by J M Gregson
The DCI spoke slowly and soberly, as if respecting the place where they sat. ‘You know more about James O’Connor’s business dealings than anyone else we are going to speak to. You were also on the top table, the host’s table, at Claughton Towers on Monday night. That implies that you were regarded as a friend as well as a trusted employee. We need both information and opinions from you, Mrs Derkson.’
‘And you are welcome to both, in so far as it is in my powers to offer them. I shall be as open as I can be, but I fear you will be disappointed. James O’Connor was rather a private man, in his business dealings as well as in his family life. I made appointments for him, typed whatever letters he thought appropriate. I fear I know less of the various businesses which have their headquarters here than you would like me to.’
‘Your employer played things close to his chest?’
They caught the tiniest smile on the wide mouth. ‘That is one way of putting it, yes. He committed as little as possible to paper. He once told me that you could be more flexible that way. People couldn’t quote back at you from what you’d written in different circumstances months earlier.’
‘Do you know that he was under police investigation?’
She frowned. But she took plenty of time over her reply and took care not to let any annoyance show. ‘No, I didn’t know that. I’m surprised to hear it.’
‘How surprised?’
She crossed her legs, made a deliberate attempt to appear more relaxed than she had seemed hitherto. ‘Mr O’Connor was a good employer to me. He never treated me any way but fairly. I wouldn’t trust some of the people I’ve seen in here at times, but it wasn’t my business to pronounce upon them. When I think about it, I can accept your view that my employer “played it close to his chest”. I know quite a lot about some of his work and nothing at all about large chunks of it.’
‘It is those sections which interest us, for obvious reasons. We need every scrap of information you can give us. We’re not Fraud Squad or Drug Squad; we’re interested only in solving a murder case.’
‘You’ve already taken away my files and my computer. I fear you won’t find much of interest.’
‘In that case, what you are able to tell us now will be even more important. We know that he was heavily involved in casinos and betting shops. These are lucrative enterprises in their own right; they are also often used as means of laundering money brought in by illegal trafficking.’
‘Drugs?’
‘Principally drugs, yes. We have learned since James O’Connor died that he was moving to take over a large portion of the illegal drugs market in north-west England. It is a lucrative trade as well as a highly dangerous one. When people move into new areas, powerful interests are affected. He chose to make enemies of some very nasty people. People who may have decided it was time to be rid of him.’
‘You shock me. I have to accept what you say, but I had no idea that Mr O’Connor was involved in anything like this.’
Despite what she said, she didn’t look very shocked. The death had plainly upset her, but Peach was pretty sure that she had at least suspected the nature of James O’Connor’s interests. Jan Derkson was far too intelligent not to have wondered exactly where all this money was coming from. She was measuring this interview, trying to find how much they knew, how much she could safely conceal. He said abruptly, ‘You know more than you’re telling us. If you obstruct our enquiries, we shall take whatever action is appropriate.’
This time she was shaken. His sudden loss of patience and change of tack disturbed her, despite her attempt to remain calm. ‘I’m sorry that you feel I’m being obstructive. I’ll answer whatever questions you care to put to me as honestly as I can.’
The snag with that was that he didn’t feel he knew enough yet to ask the penetrating questions he needed. He’d never felt so little in touch with an investigation he was supposed to be directing. There was a huge field of suspects and Tommy Bloody Tucker had cocked up the vital first stage of the enquiry. He looked hard at the white-faced, watchful woman in front of him. ‘Did you compile the invitation list for Monday night’s function?’
‘I suppose I did, under Mr O’Connor’s direction. The family guest list was pretty obvious from previous occasions; I merely duplicated that, with one or two small changes. My employer gave me the names of the business people he wanted to see there.’
‘I’m in your hands here, Mrs Derkson. My team is doing routine checks on everyone who attended on Monday night. I want to see the most significant ones myself. Business rivals of the host perhaps. Anyone outside the family whom you were surprised to see included on your list.’
