Three
DI Frank Lyle
Fox and I were walking the streets of Ashbeck. It was dry but still very cold.
We had been to a couple of homeless shelters where no one claimed to know our John Doe but we sensed that they were afraid. The shelter staff members were not much help either. We got comments like.
"DI Lyle, do you realise how many people we get through here on a daily basis? It's impossible to remember any one in particular, unless he was a regular, which your guy wasn't."
"Well, call me if you do remember anything." I said politely.
"What's he done?" a pretty secretary at another shelter asked.
"Nothing, we just need to talk to him." I said. I had decided not to state that he had been murdered, given the panic this was likely to cause.
Come lunchtime we had got nowhere. Fox had chatted to a few of the vagrants but their inherent distrust of the police was apparent from the way they did not meet his eyes or glanced downwards.
"Let's get something to eat," I suggested.
We went into a Burger King and ordered Whoppers and fries. I didn't usually eat fast food but I was hungry. We consumed them quietly in a table by the window.
"Sir, do you think we ought to make enquiries at Ashbeck Council?" Fox asked. "We have all the others trawling the homeless hangouts. But Delaney and I did find him there."
"It's worth a try." I acceded to his suggestion.
We discarded the burger wrappings and empty paper cups in the bin and stacked the trays on top of those already there.
We went to the council offices. The broken glass had been swept up and the steps scrubbed clean.
"There's no blood," Fox said.
"That's not unusual," I said.
"But his throat was cut, presumably with jagged glass if the look of the cut was anything to go by. It would have spurted out, especially given it crossed the jugular."
"He may not have been killed where you found him," I said. "Remember it gets dark early, being winter. They could have moved him later."
"I suppose." Fox did not seem entirely convinced.
We walked into the building.
A man sat at the reception desk. He was in his mid forties, dressed in a navy uniform. He kept glancing at the clock on the opposite wall and drumming his fingers on the desk. I guessed he was bored. He had a badge pinned to his lapel which read Anthony Sawyer Chief of Security.
I approached the desk and showed my warrant card, Fox did likewise.
"DI Frank Lyle, Ashbeck police. This is PC Fox."
"What can I do for you, officers?"
His tone was honeyed, sycophantic.
I took the photograph from my coat pocket and slid it across the desk. Sawyer barely glanced at it.
"Please look at it properly," I said. His evasive nature and reluctance to look properly suggested he had something to hide, especially since I noticed he had turned quite pale and perspiration beaded his forehead.
Sawyer glanced again at the photo and began to retch. He snatched up the wastepaper basket and ejected a stream of bile. Fox and I glanced away to give him some privacy.
"He was found out on the steps late last evening," Fox said, "In fact it was my partner, PC Delaney, and I who found him."
"Is he...?"
"Dead? Yes. His throat had been cut, with what looks like s shard of broken glass." I said.
"I wasn't on duty last night." He drew himself up to his full height, which was still some half a foot shorter than me, "Therefore I didn't see anything."
"I realise that," I said, "But your body language very much suggests you knew him at least."
"Yeah, I knew him," Sawyer shrank into his chair, his shoulders hunched.
"Who was he?" I persisted. "This is a murder enquiry, so unless you want me to charge you with obstructing the police in their enquiries and potentially perverting the course of justice, I suggest you tell us what you know."
Sawyer was almost as white as the polished tiles of the reception floor. His voice was so quiet in the high ceiling room that we had to strain to hear him.
"His name was Alex Carnegie."
Now I was aware. Carnegie was the heir apparent to Ashbeck's main construction firm Carnegie Holdings. Old man Carnegie was pushing sixty but still held the reins of the firm as tightly as the day he had made his first million. Alex was his nephew for Carnegie had no children, well except for two daughters but he was of the old school that did not believe women were possessed of the correct mindset to run businesses.
Alright, so we now had a name but it posed more questions, such as why was the heir to a successful construction firm masquerading as a vagrant.
"He came in to see Councillor Kenyon two days ago," Sawyer said. "About ten minutes after he went in, he hadn't had an appointment but Kenyon had agreed to see him, two of my men came downstairs manhandling him and threw him out of the building. I didn't venture to ask what it was about but later Kenyon instructed me to brief my staff that Carnegie was to be removed from the building should he ever come in again."
Fox was scribbling in his notebook.
I was rather intrigued. I did not know Councillor Kenyon personally but I knew that he was known to the Assistant Chief Constable John Henderson, they played golf together. By all accounts Kenyon was a level-headed businessman, who owned a chain of antique shops in the area and was generally believed to be level-headed with shred business sense. Had some deal between him and the Carnegies gone sour?
"We may need to talk to you again, Mr Sawyer." I said, "You weren't planning on being away over the holiday period were you?"
"On my salary? You're having a laugh, Inspector Lyle."
"We'll need to talk to Councillor Kenyon too." Fox added.
Sawyer handed us a card.
"Make an appointment with Kirstin; his secretary."
"I will do." I slipped the card into my pocket.
"Poor Alex," Sawyer muttered, more to himself than to us. "He could be an officious little prat at times, but no one deserves to die like that."
Fox and I left the council buildings and made our way back in the direction of Ashbeck nick.
We had found out John Doe's name but I had a feeling that was far from the end of our problems.
