The Ring of Death (10 page)

‘You'd have thought, wouldn't you, that before Adair allowed himself to get killed, he'd have considered the inconvenience that he would be causing you?' Beresford said dryly.

‘What?' Eccleston asked, obviously puzzled. Then he gave a thin laugh. ‘Oh, I see. It's a joke.'

‘That's certainly one way of looking at it,' Beresford agreed. ‘How did Adair happen to rent the house from you?'

‘He came recommended.'

‘Who by?'

‘By a lad called Harry Quinn, who I've known for years. They'd done a bit of soldiering together. Harry said Adair was a good sort, and I was prepared to take his word for it.'

‘And was he a good
tenant
, as well as a good
sort
?'

‘A perfect one. Always paid his rent on time, and if there were any repairs needed doing round the house, he'd do them himself, instead of bothering me – like most of my bloody tenants do.'

‘Where did he work?' Beresford asked.

‘Work?' Eccleston repeated.

‘Work,' Beresford agreed.

‘Do you know, now you mention it, I've absolutely no idea.'

‘So as far as you're aware, he might have had no job at all?'

‘It's possible.'

‘Then weren't you taking a bit of a chance by renting the house to him in the first place?'

Eccleston grinned. ‘No chance at all. Taking chances is not the way I operate. He paid me three months' deposit in advance. In cash!' Eccleston suddenly looked a little concerned. ‘That needn't go down in your report, need it?'

‘Why? Because you haven't declared the money he gave you?'

‘Look, lad, I'll buy the teas,' Eccleston said hastily.

Beresford smiled. ‘That's very generous of you.'

‘Think nothing of it. And as to that other matter . . .'

‘Yes?'

‘I meant to declare the income, but I somehow haven't quite got round to it. So if you could just give me a couple of days to get my records up to date . . .'

Beresford frowned. ‘I don't know,' he said dubiously. ‘That's asking a lot, that is.'

‘And if there's anything I can do in return . . .'

‘How many of your houses have young children living in them?' Beresford asked.

Eccleston shrugged. ‘I don't know. Seven or eight.'

‘And how many of those houses with young children in them have had damp-proof courses installed?'

‘That's hard to say, off-hand.'

‘Take a guess,' Beresford suggested.

‘Well, none, I suppose,' Eccleston admitted.

‘So you knowingly house children in damp dwellings, do you?'

‘Doesn't do them any real harm,' Eccleston protested.

‘Bollocks!' Beresford said. ‘Look, I'll make a deal with you.'

‘What kind of deal?'

‘Get damp-proof courses installed in all your houses within the week, and you'll hear no more from me about undeclared income.'

‘Do you know how much a bloody damp-proof course costs, Inspector?' Eccleston asked, outraged.

‘No, I don't,' Beresford admitted. ‘But do
you
know how thorough the Inland Revenue can be, once they start going over your books? And do
you
know that if they
do
find evidence of tax fraud, you could actually go to prison?'

‘I'll get them damp courses installed,' Eccleston promised.

‘You'd better, Mr Eccleston,' Beresford replied, ‘because I'll be checking up on you.'

The man with the silver hair had been sitting opposite Inspector Walker, in what appeared to be comfortable silence, for at least five minutes.

Walker himself was sipping moodily at his beer, and wondering why he was tolerating the man's presence. There was, he supposed, no reason at all why he hadn't told him to just sod off – except that he didn't look like the kind of man you
could
tell to sod off.

‘Have you got a name?' he asked finally.

‘Of course. How rude of me not to have introduced myself before,' the silver-haired man said. ‘My name's Forsyth.'

Walker grimaced at his accent. ‘Foreigner, are you?' he asked.

‘No, as a matter of fact, I'm from London.'

‘That's what I said – a foreigner,' Walker replied, feeling a little better for having scored a point. ‘So what can I do for you, Mr Forsyth?'

