[Lambert and Hook 20] - Something Is Rotten

by J M Gregson

  Hook waited for a moment, then said quietly, ‘The team trying to discover who killed Terry Logan have to be interested in all his relationships. You are right to tell us whatever you know about the man.’

  ‘I’ll tell you one thing, for a start. I hope whoever killed him gets away with it! The world will be a better place without Logan. So I hope he gets away with it, whoever he is!’

  ‘Or whoever she is.’

  ‘You’re saying that Maggie did this?’

  ‘We’re saying nothing of the sort, though you’ve just informed us that she had a motive. The woman scorned - hell hath no fury like hers, we’re told. But you have also told us that Mr Logan was bisexual, and so have others. Now that he is a murder victim, all his associations, whether frivolous or more serious, have acquired an importance for us. You must see that.’

  Dalrymple paused for so long that they wondered if he was going to speak. The desire to pour out his invective about Logan had left Andrew now, and a belated desire to protect himself and his wife had taken over. Eventually he said slowly and with a surprising dignity, ‘You may not see my wife as attractive. I still do. When Logan got his hands on her, she was a beautiful woman in her early forties. No doubt Maggie’s maturity and the fact that she was a prominent local figure had its appeal for him.’

  A spasm of pain flickered across the florid features, revealing to them how vulnerable were the heart and the emotions of this unlikely, slightly ridiculous figure. ‘Maggie found out a lot about Logan in the course of that year - far more than she wanted to know. He had a fascination with youngsters. He kept track of the people who’d been in his school productions after they left the school. I’m sure he enjoyed a succession of squalid little romps with them, among others. I can’t give you any details.’

  Bert was at his most understanding as he said softly, ‘You can’t have been very happy when Maggie told you she was going to be in Hamlet.’

  ‘I wasn’t. Not when I found who was going to direct it. But she was very determined. It was she who got you involved, wasn’t it?’ Hook grinned ruefully. ‘Mrs Dalrymple can be very persuasive when she’s set on something.’

  Andrew Dalrymple smiled, for the first time since the meaningless smiles of his formal greetings to them when they arrived at his factory. ‘I told you yesterday, she gets things done, does Maggie. And I believed her, when she said the affair with Logan was long over.’ He tried not to think of those photographs which she had kept for five years in her secret drawer.

  Hook said, ‘You were less than frank with us when we saw you yesterday, which was foolish of you, if understandable. Are you now concealing anything else?’

  ‘No. I’ve told you everything.’ He certainly looked as if he had: his normally florid face had a grey, exhausted look.

  Hook nodded. Then as if he were merely concluding the formalities, he said, ‘We had better have the name of this young man who caused Maggie so much pain. The one she found he was seeing at the same time as her.’

  ‘I thought you knew that.’ Andrew felt bewildered. It was as if they had outwitted him, without him being aware of how they had done it. He said limply, ‘It was Michael Carey, of course.’

  * * *

  Back at Oldford Police Station, DI Rushton had the full post-mortem report on Terry Logan.

  It clarified a few factors, but revealed little that was new or useful. Logan had died where he had fallen, in the car park behind the village hall. In other words, he had not been killed elsewhere, with the body dumped in the car park to confuse matters. He had died many hours before the body was found by the dog-walker in the first light of Thursday morning. Between ten and two on the previous night was as precise as the pathologist was prepared to be.

  It looked more and more certain that Logan had been killed as he approached his car, but how long he had stayed in the hall after the rehearsal was over, no one seemed to know. Intensive house to house inquiries in Mettlesham village and the scattered housing around there had thrown up no one who had passed the village hall on foot after ten thirty. The pub was at the other end of the village, and so far none of its customers had admitted to passing the village hall after the last drinks of the evening. It seemed that apart from the cast very few people even knew that there had been the first rehearsal of a play that night.

