Dead Man's Time

  Donny Loncrane came into the room in his green prison work tunic. Aged fifty-five, he looked as most long-term prisoners did: a decade older than his years, from the lifestyle and badly cut drugs. Roy Grace was shocked at his appearance. Last time he had encountered the serial car thief – and police informant – had been a good ten years ago. Setterington tactfully left them to it, closing the door behind him.

  Loncrane, tall, with bad posture, his short, grey hair brushed forward over his forehead, gave him a sheepish grin, shook Grace’s hand with his own damp one, as if he had just washed it in deference, and sat down opposite him. ‘Hello, sir,’ he said. He exuded a sharp, earthy smell of clothes that were in need of a wash.

  Grace shook his head. ‘What are you doing still inside? You told me you were going straight last time I saw you.’

  Loncrane shrugged. ‘Yeah, well, I was. Problem is, you see, I love motors.’

  ‘You always did.’

  ‘The thing is, they’re harder to nick these days. The high-end jobs, right? The Audis, Beemers, Mercs, Ferraris, Bentleys? I used to be able to hotwire one in thirty seconds. You know how long it takes now?’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘Well, with all their security systems it takes about four hours. So the only way is either to get one on the road, taser the driver, pull him or her out – or else break into the owner’s house and nick the keys.’

  ‘Last time we talked you told me you were doing a degree in fitness and nutrition. That you had plans to start a gym when you came out, Donny.’

  Loncrane shrugged again. ‘Yeah, that was the plan.’

  ‘So what went wrong?’

  ‘It’s not so easy out there. Not so many people want to help an old con like me. You need references, bank loans, stuff like that. I don’t exactly have the world’s best CV.’ He grinned wistfully.

  Grace smiled back. Donny Loncrane wasn’t a fool. But he’d never had a chance in life. His father had been busted for drugs when his mother was pregnant with him – her fourth child. She’d been on drugs too. He’d always been obsessed with fast cars and had his first conviction, for joyriding, at fourteen. At seventeen he was making good money, and having fun, stealing exotic cars to order for an organized crime gang in London. ‘You know, it’s never too late, Donny.’

  The old lag nodded. ‘Yeah. I have my dreams, sir,’ he said with a sad expression.

  ‘What are they?’

  ‘I’d like to be married again. Live in a nice house. Have kids. Have a nice car. But it ain’t going to happen.’

  ‘Why not? You’re only fifty-five. I’m sure you could start over.’

  He shrugged yet again, a forlorn look on his face. ‘I’m fifty-five, with one hundred and seventy previous. No one wants to know me outside of here, except other crims. And you know what, sir? I don’t mind it inside. I’ve got me telly; the electricity’s paid for; the grub’s all right; I’ve got me mates here.’

  ‘Can’t I help you?’ Grace asked.

  ‘Yeah, you could give me the keys to a Ferrari 458. Not driven one of them yet.’ He grinned. ‘So what do you want from me?’

  ‘You’re not doing this stretch just for nicking cars – it’s for nicking antiques also, right?’

  Loncrane nodded. ‘Yeah, well, the thing is, like I said, the easiest way to nick a fancy motor these days to break into the house where it’s parked. And if you’re inside, you might as well take some stuff while you’re there.’

  ‘Of course.’ Grace couldn’t help grinning at the man’s warped logic.

  Loncrane looked at him hard for some moments. ‘If you don’t mind me saying so, if you hadn’t chosen to be a copper, I think you’d have made a good burglar, sir.’

  ‘I’m flattered.’

  ‘No, I’m serious. You’re a good detail man. Burglary’s all about planning and detail. Anyhow, you ain’t come here for career counselling. How can I help you?’

  ‘There was a nasty tie-up robbery, just under a fortnight ago, in Withdean Road, Brighton. Ten million quid’s worth of antiques taken and the house owner, an old lady called Aileen McWhirter, was tortured and died subsequently. Ten million is a lot of stuff by anyone’s reckoning. I was curious if you’d heard any word in here?’

  Loncrane was silent for some moments. ‘And if I had?’

  ‘Two hundred quid, Donny – and the possibility of a good word to your governor.’

