Over My Dead Body

by Raymond Flynn

Genres: Mystery; Police Procedurals

Synopsis

Someone is blackmailing a local supermarket chain. And getting away with it, thanks to a very clever payoff method involving hole-in-the-wall bank machines and a bit of glaring police incompetence. When the blackmailers descend on Eddathorpe, Robert Graham is called in. He thinks it's an inside job - and sets out to prove it. He doesn't know the case is going to escalate from fraud to murder; or that its unravelling could change his life...

Release date: November 21, 2013

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 320

Sample

‘There’s some joy in your life!’

Detective Chief Inspector Colin Templeton took a long, satisfying pull at his pint. I followed suit, and waited, a trifle warily, while he prepared to expand his theme.

‘Sun, and sand, sex and sea; no stress to speak of and a quiet place to work. I tell you Robert, old son, you don’t know when you’re well off; it’s a Bobby’s job around here!’

‘Eddathorpe,’ I said cheerfully, ‘is the arsehole of the world; just like Hyson Green on a Saturday night one minute, and about as exciting as a cemetery in the rain the next.’

‘Some people never know when they’re well off.’ Colin, Nottingham born and bred, had a more than passing acquaintance with the delights of Hyson Green and the fortress on Radford Road, which passed for the local nick.

‘Tell me about it,’ I said.

Colin hesitated for a moment before staring the length of the bar of the Links Hotel where Keith Baker, the landlord, half bent across his glass washer, and with one ear cocked, was meticulously washing and rewashing a solitary pint glass. If he didn’t wear it away first, he was well on the way to achieving the prize for the most sterile drinking container in the world.

‘He’s earwigging!’ Without waiting for my reaction, he turned and made his way to one of the booths at the rear of the room. The landlord twitched, and then he turned slowly prior to glancing towards me with reproachful oyster eyes. I winked placatingly: Keith was harmless, but absolutely typical of Colin Templeton, was that. Old friend, good copper, but a man with one all too frequent motto: leap before you look. I threw a reassuring smile in the direction of Keith’s bulky, disappointed figure before turning and playing follow my leader in the direction of a more secluded part of the room.

‘Ears like Dumbo the flying elephant,’ muttered Colin unforgivingly as he sat down. ‘Probably alchy, too; I wouldn’t be a bit surprised.’

‘He’s bound to be curious,’ I murmured soothingly. ‘He’s an ex-cop, after all; even though it was thirty years ago.’

‘They’re always the worst.’ He took another swig of his pint and I sighed. Another set of native feelings to soothe once he’d gone. Newly promoted, he was, I decided, feeling his feet, and old friend or not I was beginning to pick up on one or two of Colin’s faults. Especially his tendency to leave a few bruises, not all of them metaphorical, in his wake from time to time.

‘How’s it going then, Col?’

He took another slurp of his pint and grinned, ‘Not so dusty, thanks. New job, new wife, clean sweep.’

He lifted his left hand and smoothed the cowlick of dark red hair threatening to fall down across his eyes. At forty-two he was a year older than me, but he could easily have been almost ten years younger; still slim, still chipper, with a smooth, unlined face, a four-hundred-pound suit, and the same, occasionally wearing line in cynical chat.

‘What happened?’

‘I was traded in for a later model,’ he said brusquely, ‘so I took the hint, and decided to do the same.’

‘Oh.’ Nothing much else I could say. I was still stuck with the old, outdated image of Colin and his first wife, Sandra; he’d taken the wind completely out of my sails.

‘CID marriages,’ he said airily, ‘you know how it is. Angie and the baby all right?’

‘Fine, thanks.’

Nice one, Colin. A dig in the general direction of the circumstances of the temporary Angie-versus-Robert Graham bust-up that had led to a brawl with a senior officer, and my abrupt transfer to the East Coast nearly four years before. And, just in case I was thinking about it, a reminder that those who live in gossipy glass police stations should avoid hasty judgements, and refrain from throwing moral bricks.

