by J M Gregson
Tucker had gone home to lick his wounds after the chastening conclusion to his media conference, but at eight o’clock that night, DCI Peach and DS Blake and most of the CID section were still at the station, setting up the elaborate machinery of a murder enquiry.
This one was more than usually complex. They would need to interview the people who had been arrested on serious but very different charges on the previous night, to find out whether they knew anything about either the fire or the body. They would need to interview the resident staff of the Towers, who had nothing to do with the drugs trafficking but who had been evacuated because of the fire danger on the previous night. They would need to identify and interview whatever other dubious characters had been in and out of the large estate in the period before the fire.
At present, they had no idea how far back into the past their researches would have to extend. Because at present they had no accurate idea of when this as yet unidentified man had died.
The man in charge of all the permanent employees at Marton Towers had been overseeing the meal and its aftermath when the police intervened so dramatically on Wednesday night. As a result of this involvement, he had been arrested, along with everyone else close to the men at that meeting.
Now, almost twenty-four hours later, after some intensive questioning of him and others, the officers of the National Crime Squad had satisfied themselves that this man of fifty-seven was not involved in any but the most peripheral way in the drugs traffic. It was almost nine o’clock when a weary inspector came into the Brunton CID section and signified that they were prepared to release him.
Peach nodded. ‘We’ll have to let him go soon, if we’re not prepared to charge him with anything. But I’d like a word with him first. We have what may well prove to be a murder investigation to conduct. If he’s in charge of the staff up there, he’ll be able to tell us things about the other people who live there. Until we can eliminate him, he’s a murder suspect himself. I’d like to see him whilst he’s still officially under arrest, still feeling under threat from the law and brutal policemen like me.’
After last night’s operation and the very full day which had followed it, the Detective Chief Inspector was feeling unusually tired. But he took a deep breath outside the interview-room door, then bounced into the room as if he had just come on duty, fresh and full of energy. ‘I’m DCI Peach and this radiant creature is DS Blake. And you are Mr Neville Holloway. I’m sure you won’t have any objections to our recording what we have to say to each other in here, Mr Holloway. These machines save a lot of complications, when people remember things differently later on.’
The silver-haired man in front of him looked balefully at the cassette recorder Peach had set turning, then up into the cheerful, almost boyish, round face beneath the fringe of black hair and the bald head. ‘I’ve said all I have to say. I know nothing about any of this drugs stuff.’
‘I heard you’d been saying that. Repeatedly, apparently.’ Peach nodded casually, as if to indicate that he himself was still unconvinced. ‘Still under arrest, though, at the moment.’ He smiled cheerfully, as if that was a most happy state of affairs. ‘And no doubt still, as a responsible and innocent citizen, anxious to help the police with their enquiries in any way you can.’
‘I’ve already been interviewed for hours. You should either charge me with something or let me out of here.’
‘Know a little about the law, do you, Mr Holloway? I suppose I should have expected that.’
‘What do you mean. I’m not a lawyer, and I’ve no knowledge of—’
‘Been in trouble with the law in the past, though, haven’t you? So I’d expect you to know a little bit about your rights.’
Neville Holloway glared at him, then shrugged wearily. ‘All right, I’ve got a record. It’s a long time ago, and I did my time, but it’s once a villain always a villain, isn’t it, with you lot?’
Peach nodded his head happily. ‘A lot of us are what you might call unenlightened in our attitudes, yes. Perhaps it’s because statistics so often support the view you’ve just expressed. Recidivism, I believe they call it, the people who claim to know about such things. Serious crime, fraud. On the increase, nowadays, unfortunately.’
‘I did my two years.’
‘Paid your debt to society, as they say. Seventeen years ago. No further record of offences, the computer says.’
‘That’s because there haven’t been any. And I didn’t have any connection with these drugs offences that people have been pressing me about all day.’
