A Very Private Murder (19 page)

I tried to leave it to Jeff and Serena to sort out, but Superintendent Kent insisted on being in on the action so I ushered everybody upstairs to Mr Wood’s office. ‘What’s the problem, Serena?’ I asked.

‘This,’ she replied, handing me the report. ‘It only arrived ten minutes before the meeting. I’d only briefly looked at it, concentrating on the summary sheet. We’d given the samples serial numbers, with Bruno’s being the last one. But the lab has shuffled them around to make it a blind test, which means that Bruno is now number three, not number five, as I’d assumed. Four samples match, but Bruno isn’t one of them. All we’ve proved is that the same dog visited the crime scenes but it wasn’t Bruno.’

Jeff said it was his fault, he’d done a quick read of the report and come to the same conclusion as DC Gupta. I said I’d have to carry the can as department head. Gareth Adey said the blame lay with the demand to meet quotas. Serena said she was sorry. Karen Kent said that the importance of quotas mustn’t deflect us from our core aim of providing justice for all, and some emphasis would be given to providing us with the skills required to eliminate incompetence and engage with the new wave of criminals that we were coming across. I glanced up at the portrait of the Queen on the wall behind Gilbert’s desk, and I swear she winked at me.

‘There’ll be no talk of incompetence,’ I said. ‘Some good detective work has been done on this, and DC Gupta led the way. A mistake was made, for which I take full responsibility, due to lack of staff out there on the ground. What we need to do now is find the right dog. We have to hand their briefs copies of the report, and they’ll soon discover what our problem is. So let’s get out there and find that dog before they do. We need twenty-four-hour surveillance on their acquaintances for the next day or two.’ I turned to Karen Kent. ‘Can you help us with that, ma’am?’ I asked, and was rewarded with a look that would have etched tungsten.

‘We need to talk,’ she said through gritted but whitened teeth, and somehow I didn’t think it would be about Yorkshire’s chances in the Roses game.

Our case was severely weakened but we decided to run with it. Jeff and Serena went back into the playpen and Jeff explained to them that there was an error in the report and handed copies to the brief. He didn’t tell him where the error was, but he’d find it soon enough.

Carl jumped up and tried to give his solicitor a high five. The brief was more restrained but he was inflating visibly and his expression moved a notch up the smugness scale as he stuffed papers into his Louis Vuitton briefcase. ‘So are my clients free to go?’ he asked.

‘No,’ Jeff told him. ‘Terence Bratt has made a statement saying they borrowed Bruno on several occasions. I have copies for you. And witnesses from three of the premises burgled are more than glad to face your clients in a line-up.’

Serena said: ‘So we’ll be charging them with aggravated burglary, robbery and kidnapping and opposing bail. Any questions?’

‘Fuckin’ Paki cow,’ Carl spat at her.

‘Actually,’ she began, turning to face him across the table, ‘I was born in Heckley, like you. Unlike you, my parents were married.’

We were back in the observation room, watching and listening. Gareth let out a ‘Yeah!’ under his breath after Serena’s response but Karen Kent just glared at the TV monitor.

She suddenly spun on her heels to face me. ‘Could you run me back to HQ, Mr Priest? I have an asset planning meeting to prepare for.’

‘I’ll get one of the pandas to take you,’ I suggested.

‘If I’d wanted a panda car I’d have asked for one. I want you to take me so we can synchronise our diaries. I’ve instigated a committee about best practices, and I think we can learn lessons from this morning’s fiasco, don’t you agree?’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ I replied, but I knew my lessons would be different to hers.

I pulled out into the traffic and switched on my brand-new Airwave digital radio system, with the volume way down low. Gone were the days when you could park up in a bad reception area and sleep off your hangover. Nowadays we could be plotted to the nearest five metres. I’d never synchronised a diary before, so I waited, expectantly. The chatter on the radio was the usual post-bank holiday stuff: people coming home from a long weekend in the caravan to find their block paving had been removed; stolen barbecues; an old lady trying to climb the slip road on her battery scooter; traffic building up through Huddersfield.

Ms Kent took a deep breath and I braced myself, but the radio saved me. ‘Attention, all units. Silent alarm activated at Royal Bank of Dubai, High Street, Heckley.’ I leant over to turn up the volume and my passenger exhaled. ‘Come in, all units. ARVs, confirm positions.’

