Dead End

by Sally Spencer

  ‘What was the weapon?’ Beresford asked.

  ‘From the dent in his skull, I would say it was a hammer, but there has been some deterioration over the last four years and …’

  ‘You said the last four years,’ Beresford said, homing in on the words. ‘You think he’s been in the ground for four years.’

  Shastri sighed. ‘My gut feeling is that it is four years,’ she said, ‘but I knew that if I told you that, you would latch onto it as a certainty – and it isn’t. My advice to you is to give all possible years exactly the same amount of attention. Do you hear what I’m saying?’

  ‘Of course I hear you,’ Beresford snapped. He pulled a repentant face. ‘Sorry, Dr Shastri, I did hear what you said, and the point is taken.’

  ‘Good boy,’ Shastri said, encouragingly.

  On his way out of the mortuary, Beresford did a quick mental review of how things had gone.

  On the personal front, he now knew why he didn’t fancy Shastri – it was because she spoke to him as if he were her little boy, which was very annoying, but also – confusingly – rather pleasant.

  On the professional front, it was an almost dead certainty that the body had been in the ground for four years.

  Archie Eccleston was sitting on the narrow bed in one of the holding cells, looking thoroughly miserable.

  ‘They say they’ve found a body on my allotment,’ he told Crane, through the bars.

  ‘They have.’

  ‘It’s nothing to do with me,’ Eccleston said – and it was obvious to both Crane and the custody sergeant that it wasn’t.

  ‘Can’t you just kick him loose?’ Crane suggested.

  The custody sergeant shook his head regretfully. ‘He’s been arrested, and before he can be released, he needs to go through the proper procedures with the arresting officers.’

  ‘And where are the arresting officers?’ Crane asked.

  ‘Out,’ the custody sergeant said.

  ‘My boss needs to talk to him about this murder, but he’s not here, so would you mind if I talked to him instead?’

  ‘Who is your boss?’ the sergeant asked. ‘Shagger Beresford?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Has he asked you to do it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But he won’t mind?’

  ‘He won’t mind at all,’ Crane promised.

  The custody sergeant nodded. ‘All right, I’ll have him sent up to Interview A.’

  ‘I think I’d get more out of him if I took him to the canteen for a cup of tea,’ Crane said.

  ‘I’m sure you would,’ the sergeant agreed, ‘but it’s not going to happen.’

  ‘Oh well, at least I tried,’ Crane said philosophically.

  Interview Room A had a skylight window which hadn’t been cleaned on the outside since the Coronation, and a table that wobbled unless a doubled-over cigarette packet was positioned in just the right spot under one of its legs.

  ‘I know you didn’t bury that body on your allotment, but some bugger must have, mustn’t they?’ Crane asked, across the table.

  ‘I suppose so,’ Archie Eccleston replied.

  ‘How long have you had the allotment?’

  ‘Fourteen years, since my son … since before my son … fourteen years.’

  ‘Hmm, the body’s not been there that long,’ Crane said. ‘So how do you think they’ll have managed it?’

  ‘I’m not sure I know what you mean.’

  ‘Well, say I’d got a body I wanted to bury there. My first job would be to dig up all your vegetables, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘But they probably wouldn’t be ready,’ Archie Eccleston said, anguish in his voice at even imagining such a tragedy. ‘If they had been ready, I’d have dug them up myself.’

  ‘So say I dug them up, then dug much further down, put the body in my new deep hole, covered it with soil, then put your vegetables back where I found them. Would you be able to tell I’d done it, the next day?’

  ‘Well, of course I’d be able to tell. It would be obvious right away.’

  ‘So how will they have done it without you noticing it, do you think?’

  ‘They’ll have done it just before a replanting,’ Archie Eccleston said, as if he’d just had a revelation. ‘That’s the only way they could have done it.’

  ‘What’s a replanting?’

  ‘It’s what I call it when I clear out part of the allotment and start again from scratch.’

  ‘Clear it out?’

  ‘There’s nothing left by the time I’ve finished, except for the soil, of course – and even some of that’s new.’

