A Taste For Burning Part 11

'Not hardly.'

'Got your bike here?'

'Nowhere else to keep it.'

She looked out the window. 'I wonder how long it would take to ride to London and back.'

He understood perfectly. He always understood inferences: it was instructions he had difficulty with. 'Dunno. Listen, I've got an appointment at the dentist. I'll be back in a couple of hours.'

'Without breaking the speed limit,' added Liz obliquely.

Donovan gave his saturnine grin. 'In that case the den-tist'll take a bit longer.'

Even on the motorway, with the speedometer sneaking over the limit, it took him well over an hour to reach the start of the Edgware Road. Donovan spent most of the time wondering what he'd tell Mervyn Phipps when the photographer asked why Superintendent Taylor had sent someone else to interview him. He thought he'd have to go carefully to get Phipps to repeat what he must already have told Taylor without revealing the fact that his enquiries were unauthorized.

In the event, though, that wasn't his problem. His prob 136.

lern was concealing his puzzlement when Phipps said testily, 'What photograph?'

He was a slim balding man in his early fifties who dressed as if the seventies had never reached the Edgware Road. He wore open-neck flower-printed shirts and flared jeans, and looked as if he'd produce a silver bell on a chain at the drop of a Beatle cap.

Donovan breathed heavily. 'Trevor Foot. Him and his girl: the one you sent to the Castlemere Courier.'

That rang a bell. 'Oh -the Beast of Castlemere. Jesus, that's going back a bit.'

'Eight years.' He frowned. 'But it's not eight years since you handled that photo, is it?'

'Yes.' A buzzer went off in the dark-room behind them. Phipps excused himself and came back a minute later drying his hands. 'What's this all about?'

Donovan was confused. 'Has n.o.body talked to you about this business in the last week?'

'No,' said Phipps. 'Who?'

'Well -us. Castlemere police. I thought I was following up an earlier contact.'

'Not with me, squire,' Phipps said with conviction. 'What about?'

The conversation was becoming surreal. Donovan shook his head to clear it. 'About the photograph,' he said, enunciating very clearly. 'The picture of Foot and his girl. That you took. That you sent to the Courier.'

'And Castlemere police want to talk about it after eight years? I've heard about delays in the justice system but that's ridiculous.'

'No. Yes,' said Donovan, by now totally flummoxed. 'I mean, we haven't had it for eight years. At least...' He drew a deep breath and started again. 'Didn't you send us a copy of it about a week ago?'

'Why would I do that?'

'So you didn't?'

'No. I haven't thought of the Beast of Castlemere since 137.

-well, since eight years ago. I only sent the original to your local paper on the offchance, and they weren't interested enough to buy it. Or even return it, the sods. I haven't given it a thought from that day to this.'

'Well, somebody sent us a copy.'

'I doubt that, squire,' said Phipps. 'I've got the negative, I'd know if another copy had been printed.'

Donovan had no idea what all this meant, but he was d.a.m.ned if he'd come all this way for nothing. 'Well, can you print me a copy now?'

Phipps blew his cheeks out. 'I should be able to turn it up. When was it again?' Donovan gave him the date of the laboratory incident. Phipps opened a lower drawer in his filing cabinet.

'Can you say what time it was taken?' Donovan was looking ahead. If it was the day of the raid, it mattered whether it was first thing in the morning -giving Foot time to return to Castlemere -or late afternoon.

'Not to the hour. The date'11 be on the receipt but they aren't timed. It just shows that people have paid. The system wasn't designed to provide alibis.'

He found the receipt without much difficulty. 'April the third. That any good to you?'

The raid occurred in the early evening of April 3rd. So far as anyone knew Foot had no transport of his own, which meant he couldn't put his foot down and be home in an hour and a half. If he was still in London in the afternoon it was unlikely he was at BMT at seven thirty.

'Can you tell from the other receipts what time of day it was?'