‘OK,’ he said ironically, ‘now we’ve caught up with our domestic lives, we might as well get on.’

‘I assume it’s something too hot for the office; all this super-security and a meeting in the local pub?’ I smiled at him guilelessly: I can do sarcasm, too. He didn’t take it up.

‘Yeah,’ he contemplated his half-empty glass for a few moments. ‘I’m serious, Bob; there’s a lot of money involved here, and this could turn very nasty if it gets out; I kid you not.’

‘What is it, then? Some sort of fraud?’

‘Fraud? This is the all-singing, all-dancing National Crime Squad, mate. The boring bits are nothing to do with us!’

‘The all-British FBI, huh? Step aside J Edgar Hoover, let’s hear a very big welcome for Jolly Jack Straw!’

‘OK, OK, spare me, I’ve heard all the jokes. It was more than time we had a national investigative service, anyway. And part of our remit is corporate blackmail, and we’ve certainly got one here.’

‘Anybody I know?’

‘Cary’s supermarkets,’ he said.

‘You call that corporate; one store in Eddathorpe and one in Aylfleet?’ I groaned. I had, I decided, already read this particular script. The Big City superintendent sends one of his minions on a flying visit to a small seaside town to chat up a fellow detective chief inspector in the sticks. The dogsbody tells his story, unloads the dirt and departs smiling, leaving the local bumpkin to sort out the resultant mess. I too had once worked on a Crime Squad, if only as a relatively humble DI.

He stared at me shrewdly. Been there, done that, bought the T-shirt; it didn’t take a genius to read what was going on in my mind.

‘Now would I do a thing like that to you, old son?’

‘Yes.’

‘Too bloody right,’ he admitted. ‘Given half a chance, but this isn’t the old Regional Crime Squad any more. Besides, this Cary outfit is a lot bigger than you seem to think.’

‘Family firm, isn’t it? I know that when they first opened they undercut every local shop in sight, but they’re far from being a national company, although they caused a lot of heartburn among the smaller shopkeepers around here.’

‘They’re a Nottingham company, one of ours. Fourteen branches in the Midlands and the North, and they run a couple of cash-and-carry wholesalers on the side. Not exactly Sainsbury’s mate, but Maurice Cary, the old man, thinks he’s God.’

‘And he’s given your boss a hard time?’

‘Currently, he’s giving everybody a hard time, including our boss, Detective bloody Superintendent Frank Purcell. I can’t say I blame him much. Forty years building the business, and then some toerag comes along and tries to milk him for half a million quid.’

‘How?’

Colin glanced briefly over one shoulder; three or four other lunchtime customers at the other end of the bar, and Keith Baker well out of earshot, still licking his wounds.

‘Food contamination,’ he murmured softly. ‘They thought it was some sort of nutter at first; a spate of crank letters addressed to their MD. Then this bugger turned nasty and planted a few jars of contaminated baby food on their shelves in and around our city, just to show he meant business.’

‘Anybody hurt?’

‘Not yet,’ he said grimly. ‘He planted the gear in three separate stores at the back of the shelves, but he took care to let the store managers know straight away. No harm done, but he scared ’em shitless, mate.’

‘So they called the police?’

‘Not at first, no. Me laddo wanted payment through various bank and building society accounts he’d opened. He intended getting his payments via the cash machines; not exactly a new idea, but it was pretty sound from his point of view.

‘Anyway, the Managing Director arranged to seed the accounts – nowhere near half a million quid, of course, and then they employed this ruddy private detective agency to liaise with the banks, and try to track him down. They thought they had a chance of catching him on the job, after all the cash limit on an individual account is only around five hundred a day.’

‘Description of the offender?’

‘One head, two arms, two legs. They hardly remember him at the banks, one girl thought she might recall the man who obtained one of the banker’s cards, if it was the right man in the first place. He struck her as being a bit of a pouf. I have not widely circulated that little gem as a possible description, you can imagine how that would go down for political correctness in this day and age.’

