MURDER ON THE OXFORD CANAL Read online

  There’d been the usual spate of burglaries, a ram-raid, one attempted assault and assorted drunk and disorderlies since the evening shift had taken over last night, and the paperwork was still being dealt with come the arrival of the day shift.

  Janine particularly disliked the graveyard shift. Nothing seemed to happen. Well, not when it got into the early hours anyway.

  ‘Sir,’ she said, noticing him noticing her, and giving just the right amount of smile. Too much and she’d look like a suck-up, or worse, up for it. Not enough and she might give him the feeling she was a grouchy cow.

  What she wanted to achieve was just enough to make him notice and wonder. Janine, of course, knew all about Detective Chief Inspector Philip (Mel) Mallow. The two divorces, the one son at a private boarding school. The education at Durham, and the fact that you could usually get a rise out of him by asking if he hadn’t been quite good enough to get a place at Oxford or Cambridge. He dressed well, looked fabulous, and had an enviable reputation for getting on with everyone. Hence the “Mellow Mallow” tag.

  But Janine wasn’t sure that it wasn’t all just a nice little persona for the real man to hide behind. And she wasn’t sure, not yet, that winkling out the real DCI Mallow would be worth all the effort.

  ‘Janine, how did it go yesterday?’ he asked.

  It could be just a simple conversational gambit, a response to her smile, a way of getting her to chat. On the other hand, he might want to know how Hillary Greene had handled herself yesterday, and what the hell did she say to that?

  She didn’t want to be anybody’s spy in the camp.

  ‘Routine, sir.’ She spoke with what she hoped was the right amount of respect, tinged with “back-off” overtures.

  Mel smiled. ‘Good,’ he said vaguely, and wandered off to his office, leaving her staring after him.

  Shit, he had a tight behind. He had a way of wearing clothes that she’d only ever seen on male models. Just once, she’d like to see him looking nonplussed.

  A moment later, Hillary Greene came into the big, open-plan office.

  ‘Boss,’ Janine said.

  Hillary nodded, going to her own desk and slinging her bag over the back of the chair. She was dressed in a rust-coloured two-piece outfit and cream blouse that did good things for her nut-brown bobbed haircut and dark eyes.

  ‘As we thought, nothing from the house-to-house,’ said Janine, filling her DI in on her work the previous day. ‘I went back after dark, but nobody recognised the description, and nobody had been on the canal towpath during the crucial hours.’

  Hillary sighed, but hadn’t expected anything else. ‘Still no joy on the ID?’

  Janine shook her head. ‘’Fraid not.’

  Hillary looked beyond her to nod a greeting to Tommy Lynch.

  ‘We’ve got his fingerprints running through the usual, of course,’ Janine continued, barely breaking stride, ‘but there’s a backlog. Might not hear back for a while, they said.’

  Hillary grunted. When wasn’t there a backlog? How long would it be before the bloody Home Office finally went to bat for the force and got it adequately funded and staffed?

  The words hell and freezing over swept in and out of her mind.

  ‘Tommy, get on that computer,’ Hillary said, waving vaguely at a terminal. ‘Run his mugshot. A bloke with a face like his has either been a victim in his time, or far more likely a villain. That scar on his face looked like it was caused by a knife to me.’

  Tommy nodded and pulled up a chair at a terminal. He was known to be something of a whiz on computers. He clicked for a while before pulling his wheeled chair back and looking around. ‘I’ve got the database and programmes running, guv, but it’ll take a while. Some system’s down in Cardiff.’

  Hillary, engrossed in SOCO’s preliminary findings, sighed heavily. ‘Right. Anything come up from the boat-to-boat enquiries?’

  ‘Nothing specific. Oh, I got to that lady in Lower Heyford, by the way. She said she’d seen you.’

  Hillary glanced up quickly, wondering if there was censure in his voice, but his head was bent over his notebook. She shrugged and told herself not to be so damned sensitive. Tommy Lynch wasn’t the kind to take the hump. Now if Janine had found her pussy-footing around what she considered her turf, no doubt she’d already have made her displeasure known.

  ‘By then I’d had several vague nibbles along the same lines,’ Tommy was saying. ‘A white-haired chap driving, the boat going too fast, and when it was too dark for comfort. But no name for the boat. Though I’ve still got to call back at one or two barges.’

