Short Shockers: Collection Two

  There had been a big police corruption scandal some years back, which Roy Grace’s father had talked about, and which had left a bad taste in everyone’s mouth – police and public alike. He decided, from the Sergeant’s slightly bitter tone, not to probe. Just as he was about to make a non-committal comment, his colleague said, ‘Here, that’s it, over on the left, on that corner!’

  Grace pulled over. There was a narrow driveway with in-and-out gates; both sets were open – and from their poor state of repair, it did not look as if they had been closed in years. ‘I think if I lived on this street, I’d keep my gates shut – open like that is an invitation,’ he said.

  ‘Most people don’t have a bloody clue about security,’ the Detective Sergeant said. ‘All right, before we get out of the car, what’s this place tell you at first glance?’

  Roy Grace stared at the house. It was secluded from the street by a wooden fence badly in need of repair, rising above which, on the other side, was a tall, neatly trimmed privet hedge. The house itself was an Edwardian mansion, with window frames that, he could see from here, looked in poor condition. ‘Elderly people live here,’ Grace said. ‘They’ve probably owned the property for several decades, and never bothered with an alarm. There’s no box on the outside of the house.’

  The Detective Sergeant raised his eyebrows. ‘What makes you think the occupants are elderly?’ He looked down at his notepad. ‘Mr and Mrs Cunningham.’

  ‘Old people get worried about money, sir. They don’t like to spend anything they don’t have to. So they haven’t done maintenance on the exterior for a very long time. But I suspect they are keen gardeners – and they have the time, which means they are retired. Look at the condition of the hedge. It’s immaculate – trimmed by a perfectionist.’

  ‘Let’s see if you’re right,’ Bill Stoker said, climbing out.

  Grace looked at him. ‘Is there something you know about these people that I don’t?’

  Stoker gave a non-committal shrug and a wry smile. The two men walked up the threadbare gravel of the driveway. An elderly Honda saloon was parked near the front door. From what they could see of the garden from their position, all the shrubbery was neatly tended, but close up, Grace could see the exterior of the house was in an even worse state of repair than he had first assessed, with large chunks of the pebbledash rendering missing and a few ominous patches of damp on the walls.

  They entered the porch and rang the bell. Instantly, they heard the half-hearted bark of a dog, and a few moments later the door was opened by a wiry, energetic-looking man in his early seventies, Grace estimated. Grace shot Bill Stoker a quick glance; Stoker gave a small grin of approval.

  ‘Mr Cunningham?’

  ‘Yes?’

  Grace pulled out his warrant card holder and flipped it open, to show his card and the Sussex Police badge. It was the first time he had used it, and he felt a deep thrill. ‘Detective Constable Grace and Detective Sergeant Stoker, from Brighton CID, sir. We understand you’ve had a break-in?’

  The old man, dressed in a plaid shirt with a cravat, chinos and monogrammed velvet slippers, looked distinctly on edge and a tad lost. His hair was a little long and unkempt, giving him the air of an absent-minded professor. He did not look to Roy Grace like a man who had ever held a staid office job – possibly a former antiques dealer or someone in the arts world, perhaps. Definitely some kind of wheeler-dealer.

  ‘Yes, that’s right. Bloody awful. Thank you for coming. I’m so sorry to have troubled you.’

  ‘No trouble at all, sir,’ Bill Stoker said. ‘That’s what we’re here for.’

  ‘It’s shaken us up, I can tell you. Please come in. My wife and I have tried to be careful not to touch anything, but the ruddy dog’s trampled all over – I suppose what you fellows call – the crime scene.’

  ‘We’ll have SOCO take some paw prints, so we can rule him out as a suspect, sir.’ Bill Stoker said, entering the rather grand panelled hallway. Several fine-looking oil paintings were hung along the walls, and it was furnished with tasteful antiques. He knelt to stroke the dog which had padded over towards him, tongue out. ‘Hello, fellow!’ He rubbed the dog’s chest gently. ‘What’s your name?’ He asked, looking at the collar tag. ‘Fluff. You’re Fluff, are you?’ Then he heard a female voice.

  ‘Who is it, darling?’

  ‘The Police. CID. Two detectives.’

  ‘Oh, thank God.’

