by J M Gregson
It was more or less what he’d decided to say before they came, if he was pressed on this. He was quite pleased with the way he’d delivered it. When things were very close to the truth, it was much easier to deliver them convincingly, he thought. He remembered again that old advice from the lawyer years ago: the way to lie convincingly was to use as much of the truth as you safely could. He was nevertheless unnerved by the way Peach studied him unblinkingly, as if he saw through his words and into his very soul. Then seeming to confirm that resistance was futile, Peach spoke as though putting forward the next item for revision. ‘You told us on Thursday that you did not have a sexual relationship with Mr Norbury. Would you now care to modify or develop that statement?’
‘No, I wouldn’t. What I said was correct.’ Jamie wanted to shout this at them. He wanted to assure them that his fantasies last night were all of the female curves of Jane Preston; to tell them that any thought of a bed shared with Alfred would have revolted him. For a moment, he wished to show them the sonnet he was still polishing about Jane Preston, which he thought was really quite promising.
He did none of these things, of course. He reaffirmed his denial of a homosexual relationship with Alfred and sat tight. Most people were secretive about sexual things, and he was going to be no exception. At this moment, with these two contrasting coppers watching his every move, he wanted to be as conventional as he could about this and other things.
Peach wasn’t willing to let it go. ‘But Alfred hadn’t accepted that the two of you were going to be platonic, had he, Jamie? Alfred wanted to take things further, and he wasn’t a man who was easily resisted.’
There was a long pause before Norris said, ‘That is true. Alfred didn’t take no for an answer very easily. He took a lot of convincing.’
‘I’m sure he did, Jamie. Was that why you were driven to fire a pistol into his head?’
The questioning had been leading to this over the last few minutes, Jamie told himself. Yet when it was baldly stated like that, it was nevertheless shocking. More shocking than anything else he had heard in his young and eventful life. He wanted to sound outraged at the very idea that he might have done this, but his voice sounded to him quite dull as he said, ‘I didn’t kill Alfred. I don’t know who did. I hope you find out who it was.’
Clyde Northcott spoke for the first time, his deep voice sounding even more solemn than Peach’s. ‘I need to be clear about what you wish me to record, Mr Norris. Did Mr Norbury make any sort of sexual advance to you?’
‘Yes. In the week before he died, he became more and more insistent.’
‘And you rejected these advances?’
‘Yes. I told him that I was sorry but the idea revolted me. I told him that I was heterosexual and could never be interested in having sex with him.’
Jamie was staring straight ahead, willing them to believe him. Northcott made a note and said, ‘You realize that this provides you with a motive for murder?’
‘I realize that it gives me a motive, yes. But motives don’t always lead to action. I didn’t kill Alfred. I rejected his sexual advances, but I was grateful for what he had done for me – for what he was still doing for my writing at the time of his death.’
Peach had never taken his eyes off his quarry. ‘How did Norbury react when you told him sex wasn’t on the cards?’
‘He wasn’t pleased. But he assumed he would carry on giving me guidance with my writing. I think he thought I’d eventually be so grateful that he would overcome my resistance. He wouldn’t have done.’
‘I see. You said on Thursday that the last time you saw Alfred Norbury was at the book club meeting on Monday night.’
‘Yes. That is correct.’ Norris spoke almost before Peach had completed his sentence.
‘It wasn’t, though, was it?’
Jamie had driven himself into a corner. Now he held on to his story even when he knew it was about to be disproved, like an obstinate child who can see no other course. ‘Yes it was. I didn’t see Alfred after I left him on Monday night.’
‘That’s not what an independent witness is telling us, Jamie. I advise you to reconsider this.’
The use of his first name again, as though the man was a friend and not a pig trying to pin this on him. Beware, Jamie. But what could he do? He took a deep breath, then exhaled slowly, trying to keep control of his speech. ‘All right. I was working six to two on Tuesday, same as today. I went round to Alfred’s place in the afternoon, after I’d finished work.’
