Safe Page 3

  The room was small and cramped and Clarke, as he examined the crime scene photos, understood what Collins had meant about the body being in the way. Apart from the gun cabinets, the only furniture in the room was a small table on which was set an almost empty decanter, a single glass and a box of shotgun shells. The body had fallen backwards against the cabinets, arms outstretched, the gun to one side. This was still in position on the floor. The CSI working here would have ended up stepping over the body, almost on the body, whenever they moved. Clarke indicated the box of shotgun cartridges.

  “What was he planning on doing? Going out shooting in the middle of the night?”

  “According to the family, it wouldn’t have been the first time. He was unmarried, lived alone most of the time and, they claim, had a tendency to wander out in the middle of the night with a lamp and a shotgun looking for rabbits.” Paul Collins shrugged. “What do I know? Maybe he did.”

  “And was he generally half-cut when he went out for a spot of lamping.”

  “According to the family, half-cut tended to be his general state from about six o’clock in the evening. He’d start drinking before dinner and wouldn’t really stop. They reckon he was never exactly what you’d call incapacitated, just not entirely sober.”

  Clarke nodded. That fitted with what he already knew about Charlie Perrin. The series of drunk driving offences, a final ban last year when even those magistrates under the Perrin thumb could no longer prevaricate. Clarke doubted there was any shortage of people to drive him around, so it was not likely to be too much of an inconvenience. “And the sister found the body?” he confirmed.

  “She lives in the nearest cottage. She heard the gunshot, came over, and found him.”

  “How did she get in? The front door wasn’t forced. Did she have a key?”

  “Apparently, no one locks their doors around here. This is the countryside, you know.”

  Clarke laughed. “And your average burglars are going to know to keep clear of Gus Perrin’s farm,” he agreed. “So she finds the body — and then?”

  “DS Sheldon’s taken her statement but apparently she went up to the big house and told them what had happened. The other brother came back and took a look, decided that life was extinct, called their doctor, phoned the funeral directors and then finally phoned the police.”

  “And how much time had passed by the time we got involved?”

  Collins shrugged again.

  “Plenty of time to stage the scene to their own liking.”

  “You don’t believe the ‘accidental shooting while pissed as a fart’ scenario then?”

  “You might say that,” Clarke returned. “But I couldn’t possibly comment.”

  Clarke went in search of Sheldon. As he had been told, a makeshift incident-come-refreshment room had been set up in the storeroom about fifty yards from the bungalow. An assortment of gardening equipment and machinery had been parked over at one end, including a ride-on lawnmower the size of a small car. A trestle table had been set up, on which were Women’s Institute-style tea urns and an assortment of cakes and biscuits. A tray of mostly demolished sandwiches had been set nearby. Folding tables and chairs crowded the remaining area and Sheldon sat at one of these in the corner of the room, sorting a stack of paperwork into some kind of order. Clarke helped himself to coffee and biscuits and went to join him.

  Sheldon looked uncomfortable. “It’s not normal this, boss. We spend most of our working life trying to trip these buggers up, we come out here expecting trouble, and everyone’s playing nice. Like they can’t do enough for us. All in the cause of transparency, so Gus Perrin says, doesn’t want us thinking there was anything untoward going on.” He laughed. “I tell you, I don’t like this.”

  “Ah, don’t worry about it. Come next week, it’ll be back to normal. We’ll be dragging one or other of them in for questioning, they’ll be lawyering up, we’ll be banging our heads against the same brick wall. Status quo will be back in place. In the meantime, enjoy their coffee and their cakes and their bloody sandwiches. So, statement from Carole Perrin or whatever her married name is. Carole Josephs?”

  Sheldon nodded and handed him the statement. Clarke skimmed it. It didn’t tell him anything he didn’t already know.

  “The time of death is down for around five thirty in the morning,” Sheldon said. “And Carole Josephs claims that she was woken up by the shot. Apparently, her husband’s not there, he’s away on business. She gets dressed, goes over to her brother’s place, and finds the body in the back room.”