  Caroline Cunningham was an elegant woman in her late sixties, with neatly coiffed hair and a face that was still handsome despite her wrinkles. She must have been very beautiful in her youth, Roy Grace thought. She was wearing a white blouse, black slacks and sparkly trainers.

  Her husband introduced them, getting their names and ranks the wrong way round. Roy Grace corrected him.

  ‘Would you gentlemen like some tea or coffee?’ she asked.

  Grace did fancy a coffee but was unsure it would be professional to accept. ‘We’re fine,’ he said, ‘Thank you very much.’ Then he noticed the look of dismay on Bill Stoker’s face. Ignoring it, he ploughed on. ‘I understand two officers attended an emergency call made at 7.10 a.m. today from this address, Mr and Mrs Cunningham?’

  ‘Correct. We didn’t know if the blighters . . . were still in the house. We were bloody terrified – and the dog was no damned use at all!’

  ‘My husband has a shotgun, but of course it’s locked away in the safe in the garage,’ she said.

  ‘Probably just as well, madam,’ Bill Stoker said. ‘Once a firearm is involved, matters can turn very dangerous very quickly.’

  ‘I’d have given them both barrels and to hell with it,’ Crafty Cunningham said.

  From the grimace on his face, Roy Grace had no doubt he meant it. ‘I think what would be most helpful is if you can you talk us through exactly what happened from the moment you discovered the break-in, then we’d like to go through what has been taken.’

  ‘I’m not sure we can remember exactly what’s been taken – but the majority of it, certainly,’ the old man replied.

  ‘Georgian silver mostly,’ Caroline Cunningham said. ‘They knew their stuff whoever did this. They didn’t seem to bother with much else.’

  ‘From what you are saying, you seem pretty certain it was more than one intruder?’ Grace said.

  ‘Damned right it was,’ Crafty said. ‘The buggers made themselves breakfast in the kitchen before they left! Two bowls of cereal, bread, butter and marmalade. Can you believe it?’

  ‘Maybe it would be a good idea if we could sit down and go through everything,’ Bill Stoker said. ‘Then we’ll take a look around afterwards. Is there a room that the . . . er . . . intruders didn’t enter, to your knowledge?’

  ‘The conservatory,’ Caroline Cunningham said.

  ‘Let’s go in there.’

  ‘Are you sure you wouldn’t like tea or coffee?’ she asked.

  This time Grace looked at his Sergeant for a lead.

  ‘I wouldn’t say no to a cuppa,’ Stoker said. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘A coffee for me, please,’ Grace said. ‘But I’m a bit worried, if they’ve been in your kitchen, about contaminating any possible evidence.’

  The couple looked at each other guiltily. ‘Erm, I’m afraid we have already been in there, and made ourselves something to eat – not that either of us had much of an appetite. But we had a feeling it was going to be a long morning,’ Crafty replied.

  Bill Stoker looked at his watch. ‘Someone from SOCO should be along shortly to dust for prints. They’ll need to take both of yours, to know which ones to eliminate, if that’s all right?’

  ‘Yes, indeed,’ Caroline Cunningham said.

  ‘And the dog’s, also?’ Her husband said, with a smile.

  ‘Have you lost a lot?’ Grace asked them.

  ‘Quite a bit, in value,’ Crafty replied.

  ‘Much of it sentimental. Bits and pieces I’d inherited from my parents,’ Caroline said. ‘And wedding presents. Christening
cups and napkin rings. To be honest, we’re pretty numb. A lot’s happened in the last hour – hour and a half . . .’ She looked at the wall, and frowned. ‘No! Bastards.’

  Grace followed her gaze and saw a rectangular shadow on the wall.

  ‘That was a beautiful antique French wall clock.’

  ‘Belonged to my great-grandfather,’ Crafty Cunningham said ruefully. ‘Bloody hell, what else has gone?’

  ‘I’m afraid people often keep finding things missing for weeks after a burglary,’ Bill Stoker said. ‘Let’s go and sit down and take things slowly from the beginning.’

  *

  Tony Langiotti watched from his office window as the white Renault van came around the corner into the mews. His mews. He owned all eight of the lock-up garages, and the warehouse opposite. That meant no strangers with prying eyes could see who came and went. He put down his coffee, lit a cigarette, and with it dangling from his lips went outside to meet the two Welsh scumbags.