‘I couldn't help noticing that you were just in earnest conversation with Mr Traynor of the
Lancashire Evening Chronicle
,' Forsyth said.

‘In earnest conversation? I was
talking
to him, if that's what you mean. Not that that's any of your business.'

‘Ah, but it is my business,' Forsyth said mildly. ‘You see, I work for the government.'

‘So what? I can talk to
whoever
I like,
whenever
I like. It's still a free country, isn't it?'

Forsyth laughed, dismissively. ‘A free country?' he repeated. ‘You're surely not still naive enough to believe that fairy tale, are you, Inspector?'

Enough was enough, Walker decided. Though his instincts were screaming against it, it was time to show this man just whose patch this was.

‘I believe it enough to believe that I've got the right to tell you to bugger off,' he said.

A bit clumsy, that, he thought, but at least he'd got his message across.

Except that, apparently, he hadn't. Because instead of getting up and leaving, as he was supposed to, Forsyth was doing no more than shaking his head slowly from side to side.

‘I
could
go,' the Londoner said. ‘And I will – if you insist. But you'd be making a big mistake to let me.'

‘Would I? Why?'

‘Because I know a great deal about you, and what I know can be used either against you or for your benefit.'

‘That's a load of bollocks,' Walker said.

Forsyth sighed. ‘Really? Tell me, Inspector Walker, do you know where your wife is living at the moment?'

‘Leave my wife out of this,' Walker said aggressively.

‘Which means, I take it, that you have absolutely no idea at all where she is,' Forsyth replied. ‘But, you see, I have. Mrs Walker, née Horrocks, is living in sin with a door-to-door insurance salesman . . .'

‘Everybody knows that!'

‘. . .  in Plymouth. Last night the two of them went out for a Chinese meal. He had safe old steak and chips, but she, being of a more adventurous nature, chose sweet and sour pork. They went to bed at a quarter past eleven, and were hammering away at the bedsprings until a quarter to twelve, which is quite an impressive performance for a couple in middle age.'

‘You're making all that up,' Walker said.

‘Don't you believe
any
of it?' Forsyth asked with a smile. ‘Or is it just the
last part
you find hard to accept?'

‘I don't believe any of it. I could make up stories about
your
wife, and you'd have no way of knowing whether or not I was telling the truth.'

‘Then let's talk about something which you
can
verify,' Forsyth suggested. ‘You did your national service in Korea, where you were commended once for bravery and twice hauled before a disciplinary board for breaching standing orders. You drive a Ford Escort, which is now so battered that it is worth considerably less than the payments you still owe on it. You have two hundred and thirty-two pounds in your deposit account at the Linen Bank, and forty-one pounds sixty-three pence in your current account.' Forsyth paused. ‘Need I go on?'

‘He did that all without notes,' Walker thought, with amazement. ‘He's probably got half my life story in his head.'

‘How long have you been collecting information on me?' he demanded, angrily.

‘Only since this morning,' Forsyth replied. ‘So imagine what I could come up with if I
really
started digging.'

‘What exactly do you want?' Walker asked, defeated.

‘Since the Linda Szymborska murder investigation, you have been feeding information on police activities to Mr Traynor . . .'

‘If I have told him anything – and I'm not
admitting
I have – then it's only been in the interest of the Force and—'

‘For which you have been paid, the money going into a bank account you opened in the name of Charles Hudson, especially for that purpose. Would you like me to quote the account number?'

‘So that's it then, is it?' Walker asked. ‘You take what you know to the chief constable, and I get the chop?'

‘Oh no, nothing like that,' Forsyth assured him. ‘Far be it from me to nip the promising career of an outstanding policeman like you in the bud.'

‘I could do without the sarcasm,' Walker said.

‘I'm sure you could,' Forsyth agreed.

The two of them fell silent for perhaps half a minute, then Walker said, ‘So what is it you want me to do? Stop talking to Traynor?'

