Fatal Decision

by Ted Tayler

  After they relocated to the conservatory, Maria was summoned. The coffee duly arrived and once again the chubby Brazilian cook made a half-hearted attempt at a curtsey as she made her exit.

  “Right,” said Joyce, “what can I tell you?”

  “Do you recall where Crompton was the day of the murder?” asked Gus.

  “Crompton was here. He’s always been here. It’s difficult to remember what happened that weekend. My own memory isn’t what it was. The demon drink had a role to play there. The Priory helped me in that regard.”

  This was news to Gus. Alex Hardy hadn’t added that titbit to the Freeman File. Of course, people with addiction were unlikely to broadcast the fact they underwent treatment. It went some way to explaining how she appeared so lucid today. He’d expected her to be hungover and suffering from the shakes.

  “I started keeping a diary a year before Daffers came to work for us,” Joyce continued.

  “Do you have the diary for June 2008?” asked Gus, perking up. This meeting might not be a lost cause after all.

  “I have, but those diaries contain things I wouldn’t wish to find their way into the gutter press. Leonard is on the verge of being promoted to Home Secretary. Any whiff of my struggles with alcohol back then would scupper any hopes he has of getting the top job in the future. You do understand?”

  “Might I remind you we’re reviewing a murder case, madam. The police can be discreet on these matters.”

  “I appreciate that, but unless you have a court order, then I must insist that I only reveal the events I noted for the weekend of Daphne’s death.”

  Gus decided he could work with the weekend details for now. If it led to something germane to the case, he would be back with Geoff Mercer and a warrant to search the premises.

  “Leonard returned home late on Friday night. The House had sat until seven. A Tory Member had taken his seat that day. He’d just won a by-election and Leonard had a drinks party with him and a few others. We breakfasted together in the morning and discussed our plans. Most MPs hold surgeries in their constituency on a weekly basis to give people an opportunity to meet them and discuss matters of concern. Leonard has an office in the town where he attends for as long as people wait to be seen. Because that is rather open-ended I would pop into Bath to go shopping. On occasion, we dined out in the evening, but by and large, Crompton saw to our evening meals.”

  “Did you travel to Bath that day?” asked Gus.

  “I didn’t make a note of it, no.”

  “What time did your husband return from his surgery?”

  “I drew a blank on that one, I’m afraid. All I had scribbled in the margin was a question mark. We breakfasted together in the morning. Quite early for a Sunday. Leonard dashed off to North Wilts for an early tee-off time with his chums. I imagine we dined together later in the afternoon and then he travelled up to London. An unremarkable, yet typical weekend chez nous.”

  “Your husband lives in London during the week, is that correct?” asked Gus.

  “He does,” said Joyce, “his prolonged absences accelerated my unhealthy level of drinking back in the day. The boys were at boarding school. Leonard was in his apartment, wheeling and dealing his way to high office. Little old Joyce only had Crompton to keep her company during the day. He kept himself to himself in the evenings.”

  “You were never tempted?” asked Gus.

  Joyce looked shocked.

  “With Crompton. Heavens no. How gross.”

  “Forgive me, I was thinking of a younger man. Crompton’s duties as General Manager saw him invite a series of workers and tradesmen to visit the Manor House. An attractive woman. Lonely. It’s not unheard of for the occasional liaison to occur, so I hear.”

  Joyce laughed.

  “I take my marriage vows seriously, Mr Freeman. My husband and I have an unconventional marriage by some standards, but it works for us. I rarely met the people Crompton hired to work outside. If there was any decorating to the interior, he scheduled it for the summer months when we holidayed in France. I chatted with Daphne from time to time. She would finish her cleaning duties and make an excuse to pop in here before she left. She ran a duster over the window-sills, plumped up the cushions. Often she would wake me up and check I was okay before she trotted off home. She never passed judgement on the odd vodka bottle she found under the cushions. Daffers was a gem.”

  Gus was stuck for another question to ask.

