Supping with the Devil Read online

  ‘Where’s DCI who?’ Wellbeloved asked.

  ‘Ah, it is plain from the commanding tone in your voice that you are the chief inspector to whom I was about to refer,’ Shastri said, with a neat bit of verbal footwork which both Beresford and Meadows couldn’t help admiring. ‘You are Chief Inspector Well-Below, are you not?’

  ‘The name is Wellbeloved, doctor.’

  ‘A thousand apologies, Mr Wellbeloved,’ Shastri said. ‘For a simple Indian like myself, your English names are often so confusing. Would you like me to examine the body now?’

  ‘If it wouldn’t be too much trouble, Doctor,’ Wellbeloved said, with an edge of sarcasm to his voice.

  ‘It will be no trouble at all, Chief Inspector,’ Shastri replied, pretending not to notice his tone. ‘In point of fact, it is what I am paid to do.’

  She walked over to the corpse, and crouched down next to the head.

  ‘This man is dead,’ she announced. ‘I would stake my professional reputation on that.’

  It was vintage Shastri, and both Meadows and Beresford grinned. Wellbeloved, on the other hand, did not look the least amused.

  ‘Death was almost certainly caused by a blow to the back of the skull, but I can’t confirm that definitively until I’ve cut him open,’ Shastri continued. She stood again. ‘There’s no more I can do here, so could you please arrange for the cadaver to be taken to the mortuary.’

  ‘When can I expect your report?’ Wellbeloved asked.

  ‘I see you inherited your predecessor’s impatience,’ Shastri said. ‘I will go home now and get a few hours much-needed beauty sleep, but the moment I awaken I will rush to the mortuary, reach for my trusty scalpel, and carry out the post-mortem with great alacrity. If all goes well, you should have my preliminary findings by lunchtime.’

  The ambulance men – who had been having a quiet smoke at the end of the alley – were summoned to take the body away, and it was after they had turned the corpse over and were lifting it on to the trolley that Meadows noticed there was something tucked into the waistband of the dead man’s underpants.

  ‘What’s that?’ she asked, pointing.

  ‘Looks like a wallet,’ Beresford said.

  And a wallet was what, indeed, it was.

  By two o’clock, the team – which now included DC Crane – were back in Wellbeloved’s office.

  Beresford took his packet of cigarettes out of his pocket, and looked around for an ashtray. There wasn’t one. And that was when he noticed that Wellbeloved was glaring at him. He put the cigarettes back in his pocket.

  ‘You have my permission to smoke if you want to, Inspector Beresford,’ the chief inspector said, producing an ashtray, a lighter and a box of small cigars from his desk drawer with a magician’s flourish.

  He placed the ashtray in the centre of the desk, lit up one of the cigars, and took a deep drag on it.

  ‘If the wallet belonged to the dead man – and we have every reason to believe that it did – then his name was Terry Lewis and he was a journalist,’ he said exhaling the cigar smoke in a series of wavering rings. ‘The wallet contained, from our perspective, a number of useful things. There’s a driving licence, which has on it his address in Manchester. There’s a photograph of Lewis with a woman and two children – presumably his wife and kids. There’s a National Union of Journalists membership card, and a key for a room at the Royal Victoria Hotel.’ Wellbeloved paused. ‘Have you anything to add on the last point, DS Meadows?’

  ‘I called the hotel, and it confirmed that a Mr Terry Lewis booked in the day before yesterday,’ Meadows said.

  Wellbeloved nodded.

  ‘And finally, there’s twenty-seven pounds in cash,’ he said. ‘Now, given that there’s absolutely no forensic evidence to point to his having been killed in the alley where he was found – no blood, no bone shards, no signs of a struggle – what questions should we be asking ourselves?’

  ‘If that wasn’t where he was killed, why did the murderer choose to dump his body there?’ Beresford said. ‘It was a risky thing to do, because even though the centre of town is pretty much deserted by one o’clock, it’s not entirely so – Mr Grimshaw and the driver of the car who pulled the U-turn are proof of that. It would have been much safer for him to dump it out on the moors.’

