Who Saw Him Die? (Inspector Peach Series Book 1)

by Gregson, J. M.

  “I think I preferred ‘like that’,” she said. She took his hand and held it lightly for a few moments as they walked. It was the first time they had touched. He thought, “How ridiculous that we should both have to pretend we haven’t noticed, when we so palpably have.”

  Presently he said, “I could take you back to meet the Harrisons. But not yet. They’re very well-meaning, but a little stiff — especially Trevor. But I’ve never seen them with anyone except us, you see. It’s bound to be a little odd for them, making conversation with a series of ex-convicts.”

  “Especially when the ones like you don’t help them along at all,” she said. She gave his hand a tiny squeeze, then let it go.

  “I liked Trevor’s father,” he said. “I think I might eventually have got along quite well with him. He was an old reactionary, but a kind man really, I think. He was the one who always called us ‘jailbirds’ to his son. I used to like seeing the pained expression on Trevor’s face when he did it; I suspect old Tom did too.”

  They walked another thirty yards before she said, “Why the past tense?”

  “He died,” he said. “Tragically, actually. He fell downstairs in the middle of the night.” He looked hard at the river for several seconds, letting his gaze stretch away to where the water disappeared in the distance. He was trying to rid his mind of the sound of Dick Courtney’s voice saying, “I suppose we’re all satisfied that the old boy’s death was an accident?” in that lightly mocking tone that cloaked the mischief he was making.

  Ever since that moment, he had been wondering whether it was merely mischief or whether Dick had really known more than the rest of them about old Tom’s death. He had made it his business to know more about most things.

  “Accidental death?” said Sarah, as if she had been following his thoughts.

  “That’s what the Coroner said.” It was a strange form of words in which to frame a simple answer, and he had no idea why he had used it. He glanced away from the river at the strong profile of the woman beside him; the nose which was a fraction too long gave her the air of seriousness even when she spoke lightly. He held on to her hand as he said quietly, “And now we have this other death.”

  They had discussed the finding of the corpse in the canal when first they had met. In a small town, bad news travels fast. She had known of the tragedy, but not until tonight its connection with Harry. “What kind of man was he?” she said now.

  “Young. Energetic. On the make.” He punctuated each judgment with a pause, as if he were trying to be fair to the dead man and finding it difficult. Then, abandoning the attempt, he went on more quickly, until the phrases tumbled out, putting into words what he had not cared to contemplate until this moment. “He disturbed people. You were glad when he went out of a room. He was heading for trouble almost from the moment I knew him.”

  “And he found it,” she said quietly, looking straight ahead, ruffled for a moment by Harry’s vehemence. “Do you think his death was accidental?”

  “No. I hope so, but I doubt it. I think someone killed him.”

  “Any idea who?” She stared still down the river, to where it turned out of sight in a wide bend three hundred yards ahead of them; she felt that if she looked at her companion she might bring out some unwelcome fact.

  “No… But if I’m right and someone did see him off, the police will be very interested in a house full of criminals.”

  “Ex-criminals,” she corrected him firmly.

  “You’re never ‘ex’ as far as policemen are concerned. Particularly Detective Inspector Percy Peach,” he said grimly. He had picked up the nickname from Dick, but he scarcely realised that now.

  “You’ve been visited already?” she said. She had never discarded the childhood idea of policemen as large, friendly creatures who saw you across roads. Now the thought of them on the other side from Harry brought her a sudden fear.

  “No. But they came before. When old Tom died. To satisfy themselves it was accidental.” And it was, he told himself again. The Coroner’s Court had said so.

  Sarah wondered what she had got herself into with this man. She knew few facts about him, even now. She was glad her mother was not around to counsel her against the madness of consorting with a man who had done time. She linked her arm through Harry’s, feeling how tense it was. “There are only three of you there, now. It needn’t have been one of you, even if this Dick fellow was murdered.” The use of that word made it seem even more unreal to her.

  “There aren’t just us, you know. There are the Harrisons as well. None of us had any reason to love him. And there could be people outside the house. He was out a lot, this last few weeks. The CID bring a whole team in, once they decide it’s a serious crime.” He wondered if he sounded too much of an expert on murder investigations.

  She said, resolutely steering him towards safer ground, “I’ve got my interview at the college for the teacher training course on Friday. They’ll have your reference by then, won’t they?”

  He realised with relief that there were other, more mundane worries than his, other people who needed reassurance. “They should have it now. All you have to do is be recognisable as the wonderful person it describes.” It had not been difficult. He had had written work in from her now, on the course about the English Civil War, and it was good. There had been no difficulty in recommending her intellectual capabilities, her diligence. He had touched upon her maturity and common sense, but he knew the interviewers would decide on those aspects for themselves.

  He wished he had been able to send his recommendation on proper headed paper, to have it typed by a secretary. The handwritten sentences had seemed to expose his own unsuitability to recommend anyone, until he had fancied homicide staring out of the carefully penned phrases at the horrified reader. It had been a ridiculous conceit, but one he had had to wrestle hard to overcome before he could post the reference.