  ‘You’re fucking late. What kept you?’ he said to the van’s driver, Dai Lewellyn. The Welshman was in his early twenties, with a cratered, emaciated face and a hairstyle like his mother had just tipped a bowl of spaghetti on his head. ‘Stop to get your toenails varnished or something?’

  ‘We went to get breakfast, look you,’ Lewellyn said cheerily, in a sing-song voice.

  ‘We’ve been up since early, like, we were hungry, like,’ the other man, in the passenger seat said. His name was Rees Hughes. Both occupants of the van were dressed in postmen’s uniforms.

  Langiotti hauled up the door of garage number 4, and signalled for them to drive in. Then he switched on the interior light and pulled the door back down behind them.

  They were in a large space, eight lock-up garages wide, with all the internal walls knocked down. There were two other vans in there, a machine for manufacturing number plates, a number of old vending machines stacked against the far wall, and a line of trestle tables, which gave it the faint appearance of a village hall.

  ‘So what you tossers got for me?’ The cigarette dangled from Langiotti’s lips, with an inch of ash on the end.

  ‘I don’t like your tone,’ the fat one said in a mild rebuke, getting out of the van.

  ‘Yeah, well, I don’t like being kept waiting, see? So what you got for me?’ He walked around to the rear of the van, and saw the two large grey mail sacks lying there, each stamped GPO.

  ‘We did the Dyke Road Avenue House.’

  ‘Yeah? Any bother?’

  ‘No, there was no alarm, like you said. The dog wasn’t any trouble either, like you said it wouldn’t be.’

  ‘I do my research,’ Langiotti said. ‘You got some good gear for me?’

  Dai pulled the first sack out; it clinked as he put it down, then he untied the neck and Langiotti peered in, taking a pair of leather gloves from his pocket and pulling them on. He removed a silver Georgian fruit bowl from the sack and held it up, turning it around until he could see the hallmark. ‘Nice,’ he said. ‘Very nice.’

  ‘We took the Georgian silver – we identified it from the pictures you gave us from the insurance company. There was a nice-looking clock we saw that wasn’t on the list, but it looked good to us.’

  ‘Anything else that wasn’t on the list?’

  The two Welshmen looked at each other and shook their heads.’

  ‘I wouldn’t want to find out you’d nicked something that you didn’t tell me about, know what I mean? That you’d kept something for yourselves, yeah? It’s when people try to flog stuff on the side that trouble happens. That’s how you get nicked, you know what I’m saying?’

  Dai Lewellyn pointed at the two sacks. ‘Everything we took is in these.’

  Langiotti took each item out, carefully setting it down on the trestles. Then he ran through the haul, checking each item against the insurance inventory, and jotting numbers down on his notepad. When he had finished he said, ‘Right, by my reckoning, I’ve got a market value here of forty-five thousand quid, less what I’ll have to knock off. We agreed ten per cent of value, right?’

  The two Welshmen nodded.

  ‘Right, come across to my office and I’ll square up, and give you tonight’s address. Got a good one for you tonight, I have.’

  Their eyes lit up greedily.

  *

  The Cunninghams took the two detectives into the rooms where items had been stolen, making an inventory as they went. But with the couple constantly interrupting and contradicting each other, it took some time for Roy Grace and Bill Stoker to get a clear idea of the sequence of events and of what had been taken.

  The dining room had been the most badly affected. Caroline Cunningham pointed out, tearfully, the bare sideboard where much of the fine silver had stood, as well as a Georgian silver fruit bowl, which, she told them, had been in her family for five generations, and had stood in the centre of the fine oval dining table.

  Back in the conservatory again and sipping another cup of coffee, Grace studied his notes and asked them to go through the events of the early morning once more. Crafty Cunningham said he was roused by a whimpering sound, which he thought was his wife having a nightmare, and happened to notice on the beside clock that it was just past 5 a.m.; then he went back to sleep. He went downstairs at 7.10 a.m. to find the burglars had broken in through the toilet window, which was along the side of the house. The glass had been cut neatly, rather than broken, which meant their entry had been almost silent. They had left via the kitchen door, which the Cunninghams had found unlocked.

