by J M Gregson
She looked at him silently for a moment, then put her hands together on the table in front of her and stared down at them, as if the physical movement was an aid in marshalling her thoughts. ‘My marriage to Dominic was less than perfect. It’s no use trying to disguise that, because other people are going to tell you about it — perhaps they already have, if you know about John. Dominic had lots of affairs. Most of them were with women I never even knew and he was careful not to leave much evidence around. He wasn’t sentimental, like me; Dominic didn’t keep things. But I knew about his women, all the same.’ She smiled knowingly and rocked gently backwards and forwards on her chair, pressing her hands on the table to facilitate the movement.
Peach said gently, ‘You were starting to tell us about John Alderson.’
‘I was, wasn’t I? Well, I was lonely and John was kind to me. Neither of us intended it, but over two or three months we became what used to be called an item. Can a married woman be part of an item?’
She stopped and looked at Peach in what seemed genuine enquiry, her small head with its perfect miniature features held a little on one side. But all he said was, ‘Carry on, please.’
‘We’ve been sleeping together whenever we could over the last six months — well, we’ve not managed to sleep together all that often, but we go to bed whenever we can. I’m sorry if that shocks you: I got used to the idea a long time ago.’
Peach gave her a wry smile. ‘Policemen are trained to be professionally unshockable, Mrs O’Connor.’
‘Ros, please. Well, there isn’t much more to tell. I realise now that I should be married to John, not Dominic.’ She lifted her curiously childlike visage and looked her examiner full in the face. ‘We’ll be able to do that now, won’t we? Get married, I mean. After a few months, that will be. Mustn’t shock Father Brice and the church folk, must we?’ Her laugh tinkled round the room again. The two men with her found it an uncomfortable sound.
Peach allowed silence to seep back into the room before he said, ‘Who do you think killed Dominic, Ros?’
‘I don’t know that. He was all right when I left him. And he ate his meal, so he must have been all right much later than that.’
‘You’ve said that your marriage wasn’t going well. Perhaps it was over, as you imply, but that isn’t our business. You still know far more about a murder victim than any of us and you must help us to find out who killed him.’
The kitten-like head nodded earnestly and repeatedly. ‘Yes, I can see that. But I can’t help you. I’ve thought about it ever since I heard Dominic was dead, but it’s a mystery to me.’ A contented smile stole over the delicate lips, as if she found that a satisfactory state of affairs.
‘We shall be questioning John Alderson in due course. Do you-?’
‘He won’t like that! John wanted to be kept out of all this. But it’s rather exciting, isn’t it? Much better to be part of it than left outside it. Well, that’s my view, anyway!’
‘I was about to ask you whether you thought Mr Alderson had anything to do with this death. I’d like you to answer that question, please.’
‘Sorry! My mind runs away from me sometimes — I’ve got that sort of brain. No, of course John had nothing to do with this. He’s not that sort of man at all.’
‘We shall speak to him and form our own opinions. But from what you have told us in the last few minutes, this death is very convenient for the two of you. It means that there is no longer any obstacle to you and Mr Alderson marrying, if that is what you wish to do.’
‘That’s true. We’ve both got a motive, haven’t we?’ Ros hugged her folded arms against her chest in what seemed like physical delight. ‘And Dominic was a practising Catholic who didn’t believe in divorce. He’d have made it very difficult for me to leave him.’
‘But you weren’t involved in his death. And as far as you know, neither was Mr Alderson?’
‘No, certainly not. And I can’t imagine who else might have done it, but I’ll go on thinking about that.’
As Peach drove back to the station, Clyde Northcott looked at the facts he had recorded in his notebook. Then he said in his deep, usually confident, voice, ‘I’m out of my depth with women like that. I’ve never had to try to make sense of an interview like that one before.’
Peach grinned as he conceded right of way to a cheerful-looking Brunton mongrel. ‘All part of your widening education, DS Northcott.’
‘Do you think she’s unbalanced?’