The radio fell silent for a moment, then buzzed with noise as someone made a connection. ‘Hotel Yankee 1 to control. We’re on the M62, just passing Scammonden reservoir, heading west. We’ll do our best.’ They were miles away, going in the wrong direction. Even with blues and twos it would be fifteen minutes before they’d be on the scene.

‘Hotel Yankee 4 to control. We’re at a possible code blue RTA near Cleckheaton; can’t really leave it.’

A couple of panda units radioed in to say they were on their way, and an ARV from West Pennine and one from Leeds offered to help, but again, they were miles away. And pandas don’t carry firearms but bank robbers usually do. I slowed almost to a standstill, studying the scene behind through my rear-view mirrors. We’d just driven down Heckley High Street.

‘Are we anywhere near?’ Superintendent Kent asked.

‘We’ve just driven by,’ I replied, pulling towards the kerb and braking as I studied my mirrors. I couldn’t see any alarms flashing but an elderly Ford Fiesta was parked on double yellows where I thought the bank was situated. Banks like the RBD don’t go in for big signs. Discretion is all part of the service. At a price, of course. ‘Hello, control,’ I said, ‘this is Charlie Puma. I’ve just passed the scene. Will turn back. Suspect a red Ford Fiesta is involved; reg mark coming up.’

I held my headlight flasher on and made a U-turn across two lanes of traffic. We were now behind the Fiesta, crawling towards it.

‘Hi, Chas,’ came the response. ‘Right man in the right place, as usual.’

‘Luck of the Irish, Arthur. I have Superintendent Kent with me. She’s in charge.’

‘OK. Standing by.’

‘Charlie Puma to control,’ she chanted into the RT. ‘This is Superintendent Kent. We are on the scene in Heckley High Street. Will observe only. No unarmed units to become involved. That’s an order. Repeat, nobody to approach the bank until we have firearms support.’

But I just kept rolling, quite slowly, towards the Fiesta. ‘Radio in the number,’ I said.

She twisted in her seat. ‘What the fuck are you playing at, Priest?’

Cops and robbers
, I thought,
it’s what they pay us for
, but kept it to myself. The driver’s window was down, even though a slight rain was falling, and his arm was dangling outside. A cigarette was held between his fingers and a puff of smoke blossomed for a second before being torn away by the breeze. I cruised gently to a standstill behind him and saw the fear in his eyes as he considered his options. Should he sound his horn, just drive off, or stick it out? Black smoke from the exhaust showed that the engine was running and badly needed an overhaul. I held my arm out across in front of the super, who was generating enough radiation to defrost a turkey. ‘Take it easy,’ I said. ‘No sudden movements,’ as I popped the lock on the boot lid.

I climbed leisurely out of the car, strolled round to the back of it, felt for the catch and raised the lid. Toby Curzon’s shotgun was laid across the boot, hard up against the seats, wrapped in the tartan rug I keep in there. I’d forgotten to return it to her father when I last saw him. I slid my fingers inside the bundle and lifted it out.

The youth in the getaway car was more relaxed now that we hadn’t made a drama of things. We were just a couple of wealthy citizens checking on our investments, with enough clout to flaunt the parking regulations for a couple of minutes. When I was alongside his door I let the rug slip to the ground and swung the gun barrels through the open window.

‘This is a four-ten Magnum shotgun,’ I told him. ‘Probably the most powerful shotgun ever made, and at this range would blow your head clean off, so don’t move a muscle.’ Actually, it would just about kill a rabbit at twenty feet, but with both barrels jammed under his ear it probably would have blown his head off. I could feel his fear being transmitted down the gun as he tried to speak, choking on his words, his body wracked with terror.

‘Now, put your hands behind your head.’ He did as he was told, shivering like a condemned man on the scaffold, and I pulled the key from the ignition. When he was face down on the pavement I turned to the super, who was standing behind me, and told her to cuff him.

‘I don’t carry any,’ she hissed.

‘In the boot,’ I told her, over my shoulder.

I met the other two in the doorway. One was carrying what I imagine were money bags and his pal, the black one, was holding what looked like a 9mm semi-automatic.

Oops
, I thought.

If I’d gone for the gun he’d have pulled the trigger as a reaction, and that would have been Goodnight Vienna, so I stuffed the twin barrels of the four-ten into the stomach of the other one so hard that he gasped in pain and swung him round to put him between me and the nine-mil. I shouted: ‘Armed police! Licensed to kill! Drop the gun!’

