[Inspector Peach 13] - Wild Justice

by J M Gregson

  ‘Was he really, sir? Well, obviously the trouble in a murder enquiry is that the one person we can’t question is the victim.’

  It was at this point that Clare Thompson brought in the coffee and biscuits Matthew had ordered. He had anticipated that they would have been occupied with the social niceties of introductions and commiserations about Tim’s death for the first few minutes, not deep into what were embarrassing areas for him. He dismissed Clare, who studiously avoided any eye-contact with his visitors, then poured the coffee and offered the biscuits himself, taking his time and seeking in vain to dissipate the tension he felt in the room.

  ‘Not been around much lately, have you, Mr Ballack? Mrs Thompson is very professional, but she gave me the impression that your arrival here yesterday was quite a surprise.’

  ‘I’ve been quite low-key in the last few years as far as the people here are concerned, I suppose. Tim and I agreed that my function would be to explore new areas of business for us. Things like the casino and the betting shops.’

  ‘And other areas as well, no doubt.’

  ‘There aren’t any other areas. Not that I’m aware of.’

  Peach paused for a moment, savouring the man’s discomfort, noting the sweat on the high forehead beneath the balding head. ‘And you a partner, Mr Ballack? I don’t think it’s likely you’d get away with the ignorance defence, do you?’

  ‘I was in charge of one of the betting shops. And I had overall direction of the casino.’

  ‘Not quite what the people who work at the casino have told us in their statements, is it, DS Blake?’

  ‘No, sir. We have a Mr Holden down as manager of the casino. The couriers say they’ve never seen you there, Mr Ballack.’ The woman had clear, aquamarine eyes of startling beauty. At this moment, they seemed as threatening to Matthew Ballack as the piercing black ones of the man beside her. Neither of these officers apparently needed to blink, whereas he found himself blinking with increasing frequency. ‘I was a policy-maker rather than a hands-on manager. I know a lot about the gambling industry.’

  Peach nodded, almost sympathetically, it seemed. ‘Too much perhaps, Mr Ballack?’

  Peach’s expression invited confession and Matthew found it a relief to give it. ‘All right. I admit I had a gambling problem myself. I lost far more than I could afford to lose with Ladbrokes and William Hill. It - it affected my work. It destroyed my marriage and almost broke my health.’

  ‘And saw you marginalized in the firm.’

  Peach’s voice now was as persuasive as a priest’s, but Matthew realized that he must not give them the details of his feud with Tim Hayes or he would become an even stronger suspect for his murder. ‘Yes. Tim was quite good about it. He found me new positions where I wouldn’t be under so much pressure. I joined Gamblers Anonymous. I don't bet at all now. We were discussing how I should resume more responsibility for directorial policy just before Tim died.’ On this lie, he looked not at that round, all-seeing face but down at his cooling coffee. He picked up the cup and drained it a little too quickly, which resulted in a fit of coughing.

  Peach studied his distress for a little while before he said quietly, ‘We know quite a lot about the way the firm has been making money away from the electronics arm in the last year or two. I advise you now that it would not be wise for you to conceal what you know about illegal profits from drugs and prostitution, Mr Ballack.’

  ‘I know very little about these things. I told you, I’ve been out of touch for a year or two.’ He looked at the softer, female face, but found those remarkable blue-green eyes almost more disconcerting than the male ones.

  Lucy Blake said, ‘But not so out of touch that you couldn’t take over this office and the direction of the firm at the drop of a hat.’

  What happened to ‘good cop, bad cop’, he thought. They’ve both come here to hang me out to dry and they’re making a pretty good job of it. He said doggedly, ‘It was an emergency. Because of the partnership, I was the only one entitled to take this chair. I intend to make a good job of it. If there are fringe profits from the things you mention, I want no part of that.’

  He sounded very earnest. The look on Blake’s face cheered him, suggesting that she might even believe he meant that. But it was Peach who now renewed the attack. ‘A very commendable attitude. Let’s hope you’re still here next week to put it into practice. What time did you leave the Gisbum Hotel on Friday night?’

