Wages of Sin

by J M Gregson

  There was a pause of several seconds whilst they contemplated each other. Nigel Rogan’s eyes flashed from Peach’s implacable face to the softer features of Lucy Blake, trying unsuccessfully to read what was going on in the minds behind the eyes which studied him so relentlessly. He had forgotten all about hiding his hands now; they twisted and untwisted on the edge of the square table in front of him.

  Peach said slowly, ‘You’re a cocaine addict, Mr Rogan. That’s what brought you to our attention last night.’

  ‘I’m not an addict. I like my crack, like it a bit too much perhaps, but I’m in control. I’m going to give it up.’

  The protestation of addicts the world over, whether it be gambling, alcohol or hard drugs. Peach smiled sourly. ‘If the amount of crack cocaine you had in your possession was for sale, we’ll have you for dealing. If it was all for your own use, I’d say you were an addict. You’ve lost a wife and two children, and I should think you’re well on the way to losing your job.’

  Rogan stared down at his twitching fingers. ‘You know how to kick a man when he’s down. I’m going to give it up. Being brought in here like this, spending a night in your cells, has brought me to my senses.’

  He meant it, thought Peach. Really believed he could do it. At this moment he believed it, but the resolution wouldn’t last. It never did: that was part of being an addict. He said, ‘You’ll need help. Don’t make the mistake of thinking you can do it on your own. But we aren’t concerned with your habit. Not here. We’re concerned with the death of Sarah Dunne on the night of the fourteenth of November.’

  ‘That was nothing to do with me. I’ve told you, I—’

  ‘You still don’t get it, do you, Rogan? Your brain’s so addled with crack that you can’t see where all this has been leading.’

  ‘I’ve told you what I did on that night. I may not be proud of it, but—’

  ‘What time did this episode take place, Mr Rogan?’

  He shook his head several times, not in denial, but apparently in an attempt to clear it. ‘I’m not sure. Around ten o’clock, I should think.’

  ‘The report on the post-mortem examination tells us that Sarah Dunne was killed between nine and eleven on that night.’

  ‘Not by me, she wasn’t.’

  ‘The description of the girl you picked up in that pub. The one you took to your car. The one you gave your money to.’

  ‘It’s not complete. It’s the best I can do.’

  ‘Maybe. It’s also a description of the girl who was murdered on that night. A description of Sarah Dunne. It may not be complete, but every detail you’ve given us tallies.’

  ‘But – But I didn’t—’

  ‘The girl who was in your car on that night was Sarah Dunne, Mr Rogan.’

  The name he had never known was being thrown at him now like a series of stones. He licked his pale lips, felt the sharp stubble against his dry tongue, said desperately, ‘You can’t be sure of that. If you take me round the town, show me some of the young girls on the game, I’ll try to pick out the one who—’

  ‘You won’t. It would be a pointless exercise. Sarah Dunne had twenty-five pounds in her pocket when she was eventually found. In the form of a twenty pound note and a five pound note.’

  The hands gripped the edge of the table convulsively. ‘That’s still not conclusive. In a court of law they’d say—’

  ‘The DNA sample you gave us last night. It’s been tested this morning. It matches the semen samples taken from the body of Sarah Dunne.’

  Rogan’s eyes glazed with defeat, his breath suddenly the loudest sound in that small, stifling room. After a few seconds, he said hoarsely, ‘I didn’t kill her.’ Neither of the CID officers helped him out with a comment, and eventually he added inconsequentially, ‘I’m sorry she’s dead. She seemed like a good kid, to me.’

  Tom Boyd knew that this must be done, but he wasn’t enjoying it.

  The Inspector had only spoken to his Chief Constable once before, and that had been at a social function, when they were bidding farewell to a retiring Superintendent. He found that the top man was at any rate a good listener. He heard Tom out with only a couple of terse questions. And he gave the impression that he had heard much worse than this, that nothing would shock him.

