Dead on Arrival

by Dorothy Simpson

  It looked as though he was right. The door was opened by a comfortable little roly-poly of a woman in her late forties whose pleasant smile faded when Thanet introduced himself.

  ‘You’d better come in. I’m Debbie’s mum.’

  Debbie, Thanet presumed, was Frank’s wife.

  ‘That Steve,’ she said as she closed the door behind them. ‘I was sorry to hear what happened to him, of course, no one would wish that on anyone, but to be honest I’m not surprised, the way he used to carry on, and I can’t pretend I’m sorry he’s gone. As far as this family’s concerned he was trouble when he was alive and it looks as though he’s going to be more trouble now he’s dead. Makes me mad. Frank’s a good lad and deserves better.’

  She opened the door on the right. The smell of food drifted out and Thanet glimpsed a number of people – six? seven? – seated around a long table at the far end of the room, eating mechanically and watching a large television set enthroned on the sideboard.

  ‘Frank? Someone to see you.’

  Thanet immediately recognised the man who rose. The description had been accurate: early twenties, heavy build, around five feet ten, with longish dark curly hair and a moustache.

  The girl next to Frank swivelled her heavy body around to glance over her shoulder. ‘Who is it, Mum?’

  Her mother answered the question with a shake of the head and Thanet could imagine the frown and the don’t-ask-me-to-tell-you expression, the meaningful glance at the other children. There were, Thanet had worked out, four of them, two boys and two girls in their early to middle teens, all of them engrossed in food and television. Debbie didn’t look much more than eighteen herself.

  But Debbie refused to be put off. She frowned, heaved herself to her feet and followed her husband to the door. ‘What is it? What’s the matter?’

  Her mother was obviously determined to keep the news of the unwelcome visitors from her other children, if possible. ‘It’s the police,’ she hissed. She tugged first Frank, then Debbie out into the hall and shut the door firmly behind them. ‘You’d better go in the kitchen,’ she said, beginning to shepherd Thanet and Lineham along the narrow passageway beside the staircase like a nervous sheep-dog.

  ‘Just a moment,’ said Thanet, stopping so abruptly that Lineham, who was behind, bumped into him. ‘There’s no need for your daughter to come.’

  The woman hesitated, stepping back to consult Debbie with a glance, giving Thanet his first uninterrupted view of the girl.

  He looked for the legendary bloom of pregnancy and failed to find it. Debbie’s face and ankles were puffy, her skin sallow, her shoulder-length dark hair lustreless. She looked exhausted, anxious, but determined. She and Frank were holding hands, he noticed.

  He gave her what he hoped was a reassuring smile. ‘I’d like a few words with your husband alone, first, if you don’t mind.’

  She edged a little closer to Frank.

  ‘We’d prefer to stay together.’

  Frank spoke for the first time. ‘I’ve got nothing to hide, Inspector.’

  Thanet looked from one to the other. United we stand, he thought. And divided? Well, if Debbie chose not to be protected he couldn’t help but admire her for it … He could always see Frank alone later, if necessary.

  He shrugged. ‘As you wish.’

  The kitchen was ridiculously tiny for a house of this size, no more than eight feet square, and by the time the two policemen, Frank and Debbie had all squeezed inside there was little more than a couple of feet between them. There was an overpowering smell of hamburgers and fried onions.

  Lineham shot Thanet a resigned glance and wedged himself into a corner, between fridge and washing machine, clearing a space for his notebook on the latter with his elbow.

  ‘If there’s anything you want, then …’ said Debbie’s mother incongruously, and backed out, shutting the door behind her.

  ‘Well now, Mr May,’ said Thanet, ‘perhaps we’d better begin by introducing ourselves. I’m Inspector Thanet and this is Sergeant Lineham, both from Sturrenden CID. And as you’ll have guessed, we’re investigating the death of your brother, Mr Steven Long.’

  ‘Half-brother,’ said Debbie.

  ‘Quite right, half-brother,’ conceded Thanet, with a smile. ‘And naturally we are having to talk to all those who were connected with him.’

