Saturday morning the report came through identifying him. He hadn’t been carrying a passport, driver’s licence or utility bill, so DNA samples and fingerprints were taken and sent for comparison with the databases. Two hits confirmed him to be Dale Dobson, a 26-year-old thug with a record of football violence, racial attacks and ABH. I tried ringing Gareth Adey, my uniformed counterpart, to dump it on him, but he wasn’t answering. The sun was shining, it was Saturday morning and no grieving family had reported him missing. Gareth was probably wearing silly trousers and thrashing a small white ball around a big field, so I slid the report into my
Pending
tray and went home.
Many years ago I graduated from art college, with honours, for what it’s worth. As well as strenuous activities like rugby, karate and scuba diving, we have policemen who write poetry and short stories, several who do watercolours, and I’ve heard it said that there’s a sergeant in Barnsley who is a dab hand with the crocheting hook. But as far as I know I’m the only cop in the firm who knocks up the occasional abstract-impressionist work of art. I’d had a couple on display at the Heckley gala and
they’d attracted quite a bit of serious attention, as well as the expected hoots of derision from my colleagues. But a local gallery owner – a man of taste and sophistication – had admired them and offered to show a couple in an exhibition he was organising in the autumn.
So that’s why I spent Saturday afternoon on the roof of the garage, dropping blobs of red paint on to a six-by-four sheet of hardboard.
‘What the chuff are you playing at?’ a voice said somewhere below me.
I peered over the edge. ‘Look out,’ I warned, ‘or you’ll get splodged.’ It was Dave ‘Sparky’ Sparkington, one of my detectives and my best pal, with his teenage son, Daniel. Dave and I first met as schoolboy footballers, and then later when we joined the force. I’ve kept my boyish good looks and figure, but Dave, who is almost as tall as me, has spread slightly and lost most of his hair. We’ve shared a few scrapes, over the years, and he’s kept me out of trouble more times than I care to remember. I’m his daughter’s godfather.
‘What’s this: blood splatter analysis?’ Dave shouted up to me.
‘No, its for the gallery. Or it would be if I could get it right. I really need to be higher, so it spreads out more on impact. It’s not as easy as it looks. Have you been to the match?’
‘Yeah. And do people pay money for this rubbish?’
‘Listen, Sunshine. If I get this right I’ll make more out of it than I ever did from coppering. How many did we lose by?’
‘Just the odd goal.’
‘Practically a victory. ’Spect you want a cup of coffee.’
‘Wouldn’t say no.’
‘Go put the kettle on, Dan, while I clear this lot up.’
‘OK, Charlie,’ Dan replied, heading for the door.
‘Uncle Charlie to you,’ his dad shouted after him.
‘You went to the fatal on the top road, I hear,’ Dave said when we were seated in the kitchen, eating custard creams with our coffees.
‘Mmm. Who told you that?’
‘Shirley.’
‘Shirley!’ Shirley is Dave’s wife, who teaches home economics.
‘She met Davina in the supermarket.’ Davina is married to Rodger, the night ’tec, and is a sister at the General Hospital.
‘I see. It’s good to know that all lines of communication are functioning well. So what sort of holiday have you had?’
‘Fantastic. Put a lovely shade of duck-egg blue on the wife’s mother’s ceiling. Why did he call you out for an RTA? Is he losing it?’
‘No, I don’t think so. There was some money in
the car – about
£
500 – and he had a gun in his pocket. I’ve sent everything to Wetherton; see if the boffins can find anything.’
‘What sort of gun?’
‘A .38.’
‘Hmm. I suppose he did the right thing, then, but guns are a fashion accessory, these days, and five hundred’s not much to some of them.’
‘He did what he thought was right, and that’s OK by me.’
‘Has the driver been ID-ed yet?’
‘Umm…’ I hesitated.
‘What do you mean, umm…?’
‘The results came back this morning, but I haven’t done anything about it.’
‘Christ, Charlie. You mean you’re sitting on it? He’s dead, you know who he is and you’re sitting on it. If it gets out they’ll…they’ll…’
I turned to young Daniel, saying: ‘
Hang me by the balls from the town hall clock
is the expression your father is looking for,’ and he grinned back at me.
‘Well,’ Dave went on, ‘it is a bit much, don’t you think. Do you want me to come in tomorrow?’
