Gunrunner by Graham Ison Read Free Book Online Page B

we arrived, you asked what Kerry had been up to now, Mr King. What prompted that question?’
    King leaned across and took a cigarette from a box on a nearby occasional table. ‘I’m sorry, do either of you smoke?’
    ‘No thanks,’ I said, although both of us did.
    ‘I thought you’d come to tell us she’d been arrested in a drugs raid, or something of the sort,’ King began. ‘As I said just now, just after Dick was killed she became a bit wild, drinking to excess and generally behaving as though she couldn’t’ve cared less what happened to her. For a time we feared she might’ve been on drugs, and she was certainly close to becoming an alcoholic. But then she met Nick. Despite what my wife said just now, I think that Nick was a sobering influence on her in more ways than one. But it always concerned us that she might’ve reverted to the bizarre behaviour of what we called her “in-between years”.’
    ‘Did she have any particular friends, Mr King?’ asked Dave.
    ‘There was one girl she was especially close to,’ said Diana King. ‘Susan Gough and Kerry were great friends. They’d met at university, but I do know that Susan got married shortly after coming down.’
    ‘Do you know her married name?’ I asked.
    ‘I’m not sure.’ King glanced at his wife. ‘Diana?’
    ‘Yes, it’s Penrose.’
    ‘D’you have any idea where the Penroses live?’ Dave took out his pocketbook.
    ‘I’m afraid not,’ said Mrs King, ‘but I do know that Susan’s husband owns a couple of car showrooms, if that’s any help.’
    ‘There is one other question I have to ask, Mr King.’ I said.
    ‘I think you were going to ask if she was seeing any other men, Chief Inspector. I don’t know, but, to be candid, I wouldn’t be surprised.’
    ‘I certainly wouldn’t have blamed her,’ said Diana King, displaying a frankness that was rare in the mother of a married woman.
    ‘We’ll keep you informed, Mr King,’ I said, as Dave and I stood up.
    ‘Thank you, that would be most kind,’ said King. ‘I’ll show you out.’
    We’d almost reached the sitting room door when Diana King finally broke down and began to sob uncontrollably. King shot me a sideways glance and shrugged. He seemed embarrassed by his wife’s distress.
    Back at the factory, as we CID officers call our office, Linda Mitchell’s preliminary report had arrived. I read through it quickly, and then gathered the team round me in the incident room.
    ‘It seems,’ I began, putting the report aside, ‘that a number of fingerprints were found in Kerry Hammond’s Jag. Apart from Kerry’s own, the only identifiable set goes out to a Gary Dixon who’s got a bit of form. He’s probably the same Gary Dixon who telephoned her a few times.’
    ‘Has he got any previous for violence, guv?’ asked Dave.
    ‘Not for violence, no. The most recent conviction was for his run-in with customs at Dover when he got done for smuggling a lorry-load of hooch that he’d brought in from France. That, of course, bears out what Bernard Bligh told us. It seems that customs carried out a full-scale investigation and found that Dixon had been supplying a number of pubs with duty-free spirits over a fairly long period. So he’d obviously been at it for some time before he got caught. Customs had a field day and prosecuted about six or seven publicans and, of course, Dixon himself. But prior to that bit of nonsense, he had a few convictions for dishonesty, namely theft from previous employers, and one for aggravated burglary. He got nine months for that a couple of years ago.’
    ‘Did he get sent down for the smuggling, guv?’ Dave obviously thought that Dixon should be in prison.
    ‘No, he was fined five thousand pounds, and it was paid.’
    ‘Where on earth did a lorry driver get five grand from?’ asked Dave, a look of disbelief on his face.
    ‘That’s something we’ll need to find out,’ I said. ‘Maybe Kerry paid it.’
    ‘But how the hell did he