Over My Dead Body

Chapter 10

The local bus trundled slowly over the hill and juddered to a halt at the stop. A solitary passenger climbed aboard and took a seat near the front.

‘Where to?’ asked the ticket collector.

‘Sevenoaks,’ said William.

‘Sixty pence.’

William took out his warrant card and asked, ‘Were you working this run yesterday afternoon, around twelve, one o’clock?’

‘No, sir, that’s Rose’s shift. She’s off today, doesn’t work Sundays.’

‘Rose?’

‘Rose Prescott. Been on this run for years,’ he said with a chuckle.

‘Thank you,’ said William, then sat back and looked out of the window at the passing countryside, wondering if it was possible that Faulkner was still in England. His thoughts were interrupted by a siren, as a police car shot past them on the other side of the road. He made a mental note to call Inspector Thomas and thank him.

Although the bus made several stops on its slow interrupted journey to Sevenoaks, William saw nothing to make him think Faulkner would have got off before the final stop.

He checked his watch as a police pickup truck lumbered by. He wasn’t confident there would be any of Faulkner’s dabs on the Mercedes, but the chauffeur’s hat? Ross was waiting for him when the bus reached its final stop, and he clearly hadn’t wasted his time.

‘The first thing Faulkner would have seen when he got off the bus,’ Ross said, ‘was the railway station and the cab rank directly opposite, on the other side of the road. Danny’s already checking the station. So far I haven’t had any luck with the cabbies. None of them recognized the photograph of Ralph Neville, but they told me quite a few of the regulars prefer working afternoons.’

‘Then you’ll have to keep on asking, while I pay a visit to Mrs Rose Prescott.’

‘Who’s she?’

‘To be revealed later,’ said William, as he left Ross to return to the taxi rank, while he walked across to the terminus.

‘Rose,’ said the supervisor, once he’d checked the Chief Inspector’s warrant card. ‘She hasn’t done anything wrong, I hope.’

‘No, nothing. I’m just hoping she’ll remember a passenger who was on her bus yesterday afternoon.’

‘On that route they’re almost all regulars who she’d know personally.’ He began to turn the pages of a large folder. ‘She lives at number twenty-three Castle Drive.’ Checking his watch, he added, ‘She should be back from church by now.’

When William emerged from the terminus, he spotted Ross showing another taxi driver the blown-up photo of Neville, but the cabbie was shaking his head as William joined them.

‘It’s an outside chance,’ admitted William, ‘but don’t let the odds put you off.’

Ross mumbled something unintelligible, as William climbed into the back of the cab and gave the driver an address in Castle Drive. As the taxi moved off, he asked, ‘You didn’t recognize the man in the photograph my colleague showed you?’

‘No, guv. Yesterday afternoon I was watching Arsenal being stitched up by Chelsea.’

Now there’s a surprise, William wanted to say, but decided not to reveal his true colours in case the cabbie decided not to speak to him again. He sat back and began to think about the questions he needed to ask Mrs Prescott, who he felt he already knew.

When the taxi drew up outside No. 23, William said, ‘Can you hang about? I shouldn’t be too long.’

‘The meter will still be running,’ said the cabbie with a grin.

William opened the little wicket gate, walked down a short path and knocked on the front door. Moments later, a young woman answered it.

‘Is Mrs Prescott at home?’ he asked, after he had shown her his warrant card.

‘She’s just got back from church. I’ll go and fetch her.’

An older woman appeared a few moments later, dressed in her Sunday best. ‘Do come in, Chief Inspector,’ she said. ‘I was just about to make a cup of tea. Would you like one?’

‘Thank you,’ said William, who closed the front door, and followed her through to the kitchen. Once she’d put the kettle on, she said, ‘Please, sit down, young man, and tell me how I can help you.’

William took out the photograph of Ralph Neville and placed it on the kitchen table. ‘When you were on the Sevenoaks run yesterday afternoon, did you see this man?’

‘I most certainly did,’ said Rose, as she poured William a cup of tea. ‘Sugar?’