‘He’s a racist yob,’ I replied, ‘and I’m as entitled to my weekend off as much as the next man. It’ll wait until Monday.’
‘I suppose so. Did you know that Tony Krabbe is
giving a lecture at the Town Hall a week next Saturday?’
‘Tony Krabbe?’ I replied. ‘You mean Anthony Turnbull Krabbe? Conqueror of Everest and numerous other peaks?’
‘That’s him. Want me to get some tickets?’
‘How much are they?’
‘Twelve pounds.’
‘Crikey. No thanks.’
‘Why not?’
‘I went to school with him. He’s a…he’s a…’
Now it was Dave’s turn to explain to Daniel. ‘
Twat
is the expression your Uncle Charlie is looking for,’ he said.
‘An amiable cove,’ I told them. ‘I got on reasonably well with him. Everybody did, including the teachers. And the girls. Especially the girls. He was a good-looking so-and-so, and he knew it.’
‘Sounds like a bad case of jealousy to me,’ Dave said.
‘You could be right,’ I agreed. ‘I took over from him as captain of the school team. He was a year older than me, which means a lot at that age. We lost six matches on the trot, then he broke his arm falling off the parallel beams – he was showing off in the gym – and I took over as captain. We won our next six matches but he came back and we started losing again. I don’t think he was very academically minded. He was one of those golden
boys who attracts all the attention but has nothing to back it up. You know the type.’
‘Yes, we have one or two of those in the firm. Where did ’e go when ’e left?’
‘Presumably he joined the army. It must have been about ten years later that he started making a name for himself with his climbing exploits, writing books and all that, and he’s always described as
ex-SAS
.’
‘He must have something, if he was in the SAS,’ Dave said.
I scowled at him. ‘The SAS,’ I echoed. ‘You must be joking. They’re a bunch of hooligans.’
‘They’re the elite of our army.’
‘No they’re not. They’re a bunch of trigger-happy incompetents.’
Dave turned to his son. ‘Your Uncle Charlie doesn’t like the SAS.’
‘I suppose he’s done well,’ I grudgingly admitted.
‘He’s got the OBE for it, must be Heckley Grammar’s most famous old boy.’
‘I know. He’s the public face of mountaineering, knows the right people, always says the right thing, but I doubt if he can lace the boots of some of the others.’
‘Sure you don’t want to come? Jeff’s making one in.’ Jeff Caton is one of my sergeants.
‘Go on, then. Get me a ticket. What about you, Dan?’
‘Five-a-side,’ he replied, which was teenage-speak meaning that he was playing in a five-a-side football tournament on the evening in question and therefore would not be able to attend the lecture.
‘Right,’ I said.
After Dave’s disquiet about the dead body my conscience started troubling me, so Sunday morning I did some investigating. Dale Dobson’s last known address was a bail hostel in Huddersfield, but a phone call confirmed that he’d moved on. He was now lost to the system and had been living in the black economy – no taxes, no national insurance, no nothing. There’s a whole cash-in-hand world out there, living on its wits, dependent on nobody, no questions asked. They’re outlaws, and when we get on to them they just fold their tents, or leave the bedsit without paying the arrears, and disappear.
Fortunately for us, Marjory Dobson, his mother, believed in the work ethic, paid her community charge, and was therefore easy to trace. I decided to visit her.
She lived in a terrace house on the outskirts of Huddersfield, where the back streets were cobbled and the grime of the Industrial Revolution still clung to the walls. The rows of houses climbed up the hillside in steps, their redundant chimneys dominating the skyline, providing roosts for
pigeons. They’d gone from desirable residences for workers in the wool industry to starter homes for young couples, then been snapped up by the Asian population who moved in during the last days of the mills. Now they were a cosmopolitan mix of older white tenants, Asian families, and students living in flats, all rubbing along in an uneasy truce. One day, perhaps, they’d be converted into bijou residences for the chattering classes, but nobody was holding their breath.
‘Which one is it this time?’ Mrs Dobson asked when we were seated in her tiny front room.
She was younger than I expected, with a face that had once been handsome but now bore the lines of constant disappointment. Her streaked hair was tied back in a ponytail and when she’d turned to let me in I’d seen a butterfly tattooed on her shoulder.
‘Which one?’ I queried.
‘Dale or his dad?’
‘I’m afraid it’s Dale.’
‘What’s he done now?’
