Joint Enterprise (The Romney and Marsh Files Book 3) Read online

  By the time they finally got clear Marsh could hear him grinding his teeth. She trailed him in silence as he hurried away, his foul mood dragging in his wake like a leaden shadow of negativity.

  He steered a path through the logistical hardware of the film-making business that seemed to take up every square inch of ground. Lighting trucks, sound trucks, camera equipment trucks, scaffolding trucks, toilet trucks, food trucks, costume trucks, accommodation trucks for important members of the cast and the film-makers. Every available space was taken up with trucks and equipment, cable and awnings.

  In all the unfamiliarity and confusion they seemed to have lost their way. Romney chose a narrow opening between two mobile homes, treading carefully over the arm-thick coils of cable that snaked everywhere threatening to have him over. Perhaps to cover feelings of embarrassment and distract Marsh from the failure of his sense of direction to get them back to their transport, he chose to once again target the British film industry with his opinions.

  ‘Must cost an absolute fortune to do something like this,’ he called over his shoulder. ‘What a waste of money just to make a film about perverts shafting animals. The concept of the film is as disgusting as they are if you ask me when people are starving and living in cardboard boxes.’

  As Marsh was registering her disappointment at her senior officer’s relapse, a figure stepped out in front of them.

  ‘And who is asking you?’ said the man who Romney suddenly found blocking his path. He was youngish, tallish and looked undernourished. His clothes hinted that he was no stranger to jumble sales. He sported a wispy little goatee beard and a mass of curly hair that appeared to be enjoying a temporary state of excitement.

  Romney was brought to a halt that didn’t please him. ‘What was that?’

  ‘I said, who is asking for your opinion on this project?’

  ‘Who are you?’ said Romney, side-stepping the question.

  ‘Hugo Crawford. I’m the fucking director. That makes me a big fucking man around here.’ Fifteen love.

  ‘And I’m Detective Inspector Romney, and round here, old son, that makes me a bigger man than you, so watch your language when you speak to me, unless you want to find yourself on a charge.’ Fifteen all.

  If Crawford was put out by this information, he hid it well. Although outwardly maintaining his composure, he rallied with a poorly chosen riposte. ‘This is a private site. How did you gain entry?’

  ‘Didn’t you hear me? I’m police. I don’t need anyone’s permission to be here. Now, you’re obstructing my way. I suggest you move aside and get back to your ‘art’.’ Thirty-fifteen Romney.

  A few members of the film crew had gathered at the director’s back and at the commotion. In an act of foolish boldness the man stood his ground seemingly a slave to his ego and eager to demonstrate his lack of intimidation at the hands of the local constabulary. In Marsh’s experience, such displays of bravado rarely went well for ordinary people.

  ‘I expect ignorance, arrogance and prejudice against my work from many strands of society, Detective Inspector,’ he sneered, ‘however, I’m always bitterly disappointed, if not particularly surprised, when I encounter it in members of the police force, a public service I will remind you which is supposed to be impartial and objective. It’s usually an indication of a deeper, much more destructive and narrow-minded outlook.’ Thirty all.

  The small group of his people shifted and muttered uncomfortably. Someone reached out to draw the director to one side. ‘C’mon Hugo, you’ve made your point. Let’s watch the scene. It was bloody marvellous.’

  ‘I’ll only tell you once more to step aside, Mr Crayfish. Surely you’ve got better things to do with your valuable time than get yourself arrested for obstruction. Films of paedophiles or animal buggering to get excited about? What other arty projects have you got in the pipeline? The history of arse-wiping, perhaps?’ Forty-thirty Romney.

  Crawford’s features assumed a look of outright disgust. ‘I can see I’m wasting my time and breath on this philistine,’ he said to his cronies. Deuce. It got him a laugh too. Advantage Crawford. The further crossing of words, he projected, was beneath him. He turned sideways on to allow Romney and Marsh to pass. As Romney did so without looking in the young man’s direction, the director said, ‘I’ll be sure to mention our encounter to my uncle, Chief Constable Crawford, when I dine with him this evening. Good day, Inspector Romney.’ Game and first set Crawford. New balls, please.