  The CC thought for a few seconds when the sordid little tale was complete, or as complete as Tom was prepared to make it. Those seconds seemed like minutes to Tom. He could not know that this experienced senior policeman was evaluating what he had heard, wondering just what had been held back, conjecturing whether this grizzled officer who stood shame-faced in front of him could indeed be a murderer, and what the repercussions might be if he was. The CC said eventually, ‘What is your marital status, Inspector Boyd?’

  ‘I’m divorced, sir. I have one child, sir, a grown-up daughter, who’s married and lives in Norfolk. I see her only about twice a year.’

  ‘And you don’t have a regular partner?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  The CC had come across many men like this in his time. Divorce was an occupational hazard of police work. Men remained sexually active, but without an obvious outlet. And Boyd certainly wasn’t handsome; he might have made a reliable husband, but at pushing fifty, stolid and flat-faced, with the haircut and the bearing of an earlier generation, he wasn’t going to have too many offers.

  The CC felt a sudden, disturbing spurt of sympathy for the man who stood embarrassed before him. ‘And where were you on the night of the fourteenth of November, when this girl was killed?’

  ‘I was at home, sir. Alone, unfortunately.’

  ‘I know that’s what you told this DCI and his sidekick from Brunton. I’m asking you now whether it’s the truth.’

  ‘It is, sir, yes.’

  ‘Right. You did right to come to see me. Let me know if there are any more developments. We’ll do whatever we can for you if there are enquiries from Brunton. That is to say, we’ll say you’ve given impeccable service here, and been of good character. It may not be much, but bear in mind that they won’t have many suspects for this who’ll have that kind of support.’

  ‘No, sir. Thank you, sir. And I’m sorry for bringing this embarrassment upon the service.’

  ‘These things happen, Inspector Boyd. It won’t count against you here. Providing you didn’t commit this murder, of course.’

  He had meant it as a little joke to conclude the interview, but neither of them felt much like laughing.

  Thirty miles away, in another police station at Brunton, Thomas Bulstrode Tucker had prepared the words he proposed to deliver to his Chief Inspector. He tried not to issue them through clenched teeth as he said, ‘I enjoyed our golf yesterday, Peach. I can’t remember when I last played so badly, but it was an enjoyable afternoon.’

  He can’t even lie convincingly, thought Percy Peach. Not to me, anyway: he must have been able to lie persuasively to someone, to have got to where he is. ‘Glad to hear it, sir. Your Captain seemed to enjoy it, too, judging by his speech at the dinner. Very pleasant chap, I thought.’

  ‘Yes, well, this is all very nice, but back to business, eh?’ Tucker spoke as if Peach and not he had introduced the diversion of golf. ‘How near are we to clearing up this prostitute’s murder? The media are pressurizing me to hold an update briefing, but if you’ve nothing to deliver, I’ll need to hold them off.’

  ‘There’s been progress, sir. We interviewed the copper in the case on Saturday afternoon. It didn’t seem appropriate to report our findings to you in a social situation at the golf club yesterday.’

  ‘Quite right.’ Tucker reflected that he had suffered quite enough without having a policeman thrown into the conversation as a murder suspect.

  ‘An Inspector Tom Boyd, sir. From the Blackpool force. Traffic section.’

  ‘At least he’s not one of ours.’ Tucker’s relief was so great that he voiced it aloud.

  ‘No, sir. Playing away from home, he was. He got that bit right, at least. Bu
t he’d have been better to go further afield. He’s admitted to conducting aggressive sex with a Brunton tom last Thursday night.’

  ‘Aggressive sex?’

  Tucker looked nonplussed, and Peach had a sudden glorious vision of Bru¨nnhilde Barbara pursuing Tommy Bloody Tucker round the house in her underwear, uttering whoops of sexual excitement. Bloody hell!

  He kept his face commendably straight as he said, ‘Boyd gave us certain details, sir, but I think we shall find out more if we can interview the tom in question. We hope to find her some time today.’

  ‘Has this Inspector Boyd given any indication that he might have killed Sarah Dunne?’

