Frost and Clarke were admiring the view from Billings Stables. It was a wonderfully picturesque spot. It was hard to believe that they were only five miles outside of Denton. There was a swirling morning mist around the trees and wild spring foliage, and the undulating green fields stretched as far as you could see, with no unsightly modern buildings that made up the ‘New Town’ to blight the vista.
‘I think I’d like to bring Philip up here when he’s old enough to appreciate it,’ Clarke said as they got out of the car.
‘I’ll pay for the little nipper’s riding lessons, when the time comes, if that’s what he wants,’ offered Frost, inhaling a Rothmans and the clean country air at the same time.
‘Really?’
‘Well, don’t look so bloody surprised. Least I can do, after all the nights I spent on your sofa.’
‘Thanks, Jack, I don’t know what to say. That’s very generous of you.’
Frost pulled a wicked grin. ‘I don’t think your mum will ever get over the fright I gave her that night, the poor mare.’
Thankfully, any further reminiscing about that unfortunate incident was cut short by the appearance of Peter Billings, who walked over from an outbuilding to greet them.
Billings was a thickset man with a ruddy weathered face. In his battered blue cords tucked into green wellingtons, and with his reddish curly hair topped off with a tweed flat cap, he looked every inch the country sportsman.
After an exchange of pleasantries about the beautiful setting of the stables, Clarke showed Billings the photograph they’d brought with them.
‘That’s Terry all right,’ the stable owner confirmed. ‘But he’s not around – I tried him just after you called. There was no answer. I don’t think I’ve seen him since yesterday morning. But let me show you the way.’
As he walked Frost and Clarke towards the bungalow that he rented out to Terry Langdon, Billings explained that he and Terry went back a long way. They’d bonded over their shared love of all things equine. Billings had taken over his father’s stables, and Terry had taken over his father’s bookmaking business; stepping into their fathers’ shoes was something else they had in common. When Terry’s wife left him, Peter was happy to let him rent the small bungalow he had on his property.
‘Do you know George Price too?’ asked Frost.
‘I don’t have much truck with the bookies at the races – more the owners and the jockeys. But Terry was an old schoolfriend. We were at a very minor public school together, both academic dunces, but as I say, both loved horses. He was a lot different at school. He was quiet, a shy boy as I remember.’
‘Oh, and how would you describe him now?’
‘Well, you know, drives a red Porsche, bit of a Jack the lad. I suppose he was trying to fit in with the image of a bookie, to emulate his father. If so, it didn’t work out.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Terry’s just gone bust. I think last week was his final race meeting. Held on for as long as he could, but he just couldn’t make a go of it.’
‘So he had financial troubles?’
Billings shook his head in a gesture of pity for his old friend. ‘He never went into detail, but with the horse racing and gambling you need a fair dollop of luck on your side, even the bookies. And it seems Terry never had that. I was never sure he was cut out for it anyway. All the big bookmakers have something of the buccaneering spirit about them, like the top City traders. Men like George Price have it, and so did Terry’s dad. But not Terry, I’m afraid.’
‘So the acorn fell far from the tree, in this case.’
‘Eloquently put, Inspector. Terry’s a good man, just not as shrewd as his father.’
‘Was that why his wife left him?’
‘Money? No, Allison wasn’t like that. She’s a sweet girl, really. And Terry always fancied himself as a bit of a ladies’ man, so I wasn’t surprised his marriage didn’t stick. But when she left him I knew it shook him to the core. I think he thought he’d always be with her, that he could rely on her and she’d forgive him his dalliances. I did warn him. She left him for a gas fitter.’ Billings gave a derisive snort. ‘Do you really suspect him of the shooting? He’s not good with guns.’
‘Well, we don’t suspect the gas fitter.’
‘Touché, Inspector.’
‘You said he’s not good with guns. Did you ever know him to have any sort of firearm in his possession?’
‘Not to my knowledge, no. But I do remember a weekend a few years ago, we stayed at a rather grand hotel in Yorkshire with our wives and tried our hand at clay pigeon shooting. Terry was a lousy shot, couldn’t hit a barn door, never mind a disc spinning through the air. So we stuck to the fishing instead.’ Billings smiled at the memory. ‘Poor sod wasn’t much better at that.’
‘Well, you’ve been very helpful, and I’m sure you realize the sooner we can talk to him, the better it will be for him.’
Billings, who struck them as a practical man, agreed.
‘And it’s no secret he didn’t like George Price,’ added Frost, ‘because of what happened to his father.’
‘I don’t think he ever got over it. Not really.’
‘But there’s the other matter …’ Frost left it hanging.
Billings was about to say something then stopped himself.
Frost prompted, ‘There’s always another matter, Mr Billings, and I’ll find that one out just as fast.’
‘Underneath all the Jack-the-lad bravado, he’s a good man, you know?’
‘Who just happens to be in love with Melody Price?’
Sue Clarke, who had been momentarily distracted by the riders and horses just coming into the adjacent field, turned sharply towards Frost, a look of surprise on her face.
Peter Billings’ pensive look disappeared. ‘Ah, you know about that,’ he said in a voice that sounded relieved.
Frost smiled. ‘Not until now. It was a hunch, but an educated one. I have met Melody Price. And I suspect crimes of passion sort of come with the territory.’
‘And to make things worse, I don’t think it was reciprocated, not in the way he wanted.’ Billings let out a sigh.
‘You said that the end of his marriage shook him to his core.’
‘That’s right.’
‘How would you describe his state of mind lately?’
