A Taste For Burning Part 10

But we were asking a lot of questions, and by now half the town knew he was claiming to have been in London with this girl Sue. Sh.e.l.ley thought we'd like to know that at least some of it was true: there was a girl, and Foot did get as far as London. He gave the print, and the snapper's name and address, to the Chief.'

Now Liz knew why Donovan had come here. The implications of this, for the inquiry and for Shapiro, were impossible to exaggerate. They had embarked on this exploit, or Donovan had embarked and she'd let him, in the certainty that once the source of the photograph was known Shapiro would be exonerated. They'd given no thought to the possibility that what they discovered might bury him.

Liz didn't want to think about it, not yet. She wanted to be sure she had the facts straight first. She wanted to be sure there'd been no mistake, on Donovan's part or Tom Sh.e.l.ley's, to explain the otherwise inexplicable. If she had to confront this she would, but only when she'd dismissed the easier options.

'Why did Sh.e.l.ley say nothing about it before now? For G.o.d's sake, he'd seen evidence that cast serious doubt on a major criminal conviction. Why did he do nothing for eight years? And what suddenly galvanized him now?'

The hot drink, or perhaps just talking, was helping Donovan to relax. The terrible tension of his steel-strung body was easing perceptibly, the black gravel in his voice that had made him almost incomprehensible beginning to lighten. Some of his pent-up breath left him in a sigh. 'A misunderstanding. Sh.e.l.ley a.s.sumed we were dealing with the guy who took the picture. And the snapper must have a.s.sumed the Courier weren't interested in buying it, and didn't bother asking for it back because the man who'd paid for it was in gaol with more on his mind than holiday pictures.'

'And when Foot was convicted?'

'Sh.e.l.ley supposed that the photograph wasn't signifi- 126.

cant after all. He didn't know if it was or not, he just thought it might be. When the Chief went ahead with the charges' -he shrugged awkwardly, like a damaged bird 'Sh.e.l.ley a.s.sumed he'd looked into it and found it of no value. He never imagined for a moment that he'd just thrown it away.'

Liz's cheeks turned hot. She resisted the urge to shout at him but couldn't keep the venom out of her voice. 'We don't know that's what he did.'

'Don't we? You can think of another explanation?' He was disturbed in a way she'd never seen him before. She'd seen him angry often enough: angry enough to do stupid things like risking his career and his neck. She'd seen him right and she'd seen him wrong. She'd seen him battle against big battalions and personal ghosts. But she'd never seen him look so totally out of his depth before. He didn't know what to believe.

She made herself breathe calmly. 'All right. We've hit on something a bit surprising, that's all. There may be a perfectly good explanation. Maybe he did look into it and found it proved nothing. Maybe it was taken before those two days Foot was missing.'

Donovan shook his head stubbornly. 'He said he never saw a photograph, not that it wasn't relevant.' His voice creaked as if a little more pressure would crack it.

Liz tried to think. 'So maybe he made a mistake. An honest mistake, the kind we all make -I do, you do, the Chief must have made some in his time. Maybe he put the picture aside, meaning to find out about it, and - forgot--?' It sounded so lame she avoided looking at him.

'Forgot? Something that important? A man was dead, and another man was facing trial, and he forgot to check out an alibi?' Incredulity sent Donovan's voice soaring. 'Even if he did, wouldn't he have remembered the moment G.o.d mentioned a photograph? You would. You'd think, Christ Almighty, I never did check that out! You know the Chief, he's got a mind like a filing cabinet.

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He doesn't lose things. And if he did, just that once, he wouldn't lie about it.'

'So what are you suggesting? That he deliberately concealed evidence to obtain a conviction?'

'No! But--' He couldn't find another explanation either.

'Could Tom Sh.e.l.ley be lying?'

That was the best they could hope for. Donovan shook his head. 'I don't see it. He didn't come to me, after all, I went to him. And why would he lie? What would he have to gain?'

