Cold Wrath, page 11
‘Living up to his nickname,’ Kelto advised. ‘Always seemed to have been one step ahead of us, and always had been able to walk on some technicality or other if he had been arrested. He is believed to have been behind some big jobs in London and the Home Counties … I mean organized crime. He’s put together some jobs, so we have been told, one of which resulted in the murder of a police officer.’
‘Oh …’ Hennessey groaned. ‘I begin to understand Detective Chief Inspector Allardyce’s need for the confirmation of Garrett’s identity.’
‘We were not, and still wouldn’t be, able to nail him for murder for that crime, he was far too distanced,’ Kelto explained, ‘probably not even as an accessory before or after the fact, but he’s been a wanted man for many years. But Anthony “Pilot” Garrett has always found a way of slipping through the net. He’s as slippery as a cup full of jellied eels.’
‘So then despite that he was convicted for murder, as we have learned, he served only three years,’ Hennessey commented. ‘Three years for murder. Just three years! What’s the story there?’
‘Yes … offensively short,’ Kelto replied. ‘It seems that there is a story to be told about those three years he served, despite being sentenced to life. But why he got out so early? Well, I’m afraid I don’t know. I suppose I just don’t have the right level of security clearance.’
‘All right … so tell me about the murder he served time for,’ Hennessey asked. ‘What happened?’
‘It was a domestic murder,’ Kelto explained. ‘He murdered his wife. It was apparently very plain and very messy. A few men do, and few trouble and strifes murder their better halves. But few domestic murderers are career criminals, because career criminals know how difficult it is to get away with a domestic murder. I don’t know much about the murder itself but it seems Garrett’s old trouble and strife walked out on him and went to live in a refuge with their children. Garrett went round to the refuge and ran her through with a carving knife. He did that in broad daylight and in front of a large number of witnesses. Refuges are supposed to conceal their address but one or two don’t, or are careless, or Garrett found out about the address somehow and that would not be difficult for him. I mean, a career criminal … he’d have contacts, or maybe it was someone with a loose tongue. But whatever the means, Garrett went round to the refuge and offed his old lady. He collected life, as he would, but as you point out, he was out in three short years. The strange thing is though that he never returned to London, and that must have been hard for him. London has a strong pull on Londoners.’
‘I know.’ Hennessey smiled softly. ‘Believe me, I know. I’m from Greenwich and I know all about the “pull” you speak of, well I know all about it. I also understand it’s even stronger for criminals. For them it’s not just about the streets and their roots, it’s also about the comradeship of organized crime.’
‘That is indeed probably the case, Mr Hennessey, sir.’ Kelto nodded in agreement. ‘I confess I have not thought of it like that. I just know the bond between London and Londoners. It is very strong. We’re just not happy anywhere else.’
There then occurred a lull in the conversation, during which the two officers held eye contact with each other. After approximately ten seconds, Kelto broke the silence.
‘I do know just a little about one incident which Garrett was believed to have some involvement. But this is just police canteen talk, you understand?’ Kelto leaned back in his chair.
‘Understood.’ Hennessey conversely leaned forward and rested his forearms on his desktop and clasped his hands together.
‘It appeared to be the case that Garrett was behind a job which went very badly wrong in that yet another police officer was murdered. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He apparently identified himself as a police officer, but the felons stabbed him anyway, possibly in a state of panic. The police got a conviction against said felons, but despite great efforts could not get anywhere near Garrett. But the police officer had a son, a young man at the time, who became obsessed with finding Garrett and settling things. He was reported to the police on the QT by a police informer who told his police contact that the young man was asking people how and where he could buy a shooter.’ Kelto paused. ‘The police handled it unofficially, the son of one of theirs and all that … So they had words with the boy and advised him, strongly so, to leave town and cool off. “Your mother has just lost her husband – she doesn’t need to lose a son as well.” You know, that sort of advice.’
‘Yes,’ Hennessey grunted.
‘One tragedy is sufficient for one family,’ Kelto continued. ‘No family needs two, not at the same time.’
‘We would do the same,’ Hennessey commented. ‘Do go on.’
‘And … and by sheer coincidence I believe he left London and settled up here in this very neck of the woods.’
‘Really!’ Hennessey gasped. ‘Now … he has just become a person of interest.’