  ‘Narrowboats,’ Hillary automatically corrected him.

  Tommy nodded. ‘Right.’

  ‘Well, first things first. Until we’ve got a name for our corpse, we’re stuck.’

  ‘Guv,’ Tommy said, with a sigh. He rolled his eyes at Janine, who rolled hers back. They both knew what this meant.

  Slog work.

  * * *

  A heron took off from the bank as an orange, green and white narrowboat chugged gently around the bend in the canal.

  The old man at the tiller watched it appreciatively. You didn’t see many herons nowadays.

  He’d lived in the city, where you didn’t see any wildlife at all, unless you counted what staggered out of the pub come closing time, and he’d lived in the country, where the odd squirrel, fox and bird-box attracted fellow critters. On the whole, he preferred the city. But the country was alright.

  He sniffed, hawked and spat into the canal. Needing to turn right, he pushed the tiller left, and eyed the humped, redbrick canal bridge he was approaching.

  Something moved inside the boat.

  A moment later, a second man emerged, his black curly-topped head being followed by a dirty T-shirt and faded jeans. When he looked up, his dark eyes were savage.

  ‘We anywhere near a town yet?’ he demanded, his tense body and constantly shifting eyes looking out of place on the back of a slow-moving boat.

  The older man shrugged. ‘Banbury’s not far.’

  ‘Don’t exactly sound like Liverpool to me. Will it at least have a pub?’

  The old man smiled. ‘More than one. It’s a fair-sized market town. Remember the nursery rhyme? Ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross, to see a fine lady upon a white horse?’

  ‘Eh? You been drinkin’ or something?’

  The old man sighed. ‘There’s no booze on board, you know that. Luke’s orders.’

  The younger man spent the next ten minutes graphically describing what Luke could go and do to himself, most of it being a physical impossibility. The old man let him rage on, knowing as well as the other man did that if Luke Fletcher was actually here in person he’d be treated with the same fawning respect he was used to getting from everyone else. Except coppers, of course. And even then . . .

  The old man steered under the narrow bridge with ease, looking up at the dank brickwork as they passed through. The sudden chill made him shiver. He was getting so that this was all becoming more bother than it was worth. Everyone knew he was just waiting to retire.

  If he ever got the chance.

  The younger man watched him and smirked, as if reading his thoughts. Then he scowled. A second later, a knife glinted in his hand.

  The older man’s knuckles whitened on the tiller as he instinctively gripped it tighter, but his wrinkled face, with its hooked nose and slightly receding chin, didn’t falter.

  The younger man pretended not to notice this display of toughness, and began to clean his nails nonchalantly. You had to hand it to the old bastard, he had guts. He’d known a lot of people shit themselves, literally, when he’d done that trick.

  Course, he had a proper knife halter strapped to the underside of his wrist, which helped. As a teenager, he’d practised and practised with it until he could make the four-inch steel-bladed stiletto appear in his hand as if by magic. Then he’d learned how to throw knives, and finally how to use them for real. Close up and personal. That
was why he liked knives. They were far more intimate than guns.

  He began to whistle listlessly under his breath. He wanted a drink. And a shag. Maybe even a hit. No, perhaps not a hit. Not this trip. Not after what had happened last night.

  Now was a good time to keep a straight head. Besides, everyone knew the old bastard was Luke’s eyes and ears. Best not to antagonise the old buzzard.

  He went below and lay down on one of the narrow bunks. Sodding boats. He hated them. They were so narrow and cramped and slow. Hell, he didn’t know it was possible for any motorised form of transport to be as slow as this. It was driving him crazy.

  * * *

  Hillary looked up as Mel appeared in front of her desk. ‘How’s things going?’

  Hillary leaned back. ‘Slowly. We’ve still not got an ID.’

  ‘Suspicious, you think?’ Mel perched one buttock on her desk, and swung a leg.

  ‘Maybe,’ Hillary said. ‘Then again, if you’re on a boat, on holiday, you dress casually. Your wallet, fags, whatever, might well be left on the nearest flat surface. You wouldn’t necessarily feel the need to keep all your bits on you, would you? The boat’s your home. Why wear ID? Although you’re “out” you’re not actually “going out,” are you?’

