The Circle (28 page)

29

www.ChichesterMurderDetectives.com

                    Latest developments from Naomi Green

An extraordinary twist in the case, thanks mainly to me. Do you remember my visit to the burnt-out ruin of Edgar Blacker's house? I removed a photo from the bedroom wall. The police had left it hanging there, thinking it was unimportant. It showed Blacker with a second man, apparently at a party. On the reverse someone had written 'Innocents, 1982'. This picture is now in the hands of the police and they have identified the second man.

I have to be careful here. The man has an interest in keeping his past a secret. He has changed his name since the 'Innocents' picture. He once owned some men's magazines - the sort that have to be kept on the top shelf -that were edited by Blacker, and
Innocents
was one of the titles. Yes, Blacker, the puffed-up publisher who came to our writers' circle and delivered judgement on our literary efforts, used to edit sex magazines.

But let's put the spotlight on the second man, although I have to say he gets plenty of attention already. Yes, he's rich and famous. These days he is a highly successful businessman who has made a fortune from the fitness craze, persuading the public to use gyms and equipment he supplies. But that isn't enough for him. He has ambitions for a career in government and is being tipped for a job in the next reshuffle. He wouldn't want his association with Blacker and those smutty magazines being leaked to the press just as he is waiting for a call from Number Ten.

Lord Gym (as I'll call him, because he has a title) was interviewed this week in a London hotel by the Sussex police investigating Blacker's murder. They are looking for a connection with the murders of Amelia Snow and Jessie Warmington-Smith. That old phrase 'helping the police with their enquiries' doesn't entirely fit what happened. He wasn't a lot of help. They want to speak to him again and they are looking for a fuller and more frank account of his association with Blacker. The opportunity will come at the weekend at his country house. Can it be just a coincidence, I ask, that he lives only four miles from Chichester? He'll be there late Friday evening. Expect the police to knock on his door on Saturday morning.

The members of the writers' circle will be relieved to know someone else is taking some of the heat. Not many of them realise who they have to thank.

                    YOU ARE VISITOR [3896] TO THIS SITE

30

There is no trap so deadly as the trap you set for yourself.

Raymond Chandler,
The Long Goodbye
(1953)

T
he stake-out was in place. Sixteen officers, uniformed as well as CID, were hidden in and around the grounds of Lord Chalybeate's house in Bosham. All were in radio contact with Hen Mallin, who was in the house directing from an upstairs room. The transport was parked away from the house in the grounds of a school.

The overcast sky was an advantage for those in hiding. Even six-foot-five Duncan Shilling was well concealed in a rhododendron plantation near the main gate. But the conditions would also provide cover for the suspect. It was difficult spotting anyone without the help of moonlight.

In the house, Hen went downstairs to have more words with the housekeeper. Keeping Kate on side was vital. She'd cooperated well considering her future employment was at stake, allowing all these officers to have the run of the house and grounds. Now that the operation was under way it was essential she didn't lose her nerve and try and contact Lord Chalybeate, who hadn't been informed. Poor dear, she was like the teenager who'd thrown a party on the night her parents were coming home.

'Does he call ahead to let you know when he's arriving?'

'Only if he's going to be late.'

'And he likes to take a sauna when he gets here around ten thirty?'

'Yes, I've switched it on as usual.'

'Then what?'

'He has a late supper. I've made a filled baguette for him.'

'Should have asked you to make seventeen.' She added, 'Joke.' Panic had spread over Kate's face.

'You do think he'll be okay with all this?'

'I'm sure of it,' Hen said with the certainty of a doorstep evangelist. 'We're here to protect him and his property, aren't we? Why don't you make some more coffee for us both?'

She returned upstairs and checked that everyone was still in radio contact. 'As soon as you see the car at the gate, let me know, Duncan. It's a red Porsche.'

'I won't be able to tell the colour, guv. I can hardly see the back of my hand, it's so dark.'

'You'll see the headlights. No other car's going to come visiting this late, apart from the suspect's, and they're not going to use the front gate.'

'Suspect could be here already, laid up somewhere in the grounds.'

'Let's hope so,' Hen said. 'We don't want a no-show after all this trouble.'

