‘Eh? Oh, yeah. This is Alek. I only employ the lads on a casual basis, you see. As and when needed, you know.’ He glanced at Cooper. ‘It’s all legit. All the paperwork is in order. I don’t employ illegals or anything like that.’
‘No, I’m sure you don’t.’
‘And I pay all my taxes. None of that cash-in-the-back-pocket stuff. Me and Customs and Revenue are like best mates.’
‘Fine.’
Cooper didn’t really believe it. Summers had been too eager to bring the subject up. Small-scale tradesmen like him took cash in hand all the time, gave the householders a lower rate for the job to keep it off the books. It was nice to see that Summers had a bit of a guilty conscience about it. But it wasn’t something Cooper was interested in right at the moment.
Valley View was quieter now. The crime-scene tape was still in place, and a uniformed officer had been assigned to deter curious passers-by. But much of the attention had moved to Fourways next door, where the forensics activity was taking place.
The officer on duty looked bored, but his face lit up when he saw the detectives arriving. He made quite a performance of signing them in, as if this one task might justify his pay this week.
‘Have you had much interest from the public?’ asked Cooper.
‘What public? No one pays any attention to me. The media go past here sometimes, but they’re all heading further along the road.’
‘I’ve seen them. They’re outside Moorside House.’
‘Bloke there is a pop star, they say.’
‘Something like that.’
‘Well, help yourself, Sergeant. Spend as long here as like.’
Cooper started to feel sorry for the officer. He’d done plenty of duties like this himself when he was in uniform. They could be mind-numbing.
‘Let us know if we can get you anything,’ he said.
‘A cold beer would be nice.’
‘DC Murfin might give you a wine gum.’
‘Oh, cheers.’
For the next few minutes, Cooper watched Barry Gamble going through something that resembled a pantomime rehearsal. He was such a bad actor that it was impossible to believe anything he said or did. But he hammed up it for his audience as if he was playing the Dame in Jack and the Beanstalk.
‘And I went “Ooh, what was that noise? I do hope there’s nothing wrong. I’d better go and have a look.” So I decided to walk this way a bit to see what the trouble was. And I saw – a light.’
Cooper glared at Villiers and Hurst as they tried to stifle laughter. The sound of a giggle only made Gamble act up more. His version of ‘walk this way’ became a cross between Danny La Rue and Captain Mainwaring from Dad’s Army. If you could look pompous and camp at the same time, Barry Gamble managed it. He marched purposefully towards the house, his arms waving in dramatic semaphores.
‘It was coming from this window here.’
Before they could stop him, Gamble had stepped towards the wall of the house and put his hand on the window pane. A flat hand, palm against the glass, all four fingers and thumb pressed on to the surface. That would leave a perfect set of prints.
‘Mr Gamble, please – I asked you not to touch anything.’
‘Oh, sorry.’
He took his hand away from the glass and looked at it, as if it might be possible to withdraw the touch of his fingers.
Cooper cursed quietly to himself. That was his own fault. He shouldn’t have allowed Gamble to get so close to anything.
‘I’m not sure that told us anything,’ said Villiers, after Gamble had been taken home. ‘But you’ve got your own methods, obviously.’
‘Details,’ said Cooper. ‘It’s the details.’
And that was true, very often. But as he drove out of Riddings and passed under the Devil’s Edge, he had the feeling that it wasn’t the case in this village. He was beginning to suspect that there was something right under his nose, but written in letters too big for him to see.
16
Everyone had been called back to West Street for a briefing. The air of expectation was tangible as the meeting room filled up. Was there some progress in inquiries in South Yorkshire, where a joint operation was targeting the Savages? Did they have a person of interest?
Apparently not. DI Hitchens made no reference to South Yorkshire, but wanted to go over the two incidents in Riddings.
‘Thanks to the parents and the oldest daughter, we’ve finally established what’s missing from the Barron house,’ he said. ‘It seems extraordinary they would go to those extremes for such a small haul, but still… we haven’t been able to add anything to the list, no matter how hard we try. And as you’ll see, it’s a very short list. An iPhone in a pink case, belonging to Zoe Barron. A women’s Gucci wallet with an interlocking “G” charm. I’m told it’s made of rose peony guccissima leather, whatever that is. It was a gift to Zoe from Jake Barron. Two small, high- value items, easy to grab hold of. The wallet alone is worth three or four hundred pounds. We don’t know how much cash was in it.’
‘The phone…?’
‘It hasn’t been used since it was stolen. It was switched on, but it went off the network some time on Tuesday night, after the theft. Probably the battery just ran out.’
Information sheets were passed round, showing specifications and photographs of similar items to those stolen in the attack on the Barrons’ house. For a few minutes there was a general murmuring among the assembled officers.
‘That wallet has twelve card slots,’ said Murfin to Cooper. ‘Made for someone who might actually possess twelve credit cards, then.’
‘Hardly surprising, Gavin. The wallet is worth three or four hundred pounds, remember.’
‘They’ll have taken the cash and ditched the wallet. Even if they knew how much it was worth, it’s too distinctive for them to try to sell it.’
‘If they knew what they were doing,’ said Cooper.
‘The Savages are pros. That’s why we’ve never got near them.’
‘Yes,’ said Cooper. ‘ They are.’
Murfin looked at him, then at Villiers. He grunted. ‘Why do I get the feeling that you’re about to make it all too complicated? All I want is a nice quiet life, you know. I want to do exactly what I’m told, no more and no less. Another few months of keeping my head down and my nose clean, and I’m free and clear.’
‘Ah, but Gavin – is retirement what you really want? Remember, it’s impossible to do nothing all day. You’d go mad.’
Someone raised a hand, and Hitchens hushed the room.
‘Isn’t it right that the Barrons had alarm systems in place at their property?’
‘Yes, of course,’ said Hitchens. ‘Why?’
‘Well, don’t burglars normally choose properties without alarms?’
‘It wasn’t an option once they decided to target a village like Riddings. All of these homes have security systems. Some of them are more sophisticated than others, but you’d have to be an expert to know that from the outside, just from looking at the alarm box. A number of them have automatic response from the monitoring centres. But apparently the only householder in the Curbar Lane area who has thought it necessary to install a panic button is Mr Tyler Kaye at Moorside House.’
