Brothers ip-17

by J M Gregson

  Lucy was well aware of that, but she would turn it to her advantage if she saw the opportunity. If there was a chance to humiliate him, she would take it, because resentment made people vulnerable, just as any other emotion did. Atwal said, ‘This is mistaken identity. I was at home at the time. I can get people to swear to that and make you look stupid, DS Peach.’

  He looked at her with contempt, which changed slowly towards a lust he did not trouble to disguise. She was an attractive woman, with flesh in the right places: buxom, the decadent English called it. She’d be good for one thing, and that wasn’t strutting about pretending to be police. He let his eyes roam over her breasts, then slid his chair back a little and attempted to review that portion of her body she kept behind the table. She wouldn’t come willingly, but resistance would give an extra spice to shagging her; he tried to convey all of this in his silent, brazen assessment of her charms.

  Lucy knew what he was about. She wanted to tell him that she was proof against it, that she had endured all this and more from white youths who did not trouble to moderate their language or disguise their lecherous thoughts. Sexual insult was par for the course for her, even a little tedious by now. She spoke slowly and distinctly. ‘You waited outside the council care home. You spoke at length to three of the girls who are resident there. You attempted to recruit them for prostitution. All of them were under age.’

  ‘All of them were white trash who were prepared to sell themselves.’

  ‘And how would you know this? You said a moment ago that you weren’t there.’

  He was shaken a little, but he didn’t show it. ‘I wasn’t. I know these things, that’s all. It’s common knowledge. They wouldn’t be in these homes if they weren’t trash.’

  ‘They’re in these homes because they haven’t got anyone to speak up for them or defend them. The very reasons why scum like you attempt to recruit them and exploit them. But I don’t need to tell you that. It’s because you know it that you hang around these places.’

  ‘These girls are white whores. They’re bred for it. They love it. They get paid for it.’ He looked her up and down again, studied her red-brown hair for a moment, flashed her a predator’s mirthless smile. ‘There’s plenty of older white women gagging for it, if they can get it.’

  ‘We’ve got enough to charge you, Atwal. Do you want a brief?’ At least it would be interesting to find where his lawyer came from and who was financing him.

  ‘You won’t be charging me. These kids won’t go into court. They’ve got more sense than that.’

  ‘But not enough sense to avoid scum like you? We’ll give them protection, Atwal. And if you dare to-’

  ‘You can’t protect them! You and a whole bloody army couldn’t protect them. Not against Lennon.’

  The name was out before he could stop it. Anger had betrayed him, as Lucy had hoped it would. There was always a hope of that, with the thickos who operated down the order. His face telegraphed his mistake; for a brief moment fear flashed across his thin features, where there had heretofore been nothing but derision.

  Lucy let the full implications of his blunder sink in for a moment before she said, ‘I’m sure Mr Lennon and his muscle men would be interested to hear you quoting them in this context. We may need to call you as a prosecution witness, when this case comes to court. You could make quite a name for yourself, Mr Atwal, because there will be national publicity. I wouldn’t like to be in your shoes afterwards, though. Especially as I don’t think you’d be a high priority for the police protection services.’

  ‘You’ll never make this stick, darling!’ He tried to add menace to the last word, but it didn’t really work.

  ‘The best thing you could do is come clean right now. Luring minors into prostitution is regarded very seriously, and I don’t fancy your chances inside. Some of the crazy villains in Strangeways take as strong a view as we do, and they aren’t inhibited by the legal restraints that we have to observe.’

  ‘I’m not worried by you, darling.’ He glanced at DC Brendan Murphy beside her. The big, fresh-faced copper had said not a word, though he looked ready to use his fists at any second. Atwal blundered on blindly. ‘You lot don’t know what violence is. You lot don’t know what we can do and get away with.’

  Lucy Peach leaned forward a little and said with deliberate contempt, ‘Murder, you mean? James O’Connor? Oh, I wouldn’t be too confident you’ve got away with that. Not confident at all, in fact. I think your Mr Coleman may be helping our team with its enquiries at any moment now.’