  ‘No, sir. He vigorously denies it. But he has no alibi for the night of her murder.’

  The Chief Superintendent shook his well-groomed head doubtfully. ‘I can’t see it being a policeman, you know.’ Tucker had apparently wiped from his memory the fact that a member of his own CID team, a man dubbed by the press as the ‘Lancashire Leopard’, had proved to be responsible for a series of four killings less than two years ago. He sighed heavily, like a patient man who has much to bear. ‘Have you any more likely suspects?’

  ‘We’ve got a man down in the cells who looks as guilty as hell, sir.’ Peach, remembering the hopeless droop of Nigel Rogan’s shoulders as he had been led from the interview room, decided that this was a fair description.

  Tucker brightened. He moved into his elder statesman mode and leant forward, placing his elbows on the surface of his large, empty desk, steepling his fingers and nodding sagely. ‘Have we got enough to charge him, Peach?’

  Peach pursed his lips, then nodded slowly. ‘I think we have, if we choose to. He’s admitted picking up Sarah Dunne on that night, admitted to paying for her sexual favours, admitted to giving her one on the back seat of his car. A cut-price one, as a matter of interest, sir. He admits to giving her a twenty pound note and a five pound note in payment.’

  ‘And?’ said Tucker.

  The bugger obviously doesn’t read the details I submit to him in memos, thought Percy. I don’t know why I bother – except that I have to, because Tommy Bloody Tucker demands that I keep him briefed in writing. ‘The notes we found in the pocket of the girl’s jacket were a twenty and a five, sir.’

  ‘Ah!’ A great and welcome light illuminated the features beneath the distinguished silver hair. ‘It begins to look as if we have our man.’

  ‘The man is a crack cocaine addict, sir. In my view, that is: I don’t suppose for a minute that he’s registered as an addict. He works a night shift in a printing works. My impression is that he won’t keep the job much longer with his crack habit, but that’s by the way.’

  ‘It will be if I can charge him with murder!’

  Peach let the switch to the singular pass without comment. ‘Perhaps partly because he was off his head on crack when he was brought in last night, Rogan volunteered a sample of his hair for DNA analysis. It has been matched this morning with that of the semen samples taken from the body of Sarah Dunne.’

  ‘Right! Let’s charge the bugger. I’ll call a media conference for this afternoon and announce that we’ve got our man!’ Tucker jutted his jaw forward in a rare image: the steely man of action.

  It was tempting, but Percy decided he could not let this run. ‘I’ve questioned him this morning with DS Blake, sir. I’m not satisfied that he is our man.’

  ‘But you said yourself he’d paid her for sex in the back of his car. We have the banknotes he passed to her. And if the semen sample tallies with his DNA, how much more do we need?’

  ‘No more, sir. We’ve got an excellent case. And he admits all the things I’ve told you. But he denies murdering the girl.’

  ‘And you believe him?’ Tucker was suddenly full of contempt for the naivety of his DCI.

  ‘I think I probably do, sir, yes. Of course, if you’d like to speak to him yourself, he’s still in custody. Be very useful to have the opinion of the man in charge of the CID section on this.’

  Tucker was tempted. It would be splendid to produce a confession from the man who had hoodwinked Peach. But he did not want to break the habit of the last ten years and get involved with the gritty reality of an investigation. Moreover, there lurked at the back of his mind a respect he dare not express for the methods and opinions of the egregious Peach. If the DCI thought the man was innocent, if Percy Peach hadn’t wrung a confession from him, then it was unlikely anyone else was going to succeed.

  The Chief Superintendent said reluctantly, ‘Let’s presume you’re right and this Rogan man’s not guilty, for the moment. Have you anything else of interest to report on this case?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Phone call to CID at 22.17 hours on Saturday night, sir. By a man purporting to be the murderer of Sarah Dunne. Asking for you, sir. But taken by DC Pickering, who was alone in the murder room at the time.’

  ‘Phone call saying what, Peach?’

