by Jill McGown
“We need some evidence to get a search warrant.”
“Headless was the blackmailer, looking for his envelope. And we know that couldn’t have been Stephen. Scopes, on the other hand, left the casino at ten-thirty, and was away for a quarter of an hour, having his phantom cigarette. I think we can safely assume that he drove over to the bingo club to try and fulfill his commission for Waterman. But once again, he couldn’t, this time because Stephen was still inside. And before he left for the bingo club, he checked the bin. Gertie heard him driving off.”
“But it’s entirely unprovable, Tom! We don’t know that Headless was the blackmailer—it just seems highly likely that he was. And we certainly don’t know that Scopes was Headless.”
“Think about it, guv—Baker got that first letter on the twenty-first of February. The blackmailer only wanted a thousand quid, but he gave him until the twenty-fourth of March to get it—why? Because Scopes was off on holiday, that’s why. With the proceeds of the drug money.”
Judy smiled tiredly. “That isn’t proof.”
“We can’t go charging Stephen with murder, guv—we know damn well it was Scopes! He would be waiting for Stephen practically opposite Wilma’s door—it’s the perfect place, with that great pillar to hide behind. He couldn’t get Stephen without Wilma seeing, but he could get Wilma once Stephen had gone. So he used the cosh on her instead.”
Judy seemed not to be listening. She was frowning slightly, looking into the middle distance.
“Maybe we can get him,” she said, her eyes focusing on Tom at last. “Because where did he get the money for the drugs, if he didn’t steal it from Wilma? He didn’t have any money earlier in the evening—he borrowed a fiver from Jerry, remember. And since he didn’t beat Stephen up, Waterman wouldn’t have paid him.”
All that was true, but it was Tom who was going to pour the cold water this time. “I hate to remind you, guv, but at the top of this conversation you said we had to find an angle that didn’t involve Waterman, because he won’t admit to us that Keith was waiting for Stephen.”
“But that’s because I don’t believe he’ll say anything that would incriminate Scopes directly,” she said. “But not paying him money isn’t the same thing, is it? He might be prepared to confirm that he didn’t give Scopes any money that night.”
He might, thought Tom, his spirits rising once more. And then he would have something he could use when he talked to Scopes. Yes, he thought. Oh, yes. They were nearly there now. He could feel it in his bones.
Jack’s head felt as though it had been run over by a steamroller, and he had been told that he had a stay in hospital ahead of him until he recovered fully, but none of that mattered. He had been there for Grace, just as he had intended.
The turnaround in Baker’s attitude to Grace had bothered him. At first, he hadn’t been able to see past his own jealousy, but then, standing behind the bar in the Tulliver, pulling someone’s pint, when he had been asking himself why Tony Baker would be pretending to have fallen in love with her when he so clearly despised her, he had finally realized.
It had happened the night she found his research. Jack had been quite happy to accept his explanation, but Grace hadn’t—she had remained so suspicious of Baker that Jack had thought that he’d better not leave her alone with him, because she was genuinely frightened. And she had been right to be frightened. That was why Baker had turned on the charm, because he had had to get Grace on his side, get her confidence.
And that was when Jack had realized that Baker’s next step would be to kill her, because if he left her he could never feel safe, and he certainly wasn’t going to saddle himself with her for the rest of his life. But Jack couldn’t do anything about it—there was no point in going to the police. What could they do? Baker would just tell them the same story, and they would probably have believed him, too. Grace knew him better than anyone else round here. She must have felt in her heart that he was capable of it. But the police would have believed Baker.
And when Baker had been so anxious for her to go to Mike Waterman’s May Day celebrations, Jack had realized that he was going to do it there, where there would be any number of suspects, especially poor Stephen, who had been questioned over and over again, and who felt aggrieved at Baker’s presence in the first place. Baker had even started needling him, deliberately trying to make him unhappy, make him blame his mother for his life being made uncomfortable.