‘Quite the contrary,' Forsyth replied. ‘It is in the interest of my department that you
continue
talking to Traynor – but only as long as you feed him the information that I
want
you to feed him.'

‘And who'll benefit from that?'

‘I will,' Forsyth said, then added hastily, ‘and, of course, the government, which works tirelessly in
all
our interests.'

‘What about
Ma'am
?' Walker asked.

‘I think you must be referring to DCI Paniatowski. Am I right?'

‘You know you are. Will
she
benefit from it?'

‘That will depend,' Forsyth said, in measured tones. ‘If she's a good girl, and does exactly what's expected of her, she could benefit from it considerably. If, on the other hand, she decides to plough her own erratic furrow, then it could well be her downfall.'

Ma'am
couldn't play the good girl if her life depended on it, Walker thought, as he did his best to suppress a grin.

‘If it's for the good of the country, then I'll cooperate in any way I can,' he told the other man.

‘I would have expected no less of you,' Forsyth replied.

TEN

T
he Prince Albert bar of the Royal Victoria Hotel had done its very best to imitate the decor and atmosphere to be found in the bars of the more exclusive London gentlemen's clubs, and while it would not have fooled anyone who actually belonged to one of those clubs for even a moment, it was highly regarded by Whitebridge society.

The Prince Albert was where the town's more successful lawyers congregated after a hard day of tying the legal system in knots. It was the preferred venue for meetings of the Freemasons and the Chamber of Commerce. And, that particular early evening, it was where the smooth and enigmatic Mr Forsyth had chosen to drink his pre-prandial dry sherry.

Watching him, from a table in the corner of the bar, DC Crane found himself wondering what it would be like to be Forsyth – to send agents out into the field, knowing there was a chance they would never return; to order the elimination of people he considered to be a danger to the state; to . . .

Or maybe it wasn't like that at all, Crane thought. Maybe that kind of spy only existed in fiction, and Forsyth led as mundane and unexciting a life as an official working for the Ministry of Pensions.

And yet, he reminded himself, Monika Paniatowski didn't see him like that – and Paniatowski should know, because she had clashed with Forsyth before.

A waiter appeared at Forsyth's side, stood there discreetly until the silver-haired man deigned to notice him, then escorted the guest from London into the hotel's Balmoral Restaurant and Grill.

‘I hope you have a really nice meal, Mr Forsyth,' Crane said wistfully, under his breath. ‘I might even grab a bar of chocolate myself, later.'

He was conscious that somebody had sat down in the chair to his left, but kept his eyes firmly focused on the entrance to the restaurant.

‘Mistake Number One,' said a voice he recognized.

Crane turned. ‘Mistake, Sarge?'

‘If you were an ordinary member of the public, instead of a bobby involved in surveillance work, you would have at least given anybody who sat down beside you a quick glance.'

‘Any more mistakes?' Crane asked, rattled.

‘A couple,' Cousins replied easily. ‘For a start, you've been focusing your attention exclusively on the target.'

‘And what
should
I have been doing, instead?'

‘You should have been on the lookout for anybody else watching him, or for anybody watching
you
watching
him
.'

‘Do you think there
is
anybody doing that?'

‘No, or I wouldn't be taking the risk talking to you now. But the only reason I can say that with any certainty is because I've been checking out this bar for the last ten minutes myself.'

‘You said there were a couple of things.'

‘So I did – and the second is the way you're turned out.'

‘My suit, you mean?'

‘Yes.'

‘It's a good suit, this, Sarge,' Crane protested. ‘It's as good as the ones that everybody else here is wearing.'

‘Not quite – at least not to the trained eye,' Cousins said gently. ‘But you're right – it
is
a good suit. What's wrong is the
way
that you're wearing it.'

‘So how would you prefer me to wear it? Upside down? With the trousers wrapped around my head, and the jacket covering my legs?' Crane asked. And then he felt guilty, because what Cousins was offering him was not a rebuke but constructive criticism. ‘Sorry, Sarge,' he added.