In Vino Veritas Read online

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Recent Titles by Peter Turnbull From Severn House

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Epilogue

  Recent Titles by Peter Turnbull from Severn House

  The Hennessey and Yellich Series

  ONCE A BIKER

  NO STONE UNTURNED

  TURNING POINT

  INFORMED CONSENT

  DELIVER US FROM EVIL

  AFTERMATH

  THE ALTERED CASE

  GIFT WRAPPED

  The Harry Vicary Series

  IMPROVING THE SILENCE

  DEEP COVER

  THE GARDEN PARTY

  DENIAL OF MURDER

  IN VINO VERITAS

  IN VINO VERITAS

  Peter Turnbull

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  This first world edition published 2015

  in Great Britain and 2016 in the USA by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

  19 Cedar Road, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM2 5DA.

  Trade paperback edition first published

  in Great Britain and the USA 2016 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD

  eBook edition first published in 2015 by Severn House Digital

  an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited

  Copyright © 2015 by Peter Turnbull.

  The right of Peter Turnbull to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  Turnbull, Peter, 1950- author.

  In vino veritas. – (The Harry Vicary series)

  1. Vicary, Harry (Fictitious character)–Fiction.

  2. Police–England–London–Fiction. 3. Murder–

  Investigation–Fiction. 4. Murder for hire–Fiction.

  5. Detective and mystery stories.

  I. Title II. Series

  823.9’2-dc23

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-8572-2 (cased)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-84751-680-0 (trade paper)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-734-9 (e-book)

  Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

  This ebook produced by

  Palimpsest Book Production Limited, Falkirk,

  Stirlingshire, Scotland.

  ONE

  Monday, 17.15 hours – Wednesday, 13.55 hours

  The young man leaned sullenly against the window frame and just within the doorway of the vacant shop unit. He looked out across the narrow street in a casual, uninterested manner, noting the passing motor vehicles and the foot passengers, observing the world as it went by in front of him but equally not particularly concerned by it. That was the impression he hoped to give: a lazy, unemployed person who had nothing better to do with his time than watch the occupants of the street as they continued about their business before him, either on foot or in a car or commercial vehicle. In fact, the young man was particularly interested in a specific building which stood diagonally across the street from his vantage point. The ground floor of the building in question was given over for use as a grocer’s shop which was run by two evidently energetic and enthusiastic Asian youths, so the young man noted. The two storeys above the grocer’s shop were reportedly used as residential accommodation and had grey net curtains hanging over each window; curtains which never seemed, to the young man, to move – not in the slightest. The young man shrank further into the doorway in which he stood; a passer-by would probably glance at him once and then forget him. The passing pedestrian would notice the man’s worn and torn sports shoes; he would notice the man’s pale and threadbare denim jeans, torn at both knees; he would notice the man’s baggy and shapeless green T-shirt; he would notice the man’s lean face with its three days of beard growth upon it, and he would notice the man’s uncombed hair. The passer-by would then dismiss him as a chronically unemployed petty criminal and would walk on. The young man in the shop doorway glanced further up Cornwall Crescent towards Ladbroke Grove, again noting the new-build flats behind the trees which lined the road, then returned his attention to the residential accommodation above the grocer’s shop as the world walked or drove past him, each person glancing at him once, if at all, and labelling him as yet another down-and-out, yet another piece of human detritus which rubs shoulders with the rich and famous in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, W11.

  It was, as the man would later recall, sometimes with anger, and sometimes with good-humoured resignation, at about five o’clock that he was approached. It was about that time, just as the heat of the day was beginning to subside, that a foot passenger did not scornfully glance at him as he walked along the pavement, but rather stopped and talked to the man. The second man was tall, very tall, and very broad-chested. He wore an expensive-looking lightweight, cream-coloured, Italian-cut suit. The man wore rings – manly rings – on each finger of both hands; he wore a Rolex watch and his feet were encased in a pair of crocodile-skin shoes. He smiled at the young man, and in doing so revealed diamond studs in his teeth. He smelled strongly of aftershave, and said, ‘It’s been nice having you with us,’ speaking in the calm, self-assured, received pronunciation of a TV newscaster. He was, thought the young man, in his mid-thirties, ‘but,’ continued the Afro-Caribbean man, ‘nothing is going to happen while you are here, my man, nothing. Nothing, nothing at all.’ The man paused. ‘You see, the trouble is … your trouble, that is, not ours … that you are just not very good at your job. It’s as simple as that, my man; it’s as simple as that. We pinned you as soon as you arrived. We clocked you on day one, my man, on day one. You try to look like you’re not interested. Yes, you look up and down the street but only when you remember to do so; you can’t stop giving pretty well all your attention to our little premises above the grocer’s shop, but you are looking, my man, you are looking. You see, drifters, down-and-outs, they just stare into space, and they drift … they walk down the street, lost in their own little world, or they walk from rubbish bin to rubbish bin. It’s like for them there is always one more corner to turn, one more bin to ferret through … but you, my man, you … you just stand here in this shop doorway, never moving from this location. My man, let me tell you, you need lessons, my man, you need lessons. Well, as I have said, we’ve enjoyed your company, we’ve had a good laugh … it helped us get through our days … it’s been cool, really cool, but it’s only fair to tell you that nothing is going to go down, not while you are here, and now that we know that you know about the flats above the grocer’s shop, we won’t be using them – not any more. We’ll be giving up the rental and moving on.’ The Afro-Caribbean man paused. ‘You can search them if you like, but you won’t find anything, you can be sure of that. It’s been well and truly sanitized. That’s what you saw yesterday. Yesterday you saw three women carrying cleaning materials. They were not smuggling anything in or out. They were a tea
m of contract cleaners and they did a very good job; all that bleach, it really made our eyes water. We paid them well, more than the going rate, and they earned their crust. They earned it all right.’