‘Time, please.’ DS Northcott spoke as calmly as if he was checking a bus timetable.
‘I had something to eat first. It would be some time between three and half past.’
Peach gave him a sudden, unexpected beam of approval, which lasted for all of three seconds. ‘This is better. This tallies with the time given to us by our independent bystander. They’re always useful, independent bystanders. Judges tend to believe them. Why did you choose to lie to us, Jamie?’
‘I – I knew by then that Alfred had been killed. I thought you’d fit me up for it, if you knew I’d been there.’
‘We don’t fit people up, Jamie. It’s not in our benevolent natures, is it, DS Northcott?’
‘No, sir. We much prefer genuine arrests, wherever possible.’
Peach nodded happily. ‘Purpose of visit, Jamie? We’d better have purpose of visit, if you can think of one.’
Jamie felt in his bones that this was going to sound feeble. ‘I wanted to apologize. Alfred had tried to get me into bed the night before and I’d told him to fuck off. I wanted to remain friends. I wanted him to go on helping me to improve my writing and making suggestions about it. I wanted to clarify our relationship. Master and apprentice, I was aiming at, with no sexual contact.’
‘Did you know about Alfred Norbury’s art classes?’
It was a bewildering switch of questioning, but Jamie saw the reason for it immediately. ‘Yes. I knew he joined the group on each Tuesday evening.’
‘I see. So you knew exactly what time he would be leaving the house.’
‘Yes. The sessions began at seven, so he always left at around twenty to seven or just afterwards.’
‘Think about your answer to this, Jamie. It will be much better for all of us if you are honest. Were you waiting for Alfred in or around his car at twenty to seven on Tuesday evening?’
‘No. I was at home in my bed-sit, as I told you on Thursday.’
‘You told us a lot of things on Thursday, Jamie, many of which you have now admitted were wrong. Can you offer us anything further to confirm to us that this one is right?’
‘No. I know it looks bad, but—’
‘It looks very bad indeed at the moment, Jamie.’ Peach stood up and Northcott followed his lead. ‘You’ve just admitted to us that you are the last person known to have seen Alfred Norbury alive. Not a pleasant position for anyone to be in, that. Perhaps you need to review your account of events.’
Peach nodded affably to Mr Jordan, the curious manager who had just appeared at the office door. Then he thanked him for the use of his office and departed.
Peach’s mood was not improved when he arrived at the station to find that there was a direction waiting for him to see the Head of CID immediately. Tommy Bloody Tucker was the last thing he needed on a bitter Monday morning in January.
Chief Superintendent Tucker didn’t ask him to sit, but nodded curtly towards the upright chair in front of his huge desk. ‘I’m not happy, Peach.’
It was to be a bollocking, then. He could cope with that. Tiresome, as always, but better than those creepy sessions where Tucker addressed him by his first name. ‘Is this a domestic issue, sir? Are you not basking in the connubial bliss which has always been your marital lot?’
‘This has nothing to do with Barbara, Peach. And I’ll thank you to keep your opinions on my relationship with my wife to yourself.’
Peach was not in the least inhibited by the warning. He cast his eyes to the ceiling and ass
umed the strangest of smiles as he thought about the bedroom joys afforded by the woman he always thought of as Brunnhilde Barbara, whose Wagnerian build and volume had always filled him with awe. ‘Happy the man who is content at home, sir. Happy the man who can sally forth daily into our sordid world from a wife who ministers to his every spiritual and carnal need.’ His smile grew, filling the whole of his face as he contemplated the joys of physical fulfilment with Barbara.
Tucker took a deep breath and tried to thunder. He wasn’t good at thundering, but this man warranted it. ‘I’m not happy, Peach. This is not a domestic issue; I’m not happy because of what is happening here. Or rather what is not happening here.’
‘I’m sorry about that, sir. Weight of work, is it?’ Percy contemplated the empty acres of his chief’s desk.
‘I’ll tell you what it is, Peach. It’s this Norbury case. A murder in the middle of our town and my Chief Inspector doing bugger all about it!’