‘No, thank you. What makes you so sure you recognize him?’

‘Shouldn’t think a gentleman like that travels by bus too often, at least not dressed as if he was going to a wedding.’ William didn’t interrupt. ‘What I remember most was, when I gave him his ticket he didn’t have any loose change on him, just a five-pound note. And what’s more, Mrs Haskins, one of my regulars, told me later that he must have run out of petrol, because he’d left his flashy car by the side of the road.’ She paused, took a sip of tea and said, ‘Does he want his money back?’

‘His money?’ repeated William.

‘The change from the five-pound note, although he did say I could keep it. Anyway, he’s got a snowball’s chance in hell of getting it back,’ chuckled Rose, ‘because I put it on the collection plate this morning, and I can’t see the vicar giving it back.’

William laughed. ‘I don’t suppose you saw where he went after he got off the bus?’

‘He walked across the road to the taxi rank.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Oh yes. I thought he might be going to get some change, and would be coming back for his fiver, but he just got in the back of a taxi and off he went.’

‘I don’t suppose you’d recognize the taxi driver?’ said William hopefully.

‘No, sorry love,’ said Rose, as the young woman reappeared.

‘Any hope of you carting Mum off to jail, Chief Inspector?’

‘Not quite yet, but if she tries to make a dash for it, I’ve got the handcuffs ready,’ said William, as he finished his tea.

‘Pity,’ said her daughter. ‘My boyfriend was hoping to spend the night.’

‘You can forget it,’ said Rose firmly. ‘That’s not going to happen until I see an engagement ring on your finger, and maybe not even then.’

‘Thank you, Rose,’ said William, as he stood up. ‘I ought to get going.’

‘Of course.’

William paused as she opened the front door for him. ‘You’ve made my day,’ he said.

‘Mine too,’ said Rose, ‘because I wouldn’t have wanted to tell the vicar he was going to have to give that fiver back. Mind you, I have a feeling the man in the photograph won’t miss it.’

William bent and kissed the shrewd woman on both cheeks, which was rewarded with a warm smile. He walked down the path, climbed into the back of the waiting cab, and noticed the meter was still ticking.

‘Back to the station, please.’

‘She didn’t look like a master criminal to me,’ said the cabbie.

‘You’re right. But her late husband was a Gunners’ fan.’

‘Is that a crime?’

‘It is if you support Chelsea,’ said William, which created the silence he needed while he thought about what his next move should be.

Ross and Danny were waiting for him at the taxi rank, one smiling, one frowning. He took the frown first.

‘Not a dickybird,’ said Danny. ‘The ticket collector let me know, ever so politely, that over a thousand passengers commute into London every weekday, and that on a Saturday, if the footy’s on, it’s even more. As far as he was concerned, the bloke in the picture looked like any other city gent, so how could he possibly be expected to remember him?’

‘And you, Ross?’

‘I also drew a blank, except that one driver had a strange experience you might want to hear about. He’s just taking a customer to a local hotel, but should be back in a few minutes.’

‘Time for a coffee break,’ said Danny, hopefully.

William nodded in the direction of the station’s café. Once they’d found a table, he said, ‘I’ll sum up where I think we are, and you can tell me if I’ve missed anything.

‘We’ve found the car we believe Faulkner was driving, which is now on its way to the local pound. We’ll probably have to wait a couple of days to see if they come up with any dabs. Somehow, I doubt it, but I haven’t given up on the chauffeur’s cap, which I’ll drop into forensics as soon as we get back to the Yard.’

‘Did Rose come up with anything worthwhile?’ asked Ross.

‘An eighteen-carat gem. Not only did she recognize Faulkner from the photograph, but saw him get into a taxi. Now we just need to find out which one.’

‘That’s him,’ said Ross, looking out of the window. ‘He’s just pulled up outside the station.’

‘I’ll go and have a word with him while you finish your coffees,’ said William. He drained his second cup of tea that morning, and crossed the road to join the last cab on the rank.