'What would the Chief?' But that was obvious enough. If Shapiro had taken a short-cut eight years ago, under pressure to get a result and either believing Foot was guilty despite the photograph or despairing of convicting anyone else, then he'd have to lie about it. It wouldn't be the first time a policeman, even a senior policeman, had done something stupid and tried to lie his way out. She wouldn't have believed it of Frank Shapiro. But nor could she ignore the evidence.

'I'll talk to him,' she decided, the prospect like lead in her belly. "There's no point telling G.o.d -he's got the photograph, he knows. But we got ourselves involved in this, I think we have to see it through. Maybe there's something we haven't thought of. The least we owe Frank's the chance to explain. If there is no explanation at least he'll know the s.h.i.+t's about to hit the fan.'

Donovan looked at her with respect. 'You might be better staying out of this. I'll go see him if you like.'

Liz shook her head. 'No. No offence, Donovan, but I don't want to put him in the position of having to confess to his sergeant. I don't know where this is going to end, but I'd like to keep it dignified as long as I can.'

'You'll let me know what happens?'

'Of course.'

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7.Shapiro wasn't going to his office but he'd been up for hours when the soft purr of a car outside his house heralded a visitor. It wasn't rational but his mind shot straight to David. One more chance? he wondered. One more chance to squander?

But it wasn't David, it was Liz, and he knew from her expression that something had happened. He ushered her in, his eyes on her tight, controlled face, without quizzing her. Once the door was shut he opened his mouth to ask, but by then she was quizzing him and her eyes on his face were hard. He'd never seen them so hard.

'Why didn't you tell us the truth about the photograph?'

He stared at her, the helplessness of not understanding in the twist of his face and the way he fisted down the pockets of his fawn cardigan. 'What photograph?'

She clung on to her patience, though there was little charity left in it. 'The photograph of Trevor Foot and the girl Sue. The one taken by a street photographer in London during the two days Foot was unaccounted for.' She breathed in and out once. 'The one Tom Sh.e.l.ley of the Courier gave you.'

The breath whispered out of him. 'You've seen it?'

Her jaw clenched on bitter disappointment. 'Did you think that after eight years it couldn't come back to haunt you? Oh, Frank, whatever were you thinking of?'

He realized with a shock that she'd misunderstood, and with a second and deeper shock that -perhaps for the 129.

first time -she wasn't a.s.suming he had an explanation. Almost daily there were aspects of their working lives capable of misinterpretation. They knew better than to leap on such shadows as signs of bad faith. The least they owed one another was a hearing.

He said quietly, 'Liz, I'm going to say it once more, and after that it's up to you whether you believe it. I never saw a photograph of Foot and his girl. I wasn't shown a photograph by Tom Sh.e.l.ley or anyone else. Not when I was interviewing Foot, not afterwards and not since. The first I knew of any photograph was when G.o.d called me to his office and sent me on leave. I don't know why Sh.e.l.ley should lie about it -unless he and Foot were better friends than anyone knew -but he is doing. I don't remember talking to him about Foot; if I did he didn't give me anything useful. No information, and no photograph.'

Liz hesitated, confounded by his blanket denial. All her instincts were to trust him. But training and experience required her to weigh the facts. Of the two men, there was no doubt whom she preferred to believe. But only one of them had a reason to lie. She shook her head doubtfully. 'Donovan's talked to Sh.e.l.ley. He thought he was telling the truth.'

'You mean, he decided I was lying?' Shapiro wasn't shouting. In the cool centre of his brain where he could watch what was happening as if he were not involved he knew Liz was only doing her job -or if not her job, at least the one she'd taken on. But he couldn't keep a note of outrage, and a deeper one of personal hurt, out of his voice.

He'd never been in this position before. His career had been sound rather than meteoric, he lacked the glamour of a star player. But one thing he'd always been able to count on, so much so that at times he forgot how rare and important it was, was the respect of his colleagues. He felt the loss like a robbery, almost like a rape. It was a salutary experience. Even a week ago he wouldn't have 130.

believed how much it hurt that his sergeant preferred to believe a newspaper photographer.

