The Mushroom Man (22 page)

‘That’s where his thumbnail dug in,’ the doctor said, pointing at the scarlet arc. Ever since then my first glimpse of the new moon had resurrected the ghost of David Ho.

‘In that case,’ I declared, ‘there’s a thumbprint just behind it.’

The doctor looked at me as if he were examining the contents of a bedpan. ‘Skin on skin,’ he sniffed. ‘You’re wasting your time.’

When the SOCO and the photographer arrived I
gave strict instructions that nobody else was to enter the room. We’d just started using superglue in fingerprint work. Something in the fumes given off by the glue reacts with the constituents of the dab to leave a white deposit. It’s called polymerisation, but I don’t think anybody fully understands why it works. The SOCO shook his head but agreed to give it a try. Trouble was, you’re supposed to place the object in question, usually a knife or a gun, in a fume cabinet. We were talking about a human head, still attached to the body. I took the biggest plastic bag we had and pulled it over David’s head. The SOCO put the glue inside and I sealed the bag as best I could with Sellotape. It wasn’t pleasant work. The photographer stood by with his array of fluorescent lights. Images often show up better under ultra violet.

We waited and watched, half expecting the bag to steam up with the products of respiration, but it didn’t. Across the room a bluebottle buzzed around the bloody head of Michael Ho.

Periodically SOCO looked inside and renewed the glue. The photographer tried his various lights and took some ‘before’ pictures. We were breaking every rule in the Health and Safety at Work handbook. We should have been wearing protective goggles, breathing apparatus, and diving suits. I closed my eyes when he used the ultra violet.

It didn’t work.

I said: ‘There’s a print behind that mark, and I want it. What can we try next?’

‘Ninhydrin?’

‘OK. Give him a squirt.’

‘It’ll turn him pink.’

‘He won’t mind.’

‘What will the pathologist think?’

‘Scarlet fever? Give him a squirt.’

Ninhydrin comes in an aerosol, and reacts with blood as well as the amino acids and proteins found in fingerprints. The SOCO sprayed some on David’s neck. Splatter from the aerosol fell onto his unblinking eyeball. I turned away.

SOCO said it would work better if it was warmer, so we switched on the three-kilowatt electric fire that the room boasted. As the temperature rose, so too did the smell of blood. He was wrong about the colour – it turned the body purple.

We were looking for a transitional stage. Hopefully the spray would react with the prints before it reacted with the skin of the deceased. It seemed a long shot. The photographer took some more ‘before’ pictures.

‘There’s something there!’ SOCO gasped, offering me his magnifying glass.

I shook my head. ‘Just get it on him.’

We were locked in that obscene room for over two hours, but next morning I had on my desk a
picture of a fragment of a fingerprint. Others didn’t believe it, but I was convinced. The skin of the fingers and hands is characterised by the ridges that create prints, but the rest of our skin is relatively smooth. I highlighted the lines with my pencil, producing what I suppose was an artist’s impression. In fingerprint jargon it was only part of a whorl, with a fork and a lake nearby, but it was a start.

I drew a quarter-mile-radius circle around the Hos’ flat and we listed every small business within it. Everyone, that is, who might be a victim of their protection racket. We checked criminal records and finger-printed those who had stayed clear of the law. We found plenty of whorls, forks and lakes, but none were in exactly the same relationship as those we were looking for. It would never be enough to make a conviction, but it could point us in the right direction.

I expanded the circle. And again. And again. At two miles it encompassed six sheep farms, ten derelict mills, a Yorkshire Water reservoir and the Fighting Fit Health Club, owned by a certain Donald Purley. He had a criminal record for dealing in drugs, mainly steroids, and the print of his right thumb matched our picture.