‘Sorry guv,’ said the cabbie. ‘You have to take the one at the front.’

‘I’m not looking for a cab, but one of yesterday’s passengers. My colleague tells me you didn’t recognize this man,’ said William, showing him the photograph of Neville, ‘but you had a fare who acted strangely?’

‘An odd one that,’ said the cabbie, ‘but I never saw his face, so I can’t be sure that’s him.’

‘What was odd about him?’

‘He gets into the back before I have a chance to look at him. Nothing unusual about that, but then he tucks himself in the left-hand corner of the seat so I can’t see him in my rear-view mirror. That sometimes means they’re planning to do a runner without paying. But when I asked him where he wanted to go, he had such a toffee-nosed accent I relaxed.’

‘Where did he want to go?’

‘Luton airport, but he didn’t say another word on the entire journey. When we got there, he pushed some cash through the hatch and was gone before I could give him his change.’

‘What’s unusual about that? He might just have been in a hurry.’

‘Most of my customers who take a taxi to an airport want a receipt, so they can claim it on expenses. But not this one.’

‘So you never got a look at him?’

‘No, but he was smartly dressed and carrying a leather briefcase, which I thought was unusual for a Saturday afternoon. I wouldn’t have thought anything of it if I hadn’t seen him getting off the bus.’

William offered up a small prayer. ‘What time was that?’

‘Just after three.’

‘Are you sure of the time?’

‘I was listening to Match of the Day, wasn’t I? Spurs versus Everton, and the Toffees scored in the first minute. The bastards.’

‘Thank you,’ said William, placing the photograph back in his pocket. ‘That was very helpful.’ He got back to the café just in time to pay the bill.

‘Right, Danny, get your skates on, we’re off to Luton airport.’

As they drove out of Sevenoaks and headed for the motorway, William briefed Ross about his conversation with the cabbie.

‘A bit of a long shot,’ said Ross, ‘but enough coincidences not to be a coincidence.’

‘We’ll need to time how long it takes to get to the airport,’ said William. ‘Then we should be able to work out which flight he’s most likely to have caught.’

‘Why would he have chosen Luton, when Gatwick, Heathrow and Stansted are so much closer?’ said Danny.

‘He would have assumed we had them well covered.’

William and Ross had gone over various possible scenarios several times before Danny drew up outside the airport.

‘One hour and twenty-five minutes, guv,’ he announced.

‘Wait here,’ said William. ‘We’ll probably be going straight back to London, but who knows?’

He and Ross strode into the terminal and headed for the information desk.

‘How can I help you, gentlemen?’ asked the woman standing behind the counter.

‘I’d like to know which flights took off after five o’clock yesterday afternoon?’

She began tapping away on her computer.

‘The 5.05 to Dublin. Took off on time.’

‘He wouldn’t have made it,’ said Ross.

‘The 5.40 for Newcastle departed twenty minutes late.’

‘That would have meant he was stuck in England overnight.’

‘Moscow at 5.50,’ said the woman, still staring at her console.

‘I don’t think so,’ said William.

‘The 6.10 to Brussels.’

‘A possibility.’

‘There was the 6.20 to Edinburgh.’

‘No,’ said William.

‘Or the 7.10 to Copenhagen.’

‘He wouldn’t have wanted to hang about that long,’ said William. ‘It has to be Brussels.’

‘I doubt if that was his final destination,’ said Ross. ‘Just the first plane that would get him out of the country.’

‘Agreed,’ said William, and thanked the woman before he and Ross made their way across to the Sabena booking desk. This time, William produced his warrant card before he asked his first question.

‘I’d like to see your passenger list for yesterday afternoon’s 6.10 flight for Brussels.’

‘Are you looking for a particular name, sir?’ asked the woman, as she tapped away, before checking the screen in front of her.

‘Captain Ralph Neville.’

She double-checked the passenger list before saying, ‘No one registered under that name is showing up on my screen for the flight.’

‘Miles Faulkner?’ suggested Ross, not looking at all confident.