  ‘So if you were doing a replanting and you went home at night and somebody buried a body, you wouldn’t notice when you came back in the morning.’

  ‘I might not notice,’ Archie Eccleston said.

  ‘Might not?’

  ‘I probably wouldn’t notice,’ Eccleston said, grudgingly.

  ‘How often do you do these replantings?’

  ‘Not very often at all. Only when it really needs doing. It’s a big job, you see.’

  ‘How often is not very often?’ Crane asked, with just a hint of desperation in his voice.

  ‘I couldn’t really say.’

  ‘Don’t you keep a gardening record?’

  ‘There’s them that does – but I’ve never bothered.’

  They were going to have to rely on the memories of other allotment holders whose plots adjoined Archie’s, Crane thought.

  He imagined the perfect witness.

  It’s all here in my gardening records, young man. “4th of October 1975. Planted daffs and tulips. Noticed that silly sod Archie Eccleston is digging up half his allotment again.”

  ‘There is one I can remember,’ Archie Eccleston said. ‘I couldn’t tell you the date or anything …’

  ‘Then it’s not likely to be of much help.’

  ‘But you’ve probably got a record of it yourselves.’

  ‘Now why would we have a record of what you were doing?’

  ‘No, not what I was doing – what you were doing.’

  ‘You’re not making much sense, Mr Eccleston.’

  ‘I was replanting, and you were going through the stuff in Arthur Wheatstone’s potting shed.’

  As he stood at the bar of the Drum and Monkey, Colin Beresford felt a sudden urge to add a double vodka to his order of two pints and a soft drink, even though there was no one at the table who would want it.

  Don’t be so bloody soft, he told himself angrily. You’re a down-to-earth sort of feller – well-known for it – and that kind of fanciful thinking is best left to lads with degrees, like Jack Crane.

  He walked over to the table and laid down the tray.

  ‘You’re looking like the cat who got the cream, Jack,’ he said to Crane.

  Crane grinned. ‘Am I, sir?’

  Not ‘boss’, Beresford noted, but ‘sir’. And quite right, too – because the boss was lying comatose on a bed in Whitebridge General.

  He sat down and took a swig of his beer.

  Thwaites’ Best Bitter – one of the very few things in life that never disappointed.

  He wiped froth off his top lip with the back of his hand.

  ‘All right, let’s hear it,’ he said.

  ‘I’ve got two things,’ Crane said. ‘I’m fairly confident I know when the victim went into the hole – and I’ve got a lead on who might have put him there.’

  Beresford whistled softly. ‘If you’re right about both things, you’d better have my job,’ he said. ‘Let’s start with the date.’

  Crane explained the way his thoughts had been running before he’d talked to Archie Eccleston, and what conclusions he’d reached during their conversation.

  ‘The Wheatstone case was four years ago, and that’s also Dr Shastri’s best bet as to when our fingerless stiff was buried,’ Beresford said when he’d finished. ‘Tell us about your suspect now.’

  ‘Whoever buried our victim had
to either have an allotment of his own or a reason to visit the allotments every day,’ Crane said.

  ‘Because he had to know there was an allotment suitable for his purposes,’ Meadows said.

  ‘Exactly. He couldn’t wander around the allotments with a corpse slung over his shoulder on the off-chance there’d be a suitable plot available. He had to know in advance that Archie had prepared part of his allotment for replanting.’

  ‘I’m still waiting for the name of your suspect,’ Beresford said.

  ‘Dick or Richard Judd.’

  ‘And what made you suspect him?’

  Crane grinned. ‘The fact that he was behaving suspiciously,’ he said.

  There is one cardinal rule at the allotments – and the fact that it is not written down in no way diminishes its importance or significance. That rule is ‘Each man’s allotment is his and his alone, and no other man shall give it the barest touch without his consent.’

  Thus, when Archie Eccleston sees Dick Judd standing on his allotment with a spade in his hand, his first emotion is incredulity, and his second is rage.

  ‘What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing?’ he demands.