  The young man, who was by no means short of stature, continued to stare up at the Afro-Caribbean man, whose white teeth glinted with diamond studs, but he spoke not a word in reply.

  ‘So.’ The Afro-Caribbean man glanced casually at his watch. ‘Look, my man, it’s a nice time to knock off, a civilized time – it’s the end of the working day for most honest folk.’ He continued to speak in a calm, self-assured manner. ‘So why don’t you do the sensible thing and go for a pint, or two, or three, and then tomorrow you can tell your boss that he’s been wasting your time. We’ll be transferring our operation to some other location, and we’ll be keeping a good lookout for you and your kind.’ And with that, the Afro-Caribbean man walked away, watched by the young man, until he turned the corner, entered Ladbroke Grove and was lost from sight.

  ‘“Go for a pint.”’ The young man shrugged his shoulders and repeated the advice, aloud, as if talking to himself. ‘Go for a pint, go for a pint … you know, I might just do that.’ He glanced up at the blue and near-cloudless sky which hung over London town and said, ‘Yes, yes, I will. I think I will. I’ll do just that.’ He left the doorway and walked casually towards Ladbroke Grove. When he reached the corner he turned and walked in the opposite direction he had very recently observed the hugely built Afro-Caribbean man walk in.

  The young man viewed the Grove as he walked northwards towards the Westway Flyover. He noticed the pub occupying a corner site on the opposite side of the road. Just like the grocer’s shop in Cornwall Crescent, the pub was on the ground floor with two storeys of residential accommodation above. It seemed to the man to be built of stone with the tall window frames picked out in white paint which strongly reflected the late-afternoon sun. The pub was richly maintained, so the man thought, with a highly varnished wooden door and the vaulted windows thoroughly cleaned. Seats and benches and small tables stood outside the pub but did not protrude on to the pavement, as did a row of tall plants in large terracotta pots. An awning was pulled out and downwards in front of the southern window. The pub, the man noticed, was called The Tiger, its name proudly emblazoned in large gold lettering on a black background above the windows of the building. Curiously, the man pondered, the pub’s name was not followed by an image of the animal in question but of a sailing ship. Inside he found it to be pleasantly cool and shady but not at all gloomy. The name of the pub was, he saw, instantly explained by many images of ships of earlier eras, and he stood briefly and read a short explanation mounted on the wall by the door which advised that Britain had had fifteen warships called The Tiger, the first being launched in 1546 and the last (to date) being launched in 1945. The man saw that there were, at that time, just a few patrons in The Tiger: some standing at the bar, others sitting alone, some standing in twos and threes and others sitting in twos or threes, but the pub was closer to empty than crowded, as if enjoying a lull before the evening crush. The barman, the young man noted, was a heavily built man who seemed to be in his mid-fifties. He was bristlingly clean with neatly cut hair, and wore a neatly ironed light blue shirt which encased a barrel-like chest. The barman eyed the young man coldly, bordering on distaste, as the latter approached the heavily and highly polished wooden bar. The young man stood at the bar for a full thirty seconds before the barman, who was clearly not engaged in any task, growled, ‘Yes. Can I help you?’

  The young man asked for a pint of IPA and looked about him as his beer was being grudgingly poured. The Tiger, he saw, was very well appointed, with dark-stained furniture, a maroon-coloured deep pile carpet, heavy velvet maroon curtains and a high ceiling crossed with heavy black-painted wooden beams, with ornate plasterwork between the beams. The young man realized that he had stumbled into a ‘posh’ pub and his lowlife, unkempt appearance and shabby clothing made him feel wholly out of place. He instantly understood the coldness of the barman. But the young man had not drunk enough, nor was he rough enough to be refused service. It was a ‘slow’ time of day and that, plus the fact that the licensed retail trade was weathering an economic recession, meant that the young man was served. Albeit reluctantly.