‘No,’ she replied, her eyes still fixed on the monitor. Ross produced a photograph. She took a careful look and then shook her head. ‘Can’t say I remember him.’

William tried a long shot. ‘Did anyone book in at the last minute and pay for his ticket with cash?’

‘There was one gentleman who was quite late booking, and he wasn’t pleased when we couldn’t find him a seat in first class.’

‘Do you recall his name?’

‘I’m afraid not.’

‘Are we going to risk it?’ asked Ross.

‘Is there a flight to Brussels this evening?’ asked William, answering the question.

‘The 6.10. Same time every day. I have two first-class tickets available.’

‘I don’t think so,’ said William, giving her a warm smile. ‘Two economy will be just fine,’ he added, passing over his credit card.

‘One-way or return?’

‘One-way. We can’t be sure where we’ll be going next.’

This was one customer she wasn’t going to forget easily.

‘Hang about for the tickets, Ross, while I explain to Danny why we won’t be going back to the Yard.’

Danny was pleased to hear he could return to London and take the rest of the day off. The Chief Inspector’s idea of a joke.

‘But not before you’ve handed in the chauffeur’s hat to forensics. I’ve already told them to let me know if they find any dabs on it that match up with Miles Faulkner’s.’

Danny touched his forehead with the fingers of his right hand and asked, ‘Will you be needing me tomorrow, guv?’

‘If I do, it will be to drop me off at the jobcentre,’ said William, ‘but I’ll let you know.’

He strolled back into the airport to see Ross deep in conversation with another man, who was frowning.

‘We’ve got a problem,’ said Ross, as William joined them. ‘Passports, or lack of them. This is Thomas King, head of security. He’s happy to arrange a temporary travel visa, but he needs the authority of a commander or above before he can authorize it. I’m certainly not going to call The Hawk at home on a Sunday evening.’

William picked up the phone on the counter and dialled a number even Ross didn’t know.

The Hawk listened with interest to how Chief Inspector Warwick and DI Hogan had spent their Sunday. ‘Put him on,’ was all he said.

William handed the phone to the security officer, who said, ‘Yes, sir’ several times, before passing the phone back to William.

‘If you come back without Faulkner, don’t bother to put in a claim for your expenses,’ were The Hawk’s parting words.

‘Thank you, sir,’ said William, before he put the phone down.

‘Are we still going to Brussels?’ asked Ross.

‘Yes,’ said William, ‘but only one of us may be coming back.’

Not long after William had fastened his seatbelt and the Boeing 727 had taken off, he fell asleep for the first time since he’d arrived back from New York.

Ross spent his time writing an update while considering the alternatives, which he accepted only threw up yet more questions for William to consider when he woke. That didn’t happen until the wheels touched down on the runway at Brussels National Airport forty minutes later.

(a) Did Faulkner fly straight on to another airport?

(b) Did he stay at the airport overnight? Check every hotel within a two-mile radius.

(c)Is there a direct flight to Nice (Monte Carlo) from Brussels?

(d) Have we come to a dead end?

A uniformed security officer met them at the bottom of the steps as they disembarked from the plane. Clearly the commander hadn’t been idle.

‘How can I help?’ he asked, after he’d shaken hands with them.

‘How many flights took off from Brussels,’ William asked as he checked his watch, ‘after seven thirty yesterday evening?’

‘Half a dozen, no more,’ said the security officer. ‘I’d need to check the log,’ he added as they walked in a different direction to all the other passengers.

Once they were in his office, it took Mr King only a few moments before he pronounced, ‘Paris, St Petersburg, Manchester, Helsinki, Luton and Barcelona.’

William studied the list for some time before concluding, ‘My bet would be Paris, because he could have taken a domestic flight from there to Nice.’

‘Barcelona could also be an outside possibility,’ suggested Ross.

‘Agreed. You check with Air France, while I talk to Iberia.’

‘Were you both on duty last night?’ was William’s first question as he reached the check-in counter. He once again produced a large photograph of Ralph Neville and asked if either of them had seen him, but all he got was a shake of the head.