  Dick Judd turns towards him with a look of surprise on his face. ‘This part that you’re replanting,’ he says.

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘You’ve missed bits, but you mustn’t blame yourself, because two pairs of eyes are always better than one.’

  ‘I was brought up to keep my nose out of other people’s business,’ Archie Eccleston says, and the anger is still evident in his voice.

  ‘Look,’ Judd says apologetically, ‘this isn’t the first time it’s happened, and I’m sorry.’

  ‘The first time what’s happened?’ Eccleston asks, curious despite himself.

  ‘Me annoying people by trying to help, when they don’t want help at all. It’s just that when I’ve got too much time on my hands, I start thinking about Janice.’

  ‘Janice?’

  ‘My daughter.’

  ‘What happened to her?’

  ‘She died.’ Judd fights back a sob. ‘She was only nine.’

  Eccleston is assailed by waves of guilt and pain.

  ‘You’re right, two pairs of eyes are better than one.’ He pauses. ‘Would you like to help me with the replanting?’

  Judd sniffs. ‘Only if I’ll not be in the way,’ he says.

  ‘You’ll not be in the way,’ Eccleston promises.

  ‘Judd wants to make absolutely sure Eccleston doesn’t notice there have been any changes. That’s why he’s there with his spade, so if Eccleston says, “Somebody’s been interfering with this allotment,” he can reply, “Yes, that was me – you saw me doing it just now”.’

  ‘What do we know about this Judd feller?’ Beresford asked.

  ‘Only what I’ve been able to find out in the last hour or so, since my chat to Archie Eccleston,’ Crane said.

  ‘Then let’s hear it.’

  ‘He’s a clerk at the town hall. He’s had his allotment for six years.’

  ‘That’s how long Jennings and Horrocks have had their allotment,’ Meadows said.

  ‘Meaning …?’ Beresford asked.

  ‘Meaning the two things may be connected.’

  ‘You’re saying it might be his job to watch them?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That squares up nicely with what most of the fellers down at the allotments say about Judd as a gardener,’ Crane said.

  ‘And what do they say?’

  ‘That he’s competent.’

  ‘What’s wrong with that?’

  ‘It’s damning with faint praise. It means his allotment is not so bad that they feel the need to report him to the committee.’

  ‘Where does he live?’

  ‘He’s got a flat on Burnley Road.’

  ‘Did he really lose a daughter?’ Meadows asked.

  ‘I’m not quite sure, yet,’ Crane admitted. ‘What would your guess be?’

  ‘My guess would be it’s too much of a coincidence that they’ve both lost a child,’ Meadows said. ‘My guess would be that he’s a lying, manipulative bastard.’

  ‘If we pick him up and he refuses to say anything – which, given the cool customer he appears to be, is more than likely – then we’ve got nothing, because we’re lacking any hard evidence,’ Beresford said. ‘On the other hand, if we just keep him under observation, he might notice, and try to do a runner.’

  ‘So what are you going to do?’ Crane asked.

  Beresford took a long sip of his pint. ‘I think I’ll sleep on it,’ he said.

  ‘Am I the only one who thinks she knows who the dead man is, or is it so obvious to you two that neither of you have bothered to mention it?’ Meadows said.

  ‘Who do you think it is?’ Beresford asked.

  ‘I think it’s a man who went missing at the same time the body was buried – a man who had no criminal background, yet has managed to stay on the run for over four years.’

  ‘Roger Pemberton!’ Crane said.

  ‘Yes, it really has to have been him,’ Beresford agreed. ‘But the question is, just what did he do to merit such obvious dislike?’

  Middleton Terrace was a row of late Victorian houses in what had once been the better part of town, and had provided homes for people who, had they been born seventy or eighty years later, might well have bought a detached dwelling in Barrow Village.

  The terrace was no longer fashionable, but neither had it slipped far enough down the scales to have become a slum. In fact, since the houses had four floors (including a servants’ attic), they had become much sought after by businesses which could not quite stretch to the rent demanded for the modern – steel and plate glass – offices in the new city centre.