  ‘Well you needn’t think it had anything to do with Frank,’ said Debbie aggressively. ‘Frank wouldn’t hurt a fly, ask anyone who knows him, they’ll tell you.’ And she gave her husband a brilliant, adoring smile which imparted a fleeting radiance to her drabness.

  ‘That may be true. Nevertheless, there are certain questions we have to put to him. It’s a fixed and essential part of our routine in such matters.’

  He saw Debbie squeeze her husband’s hand.

  ‘What did you want to know?’ she said.

  ‘There’s no point in beating about the bush,’ said Thanet. ‘I have to tell you that you, Mr May, were seen coming away from Mr Long’s flat last night, and that this puts you in a very difficult situation.’

  He read dismay in their faces as they exchanged glances, and it was clear that they had been hoping no one had seen Frank in Hamilton Road the previous evening.

  ‘We also know that yesterday afternoon you lost your job, because of your half-brother’s deception over the television set …’

  They stared at him numbly. They couldn’t fail to realise where all this was leading.

  ‘So you see, there’s no point in pretending that you and Mr Long were on the best of terms. And we can’t escape the fact that not only did you have good reason to feel very angry with him, but you were also on the spot around the time of the murder …’

  There was no mistaking the implication. The blow had fallen and for a moment they stood silent, struggling to recover from its impact. It was Debbie who found her tongue first. ‘You can’t mean … Surely you don’t mean …’ Disbelief gave way to outrage. ‘It’s not fair!’ Her sallow skin was flushed with anger. ‘Why should this be happening to Frank? We’ve never done any harm to anyone. All we’ve ever wanted is to be left alone to get on with our lives, to work, and save up enough for a little home of our own, for the baby …’ She clasped her hands protectively over her stomach. ‘And now … All through no fault of Frank’s … That Steve, I could …’

  Kill him? The words vibrated in the air, unspoken, as Frank cut her off. ‘Stop it, Deb,’ he said sharply. ‘It don’t do no good carrying on like that. You know what the doctor said. Keep quiet, no excitement …’

  ‘There’s really no need for you to be here, Mrs May,’ said Thanet gently.

  She shook her head vehemently. ‘I’d rather, thanks.’

  ‘Shall I fetch a chair?’ said Lineham solicitously. ‘I’m sure we could squeeze one in.’

  Louise, Lineham’s wife, had had two very difficult pregnancies.

  She shook her head. ‘No, it’s all right, really …’

  ‘So, Mr May?’ said Thanet.

  Frank lifted his shoulders. ‘What is there to say? It’s true. Yes, I have lost my job because of Steve, and yes, I did go to his flat, to try and see him last night …’

  ‘Try and see him?’ said Thanet.

  Frank, it seemed, had made two attempts to see Steve the previous evening. On the first occasion he had gone straight from work, arriving in Hamilton Road at about twenty past five. He knew that Steve didn’t usually get home from work until twenty to six so he hadn’t gone into the house but had waited outside in the car, listening to the radio. By six o’clock there was still no sign of Steve and Frank decided that his half-brother had probably gone to see Sharon, and that there was no point in hanging around any longer. Also, Debbie would be wondering where he, Frank, had got to. He decided to go home, have his tea, and come back later.

  By the time he had broken the bad news about the loss of his job to Debbie, had eaten and had been persuaded to watch their favourite quiz programme, his temper had coo
led and it no longer seemed quite so urgent to have it out with Steve. It was therefore not until around half past eight that he had found himself once more in Hamilton Road.

  ‘Just a moment,’ said Thanet. ‘You said “I”. Your wife didn’t go with you?’

  Frank shook his head. ‘She wanted to, but I said no. She’s supposed to be resting a lot, she hasn’t been too good lately. She went to bed, didn’t you, Deb?’

  Debbie nodded.

  ‘Sorry. Go on, Mr May.’

  ‘I could see there were lights on in Steve’s flat …’

  Frank had been puzzled, therefore, to get no reply to his knock. The door was locked and there had been no sound from within, so he assumed that Steve had been home and gone out again, forgetting to switch the light off. This was odd, because Frank had checked and Steve’s car was still parked in the small car park at the back of the house. Frank had concluded that Steve must have gone out with a friend and he had decided to visit a few of Steve’s favourite haunts, to see if he could track him down. En route he had run into one ‘mate’ here and another one there and had ended up drowning his sorrows in drink, to the degree that he had had to be driven home by a friend.