We raided his flat and club at seven a.m. One Wednesday morning. A pair of trousers were newly dry-cleaned, but still had blood in the fibres. In a
wardrobe was a pair of snazzy shoes with brass tips on the toes and heels. They shone like a choirboy’s face, but a stick-on sole was coming away slightly at the toe, and under it we found a hair that had once grown on Michael Ho’s head. Later, two people ID’d him as coming down the stairs from the flat at the time of the killings. We had him.

On tape and in court he protested his innocence. Off the record, when I was alone with him, he swaggered and bragged that we’d never make it stick. We did, for fifteen years.

But he should still be in jail. I dialled the number for Bentley prison and asked to be put through to records. I didn’t know which prison he was in, but they were computerised. A convict keeps his number throughout his sentence, and it moves around with him.

‘Do you know his date of birth, sir?’ asked the female warder.

‘No, I’m afraid not. He’s not a teenager, though.’ I gave her a rough guess.

‘Sorry, sir. We don’t have a Donald Purley at all.’

‘You must have. He was a lifer. Should have about four years still to go. Maybe he died.’

‘Let me check.’

Another phone was ringing in the background as I waited.

‘Found him, sir. Donald Purley, DOB seven, nine, fifty-three.’

‘That sounds like him. Where is he?’

‘He was released, sir, nearly three years ago.’

‘Released! Does it say why?’

‘Compassionate grounds. Presumably he was terminally ill.’

‘Oh. Is there a release address?’

‘No. It just says: “Released into the supervision of Heckley Probation Service.”’

‘Right. Thanks. I’ll contact them. Could you give me another release address, please?’

‘We’ll try. What name?’

‘Eddie Grant.’

He’d moved to Leeds. I wrote the address next to his name on my list and rang Heckley Probation Office.

‘Good Morning. Could I speak to Gavin Smith, please?’ I asked.

‘Mr Smith is off sick. Would you like to speak to anyone else?’

‘Yes, someone who might know about a lifer out on licence.’

‘I’ll put you through to Mrs Pettit. Who’s calling, please?’

‘Inspector Priest, Heckley CID.’

Mrs Pettit came straight on. ‘Yes, Inspector. How can I help you?’

‘I need to know the whereabouts of a lifer who was released into your custody. Donald Purley. Can somebody fill me in about him?’

‘Don Purley. Can I ask why you need to know?’

Probation officers are very protective towards their clients, but I had a right to know. It was just a matter of being patient. ‘I’m conducting an inquiry, and his name is in the frame.’

‘In that case,’ she said, somewhat haughtily, ‘I suggest you take him out of the frame. I was his supervising officer. Don Purley died less than a month after he was released.’

‘Oh. What did he die of?’

‘Tuberculosis and pneumonia.’

‘Right. Thank you.’

‘Goodbye.’ Click. Have a nice day, Mrs Pettit. I replaced the handset.

TB, often called consumption. Once one of mankind’s great killers, it has largely been eradicated by improved sanitation and the discovery of antibiotics. As standards of living rose, the incidence of the disease fell away. But now it was with us again, and our prisons were often where it chose to make its comeback. I ruled a line through the top entry on my list. That left two naps and seven also-rans.

A fresh-faced DC popped his head round the door. ‘Would you like a sandwich fetching, Mr Priest?’ he asked.

‘Yes please.’

‘What sort?’

‘Prawn and avocado, in granary bread.’

‘From the canteen!’ he gasped.

‘Oh. In that case make it two sausage rolls and a custard.’

The ABC on my list referred to a business empire run by a man called Cakebread. He had organised the theft of a few Old Masters and traded them for about fifty million quid’s worth of heroin. He’d been killed trying to escape, but a couple of his colleagues had only received short sentences, and we’d only touched the tip of the iceberg. There’d been a police involvement, too, which was never fully resolved. The more I thought about it, the more sinister it looked.

