Faraday 01 The Gigabyte Detective Page 2

“There’s nothing in the fridge.”

  She tried to mollify him. “Well, let’s ring for a pizza. You like pizzas.”

  “I’m, fed up with this dreary place.” He grabbed his jacket and made for the door. “I want to get out.”

  “The King William isn’t exactly smart.”

  “Anything’s better than here.” He went out through the door, leaving her biting her lip.

  The problem was, she knew that he was partly right. The flat was dreary. Worse than that - it now seemed to be nothing more than the place where they slept and argued. These days they didn’t seem to go out and do things together any more. And she admitted it was partly because of her demanding job. Being the only woman DCI in her division meant she had to work twice as hard as most of the men to avoid being the butt of unwarranted criticism.

  She looked round the drab little living room - at the fading, over-dark colours of the curtains and the upholstery, at the plastic finish of the dining table and chairs and felt depressed.

  She pushed the long, dark hair back from her face. “I suppose we should have made more of an effort to find a nicer place,” she thought tiredly to herself. “Perhaps we would stand a better chance of making a success of our relationship if we bothered a bit more about the setting.”

  The funny thing was that it had seemed to be just the right place when she and Mitch first found it - the ground floor of a small three-storey building in a quiet little cul-de-sac away from screaming kids. The place was cosy and convenient, if a little dark. It was less than ten minutes walk from Kings Cross where they could get buses or the Underground to anywhere in London. Although the furnishings were cheap, the flat otherwise exactly fitted their specification, and for the first few years they had been perfectly happy in the place.

  Or had they, if she was really honest with herself? The cracks had started to appear in their relationship some time ago and had been widening ever since as her career had taken off and his had remained steadfastly in the doldrums. Earlier talk about getting married when they had sufficient money saved for her to give up work seemed to have been forgotten. Mitch denied that he resented her success at the Met. However he never ceased to snipe at her about the long hours the job demanded and therefore the time they missed being together.

  She promised herself, as she went to warm up some food, that she would sit down with her partner when he came back from the pub and they would try to plan more of a future together - after she came back from Devon, of course.

  * * * * * * * *

  It took Stafford Paulson nearly ten minutes to find a parking space. Divisional headquarters was so swamped with staff these days that they’d soon have to extend the car park. He thought bitterly that he could use a couple of these extra staff in his little department in Torquay. As a result of the search he was a few minutes late for his meeting with his boss. That wouldn’t make it any more enjoyable.

  He was irritated by the sudden call to the late meeting. If possible he liked to finish on time on a Friday so that he could have a leisurely meal with his wife Dorothy before he ran her to her bingo and carried on to his boat in Galmpton Creek to prepare it for a day’s fishing, weather permitting.

  He went upstairs and along the corridor in the executive wing. He paused outside the door labelled ‘Detective Chief Superintendent Lasham’ for a few seconds before he knocked.

  The gravel voice with the Lancashire accent roared, “Come in.”

  Paulson obeyed.

  “You’re late, Paulson - as usual.” Mark Lasham ground out another cigarette butt in the aluminium ashtray on the corner of his desk as he glared at his subordinate. He was an unhappy man.

  Stafford had been made aware long ago of the fact that Lasham had spent the last eighteen years ruthlessly climbing the ladder of success in the police force. The DCS bragged that he had received no helping hand from anyone. He had no relatives to make the path easy for him. He had no brilliant academic background to rely on. It had been tough all the way. But Lasham was a tough man.

  There were many, both among his police colleagues and in the criminal underworld, who had cause to remember him and shudder - his squat, powerful physique; his square head mounted on a short neck, with the small steel-coloured eyes and the close-cropped, dark, bristling hair; his thick, square hands with the stubby fingers, the right index stained yellow by the lighted cigarette which was habitually jammed against it - these provoked a sensation of wariness, if not of fear. There were many in the West Midlands, and before that in Liverpool, who had cause to rue the day they had crossed the path of Mark Lasham.