So Jack had taken a leaf out of Baker’s own book. If he couldn’t do anything about Baker himself, he could do something about his intended victim. He could make sure that he was with her every single minute of the day. He’d faked the twisted ankle to get out of the Morris dancing, and had gone to the pub before they left, to make certain that Baker wasn’t alone with her. Then he’d found out about this mystery outing, and he had known when it was going to happen. Baker had arranged it so that she would be deep in the wood, and alone.
He had followed her when she went to meet Baker, watching all the time for anything that might threaten her. He had no idea how Baker intended doing it, but whatever it was, he had been determined to stop it. And just as she came to the fork in the road, and stood indecisively, wondering which way to go, he saw the rifle being pointed at her from the bushes. He still wasn’t sure how he’d managed the leap—maybe he could do real Morris dancing if he put his mind to it.
He couldn’t tell Chief Inspector Lloyd the whole story when he came to see him that morning, because the doctor had allowed the man one question, saying that Jack shouldn’t really be talking to anyone at all. Lloyd, however, had asked two questions. The first had been to ask him if he could take his leg away for forensic examination. Puzzled, Jack had said that he could. He still didn’t know what that was all about. The second had been if he’d seen who shot Grace, and Jack had said no, he hadn’t, he had seen the barrel of a rifle, and the doctor had bundled Lloyd out.
He wasn’t sure that telling the police his story would prove anything, though of course he would, but the odd thing was that despite the answer he got to his second question, Lloyd had seemed pleased. No—more than pleased. He had looked positively smug.
Keith pulled on his jeans and lumbered downstairs in response to the persistent knocking. He’d have let them get tired of it and go away, but Michelle had said it seemed important, and made him go and answer it. What with him working half the night and Michelle leaving for work at half past five in the morning, the hour between five and six in the evening was the only time they got together, and if it was someone wanting to know where he got his gas and electricity, he’d—
“Good evening, Keith,” said DI Finch. “Did I get you out of bed?”
Keith pushed his hair out of his eyes. “What do you want?”
“Can I come in?”
“Do I have a choice?” Keith stepped aside and followed Finch into the sitting room. He didn’t know why he was getting a visit from the police, but they were never good news. “I gave my statement yesterday,” he said.
“That’s not why I’m here.”
“Well, I need some coffee.” By the time Finch had gone, he’d have to get ready for work anyway. And even if Finch left right now, Michelle would give him the third degree about why he had been here, so he could forget resuming his former activity. He went into the kitchen and filled the kettle. “Do you want some?”
“No thanks.”
Keith waited for the small amount of water to boil, and made his coffee while Finch waited in the sitting room.
“Right,” he said, rejoining Finch. “What do you want?”
“We’ve been hearing some very bad things about your boss,” said Finch.
Finch hadn’t sat down, so Keith stood, too. He didn’t want to be at a disadvantage. “Oh?”
“Yes. We’ve heard that he sometimes wants people sorted out. Would you know anything about that, Keith?”
Keith sipped his coffee. “Me?” he said. “Why would I know anything about it?”
/> Finch smiled. “Well, you’re displaying the reason right now. That is a magnificent torso you’ve got there, Keith—how often do you work out?”
“Every day.” Keith looked at Finch with a critical eye. He wasn’t overweight—he had a good build. He was just a bit out of condition. “You should try it,” he said.
“Too lazy,” said Finch. “But if I wanted someone sorted out, I think I’d come to someone with finely honed muscles like you. Does Mr. Waterman come to you when he wants someone sorted out?”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about, Mr. Finch.”
“I think you do. And I think Mr. Waterman wants Stephen Halliday sorted out.”
Keith drank some more coffee, and looked back at Finch, his face expressionless.
“It isn’t against the law to be told to beat someone up,” Finch said. “It would be against the law if you did it, but you haven’t done it. So where’s the harm in being straight with me? He did tell you to get Stephen Halliday, didn’t he?”
“I’ve no idea what you’re on about.”
