The pub was their usual haunt when the canteen fare at the station palled. An old coaching inn, it was situated on the banks of the river and had pleasant gardens, just perfect to sit out on such a fine day.
‘Just a salad for me, please,’ Casey told the barmaid. ‘Chicken, I think.’ He turned to Catt. ‘Made your mind up, ThomCatt?'
Catt nodded. ‘I’ll have the chicken casserole, please, my darling.’
Casey sighed at this evidence that he hadn't managed to break his sergeant of being over-familiar, took their food tickets and went and got the drinks while Catt found an unoccupied table outside.
‘This is the life,’ Catt remarked as Casey arrived with the drinks.
'Mmm,' Casey agreed as he sat down. ‘Enjoy it while you can. We can't stay long. Duty will call all too soon.’
‘Don't go and spoil it. With two investigations on the go, I reckon we've earned a bit of R and R.'
‘Some might say we've earned nothing until the cases are wrapped up and the murderers in the cells.’
Catt just shrugged at this and took a long drink from his lager. 'Fallon and his girlfriend seem a rum pair,’ he observed. ‘I’ll be interested to get your take on them. Wonder why she stays with him if he beats her up.’
‘Unfathomable are the ways of women.’
Catt nodded. 'I suppose the money's a draw. Doubtless it helps to ease the pain. And with a string of nightclubs, he can't be short of a few bob. Maybe enough to pay a hit man to do his dirty work for him.’
'Mmm. As you say, he sounds something of a fly-boy, our Mr Fallon. His record marks him out as a nasty piece of work.’
‘So you reckon him for our killer?’ Catt asked just as their food arrived.
Casey waited until the girl had served them and returned inside before he replied. ‘Given his reputation and record, it seems a strong possibility.’
Catt pondered this for a second or two as he picked up his cutlery. ‘Maybe it would be too easy.’
Casey smiled and started on his salad. ‘Thought you were looking for the easy life, ThomCatt, taking your leisure in the sunshine?’
‘Who? Me? No. I want to catch our killers, both here and up in Lincolnshire. Even if we'll never get the credit for solving those killings.’
‘We've got to catch the murderers yet, before we can talk of taking credit,’ Casey reminded him again. ‘So eat up and let us at least make a stab — excuse the pun — at catching the killer here.’
Chapter Thirteen
They were lucky that evening and managed to interview Carole Brown alone as her partner had been delayed; Casey hoped she might be more forthcoming without Fallon's intimidating presence.
The pair, like the other couples they had already interviewed, lived in some style. Theirs was an apartment like the Garretts', but all similarity ended at the name. Part of an old warehouse block, the interior was very spacious. But the space had been filled with upmarket tat of high expense and dubious taste. No scheme of colour or style had been selected to provide harmony; the place was a mishmash of whatever had taken their fancy and they seemed to fancy the garish above all.
Casey didn't wait for an invitation, but sank into a bright orange plastic chair. Catt selected another in deep purple while Casey began the questioning.
‘I understand you were at home alone all evening last Friday?’
Carole Brown threw herself down on a lime green settee without a response. She seemed sullen and inclined to be tetchy when the questioning began, constantly fingering her ripe black eye and scowling. As Casey had said, she was yet another one who had claimed to be home all evening, with no one to back up her tale, on the night Oliver was murdered.
‘And what about your boyfriend, Mr Fallon? Was he home all evening?’ Casey questioned.
‘Max? Not likely. He was out, wheeling and dealing, as usual. I already told him that.’ She jerked her head in Catt's direction.
‘Bit of a Del Boy, is he, your partner?’ Catt asked, referring to the lead character in the popular sitcom, Only Fools and Horses, as he raised his head from his notebook.
‘Thinks he is, more like.’
Carole Brown certainly seemed to be nursing a grievance against her partner; easy to understand given the shiner. ‘Mr Fallon has a conviction for assault and seems to mix with questionable acquaintances,’ Casey remarked. ‘Did he give you that black eye?’
