Brass in Pocket Read online

  Caren interrupted again. ‘What was it like walking up Snowdon? Did you notice anything odd as you walked up?’

  Jan raised her eyebrows, as if she didn’t know what to say.

  ‘It had been a lovely day. We enjoyed the walk. I wanted to be with Michael. I didn’t notice anybody else. I wasn’t looking for anybody suspicious. A couple of times, he met somebody he knew. We heard a French couple and there were some Americans. But—’

  Drake snapped his notebook shut and asked her again. ‘Can you give me a description or not?’

  ‘No, I cannot. As I’ve told you several times. And I don’t like your manner, Inspector. My husband is dead. How is this helping to find his murderer?’

  Jan picked up her coat and pushed her chair away from the table. She glared at Drake and left.

  ‘She was doing her best,’ Caren said.

  ‘She must have seen something.’

  Caren sat in a chair across from Drake, a coffee mug nestling in her hand. ‘You pressed her too hard, sir. If she had seen something, surely she would have said so already?’

  Drake crumpled his lips. ‘We’ve got to find him.’

  ‘And I can’t make sense of the death threats, sir. Geraldine must have sent them. Or she told someone. A friend or anyone, really.’

  Drake ran his tongue over the top part of his gums, trying to dislodge a piece of potato or batter from lunch that had stuck between his teeth.

  Caren continued, ‘Or it was someone who had seen them.’

  He tried sloshing tea around in his mouth, hoping it would help; and he was going to ask Caren if she had a toothpick when the door was thrown open and Price entered the room.

  ‘Look at this,’ he said, as he threw a piece of paper across Drake’s desk.

  Drake’s mouth went dry and he could feel Price’s eyes burning into his face as he read the latest song lyric from the killer. Words formed in his mouth, but they stuck on his lips until eventually he drew his tongue between his lips and pushed the question out.

  ‘When did this arrive?’

  ‘Just now. Marked ‘Superintendent Price and Detective Inspector Drake’. What kind of sick fucking psycho are we dealing with?’

  ‘It’s … it’s a song by Queen.’ Drake sounded hesitant. ‘“Crazy Little Thing Called Love” – it’s well known.’

  Chapter 17

  Friday 11th June

  Drake stared at the sudoku and blocked out the sound of the domestic arrangements swirling around him. The breakfast table was a mess of plates and mugs and pots of easy-to-spread margarine and marmalade. He was slicing and dicing the squares and was confident that he could finish the puzzle.

  ‘Has your father called Susan?’ Sian said, as she stood by the sink.

  ‘He wanted to wait until after the results.’

  Sian threw a dishcloth onto the drainer. ‘Then he’s foolish. He should have told her immediately.’

  Drake seldom called his sister and the less he spoke to her, the higher the barriers became. Susan lived in Cardiff and had married an accountant from Pembrokeshire, who made clear his intense aversion to anything Welsh by openly showing his displeasure at family gatherings when the language was spoken.

  ‘I’ll speak to Anthony West today,’ Sian said.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The oncologist. See if he can give your dad an early appointment.’

  Drake nodded but his mind returned to thinking about what he could say to his sister. He stared at the crockery on the table, thinking of his parents. Sian was right: his father needed to call Susan and tell her. Drake imagined the recriminations that would surface in the conversation when she realised that she was the last to know. Drake looked again at the sudoku in the morning newspaper while Sian got on with clearing the crockery, the sound of dishwasher-stacking filling the kitchen. He might do some more of the puzzle mid-morning with his coffee and then some more at lunchtime.

  ‘And have you organised the holiday insurance?’

  Drake looked up from the sudoku. ‘I’ll do it today.’

  He finished the dregs of the coffee and left the kitchen. In the hall he glanced in the mirror, adjusted the collar of the white shirt – Egyptian cotton and double cuffs – before straightening his tie. Outside he bleeped the Alfa and put his jacket carefully in the back. He pushed a U2 CD into the player. Bono still hadn’t found what he was looking for and Drake knew how he felt.