He wondered if she would insist on going into the outer office to retrieve the full list of those to whom she’d sent letters of invitation. It would have given her time to think, to decide just what information she was prepared to volunteer. But she obviously had that information already in her mind; the difficulty for him was going to be in deciding exactly how frank she was being. Her fingers flicked briefly to her lips, but otherwise she was quite still. Percy wondered if she was a former smoker who had given up the awful habit, as he had. She eventually said very distinctly, ‘There were two people I was surprised to include on the list, because I knew they’d been rivals of his in the fairly recent past.’
‘Did you query their inclusion?’
She allowed herself a wry smile, which showed what an attractive woman she would be in a different context. ‘You didn’t query things with James O’Connor. He knew his own mind. If those names were on the list, they were there for a purpose.’
‘But you don’t know what that purpose was?’
She pursed her lips, looked down at her right foot in concentration. ‘I don’t know. I can speculate. My guess would be that they were former rivals whom he no longer felt were threats to him. I don’t know, but I suspect he’d taken over enterprises which were once theirs. I think perhaps their presence on Monday night was intended as a conciliatory gesture. But I should stress again that I don’t know that; I’m merely trying to be as helpful as I can, as you encouraged me to be.’
‘I appreciate that. And we’d better have these names.’
‘Joseph Lane and Linda Coleman.’
Clyde Northcott made a careful note of the names, but neither of the CID men gave her any clue as to whether they recognised either of them. Instead, the tall black man said, ‘Do you remember which table these people sat at, Mrs Derkson?’
‘They were both on table two, but they weren’t sitting together. I was sitting within a few yards of both of them.’
‘Do you know where they were during the break which Mr O’Connor called in the proceedings?’
‘No. I don’t know where they were when their host was shot down.’ She waited for a reaction to this sharpness, but received none. ‘I expect you’d like to know where I was, too. I can tell you that.’
‘If you would, please.’
‘I stood up and walked around the room. I found I was quite glad to stretch my legs a little and talk to one or two people I knew. I didn’t leave the main banqueting hall. So there’s one person you can rule out of your murder calculations.’
Clyde made a note, nodding without comment. It certainly didn’t rule her out, not yet. They’d need corroboration from some other source, and if she’d spoken to different people as she claimed, it was probable that no one person would be able to confirm that she’d remained in the banqueting hall throughout the break.
Peach said very quietly, ‘The PA is a key figure in any businessman’s life. We expect the wife to be able to tell us most about domestic arrangements and complications. The PA tells us about a man’s working life, which occupies as much or more of his time than his home life. Who do you think shot down James O’Connor on Monday night?’
She had uncrossed her legs whilst he spoke, as if an informal pose was inappropriate for the discussion of these grave matters. She sat not with arms folded but with a hand palm down o
n each thigh. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know much about his family life: he preferred to keep that totally separate from his work. Any successful businessman makes enemies. I know it’s a long step from enmity to murder, but my feeling is that it was one of those business enemies who had him killed.’
Peach nodded slowly, as if accepting the logic of this. The black eyebrows rose a little beneath the bald pate. ‘Had him killed?’
‘You know far more about this than I do. I believe the use of professional killers is not unknown.’
‘“Not unknown”.’ Peach savoured the negative for a moment, as if relishing her ladylike way of phrasing something unpleasant. ‘Contract killers, we call them. And you’re right: the use of such people is fairly common in the more dubious circles in which James O’Connor chose to move.’
She winced a little at the involvement of her employer in this murky world, but she wasn’t stung into a defence of Jim O’Connor, as he’d hoped. They left her with the usual request that she should go on thinking about the matter. Peach said in the car as they drove away, ‘She told us what she’d planned to tell us. No less and no more. How much more the efficient Mrs Derkson knows remains to be seen.’
