Chapter 48
huge development,” I say. “The stain on his glove in the surveillance photo was blood. Zaylee and Fletch were right about him. But I don’t suppose the police will be apologising to them any time soon.”
“I hope this is going to help Tim,” Baxter says. “He’s still in custody. I want to visit him but Jack doesn’t want me to.”
“If Paul murdered Ambrose, and Tim’s sure he did the burglary, he must be the gardener and home maintenance man that Ben went on about. Working in people’s gardens and houses all around the area. And we still don’t know who his grandfather is. If Paul, has a lawyer in the family, Tim needs one too. I’ll talk to Hayden and let Ben Baker know. Tim can ask Hayden to represent him.”
“Without charging him?”
“It’s called pro bono. If Hayden thinks Paul is going to have good representation he’ll want to support the underdog. He isn’t a criminal lawyer but he can give Tim sound advice.”
I ring Hayden.
“Tim has already engaged me.”
“That’s good of you, Hayden.”
“Not pro bono. My bill is being covered by … an anonymous benefactor.”
Not anonymous to Hayden by the sound of it. Who could that be?
A series of small items appear in the Echo with little fanfare.
Accused murderer Paul Pigford (20) has pleaded guilty to the burglary in Wentworth Street two year ago. The man convicted of the crime, Timothy Bale, who has spent 15 months in Leyhill Prison before absconding and being recaptured, has applied to have his conviction quashed.
Hayden rings. “An update, Tiggy. Off the record. Paul Pigford is the acting DCI’s grandson.”
“DCI Kisner?”
“Yes. Conrad Kisner’s back from retirement for a few months, filling in for the new DCI who’s recovering from a skiing accident. The family relationship explains a lot of things about the burglary case that I won’t elaborate on. And Pigford’s saying he found Ambrose dead and just took the knife. He’s trying to do deals by offering proof about other crimes.”
“How plausible is that?”
“Not very but he has friends in high places.”
Besides his grandfather?
“Why was Paul even in the house?” I ask.
“He says he was doing a clean-up at the request of Dr Helena Loxton next door. When he went upstairs, he found Ambrose lying in a pool of blood. He’s putting his hand up as a thief, instead of a murderer. He’s admitted to stealing things from the property over several months to explain why he took the knife. A 19th century French hunting knife. He says he washed it in the kitchen sink and kept it.”
Has Helena confirmed that Paul was at Number 24 at her request? Would she have trusted him with knowing about the secret connecting doors? If she’s said nothing to either confirm or deny what Paul’s said, it could be related to her colleague DCI Kisner. What Hayden said ‘explains a lot of things about the burglary case I won’t elaborate on’ could also explain a lot of things about Ambrose’s death.
At least while all this is going on, Lou-Lou has been released.
Helena surprises me. She invites Baxter and me to her private lab for a guided tour.
“It’s my way of thanking you both for your help in resolving the hostage situation and the murder of Ambrose,” she says on the phone. “It’s a terrible shock that Paul killed him. I still can’t get over it after working with his grandfather Conrad as a trusted colleague for many years. I never liked Paul much. He was rebellious even as a small boy. But we all kept hoping he’d grow out of it. A lot of us in the Crescent and surrounding streets offered him work in our homes, mostly in the garden but inside too if it wasn’t too challenging. But he’s lazy and not even very good with a broom. To think he was stealing from Ambrose and …” She seems to run out of words.
Baxter is excited about the tour. He’s even borrowed Helena’s book from the library. He has unwavering faith in DNA and I’m sure he’s going to bombard her with impossible questions and she’ll enjoy answering them.
Then I remember his unwavering faith has been shaken by what happened to Tim.
“We helped rescue Tim and nail Porkie-Paul so I’m going to ask her how they found the saliva on the mug that convicted Tim.”
“She may not want to discuss a real-life example.”
“She talks about real cases in her book. There’s one where she found two sequins in a whole lot of fluff and dirt, hoovered up from the floor of a van. The owner of the van went down for murdering a little girl.”
It’s one of the cases on the flash drive with the ‘loose ends’. I tell him there’s no harm in asking questions about Tim to see what she says.
Someone has been whispering in Anita Blaine’s ear. Echo Chamber has a new post.
Would you recognise your stolen goods in a police line-up?
A family in Exeter, who suffered a burglary where their home was trashed two years ago, has been tasked with recognising a ‘cuckoo’ china mug from a mountain of other valuables smashed at the time. The broken pieces were laid out amongst other shards from the incident.
‘There was a piece from Tiffany,’ the owner told Echo Chamber. ‘A pattern I never liked. Not mine but I might have been confused. Then I saw a handle attached to a piece with the same pattern and I knew I’d never had a pair.’
Did the burglar bring his own pair of mugs to hide with the rest? Intriguing.
Two smashed mugs the owner knows weren’t hers. But what Anita has been careful to avoid, is whether one of those ‘cuckoo mugs’ had the saliva that convicted Tim.
“Tiggy, Tiggy, I’ve had a call from Zaylee. To thank me for helping Tim.”
Baxter has just arrived to walk Raider.
“That’s great,” I say. “She recognises what you’ve done.”
“Like, she didn’t say sorry for calling me all those bad things and stuff but Mum said saying thank you is a bit like saying sorry without saying it. And guess what? She’s Tim’s girlfriend. That’s why she was helping him.”
“Tim’s lucky to have such a loyal girlfriend. She hasn’t stopped collecting evidence to try to get him out of prison.”
“Yeah. She didn’t want to be my girlfriend because she’s loyal to Tim.”
This realisation is good for Baxter’s self-esteem.
“And Fletch is Tim’s brother! They have different last names because Fletch changed his to Christian by deed poll. He’s called himself Fletcher Christian for years – like he’s Fletch’s hero from the mutiny on the Bounty in 1789 – and Fletch wanted to get into the pen-friend study but he couldn’t have the same last name as Tim.”
“That shows a lot of planning.”
“That’s why Fletch and Zaylee were working together. And their surveillance camera was still in the tree when I climbed up and saw Tim and Porkie-Paul fighting. Zaylee told me the camera got a video of Porkie-Paul pulling out the knife and this time the police wanted to see it. Like, it’s not admissible in court but Porkie was trying to say it was Tim’s knife – except how did it get Ambrose’s blood on it while Tim was in jail – and when they showed him Zaylee’s video, he changed his story.”
Lou-Lou and Helena would also have recognised it as one of Ambrose’s antiques. I tell Baxter what Hayden said about Paul saying he didn’t kill Ambrose, he just took the knife, and trying to do deals by revealing other crimes.
“How does that work if he’s got evidence of other crimes?” he asks. “If he’s done more crimes, doesn’t that make his chances worse? Unless he knows about crimes committed by someone else. Like, he probably hangs around with what my mum calls ‘the wrong crowd’. That’s what Mum was doing when she met my real dad. My grandmother told her he was a lowlife but Mum didn’t listen.”
“Then she learned from her mistake and brought you up to hang around with the right crowd.”
Baxter grins, realising the compliment includes me and Raider. “If we open up a PI agency together, Tiggy, that would be a good name for it. The Right Crowd. I could design a logo for us.”
He hasn’t mentioned this dream for a while but our teamwork during the siege has probably rekindled it. When he clips on Raider’s lead and they race off, I get back to my real job.