‘I’m going to abandon the head-on approach, I am not going to accuse him, not immediately. I’m going to surprise him by coming in from an oblique angle!’
‘How?’ she asked, interested.
‘Let’s wait and see,’ was all he would say.
When Hugh Dawlish arrived, dressed in light slacks and a pale blue T-shirt, he was shown into the interview room, where Pemberton had arranged for coffee to be available.
‘Sit down,’ Pemberton invited. ‘It’s good of you to come again. Now, you remember Detective Sergeant Grant and Detective Constable Cashmore?’
‘Yes, I do. I’m pleased to be able to help, Mr Pemberton.’
‘Have you any objection to this interview being recorded on tape, Mr Dawlish?’
‘No, of course not. I have nothing to hide. But first, am I right in thinking this is a continuation of last night’s discussion? I am not under arrest, am I?’ In spite of an outward show of confidence, Dawlish did appear to be rather nervous.
Pemberton watched him fiddling with his watchstrap, something he had not done last night. A sign of nerves, tension. Clearly, he’d been worrying all night about his earlier interview, and in spite of his belief that he had thrown clear suspicion on Browning, he was doubtless wondering how the police knew so much, how they knew he was in this hotel, and how much they were keeping secret. That outcome was exactly what Pemberton had intended. He wanted to unsettle this man and had succeeded; it was a process which he intended to further.
‘No, of course you’re not under arrest. And yes, this is a continuation of our chat last night.’ Pemberton went across to the recording unit in the corner and switched it on, giving his name and the name of the interviewee, along with the date and time of commencement. At Pemberton’s assurance that he was not under arrest, there was an audible sigh from Dawlish and some visible relaxation as he settled into the chair and accepted a coffee from Lorraine. Pemberton took a cup too, stirred it, and then commented upon the weather. It was a warm, sunny day, ideal for holidaymakers.
‘The town gets very busy by lunch time on Sundays, even out of the holiday season,’ he smiled. ‘It’s even worse in the summer, the school holidays make a huge difference to this place. July and August, they’re the busiest. Kids and parents on the beach, in the amusement arcades, on the dodgems, riding on the ghost train…you know, I think the parents love coming here as much as the children do. I suppose it’s a nice time for parents, a couple of weeks in the year when they can be kids themselves!’
‘Yes, I’m sure that’s true,’ responded Dawlish with just a hint of puzzlement on his face.
‘A good family life is very important to a growing child, don’t you think, Mr Dawlish?’
‘Yes, very. Very important,’ and his frown deepened as he tried to understand the direction in which Pemberton’s comments were heading.
‘So tell me about your mother,’ Pemberton invited with startling suddenness.
‘My mother?’ and Dawlish’s face blackened. His astonishment and anger at the unexpected question was clear in the expression on his face. Of all the questions he had anticipated and the comments he had expected to hear, this was not among them.
‘Yes, tell me about her,’ Pemberton insisted.
‘I fail to see what she has to do with this.’ It was a weak response but the best he could produce at such short notice. ‘She’s dead; she can be no part of these enquiries, surely?’
‘She was a prostitute, I believe.’ Pemberton’s voice was now harder, colder. ‘And if my information is correct, she abandoned you as a child; you were taken into care and fostered. She died when you were — how old? Eleven? Twelve? Thirteen? Tell me.’
Dawlish did not respond; his gaze at the detective seated across the table now looked like one of hatred; the former friendliness and affability had gone. He did not reply or make any comment upon Pemberton’s remarks, so Pemberton continued.
‘I understand your birthday is on 24th June, Midsummer’s Day,’ was Pemberton’s next statement. ‘We know that from James Browning’s diary. It wasn’t a very happy day for you, was it? Your birthday, I mean. Ever since you were a small boy. You had no parties, no real friends. Having been born to a prostitute and then reminded of it every year wasn’t exactly the nicest thing to happen to a bright and intelligent child.’
Pemberton was watching his suspect now. He paused, waiting for the remarks to penetrate Dawlish’s mind.
