by J M Gregson
‘And what would have been your comments on that, if she’d been there?’
This was Peach, his head a little on one side, looking like a cat inviting a bird to make a wrong move. Dick wished he’d shut up and let him concentrate on the important matter of his whereabouts at the time when Norbury had been killed. ‘I suppose I was rather confused really. I’d never been to a book club and I didn’t know quite what to think about our first meeting. That’s why it would have been interesting to have a chat over coffee with Mrs Burgess.’
‘I see. What did you think of Mr Norbury’s contribution to the evening?’
‘I suppose I was rather irritated by it, if I’m honest.’
‘Do be honest, Mr Fosdyke. It’s much the best policy.’
Dick told himself not to show his annoyance: that would no doubt delight the man. ‘He seemed to be trying to take the meeting over. He seemed to regard it as his natural right to be the leader of the discussion and to dictate the direction of our thoughts. I found him rather patronising. But I suppose he’d been brought along to speak up and offer his views when we were all feeling our way with each other. Perhaps I should have been grateful to him for offering his opinions so freely. That’s the sort of thing I’d have liked to discuss with Sharon Burgess, if she’d been around the next morning.’
‘And what about the other people there? Did they find Norbury as galling as you did?’
He wondered for a moment whether to object to that adjective. But this was an opportunity to divert attention away from himself, to assert to them that others as well as he had found Norbury irksome. ‘Well, that boy he’d brought along was under his wing, as you’d expect. And the two older women seemed amused rather than upset by Alfred, if I’m honest. But the young woman, Jane Preston, seemed to take against him rather. I think she resented the way he came on strong with her.’
‘Our information is that our murder victim was homosexual.’
‘Bisexual, perhaps. But let’s not argue about that: I didn’t know the man well enough to give an opinion. He certainly seemed to leer a little at the fair young Ms Preston. But I wasn’t thinking just in sexual terms when I said he came on strong with her. He seemed to be challenging her expertise. She’s well qualified in English literature and pursuing a career in teaching it. Alfred seemed to want to argue with her, to encourage her to state her opinions just so that he could disagree with them. It was all in a jokey manner, but I think she found his whole attitude disagreeable. Perhaps I’m being unduly sensitive on her behalf – you’d need to ask her about it.’
‘Which we shall do, Mr Fosdyke. Where were you between six-thirty and seven on Tuesday evening?’
Dick smiled, trying not to look too pleased with himself. ‘I was out for a meal with an old friend. In the restaurant at the White Hart. I can recommend it, Chief Inspector, though I’m no gourmet. Simple but excellent cuisine and well-kept local beer. We ate early because Ernie lives in Bolton and had to get home afterwards.’
‘We’ll need the name of your companion.’
‘Of course you will. Ernest Ainsworth. Seventeen Goldstone Avenue, Bolton. Former colleague from the days when I worked full-time for our national press. Ernie still does: he’s based with the Daily Express in Manchester.’
He looked at the card Peach had given him thoughtfully when they had gone. Then he picked up the phone to speak to Ernie Ainsworth. It was good to be able to call in a favour from an old friend.
Percy Peach got home to find his mother-in-law in the house.
That stark fact would have led to deep depression in many of his police colleagues, reared as they had been on northern comedians and robust jokes about the species. But Percy and his wife’s elderly parent had got on like happy children from the moment they had met, which was shortly after her nubile daughter had been assigned to Percy as a detective sergeant. Percy and Lucy had worked together happily and productively until their marriage, whereupon police protocol determined that they could no longer work closely with each other. Clyde Northcott, rescued from a life of crime and trained up for CID by Percy Peach, had been the best man at their wedding and had subsequently replaced Lucy as Percy’s bagman.
Agnes Blake had been prevailed upon to share the evening meal in the Peach household. With Lucy in the kitchen, she and Percy discussed England’s dismal performance in the Ashes tests in Australia with feeling and considerable expertise. One of the things which had bound them inextricably from the first was a love of the arcane mysteries of cricket. Percy had been a prominent batsman for East Lancs, the Brunton side in the Lancashire League, and Agnes had followed his exploits long before she had met him. He was now thirty-nine and had retired from serious cricket three years earlier – much too prematurely, in Agnes’s view.
She was a widow of seventy-one, vigorous and acute, but intensely aware of the passing years and the absence of grandchildren in her life. She had produced her only child at forty-one, and it was in her view high time that Lucy was providing her with the brood she had always envisaged. Her daughter had sternly forbidden her even to introduce the subject with her spouse. Lucy was all too aware of the unholy alliance into which these two dropped naturally whenever her interests were threatened.
Agnes scrupulously avoided the subject of the murder which was dominating local headlines as they demolished their lasagne. Lucy had long since convinced her that Percy couldn’t talk domestically about his current cases and she accepted that. Mrs Blake confined herself to a couple of barbed references to foreign food and how basic English cooking was suffering with so many women doing full-time work outside the home. She was secretly delighted that Lucy as a detective sergeant was enjoying the sort of career which had never been open to a mill-girl like her, but she pretended to disapprove. Over dessert, Lucy responded to a query about her latest work with the news that she had recently been working with the rape unit. Agnes informed her that this was not a suitable topic for discussion over rhubarb crumble.