  His brain reeled before this sudden switch of ground. ‘I had one drink after Tim’s speech. A bitter lemon. I gave up drink as well as gambling, you see.’ He allowed himself an acid smile at his own expense. ‘I was away before midnight. Back in my flat in Brunton within quarter of an hour or twenty minutes.’

  ‘Can anyone confirm these times?’

  ‘I don’t know. I shouldn’t think so. I didn’t chat to anyone after the meal and Tim’s speech. A lot of people left immediately. Those that stayed on were pretty loud. When you’re a non-drinker amongst a lot of drinkers, their conversation can seem a bit puerile, you know. I sat and reviewed the events of the evening before I left.’ That at any rate was true. He felt a relief in saying it.

  ‘Who do you think killed Tim Hayes?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’d have told you if I did, wouldn’t I?’

  ‘Would you, Mr Ballack? I hope so. I want you to reconsider what you’ve said to us, with a view to revising it. I don’t think you’ve given us everything you know about this firm and its activities. If you didn’t kill Mr Hayes yourself, your best policy is to give us as much information as you can. We shall be back when we have compared what you have said to us with the statements of other people involved. Good day to you.’

  Matthew Ballack didn’t call Clare Thompson in for quite some time after they had left. He needed time to compose himself. He didn’t seem to have given them very much, yet he felt both depressed and apprehensive.

  Chapter Nineteen

  She was normally a confident woman, but she looked round a little nervously in these strange surroundings. Apart from a couple of speeding fines, she had never been a lawbreaker, and it was many years now since she had set foot inside a police station.

  She had expected to be kept waiting, like the long-haired youth in torn jeans and the defeated-looking woman who sat on the battered seats in front of the station sergeant, but when she stated the purpose of her visit she was ushered immediately into the CID section. Two minutes later she was sitting in the office of Detective Chief Inspector Peach, the man she had been assured was directing this investigation.

  She said diffidently, ‘My name is Davies. Dr Marian Davies; I’m a GP in Clitheroe. I’m not at all sure that I should be here at all.’

  She was a well-dressed woman in her mid-fifties, with rimless glasses on a square face which had a concerned, anxious look. Peach gave her one of his friendlier smiles. ‘Much better to let us be the judge of that, Dr Davies. We speak in confidence. If what you have to say proves to have no bearing on this case, it will go no further than this room and no damage will be done.’

  ‘Thank you. That is important. There are issues of patient confidentiality here.’

  ‘I understand that. But this is a murder investigation, which overrides normal rules. We need to know as much about the people concerned in it as possible. If they are innocent, which quite obviously most of them are, it can only work in their favour, by helping us to eliminate them from suspicion.’

  Peach was trying not to show his impatience as he issued this standard reassurance. He might be both busy and baffled, but people like this needed gentle encouragement, if they were going to reveal everything they knew. This woman was also no doubt busy, and it had cost her quite a mental effort to bring her concern to him. He said with a smile, ‘I assume you are a GP to one of the people who was close to Mr Hayes.’

  ‘Yes. To the closest one of all, his wife. Tamsin Hayes has been on my patient list for many years.’

  ‘And you have something to t
ell me about Mrs Hayes which you think may be relevant to this case.’

  ‘It may be quite irrelevant. It probably is, in fact. But in view of the seriousness of this crime, I feel that it is something you should know.’

  ‘If it is irrelevant. Dr Davies, Mrs Hayes need never know that you have spoken to me.’

  She nodded, almost absently, concerned now only with how she was going to phrase this. ‘For the last three years, I have been treating Tamsin Hayes for clinical depression. She refused to see a psychiatrist, and assured me that the drugs we were using to treat her condition were working, or at least keeping it in check.’

  Another Prozac user, thought Peach. Another person in danger of becoming dependent on the ‘happy drug’ to get through life. He had more sense than to voice any thoughts on the subject to a professional prescriber, or even to enquire about which drugs were being used.