Colin cocked one ironic eye in my direction. The roughie toughie copper with the Rugby Club mouth. I think he was patting me down for signs of incipient humanity or even orthodox PC. Apparently satisfied, he continued. ‘Anyway, the bank and building society accounts were opened anything up to eighteen months ago.’

I whistled appreciatively, a high degree of planning had gone into this.

‘What happened with the original private eye?’

‘Nothing worthwhile, apart from laughing boy collecting around twenty thousand quid in less than a week; the so-called investigators were running from machine to machine like scalded cats.’ He paused for a brief pleasurable smirk. ‘That’s when they called us in.’

‘These banks and building societies …’ I started.

‘He used real people with decent credit ratings, mostly, but the bastard had given them a new address whenever he opened an account. Lodging houses, places up for sale, empty flats. He’d obviously copied one or two estate agents’ keys so he could pop in and collect the mail whenever it arrived. Clever sod.’

‘Says a lot for the estate agents, does that.’

‘Oh he’s cunning; he usually made a supervised visit with a junior employee at first, he talked serious interest and so on. Then he’d go back to the agent later, and con them into handing over a key – checking for problems, measuring up; stuff like that.’

‘No description again?’

Colin raised his eyes heavenwards, ‘One. They think it was a businessman, stoutish, middle aged. Know something? The bugger’s got a sense of humour, too; he even filled in one application form in the name of a Probation Officer in Notts!’

‘You didn’t, er, do anything drastic, I take it?’

‘Not funny, Bob; people can get very uptight about a thing like that. Our Frank handled that one as though he was treading on eggs.’

‘Personally,’ I said, ‘I’ve always had this yen to arrest a Member of Parliament, or a QC.’

‘That,’ said Colin Templeton briefly, ‘is one of the reasons why Frank Purcell is a detective superintendent, and you’re not.’

‘Smile when you say that.’

He smiled.

‘OK, whose job is it then; yours, or this mysterious Frank Purcell?’

He looked at me boldly, but he hesitated for that moment too long, ‘Mine.’

‘But?’

‘I’ve got this nasty feeling, Bob. It’s probably his if there’s any credit going and mine if we all fall down in the mire.’

‘OK, Colin, now I know you’re serious; what is it you want?’

‘Cooperation.’

‘You’ve got it.’

‘Thanks, but I was thinking more along the lines of Peter Fairfield, your boss.’

‘Problems?’

‘Not so you’d notice.’ He gave a harsh imitation of a laugh, ‘Apart from his general desire to erect a twenty-foot barbed wire fence around his bailiwick, complete with armed guards. Not to mention the feud he’s had running for something like twenty years with Frankie Purcell, my current wanker-in-chief.’ Never one to hide his feelings, Colin, there was a note of real bitterness in his voice.

‘Peter still outranks him, huh?’

‘Only nominally, according to Frank. It’s this new bloody grading system, matey: two grades of superintendent in most forces these days, although the Squad holds on to the chief super rank. According to Frank, you’re a dinosaur if you’re still a chief, and you ought to be on your way to the old folks’ home. Still,’ he sniffed, ‘that doesn’t mean that Frankie’s prepared to come here and talk to your guy himself.’

I turned my mind to Chief Superintendent Peter Fairfield, my CID head. If he was any sort of dinosaur, he was probably a Tyrannosaurus Rex, and obviously, this Purcell character must think the same. Not a man to cross, despite his smiling boozer’s face, and his carefully promoted image; the lumbering wide-eyed ploughboy at the Fair.

Good at feuds was Peter. Like the grey-suited, crumpled, untidy elephant he somewhat resembled, he seldom forgot.

‘Something serious, was it?’ I murmured; it was always as well to know the details of Peter’s loves and hates.