‘Fuck, man. Fuck, man,’ the black one said. He was wearing an Adidas hooded top with a baseball cap under the hood, the peak at precisely ninety degrees to his direction of travel. He might be robbing a bank, but looking cool is all.

‘Drop the gun!’ I shouted, ‘or he dies.’

‘Fuck, man. Fuck, man.’

‘Drop the gun or he’ll kill me!’

‘Fuck, man. Fuck, man.’

‘Drop the gun!’

‘Drop the gun!’

His options were as exhausted as his vocabulary. He dropped the gun. I flicked it with the toe of my shoe, sending it spinning across the pavement to drop harmlessly into the gutter, as if it was something I’d practised for years. Superintendent Kent appeared alongside me, pink-cheeked,
bright-eyed
and breathing heavily. We marched the Sundance Kids out onto the pavement and ordered them to lie down on the wet flags. Ms Kent fetched two more plastic cuffs from my boot and when we’d made them comfortable I gave her the shotgun.

‘If one of them moves, shoot him,’ I said, for their benefit, not hers, ‘while I round up the witnesses.’ Her jaw dropped but she took the gun.

The cavalry arrived and gradually the nervous tension subsided, giving way to smiles, outright laughter and the camaraderie of a shared, but thwarted, danger. I was in the banking hall, listening to a lady who’d defied the Mau Mau in Kenya and wasn’t going to be intimidated by home-grown villains, when I felt a hand on my arm. It was the photographer from the
Gazette
, Heckley’s answer to CNN, wanting a story.

I excused myself from the colonial lady and said: ‘Hiya, Flashbang. You took your time, seeing as you’re next door.’

‘What’s the story, Charlie?’

‘What you see is what you get. Attempted armed robbery; nearly made it with four million in used hundred-pound notes; silent alarm in the nick; Bob’s your uncle.’

‘Who’s the lady outside with the gun?’

‘Ah! That’s Superintendent Karen Kent, seconded to Heckley for a short while to bring us up to speed with the latest advances. She’s widely regarded as chief constable material. Did you get a picture of her?’

‘A couple of good ones. Want a look?’

‘Ooh, yes please.’

The yobs were carted away and Ms Kent came looking for me. ‘I need to get back,’ she said, ‘or I’ll be late for my meeting. Can we go, please?’ Her breathing had settled down but her cheeks were still pink and a lock of dark hair was falling across her eyes, causing her problems. I tried to remember if she’d been wearing a hat. I felt certain she had been when she came into the office, earlier in the day.

‘No problem,’ I said. ‘They don’t need us here. Let’s go.’

We were both feeling manic, the adrenaline rush hardly abated. ‘Three good collars,’ I said as I swung another U-turn across the High Street.

‘Do you know them?’

‘No, they’re strangers to me.’

‘From out of town?’

‘Probably.’

‘Does a bank like the RBD keep much money on the premises?’

‘No idea.’ We drove in silence the rest of the way to HQ, where I swung into the ACC’s vacant parking space, nose up against the brick wall. I could have murdered a coffee but she didn’t offer and didn’t make an attempt to get out. We sat there, looking at the wall, not speaking, like an old married couple. The bricks were slimmer than standard size, in two shades of ochre arranged in a herringbone pattern. I was about to start counting them when she said: ‘I’ll have to make a report. You understand that, don’t you?’

‘Well,’ I began, ‘you were instrumental in collaring a gang of armed robbers and preventing a bank robbery. Of course you’ll have to make a report. The CPS can only act on what we tell them.’

‘I’m not referring to the robbery. I’ll come to that. I’m talking about the shotgun that was in your car boot. The press will have a field day if they learn that one of our senior officers is in the habit of driving about with an unauthorised loaded shotgun in his car. And then there’s a little matter of sloppy radio procedure. And the rubbish DNA evidence. They’ll already be laughing at that in chambers, believe me.’

I looked across at her. ‘What do you mean, loaded?’ I demanded. ‘Who said it was loaded?’

‘Wasn’t it?’

I pointed to the glovebox in front of her. She fumbled with the catch until the lid fell open, revealing the two cartridges I’d removed from the gun the night I took it from Toby.

‘Oh my God!’ she said, lifting them out. ‘Oh my God! We could’ve been killed. We could’ve been killed.’ Her hands were shaking so much that the cartridges dropped to the floor.