‘If that’s a technical term, you’d need to define it. But no, I don’t think she is. I think she’s a strange lady. I think she’d drive me up the wall if I had to live with her. But beneath the girlish mannerisms and the pretty face, there’s a brain at work and she’s used to getting her own way. We shouldn’t underestimate her, because that’s probably what she wants.’
Northcott nodded over his notes. ‘Well, she’s given us a time of death. All we have to do now is find out who was there last Friday night.’
Peach arranged to see John Alderson at three thirty. He was due to see Tommy Bloody Tucker to update him before then. Wednesday was becoming a bizarre day. When he climbed the stairs to meet his chief, it rapidly became more bizarre.
Tucker wasn’t there when he arrived, which was unusual in itself. Percy pulled up an armchair in front of the huge empty desk and sat down to wait in comfort. He wasn’t delayed for long. Tucker came to the top floor in the lift and bade a noisy goodbye to some anonymous fellow-traveller. He fumbled a little with the door handle, then half-fell and half-stumbled into the room.
He seemed glad to reach the haven of the big leather chair behind his desk and slumped thankfully into it. ‘Ah, Percy Peach!’ he said affably, belatedly sighting his DCI. ‘How the devil are you, sir!’
He’s pissed, thought Percy. Tight as Andronicus. Tommy Bloody Tucker’s pissed! There must surely be mileage in this.
But it was Tucker who took the initiative, as drunks often do. ‘Bloody awful job this, isn’t? Glad to get away from it ’casionally, tell yer the truth!’
‘It is a little taxing at times, sir. But you asked me to-’
‘Been saying goodbye to an old mate, Perce. Member of the Lodge anallthat! Movin’ away, you see.’
‘Yes, sir, I do. But if you remember-’
‘Did us proud.’ He leaned forward confidentially over the big desk. ‘Might just ’avad a bit too much, you know.’
Percy recoiled hastily from the spirit fumes. ‘Really, sir? I’d hardly have noticed. You carry it so well, you see.’
‘I do, don’t I?’ Chief Superintendent Tucker tried to lever himself to his feet, then thought better of it and slumped back contentedly into his pilot’s chair. A look of astonishment stole slowly over his face. ‘I feel bladdered, Percy.’
‘Pleasantly pissed, I’d say, sir,’ ventured Percy daringly.
‘Presently pissed, that’s about it!’ said Tucker contentedly.
‘Perhaps I’d better come back when you feel-’
‘We had some good jokes today. Private room, you see. Now listen to this, Perce. Man ’as a gorilla to work for him. Thirty bloody stone. Cleans the ’ouse, digs the garden, lifts the piano across the room for ’im. Where does it sleep?’
‘Anywhere it fucking likes!’ said Percy, with the air of a man answering a routine question.
‘You’ve ’eard it!’ said Tucker, deflated with a huge disappointment.
‘About 1993, sir, I think. It was a good one, in its time.’
‘Man said you need the swear word to give it the right ring. The proper effasy — no, the proper effany. .’
‘The proper emphasis, sir?’
‘Thassit! Whatyersaid. Thassit.’
‘Good. Now in the matter of the Dominic O’Connor case, sir. We-’
Tucker leaned across the vast acreage of his desk and made a frantic effort to grasp the lapels of his DCI. He failed by several inches. His wildly gyrating hand grasped empty air as he fell heavily back into his chair
. ‘Bugger Dominic O’Connor, Percy! Bugger work! Bugger the Chief Constable, if it comes to it!’
‘I think I’d prefer the second prize, sir, if you don’t mind. Meanwhile-’
‘Meanwhile?’ Tucker was as outraged as if he had been accorded the vilest epithet know to man. ‘Meanwhile? There’s no bloody meanwhile, Percy Peach! You need to learn to live a little. Thassanorder, Perce.’
Percy decided this was way beyond black coffee. ‘I think you should go home, sir. I’m going to go downstairs and get someone to drive you. You won’t go away, will you?’
‘Not going away.’ Tucker shook his head and lifted his right hand in what looked like some sort of blessing.
DC Brendan Murphy was unfortunate enough to be checking facts at his computer. Percy seized upon him, outlined the problem, and directed him to drive home the stricken head of Brunton CID. He then returned to the penthouse office and managed to lead Tucker to the lift.
