The Pursuit of Truth

by Arthur Hughes

That was how they came to be standing watching the course members leave. And why they weren’t surprised that Farrell had put in an appearance too. Farrell must have seen Sam’s expression because, as he looked in her direction, he said, ‘So it was Sam.’ Neither Healey nor Teague responded.

  As they continued to stand there, they heard the sound of something banging against the glass door behind them. It was the suitcase of a young woman who was struggling to get through, another case trailing behind her. Teague stepped across and held the door for her. Young, pretty but red-faced and flustered, she thanked him, and dragged the two cases along the concrete ground, making her way, bent-kneed, as quickly as she could to the coach. Sam helped her put the cases into the luggage compartment, at which the driver stepped forward, closed the compartment, and climbed back on board. There were a couple of tiny waves from the nearside windows as the coach drew away but most people were looking straight ahead, no doubt already thinking of the next stage of their journey.

  The glass door behind Healey opened again. ‘Well met. How goes the world, gentlemen?’ It was Carter, in an open necked blue and white striped shirt, and a linen suit. He smiled broadly.

  ‘We thought you were in Birmingham,’ said Healey.

  ‘Birmingham? Why ever did you think that?’

  ‘Your wife told us.’

  ‘You’ve been speaking to my wife?’

  ‘We were at your house earlier.’

  Carter stopped smiling, scratched his head, then smiled again. ‘Of course, yes, I understand. I was going to a meeting there but something else cropped up.’ Now he scratched his beard.

  ‘Well now you’re here,’ said Healey, ‘we can talk. Would you mind coming with us to the incident room?’ Healey held open the door for Carter to go through ahead of him. Turning to Teague, he said in a voice too low for Carter to hear, ‘You come too, but tell Farrell and the girl to go to their rooms and stay there until we come for them. Politely.’

  Once in the otherwise deserted incident room, Healey gestured for Carter to sit down at a trestle table near a window. He sat down himself opposite and waited for Teague to appear.

  ‘What is this, Richard? You’re being very formal.’

  Healey ignored the question but, once Teague came into the room, he told Carter that he was arresting him in connection with the murder of Neville Crouch and gave him the standard warning.

  ‘Arresting me?’ Carter laughed out loud. ‘What on earth are you talking about?’

  ‘Tell me what you did from the time that you left the Three Tuns on Friday the 29th of July until you got home that night.’

  ‘I’ve already given you my statement.’

  ‘And we know it’s not true.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘At the time of the murder you were seen here in the Hall.’

  ‘By whom, may I ask?’ There was no reply.

  Behind the thick lenses of his spectacles Carter’s eyes darted from side to side. Eventually they stopped. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘I take it you’ve spoken to Peter?’ Again there was no response. Carter continued, ‘As Peter will have told you, I’m sure, I came here to see a certain young woman.’ He looked at Teague. ‘In fact the young woman you just held the door open for. We spent some time together in her room and then I left the Hall and walked back to Beech Lane.’

  ‘You’ll need to give us details of the young lady later.’

  ‘Gladly.’

  Did you go to Dr Crouch’s room while you were at the Hall?’

  ‘No, I did not.’

  ‘Did you go into the corridor where Dr Crouch’s room was?’

  Carter smiled. ‘I think you know I did. It felt as if there might be a storm so I went to Peter’s room to borrow his raincoat.’

  ‘You knew it was there?’

  ‘Everybody knew it was there. It was a course joke.’

  ‘But you say you didn’t enter Dr Crouch’s room?’

  ‘Absolutely not. Why should I?’

  ‘You were seen leaving Dr Crouch’s room at about the time of his murder.’

  ‘Impossible.’

  ‘We have a sworn statement that says you did.’

  ‘No. If you have such a statement and you aren’t just bluffing, then it’s untrue. I did go into Peter’s room but nowhere else on that corridor.’ He paused. ‘Look, I’m sorry that Peter and I misled you about our whereabouts but it really didn’t seem important at the time. It was just meant to avoid embarrassment. We didn’t even know that it was a case of murder, if you remember. And my wife is a very jealous woman.’

  ‘Was Dr Crouch expecting you, sir?’ asked Teague.