  As if she read some of his thoughts, the doctor said, ‘I was afraid of the patient becoming drug-dependent. I wanted her to discuss the cause of her illness with a specialist in the area: depression is an illness, once it reaches a certain stage, whatever the “good kick in the pants” school thinks.’ She glanced accusingly at Peach but found him inscrutably neutral. ‘Tamsin wouldn't take that advice. She talked a little about her problems to me, but I’m no expert in illnesses of the mind. Sometimes the only cure is to get right away from the source of the trouble, but that isn’t always possible. Mrs Hayes said it wasn’t possible in her case.’

  Peach said quietly, ‘Her depression was connected with her husband, wasn’t it? You’d hardly be here otherwise.’

  She looked grateful to him, as though his deduction had made this easier for her. ‘She said she’d discussed her concerns with her husband and he hadn’t responded. Whether that is true or not, I couldn’t tell you - people aren’t always honest about these things. At that stage, which was just over a year ago, I suggested that she should consider ending the marriage completely. There were no children and no financial concerns, so that a break-up might be the lesser of two evils, if it safeguarded her health. Tamsin said that her religion wouldn’t allow her to contemplate divorce.’

  Peach couldn’t see any way of making his next question less brutal. ‘Are you here this afternoon because you suspect Mrs Hayes may have taken another and more violent way out of the situation?’

  ‘No, I’m not suggesting that at all. I’m here to give you information. To relay to you facts which I think you should have and which I cannot explain.’

  ‘Right. Please do just that.’

  ‘Tamsin Hayes came to see me a little while ago. She announced that she was cured of her depression and no longer needed her drugs. I was pleased, as I always am when someone in danger of becoming drug-dependent decides that they no longer need them. But I warned her that mood swings should be expected in the days and weeks to come. She said that she understood that, but that she was confident she would not need drugs again. She has been as good as her word: I haven’t seen her since. She used to have a regular monthly appointment, but she’s cancelled that.’

  ‘Did she give any explanation for the change in her health?’

  ‘No. I’m confident that she hasn’t had professional help. I tried to discuss the reasons for her recovery, but she didn’t want to do that and it wasn’t within my remit to push for information.’

  ‘It may be within mine, in the next few days,’ said Peach grimly. ‘Thank you very much for bringing this to me, Dr Davies.’

  ‘There’s more. I’m not sure I’d have come to you to report a recovering patient.’ Her rather square face broke into a self- deprecating smile, and Peach realized what an attractive woman she must have been when she was Lucy Blake’s age. He liked professionals who didn’t project themselves too seriously and didn’t claim to know everything in their field. She said, ‘I told you, I don’t pretend to be anything more than an amateur psychiatrist. But Tamsin Hayes had a very odd bearing when she told me happily that she was cured. She had an abstracted air: the air of someone carrying a secret, a secret she was very happy about.’

  ‘As if she was cocooned in a world she did not want you to know about?’

  She looked at him sharply. ‘Yes. As if her whole personality and conduct had been taken over by one idea. Almost an obsession, I’d say, though I’m no psychiatrist.’

  Peach shook his head with a puzzled frown, wondering what significance, if any, this might have for his murder investigation. ‘It’s my turn to speak in confidence now. Dr Davies. I saw Mrs Hayes on the day after her husband’s murder. She was elaborately dressed in mourning black. Too elaborately: she was in black from top to toe and behaved as if she was acting the part of a newly bereaved widow in a stage play - acting it and quite enjoying it. She behaved as if she knew things which we didn't and felt quite superior about it.’

  Dr Davies nodded enthusiastically. ‘That’s just it. As if she had an obsession disorder which was dominating her thinking, and was quite content to exist in a world outside the one where we live out our lives.’

  ‘The question is, what bearing has this on what happened to her husband on Friday night?’

  The smile lit up the intelligent, ageing face. ‘That is a problem which I am quite happy to leave here with you. Chief Inspector Peach.’

  * * *

  Most people had left the school by five o’clock. That suited Jason Thompson. He wanted as few people as possible to see him being interviewed in connection with the murder of his wife’s boss.