The chief superintendent threw his arm round his DCI’s shoulder and used the privacy of the lift as the opportunity for a confidence. ‘We don’t always hit it off, do we, Percy? But underneath it all, I reshpect you.’ When Peach failed to react to this, he clutched his resisting torso to the chief superintendal breast and insisted, ‘I love you, Pershy Peace. You know that, don’t you?’
A small group of CID officers witnessed the departure of their chief, belted securely into the back of the police Mondeo behind DC Murphy. Tucker waved at them like departing royalty as he disappeared between the high brick pillars of the exit.
Percy decided that Mrs T.B. Tucker might need to know what to expect. It wouldn’t do for this apparition to disrupt one of her bridge afternoons. He rang Brunnhilde Barbara and apprised her of her spouse’s impending arrival.
‘And why do you disturb my day to tell me this?’ came the formidable enquiry.
She scarcely needed a phone, thought Percy, holding the receiver six inches away from his ear. ‘He’s been saying goodbye to an old friend. You may find that he’s — well, a little the worse for wear.’
‘You mean he’s DRUNK?’ Both the volume and the outrage were Wagnerian.
‘I suppose he is, yes. But DC Murphy will see him safely into the house.’
‘There will be no need for that. I shall see to him MYSELF.’ The tone indicated that the Valkyries were saddling up.
Percy went back into the squad room and the hushed group awaiting him there. He announced, ‘He’s going to get a seeing to from Brunnhilde Barbara.’
A hush fell over the little conclave. A passing uniformed officer removed his hat and stood reverently erect.
Peach wasn’t sure how he had expected John Alderson to look, but this wasn’t it.
The house was a modest 1930s’ terraced with a small garden at the front, where the buds of roses were swelling and spring-flowering pansies were giving of their best at the edges of the single big bed. The owner met them at the door. He was slight, balding, fiftyish, and he walked with a limp as he led them indoors.
He sat them facing the light in the small, tidy living room and said, ‘We won’t be disturbed. I live alone here.’ He watched Clyde Northcott as he produced notebook and ballpen, noting how small they looked in the DS’s huge hands, but offering them neither refreshment nor further comment.
‘I gather that you didn’t intend that we should have this meeting at all,’ said Peach aggressively. Best to get the latest episode in a trying day off on a combative note, he thought.
If Alderson was shaken, his narrow features didn’t show it. ‘I didn’t see any point in wasting your time. I knew I couldn’t help you, so I thought it was better if I was kept out of it.’
‘So you won’t be at all pleased to find that Mrs Ros O’Connor immediately volunteered your name to us.’
He hoped his verb would annoy Alderson, but the man didn’t show any irritation. ‘Ros is an impulsive creature. She doesn’t always think before she speaks. But I wouldn’t have it otherwise.’
The kind of sentiment lovers often voiced but rarely meant, in Peach’s experience. He said, ‘Mrs O’Connor probably wasn’t quite herself after her husband’s death. She seemed a little erratic.’
He smiled appreciatively. ‘Erratic, yes.’ He rolled the syllables round his mouth and apparently found them acceptable. ‘That’s rather a good word for Ros. She’s certainly impulsive. That’s what brought us together.’
‘I think we should know a little more about what brought you together, Mr Alderson.’
‘Do you really? I’d say that it’s a private matter and that the details should remain private.’
‘And then I’d remind you that a man has been brutally murdered and that you are the lover of his wife. In these circumstances, you are a man who warrants full CID investigation, which is what you are going to receive.’
Peach gave him a satisfied smile. If the man preferred the confrontational approach, that would suit him admirably at this stage of the day. Alderson’s grey eyes narrowed, but he didn’t flinch. ‘I suppose I should try to see this from your point of view. What is it you want to know?’
‘You could tell us a little more about your relationship with Ros O’Connor, for a start. Other people are going to do that, so it would be as well if we have your account now.’
