Necrocrip (27 page)

‘I ought to mention first that it isn’t an official enquiry,’ Slider said. ‘In fact, I’ve been forbidden to follow up on this.’

‘I understand,’ Dolly said, with an amused look. ‘Being forbidden always set up Bob’s back, too.’

‘I want to know all I can find out about a man called Colin Cate.’

‘Ah,’ said Dolly. Her eyes grew grave.

‘Especially about the incident in 1982 when two DCs were shot’

‘Field and Wilson,’ she said. ‘That was a dreadful business. I don’t think Bob ever got over what happened to those two boys.’

‘But there was no question of blame, was there? It wasn’t his fault?’

‘Some people thought it was. And I dare say he blamed himself.’ She looked across at him. You would, wouldn’t you? Even if there was nothing you could have done to prevent it.’

‘Yes, I suppose so. Can you tell me exactly what happened? Did Bob talk to you about it?’

‘Oh yes. Not all in one go, but in dribs and drabs over the
years. I suppose you know it was a stake-out of a pub where they believed drug dealing was going on?’

‘The Carlisle, yes.’

‘Colin Cate was in charge of the operation. Do you know him, by the way?’

‘I’ve met him briefly. Twice.’

‘He and Bob never saw eye to eye. It’s only fair to tell you that from the beginning, because naturally I will be prejudiced against him. Anyone Bob didn’t like, I didn’t like.’

‘Do you know why he didn’t like him?’

‘Bob hated the idea that it’s not what you know, it’s who you know. Cate relied heavily on contacts – in both directions. He was a very successful policeman, because he knew a great many criminals – had a whole network of informers, if legend is to be believed. And he went very quickly up the ladder because he knew all the important people above him. He was a great socialiser, which of course Bob wasn’t. Dinner-dances and that sort of thing bored him stiff, but you would always see Colin Cate in the centre of a lively group, keeping his seniors amused. I felt awfully sorry for his wife,’ she added thoughtfully, stirring her coffee. ‘His first wife, I mean. He married her when he was very young, and then found he’d outgrown her, that she wasn’t important enough or glamorous enough to be the wife of a rising star. So he divorced her and married a wealthy young woman who could wear clothes.’

‘What was he like to work with?’

‘Full of energy, no detail too small, that sort of thing. And a great disciplinarian. Unquestioning obedience to orders. Bob thought Cate didn’t leave enough room for individual responsibility and initiative, and of course he was always one to act on instinct – Bob was, I mean – which was anathema to Colin Cate.
He
liked to have every tiny detail under his own thumb.’

‘So what happened at the stake-out?’

‘It’s only hearsay, remember,’ she said acutely. ‘I only know what Bob told me, and after all these years I may remember wrongly. And it concerns your DS, Ian Barrington.’

‘I understand all those things. But I need to know. Please – your version.’

‘Very well. The plan was quietly to draw a loose net round the pub, and then tighten it quickly, going in by all the doors at once. Everyone had their orders. Bob’s were to stay out in the road as a backup, and to catch anyone who managed to slip the net. He didn’t like it, I can tell you. He wanted to be part of the action, and he believed that Colin Cate had put him in the back row as a punishment. So he was restless, you see, and looking around for some way to be more involved.’

‘I understand.’

‘Now the pub is on a corner plot on a fork of the road, as you know. It had doors to the street on three sides, and the fourth side had a little yard with gates and outbuildings, and there were fire doors leading into it from the back of the pub. Ian Barrington was to cover the yard, and as far as Bob understood, his orders were to stay outside in the yard and just catch anyone who came out. They didn’t expect any of the customers to come out that way because it led to the staff quarters and kitchens and storerooms. There was a door through from the bar, but it was in the corridor beyond the lavatories and it was in a dark corner and marked private.’

‘Fair enough. One or two might make it that far, but not a crowd.’

‘Quite so. But now, you see, Barrington said afterwards that Colin Cate had changed his orders just before it all began, told him that he was to wait thirty seconds after the raid started and then go in through the fire doors and go straight through to the bar, to make sure no customers did, in fact, get out that way. But no-one told Bob that. He saw the main force go in through the street doors, and while he was pacing restlessly up and down hoping for something to happen, he looked into the yard and saw that Barrington and his men were nowhere to be seen, and that the fire doors were apparently unguarded. So he did what any man would do – any man with initiative—’

‘He took two of his men and went to investigate.’