  ‘No. As I said, I didn’t go to Neville’s room.’

  ‘But you were seen coming out of it. That’s a bit strange, wouldn’t you say, sir?’

  ‘I wasn’t seen coming out of Neville’s room. If I was seen coming out of any room, it was from Peter’s. In fact that must be it. They are next to each other, as I’m sure you know, Richard. The lighting is poor. It would be an easy mistake to make. In fact from the other end of the corridor it would have been difficult to even recognise someone.’ He paused. ‘It was me they said they saw, was it?’

  When neither Healey nor Teague replied immediately, he continued, ‘Got it. So it wasn’t me they said was there. It was Peter. And he put you on to me. Ha!’ He slowly shook his head as if in sorrow. ‘Oh dear, Richard. What do you think you’re doing? Your informant makes a mistake about the person and you want to believe that they were right about the room they came out of. Well they weren’t. You just haven’t thought this through. He started to stand. ‘I need to go now.’

  ‘Sit down, Dr Carter. You’re going to be here for quite a while yet.’

  They did keep him there but in the end they felt that they had to let him go. Not before Carter had laughed in Healey’s face. ‘When you have a moment, Richard, perhaps you’d be good enough to tell me what motive I might have for wanting Neville dead. I’m not a policeman, but I should have thought that it’s part of your job to establish a motive.’

  As Healey walked home, he wasn’t happy. That was obviously a serious problem, not having a motive. And Carter had quickly seen a weakness in the identification. That wouldn’t look good in court. He must tell Teague to make sure that Sam omitted any mention of Farrell in her statement.

  As he neared the end of Pepper Lane, on a whim he turned off towards Falstaff Avenue. He couldn’t have said why he did it but doubtless it was something to do with the attraction of Teresa. He would probably slow down as he walked past, and maybe she would see him and … But he didn’t walk past. He didn’t even walk as far as the house, because there parked outside it was Wright’s blue sports car. Healey swung round and walked back onto Pepper Lane and was home in five minutes.

  His wife met him at the door. ‘Oh, hello, this is a nice surprise. I thought you’d be gone all day.’

  He put his hand on her arm. ‘Just a second, love. I need to make a call. I’ll be with you in a minute.’

  His wife went into the kitchen and he stayed standing in the hall. In his notebook he found the phone number of the Customs office at Gatwick. Getting through, he asked for the officer he had dealt with on Thursday.

  ‘Speaking.’

  Healey introduced himself. ‘I’m glad I caught you. I thought you might not be there on a Saturday.’

  ‘I’m always here. What can I do for you?’

  ‘You remember we spoke about someone called Wright?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well I think you might be interested in him. I believe that he’s involved in bringing drugs into the country. Working with Reyes. I know for sure that he had a significant amount of cannabis resin in his university room in Reading. And I can tell you exactly where he is now, if you want to know.’

  For the second time that morning Healey found himself being laughed at. ‘Look, mate, we won’t be doing anything about him. And we’d be most obliged if you didn’t either.’ Tha
t was when the man laughed. ‘I thought you would have guessed. He’s been doing a bit of work for us. He was our informant in the Reyes business.’

  Healey quickly ended the call and put down the phone. While he was speaking, he had been looking out over the roof of his car, across the small lawn to the dying Leylandii. He felt low. He felt bad about the business with the Italian woman. Bad about the way the interview with Carter had gone. And now he’d made a fool of himself with Customs.

  ‘Dad … Dad.’

  He looked round. It was his daughter. ‘ Are we going on holiday?’

  ‘We’ll see.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Later.’

  ‘When later?’

  ‘Tomorrow.’

  ‘But Mum said we might be going tomorrow.’

  ‘Tomorrow. I don’t know yet.’

  While his daughter stomped noisily upstairs to her bedroom, Healey went to the kitchen, made himself a mug of instant coffee, and stepped out into the garden. There was already a deckchair and, having set his mug down on the lawn, he let himself fall into the chair. He was soon asleep.

  He woke to laughter and the feeling of a fly tickling his nose. The laughter was his son’s; the fly was a piece of string that his son was dangling on his face.

  ‘Stop it.’