  They turned to walk back to the town, and he bolstered her a little more with talk of her abilities and her suitability for higher education. But Dick Courtney drew him back, even in death; his ghost was like a mocking goblin to Harry as dusk moved into darkness. “Dick knew about us,” he said, and her fingers on his forearm felt the muscles stiffen again.

  “Was that so terrible?” she said.

  “Not in itself. But —” How could he tell her that he had known that Dick Courtney would use the knowledge he had of Harry’s past, of the killing of that other woman who had once been close to him, to destroy this new relationship, whenever he judged the moment right? He said lamely, “Oh, you didn’t know him. He gathered information, about everyone, and then he used it, even if it was only to taunt people with it.”

  She did not understand, of course. She said only, “He sounds a thoroughly unpleasant young man. A nasty piece of work, I’d say, except that my history tutor would underline it and put ‘cliché’ in the margin.” It should have been a small moment of shared intimacy between them, for he had done just that in marking her last essay. But he was still too occupied with that malign presence that was now removed to respond to her.

  She thought he must be worried about the police investigation. Needlessly, of course, but understandably, if you had bad memories from previous occasions. She said, wading knee-deep into the marsh she should have turned her back on, “Well, at least they won’t spend much time on you. I know enough about you by now to know that you’re not a man capable of violence.”

  She could have said nothing worse.

  He had been wondering desperately how he could preserve their relationship through the trials that were to come for him. Now the hopelessness of that idea hit him like a physical blow. And as his senses reeled, they were assailed by the images that normally attacked him only in the darkness. The horror of his hands about Celia’s neck, of her sneering turning to terror as her eyes swelled, of the fingers which seemed to belong to someone else, as they squeezed away the taunts which had driven him into the darkness.

  He
pulled his arm abruptly away from Sarah’s, as if the very touch of his flesh might give him away.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “He hadn’t been here long. He was…universally liked.” Denis Frankland, striving for anonymity, dug up a phrase from some long-forgotten school obituary. He felt himself struggling through a bad dream, though he was aware already that this was one from which he would not awaken.

  Peach watched him wiping his bulging forehead without saying anything, as though the gesture were of consuming interest to him. Frankland was using a wad of tissue, not a handkerchief. A small patch of it detached itself and drifted unnoticed, reaching the floor somewhere behind the big desk. Peach was sure now that Frankland had been crying before he came into the room. Interesting, that; even significant, perhaps.

  Sergeant Collins wrote down the exact length of Dick Courtney’s service with Franklands’ Autos in his notebook. Peach reached inside his shiny lightweight jacket and scratched the left side of his chest. His small, dark grey eyes never left Frankland’s face. For a moment, he pushed his lower lip back behind his top jaw, so that the gaps where his canine teeth had once been fell over the lip. He looked like a beaver planning its attack on a vulnerable tree.

  “Your staff don’t seem to think he was so likeable,” he said. The girl on the other side of the closed door had been most forthcoming about that. Once she had found that the young man she so fancied was more interested in the boss, she had turned quite resentful. Peach knew how to exploit resentment. And old George Harding, the chief salesman whom Peach knew from stolen car days way back when he was still on the beat, had waxed quite eloquent about the young man’s pursuit of his job.

  And about the boss’s little weakness. “Don’t tell him I told you” and all that. Of course not. Not Percy Peach.

  Frankland was trying to come to terms with the fact that other people had not found Dick as splendid a fellow as he had. “I — I expect they were jealous of his progress. Some people always —”

  “Made progress did he? Must have been a bright lad then, to make progress in so short a time.” Peach’s repetition gave the phrase an ironic ring, he leaned back a little to estimate the results of his irony, like a painter evaluating his latest bit of brushwork. Percy was an artist in his own way.

  “Well, he — er, it wasn’t that he’d been promoted officially or anything. But he obviously had ability. I mean, he sold a couple of cars in his first week here. And he had a lot of potential. One of the things I have learned to do in over twenty years in the trade is to spot potential, Inspector.” Denis was glad to have delivered so much with coherence. He essayed a modest, self-deprecating smile.

  It was a mistake. Smiles are always difficult without a response, and Peach’s face moved not a muscle. After a few seconds, he crossed his short legs at the ankles, transferred his glance briefly to his shoes, and sighed. The grey eyes narrowed until they looked even smaller beneath the bald head. Presently he raised them enough to peer at Frankland, but from beneath brows he kept lowered.

  “Personal relationships,” he said heavily. It was as if he were directing Collins to begin a new heading in his notebook. “Close to the deceased, were you, sir?”

  “Quite close, yes.” Frankland mopped his brow again, then stared at the tissue, as if he could not comprehend how it had got into his hand. His bushy eyebrows were wildly ruffled over the broad, fleshy nose. He felt as though he were being disloyal to Dick, in trying to conceal their love like this.

  “Very close?” said Peach unemotionally. There was no hurry: he was quite enjoying himself.

  “Look, Inspector, is all this relevant? I can’t see why private matters should —”

  “No privacy in a murder investigation,” said Peach with satisfaction. It was the slogan his first chief always used when he was a young detective constable, and he spat it out now with relish, as though it were a maxim from some police manual. The old phrases were still often the most useful.