‘Barcelona is Iberian Airways’ last flight out of Brussels on a Saturday night,’ said ‘Blanca’, ‘and as usual it was packed with holidaymakers.’

‘This man wouldn’t have looked as if he was going on holiday,’ said William.

They both took a closer look, but it elicited the same response.

‘Can I check the passenger list?’ he asked.

The security guard nodded, and one of the booking clerks swung the console around. William double-checked both classes, but there wasn’t a name on the list that he recognized.

‘Thank you,’ Blanca said, as Ross walked across to join him, to report the same negative result for passengers flying to De Gaulle.

‘Even if he was on one of those flights,’ said William, ‘it would still leave us with about three hundred suspects. We’ll have to accept he’s disappeared again.’

‘He’s beginning to make Houdini look like an amateur.’

‘He’s beginning to make me look like a raw recruit,’ said William with considerable feeling.

‘Do pretty girls always chase after you?’ said Ross.

William turned around to see one of the young Iberian booking clerks running towards them.

‘Can I take a closer look at that photograph?’ Blanca asked.

William took the photo out of an inside pocket and handed it to her.

She studied the man’s face for some time before she placed a hand over Faulkner’s forehead and continued to look even more closely. ‘Yes, I’m confident it’s him. One of the first-class passengers on the flight to Barcelona was bald. When I queried the photo in his passport, he told me he’d just had his head shaved, even produced the bill,’ she said, pointing to a barber shop on the other side of the concourse.

‘His first mistake,’ said Ross.

‘Do you have a name?’ asked William.

‘Ricardo Rossi. I remember, because according to his passport he was a dress designer.’

‘I’d kiss you,’ said Ross, ‘but I’m not allowed to.’

‘How disappointing,’ she said, and kissed him on both cheeks before returning to her desk.

‘I wish I lived in Brussels,’ said Ross. William didn’t hear him because he was already on the move, having spotted that the sign on the barber’s door was being switched from ‘Ouvert’ to ‘Fermé’. The security man chased after him and quickly produced his pass. The door was reluctantly opened a few inches.

‘Did you shave this man’s head yesterday evening?’ asked William, holding up a photograph of Neville.

‘I wasn’t here yesterday,’ came the gruff reply. ‘It would have been Carlo, and today’s his day off. If the customer’s got a complaint you can come back in the morning.’ The door slammed and the blind was pulled down.

‘Are we off to Barcelona?’ asked Ross when they returned to join him at the check-in desk.

‘Not much point,’ said William. ‘By now Faulkner will have flown on to his next destination and once again evaporated into thin air. We may as well go home and face the music.’

‘Do you want to hear the good news or the bad news?’ said Ross.

‘I can’t wait.’

‘You’re going to have to, because the last flight back to Luton has just taken off.’

William looked around at the rows and rows of hard plastic seats, before he asked, ‘What’s the good news?’

‘I’m having dinner with Blanca.’

Danny picked up two dishevelled, yawning detectives off the first flight from Brussels the following morning. Neither of them had slept.

‘Inspector Thomas has just called,’ he said as they climbed into the back seat. ‘They didn’t find any of Miles Faulkner’s prints in the Mercedes, but they found several of his wife’s.’

‘That would explain why there was no one to pick her up from the church.’

‘But there’s better news on the chauffeur’s cap,’ said Danny. ‘One thumb and an index finger turn out to be a perfect match with Faulkner’s right hand.’

‘So,’ said Ross, ‘it appears that right now Miles Faulkner, aka Captain Ralph Neville, is holed up somewhere in Spain under the name of Ricardo Rossi, dress designer.’

‘Though he’s probably changed his name and profession yet again,’ said William. ‘I’ll issue the latest photographic image we have of him to the Spanish police as soon as we get back to the Yard.’

‘Do you want me to bring in Christina Faulkner for questioning?’ asked Ross.

‘No. Not while I’ve got my own undercover agent.’