I rang Oldfield CID, in Lancashire, where the investigation had been centred, and asked to speak to the inspector who’d helped me with the inquiry. He promised to ring me back in a few minutes. A mug of tea arrived with my sausage rolls, so I put my feet on the radiator and lunched. The radiator was warm. The cold spell must have induced someone to have the central heating restored a few weeks early. Unnecessarily, because the wind had swung to the south, and the pundits were now forecasting an Indian summer. The sausage roll looked like last week’s. Its filling had dried and shrivelled and come away from the pastry, like a cowpat in a plastic bucket.

The DI rang me just as I was wrestling with a mouthful of it. I mumbled a greeting. First of all he wanted to know more about the shooting. I answered his questions and told him that I wasn’t on the case, but was looking into the possibilities of someone bearing a grudge, namely Bradshaw and Wheatley, or other, unknown, members of the gang. ‘See your point,’ he said, ‘But I doubt if it’s either of those two. They were given eighteen months and two years, but they’re both out now. As you know, they also received hefty fines, courtesy of the Drug Trafficking Act, and were virtually stripped of everything they possessed.’

‘As you said, I know all that.’

‘Sorry, I’m just building up to the big finish. Cakebread was never charged, so his fortune remained intact, but now in the name of Eunice, his wife.’

‘So?’

‘So Bradshaw, the pilot, has moved in with Eunice. A nice little catch for him, if you don’t mind mascara all over your breakfast. Brian Wheatley is back in his old business, property development, courtesy of sponsorship by the other two. We’re watching them like shitehawks, but they’re keeping squeaky clean. I don’t think it’s them, Charlie. They’re probably quite happy with the way things turned out.’

‘I see what you mean. I’d be grateful if you could
give some thought to what I’ve said, though.’

‘Will do. Good hunting.’

‘Cheers.’

Maggie came in, humping a large Samsonite suitcase and grinning like a Cheshire dog. That’s very similar to a Cheshire cat, but more politically correct.

‘Charlie!’ she gushed, eyes wide. ‘She’s some gorgeous things.’

‘I know, she always dresses well.’

‘Wowee! I wish I had her wardrobe. And her taste. I think that’s everything she’ll need. I put some make-up in, too.’

‘Oh, God!’ I said, putting my hand to my head. ‘I forgot to mention make-up.’

‘I felt like trying on some of her suits, but sadly’ – she patted her hips – ‘I’m two sizes too large. Here’s the key. Everything is safe and secure.’

‘Thanks, Maggie. What would I do without you?’

‘Probably send Nigel,’ she laughed.

I drew a question mark next to ABC on my list and memorised Eddie Grant’s address. The case weighed a ton. Lugging it down the stairs, three people asked me if I was going on my holidays. I wished I’d told Maggie to meet me in the car park.

I showed my ID to the gateman at the hospital and asked if he’d look after the case while I parked. It would save me carrying it about quarter of a mile. He suggested I park inside the grounds, so for once I abused the privileges of power.

Annabelle was propped up by pillows. Twice in one day,’ she croaked. ‘I am honoured.’

I kissed her forehead. ‘Is your throat still sore?’

She nodded.

‘Well, don’t try to speak.’ I refilled her glass with juice and passed it to her. I nodded towards the case. ‘I asked Margaret Madison, one of my WPCs, to help me with the clothes. I think she’d like to borrow some of your outfits.’

‘She’s welcome…’

I interrupted her: ‘Unfortunately she’s slightly broader across the beam than you are.’

It was more comfortable for both of us if I sat on the edge of the bed. I could see her and she didn’t have to crane sideways to watch me. She took my hand and said: ‘Charles?’ A puzzled expression was on her face.

I put my other hand over hers. ‘What is it, love?’

‘I…I was shot, wasn’t I?’

I nodded. ‘Yes, you were.’

‘Who did it, Charles?’

‘We don’t know. There’s a maniac loose; some sort of religious fanatic’

‘Will he come back?’ She sounded frightened.

I squeezed her hand. ‘No, he won’t come back. There’s a guard in the corridor, but he won’t come back. I know how his mind works, and I promise he’s not after you any more. You’re completely safe here.’