  In his office Drake looked over his desk and knew that Sian was right. He would call his parents and tell them they had to call Susan. But first he had to reorder the desk from the night before. He hung his jacket coat, wondering why he bothered to bring it with him to work on hot summer days.

  The telephone had to be moved into its correct place before the photographs of the girls were adjusted and then the papers tidied. He hadn’t finished when Price appeared at the office door. The superintendent narrowed his eyes slightly as he gazed at Drake.

  ‘Good morning,’ Price said

  ‘Sir,’ Drake replied, moving the pile of papers on the corner of his desk.

  Price sat down in one of the plastic visitor chairs and cleared his throat. ‘Jan Jones,’ he said. ‘She spoke to me on the phone.’

  Drake said nothing.

  ‘I think you should have been more temperate when you spoke to her.’

  ‘She’s our only eyewitness. She must have seen something.’

  ‘For Christ’s sake, Ian. She’s just lost her husband.’

  ‘Is she going to complain?’

  Price folded his arms. ‘Not this time. But—’

  ‘We’ve got a murderer to catch.’

  ‘And pissing off Jan Jones isn’t going to help.’

  Price stared at Drake.

  Maybe Drake had been too hard, but the killer had been standing right next to them in the café.

  For another half an hour Drake brought Price up to date with the latest developments, knowing they had to prepare for the press conference later that afternoon, timed to catch all the early evening news programmes. Occasionally Drake pointed at the pile of statements and evidence that had been gathered and Price nodded his understanding. But the reality was that they were no further forward and Drake began to contemplate that this was going to be a long and exhausting inquiry: the sort that would sap the mental reserves of all his team.

  Once Price had left, Drake felt compelled to have coffee and he fussed in the kitchen until he had the right consistency to his cafetière. Back in his office the desk was tidy enough for him to start work but he reached for the sudoku and completed one square, which meant that he could properly turn his attention to the investigation.

  It had worried him that only a fragment of the Queen song had been sent. And the tune kept playing over in his mind. In the middle of the night he had woken, convinced that a radio was playing the song very loudly somewhere on the road where he lived. He had walked downstairs and through the house before he had realised that everything was quiet. He checked all his emails and read the press release that Lisa had attached to her message before replying that he thought the wording was right. It struck him how resourceful the PR department could be in finding different ways of saying the same thing.

  He had barely settled down to work when the telephone rang and he heard his mother’s voice.

  ‘Mam. How’s Dad? I was going to call you,’ he said, feeling rather guilty for his silence.

  ‘Your father’s the same,’ she said, but Drake could tell there was something on her mind.

  ‘I think you should tell Susan as soon as possible.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘That’s why I was going to call. You should tell Susan before the results of the tests.’

  ‘We’ve had something odd in the post this morning.’

  Drake hesitated. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘We’ve had this photograph.’

  Drake sensed the anxiety in her voice.

  ‘It’s a photograph of that poor man, Roderic
k Jones. A Polaroid.’

  Drake was on his feet now.

  ‘What? I mean— where? How did it arrive?’

  ‘I’m worried, Ian. Why has it been sent here?’

  Drake drew a finger along his drying lips. ‘Is there anyone else in the photograph?’ Drake thought frantically about the possibilities.

  ‘It looks like his family.’

  Drake muffled the handset and shouted Caren’s name.

  ‘Can you tell where it was taken?’ Drake asked, as Caren appeared at the door.

  ‘It looks like a café.’

  ‘Did you tell her to be careful with the photograph?’ Caren said.

  Drake squeezed the steering wheel hard as the car raced along in the outside lane of the A55. He’d already flashed a dozen cars and some had blasted their horns without realising who they were.

  ‘Of course I bloody did.’

  Caren leant an arm on the window.

  ‘Did your mother say anything else?’

  Drake had left Northern Division Headquarters so fast he hadn’t gone into the details with his mother.