  To his credit, Romney strode on through the gathering without faltering, although Marsh could guess that inside he was kicking his luck and, although he wouldn’t admit it, his stupidity.

  As Marsh came alongside Crawford, she smiled up at him and said, ‘I thought your last film was a superb insight into the combination of family and sociological issues involved in the issue of paedophilia and society’s responsibilities towards confronting them. I learned a lot from it. It deserved its awards if you ask me.’

  He smiled at her, apparently slightly mollified, ‘Thank you. Who are you?’

  ‘Detective Sergeant Marsh. You can mention my name to your uncle too if you like.’ She continued to smile up at him. ‘That was great by the way. I wouldn’t have missed it for anything. Thanks. Good luck with the rest of it.’ She left to follow Romney who was negotiating temporary structures and probably swearing under his breath.

  When she caught up with him, he said, ‘What were you talking to him about, Judas?’

  ‘I said nice things about his last film.’

  ‘The kiddy-fiddler one? Have you actually seen it?’

  ‘No, but I thought I might be able to smooth his ruffled feathers by saying something nice and appealing to his self-image in front of his cronies. He’s a man after all. Maybe that way he might forget to be so angry with you.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Something I remembered off the website. It doesn’t really matter, sir. I gave him some respect and massaged his ego.’ She didn’t expect any thanks for it.

  She was spared further complaint by the DI. As they slipped through a narrow arch – finally falling into the area within the castle precincts which had been turned into an improvised parking lot – an explosion of noise and uniforms burst across in front of them. A small group of men in period costume cut across their path laughing and joking loudly, obviously in high spirits after the fray. From the colour and energy of their expression and body language they had evidently enjoyed fighting for Britannia. Marsh braced herself for Romney’s observations regarding the absurd childishness of grown men playing soldiers, but he only shook his head as he stared at their retreating backs.

  There had been a significant influx of vehicles into the parking area since they’d arrived. Now, their car was hemmed in with all the others under the towering castle walls. There was less activity here. With his arm and his other condition, Romney did not relish the manoeuvring that would be involved in extracting them from their parking spot. He threw the keys to Marsh and stood by the passenger door waiting to be let in. She noted he’d re-assumed his grumpy aura.

  Romney had been grumpy ever since returning to work from sick leave. Injuries he’d sustained in the line of duty and at the hands of an enraged young woman suffering with Down’s syndrome had taken longer to heal than expected. Perhaps it was his age. They’d also left him with a temporary weakness in his right arm, which clearly irritated him on an hourly basis. Compounding this was the obvious emotional damage he’d suffered – although he wouldn’t admit it – when an attractive young trophy girlfriend – who Marsh’s woman’s intuition told her the DI’s vanity had been particularly keen on – had dumped him on the eve of a holiday they’d booked together. At the last minute, she’d changed his ticket to holiday with another man – an ex – while Romney was lying on his back recovering in a hospital bed. While she felt great sympathy with her boss for this remarkable and casual cruelty inflicted by a member of her sex, it wasn’t her fault and her patience for his c
urrent world-view was wearing thin.

  Romney had resumed his duties permanently tetchy and easily riled. Perhaps it was his defence mechanism for what he had suffered. And perhaps it would pass, although there was – after two weeks back at work – no indication of such. Marsh worried that sooner rather than later, if he didn’t adjust his outlook, his irritability was going to land him in some trouble, if it hadn’t already just done so. If Hugo Crawford really was the chief constable’s nephew – and there would be no reason to doubt the connection; it wasn’t the sort of thing people made up on the spur of the moment and they did share the same surname – then perhaps an ill wind was about to blow down to the coast from area. On top of everything else, she didn’t need that added complication. Marsh really didn’t want to be tainted with anything she was essentially no part of.