She glanced at her watch. Ten minutes - if Chalybeate hadn't been held up. After that, it was a matter of seeing if and when the arsonist chose to act. The m.o. suggested around four a.m. However, this was a markedly different location from the others. A house of this size wouldn't catch fire as quickly or as completely as the other buildings had. If the real purpose of the arsonist was the murder of Chalybeate, the ideal place to torch was the sauna, a separate building constructed mainly of wood. He wouldn't survive ten minutes in there.

The coffee arrived.

'I just want to get this clear,' she said to Kate. 'When he drives in, he leaves his car down there by the front door and then goes for his sauna. He says nothing to you?'

'Not usually. I hope not,' she said. 'I'm not much of an actor. He'd see something was wrong as soon as he looked at me.' She was cracking up.

'Correction,' Hen said. 'Something isn't wrong, sweetie. It's right. We're making sure he's safe. You've done nothing he could object to.'

Her radio buzzed. 'Excuse me.' She moved a few steps away and turned her back. 'Mallin.'

It was Andy Humphreys, from out in the road. 'Found a car up the lane, guv, a bit far from any houses. Engine still faintly warm. No sign of the driver.'

'Do an index check.'

She lit a cigar and waited. Could it really be as simple as this to nick the arsonist? If so, Andy Humphreys was Detective of the Month.

'Guv, the vehicle check gives the owner as Thomasine O'Loughlin. Twenty Blake Avenue.'

Thomasine
1
?
Not the name she expected or wanted.

'Does it, by God? Can you disable it?'

'Will do.'

'Are you alone?'

'There's assistance not far away if I need it.'

'Have someone keep it under obbo.'

She put out a general message that Thomasine's car had been found and she was presumed to be in the grounds. 'Tell me the moment you spot her, but don't approach her. Repeat, don't approach her.'

Kate, saucer-eyed, still lingered with the tray. 'So is it a woman?'

Hen told her to wait downstairs. These were dangerous moments.

'Snap it up, Chalybeate,' she said aloud.

She leaned out of the open window and willed his headlights to penetrate the darkness. The only light was the tip of her own cigar.

Another five minutes went by. He was overdue now.

Over the radio came Johnny Cherry's voice. 'Someone passed me on foot, heading straight towards the house. Shall I follow?'

'Man? Woman?'

'Can't tell'

'Stay put.'

She crushed out the cigar and ran downstairs. Kate came out of the kitchen and said, 'Is he here?'

'Where's the switch for the security light? Oh bugger!'

Too late. Two halogen lamps triggered by the approaching figure flooded the entire housefront and drive in brilliant light.

There was no doubt now that the figure was Thomasine O'Loughlin, dressed for action in a tracksuit and trainers, and caught in the dazzle like a rabbit. But she wasn't carrying petrol or a bundle of oily rags. This wasn't what Hen wanted. She flung open the front door.

Lacking a loudhailer, she put her hands to her mouth and shouted. 'Police. Get down, get down, get down. Face down on the ground, hands stretched in front of you.'

Total compliance. Thomasine sank down.

'Move yourself, Johnny!' Hen shouted.

Johnny Cherry stepped into the pool of light and handcuffed her.

'Bring her in here.'

Seconds after Thomasine was bundled inside, the security light went out.

'I'm just praying he didn't see that,' Hen said. 'If he did, we might as well all go home and watch TV.' To Thomasine, she said, 'What were you playing at? Oh, don't bother. You looked at the website and worked out what was happening.'

'I didn't know you would be here,' Thomasine said, her eyes awash with shock and humiliation.

'My job, isn't it? Johnny, take her into a back room somewhere and cuff her to a radiator. We've got a real situation to deal with - if she hasn't fouled it up.'

Before Johnny had marched Thomasine out of the room, Hen's radio crackled. Duncan's voice. 'Porsche just arrived,' guv.'

She could hear it herself moving up the drive.

'Thank God for that. Talk about nip and tuck.'

She slammed the front door and returned to her observation point upstairs. If Lord Chalybeate decided to enter the house instead of using the sauna he'd find it as he would expect.