  “There are very few people as loyal and trustworthy as Daphne,” Joyce continued, “thinking back to your question about the workmen. Crompton had an odd habit. He felt duty-bound to offer contracts for mowing the lawns, for instance, to different firms each year. The same with the gardeners, window cleaners and so on. The only person he religiously stuck to for supplying us with our hanging baskets was a Mr Attrill.”

  “We’ve met him. He has a beautiful garden,” said Lydia.

  “Mr Attrill and his son, Simon have been coming here for years,” said Joyce, “Daphne knew Simon. I would see her talking with him outside the window after she’d left me. She was so good with him. I must admit he rather frightens me. Such a big man.”

  “When would Simon and his father be up here at the Manor House?” asked Gus.

  “We have baskets throughout the year. They call in from time to time. I don’t think they had any fixed agreement on the number of visits per year. Crompton won’t remember now, I’m afraid. I could ask Mr Attrill if it’s important.”

  “No, that’s fine,” said Gus, “that’s it for now. If we need more, we’ll call and make another appointment. Perhaps when your husband is at home.”

  “You can always drop into his surgery office on a Saturday. He’s bound to be there. As for Sunday, do you play golf?”

  “I do not, and if the Chief Constable is in a regular foursome with your husband, I wouldn’t be popular if I turned up with my notebook asking questions.”

  Joyce walked to the hallway with Gus and Lydia. On a table near the foot of the stairs lay a pile of magazines and newspapers. Joyce flicked through them.

  “There’s an article in here on Leonard. It’s a local monthly magazine, they photographed him in his surgery office. I prefer this more distinguished look of him, rather than the older one Crompton has in his quarters. You can keep the rag. I’ve read it. Goodbye now. I hope to hear via the Chief Constable that you’ve caught Daphne’s killer soon.”

  Gus and Lydia said their goodbyes. As they descended the steps to the car, Gus thought what a transformation Joyce had turned out to be from the woman he had expected to meet.

  “Back to the office, guv?” said Lydia.

  “Let’s flick through this magazine first. Here we are. Our local MP in his constituency office. No umbrella. Lots of lever-arch files filled with paperwork, a blue mobile phone, a box of tissues. Jacket off, shirt-sleeves rolled-up to suggest he’s hard at work on behalf of us all, regardless of who we voted for.”

  “A strange morning,” said Lydia, as they pulled away and drove out of the gates of the Manor House.

  “Very interesting though,” said Gus, “very interesting indeed.”

  Friday, 13th April 2018

  Gus motored into work after a good night’s sleep. Yesterday afternoon had been a time to regroup, to assess what they had learned from the various interviews they had carried out.

  He knew that today Geoff Mercer would be in touch for a progress report on the case. What should he tell him? Whatever he passed on to Geoff reached the ears of the ACC. If Kenneth Truelove was true to his word, this Crime Review Team wouldn’t be micro-managed. Gus could run it his way. However, it never paid to be too hasty.

  Sometimes, it was better to drip-feed information to your superiors. When you were young and inexperienced it was all too easy to brag about how well you had done. Look what we’ve discovered. We’re almost ready to make an arrest.

  It was those cases that blew up in your face, leaving egg on it.

  Something yo
u thought you had nailed down drifted away on the wind.

  Gus was too experienced to fall into that trap. That was why he got Lydia and the two lads to get the Freeman File up together first thing after lunch.

  Then they stopped and confirmed the new items they could state had been learned since the team had started work on Monday.

  He had asked them to shout out the ‘definite’ items so he could write them on the board.

  “Nobody in the Morris family was involved in Daphne’s murder.”

  “Simon Attrill was the person in Battersby Lane seen talking to Daphne.”

  “There was a man on the hillside moving away from the murder scene in the opposite direction to Lowden Park.”

  “The other person at the murder scene who ran towards the Park had big feet.”

  He had looked at Neil.

  “Really? Foot size was the only verifiable fact in that part of the enquiry?”

  “Sorry, guv, but that’s all we can legitimately say,” said Neil. “We are assuming it’s a bloke who could pass for a girl. It could still be a girl with big feet.”