  Since her Hobson’s choice of a transfer to what she considered a cultural and intellectual backwater – as well as a career threatening dead-end – she had decided she would bide her time, do her best and inflate her reputation at every available opportunity. Then, before her career threatened to stagnate, DS Marsh intended to transfer up to the metropolis where she could specialise in a branch of policing that she hadn’t yet decided upon.

  On opening the car doors it was apparent that the turning of the planet had left the car in the full glare of the sun for a considerable time. It was like an oven inside. They put down all the windows for it. She sensed the DI’s further irritation at the delay and the temperature didn’t help. He didn’t want to be there anymore. He hadn’t been keen to take up Grimes’ invitation in the first place and it had only been because of Marsh’s nagging that he had agreed to take the short drive up from the station. She’d hoped it might put a smile on his face, cheer him up a bit. Now, she realised, he was probably going to hold her responsible in some way for how things had turned out, especially if his handbags with Hugo Crawford didn’t end there.

  Romney had driven there and so she had to adjust the seat for length and height. Then the rear-view mirror. Someone had parked a little too closely and it took her several backwards-and-forwards and plenty of feverish hauling on the steering wheel to extricate them from their space without bumping anyone. She negotiated the haphazardly parked cars dropping down into a deep rut in the grass and catching the underside of the car on the ground. Romney tutted and sighed heavily. She went round twice trying to find the exit, which she hadn’t paid any attention to on the way in. It was not well marked. Romney could have spoken up, but chose to sit and give off vibes of impatience and irritation instead.

  On her third circuit her mobile phone began to ring and then so did Romney’s. She stopped, blocking the way, and answered it as Romney fished in his pocket for his. Her conversation was brief. It was with the station. What was her location? She told them. That was handy, they said. Why? she asked. Because they had a report of a suspicious death at the castle and they needed her and DI Romney to attend. Was he with her? He was. That was lucky then, she was told. Marsh would need convincing of that. She terminated the call after she’d been told to identify herself to a Mr Wilkie who was representing Samson Security, the firm in charge of security on site.

  She drove around the school of parked cars once more and took the space they had vacated only minutes before.

  Romney finished his call. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Weren’t you just talking to the station?’

  ‘No. Were you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And?’

  She told him.

  ‘Oh, fucking hell. You sure they said Wilkie?’

  ‘Positive, sir.’

  ‘Fucking hell. That’s all I need. I suppose it would be too much to hope that the victim is Hugo Crawford, I suppose? Maybe some indignant cow trampled him to death as he was unzipping his trousers for an undress rehearsal.’

  ‘They didn’t say, sir.’ But she hoped that wasn’t the case. She had quite liked Hugo Crawford.

  Mr Wilkie of Samson Security had, only a few shorts months before, been Detective Sergeant Wilkie of Dover CID. In fact, he had been more than that. Before Marsh had been transferred up – or down depending on how one viewed it – to Dover police station from North Kent, Wilkie had been, as the only DS in the station, Romney’s sergeant. He had come back from paternity leave to find that Marsh had usurped his position and that the appointment did not appear to be temporary. As a man with ambitions of a swift shimmy up the career ladder this situation did not bode well for Wilkie. Sleepless nights with the new baby and work frustrations – primarily the humiliation of hunting for a crazy old woman with a thing for smashing poorly parked vehicles with a ball-pein hammer – had affected his professional judgement and ultimately cost him his job. He had been forced out of his dream occupation under a cloud. Wilkie had made no secret of the fact that he harboured a deep and dangerous personal resentment for Marsh, the interloper, and then for Romney for his dismissal.

  Wilkie had walked straight out of employment with Kent Police into a position with a local security firm run by a brother-in-law. He had assumed a brave face and bragged that the money was good and that he didn’t see it as a backwards step in working life, just a new opportunity. On the odd occasion Romney had seen or heard anything of his ex-number-one, Wilkie’s new opportunity did not appear to warrant his early enthusiasm.

