A Taste For Burning Part 9

'No, of course not,' Donovan said quickly. 'It's just, an allegation's been made and we have to look into it. The suggestion is there was a photograph that would have helped his defence. Maybe showing Sue, I don't know.'

'Arthur Conan Doyle,' p.r.o.nounced the painter thoughtfully. 'Wasn't he the last intelligent man to believe you could photograph fairies?'

Philip Huddleston wasn't the first member of the National Front Donovan had met, but he was the first who continued to treat him with a degree of civility after his name and accent revealed his origins. Usually there was a curling of thick lips, a bristling of bald heads, and somebody sang 'If You Ever Go Across The Sea To Ireland, Stay There'. Donovan wasn't easily upset by such pantomime.

If he was talking to members of the National Front it usually meant he was about to arrest one of them, which kept his mood sunny.

Huddleston wasn't like that. He was a very ordinary man in his late forties, the natural thinning of his hair una.s.sisted by a razor, not a tattoo in sight. He wore grey flannels and a tweed jacket with leather patches on the elbows. He might have been a teacher or librarian. Actually he was an aircraft safety engineer.

He remembered Trevor Foot with less affection than young Mr Willard. 'He was an odd one.'

Donovan bit his tongue. 'Why, particularly?'

Huddleston smiled thinly. 'He came to us on the rebound from the Moonies. His primary aim was the banning of Korean clergymen.'

116.

The same questions Donovan had put to Willard produced similar answers from Huddleston. Foot had made no close friends within the branch; no one had kept in touch with him after he left; if he had a girlfriend he'd never brought her to meetings. Like Willard, Huddleston hadn't believed the story of Foot baring off to London for two days with a girl named Sue.

Also like Willard, he remembered being surprised by the BEAST connection. 'He never showed any interest in animal rights when he was with us. Our annual debate on ritual slaughter went right over his head.'

'So you were surprised he joined an animal activist group.'

'Astonished,' Huddleston said frankly. 'And even more astonished that a group like that -engaged, unlike ourselves, in illegal activities and so dependent on the discretion of its members -saw him as a suitable coconspirator. I wouldn't like to share secrets with Trevor Foot. Especially not the kind that could put me behind bars.'

'Even when it would put him behind bars too?'

Huddleston shrugged. 'I don't think it would make any difference. Chattering was a pathological condition with him: he'd tell you everything about himself, down almost to every thought he'd ever had, within half an hour of meeting you. He was like a smoker who can't give up even when he knows it's killing him.'

It was a good point. The question was not why Trevor Foot had anything to do with BEAST but why BEAST had anything to do with Trevor Foot. 'Did you say any of this to the investigating officers?'

'I didn't get the opportunity. n.o.body interviewed me.'

'Was there a different secretary then?' 'No, I've been doing this job for ten years. And don't bother to track down the chairman and treasurer for that year: the police didn't talk to them either. We discussed it at the time: we all thought it rather shoddy. Of course, we knew why.'

Donovan was puzzled. It must have showed in his face.

117.

'Come, Sergeant,' said Huddleston briskly, 'don't be so nave. Detective Chief Inspector Shapiro is a Jew, isn't he? He wasn't going to admit he might have something to learn from the National Front.'

The Ginger Pig was the nearest respectable pub to Queen's Street so it was effectively Donovan's local.

Actually the Fen Tiger was closer but that was a villains'

pub and it suited all concerned not to get drunk in mixed company.

Eight years is a long time in the life of a pub. Licensees change; regulars change; juke boxes, fruit machines, pub quizzes and wet T-shirt compet.i.tions come and go. But a middle-aged barmaid is as close to for ever as the human mind can contemplate and Doris had been dispensing pints, good humour and motherly advice for five years to Donovan's knowledge. He felt sure she'd have been at the Pig in the mid-Eighties.

'Lor' yes, dear,' she replied with a nostalgic heave of her substantial white-nylon bosom. 'I've been here thirteen years come January. The only thing that's been here longer than me's the graffiti in the gents.' She gave a coa.r.s.e, good-natured laugh.

Donovan smiled dutifully. They were old acquaintances. She served him alcohol-free lager and let the other customers think he was a hard drinker. 'Do you remember Trevor Foot that used to drink in here? Before he got sent down for fire-bombing a laboratory.'

'Ooh yes, dear, I remember him. Big cider man.' Doris never forgot a drink.

'Do you remember who he drank with?'

She gave it a moment's thought, pursing her carmine lips. 'Lots of people, but only once each.'

'I was told he was a bit of a bore.'

'Listen, ducky, he could bore for England. He could beat a white-faced French mime artist into second place in the European championships of Le Boring held every 118.

five years in Ostend.' For an uneducated woman Doris had a colourful turn of phrase. 'I've seen him empty this pub ten minutes into the Happy Hour. Takes some doing, that does.'

'Going on about his organizations, was he?'

'And on,' nodded Doris. 'And on, and on.'

'Was there n.o.body he drank with regularly? You know, a friend?'

