Read Dead Money (A Detective Inspector Paul Amos Lincolnshire Mystery) Online
Authors: Rodney Hobson
The inspector drove straight to the local bus station. As with so many Lincolnshire towns, the railway line that once ran from north to south, linking into the main line to London, had been ripped up some 30 years past.
The bus station was hardly substantial, but at least it still existed. The ticket office was boarded up, its windows smashed and graffiti sprayed colourfully across the walls. Passengers now paid the driver as they got on the hourly service.
A travel agent had set up shop on the opposite side of the rutted tarmac where the buses turned, operating also as an office for a local bus company that ran a daily morning service to London.
The woman behind the desk was quite certain that no-one of Nick Foster’s description had taken the service that morning, although the bus had been quite full. Amos did a mental calculation. It was unlikely, though just possible, that Foster had had time to catch it.
Amos sought out the Lincolnshire Road Car Company inspector who was his only other hope of a positive sighting. This proved even less satisfactory: the inspector did not remember anyone resembling Foster travelling alone. However, his concern was to check that the buses were on time, not to imprint on his brain images of all the passengers.
It was vital to find Foster for two reasons. Firstly, he was a major suspect in the murder of Raymond Jones. He had had ample opportunity, although there was no obvious motive. Secondly, he could just possibly hold a vital clue to the murder without realising it. Foster had been safe in Killiney Court with the heavy police presence. He was vulnerable out in the wide open world.
Amos returned to the murder inquiry room set up in the town’s main library and surveyed the evidence mounted on boards. It led nowhere. He took Foster’s thin address book and rang the Wakefield number. A woman answered.
“I’m sorry to trouble you,” Amos began, “and please don’t be alarmed but this is the Lincolnshire police. We need to get in touch with a Mr Nick Foster who has apparently gone away for a short break. I wondered if he had by any chance come to you.”
“Good Lord, no,” the woman replied. “Nick never went anywhere. The last time we saw him was a couple of Christmases ago. Even then my husband had to fetch him and he only stayed four days, thank goodness. He’s my brother, by the way. He’s all right but a little goes a long way. It’s hard work trying to have a conversation with him.”
Then suddenly, almost as an afterthought, the voice asked: “He’s not in any kind of trouble, is he?”
“No, no,” Amos replied soothingly though untruthfully. “Just something that’s cropped up at the block of flats where he is the caretaker. He might be able to help. Please contact me immediately if by any chance he turns up.”
Amos supplied his name and phone number.
Clearly news of the killing had not travelled to Yorkshire. It had not caught the media’s imagination with a “Killiney Court Killing” or “Iron Bar Butcher” label. There was no knowing which murders would make national headlines. It was just the luck of the draw.
Amos tried the other two numbers in the underutilised address book. Neither produced an answer. That was hardly surprising. By now, the occupants could well be at work or out shopping.
He rang the county headquarters of the two areas where the addresses were located, supplied the name, address and telephone number in each case and asked for the occupant to be tracked down to find out if Foster had ever visited them.
He needed to know urgently if Foster turned up, no matter what time of day or night.
It was a pretty thin hope. In fact, it would be the following day before there was any further news of Foster.
The first chill blast of autumn spread insidiously across the market place that afternoon. Constable John Lowe pulled together his jacket and cursed himself for risking venturing out without least a macintosh. Lowe, now in his mid-twenties, had never quite got used to the dry cold winds of the East coast in his seven years among the wolds and fens.
He came from the damper, sheltered valleys of Lancashire, moving eastwards when his father, long left idle by the demise of the cotton trade that once thrived in the moist atmosphere of the western Pennines, had decided to try his luck at the Butlins holiday camp near Ingoldmells. The establishment north of Skegness had happy holiday associations for the family and Lowe senior had reckoned that seasonal work was better than non-existent employment.
PC Lowe was under no illusions that there were icier days ahead and many of them. Siberia had not yet shed its summer heat, Lowe thought. Soon that cutting knife would slice across a Continent and a half, directed straight at Lincolnshire.
A little dust and a couple of chip papers snaked across the road. Little else stirred. It was half day closing and the town was, as usual, practically deserted. Lowe pulled into a doorway to escape the bite. There was no respite from that wind.
About 50 yards on was a small car that had trundled the down the high street, pulled across the deserted market place and slipped into one of the marked bays. The occupant sat there for a minute or two, apparently reluctant to brave the elements. Finally the driver got out and strolled across the road to look in a shop window. It was a woman.
Lowe could never understand why some people seemed to enjoy looking at goods they had no intention of buying - indeed on this occasion the unknown female could not have bought even if she wanted to as the shop, like those on either side, was shut.
She did not turn around as a man in his fifties approached her. The male figure came out of the pawnshop, one establishment that was open, on the far side from Lowe and his face was visible full on. Lowe knew him immediately. He was the father of one of the boys who had been in Lowe's class at senior school.
Elsie Norman turned sharply as the man stopped next to her. Lowe could see them clearly although he was looking through the side pane of the doorway and out through the front plate glass window of the premises where he stood out of sight of the other two. It was only now, though, as Norman swung her back to him, that the officer could see a small package under the woman's arm.
The man was scruffily dressed and had clearly fallen onto harder times since Lowe's school days. Was he about to mug the woman, Lowe wondered. It certainly looked like it, for the man reached out towards the package and Norman pulled back instinctively.
There was no problem. Lowe could easily outrun the thief. The two figures down the street were engaged in animated conversation for a few moments. Out of the corner of his eye, Lowe spotted another lone pedestrian walking down the street on the opposite side but heading in the direction of the two figures he had under surveillance.