  In order to get the magic title of Chief Superintendent, he had been forced to accept a post in the West Country. It was an area which was known as the graveyard of ambition. But not for Lasham. He fitted as uncomfortably into the soft Devon landscape as a rhinoceros into a cottage garden. He had decided he would stick it out here for the statutory three years, while his colleagues edged warily round him. Then he would be looking for somewhere more suitable to exercise his talents - somewhere where there was some action.

  Meanwhile he had to deal with characters like Inspector Stafford Paulson, who stood uncomfortably at attention across his desk.

  “Have you seen this?” He pushed a sheet of paper across the desk.

  Paulson picked it up. It was a photocopy of a cut-out newspaper article.

  Lasham snorted. “It’s an article in yesterday’s Torbay Advertiser penned by some fucking clever-clogs reporter who thinks he’s solved the Cynthia Adams murder.”

  Stafford started to read it but Lasham snatched it back. “Don’t bother now. You can take it away and go through it at your leisure over the weekend. The silly bugger’s dreamed up some idea that our Cynthia was fifth the murder - one every summer - a bloody serial holiday killer.” He snorted again

  “It’s the first time I’ve heard that idea.”

  “It’s a load of crap, of course.” Then Lasham suddenly pointed at Paulson so violently that he recoiled a step. “But why has he done it?” Lasham demanded. “I’ll tell you why. It’s nearly a year, Paulson, since that stuck-up tart was murdered on your patch, and you’ve got nowhere with finding the culprit. Everybody’s getting fed up waiting for an arrest.”

  Paulson was struck silent by the injustice of the attack.

  “Every time I bump into the Chief Constable,” Lasham continued, “the first question he asks me is, ‘Any luck with the Torbay hotel case?’.” He leaned across the desk and hissed at his junior. “I’m bloody fed up with it.”

  Stafford Paulson remained standing and kept quiet. He tasted the stale acid atmosphere of the unventilated office with a feeling close to nausea. He used to enjoy his job. That was before Lasham arrived. The last two years had been nothing but pressure - filling in forms, doing returns, finding ways to massage the clear-up figures - no matter how. He now seemed to spend far too much of his time sitting behind his desk trying to make the results look better than they really were and explaining the frequent failures. Detective work had lost its pleasure for him. There were too many people breathing down his neck, too many self-interested bastards like Lasham around.

  “Why don’t you get stuck into it and sort something out before the next one dies?” demanded the Chief Superintendent.

  Paulson sighed inwardly. He had forty-one months to go before he could apply for early retirement and get away from this place. Somehow he had to get through those last three and a half years and keep his nose clean. Then he could happily pass the rest of his days in his garden at Stoke Gabriel or messing around on the Dart in his seventeen-foot cabin cruiser.

  “It isn’t as though you’re short of bloody evidence,” protested Lasham. “There were fingerprints everywhere, bodily fluids over half the bed. You’ve got a complete DNA profile of the murderer, and still you haven’t found the bugger. How many people have you tested up to now?”

  “Just over fifteen hundred.”

  “Well - test some more.”

&
nbsp; “It’s not as easy as that.” Paulson dared to stand up for himself a little. “We’ve spread the net very wide already and it’s a long job getting them all to come in. There’s been a hell of a lot of resistance.”

  His boss sighed. “Don’t I bloody know it. I’ve had complaints from just about every big-wig below the Prince of Wales. They’re all bloody outraged when we suggest that they might have been ferreting around in Cynthia’s knickers. I suppose they’re frightened of trying to explain it to their wives when they get home.” He resumed his pugnacious expression. “But it must be one of them. Obviously the woman had threatened to spill the beans about the affair and they decided to shut her up. The only thing is, somehow you’ve been looking at the wrong people. I just don’t know how you do it.” He shook his head. “How many damn people are there in Torbay for God’s sake?”

  “Within a fifteen-mile radius there are about a hundred and fifty thousand.” The inspector assumed a lugubrious expression. “But that’s in the winter. In summer the number probably peaks at over a quarter of a million.”

