Friday
Nigel was glad of a breath of fresh air. His new job was
going to take all his time, he conjectured, at least until he had got it down
to a fine art.
Ian Bailey came in through the main door. He told Nigel how
tedious the teaching of theory was, which was why he left the theory to Dan.
“They’ll look up the answers,” Dan explained to Nigel. “But
that’s the general idea. That way they learn something.”
Nigel nodded. The trio of candidates had asked such stupid
questions as “Will I have to stop if a pedestrian gets in the way?” that he
wondered if they were mentally fit to be in charge of a potentially lethal weapon.
“You aren’t registered for theory, are you?” said Scot
“I’ve been driving for about a decade, but I want a run in
your left-hand drive car before I go to France.”
Ian Bailey went into the room Nigel thought must be the staffroom,
and shortly after some giggling and groans could be heard.
“Don’t mind them,” said Dan. “They do it all the time.
Sickening, if you ask me.”
“No problem. Haven’t they got a home to go to?” said Nigel.
“Anything else, Inspector?”
“Yes. I need to talk to Mr Ian Bailey about something that’s
come up,” said Nigel.
“I don’t even know your name,” Dan asked.
“D.I. Nigel Bramley at your service.”
“Police?”
“Management, actually.”
“I’m the Scot on the leaflet. Is Ian in trouble?”
“No. I’m just making informal enquiries.”
“Would you like a coffee, Nigel? Those two will be finished
in a few minutes. Then Ian will have five minutes for you while Rosie gets her
clothes back on. Then they’ll be going out for a meal.”
Since it was now well past fours, Nigel conjectured that Ian
Bailey considered his working day to be over.
“Between you and me, he’s besotted, Nigel,” said Dan. “They’re
getting engaged, Rosie says.”
“Poor Mr Bailey.” said Nigel. “She almost bankrupted one of
my colleagues.”
“Here they come now. Talk later. Lesson OK for Saturday at
12?”
“Good idea.”
“Did you hear that, Rosie?” Dan called. “Write down lesson
Saturday at 12 for Mr Bramley. See you tomorrow.”
Dan left, thankful to be shut of Rosie.
***
Rosie dragged herself in from the back room, demonstrably unwilling
to work so late in the afternoon.
“Hold your flippin’ ‘orses,” she called to Dan’s retreating
form. “I ‘aven’t finished me makeup yet and I don’t work on Saturdays.”
Approaching Nigel she said “Hold my coat, will you?”
Nigel thought she must use a trowel for her makeup.
The coat was of fur; not quite mink, but a fair imitation.
It took some time for Nigel to extricate Ian Bailey from
attending to Rosie’s requirements while Dan had luckily extricated himself from
the driving school. The day was almost over. Finally Bailey found time to listen
to Nigel’s inquiry, on which he drew Nigel to a corner of what was office,
classroom and entry hall rolled into one. The back room was private.
***
“Why do you want to know that?” Ian said in a low voice.
“Are you related to Farmer Bailey in any way?”
“The short answer is no.”
“And the long one?”
“My mother was still married to the man so I took his name.”
“Does he know about you?”
“Yes.”
“Does he think you are his son?”
“No.”
“But his wife, your mother left with her first child, before
your birth, didn’t she?”
“Wouldn’t you if you were being beaten?”
“Yes. Where is she now, Mr Bailey. Can I talk to her?”
“Dead, Mr Bramley. Brad, the brat, left her and she never
got over it. I was there, but largely ignored.”
“Brad being the older child, ” said Nigel.
“Yes. My biological father ditched her, so she did not like
his progeny, either.”
“I’m sorry about that.”
“But my father was also a nasty piece of work. We often fall
for the same features in a partner. Something weird about that, don’t you
think?”
“I agree. That’s why I live alone. I couldn’t live with
anyone, so I don’t.”
“That’s a wise decision,” said Ian.
“Do you know your father?”
“Only from hearsay.”
“Where did you live when you were growing up?”
“Is that relevant?”
“Not really,” said Nigel, feeling that he had possibly gone
too far with that question. To mitigate the effect he told Ian Bailey that Brad
Bailey had disappeared.
“I should explain my why I’m asking all these questions,”
said Nigel.
“Yes, you should.”
“I hoped you would tell me where he went after he
disappeared from Lower Grumpsfield, but if your mother is dead, he won’t have
gone there, will he?”
“My mother was of Welsh extraction. She lived near Swansea –
that’s where she was born.”
“So that’s where you both went to school, I expect.”
“Yes, but it’s all old hat. Why bother?”
“We are trying to identify someone, Mr Bailey.”
“So what do you want from me?”
“DNA.”
“No problem, if you think it would help.”
“If you had the same mother as the dead guy, the DNA would
probably identify him.”
“But I could not identify him by looking at him, I think you
mean,” said Bailey.
“Exactly.”
“Why?”
Nigel collected a sample of DNS by rubbing a swab around the
inside of Bailey’s cheek, and before many minutes he was out of the school with
plenty to think about as he took his time walking back to HQ.
“Because the guy’s just a pile of bones.”
***
“Mission accomplished,” he texted to Gary, who had gone
home.
***
Looking at Henry’s collection of unprocessed documents,
Nigel wondered how he was going to tackle the job. He thought he would need
more diplomacy than accountancy.
But at least his identity-finding mission was accomplished
after he had delivered Bailey’s DNA sample to the forensic lab. The ball was
now Chris’s court.