Phipps shook his head apologetically. 'Not really. April's not really peak time in this business. I only took a handful of orders after Foot, but that doesn't necessarily mean it was late in the day, it could just mean it was a rotten day generally. No way of telling.'

That made sense. Donovan had to fight down a quiver of relief that he mightn't after all get what he'd come for.

138.

He was all too aware that, for once, finding the truth mightn't give him the golden glow of satisfaction. The truth this time might clear Foot, about whom he didn't give a toss, and incriminate a man he admired more than anyone alive. Not a lot of job satisfaction in that, he thought grimly.

But it didn't matter what he wanted. If Shapiro had offered his integrity as a hostage to fate -something Donovan still fought against believing however the evidence stacked up -his colleagues had no right to shield him from the consequences. Even if they wanted to.

'Can you make me that print?'

Phipps found the strip of negatives as easily as he'd found the receipt. 'Keep meaning to clear this lot out,' he said cheerfully. 'Good job I never got round to it.' He peered at it closely, sucked his teeth and set to work.

It doesn't take very long to print a negative once the equipment is set up. Donovan hung over the man's shoulder like a bird of ill omen, watching the ghost of an image beginning to form in the chemical bath. Slowly they became recognizable, the grinning man and the girl, arms around one another, posing cheesily for the camera.

'Camden Lock,' said Phipps judiciously, 'just up the road from the market.'

Donovan wasn't a Londoner. 'What would they be doing there?' , 'Pa.s.sing the time. It's got quite touristy, between the market and the ca.n.a.l development. There's cafs and craft shops and things. Spend a couple of hours no trouble. Oh, look.'

Donovan peered over his shoulder. 'What?'

'You wanted to know when I took it. Well, there's your answer.' It was a red and white striped van parked against the kerb in the background, with someone unloading bulky parcels on to the pavement. 'That's the evening papers arriving.'

'Oh, b.u.g.g.e.ry,' said Donovan.

* 139.

'I called at the shop, asked when they got their papers delivered. He said it varies a bit from day to day but it's always late afternoon. He couldn't remember them ever arriving before four.'

Liz sighed. 'So, while it may have been just physically possible, it would have been pretty difficult for Foot to do what he's in prison for. And now there's a photograph supporting his alibi. Oh, G.o.d, Donovan, this has got very messy.'

'I don't know where the photo came from,' said Donovan.

Liz blinked. Obviously, since he'd been talking to the man who took it, he didn't mean that. 'After so long, you mean.'

He nodded. Thipps says that until today he only ever printed the one copy. Foot paid for it and he was going to send it to him, but when he saw he was in custody he sent it to the Courier instead. That's the picture Tom Sh.e.l.ley received and left at the front desk for the Chief.'

'Well?'

'Well, what are we saying happened to it after that? If it reached the Chief and he decided to suppress it, he wouldn't leave it somewhere it could be found, he'd destroy it. And if he didn't receive it, where's it been these eight years that suddenly G.o.d's got it?'

'The bottom of his in-tray?' Liz hazarded.

Donovan gave her a quick grin before continuing. 'It makes no sense. It went AWOL either by accident or design. If it was deliberate, how come it's turned up again? If I've no choice I can just about believe in the Chief framing Foot; but dishonest and careless? No way. And if it just got mislaid, how come it stayed missing for eight years and then turned up?'

'What are you saying? That someone else mislaid it? Someone in this building? Who? Just suppose for a moment that the investigating team decided it was an embarra.s.sment and they'd get rid of it. Can you see that 140.

decision coming from anyone but the man in charge? If it was deliberately disappeared it had to be Frank, and I don't believe that it was.'