  “You can forget the visitors,” said Lasham dismissively. “This isn’t a casual relationship.”

  Paulson took a breath. “Well, sir. I don’t think the murderer’s a local man. If it is - it’s someone who’s managed to keep a pretty low profile so far.”

  “It’s got to be someone she knows.” The chief superintendent waved a vague hand. “Are you sure you’ve checked all her contacts?”

  “Everyone we can think of - her family and friends of course; then just about every man employed by the council - past and present; we’ve even tested her seventy-three year-old gardener and the husband of her daily help; in fact just about anybody who might have known her, up to top business acquaintances and the higher echelons of the Tory party.”

  “The Tory party?” Lasham blinked at him. “What’s the bloody Tory party got to do with it?”

  Paulson allowed himself a half-smile. “She was president of the local party and attended the last national party conference before she died. A hundred and eight of the men we tested were ones who she might have met there - including the deputy chairman.”

  “Christ!” Lasham put his hand over his eyes. “No wonder we had a complaint from the House of Commons.”

  “That’s the least of it,” the inspector sniffed. “Torbay upper class society is quite tight. My wife and I don’t get invited to social events anymore so I can’t keep an eye open for anyone we might have missed.” Not that he minded. All he wanted was to be left alone to enjoy his garden and his boat and his bit of fishing. It was his wife who complained.

  “Hmm. That’s just something you’ll have to put up with. A copper can’t afford to be friends with all and sundry.” Mark Lasham paused for a second to let his annoyance build up again. “The question is - have you the guts to carry this investigation through in the teeth of local opposition?”

  Paulson stiffened. “I believe I’ve always done my duty, sir.”

  “And I believe that isn’t enough.” The chief superintendent leaned forward. “It’s no good trying to run in the local popularity stakes. You’ve got to get your head down and force your way through, no matter how little the members of the public may like it.”

  “Are you trying to say, sir, that you want to replace me?” For an absurd moment the thought flitted across his mind that he could be free of all this stress and sense of failure.

  “No, I am bloody not suggesting that,” barked Lasham. “We need your local knowledge and contacts. But we also need somebody with some new ideas - somebody who’s going to produce some results. The DCC thinks the same as me.”

  Stafford Paulson looked at him carefully. “What are you saying, sir?”

  The chief superintendent sighed. “I’m sorry Paulson, but you’re going to have someone stuck over the top of you.” His hand fluttered an excuse. “Lord Harry’s heard of a bright bird up at New Scotland Yard who’s dreamed up some sort of new computer system. He’s decided to borrow her for three months.” He raised a hand as if to ward off his assistant’s objections. “Don’t blame me. I didn’t want some clever, bloody woman coming in here and telling us how they do things up at the Met. But the DCC met her at some conference where she was giving a lecture. He grabbed her like a drowning man clutching at a life jacket. He booked her without so much as a word to me.”

  “A woman?,” said Paulson, almost to himself. “That’s all we need. What age is she then?”

  “I don’t know. Somewhere in her late twenties, I think. Still wet behind the ears and she’s already a bloody DCI.” He shook his head at the injustice of it. “It seems to come easy to these university graduates.”

  The inspector grimaced. “The staff won’t like it, sir. It’ll be like a slap in the face to them after all the extra time they’ve put in on this one.”

  “Fuck the bloody staff,” Lasham burst out. “When will you get it into your head, Paulson, that all the patient plodding in the world is no bloody good if you don’t get results. This Chief Inspector Faraday,” (he accentuated the words) “gets results, and you and your bloody staff don’t. That’s all there is to it. Of course,” he added with a little smirk, “she might find it’s different when she’s working with a bunch of country yokels.”

  Stafford Paulson was quiet for a moment as he digested the latest bombshell. This really was the last straw. There were going to be a lot of problems between his team and this aggressive woman from London. And how would the local people react as they again started stirring up all the old mud they had raised during the last year. It was all right for her. He had to live with these people afterwards.