  ‘I thought the going rate was ten per cent of value?’

  Grace smiled. ‘That was in the days before our budget was slashed to ribbons.’

  There was a time when informants could receive as much as a tenth of the value of the stolen goods they helped recover; the payment was good because being an informant was a highly risky business, particularly in a prison. Loncrane would have had to have given a very plausible reason to his fellow prisoners why he was going through to the Governor’s office area – and would undoubtedly be getting a lot of suspicious questions about it afterwards from his fellow inmates.

  The prisoner shot him a wary glance. ‘Know what happens to grasses in here?’

  ‘I’ve a fair idea.’

  ‘Boiling water thrown in your face. Razor blades in your food. It’s not clever.’

  Loncrane fell silent, and for a moment Roy Grace worried that he was going to clam up on him. But then the prisoner held up his hand, showing three fingers.

  ‘Okay, three hundred, we have a deal. Who do you want the money paid to, Donny?’

  ‘I’ll give you the number of my Swiss bank account,’ he said with such a deadpan look that Grace believed he really might have one.

  ‘Dicky bird tells me that if I were you, Detective Superintendent, sir, I’d be looking hard at an expat called Eamonn Pollock who might be behind this.’

  Roy Grace stared back at him; in the overall scheme of things, three hundred pounds was neither here nor there, but he would still have to justify the expenditure to his seniors. He hoped it was money well spent. ‘Pollock rings a faint bell,’ he said, frowning in thought.

  ‘Used to be involved with Amis Smallbone going back some years.’

  ‘Amis Smallbone?’ Grace said.

  ‘Yeah. They were pretty thick at one time.’

  ‘Tell me more about Pollock.’

  ‘A fat bastard who stitches up everyone he deals with. Lives abroad, Marbella. Used to live in Brighton. He’s flash, likes expensive watches. High-end fence; wouldn’t touch anything below ten grand value. Also got a loan-sharking business with extortionate interest rates. Always kept under the police radar, somehow, but made a lot of enemies. I’m told he lives on a boat in Marbella, surrounded by henchmen. Only people who are desperate do business with him.’

  ‘Sounds a nice man.’

  ‘He’s a regular sweetheart.’

  Grace’s first action, after recovering his mobile phone, and walking out through the prison gates, was to phone Emma-Jane Boutwood at the Incident Room, and instruct her to drop everything and start working on an Association Chart for Eamonn Pollock.

  Then he turned right and walked down the slope towards the visitors’ car park, thinking hard. Pollock. The name was very definitely ringing a bell, but he could not immediately place it.

  57

  PC Susi Holiday took the call on her radio as they were driving west along Portland Road in Hove, approaching the spot where they had attended a fatal accident earlier this year, where a cyclist had gone under a lorry. Her colleague Dave Roberts, who was driving the response car this morning, could hear the conversation on his, too. ‘Old Rectory, Ovingdean. Know that?’ she asked.

  He frowned. ‘No.’

  ‘Sounds like another potential G5.’ She punched the address into the satnav. ‘Spin her round.’

  ‘Thought we’d had our quota for this year,’ Roberts replied.

  ‘Dead people can’t count,’ she retorted, cynically.

  As he indicated left, then turned down towards the seafront, her radio crackled again with the voice of
the Controller. She inclined her head, listening, then said to Roberts, ‘Been called in by a lady called Carol Morgan. She has a tenant in a cottage and is worried about him.’

  Ovingdean, a village to the east of Brighton’s Kemp Town, just a mile north of the sea, behind Roedean Girls’ School, surrounded by stunning rolling farmland, was a place that Dave Roberts had often thought he would like to retire to, if he could afford it. ‘Do we have his name?’

  ‘Lester Stork.’ She grinned. ‘Funny name.’

  ‘Lester Stork? He’s a shitbag.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Small-time fence. He was one of the first people I ever nicked when I first started on the force. Must be as old as God, I’m surprised he’s still alive.’

  ‘Sounds like he might not be.’

  They turned left on the seafront and headed east, passing the marina, Roedean, and made another left just before St Dunstan’s, the famous home for blind ex-servicemen, and threaded round uphill, into the village. A short distance on, the satnav told them they had arrived.