  He had been forced to agree.

  Lydia had spoken next.

  “We understand better now the connections between things that came from the interviews we had with the Attrill’s, Crompton and Mrs Pemberton-Smythe. Whether any of those connections bring us closer to identifying the killer, we don’t know.”

  “How significant is it that Simon works at the Manor House?” he had asked.

  “It adds another dimension to the relationship between him and Daphne,” said Lydia.

  “Daphne stood up for him at the Primary School,” added Alex. “They spoke whenever they met on her walks with Bobby. Simon talked to her at the Manor House when he and his father tended to the hanging baskets they supplied.”

  Somewhat chastened by the conclusions they could draw in the cold light of day he had asked Alex and Neil to take him through what they discovered while he was away.

  That had been his last resort. If they could pin down the identity of the person in the woods that Holly saw they might make progress.

  Just before going-home time, Alex had told him the Hub turned up three names. Two of them fell within the age range Lydia requested from the most recent census. This meant they were resident in the area and aged between eighteen and twenty-four years at the time of the murder. The third was someone who had moved into the area only months before the murder.

  All three had been flagged on the later search request as having been known to the police. It was clear the offences they had in common were relevant to the case.

  Despite the date, Gus hoped today would lead to them making that final step.

  As he parked his Ford Focus next to Lydia’s Mini, he wondered, could they discover which one of those three men was the running man?

  His team were upstairs and hard at work when he arrived.

  Three heads rose when he reached his desk and paused in their labours as he sat on the edge and threw his arms open wide.

  “Give me the good news,” he said, “please.”

  “We checked social media for physical descriptions of the three men the Hub indicated were possible suspects,” Neil replied. “In 2008 they all displayed the typical characteristics of a twink.”

  “That in itself doesn’t move us forward much,” added Alex.

  “You’re telling me they have big feet and could pass as a female. Terrific.”

  “To be more specific,” said Lydia, “images that are still online show them to be physically attractive with little or no body or facial hair. They were slim to average build and one had a youthful appearance that belied his older chronological age.”

  “Taking them one by one, in no particular order, guv. Ricky Edmunds was nineteen years old,” Neil continued, “he lived in Harrington End. He had been working as a male prostitute for a year.”

  Neil pinned a picture of a young Ricky onto one of the notice boards. He was bare-chested, jeans slung low on narrow hips. His feet were out of shot.

  “Where is Ricky now,” asked Gus.

  “Swindon, guv. He lives in a flat and continues to be a sex worker.”

  “Ricky and up to twenty thousand other men are making an honest living the same way,” said Lydia, “he advertises through apps and websites. He offers a range of services from massages to sexual intercourse. Clients can visit him at his flat, or if required he can stay overnight at their home or hotel room. What Ricky’s doing is legal.”

  “Exactly,” said Gus, “it only becomes illegal when someone sells themselves against their will, solicits for work or keeps a brothel.”

  “Ricky states in his online adverts that unsafe sex and the use of drugs are unacceptable.”

  “A visit to Swindon for you two lads, then,” said Gus, “visit Ricky Edmunds and question him over his whereabouts on the day of the murder. Just because he now purports to operate a squeaky-clean business doesn’t mean that as a youngster he didn’t like it rough.”

  “Our second local figure is Joe Walker, twenty-one at the time,” said Neil. “He used to live in a flat above a hairdresser’s in Market Square. He was cautioned for loitering late at night near public toilets and talking with revellers as they left the late-night bars.”

  “We only have photos of Joe as he looked in the past five years,” said Alex. “He was on Facebook earlier than that, but his history from before 2013 is sketchy. Either he didn’t post often back then, or he’s deleted posts because they don’t show him in a great light.”

  “Where is Joe living now?” asked Gus.

  “Warminster, guv, he’s married to an ex-squaddie, Gerald, thirty-seven. They’ve adopted twin boys, aged eighteen months. There are more photos of the loving family than of Joe as a young man. Joe is a house husband and Gerald has a well-paid job in recruiting. Joe’s previous sex work has been confined to history.”