  ‘And there would have been another advantage – quite apart from avoiding the risk of being spotted – to disposing of the victim that way,’ Meadows said. ‘If the murderer had left the body on the moors, it could have been days – or even weeks – before it was found. And it’s common knowledge – even among civilians – that the longer we take to find out about a murder, the less our chances are of tracking down the killer.’

  ‘But not only did he leave the body where it would be found, he left the wallet to make identification easier,’ Beresford pointed out.

  ‘Exactly,’ Wellbeloved agreed. ‘So why did he do that?’

  ‘Maybe he wants us to catch him,’ DC Crane suggested. ‘Some murderers do.’

  ‘That’s certainly one theory,’ Wellbeloved said. ‘And if it’s correct, all we have to do is sit on our arses and wait for him to send us some more clues. But let’s assume that isn’t the case – what other explanations for his behaviour can we come up with?’

  ‘Turning Crane’s idea on its head, the killer doesn’t want us to catch him, but he’s giving us every chance to,’ Meadows said.

  ‘Why would he do that?’ Wellbeloved asked.

  ‘Because he wants to show us just how clever he is, and how stupid we are. If he makes it almost impossible for us to find him – if, for example, he buries the body on the moors – there’s no fun in it. If, on the other hand, he gives us a massive clue right at the start of the investigation, and we still can’t track him down, that proves he’s so much better than we are.’

  ‘He’d have to be incredibly arrogant to think in that way,’ Beresford said.

  But they all knew that many killers were that arrogant – that arrogance was there right from the start, in the assumption that they had the right to take another person’s life.

  ‘He wants to be caught or maybe he just wants to taunt us,’ Wellbeloved said, summing up. ‘Any other ideas?’

  ‘Perhaps the killer wanted to make a point, or to send a message,’ Beresford said.

  ‘A message to whom? And what kind of message?’

  ‘A message to all journalists everywhere. And that message would be, “This is what happens to you when you start trying to stick your nose into matters which are no concern of yours”.’

  ‘It’s a possibility,’ Wellbeloved conceded. ‘But why strip him down to his vest and underpants?’

  ‘Maybe that was all he was actually wearing when he was killed,’ Jack Crane said.

  ‘Then where’s the blood?’ Wellbeloved asked.

  ‘I’m sorry, sir?’

  ‘When he was hit over the head, blood would have come spurting out, and at least some of it would have found its way on to his vest. The fact that there is none would suggest that he was wearing something else – possibly something quite thick – which absorbed that blood.’

  ‘You’re right,’ Crane said.

  ‘Maybe the killer stripped him down to his underwear to humiliate him,’ Beresford said.

  ‘But it’s not really that much of a humiliation, is it?’ Meadows argued. ‘Now if he was completely naked, and his body had been mutilated in some way, I’d say you were on to a winner, sir, but as it is …’

  ‘So we’ve got a lot of questions – which is a positive thing – but no real answers, which is not quite so good,’ Wellbeloved summed up. ‘Does one of you have any useful contacts in the Manchester police?’

  ‘I worked with a Manchester DI called Henry James on a case last November,’ Beresford volunteered.

  ‘And what was he like?’

  ‘He was a good bloke – very helpful.’

  ‘You got on well, then?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

>   Wellbeloved nodded. ‘Then I want you down in Manchester first thing in the morning. Re-establish contact with James, and take him with you when you go to talk to Lewis’ widow.’

  ‘Err … I normally coordinate the door-to-door operations, sir,’ Beresford said.

  ‘I’m sure you do,’ Wellbeloved said, ‘but the Manchester police could be crucial to this investigation, and since you’ve already established a good relationship with one of its officers, you’ll be of more use to me down there.’

  ‘That makes sense,’ Beresford agreed – though he was reluctant to surrender the role he had made pretty much his own.

  ‘DS Meadows can take over the coordination of door-to-door inquiries,’ Wellbeloved said.

  ‘That’s normally an inspector’s job, sir,’ Meadows pointed out.