  “You’re sure now that it was murder?”

  “Absolutely sure, in my own mind, sir.” DS Collins, pen poised over a new page, decided that his inspector was never more dangerous than when he was calling members of the public “sir” in that tone of voice.

  Peach flicked a forefinger over his black toothbrush moustache and said with reptilian calm, “So you had much better tell me honestly about whatever relationship you had with the deceased.”

  Denis Frankland wished he would use Dick’s name; this repetition of “the deceased” seemed somehow to demean Dick, as if he had been a faceless, undistinguished figure. Instead of… He said unsteadily, staring at his desk, “I loved him.”

  “Hmm. Difficult word that, sir. For simple policemen with conventional tastes. Did the young man reciprocate?” Queerbaiting had always been one of his strengths. And you had to play to your strengths. Trouble was, the bloody law was like a snake nowadays, so you had to be more careful with buggers like Frankland now than twenty years ago. Buggers indeed; he almost smiled at his unintended accuracy. He froze his face into a mask of enquiry.

  Frankland’s moist blue eyes fastened on his, for the first time since the interview began. “Yes. We were lovers.”

  “Forgive me, sir, but you must understand that I’m no expert in these things. Does that mean you went to bed together?”

  “Yes, yes.” Frankland brushed at the unresisting air with his right hand. He wanted to say it meant much more than that, but what was the use trying to explain anything to this stone-faced, uncaring adversary?”

  “Frequently?”

  The tears Frankland thought he had controlled before these men came in sprang again to his eyes, ran unchecked for a moment down the plump cheeks which were still shiny from his previous weeping. He said in a voice that was almost a croak, “As frequently as we could in the short time we had. The first time was three weeks ago yesterday.”

  The precision of the memory was not lost on his listeners. Peach leaned back. You had to call them homosexuals nowadays. Not the terms they used at the station, the terms he still risked with the criminal fraternity. This man might produce a good lawyer. Eventually. If he needed to. So play it by the book: you could still enjoy it.

  “When we fished him out of the canal, he was wearing quite an expensive coat. Must have helped him to drown, that, once it filled up with water.” He paused for a moment to savour the man’s discomfort. Both of them knew what was coming now, so there was no need to hurry it. “Back at his digs, they can’t recall seeing it before. Would you know anything about that coat, sir?”

  “Yes. It was mine.” Frankland could not work out how this man had contrived to make the admission seem so guilty. He was filled with an awful remorse that his last gift should have weighed Dick down in the black waters of the canal. This man was allowing him no time to think, let alone grieve for such things.

  “So you gave it to him.” Peach sounded immensely satisfied, as if the central puzzle of the whole investigation had suddenly been resolved. Collins wrote the fact down industriously.

  “I gave it to him last night.”

  Peach raised his thin black eyebrows a fraction, until they were just above the level of his small, immaculately formed ears. “So the deceased was with you last night. At your own residence, was this?”

  Frankland nodded miserably. If only Dick could have been persuaded to stay, he might have been alive now. Collins wrote down the details of the address in his neat, surprisingly swift hand. Peach said, “And what time did he leave, sir?”

  “Quite late. I suppose it was after twelve.”

  “And had he been with you for the whole of the evening?”

  Frankland was used to distress being a signal for sympathy; this man seemed to take it as a sign of weakness. He said, “Look. Inspector, I can’t see how —”

  “You will, sir, in a moment. I should tell you that we now have the results of the post-mortem examination. It seems that the deceased had consumed a considerable quantity of alc
ohol.” He paused in heavy anticipation. “Not to put too fine a point on it, Mr Frankland, he was pissed.” He enjoyed the wince on the other side of the desk. The old queen must have plied the lad with drink to get his way; probably did it all the time.

  Frankland said, “We were drinking malt whisky, yes. Dick had a stiff one before he left.”

  There were bawdy possibilities in that phrase. Peach would have used them in some parts of the town, but he had to be more careful here. He contented himself with a flicker of his black eyebrows before he said, “Well, no doubt that too contributed to his death. In no condition to fight when he was pissed, was he?”

  “How do you know he didn’t simply fall into the water and drown?” Frankland’s voice was almost inaudible.

  Peach regarded him silently for a moment, as though the very question might be an admission of guilt. “Because he was a competent swimmer. He’d done time, you know, so we have his records. And because there were signs of a struggle.”

  “What sort of signs?” Frankland was drawn on despite himself, picturing marks on that so perfect young body. A tear fell again, over the rounded chin, on to the blotter in front of him; he did not even notice it, so distressed was he now.

  Peach assessed his condition, wondering how much he knew. He might be a murderer. They killed each other sometimes, these perverts. Beat each other to death with hammers, even, he’d heard. He said, “Marks on the skull. He’d been held under, by his hair, according to forensic.”

  Frankland sobbed noisily, all pretence of control now abandoned. Peach regarded him with open distaste, for there was no chance now of the man noticing it. He said, “When did you last see the deceased?”