She eyed her daughter’s stomach with undisguised curiosity, searching for the expansion she dearly wished to see there. Percy cleared the table and prepared to load the dishwasher his wife had recently had installed. He winked at Agnes from behind Lucy as he passed. He listened to the conversation as he conscientiously stacked the dishes, reflecting that he needed a little amusement after a trying day.
It didn’t take long for Agnes to arrive at her favourite conversational topic. ‘Any news yet on the – the family front?’ Percy smiled, imagining his mother-in-law’s grey head jerking sharply towards her daughter’s stomach.
‘No, not yet. We’re in no hurry. I’m enjoying my career, Mum.’ The sentiments she had voiced so many times before.
Percy hastened back into the sitting room to make mischief. ‘She may be in no hurry, Mrs B, but she shouldn’t speak for me or for you, should she? She may be a young slip of a girl, but we have to consider our years, don’t we? Ever at our backs we hear time’s winged chariot hurrying near.’
‘Oh, go on with you, Percy! You’re off with your poetry again, and I can’t be doing with it!’ Agnes cackled delightedly nonetheless, then turned seriously back to her daughter. ‘But he’s right, our Lucy, isn’t he? Percy doesn’t want to be a doddery old dad and I don’t want to be a gran who can’t run along hand in hand with my grandson, do I?’
Agnes sighed. ‘I’m no slip of a girl. I’m thirty now, Mum. I’ve got a biological clock ticking, the same as anyone else of my age. And for your information, I’m not on the pill. We’re trying for a baby. I can’t help it if nothing has happened as yet!’ She glared darkly at Percy, who had ignored his usual armchair and sat down happily beside Agnes on the sofa.
He donned an expression of outraged innocence and addressed his remarks to the older woman beside him. ‘They’ve no shame nowadays, these modern young women, have they? They bring the bedroom into the living room and strip life down to its barest essentials. She’ll be telling you about her new blue pants with the lace edges
next. It’s just not seemly and it shocks me, Mrs B! I’ve no idea what it must do to someone of your delicate sensibilities.’ He clasped his hands across his stomach and closed his eyes sententiously, then rocked back on the sofa and shook his head in deep dismay.
Agnes was as usual delighted with his efforts. She swayed backwards and forwards with laughter and said, ‘Oh, you’re a caution, Percy Peach, you really are!’ Then she straightened her face and addressed herself solemnly to her daughter. ‘But he’s right, isn’t he, our Lucy? He and I aren’t getting any younger and your biological whatsit is careering along, as you admitted. So it’s high time you got on with it.’
‘And it’s high time you shut up and found something else to talk about, Mum!’ said her outraged daughter.
‘You see what I’m up against, Mrs B!’ Percy shook his head dejectedly. ‘I’m doing my best to make me a father and you a grandmother, but I’m ploughing a lonely furrow here!’ His dark eyes caught the very blue ones of his wife on what he was sure was a double entendre, then sparkled at the images it conjured up for him.
‘This is not a suitable subject for a post-dinner discussion,’ said Lucy as firmly as she could. She tried hard to be sanctimonious, but it did not come naturally to her and she destroyed the effect with an involuntary giggle.
Percy seized upon it. ‘You see what I have to contend with, Mrs B? The wanton hussy of conversation becomes the cold nun of rejection at the very prospect of conception. Life is much harder with your daughter than most people could ever imagine.’ He sighed extravagantly with the pain of it all and the pressure of the marital secrets he had to conceal.
Agnes Blake hugged herself with laughter. ‘I’m going to go now and leave you two lovebirds to it! I know my daughter’s in safe hands with you, Percy.’
‘None safer, Mrs B. And none more active, when they’re given free rein.’ He cast his eyes unsmilingly to the heavens, as if he were describing some religious ritual.
He took Mrs Blake out to her car and watched her drive away into the night, then returned to the house to pursue her interests. An hour later, he did his very best to secure the grandchild she so dearly desired. As duties came, it was a highly pleasurable one. So much so that he made a second attempt an hour later.
No one would be able to say that Percy Peach had shirked his responsibilities.
FOURTEEN
They were coming to see her at last. Jane Preston had been waiting since the announcement of the murder on Wednesday for this. By Saturday morning, her tension had increased considerably.
They had interviewed all the others involved in that fatal book club meeting now; when they made the arrangements to see her, she had gathered that she was the last of the five to be questioned. What had the others said about her? What information should she relay to the police this morning? How much could she safely conceal? They held all the key cards. They had done this many times before and she had never been involved in anything remotely similar.
She made sure that the sitting room in her small modern house was tidier than usual, then went into the kitchen and set beakers, sugar, milk and biscuits on a tray. She found that she was doing simple things with elaborate care and taking twice as long over them as usual. She was trying to fill the time before they arrived with actions rather than thoughts, because she had already been over what she needed to say to them so often. Further thought could only make her more nervous.