Peach felt suddenly tired as he neared the shabby semi-detached house which had been his home for the last eight years. He worked fourteen-hour days without complaint when he was cracking a case, but the feeling that he was getting nowhere despite many hours of interviewing and poring over files always exhausted him. Frustration was always much more wearing than progress.
He had his eyes down and his brain deep in thought as he manoeuvred the car between others parked on the suburban street. He was so preoccupied that he almost missed the old Fiesta parked just far enough from the gates to give him easy access to his drive. His mother-in-law was here. Most coppers would have been depressed by that conclusion to a taxing day. Percy had never been most coppers, and his eyes now brightened at the prospect of a little time with Agnes Blake.
The seventy-year-old turned with a smile as he entered the kitchen. ‘I’ll be on my way in a few minutes, Percy. I was just showing our Lucy how to make a good curry. She’s far too ignorant in the kitchen to make a good wife, but I’m working on it.’
‘He didn’t marry me for my cooking, Mum!’ said her daughter daringly.
‘Wash your mouth out, our Lucy! You weren’t taught to talk dirty in my house.’
‘Nor in mine, Mrs B!’ said Percy promptly. ‘I don’t know where she picks these ideas up. Police canteen, I expect. I’m often shocked myself, the things I overhear in there. Sometimes I think it’s no place for a wife of mine.’
‘Go on with yer!’ said Agnes delightedly. She came from the old Lancashire school, where it was all right for men to be racy but quite unladylike for women to join in with them. In her youth in the long-vanished mill, the women had been bawdy enough among themselves at meal breaks, but chaste and demure in the presence of men. But her son-in-law understood all of this — indeed it sometimes seemed to her that he understood all of her world. She loved it when they tuned in to each other and embarrassed the daughter she loved.
Percy said firmly, ‘And you can’t possibly leave this curry now. You’ll need to stay and give your verdict upon it. I’m just an amateur in these things.’
Though Agnes made her protestations that she did not want to disturb them after a working day, she was clearly delighted to stay and even more delighted that it was Percy who insisted upon it. The curry more than passed muster. Although Mrs Blake insisted that Lucy had conducted every stage of its preparation, Percy maintained that he detected the expert supervisory touch of the older woman in the delicate aromas and subtle flavours of the finished product.
Agnes Blake giggled like an adolescent as Percy laid on the praise with his shameless trowel and insisted that they finished the lot. Lucy indulged him and took her teasing in good part, because she was so delighted to see her widowed mother enjoying herself here rather than disappearing dutifully to her empty cottage. Then she stood up and announced, ‘You two don’t need me. You’re like two excited kids when you get together. I’ll get the dessert. Ice cream and blueberries all right for you daft pair?’
Percy growled appreciatively as her rear end disappeared into the kitchen. ‘It might be true, you know, that I didn’t marry her for her cooking. And when she pours herself into tight trousers like that, I’m putty in her hands. It’s worse than her mucky language, Mrs B. I’m only a weak-willed man; we’re no match for clever creatures like you.’
Agnes tried and failed to look disapproving. ‘No sign of any grandchildren, yet, though. I’m not getting any younger, Percy. I want to see my grandson playing cricket for East Lancs, like his dad.’
‘You mustn’t put pressure on the lad. He might turn out to be a golfer.’
‘A GOLFER!’ Agnes Blake’s contempt brayed out in capital letters, which caused her daughter to giggle in the kitchen. One of the best things about her mum was that she always rose to the bait. ‘He’ll not be a golfer, if I’m still around to stop it. With Bill’s genes and yours, he’ll be a CRICKETER!’ Her husband had been a consistently successful opening bowler in the Northern League, whilst Percy had until two years previously been a nimble-footed batsman in the Lancashire League. ‘You retired far too early, you know, Percy. You could still do it if you’d a mind to. I was only saying yesterday to-’
‘There’s no guarantee it would be a boy, you know,’ said Percy hastily. He didn’t want Agnes to get on to her hobby-horse of how he should still be playing cricket for East Lancs.