  Various ‘foreign’ fibres had been found on the dead man’s clothing and sent to the forensic laboratory. They would be retained there: if clothing fibres could later be matched with apparel which a murder suspect had been wearing on that night, they might eventually become evidence in court. But Bert Hook was not hopeful about that. He recalled that during the first scene rehearsed, where everyone in the cast had been involved, Terry Logan had frequently moved among his players, pushing actors into the positions he thought they should adopt upon a crowded stage. Fibres from the sweaters which most of them had worn might well be found quite innocently upon the victim’s clothing.

  The murder weapon was simply a very sharp knife. Forensics had not even committed themselves yet on whether the blade was a double-edged one. In crimes involving multiple stab wounds, all sorts of statistics about the length and construction of the knife employed could be deduced; with the single fatal wound to the throat in this case, no more details could be expected. A detailed search of the area had revealed no sign of the weapon at the scene. This again was what the CID team expected: probably the knife which had killed Terry Logan was now at the bottom of a pond or a river, where it would never be discovered.

  It was the expected picture, but a bleak one. ‘We don’t have much from the house to house as yet,’ Chris Rushton said. ‘We’d have a better chance if it was June. People are not only out more in summer, but they notice more. If suspects are driving around in cars in November, all most people see is the lights of the car. It’s only policemen who occasionally notice registration numbers.’

  Lambert nodded. ‘If it was Maggie Dalrymple or Ian Proudfoot or Michael Carey who did this, they’re not telling us the truth about their movements.’

  ‘Or Andrew Dalrymple,’ said Hook.

  ‘Or Andrew Dalrymple,’ agreed Lambert ruefully, admitting another candidate on to their short list. ‘Either they didn’t drive home as they said they did, or they came out again and drove back to Mettlesham to commit murder. Becky Clegg or Jack Dawes, on the other hand, could have simply waited for Logan to come out of the hall, slit his throat, and then zoomed away on that motorbike, merely arriving home a little later than they claim they did.’

  ‘Which is what Dawes seems to have done,’ Rushton said eagerly. ‘We caught his mother out on the time he came in. She was trying to tell Bert and me that it was earlier than it was.’

  ‘She then claimed she’d been drinking and was a little fuzzy,’ said Hook. ‘We’d have difficulty making much out of it in court without more tangible evidence.’

  ‘It’s emerging that most of the people involved are hiding things,’ said Lambert wearily. ‘Over the next day or two, we’ll have to find out which of them is also concealing murder.’

  ‘Or which combination of them,’ said Hook reluctantly. ‘Becky Clegg and Jack Dawes could have done this together. Or one could be covering for the other. At the moment the only convincing alibi which either of them has rests with the other’s account of events.’ There was still a part of him which fervently hoped that Becky Clegg, the young woman he had pointed towards a better life, wasn’t involved in a vicious murder.

  Rushton nodded. ‘We have to remember that both of them have records and both of them have carried knives in the past. The Clegg girl actually assaulted another girl with a knife.’

  ‘But she didn’t seriously injure her,’ Hook said. ‘I’m not saying we should ignore it, but knives are almost standard equipment, amongst the people they’ve operated with in the last few years.’

  ‘Which means they might well have been carrying blades on Wednesday night, whether or not they planned to use them at the outset of the eveni
ng,’ Rushton said with satisfaction.

  Lambert tried to reject the uncharacteristic lassitude he felt stealing through his limbs. It had been a taxing day, after a trying night at the hospital. He really was getting old, he thought: he might even have to begin listening to his wife and start taking life more easily if things went on like this. He looked at his watch. ‘Bert and I will see what Ian Proudfoot has to say for himself, in the light of what we now know about his dealings with Logan. Then I shall be calling it a day. I’ve got problems at home.’

  Rushton was startled by this unaccustomed acknowledgement of frailty in his chief. This might be the moment to implement his scheme. ‘You need a break from the case, John,’ he said. He tried not to let himself be thrown off course by his daring use of the chief’s forename. Lambert insisted upon it in informal contexts, but Chris, with his inclination to play everything by the rulebook, always found it difficult to call him John. As though the thought had just occurred to him, he said, ‘I think we should all go out for a game of golf over the weekend.’