‘We’re lovers. We have been for the last few months. We don’t flaunt it, but I expect quite a few people know about our situation. People whose own lives are empty love to gossip about others.’
The timing tallied with what Ros had told them earlier. ‘How much did Dominic O’Connor know about this?’
Alderson took a packet of cigarettes from his pocket, extracted one, then tapped it against the back of his hand thoughtfully, first at one end and then at the other. But he didn’t light it. Having examined it carefully, he returned it to the packet. It was a curious performance and it wasn’t clear how conscious he was of his actions. He said, ‘On the face of it, Dominic knew nothing. But he was an intelligent man who was alert to the world around him. Perhaps he didn’t want to know. Some men don’t like to face the fact that they’ve been cuckolded.’ He glanced at their faces, searching for a reaction to the ugly old word, but receiving none. ‘It’s more likely that Dominic was preoccupied with his own amours. If you’ve found out anything about your victim, you’ll know that he conducted a string of affairs.’
‘We have been told that, yes. Do you think any of them was connected with his death?’
‘It’s possible. Cherchez la femme, they say, don’t they? But I can’t help you. His love life didn’t concern me and I wasn’t interested in the details of it.’
‘Except that it left the way clear for you with his wife.’
‘You make me sound like an opportunist.’
‘Perhaps that’s how it looks from the outside. If you think things are different, this is your chance to enlighten us.’
Alderson stared hard, first at Peach and then at Northcott, searching for a reaction he did not get; both men remained impassive. ‘Perhaps you’re not so far wide of the mark. I found a lonely woman, who didn’t quite know what she’d done wrong to be so neglected. I’m used to being on my own, though I’m no monk. I was divorced ten years ago and I’ve played the field as it suits me since then. I’m not proud of that: I’m telling you because you could find out easily enough, if you chose to.’
‘What we’re interested in is the investigation of a murder and how you fit into it. It’s your present affair with the victim’s widow which we need to know about.’
Alderson weighed this and apparently found it acceptable. ‘I suppose I thought of Ros as just another opportunity, at first. She’s a pretty woman. She was also a lonely woman in search of sex and companionship. You’d be surprised how many of them are available. Or perhaps you wouldn’t.’
‘So it isn’t a deep relationship.’
Peach made it a statement: he was still keen to provoke this acute man into some impulsive reaction. He didn’t succeed. Alde
rson eyed him coolly, assessing what the implications of his answer might be for himself. ‘We’re close now. It’s probably true to say that neither of us thought of it as more than a fling when it began. But you can never forecast how these things will develop.’
‘That sounds like a cautionary note for the promiscuous.’
‘Maybe it is. I think sex was a big part of it for both of us when it began. It goes deeper than that now.’
‘Mrs O’Connor thinks that the two of you will now marry.’
‘It’s early to make long-term plans. I haven’t seen Ros since I heard about Dominic. I expect she’s still reeling from the shock.’ He looked at his two visitors for a long moment, teasing them with the thought that he might be about to cast aside his lover. Then he said, ‘But I expect we shall marry, after a suitable interval. There isn’t any need to formalise things quickly, in modern society. And even Ros’s Holy Mother Church can’t object, now that Dominic’s dead and she’s a free woman.’ He let a little flare of contempt into his tone as he mentioned religion.
‘What do you do for a living, Mr Alderson?’
‘I expect you already know that, through your efficient police research machine. I’m a consultant. I advise on engineering problems.’
‘At present unemployed?’
‘Yes. The work comes and goes. It’s generally quite lucrative, when it’s around. You may have noticed that the country is at present enduring a prolonged recession.’
‘Indeed we have. It’s even affecting the police service. No doubt Mrs O’Connor will be a rich woman now.’
‘Which will be very convenient for me as well as for her. I can’t help that, DCI Peach.’
‘It makes this a very opportune death for both of you.’
Alderson shrugged his slim shoulders and raised his hands palm-upwards for a moment. He allowed himself a small smile, but he didn’t speak. Peach regarded him steadily, then gave a tiny nod to Northcott, who said, ‘You worked in Middlesbrough before you settled in Brunton, I believe.’