She relaxed, and I stayed with her until she fell asleep. The sister told me that she was tired, after being out of bed for a couple of short spells, but was making good progress. She estimated another three weeks in hospital if there were no setbacks. Apparently Rachel had suggested that Annabelle stay with them to convalesce. I reluctantly accepted that it might be for the best.

Eddie Grant lived at 23, Chesterton Court, in the Towncroft district of Leeds. I plotted my route in the A to Z and set off. There was a hold-up in the tunnel section of the inner ring road, so traffic was heavy. Away to the right the sun was shining on the massive bulk of the NHS building, but it only illuminated its ugliness. I wondered if the architect had ever heard of the Parthenon. Stalin would have loved it.

Towncroft isn’t one of the areas of the city that civic visitors are shown around. Unemployment, drugs and lethargy have taken their toll. I stopped on one corner, looking down a hill, and wished I had my camera. The street was littered with broken bricks and a burnt-out car sat at the edge of the road. The detached house facing me had recently been one of a pair of semis. Its partner had been demolished, or blown up, leaving a jagged line where the join had been. It was like a scene from Bosnia, and I was Kate Adie.

I trickled along in second gear, reading the street names, steering round the litter and scavenging dogs. Dickens Avenue. Kipling Drive. Tolstoy Grove. Tolstoy? How did he get in here?

There it was – Chesterton Court. Number 23 was marginally better than the average: the gate worked, the windows were made of glass and grass managed to exist in the garden. A few broken kids’ toys were scattered about.

A heavily pregnant girl answered the door. I said: ‘Is Eddie in?’

She looked scared. ‘I dunno, I’ll see,’ she said, starting to close the door:

‘Are you Marie?’ I asked.

‘Er, yeah. Who are you?’

‘Inspector Priest. I arrested Eddie six years ago. Met you then. Let me in, love.’

Eddie was slumped in an armchair, watching a black American woman tell her shrieking audience about the time she was date-raped by the spiritual leader of the Mississippi Morons. A little girl aged about six was sitting next to him. He looked up as I entered.

‘Hello, Eddie. Charlie Priest. Nice place you have here.’ It was reasonably tidy inside.

‘What do you want?’ he grumbled morosely.

‘Mind if I sit down? Just a little chat. Could we have the telly off, please?’

Marie followed me in and sat protectively alongside him, as if she were his mother. When I’d first seen her she was sixteen, and looked like an angel. She could have gone in any direction she chose, had she known the options. But she didn’t, and fell into the same one as all her friends: get married to the first yob you meet with a prick bigger than his IQ and have kids, not necessarily in that order. Now she was twenty-two, pushing fifty, and lumbered with a short-arsed layabout who had
all the personality of a used tyre. It depressed me. Given another chance, I think I would dedicate my life towards steering sixteen-year-old girls away from idiots like him and towards a loftier lifestyle. The sugar daddy could have an important role to play in society; he should be sponsored by the community tax. I didn’t understand what it was, but maybe I was also a little jealous of the attraction Eddie held for her.

This is your daughter?’ I said, nodding towards Marie mark two, already doomed to a life of poverty and hardship.

‘Yes.’

‘Hello.’

She glowered at me. Ah, well, you can’t woo ’em all.

‘Do you think she could go up to her room?’ I suggested.

Grant patted her backside, pushing her towards the door. ‘Go play outside, Shelley,’ he told her.

When she had gone I said: ‘You must have brought her up yourself, Marie.’

‘Yes, I did, until she was four.’

‘That can’t have been easy.’

She shrugged, as if to say: You didn’t think of that when you banged her daddy up for ten years.