  There was more giggling. ‘Mum says lunch is ready if you want some.’ Healey’s throat was dry and he had a headache. He heaved himself out of the deckchair, bent to pick up the now cold cup of coffee and followed his son into the house, his feet splayed, his head down. He poured the coffee into the sink, swilled out the mug and filled it with water from the tap. The others were already sitting at the kitchen table on benches. ‘Gazpacho,’ his wife announced.

  ‘Not lentil soup,’ Jamie added.

  Healey smiled weakly. ‘That’s nice. Just the thing for a hot summer’s day.’ He squeezed past his son and sat beside the window that looked onto the garden, which was open as far as the latch would allow. He sprinkled chopped green pepper and onions onto his soup, dropped a handful of croutons into it, and took a spoonful. ‘Mmm, this is good.’ The children looked at their mother, who appeared pleased.

  ‘So can we go on holiday, Dad?’ asked Meg.

  Before Healey could answer, the phone rang. ‘I’ll get it,’ said Jamie. He came back. ‘It’s Teague for you, Dad.’

  As Healey walked to the phone, he smiled to himself at his son referring to a grown-up by his surname alone. ‘Yes?’

  Teague was jubilant. ‘We’ve got him. We’ve got the bastard.’

  ‘Carter?’

  ‘Yes. Mr Smart-arse bloody Carter. It’s on tape. I didn’t go home, I stayed here …’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘At the Hall.’

  ‘I’ll be over.’ Healey put down the phone.

  ‘Sorry, I’ve got to go.’

  ‘At least your soup won’t go cold,’ was his wife’s parting shot. At the Hall Teague explained again to Healey that after they’d released Carter, instead of going home himself as he said he would, he had stayed there and settled down with the mini-tapes from Crouch’s bedroom. He’d spent a couple of hours listening to two more tapes. The usual stuff, boring people talking about boring things. Then it occurred to him to look more closely at the codes written on the cassettes. They didn’t help him but doing this made him notice that one of the tapes, unlike the others, which had been wound to the end, had been stopped in the middle.

  ‘I tried the wrong side first. Just the usual stuff. But when I turned it over – bingo! It was Crouch telling Carter that he knew that he had fiddled that Moroccan woman’s marks. Said he knew that he had written her dissertation.’

  Healey interrupted him. ‘Can we listen to it now?’

  The sound from the little tape recorder was tinny but clear. As Teague had said, Crouch accused Carter of altering Leila El Aloui’s marks on the MA and of writing her dissertation. Carter denied nothing but simply asked Crouch what made him believe this, and he told him.

  He had been looking through exam documents as he was filing them away and noticed some discrepancies. Then he had got a copy of the woman’s dissertation, which it seemed Carter had not only supervised but also marked.

  ‘Can you believe that?’ exclaimed Teague. ‘He supervised it, then marked it. And all the time he was shagging her! What kind of system is that?’ Healey didn’t answer but asked him to rewind so that he could hear what he had just missed. It was Crouch saying that there wasn’t any need to make an issue of it, that he wouldn’t report Carter, but that he wanted Carter to do something for him in return. Just let him have a few pounds now and again. Teague stopped the tape. ‘So there’s his motive. He was being blackmailed.’ Teague took the cassette from the player, pulled a paper from a file in front of him, and offered both of them to Healey. ‘There’s just one date on the cassette. Have a look, sir.’

  ‘I’ll take your word for it.’

  Teague seemed disappointed but carried on. ‘Well the date is just three weeks before the first payment into Crouch’s Isle of Man account.’ The paper he waved in front of Healey was a bank statement. ‘There’s the motive,’ he said again. ‘He was being blackmailed.’

  ‘But that’s been going on for years. Why kill Crouch now?’

  ‘Because he’s being promoted. Crouch gets greedy and asks for more. Carter realises there’s going to be no end to it unless he does something about it, so he does.’

  ‘That’s plausible,’ said Healey, sounding unconvinced. Teague watched his face.

  Eventually Healey continued, ‘All right. So we have a motive. We’ve evidence he was near Crouch when he died but no traces of him in the room. There’s the letter, written using a printer of the kind that he had easy access to. There’s the fact that he was trained in karate, which would help explain why there was no sign of a struggle.’ Teague frowned at the mention of karate.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Healey, ‘I just happened to notice a photograph in his office and asked him about it. But what we want … what we want is a link between Carter and the missing bat and diary.’

