Suspect

by Nicholas Rhea

  High walls shielded the footpath on both sides, one being that of the solicitors’ office, devoid of windows, the other being the wall of the supermarket, also without windows. The alley ran at ground level for the width of the solicitors’ office, then turned at right angles up a flight of stone steps. The wall on the right was another one which belonged to the supermarket while the one on his left appeared to be that of a private terrace house which fronted Cholmley Street. At the end of the house wall, the alley turned sharp left and led between two terrace houses, neither with ground-floor windows overlooking the alley. Each had two bedroom windows which overlooked the alley, Pemberton noted. Acorn Alley was only some four feet wide at its maximum breadth and it emerged on to Cholmley Street. To the right and left was a row of terrace houses, the alley splitting the terrace at this point, and Cholmley Street featured a one-way traffic system from Millgate. He noticed that car parking was permitted upon one side of Cholmley Street for thirty minutes within every hour.

  Behind the supermarket, there was a large public car-park with a compulsory payment system allowing one hour, two hours or a maximum of three hours for varying payments. As he stood at the Cholmley Street exit of Acorn Alley, the large car-park lay to his right with the entrance about one hundred yards along the street. On the wall of one of the houses which overlooked Acorn Alley was a large metal arrow pointing towards the supermarket and bearing the words ‘Millgate Supermarket’.

  If Hadley’s version was accurate, Newton could have been waiting in the darkness of Acorn Alley as he prepared to raid the security van. It provided a very useful place of concealment. It was sparingly used when the supermarket was open; those who parked at the rear would use well-signed rear entrances while those using the smaller front door would park on the forecourt.

  Pemberton decided to walk along Cholmley Street towards the car-park but after some forty yards he was hailed by an old man who was clipping a privet bush in his tiny garden. The neat terrace house with its brown painted door and window frames overlooked Cholmley Street; there was one large window on the ground floor and in front of the house was a tiny garden comprising a neat lawn and borders, with a pair of privet shrubs in each corner. A low wall with a brown wooden gate in the middle led on to the street.

  ‘You’re Joe Pemberton’s lad, aren’t you?’ he greeted Mark with a toothy smile. ‘I remember you when you started grammar school. Jim Green, caretaker that was, that’s me. Me and your dad played cricket together, he was capped to bits when you joined the force.’

  Mark smiled at the old character; stoutly built and grizzled with a few days’ growth of beard, he would be in his late seventies and limped around his garden as he pruned the bush with his shears. Braces over a white striped shirt, a flat cap and heavy black boots formed his gardening outfit. He took the opportunity to rest awhile now that he had someone to talk to, and it was clear he had a remarkable memory.

  ‘I remember you now, Jim — it’s a few years since I was at school, mind!’ Mark recalled Green cutting the grass on the cricket fields and hockey pitches. ‘You’ve retired, eh?’

  Jim came to the wall and sat upon it. ‘My old legs get tired these days, I can’t spend all day standing like I used to. Anyroad, I’ve packed it all in, got my pension book now. This is all I’ve got, a few square feet of garden instead of acres of sports fields to look after, but it’s enough at my age. I’m seventy-eight now, getting on a bit. Anyroad, enough about me. You’re still a policeman, are you?’

  ‘I am,’ smiled Mark. ‘And heading rapidly towards my own pension.’

  ‘So where are you stationed now?’

  ‘Rainesbury. They moved me around a lot when I was a young policeman, but I’m settled now.’

  ‘Got on, have you?’

  Mark smiled. Parents were always proud of children who ‘got on’ in the world, and old Jim was the same. He loved the reflected glory of those children he remembered from ‘his’ school and had a remarkable memory for those who had made a success of life. ‘I’m a detective now, Jim. Detective Superintendent in charge of Rainesbury Division.’

  ‘One of the bosses, eh? By gum, you have got on! Your dad would have been so proud. So you’ve come to see where it all happened, have you?’

  ‘Where all what happened, Jim?’

  ‘That shooting job round the corner, on the supermarket front. Joss Newton.’

