Trial by Fire Read online

  Trial by Fire

  A Sanford 3rd Age Club Mystery (#14)

  David W Robinson

  Copyright © 2017 by David W Robinson

  Cover Photography by Adobe Stock © DiViArts

  Design by soqoqo

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or Crooked Cat Books except for brief quotations used for promotion or in reviews. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Printed in the United Kingdom

  First Black Line Edition, Crooked Cat Books. 2017

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  The Author

  David Robinson is a Yorkshireman now living in Manchester. Driven by a huge, cynical sense of humour, he’s been a writer for over thirty years having begun with magazine articles before moving on to novels and TV scripts.

  He has little to do with his life other than write, as a consequence of which his output is prodigious. Thankfully most of it is never seen by the great reading public of the world.

  He has worked closely with Crooked Cat Books since 2012, when The Filey Connection, the very first Sanford 3rd Age Club Mystery, was published.

  Describing himself as the Doyen of Domestic Disasters he can be found blogging at www.dwrob.com and he appears frequently on video (written, produced and starring himself) dispensing his mocking humour at www.youtube.com/user/Dwrob96/videos

  By the same author

  The STAC Mystery series:

  1. The Filey Connection

  2. The I-Spy Murders

  3. A Halloween Homicide

  4. A Murder for Christmas

  5. Murder at the Murder Mystery Weekend

  6. My Deadly Valentine

  7. The Chocolate Egg Murders

  8. The Summer Wedding Murder

  9. Costa del Murder

  10. Christmas Crackers

  11. Death in Distribution

  12. A Killing in the Family

  13. A Theatrical Murder

  14. Trial by Fire

  15. Peril in Palmanova

  The SPOOKIES Mystery series

  The Haunting of Melmerby Manor

  The Man in Black

  Trial by Fire

  A Sanford 3rd Age Club Mystery (#14)

  Chapter One

  Turning into Eastward, the newly promoted Detective Inspector Gemma Craddock wondered how the street had come by such an odd name.

  Four thirty on what promised to be another glorious, July morning, and the sun, still below the horizon, would rise on her right, meaning she was driving north, not east. Why call it Eastward? Why not Northward?

  She stifled a yawn, her eyes concentrated on the clutch of emergency vehicles up ahead, their blue lights flashing in the dawn.

  Eastward was one of those new developments where ‘new’ meant built within the last five years. The houses were all detached, the lowest price stood at about £200,000, or in other words, completely out of her league. Not that she would want to live here. No sense of community. Gleason Holdings had sold the houses on the back of boasted exclusivity. No single dwelling looked like any other. Bungalow, two and three storey, three bed, four bed, single bed with inverted floors, where the living accommodation stood above bedrooms situated at a lower level. At the far end, where the fire, ambulance and police crews had gathered, stood the dominating spread known as Developer’s Dream, a vast and rambling house with an estimated value of about £800,000. It was the home of Gerard Vaughan, the man who had commissioned and built Eastward.

  Pulling in behind the Scientific Support van, Gemma yawned again, killed her car engine and mentally corrected herself. It had been the home of Gerard Vaughan. What was left of it was uninhabitable.

  Once a magnificent, three-storey neo-Georgian mansion, the pristine brickwork was scorched and bulging here and there. Part of the roof had collapsed, either under the heat of the fire or the weight of water from high-pressure hoses. Windows on all three floors were shattered, and pine cladding on the exterior was charred. The brilliant white, uPVC front door, blackened and buckled in places from the heat had been rived from its hinges, and cast to one side, left forlornly on the finely tended lawn, and that lawn itself was scoured and trenched where men and machines (presumably from the Fire Service) had crossed it.

  Gemma climbed out of her car to be greeted by PC Vinny Gillespie. Shrouded in a bright lemon, quilt-lined, high-visibility jacket, he appeared grim-faced and tired.

  Gillespie had rung at 3:45 and told her they had a body in a fire, and it had been declared a suspicious death. Gemma showered and took a strong cup of coffee. It did nothing to subdue the excitement coursing through her veins.

  In a town of 40,000 people, serious crime was rare, and since being promoted to the rank of inspector three months previously, she had investigated nothing more interesting than a robbery at a town centre jewellers. The case had been wrapped up fairly quickly thanks to CCTV footage and her knowledge of the local villains. She had assisted in one or two assault cases in Wakefield, but that aside, life as an inspector was as tame and humdrum as it had been for a sergeant.

  And now Gillespie had called her with a murder. Not her first, but the first she would lead. With all due respect to the poor victim, this was just what she needed.

  Putting aside the fatigue of a hot summer night and only five hours’ sleep, she greeted Gillespie cheerfully. “Morning, Vinny.”

  “Is it, guv?”

  Gemma waved at the gathering light to the east. “So I’m told.”

  She took in the scene around the house. Three fire appliances were in attendance, their hoses snaking across the ground. An ambulance stood by, its crew of two paramedics drinking coffee from a flask and looking bored. Fire officers moved here and there under the command of their Watch Manager, Bradley Kilburn, and she could see two SOCOs, clad in pale blue overalls and overshoes, going into the house.