They were not what she had expected, even though she had had no clear anticipation of what they would be. A very tall black man told her that he was Detective Sergeant Northcott and that the smaller, watchful man beside him was Detective Chief Inspector Peach, who was in charge of this case. Strange name for a detective, Peach. And hadn’t Jamie Norris told her that the man’s full name was Percy Peach – an even more ridiculous and unthreatening combination?
The man didn’t look unthreatening. Despite the formidable presence of Northcott upon her sofa, it was Peach who alarmed her. He accepted her offer of coffee enthusiastically, then prowled around her living room as she prepared it. She had left the kitchen door open to keep an eye upon them, but he made no attempt to disguise either his movements or his curiosity. He was looking at the photographs of her family on the side table when she carried in the coffee. There was one of her mother and father standing behind their two children, taken twenty years ago and still one of her parents’ favourites. Her father’s hand was resting fondly on her head and her mother’s hand was on her brother’s shoulder. She must have been only eight then and Adam was at least a foot taller than her, almost as tall as Mum.
Peach hadn’t picked up the photograph but he was studying it closely, though what he could hope to gain from such an innocent family group Jane couldn’t imagine. She was surprised how much she resented his interest; it felt as though without speaking a word he was intruding upon her privacy. He accepted the coffee politely enough and thanked her for her efforts. Then he said abruptly, ‘Did you know Alfred Norbury well?’
‘No. Not well at all. His death was nevertheless a great shock to me.’
‘Yes, I suppose it must have been.’ He sounded unconvinced. ‘But not a source of any great grief.’
‘Why do you say that?’
Peach shrugged his surprisingly broad shoulders. ‘You hardly knew the man, you say. One would presume therefore that his death, whilst shocking, caused you no real anguish.’
The black arcs of his eyebrows rose interrogatively towards the shining bald pate above them. They were too prominent, those eyebrows. They dominated the questioning which followed, perpetually mobile, perpetually questioning the veracity of what she was delivering in the way of answers. Jane said coldly, ‘I didn’t know Mr Norbury well. But it would be highly insensitive to feel no sorrow that he is dead.’
‘And you have a sensitive soul, I’m sure, Ms Preston. Did you like what you saw of him on Monday night?’
Another query which was brutal in its brusqueness. Jane made herself take her time. This was a question she had expected, after all, though she hadn’t expected it to be so confrontational. She forced a smile. ‘Alfred was stimulating, if you approved of him. If you didn’t, he was disagreeable.’
‘And which camp did you find yourself in?’
‘I found him both intriguing and irritating. Not necessarily at the same time.’
Peach beamed and agitated those too prominent eyebrows. ‘Could you enlarge upon that, please?’
‘Well, he seemed to want to dominate the conversation: that was rather irritating. But we were all rather diffident about voicing any opinion at this first meeting. Therefore his contributions were no doubt stimulating. When I look back, he was instrumental in getting the conversation going and encouraging the rest of us to voice our opinions. We would have been grateful to him for that, if the book club idea had gone ahead. Now it looks as if it will be an abortive venture. I certainly don’t feel like carrying on after a beginning like this.’
‘Do you think Mr Norbury was deliberately irritating people – I’m assuming you were not alone in your reaction to him?’
‘It’s difficult to be certain about things like that when you’re meeting someone for the first time. Other people seemed to be more used to him than I was. I got the impression that he liked to dominate whatever company he was in. That he was prepared to take the centre of the stage by any means available to him.’
‘I see. So this means that you weren’t the only one irritated. Other people had reason to dislike him, as well as you.’
‘I don’t think I spoke of anything as strong as dislike. Still less of anything as strong as the hatred which would lead anyone to kill a man the next day.’
It was meant as a rebuke, but this man was not at all quelled. ‘Good point that. So it was something outside that meeting which prompted his murder. Some more long-standing grievance against Mr Norbury. Yes, that’s a very useful observation. That’s the kind of thing that it’s useful for us to know.’
&n
bsp; ‘It’s only my opinion.’
‘Of course it is. But it’s the kind of thing that’s helpful to us, fishing around as we are in the early stages of a murder investigation. And you will probably be pleased to learn that your views on this coincide with what other people we’ve questioned have said.’
‘I wasn’t suggesting that anyone who was at the book club meeting killed Mr Norbury. It seems to me most unlikely.’
‘Does it really? Well, that’s most interesting. Make a note of that, DS Northcott, will you? Ms Preston found our murder victim both stimulating and irritating, but didn’t think he did anything at Monday night’s meeting that would have provoked murder. She thinks that derived from some deeper-seated and longer-standing grievance.’
‘I said it might have been someone who wasn’t present at our meeting on Monday night.’
‘Indeed you did, and it’s a suggestion we are bearing in mind. We haven’t so far come up with any other possibilities, but we continue to search diligently. Do you think Alfred Norbury was seeking deliberately to irritate his audience on Monday?’
He was back to that fatal meeting and her part in it, like a terrier refusing to give up its bone. ‘He might have been. He might have been mischievous. He might have been prepared to go on being contentious until he provoked some sort of reaction in his audience. It can be quite an effective teaching technique, when you have a group of people who are reluctant to offer anything in the way of opinions.’