‘Certainly not. The wind blew the front door back in my face.’ She stared at them as if expecting them not to believe her. ‘He's a lamb is my Maxie. He'd never hit a woman.’ Even her words held a certain cynicism as if she found amusement in saying them. Perhaps she even believed them, though given her streetwise appearance, it seemed unlikely. Maybe it was her pride talking.
‘While Mr Fallon's not here, perhaps you could tell us something about your relationship with the late Mr Oliver?’
Carole Brown sneered. ‘What's this? Discretion Is Us? And to call it a relationship is stretching it a bit far. We met for sex, that's about as far as any relationship went. He bought me a few trinkets which I had to sell in case Max found them and started asking questions.’ Her thin lips tightened. ‘It's just as well the bastard's dead or I'd have killed him myself.’
‘Why's that?’ Casey asked.
‘Bastard gave me the clap, that's why. He never used condoms. Complained they were uncomfortable and took away from the sensations. It wouldn't have mattered too much, only before I knew I had it, I'd passed it on to Max.’ Involuntarily, she touched her black eye, giving the lie to her tale of the wind-blown front door. At Catt's grin, she pulled a face and admitted the truth.
‘All right. I lied. I got this when Max started getting symptoms and had them checked out. He slapped me around till he learned the name of the culprit who'd given me the disease.’
Casey's gaze met Catt's as the significance of this sank in: Fallon, prone to violence and with a conviction for assault, would be unlikely to take kindly to a man who had not only persuaded his girlfriend to be unfaithful, but who had also infected them both with gonorrhoea. Had they found Oliver's killer so soon?
The front door slammed and a sour-faced Max Fallon entered the room. He was tall with hair that was styled to within an inch of its life; he had that much in common with Catt, but that was where the similarity ended. He wore a flashy suit of a light mauve with a white stripe. He loosened his tie and unbuttoned his collar as he came towards them. He selected a chair and sat back, seemingly at his ease, before he directed a grey-eyed and challenging stare at the two policemen. It seemed he had no difficulty in recognizing their profession, for he said sharply, ‘Cops? What are you doing here? My club licenses are already renewed.’
‘We're not here about your licenses, Mr Fallon,' Casey said. He began to introduce himself and Catt, but Fallon waved away his words.
‘No need for introductions, gentlemen. It's my belief that when you've met one cop you've met 'em all.’ He sat forward and demanded, ‘So, what's she told you? Did the dirty bitch tell you she gave me the clap?’ It was clear from his manner than Fallon had been drinking a little too unwisely. If he hadn't been he would surely had kept that gem of a motive to himself.
‘Indeed she did, Mr Fallon,’ Casey replied. ‘She also told us who gave it to her. A man who has since died very violently. Did you perhaps decide to take revenge on Mr Oliver?’
'I might have done if I'd managed to catch up with him,’ was the candid reply. He removed his tie, by the simple expedient of pulling the loosened garment over his head before he flung it in the corner. ‘But this is one thing you can't pin on me. I was at my club till the early hours on Friday night. Ask any of my staff there.’
‘Oh, I will, Mr Fallon,’ said Casey, though he thought asking Fallon's staff such a question was likely to prove singularly unproductive. Given Fallon's tendency to violence it was unlikely any of his staff would be so foolhardy as to contradict him. Fallon could easily have slipped out and laid in wait near Oliver's house for him t
o emerge. A knife would be an excellent incentive to get him to the dark edge of the rubbish-strewn alley. It would have been the work of moments to stab Oliver in the groin. Cutting off the victim's penis and stuffing it in his mouth, would — if the knife was sharp and Casey doubted that Max Fallon would carry anything but a slick and sharpened blade — have taken little longer.
It certainly seemed the sort of crime that had Fallon's name all over it: most criminals progressed up the ladder of villainy and violence over time, so, given the provocation of a sexually transmitted disease and having been thoroughly cuckolded, such a leap up the ranks of the criminal fraternity didn't seem unlikely.