  ‘I know it is, but I think you’re perfectly capable of doing it, and the experience will be good for you,’ Wellbeloved told her. ‘I want all the streets within a quarter of a mile of the crime scene canvassed, Sergeant. I want every single householder questioned to find out if they noticed anything last night. I also want all the staff and guests at the Royal Victoria put through the mill. Did they see much of Lewis – maybe even talk to him? Was there anything about his behaviour that struck them as odd? Did he seem to be associating with anyone in particular?’

  ‘Got it,’ Meadows said.

  ‘And as from tomorrow night, I want police roadblocks set up on the High Street and Accrington Road – and maybe even beyond that, if you’ve got the manpower available. I’ll want to know who uses those roads late at night, and whether they saw anything.’

  ‘Check,’ Meadows said.

  ‘As for you, DC Crane, the moment we’ve finished here, I want you to get on the phone and drag the editor of the local rag out of his bed. Tell him we’ve got a picture of our victim, and we want it prominently displayed on his front page tomorrow morning.’

  ‘The paper will already have gone to press, sir,’ Crane said.

  ‘Then they’ll just have to start the presses again and re-do the four outside pages, won’t they?’ Wellbeloved said. ‘And if the editor argues with you, you might point out to him that we live in a you-scratch-my-back-I-scratch-yours world, and that if he wants my cooperation in the future, the best way to ensure it is by giving me his now. If it’ll help, you can also say that I can be a right proper bastard when I don’t get what I want.’

  Crane grinned. ‘Right, sir.’

  ‘You look like you think I’ve just made a joke, Crane,’ Wellbeloved said, stony-faced. ‘Let me assure you, I’ve done no such thing. I can be a right proper bastard, and you’d be well advised never to put yourself in a position in which you’ll experience it first-hand. Got that?’

  Crane merely nodded – it seemed the safest thing to do.

  ‘I’ll handle the local TV news myself,’ Wellbeloved continued, ‘and before you ask, that’s not because I particularly fancy the idea of becoming a Whitebridge celebrity, it’s because television people are even cockier than print journalists, and if you’re going to try and make them jump through hoops, you’d better make sure you’re waving a very big stick.’ He looked around the table. ‘Are there any questions? Because if you’re not quite sure you’ve got a clear picture of what I want, now is the time to tell me.’

  There were no questions.

  ‘Right, that’s it,’ Wellbeloved concluded. ‘Go home and try to snatch a few hours sleep, because there’s no saying when you’ll get your next opportunity, and I want you hitting the deck running, first thing in the morning.’

  Beresford and Meadows walked down to the car park together. They obviously both had a lot on their minds, but it was not until they were on the point of going their separate ways that Beresford said, ‘Well, what do you think?’

  There was no need for Meadows to ask what the question was specifically referring to.

  ‘He’s sneaky and he’s underhand, and – for all I know – he may rape baby bunnies on his day off,’ Meadows said. ‘And I didn’t like that trick he pulled of waiting until you’d put your cigarettes back in your pocket before giving you permission to smoke. That was just bloody-minded gamesmanship.’

  ‘But …?’ Beresford asked.

  Because there clearly was a ‘but’.

  ‘But he’s nowhere near as stupid as I used to think he was,’ Meadows said. ‘In fact, though it pains me to admit it, the boss herself couldn’t have handled that meeting better than he did.’

  ‘No,’ Beresford said gloomily, ‘she couldn’t.’

  NINE

  Lawrence Taylor was sitting in the breakfast room of the Royal Victoria, carefully sipping black coffee and wondering if he dared risk eating a little toast.

  The previous evening had been one of the most uncomfortable he ever remembered spending. His gut had started issuing warnings at just after six o’clock, and he had thrown up for the first time at around half past. The Napoleon brandy he sent his stomach as a peace offering seemed to quiet it for a while, but by seven thirty it was on the march again, and he was forced to leave the table at which he was entertaining some business associates, and rush to the toilet. When the same thing happened again – half an hour later – and yet again – fifteen minutes after that – Taylor finally admitted defeat and excused himself.

  Once up in his room, the toilet bowl had become his closest companion, and it was not until half past two, still crouched over the bowl, that he had finally fallen asleep.