  Mel squinted a bit at this last rather enigmatic statement. ‘Yeah. So perhaps not suspicious.’

  ‘On the other hand . . .’ Hillary began, and stopped. Her face, which if not beautiful, could be intriguing, suddenly looked almost ugly.

  Mel looked behind him. ‘Oh shit. The Yorkie bars.’ He rose to his feet.

  ‘We’re looking for Detective Inspector Hillary Greene.’ Curtis Smith’s words were totally unnecessary, for everyone knew that they were well aware of who Hillary was. And where she was.

  The entire room went quiet.

  Hillary, aware of the sudden rush of animosity from her colleagues, followed by their silent but equally obvious support for her, felt herself flush. Even she wasn’t sure whether it was in embarrassment, gratitude or anger.

  She got up. ‘Have you been assigned an interview room?’ Her tone was crisp. Better get it over with. And show them that she could be as professional as any brass. Also, it didn’t hurt to let them know she was in charge, didn’t give a shit, and wasn’t about to take any crap.

  She noticed the taller, blond, good-looking one watch her approach with rather more than professional interest.

  Oh great. Just what she needed.

  ‘It’s Sergeant Smith and DI Danvers, isn’t it?’ She made no move to shake hands.

  ‘Yes,’ Curtis said, and nothing more.

  For a second, nobody seemed to move. Then Paul Danvers spoke. ‘We have a room on the bottom floor.’ And then, to Mel, ‘We hope this won’t take long.’

  Mel smiled wolfishly. ‘I hope so too. DI Greene is working on a suspicious death. Some of us have proper work to do.’

  * * *

  Tommy Lynch watched Hillary’s back as she disappeared. She was hurting. He could tell.

  He sighed and went back to the mugshots he was perusing. No sign of Scar Face yet.

  His mind wandered back to the previous night and he sighed heavily. He was going to have to move out, no two ways about it. He’d been putting it off and putting it off, but things were reaching crisis point. Living with his mother was beginning to really smart.

  It wasn’t the jokes, or the stigma of being a “mummy’s boy.” Hell, everybody knew what the housing situation was like around Oxford. Even poxy bedsits were like gold dust, with students swooping on everything in sight like a horde of ravenous vultures. Plenty of people his age on the force shacked up with their parents. So the ribbing was rueful and good-natured, for the most part.

  No, it was her constant harping on about Jean that was getting him down. When was he going to propose? What was wrong with her? Wasn’t she good enough for him? And if so, why not? She had a better job than he did! If he had to listen once more to his mother’s litany of praise for his girlfriend, he was going to go bonkers. And now Mercy Lynch had a new whip with which to flog her only son. She wanted to be a grandmother. And black, Baptist, good-natured and respectful Jean Clarkson, who worked as a college secretary, was ideal daughter-in-law material. But the fact was, as much as he and Jean got on (they had been going steady for nearly two years with undoubted fidelity on both sides), he simply felt no desire to get married to her.

  But try telling that to his mother!

  * * *

  ‘This is a no-smoking area.’ Hillary stared at the proffered packet of cigarettes incredulously. Besides, she didn’t smoke. Never had. Even at school she’d resisted the peer pressure.

  Curtis put away the packet without comment.

  Hillary Greene wasn’t what he’d been expecting. Over the years he’d met several women who’d been married to serial adulterers. Somehow they’d all seemed to be cut from the same cloth. They might look, physically, as divergent as any group of human beings, but emotionally they could have been identical.

  It was always a mixture of rage, culpability and depression.

  Hillary Greene looked angry all right, but not at her now-dead spouse. She looked about as downtrodden as a Rottweiler, and if she was depressed, he sure as hell wasn’t ever going to be allowed to know about it. He wouldn’t have expected someone of Ronnie Greene’s ilk to be attracted to her in the first place. They usually went for the helpless, hopeless type. Apart from that, she wasn’t even a blonde, and hadn’t all of Ronnie’s squeezes that they’d tracked down so far been fair? And there was nothing “fluffy” about DI Greene, that was for sure.