  He took them into the small geography storeroom behind the classroom, hoping that he would feel more relaxed in his own environment than in the cramped little box of an interview room where he had been forced to meet the CID on Sunday. Perhaps it wouldn’t be the man in charge today. He hoped not: a visit from a lower-ranking officer would surely suggest that he was regarded as no more than a fringe player in this strange drama.

  His hopes were dashed. It was DCI Peach, who arrived with the convivial urgency of a man on a mission. ‘So this is where the money poured into education goes!’ He flashed a look at the rolled maps upon the table and spun the big new globe of the world in 2008 speculatively, watching the multicoloured continents flash before his vision. Before the globe had ceased to turn, he was sitting on one of the chairs Jason had set out for them.

  ‘A little of it.’ Jason forced a smile. ‘These are necessary visual aids. You wouldn’t expect us to teach geography without them.’

  ‘Certainly wouldn't, would we, DS Blake? But nor would you expect us to be able to do our job when people tell us porkies.’

  ‘Porkies?’ Jason kicked himself for repeating the word and playing into the man’s hands.

  ‘Porkies, Mr Thompson. To be very charitable - people tell me that’s one of my failings - I’ll call it concealing information. Either way, it’s perverting the course of justice, which is a serious crime, isn’t it, DS Blake?’

  ‘It is indeed, sir, very serious.’ Lucy didn’t mind being a Peach echo, if it took things forward.

  ‘We’ve now had an opportunity to study and digest information from a whole range of different sources, Mr Thompson. Including all of the guests who attended on Friday evening and all of the staff working at the Gisburn Hotel on that night. Certain interesting contradictions have emerged.’ Peach beamed widely.

  The grin seemed to Jason to stretch impossibly wide: he wondered if the moustache and the baldness above it accentuated the glee beneath. He brushed his vivid red hair away from his temple and onto the top of his head. ‘I hope you’re not accusing me of concealing information.’

  ‘Not accusing. Not yet. Merely clarifying the position.’ Percy’s elaborate delivery of the phrase made that sound much worse. ‘You said you left the hotel at eleven o’clock. There is a conflict of evidence here. A serious conflict.’

  ‘I did leave then. I went home with the Johnsons as I told you on Sunday. They’ll confirm that for you.’

  Percy held up a magisterial
hand. ‘They have already done that, sir.’

  ‘Then where’s the problem?’

  ‘The problem, sir, is that you were seen by one of the barmen in the hotel at just before midnight.’

  ‘Then he’s mistaken, isn’t he? The Johnsons will confirm that they dropped me off at—’

  ‘He isn’t the only one, sir. One of the waitresses who attended to your table earlier in the evening saw you at around the same time. “Slinking”, she said you were, unless my memory is at fault.’ He looked interrogatively at DS Blake, who flicked over a page in her notebook and said after a pregnant pause, ‘“Slinking” was the word she used, sir.’

  Jason looked from one to the other of this contrasting and sinister double act, blinking repeatedly behind his thick-lensed glasses. Then he stared down at the grubby rug which some anonymous previous incumbent of this room had imported to try to make it more homely. ‘I went out again. Drove my own car back to the hotel.’

  ‘Why did you do that, sir? And why did you choose to conceal this from us?’

  ‘I went to look for Clare. I was worried about her. I don’t know why I didn’t tell you this on Sunday.’

  Peach let five long seconds drag by before he said, apparently almost reluctantly, ‘You were worried about your wife’s association with Mr Hayes, weren’t you, sir?’

  Jason wanted to deny it, wanted to tell them to go to hell and get out of his life. Instead, he heard his voice saying dully, ‘How did you know about Clare and Hayes?’

  ‘I told you, we’ve talked to a lot of people since Friday night.’ Peach was at his most gnomic. When people confirmed one of his imaginative sallies, the last reaction he showed was surprise.

  Thompson was too distressed to suspect his mistake. ‘I suppose everyone at the factory knew about them. I suppose everyone was talking about their affair. I suppose the husband was the last to know, as usual.’