  ‘It could be a prankster,’ Caren said, without sounding convincing.

  ‘And how the hell would that work?’

  The car raced up towards a caravan and Drake blasted his horn and swore profusely. Eventually the caravan pulled in and they passed the driver who raised the middle finger of his right hand as he mouthed an obscenity.

  Caren didn’t reply. Once Drake was off the A55 he had to slow down, but they reached the farm quicker than he’d ever driven there before. He accelerated down the gravel track to the farmhouse before he braked hard, the car skidding to a halt.

  His mother sat by the table in the kitchen, a confused look on her face. She gave Drake a wan smile.

  Caren stretched out her hand. ‘Caren Waits.’

  His mother shook her hand limply.

  Drake saw the photograph on the table. He picked it up with a handkerchief and the dryness in his mouth returned as he looked at the images. He had stood where the photograph had been taken. Exactly where the killer had been, looking at Roderick Jones and Jan and the two boys enjoying the views from the summit café.

  It meant the killer knew where his parents lived.

  It meant he wanted to frighten them.

  He could feel the tension gripping his chest.

  Something made him turn the photograph over. He swallowed and it hit him hard that now the investigation was personal. He read the missing verses of the Queen song that had been playing through his mind the night before.

  Chapter 18

  Friday 11th June

  It took three calls to reach the area sergeant from Caernarfon and by then Drake wanted to swear, really badly, but with his mother sitting by his side, he decided against it.

  ‘In the post?’

  ‘Yes,’ Drake almost hissed.

  ‘To your parents?’

  The accent was Liverpool or Birkenhead and when the sergeant repeated the address, he fumbled over the pronunciation.

  ‘I want you get a regular patrol calling at the farm,’ Drake said.

  ‘Well … I don’t …’

  ‘Is that going to be a problem, Sergeant?’

  Drake could hear him draw breath.

  ‘We’re short at the moment.’

  ‘Shall I get Superintendent Price to call you?’

  The sergeant paused.

  ‘I’ll do what I can.’

  Drake killed the call and smiled at his mother but she didn’t smile back. Caren reached over and touched her arm.

  ‘It’ll be all right.’

  His mother nodded. ‘Why did he send us this photograph?’

  ‘It’s a really sick individual,’ Drake said.

  Caren added. ‘And he wants to upset you, of course. But it’s a way to get at Ian more than anything.’

  Drake understood that his parents were involved because of him.

  Robert Stone chewed on a piece of gum, hoping for inspiration. He longed for another opportunity to ask an awkward question at a WPS press conference. But now he had to consult with the editor if he received another call. And he wasn’t to ask any more questions in any press conference without clearance.

  He’d written two hundred words of a thousand-word piece about an award-winning dog kennels. The owners had been delighted to talk to the press and greeted Robert like a long-lost son. An overpowering smell and the layers of dog hair in the kitchen persuaded him to decline the offer of coffee.

  After three years at university, being a journalist had come down to this – interviewing two fat, boring dog owners about their fat dogs and then finding something interesting to say.

  He stared at the computer screen trying to decide how serious the flirting with Sarah had actually been. That morning she was wearing high heels and a short skirt. She’d given him a smile when he arrived that had preoccupied him every moment since. He sat by his desk hoping no one would notice his erection.

  The telephone rang. The call was short and quickly dispelled his lust.

  Drake had to prioritise. The photograph proved nothing and he guessed that the forensic results would find nothing conclusive. So he sat at his desk, hoping he could suppress the feeling of being powerless to prevent his mother and father having become involved.

  An hour digging into James Harrod’s background helped to dispel the anger in his mind. He reckoned the house must have been worth three quarters of a million on a bad day. He had noticed the personalised number plate on Laura’s silver Mercedes. And Harrod’s probably got a Range Rover, Drake had thought.