The only difficulty with this was Dr Merriman's emphatic insistence that Oliver's body had been moved after death. If Fallon had lain in wait for Oliver outside the latter's home, he could, of course, have bundled him into a car, but the argument against this was that unless it was a stolen vehicle, which he thought unlikely in Fallon's case, he wouldn't want Oliver's blood on his seat covers. And if he had walked his victim to the alleyway at knifepoint and killed him there, the body wouldn't provide evidence of its transport from somewhere else. It was a conundrum, the answer to which evaded Casey. But one thing he could do was to get Catt to look again through the CCTC footage. They'd need to check what car Fallon drove — this was something he preferred not to ask Fallon directly. CCTV was more likely to tell them the truth than either Fallon or his hired help.
‘I’d like the names of the staff you claim can provide you with an alibi, Mr Fallon,’ Casey told him, in spite of the belief that getting these names would be a waste of time.
Fallon didn't demure. With an expression that tended to the smug, he reeled them off. Catt noted them down.
‘We'll be paying a visit to your local club, sir,’ he told Fallon. ‘It was the one in King's Langley rather than one of your other establishments where you claim to have been?’
‘That's right.’ Fallon nodded. ‘King's in the High Street. And not “claimed”, but was. My staff will, I'm sure, be glad to assist you.’ His still smug expression foretold the opposite.
‘We'll be in touch, sir,’ Casey murmured as they headed for the door.
‘Please do, Chief Inspector. I always aim to help the police.’
‘He's certainly done that a few times,’ was Catt's comment once they were on the other side of the front door. ‘Let's hope he's not guilty of this crime because alibied up as he is, we're unlikely to prove it. He'll have primed his staff with the answers he wants.’
‘Don't I know it. Still, the CCTV might, with luck, contradict him and them. We'll question his staff this evening, anyway. And maybe one of the regular customers will spill any beans to be had.’
‘Only the more idiotic of them would do so, given Fallon's reputation.’
‘We must hope we hit on an idiot, then, as it seems the only way we're likely to get some straight answers. Unless Fallon proves to be the idiot and we find his car captured by the CCTV cameras, heading towards Oliver's home. I want you to check it out as soon as possible.’
Catt nodded. And with thoughts of idiots to comfort them, they headed back to the station.
Max Fallon's nightclub was the usual combination of loud strobe lighting and even louder music — if such it could be called. Its garish colours and furniture bore a marked similarity to those of his apartment. Perhaps he had bought a job lot at a knock-down price.
But, as Fallon claimed in his advertisements, his club attracted celebrities; according to the barman they had two weather girls as regulars. He had seemed quite proud of the fact that the club could boast such Z-listers amongst their clientele. It was comforting to Casey to discover that Fallon wasn't as high up the totem pole as he would have liked them to believe. People of influence were one of the banes of a copper's life, so it was good to learn that the nightclub owner's was only likely to be as high as that of his ‘celebrity’ clients.
The barman and the rest of the staff were quick to confirm what Fallon had told them — that he hadn't left the club till around four on Saturday morning, at which time Gus Oliver's body must already have begun to cool. Presumably, as Casey had anticipated, Fallon had rung his staff after he and Catt had left the apartment and primed them with what they were to say. But at least, during their earlier scout around the car park, they had spotted what had seemed likely to be Fallon's car and had rung in for confirmation of ownership.
Max Fallon, perhaps in order to live up to his would-be reputation as a favourite of celebrities, drove a silver Porsche with a personalized registration.
‘At least it should be easy to spot on the CCTV tapes,’ was Catt's comment.
The nightclub visit hadn't been the waste of time that Casey had expected. But if the CCTV footage failed to come up trumps they would, in the lack of any other evidence to connect Fallon to the crime, have to pursue their inquiries elsewhere.
Once they had left King's nightclub and returned to the station car park, they headed their separate ways — Catt off on a ‘hot’ date and Casey home to Rachel.