“I think we have the corpse’s brother here,” Nigel told him.
“So you want me to check that they are not related?”
“Two guys with different fathers, but the same mother. We’ll
need to compare all three samples you now have.”
“Will do! Congratulations on your new title and job,” said
Chris. “You’ll have your work cut out to unseat Henry, however,” he added.
“I don’t want to unseat anyone,” said Nigel. Gary thought I
should be assisting – he called it ‘managing’ - all three of them on the third
floor. I don’t think he meant I was to actually manage anyone.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” said Chris.
“Where did you get these dog-ends?” Ned asked as he prepared
to extract a DNA sample.
“From Bailey’s farm.”
“So you think that Bailey and the Bailey you got the swab sample
from are related, do you?”
“No, but the swab and the bones are.”
“I hope you’re on the right track,” said Ned.
***
“Before we move on to the church treasures, just one
question,” said Chris. “I’m puzzled. Are you really working for Henry? He
normally hates delegating and I should have thought he prefers to keep his
wheeling and dealing to himself.”
“Judging from the flood of unopened mail I’ll have to go
through, he doesn’t delegate at all and after the talk with him, I think he’s
in despair and exasperated to the point where he just leaves correspondence
unopened and adds it to his collection.”
“So this manoeuvre of Gary’s is to finally get him to retire,
I expect.”
“I can’t commit myself on that, but Henry’s a drunk and not
fit for the job, Chris.”
“I’m sure it was Cleo’s idea,” said Chris.
“I can’t rule that out,” said Nigel. “It didn’t take me very
long to realize that Henry is past it.”
“A liability for HQ, in other words.”
“I’d say so.”
“He’s a mean old so-and-so, Nigel, but he keeps this place
going.”
“How, when he doesn’t even answer his mail?”
“People trust him.”
“Wait till you read my report on his month-long backlog of
requests and complaints, Chris. His sense of responsibility seems to have faded
into simply keeping going somehow with mainly kiddology and empty promises.”
“Is it really as bad as that?”
“Worse.”
“But Gary can’t sack a colleague, Nigel. The county police
chief will have to do that.”
“I’ll have to leak some information,” said Nigel.
“Without telling Gary, I assume.”
“Without telling anyone and anonymously.”
“I’d be careful not to throw the baby out with the
bathwater.”
“Thanks for the warning. You will ring Cleo about the
results, won’t you, Chris?”
“Yes, but I don’t like the idea of going behind Greg’s back.
He’s in charge at homicide, after all.”
“He was away when this case started.”
“OK. Point taken.”
***
At the cottage, Friday ended with the usual brain-storming
by Gary and Cleo in front of their log fire with mugs of coffee to enjoy, but
they were restricted by not yet knowing any DNA results in the Bailey case. Research
on Sloane’s past had not progressed much, either.
Cleo was worried about Sloane’s possible implication in the theft
of the church treasures. She wondered if he had had enough time to contact the
Bates Brothers and make an offer for their cooperation.
“Phone Albert,” Gary suggested. “He might have noticed
Sloane making a phone-call, but I don’t think Sloane had the style or the cash
to bargain with crooks.”
“I expect he busy with Joyce, anyway,” said Cleo.
“Well, ask Albert if Sloane made more than one call.”
“I’ll do that. Dorothy was so vehement about a possible
link. I find it difficult to contemplate Sloane as a gangster, but it takes all
sorts.”
***
The phone-call to Albert did not take many minutes as he
hated being disturbed when he was practising.
“We’ve got a gig tomorrow night,” he said. “I haven’t got
time to dig.”
“No digging, Albert. I just want to ask a question about Mr Sloane.”
“Oh him. He was going to get me work.”
“He probably hasn’t got any to offer, Al. Mr Sloane is not very
truthful.”
“You can say that again, Miss.”
“Explain that, Al.”
“Before he left, he gave something to one of the men taking
the treasures away, Miss. That’s one reason I took one.”
“Did he really? That’s interesting.”
“I thought the police paid for taking them away even if it
wasn’t their van, so it was queer that Mr Sloane gave them something. I think
it was money, Miss..”
“You may have witnessed something we needed to know, Al.”
“Am I going to jail for taking that candlestick, Miss?”
“Of course not. You weren’t planning to sell it, were you?
You just wanted to show your father what a good job you were doing.”
“Was I?”
“That’s what you told me, Al.”
“Did I?”
“Sure. I’m puzzled about Mr Sloane,” said Cleo. “That’s why
I’m phoning you.”
“He’s a small-time gangster, Miss. I’ve got a Nintendo game
with a guy like that. He’s always falling into holes.”
“He might be a gangster, Albert, but don’t go spouting that
out to everyone. You’d better not talk about Mr Sloane to anyone. It could be
dangerous.”
“Do you think he’d want to murder me, Miss?”
“If you are a danger to him, it’s possible.”
“I’ll keep my mouth shut, Miss.”
“If you think of anything that might help, phone me, Al.”
“Yes, Miss.”
“And good luck for your concert tomorrow.”
“It’s just a small gig, Miss. We ain’t got no big concerts
yet.”
***
“You heard all that, so what do you think, Gary?”
“I think you are getting Al out of a sticky corner, Cleo. He
did pinch that ornament.”
“Prove it conclusively, Gary.”
“You’ve given him a loophole.”
“You should be glad I did. It does not pay to put informants
on the spot.”
“Touché. Let’s go to bed.”
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