They came from very different worlds. Liz grew up in the Vale of Evesham where the seminal image of summer was apple-blossom ripening into fruit under an azure dome. Some of the sun had entered her soul, and though she'd had to struggle for what she had achieved she'd been lucky too. She'd had to fight for acceptance in the male world of crime investigation. She'd been frustrated by the prejudice of senior officers who failed to recognize, precisely because it was so ubiquitous, the gla.s.s ceiling that broke the careers and spirits of so many talented women; and by the casual bigotry of junior colleagues who consistently under-valued women's potential at the sharp end of the job. That notwithstanding, she had always found allies in the Force, people like Shapiro willing her to succeed. She had earned the respect, grudging at times, of officers ranked both higher and lower than herself at each stage of her career, and the harvest of that was a confidence that allowed her the luxury of trusting people sometimes.

Her sergeant grew up in a gritty mid-Ulster village, its scant natural attractions turned to ashes and scattered down the wind by the small holocaust that began about the time Cal Donovan was learning to read from gable- ends. (The village school, in line with its strict nonpartisan policy, had 'Brits Out' painted on one wall and 'No Pope Here' on another.) Though the sun must have shone on Glencurran occasionally it was a dark place by nature: squatting over a little peaty river in a fold of barren upland, it defined what Brussels meant by the phrase 'Less-Favoured Area'.

Something of that entrenched grimness touched its finger to its children's lips and Donovan carried the shadow of it folded in his own. Long after he'd left the place, even after he had no family tying him to it, he 141.

continued to see the world through Glencurran eyes. He expected nothing he hadn't fought for, mistrusted anything that came too easily, sought ulterior motives for everything. It made him an effective policeman but a difficult human being.

Because of the differences between them Donovan could look at the same things as Liz and see them differently. Even when, as now, his inability to accept the convenient made him deeply unhappy. Experience warned him that life wasn't cosy, it was brutal, and nothing that depended on a happy coincidence was likely to be true.

If it had been in his nature to compromise he'd have kept his counsel, hoped for the best, waited to see if this time his suspicions might prove groundless. But it wasn't and he couldn't. He shook his head stubbornly. 'And I don't believe that anything that convenient was an accident.'

142.

It was no longer possible to keep their activities from Superintendent Taylor. A man had been in prison for eight years for an offence it was unlikely he'd committed: procedures had to be started to secure his release. That was only the beginning. There would be inquiries, reviews, the question of compensation. If it was messy now it would be shambolic before it was finished. But it had to be done. Taylor wasn't in his office so Liz phoned first then went to his home.

It was a difficult interview and Taylor made no effort to help her, sitting stony-faced while she explained how in effect she hadn't trusted him to investigate the allegation against DCI Shapiro so she'd sent Donovan to do it instead. That was the only place where she could have put a different gloss on it: she could have let him think Donovan did it on his own. It was almost the truth. But if G.o.d wanted somebody's head he'd find it harder to take Liz's, and it was also true that if the idea had been Donovan's the authority had been hers. She told him what they'd done and what they'd discovered.

Taylor heard her out in ominous silence. Then he said, 'I see. You expected to be able to disprove the allegation against Mr Shapiro, and instead you've found out that he secured a conviction against an innocent man. Tell me: how did you find the street photographer?'

Liz came out with perhaps the only lie she'd ever told a senior officer. 'Sh.e.l.ley remembered the name. We were 143.

able to trace him.' If anyone thought to ask, Sh.e.l.ley would deny it. She hoped no one would ask.

'And where do you suggest we go from here?'

'I suppose you call the Chief Constable and he sends someone from Complaints to interview Mr Shapiro. We will of course co-operate any way we can.'

'Even if that means throwing Mr Shapiro to the wolves?'

'This has gone way beyond personal loyalties, sir.'

Taylor nodded slowly. "That at least is something we can agree on. Well, Inspector, I have some news for you. I have not, as you seem to think, been doing nothing. Now I know who did what I can tell you what happened. You'll be glad to learn that while I agree with you that Trevor Foot is innocent I don't believe that therefore Mr Shapiro is guilty.'