  “The walls in that room are thick. You reckon she could have heard the shot? How far away is her cottage?”

  “Not as far as from here to the bungalow. But across on the other side. I don’t know, you’d have to fire a shotgun in that room and sit on her bed to find out, but I’d imagine it’s pretty quiet round here at night, so the sound would carry. And she’s going to know what a gunshot sounds like, being as how she’s part of this family.”

  “But is she going to automatically think it’s coming from her brother’s place?” He scanned the statement again. It was clear and simple and to the point. “How was she when you interviewed her? Nervous, upset, hesitant?”

  “Exact opposite. Cool, calm. She knows that you want to speak to her. She’s at home and expecting you.”

  Clarke nodded towards the stack of paperwork. “And what else do we have?”

  “Statements from the brother, from the two men who went with the brother to look at the body, from the undertaker and from the family doctor.” Sheldon looked expectantly at Clarke, waiting to see if there was anyone else he should have spoken to.

  “We’ll go and have another chat with Carole Josephs. Come along and make the introductions, then.”

  Outside, the grey had subsided a little and weak sunlight did its best to filter through the clouds, though it did nothing to lift the temperature. Over to the left of this building was a stand of trees, ancient and tall, the last leaves still clinging on. The sunlight caught the red of the big house and the bricks glowed. Clarke could glimpse at least a half-dozen other properties — cottages, the converted barn. He’d long since ceased to believe that crime didn’t pay. Sometimes, when looking at places like this, he wondered if he was on the wrong side. The opportunity had certainly been there when Clarke was younger, given his father’s involvement in the less than legal.

  Sheldon led him across the open yard in front of the storeroom and past Charlie Perrin’s bungalow. Walking down the side of the bungalow, Clarke noticed that there was another door leading into the kitchen. The bungalow backed onto a grassy area that sloped towards yet another bank of trees. Carole Josephs’s cottage nestled into a dip in the landscape and was, unexpectedly, surrounded by its own hedged and very beautiful garden. At this time of year, much of it was dormant, but tall, clipped yews and even the last few roses spoke of a carefully tended and much-loved little corner of the farm. His attention was caught by a striking sculpture sitting between two yew trees, to the right of the path. He paused to look at it. It looked like a stone seed, carved and then polished to bring out the beauty of the material. Granite? he wondered. The colour and texture reminded him of a curling stone. It invited touch. A sinuous groove curved from tip to base and then curled around into a spiral. It was incredibly simple, but oddly satisfying.

  “One of hers, apparently.”

  It took a moment for Clarke to understand what DS Sheldon meant and then he remembered reading that Carole Josephs was an artist. She might live on her father’s estate, financed by his money, but she also went out into the world and presented it with things she had made — as opposed to things she had shot, stolen, smuggled or defrauded. Interesting, he thought. But that doesn’t mean she’s any less her father’s daughter.

  Sheldon knocked on the door. It opened immediately and a tall, dark-haired woman he recognized as Carole stood there. She led them through to the kitchen, where a smaller, fair-haired woman was about to plunge a c
afetière.

  “We saw you walking over,” Carole said. “Have a seat, but there’s nothing much more I can tell you.”

  Clarke introduced himself and looked pointedly at the younger woman. She set cups on the table and then put out a hand to shake his. He was surprised by that.

  “Sam Barker,” she said. “I’m Carole’s assistant.” She glanced at her employer. “Do you want me to stay, or to go and get on?”

  “Thanks, Sam. I’ll join you in the studio in a few minutes.”

  She does not, Clarke thought, seem particularly upset by her brother’s death.

  * * *

  DI Clarke left the farm about an hour later, having revisited the scene and spoken again to Collins and his CSIs. He had gone up to the big house and spoken also to Gus Perrin himself. His manner had been as gruff as ever, but he’d basically repeated what his daughter had told both Sheldon and Clarke.

  He had asked how long the police and the CSIs were likely to remain.