‘Field and Wilson,’ Dolly said. ‘Jack Field was mad about motorbikes, poor boy. His one ambition in life was to buy a Harley Davidson and take it to Germany where there was no speed limit and see how fast it would go on the autobahn. And Alan Wilson – he was shot in the stomach. A dreadful
place to be wounded. He lingered in hospital for months, and he was never the same afterwards. He had to leave the police force. I don’t know what became of him.’

‘But the raid,’ Slider prompted her gently. ‘What happened?’

‘It all happened so quickly. Bob led them in. There was a passage, quite dark, no lights on. He could hear the noise of the raid from up ahead of him. There was no-one in the passage, but there were doors to either side, and a staircase a bit further along, leading up to the staff bedrooms. Bob headed for that, leaving the boys to check what was behind the doors. He’d just started up the staircase when the two men came bursting out from one of the doors – between him and his boys. Bob shouted something, and the two men looked round – startled, I suppose. Then Bob’s foot slipped.’ She sighed, her fingers tightening unconsciously on the cup handle. ‘He was turning, you see, and the stairs were uncarpeted. His foot went out from under him and he fell forwards – up the stairs, if you understand me—’

‘Yes,’ said Slider.

‘And at the same moment he heard the shots. One of the men shouted ‘Let’s get out of here,’ or something like that, and Bob scrambled up to see Field and Wilson on the ground, and the two men running out of the door. He went to his boys, of course. Some people suggested afterwards that he should have gone after the two felons, but he knew they were armed, and his own men were hurt.’

‘Quite right. Getting himself killed wouldn’t have helped.’

‘And besides, he’d recognised them when they looked round at him.’

‘Jimmy Cole and Derek Blackburn.’

‘That’s right.’

‘But you said it was dark in the passage?’

‘It was light enough for that. There were street lamps outside and the doors were open.’ She looked distressed. ‘Of course the defence counsel at the trial made all they could of the darkness, but he was only ten feet from them. Besides, they never denied they were there, only that they had fired the shots.’

‘Bob didn’t see which of them fired them?’

‘No. The staircase was enclosed, you see. And he’d fallen forwards, face down. He only heard the shots.’

‘He didn’t actually see the gun?’

‘No. But there was never any doubt about it. The gun was found in Blackburn’s bedroom the next day. Colin Cate himself took a team to search the house, and the gun was there under some clothes in his wardrobe.’

‘There was no doubt it was the right gun?’

‘None. The ballistic evidence was quite clear. Even the defence didn’t challenge it. It had been wiped clean of fingerprints, but it had been recently fired, and the bullets they recovered matched it.’

‘And what happened afterwards? There must have been an internal investigation into the shooting of the two DCs.’

‘Yes, there was. Well, no blame was officially attached to anyone. But afterwards Barrington said that it was all Bob’s fault for not following his orders. If he’d stayed out in the road, Field and Wilson wouldn’t have been shot. He and Bob had a dreadful argument about it, and Barrington gave him to understand that such was also Cate’s unofficial view. So there was no possibility of their ever being able to work together again. Bob put in for a transfer, and that was that. But I understand that Colin Cate left the force soon afterwards, and did rather well for himself in business.’

So that was why Barrington hated Dickson, Slider thought; and, in particular, hated his indiscipline and laxity. Unquestioning obedience to orders, that was the way to salvation.

‘But if Cole and Blackburn said they didn’t fire the shots, who did they claim had done so?’ he asked after a moment.

‘They didn’t offer any explanation,’ Dolly said. ‘Have another slice of cake. It’s very nice, isn’t it? No, they couldn’t suggest who might have shot the two DCs if they didn’t. They never even tried to claim that they were elsewhere. They said they’d been having a quiet drink when the raid started and they simply tried to run for it. It was such a thin story the defence counsel didn’t put them in the box, and the jury had no doubts about their guilt. They were only out for two hours.’

Slider was silent, running the new ideas through his mind.
There didn’t seem to be any great mystery about it, except perhaps as to why Cate had changed Barrington’s orders at the last minute. But on the face of it the change was for a good reason. And it was perhaps slightly odd that Cole and Blackburn had offered no better defence – but then, since they were caught bang to rights, what defence could they offer?