Eddie Grant had robbed a series of banks and building societies at gunpoint. It was only an airgun, but he’d fired it once or twice, and a young
girl cashier had lost an eye. He’d also
pistol-whipped
a customer who’d had a go at him. He was a vicious piece of work. When the judge sent him down he left the dock swearing to kill me and my wife and kids. He said he knew where I lived, and he’d hunt me down for as long as it took. As I was in the middle of expensive divorce proceedings at the time, it didn’t perturb me. But he’d served his five, after time off, and was back on the streets again. And somebody was trying to kill me.

‘Right, Eddie,’ I said. ‘Where were you at nine o’clock on Friday night?’

‘Friday night?’

‘Uh-uh.’

‘Dunno.’

‘You’ll have to try harder than that.’

‘Er, Mr Priest?’

‘Yes?’

‘I read about the shooting in the paper. You don’t fink it was me, do yer?’

‘You said you would kill me, so convince me you weren’t having a go. Where were you on Friday?’

‘I s’pose we was ’ere. Together.’

‘That’s right,’ Marie announced. ‘We can’t afford to go out, and can’t get no baby-sitters since we moved ’ere.’

‘Can anybody else confirm this?’

They shook their heads.

‘Why did you move here?’ I asked.

‘To get away from ‘Eckley,’ he replied. ‘We was in wiv a bad crowd. Drugs an’ stuff. That’s why I did the banks. All that I said in court – them freats – I was off my ’ead at the time. I’d ’ad some stuff the night before. Pills. Don’t ask me what they was. An’ Marie was pregnant. And when ’e said ten years it just blew my ’ead. I didn’t mean anyfing.’

‘Have you a job?’

‘Now and again.’

‘What doing?’

‘Roofin’.’

It’s always roofing.

Marie said: ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’

I shook my head. ‘No thanks, Marie.’ I turned to him. ‘There’s plenty of drugs around Towncroft, Eddie. Are you managing to stay away from them?’

He nodded. Marie said she made sure he did. We made small talk, mainly about how they were settling in a strange town. After a while Eddie said: ‘Mr Priest?’

‘That’s me.’

‘When I was inside, this last time, they put me wiv this old lag; ’e was about forty. I was braggin’ about what I’d do to you, playing the big man. He told me to shut up. ’E said that if you deserve it, you should serve it. Then ’e said that ’e knew you. ’E said you was all right; not bent like all the rest. It wasn’t me, Mr Priest, I promise it wasn’t.’

I stood up to leave, saying: ‘I’m touched, Eddie.’
At the door I added: ‘But I’m not impressed. If you think of anything, anything at all, let me know. Maybe we can do business.’ I pointed a finger at Marie’s belly and smiled. ‘Good luck,’ I said. She didn’t smile back, and why should she? I’d only accused her husband of attempted murder and given him a veiled invite to become a grass, to add to their other problems.

Shelley was drawing pictures in the dirt on my car. I winked at her and drove off, back to my world, on the other side of the universe.

My intention was to call at the General and see Annabelle again, but I reluctantly decided not to. She wasn’t expecting me, and I only encouraged her to talk, aggravating her sore throat. Rest would do her more good.

Two reporters were waiting on my doorstep. They were local, and were hoping for an update for the
Heckley and District Weekly
, due out on Thursday, although I knew that anything juicy that they gathered would immediately be syndicated. I invited them in for a coffee and repeated what they already knew. They had nothing to tell me.

My appetite had returned. A new takeaway was open on this side of town, so I gave it a try I had chicken bhuna, with pilau rice and a couple of chapatis, washed down by a brace of lagers. The list was on the table. I drew a line through Eddie Grant,
then modified it with a question mark. I put another next to the one already against the ABC entry and scanned the also-rans, but nothing obvious jumped out at me.

When I looked out of the bedroom window the car was parked down the road again. I slipped my trainers on and went outside, through the back door. I climbed over the fence and sneaked down my neighbour’s garden, narrowly avoiding falling into his new goldfish pond. Back on the street, I turned right, and right again at the end. I was now approaching the car from behind. When I reached it I opened the passenger’s door and got in.

