A Very Private Murder (6 page)

‘Right. Jan. Any disgruntled employees that you might know of?’

‘I can’t think of any.’

‘Has Arthur appeared under any extra stress lately?’

‘Well, yes. But that’s down to the opening of the Centre. There was always the chance that it wouldn’t be ready on time.’

‘I see. But otherwise, he’s been OK?’

‘Fine. He’s been fine. To tell the truth, he has a bit of a
thing
about Ghislaine. I think it’s his age, an older man’s crush, that sort of thing. He was looking forward to meeting her more than he’d ever admit to me.’

I knew the feeling. An older man’s crush; was that it? As Dave once said: ‘If you’ve got to be an old man you might as well be a dirty one.’ I thanked Mrs Threadneedle for her assistance and stood up to leave, saying I’d had a busy day.

‘I never offered you a proper drink,’ she said, struggling to her feet. ‘I’m sure you deserve one.’

It might have been my imagination, or wishful thinking, but I’d swear the zipper on her jogging top had crept an inch or two down towards her navel. ‘Not while I’m driving,’ I said, rather meekly.

‘Are you sure?’

‘Positive.’

‘That’s a pity.’

‘Tell me,’ I said. ‘Is Arthur Irish?’

‘He pretends to be. His father was, but he came over here years ago, before Arthur was born. Made a fortune building roads and what have you, and lost most of it. When he died of cirrhosis of the liver Arthur took over the business. We’ve done very well out of it, as you can see.’

‘You certainly have,’ I replied, taking in the Ashley Jackson watercolours and the glass coffee table balanced on a tangle of driftwood, but the expression on her face told that the benefits of wealth had bypassed her. She’d gained a fur coat and an architect-designed house, but lost a marriage. ‘Threadneedle’s not an Irish name, is it?’

She said: ‘No. It was his mother’s name. I think he wanted to deny his Irish roots. Thought he’d do better in business as an Englishman.’

‘There’s a local legend that says he was born in a caravan in rural Ireland. Is it not true?’

‘Not a word of it. He’s a chameleon, changing his colours to please the people he happens to be dealing with. That’s his romantic side. He was actually born in St James’s hospital in Leeds. You know what they say: the further you get from the Old Country, the more vociferous are the immigrants.’

I nodded. ‘He seems to know what he’s doing.’ We were standing barely a yard apart, me towering over her, she looking up into my face. She said: ‘He hasn’t gone to the Belfry to play golf with his business chums, you know.’

‘Hasn’t he?’

‘No. He’s said he was going there on several occasions before. Last June it was his birthday while he was away, so I hid a birthday card in his bag of clubs. It was still there when he came home three days later. They’d never been out of the car boot. And there’ve been other times … other … lies …’

‘I’m sorry,’ I said, turning to leave, but the little bit of me that I despise was filing the information for future use.
Knowledge is power
, it whispered in my ear. 

Toby would never make a top tennis player, and that thought made me unhappy. She just wasn’t tall enough. Tennis matches, like presidential elections, always go to the taller candidate. I was on my way back to the office before the evening rush started, with both visors down against the low glare of the sun. The lights changed and we moved off. I was disappointed that I hadn’t questioned Ghislaine more, but she was in an odd position. I could have gone to any of the celebrity magazines and sold anything she confided in me for a year’s salary, so her answers to my questions would have been guarded and worthless. No matter, fingerprints would have it all sewn up by now. They’d have found some prints on the paint tube and matched them against the database. If they hadn’t lifted the culprit already it was only because they’d decided to wait until I could be in on the action.

Working the lump, it was called. After the war thousands of Irishmen came over to England to repair the damage done by the Luftwaffe, and, later, to build the motorway network. They worked in gangs, for gang masters, and didn’t bother with inconveniences like health and safety, or taxation. It was a hard-drinking culture, with tales of thirty pints of beer per day quite common. If you didn’t fit in, you were out on your neck. The smart ones sent their money home and returned to the Old Country as rich men, the dumb and the gullible wrecked their bodies and paid the price. It looked as if Threadneedle senior was somewhere in between, but his son had been more ambitious, had seen beyond where the next drink was coming from, had glimpsed the distant, sunlit uplands and decided he wanted to bask there. And who could blame him?

Jeff Caton was in the office when I arrived back at the nick, looking harassed.