  ‘A nasty business,’ Mark said. ‘I wasn’t on the case, though. It wasn’t on my patch.’

  ‘He got what he deserved, that young bugger,’ Jim said. ‘He’d nick anything, lived off crime, he did. Your lot could never catch him, he was too cute for that, so we were all chuffed to bits when he got his comeuppance. Rough justice, but it stopped him.’

  ‘Did you see the raid, Jim?’ Mark asked.

  The old fellow shook his head. ‘No, it’s not often I go into that place, I prefer old Mabel’s shop along the street, you get personal service there. She knows how I like my smoked bacon and what sort of bread I want.’

  ‘So what kind of things was Joss Newton up to?’

  ‘Nicking cash, a sneak thief. Leave your back door open and he’d be inside like a flash. He’d take cash, Mark, nowt else but cash. He’d never break in — too cute for that. My mate had a fish shop on the seafront years ago and Joss went in to buy some kippers. After he’d gone, there was nearly eighty-five quid missing from the till. There was no way he could prove Joss had taken it, but he had. He’d done it while Fishy Fishwick’s back was turned for nobbut a couple of seconds.’

  ‘Did Fishy tell the police?’

  ‘No. No point, was there? What could they do? Joss’d never admit he’d taken the money. That’s the sort of trick he did, Mark, and most of the local tradespeople knew him for that, that’s why they kept an eye on him whenever he came into their shops or houses. He’d go round the houses sometimes, when the menfolk were out at work, charming the women into thinking he was doing some kind of social survey, and then nick cash from their mantelshelves and tea caddies while they made him a coffee. The odd quid here and there, it all mounts up. He knew where to find it, they all hid it in the same place. He’d take cash left out for the milkman or the insurance. He didn’t stick to Fawneswick mind, he went off to other spots too in his car, like a salesman going off on his rounds. He got into loads of women’s houses and their knickers too by using the survey trick. They said he even had special forms printed on headed paper to make it look real, went off with a briefcase and clipboard, he did. I’ve no idea what his wife thought he was doing for a living, but he had a good life, Mark, and a nice house, wife and kids. Mind you, Mark, that wife of his wasn’t much better. Go with any bloke, she would, especially them in uniform! They said a few of your chaps were getting more than a cup of coffee from her while he was out stealing. He was from a decent family, though — his dad did well in business in town, a general store, he had. Then his dad left him that house up on Kirkdale Avenue, a smart part of town, and without a mortgage to worry about or rent to pay — that’s how he got such a nice spot to live.’

  ‘Did the police know all this?’ Mark asked.

  ‘Oh, aye, they knew all about it but never did owt. What could they do, Mark? I know gossip’s not good enough for you blokes to take action and most of the folks he took money from never complained. I mean, some of those women would never dare admit what he’d done in their houses while their husbands were out. I’m not daft, I know the police hands are tied when it comes to putting blokes like Joss away, but he made a bloody good living off crime, tax free an’ all, while poor sods like you and me had to pay our taxes on less money than he was making.’

  ‘So you reckon he was involved in that supermarket raid?’

  ‘Sure as dogs is dogs,’ he grinned. ‘A man with a growing family needs more money, a bit of security, so he was hoping to get into the big time, wanting to do bigger jobs for huge sums…but he was beaten, eh, by the police. That time, they were one just ahead of him, waiting for him
. If you can’t lock ’em up, shoot ’em, eh? It’s one way of cleaning the town up.’

  ‘Is this all gossip, Jim, or is there some foundation for what you’re telling me?’

  ‘Oh, it’s right enough,’ Jim said. ‘I go down to the club every Monday, Wednesday and Saturday night, and it was all the talk down there. Folks knew him, you see, they’d had dealings with him, they’d lost money to the little bastard. I’ll tell you summat, Mark, they all cheered that night when they heard he’d got his comeuppance. Best thing to happen in this town for years. Some said it should have happened to that brother of his, an’ all.’

  ‘Why his brother?’