  Roy Grace stared out at the large, beautifully tended garden, with its swimming pool and tennis court, and did a quick calculation. The burglars had entered before sunrise. OK, it was logical for them to have broken in while it was still dark. But why at 5 a.m.? That risked that daylight would be breaking when they left. Why not much earlier in the night? Or was this the last of a series of houses the perpetrators were burgling last night? But if that was the case, surely the police would have heard of other burglaries by now – it was nearly 9.30 a.m.

  ‘I don’t suppose you have any idea what time the intruders might have left?’ He addressed both the Cunninghams.

  They shook their heads.

  ‘What time are your newspapers delivered?’

  ‘About a quarter to seven,’ Caroline Cunningham said.

  ‘If you could give me the details of your newsagent, we’ll check with the paperboy to see if he noticed anything unusual. Also, what time does your post normally arrive?’

  ‘About 7.30 a.m.,’ the old man said.

  ‘We’ll check with the post office also.’

  Then the two detectives went back carefully over the inventory of stolen items, reading it all out to the couple and asking them several times if there was anything else that had been taken which they might have overlooked. It was clearly a big haul, and the burglars seemed to be professionals who knew exactly what they were taking.

  As the Cunninghams showed the two detectives to the front door, thanking them for their help, Crafty suddenly said, ‘Oh my God, my stamps!’ He clapped his hand to his forehead in sudden panic.

  ‘Stamps, sir?’ Roy Grace asked.

  Caroline Cunningham gave her husband an astonished look. ‘You didn’t check, darling?’

  ‘No . . . I . . . I . . . dammit, I didn’t!’

  ‘Where are they this week?’

  Crafty looked bewildered for a moment. He stroked his chin.

  ‘My husband’s a stamp collector,’ Caroline explained. ‘But he’s paranoid about them. Twenty-five years ago his collection was stolen – we always suspected the housekeeper had something to do with it because he kept them hidden in a particular place in his den, and the thieves went straight to it. Ever since, he’s been paranoid – he changes the hiding place every few weeks.’

  ‘You don’t use a safe, sir?’ Roy Grace asked.

  ‘Never trusted them,’ Crafty replied. ‘My parents had a safe in their house jemmied open. I prefer m
y hiding places.’

  ‘I keep telling him he’s bloody stupid,’ his wife said. ‘But he won’t listen.’

  ‘What’s the value of your collection, Mr Cunningham?’ Bill Stoker asked.

  ‘About one hundred thousand pounds,’ he said absently, scratching his head now, thinking. ‘I . . . I had them under the carpet beneath the dining table,’ he said. ‘But then I moved them . . . um . . . ah, yes, of course, of course! I remember!’

  With the rest of them in tow, he hurried through an internal door into the integral double garage. A large, elderly Rover was parked in there, along with an assortment of tools and two lawnmowers, one sitting on top of a hessian mat. He pulled the mower back and, like an excited child, knelt and lifted the mat.

  Then he looked up in utter disbelief. ‘They’ve gone,’ he said lamely, looking gutted. ‘They’ve gone.’

  Both detectives frowned. ‘You kept a hundred thousand pounds worth of stamps beneath an old mat in the garage?’ Bill Stoker said, incredulously.

  ‘They’re sealed,’ he said. ‘And there’s no damp in the garage.’

  ‘How easy would the stamps be to identify, sir?’ Roy Grace asked.

  ‘Very easy if someone tried to sell them as a single collection. They’re all British Colonial from the Victorian period and there are some very rare ones among them. But not so easy if they sold them individually or in strips.’

  ‘And you have them insured, sir?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘No insurance stipulation about having them locked in a safe or a bank vault?’

  He shook his head. ‘Only have to do that if the house is empty.’

  ‘Do you have any photographs of these stamps, Mr Cunningham?’ Roy Grace asked.

  ‘Yes, I do. I can make you a copy of the list the insurance company has.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ the young detective said. ‘That would be very helpful. We’ll be organizing some house-to-house inquiries over the next few days.’

  Afterwards in the car, heading back to the police station, Roy Grace said, ‘Something doesn’t feel right.’

  ‘About the Cunninghams?’

  He nodded.