of the pre-prandial gin and tonic that the little lady was no doubt mixing at that very second. The bifocals flickered in my direction and moved on, but not quickly enough.
'There is just one thing, sir,' I said.
They stopped, hesitated, swung back and settled on me like the searchlight at a PoW camp finding a luckless escapee. There was a rumble of groans and the clump of chairs falling back on to four legs.
I had them in the palm of my hand.
'If we could go back to item seven on the agenda…' I continued.
Papers were retrieved from executive-style briefcases and shuffled impatiently.
The DCC said: 'Item seven? Retrospective DNA testing? I thought we'd given it a good airing, Mr. Priest. You made it quite plain, if you don't mind me saying so, that Heckley was way ahead of the rest of us in reopening unsolved cases where DNA evidence was available.'
'Yes, sir, and with a certain amount of success. As I told the meeting earlier we were able to associate two rapes with a villain already in custody, and a murder with a dead suspect. However, if we examine the statistics, I believe they lead us to consider new lines of enquiry.'
The person on my left sighed and tapped his pencil, but the chairman leaned forward on his elbows and Les Isles said: 'Go on, Charlie.'
Nothing would have stopped me. 'If I could just invent some figures, to illustrate my point,' I responded. 'If we go back, for convenience, for, say, twenty unsolved major crimes murders in the Yorkshire region.
There might be four of those where old DNA samples are available which were of little significance at the time of the offence. The new techniques allow us to link crimes in a way which was unheard of just a few years ago. Our experience at Heckley indicates that of those four crimes with DNA availability, it is highly probable that we will find links. Supposing, for example, we link two of the crimes to the same villain. All well and good. We rope him in, present the evidence, and he gets a few more years on his sentence, probably running concurrently with what he's already serving if he's in custody.'
There were murmurs of approval at my disdain for concurrent sentences.
It proved they were listening.
'But!' I went on, raising my hand as if plucking a plum, as I'd seen the Prime Minister do. 'But what about the other sixteen cases where there is no DNA evidence? The statistics indicate that eight of those crimes could quite easily have been committed by the same person. Maybe we should be taking a new look at all of them. DNA testing isn't the only new tool we have.'
They were silent. They had been listening, unless they'd fallen asleep. 'Profiling,' someone mumbled.
'Is that what you're thinking, Charlie?' the DCC asked in an uncharacteristic show of intimacy. 'That we should set a profiler loose on the files?'
'Some call it profiling, sir,' I replied, resisting the urge to call him Clarry. 'I prefer to call it good detective work.'
'But that's the sort of thing you have in mind?'
'Yes, and computerisation of all the information.'
'Going back how far?'
I shrugged my shoulders. 'Thirty years?'
I sensed a collective Sheest! In theory, unsolved murder inquiries never close, but it's in our interests to conveniently forget the occasional one, and staying within budget earns more medals than pinning a forgotten murder on some old sod who is in a nursing home in the advanced stages of Alzheimer's. I could see the cogs going round in the DCC's head. A serial killer would be a fantastic high note to go out on, but he was already on notice, and I was talking about results in three years, not three weeks. There was nothing in it for him.
'Right, Charlie,' he concluded as the wheels ground to a standstill.
'It looks like you've got yourself a job.' He gave his famous smile, like a chimpanzee threatening a rival, and closed his file. Everybody laughed.
'You walked into that,' Les Isles told me as we strolled out into the sunshine.
'I'll never learn,' I concurred.
'Mmm. You could have a point, though.'
'I'm sure I have. It'll give Sparky something to do.'
'How is the big daft so-and-so?'
'Just as big. Slightly dafter.'
'Mr. Priest!' Someone was calling my name. I turned to see a PC following us out of the front entrance. 'Telephone!' he shouted at me.
'See you, Les,' I said, turning to go back.
'Tell him he's missed you,' he urged.
'It might be a woman,' I replied.
'Fair enough. S'long.'
It wasn't, of course. It was Nigel Newley, my brightest sergeant.
'There's been another,' he told me, as I leaned over the front counter, the telephone cord at full stretch.
'What, a burglary?' I asked.
'Yes. Old couple tied up and robbed, some time this morning.'
'InHeckley?'
'That's right.'
'Who rang in this time?'
'The BMW showroom on the high street, about fifteen minutes ago. An ambulance is taking them both to the General for a check-up. I'm going straight to the house, while it's daylight.'
'Have you done the necessary?'
'Had a word with traffic about the videos; told the wooden tops to keep off anything that might take a tyre print sent for Scenes of Crime.
Maggie's on her way to the hospital.'
'Good show. Give me the address, I'll see you there.'
I knew what to expect. Not the details, just the overall picture. This was the sixth robbery of its type in as many months; three outside our parish and now three inside. Elderly couples, well off, living in comparative luxury in large, secluded houses. Two villains drive up, pull balaclavas on and threaten them with baseball bats. They tie the terrified householders into chairs and steal anything of value, loading their own vehicle and, in two of the robberies, also taking the victim's car. They grab all their cash cards and force them into revealing the PIN numbers, threatening to come back if they don't work.
Several hours later, when well clear of the scene, they telephone someone from a call box and suggest that the police go to such-and-such an address.
They didn't risk calling us themselves, choosing to ring small firms that had switchboards but wouldn't be expected to record calls. So far, they'd been lucky. The people who received the calls had been responsible and passed the information on. It was only a matter of time before some dizzy telephonist, chosen for her off-the- switchboard talents, put it down to an ex-boyfriend taking the piss and hung her nails out to dry. Then two people would have a lingering death.
The target this time was on Ridge Road, between the house where our football manager lives and the home of Heckley's only pop star. He sprang to fame with a song called 'Wiggle Waggle' which earned him third place in the Song for Europe contest. The following year he destroyed his career by winning it with 'Jiggle Joggle', or something.
He's a nice bloke, but alcohol and fast cars have earned him a few hours of contemplation in our cells. Nigel was waiting outside the grounds.
'They're called McLelland,' he informed me. 'Audrey and Joe, late seventies. He ran a printing business until about five years ago. Sold out and came to live here.'
'McLelland?' I said. 'They had a shop in town, and a couple more in Halifax and Huddersfield. Sold stationery, artists' materials, that sort of stuff, and did small printing jobs. We used them now and again. Have you been in?'
'No, not yet.'
The PC who'd answered the call and found the couple came with us, explaining exactly where he'd been and