Billings puffed out his ruddy cheeks. ‘Tell you the truth, not that I’m a shrink or anything, but he did seem a bit shaky. He wanted to be left on his own most of the time. I’d invite him up to the house, and we’d occasionally sit in front of the fire, chatting away, depleting a decanter of port. But in the end he always got so bloody maudlin about everything. Going on about missing his father, and how he’d let him down by ruining the business; his wife leaving him and the family they’d never have now; and then, of course, the Price woman. His one real chance at love, he reckoned. Convinced of it, he was: it was her or nothing.’ Billings shook his head, as if the very memory of it was simultaneously too much to bear and, frankly, ridiculous. ‘After the third drink, it always ended in tears – and that’s not a turn of phrase, Inspector, I mean real ones. Bloody great tears streaming down his cheeks. Well, I stopped inviting him up in the end. I can’t say I agree with all that.’
‘All what?’ asked Clarke.
‘Well, it’s different for us chaps. I know you chapesses are very good at it, talking about everything, feelings and such like, all the time. But I think there’s a lot to be said for stiffening your resolve and just bloody getting on with it. Blubbering like a baby won’t get you anywhere, will it?’
Frost didn’t dare look round at the ‘chapess’ next to him.
‘Thank you, Miss Smith, if you can make sure everyone who needs to be gathered in the briefing room is gathered, I’ll be right out to meet her.’
Stanley Mullett put the receiver back in its cradle as if one wrong move and the thing would explode. Such was his fragility this morning that he was sure he could hear dust settle. Mullett was hosting the hangover from hell. All the other hangovers he’d endured over the years were impostors compared to this one; this one was the real deal. He was also hosting DI Eve Hayward from West End Central. She was to do a presentation on the evils of knock-off goods, which had increasingly been turning up of late at Denton markets and car-boot fairs. The memo he’d received from County was very firm, it was a three-line whip, and all of Denton CID and a good representation of uniform were to be present, despite it being a Saturday morning.
Mullett picked up his mug of tepid coffee with its three heaped teaspoons of Nescafé; it was his third mug and it still hadn’t done the trick. He was barely conscious. He gripped the arms of his leather-upholstered executive chair and lifted himself out of it. Once up, he took a sonorous breath, straightened his tie and headed for the conference room.
Ten minutes later and Mullett was in the front row of the large briefing room, smiling, his hangover a distant memory as he listened intently, and watched closely, totally immersed in DI Eve Hayward’s presentation.
‘The idea that counterfeit goods are a victimless crime is as big a fraud as the goods themselves that make it on to the market. And this idea is often perpetuated as much by law enforcement as by the general public,’ asserted DI Hayward to her audience of some fifteen Eagle Lane officers of varying rank. ‘From Sergio Tacchini tracksuits to Sony Trinitron TVs to TDK videotapes with Footloose recorded on them before the film’s even come out in this country. Branded designer goods have never been more important to consumers, and equally never have they been bigger business for the counterfeiters. But not only can the goods themselves be dangerous – for instance, fake perfume that causes serious skin damage, faulty electrical goods that cause fires and loss of life – but the profits are often reinvested into other criminal activities, such as the funding of large-scale drugs deals.’
Mullett approved of DI Eve Hayward on many levels. One being the way she delivered her message, with firm authority. Mullett’s monster of a hangover had been vanquished more or less the very second he’d clapped his rheumy red eyes on the London inspector. She was in her mid to late thirties, he’d surmised, with auburn hair worn in a short bob that had a lustre as satisfying as his toecaps, and plucked eyebrows that were as expressive as a cracked whip. And with her full lips and a voice that was husky and warm, with the hint of an accent, Irish perhaps, she was making quite an impression.
She turned round to switch on the TV and video player for the training film. As she bent over to insert the video in the machine, Mullett had to avert his eyes, and instead turned his attention towards the audience behind him. He wasn’t happy with what he saw. There was David Simms and some other young PCs nudging each other the minute she’d turned her back, licentious grins stretching their pimply faces. Then he caught sight of John Waters, married less than a year, and yet Mullett was sure he heard him make an obscene noise, like someone sucking their teeth. Arthur Hanlon was as usual not paying attention, his gaze drifting aimlessly around the room and finally floating out of the window, probably down to the canteen as he pondered the lunch menu.
No Frost. Typical. And no DC Clarke either. He’d heard the rumours about Frost and Clarke; there was even talk of the DI being the father of her child. And as unpalatable and unbelievable as it seemed, he knew that women found the widowed Frost attractive. His late wife had been a good-looking woman from a well-connected local family. Mullett had even once courted her father with a view to joining the Masons. But as for the troublesome inspector, that whole rumpled maverick look obviously had some traction with the opposite sex.
DI Eve Hayward would need someone to show her around Denton and the surrounding area, and knowing that with his other duties it couldn’t be him, Mullett had just the right person in mind. As Hayward turned to address her audience again, Mullett emitted a satisfied sigh. For once he was happy that Frost had ignored his instructions. He was happy Frost wasn’t—
‘Excuse me, sir.’
Mullett turned sharply to his left to find DS John Waters crouched at his shoulder, whispering in his ear.
‘What is it?’
‘I’ve got to go, community outreach at the Southern Housing Estate?’
This was news to Mullett, and his frown expressed as much.
‘Some of the mothers are concerned about drugs on the estate. Inspector Frost said I should follow it up. I’ve had some experience, and we thought I would—’
‘Yes, yes,’ interrupted an impatient Mullett, almost shooing him away. He watched Waters leave, mouthing an apology to Eve Hayward, which she graciously accepted with a smile. Again, it vexed him that Frost had suggested Waters for community outreach on the estate. It was a good idea. Damn good idea. Again, corroborating the super’s theory that the men respected Frost, that he had their ear. Mullett was determined to stem this pernicious influence. Frost would slip up, men like him always did. And when he did …