‘Evenin’, Dave,’ I said.

‘Evenin’, Charlie,’ Sparky replied.

‘Does Gilbert know you’re mucking up his overtime allowance?’

‘This is extra-curricular.’

‘Good. Seen anything?’

‘Yeah. The woman next to you doesn’t draw the curtains when she goes to bed.’

‘Well, thank God there isn’t a window at my side. She frightens me to death when she’s fully dressed.’ We sat in silence for a while. I said: ‘You’re getting on better with Nigel these days. I’m glad about that.’

‘He’s OK,’ Sparky concurred. From him it was the equivalent of an Academy Award.

‘I forgot to ask. Did Sophie get the results she wanted?’

He chuckled. ‘Let me down. She got five As and three Bs. I’d told her straight Ds, or else. Looks like she’s going to cost me a fortune.’

‘Hey, that’s brilliant. I’ll have to find a decent CD for her.’ Sophie was my goddaughter, and at Christmas and birthdays I tried to manipulate her musical tastes. Maybe a Janis Joplin this time.

After another silence I said: ‘So, you don’t think he was’ trying to shoot Annabelle?’

He looked across at me. ‘Do you?’

I shook my head. ‘No. He was having a go at me. And I never told Peterson.’

‘Peterson’s a twat. He wouldn’t have believed you.’

‘What about this Destroying Angel? Do you think it was him?’

‘Not sure. Probably not. Apparently the first two killings weren’t him, he just claimed them. Who’s to say he isn’t doing the same again?’

‘Good point, Dave. I hadn’t thought about that.’ I told him about my list, and the visit to see Eddie Grant. ‘How tall is he?’ Sparky asked.

‘Grant? He’s only a squirt. About five foot five, no more. Why?’

He shuffled in his seat, lifting himself more upright. I’ve been sitting in on Peterson’s meetings,’ he told me. ‘Liaison officer. There’s been a slight development. Everybody who attended the concert is in the process of being interviewed, plus all the
staff at the town hall. Usual stuff – asked to describe everybody they saw. One of the women who looks at tickets probably saw him.’

‘Go on,’ I urged.

‘It was after the concert started. A few people were hanging around in the foyer; latecomers who’d been hoping for a ticket, that sort of thing. She says she particularly noticed one character because he was carrying a sports bag. A black and red Adidas. She was quite the little detective, this lady. She said he must have been a tennis or squash player.’

‘Why?’ I queried.

‘Because there was a hole cut in the end of his bag, for his racket handle to poke through.’

‘Or a shotgun,’ I murmured.

‘Or a shotgun. She described him as being small – five two to five six – wearing a baggy suit and a hat. That’s about it.’

‘So you reckon Eddie Grant’s back in the frame?’

‘I’d say so.’

‘No. It’s not him. I can feel it in my wobblies.’

‘You’ve told me often enough never to trust hunches.’

‘That’s true. But it’s late. I want to go to bed and you’re going home. That’s an order. Otherwise I’ll report you for pimping on the lady next door.’

‘I think you ought to carry a gun,’ Sparky said.

‘We don’t carry guns, remember?’

‘You could always book one out for yourself.’

‘I’d get the sack.’

‘Mmm, probably. What about the radio? Do you have one?’

‘No.’

‘Bloody hell, Charlie! What’s the matter with you? Some madman’s out to kill you, so you keep it to yourself and don’t even carry a radio. Not to mention visiting the main suspect without telling anyone. Do you want him to succeed?’

I sighed. ‘When you put it like that, it does seem a bit stupid.’

‘Here.’ He reached over and grovelled in the glove compartment, producing a personal transmitter/receiver. ‘Take mine.’

I accepted it and opened the door. ‘Cheers,’ I said. ‘And, er, thanks.’

‘Bugger you, Charlie,’ he called across to me before I closed the door again. ‘I’m looking after that ten-pound bet we have.’