‘No one,’ said Lawrence.
‘What about your business partners?’
Lawrence seemed to think for a moment. He turned to Fry, but her expression was hard and unsympathetic.
‘We need names,’ she said.
When he finally got back to the flat in Welbeck Street that night, Ben Cooper was in no mood to find that there were two cats in the conservatory instead of one. The cat flap had been treated as an invitation to take in guests. The new occupant was a mackerel tabby with blue eyes, and it was another balloon on legs. He wondered how it had managed to squecxe through the cat flap dt all without getting stuck.
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‘Randy, who’s your fat friend?’ he said.
Randy brushed himself against Cooper’s legs as if introducing the other cat. Cooper put out his hand to stroke the newcomer, and immediately saw the drooping belly and engorged teats.
‘Oh no. I hope you belong to somebody. You’re not having your kittens in here.’
Rut Cooper looked out of the window at the frozen snow still lying in the garden and the icicles hanging from the branches of the trees, and knew he was just as soft as Mrs Shelley.
‘Well, as soon as they’re born, you go,’ he said firmly. Both cats ga/.ccl at him and purred. He could have sworn they were laughing.
One thing that had been missing in his life was a physical relationship, and animals provided it. But why were they so like humans about some things? Why did animals never learn that it was dangerous to give their trust so readily?
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33
iJCI Tailby turned his head to look at the whiteboard where DI Paul Hitchcns was writing names with a big black marker pen, occasionally switching to a red pen to draw lines connecting the names. The board squeaked as he produced curves and little circles, then completed the pattern by decorating his chart with a series of red dots.
‘Can you sec what it is yet?’ said Hitchens.
‘You propose to detain all these people?’ said Tailby.
DI Hitchens was firing on all cylinders, ready to take over
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the morning meeting, given half a chance.
‘We’ve liaised with our friends in the Ministry of Defence Police,’ he said. ‘And together we’ve drawn up this list of persons believed to be involved in the activities Sergeant Easton was investigating. If we pull them all in now, we expect to be able to start piecing together what happened.’
‘As I understand the situation, the RAF Police have been observing a number of servicemen who are suspected of the illegal sale of aircraft parts. Easton was attempting to establish who their contacts were on the outside.’
‘Yes, sir. And these names are people involved in a circle of aviation memorabilia collectors. They have a well- established network, both by word of mouth and on the internet. DS Fry has identified the location where the memorabilia trade is based and where the wcbsite is run from. From what we’re told, it seems to be a lucrative trade in itself. The prices for some of the items are extraordinary - but that’s collectors for you. They II v v v
pay the earth for something they really want. Strictly speaking, many of the items of memorabilia are probably illegally obtained, but it might take a lot of work to gather the evidence.’
o o
‘It doesn’t sound worthwhile,’ said Tailby. ‘The GPS would say a prosecution wasn’t in the public interest.’
‘Yes. And it’s insignificant compared to the trade that Nick Easton was trying to uncover,’ said Hitchens. ‘We’ve looked
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at the websitc this morning, and it’s difficult to tell where the legal business ends and the illegal begins. Not all the collectibles are Second World War vintage by any means. There are items for use in restoring more modern aircraft, and interspersed among them there arc a number of contemporary and definitely illegal items being traded. Some of the messages on the bulletin boards are probably coded anyway. And the addresses given arc international/
Tailby sighed. ‘That’s going to be out of our hands. But it’s just run from a bookshop, isn’t it? Here in Edendalc.’
‘That was what Easton was looking for, but we don’t think he ever found it. We think he was killed before he reached the centre of the operation. We have no evidence to suggest he ever visited the bookshop.’
‘What about the owner?’
‘Lawrence Daley,’ said Fry. ‘We think he was drawn in because of the money involved in the aviation memorabilia trade. We conducted an initial interview with him last night.
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He genuinely doesn’t seem to be aware of any other type of business going on via the wcbsite or the bulletin board other than the memorabilia. One of his partners runs the internet side, which seems to be a mystery to him.’
‘A gullible victim pulled into something illegal out of greed?’ said Tailby.
‘Yes. Rut he finally confirmed these names for us, which DI Hitchcns has listed. These arc the men principally involved. It seems possible that they killed Easton when he ^ot too close to them. Rut we have no evidence to support that idea.’
‘It’s disappointing that we haven’t located Easton’s car yet. That would be very helpful.’
‘It will turn up somewhere eventually/ said Hitchens. ‘With a bit of luck, we’ll still be able to get some evidence from it/
DCI Tailby looked around the room. ‘It’s all circumstantial. Do you think we have sufficient evidence to bring them in?’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Hitchens.