  “I expect we’ll be out of here by the end of the day,” Clarke told him. This was, after all, still being treated as an accident. From the way he was behaving, Gus Perrin must be very certain that they’d find nothing to contradict that. Maybe, Clarke mused, it was even true.

  “No rush,” Perrin said. He sounded almost bored.

  “It must have been a shock,” Clarke speculated, wanting to stimulate a reaction from the big man whose disinterest seemed odd, to say the least. Clarke couldn’t bring himself to be sorry for his loss or to express any of the other trite phrases they were taught to use these days. He wasn’t particularly sorry. Death, however it had been visited, meant that Charlie Perrin was now one fewer arsehole to worry about.

  “Charlie was always a fucking idiot when it came to the booze,” Perrin said. “I always reckoned an accident would take him, but I had assumed it would be in a car.”

  “Hmm, well, at least this way he didn’t take anyone else with him.” Clarke could not resist.

  A hard look came into Perrin’s eyes and he shifted restlessly in his chair. Clarke watched him. He had known Gus Perrin before his shooting. Perrin had been tall, broad, built like a brick outhouse, but quick as a rattlesnake and just as vicious. He might not be as quick these days, but that look reminded Clarke that he was still as vicious.

  “Be careful, DI Clarke. He was my son. I don’t take kindly to people mocking me.”

  The implied threat still sat between Clarke’s shoulders like a target as he drove out through the main gates and back onto the main road. Stupid to goad, he told himself, but so hard to resist.

  Chapter 8

  Clarke’s next stop was Sykes’s home, a drive of about five miles but one which took him into a different world. Sykes had not taken on the role of lord of some rural manor — he’d stuck close to his roots on the edge of town. His house was built at the edge of an industrial estate, which seemed like an odd location until you took into account that Sykes and his family had initially made their money from scrap metal and their original yard had been less than a quarter of a mile away. Sykes apparently liked to keep in touch with his origins. The house was large, new (Clarke could remember it being built about five years before) and, despite the broad, sweeping driveway and portico entrance, the place was remarkably low key compared to the Perrins’ pretensions of landed gentry.

  Two large four-by-fours were parked in front of the house and Clarke pulled up in front of the second one. He waved at the camera, which had swivelled to look down at him and then made his way up the steps to the front door. Perrin liked to keep his friends and his family — and probably his enemies, for all Clarke knew — physically close. It seemed that Sykes took a different approach.

  Clarke did not have to introduce himself when the door opened. Clarke had no doubt that just as he knew, at least by sight, almost every member of Sykes’s organization, the leader of this particular organized crime gang kept himself abreast of Clarke’s and briefed his people accordingly.

  “Detective Inspector Clarke.”

  “Mr Sykes.” Clarke nodded politely. “I imagine you’ve heard about Charlie Perrin?”

  “Of course. News gets around. I have to say, though, anyone who knew Charlie could see it coming. I have always told my men, ‘Booze and weaponry do not mix.’”

  Clarke raised an eyebrow. “I don’t see you or your crew as the hunting, shooting, fishing types,” he commented. “Or are we talking about less legal weapons?”

  Sykes laughed. “So what can I do for you? I’m sure you didn’t call on me just to bring me the news.”

  “No, my boss suggested I drop by. He said I could ask you questions, you could give me non-answers, and I could report back to my boss, honour satisfied.”

  “You do amuse me, DI Clarke. What questions do you want me to answer? Or shall I guess?” He ticked them off on his fingers. “No, I have had no dealings with Charlie Perrin. No, we had nothing to do with his death, which I believe was an accident? Yes, I may be going to the funeral — which will no doubt be the thing that interests your boss. And . . . what else?”

  “Is there any truth to the rumours that you and Perrin are about to get into bed together — in a business sense, of course? Like you said, news travels and there are rumours about uniting the two families. I’ve got to say, your girl seems a bit young for Charlie, but what do I know, girls grow up fast these days.”

  He was watching Sykes carefully and saw a tightening of the mouth, a slight narrowing of the eyes. Sykes would never make a poker player, Clarke thought.