The security light was activated again. The Porsche came to a halt on the gravel area in front of the house. Hen swayed back from the window so as not to be caught in the light. She couldn't see Chalybeate, but she heard the car door slam, followed by steps across the gravel that seemed to be going away from the house. She risked leaning closer to the window.

He was definitely walking towards the detached wooden building that was the sauna.

She let out a long breath and muttered, 'Have a good sweat.'

Now the real stake-out could begin. Breathing more easily, she got back in radio contact and told her team, 'The heat's on, boys and girls.'

They were under orders to keep watch, keep in contact and do nothing until they got the order from her. According to Kate the housekeeper, Chalybeate took about forty minutes over his sauna. Patience was wanted now. The security light had gone off. All was quiet.

Her thoughts focused on the arsonist, waiting somewhere in the darkness with a can of petrol and some rags. Killers may be cunning, but they seem incapable of changing their m.o. Why mess with a formula that works? But there
was
a change here, an enforced change. The timing had to be earlier than usual. Would that be a disincentive? Hen hoped not. In open country here, well back from the road, with no other neighbour within hailing distance, there was no need to delay until the small hours.

Another cigar.

The suspense was hard to endure. She would have avoided this tiger trap with its attendant risks if at all possible. She preferred a simple knock on a suspect's door. In this case it was not possible.

Chalybeate had turned on the interior light of the sauna and the windows on two sides were sharply outlined. Steam suffused with light was already wafting from the tops of the windows and the little chimney on the pitched roof.

Fifteen minutes passed, and seemed like fifty.

Then the radio silence was broken. Stella's voice. Stella's position was close to the sauna. 'Someone approaching.'

'Okay, this is it, Stell. Don't go too soon. I want them stinking of petrol, right?' She radioed everyone and ordered them to move in closer to the sauna and await the order.

Steam in large amounts was billowing from the sauna. It was easy to picture the middle-aged, bollock-naked man inside, ladling water on the hot stones, unaware of the arsonist closing in, or the police in wait. He'd never have agreed to do this.

But it put a heavy responsibility on Hen to get the timing right.

'Guv?'

'Stell?'

'Suspect at the door.'

'Okay,' Hen said in as calm a voice as she could manage. Everyone on the team was listening. 'Can you see the can?'

'Not yet, but I think the door's open.'

This had to be it. She couldn't risk waiting any longer.

'Go, go, go!'

She'd have liked to lead the charge, but she had to get down the stairs and across the drive to the sauna entrance. She was in time to see in the glare of the lights the suspect felled like a tree as three of the team grabbed at the same instant. The resistance was brief and useless, the cuffs in place and a hood over the head.

'Top result,' she said. 'Bring 'im in the house.'

Keen to see who the prisoner was, they streamed through the front door and into the hall and surrounded Hen and the prisoner. She asked Shilling to remove the hood. There were gasps from the team.

Hen said,'Idon't believe this.'

They had nicked Bob Naylor.

He was blinking a lot. 'Something in my eye,' he said. 'Do I have to wear these bracelets?'

'What was he carrying?' Hen asked Stella.

'Nothing, guv.'

'No petrol? Smell his hands.'

Shilling lifted the cuffed hands and sniffed at them, causing the prisoner to bow. 'Nothing I can tell, guv.'

'What the hell were you up to?' Hen asked Naylor when he'd been allowed to straighten up.

'Look, my eye's giving me gyp.'

Ridiculous. 'Someone give me a tissue,' Hen said.

Stella produced one and Hen wiped the corner of Naylor's eye. 'Now will you tell us what you're doing here?'

His words came in a burst. 'I was trying to find Thomasine, wasn't I? She's here somewhere. Her car's on the road outside. I get back from work today and listen to my calls and there's this message she's left and some others about a website I ought to be looking at, so my daughter got it up on the screen and I guessed straight away what Thomasine was up to. Bloody dangerous, going it alone, but she's like that - fearless. It took me some time to find out where Lord Chalybeate's place is, but I did, and came looking.' He paused. 'She's got to be somewhere around here.'

'In the back room,' Hen said with resignation. 'You two have screwed up an entire police operation. Why couldn't you leave it to us?'

'Guv.'

Hen turned to listen to Stella, who was by the door. 'What's that?'

'The sauna's on fire.'