‘So I can understand.’ Kelto smiled briefly. ‘He was also known to have gone off the rails after his father was murdered,’ Kelto further informed. ‘So you’ll have some track on him.’
‘Will we indeed?’ Hennessey replied quietly. ‘He is becoming very interesting now. What is his name, do you know?’
‘I’ll say I do.’ Kelto smiled broadly. ‘He is Francis Badger. It is a name I will always remember because I married one Frances Badger, it being my wife’s maiden name, she of course being Frances with an ‘e’ and he, the son of Constable Badger, being Francis with an ‘i’.”
‘I see … fair enough … and he has a record, you say?’ Hennessey confirmed. ‘For violent crime?’
‘Oh yes. So I believe,’ Kelto replied. ‘He has a history of violence. But all this was quite some years ago, obviously before Garrett was arrested.’
‘That is very helpful.’ Hennessey smiled his thanks. ‘Very helpful indeed.’
‘Well, I don’t think I have anything else to add, sir, with respect. Can you please direct me to the hospital you mentioned? I am sorry I could not provide any information, sir. I just don’t have the seniority.’
‘Nonetheless it has been useful.’ Hennessey inclined his head. ‘So don’t feel unhappy. The mystery of the tattoo has been solved. There’s no intrigue there, as we said. The question has been answered, and we know a little of Garrett’s background, so it has been useful. I’ll draw you a map. You won’t find the hospital without one.’
‘Will I need a taxi or to catch a bus?’ Kelto stood. ‘I have never been to York. I have never been this far north, in fact. It’s a bit of an adventure for me, is this old trip. It’s something to tell my grandsons about.’
‘No … no you won’t.’ Hennessey reached for a sheet of paper and began to draw a simple map. ‘York is nominally a city but in fact in terms of its population size it’s smaller than some London boroughs that I can think of, a lot smaller, in fact.’
‘Will I have the opportunity to walk on those ancient walls?’ Kelto asked with what Hennessey thought to be childlike enthusiasm. ‘I see them from here, through your office window … they must be the walls I have read about and I see people walking on them. Will I be able to do that?’
‘Yes …’ Hennessey replied with impatience as he drew the map which would take Detective Constable Kelto to York District Hospital. ‘In fact, the best way to cross the city is to walk the walls … and they are not ancient, they were reconstructed in late Victorian times. Well, that is to say the stones are ancient but the re-building of them is comparatively recent. But thank you, Mr Kelto. It has been very useful.’
Carmen Pharoah carefully but discreetly read the room. She found it somewhat cramped but there was a certain undeniable neatness to it. She had the strong impression that a determined attempt had been made to keep everything in its proper place. The room, she thought, was manly with an overriding functional feel, rather than it being womanly with a certain gentle and softening homeliness about it. Most importantly the room told her that it was all age- and social-standing appropriate. There was no display of wealth that she could detect, for instance, that could not be afforded by a man who self-effacingly described himself as a ‘donkey gardener’. She asked, ‘How long have you been working for Mr Garrett?’
‘Well …’ Miles Law shuffled in his chair and turned to Carmen Pharoah, ‘… like I said, I only do odd jobs at The Grange and I don’t put in a full week’s work. Or, I did only odd jobs there. I’m just the “donkey man”. If the grass doesn’t need cutting or the hedge doesn’t need trimming, well, then I don’t go in, and of course I don’t go in at all during the winter. I feast in the summer and I fast in the winter. Feasting, fasting and feasting again, that is the way of it for we poor gardeners. But how long I have been cycling over to The Grange for a bit of cash-in-hand work for Mr Garrett and his garden? Well … dunno … possibly seven or eight years, something like that. Yes, I’d say about that sort of time.’
‘Have you ever been inside the house?’ Reginald Webster asked.
‘No!’ The reply Miles Law gave was short, sharp, defensive. ‘Never,’ he insisted. ‘I have never been inside the house.’
‘Not before this morning, you mean?’ Carmen Pharoah clarified. ‘You went into the house this morning, didn’t you? You went in and you found the body of Mr Garrett?’
Miles Law shot Carmen Pharoah a cold, hard stare.
Carmen Pharoah in turn was suddenly grateful for the controlling presence of Reginald Webster.
