Stuart Pawson - Some By Fire

"So what do you want me to do?" I asked.

"Anything you can," he replied. "You're the murder specialist, we're only fraud. Find Wakefield for us. You're nearer to Fox's base than we are. See what you can dig up."

"Bring us Fox's head on a plate, Priest," Forrester said. "That's what we'd like you to do."

I finished my coffee and scanned the two lines of notes I'd made.

Looking at Tregellis I said: "So you reckon there's something in Crosby's story?"

He nodded.

"I'll be working on my own."

"We're not expecting miracles."

"Expenses?"

"Send them to me."

"Right," I said, nodding. "Right."

Tregellis stood up, rotated his head and rubbed his neck. "I'm sure you appreciate that we're in shaky territory with this, Charlie, so the fewer people who know about it the better. I'll have a word with your people and N-CIS, and your contacts down here will be Piers and Graham," he nodded at the others, 'but feel free to come straight to me if necessary. Anything else you need to know?"

"Not at the moment," I replied, then turning to Piers and Graham said:

"But if I'm working with you two I'd better have your extension numbers." They rattled them at me. "Thank you. And your home numbers and mobiles."

Forrester's glare had been honed by a thousand years of superiority since the days when it meant a sentence of death to some poor serf.

Graham, on the other hand, was beaming like the sunrise over Dublin Bay. "And I'd appreciate a copy of Rodger Wakefield's photograph and the E-fit," I added, 'as soon as possible."

I'd done some digging about Duncan Roberts and discovered that he'd slashed his own throat with a Stanley knife and bled to death. The address was in Brixton, at the far end of the Victoria Line, which was convenient. Every town should have an underground system. I ticked off the stations, memorised the poem of the month and watched the people, grateful that this wasn't my patch. I'd have arrested every one of them. As I came out of the station a gang of seriously cool youths swept by on rollerblades, swerving in and out of the parked cars, and a consumptive skinhead jerked the lead of what looked like a pit bull terrier as I passed him. Living in a city has certain attractions, even for a small-town boy like me, but I was damned if I could remember any of them as I strolled by the derelict tenements and corner shops with security grilles over the windows. Flyposters and take away trays were a major industry round here. A wino, sitting on some steps with a rubbish bag for a back rest, watched me go by, wondering if he could tap a white man for a drink, deciding against it.

I saw the street I wanted and crossed the road.

The house could have been the one in Chapeltown. The door was open and the soulless, thump of a drum machine was coming from deep within. I hammered on the door in competition with it and smelled cooking. Spicy cooking. My stomach gurgled and sent a memo to my brain. It said:

"FEED ME!" I knocked again, but harder.

A giant West Indian ambled out of the gloom, a look of bewilderment on his face. He was grey-haired, wearing jeans and a vest the size of a marquee, and carrying a soup ladle. I decided to do it the proper way.

"Detective Inspector Priest," I said, holding my ID out. "Are you the proprietor?"

"What you want?" he asked, his face immobile.

"A word. Is this your place?"

"I am the proprietor," he replied, and his expression developed a hint of pride. I'd given him a new title.

"You do bed and breakfast for DSS clients," I said.

"Full," he told me. "No room."

I know I dress casual, but I'd never thought it was that casual. "I don't want a room," I told him. "You had a man called Duncan Roberts staying here until about two months ago?"

"No," he answered.

"You did."

"No."

"He committed suicide."

"Nobody of that name stay here."

I repeated the address to him and he agreed this was the place. "Well, he lived here," I insisted.

"No."

"He killed himself. Bled to death."

"Nobody do that here."

"I want to see his room."

"He not live here."

"What happened to his belongings?"

"He not live here."

He was stubborn, unhelpful and pretending to be thick. I know the type; I'm from Yorkshire. I started again at the beginning, but it was a waste of breath. I thanked him for his time and headed back towards the station. The yob with the dog was coming the other way. He nodded a hello, I said: "Ow do."

Gilbert greeted me with: "Ah! Just the man," when I called in his office for my morning cup pa and to discuss tactics. "What the devil did you volunteer us for at the SCOGs meeting?" He rummaged through his papers for the minutes of the meeting I' dattended.

"Er, nothing," I replied.

"It says here… where is it? Oh, here we are, in Any Other Business:

Examination of all outstanding murder cases going back thirty years, with Mr. Priest typed in the margin. I know you don't like going to the meetings, Charlie, but if you think this'll get you out of them you're mistaken."

I said: "Forget it, Gilbert. We were just discussing DNA testing in old cases, and I suggested it could be taken further."

"It looks as if you volunteered to do it."

"Well, I'll un-volunteer."

"Right. How did you go on yesterday?"

He wasn't too pleased when he learned that I'd be spending a large proportion of my time working for the SFO, but relaxed when I told him that they were paying my expenses.

"So where are you starting?" he asked.

"With the files. See what's on them that I never knew about. I was a humble sergeant at the time, and not on the case."

I drank my tea and went back downstairs to review the troops. Nigel was due in court, Jeff and Maggie had appointments with various people on the robbers' circuit and Dave was hoping to talk to someone on the Sylvan Fields estate who had ambitions of becoming a paid informer.

It's heart-warming when you hear of one of them trying to better himself, restores your faith in the system.

The West Yorkshire archives are in the central registry in the cellars of the Force HQ, or the Centre, as it is more usually called. Grey steel industrial racks, row after row, are bulging with brown folders stuffed with papers and photographs. Every written page is a testimony to man's indifference to the feelings of his fellows. There's not much joy down there, little to uplift the spirit when you consider that these are the unsolved cases. The ones we crack are usually destroyed to save space.

'1975, did you say?" the civilian archivist asked as he led me between the lines of Dexion shelving.

"July," I replied. "Possibly filed as Crosby."

He turned down an aisle, read a label, went a bit further, read another, backtracked a few paces and looked up. "We need the steps," he said.

"I'll fetch them." He walked with a pronounced limp and I was impatient. Our movements had stirred up fifty years of dust and the place smelled of old paper and corruption. I rolled the steps into position and locked the wheels.

The file was about two feet thick, in four bundles tied with string. I lifted the first one out and climbed down. "I'll leave you, then," he said.

"Thanks, you've been a big help. I'll put them back when I've finished."

When he'd gone I scanned the letters and numbers on the next rack of shelves, looking for a name. I was certain this one wouldn't have been destroyed. There it was, next but one: a whole bank of shelves devoted to one villain, the biggest file we'd ever had. I ran my fingers over them, leaving a clean trail through the dust. In there were the names of thirteen women and fifty thousand men, and the contents had touched the lives of everyone in the country. One man's name was printed within those pages nine times, but he wasn't caught until a lucky copper found him with a prostitute in his car and a ball-peen hammer in his pocket. Peter Sutcliffe, better known as the Yorkshire Ripper.