  It was the fact that Middleton Terrace was virtually deserted after dark which had made it so attractive to Mr Forsyth’s people.

  The first three floors had become a bed-and-breakfast business – breakfast room and landlady’s quarters in the basement, guest rooms on floors one and two. The landlady was, in fact, a service housekeeper, but in keeping with her cover could serve up heart-attack-inducing fried breakfasts for eager long-distance lorry drivers.

  The top floor was the safe house, and was reached by an entirely independent entrance. It was not exactly to Mr Forsyth’s taste – when he was in Whitebridge, he preferred to stay in one of the suites at the Royal Victoria – but given the low profile nature of his current mission, he supposed that he could tolerate a little squalor if he had to.

  He was sitting in the armchair, enjoying a malt whisky. He shouldn’t have been drinking the whisky – his doctor had told him it was a definite no-no – but there seemed little point in avoiding icebergs when two-thirds of your hull had already been damaged beyond repair.

  There was a coded knock on the door.

  ‘Enter,’ he said.

  Downes came in.

  ‘I’ve just got a report from mobile unit two,’ he said.

  ‘Which one is that,’ Forsyth asked, not because he didn’t know but because it would deflate Downes’ sense of drama.

  ‘It’s the one outside the Drum and Monkey,’ Downes said.

  ‘And what has it got to report?’

  ‘Beresford’s team think that it was Roger Pemberton who was buried in that hole on the allotments,’ Downes said.

  ‘Is that what all of them think?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Even that smart young Oxford graduate Jack Crane?’

  ‘Even him.’

  Forsyth chuckled. ‘Then they are going to be disappointed in the morning, aren’t they?’

  He usually left his vehicle in the Drum’s main car park, next to those of Meadows and Crane, but tonight he had left it in the supermarket car park, which was a five-minute walk away.

  A big supermarket was easier for her – a new girl in town – to find than a grotty little pub, he’d told himself, although he knew that was a load of bollocks,
because there wasn’t an adult in Whitebridge who couldn’t have directed her towards the Drum and Monkey if she’d got lost.

  What was it, then?

  Didn’t he want to be seen with her?

  Of course he wanted to be seen with her. What man wouldn’t?

  But he didn’t want to be seen with her by Crane and Meadows – at least, not yet, anyway.

  Adolescent! he told himself.

  Big bloody baby!

  You’re an acting chief inspector, for Christ’s sake.

  He turned onto the car park, and saw her leaning back luxuriantly over the bonnet of his car.

  ‘I should have given you my key, then you could have opened the car and been comfortable,’ he said.

  ‘Or I might have stolen the car, sold it on the black market, and been on the next plane to Thailand,’ she said.

  He wondered if he should kiss her, then told himself that a supermarket car park was not the most romantic spot for a first kiss, and there would be other opportunities later.

  ‘So where shall we go?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m the new girl in town, so it’s pretty much up to you,’ she said.

  ‘There are a couple of nice cocktail bars on the other side of Whitebridge,’ he said, tentatively.

  ‘Isn’t it a bit late for that?’ she said.

  He glanced at his watch. The meeting with Crane and Meadows had run on longer than he’d imagined.

  ‘Yes, it is a little late,’ he agreed. ‘But there’s this nightclub called the Blue Note …’

  ‘It sounds absolutely horrid,’ she said dismissively. ‘I’ll tell you what – why don’t we just go back to my place?’

  ‘Yes,’ he agreed, ‘why don’t we?’

  NINETEEN

  Colin Beresford had long ago come to the conclusion that Man was never intended to be happy, and that this was especially true in the case of Northern Man.

  Jack Crane agreed with him. He said Northern Man was driven by a philosophie froide, and when Beresford had accused him of showing off, he’d said no, no, he wasn’t showing off at all, he was merely using le mot juste (which was probably a good joke if you understood French).

  Anyway, be that as it may, Man was never intended to be happy, but there were moments – like this one, lying in bed, a cigarette in his right hand and his left arm draped over Ward Sister Diana Sowerbury – when life felt rather more than tolerable.