‘Yes, all right, I meant that,’ Law conceded. ‘But not before this morning. Not once.’ Law relaxed. ‘I don’t make no secret there. I saw the open window at the back of the house. I thought it was not at all like Garrett to leave the ground-floor window open all night. I mean, talk about an invitation to crime, and Garrett, well, he was always so very hot on home security. Very hot on it. It just wasn’t like Garrett to leave a ground-floor window open like that … not the Anthony Garrett I knew. So yes, I went into the house, banged on the front door a few times first and then, only then when I got no answer, did I enter the house. Only then. I didn’t sneak in like a thief … and that is … was also unlike Garrett … window open and front door unlocked … that was definitely not the Anthony Garrett I got to know over the years.’
‘It’s hot right now. This is a particularly hot summer.’ Carmen Pharoah continued to read the room. It all still looked to her as being appropriate for Miles Law. ‘Mr Garrett could have left the window open to allow the house to ventilate. That could have explained the open window.’
‘Not a ground-floor window,’ Miles Law snarled his reply, ‘an upstairs window yes, possibly, but not ever a ground-floor window. Not Garrett. And leave the front door unlocked? Garrett? Never,’ Miles Law persisted. ‘Garrett would not leave a ground-floor window open all night and it was not warm enough for him to want it open when I arrived. So, when I saw it open, I knew it had been open all night. So I did what anyone would have done – I checked on his welfare, didn’t I? Anyone would have done that. Then I found what I found, and I saw what I saw. I went to find his phone because I don’t carry one of those mobile things. I am an old-fashioned landline merchant, that’s me. So anyway, I dialled three nines, called the police, didn’t I? Would anyone have done different?’ Miles Law looked at Webster, then at Carmen Pharoah, and then at Webster again. ‘So what are you going to say is wrong with that? You think I should have just left him there and got on with my little donkey job? I mean, at least you found out today. If I hadn’t gone in the house like I did he wouldn’t have been found until Friday afternoon when the contract cleaners call in their little yellow van. We have been told that the maids have a key and would have let themselves in if Garret had not answered their knock on his door. So I done you a favour. A big favour.’
‘True.’ Reginald Webster also read the room as Carmen Pharoah had done, and he also noticed an attempt at neatness, and he also found it to be age- and social-class appropriate. There was, he felt, nothing of suspicion in the room. No ‘bad news’ at all.
‘So you see, you’re on the case earlier than you might have been otherwise. So you owe me,’ Miles Law insisted. ‘So I did you a good turn, didn’t I? So why the suspicion? So why the third degree like I am some sort of criminal?’
‘Well, you are some sort of criminal,’ Reginald Webster replied, ‘by your own admission, but admittedly no recent convictions against your name. So why the third degree …? Well, we’ll tell you. We want to know why it took you so long to report finding Anthony Garrett’s body?’
A cold look flashed across Miles Law’s steely blue eyes. He sat forward in his seat. Both officers saw the man’s little body tense and Law suddenly seemed to them to be like a coiled snake, ready to strike.
‘You were seen,’ Carmen Pharoah explained calmly. ‘You were being watched by someone, you see, and the person was able to fix your arrival at The Grange, and your entry into the house, very accurately. And we have a log of the time you made the emergency call to report Mr Garrett’s body. There’s almost an hour difference.’
‘That’s an hour for you to account for,’ Webster added.
‘The old woman who lives in the bungalow across the road from The Grange?’ Miles Law sank back in his chair. ‘Her? Was it her?’
‘We can’t tell you,’ Webster explained. ‘Sorry. That’s for us to know and only us to know.’
‘I dare say I should have known.’ Law glanced up at the ceiling of his living room. ‘My first cell mate, he said, “Always assume you’re being watched. Always, always assume you’re being watched. Just because you can’t see them, it doesn’t mean they can’t see you.” So I should have known. I’ve seen her sitting in her front room looking out, but sometimes the window of that room looks like it’s painted black due to the angle of the sun … you just can’t see beyond the glass when that happens. I just forgot about her … out of sight, out of mind as they say because it was like that this morning. Do you know if she has any cars in that double garage by her bungalow …? I’ve often wondered,’ Law asked. ‘I’ve often wondered if there is anything in that garage because I’ve never seen the garage doors open.’