If he expected sympathy, what he got must have been a shocking disappointment. Liz was baffled, and upset, and knew that if Shapiro was lying ten years' worth of a relations.h.i.+p in which she'd invested at both personal and professional levels was a mirage. It would have been easy to back him right or wrong, and if she was wrong to throw herself on the mercy of a Force which, however much time it spent telling detectives to think for themselves, spent even longer telling them to obey their superiors. If she was wrong she was only like everyone else Shapiro had duped. If she was right she was his salvation. It was the safe option: to believe him until a superintendent or above ordered her to stop.

But she knew better than that. She wouldn't pay him lipservice, she had to be convinced. He had to earn her trust afresh. She snapped back at him, 'Don't try playing my heartstrings, Frank, I haven't got any, Donovan has. He'd walk through fire for you. He was taking a chance when he went to see Sh.e.l.ley. He wouldn't have believed that you suppressed evidence that could have cleared Foot if he'd had any choice. Now, can you suggest some way that Sh.e.l.ley could have given you that photograph and you could not have received it?'

A possibility, perhaps the only possibility, occurred to them simultaneously. Shapiro got it out first. 'He didn't give it me. He sent it me.'

'And it got lost in the post?' Liz's tone was hardly encouraging. Though she'd had the same thought she wasn't going to grab at it unless it offered more than a convenient way out.

Shapiro shook his head. 'He wouldn't post it. The Courier's only round the corner -he'd hand it in at the front desk.'

'Without speaking to you? Without explaining where it came from?'

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'Well, he didn't,' insisted Shapiro. 'Maybe I was out.

Maybe he asked for me, and when I wasn't there he left a message.'

'Which the person who lost the photograph also forgot to pa.s.s on?'

'Doesn't sound too likely, does it?' he admitted ruefully. 'But something like that must have happened. Ask Sh.e.l.ley what he did -what he actually physically did -with the photograph.'

'I handed it in at the front desk,' said Sh.e.l.ley. 'I asked for Mr Shapiro but he wasn't in so I wrote a covering note and left it at the desk.'

'Mr Shapiro says he never received it.'

'Really?' Sh.e.l.ley's eyes bugged as he realized what that meant, 'You mean, n.o.body saw the photograph before Trevor Foot stood trial?'

Liz lifted one shoulder in half a shrug. 'Could be. We're not supposed to mislay evidence but anything's possible. Weren't you surprised that Mr Shapiro didn't call you about it?'

'I was a bit p.i.s.sed off, yes. I a.s.sumed he'd contacted the snapper direct -I put his letter in with the picture but I thought he could have let me know the outcome.'

'When was this?'

'A few days after Foot's first court appearance. It was the court report that gave the chap in London the idea of selling us the picture.'

'What was his name? Do you remember his address?'

'After eight years? When this was the only contact I ever had with him?'

'Have you any idea how I could find him?'

Sh.e.l.ley shook his head. 'Sorry, Inspector.'

Donovan had. 'If G.o.d's got the photograph he's probably got the letter as well.'

Liz stared at him. 'What are you suggesting?'

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W.

Donovan rocked his hand. 'I don't know. How much help would the letter be?'

'It would get us the man who's supposed to have seen Trevor Foot and this girl Sue in London at a time when he was supposed to be involved in the raid on BMT.'

'It could clear Foot of the charge he's doing time for.'

'Yes. If the photograph puts him in London at the time of the raid he's free and clear. If it puts him in London any time in the two days he was missing the case'll be reopened.'

'Won't do the Chief much good, though, will it?'

She saw no point in lying. 'None at all. Material evidence in the case went missing after Sh.e.l.ley handed it in with the Chief's name on it: the onus is on him to show he never received it. I don't know how he'd do that.'

'Do you still want to see the picture?'

She had no illusions about what he was asking or the likely consequences. Neither photograph nor photographer could disprove the allegation against Shapiro. But they could s.h.i.+ne a light where they were currently groping blindly for the truth. The cost, to all of them, might be enormous. Foot, whether or not he did what he was imprisoned for, would soon be free anyway. Liz was considering staking her future, and Donovan's, and Shapiro's, merely to speed his release.