  ‘Call purporting to be from the murderer, sir. Made from a public phone booth in Birmingham. By a man with a Brummie accent. Brummie or Black Country, sir. We’ve got the recording of the call, so we can submit it to a voice expert at Forensic.’

  ‘You think our killer is from the Midlands?’

  ‘Difficult to say, sir. This could be a hoax call. Chummy didn’t use any information he couldn’t have got from the press. But he referred to the two similar killings of toms in the Birmingham area and claimed responsibility for those as well as for Sarah Dunne. I have the tape here, sir.’

  ‘Right. Leave it with me. I’ll pass it on to Forensic.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Bear in mind that it may be a hoax, though. There are—’

  ‘I’ll be the judge of that, Peach. It’s part of being in charge of an investigation, to make judgements on things like this.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Rather you than me, sir.’

  ‘That’s all right. You get about your business and stop wasting valuable time.’

  Tucker’s lethargic imagination had been stirred into vigorous life. He picked up the internal phone and began immediate arrangements for a media briefing at three o’clock. With a man under arrest and a DNA semen match, plus a phone call from a man claiming responsibility for this and two other murders, there was much to report. He’d show the critics that Chief Superintendent Thomas Tucker was a man to be reckoned with, a man who got things done.

  It hadn’t yet occurred to him that these two new items of information were in fact contradictory.

  Fifteen

  Father Devoy liked going into the primary school behind the church. Until the last few months, he had always found it easy to lose himself in his conversations with the children, to forget that other side of his life which was beginning to tear his very soul apart.

  He liked the classes for the First Communion best, where you were surrounded by excited innocence and preparing the children for a family celebration. He sometimes thought that if he could have had a family himself, all might still have been well with him.

  But the First Confession and First Communion classes were usually in the spring, with the children enjoying the great day of their First Communion on the feast of Corpus Christi in June. At various times during the last few days, John Devoy had wondered whether he would ever see another spring, whether the demons within him would destroy him before then.

  He was all right as long as he had the children in front of him. Those round, unlined, credulous faces compelled his attention, made him concentrate on them and them alone. At least, they always had until now. The children told him the old, old things. The things which should have reassured him in his vocation as a priest. The things he had learned when he was a boy, the things his father and his grandfather had parroted off in school until they knew them by heart.

  The children didn’t sit in desks any more. But a little girl told him from beside her table that God had made her; had made her in His own image and likeness.

  She looked very pleased with herself when she had told him that, know
ing that she had got it right, that the teacher would be relieved because she had got it right in front of Father Devoy. Teachers were as human, as insecure, as anyone else, and John Devoy knew that the woman who stood out of sight behind his right shoulder would be absurdly pleased that her small charges were not letting her down when the priest came in from the big, high stone church behind the small modern school.

  Father Devoy wanted to ask the smiling little girl what she meant by ‘in his own image and likeness’, to see what this cocksure eight-year-old would make of the picture of God transformed into a toothy girl in a pretty dress and the green school sweater, but he knew that it would not be fair. Not fair to the smug little child who had given the right answer; not fair to the 23-year-old teacher smiling her approval behind him.

  Not fair even to himself, for it might expose Father Devoy as the thinking man he was; the man who questioned what his religion fed to children; the man who had doubts about his calling to the priesthood; the man who knew the way he was living his life was wrong, and yet could do nothing about it.

  The man who preached from the pulpit about the dangers of lust and fornication, yet who dared not turn and smile at the young woman behind him, in case her full lips and soft curves made him reveal his lechery in his face. The man who thrust his hands deep into the vents at the side of his cassock lest they too might somehow give him away, as his arms cut through the empty air.

  The man who was living a lie and could not go on doing so for much longer.

  Joe Johnson enjoyed being in control.

  He had never been one for democracy. He realized that as his empire grew he must delegate, so he had brought managers into his clubs and casinos. He was even willing to listen to their views, on occasions: the occasions when he had asked for them. His underlings soon learned not to venture a thought about policy unless they had been asked for it.