I rang my opposite number in Somerset. His euphoria evaporated when I told him that Latham was dead, so there was little point in coming to Yorkshire to interview him. However, we did have the man who killed Latham in our cells, and the two of them went back a long time. Maybe he could throw some candle power on Latham’s movements at the time of Caroline’s death. It had been a big hunt. Caroline had grown into a beauty, as predicted, and her face had captured the public’s imagination. We all remembered her when we saw the later picture that they’d used during the search.
Two detectives from Somerset said they would drive up and interview Silkstone some time on Wednesday. Wednesday morning they rang to say that they’d been delayed and they’d now be with us on Thursday. They confirmed that Latham did not appear to be related to Caroline in any way. Late Wednesday afternoon they said they were on their way and could we have Silkstone and his brief primed for a ten a.m. interview. They sounded keen.
Trouble was, Thursday morning I’d been requested to attend a high-power committee meeting, about catching murderers, chaired by the Deputy Chief Constable. I insisted that someone from Heckley sit-in on the Silkstone interview, and nominated Dave Sparkington.
The DCC considers himself an expert at murder enquiries. Early in his career he arrested a drunken husband who’d stabbed his wife to death in the middle of a bus queue, and that became the launch pad for his rise to fame. Fact is, the best collar he’s felt in the last twenty-five years is on his dinner jacket. He’d resigned himself to never having the top job, so he wanted to make his mark by creating the definitive programme for a murder enquiry. Something that would bear his name and be used by police forces world-wide as a template — his word — in their quests to solve the most dastardly crimes of all. His name — Pritchard — would be in all the textbooks, alongside those of Bertillon, Jeffreys and Kojak. And he wanted me to help put it there.
They’d been meeting for months, unknown to me, and had commissioned a video showing how to examine the crime scene during those first, crucial minutes. It was good, which wasn’t surprising considering that the combined salaries of those involved would have paid for a battleship. They’d watched a lot of television, and remembered or made notes on how it was done. I couldn’t fault it.
“You all know Charlie,” the DCC told them. “Charlie has caught more murderers than anyone in the division, and I’m sure you’ll all be interested to know what he thinks of our little enterprise. Over to you, Charlie. What have we forgotten?”
I stood up, mumbling something, and told them how impressed I was with the film. As Mr Pritchard had said, those first few minutes were crucial and recording evidence without destroying other evidence was the essence of the early enquiry. “I thought the way the film demonstrated the importance of reading the complete crime scene, the overall picture, was particularly well demonstrated,” I told them, and the collective glow they radiated nearly ignited my shirt. “However,” I continued, “perhaps there is one small point that you’ve overlooked,” and they shuffled in their seats. All I needed now was to think of one.
I wasn’t knocking them. Some of us like to be out on the streets, some of us are more suited to administrative jobs. He couldn’t have done mine as effectively as I do, and I couldn’t have done his. Put me in charge of discipline and complaints and anarchy would reign. Give me the budget and we’d be bankrupt in a month.
“Context,” I said.
“Context?” the DCC murmured, his head tipped to one side, one finger pressed to his chin.
“Mmm, context,” I repeated. While we were watching their film I’d been thinking about the space video young Daniel had loaned me, and it had come to my rescue. “The first men on the moon,” I began, “stuffed their pockets with the first rocks they found and brought them home. Frankly, they were a bit of a disappointment. On the last expedition, Apollo 17, they sent a geologist. He looked for rocks that were out of context, and found some interesting stuff. If you are looking for meteorites, here on earth, you don’t look on a beach. You’d never recognise them amongst all those different stones. You go to one of the big deserts, or better still, Antarctica, and set up your stall there. If you find a rock in the middle of an ice field it is out of context, and chances are it came from outer space.” I swept my gaze across them, one by one. Eye contact, that’s what it’s all about. They were all listening.
“In a murder enquiry,” I continued, “we do something similar. We look for the unusual, the everyday item that is in the wrong place. If you look in the dead man’s shoe cupboard — or the accused’s shoe cupboard — and find shoes, no problem. If you look in his shirt cupboard, and there’s a pair of shoes tucked under there, start asking questions. One of the suspects in the case I’m on at the moment is as bald as a coot. If I’d found a comb in his pocket I’d have wanted to know about it.”
“For his eyebrows?” someone suggested and everybody roared with laughter.
“I’d’ve accepted that,” I replied, nodding, and they laughed even more.
It was the buzzword they were looking for. “Context,” they mumbled as we gathered our papers and prepared to leave. “Context,” “Context,” “Context.”
Bollocks, I thought.
“Charlie.”
It was the DCC. “Yes, Boss,” I replied.
“Any chance of you giving me a lift to Heckley? My car’s in for a service.”
“Sure, no problem. What have we done to deserve a visit?” As if I didn’t know.
“I’m wearing my D and C hat, seeing those two prats who got the car stuck between the bollards. Lockwood and Smiles, isn’t it? He won’t be smiling when I’ve finished with him, I’ll tell you that much.”
“Stiles,” I told him. “Lockwood and Stiles.”
“Is it? Oh.”
I opened his door but didn’t wait to close it behind him, and threw my briefcase on the back seat. On the bypass a speed limit sign went by at well over the stated figure and I eased off the accelerator. If you think being followed by a police car is bad, you should try having the Deputy Chief Constable sitting in your passenger seat with his discipline and complaints hat on. I said: “Bit over the top, isn’t it, Sir, suspending them and you handling it personally?”
“High profile, Charlie,” he explained. “The media are involved. Made a laughing stock of the whole force. I’m seeing them at two.”
“Right,” I said, nodding in slow motion to indicate how I understood his position.
To change the subject I told him about the Latham case and how young Caroline Poole had suddenly come into the picture, complicating things. He saw it as two clear-ups, with a possible third. We’re very extravagant with our clearup figures. Jamie Walker’s death would allow us to put every stolen car for the period he was out of detention down to him, and therefore solved. We’d just have to be careful not to have him doing two at the same time, in different parts of town. Perhaps we’d be able to put Caroline’s murder down to Latham. Somerset would close the file, issue a statement saying that they were not looking for anybody else. There might even be a crumb of comfort in it for her parents.
After a silence Pritchard said: “Never took you for an astronomer, Charlie. Interested in that Star Trek stuff, are you?”
“No, that’s fantasy,” I replied. “I’m more interested in the real thing. Science in general, I suppose. Sometimes it comes in useful, like today.”
“I’m sure you’re right, I’m sure you’re right. And it’s good to have an outside interest. Too much work, and all that.”
“Yep. That’s what I think.”
Another long silence, then I decided to give him the works. I said: “Back in the early Seventies, when the space race was in full flow, the Americans sent an unmanned craft to Mars and took a few photographs so the Russians, determined to match or outdo the Yanks, decided to send one to Venus. Unfortunately for them the atmosphere was so hot that the lens cap melted on the front of the camera, and they didn’t get any pictures.”
“Ah! Serves the buggers right,” he commented.
“Being Russians,” I continued, “they announced it as a glorious triumph for the Soviet people and vowed to continue the exploration of space on their behalf. The scientists involved were invited to sit on Lenin’s tomb for the next May Day parade. The following year they sent another probe up, at a cost of a few more zillion roubles, but this time with a high melting-point lens cap on the camera. It also carried a device to scoop up some soil from the surface of Venus and analyse it.”
