Wednesday December 9
Armed with Colin’s information that the trial involving (and
exonerating) Agnes Peel had beel held at Bristol Crown Court, at home Gary wrestled with a pile of faxed
documents obtained from Bristol police HQ containing the name Agnes Florence
Peel. He was getting increasingly angry because it was quite clear that there
had been serious slip-ups in the investigation of what Gary was forced to call
Mrs Peel’s rival for the attentions of the husband on whom she had set her
sights. Cleo’s theory went through his head more than once. If Mrs Peel had
murdered once and got away with it, she might murder again…and again.
Nigel decided to leave Gary to his bairns for the rest of Monday.
After talking to Crab and getting nowhere, he was sure that action should be
taken and that he was the one to take it.
***
Finally, Gary abandoned his laptop, deciding that it was
more fun looking after his children. He would discuss the Peel case with Greg
next morning. Greg was sure to want to question Mrs Peel without delay, but
Gary thought she should be left to stew for a day or two longer. Was that such
a good idea? Did it leave Mrs Peel more scope for whatever activities in which
she was involved?
***
Cleo had earlier assured Gary in a text that the
shop-lifting outing had been cancelled thanks to Vera’s brainwave. She had told
the group that there was going to be a razzia at Milton’s and they had
accordingly postponed their little adventure. The thieving seniors did not know
that they had been ’told on’. Further developments would be closely watched by
Vera who was under no circumstances to go with them.
***
The bistro case was on the back burner – to coin a phrase -
until more information was available. Crab would certainly be prosecuted for
damaging the kitchen even if Perry Plimsoll was out of it. It remained to be
seen if Crab had told the truth. Comparison with the pub owner’s story might
shed light on the situation. Crab had certainly possessed the £1000 he said was
for making the kitchen unworkable, including the £500 that he had taken off
Plimsoll’s body. Was the only reason he had hired someone and was prepared to
share the ‘fee’ with him that he did not have a car? He could have hired one,
always assuming he had a driver’s license. That must be established a.s.a.p.
since lack of transport upheld the story of employing Plimsoll, who had access
to a car, even if it did not belong to him.
Gary assumed that Miss Plimsoll would rather cover up for
her nephew than admit that even to herself that he was a crook. Miss Plimsoll
clearly disapproved of that nephew; he took her credit card without her
knowledge and it fell into Crab’s hands when Crab fleeced the dead man of valuables.
Crab said he had been driving because Plimsoll was drunk. If he did not have driving
experience it would go some way to explaining his difficulties on the slippery
downhill slalom of Thumpton Hill.
Gary had up to now assumed that Crab had a license. A call
to the central licensing office would clear up that point.
***
Tuesday
Nigel was up and the crack of dawn and phoned the cottage at
what Gary declared was an indecent hour early on Tuesday morning to ask if he
would be missed for a couple of days.
“Yes, you can go to Mallorca and yes it’s a good idea.”
Discussing the case with Cleo during their evening review of
the past day’s events had already led to the conviction that someone would have to go to the island ,
and that someone would have to be Nigel, who would be on a mission to gather background
information about Crab’s activities and his association with Delilah’s scheming
landlord.
“Oh!” said Nigel. ”I thought you’d say ‘no’.”
“Think again,” said Gary. “You seem to have more contact to
Crab. He’s your generation. We need to know more about his activities in
Mallorca. You don’t just get handed £1000 by a complete stranger for the
completion of a task somewhere else at some time in the future unless you have
a good reputation for whatever deals you make. It’s too good to be true as it
stands, so maybe Crab really did pursue other criminal activities and was doing
that landlord a favour in return for one. The cash might come from
drug-smuggling.”
“You have a suspicious mind, Gary,” said Nigel.
“So do you, Nigel! I can’t leave because I’m in the throes
of moving house and taking on Roger’s job next week. On the other hand, if that
landlord of the bistro has his wits about him, he’ll want to play it cool for a
while and avoid the police. It’s the mountain going to Mohammed, Nigel. After
all, our friend Josh did finance a criminal act if that story’s true. And
that’s where we step in, or rather you, but not as a copper.”
“Put like that, the trip loses its jaunt aspect and becomes
hard work,” said Nigel.
“What did you expect? A bucket and spade?”
“Now you are turning on the old Gary I used to be scared of
in the patrol squad.”