  Doubtless, the reality of Wilkie’s new working-life and the not too distant memory of his old one, would not encourage to him extend the olive-branch of goodwill across the divide between the private and the public sectors of security. As the two police officers searched on foot for the temporary site office of Samson Security, Marsh, for one, was expecting and dreading the inevitable hostile welcome. The mood the DI was in these days, such a prospect only served to increase her anxiety regarding the probable outcome. Then again, she thought, as he seemed to be perpetually looking for someone to target with his current state of angst, offhand she could think of no better recipient than his ex-sergeant.

  At a narrow stone gateway their path was blocked by a shaven-headed, sweating fat man wearing a Samson Security day-glow orange vest. His thick, bare arms were covered in tattoos and folded across his barrel chest. He stared at Romney from a similar height and from behind cheap wrap-around sunglasses. A little gold crucifix twinkled, dangling from an earring. Traipsing around aimlessly on foot in the heat had not improved Romney’s mood or his manners.

  ‘Where’s your site office?’ he said.

  ‘Round by the toilets. Just follow the signs for production. I’ll need to see some ID though if you want to go through there.’

  ‘ID? I thought people only said that only the telly. How long have you been working for this lot?’

  The man looked surprised by the question and Romney’s abrasiveness. ‘I’m temping. The agency sent me over yesterday.’

  ‘I’m looking for a man named Wilkie.’

  ‘Yeah, Mr Wilkie’s in there.’

  Romney made to push past him, but the man put a hand on his chest. ‘I said, I need to see some ID if you want to go in there. That’s my job.’

  Marsh stepped in and flashed her warrant card at the man. ‘We’re Dover CID, here to see Mr Wilkie. This is Detective Inspector Romney.’

  ‘Why didn’t you just say so?’ He dropped his hand and Romney went through scowling.

  They went ten steps and Marsh, unable to contain herself any longer and possibly against all good judgement said, ‘Sir?’

  Something in her tone touched Romney and he stopped and turned to study her. ‘What?’

  She took a deep breath. ‘As my senior officer, I need your permission to say something to you.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘I’m talking about me feeling the need as your sergeant to advise you, my senior officer, of my concern that should you continue to treat people the way you have so far this afternoon we might not find ourselves dealing with a cooperative public. In fact we might end up dealing wi
th some stroppy complaints.’

  Romney stared hard at her for several awful seconds before nodding once, frowning and continuing on his way. ‘Permission denied,’ he called over his shoulder, but there was, she suspected, a little smirk with it.

  They located the make-shift office for Samson Security in a corner of the courtyard along with all the other temporary bases for this and that which cluttered up the place. The assortment and mish-mash of portable structures gave the place an air of a hastily established centre to house displaced refugees after some environmental catastrophe. Or, given the setting, siege victims seeking shelter within the protection of the castle walls.

  Wilkie was standing outside the converted container-office talking to three men in the familiar day-glow vests of the company. He didn’t look happy with any of them. He seemed agitated. He wasn’t wearing a vest himself, but a shirt and tie. His hair was longer and he was now sporting a thick, dark goatee. He carried a walkie-talkie and a clipboard.

  Registering the approach of Romney and Marsh, he stood more erect and dismissed two of the men who wandered off looking hot and bothered – probably more temps without a clue, thought Marsh. The third man stood obediently just backward and to one side of Wilkie, like a well-trained terrier.

  If the police had been preparing themselves for confrontation and obstruction they were to be disappointed and, if not ashamed of themselves, then perhaps pleasantly surprised. Wilkie was all professionalism. Incredibly, he gave no indication of a past life together and consequently no sign he was harbouring grudges. He took a step forward to meet them. A sign of submission thought Marsh. And then she saw etched in his features a burden of anxiety and responsibility that was weighing heavily on him. And she realised, why shouldn’t he be? This was probably a potentially huge contract for the company he worked for. And if he were in charge here, the responsibility and blame for anything that went wrong would end up at his door. Naturally, it would be in his company’s, and therefore his personal interest, to do a thoroughly good and efficient job here because it could lead to other things. Wilkie was now in business and he wasn’t so daft as to not know how these things worked. And now there was a suspicious death on his watch.