  ‘Search warrant?’

  ‘Yes, but I’m sure he’ll have got rid of them. He’s too clever to leave them around.’

  ‘He’s clever, but not as clever as he thinks. If he was a bit more cleverer he would of kept his mouth shut this morning and called a lawyer.’

  ‘Perhaps. Anyhow, let’s take him in to the station. See what he’s got to say this time.’

  ‘Okay.’

  As they walked to the door, Healey suddenly stopped. ‘Hell, we didn’t tell Farrell and the girl that they could leave their rooms. They’ll still be there.’

  ‘Don’t worry. I told them when you went home.’

  Healey chose not to look at the smirk that he knew would be on Teague’s face. In fact there wasn’t one.

  Carter replaced his glasses after wiping them on a far from clean handkerchief. He blinked at the light that was shining in his eyes. ‘Do we need the third degree?’ he asked. Healey and Teague, sitting across the metal table, said nothing. Healey looked through a sheaf of papers. Teague turned the little tape recorder over and over in his hands. Eventually Healey spoke.

  ‘We’d like you to listen to this.’ He nodded to Teague who pressed the Play button. On the tape Crouch began to tell Carter what he had discovered. Carter showed no emotion, simply stared at Healey until Teague stopped the tape.

  ‘Well?’ he asked.

  ‘You recognize the two people speaking?’ said Healey.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘You said you had no motive for killing Crouch. Well there it is. He was blackmailing you and you had had enough. You wanted to put an end to it. There’s your motive.’

  ‘Nonsense. First of all, that recording, which I have never heard before, incidentally, must be several years old. If I had been blackmailed, then I waited a long time to do anything about it, wouldn’t you agree? That’s one thing. The other is that I never w
as blackmailed. If you’d played the tape a little further you would have heard me telling Neville what utter rot he was talking. There was no truth in what he was asserting, none at all, and I told him so.’

  Healey looked at Teague, who pursed his lips and shook his head.

  ‘Have you listened to the end?’ asked Carter.

  ‘Yes,’ replied Teague.

  ‘And you’re saying you didn’t hear me denying what Crouch claimed?’

  ‘Didn’t hear anything like that.’

  ‘Then the tape has been copied and cut. It must have been.’

  ‘Why would Dr Crouch do that?’ asked Healey.

  ‘I’ve no idea. That’s not for me to say. But I can tell you categorically that I told Crouch that he was talking nonsense, and that I never paid him a penny. I imagine you have forensic scientists who can help you.’ Carter rose to his feet. ‘If that’s it, can I go now?’

  ‘Stay there, Dr Carter. We have some more questions for you,’ said Healey.

  In fact there was very little else for them to ask. They asked him for details about the occasion on which Crouch had threatened to expose him and what had happened subsequently. They prepared a statement for him to sign as he sat silent, seemingly deep in thought.

  Suddenly, quite out of the blue, he said to Healey, ‘You realise that it may not have been me that went to the Hall that night. Have you thought about that?’

  ‘What? You’ve just made a statement to that effect.’

  ‘Yes, and I previously made a statement to the effect that I was with Peter Farrell in his house.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So in both cases I could be protecting a friend.’

  ‘Are you saying that Dr Farrell went to the Hall while you stayed at his house.’

  ‘I’m not saying that. I’m saying that it’s a possibility.’

  ‘Why would he do that?’

  ‘He could have been seeing a woman. He’s not quite the lily-white character you probably imagine. Or he could have been meeting Neville. Have you considered that possibility? If not, I suggest that you do.’ Carter was getting excited; his eyes gleamed.

  ‘Do you remember when we first met, we talked about the pursuit of truth? I thought that was what you were involved with too. But apparently not. You gather a few scraps of information, make up a story that fits, and stop there. Aren’t you supposed to look at alternative stories, alternative hypotheses?’ He took the paper that Teague had in front of him, read it through quickly, took Teague’s pen and signed. ‘Could you show me the way out of here, please?’