from my briefcase and when Tregellis introduced us I wrote their names down. Dumpy was a DS and Lord Peter Wimsey was from the legal department.
'Right, Charlie,' Tregellis began when the coffee was poured. 'Tell us what you've got.'
It didn't take long and I only had one copy of the file to offer them.
Dumpy took it to someone to get more. They were good listeners, I'll give them that. As I spoke Tregellis rubbed the blunt end of his pencil up and down the groove in his right cheek. I half-expected him to dislodge a couple of acorns, but he didn't. 'That's more or less it,' I concluded. 'If you tell me that Crosby's paranoid I'll believe you and drop the whole thing.'
Lord Wimsey's real name was Piers Forrester and that was as good a reason as any for hating him. 'Mr. Crosby isn't paranoid,' he announced. 'J. J. Fox is as nasty a piece of shite as you'll ever step in. What you have here, Priest, is confirmation of what we already know but it doesn't give us any more in the way of evidence.'
Tregellis glanced at him in a way that spoke volumes and leaned forward. There was a faded tattoo on his forearm that could have been an anchor. 'J. J. Fox owns SWTV, as you know,' he told me. 'He put in the highest bid when the franchise was offered, back in 1985, and because of his media experience his offer was accepted. Nothing wrong with that, you might say.' I nodded my agreement. 'The second highest bid was from a consortium of established media figures. Fox's bid, which beat the deadline by minutes, was one million pounds above theirs. All the other bids were miles away. Mary Perigo was secretary for the consortium. Spinster, fifty years old, but not bad-looking.
While the bids were being calculated she found herself a boyfriend.
Called himself Rodger Wakefield. Rodger with a 'd' in the middle, she stressed, when she told a girlfriend all about him. This friend said he sounded urbane, suave and generous with his money. Two days after it was announced that Fox had won the franchise she was found dead in her car on the top floor of a multi storey The car was burnt out.'
'Was thej any evidence that she'd leaked information?' I asked.
'There were six in the consortium,' Tregellis continued. 'Some businessmen, some from the bright side of the footlights. They all knew the size of the bid, of course, as did Miss Perigo. Then they had partners, wives and mistresses, not to mention pals at the club, accountants, bank managers and the girl who typed the letter. We looked, Charlie, believe me we looked, but anyone could have leaked that figure.'
'Was she murdered?'
'Cause of death was never established, but the car had been torched deliberately.'
'What did Rodger Wakefield have to say?'
'We never found him. She'd told her friend his name, but otherwise was very coy about him. The friend had wondered if he was married. They were seen together at a charity 'do' she'd help organise, in Newbury, and she'd named him as her guest, but according to acquaintances Mr.
Wakefield was unusually camera-shy. The Berkshire Life photographer was there, snapping away, but Wakefield only appears in the background of someone else's picture, a three-quarters rear view, I'm afraid.
Several people saw him, however, and say they'd recognise him again.'
'Did he have an accent?'
'Public school northern, educated southern; take your pick.'
'How hard have you looked for him?'
'We haven't. Met CID circulated an E-fit. The usual; he was a murder suspect.'
'What's the state of play at the moment?'
'With Mary Perigo or J. J. Fox?'
'Fox.'
'There isn't one. What with bent pension funds and NHS scams and computer fraud we're up to here.' He waved a hand above his head.
'We've nobody working on it. Now and again someone writes us a letter and we put it on the file. Crosby isn't the only enemy that Fox has; five years ago the War Crimes Bureau contacted us and asked if we had anything on him. That's about it.'
'Did you help them?'
He looked grim. 'I suspect a copy of what we had may have fallen into their hands. Up to then we had never suspected that he wasn't a Jew.
Crosby's story corroborates that.'
'Maybe Crosby was the one who tipped them off,' I suggested.
Tregellis pointed a finger at his head, as if shooting himself, and said: 'Of course.'
'So what do you want me to do?' I asked.
'Anything you can,' he replied. 'You're the murder specialist, we're only fraud. Find Wakefield for us. You're nearer to Fox's base than we are. See what you can dig up.'
'Bring us Fox's head on a plate, Priest,' Forrester said. 'That's what we'd like you to do.'
I finished my coffee and scanned the two lines of notes I'd made.
Looking at Tregellis I said: 'So you reckon there's something in Crosby's story?'
He nodded.
'I'll be working on my own.'
'We're not expecting miracles.'
'Expenses?'
'Send them to me.'
'Right,' I said, nodding. 'Right.'
Tregellis stood up, rotated his head and rubbed his neck. 'I'm sure you appreciate that we're in shaky territory with this, Charlie, so the fewer people who know about it the better. I'll have a word with your people and N-CIS, and your contacts down here will be Piers and Graham,' he nodded at the others, 'but feel free to come straight to me if necessary. Anything else you need to know?'
'Not at the moment,' I replied, then turning to Piers and Graham said:
'But if I'm working with you two I'd better have your extension numbers.' They rattled them at me. 'Thank you. And your home numbers and mobiles.'
Forrester's glare had been honed by a thousand years of superiority since the days when it meant a sentence of death to some poor serf.
Graham, on the other hand, was beaming like the sunrise over Dublin Bay. 'And I'd appreciate a copy of Rodger Wakefield's photograph and the E-fit,' I added, 'as soon as possible.'
Chapter 5
I'd done some digging about Duncan Roberts and discovered that he'd slashed his own throat with a Stanley knife and bled to death. The address was in Brixton, at the far end of the Victoria Line, which was convenient. Every town should have an underground system. I ticked off the stations, memorised the poem of the month and watched the people, grateful that this wasn't my patch. I'd have arrested every one of them. As I came out of the station a gang of seriously cool youths swept by on rollerblades, swerving in and out of the parked cars, and a consumptive skinhead jerked the lead of what looked like a pit bull terrier as I passed him. Living in a city has certain attractions, even for a small-town boy like me, but I was damned if I could remember any of them as I strolled by the derelict tenements and corner shops with security grilles over the windows. Flyposters and take away trays were a major industry round here. A wino, sitting on some steps with a rubbish bag for a back rest, watched me go by, wondering if he could tap a white man for a drink, deciding against it.
I saw the street I wanted and crossed the road.
The house could have been the one in Chapeltown. The door was open and the soulless, thump of a drum machine was coming from deep within. I hammered on the door in competition with it and smelled cooking. Spicy cooking. My stomach gurgled and sent a memo to my brain. It said:
'FEED ME!' I knocked again, but harder.
A giant West Indian ambled out of the gloom, a look of bewilderment on his face. He was grey-haired,