‘Were you teased at school about your mother, Mr Dawlish? And when you were in care too? And what about birthday parties? Friends? I’ll bet you had no real trustworthy friends, had you? How did you celebrate your birthday as a child? In your adult life, Mr Dawlish, you made sure you had somebody to share your birthday with, didn’t you — James Browning. A faithful friend if ever there was one. But you never mention your birthday, do you? When you told me about the rallies and your reunions with James, they were always around your birthday, yet you did not tell me that. I would have thought a birthday celebration had some importance. And now, this very weekend, you are willing to pay for a prostitute to share a meal with you, to provide an outward show of having friends, Mr Dawlish, as you did at the Black Otter the night before last—’
‘There’s nothing illegal in paying someone for companionship, is there? And I never made a big thing of my birthday — well, would you?’
‘Under those circumstances, I doubt it, Mr Dawlish. And your father? Who was he? I have no idea. Have you?’
‘Look, I fail to see what any of this has to do with your investigation into James Browning and those murders—’
‘You told us your mother had given you a car, for your eighteenth birthday. One of those vintage MGs. That was not true, was it?’
Dawlish paused, wondering how much this detective knew about him, and then spat, ‘She never gave me anything, Mr Pemberton, nothing. No love, no warmth…but I had to tell people she was loving and so I said she gave me the car as a present. But I bought it for myself, Mr Pemberton. I made good, I did well, very well, considering my upbringing, or lack of it!’
‘And your rape convictions, and your other offences? They happened when you were a juvenile, I admit, but nonetheless they were crimes…’
‘Look, how much do you know about me, for God’s sake?’
‘Almost everything,’ Pemberton told him coldly. ‘I know you killed those prostitutes, Mr Dawlish, to celebrate, if that’s the right word, the ignominy of your birth…in your mind, you were killing your mother, paying her back, every time you killed one of those girls. You used knots you’d learned in the Scouts. And every time, you kicked them in their private parts…kicking away your hatred. Your mother died when you were thirteen…and there are eleven prostitutes dead, one for every miserable year and with two more to come…but James’s death has scuppered your plans. I think it was your way of celebrating your birthday, Mr Dawlish…Tell me, did she wear sandals?’
‘Sandals? Who?’
‘Your mother, when she was entertaining clients. You saw her, did you? When she was preparing for work?’
‘Sandals? Why do you ask that?’
‘Yes. Sandals, Mr Dawlish. In summer, women often wear sandals…prostitutes often wear sandals, Mr Dawlish…’
‘It wasn’t me…it was James, he took the sandals — look in his garage!’
‘We have. We have found some sandals in his garage, Mr Dawlish, blue ones.’
‘There you are then! He took them, he took them every time he killed a prostitute…’
‘No, Mr Dawlish. Only the murderer knows that sandals were taken from the victims! Only the murderer, Mr Dawlish. You! The sandals were in your car, the one you sold to James. They were left there deliberately, I suggest, to frame James, to plant evidence on him should the police ever interview him. Or you. You would have pointed them towards James, wouldn’t you? He told you about the sandals and you told him to keep them. Like the rope you left in the boot of the car you sold him. A length of white nylon ro
pe. You did all that so you could frame him, Mr Dawlish, very subtly but almost effectively. And it almost worked, but not quite. He kept notes, you see, a diary, itemising every detail…and we have that diary. You were framing him for all those Sandal Stranglings, Mr Dawlish, just as you framed him for the first murder, in Durham. He did not kill that woman, Mr Dawlish, he was far too incapable at the time. You killed her, you killed her because of your mother, a mother you’d have been ashamed of if she’d come to the presentation of your diploma, but she couldn’t come because she was dead by then…You’ve hated your mother ever since you were a child, Mr Dawlish and you killed prostitutes because she was a prostitute, and you took away their sandals and underwear because she—’
‘You can’t prove any of this!’
