‘Surprised, Detective Sergeant. Surprised – and a bit relieved? Perhaps… it’s difficult.’
‘What did he do with the note?’
She closed her eyes and conjured up the scene. ‘He folded it, carefully, and put it in his overalls’ pocket. Then he got on with his work… He seemed angry, he’d been less patient recently anyway. So I left him to it. That was the last time… the last time I…’
‘Yes.’ Stubbs closed his notebook. They smiled at her stupidly. ‘We must get on with the search. We’re confident he’s out there.’
She smiled for the first time. A travesty of hope dispelling certainty. She looked at Dryden with glazed eyes and a whisper of recognition clouded them further.
Camm showed them out and turned the sign on the glass front door to CLOSED.
Dryden fell in beside Stubbs, catching a brief whiff of Old Spice on the breeze.
Out of earshot Dryden asked the obvious question. ‘When are you going to let them identify the body?’
‘This afternoon. They only called us last night. We’ll finish a search, and check the bank account to make sure he isn’t a runner. No point putting them through it if he’s done a bunk with a dolly bird to Benidorm. But it’s him, got to be. He’s the Lark victim. Hair’s right, age – if he’s her generation – lifestyle, clothes. The lot.’
Stubbs nodded at Dryden’s wound. ‘And the ear?’
‘Details later.’
Stubbs stopped but Dryden continued to walk. ‘Withholding evidence is a criminal offence, Dryden. We could continue this conversation at the nick.’
Dryden turned. ‘I don’t think so. No photofit story. And you won’t get anything out of me until Friday, when The Crow comes out with the full story. Make you look a bit stupid that.’
The day was stillborn, killed by the gloom of the snow-clouds.
Stubbs turned on him, the merest hint of a bead of sweat at his temple: ‘You’ve got no right shadowing a police investigation like this. Or for that matter withholding vital evidence.’
‘You’ve got no right expecting the press to print misleading statements about the progress of your inquiries.’
They walked in uncomfortable silence the mile along the quayside to the Cutter Inn. It was still only 9.30 and the riverside walk, a lively spot in summer, was deserted. PK 122 was moored just opposite the pub. Dryden stepped aboard and offered Stubbs his hand. He brewed coffee while the detective nosed around.
‘I thought this was out at Barham Dock.’
Dryden stopped pouring milk into coffee mugs. ‘How d’you know that…?’
Stubbs shrugged. They sat either side of the galley table. Dryden felt happier on home ground. ‘Where’s the file?’
The detective sergeant teased at the starched white collar of his shirt. ‘I want the story on the photofit in tomorrow’s paper, giving the clear impression that we have a decent ID of the driver of the car found in the Lark.’
Dryden nodded.
But Stubbs wanted more. ‘You can also mention that we are poised to make an arrest in the case. An arrest that will bring us close to finding the Lark killer.’
Dryden considered this unlikely development. ‘An arrest which will help impress the disciplinary tribunal even further?’
Stubbs studied a packet of extra-strong mints. ‘You don’t need to know any more.’
‘No details? Timing?’
‘You could speculate that it is a development linked to a painstaking forensic examination of the Nissan Spectre pulled out of the Lark. It could take place as early as this evening.’
Dryden didn’t believe for a moment that Stubbs was close to finding the killer. ‘I’ll print the story. And you can have everything I know about the Crossways – information which will get you very close to the real killer. But first I want the file. Have you got it?’
Dryden produced a paper bag from his pocket and sprinkled the remaining wine gums on the table top. Selecting one he sucked it noisily.
‘The file is classified. I’ve requested it. It takes time – twenty-four hours.’
Dryden would have to trust him. It meant he would have to print the story first, but he still had plenty to bargain with if Stubbs tried to welsh on the deal.
A river agency boat sped past, its wake rocking them. They listened in silence to the sound of its engines fading.
‘Talk to your father much?’
Stubbs stiffened and slipped a mint between dry lips. ‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning your father may have planted Tommy Shepherd’s prints. Which must have been a bit tricky when Tommy got in touch offering to shop the gang. Can’t have been a pleasant prospect, can it? Tommy Shepherd as star witness for the prosecution but claiming he was never at the scene of the crime.’
‘So how did he know who was there?’
‘My guess is he was asked to join them. May even have been in on the planning – but then something better turned up.’ He pictured Liz Barnett on a carefree beach and Tommy’s winning horses crossing the line at Newmarket.
Stubbs neatly folded the silver paper over the top of the tube of mints and returned it to his pocket. The detective lowered his head as if in a confessional. ‘It wouldn’t surprise me if the prints had been planted.’
‘Would it surprise you if your father had killed Tommy to stop the truth coming out?’
Stubbs pushed out his bottom lip and returned Dryden’s gaze.
Dryden looked out through the porthole over the snow-covered water meadows. ‘We’re still lost. If Camm was at the Crossways we still don’t know the identity of the other two members of the gang, the young buck out on the forecourt with the GI cap, and the man Amy Ward described as the leader. My guess is, one of them is the killer.’
‘Who was the letter from?’
‘That I don’t know. But I think I know who Gamm thought it was from. I’ll fill you in – when I get the file.’
Dryden set out up Forehill into town. Shopkeepers were opening up and shovelling the night’s snow from pavements.
The crow’s newsroom was in full press-day swing. Dryden had arrived at an absolutely key moment in the production of The Express. Kathy was standing on her chair putting a new neon light up: Gary was helping by holding the chair and trying to look up her skirt. Bill Bracken, The Crow’s ineffectual news editor, was directing operations from his captain’s chair.
Bill was a striking illustration of the editor’s ability to award jobs on the basis of inverse qualification. Dryden had been assigned to cover personal finances on the basis that his own were in complete disarray. Kathy had been given housing and mortgages to cover on the grounds that she lived in a flat and paid rent. Jean, born with badly impaired hearing, was telephonist and copytaker. Bill, in line with this innovative policy of positive discrimination, had got the news editor’s job on the grounds that he was unable to deal with stress.
Bill had purchased the new neon light and assured everyone that it was the correct appliance. Gary flipped the switch while Kathy was still trying to fit the tube. There was a loud bang and a flash of light.
By the time Dryden’s pupils had returned to normal Kathy was standing in front of Bill’s desk She leant across it, presenting Bill with her cleavage, and put her face very close to his.
‘Bollock brain.’
Respect for superiors, that was what Dryden admired. The news desk phone rang and Bill grabbed it gratefully.
Kathy gave Dryden a smile and then disappeared behind her PC to tap out her feature on surviving the blizzard with the help of the WRVS. The smile was intercepted by Gary. He leered horribly at Dryden, revealing snippets of breakfast between tombstone teeth. Dryden sent him out to get coffees. Then he flicked on his screen, waited for the prompt to appear, and began, immediately, to knock out his story.
Murder squad detectives are close to making an arrest in the hunt for the killer of the man found butchered in the boot of a car dragged from the frozen River Lark late last week.