  ‘Big Brother Brian, we call him. Union man he was. They said he was as bad as young Joss. Nobody would give him work in this town, Mark, he was allus causing trouble, stirring up strikes if he worked in a factory, or demanding too high wages. Anyway, he got sacked that many times they said he was into crime to make ends meet. There was talk of him working with Joss on some of the big jobs.’

  ‘What’s he doing now?’ asked Pemberton.

  ‘He’s got a job in the factory, canning. But I bet he’s soon out on his neck. He never holds a job down too long, troublemaker through and through he is.’

  ‘Was he ever caught? Brian, I mean,’ Mark asked.

  ‘Nay, he was too clever, just like his little brother. Good at planning ahead, they were. A right pair of villains if you ask me.’

  ‘There’s no proof of all this, is there, Jim?’

  ‘Nay, lad, but we all knew. Folks aren’t daft, you know.’

  Pemberton returned to the supermarket incident. ‘Jim, do you know if anyone saw the shooting? Nobody seems to have witnessed the actual shooting of Joss Newton.’

  ‘If anybody who knew him had seen it, they’d not say so, would they?’ smiled the old man. ‘They’d say good riddance to bad rubbish, they’d not want to get involved, would they? They’d be only too glad he was stopped. Did you know that one old lady lost all her life savings to that bastard? Three thousand pounds she’d got saved up after a lifetime’s hard work — he smarmed his way into the house reckoning he was from the council checking on her water supply and nicked a shoe box from under her bed. We all knew it was him. The police were called but they couldn’t prove anything. She couldn’t even describe the bloke who’d been in the house, except he was well dressed, young with dark hair. It was him all right, we all knew that. She was a bit fuddled, poor old dear, she died six months later when they sent her a big gas bill. She couldn’t pay, the shock was enough to finish her, Mark.’

  As Mark Pemberton listened to a continuing catalogue of accusations against the late Joss Newton and his brother, along with more tales of his erring wife, he knew he could never be sure how much was gossip and how much was an exaggerated version of the truth. Certainly, he recalled, there had been no comparable account of Newton’s supposed criminal activities in the file, but he knew, as a policeman, that unless a complaint of theft was received, no police action could be taken. If the victims hadn’t reported the thefts, they could not be investigated, neither would they be entered in the official statistics. On the other hand, Pemberton was sufficiently experienced to realise that local gossip could contain a great deal of truth, but he had to accept that unsupported accusations and mere gossip could never feature in a formal investigation. The formal judgements on the death of Joss Newton would be based on what had occurred that day, irrespective of his rumoured past or his mysteriously lucrative mode of life. And it was a fact that he had no criminal record — and that served only to enhance his status as Mr Innocent Passer-by.

  Mark remained for ten minutes or so to reminisce with Jim Green, then bade him farewell before inspecting the car-park behind the supermarket. This told him little. He counted eight cars in the park and saw that the rear entrance was open with rows of trolley awaiting inside. It was just nine o’clock now, and the day’s business was getting under way. He stood near the ticket machine for a few minutes, trying to determine whether or not this entrance to the supermarket was in any way relevant, and decided that it wasn’t. He was on the point of using this entrance to the supermarket to find Lorraine but decided to return via Acorn Alley.

  He would follow the route used by Joss Newton to see what view the deceased might have enjoyed in the final seconds of his life. Old Jim had gone into his house by the time Mark returned, and so he walked along the pavement beside Cholmley Street, against the direction of the traffic. He turned into Acorn Alley, seeing the supermarket sign and noting that no windows overlooked him. It was so easy to traverse this alley unseen. Ideal for a loitering armed robber? Or one rushing to cope with his intended target which had surprised him by arriving five minutes early?

  Mark turned right, walked down the steps, turned left and finally moved along the flat stretch which opened on to the forecourt. From the first few yards leading from the foot of the steps, most of the area of the forecourt was not visible — he could see the revolving doors to his left, but little else. As he stepped nearer to the exit of Acorn Alley, the forecourt opened up before him. A bread van was parked there now, its rear doors open as members of staff and the delivery man unloaded tray after tray and hurried them inside. He guessed it was parked in a very similar position to the security van — it was the logical place for any delivery van to park.