  Almost immediately on their left was an imposing Sussex flint farmhouse, with a large paddock behind it. ‘This is it!’ Susi said, reading the name, the old rectory, smartly sign-written.

  He turned the car into the circular drive and pulled up in front of the porch. As they got out, into a strong wind, an extremely attractive woman in her mid-forties, with long, wavy blonde hair, dressed in jodhpurs, riding boots and a sleeveless puffa, appeared from around the side of the house, leading a horse, which was pulling reluctantly against its reins.

  ‘Henry!’ she remonstrated, in one of those naturally posh voices that Susi secretly envied. Then she saw the police car and the two uniformed officers climbing out of it, pulling on their hats, raised a hand, turned to the horse again, spoke sternly to it, then waited for the officers. ‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘He’s in a bit of a strop this morning, that’s all.’

  ‘Mrs Carol Morgan?’ Susi Holiday asked.

  ‘Yes, that’s me. Thank you for coming. Gosh, you’re jolly prompt. I had visions of you taking a couple of days!’

  ‘We’d hope not,’ Dave Roberts said. ‘We had a report that you are concerned about a tenant.’

  ‘Yes, that’s right.’ She pointed at the side of the house. ‘We have a little cottage at the rear that we’ve rented out for the past five years. He’s a strange character, very pleasant, nothing bad to say about him, sort of keeps himself to himself.’ She frowned. ‘But last night I heard his van – it has rather a distinctive sound; my husband, John, thinks it needs a new exhaust – coming home just before midnight. Then this morning, when I woke up, I could hear the engine running. I went out to feed Henry at 7 a.m. The front door of the house was shut. I rang the bell, but there was no answer. I gave it a few hours, then tried again at midday. That’s when I decided to phone you. I really hope I’m not wasting your time…’

  ‘Not at all,’ Susi Holiday said. ‘You did exactly the right thing.’

  ‘I was worried, you see. I read an article in the Argus a couple of weeks ago about the number of false emergency calls made.’

  ‘My colleague’s right, Mrs Morgan,’ PC Roberts said. ‘Your tenant’s name is Lester Stork?’

  The horse pulled, as if impatient, and she gave a sharp tug on the reins. ‘Henry!’ Then she turned to the police officers. ‘That’s right. Lester Stork.’

  ‘Could you show us where the cottage is, please?’ Susi Holiday asked.

  ‘Yes, of course. Let me just tie Henry up, then follow me.’

  She tethered the horse to a wooden rail, then they walked around the side of the house, up a short, steep farm track. It led to a small red-brick cottage, more recently built than the main house, with a decrepit garage annexed to it. A rusty white Renault van was parked outside, and they could clearly hear the engine idling as they neared it.

  Dave Roberts, holding on to his hat to stop it blowing off in the wind, peered into the driver’s window of the van, then opened the door, which was unlocked, and peered inside. The cab was empty and apart from a petrol can, a wheelbrace and an old newspaper, the rear was empty, too. As a precaution, in case fingerprints became important, he took out his handkerchief, gloved his hand inside it, and turned off the ignition.

  Then he entered the porch, rang the doorbell, and moments later, rapped hard on the cheap front door with his knuckles. When there was no response, he knelt, pushed open the letter box and sniffed. He couldn’t smell anything untoward. To the left of the door there was a window onto a small sitting room, with an elderly television, which was off.

  ‘Midnight, yesterday, he came back, Mrs Morgan?’

  ‘Yes, a bit before.’

  ‘Do you have his phone number?’

  She gave it to him. Susi Holiday dialled and all three of them heard it ringing, until it fell silent and the answerphone kicked in, with a chirpy voice. ‘You’ve reached Lester Stork. I might be busy, I might be dead. Take a chance, leave me a message!’

  The three of them walked around the house, peering in the rest of the downstairs windows. They saw a small, empty kitchen, and tried the side door, but it was locked. At the rear of the house the curtains were drawn. On the far side, where the garage was, there were no windows. Back around the front they stopped outside the porch. Roberts studied the locks on the front door. ‘Do you have a spare key, Mrs Morgan?’

  ‘I do, but I’m not sure where it is.’