“Sorry. You have my support, Nigel. Cleo has great
confidence in you, so your mission will be from the Hartley Agency and you will
have asked for a couple of days off from work as my assistant. You will report
back to her before sending the report so that the Henry gets it all in the
right order. HQ will finance the trip after negotiating with the Hartley
Agency. It’s all a bit trickier now I’m married to its CEO, but we’ll
straighten that out. I’ll tell Henry that HQ is financing the trip on Roger
Stone’s orders.”
“Thanks. Should I talk to Brian Crab again before I leave?”
“Did he tell you anything yesterday, Nigel?”
“Nothing new.”
“Then he probably won’t today, either.”
“Are you coming into HQ this morning?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll book a late flight, shall I? Then you can brief me,”
said Nigel.
“Do I need to?”
“You might think of something,” said Nigel.
“Cleo might,” said Gary. “I’ll ask her.”
***
Cleo had buried her head under her pillow. Being woken at
six in the morning was something she could well do without. Now she had weaned
the twins, that extra hour of sleep was doubly welcome. Max and Mathilda’s
large portions of fruity cereal in the evening ensured that they would not be
hungry at the crack of dawn, but unfortunately it was not a guarantee of an
undisturbed night’s sleep.
“I think Nigel’s panicking.”
“Nigel doesn’t panic,” said Cleo. “’I’ll get the coffee
going.”
During his one minute shower Gary sang Morning has Broken so
tunelessly that it would have woken the dead. Still swathed in his bath towel
he got the bigger twins and PeggySue organized for breakfast.
“Breakfast!” he called to anyone listening.
“Morning, Sweetheart,” he called to Charlie, who now
appeared to join the party having been robbed the last of her sleep by her daddy’s
vocal contribution to the getting-up ritual.
“Cocoa, please!” said Charlie.
“Since you are up, Charlie, can you help me with this crowd
here?”
“I’m up fro the day,” said Cleo. “No one can sleep with that
opera going on.”
“I thought sleeping late belonged to your last marriage,”
said Gary.
“That was a form of escape. I don’t need that now.”
“What were you escaping from, Mummy?”
“The day, Charlie. And Robert frying bacon at seven in the
morning.”
“Can we have bacon, Mummy?”
“Only if your Daddy fries it, and he won’t. Too many
calories.”
“I’ll get Max then, shall I?”
“Please do that, Charlie. I’ll come with you. Mathilda will
not want to be left alone and they are too heavy for you to carry both at the
same time.”
Eventually, all the infants had been taken care of. Charlie ran
to catch the school bus, and Toni and Grit arrived to take the older children to
the nursery. A fresh pot of coffee and a peaceful few minutes finalized the two
hour long breakfast ritual for Gary and Cleo. Max and Mathilda cooed away in
the playpen. Life was perfect…almost.
***
“Can we talk a bit
more about Nigel’s proposal?” said Cleo.
“What proposal?”
“Mallorca. It’s good idea, especially if my poverty-stricken
agency does not have to provide the financing.”
“We need the documentation at HQ, too,” said Gary. “It will
only come to you first because of Nigel’s new link to the agency.”
“And to avoid it being an official HQ mission. Come clean,
Gary!”
“OK. That too. We need the unofficial ones, howver, and will
definitely finance this one.”
“I wonder if that landlord guy still in Mallorca,” said
Cleo.
“That’s a good question that Nigel might be able to answer,
my love. But finding out more about Crab also important.”
“Does Crab have a driving license?”
“That’s something I’ll have to find out here. It had already
crossed my mind. Somehow we take it for granted that all adults have one.”
“I wonder how often Crab commuted to Mallorca?”
“Nigel might find that out from the pub owner there. Crab made
himself useful as a bar-keeper.”
“Nigel should try to find out if drugs play a role. Dealers
have to meet somewhere. From what I have gathered about Crab, I can imagine him
being drawn into such an organization. He is quite a wily customer.”
“And that landlord might know a thing or two about it! Some
people have an inborn instinct for benefits from corruption. Take politicians,
for instance…”
“Not all of them, Gary. And more relevant to our case, Delilah
said something about the landlord being in Bristol. I believe he went to live
there when he gave up the pub.”
“Funny how Bristol keeps cropping up.”
“You mean in Mrs Peel’s past? Coincidence, maybe.”
“I’m surprised that Delilah did not try to find that
landlord.”
“She was glad to see the back of him, and he started to
terrorize her by phone as soon as the pub started to make money as a bistro.
You know that.”
“It’s a good job she had the foresight to take a ten year
lease on the place.”
“Good for her. Bad for that landlord although he was
grateful at the time, I expect. What’s his name again?”
“Josh something or other.”