Colin shrugged, ‘They were both Regional Crime Squad men,’ he said offhandedly. ‘Detective sergeants, apparently; way back in the days before Adam was a lad. They were rivals, and they both wanted to get made.’

‘And?’

‘Oh, you know how it is; Frank Purcell’s well known for it, even now. He had something on your man, so he dished the dirt.’ He paused deliberately, gauging the level of my interest, ‘Nothing terminal, but things were a bit different then. Policewoman trouble; she got posted, and they gave your man the choice.’

‘Let me guess; he was married, so they told him it was a case of his career prospects, or a life of poverty, professional obscurity and eternal love?’

‘Something like that. You’re a failed romantic, Bob. I wouldn’t have put it that way myself.’

‘Fairfield might,’ I said tersely, ‘and he’s not the forgiving and forgetting type.’ I left it at that. If Peter was still feeling sore over some dim and distant affair, I didn’t intend sticking my head above the parapet by making an educated guess as to the identity of the policewoman involved. He was rumoured, however, to have once had a close, even intimate relationship with the female divisional commander at Aylfleet, the other half of my patch. As a comparative newcomer to the force I didn’t know the full, and presumably juicy details of the ancient scandal, but it was remarkable how warily Peter trod whenever he had dealings with Superintendent Dorothea Spinks.

‘This Fairfield character; you’ll give me a bit of a leg-up, Robert, eh?’

I gave Colin the once over. Tall, svelte, silk shirt, important-looking tightly knotted tie, a flash of gold beneath a well-pressed double cuff. A touch of the super salesman about him, too, and not, I would have thought, the natural Fairfield type. He might do better in his gardening kit; less glitz, a shabby jacket and a pair of creaseless cords, perhaps.

‘Why me?’

‘For one thing, I know you. For another he rates you, Bob.’

‘News to me, mate. He usually behaves as if he wishes I’d go away and make life impossible for somebody else.’

‘Modesty will get you nowhere, Bob; you’re covering two divisions. In any other force you’d be holding down a superintendent’s job.’

‘It’s a rural area,’ I muttered, ‘with a relatively low population, so they’ve utilised the detective chief inspector rank to cover a lot of ground; they’re running a very low-budget CID.’

‘They’re running,’ he said acidly, ‘a very low-budget, not to mention a very low-talent force. Present company excepted,’ he added hastily, ‘naturally.’

‘You’ve spoken to Peter Fairfield already?’

‘Only on the phone: don’t know how anybody manages to put up with him. I get the impression he’s far from keen on all these new-fangled squads. He can’t refuse, exactly, but he ended up wanting everything in writing. The man’s autocratic, bull-headed, and reactionary. Living in the past.’

‘With an attitude like yours, Colin, I can well understand how much you managed to impress.’

‘Sarcastic bastard! How’s about a spot of respect for the representative of the new-born National CID?’

‘Not once you step across this boundary, friend. And not when you’re asking me to beg for favours from somebody you’ve already managed to upset.’ He might be joking; on the other hand it was a worthwhile moment to lay down a few ground rules, to tell the cocky bugger exactly how he stood.

‘Okay, okay,’ he held up his hands in mock surrender. ‘I just want to talk to the feller, right? There are four supermarkets belonging to this outfit in your county. You’d think the sour old bugger could be persuaded to take some sort of interest in the problem, OK?

‘All I’m asking for is a bit of help; I’d sooner do it the nice way, but if your head of CID wants to treat me as if I’m carrying typhoid, I can always bring a spot of pressure to bear, and that won’t do Mr High-and-mighty Fairfield any good.’

‘Via our Chief?’

‘Via your Chief, via our National Director, via the Home Office, if necessary. You’d be doing Fairfield himself the favour, if you could only make him see sense.’

Colin, doing a spot of one of the things he did best; the old CID stand-by, threats, cunningly mixed with a touch of the pseudo-sincere. Here was a man, I remembered, who had the knack of persuading some fairly intelligent criminals that it was in their own best interests to open their mouths and talk their way into a nice cosy cell from time to time.

