by J M Gregson
DS Lucy Peach had been no more than a small part of the vast organisation which had secured this result. But she was determined to be involved in the arrest of Linda Coleman; when you had worked hard to secure a collar, you wanted to witness it personally. She supervised the arrest and charging of two young Asian men, who had treated her with the contempt they accorded all working women when she had questioned them during the earlier stages of the investigation.
One of the most satisfying factors in the arrests which were carried out on that Friday morning was that the shadowy figures who had financed this grim business were also brought to justice. Too often the major criminals who put up the money for vicious enterprises like this got away with it, because of lack of evidence. They had skilful and highly rewarded lawyers and they often sheltered behind the respectable facade of more legitimate businesses. But this time the links had been established early in the investigation. Moreover, the Asian men they had paid to handle the dangerous processes of recruitment soon split on the people who had financed them, once they found that their own arrests were inevitable. Fear of long jail sentences and what might happen behind the high walls of British jails loosened tongues. The attitudes of the men who had treated the care-home girls so abominably turned suddenly from arrogant to desperate.
Linda Coleman, whose husband was already awaiting trial for the murder of James O’Connor, was arrested on the same morning as the men she had paid and directed to recruit the under-age girls to this squalid servitude. Her conceit was her Achilles’ heel. She had believed until the last minute that she was unassailable, that her lawyers insulated her from anything as sordid as arrest. She left it too late to try to get away, in the belief that her wealth and what it bought for her would keep her secure.
Lucy Peach, who had worked for months to secure this outcome, witnessed not only Linda Coleman’s arrest but the preferring of charges which would put her away for a long time.
‘You’ll suffer for this!’ Coleman snarled at Lucy. ‘That face of yours won’t look quite as pretty when it’s had a razor across it a few times!’
‘Record that, please,’ DS Peach said to the custody sergeant, who had just outlined the charges against Linda Coleman at Brunton police station. Lucy spoke more calmly than she felt. But the Lennon criminal group, in which Linda Coleman had been a major figure, had been crippled by this, with its major figures arrested along with her. Lucy said calmly, ‘Your husband’s going to go down for the murder of James O’Connor. You might be inside for almost as long as him, when this comes to court. You wouldn’t like to indicate who killed his brother Dominic, would you, Mrs Coleman? We’re offering no deals, but it might get you a year or two off your eventual sentence, if you were seen to be cooperating.’
‘Get lost, you cocky young bitch! That’s one killing you can’t pin on us. We had nothing to do with seeing off that randy sod!’
That was probably true, from what Percy had told her, Lucy thought. But even negative information had to be useful, when you were narrowing your field of suspects.
John Alderson’s small front garden looked as neat as it had when they had visited it two days earlier. More so, if anything, since its owner was working diligently in it when they pulled up outside the terraced house.
‘It’s as colourful as anything in the street,’ said Peach as they stood on the flagged path beside him.
Alderson looked up and down the long, respectable road, as if testing the verity of that. ‘The trouble with so-called winter pansies is that they’re really spring-flowering. You have to pull them out when they’re still at their best to put in summer bedding plants.’
It was as if he was trying to assert himself as a bona fide gardener; perhaps he thought that would give him a harmless respectability in police eyes. ‘It’s south-facing here, sheltered by the houses. We shall have flowers open on the roses in a couple of days. That’s very early, for Brunton.’ He looked at the police car outside his house, then at the two men who had ridden here in it. ‘I suppose you’d better come inside.’
He limped a little as he led them into the small, tidy bachelor’s living room where he had spoken to them on Wednesday. There were black-and-white pictures of a couple who might have been his father and mother on the sideboard, a nineteenth-century watercolour of Whalley Abbey on the wall opposite the window. There were eight books between the marble bookends, but four of them were reference books and the other four were from an ancient book club. There was nothing contemporary about this room, nothing they could see which might give them a clue to the personality of its occupant.
They sat down, refused the offer of afternoon tea. Peach studied his man for a moment, then nodded to Northcott, as if he hoped to rattle Alderson by the use of a different questioner. The big detective sergeant opened his notebook carefully, then dropped his bombshell as if it were no more than an introductory conversational gambit. ‘Your car was sighted outside Dominic O’Connor’s house on the morning of the day when he was murdered.’
John Alderson smiled hard into the unsmiling face of DS Northcott. ‘My car is a silver metallic Ford Fiesta. There are a lot of them around.’
‘There is only one which has your registration number. Are you denying that it was there at that time?’
‘No. I wouldn’t wish to do that. I didn’t go into the house, though.’
‘Why did you choose to conceal this visit, when we spoke to you on Wednesday?’
‘I didn’t conceal it. You asked me what car I drove and I told you.’
‘And you chose not to tell us that you had used this car to visit a murder victim on the day he died.’
‘Whoa there! I didn’t visit a murder victim. I didn’t even go into the house. If I had done, Dominic O’Connor wouldn’t have been there at the time. I knew that, or I wouldn’t have gone near the place.’