  When he looked for details, they were everywhere. The Harrod group of companies sponsored a local football team, providing youngsters with kit and new boots. The smiling face of James Harrod adorned the local newspaper, making announcements about new projects, taking on new apprentices and shaking hands with local dignitaries. Checking the electoral register told Drake only what he knew already – the full address and postcode of the property James Harrod shared with the smooth-talking Mrs Harrod. The entries on the register went back for five years and Drake input different parameters, hoping Harrod’s name would appear somewhere else, but he drew a blank.

  Drake knew that accounts for any limited company could be downloaded but protocol demanded that it had to be the Economic Crime Department that accessed Companies House website, so he scrolled through the directory of contact names until he found the number for Ryan Kent.

  ‘Never heard of him. Should I?’ Kent sounded interested.

  ‘He’s on the radar.’

  Kent was surprised. ‘What, for the Mathews and Farrell killing?’

  ‘It’s a long story.’

  ‘So’s Lord of the Rings, but in the end the good guys win.’

  It was the sort of remark that reminded Drake how much of a geek Kent was. He could sense the interest he had generated as Kent began a detailed explanation of what could be done to investigate Harrod. It could take months, he said.

  Drake gave him a reality check. ‘This is a murder investigation, Ryan.’

  After twenty minutes Drake extracted a commitment from Kent to review the accounts of the Harrod Group.

  The discovery that brought a smile to his face was the result of the police national computer check. Hull City Magistrates – six months, actual bodily harm. He leant back in his chair and smiled to himself. The man rubbing shoulders with the local politicians and dignitaries had done time. He thought about whether Laura Harrod knew about her husband’s record – it had been before they were married. After four phone calls he tracked down the sergeant in the Humberside Police who had dealt with Harrod’s case.

  ‘So he’s in Wales.’

  He made it sound like the other side of the world. ‘We were lucky to catch him. Without the CCTV coverage, we’d never have got a conviction. Made a no-comment interview, until we showed him the tapes. That fucked him up, so he coughed.’

  ‘What’s the background?�
� Drake asked. He scribbled notes as the sergeant ran through a summary of the case. Harrod had been running an extended drug-dealing network, although it had been small-scale enough to avoid attracting serious attention from the drug squad.

  ‘Cannabis, and cocaine – the recreational drug of choice these days,’ the sergeant added casually, the frustration evident in his voice. ‘At least we got him off the streets for six months. Is it nice in Wales?’

  Drake realised there was rather more to James Harrod than the public persona.

  Drake walked through into the Incident Room, meaning to add this new information about Harrod to the board. The atmosphere was stifling – none of the air-conditioned luxury of the CSI programmes in Northern Division Headquarters. The closest they got to air conditioning was an open window and an electric fan. Winder wasn’t wearing a tie and Howick had the top two buttons of his shirt undone. Drake noticed the shine on Howick’s black eye beginning to fade.

  Drake looked at the song lyrics printed in large font on three pieces of A4 paper pinned prominently on the board. The frustration at not making any headway in understanding the lyrics riled him. What had ‘Brass in Pocket’ got to do with anything? And why choose a song from 1979? He sat down at a desk, looking at the board.

  ‘What’s so special about 1979?’ Drake said.

  Winder looked up. ‘Who was the prime minister?’

  ‘Wilson, no Thatcher – or was it Major?’ Howick said.

  Drake listened but didn’t correct him.

  ‘And who was the American president?’ Winder asked.

  Howick sat back, folding his arms behind his head. ‘Nixon, definitely.’

  ‘The song keeps playing in my head,’ Drake said, to no one in particular.

  Howick and Winder glanced at each other.

  ‘The Pretenders are still touring, sir,’ Howick tried to sound informative.

  Drake ignored him and stared at the lyrics, waiting for some inspiration.

  ‘I’m sure I heard the song on the radio the other day,’ he said.

  At the other end of the board was the number four and, by its side, the red-coloured three, both screaming for attention. Drake knew he couldn’t ignore the question they posed.