‘Where were you on Saturday and Sunday, sir?’
‘That’s my business, Peach. Don’t try to divert me.’
‘We could have done with you at the weekend, sir. Your experience and your incisive questioning of suspects would no doubt have been of great value, had it been available. DS Northcott and I and the key members of the team worked through the weekend, sir. I hear the golf course is in excellent condition for the end of January, sir. I haven’t been able to sample its delights myself.’
Tucker considered denying he had been on the golf course, but decided against it. Peach knew all kinds of things: he had mysterious sources of information which he never revealed. ‘You know that it is my policy never to interfere with the teams assigned to major crimes, Peach. I maintain an overview and contribute as I see fit. In return for this, I expect diligent and efficient work from my officers. In short, I expect results. And I find results so far lacking in the Norbury case.’
He hadn’t managed genuine thunder, but he now produced a thunderous brow. He was much better at thunderous expressions than thunderous volume. He could be positively Churchillian in the severity of his countenance, having studied wartime photographs of the great man at the hours of his most notable pronouncements.
Peach watched Tommy Bloody Tucker’s countenance with interest but no sign of fear. ‘We are making progress, sir.’
‘Don’t give me that guff, Peach. Save that for the public. “Making progress” means that you have nothing to report. Any copper knows that!’
‘Nevertheless, it is sometimes a fair summary of events, sir. We know when, where and how Mr Norbury was killed and we have the murder weapon. We have whittled the suspects down from the very large number possible when a victim is killed in the open rather than in his house to no more than five. We have not entirely eliminated some other and more random agency, but I am personally confident that our eventual arrest will be made among these five.’
‘Don’t try to blind me with science, Peach! I’m too old a hand for that. I go back a long way, you know. I would remind you that I served as a young copper with Jack Slipper, head of the Flying Squad. A man who had played a leading part in the investigation of the Great Train Robbery of 1963.’
‘Really, sir? I’d no idea you were as old as that. You’re wearing very well.’
‘This was in the eighties, of course, as you know very well, Peach. I wasn’t around at the time of that crime itself. I was a small child then.’
Peach laughed heartily at the rather alarming vision of his tormentor as a cherub. ‘Of course, sir. I saw a BBC documentary on the Great Train Robbery of 1963 a few months ago. Detective Chief Superintendent Butler was the man who really cracked the case.’
‘Yes. Great man, Butler. My kind of copper.’ Tucker was anxious to claim even the most tenuous association with the team involved in the so-called ‘crime of the century’.
‘Really, sir? He seemed to be my kind of copper as well. I actually made a note of something he said about his career.’ He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket as Tucker beamed his approval and produced a small piece of card from which he read his quotation. ‘DCS Butler said at the end of his career: “No matter how far you go or how high you climb, there’s always a wanker boss in charge.” Clearly a man of great wisdom and experience, as well as a good copper, sir.’
Percy Peach descended the steps which led him back to the real world with a quiet satisfaction. The wanker boss was repulsed for the moment.
‘How’s the writing going?’ Jane Preston had locked the door of her tutorial room before she picked up the phone. She now launched the conversation shamelessly with the line she’d chosen, even though she feared Jamie might recognize it as a deliberate ploy.
‘Oh, not too bad. Alfred’s death was a distraction, of course, but I’ve made myself carry on working.’
It was all right: Jamie Norris suspected nothing. Writers were notoriously egocentric, almost as much as actors. They had to be so, she supposed: they had to concentrate on the words they were producing at the expense of almost everything else. She didn’t really know much about that. Although she had learned a lot about literature, Jane’s was a critical rather than a creative intelligence. She said, ‘Yes, I’m carrying on too, even in the face of this awful thing. It’s easier when you’ve got students. They expect you to be there and to produce, whatever’s going on in your private life. You’re very much concerned with yourself and your own problems, when you’re nineteen or twenty. Thank heavens we’re past that age!’