Finally he invited her to sit. 'I wanted to make sure none of this had been done to disguise something nasty. But it seems to have been nothing more than a tragic error: a moment's carelessness rather than premeditated malice. Somehow -we may never quite know how but you know how busy the front desk can get -the envelope Sh.e.l.ley left for DCI Shapiro got put aside instead of being sent to his office. Things got put on top of it, the whole pile got moved a few times, and that envelope ended up with a stack of other manila envelopes in the stationery drawer. If it had had Mr Shapiro's name on it it wouldn't have happened. But Sh.e.l.ley expected to hand it to him, it was only when he found he couldn't do that that he scribbled a covering note and put it in the envelope with the photograph. There was nothing written on the outside.

'So it sat there, year after year, always at the bottom of the drawer with new supplies going on top. But last week a requisition went missing so our stationery didn't turn up on time. I needed a stiffened envelope, took the last one, and the rest you can guess.'

Liz's eyes were wide with shock; her mouth had drop 144.

ped open too. 'An accident? A simple straightforward terrible b.l.o.o.d.y accident! The picture got mislaid, and because of the precise combination of circ.u.mstances n.o.body knew to look for it. n.o.body framed Foot, but he's still done eight years he didn't deserve. Dear G.o.d. What's the Chief going to say?'

Taylor's expression melted just a fraction. 'His first reaction will be relief that he's in the clear. Then he'll be glad we have only an act of criminal carelessness to explain and not something worse. After that he might be interested to hear how you reached the conclusion that he'd deliberately and with malice aforethought perverted the course of justice.'

Liz's eyes were beginning to ache. She closed them for a moment. 'I'm going to owe him an apology. I owe you one too.'

Taylor sniffed. 'Don't worry about that. You were wrong but you could have been right: you had to do something about it. When this breaks loose we'll have enough people after our blood without cutting one another's throats.'

'What do you want me to do?'

He walked her to the door. 'I don't see any need for you to get involved. Do your job. Very soon the Chief Constable'll know, the Press'll know and the Civil Rights lot'll be on to it. We're going to take a beating: me because a piece of vital evidence went missing in my station, Frank Shapiro because he put an innocent man in prison. Once the wolves gather you may be the only one who isn't under attack. I'll have to rely on you for all sorts of things. You could end up running the station.'

The prospect gave Liz no pleasure. 'And we've still got an arsonist on the loose, and only two days to catch him before the shopping centre opens.'

Taylor couldn't resist putting the boot in gently. 'You may be wrong about that. Any of us can make a mistake, Inspector, even you.'

145.

She'd got off lightly and she knew it, she didn't begrudge him a little gentle sniping. 'I'm fully aware of that, sir. I'm just -very uneasy about it. I'll be glad when Monday's over.'

'I wish I thought my problems would be resolved so soon,' said Taylor, showing her out.

As she walked to her car the sudden acrid whiff of smoke curled under her nostrils and she spun in alarm. But it was only a gardener raking leaves on to a bonfire.

The tall young man watching from the conservatory door saw her searching wildly for the source of the smoke. He smiled. 'No arsonists here, Inspector. We're all hot and bothered, but that's our own fault for turning a family wedding into a three-ring circus.'

Robin walked her to her car. 'I hear David Shapiro's back.'

Something in the way he said it made her look at him. 'Do you know him?'

'We were all at school together -David, Alison and me. With our fathers working together it was rather a.s.sumed that we had more in common than we actually had.'

Liz said carefully, 'That could be an irritation.'

He shrugged easily. 'David's all right. Alison liked him well enough -1 think he appealed to her maternal instinct though there's barely a year between them. I always found him -I don't know -a little odd somehow. A little tense. I think he found it hard measuring up to family expectations.'

Liz wasn't sure what he was telling her but she thought there was something. She didn't know David Shapiro, her only interest in his personal angst was its effect on her chief. But she also didn't know Robin Taylor so this wasn't just a casual conversation. 'He seems very determined to make a go of the photography.'

'Yes, he would be. He was always anxious to succeed in whatever he tackled. Or at least for people to think he'd succeeded.'