  “Lydia and I will take that one,” said Gus.

  “You might want to rethink that, guv,” said Alex, “here’s the most recent photo of Joe, Gerald and the boys.”

  Joe Walker’s skin was smooth and clean-shaven. His mother may have been born and bred in the county but his father’s heritage belonged in the Caribbean.

  “Two steps forward and three steps back,” moaned Gus, “this Hub facility isn’t much use is it?”

  “Be fair, guv,” said Lydia, “Joe Walker was in the right age bracket, known to the police and prone to prostituting himself. We didn’t ask the Hub to filter for ethnicity.”

  “Wheel out number three, then. Unless he’s an eight-feet tall Russian weight-lifter,” said Gus.

  “Mark Richards was twenty-five at the time of the murder. He moved into the area around March 2008. Born in Kidderminster, he moved to Birmingham aged seventeen. His first caution came on Soho Road. Mark had moved to London by 2006. Initially, there were instances where Richards fell foul of the law but throughout 2007 he was invisible. Mark’s social media posts on a handful of sites were of little use in explaining where he worked, socialised or holidayed. His online activity was restricted to sharing or retweeting other people’s original material.”

  “It sounds as if he had something to hide,” said Gus.

  “Or, he was just boring,” said Lydia.

  “Where did he live when he travelled west? Where did he work? When can we talk to him?”

  “He worked as a cocktail waiter at The Beeches motel on the outskirts of town,” said Neil, “and he lived in. The Beeches was a dump to be fair. At one time, the locals would frequent the bar up there because they had entertainment, particularly at the weekends. That died out in the Nineties. When Richards worked there only travelling salesmen and unmarried couples used the place.”

  “Given his background, what was the attraction for Richards?” asked Gus.

  “Following up on what you mentioned, guv, he could have been in hiding,” said Alex.

  “Was he a user?” asked Lydia.

 
; “Nothing noted in the Hub’s report,” said Alex.

  “Perhaps he’s a recovering addict,” suggested Gus, “or he picked up something nasty in the city, Anyway, Lydia and I can ask him when we contact him.”

  Neil puffed out his cheeks.

  Gus was getting used to Neil’s mannerisms. This wasn’t good news.

  “Don’t tell me, Neil,” said Gus.

  “The Beeches closed at the end of June 2008. Several of the staff that lived in stayed on for a while. The owners tried to sell the place as a going concern. We don’t know what happened to Richards after that. However, he didn’t appear anywhere in our region in the 2011 Census.”

  “So, we don’t have an image of Richards from around ten years ago to show to Holly Wells?”

  “No, guv,”

  Gus counted the options off on his fingers.

  “Did he ever apply for a passport? Did he have a driving licence? Do his parents still live in Kidderminster? Come on, think outside the box. There must be a photo of this bloke somewhere in this bloody country.”

  Gus felt the vibration of his mobile in his jacket pocket. Here we go. Trouble.

  “Hello?”

  It was Superintendent Geoff Mercer, his drinking buddy.

  “Yes, Sir. I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”

  Gus ended the call.

  “I’m heading for a meeting in the London Road offices. I’ll be back as soon as I can. Keep digging. Try Kidderminster first. Also, find out where Richards lived and worked when he lived in London. Did he always work in jobs associated with cafes, bars, nightclubs? You know what to look for. There are plenty of opportunities for a young person to get up to mischief in a big city. What happened in 2007 that stopped him drawing the attention of the police?”

  Gus headed for the lift, then he stopped and turned.

  “My gut instinct is that of the three names the Hub came up with, Richards is the only likely candidate for our running man. There are questions I want to ask this guy when we find him. He left a sizable Worcestershire town for the bright lights of Birmingham at seventeen. Then he switched to the capital where so many have gone before him expecting to find the streets paved with gold. After eighteen months largely spent under the radar, he moved to a quiet West Country town at twenty-five years of age to work at a failing motel. That does not compute, boys and girl.”