  And even now, the morning after, eating toast seemed like a dangerous adventure, on a par with swallowing a buttered razor blade.

  Taylor looked up from his coffee cup and saw Jeff Hill entering the breakfast room.

  Bloody hell, he looks worse than I feel, Taylor thought.

  And even though he disliked Hill on both personal and professional levels, he couldn’t help experiencing a moment of compassion for him.

  Hill glanced around the room, and then walked straight to Taylor’s table, and sat down.

  ‘I hear through the grapevine that you had a bit of a rough night, last night,’ Hill said.

  ‘And you’ve come to gloat about it, have you?’ asked Taylor – though, for once, it looked as if Hill had no appetite for putting the boot in.

  ‘Come to gloat? No, no, not at all. Did you … did you see anybody last night, after you went upstairs?’

  ‘Not a soul,’ Taylor said bitterly. ‘I might have expected a few of my so-called friends to come and find out how I was getting on, but I expect they were too busy boozing to spare the time.’

  ‘Good,’ Hill said.

  ‘Good?’ Taylor repeated.

  ‘Well, no, not good, exactly,’ Hill amended, ‘it must have been horrible for you. But the fact that you didn’t see anybody does mean that you might be able to help me out.’

  ‘Help you out?’ Taylor said suspiciously. ‘How?’

  ‘I’ve … err … been spending some time with a friend while I’ve been here, and I have reason to believe that my wife’s having me watched.’

  ‘Then you’re stuffed, my old son – you’re really stuffed,’ said Taylor, who had decided the morning was starting to look up.

  ‘I wouldn’t be stuffed if you gave me an alibi for last night – if you said I was so worried about you that I came up to your room at about ten o’clock and spent the night looking after you.’

  ‘True.’

  ‘So you’ll give me an alibi?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Why should I? What’s in it for me?’

  ‘I’ve just won the franchise for selling the kids’ model of the new Whitebridge Rovers winter strip – and I’ll cut you in for ten per cent if you’ll do me this small favour,’ Hill said.

  If the bastard was prepared to offer ten per cent of such a lucrative franchise, he must really need an alibi, Taylor thought.

  ‘I want forty per cent,’ he said.

  ‘That’s outrageous!’
>
  Taylor shrugged. ‘Please yourself, Jeff – it’s not my marriage that’s in jeopardy.’

  ‘Twenty-five per cent,’ Hill said. ‘And that’s my final offer.’

  It was never a good idea to push Jeff Hill too far, Taylor thought.

  ‘Twenty-five per cent, then,’ he agreed. ‘But I’ll want that down in black and white.’

  Hill reached into his inside jacket pocket, pulled out what looked like a pre-prepared contract, and laid it on the table.

  Only eight hours earlier, the enclosure inside the walls of Stamford Hall had been filled with the sound of a heavy metal group called Crazy Mary. Now, the fans who had been jumping up and down while the band attempted to make their ears bleed, were all recovering from the night’s excitement in their tents on the other side of the wall, and – apart from the ground staff who were clearing up the rubbish, and a couple of technicians who were making adjustments to the equipment on stage – Paniatowski and Bell had the enclosure to themselves.

  ‘It went well, yesterday,’ Bell said. ‘In fact, it went better than I’d ever dared hope it would. There wasn’t a riot, nobody got murdered – and the Devil’s Disciples behaved in an exemplary way.’

  ‘Since the earl won’t let me get anywhere near them, I wouldn’t know about that,’ Paniatowski said, with a touch of bitterness in her voice.

  ‘In an exemplary way,’ Bell repeated. ‘While the show was on, they made sure nobody tried to climb on the stage, and once it was over, they controlled the traffic flow through the East Gate to the camp site with all the calmness and patience of school lollipop ladies.’

  ‘Devil-worshipping school lollipop ladies,’ Paniatowski said drily.

  ‘I had some doubts when the earl first told me that he was going to employ a motorbike gang,’ Bell said, choosing to ignore the comment, ‘but it just goes to show, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Goes to show what?’

  ‘That the earl always knows exactly what he’s doing.’

  Paniatowski turned away, so that Bell wouldn’t see the smile which had come to her face.