She shrugged broad shoulders. 'Not as I recall. Some of the lads used to take the p.i.s.s out of him sometimes. Pardon my French. You know, get him going and wet themselves listening to him. But I don't think even Trevor thought they were friends.'

'Were you here .the night he claimed to have done the raid?' She nodded again. 'He must have thought he was among friends then.'

'I think he was just p.i.s.sed, dear,' confided Doris. 'The way he was talking, it wasn't any kind of secret. Everyone in the bar must have heard.'

And someone had called the police. 'Who reported him, Doris? Was it you?'

She looked mildly embarra.s.sed. 'No, dear, it wasn't. I would have if I'd believed him, but I thought he was spinning a line. There was a bunch of them sitting with him, egging him on -you know, "Tell us about the Moon- ies, Trevor, tell us about the National Front." And the attention sort of went to his head. That's what I thought, anyway. I thought he'd claim to have shot President Kennedy before they were done.'

Donovan felt the faint beginning twinges of unease. He'd set out to trace Foot's friends, friends so good they were still lying for him after eight years, and instead he kept meeting people who'd found it hard to believe that Foot had done what he was supposed to have done. 'What are you saying, Doris? That he's in jail for something he didn't do?'

'Oh no, dear,' she said, instantly and certainly. 'It was 119.

Mr Shapiro's case, wasn't it? If Mr Shapiro thought he did it, and if the jury that heard all that evidence thought he did it, that's good enough for me. I mean, I'm no detective, am I? I'm a barmaid. I suppose I only ever saw him as a pathetic little man drinking cider in the corner of the lounge, so lonely he was glad of people making fun of him.'

Donovan nodded. That was probably it. The same applied to the other people he'd talked to. 'And I don't suppose you can think of anyone who'd still consider himself -or herself, a woman would do fine -as Foot's friend?'

Doris thought about it but then shook her head sadly. 'I think I may have been the closest thing Trevor had to a friend, and I haven't thought about him for years. I suppose he'll be getting out sometime soon, will he?'

Donovan was noncommittal. 'Maybe not. He seems to have joined the prison Mafia this time.'

But that wasn't quite the end of the trail. As he went to leave Doris called after him, 'You know, there was someone who'd have the odd drink with Trevor -without making fun of him, I mean. I wouldn't have called them friends but he didn't avoid Trevor the way most people did. I think they used to see one another at meetings.'

'Another crank?'

'Oh no, he's paid to do things like that. Tom Sh.e.l.ley, the photographer at the Courier.'

'Photographer?' All Donovan's alarm systems went off at once.

120.

About the time Donovan was going home, having failed to think up a plausible excuse to call at a newspaper photographer's home at eleven thirty at night, David Shapiro was tracking his badger expert through Hunter's Spinney, weighed down by cameras, lenses, flashlights and the certainty that the shot Payne wanted was un.o.btainable. Unless they stuffed the badgers first, the chances of them staying put long enough for Keaton Payne to creep into the same shot were minimal. The film when developed contained one in-focus shot of a badger's mask and a man's hand, one of a badger's disappearing scut and Payne looking cross and nothing else that showed both man and beast.

When even the naturalist was resigned to the failure of the expedition, they repaired to Payne's house on the edge of the wood to restore their sense of humour with hot whisky.

'You're a local man, then,' said Payne when David mentioned visiting the spinney as a child. 'Any relation to our CID chief?'

David was slow to answer. 'He's my father.'

'At least you had somewhere to stay when I had to disappear.' He was a big leonine man in his thirties, tall and broad and well made without being heavy, like one of the faster brands of rugby player. He also moved like an athlete, as if he were aware of every muscle in his body. Even when he sprawled in his chair beside the fire 121.

it was with a kind of fierce feline grace. 'I'm sorry about that. System must have gone all to pot. Can't blame my secretary,' he added with a disarming grin, 'I haven't got one.'

'Don't worry about it,' said David, 'the time wasn't wasted. That fire at the wharf? I was right there when it started. I got some shots you wouldn't believe.'

'For the nationals?'

'For everybody. The nationals took some, the Courier took some, but the best ones are going in my portfolio.' He wasn't a man to discuss his hopes with near strangers, but the whisky must have got to him because he went on talking, with increasing enthusiasm, until he heard himself and broke off, colouring, in mid-sentence.

Payne smiled at him, amused. 'Never be ashamed of your dreams. You want something, you go for it. There are too many people in this world who haven't the guts to try for something because it's difficult or risky, and it's easier to accept the status quo than to try and change things. But you can take on the world if you care enough.' He poured more whisky. 'I imagine your father found the pictures helpful too.'

Even a man who didn't make his living observing the body-language of wild creatures would have noticed that twice now David had gone still at the mention of his father. Payne elucidated. 'With the investigation. I presume he's handling it?'

'Actually no,' said David, 'he's on leave.'

Payne was surprised. 'Aren't they treating it as arson? I thought all leave was cancelled at times like this.'

'I wouldn't know,' David said coldly. 'I've never been a student of police procedure.'