“From his viewpoint, our friend Josh had a good reason to
hire someone to make trouble for her to frighten her off. I don’t suppose he
knows about Mitch.”
“It’s a good job she has him. He’s more street-wise,” said
Cleo. “But he has other things on his mind. He’s in training to be a father.”
“My permanent state these days, my love. All the more reason
to get this business sorted out. But we’ll let Nigel have his outing first. He’s
so anxious to contribute more than just by writing my reports. He’d like one of
his own.”
“Maybe he’s getting tired of being your assistant.”
“I hope not. Anyway, I’m going to give him detective status
and send him for training.”
“Have you told him?”
“Not yet, but he has already introduced himself as a D.I.
from MI5!”
“So he is ambitious after all that low profile business.”
“Now he’s sure he won’t have to go back on patrol, he’s transformed.”
“He should never have been on it in the first place,” said
Cleo. “He’s not the type.”
“We don’t type-cast at HQ.”
“You should.”
“Nigel did not like the idea of being ambushed,” said Gary.
“After all, the traffic control police are genuinely at risk when they tackle
an errant driver.”
“I’d be nervous, too,” said Cleo.
“Another boon will be Nigel’s mania for theatricals. He does
women’s makeup better than most women thanks to his travesty show, so he can
change his appearance at will.”
“That show is our Silvester sensation this year at the
church hall,” said Cleo.
“I’ll stay home with the kids and the rest of you can go to
it,” said Gary. “I’ll arrange to go to the dress rehearsal and take Charlie and
her friends along. Nigel will organize it.”
“By then we’ll have moved into the villa. Do you have time
to check on progress there?”
“I was planning to do that anyway.”
“Ask Pavel if he can help move my office stuff to the villa
at the weekend.”
“Will do. Anything else, Lady?”
“Not right now, but a hug would be nice.”
***
Gary reasoned that if Crab did not possess a driver’s
license. it meant that if he had been driving he was breaking the law. That was
not enough to keep him under arrest, but since he could be charged with the
manslaughter of Plimsoll, it was a valid reason, not least because the home
address he had given was phoney, according to Nigel. The Europol guys were
constantly irritated by the fact that Brits did not have ID cards. It made
people difficult if not impossible to trace and it made it much easier for
felons to go underground. But it did not simplify things at home either. Gary
had to agree.
***
Nigel had made a list of to do’s for Mallorca and booked a
flight on a plane for late afternoon with an open ticket for the return flight.
Gary had assured him that he could stay longer than two days if it was worth
it. Gary often wondered how much of a father figure he represented in Nigel’s
life.
***
Gary had a short talk with Crab in the observation room attached
to his office while Nigel tidied his desk and booked a room at a hotel in Can
Pastilla, where he had been once before on a bicycle tour of the island as a
teenager.
Gary again asked Crab who had been driving Miss Plimsoll’s
hatchback and warned the young man to come clean with whatever he was hiding,
since no stone would be left unturned and forensics were good at coming up with
evidence that could hang, if hanging had not been done away with.
Crab could not produce his driving licence because he did
not have one. He had, however, driven
Formula 3 cars on racing tracks and never had a crash.
“That won’t help you now,” Gary told him. “It’s illegal to
drive a vehicle of you do not have a valid driving licence.”
“I was driving Plimsoll’s car because he was drunk,” Crab
retorted. “Surely that was not a crime.”
“Are you defending the burglary, Crab? You seem to have
forgotten what you’d been up to just before thee crash.”
“Perry insisted on getting away from the pub. You know the
rest.”
“The guy was drunk,
Crab.”
“Drunk and violent,” said Crab. “I was scared.”
“So Plimsoll was thrown clear of the car on the passenger
side, was he?”
“The car skidded into the kerb. Plimsoll was not strapped in
and I think the door may not have been properly closed. He flew out of the old
boneshaker and landed on his head. I dragged him to behind the tree. End of
story,”
“You didn’t consider calling an ambulance, I suppose.”
“I just wanted to get away.”
“But you had time to rifle through the guy’s pockets and
remove his valuables, didn’t you?
“I wanted to get my money back,” said Crab.
“So the credit card was an extra bonus, was it?”
“I thought so at the time.”
Crab was a cool customer. Gary decided
that Cleo had probably been right when she assumed that this small-time
gangster was up to no good on more than one count. The guy calling himself Josh
was up to no good, either. He would have to be hauled in and brought to
Middlethumpton HQ for questioning. He was bound to be accused of vandalism,
even if he did hire someone else to do his dirty work for him.
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