‘No guarantee it will be anything, the way you two keep putting it off,’ said Agnes gloomily.
‘Better get on with your sweet quickly. I’ve already brewed the tea,’ said her daughter breezily, returning to the room with an energy which showed that she had been listening to the conversation.
‘She has a career to make, you see, Mrs B,’ said Percy, his dejection echoing that of his mother-in-law. ‘I’m not getting any younger myself, but these girls want it both ways nowadays.’ He considered the bawdy possibilities of the phrase, but decided not to exploit them. ‘At the rate we’re going, I’ll be crippling about with a stick before any lad we produce is playing cricket.’
‘It’s true, our Lucy,’ said Agnes eagerly. ‘Your man’s older than you are and I’m seventy now. Don’t you think you’re being a bit selfish, love? You’ve got our needs to consider as well as yours, you know.’
But Agnes Blake’s forte wasn’t being pathetic, and underneath her insistence on a new generation she was torn; she wanted her bright daughter to have the career which had never been possible for her. Percy assured her that they would discuss the matter seriously and she was content to leave it at that.
Percy took her out to the old Fiesta, saw her safely into the driving seat and watched her drive to the end of the road and turn out of sight towards Longridge and home. He stood for a moment looking at the stars on this warm, clear spring night, then turned and went thoughtfully back indoors.
Lucy was watching him more carefully than he knew. ‘Thanks for being nice to Mum.’
‘It’s no effort. She’s the mum I always wanted. I’d have had you with whatever baggage you brought, but Agnes is a bonus.’ He turned the water on at the sink, waited for it to run warm. ‘I think she might have a point, you know.’
Lucy was silent for such a long time that he eventually turned and looked at her. ‘You’ll need to give that washing-up your full attention,’ she said sternly. ‘The curry stains the bowl unless you’re thorough at the end.’
It was Percy’s turn to be uncharacteristically silent. He stacked three plates carefully into the drainer before he said very quietly, ‘She’s not getting any younger and neither am I.’
‘And nor am I. You both talk as if I’m a slip of a girl, but I’ll be thirty soon.’
‘You’re saying we should try for a baby?’
‘I’m saying we should give it some thought.’<
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Twenty minutes later, Percy Peach, who had the capacity to be undressed and between the sheets faster than seemed humanly possible, lay on his back and watched his wife disrobing with low growls of approval. ‘You’re making me self-conscious,’ said Lucy.
‘I’m giving it some thought,’ he said. He watched her remove her pants and growled again.
‘I’ve warmed my hands for this,’ he said when she joined him.
‘That’s nice!’ she said presently. And then, ‘I only said we should give it some thought.’
‘I’m thinking hard. Very hard. And I shall need lots of practice.’
SIX
‘You’re a difficult man to get hold of, Mr Tracey. That’s why we had to come into your home.’
‘I don’t have an office. I don’t need one. I have a watching brief in different areas. I operate in many of the businesses owned by Mr O’Connor.’
‘Yes. You batter people wherever you are directed to do it. I can see you don’t need an office for that.’
Steve Tracey started almost out of his chair at this, so that Clyde Northcott took a pace towards him from where he had been standing by the door of the shabby lounge. DCI Peach seemed amused by this reaction. ‘I should watch your step if I were you, Tracey. DS Northcott has a history of violence, but I try to keep him in check. If you assaulted a police officer and gave him legitimate grounds for violence, there’s no knowing what he might do. And I’d have no grounds to restrain him, you see, under those circumstances.’
Tracey forced himself back into the armchair, gripping the wooden ends of its arms fiercely in his fists to make his body rigid and prevent any other movement. ‘You can’t go round making allegations like that, Peach. Not nowadays.’
‘So sue me. You’d have to prove I was slandering you to get any redress, and both of us know you can’t do that. Just as both of us know that you’d never dream of going to court. People like you don’t like courts.’ Peach let his full contempt curl over this seemingly innocent statement.