“I see. What does it look like for prints.”
“At a guess, covered in ’em.”
“Good. What do you make of those?” I asked, nodding towards the photographs.
“The pictures?” he asked.
“Yep.”
“It looks like their wedding day.”
“I’d gathered that. Do you think it’s him?”
“Um, could be.” He looked more closely, adding: “Yeah, I’d say it was.”
“Good. What about the other?”
“The girl? Could be their daughter,” he replied. “The hair colour’s similar, and they both look tall and thin.”
“Or the bride as a schoolgirl,” I suggested.
The SOCO bent down to peer at the picture. After a few seconds he said: “I don’t think so.”
“Why not?”
“Because the timing’s wrong.”
“You’ve lost me,” I told him.
“Can’t be sure,” he went on, “but they both look as if they were taken around the same time. About fifteen or twenty years ago, at a guess. Maybe a bit less for that one.” He pointed towards the schoolgirl.
“How do you work that out,” I asked, bemused.
“The knickers,” he replied. “Long time ago they’d be cut straight across. Now they wear them cut higher. These are in-between.”
“I take it you have daughters,” I said.
“Yep. Two.”
“Some men would find a picture like that provocative,” I told him.
“I know,” he replied. “And you can see why, can’t you?”
I suppose that was as close as we’d ever get to admitting that it was a sexy image. “I don’t find it sexy,” we’d say, “but I can understand how some men might.”
“Why,” I asked him, “do the knicker manufacturers make them with high-cut legs when they know that they are intended for children who haven’t reached puberty yet?”
“Because that’s what the kids want. There’s a demand for them.”
“But why?”
“So they can be like their mothers.”
“Oh.”
All knowledge is useful. Knowledge catches crooks, I tell the troops. But there are vast landscapes, whole prairies and Mongolian plains, which are a foreign territory to me.
They’re the bits surrounding families and children and
relationships
that have stood the test of time. My speciality, my chosen subject, is ones that have gone wrong. Never mind, I consoled myself; loving families don’t usually murder each other.
We went downstairs into the kitchen. Peter Latham
hadn’t
moved, but there was a thin coating of the fingerprint boys’ ally powder over all his possessions. “We decided not to do the knife
in situ
,” one of them told me.
“So you want me to pull it out?”
“Please.”
“Great.”
“But don’t let your hands slip up the handle.”
“Maybe we should use pliers,” I suggested, but they just shrugged their shoulders and pulled faces.
“Have we got photos of it?” I asked. We had.
“And measurements?” We had.
“Right, let’s have a look, then.”
Sometimes, you just have to bite the bullet. Or knife, in this case. I stood astride the body and bent down towards the sightless face with its expression cut off at the height of its surprise, a snapshot of the moment of death. Early
detectives
believed that the eyes of the deceased would capture an image of the murderer, and all you had to do was find a way to develop it.
I felt for some blade, between the handle and the dead man’s chest, and gripped it tightly with my thumb and
forefinger
. It didn’t want to come, but I resisted the temptation to move it about and as I increased the pressure it moved, reluctantly at first, then half-heartedly, like the cork from a bottle of Frascati, until it slipped clear of the body. The SOCO held a plastic bag towards me and I placed the knife in it as if it were a holy relic.
“Phew!” I said, glad it was over. I could feel sweat on my spine.
“Well done,” someone murmured.
My happy band of crime-fighters started to arrive,
wearing
the clothes they’d intended spending the rest of the evening in. Annette Brown was in jeans and a Harlequins rugby shirt, and my mouth filled with ashes when I saw her. She’s been with us for about a year, and was now a valuable member of the team. For a long while she’d kept me at a
distance
, not sure how to behave, but lately we’d been rubbing along quite nicely. She was single, but I’d never taken her out alone, and as far as I knew nobody else had. Inevitably, there were rumours about her sexual inclination. She has wild auburn hair that she keeps under control with a variety of fastenings, and the freckles that often go with that colour. I looked at my watch, wondering if we’d have the
opportunity
to go for that drink later, and ran my tongue over my teeth. No chance, I thought, as I saw the time.