  ‘Would you mind if we broke in?’ he asked.

  She shook her head. ‘Go ahead.’

  He braced himself, then kicked the front door hard. It did not move. He tried again, even harder. Still it did not move. He frowned at his colleague. ‘Feels like it’s reinforced.’ He went over to the window, pulled on a pair of gloves, then pulled out his baton and hit the glass hard. It shattered, a chunk of it falling into the sitting room. Then he put his hand through, feeling for the latch. But could not move it. ‘Bugger!’ he said, then turned apologetically and said, ‘Forgive my language.’

  Carol Morgan grinned.

  ‘Window lock,’ he said. ‘Not making it easy for intruders.’

  ‘He must have fitted them himself,’ she said.

  He smashed out the rest of the glass with his baton, then climbed into the little room, which smelled like a million cigarettes had been smoked in it without a window ever being opened. A couple of dull, framed horsey prints were on the otherwise bare walls. The furniture, on a threadbare carpet, was meagre and tired. He called out, ‘Mr Stork! This is the police! Mr Stork?’ He waited some moments then walked through into the hallway. And stopped.

  It had been many years since Dave Roberts had last seen the old crook, but he had no difficulty recognizing him. Lester Stork, a wizened shrimp of a man, who might have been a jockey in a better life, was dressed in a shabby herringbone jacket, crumpled cream shirt, grey trousers and cheap black shoes. He looked like he had been heading upstairs, but never made it. He lay sprawled across the bottom steps, eyes wide open and sightless, dark-brown wig askew.

  The PC knelt, peeled off one glove and touched his face. It was stone cold. He felt for a pulse, even though it was obvious the man had clearly been dead for some hours. He checked his face carefully and his position, looking for any signs that he might have died violently, but could see none. But the immediate thoughts going through his experienced mind were why had he shut the front door behind him, leaving his van engine running?

  ‘Maybe the wind shut the door? But why would anyone arrive home close to midnight and go into his house leaving his van’s engine running?’ Dave asked.

  ‘You’d only do that, surely, if you were planning to go out again,’ PC Susi Holiday said, staring at the body.

  ‘So where is a seventy-five-year-old man going at midnight on a Sunday, in an old van?’ he queried.

  ‘Not clubbing, that’s for sure.’

  ‘Probably not to church either,’ Dave Roberts said. He radioed for their Sergeant to attend,
then requested a Coroner’s Officer.

  While he was making his calls, Susi walked through into the room at the rear, little bigger than a box room, and switched on the light, and immediately realized why the curtains were drawn.

  There was a stash of antique items on the floor. She saw bronze statuettes; Chinese vases; a silver tea set; an ornate clock; several oil paintings; a gold plate. Immediately, well aware of the major domestic burglary that had taken place in the city less than a fortnight ago, she pulled out her phone, selected the camera icon, and took a rapid series of photographs. Then she contacted the Incident Room for an email address, and sent them with a brief note:

  Found this stash at a G5 of an old fence. In case any of it might have come from your Withdean Road robbery.

  58

  ‘I do horrible things sometimes,’ she said.

  ‘Go on.’

  There was a long silence. After several minutes the Munich psychiatrist, Dr Eberstark, asked, ‘What kind of horrible things, Sandy?’

  She lay on the couch, facing away from him so they had no eye contact. ‘I put an advertisement in their local paper’s Deaths column that their baby had died.’

  ‘Roy Grace’s baby?’

  ‘His and his bitch girlfriend.’

  ‘But you’re not with him any more. It was your choice to leave him, wasn’t it?’

  ‘I didn’t think he’d replace me with some bloody bitch.’

  Dr Eberstark sat impassively, his face revealing nothing. After several minutes he asked, ‘What did you expect after nine years? For him to be celibate for the rest of his life?’

  It was Sandy’s turn to be silent for some minutes. Then she said, ‘I did something else horrible too.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I vandalized the bitch’s car. What’s her name? Cleo? I carved on the bonnet, with a chisel. COPPER’S TART. UR BABY IS NEXT.’

  ‘Nine years after you’d left him?’

  ‘Almost ten years, actually.’

  ‘What did you think you would achieve by doing that?’