  He shook his head. One thing was certain. If she was successful, he wouldn’t get any of the credit and, if she failed, everybody would want his guts for garters because she would allege he hadn’t given her the sort of support that she’d received in the Met. However he realised it was a waste of time trying to argue when the decision had already been taken.

  He sighed. “Well,” he said mildly, “when do we get to meet this lady?”

  “Monday morning.” Lasham smiled. “The DCC was going to call you straight in to his office to meet her, but I suggested that I got you up here this afternoon to break it to you a bit gently first.”

  Paulson couldn’t help a wry grin at the thought that his boss considered the last fifteen minutes had been gentle.

  The chief superintendent catapulted himself out of his chair in his usual aggressive manner. “Right. Here’s the article. You’d better get all your paperwork up together. No doubt this bloody woman will be looking for ways of telling us you’ve dropped plenty of clangers. Well - that’s all. You’d better get back to your comfy patch.”

  As Paulson made his way back to the car he contemplated his ruined weekend as he prepared for this new woman to descend on them next week.

  * * * * * * * * *

  Susannah Blake put the phone back in its cradle and went back on to the terrace to join her friend. She paused at the patio doors to watch the setting sun as it plunged into the earth, putting a couple of the Tors on Dartmoor into black, cut-out relief. Below her the marine drive was already plunged into shadow, the little waves washing gently against the sea-wall. She was unaware of her natural pose which accentuated her still-slim figure with the carefully coiffured fair hair falling towards her left shoulder.

  “Who was that, dear?” enquired Moira.

  “It was Stephen.”

  “What? Not coming down for the weekend again?”

  Susannah twisted her face into a smile. “Apparently he has to go to some important conference in Switzerland.”

  “Oh, dear. That must be the third weekend in a row that he’s been too busy to get down here. We’ll soon be forgetting what he looks like. You don’t think he’s taken up with some sexy little secretary, do you?” One could almost hear the woman’s claws being sharpened. “Thank goodness Andrew’s taken early retirement. I don’t know what I’d do if I
saw him as seldom as you see Stephen.”

  “Oh, it’s not so bad.” Susannah shrugged. “I have everything I need here.”

  “I’m sure you do. But it’s not the same if you can’t share it with someone. You must join us tomorrow night for dinner.”

  “That’s not necessary, Moira. I shall be perfectly happy on my own.” In fact she didn’t fancy a whole evening of Andrew’s clumsy flirtation while Moira looked daggers at her as though it was Susannah’s fault.

  Her friend changed tack. “What do you think of this disclosure about the murders?”

  “What murders?”

  “My dear, don’t you read the local rag?”

  “Do you mean the Advertiser? I’ve got it here somewhere but I haven’t looked at it yet. Is there something in it about some murders?”

  “Susannah - it’s sensational! It’s not just some murders. This is getting very close to home.”

  “Really? How exciting. Tell me more.”

  “It’s more terrifying than exciting. Do you remember the murder of poor Cynthia Adams about a year ago?”

  “Of course. But there was nothing frightening about that. Wasn’t the word that it was probably some sex experiment that had gone wrong? Apparently some guy had just bonked her brains out and had obviously gone a bit too far.” Susannah smiled bitterly. “Nice way to go.”

  Moira looked shocked. “Really, Susie! You can be crude at times. Must you use the type of language you picked up in your time in the theatre?”

  “You know that everybody was saying the same thing, Moira.”

  “Yes, well, that theory seems to have been knocked on the head. Apparently she was the fifth victim of a serial killer who comes to Torquay every June and bumps off some rich woman living on her own. The next one is due in a few days.”

  “What?”

  “That’s right. I can tell you that we’re all in right panic. Alison and Vera and Betty have all arranged to leave this weekend and not come back until the end of July. There are dozens of others who are doing the same thing. Andrew has forbidden me to go out on my own. I only defied him to come round here this afternoon to warn you and I shan’t repeat it, I can tell you.”