I sent Sparky and Annette to talk to the house-to-house boys, collating whatever they’d discovered, and asked Jeff Caton to do some checks on the car numbers and the two people in the house. At just before ten the undertaker’s van collected the body. We secured the house, leaving a patrol car parked outside, and moved
en masse
to the incident room that Mr Wood had hopefully set up at the nick.
The coffee machine did roaring service. As soon as I’d managed to commandeer a cup I called them all to order. “Let’s not mess about,” I said. “With a bit of luck we’ll still be able to hit our beds this side of midnight. First of all, thank you for your efforts. First indications are that the dead man might be called Peter Latham. What can anybody tell me about him?”
Annette rose to her feet. “Peter John Latham,” she told us, “is the named householder for number 15, Marlborough Close, West Woods. He is also the registered keeper of the Citroën Xantia parked on the drive. Disqualified for OPL in 1984, otherwise clean. Latham’s description tallies with that of the dead man, and a woman at number 13 has offered to identify the body. She’s a divorcee, and says they were
close.”
“Do you mean he was doing a bit for her, Annette?” someone called out.
“No, close as in living in the adjoining semi,” she responded, sitting down.
“Thanks Annette,” I said, raising a hand to quieten the laughs. “It appears,” I went on, “that Latham was killed with a single stab wound to the heart. We’ll know for certain after the post-mortem.”
“Arranged for eight in the morning,” Mr Wood
interrupted
. He was on the phone in his office when I’d started the meeting, organising the PM, and I hadn’t seen him sneak in.
“Thanks, Boss,” I said. “It doesn’t appear to have been a frenzied attack, but all will be revealed tomorrow. You OK for the PM, Annette?”
She looked up from the notes she was making and
nodded
.
“The man who claims to have done it,” I continued, “is called Anthony Silkstone. What do we know about him?”
Jeff flipped his notebook open but spoke without
consulting
it. “Aged forty-four,” he told us. “Married, comes from Heckley and has a string of driving convictions, but that’s all. His address is The Garth, Mountain Meadows, wherever that is.”
I knew where it was, but didn’t admit it.
“Yuppy development near the canal, on the north side of town,” Gareth Adey interrupted. “We’ve had a car there, but the house is in darkness and the door locked. Presumably the key is in Silkstone’s property.”
Jeff waited until he’d finished, then went on: “He shares the place with a woman called Margaret Silkstone, his wife, I imagine, and drives an Audi A8 with the same registration as the one parked outside the dead man’s house.”
“Nice car,” someone murmured.
“What’s it worth?” I asked.
“They start at about forty grand,” we were informed.
“So he’s not a police officer. OK. Number one priority is find Mrs Silkstone – we’d better get someone round to the house again, pronto – get the key from Silkstone’s property. Then we need next of kin for the dead man.”
“We’re on it, Charlie,” Gareth Adey said.
“Cheers, Gareth. And we need a simple statement for the press.” He nodded to say he’d take that on, too.
The door opened and the afternoon shift custody
sergeant
came in, wearing no tie and a zipper jacket over his blue shirt to indicate that he was off duty and missing a
well-earned
pint.
“Just the man,” I said. “Has our friend been through the sausage machine?”
“He’s all yours, Mr Priest,” he replied. “He’s co-
operating
, and beginning to talk a bit. Dr Evans says there’s no
reason
why he shouldn’t be questioned, and he’s not on any medication.”
“We think there’s a wife, somewhere. Has he asked for anybody to be informed?”
“No, Boss, just his solicitor. I’ve never heard of them, but apparently they’re an international firm with a branch in Manchester, and someone’s coming over.”
“Tonight?”
“That’s what they said.”
“They must be able to smell a fat fee.” I turned to the others. “Right, boys and girls,” I said. “Anybody short of a job, see me. Otherwise, go home to bed and we’ll meet again at eight in the morning. With a bit of luck we’ll have this sewn up by lunchtime.”
They drifted away or talked to the sergeants to clarify their tasks. Sparky found me and said: “Well that mucked up our nice quiet drink, didn’t it?”
“And I could use one,” I replied.
“If you get a move on we might manage a swift half over the road,” he said.