  ‘Right,’ said Thanet. ‘Let’s go back a bit, then. Why did you assume that Steve had gone to see Sharon, when he didn’t come straight home from work?’

  ‘He often did,’ said Frank.

  ‘He was always pestering her,’ said Debbie. ‘Couldn’t leave her alone. A pity he wasn’t a bit nicer to her when she was living with him, I say, then she mightn’t have gone off. Couldn’t recognise a good thing when he had it, if you ask me, but then, that was Steve all over.’

  ‘Odd, that,’ said Thanet. ‘Geoff, his twin, didn’t seem to think Steve was all that bothered about the separation.’

  ‘Don’t know where he got that idea,’ said Frank. ‘Steve used to go round there pretty often, after work. Ivor usually calls in to see his mum on the way home, see, she’s got a bad heart and he does odd jobs for her … Steve knew he’d be pretty certain to find Sharon alone.’

  ‘Mind, he used to pretend to other people that he didn’t care she’d left him,’ said Debbie. ‘Act cool, like. But I know Sharon pretty well, and she was always telling me he’d been round to see her.’

  ‘And you believed her?’

  Debbie shrugged. ‘No reason not to. She used to show me the things he gave her – bits of jewellery, mostly, she’s very fond of jewellery, is Sharon. He was forever giving her presents. He was trying to buy her back, if you ask me. As a matter of fact, Frank and me wondered …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, we did wonder if that’s what he might have wanted the money for – you know, the money he got from that man, for the telly.’

  ‘In order to buy Sharon an expensive present, you mean?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Frank. ‘Couldn’t think why else he’d need that amount of money in a lump sum. I know he was out of work for a bit after Sharon went, but he soon found another job – he’s a real genius with cars – and he only had himself to keep, so he couldn’t have been too short of the ready.’

  ‘To tell you the truth,’ said Debbie, ‘it wouldn’t surprise me if she had gone back to him in the end. But the point is, Geoff doesn’t know Sharon at all well. I don’t suppose he’s seen her once since her and Steve split up. And he didn’t see Steve all that often either, so it would’ve been easy for Steve to fool Geoff into thinking he didn’t care about getting her back.’

  ‘Steve wouldn’t have wanted to let on to Geoff that he was feeling down, see,’ said Frank. ‘He always used to have to act big with Geoff, on account of Geoff being so posh.’

  ‘He was jealous, really,’ said Debbie. ‘Couldn’t stand the thought that if only he’d been the one who’d been adopted it would have been him up there in that posh house with that posh car. Whenever he’d been to see Geoff he’d come back that bad-tempered … You should have heard him taking Geoff off! Real good at it, he was. He could be a real laugh, Steve, when he wanted to.’

  ‘You saw quite a lot of him, then?’

  ‘Well, like I said, Sharon and me’ve been friends for ages. It seemed natural, like, for us to make a foursome. Not that I’ve ever been what you might call keen on Steve. Got up my nose, most of the time. Always stirring people up. Like it was some sort of game …’

  ‘You think it was deliberate?’

  Debbie frowned. ‘I dunno, really. Seemed like he couldn’t help himself.’

  ‘How did he get on with his other half-brother?’

  ‘Chris?’ Frank shrugged. ‘So-so.’

  ‘Oh, come off it, Frank. Driving Chris and Clare round the bend, he was, if you ask me,’ said Debbie. ‘Matter of fact, I bumped into Chris in town late Monday afternoon. He was still steaming about something that’d happened the night before. Him and Clare’d had some neighbours in for supper and Steve barged in, blind drunk, and was sick all over the carpet in front of the guests, while they were eating …’

  Not a manoeuvre calculated to endear him to anybody, thought Thanet. Judging by the wooden expression on Lineham’s face, he was thinking much the same thing.

  ‘Well I think that’s about it for the moment, Mr May. What I’d like you to do now is this. I’d like you to sit down and write out a detailed timetable of your movements last night, from the moment you left here after the quiz programme, to the time you got home, together with the names of the pubs you went to and any names you can remember of the people you met. Bring it down to the station, and we’ll get you to make a formal statement at the same time.’