  A hit. A very palpable hit. Amazement and fear flashed across Atwal’s mean features in quick succession. He uttered a few more phrases of ritual defiance before they returned him to a cell to stew for another couple of hours. Lucy watched him go, then contacted her husband on his mobile. ‘I don’t know quite where you’re up to on the James O’Connor case. I’d go hard after Coleman and the rest of Lennon’s muscle, if I were you.’

  EIGHT

  Peter Coleman was a contrast to his wife. She had been a smoothly finished product, well adapted to concealing her inner feelings. He was rough at the edges and apparently proud of it. He wasn’t at all effective in disguising the fact that he traded in violence; indeed, he delighted in making it only too obvious to the people he was employed to threaten.

  He chose to meet the filth in a builders’ hut at the edge of a demolition site in the older sector of Brunton. The mill and the foundry which had once stood there were long gone. Now one of the last of the terraces of houses which had surrounded them was being removed to facilitate the building of new office blocks. Two hundred yards away, a new casino block with ample parking for its punters flashed its neon blandishments, even in the clear light of a May day. It was a depressing sight to anyone with a sense of history. The tawdriest of modern man’s amusements was being set against the fresh air and clear skies which would once have turned thoughts of hard-driven mill workers to healthier pastimes.

  This was very different from the way in which Mrs Coleman had recently received them. Coleman wrenched two stacking chairs from a pile of five in the corner of the shed and banged them down for his visitors, taking a third one for himself and placing it exactly opposite them, no more than five feet away. He scratched his left armpit deliberately, then said in a broad northern accent with a Geordie inflection, ‘This canna take long. I’ve a work force to supervise. The buggers skive their arses off if they think I’m not around.’

  Peach regarded the broad face steadily and without obvious emotion. ‘They won’t have to contend with you for much longer. Still, they might get someone who knows a little more about demolition and building and a little less about murderous violence, when you’re off the scene.’

  Coleman allowed himself a smile. He and Peach had clashed many times before, as each had risen up the ranks on opposite sides of the law. Peach had put him away for a year when he was in his twenties, for using a knife during an affray. Since then he had skirted the law and narrowly avoided conviction. It is one of the paradoxes of modern justice that as you rise higher in the criminal fraternity and become more dangerous, it becomes more difficult for those who attempt to uphold the law to charge you and make it stick.

  You become a bigger player, moving away from street violence as you instruct others to do that for you. You have expert lawyers to insulate you against prosecution, as you did not have when you were taking on street fights against your low-level rivals. You cover your tracks and ensure by a variety of means that there is no one willing to bear witness against you, so that the Crown Prosecution Service lawyers tell indignant police officers that they are unwilling to pursue a case with scant chance of success.

  The biggest danger is that you can begin to feel impregnable. Overconfidence is an Achilles heel for many men who live by violence.

  Peter Coleman regarded DCI Peach with a smile flicking at the edges of his mouth. ‘I don’t know why you think I would involve myself in violence. Those days are long beh
ind me. I was a wild lad, I admit, until I saw the error of my ways. I’ve now got myself a respectable job and a respectable wife.’

  He couldn’t resist brandishing his wife, that elegant creature they had recently left in the huge house her money had bought for them. But men were vulnerable through their women, as they were through anything for which they cared. Peach said, ‘A rich wife, not a respectable one. You know where Linda’s money comes from, so you shouldn’t make that mistake.’

  ‘Linda knows what she’s doing. You shouldn’t be jealous because she runs successful shops in the town.’

  ‘Successful shop fronts. You know as well as anyone that she’s laundering money from very different enterprises. Drugs and prostitution, principally, with you providing the necessary muscle.’

  ‘You’ll never make that stick. I should be recording this. You’d think twice about saying these things, if I was.’

  But Coleman was rattled, in spite of his words. His broad, coarse-featured face was flickering with anger, even as he sought an easy defiance. Peach said, ‘I’m sure DS Northcott has a cassette machine in the car, if you’d really like to have this on record. I don’t think your brief would advise it. But we’re not quite at the brief stage. Not yet.’