  ‘I understand that this is awkward for you, DI Greene.’ Paul was using his standard soft, courteous gambit. ‘Howev—’

  ‘It’s not at all awkward for me,’ Hillary cut in. ‘Ronnie died, some nasties came out of the woodwork and you’ve been given the task of clearing up the mess.’ She shrugged. ‘Somebody’s got to do it, so go ahead and do it. Ask, investigate, then sod off. I’ve got other stuff to do.’

  Paul blinked. Usually when a woman spoke to him like this, he felt a number of things, depending on the woman doing the speaking. Usually it was the wives or girlfriends of villains, putting on an act of bravado. These usually aroused his pity. Or they were villains themselves, gutter-bred, hard-as-nails bitches, just being their own sweet selves. This produced a feeling of mild distaste. Sometimes the women were attractive, as Hillary Greene was, professional women, usually caught out in white-collar crimes. These provoked sadness or disgust, or a mixture of both.

  But he couldn’t make up his mind what to feel about Hillary Greene. She seemed to be in a class all of her own. He couldn’t even feel his usual superiority towards “bent” cops because he wasn’t even sure that she was bent.

  Curtis shifted uncomfortably on his chair, and Hillary transferred her mocking gaze to him. ‘Yes?’ she said impatiently.

  ‘Did you know your husband had cultivated a relationship with this gang of animal-parts smugglers, DI Greene?’ Curtis asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did it surprise you when you learned of it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do you have any idea where your husband stored his profits from the racket?’

  Hillary snorted. ‘If I did, do you think I’d still be here?’ Instantly she felt shocked. Because even as she spoke, she wondered. Would she still be here? If she had the wherewithal to be somewhere else, on a beach for instance, sipping piña coladas, would she really still be here at Kidlington nick, trying to ID a nasty-faced corpse and then having to inform some poor weeping woman that her husband, son, brother or whoever, was dead? Would she still be trying to find out how he came to be dead in a lock, if she could be living it up in the Caribbean? Living in a nice, big, white, spacious, hotel room instead of cramped ones that bobbed about on occasionally foul-smelling water?

  If she’d asked herself that question yesterday, the answer would have come back loud and clear. Yes, she bloody well would
. It was her job. Her life. It might not be perfect, but it was hers. She’d chosen it.

  But now she wasn’t so sure.

  Frank Ross was a bastard, out to get her. Mel had all the backbone of a limp squid. Janine hated her. She hated the boat. Was it really so surprising that she should want out?

  ‘If you were smart, you would,’ Sergeant Curtis said, making her blink and wonder, for a second, if he was a mind-reader. Then she realised he was merely answering her question. ‘Only an idiot, if she’d come into a sudden fortune, would advertise the fact,’ he went on.

  Hillary smiled wryly and got a grip. ‘Quite right,’ she said frankly. ‘If I did know where Ronnie’s money was, I would sit tight. Wait. Retire in a couple of years’ time, when I get my guaranteed pension.’ She nodded.

  And didn’t add the obvious rejoinder.

  But.

  But I’m innocent. But I don’t have a sodding clue what Ronnie did with his dirty money.

  Let the bastards work it out for themselves. What did she care if they ran their arses ragged trying to prove a false premise? It was their job. And it was an even shittier one than hers.

  For some reason, this made her feel better.

  ‘You were aware of your husband’s infidelities, I take it.’ It was Paul again.

  Hillary turned her disconcertingly open, unafraid, and nearly-amused dark brown eyes to him. ‘Of course I was. Why else do you think we were getting divorced?’ She refused to think back to the previous year. The humiliation. The shame. The sense of sheer outraged indignation. She wasn’t sure what had hurt her the most — the fact that Ronnie had been cheating on her for years, or the fact that she’d only just found out about it.

  What kind of a detective did that make her?

  The only consolation she had, and this she only gradually realised later, was that everyone, but everyone, had always assumed she’d known about it and turned a blind eye. Until things got so bad she’d eventually retaliated.

  ‘Your husband wasn’t happy with the idea of divorce, was he?’ Curtis said.

  ‘He wasn’t happy with the idea of me getting half of everything,’ Hillary corrected grimly. ‘Forget the fact that I worked full time, just like he did. Put the wages into the mortgage, just like he did. Paid half the bills, did—’