“Well—here’s a coincidence. You told me yesterday that when you’re working you go out for a smoke at about half past ten.”
Keith nodded.
“And Stephen Halliday finishes at the bingo club at half past ten. And here’s another coincidence. Since March, you’ve always been working in the same town as Stephen.”
“Amazing. You should write to the papers about that, Mr. Finch. It’s spooky.”
“Stephen always parks his motorbike at the rear of whatever club he’s in,” said Finch. “Ideal for a spot of grievous bodily harm, I would think. A bit dark, a bit lonely. Not too many passersby. Of course, you have to time it just right. And he has to be alone. You made the mistake of telling him about your sideline, so he’s been watching out for you, which makes it trickier still. So it could take a while to get the circumstances exactly how you want them. But if you keep going out for a smoke, I expect you’ll find him alone and vulnerable in the end.”
“Not me,” said Keith.
“And another odd thing,” Finch went on. “I had a word with one or two of your colleagues last night. And they said they didn’t understand why you suddenly needed to go out for a smoke every night—they always thought you were a nonsmoker.”
“Did they?”
“And . . . if I look round this room—no ashtrays.”
“She doesn’t let me smoke in the house.”
“And don’t they let you smoke in the Tulliver Inn? That doesn’t seem very fair. Everyone else can smoke if they want to. But no one ever seems to have seen you light up. Anywhere. And with all that working out that you do, I wouldn’t have thought that smoking would be your thing.”
“I don’t smoke much.”
“You don’t smoke at all. So what were you doing in the alleyway the night Mrs. Fenton was murdered? I’ll tell you what you were doing. You were waiting for Stephen Halliday. You were going to beat him up for Michael Waterman, but he was with Wilma Fenton, so you couldn’t. You heard about her prize money, and you coshed her and stole it.”
“Not me,” said Keith.
“Then when you read about the murder in the paper, it said the money had been left intact, so you blackmailed the only man who could have replaced it at such short notice—the man who shared the prize with her. The man Stephen and Wilma had been talking about. The man who found her body.”
Keith hadn’t meant to kill the old girl—when Finch had come to the nightclub that night and told him it was a murder inquiry, it had been all he could do not to say that he hadn’t hit her that hard. He’d got scared, and then he’d realized that Finch wanted to know where he was at nine o’clock, and that had confused him. And even though he seemed somehow to have an alibi, he couldn’t tell them where he’d been. But they found out anyway. He frowned. So why was Finch here?
“I was in Barton at nine o’clock,” he said. “You’ve got me on video.”
Finch smiled. “We know the murder happened half an hour earlier than that, Keith. At about the time you say you were in the alleyway, having a smoke.”
Shit. He’d never have said he was in the alleyway at all, except for Jack Shaw—he couldn’t be sure Shaw hadn’t seen him.
“I spoke to Michael Waterman tonight,” Finch said. “After all, you told me you’d been doing a job for someone, and if it wasn’t beating up Stephen, then it must have been the drug deal.”
Keith smiled. Finch must have got an earful if he’d suggested that to Mr. Waterman. “I wasn’t doing a drug deal,” he said.
“Mr. Waterman seemed to agree with me that you were,” said Finch. “But he was very upset when I suggested that he gave you the money to buy those drugs—very upset indeed. He’s very anti-drugs.”
“I know.”
“And he said that you didn’t buy those drugs with his money—that he didn’t give you any money that night.” Finch stepped closer to him. “And you were broke—you had to borrow a fiver earlier in the day. So where did you get the money for those drugs, Keith?”
“I wasn’t buying drugs, Mr. Finch. I was paying back money I owed.”
“Whatever you were doing—where did you get the money?”
“I had the money all along. But that was all I had, and I needed petrol to get to Barton, so I borrowed the fiver from Jerry.”
Finch went slightly pink with frustration. “You coshed Wilma Fenton, you stole her money, and then true to form, you saw another moneymaking opportunity when you read the paper, and you blackmailed Baker.”