‘We can. We can now search your house and any property you own, Mr Dawlish. What shall we find, do you think? What do you think the forensic scientists will discover? And in addition, when you raped the girls, you didn’t use a condom, Mr Dawlish. We have every one of the samples of semen you left behind. We can test them — and you — for DNA, Mr Dawlish. If the samples match, that’s all the proof we need. You see, you told us all about the murders yesterday and yet they had not been publicised nationally — only the murderer could have known about them and known some of the details you provided. James Browning did not know about them, did he? If he had, he would never have kept those sandals, Mr Dawlish; he’d have known where they had come from and he would never have telephoned you about them. He’d have got rid of them as if they were red hot…but James never knew you killed all those women, and he never knew you had framed him for murder all those years ago…How could you do such a thing to a man who thought he was your friend?’
‘You said serial killers had a subconscious desire to be caught and stopped, Mr Pemberton?’ was his next, rather unexpected response.
‘I did.’
And quite suddenly, he confessed. ‘Yes, it was me. I framed James, I killed them all! You know it was me. I was going to do more as you said, another two, but James stopped me…by dying, he stopped me. He never knew…God, he never knew what I was doing, but I couldn’t stop. I wanted to…stop, I mean. I wanted to be stopped…’ and he burst into tears, sobbing like a child as he said, ‘She shouldn’t have done it, Mr Pemberton; she was a dirty old cow, my mother! She would kick me out of the way, with those bloody sandals she always wore for her clients…her trade mark…what a bloody trade! My mother, for God’s sake…how could she?’
‘Sergeant, arrest Mr Dawlish and prepare to take a statement from him,’ said Pemberton. ‘Then have DNA tests organised and arrange to have his premises thoroughly searched. We need to have all the evidence we can muster for this one.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Sergeant Grant.
‘Interview terminated at eleven twenty,’ said Pemberton into the recording machine as Dawlish continued to sob with his head in his hands.
Before James Browning’s Requiem Mass began on Monday, Mark Pemberton, accompanied by Lorraine, went into the vestry of the church and located Father Flynn.
‘It’s good of you to attend the Mass,’ said Father Flynn.
‘It’s the least we can do,’ said Pemberton. ‘But before you preach your homily about James, I thought I ought to provide you with some information. It follows James’s confession of murder, the part I overheard.’
‘Yes, Mr Pemberton?’
‘It’s just that I have carried out a thorough investigation and I wanted you to know that James was not guilty of any murder. He was framed, Father — the real killer has admitted the crime and is now in custody pending a trial. For the whole of his life, James Browning truly thought he was guilty of murder.’
‘Thank you, Mr Pemberton,’ said Father Flynn. ‘But you know I cannot comment on confessions…’
‘I know, Father.’
‘If I cannot comment, perhaps Mr Browning senior would like to know what you discovered?’ smiled Father Flynn. ‘It would explain a lot about his son’s past behaviour.’
‘I’ll tell him,’ promised Detective Superintendent Pemberton.
Omens of Death
A Montague Pluke Case
Nicholas Rhea
Chapter One
When Detective Inspector Montague Pluke noticed the solitary crow upon the roof of No. 15 Padgett Grove, he realised it was an omen of death. Resembling the sky, the bird was black, sombre, and threatening. It was a sultry Wednesday morning with a threat of thunder and although the clouds were silent and brooding, the bird was croaking raucously. It was a melancholy moment for Montague Pluke.
With some apprehension, he paused at the end of the Grove to view the modest two-bedroomed bungalow. Detached, with a red pantile roof and built of local stone, it boasted tidy gardens, a greenhouse, and a single garage. Second from the far end and situated on the right, it had a green front door — a healthy colour, he mused, the colour of the countryside. Some might consider green to be unlucky; that was probably why green was so rarely used on our postage stamps. Montague contemplated that whenever we’d had green postage stamps, the country had experienced great social unrest.
He made a determined effort to ignore the significance of colours of postage stamps and concentrated upon the crow. It was perched upon the home of the Crowthers. They were nice people who had recently retired to live quiet and unobtrusive lives in Crickledale.