  The old-established duo looked at him curiously. Chris was a beginner at the game. They had enjoyed a memorable evening when the peacock splendour of his brand-new golfing attire had disintegrated into sweaty raggedness under the pressure of their relentless scrutiny and even more relentless advice. They hadn’t expected him to volunteer them more amusement as easily as this.

  Rushton tried to conceal his eagerness as he said, ‘Sunday afternoon would be a good time for me.’

  Lambert looked at Hook and Hook looked back at Lambert; they sensed comic relief in the midst of a trying case. ‘All right,’ said the Chief Superintendent, carefully not looking too eager. ‘We can’t really be doing much on a Sunday afternoon, I suppose. And we need to prise this lad away from his computer, Bert.’

  The thirty-two-year-old ‘lad’ looked at the ceiling. ‘I might be able to get someone to make up a four, if you like.’

  ‘Ah! We told you the game would help you to make friends, didn’t we, Bert?’

  ‘Indeed we did. Is this chap anyone we know, Chris?’

  ‘It’s a woman, actually.’ Chris dropped it in as casually as he could, but he was sure that he was blushing like a schoolboy. ‘And you do know her, actually, from a previous case. You may not remember her, though. Her name’s Anne Jackson.’

  The two older men looked at each other again, this time with the knowing smiles which Chris found quite infuriating.

  ‘Of course we remember,’ said Lambert. ‘Women like Ms Jackson are not easily forgotten, even by men in such demand from the gentler sex as Bert and I. But are you sure you wish to deliver her into the hands of men like us? Golfing hands, I hasten to add.’

  ‘Oh, Anne won’t mind, if you don’t. She’s played a bit of golf, I believe.’

  ‘Well, I suppose she’ll get a lot of shots. And we’re always prepared to help women and beginners along, aren’t we, Bert?’

  ‘We are indeed. I well remember having the benefit of your advice myself, John, when I was a tyro,’ said Hook - rather grimly, John Lambert thought.

  ‘I’m sure we’ll both be glad of your sympathy and assistance,’ said Rushton.

  He didn’t permit himself a quiet giggle until he was safely out of the room.

  Sixteen

  ‘Did you have to get them to come here?’ Angela Proudfoot said petulantly.

  Her husband tried to be patient, knowing that he needed her support. ‘I asked them to see me at the bank, as they did yesterday. They said they wouldn’t want to detain me there, after hours. They seemed to want to come here. Perhaps they like to see where people live, for all I know. I didn’t want it any more than you do, but I didn’t have much choice.’

  ‘And you still want me to lie for you?’

  Ian Proudfoot forced a boyish grin. It sat oddly on the careworn face beneath the balding pate. ‘It’s not really a lie, is it? You’re just confirming the time when I came in - doing the police a service really; eliminating me from their inquiries.’ He didn’t have to force the nervous laugh, which came unbidden to his lips. ‘Unless you think I killed the bugger, of course, in which case you’d be perverting the course of justice, I suppose.’ Angela didn’t share his amusement at that preposterous idea. She said, ‘It’s justice that Logan’s been killed at last, if you ask me.’

  ‘Yes. That wouldn’t be a very wise thing to say to CID men though, would it?’ Ian wanted to take her by the shoulders and shake some sense into her, but he knew that her days of unthinking allegiance were gone. Nowadays he had to persuade her, not direct her.

  ‘I won’t know what to do or where to look. I’ve never been questioned by the police before.’ She made it very clear that it was yet another of his failings that was threatening to besmirch this immaculate record.

  ‘They probably won’t even want to speak to you, Angela. I’ll take them into the front room where we can be private. I wouldn’t risk listening at the door, if I were you. I expect they watch out for that sort of thing and spring out suddenly to catch people.’

  Like most of his attempts at marital humour, it fell flat. ‘I’m not in the habit of eavesdropping, thank you,’ Angela said haughtily.

