A Place Of Safety(32)
Chapter Six
Before his 9 a.m. Friday briefing Barnaby had a quick read through the first of the house-to-house reports. They were disappointing. Apart from a statement from the landlord of the Red Lion that Charlie Leathers had been in the Smoking Bar until gone eleven, there was nothing really helpful. Confirmation that Charlie was a miserable old sod who wasn’t too fussy where his fists landed came from several sources.
Apparently on the night in question he had also been boasting about coming into some money and how he was going to spend it. But as he was forever on about how he would spend his pools winnings or lottery handouts, no one paid him any mind. No mention anywhere that he gambled on anything else.
Barnaby pushed the sheets of paper irritably aside and sent up a quick prayer to the gods of cause and effect that this was not going to be ‘a random’. Every investigating officer’s dread, a stranger killing a stranger. No motive that any sane person could understand although, if caught, the murderer would often have passionately argued reasons why he had been driven to do it. Of course, with no single thread to instigate a search, they frequently weren’t caught and huge amounts of time and money were poured away to no effect whatsoever.
Pushing this negative state of mind aside, the chief inspector got up quickly, scraped back his chair and shouted for coffee. There was no response and he remembered that Troy was running a computer search on the character who gave his name as simply Jax. It would be interesting to discover just what ‘little bit of trouble’ the man had been involved in.
Barnaby wandered into the main office, poured himself a cup of strong Colombian and looked around for his assistant. He spotted Troy at the far end of the room with one eye on his VDU and the other on a pretty telephonist. The chief inspector soft-footed over and slapped Troy hard on the back.
‘Bloody hell!’
‘How’s it going?’
‘I wish you wouldn’t do that, sir.’ Troy pushed and pulled on the lightly padded shoulders of his Cero Cerruti jacket. ‘Not so good, actually.’
‘What have you tried?’
‘Jax, just in case. Jacks with a CK. Jacklin. Now working through Jackman, which seems to include about half the prison population.’
Barnaby watched over his sergeant’s shoulder as faces flashed rapidly on and off the screen. Faces of unparalleled viciousness and kindly, snug little fellows you could put in your pocket and take home to mother. Black and white and all shades of brown. Tattooed and be-ringed or baby pink, round-eyed and smooth. Ugly shaven heads, all bumps and stubble and neat grey thatches.
‘Blimey, get a load of this one.’ Sergeant Troy held the button and they both studied the mug shot. A more depraved personality it would be hard to imagine. Cannon ball head growing directly out of bullish shoulders. A spreading, deeply porous nose, thin lips drawn back from gappy, snarling teeth, ragged hair, the whole charming arrangement topped off with a leering squint of pure avarice.
‘What’s he done?’
‘Bent solicitor.’
Shortly after this they came to the end of the Jackmans.
‘Maybe,’ suggested Sergeant Troy, ‘our man’s gone right away from his real name. You know - Saunders, Greenfield?’
‘Doubt it. They don’t have much imagination when it comes to an alias, fortunately for us. Try Jackson.’
There were a lot of Jacksons too but at last they found their quarry, dark-haired at the time of recording his matchless profile and with quite a heavy moustache but the same man nonetheless.
‘Gotcha!’ said Barnaby. ‘So, what does his “bit of trouble” amount to?’
Troy tapped some more. Both men studied the screen then turned to each other with expressions of disturbed bewilderment.
‘I don’t believe this,’ said Sergeant Troy.
‘I do.’ Barnaby remembered how his skin had tightened at the first sight of the chauffeur. His repulsion at the thought of gripping the outstretched hand deepened as he read the list of offences. ‘What I can’t believe is that old fool Lawrence letting the wicked bastard anywhere near his family.’
‘Perhaps he doesn’t know.’
‘Of course he knows. He’s on the resettlement board.’
It was a pleasant drive to Ferne Basset. A warm wash of autumn sunshine drenched the hedgerows and patchily reflected light from the road, still damp after a recent shower. The fields were already being ploughed. Shining seams of rich brown earth curled up and over behind the harrow’s teeth, to be picked over by a flock of screaming gulls.
The village was looking almost its old self. The police presence had departed, as had the fourth estate. A group of youngsters were acting the fool on the fringe of Carter’s Wood where the crime had occurred. Running in and out of the trees making creepy ‘whaah, whaah’ noises, pretending to strangle themselves and each other, walking around stiff-armed and legged like Frankenstein’s monster.