She'd made a casserole, she told him when he arrived home, rather to his surprise, after he'd kissed her hello. In her lack of domesticity, he had often thought that Rachel would fit right in with Moon, Star and the commune lifestyle, which was why he usually made sure to have a hot meal in the police canteen. She had a touch of the Bohemian about her. Perhaps it was because she led such a gypsy existence with her music and the orchestra. However, grateful for the hot meal to quieten the hunger pangs, he spooned out a generous portion of the casserole and returned to the living room with his steaming plate.
‘So how are your two investigations progressing?’ Rachel asked from the depths of the settee, where she lay stretched out like a cat.
‘My murders are going as well as can be expected,’ he told her solemnly, ‘which is pretty poorly.’
‘That bad, huh?’
‘That bad. We seem to be getting nowhere with our official inquiry, at least.’ He paused. ‘Well, I suppose that's not strictly true. There are a number of possibilities with that one. As for the murders at the commune, it seems the late DaisyMay might well have been a tad over-friendly with Kris Callender.’'
‘What? They were having an affair, you mean?’
Casey waited till he had swallowed another mouthful of casserole before he replied. ‘It's a possibility, seeing as those at the commune are so into making love and not war — though, according to Moon, war's been breaking out all over lately. Anyway, the possibility that DaisyMay and Callender were sleeping together means it might not be her partner's baby she was carrying.’
‘Interesting.’
'I thought so. Which is why I suggested that Catt put the idea of blood or DNA tests to his tame policeman so he could pass the idea on to his boss. DNA would be the clincher; it's the only way we'll find out just whose baby DaisyMay was carrying. Though contradictory to that theory, I have to wonder from Dylan's protective behaviour towards her whether he suspected a thing. At least, according to Moon, Catt's policeman friend has managed to persuade his superiors that DNA tests are necessary. It could save a lot of time and suspicions.’
‘Only if Dylan, DaisyMay's partner, knew she was carrying another man's child, and you said there's no evidence for that.’
‘True. In fact, given his solicitous behaviour right up to her death, all the evidence points the other way.’ Casey finished his meal and put the bowl on the table. ‘That was delicious. I was ready for it.’ He pushed his plate away from him and leaned back, rubbing his tired eyes as he did so. ‘Without the DNA evidence, there's apparently little else to point to the guilty party. Though, seeing as the dogs didn't start to bark anywhere around the time DaisyMay must have been killed, the commune's marked preference for a guilty outsider is unlikely to hold water. It seems her murderer has to be one of the commune members. As to Kris Callender's murder, the perpetrator is anyone's guess. Not only did it happen weeks ago, but he seems to have spent
his time putting everyone's backs up, so the field's wide open.
‘It's surprising really that we haven't got a chief suspect, given what a slapdash, drugged-up lot they are in that commune. You'd have expected the murderer or murderers — though I can't believe there are two of them in such a small community — to be careless about leaving clues to their identity behind. But whoever killed the pair was smart enough not to contaminate the scene of DaisyMay's murder. It's too late, of course, to check out any such traces from Kris Callender's murder as he's been in the ground for around two months if not longer — they're not terribly precise on dates at the commune.’ He paused. ‘By the way, I meant to ask you — how did your rehearsal go?’
'I thought it went well, but Mr Baton Man clearly didn't agree with me. He threw a massive hissy fit and made us work later that anticipated. Lucky I put the casserole in the slow cooker before I went out.’ She sat up straight ‘But I don't want to talk about him. I have enough of him all day without allowing him to dominate my free time as well. In fact —' she swung herself off the settee in one lithe movement — ‘I'm for bed.’ She reached the door and gave him a come hither look. ‘What about you?’
Casey needed no second invitation.
It was raining when Casey got up the next morning; a veritable downpour. Summer hadn't lasted long in spite of the weathermen's optimistic predictions. He could hear the rain hammering against the window as he got dressed.
He made coffee and brought both cups upstairs. It was Rachel's day off and Casey asked her what she was going to do with it.
'I thought I might try some more retail therapy and spend some of your hard-earned salary.’
‘Just as well one of us is a good earner,’ Casey smiled. As an orchestral musician, Rachel didn't earn good money; for her the labour was for love rather than filthy lucre. 'I certainly never seem to get time for shopping.’
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