Cold Is The Grave

“Like I said, it’s hardly my responsibility what my employees get up to in their own time. Maybe criminals have more fun.”

“One might be forgiven for assuming that they were merely carrying out your orders.”

“Assume what you want. You can’t prove anything.”

“I’d say if a man has one criminal employee, that might be carelessness, but two…?”

“Are we going anywhere with this, Chief Inspector?” Gallagher chipped in. “Because if we’re not, we can stop right here. As they say in the vernacular, either shit or get off the pot.”

“And you a well-educated man, Mr. Gallagher. Tut-tut. I’m appalled. Wash your mouth out, as my mother would say.”

Clough stood up. “I’ve had enough of this.”

“Sit down, Barry,” said Banks.

“You can’t make me. I’m free to go whenever-”

“Sit down!”

Clough was so taken aback by Banks’s harsh tone that he subsided slowly into his chair again. Gallagher said nothing. He looked as if he badly needed another couple of lines. Banks leaned forward and rested his arms on the table. “Now, let me tell you what I think happened, Barry. You had a nice little earner going, pirating software and games. You’d rent units in business parks all over the country for a while under phony company names, flood the local markets, using the same distribution setup you’d organized for your smuggling business; then you’d move on, like playing hopscotch, always one step ahead of Trading Standards. Gregory Manners ran the operation in the Daleview Business Park and Andrew Handley oversaw the regional operation. Just my guess, of course, but Andy wasn’t seen around the place as much as Mr. Manners was. Andy Pandy got very pissed off at you, perhaps because of the way you treated him like shit, pushing Emily into the room with him, passing on your leftovers. He decided, in revenge, to rip off the operation. To do this, he enlisted Charlie Courage, night watchman and petty criminal. Charlie probably arranged for the move to Northumbria and passed the details on to Andy Pandy, who arranged a hijack, killing the driver, Jonathan Fearn, a local wide-boy recruited by Charlie. How am I doing so far?”

Clough sat with his arms folded, a supercilious grin on his face. “It’s fascinating. You should write detective fiction.”

“But you suspect a double cross. You don’t trust what you hear about Charlie Courage. Maybe you don’t like strangers being brought in on things. Whatever. You lean on Gregory Manners enough to know it’s not him. Which leaves Andy Pandy. Then you have Jamie Gilbert and another minder pick up Charlie and ask him a few questions. The hard way. Charlie never did have much of a stomach for violence, and it doesn’t take long before he spills the whole scam. They take him for the long ride and blow him away, then they do the same with Andy Pandy, after they’ve beaten the whereabouts of the stolen stock and multidisc copying machines from him.”

“And where are these machines, then, seeing as you’re so clever?”

“Barry,” Gallagher cut in, “I’d strongly advise-”

Banks waved him down. “It’s all right, Mr. Gallagher. I’ll answer Barry’s question. Andy Pandy had a lockup in Golders Green, and it was broken into shortly after he disappeared. I think your lads also did that, took back the stolen equipment. My guess is that you’ve sold it by now and moved on to something else. How am I doing so far?”

Clough contemplated his fingernails. “Like I said, it’s a fascinating story. You’ve missed your vocation. See, Simon, they’ve got nothing?”

“Remember, Chief Inspector,” said Gallagher, “time’s running out. Shit or get off the pot.”

Banks paused, scribbled a couple of meaningless notes in his file, then got up and said to Kevin Templeton, “Take Mr. Clough downstairs to the custody sergeant, Kevin, and have him charged with conspiracy to commit murder. I’m sure Mr. Gallagher will make sure everything’s done according to PACE regulations.”

Clough flushed. “You can’t do this. Tell them, Simon. Tell them they can’t do this!”

“I’ll deal with it, Barry,” said Gallagher. “Don’t worry, I’ll have you out in no time.”

“What do you mean, you’ll have me out in no time? Out of where?”

“He means out of prison, Barry,” said Banks. “And if you ask me, I think he’s being overly optimistic.”

“If truth be told,” said Banks to Annie over an after-work pint in the Queen’s Arms that evening, “I think it was me being overly optimistic in thinking we can make any charges stick against Clough.”

Annie sipped her pint and settled into her chair. She looked around. The pub was pretty quiet at that time in the evening; most people were at home having dinner and watching the news. Occasionally, a Christmas shopper or two would come in with carrier bags from Marks amp; Spencer’s, Tandy’s or W.H. Smith’s in the Swainsdale Centre across the square, knock back a quick whiskey to warm the cockles and head out again. Christmas decorations hung across the ceiling. The pub’s dim light glowed in the polished wood and brass, the dimpled, copper-topped tables, the sparkling glasses and the bottles arranged behind the bar. Cyril, the landlord, stood chatting to a regular. The jukebox was mercifully silent and Annie could hear the church choir collecting for a refugee relief fund, singing “Away in a Manger” under the giant Christmas tree outside. Poor kids, she thought. It was real brass-monkey weather out there; they must be freezing.

“You don’t think there’s much hope, then?” she asked.

Banks shrugged. “We’ll set up a meeting with Stafford Oakes in the CPS office, but let’s just say it’s pretty flimsy evidence so far.”

“What about the forensics?”

“I’ve never put much faith in tire tracks. Most people don’t know Goodyear from Michelin.”

“But the blood?”

“Might be something there, if the lab doesn’t ‘lose’ the evidence.”

“What do you mean?”

“Remember that fire at the Wetherby lab a few years ago?”

“Yes.”

“That was started to destroy evidence being kept there. Don’t you think someone like Clough is capable of something similar?”

“I hadn’t thought of that. What about the witness who saw Jamie Gilbert with Courage?”

“Easy meat.”

“Oh, dear.”

“Indeed. I have a terrible feeling that they’ll both walk. Conspiracy’s always a bugger to prove. And as for implicating him in Riddle’s suicide… that was pissing against the wind.”

“It was suicide, then?”

“Not much doubt about it. I had a brief word with Dr. Glendenning after he did the postmortem this afternoon. No signs of a struggle, no signs of restraint or drugs in the system. He’ll run a full tox check, of course, just to be certain. And the note’s been checked by an expert. It’s Riddle’s handwriting. No, I think we can be pretty certain that Jimmy Riddle voluntarily sat in his car with the engine running. We can also be damn certain that the business with Emily and the pressure Clough was putting on him were a big part of what drove him to it, but we can’t touch Clough for that.”

“He’s a slippery bastard, all right.”

“Anyway, I’m getting more and more interested in Ruth Walker.”

“You think she killed Emily?”

“I think she might have. It never really made any sense to me that Clough would have done it, especially after he tried to blackmail Riddle, much as I’d have loved to put him away for it.”

“But Ruth?”

“She certainly had the opportunity, for a start. She was off work, poorly, at the time Emily was killed, or so she says. She could have driven up and back easily.”

“And the means?”

“She said she had a cold, but I think her sniffle might have been caused by something else.”

“Coke?”

“At a guess.”

“What about the strychnine, though?”