  She had been told almost nothing over the phone. A fire. A body. Suspicious death. She was duty CID officer for the night. She was needed. As the senior CID officer in Sanford, she would have been needed even if she were not on rota.

  Time to draw more information. “All right, Vinny, tell me what we have.”

  “Brad’ll fill you in on the fire side of things, ma’am. I was called out about midnight. They were here when I arrived and I was needed for traffic and pedestrian control.” He snorted and waved at the empty street. “Not that we needed it. No one about. Y’know. When Brad and his boys spotted a stiff in the living room, I called the station and asked for the doc. At that point, it was no more than a body in a burning building. Half past three by the time Brad said the building was safe for the doc to go in. He checked the body and called it. Murder. That’s when I rang you.”

  Gemma threw open the boot of her car and pulled out a set of the same pale blue coveralls. Pulling them on, she asked, “Did the doc give you anything more?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “He still here?”

  “Nope. He’s shot off back to the mortuary to wait for the stiff.”

  Pulling the first of her overshoes onto her sensible flats, Gemma tutted. “He should know better. He’s supposed to report to me.” She pulled on the second overshoe. “Have we ID’d the body?”

  “Not officially. Brad reckons its Vaughan, and five’ll get you ten he’s right. We know Vaughan lives alone.”

  “Let’s not presume anything, eh?”


  Gemma closed the boot of her car and made her way towards the house, ducking under the police crime scene tape. She was met by Kilburn.

  “Morning, Gemma. Congratulations on your promotion.”

  “Thanks.” She yawned yet again. “Glad you didn’t say ‘good morning’. Nothing good about this time of day. Tell me what you know, Brad.”

  “We were called out about half past eleven last night. Got here, the place was well ablaze. Vinny arrived about half an hour after us, and by then we were tackling it. Had it under control by about one o’clock, and properly damped down by half past two. We saw the body from outside and that’s when we went in to check it out. We declared it safe to enter at half past three, and by then we’d done our preliminary.” His grimy features took on a more dour appearance. “You’re not gonna like this, lass.”

  “I’m not here to like it, Brad. Just tell me.”

  “It was deliberate firing and the torch used cooking oil as an accelerant.”

  Gemma made the connection right away. “You’re thinking Uncle Joe?”

  Kilburn nodded. “I was there last year, Gemma, when he threatened to kill Gerry Vaughan. After the old Lazy Luncheonette burned down.”

  “Yeah, but he was only mouthing off. He was angry. Besides, he ended up on the winning side, didn’t he? The new Lazy Luncheonette is in the same place as the old one, and he got it cheap for the first two years.”

  “I’m only saying, Gemma.”

  “We’re gonna need something a lot stronger than cooking oil as an accelerant to pin Joe down.”

  “And we may have it,” Kilburn insisted. “My lads found two pieces in there. A pen and a chef’s knife.”

  “What? They didn’t touch them, did they? Only—”

  “No they didn’t,” the fire officer interrupted. “These are experienced fire-fighters, Gemma. In a situation like this, where there’s been a death, they know not to touch anything. We left them in situ for your SOCOs to photograph and bag up.”

  An incandescent blaze of light shone through the missing windows and broken brickwork of the burned out building. Gemma looked through the gaps, and the first crimson arc of the sun’s disc forced her to look away again.

  Or was it the unnerving idea in her head which forced her to turn away?

  “Anyone can buy a kitchen knife, Brad, and most people own pens.”

  “True,” the Watch Manager agreed. “But how many of those kitchen knives have the initials L.M. scratched into the handle. And the pen has an inscription on it. It’s a bit burned, but I could make out: ‘Thanks from Alec and Julia’. That’ll be Alec and Julia Staines, won’t it? Big mates with Joe. Members of that club he runs, aren’t they?”

  “The Sanford 3rd Age Club.” Gemma nodded glumly. Drawing in a breath, she asked, “How badly burned is the body?”

  “Bad,” Kilburn replied. “I’ve seen worse, mind. I’d guess fifty, sixty per cent. Enough left to identify him, though.”

  “Definitely Vaughan?”

  “After the fun and games he caused with that development on Doncaster Road, anyone could recognise him and, of course, I’ve had my share of dealings with him on one building or another so I know him as well as I know your Uncle Joe.”

  Gemma’s heart sank. “We’ve been here before.”

  “Come again.”

  She smiled wanly. “The Sanford Valentine Strangler. Uncle Joe was questioned. Wrong. Roy Vickers accused him. Joe made us look pretty silly when he cracked it.”

  Kilburn shrugged. “Your problem, not mine. I’m only reporting to you.”

  She sighed and called to her colleague. “Vinny. Get the door knocking organised. We need to speak to the neighbours, and I don’t give a toss how many of them are still in bed. Knock ’em up.”

  “Right, ma’am.”

  Gemma turned back to Kilburn. “Okay, Brad. Let’s take a look inside.”

  ***

  At just after seven o’clock, a worried Gemma sat with Chief Superintendent Donald Oughton, station commander for Sanford and the surrounding villages.

  In his mid to late fifties, Oughton had made it to his exalted rank by the traditional route, starting as a beat bobby in the mid-seventies, and along the way he had done his stints in almost all departments. A tall, slender and a lugubrious man, he was also a friend of Joe Murray. Gemma had the notion they had been at school together.