Or conceivably to find, once the wind was irretrievably sewn and the whirlwind already in the reaping, that the photograph contained no defence after all, that Foot was guilty as charged. Then she'd have done it for nothing.

'Yes,' she said.

133.

8.Donovan always looked as if he was up to something.

Partly it was the ectomorph outline, all length and no width and a slight stoop from keeping his hands in his pockets when they weren't in use. Partly it was his colouring, so dark as a result of ancestral Spanish infusion that it was traditionally described as Black Irish. In a large part it was due to personal mannerisms: the wariness of his gaze, the way he returned greetings -when he returned them to a point just over people's right shoulders, and the way he mumbled when anyone asked what he was doing. He could look s.h.i.+fty fetching coffee from the canteen.

People new to Queen's Street tended to hear the accent, press alarm b.u.t.tons and report an intruder acting suspiciously. People who knew him attached no significance to the fact that Sergeant Donovan constantly looked as if he was up to something he didn't want anyone else to know about.

This was a positive advantage when he was up to something he didn't want anyone else to know about.

Miss Tunstall, who had been Superintendent Taylor's secretary for longer than Donovan had been in Castle- mere, only sighed wearily when he sidled round her door, fixed his eyes on her in-tray and mumbled, 'I've come for the photograph.'

'What photograph's that, Sergeant?'

Donovan's gaze slid off the desk and over the carpet to Taylor's door. He knew, of course, had made sure 134.

9.before coming this far, that the Superintendent was out of the building. 'The one for the Police Review. Bob Ca.s.si dy's retirement party.'

Station Sergeant Ca.s.sidy had indeed retired, there had been a party and photographs had been taken. Since Ca.s.sidy had effectively run Castlemere for some fifteen years a photograph had undoubtedly been sent to the Police Review. But it wouldn't have come from Superintendent Taylor so Miss Tunstall would know nothing about it.

She frowned. 'He didn't say anything to me about it.'

Donovan shrugged. 'Supposed to leave it on his desk.'

'I'll go and look.' Used as she was to Donovan prowling round like a hungry wolf she suspected nothing when he followed her into Taylor's office.

There was no photograph in any of his trays -he had twice as many as normal mortals, station legend had it they were marked In, Out, Pending and Too Difficult but by then Miss Tunstall was on her mettle, unwilling to admit defeat. Without prompting she opened the long shallow drawer above the knee-hole and went through the papers she found there with deft fingers. 'Is this--'

Donovan's fingers were pretty deft too: he had the stiffened envelope out of her hands before she knew he was reaching for it, and the flap open and the contents slid out while she finished the sentence. '--the one?'

He pushed the print, and the letter folded round it, inside the envelope again and handed it back. 'Nah,' he said negligently, 'that's just some feller and his bird.'

'Well, there doesn't seem to be anything else here,' said Miss Tunstall. 'I'll ask Mr Taylor when he gets in, shall I?'

'OK. No, wait a minute,' Donovan said then, 'I wonder if he left it at the front desk? I'll try there. If I don't track it down I'll come back when Sir's in.'

'Very well.' Miss Tunstall saw him out, and had no idea he'd already got what he'd come for.

He took the stairs two at a time, mumbling to himself 135.

all the way. Even people who knew him thought he was getting odder. But he reached Liz's office with the name and address he'd read off the letterhead still clear in his mind. 'Mervyn Phipps, 23c DaSouza Buildings, Edgware Road,' he announced triumphantly as he shut the door behind him.

Liz's eyes gleamed. 'How on earth--? No, don't tell me. Will anyone suspect?' 'Shouldn't do. I doubt G.o.d's Rottweiler will even mention it, but if she does he'll just think I got it wrong. He always starts with that a.s.sumption anyway,' he added dourly.

Liz was regarding him speculatively. 'That stuff you're working on. Not exactly life and death, is it?'