Keith had been annoyed that he hadn’t been able to give Halliday a going-over—every time he’d gone to the bingo club, he’d be with someone, or still working. He had forgotten that he’d told him what he did that night he’d been celebrating in the pub; of course Halliday would be watching out for him if he’d crossed Mr. Waterman in some way. That was why Keith didn’t drink as a rule—you did stupid things when you were drunk, and talking to Halliday had been really stupid. He didn’t know what Halliday had done to Mr. Waterman, but he felt bad about not sorting him out for him. Now, he realized that he could do something that was even better than beating him up, and would get him out of Mr. Waterman’s hair for a long time.
“Look, Mr. Finch—I didn’t want to grass the guy up, but if you’re going to come here accusing me of murder and blackmail and I don’t know what else, I’ve no option. I saw Stephen Halliday take a baseball bat out from under his jacket, hit that old girl over the head and snatch her handbag. He dropped it at the mouth of the alley, and ran across Waring Road toward the old police houses. And I’ll give you a formal statement any time you want.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
* * *
Tony lay down on the bench, there being nothing else to do. He might as well try to sleep. Now, he really was in a cell, and he didn’t suppose any of these people would ever understand. He had had to commit murder eventually. Talking to murderers, writing about them, watching them die in gas chambers and in electric chairs—what good was that if you had never experienced the taking of another human being’s life firsthand?
When he had had to get inside Challenger’s mind, when he had had to become Challenger, he had experienced some of the power that Challenger must have felt as he homed in on his victims. He had known then, though he hadn’t fully acknowledged it at that time, that he was a serial killer. He was just one who hadn’t murdered anyone yet.
He had told Lloyd that murder for murder’s sake was the purest form of murder there was. He hadn’t achieved that, because he had to have a reason to do something, and because there seemed to him to be little point in murdering total strangers with no motive—where was the sport in that? It was like Halliday shooting foxes. But motives were so mundane. Murder for gain was crass, and murder for emotional reasons was nothing more than a lack of self-discipline. Removing some perceived ill from society had its merits, but it was a little too evangelical for Tony.
He felt he had ach
ieved a nice balance, all in all. He had murdered people whose deaths he had no active desire to bring about, and had therefore been able to murder to order, leaving no clues for the investigators. But it had all been building up to the death that he did want to bring about, and he was entirely convinced that if he had been able to see his carefully laid plans through to fruition, he would have succeeded in doing that without the crime ever being brought home to him.
He couldn’t have foreseen Jack Shaw’s intervention, and it was only then, when he deviated from those plans, that it had all gone wrong. In effect, then, he had achieved what he set out to achieve. But now he would go to prison, and he hadn’t wanted that at all. He was not one of those who subconsciously wanted to be caught. He had wanted to get away with it.
But he had the satisfaction of knowing that Stephen Halliday wouldn’t get away with it either. Halliday’s murder had been a sordid affair, not worthy of anyone’s attention. That was why Tony had arranged things to make it seem a little more intriguing. But in the eyes of justice, who had no taste in these matters, murder was murder, and even for that undistinguished little crime, Stephen Halliday too would be receiving a life sentence.
“Tom, we have to charge him. We have five witness statements.” She counted them off on her fingers. “We’ve got Waterman, who saw Stephen enter the alley with Wilma Fenton. We’ve got Baker, who interfered with the scene of the crime in order, he says, to give Stephen Halliday an alibi. We’ve got Jerry Wheelan and Jack Shaw, who saw Stephen running from the scene. And now we’ve got Keith Scopes, who says he saw Stephen do it.”
Tom was shaking his head, his face flushed. “What do they amount to?” he asked. “There are only two normal people in that lot, and they both saw the same thing. The others are a man who wanted Stephen beaten up, the man who was going to do the beating up, and a man who was trying to frame him for murders he himself committed.” He was pacing backward and forward as he spoke. “Who’s going to believe a word they say?”