‘I haven’t helped you much, have I?’ Dolly asked, breaking into his reverie.

‘Yes – yes a great deal,’ Slider said. ‘But there is just one thing more. I understand why Bob didn’t like Cate, but was he generally liked, by the other people who worked for him?’

‘You didn’t like Colin Cate,’ she said decisively. ‘He preferred to be obeyed and reverenced.
Oderint dum metuant,
you know.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Caesar Tiberius. Let them hate me as long as they fear me.’

‘Ah! And was he reverenced?’

‘Oh yes, I think so. He was a very effective officer, Bob always said, and that’s what counts, isn’t it? I think Ian Barrington modelled himself on him, but then poor Ian had scars that went very deep, and Cate was a very handsome man. Charming, too, when he wanted to be.’

‘Did he charm you?’

‘No. But then he didn’t try. I was just a lowly inspector’s wife – he had nothing to gain from me. And he never had any time for women anyway. He was a man’s man, and his charm was a man’s charm. Maybe that’s why Bob didn’t care for him,’ she added as though she had just thought of it. ‘There was a lot of woman in Bob, in the best possible way. There is in you, too. Do you like him?’

‘No,’ Slider said, a little embarrassed at the turn of conversation.

‘There you are then,’ Dolly said with a satisfied nod.

‘ALL RIGHT,’ SLIDER SAID, ‘LET’S
have a look at what we know. Atherton, tell us about Lam.’

‘Michael Lam set off from the Hung Fat restaurant in his car at about eight o’clock on Wednesday evening for Heathrow. He checked in for his flight, which was to leave at eleven-thirty, and the ground stewardess concerned says that to judge by the seat allocation he must have checked in amongst the first, when the check-in opened at eight-thirty. He subsequently caught the flight, but the business colleague who was waiting to meet him in Hong Kong says he didn’t arrive. He says he saw every person who came through from that flight, and Lam wasn’t among them.’

‘He missed him,’ Mackay shrugged. ‘It happens all the time.’

‘It’s possible of course. But Lam didn’t arrive at his hotel, or contact the man at any point as he was supposed to, he didn’t catch his booked flight home, and he hasn’t been in contact with his family since.’

‘So he disappeared during the flight, is that what you’re saying?’ Norma enquired sweetly.

‘I’m just establishing what we know. I haven’t got round to theorising yet,’ Atherton said loftily. ‘Point number two – Lam’s car has been discovered in the short-term car park at Terminal 3. If his original intention was to go to Hong Kong on Tuesday evening, returning Saturday, why not the long-term car park? Three to four days in the short-term costs a fortune. Indeed, why take the car at all? The tube would
have been more sensible. He didn’t have much luggage, only a small shoulder-bag.’

‘But we do know he caught the flight,’ Jablowski said.

‘We know
somebody
caught the flight,’ Atherton corrected.

‘I thought you weren’t going to theorise,’ she complained. ‘You’ve got him down for the corpse, haven’t you?’

‘We tried the cabin crew with a photograph of Lam, and they don’t think he was amongst the passengers, though they can’t be absolutely sure.’

‘I should think not, indeed,’ Norma said, amused. ‘They were on their way to Hong Kong, remember.’

‘Why do you think he was the victim, then?’ Mackay said, still catching up.

‘He was Eurasian, and he fits the description of the victim as far as height, build and age go. And he is missing.’

‘That’s what we said about Leman, and look where that got us,’ said Norma.

‘He could be anywhere,’ Jablowski said. ‘He might just have done a bunk when he got to Hong Kong.’

‘I would, if old Hung Fat was my father-in-law,’ Norma agreed.

‘Of course he could,’ Atherton agreed. ‘That’s why we’ve still got to get an ID. We’ve got the name of his dentist from his sister-in-law, and we’ve sent off the dental profile. His dental work was done in Hong Kong, but it was two years ago, and businesses tend to act like mushrooms over there – up one day and gone the next. Still, we shall see. And if there’s no joy, we could try taking a blood sample from his baby, if the mother will allow, and do a genetic fingerprinting. That ought to give us a fix.’

‘Assuming for the moment and for the sake of argument,’ Slider said, ‘that Lam is the victim, why did he come back to the shop, why was he killed, and who went to Hong Kong in his place?’