‘We don’t,’ Carmen Pharoah replied, ‘and we couldn’t tell you even if we did. So, please stop avoiding the issue, Mr Law. Why did you delay calling the police for about an hour after you found Mr Garrett’s body? Were you looking for something to steal? Were you looking for what you could fit into your pockets? Something you could drop out of an open window and hide it away somewhere to collect later?’
‘Yes, I was,’ Miles Law replied with what both officers thought was disarming honesty. ‘That’s exactly what I was doing. I was looking for anything that was worth stealing. I was having a good root around the house.’
‘Be careful what you are admitting to doing.’ Webster spoke coldly. ‘Be very careful.’
‘So, all right, I need to be careful about what I admit to doing.’ Miles Law crossed one faded denim covered leg over the other. His thin but sinewy arms protruded from his blue T-shirt with a faded ‘I love London’ logo on the front. His shoes were a pair of worn and torn tennis shoes which had, it seemed to the officers, been relegated to being used as house slippers. ‘You’ll be doing your old criminal checks, if you have not yet already done them. I told the other guy this morning, tall, older guy with silver hair …’
‘Mr Hennessey,’ Carmen Pharoah prompted, ‘that would be Mr Hennessey, he is our boss.’
‘If that’s his name.’ Miles glanced at the floor then up at Carmen Pharoah. ‘Anyway I told him, Mr Hennessey, I told him that I was known to the police. I told him I had form … like muchos previous track. Muchos. Mainly for theft so there’s no point in hiding it. That’s what I thought. No point in hiding it because it’s going to be discovered anyway. No point at all. So I told him.’
‘Yes, we have in fact done all the checks on you,’ Webster nodded. ‘We are very thorough but you are not a serious criminal, Mr Law, only ever petty magistrates’ court stuff and there has been nothing for a long time. In fact all your convictions are spent. Your record reads like you have turned a corner. It reads like you are a reformed character. We were impressed by what we read.’
‘Well …’ Miles Law leaned forward and rested his bony elbows on his knees, ‘I reckon that I have calmed down a bit. I dare say that that is the old case … yes … I reckon I can say that I have calmed down with the years. But I’ve done a few things here and there since my last conviction, things that you don’t know about.’
‘We’ll allow for that,’ Carmen Pharoah replied icily. ‘We know that that is always the case, but we can only proceed with what we know about.’
‘But once a thief, always a thief.’ Miles Law shrugged. ‘That’s the truth. All right, so I don’t go on missions any more. I don’t go out looking for windows to turn no more, none of that no more, never any of that again, but as I said, once a thief, always a thief. If the opportunity presents itself I’ll grab it. If there’s something of value left lying around, well, I’m the bogeyman that will pocket it. Once thieving is in your old system you can’t get rid of it and I’ll tell you plain, I don’t want to get rid of it. It’s been useful down the years. Very useful. I’ve eaten because of it.’ Law paused. ‘So … this morning I was inside The Grange for the first time … I saw Garrett had breathed his last, I saw that he’d been dead for two or three days, so I thought what’s another hour? That’s how I looked at it. What was another hour in the great scheme of things? So I went walkabout inside Garrett’s house. It was … it still is … a house full of goodies, a real treasure trove. I mean, talk about Aladdin’s cave …’ Law paused once more. ‘I started early in life, I did. Very early. I was a juvenile delinquent appearing before the juvenile bench. Mind you, you’ll know that, you’ll have read that. I did minor acts of theft, then I got into forcing windows and doors of sheds and garages … then I moved on to breaking into people’s houses and I got away with it most of the time. I was making a good living at it. You know I once broke into some geezer’s house and his old coin jar was overflowing, like he’d been putting off counting all the coins and putting them into those little plastic bags before taking them to the old bank and paying them into his account. That is one tedious job, so I reckon he was putting it off … silly man … he won’t be making that mistake again. He didn’t even hide it; he just left it in an old margarine tub on top of a low wardrobe in his bedroom. It was a weight to carry once I was out of the house with it, but once I had counted it I worked out that I’d have to put in a good month or six weeks’ honest work to earn what was inside his margarine tub and I was in and out of that house in less than fifteen minutes. You see, that’s the attraction of thieving, getting in fifteen minutes what an honest man would take a month to earn. But I knew I’d get caught eventually because no one gets away with it for ever. I knew I’d do time if I carried on. So I joined the army.’
