Stuart Pawson - Some By Fire

"Bloody 'ell! We ought to be detectives."

"We are detectives."

"So Carter saw this punk bird mark the house and Duncan told his brother he was going out with someone with purple hair? It's got to be the same one."

"I'd have thought so. When did punk start?" I asked him.

"Umm, about 1980?" he suggested. "Bit before, maybe."

"Mid-seventies, according to the library. Their gazetteer says it "exploded" in 1976 and that's the year the Sex Pistols released "Anarchy in the UK". Never Mind the Bollocks was in '77. There can't have been too many of them around in '75 'specially in the provinces.

Maybe she was before her time, like me. How do you fancy a day on the telephone?"

"Er, I don't," he replied glumly, anticipating what I had in mind.

"But David," I began, 'it's essential work, which may lead to the apprehension of a vicious criminal. It's not just the glamorous jobs, such as mine, that bring results. They also serve who sit in the office all day drinking vast quantities of machine coffee."

"Gimme t'list," he said, reaching for it.

If you go into any high street shop and buy something, a vacuum cleaner for example, the pimply assistant manager who takes your order will punch your name and post code into his terminal and say: "Is that Mr.

Windsor of Buckingham Palace Road?" and you say it is and your full name and address is printed on the invoice. Our system is nearly as good. If you have ever bought anything on credit, taken out a driving licence, voted in an election or owned a telephone, we have you on record. Or maybe you've joined a motoring organisation, a book club or the Mormons. Most of these sell each other volumes of names and addresses, and we're on the circulation list. When we get really desperate we consult Somerset House. If you've been born, married or died they'll know all about it. I gave Dave the three pages of names and addresses that Jeremy had sent me from the university.

"These are Duncan Roberts's classmates," I told him, 'with their parents' addresses. It might be easier to see if mum and dad still live in the same place and ask them. Otherwise…" '… otherwise, consult the oracle," Dave finished for me.

"That's it, sunshine. And these…" I passed him another sheet, '… are names I extracted from the file yesterday. The three with the asterisks are the boyfriends of the women who died in the fire. Let's not lose sight of the fact that one of them might have started it. And then there are the names on the report that Crosby gave us. It wouldn't hurt to have a word with that lot.

I'll sort them out. If all else fails with the students, there's a department at the university called the alumni relations' office. Old boys' club to you. They might be able to help." His hangdog expression gave me a pain in the left ventricle that I couldn't ignore.

I said: "You could, of course, give Annette a crash course in the system and leave her to it." Annette Brown was a DC who'd been with us for a fortnight and had already fallen under Nigel's protective arm.

"I was going to ask you," he replied, 'but it'll upset Goldenballs."

"He'll recover. Anything else?"

"No. Where will you be if I need you?"

"Chemist's, to start with."

"Chemist's? What for?"

"Something for bloody midge bites."

It cost four quid and didn't work, and now I smelt like an apothecary's pinny. I came out of the toilets and went back upstairs to my office.

Dave was busy on the phone, pencil poised over a half-filled page. I reread the list of Fox's shady dealings that Crosby had given us and extracted any relevant names. If they were really on Fox's payroll we'd need a jemmy to prise it from them, but it was worth a try. They'd be relaxed, not expecting a call from us. When they say they'll only talk in front of a solicitor you know you've struck paydirt.

Dave knocked and came in. He sniffed and said: "Cor, have you been using fly spray? I've found a couple of locals, if you want to be getting on with it."

"Who are they?" I asked, leaning back.

"Terence John Alderdice read chemistry at Leeds Uni with Duncan Roberts. He lives in Leeds and will be home after about six, according to his wife. And, wait for it, Watson Pretty, who was the ex-boyfriend of Daphne Turnbull, Jasmine's mother, now lives in Huddersfield, right on our doorstep. He's out on licence after serving five years for the manslaughter of one of his subsequent girlfriends. They had a quarrel and she fell down the cellar steps and broke her neck. Oh, and she had a ten-year-old daughter."

"He sounds a right charmer," I said. "What do they see in them?"

Dave shrugged his shoulders. "Want me to see Alderdice tonight?" he asked, but my phone rang before I could answer.

I listened, raising a finger to Dave to signify that this was interesting. "Grab your coat," I told him as I put the phone down and unhooked mine from behind the door.

"What is it?" he shouted after me as we ran down the stairs.

"Halifax Central have just arrested someone for using Joe McLelland's Visa card in Tesco. He'll be in their cells by the time we get there."

If my geometry was any good he wasn't the one in the video. He had the build, but was only about five feet six. They brought him from the cell to an interview room and sat him down with his packet of fags before him. He was about twenty, wearing torn jeans and a T-shirt from the Pigeon Pie English Pub on Tenerife. They served Tetley's bitter and Yorkshire puddings and I could hardly wait to go.

"So where did you get the card?" Sparky demanded. I've told him before about being too circumspect.

"I found it."

"Where?"

"In t'car park."

"Which car park?"

"Tesco's."

"When did you find it?"

"Just then."

"Before you went shopping?"

"Yeah."

"What were you doing in the car park?"

"Goin' shoppin'! What do you think I were doin'?"

"You had no money on you."

"I'd left me wallet at 'ome. I didn't realise until I was in t'shop. I was goin' to 'and t'card in, but I'd filled me trolley by then and I din't know what to do, so I used t'card." He whined his well-rehearsed story as if it were the most self-evident explanation in the world.

"You fell to temptation," I said.

He swivelled to face me and jumped on my words as if they were a life raft. "That's it! I fell to temptation!"

"Does your weekly shop normally run to four bottles of Glenfiddich?"

Dave wondered.

"We'saving a party," he replied, lamely.

"And six hundred cigs?"

"I'm a 'cavy smoker."

"And two packs of fillet steak?"

"You've gotta eat."

Dave was silent for a few seconds, then he asked him if he had form. He had.

"What for?" Dave asked.

"Thieving."

"Have you done time?"

"Yeah."

"How was it?"

"Orrible. I'atedit."

"You could go back in for this."

"It was a mistake! "Onest! I din't mean to use it, it just 'appened. Things just 'appen to me. Like 'e said, I was tempted."

I clunked my chair back on all four legs. "You made a good job of Mr.

McLelland's signature," I said.

"I just copied it."

"Whoever stole this card from Joe McLelland left him tied in his chair, and his wife, for ten hours," I told him. "They are both elderly. It's a miracle they were found. This was nearly a murder case. Now I'm prepared to believe that it wasn't you who tied them up. I'm prepared to believe that someone sold you the card. That's what I think, so if I'm right you'd better tell me a name, or we'll just have to assume you took it off them yourself. What do you say?"

His elbows were on the table, his fingers interlocked and both thumb-nails between his teeth. He chewed away for nearly a minute, then looked straight at me and said: "I found it. If I'm lying may my little lad be dead when I go 'ome."