Stuart Pawson - Some By Fire

"Right, Charlie," he concluded as the wheels ground to a standstill.

"It looks like you've got yourself a job." He gave his famous smile, like a chimpanzee threatening a rival, and closed his file. Everybody laughed.

"You walked into that," Les Isles told me as we strolled out into the sunshine.

"I'll never learn," I concurred.

"Mmm. You could have a point, though."

"I'm sure I have. It'll give Sparky something to do."

"How is the big daft so-and-so?"

"Just as big. Slightly dafter."

"Mr. Priest!" Someone was calling my name. I turned to see a PC following us out of the front entrance. "Telephone!" he shouted at me.

"See you, Les," I said, turning to go back.

"Tell him he's missed you," he urged.

"It might be a woman," I replied.

"Fair enough. S'long."

It wasn't, of course. It was Nigel Newley, my brightest sergeant.

"There's been another," he told me, as I leaned over the front counter, the telephone cord at full stretch.

"What, a burglary?" I asked.

"Yes. Old couple tied up and robbed, some time this morning."

"InHeckley?"

"That's right."

"Who rang in this time?"

"The BMW showroom on the high street, about fifteen minutes ago. An ambulance is taking them both to the General for a check-up. I'm going straight to the house, while it's daylight."

"Have you done the necessary?"

"Had a word with traffic about the videos; told the wooden tops to keep off anything that might take a tyre print sent for Scenes of Crime.

Maggie's on her way to the hospital."

"Good show. Give me the address, I'll see you there."

I knew what to expect. Not the details, just the overall picture. This was the sixth robbery of its type in as many months; three outside our parish and now three inside. Elderly couples, well off, living in comparative luxury in large, secluded houses. Two villains drive up, pull balaclavas on and threaten them with baseball bats. They tie the terrified householders into chairs and steal anything of value, loading their own vehicle and, in two of the robberies, also taking the victim's car. They grab all their cash cards and force them into revealing the PIN numbers, threatening to come back if they don't work.

Several hours later, when well clear of the scene, they telephone someone from a call box and suggest that the police go to such-and-such an address.

They didn't risk calling us themselves, choosing to ring small firms that had switchboards but wouldn't be expected to record calls. So far, they'd been lucky. The people who received the calls had been responsible and passed the information on. It was only a matter of time before some dizzy telephonist, chosen for her off-the-switchboard talents, put it down to an ex-boyfriend taking the piss and hung her nails out to dry. Then two people would have a lingering death.

The target this time was on Ridge Road, between the house where our football manager lives and the home of Heckley's only pop star. He sprang to fame with a song called "Wiggle Waggle' which earned him third place in the Song for Europe contest. The following year he destroyed his career by winning it with "Jiggle Joggle', or something.

He's a nice bloke, but alcohol and fast cars have earned him a few hours of contemplation in our cells. Nigel was waiting outside the grounds.

"They're called McLelland," he informed me. "Audrey and Joe, late seventies. He ran a printing business until about five years ago. Sold out and came to live here."

"McLelland?" I said. "They had a shop in town, and a couple more in Halifax and Huddersfield. Sold stationery, artists' materials, that sort of stuff, and did small printing jobs. We used them now and again. Have you been in?"

"No, not yet."

The PC who'd answered the call and found the couple came with us, explaining exactly where he'd been and what he'd done. The house was mock Georgian, with pillars flanking the entrance and windows that would be a bugger to paint. Four bedrooms, two en suite, and what estate agents describe as a minstrels' gallery. They have the monopoly on midget minstrels. It wasn't your average retirement home.

"I can imagine you living somewhere like this, Nigel," I said, casting my gaze towards the chandelier and flamboyant Artexing as we stood inside the doorway.

"Cheers," he replied, with a scowl.

The PC showed us the two chairs in the dining room, at the back of the house, where the couple had been tied. Bundles of string lay on the floor between the chairs' legs. "You cut the string," I said, bending down to examine it.

"Yes, sir."

"Good." The knots were evidence. "Did you touch anything else?"

"In the kitchen, sir. I took a knife from a drawer. And I found a dressing gown for the lady, from the bathroom."

"This would be about, what… five thirty?"

"Five thirty-seven, sir."

"Cut out the sir, please. You make me feel like Mr. Chips."

"Sorry, er, Mr. Priest."

"Charlie will do. So Mrs. McLelland was still in her nightclothes?"

"Yes, she was."

"So they could have been here from, say, eight this morning. Ten hours."

"It looks like it."

"How were they?"

"Bad, I'd say. In shock."

Nigel returned from scouting the rest of the house. "It's been well and truly turned over," he announced. "Just like the others. Stuff lifted out of drawers in a bundle, almost neatly. Mattresses disturbed. Circles in the dust on the sideboards and suchlike. We won't know what's missing until we talk to them."

I looked at the chairs, imagining two frail people tied to them all day. He'd risen early, perhaps, like he usually did. Made a pot of tea to take to his wife. A little ritual they'd fallen into after they'd retired. He'd have heard the tyres on the gravel drive; maybe thought it was the postman with a parcel. When he answered the door he was bundled aside as they rushed in. They roughed him up a bit terrifying the victim was part of the modus operandi and then one of them would dash upstairs to find his wife. We could never imagine how she must have felt when he burst into her bedroom, masked and armed.

I stood in the doorway to their lounge and let my gaze run round the room. A lifetime's accumulation was there. It wasn't to my taste, but everything was good quality, some of it old, some newer. Mrs.

McLelland's mark was on the place. She liked frills and bows and flowery patterns of pinks and lilacs. His pipe sat in an ashtray on the hearth, within reach of his favourite chair. This was their home.

"We've got to catch them, Nigel," I said softly. "Before they kill someone."

"How do we know they haven't?" he replied, coming to stand next to me.

"All it takes is for someone not to pass on the message. Somewhere, two people might be sitting in chairs like these…"

"In that case," I interrupted him, 'we'd better give it all we've got.

Why isn't that bloody SOCO here yet?"

Maggie Madison, one of my DCs, had no luck at the hospital. Audrey and Joe were sedated and in no condition to speak. "Perhaps," the doctor told her, 'after a good night's sleep…" At least it looked as if they'd survive. They had friction burns from the string on their ankles and wrists, and bruises on their arms from manhandling, but no other damage. No other physical damage. I dismissed the troops and arranged for a full meeting at eight a.m. On my way home I stopped at the fish and chip shop, but it was closing. I settled for a bowl of cornflakes and went to bed.

The meeting was informal, in the CID office, with me at the blackboard making notes on it and everyone else sitting around in rapt attention.

SOCO had found a tyre print where a vehicle had turned round in the drive and run on to the garden. So far all we knew was that it wasn't from Mr. McLelland's elderly Rover which stood in their garage. He'd collected a few fingerprints but it was looking as if they all belonged to the householders. We hadn't expected it to be otherwise. "The string used to tie them," he informed us, 'is the same gardening twine as from the Woods End robbery, and the knots were simple over hands three or four on top of each other, as at Woods End."