  ‘You’re not going to arrest him, then?’ Debbie’s face was suddenly luminous with hope.

  ‘I shan’t be arresting anybody until I am satisfied that there is sufficient evidence of guilt. Oh, there is just one other point, Mr May …’

  ‘Yes?’ Relief had made Frank eager to cooperate.

  ‘The name of the man Steve defrauded over the television set … Do you know it?’

  Frank scowled. ‘Cooper. Martin Cooper. Lives on the Orchard Estate. Plumtree Road, I think.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Inspector …?’ Debbie’s face, like her husband’s, had clouded at the mention of the incident which had had such disastrous consequences for them. ‘There’s no chance Frank will have to find that three hundred pounds, pay it back, is there?’

  ‘I shouldn’t think so, for a moment – that is, assuming your husband really did know nothing about the deal.’

  Frank shook his head vigorously.

  ‘In that case, I shouldn’t worry about it. The arrangement was between Steve and Cooper. It’s not your problem.’

  Outside there was a new crispness in the air and a timid moon was lurking behind high, ragged clouds.

  ‘Looks as though it might be clearing up at last,’ said Thanet. Suddenly he felt exhausted. His brain, relieved of the immediate necessity to analyse, formulate, assess, seemed to have ground to a halt and his back, always inclined to play up when he was tired, was aching badly. The prospect of the evening’s work ahead stretched endlessly before him – interview Chris May, return to the office, sift through all the house-to-house reports that would have come in, write up his own … He needed a break, he decided, if he was to face all this with equanimity.

  ‘Yuk,’ said Lineham, as they settled themselves into the car. He sniffed at his coat sleeve. ‘I stink of hamburgers … D’you think Long was already dead by half past eight, when Frank got there?’

  ‘Possible, by the sound of it. But there again, it might have been as he thought, and Long was out.’

  ‘But he was seen going out earlier, at six forty-five … I suppose he could have gone out, then come in again.’

  ‘Unless that was really Geoff.’

  Lineham was silent for a few moments and then said, ‘I don’t know what you thought, but it seemed to me that it’s Frank’s wife who wears the trousers in that partnership … And she’s very protective towar
ds him, isn’t she? I bet she was really furious when Frank came home with the news that he’d lost his job because of Steve. I’m reluctant to suggest it, sir, but it did occur to me …’

  ‘Yes, it occurred to me, too … That was why I tried to find out what she was up to last night.’

  ‘Going to bed isn’t much of an alibi, is it? D’you think she could have slipped out without anyone knowing?’

  ‘Possible, I suppose. We’d better check. It’s only a fifteen-minute walk to Hamilton Road, from here. And she’s quite a determined person, I imagine. It’s difficult not to let the fact that she’s so pregnant and obviously not well get in the way.’

  ‘Toxaemia, by the look of it,’ said Lineham. ‘Did you notice her face and her legs?’

  ‘Exactly. There’s some inner taboo which says no, no woman in her condition could possibly be suspected of murder.’

  ‘But you think she’s capable of it?’

  ‘Certainly not cold-blooded, calculated murder. But I could imagine her setting off determined to give Steve a piece of her mind, and being goaded into hitting out at him if his reaction was just to laugh it off. Or perhaps she could have decided to follow Frank because she thought that when it came down to it he’d be no match for Steve. If Frank’s story is true and Steve really was out when he got there, Debbie would have arrived at Steve’s place long after Frank had left, of course, and by then Steve might well have come back from wherever he’d gone.’

  ‘He seems to have done an awful lot of popping in and out last night,’ objected Lineham.

  ‘I know … Look, Mike, I don’t know about you, but I’ve got to the stage when I can’t really think straight any more. I do want to see Chris May this evening, but I think it might be a good idea if we took a break, went home for supper, and interviewed him later.’

  ‘Suits me. Louise was going to make steak and kidney pie … I’ll drop you at home, shall I, pick you up later?’

  ‘Thanks. You might give Chris May a ring, to make sure he’s there when we call. Let’s see, it’s a quarter to seven now … Make an appointment for eight thirty, if you can.’