  The bread van blocked his view of two of the disabled parking spaces, those being the two nearest the goods entrance, and he realised that Newton, if he was involved in the raid, would not know whether his partners in their stolen van had arrived. It would have been concealed by the parked security van — unless, of course, he had made an earlier recce? Pemberton realised that as Newton had walked the final yards along Acorn Alley, it was quite possible he would not have known whether or not the raid was actually in progress.

  The guards and his fellow raiders would have been concealed from his view by the Cerberus vehicle and no police would have been visible. If he was totally innocent, as had been vociferously suggested, there was every chance he would have had no idea that an armed raid was in progress, and so he would have continued his journey.

  To Mark’s right, as he entered the forecourt, were the four public parking spaces and these were now occupied, the nearest being his own car. On the day of the raid, the police reports said none of those were in use; thus Hadley, upon emerging from the entrance to the restaurant further to Mark’s right, would have had an uninterrupted view of Newton the moment he emerged from Acorn Alley. The distance was about fifteen yards, a very short distance for a trained firearms officer to see and be seen.

  In spite of Pemberton’s attempt to gain an impression of the scenario which had prevailed that day, he knew it would be impossible to reproduce events with total accuracy. He had to tune his mind to think in seconds and even parts of seconds — he had to know precisely what was happening around the Cerberus vehicle as Newton entered from stage left and as Hadley made his appearance. The pair of them must have made their appearances almost simultaneously. Pollard must have been behind the van at that very moment. The time between Newton appearing from the alley and meeting his death would be a split second.

  Hadley’s subsequent actions would be instinctive — he would freeze for a few vital seconds.

  A videotape of the raid would have been ideal, with the action reduced to its slowest pace so that the precise relationships and positions of the key players could be determined. What was needed was a choreographed re-enactment, not pieces of paper with theoretical movements upon them. Standing at this place, Pemberton felt that Pollard had thrown his gun into the arena at that same instant, with Pollard concentrating his attention upon Swanson and not noticing Newton’s arrival.

  Having examined the scene of Newton’s death, Pemberton realised that the truth of Hadley’s actions might never be determined. Hadley and only Hadley had the answer — and he had given his version of events, not once but several times, and he had suffered as a consequence.
And he’d always insisted that he spoke the truth, a habit imposed upon him since childhood.

  Lorraine was not waiting at the car, so Mark went into the store and found her. It was small by some supermarket standards and lacked a cafeteria. He decided he would like a coffee when the shopping expedition was over — and what better place than the very café that had concealed Hadley as he had awaited the arrival of the Cerberus van? Their shopping complete, Mark placed the goods in the car and told Lorraine there was just time for a quick coffee before their parking time expired. They walked across to the restaurant which overlooked the forecourt from the West. Climbing the stairs, Mark stopped to examine the view from the window which was midway up the flight; this was the window used by Hadley as he awaited the would-be raiders. He saw that the bread van had now departed.

  ‘It provides a good view,’ he explained to Lorraine as they peered across the forecourt. ‘Hadley would have been able to see the parked van over there, in the disabled space, and then watch the arrival of the Cerberus van as it reversed into position. Earlier, there was a bread van parked over there,’ and he pointed. ‘It obscured my view of the disabled parking area. That means the Cerberus vehicle, which would be slightly larger than a bread van, would have obscured Hadley’s view of what was happening on its far side, and at the rear. Hadley and Newton would have had an open view of the driver’s side only. The raiders would have had to wait for at least two of the Cerberus men to leave the vehicle before they made their move and in turn, the police would have had to wait for a signal to begin their counteraction. It all takes time, precious seconds I know, but time nonetheless. Now, according to the file, there was a firearms officer in the ground floor of the house which overlooks that parking space — a sergeant — and he was in radio contact with Hadley. Once he gave the order to move, Hadley would have emerged from here and run on to the forecourt. That would take, what? Two or three seconds. No more, less even.’

  ‘But from here, Mark, you can’t see that alley, can you?’