Norman had spotted the newcomer, too. To Lowe's surprise, Norman thrust the package into the man's welcoming arms and scurried back to her car. Within seconds she had opened the door, slipped inside, fastened her seat belt and started up. Quickly she backed out of the space and pulled away from the parking area before disappearing smoothly down the narrow road at the far end away from Lowe.
The man stuck the package under his coat and set off walking up the street towards the constable. Lowe slipped out about 10 yards in front of the source of his curiosity. The man was startled and almost stopped but he decided to keep going.
“Hello,” said Lowe pleasantly. “It's Jim Berry isn't it? Do you remember me? John Lowe. I was in the same class as your Brian.”
“Yes, yes, of course,” Berry muttered, pushing the package more firmly down the inside of his coat so it was completely out of sight.
“Found a shop open?” Lowe asked mischievously, pointing to the slight bulge in Berry's jacket. Berry looked a little startled.
“Just a box of chocolates,” he lied. “The sweet shop down at the end is open.”
Lowe hesitated. He had no grounds for demanding that Berry should produce the package. In any case, Berry was now hurrying off in the direction of his home. However, Lowe determined to relate the incident to Amos, since it involved a resident of Killiney Court.
The uniformed constable did not realise that it also involved a key suspect in Jim Berry and was to be quite astonished at the chief inspector's enthusiastic response to this titbit.
Foster sat incongruously in the children’s section of the library that had been set aside as a makeshift interview room. His eyes wandered over the range of books from Noddy and Thomas the Tank Engine to Treasure Island and Kidnapped.
He accepted his lot with an air of resignation.
A uniformed officer was recounting breathlessly what had been for him his first exhilarating experience since joining the force.
“We got a call from Skegness first thing this morning, Sir,” he related to Amos, who was seated opposite Foster.
“They weren’t sure it was Foster but he matched the description and he was travelling alone. He caught an early train to Nottingham. We shot down the A15 and intercepted the train at Heckington. Foster didn’t try to deny who he was and he came quietly enough.”
Amos thanked the officer for his sterling work and nodded towards the door. The young man was patently disappointed not to be allowed to stay for the interrogation of his capture.
“So you laid low in Skeggy for the night,” Amos remarked with a disarming smile. “And now you’re going to go back to your work as if nothing much has happened.”
Foster gasped.
“You’re … you’re not going to …” he started before falling abruptly silent.
“I shall drop you at the nearest bus stop to Killiney Court. You will walk back to the building and tell anyone who asks that you had to rush off because of a family bereavement. Do you think you can manage that convincingly?”
Foster nodded.
“Then you will make your way up to your rooms and stay there until I am ready to interview you about your various misdemeanours. Don’t cause me any more trouble.”
Foster again nodded his assent.
After leaving the caretaker at the appointed spot, Amos drove back to the murder headquarters. Having primed the officers whose help he would need, the inspector drove home and enjoyed a long soak in the bath.
He would have a light meal and an early night. He needed a full day to put his plan into action and tomorrow was his best chance.
Fingers crossed.
Amos arrived unannounced at Joanna Stevens' office, to the surprise of the officer on duty, who was yawning in the corner, and Stevens herself.
"This is a great honour, inspector," she said with heavy sarcasm.
The magistrate had said something similar when he applied for the search warrant for Jim Berry's house. Was he really so aloof?
Amos addressed himself to the officer first. The startled constable was already on his feet, embarrassed at being caught almost napping.
"I'll take over now," Amos said with a sharp edged to his voice. "As you're near the end of your shift you can go straight home. They know at the station."
The officer gabbled his thanks, grabbed his waterproof jacket and scarpered.
"I suppose you send the most boring officers because you can most easily spare them," Stevens commented, but at least now there was a touch of amusement in her voice.
"Miss Stevens, would it be fair to say that you objected to having a police bodyguard in the first place?"
"You know perfectly well I did."
"And can I take it from your remarks that you have become no more enthusiastic about the arrangement?"
Stevens leaned forwards slightly, her interest awakened.
"You take it correctly," she said.
"You understand, Miss Stevens, that if I withdraw the police guard you must accept the entire responsibility for the decision?"
"Fine by me," Stephens said with growing keenness.
"The police presence is now withdrawn," Amos told her.
For the first time, he saw Stevens smile. It was a full, beautiful unguarded smile that took five, perhaps ten, years off her face. It was the first and last time Amos ever saw that smile.
Sir Robert Fletcher, Chief Constable of Lincolnshire, called Amos into his office in mid morning of the following day.
“So how’s the inquiry going into what’s his name’s murder?” Fletcher asked. “You know, that chap …what was his name?”
Amos knew well enough. There was just one murder inquiry proceeding in the entire county at that time so it was not hard to remember it, or the name of the victim.
“Jones, sir,” Amos replied slightly stiffly.
He was not greatly anxious to get into a long, involved discussion on the subject. He did not want to have to tell his superior officer that there was no-one to arrest, no clear leads, no real developments to report, that it was not even clear that Jones was meant to be murdered.
Amos did have some thoughts about how he intended to develop the investigation but he did not want to discuss them with the head of the force.
“Jones, yes, Jones,” Fletcher repeated rather noncommittally. “Jones.”
There was a silence as the Chief Constable mulled over some papers on his desk. Amos, able to avoid Fletcher’s eye, shrugged and merely said: “Hmmmm.”
Fletcher took out a pen and made a couple of amendments to the typed text in front of him. He always dealt in matters in strict order of priority. Finally he looked up.
“Well?” he asked. “Where are we up to with – what did you say he was called? – Jones?”
“We’ve had to interview a lot of people, sir,” Amos replied. It sounded like a lame excuse. “Jones knew hundreds of people. We’re sifting through the evidence now to see if we can find any specific lead.”