‘Yeah, all right, I understand.’ I took another cautious sample from my rapidly diminishing pint. Politeness dictated that I should keep a nominal sup in the bottom of my glass, draining it indicated the end of the game. ‘You’re just a passing altruist, and whatever we end up doing, it’s all for our own good. There’s only one thing you haven’t told me, so far; what exactly do you want from us hicks from the sticks, anyway?’

‘Ah,’ Colin examined his drink, supplies were definitely running out. ‘In a word, manpower. Women power too, if you like.’ He spared a moment for a lascivious grin. ‘Blackmailers, if they come unstuck, frequently get caught at the point of collection, right?

‘This particular clever Dick thinks he’s got it all worked out: open several bank or building society accounts, collect the cash cards from empty properties, and employ the holes in the walls to get the money out. Nice work if you can get it, but his problem is the daily cash limit on each account.

‘He’s going round and round like a mouse on a wheel, making withdrawals in town after town. We’re not some little, under-resourced private detective agency, so that’s when we score.’

‘Now hang on a minute,’ I thought I was beginning to catch his drift. ‘If you think that you can persuade every copper from Lands End to John o’Groats to keep obs on bank and building society cash points from now to evermore, you’re out of your mind.’

‘Not quite,’ Colin Templeton looked smug. ‘For some reason known best to himself, he’s keeping to a regular beat. Notts, Derbyshire, Leicestershire, and a couple of forays into South Yorks, so far.’

‘Towns with Cary’s supermarkets?’

‘Not invariably, but generally speaking, yes. Personally, I think he feels comfortable with the areas, OK? Anyway, we’re setting up an arrangement with the service providers; they monitor their machines, they phone the local police stations whenever there’s a hit, and—’

‘The police arrive just in time to arrest the next granny using the hole in the wall,’ I finished.

‘Not quite.’ Colin favoured me with his pitying look. ‘He usually chooses market towns; three or four bank or building society cash points, at least. He does the rounds, OK; then he moves on.

‘Listen to this,’ he produced a list from the inside pocket of his coat. ‘Take last week, for example: Saturday, one of his favourite days. He started in Notts: Beeston, Stapleford, then Sandiacre, Derby, and on up to Madock Bath. We were just getting ready to jump on him at Matlock itself when he packed it up.’

‘So, you’re gathering more men, but you’ve pinched the basic concept from some scrubby private eye. Second-guess your offender by getting ahead of him to a cash point, or hope he follows a particular route while you wait for him in the next town?’

‘Yes, but there’s a bit of a snag. There’s no worthwhile description of the offender, right? He visited the empty addresses and set up the accounts months ago, so neither the banks nor the estate agents have got a clue.’

I weighed up the odds, no better suggestions myself, but it sounded like a crazy idea to me. Lots of policemen on lots of streets conducting observations and rushing around. They might, of course, secure the prize in the end. In my mind’s eye, however, I could see them all out there, cursing Colin Templeton and achieving nothing. Probably getting wet.

‘May I,’ I said elaborately, ‘congratulate you on your unbridled optimism, and sincerely wish you the best of British luck!’ In pursuit of additional well-deserved refreshment, I drained my glass.

‘Thanks,’ said Colin, following suit. ‘I know you mean that.’ He collected the glasses, ‘Fancy the other half?’

He stood up, and under the wary eye of mine host he made his self-confident way towards the bar. Keith bent forward, his head disappearing beneath the counter. Suddenly, I had a very uneasy feeling about all this.

When he reappeared, the landlord was clutching a handful of tea towels, which he proceeded to drape over the pumps the moment Colin arrived at the counter.

‘Sorry,’ Keith’s voice carried, and he sounded anything but; ‘we don’t do all day opening. Next drinks are at six o’clock; we’re closed.’

‘Daddy, daddy, daddy!’ three-year-old Laura shrieked, deliberately hurling herself at m. . .