  His drink was placed in front of him with what the young man thought to be an unfairly large head, but he thought the better of complaining and carried his beer to the far end of the bar, where he stood with his right shoulder resting against the expensive embossed wallpaper which had been hung on the walls. He began to drink, gulping his beer rather than sipping it as his father had once advised and taught him: ‘Take thy beer to the back of thy tongue in a gob full, push thy tongue “forrard”, then swallow.’ It had proved to be good advice, and he waited for a few seconds until the aftertaste of the hops rose with exceeding and satisfying pleasantness in his mouth. He drank the pint and, when he managed to catch the barman’s eye, ordered a second one, which was served with the same obvious reluctance as had been his first. The young man would later recall that he had drunk half of the second pint when he was approached by another customer who walked up and stood beside him.

  ‘Not seen you in here before.’ The stranger put his pint down heavily on the polished surface of the bar. He spoke with a strong London accent.

  ‘That’s probably because I haven’t been in here before,’ the young man replied, avoiding eye contact with the stranger who had approached him, although he noticed tattoos of the type which are self-inflicted in young offender institutions, and he also noticed the classic LOVE tattooed on the fingers of one hand and HATE on the fingers of the other. The man had clearly been in ‘the machine’, though probably not for many years by his apparent age which, like the barman, appeared to the young man to be mid-fifties. The stranger was, the young man noticed out of the corner of his eye, overweight, with a beer drinker’s paunch. He wore brown corduroy trousers, a chequered sports jacket over a grey shirt and very heavy brogues on his feet. He must, thought the young man, be very uncomfortable or just not feel the heat. Body odour rose from the man and did so of a strength which suggested that he was due, if not overdue, for a bath and a change of underwear, and which served to make the young man feel cleaner than hitherto.

  ‘North country?’ The stranger, who was, like the Afro-Caribbean man, also exceptionally tall, looked down at the young man. ‘I’m good at accents. North of England?’

  ‘Yes.’ The young man took another mouthful of his beer. ‘Yorkshire.’

  ‘Thought so,’ the man grunted. ‘Like I said, I’m good at accents. I’m a regular. This is my local. I drink here all the time. “Big Andy”, they call me. Andrew “Big Andy” Cragg.’

  The man looked at Andrew ‘Big Andy’ Cragg and could easily see why he had acquired his nickname. He thought Cragg to be at least six and a half feet tall, probably taller. He was also broad-chested, and despite his paunch would, he thought, be a very useful man to have on your side in a skirmish. Very useful indeed.

  ‘I drink here all the time.’ ‘Big Andy’ Cragg continued looking straight ahead as he spoke, holding his pint glass in one meaty paw whilst resting his other equally meaty paw on the surface of the bar. Cragg fell silent, and for a minute the only sound the young man heard was the low hum of conversation and the muted sound from the huge plasma TV screen mounted on the wall of the far side of the pub. The young man began to grow impatient and wish that ‘Big Andy’ Cragg, the regular, would pick up his beer, walk away and annoy another customer, but Cragg stayed, as if rooted to the floor next to the young man. ‘This is a smart old battle cruiser in the evening.’ Cragg continued to stare straight ahead as he spoke. ‘Like all the boozers around here, it gets posh in the evening, but the likes of you and me, we can get a drink in the daytime when it’s quiet, like now. In the evenings though, well, then it’s all stockbrokers and those city bankers and the like with their posh accents. They flash their money about like it’s going out of
fashion … well, they don’t, they all pay for their printers’ ink with plastic cards, but you know what I mean … and when they arrive the likes of you and me’ll get told we’ve had enough or we’ll be ignored while the staff serve the posh ones. Right now, it’s all right – there’s time for another drink or two yet – but by half past six there won’t be a welcome for the likes of you and me and all the other good boys who drink in here during the day. It’s just how it goes.’

  ‘Is that right?’ the young man replied. He noticed that ‘Big Andy’ Cragg’s breath smelled strongly of alcohol and he was slurring his words. He also noticed that Cragg was clearly unsteady on his feet. He watched as Cragg swayed and then grabbed the brass rail which ran round the outside edge of the bar and steadied himself. The young man then realized that Andrew Cragg had been drinking all that afternoon and was on the verge of being refused service.

  ‘It’s right,’ Cragg replied. Then he added, ‘Are you in work? Have you got a job?’

  ‘No.’ The young man took another mouthful of beer. ‘I’m a doley … I sponge off the State.’

  ‘Same here.’ The drunken ‘Big Andy’ Cragg swayed again. ‘Same here. I shouldn’t be drinking this. I can’t afford it, it’s too pricey, but I need to come in here to get out of my flat and so I drink my food money. You’ll be doing the same if you’re on the dole,’ Cragg swayed yet again, ‘but I’m alive and I’ve known people my age who aren’t alive anymore.’ Cragg grabbed the brass rail again to stop himself falling backwards.

  ‘I dare say we can all say that,’ the young man replied as his thoughts turned to a classmate in primary school, a friend with whom he used to go walking on long summer days. They’d take their dogs and walk in shaded woods and baked, dry fields. A friend who was killed in a car crash a few weeks before his nineteenth birthday. ‘I dare say we can all say that,’ the young man repeated.