  The CID officers came at exactly the time they had agreed. He took them into the dining room which had scarcely been used in the last three months, feeling the winter chill in the room despite the central heating radiator he had switched on an hour earlier when he came into the house. He was careful to sit with the light full on his face and behind his visitors: it would never do to let them deduce from arrangement of the seating positions that he had anything to hide from them. He said nervously, CI hope what I told you about Terry Logan yesterday has been of some use to you. I didn’t like speaking ill of the dead.’

  Lambert was in no hurry. He looked at the lean figure who was holding himself so still and nodded slowly. ‘You pointed us towards some of his possible liaisons, with both sexes. You also attempted to point us away from yourself and your own relationship with the murder victim.’

  It was a calm statement, not a question. Ian’s first instinct was to deny it, but the man seemed very confident. He went for a more oblique dismissal. ‘My own relationship with Logan is of no possible interest to you, because it had no bearing upon his death.’

  ‘We are the people who will decide that, when we know a lot more about that relationship. That is knowledge which, in your own interest, should be in our possession when we leave here, Mr Proudfoot.’

  Ian had expected at least a little preliminary fencing rather than this frontal attack. ‘I think I made it clear that Logan and I were not bosom pals. We had a common interest in the theatre, that was all.’

  ‘And a history of sharp differences in your professional life, which you deliberately concealed from us when we spoke yesterday.’

  ‘I told you that he removed his account from my branch, shortly after I became manager there. That is hardly concealment.’ He was playing for time, trying to organize his thoughts and decide exactly what to concede to them. Play it like Claudius, he told himself, the king he should have played in Hamlet, the role which might now be denied to him. That ‘smiling damned villain’, who frustrated Hamlet with his knowledge of the way the world worked. Claudius showed how much you could get away with, if you remained both calm and bold.

  ‘You did not tell us that Mr Logan made a complaint to your head office, that he made a written attack upon your professional standing.’

  He wanted to minimize it, to write it off as the spite of a deluded man. Then he thought of these two talking to Angela, of her pouring out her bile about Logan and all he had done to their lives. He said tersely, ‘We complained to the school about him. But he didn’t take things lying down, Terry Logan. He tried to strike back at my own professional life.’

  Keep calm, defend yourself where you must, but with dignity. Be Claudius: retain your control of the situation. Ian Proudfoot gave them a cool, considered, regretful smile. The smile
said that this sort of spite was what you had to deal with, when you met human nature at its basest, in men like Logan.

  Lambert said, ‘Why did you complain to the school?’

  He had this ready. They’d expect him to be upset and confused: Claudius wouldn’t be. ‘It’s a long time ago. It doesn’t look as serious now as it did then. Sophie, our eldest daughter, was in one of his plays. He humiliated her. He let her learn the whole part and then dropped her from the play entirely, two weeks before the performance.’

  ‘That is unfortunate. I can see how it would upset her, and you through her. But it is surely a director’s right to change his cast.’

  ‘It wasn’t the actual decision, it was Logan’s manner of implementing it which caused the trouble. He humiliated a sixteen-year-old girl in front of the whole of a large cast. In effect, he ridiculed her efforts and championed those of the girl who was to take her place. It was calculated cruelty. Sophie had a minor breakdown; she was off school for seven weeks of her GCSE year.’

  ‘It sounds like some sort of personal attack on his part. Was it?’

  ‘You would need to ask him about that. But unfortunately, of course, you can’t grill him as you are now grilling me. Murder victims become paragons of virtue, don’t they, as soon as they die? At least, as far as our admirable press are concerned they do.

  I’ve noticed that often.’

  Keep it measured, ironic, acerbic but controlled. King Claudius was always controlled in public. Ian gave them the sardonic smile he had rehearsed in front of the mirror for the king.

  ‘We can’t ask him, as you say. It couldn’t have been usual conduct for him or he wouldn’t have been so successful in his work in the school.’