‘Tell me about the robbery,’ I said. It was closer to my heart than chasing vandals and pandering to high society.

‘It’s frightening, Chas,’ he replied. ‘The kids are terrified and their parents are not much better. I don’t think there’ll be much sleeping done in that household for a week or two. The villain with the dog babysat the husband and children while the other one took the mother to the cash machine. It was straining at its leash and foaming at the mouth, trying to get at them. The tosspot holding its chain was barely in control, they said.’

‘Descriptions?’

‘Both above average height and well built. Wearing overalls and wrap-round shades, with NY baseball caps pulled down over their faces. And they wore surgical gloves.’

‘Great,’ I said. ‘I’m coming to the conclusion that the general public know more about forensics than we do. How’ve you left it?’

‘Serena’s still with them. I’m seeing West Pennine in the morning to compare notes. A couple of neighbours report seeing a Jaguar that might be interesting. Dark grey, no number. We’re checking for stolen ones.’

‘So nobody local springs into the frame?’

He shook his head. ‘No, but it will be interesting to see where the other robberies were. It might give us an idea where they’re coming from.’

‘Their
locus of operations
. Don’t hold your breath. It might be easier to find the dog.’

‘I know. Pit bulls are not everybody’s idea of a four-legged friend.’

His phone rang and a second later Dave and Brendan came bustling through the door.

‘Caton,’ Jeff said.

Dave walked to the coffee-making table and held a cup up and I nodded a ‘Yes, please’.

‘We haven’t taken delivery yet, Mr Wood,’ I heard Jeff say, then: ‘Yes, it’s a pity this morning’s victims hadn’t been supplied with it. OK, I’ll chase it up.’ He replaced the phone.

‘What was that about?’

‘SmartWater. Mr Wood wondering if we were any nearer to getting some.’

‘Neighbourhood Watch will have complained,’ I said.

SmartWater is a magic liquid that you spray on valuable items and around windows, et cetera. We weren’t sure how it worked but it made villains glow in the dark, and therefore more easily identified. At least, that’s what we’d been led to believe it did. We’d never actually seen any. A neighbouring town, Todmorden, had pioneered its use and witnessed an immediate reduction in home burglaries of
eighty-four
per cent. I couldn’t help thinking that a decimal point had been mislaid, but about six months ago the good citizens of Heckley had forked out ten pounds per household and were still waiting.

‘Did you see Threadneedle?’ Jeff asked.

I gestured towards the others as Serena came in. ‘Wait until this lot join us.’

Dave brought my coffee and collected another chair for Serena as she hung her jacket behind the door. Brendan fetched a chocolate chip muffin from his desk and seated himself next to Serena.

‘My, you look smart, Mr Priest,’ she said, her eyes sparkling. ‘And … mmm … that’s a nice aftershave you’re wearing. Have you been anywhere special?’

‘Oh, you know, Serena, just interviewing witnesses.’

‘So, did you see her?’ she asked, unable to contain her curiosity any longer.

‘Who?’ I wondered.

‘You know who!’ I couldn’t see her feet but I suspect she stamped one of them.

‘Mrs Threadneedle?’

‘
No!
Ghislaine.’

‘Oh, her. She’s, y’know, very nice.’

‘Uh!’

Dave said: ‘So did you find anything of interest?’

‘Not from Threadneedle or Mr Curzon,’ I replied, ‘but I had an interesting talk with Mrs Threadneedle, after he’d gone. Apparently he was a racehorse owner and she reckoned he had shares in Shergar.’

Jeff looked sideways at me and Dave gave a polite cough. Jeff said: ‘And did they buy these shares from the same Nigerian diplomat who sold them the ones in the London Eye?’

‘OK, OK,’ I responded. ‘I’m only reporting what she said, and she was slightly under the influence at the time.’

‘She likes a drink?’

‘Or the drink likes her. She also told me that her husband had an Irish father but he changed his name to Threadneedle because it sounded more English. Does that make sense?’

‘Probably,’ Dave agreed. ‘If he had business ambitions he may have wanted to join the Freemasons, and I doubt if they admit Irishmen.’

‘Or Catholics,’ Jeff suggested. ‘I can’t see them allowing Catholics in. Is he one, do you know?’

‘I’ve no idea.’

‘Uh!’ Serena snorted. ‘I thought we were supposed to be the ones with the tribes and cults.’

Jeff turned to his computer and tapped away at the keyboard. I said: ‘I’ve been thinking, Dave.’

