who is working as an electrician on a building site in Rotherham.’
Carol shook her head in disbelief. ‘Where did you dig all this up? This is tons more background than there is in the local paper.’
Tony looked pleased with himself. ‘I spoke to the reporter. Stories like this, they’ve always got more in their notebook than they get on the page. She gave me Jana’s mobile number. So I called her. And, according to the lovely Jana, Danny was happy as a pig with his dogs and his railways and his three meals a day. But here’s the thing. I already found out Danny was a pupil at Harriestown High. Two years ahead of Robbie Bishop. And although Jana’s English wasn’t up to deep and meaningful conversations, she did understand enough to tell me that Danny had come back from the local pub a few nights before his death, saying he’d met somebody he was at school with.’ He grinned, a dog with two tails. ‘What do you think of that?’
Carol shook her head. ‘I think you’re stir crazy.’
He threw his arms out in a gesture of frustration. ‘There are connections, Carol. Murder at arm’s length by weird poisons. Both victims went to the same school. Both rich men. And both met up with an old school friend before they died.’
Carol filled up her glass and took a swig of her wine. Her body language was as combative as her words. ‘Come on, Tony. Danny’s death wasn’t murder. As far as I can see, nobody except you thinks it was anything other than a tragic accident. I don’t know much about poisons, but I do know that if you slip somebody deadly nightshade in the pub, they’re going to be dead that night, not a few days later. And Danny wasn’t in the same year as Robbie. Think back to your schooldays. You hang with the kids in your own year. Older kids don’t want to have anything to do with you, and only losers hang out with kids younger than them. So anybody who was a school friend of Robbie’s probably wasn’t going to be a friend of Danny’s. I mean, it doesn’t sound like they had much in common.’ Carol let her hands fall open as if she were weighing two items against each other. ‘Let’s see. Ace footballer. Model railway geek. Hmm. Let me think.’ She pointed at the newspaper story on the laptop screen. ‘Look at Danny. He’s not good looking. He’s not athletic. What could he have in common with Robbie Bishop?’
Tony looked crestfallen. They both became very rich from humble beginnings,’ he tried.
‘And much good it did them. Better to be lucky than rich when rich ends up dead before you’re out of your twenties.’ Carol slugged back the rest of her wine. ‘Nice thought, Tony. Very interesting. But I think you’re snatching at ghosts. And I need to go home and try to get a decent night’s sleep.’ She stood up and pulled her coat on, then leaned across to give him an awkward hug and a kiss on the cheek. ‘I’ll try to come in tomorrow. See what else you can come up with to entertain me, OK?’
‘I’ll do my best,’ he said. He’d learned a long time ago that disappointment was often the spur to his best work.
Jonty Singh looked like a big rumpled bear propped up in the corner of the balti restaurant in the centre of Dudley, incongruous against the traditionally kitsch decor. When Sam had tracked him down, DC Singh had suggested they meet for a meal in his local. Since he was doing Sam the favour, there really was no argument. ‘I’ll be the big bugger up the back in a brown pinstripe suit and no turban,’ he’d said. Sam didn’t anticipate any problem recognizing him and he was right. As soon as he walked into the Shishya Balti, he spotted Singh, talking animatedly to a waiter. He hadn’t lied about his size; he was crammed into the corner chair at a table for four and even sitting, he towered over the table. He had a thick mop of shiny black hair, big brown eyes, a fleshy nose and a prominent chin. It wasn’t a face you’d forget in a hurry.
Sam weaved through the crowded restaurant. Half a dozen steps in, the big man broke off his conversation and homed in on the stranger in town. The waiter slipped away and Sam approached. As he drew near, Singh pushed himself to his feet. A couple of inches over six feet, he was an imposing sight. ‘Sam Evans?’ he said, his voice a much lighter tenor than his frame implied. He reached out and shook Sam’s hand in a two-handed grip. ‘I’m Jonty Singh, pleased to meet you. How’re you doing?’ Even in those few words, the unmistakable Black Country accent grated on Sam’s ear.
‘Good, thanks.’
‘Park yourself.’ Singh gestured at the chair opposite him and waved to the waiter. ‘Two large Cobras, soon as you like.’ His grin was open and friendly. ‘Now, do you trust me to order for both of us or what?’
Sam was in no doubt what the correct answer was. ‘Go ahead,’ he said, resigning himself to some gargantuan selection of over-sauced meat, unidentifiable vegetables and clumpy rice. He didn’t have to drive all the way to Dudley for that, but if that was what it took to find out what he needed to know about Rhys Butler, he’d swallow manfully and stop on the motorway for antacids.
‘I love this place,’ Singh confided. ‘Two of my uncles own it, but that’s just a bonus. I’d eat here every bloody night if I could.’
Sam tried to keep his eyes away from Singh’s sizeable belly and held back the obvious retort. ‘You can’t beat a good curry,’ he lied. Singh summoned the waiter and rattled off a stream of what Sam presumed to be Punjabi.
Singh turned his attention back to Sam. ‘So, you’re interested in Rhys Butler. Well, a nod’s as good as a wink round here, Sammy. It doesn’t take Brainiac to figure out that you’re on the Robbie Bishop case. Funny, I was talking about giving you lads a bell about our Rhys, but my sarge thought it was far too long a shot. And then you turn up on my voicemail, looking for a briefing.’ He gave a rolling laugh that turned heads three tables away. ‘Nice to be right.’
To be honest, Jonty, we’ve got fuck all to go at. This is me clutching at straws,’ Sam said. The waiter scurried up with a stack of spiced poppadoms and a plate of mixed pickles. Jonty fell on them like an attack dog on a kitten. Sam waited for his initial onslaught to pass, then delicately broke a piece off one. At least they were crisp and fresh, he thought as the smoky bite of black pepper tickled his soft palate.
‘So when the lovely Bindie told you about Rhys Butler, you thought you’d have a sniff around? Quite right, Sammy, just what I’d have done in your shoes.’
Sam didn’t bother to correct the misapprehension as to how Butler’s name had entered the investigation. ‘So what can you tell me about Rhys Butler?’
A foot-high mound of bhajis and pakoras arrived at the table and Singh set about it. In between mouthfuls, and sometimes alarmingly during them, he told the story of Rhys Butler. ‘Normally, it would be a uniform matter, a brawl outside a nightclub. But we got dragged in because of who was involved.’ He grinned. ‘Course, there are them as think we should have just let young Rhys kick the shit out of Robbie, on account of Robbie set up the winning goal for the Vics against Villa in the cup quarter-final last year. But despite what you might have heard about West Midlands, we don’t stand for that kind of nonsense no more round here.’
Sam bit into a perfect fish pakora-crisp on the outside, meltingly moist inside-and began to revise his initial impression of the Shishya as just another identikit curry house. ‘Great food,’ he said, correctly estimating the way to