  “There’s always talk,” Sykes said. “Now, that must be all, DI Clarke.”

  “Not quite. I was over at Harry Prentice’s place this morning. I left two fire crews still damping down. The fire chief is talking about arson. So, my next question is, where’s Harry?”

  Sykes shrugged. “Well, if you’ve not found a body, I would assume he’s not there.”

  “No sign of a body.”

  “Well then.” Kyle Sykes spread his hands wide. “Harry must be away. Nasty shock for him when he comes back.”

  “Away, where?”

  “How would I know? Why should I know, for that matter? Harry’s retired. For all I know, he spends his time fishing.”

  “Fishing.”

  Sykes laughed and shrugged again. “If there’s nothing more, Inspector?”

  The front door had been opened again and the man who had let him in was waiting to let him out. Clarke reflected briefly that Sykes seemed to prefer his people in grey suits. A rich man’s livery, Clarke thought. Unlike Gus Perrin’s men, Sykes’s thugs were always white. Toby Clarke, with his white father and black mother, could never have applied for a job with Kyle Sykes, not unless he had a particular skill to sell that didn’t involve him being front-of-house. Besides, he could never have afforded the tailoring bills.

  “See you at the funeral, then,” he said.

  Clarke got into his car and sat for a moment, fiddling with his radio, tuning it to a fresh station. He was surprised to see that Sykes had followed him out onto the top step and was now standing chatting to his flunky and trying to look casual. There’s something odd here, Clarke thought. He didn’t know what, but something was definitely off.

  He fastened his seat belt and prepared to drive off. He’d been to the Sykes house three, four times before and it definitely felt different this time. He was through the gates before it struck him. Where was everybody? Usually the house was buzzing with men lounging around, like they did at the Perrin place, or in the garage at the side of the house, tending to the many vehicles. Today, the garages had been closed, and it had seemed few people were there, other than Kyle Sykes and the man who had let him in. He’d heard footsteps elsewhere, other people coming and going but nothing like the usual bustle, the usual numbers of hangers on paying court to their boss.

  “So where the fuck is everybody?” Clarke wondered aloud. On impulse, he keyed his phone and called the office. DS Denise Allwood answered. “Find ou
t if the Sykes girl’s been to school today,” Clarke told her. “Dig around and see if there’s anything unusual going on there.”

  What was I hoping to find? Clarke wondered. He didn’t know for sure, just something had been out of kilter and it wasn’t just at the Perrin end of things.

  Chapter 9

  Clarke knew that many of his colleagues disliked post-mortems. Personally, he found them fascinating and often wondered if, had he done better at sciences at school, that was where he would have ended up. His genuine interest often helped him gain insights that his more squeamish colleagues did not.

  It was just after two in the afternoon when he arrived, sidling into the room as Si Levrov was making his preliminary observations for the benefit of the recording. The pathologist raised a hand in greeting, as Clarke positioned himself where he could watch without getting in the way. Observing Si and allowing him to deal with the more routine matters before the post-mortem properly began was a man Clarke recognized from his appearances as an expert witness. Sir Geoffrey Connor was an affable man with an abundance of white hair, currently tucked beneath the obligatory net, and half-moon glasses.

  He smiled at Clarke. “Toby. Good to see you again. I don’t imagine we’ll be detaining you for long.”

  Clarke hadn’t realized they were on first name terms, though he decided such familiarity would probably only travel in one direction. “Sir Geoffrey.” He nodded his greeting. “You think this will all be straightforward, then?”

  “Of course! Why would you think otherwise?” Humorous blue eyes turned their full gaze on Clarke. “I’m afraid to say our Mr Charles Perrin was a very silly man. A very silly man indeed. A careless man. You can’t afford to be careless around firearms now, can you?”

  He glanced over at Si. “Ready for me? Good, good. Now, let the dog see the rabbit.”

  Clarke caught Si rolling his eyes but Sir Geoffrey was too busy removing what was left of Charlie Perrin’s brain to notice.