  And she believed it was that friendship which caused Oughton the most concern right now, as he reclined in his executive chair, his pristine white shirt with its black epaulettes and silver adornments gleaming in the morning sun, his gaze concentrated on the view of Gale Street through the windows.

  It was not an inspiring prospect. The street was given over largely to local government and law enforcement. The police station took up a large proportion of the street, and then there were the courts, plus a few annexes of the Town Hall, with the odd solicitors’ offices here and there. At this time of day, there were few people to be seen. It would get a little busier later, when The Gallery shopping mall, the rear entrance of which was across the street, opened for business, but for the most part, the people to be seen on Gale Street were usually in uniform.

  Gemma knew exactly what was going through Oughton’s mind and it had nothing to do with the comings and goings outside. After the Valentine fiasco, he would be very wary of pulling Joe in. Small, noisy, irascible, Joe was also astute and possessed with observational powers not granted to mere mortals such as herself and her boss.

  And like her boss, she did not believe, for one minute, that Joe had anything to do with events on Eastward.

  In an effort to prompt Oughton, she said, “I’m sorry to have dragged you in so early, sir. But Joe is my uncle and I don’t want to compromise the investigation.”

  Oughton stirred as if he had only just realised she was there. “What? Oh. No. That’s all right, Gemma. You did the right thing.” He smiled encouragement upon her. “You think it’s a fit up?”

  “I’m certain of it, sir. Joe may be a bad-tempered old bugger, but he’s no killer.”

  “And yet he did threaten Vaughan last year, when the old Lazy Luncheonette burned down. I recall reading your report on the matter.”

  “He was furious, sir. It was just hot air.”

  The senior man faced her, and looked down at her interim report on the fire at Eastward. “You have a witness who says he saw a black Ford Ka outside Vaughan’s home at eleven o’clock. Half an hour before the Fire Service were called.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Gemma recalled the doorstep interview with Rodney Spencer, an irate, middle-aged man, still wearing his pyjamas and dressing gown, his hair tousled, dentures, missing.

  “It was black and like a Volkswagen Beetle. The new one,” he had said.

  “A Volkswagen. You’re sure of that, Mr Spencer?”

  “No. I said it was like a Volkswagen Beetle, but it wasn’t one. It was that Ford thing. The roundy shaped one.”

  “A Ford Ka?” Gemma had asked, only too well-aware that it was Brad Kilburn’s suspicions which led her along that train of thought.

  “Yes.”

  “And you’re sure of the colour?”

  “No. It was dark, remember. It could have been dark blue or black. All I’m saying is…”

  Oughton’s voice broke into Gemma’s recollections. “What does Joe drive? A Vauxhall, isn’t it?”

  Her increasing anxiety forced Gemma to swallow hard. “No, sir. The Vauxhall went up in smoke with the original Lazy Luncheonette.”

  “So what is he running now?”

  “A Ford Ka. A black Ford Ka.”

  Oughton looked up sharply. “Oh, that’s it, then. We have to bring him in.”

  “Yes, sir, I thought we would have to. But…”

  Gemma trailed off. She did not want to put into words what was going through her mind. On the one hand she was concerned for her uncle. Joe had a reputation for being abrupt to the point of rudeness, but by and large,
he was a respected member of the Sanford community, and a man who believed in the rule of law. Her father, who had also been a policeman, and her mother, sister to Joe’s ex-wife, had been firm friends with Joe ever since Gemma could remember, and the little caterer had done as much as her father to encourage her when she first joined the police.

  Behind her concern for her uncle, however, there was a good deal of anger. This was the first serious crime where she had the opportunity to lead the investigation and demonstrate her abilities, yet she knew that Oughton would not permit it.

  Her boss confirmed it. “I’m sorry, Gemma, but I can’t let you handle it.”

  From a purely practical point of view, it was the correct course of action. Although Gemma (and Joe) would insist that she was impartial, the press and the public were hardly likely to see it in the same light, and in small town like Sanford, it would not take long for the public to learn that one of its best-known traders was the subject of an investigation led by his niece.

  “Sir, I…”

  Oughton held up his hand for silence. “We have a prima facie case of murder on our hands, and we’re only waiting for forensic and pathology reports to confirm it. Rightly or wrongly, we don’t always enjoy the best of reputations. I’ve no doubts that Joe is innocent, but I cannot allow you to run an investigation into such a serious crime where he’s implicated.”

  Gemma suppressed her disappointment. “Who, then, sir?”

  The Chief Superintendent drummed his fingers on the desktop. “By rights, I should ring Wakefield and ask for Chief Inspector Vickers, but we know what happened last time.”

  Joe had been implicated in the case of the Sanford Valentine Strangler, and Vickers had made life more than uncomfortable for her uncle.

  “He has a downer on Uncle Joe, sir.”

  “Correct, and your uncle went on to make us all look like amateurs. But the evidence then was largely circumstantial. This—” Oughton gestured at her report “—is probably circumstantial, too, but it’s a little more concrete. The car is what swings it for me.”