Northcott glanced at the watchful Peach and then returned his attention to Alderson. ‘Perhaps you’d better tell us what the purpose of this visit was.’
‘Perhaps I had. It’s quite simple. I was returning Ros O’Connor to her home. She’d spent the night here.’
‘And Dominic O’Connor?’
‘Dominic had spent the night in Birmingham. Ostensibly on business — whether there was a woman involved or not, Ros didn’t know. And frankly by this time didn’t really care. It was because we knew Dominic was going to be away that I picked Ros up on Thursday and brought her here. You could say that we were taking advantage of an opportunity.’
‘But you chose to tell us nothing of this on Wednesday.’
‘No. It had no bearing on Dominic’s death. And tell me frankly, would you have chosen to tell two curious policemen that you’d been in bed with the wife of a murder victim on the night before he was killed?’
‘I don’t have to answer hypothetical questions, Mr Alderson. When did you last see Mr O’Connor alive?’
The suddenness of the query shook John Alderson, but he strove not to show that. He retreated behind a smile, trying to look as though he had expected this, wondering exactly how he would answer it. He decided that he couldn’t risk trying to deceive them about this. If they’d spotted his car at the other end of Brunton, then they’d probably seen Dominic O’Connor’s much more noticeable red sports Jaguar outside this house. Perhaps the CID men were hoping he’d deny this, so that they could immediately expose him as a liar. He certainly couldn’t afford that.
‘I saw Dominic on that same Friday morning. But much later — about three hours after I’d dropped Ros off. It must have been at about half past eleven. He came here to see me.’
Peach had so far done nothing save study him closely. Now he said, ‘You’d better tell us about this meeting.’
John nodded, trying to look perfectly at his ease. ‘I think that would be best, now that you know that he was in this house. He came here to tell me that he knew about Ros and me.’
Peach nodded, wondering how he was to shake this very cool opponent. ‘You’re taking
care to sound very calm about this. I imagine you had a fierce exchange over the matter.’
‘Then your imagination misleads you. It certainly wasn’t a friendly exchange. I didn’t like Dominic because of the way he’d treated Ros. And I don’t imagine he was feeling friendly towards a man who was bedding his wife. But within those limits, what we said to each other was civilised. There was never any prospect of blows being exchanged.’
‘And within a few hours the man who came to see you was killed. It must be obvious to you that we need to know exactly what was said during that late-morning meeting on Friday.’
‘I can see that.’ John was now extremely uncomfortable, though he was trying hard not to show it. He didn’t want to tell them what had passed between him and O’Connor, because it wouldn’t show him in a good light. But he was shrewd enough to know that these men had a large team who were experts at digging out information which people wished to conceal. If he didn’t tell them the truth and they discovered it from someone else, it might land him deep in trouble. He tried to stall them a little whilst he decided exactly what he was going to say. ‘What took place was a private exchange between two men. Dominic wouldn’t have wanted me to talk about it now, any more than I do.’
Peach said with the air of a man whose patience is wearing thin, ‘And Dominic is now dead, murdered by person or persons as yet unknown. That alters things quite drastically, as you are surely aware.’
‘Very well. Dominic O’Connor came here to warn me off — to tell me that I wasn’t going to benefit financially from any association with his wife.’
‘And how did he propose to do that?’
‘He said what I already knew: that he was a Catholic who didn’t approve of divorce and wouldn’t consent to it. When I said that that would represent no more than a delaying tactic, he told me he was planning to change his will. Ros would inherit nothing. And she would get nothing if she left him whilst he was alive.’
‘And your reaction to this was?’
‘I told him that I didn’t think the law would allow him to behave like that. Women have rights to property, even in a divorce which they have initiated. He conceded she might get the house, or a share of it. But he was a rich man, a partner in a prosperous firm, and he’d get an expert lawyer onto the task. He would deny Ros and me every possible penny. He said he thought I should know this, since it would undoubtedly change my intentions towards his wife.’
‘It must have shaken you.’
‘It didn’t. Well, not as much as you might think. I wasn’t really surprised that he knew about Ros and me. Discretion isn’t Ros’s strong point — if he challenged her, she’d be likely to scorn deceit and come out strongly about her feelings for me and her feelings for him. I think he was eventually more rattled than I was. I said I was sure he couldn’t leave Ros as destitute as he planned to do, and that even if he succeeded it wouldn’t alter my feelings in the slightest.’
John Alderson stopped on that. He was almost challenging them to dispute what he said, because it was important to him that he asserted the depth of his love for Ros. Peach said reasonably, ‘But this meeting must have shaken you to some degree. The discovery that the man was hell-bent on denying you the financial benefits you could have expected from a long-term relationship with Ros must have altered your expectations about the rest of your life.’
‘No. Dominic O’Connor thought he could make me back off. He thought that if I was told I wasn’t going to make big money on the deal I’d drop his wife like a used coat. He looked round this place and assessed it, the way you did when you came here on Wednesday. He said that I was unemployed and anything but prosperous. Then he said he was sure I wouldn’t want to take on an enemy like him, that I’d see sense and back off.’
‘And did you agree with him?’