  A bulldozer started outside, its powerful engine even more raucous in the silence of the hut, which shook a little as the machine began to move earth and stone which had been compacted by centuries of anonymous feet. Coleman said, ‘I should be directing that machine. I told you, I’ve got better things to do than waste my time in here with you.’

  ‘We know you killed James O’Connor.’

  If he’d been rattled earlier, he was even more so now. Instead of denying it, he resorted to the villain’s more desperate tactic. ‘You’ll never prove that.’

  ‘We can and we will.’

  ‘And who’s going to stand up in court and say so? Get real, Peach.’

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of telling you that. I’m not giving you any targets for the sort of violence you deal in.’

  ‘You’re bluffing, Peach. I can see it a mile off.’

  ‘Your vehicle was spotted. They’re necessary evils, cars, don’t you think? You need them to get there and get away swiftly afterwards, but they can be a dead giveaway once they’re spotted.’

  ‘You’re bluffing, Peach,’ he said again. ‘I’d like you to fuck off out of it now. I’ve seen enough of you for one day.’ But his tongue flicked quickly over his thick, dry lips. He was more used to threatening than to being threatened and he was very worried.

  ‘Don’t leave the area without giving us an address, please. But you’ll find there isn’t anywhere to run to, with murder on your hands.’

  Coleman moved towards Peach as he stood up and turned away, causing Clyde Northcott to utter his only words of the meeting. ‘Don’t even think about it, Coleman! Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to give you the sort of beating you’ve dished out so often to others.’

  The hard bastard had his uses, thought both policemen, as they removed their car from the path of the bulldozer.

  Sarah O’Connor switched the lights on in the front room of the house, the dining room which was now rarely used. The police were working late on Friday night, but the dead man’s widow wasn’t going to give them any kudos for that. Instead, she said, ‘I’ve been told I can’t organise James’s funeral yet. There will be a lot of people coming over from Ireland for it. Can you give me a date when the body will be released?’

  DS Lucy Peach assessed her carefully. You had to be careful with grieving widows, but this one looked strong enough to take the truth. ‘I’m afraid we can’t, as yet. When we make an arrest, the defence solicitor will have the right to ask for a second post-mortem, if he thinks it might help his case. I think it is unlikely that he or she will do so in this case, but until the question is answered we cannot release the body. I know this is difficult, because the family needs to feel closure, but we do not have any choice in the matter.’

  Lucy Peach watched the widow nod thoughtfully. She was doing her best to divine what this cool woman with the shining, freshly washed black hair was thinking, but not having much success. Percy had said it would be useful to have another opinion on the widow other than his own when he had been allowed to add Lucy to his team. She was surprised that he wasn’t pursuing someone so close to the victim himself, as he usually did. Percy hadn’t told her about Linda Coleman’s scarcely veiled threats in connection with Lucy’s child prostitution enquiries, which had shaken him more than he cared to admit even to himself.

  Lucy glanced at Brendan Murphy and the DC seized his cue. ‘I believe DCI Peach told you that we would need to speak to you again after we’d made other enquiries.’ Sarah nodded coolly, assessing this fresh-faced young man and feeling that her considerably greater experience of life would give her the edge on him. As if he felt the stress of her judgement, he added, ‘I should emphasize that you are helping the police voluntarily with this investigation.’

  ‘As a good citizen should.’ A smile spread her mouth wide as she nodded. ‘I am well aware of the requirements of the law and of my duties as a citizen. I caught your name when DS Peach introduced you. You must surely be Irish yourself, with a name like that.’

  ‘I’m afraid not. My roots are certainly Irish, but I’ve never lived outside Lancashire and never even visited Eire.’ It was an explanation it seemed to Brendan he would have to make for the rest of his life. He tried not to show that he was well used to it.

  ‘Don’t be apologetic. I’m thoroughly English myself, but people often assume I’m from Ireland because of my marriage to Jim.’ She stiffened a little as she turned towards DS Peach. ‘I am anxious to have this matter cleared up as quickly as possible.’