‘Go on.’

‘There was a documentary on TV a few years ago about the Kennedy assassination.’

‘There’ve been dozens,’ Serena declared.

‘I know, but this one was a bit different. The Dealey Plaza, where it happened, was lined with spectators wanting to see the president. And the first lady, of course. About half of them had cameras, and as the cavalcade drove by they all snapped merrily away. But as well as photographing Mr President they made a record of all the people in the crowd at the other side of the road. The FBI appealed for the photos and eventually identified almost everybody there. I remember that they came tantalisingly close to getting a snap of the top of the grassy knoll.’

Dave said: ‘So it’s Shergar and who killed Kennedy, is it? Don’t you think you might be aiming a little too high for a small-town DI?’

‘Listen, buggerlugs,’ I replied. ‘Whoever did the painting was probably there, in the crowd. Let’s ask for the photos and see who we recognise. It’ll keep the boss off our backs if nothing else.’

Jeff swivelled his chair round and bugled a ‘
ta-da
!’ as he came to face us again. ‘Guess what?’ he demanded.

‘We’re all agog,’ Dave growled.

‘You’re not going to believe this. According to Google, Shergar won the 1981 Derby and three other classic races, before being retired to stud, which is common knowledge. But this is the best bit: when it went to stud the owner, who just happened to be the Aga Khan, sold thirty-four shares in the horse at a cool quarter of a million each. Your friend Mrs Threadneedle could have been telling the truth.’

Wednesday morning I left Dave in charge of the Curzon Centre massacre enquiry and went with Jeff to talk to our cousins in Lancashire. We took our big map with us and marked on it the locations of the first three pit bull robberies and the whereabouts of the cashpoints they’d used. Ours was way out on a limb. It looked as if they’d decided things were too warm on their side of the Pennines so they’d spread their wings. When we compared descriptions and MOs it was obvious that it was the same gang. A grey or silver Jaguar had been seen near one of the incidents so we alerted the automatic number plate recognition system to look for stolen ones.

‘What about the dog?’ I asked my opposite number. ‘Have you had any success looking for that?’

‘We’ve appealed for information,’ I was told, ‘and replies have come flooding in. You’d be amazed how many pit bulls – or pit bull lookalikes – there are in Manchester. We’re following them all up.’

We stopped for a bacon sandwich on the way back and I rang Dave. ‘How’s it going, sunshine?’ I asked.

‘Pretty good,
mon capitaine
. The
Gazette
has agreed to publish an appeal for photographs and Radio Pennine said they’ll find a slot for us, too. And guess what – fingerprints have found a partial on the paint tube. Haven’t made a match yet, though.’

‘That’s great. And what about the CCTV tapes? Any joy with them?’

‘Ah,’ Dave began. ‘That’s where it all goes a bit pear-shaped. Unfortunately they’re all recorded on DVDs. We can play them in the office on a laptop but we’ve only got one that’ll do DVDs. I’ve left the Spice Girls watching them in the control room at the Centre, but I had to lean on the manager there. He’s a bit of a jobsworth.’

‘What about Miss McArdle?’ I said. ‘Wouldn’t she overrule him?’

‘She’d taken some time off. Not back until Friday.’

Terrific, I thought. I’m dragged in from my holiday and she goes gallivanting off on hers. ‘OK, we’ll see you back at the factory.’

‘How’ve you gone on?’

‘Not bad. It’s the same gang, possibly based in north Manchester and using a grey Jag. It should be enough. See you.’

Fierce dogs arouse strong feelings, and Thursday morning the calls started trickling in. It’s not illegal to own a pit bull terrier, but there are restrictions. It must be on a lead and muzzled when in a public place, and neutered. I can’t imagine why anyone would want one but they are particularly liked by men with beer guts and tattoos. The Aga Khan, we learnt, divided Shergar into forty shares worth a cool ten million, and kept six shares for himself, raising eight and a half million for his pension fund. Unfortunately, the IRA kidnapped the horse one sunny day when a major horse fair was taking place and the lanes and byways of that fine land were clogged with horseboxes and trailers, making the job of the Gardai almost impossible. The popular belief is that poor old Shergar proved too much of a handful for his kidnappers and was killed and buried somewhere in the wilderness, but as there has never been any proof of its death the insurance company – surprise, surprise – has refused to pay out.