John was shrewd enough to know that Peach was trying to nettle him, to make him reveal more of himself than he wished to do. He took his time, trying to estimate what reactions his words would excite in these men who wanted an arrest. ‘I surprised myself a little, I think. I told him that I didn’t want him as an enemy. I said that I could understand that he must feel humiliated that someone like me now had the affection of his wife. But I also pointed out that he’d brought this upon himself by taking a string of lovers and treating Ros with contempt. I told him that I wasn’t in this for financial gain and that it was insulting of him to presume that I was. I said that the lady would decide on this and that I was confident that Ros would come to me, whatever the financial set-up might be. I then asked him to leave my house.’
‘You sound very organised. You sound as if this is a statement you prepared in case we came to interview you about this meeting.’
John smiled for the first time since they’d mentioned O’Connor’s visit here. ‘It wasn’t as cool and as logical as this at the time. There was passion on both sides and a good deal of shouting. I’ve given you the gist of a very animated half hour.’
‘So he came to threaten you, but was met with defiance and sent away without satisfaction. But you now knew that he was determined to deprive you of whatever financial benefits he could. So you thought about it and decided that you had better act quickly, before he could implement his threats. Knowing that his wife would be away visiting her sister, you went there on the evening of the same day and killed Dominic O’Connor.’
‘No. I know it looks bad, which is why I didn’t want you to know about that meeting on Friday morning. But the money or lack of it wasn’t going to alter my intentions one jot.’
He hadn’t realised how hard he was breathing, how emotional he felt, until the CID men rose to leave. He was dimly conscious of Peach warning him coldly that they might require a statement about the events of Friday morning. Then they were gone and he was standing in the empty hall of his house, pressing his forehead hard against the coolness of the long mirror on the wall.
SIXTEEN
DCI Peach had not been back in the CID section for two minutes when there was a summons from on high.
‘I need to be put in the picture. I can’t form a satisfactory overview of the local crime scene unless you put me in the picture,’ complained Thomas Bulstrode Tucker. The Chief Superintendent sounded rather petulant on the internal phone.
Percy looked at his watch. Two minutes to four on Friday afternoon. Par for the course, then: Tommy Bloody Tucker preparing to depart for his weekend whilst a murder hunt continued without him. Peach climbed the stairs with a stoic resignation and watched the lights beside the door flash a succession of commands when he pressed the button beside them. He donned an artificial solicitude as he sat down on the uncomfortable upright chair in front of the directorial desk. ‘Feeling better today, sir, are we?
‘Better?’
‘You were somewhat under the weather on Wednesday, sir. I was glad to hear you got home safely.’
‘Ah, yes. Wednesday. I was overworked.’
‘As a newt, sir.’
‘I suppose I may have been a little — well, unwise.’
‘As a newt, sir.’
‘Look, I don’t mind telling you, Percy. As a friend, I mean. I think I might have — well, overindulged a little on Wednesday. Of course, I was perfectly happy-’
‘As a newt, sir.’
‘Look here, Peach, we’re not going to get anywhere if you keep repeating that ridiculous phrase. Wednesday is over and done with. Part of history. Do you understand that, Peach?’
Percy was glad to hear that his forename had been abandoned. He felt much happier with the state of armed neutrality which prevailed when Tucker used his surname. ‘Was Mrs Tucker able to minister to your needs satisfactorily, sir?’ Percy’s face was suddenly suffused with the blandest of his inquiring smiles.
Tommy Bloody Tucker shivered visibly. This was a novel and pleasing phenomenon for Percy. He even felt a momentary spurt of sympathy for his chief at the thought of Brunnhilde Barbara’s ministrations to her stricken husband. He didn’t think helple
ss drunkenness was a quality of which she would approve in her spouse, even though Wagnerian scales of excess should have been within her tolerance.
The chief superintendent forced out a concession. ‘It was good of you to see that I was taken home safely on Wednesday.’
‘No trouble, sir. DC Murphy is an efficient chauffeur who can be trusted to maintain silence about the episode.’
‘Good. That’s good. It was a bit of an overreaction on your part, of course. I was perfectly capable of making decisions and of driving myself home, but I know you meant well.’
‘I did indeed, sir.’ Percy tried to dismiss the vision of himself acting as Jeeves to this unlikeliest of Woosters. ‘I expect Mrs Tucker was overreacting as well, when she rang in and accused me of sending you home as drunk as a lord.’
‘As a lord?’
‘I paraphrase, sir. I think the expression “piss artist” passed between her fair lips, but she seemed to be under considerable stress at the time. Perhaps you could disabuse Mrs Tucker of the notion that I was responsible for your condition on Wednesday. It might keep me out of the stocks.’
Tucker glanced fiercely at his watch. ‘Look, I’ve no time for any more of your fripperies. Put me in the picture on the progress of your enquiries into the Dominic O’Connor murder.’
‘It’s a complex situation, sir.’
‘It shouldn’t be.’
Percy was accustomed to his chief’s curious reluctance to accept the world as it was. ‘There are several candidates for this one, sir.’