  This seemed to Lucy cold and formal phrasing for a woman who should have been stricken by the death of her husband. ‘We know quite a lot more now than when DCI Peach spoke to you on Wednesday. We are moving towards an arrest, but we need to make sure we have the evidence to make a case stick before we prefer charges.’

  ‘A curious expression that, I always think. I expect it’s archaic, like much of the language of the law.’

  She seemed to be demonstrating how in control of herself she was, how free she felt not only from guilt but from other emotions also. Lucy spoke firmly. ‘In the aftermath of a serious crime like this, we have a large team and we follow the movements of many people. Most of this work produces nothing useful, but occasionally we discover something significant. That justifies the measures we take and the resources we allot to them.’

  Mrs O’Connor looked at the small gold watch on her wrist, not troubling to disguise her impatience. ‘I’m sure it does. Is this leading up to something?’

  DC Murphy flicked open his notebook as Lucy said, ‘I’m afraid it is. Forgive me if this sounds impertinent. You were followed last night as you drove out of Brunton.’

  Sarah paused for a moment, determined not to reveal any emotion. ‘A blue BMW is not the most inconspicuous of vehicles, I suppose. Does this mean I am under police surveillance?’

  ‘No. It was a random sighting by one of our officers. It was his own initiative that made him follow you.’

  She nodding, assessing the information and its implications. ‘He was good: I’d no idea that he was following me. That is if it was a he — we all have to be careful about gender nowadays, don’t we? I expect he followed me to the Grouse Inn.’

  ‘It was a he, and he did.’ Lucy tried not to smile at the notion of Clyde Northcott as a female. ‘He saw who came to meet you there.’

  ‘My brother-in-law. Scarcely an unusual meeting, for a woman who lost her husband three nights earlier.’

  ‘But an unusual and remote place to meet. Almost as if you wished to keep the assignation a secret one.’

  The broad brow furrowed as Sarah O’Connor showed her irritation for the first time. ‘This is like living in a police state. Do I have to account for my every movement
?’

  ‘I’m sorry. I agree this is unusual and I can’t force you to answer. But a murder investigation is by definition unusual. We are usually given a little more latitude, so long as it is clear that we are in pursuit of the truth.’

  ‘And I would be regarded as obstructive if I chose not to answer your questions. It’s a form of blackmail, isn’t it?’

  ‘It’s not intended to be. Try to look at it from our point of view. We want to find the truth about everything. Ninety per cent of it will be irrelevant to the enquiry and will be discarded. You can’t expect us to know which ten per cent will be relevant — even crucial.’

  Sarah looked at the younger woman, wondering if she was more prepared to accept these explanations from a woman than she would have been from a man. Probably, she thought. She was sure she would have been more brusque with DC Murphy if he’d been offering her these thoughts. She said abruptly, ‘I didn’t initiate that cloak-and-dagger meeting last night. It was Dominic who said when and where he wanted to see me.’

  DS Lucy Peach nodded, as if this was exactly what she had expected. ‘And what was the purpose of this conference?’

  She took a deep breath and looked at a point on the carpet exactly between her two CID visitors. ‘Dominic thinks he knows who killed Jim. He wanted to check out a few things with me.’

  Saturdays are quiet in police stations. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, more now than it has ever been, so the law has to be upheld for seven days a week as well as twenty-four hours a day. But coppers like their weekends as much as other mortals, so that there is but a skeleton staff in the buildings on Saturdays and Sundays, even with a murder investigation in full swing.

  The CID section was almost deserted at ten o’clock on this Saturday morning, when Lucy Peach and Brendan Murphy conferred with the man in charge of the investigation and his bagman. There was a little tension between Lucy, who had been at Percy’s side for several years, and Clyde Northcott who had now replaced her. Curiosity rather than tension, Lucy corrected herself; Clyde had been Percy’s best man at their wedding and she had a huge respect for him. So she was merely anxious to see how Clyde was making out. But a small, unworthy part of her did not want him to be successful, did not want him to obliterate the memories of the cases Percy had conducted with her at his side. That was extremely petty, Lucy admitted to herself; perhaps she should get on with creating that baby and making her mother happy.