Complaints Authority.
Nothing from either source. No unexplained increase in bank balances. No sudden trips to faraway places. No untraceable phone calls. Nothing suspicious. She was either totally innocent or a consummate actress.
His mobile rang. He picked it up, expecting it would be Gareth. But the caller screen read Paul, which was just as good.
Paul was one of the sympathetic Met officers he’d encountered at Owen’s sickbed. An investigative journalist is only as good as his contacts and he’d worked particularly hard on this relationship over the past few years. Paul was a chief inspector, not all that high on the police totem pole, but he worked in the communications centre and what he didn’t overhear, he could usually find out. Jones had rung him on his way to ambush Gidman and asked him to check the current status of Gina Wolfe to see if there was any continuing interest in her.
Paul had laughed when he understood the link to the Gidmans. It amused him considerably to think that Jones had inherited the Mathias obsession. But it didn’t prevent him from doing a good job, though unfortunately it was pretty negative.
‘Had to go way back to find any mention at all,’ he said.
He then proceeded to give Jones the stuff he already had, though, of course, the journalist made sure that neither Paul nor any other policeman was aware of this breach of security.
So if there was nothing since, this presumably meant she was rated lily-white.
‘One thing, though,’ Paul continued. ‘The name rang a bell, I’d heard it recently, so I asked around. Probably nothing, but it seems one of our commanders, Mick Purdy, has got something going with this Gina Wolfe. I checked and it’s definitely the same one. Maybe she just likes cops.’
‘Maybe. Thanks, Paul.’
He fed the new name into his laptop, told it to search the Gidman file.
It came up twice. Thirty years ago, Owen Mathias, newly promoted to sergeant and not long arrived in the Met, had investigated an allegation of assault against Goldie. A DC Purdy had interviewed one of Gidman’s employees who’d been cited as a witness. Result, negative, and despite Mathias’s conviction that the man was guilty, no case was brought.
The second time was more interesting. Purdy, now a DCI, had been interviewed in the course of the internal investigation into Alex Wolfe. It seemed to have been merely a background interview. Purdy had been Wolfe’s boss during his early years with the Met and the investigators were checking to see if there’d been any previous doubts as to his reliability. Purdy had given him a glowing testimonial.
Now, seven years later, Purdy and Gina Wolfe were an item.
Significant? Probably not, but he added a note to the file. By indirections find directions out. A favourite quote of an old English teacher who fancied himself as a Richard Burton manque.
What to do now? He tried Gareth’s number again. Still nothing. Probably needed a top-up. How many times had he told the stupid sod that his mobile was a tool of the trade?
So all he had was what his brother had told him. Not a lot, and when he’d tried to bluff it into something bigger, Dave the Turd had been puzzled rather than alarmed. He certainly hadn’t reacted like a guilty thing surprised. It was Goldie he should have gone for. No doubt young David would be hurrying to complain to Daddy that a big boy had hit him then run away. Perhaps it had been a mistake to gate-crash the Centre opening.
But it was done now. And the question remained-what next?
He couldn’t let it go. He liked the smell of this, and he’d learned to trust his nose. But he doubted if he would find anyone else at the Messenger who shared that trust, not when the name Gidman was mentioned.
So keep it to yourself till you’ve got something concrete. The advice he’d pumped at Gareth-Don’t tell a soul your story till you’re sure you’ve got a story to tell- still held good.
But it was pointless hanging around here. If there were to be any action, it was going to be up in Mid- Yorkshire.
He started tossing a few essentials into a small grip. As he did so he debated how to deal with Beanie. The key to her luxurious apartment nestling in his pocket wasn’t something to give up easily and, despite her efforts to appear indifferent, he’d seen she was seriously irritated by his defection from Shandy’s party. Returning home to find he’d taken off into the wild blue yonder could seriously piss her off. He’d need to think of a really good story; family emergency, maybe. She knew that Gareth had rung, so that could provide a firm basis. It was always best to have enough truth in your lies to hold them together. Old gran dying would probably sound too corny not to be true!
But not a note. A phone call. A besotted admirer had once told him he had the kind of vibrator voice that could sell bacon futures to an ayatollah. His old English teacher wasn’t the only Burton manque.
As if issuing a challenge, ‘Cwm Rhondda’ played. He checked the name: Gem Huntley. He’d promised to meet up with her later. No time for that now. He couldn’t be bothered to talk to the girl, but he’d better not leave her totally disconnected. For one thing, she’d be expecting some feedback from the opening to put into her piece. Not that she’d be getting more than a couple of paras.
The phone stopped ringing. He thought for a moment then tapped out a message on his laptop. Hotlips, hi! Opening went fine. Gidman made moving speech about his family’s origins, said his father felt affection and loyalty towards the community as did he etc etc. Universal applause. Centre a joy to behold. Sorry, something’s come up, family emergency, gran about to snuff it but won’t go without seeing me first, so need to head west. Look forward to catching up with you soon as I get back. Anticipate I’ll be emotionally vulnerable and in need of a lot of TLC! Love G x
There, that should keep her on hold. One excuse fits all. The economy of genius!
He sent the message, closed the laptop, began to put it into its case, then changed his mind.
Nowadays there were computers wherever you went. Lugging a pricey bit of kit like this around was a liability. Up there in the frozen north they lifted everything that wasn’t nailed down. He had no fears about leaving it here. Marina Tower had better security than Westminster Palace and another thing he certainly hadn’t shared with Beanie was his access code.
He stuck the laptop at the back of the top shelf of the wardrobe and headed down to his car.
As he drove away he felt that surge of excitement that always accompanied the start of a trail. This was what made him the success he was. Brought up in a strict nonconformist socialist tradition, it was easy, and useful, to claim a moral imperative for what he did. Sometimes he almost believed it himself. But this time he revelled in acknowledging to himself at least that it was completely personal.
Getting some dirt on Goldie Gidman and making sure it spread out wide enough to hit his son would be a real pleasure.
He selected one of the discs in his CD player, found the track he wanted, pressed the play button.
The tremendous opening bars of ‘The Ride of the Valkyries’ thrilled out.
The image it brought to his mind had nothing to do with buxom divas and grand opera, which he disliked almost as much as male voice choirs. It was the helicopter squadron in Apocalypse Now signalling its devastating approach to the Vietnamese villagers.
Whatever was going on up there in the frozen north, the bastards were in for a real shock when they realized who it was that had them in his sights.
He turned the music up full blast.
‘Here I come, ready or not!’ he cried.
12.25-15.00
Ellie Pascoe wasn’t happy with the way her Sunday had gone and she blamed Dalziel.
The explosion of glass that proclaimed his imminence to the pastoral idyll of baby Lucinda’s christening party should have warned her. This was a promise of disruption as clear as thunder on an east wind. But bathed in the golden glow of the autumn sun, not to mention the golden glow of the Keldale’s champagne, she had refused to let it dissipate her feelings of mellow fruitfulness. Peter had never looked more attractive and the afternoon stretched out before them like a fair field over which they would wander to that most private corner of their garden where a suburban Adam and Eve could imparadise themselves in one another’s arms with no witness other than the lusty
