impressed.’

I hoped he was joking, but with Dave you never can be sure. The burgers came. Dave’s wife, Shirley, said: ‘That’s enough shop talk. Eat your burgers,’ so we did.

Sunday morning dawned bright and dry, so nine a.m. found me strimming the garden, annoying the neighbours. Served them right for complaining to the council. I fell asleep in front of the television, waiting for the Formula One to start, woke up in the middle of the champagne-spraying ceremony.

Tuesday we set up interview room one with a video link to next door, so we could watch the procedure. I’d decided that Jeff and Serena would do the interview and I’d observe from next door, with Ms Kent, if she made it. Gareth Adey, my uniformed counterpart, volunteered to sit in with us, for which I was grateful. He’s better at cop-speak than I am. Carl and Sean Pickles were using the same solicitor, so he was in for a busy morning. Carl was the alpha gorilla, so Jeff decided to interview him first, with Sean in the cell furthermost away, well out of earshot. The long-awaited lab report arrived, rushed over by a traffic motorcyclist, and we had six copies made.

Carl was wearing his best shell suit and hadn’t bothered to bring an overnight bag. I wondered if Terry Bratt had nipped round to comfort their mutual relative but decided there was no hurry – he’d have her all to himself in an hour or so. We’d had words with him and he’d made a statement about loaning his dog to the brothers. He thought they were just taking it for walkies and we’d agreed to go along with that. Poor Serena was dwarfed by the men, but the Manila envelope on the table in front of her would give her an edge when the time came.

Jeff made the introductions and was officially cautioning Carl when the door behind me opened and Karen Kent appeared. ‘Sorry I’m late,’ she said in a hushed voice. ‘Heads of agreement meeting.’ Superintendent Karen Kent is the acceptable face of the force for the twenty-first century. Six feet tall; double first in law and psychology; black belt in kick-boxing; fast-tracked through the ranks; looks good in uniform; engaged to an EU human rights lawyer.

Never made an arrest single-handed. Never
kick-boxed
anyone more belligerent than her instructor; never investigated the flashing lights on a trading estate at two in the morning, without backup. I introduced her to Gareth and turned back to the video monitor.

Jeff said: ‘This interview is being recorded by sound and video. It concerns a series of aggravated burglaries that took place on the following times and dates at the following addresses.’ He read them out and the brief took notes. ‘Can you tell me where you were at those times?’

‘Round and about. Nowhere special,’ Carl replied.

‘You’ll have to do better than that.’

‘Can I phone a friend?’

‘Do you deny you were anywhere near those locations at those times?’

‘Never been anywhere near them.’

Jeff went into a series of questions about specific events in the robberies, all of which Carl denied. He’d never visited a cash machine with one of the victims; never threatened the husband; never terrorised the children. He became cockier by the minute, convinced that we had nothing to link him to the crimes. At one point the brief warned him about his answers but he ignored the advice. He was enjoying himself, and Jeff was content to keep on paying out his rope. Alongside me, Ms Kent made the occasional tutting noise to indicate her disapproval of Jeff’s technique.

‘Have you done a psychological profile of the suspects?’ she whispered to me.

‘No.’

‘Or taken any advice on how the interview should be handled?’

‘No.’

Jeff was asking about the dog. ‘Are you acquainted with the pit bull cross known as Bruno?’

‘Yeah. It belongs to my nephew, dunnit.’

‘Does your nephew have a name?’

‘Terry Bratt. The dog’s his.’

‘Do you ever borrow it?’

‘We take it for a walk sometimes.’

‘Did you take it for a walk on the dates I mentioned earlier?’

‘No. Haven’t taken it for weeks.’

‘Do you often take other people’s dogs for walks?’

‘Not often. We was thinking of buying it off him, wasn’t we?’

‘But you didn’t?’

‘No. We ordered a pup, though, if it ever fathered any, didn’t we? Pick of the litter, like me.’ Big grin.

Jeff sat in silence for a while, ran his fingers through his hair. The video camera was high on the wall, so we were seeing a distorted, wide-angle view of the room. Jeff and Serena were under the camera with their backs to it, so they suffered the most distortion. Carl and the brief were full-frontal. The interview rooms were designed with a pair of CCTV cameras each. One fixed and one that could be manipulated. We quickly learnt that the moveable camera was intrusive, while the fixed one was quickly forgotten by the suspect in the heat of an interview. We were using only the fixed one today.

‘Have you ever heard of SmartWater?’ Jeff asked, aiming the question at the brief as well as the suspect. Heads were shaken, blank looks exchanged.

‘No? In that case, I have a few leaflets here which may enlighten you.’ He delved into his briefcase and produced the leaflets and a SmartWater kit. The solicitor took his copy and fumbled for his spectacles.

‘As you will see,’ Jeff continued, ‘SmartWater is a clear, proprietary liquid that is used in crime prevention. When painted on an article it will remain
in situ
for years. Anyone who comes into contact with it will pick up a small amount, which can then be easily detected by UV light.’

The brief tossed the kit onto the table to emphasise his disdain for it and said: ‘If you are wanting to subject my client to a UV test, the answer is no.  There are dozens of substances that react to UV light.’

And we’d be accused of exposing him to carcinogenic radiation, I thought.

Jeff said: ‘We don’t want to subject anyone to UV. I was going to say that each SmartWater kit carries a unique DNA signature, which is recorded at the local police station. This enables stolen property to be linked to its rightful owner and also linked to whoever stole it. Any questions?’

Carl was starting to fidget. It was above his head and he had an attention span comparable with a cheap firework. His brief waved an arm and said: ‘Are you telling us that the property stolen in the course of the unfortunate burglaries you mentioned earlier is all marked with this SmartWater fluid?’

‘No,’ Jeff replied. ‘None of it is marked with SmartWater. West Pennine haven’t received their quota, yet, and ours came only last week and hasn’t been distributed.’

‘I’m sorry, officer, but you’ve lost me.’

‘And me,’ Ms Kent hissed.

The brief went on: ‘In the absence of anything remotely resembling evidence I must insist on my client being released forthwith.’

‘Not SmartWater,’ Jeff said, ‘but something considerably cheaper and equally effective. We call it DogPiss.’  

Serena was next on. She explained how she and a SOCO and a uniformed PC had visited the scenes of the robberies and taken swabs of all the places where a dog might mark its territory by peeing up against lamp posts, drainpipes and door jambs. These had been taken to the lab at Weatherton and tested for DNA. A small quantity of DNA, Serena told us, was flushed out during the act of passing urine – more so in a bitch than a dog but still a significant amount from a dog.

I’d worried about letting Serena conduct part of the interview but my concern was misplaced: the girl was doing good. Had she known that our new whiz-kid super was watching she’d probably have gone to pieces, but then again, perhaps not.

‘DNA was also obtained from hairs collected from the male pit bull cross known as Bruno, owned by Terence Bratt,’ Serena told us, ‘and this was compared with that obtained from the sites of the robberies. Bruno is a dog and dogs, unlike bitches, like to mark their territories. Four of the samples are perfect matches …’

And then she stopped. Go on, I thought. Tell them the odds. Tell them that the chances of the DNA coming from a different animal were billions to one against. That always impresses briefs. Tell them they were down the toilet without an Andrex, but she didn’t. Serena stared at the two-page report from Weatherton, shuffled the pages, turned them over to see if anything was printed on their backs, looked in the envelope to see if she’d missed anything. When she couldn’t find whatever she was looking for she stood up and said: ‘I’d like to take a ten-minute break.’