Stuart Pawson - Some By Fire

"Sorry I'm late," I said.

"That's OK. Graham had a quick look at the Nicholas Kingstons; there's only a handful of them. Going by approximate DOB, making him in his fifties, the most likely one is a Nicholas James William Kingston who lives in Kendal. They're having a closer look at him right now.

Anything else?"

I told him about Kingston's fascination with the witch doctors, and his indifference to pain. It was stop-start motoring along the Marylebone Road and no better along the Edgware Road, except that we were now heading north. Every junction was controlled by traffic lights and the bits in between were clogged with buses trying to get past parked vehicles, for mile after mile. It was nearly as bad as Heckley High Street when the school turns out.

I was hungry, and Dave can eat anything, any time. He's what they call a greedy so-and-so, unless he has a twenty-foot tapeworm eating away inside him. I said: "They're paying, so which do you fancy; the Savoy Grill or the Little Chef?"

"If it's on the SFO," he replied, 'we might as well splash out. Bugger the expense."

"Right," I agreed, 'so Little Chef here we come."

All the postman had brought me was a credit card statement and there were no messages on the ansa phone Dave's wife, Shirley, had invited me in for some supper when I dropped him off, but I'd declined.

Sometimes they're just being polite. The all-day breakfast had been over two hours ago and I was peckish again, so I had a banana sandwich with honey and a sprinkling of cocoa. "Condensed milk," I muttered to myself. "Why can't you find condensed milk these days?" The cut-and-thrust of the M1, plus three hours of near-total concentration, had left me on edge. I was stiff and tired, but knew I wouldn't be able to sleep. Jacquie's number was still on the telephone pad, and I thought about ringing it. For a friendly chat, that's all. Make sure she was all right.

But it would have been self-indulgent and inconsiderate of her feelings, so the phone stayed where it was. Part of me wished I'd gone in for that coffee at Elspeth's. It would have ended in tears, probably, but would that matter? Is ending in tears worse than never happening? I doubt it. In fact, I'm sure of it. I wondered if she'd finished her painting.

Dave was right. I'd make an excuse to see Mrs. Holmes again. Time it so we could repair to the riverside pub for a ham sandwich, with salad and a glass of orange juice; unless she had eventually developed a taste for beer. Then, perhaps, she'd show me some more of her drawings.

Things were moving on all fronts, which is how I like it. I found my box of oil paints in the back bedroom and a stretched canvas, about two by two, which hadn't been used. All this talk of pictures had inspired me. I under painted the canvas with a big red circle and then divided it into segments. It was going to be an abstract inspired by a cross-section of a tapeworm. I edged the segments in blue, didn't like it and tried orange. That was better. By one o'clock it was mapped out and I knew exactly how it would look. The circle had become broken and scattered, a jumble of interlocking triangles and rectangles. All it needed now was the colour piling on, thicker than jam. It was a happy and optimistic me that fell into bed, still smelling of natural turpentine, to dream of girls and art galleries and long student days.

Sparky was rapidly becoming the bringer of good news. I was having my morning coffee with Mr. Wood when he knocked and came in, looking pleased with himself. "Pour yourself a cup, David," Gilbert invited.

"Not often we see you up here."

"No thanks, boss," Dave replied. "I prefer it from the machine. It has this pleasant… under taste of oxtail soup."

"Don't know how you drink the damn stuff," Gilbert declared.

"He doesn't drink it," I said. "He drinks mine. What is it, Dave? You came in grinning like a dog with two bollocks, so you've obviously something to tell us."

He tilted his head to one side, thought about it for a few seconds and stated: "Generally speaking, dogs do have two bollocks."

"Not on the Sylvan Fields estate," I snarled.

"Oh, right. Nobody has two of anything there. Nicholas Kingston. The one with a Kendal address, that is. Our little friends at the Serious Fraud Office have done the homework that I set them yesterday and scored ten out of ten. They've got better contacts than we have, that's for certain."

"Go on," I invited.

"Well, first of all, this Nick Kingston earns a respectable income as a university lecturer, which is what we had hoped for. Bit more than you take home, Charlie, but not quite as much as Mr. Wood. The interesting bit is the university. He's at Lancaster."

"Lancaster!" I exclaimed.

"Yep."

"Struth!"

"What's special about Lancaster?" Gilbert asked.

"On Monday," I replied, 'or perhaps Tuesday, we had a phone call from Duncan Roberts junior, known as DJ. He's the teenage son of Andrew Roberts, brother of Duncan senior who topped himself after putting his hand up for the fire in Leeds."

Gilbert nodded, pretending he understood.

"He wanted to talk about his Uncle Duncan, see if we could tell him anything. His parents live in Welwyn Garden City," I continued, 'but when we checked, young DJ was ringing from Lancaster." I turned to Dave. "Can you see if he's at university there, please?" I asked.

"Dunnit. He is, reading mechanical engineering."

"Blimey!" I exclaimed. "That's interesting. I don't know what it means, but it's interesting."

"Could be a coincidence," Gilbert warned. It's his job to remind us of the mundane possibilities.

It's mine to go off on wild flights of fancy; to soar with the eagles and wage war on the forces of evil. That's how I see it. I turned to Dave. "Well done, Pissquick," I said. "You'd better take a day off this weekend."

He pulled a glum face and said: "But… don't you want to know what I came to tell you?"

"You mean there's more?" I queried.

"Just a bit. University lecturer is only one of his jobs."

"Where did you say this info came from?" Gilbert interrupted.

"The SFO," Dave answered.

"No, where did they get it from?"

"No askee," he replied with a shrug, implying ask no questions, be told no lies.

"The Inland bloody Revenue, I bet," Gilbert stated.

"Like I said," Dave told him, 'they have better contacts than us." The Inland Revenue's principal task is collecting taxes. They're not a reservoir of essential information for the law enforcement agencies. If it were common knowledge that they supplied us with details of their clients' finances it would hamper their tax-collecting abilities, so they don't do it. Anything an individual employee of theirs might pass on is strictly off the record.

"So what else did they say?" I demanded, impatiently.

"Apparently," Dave continued, "Mr. Kingston also earns a healthy salary working as a freelance consultant. His main customer for this work in fact, his only customer for the last few years is… wait for it… something known as the Reynard Organisation."

"The Reynard Organisation?" I whispered.

Dave nodded. "Yep!"

"Reynard the Fox. Holy mother of Jesus!" That was it. We had the link. Duncan senior started the fire, Melissa put him up to it, Kingston was pulling her strings. Crosby owned the house and he was Fox's sworn enemy. And Kingston worked for Fox. QED, quod erat demonstrandum. "Which was to be proved." All we had to do now was the demonstrandum bit.

I put the phone to my ear and nodded to Annette Brown, our swish new DC. She was seated in my office where I could see her through the window. We'd set up a telephone conference on the internals, with Dave, Nigel, Jeff and myself all listening in the big office.

Annette picked up my phone and dialled the Kendal number. After three rings a man said: "Hello." It's difficult to form an impression from just hello.