“You go,” I told him. “I’ll hang about a bit in case anybody
wants a word.” I like to make myself available. They might be detectives, but some of them are not as forthcoming as
others
. There’s always someone who seeks you out to discuss an idea or a problem, or to ask to be allocated to a certain task. This time it was Iqbal, who was on a fortnight’s secondment with us from the Pakistan CID and who never stopped
smiling
. He was lodging with Jeff Caton, and apparently had come in with him.
“Where would you like me to go, Inspector Charlie?” he asked.
For over a week he’d followed me round like a bad cold, and I was tempted to tell him, but he outranked me and the big grin on his face made me think that his provocative phrasing was deliberate.
“Ah! Chief Inspector Iqbal,” I said. “Just the man I’m looking for. Tomorrow you can help me with the submission to the CPS. That should be right up your street.”
“The dreaded MG forms,” he replied.
“Precisely.”
Before I could continue Annette came by and said: “Goodnight, Boss. See you some time in the morning.”
“Er, we were thinking of trying to grab a quick drink at the Bailiwick,” I told her. “Fancy one? Dave’s paying.”
“Ooh,” she replied, as if the thought appealed to her, then added: “I’d better not. I don’t want to feel queasy at the PM. Thanks all the same.”
“The PM!” I exclaimed, as enlightenment struck me. “What a good idea. How do you feel about taking Iqbal along with you?”
Whatever she felt, she declined from expressing it. I don’t know how Iqbal felt about watching a body being cut open, but I suspected he’d rather eat a whole box of pork
scratchings
than be shown around by a woman. He tipped his head graciously and they arranged to meet at the General Hospital, early.
As they left us Sparky said: “Annette’s a nice girl, isn’t
she?”
“She is,” I replied. “Very sensible. But she will insist on calling me Boss all the time.”
He grinned and shook his head.
“What did I say?” I demanded.
“Nothing,” he replied.
A couple of others came to clarify things with me and it was about ten to eleven as we walked along the corridor towards the front desk. Some of the team had already gone across to the pub. The duty constable was talking to a short man in a raincoat, and when he saw me he indicated to the man that I was the person he needed.
“This is Mr Prendergast, Mr Silkstone’s solicitor,” the constable told me, before introducing me as the Senior Investigating Officer. Prendergast didn’t offer a handshake, which was OK by me. I’m not a great shaker of hands.
He didn’t waste time with unnecessary preliminaries or pleasantries. “Have you charged my client?” he asked.
“No,” I replied. “We haven’t even interviewed him, yet.”
“So he is under arrest and the clock is running?”
“Yes.”
“Since when?”
“Since about six forty-five this evening. The precise time will be on the custody sheet.” He was a keen bugger, no doubt about it. I mentally slipped into a higher gear, because he’d know every dodge in the book and screw us if we made the slightest mistake.
“And when do you propose to interview him?” he demanded.
“In the morning,” I replied. “We normally allow the
prisoner
to sleep at night. He’s been offered food and drink, and given the opportunity to inform another person of his arrest, but he has declined to do so.”
“Yes, Yes,” Prendergast said, swapping his briefcase from his left hand to his right. “I’m sure you know the rules, Inspector, but I would prefer it if you interviewed him
tonight, then perhaps we can explain away this entire sorry event.”
“I think that’s unlikely, but I’m happy to interview him if he’s willing.” I turned to Sparky who was hovering nearby, and said: “Looks like we’re in for a late night, Sunshine. You’d better ring home.”
“Right,” he replied, grimly. Anybody who keeps Sparky away from that desperately needed pint is walking near the edge. We took the brief through into the custody suite to have words with the sergeant, then locked him in the cell with his client, so they could get their story straight. After ten minutes we knocked on the door, but he asked for another ten minutes. We didn’t wait idly while they were conferring. Phone calls to friends in the business told us that Prendergast specialised in criminal law for a big firm of solicitors based in Luxembourg who worked for several large companies with tendencies to sail close to the wind. It was nearly midnight when Sparky pressed the red button on the NEAL interview recorder and I made the introductions.
Tony Silkstone, as he called himself, was of barely average height but built like a welterweight. I could imagine him working out at some expensive health club, wearing all the right gear. The stuff with the labels on the outside. His pate still glistened, so I decided he was a natural slaphead and not one from choice. He had a suntan and his fingernails were clean, even and neatly cut. Apart from that, his paper
coverall
was pale blue and a trifle short in the arms.