She was treating him as a mature man, when he felt anything but that. It gave Jamie an enormous lift, quite out of proportion to the small compliment involved. He wanted to tell her that he had a poem to show her, a poem that he had written about her. But he held back. Something told him that it would be better to produce it casually, as if it were merely a modest afterthought to something raised in their conversation. Perhaps he really was maturing, as she’d said he was. He said earnestly, ‘It’s been a help to me working at the supermarket, these last few days. It’s undemanding intellectually, but it keeps you busy physically. It gives you a certain rhythm in your life. I think my writing’s actually improving, now that I have to treat it as a part-time occupation.’
‘Really? Well that’s very interesting. You must tell me more about it next time we meet.’ She felt like a femme fatale as she said it. But surely there was nothing whorish in merely suggesting that they might meet again?
‘Yes. I could tell you all about my second meeting with the police.’
She’d been wondering how she could ask him if they’d been back, and here he was offering her the information on a plate. It was easy really, when you were a woman. And in no way was she being a harlot here. She quite liked young Jamie, and she was merely exploiting the charms she had been given. Not God-given: she didn’t believe in all that stuff. But the natural attributes which came with being a young and healthy and not entirely unattractive woman. She smiled at herself in the mirror and flicked a strand of yellow hair away over her forehead. The new lipstick had been a good choice. Putty in her hands, Jamie Norris would be, when she put on the war paint. Discreet war paint, of course – or was that an oxymoron? She said, ‘I’ve got another lecture to give yet. But we could meet this evening, if you like.’ You didn’t give straight lectures nowadays, but most people were impressed by the word.
Jamie smiled at his phone, scarcely able to believe this. ‘I would like that, yes.’ She’d taken the initiative, when he’d been wondering how to ask her. He could hardly believe it had happened. ‘Shall we meet in a pub? Go for a drink together? Or would you rather—’
‘I’ll come to your place. If that’s all right.’
‘If you wish. It’s not much of a pad, mind. I’m hoping to get myself something better when—’
‘It’s private. That’s the important thing. We don’t want other people poking their noses into our business, do we?’
‘No, we don’t.’ His mind was reeling at the prospect of what tha
t business might be.
‘We don’t want those intrusive fuzz prying into everything we do. We want our private lives to be free of their intrusions, don’t we?’
‘Yes, we do. One hundred per cent free.’ He wondered feverishly what she was proposing. This was a young woman with the best mind he’d ever encountered. He hadn’t a lot of evidence yet to support that, but he was sure that it was so: the heady perfume of infatuation raises the beloved to new heights of intellect. And a mind like that in a body like that! This was Hollywood, not Brunton, but he’d take it. Seize it with both hands, in fact! He gave her his address and detailed instructions of how to find it. She mustn’t get lost. Nothing must go wrong now. ‘If we can agree a time I’ll open the door myself. We don’t want you to be vetted by my dragon of a landlady, do we?’
She giggled. ‘All right. Eight o’clock on the dot. You keep Mrs Danvers away and I’ll come straight into your stately home!’
Jane Preston put down the phone and looked at herself critically in the mirror. Not bad, really. Quite good enough for innocent Jamie Norris. It was surprising what you could achieve when you really put your mind to it.
SEVENTEEN
Sharon Burgess watched the police car drive up to the front of the house, then turn and park ready for its exit. She wondered what the next half hour would bring for her, but she made no effort to conceal herself. Her blank, unrevealing face was evident at the window of the lounge as she watched the CID officers leave the car and walk to her front door. I have nothing to hide, her stance told them.
The maid answered the door within a couple of seconds of their ring. She led them into the huge lounge, where the house-owner turned from the window to meet them as they were ushered into the room. She was erect and dignified and her grey eyes studied her visitors without embarrassment or fear. There was no evidence of a facelift or any other cosmetic surgery here, but her skin was good and her face had fewer lines than a woman of sixty-seven would normally carry. Her hair was more grey than gold nowadays, but the blend was effective; there was not a hair out of place in the short-cut style.