Payne put the leonine head a little on one side, trying to weigh him up. 'He's well thought of in this town, your father.'

'He should be.' David put his gla.s.s down and stood up. 'I'm going to call it a night. Do you want to make an early start tomorrow?'

122.

Payne accepted the rebuff good-naturedly. 'No need. Six o'clock'll do fine.'

On Sat.u.r.day morning Donovan went to the office via Tom Sh.e.l.ley's house, startling his wife by handing her the milk bottles when she opened the door to take them in.

When he took off his motorcycle helmet and introduced himself, the momentary fear turned to a faint puzzled anxiety. 'What do you want with Tom?'

'A word about someone he used to know, that's all.' Partly it was his job, but it was more than that. n.o.body ever looked at Donovan and thought it was good news.

By then Sh.e.l.ley had joined them, pulling a fawn sweater over his shirt. He was in his forties now, beginning to spread out a little, a family man with a wife, two children, a dog and a hatchback. Once he'd shared David Shapiro's dream of front-line photography, had gone on thinking he'd do it when the time was right. But quite recently it struck him that he no longer wanted to work that hard. He'd grown comfortable in the life he had.

He and Donovan knew one another casually. They'd worked on the same jobs, leaned on the same bars; he was surprised to find Donovan on his doorstep at eight in the morning but happy enough to answer his questions.

He remembered Trevor Foot. As Doris supposed, it wasn't so much a friendship as a contented man being kind to a lonely one. But Sh.e.l.ley had probably talked to Foot as much as anyone in Castlemere, and he was in the Ginger Pig the night Foot provided the floor-show with his famous confession. 'If you want to call it that,' said Sh.e.l.ley.

'What do you mean?'

The photographer shrugged. 'It's only a confession if it's true. I was never convinced Trevor Foot did what he said he did.'

'Why not?'

'For one thing, he was a lying little git.' Sh.e.l.ley sniffed. 'But more than that, I just didn't believe it. He was a 123.

talker, not a doer. Maybe he could have talked himself in deeper than he meant to, ended up tailing along on a raid with those people. But never if he lived to be a hundred could he have organized it.'

Donovan nodded. 'The Chief never reckoned that part of it either. The case didn't hang on him organizing it. It just needed him to be there, and the jury believed that he was.'

'Well, they'd hear more about it than I did,' said Sh.e.l.ley. 'But I was surprised. I know it didn't prove anything but I thought the photograph might have made them wonder.'

If someone had slapped Donovan across the head with a wet mackerel he could hardly have been more startled. For a moment he had trouble forming the words. 'What photograph?'

'The one of Foot and his girlfriend,' said Sh.e.l.ley, clearly unaware that he was shaking Donovan's world. 'The one I gave Mr Shapiro.'

Liz had been up early to feed her horse and was having breakfast in the kitchen with her husband when she heard the motorbike gun to a halt in the drive. Her heart sank.

Donovan was the only biker she knew who did Grand Prix stops.

Brian picked up his toast, his coffee and his newspaper and padded off to the study. 'I'll leave you to it.'

Liz looked at him in surprise. 'There's no need. It won't be anything -delicate.'

She'd misunderstood. Long-sufferingly, Brian explained. 'Every time Donovan comes here you two end up talking about dead bodies. In detail. While I'm trying to eat. What's delicate is my stomach.'

When she opened the door she thought there must have been another fire. A bad one. Most people go white with shock but Donovan went sallow and his eyes sank into his skull. That was how he looked now: like a death's 124.

head. His voice was thick with accent and emotions she couldn't identify. 'We have to talk.'

She could hardly take her eyes off his face. 'All right. Come through to the kitchen.'

There was still coffee in the pot. Automatically she put a mug in front of him, as if he'd been in an accident. 'What's happened?'

He folded long hands round the warm mug but made no attempt to drink. 'We -miscalculated. There was a girl. There was a photograph of Foot with the girl, and the Chief had it.'

Then she understood his expression. She too felt she'd been kicked in the belly. For a moment she tried to believe it was a bad joke; either that or he'd been fooled. But it wasn't credible. Donovan had an odd sense of humour but he wouldn't joke about this. And to believe that about Shapiro he'd need overwhelming proof. She said quietly, 'Tell me what you've found out.'

If Sh.e.l.ley had taken the photograph himself it couldn't have disappeared into the black hole of Queen's Street in the way it did. But it wasn't taken by anyone local, it was sent to the Courier by a London street photographer who found that one of his customers had been accused of a celebrated crime.

'The nationals carried a couple of pars when Foot was charged and the snapper recognized the name and address. He didn't know it mattered if Foot was in London that particular day, he just thought he could make some money out of it. The nationals weren't interested so he sent it to Foot's local rag. But the Courier had shots of Foot coming out of their ears -every time Sh.e.l.ley went to a meeting or demonstration, there was Foot grinning at him from the front row -he didn't need to buy another. He was going to return it.'

Donovan broke his narrative long enough to drag on his coffee as if it were a cigarette. 'The court appearance was only a remand, Foot's defence didn't come into it.

125.