Cyril had been an agricultural engineer specialising in combine harvesters, while May had worked for forty-five years as a clerk in a building society. She had served faithfully, with no thoughts of promotion, neither had she sought additional responsibility. She was a steady sort of person, just like Cyril in fact. The Crowthers lived in mutual shared contentment and, being well-mannered people with well-ordered lives, were considered ideal residents for a small town like Crickledale.
Detective Inspector Montague Pluke was well acquainted with them because he knew most of the people in Crickledale. He knew their backgrounds too, and their social habits, even though they were not the sort of people to come to the notice of the police in a derogatory manner. The same could also be said about other residents of Padgett Grove, thus the neighbourhood had been locally established as desirable. It was the type of vicinage where you could confidently buy a house without worrying too much about the sort of neighbours you would acquire. The residents took the Daily Telegraph, didn’t join trade unions, never ate fish and chips in public or repaired their cars in the street.
As he studied the scene before him, Montague Pluke appreciated that the Padgett Grove area was very similar to that in which he lived, although it must be said that the Pluke household stood in a street of ‘olde’, more substantial properties, genteel homes with a Georgian pedigree. None the less, each was a contented community replete with decent law-abiding citizens who held coffee mornings for charity and didn’t have gnomes or model windmills in their gardens.
But even if the residents of Padgett Grove had never caused professional concern to the constabulary, the presence of that crow did create some anxiety in the meditative mind of Montague Pluke. It remained cawing on the roof and adopted an almost defiant attitude as he re-established his stride and continued his walk to work. In Montague’s opinion, its presence could not be ignored — its message was strikingly clear. It heralded a death within that house. An added factor was that today was not the most providential of weekdays. Wednesday, like Wednesday’s child, was often full of woe.
That unwelcome combination of portents dominated Montague’s morning walk to the office and produced a mood of impending doom, albeit with just a glimmer of excitement. That glimmer could never be mentioned to anyone else because it was based on the fact that, as the officer in charge of the CID at Crickledale Sub-Divisional Police Station, he had never solved a murder and never arrested a killer.
The death, when it happened, could mean work for him and his department. It was that possibility which had provoked those mixed feelings, because it was his ambiti
on, before he retired from the Force to seek neglected or forgotten horse troughs, to detect a noteworthy murder. Before that day came, therefore, he wanted his name prominently placed in the annals of great and famous criminal investigations and the presence of that crow offered just a little hope of that. Throughout his service he had wanted to be a great detective, but all the glamorous investigations and high-profile inquiries had been the responsibility of someone else.
As he pondered the presence of that crow, therefore, he mused that it would be very nice to solve just one murder enquiry before he retired to enjoy his pension, but as his years of service carried him ever closer to retirement, the opportunities for professional glory were dwindling by the day.
Montague did appreciate that the natural peace of Crickledale had been a contributory factor to his lack of success in having a murder to solve. In fact, there had never been a murder in the town. Crickledale was a murder-free zone. But if one did occur, he would be in charge of the investigation. That would be his duty and it meant he would be able to display his latent detective acumen. He knew the theory of criminal investigation very well indeed, because he had attended lots of courses about techniques and procedures, so perhaps the forthcoming death would enable him to put his years of acquired knowledge to some practical use?
In considering these matters, he did remind himself that not every death is a murder. A crow on a roof merely foretold a death and not necessarily a murder; after all, a crow could not be expected to distinguish between suspicious deaths and natural causes. It was a well-known fact that most deaths were not suspicious, even if they were sudden and unexpected.
But in spite of his ruminations, he knew that the Crowther household could expect a funeral very shortly, probably before the week was out. As Montague Pluke contemplated that scenario, he realised it would not be very pleasant having to deal with the unexpected death of one’s acquaintances, although actually to arrest the murderer of one’s acquaintances would indeed be meritorious. Apart from any job satisfaction that would result, it would add to the high esteem in which he was already held in the town.
Confession (The Mark Pemberton Cases Book 3) Page 23