‘There was a car crash up on the top road, early Thursday morning. I’m sorry to have to tell you, Mrs Dobson, that Dale is dead. We’ve only just identified him as the driver.’
She flinched at the word
dead
, but didn’t look too surprised or upset. This wasn’t the first time a detective had knocked at the door and asked if he could have a word. It was just another episode in
the tragic story that began when Dale was born. She sniffed and forced her mouth into a grim smile but the corners were twitching as she stared beyond me, to a distant time and place where the memories were happier.
‘It was a high-speed crash,’ I went on. ‘He was killed instantly.’
‘Was anyone with him?’ she asked.
‘Not that we’ve been able to establish.’
‘Well that’s a blessing. Unlike Dale, though. He liked to make as much misery as possible out of everything he did.’
‘We haven’t been able to find an address for him. Do you know where he lived?’
‘No. I asked him, but he said he moved around. And…’ She stopped before completing the sentence.
‘And…’ I prompted.
She shrugged her shoulders and blew her nose on a tissue. ‘And he said it was best if I didn’t know, whatever that means.’ She rose to her feet, saying: ‘Will you excuse me?’
‘Of course.’
She left the room and returned a couple of minutes later. ‘I’m sorry about that.’
I said: ‘It’s been a shock for you. When did you last see Dale?’
‘Last time I saw him? That would be about a month ago. He never came to visit me, but sometimes he’d just turn up and demand a bed
for a night or two. It was as if…’
‘Go on.’
‘As if…he was lying low for a bit, if you know what I mean.’
‘Lying low from what?’
‘I don’t know. He never had a proper job but always had plenty of money. He was a bad ‘un, Inspector. I know that. These days, you imagine it’s drugs, don’t you? He was mixed up in something, that’s for sure.’
The kettle in the kitchen switched off with a loud click and Mrs Dobson went to make some tea. I had a look around the room and was surprised by the stuff she had. A big copper samovar stood in one corner, glowing like a sunset, and a tall jardinière filled with dried flowers was in another. The coffee table was jade and the sideboard was obviously antique. The photos on the wall were sepia prints of old Huddersfield.
‘I’ve been admiring your stuff,’ I told her when she returned. ‘Is that what they call a samovar?’
‘That’s right.’
‘It’s a beauty’
She placed my tea on the jade table. ‘I like nice things,’ she said, ‘but most of them are fake, like this table.’
When she was seated again I said: ‘It sounds as if Dale has always been a problem, Mrs Dobson.’
She sipped her tea, then said: ‘I lost him when he
was eleven. Up to then he’d been a delightful little boy, but, overnight, something happened. He became a racist. You know what it’s like around here, but you have to give and take. I’ve got Asians on either side, for about three houses, but we get along well. The children are polite and they’ll run errands for you. But with Dale it was
Paki
this and
nigger
that. He didn’t care who heard him. Then he got mixed up with the football crowd.’
‘What about his dad?’ I asked, remembering her question when she’d asked me in: ‘Which one is it?’
‘Him! Uh,’ she snorted. ‘Another waste of oxygen. I’m afraid he was probably Dale’s role model, even though we split up when Dale was six. He’s done time, too.’
‘What for?’ I asked.
‘GBH. He beat…somebody…up. And receiving, I think.’
‘Do you keep in touch?’
‘He sends me a Christmas card, would you believe? He called here, about five years ago, but I wouldn’t let him in. I told him where to go.’
‘Was it you he beat up?’
She looked down at her knees again and whispered: ‘Yes.’
‘When did Dale leave home?’
‘Dale? It wasn’t a sudden thing. He started staying out when he was about fourteen or fifteen. At first I assumed he was with a girl – he was a
good-looking boy, never had any trouble attracting them. Gradually it built up until he was out more than he was in. By the time he was seventeen I hardly ever saw him.’
‘But you’ve no idea if he was working for anybody, or what he was doing?’
‘Driving, at a guess. He was mad keen on cars and driving.’
‘Right. Dale’s fingerprints and DNA were already on our files, and we’ve matched them to the person in the car. However, it’s normal for us to ask a family member to formally identify the body. Do you think you’ll be up to it?’
Her face clouded with alarm. ‘I thought you said it was him.’
‘It is. There’s no doubt about it. It’s not essential but we’d still like you to confirm it. And sometimes…you know…it helps if you can see the body.’