‘Do you know, I’m almost inclined to believe that, Mr Holloway? But then, I always see the best in people. Bit of a soft touch – I expect that’s my reputation among the local criminal fraternity. You’ve developed a different career for yourself now. You’re the butler at Marton Towers.’
Neville Holloway smiled for the first time since Peach had mounted his challenge. ‘Not the butler, Chief Inspector. Mr Crouch doesn’t go in for such old-fashioned terms. And you could say my remit is a little wider than that. I’m in charge of the day-to-day running of Marton Towers – responsible for all the staff, not just those in the house, but those employed throughout the estate.’
‘Pity you’re not a butler: I’ve always fancied arresting one of them. But then no corpse was found skewered to the floor in the library. I’m charged with investigating an even more serious crime than trafficking in illegal drugs, you see, Mr Holloway. That’s why we’re still closeted together in this rather unpleasant little room at quarter past nine on a cold March night.’
‘More serious?’ Neville Holloway had told himself a moment ago that he was not going to give this annoying little turkey-cock of an inspector any more reactions, but this one was prised from him by his surprise.
‘Murder, Mr Holloway.’ Despite the calculated levity of his approach, which was designed to irritate a man fatigued by hours of questioning, Peach was watching his man closely. Holloway seemed to be genuinely surprised. But if he had any involvement in this death, it would have been good policy to feign ignorance. ‘You are no doubt aware of the serious fire which damaged the former stable block at Marton Towers last night. One of the things found amongst the debris this morning was a body.’
Holloway looked suitably impressed. He thought for a moment and said, ‘I was arrested along with the visitors to the house last night, and I have been in custody since that moment. Plainly I had no connection with that fire, which began after we had been taken away from Marton Towers.’
Peach smiled at such naivety. ‘If only things were so simple, Mr Holloway! You could have set a device to ignite when you were off the premises. Or you could have paid someone else to start the blaze when you were safely elsewhere. But I’m a bit of a soft touch, as I told you, so let’s assume for the moment that you had nothing to do with the fire. It doesn’t let you off the murder hook, I’m afraid. This person didn’t die in the fire. This person died some time before it started.’
‘Who is it? And when did she die?’
Peach, having carefully left the gender of the corpse out of his information, was delighted with this. ‘Now why should you assume that the body was female? Did you have some reason to expect a female victim? That’s what I have to ask myself. It’s a natural question, wouldn’t you say, DS Blake?’
‘Indeed it is, sir. Can you explain your reaction to us, sir?’
Holloway found himself more shaken by this studiously polite question from a pretty young woman than by Peach’s truculent ironies. You expected policemen to be nasty and aggressive: he felt he could cope with that. He said, ‘I can’t explain it, no. I suppose that numerically, we have twice as many women as men employed at the Towers, so it was perhaps logical for me to assume this was a woman.’
More logical than it was for the SOCO officer to assume the same thing, Lucy thought wryly. She glanced at Peach, then said, ‘The victim was a man, sir. The body was so badly damaged that it has not been possible to identify it yet. H
ave you any idea who this man might be?’
His first impulse was to protest complete ignorance immediately. Instead, he paused for a moment, as if to give the matter serious thought, before he said, ‘Probably someone who worked on the estate, you’d think, wouldn’t you? I’m not aware that any of our current employees has gone missing, but if we include the people who come in daily, quite large numbers are involved.’
‘And you can no doubt give us those numbers.’ She poised a small gold ball-pen over the pad in front of her.
‘There are currently seven staff who live on the premises and eight more who come in each day. That does not include cleaners who come in for a few hours a week as required.’ Despite his exhaustion, a little pride crept into his tone with the precision which came so effortlessly.
Peach’s heart sank at the thought of the number of people who would need to be eliminated. He said with a grim little smile, ‘You’re obviously in touch with most things which happen at the Towers. We shall no doubt need to speak to you again, when we know more of the details of this death. You’ll be released in the next half an hour, Mr Holloway.’
He switched the cassette recorder off and sat looking thoughtfully at the machine after the tall, erect man had left the room. ‘It would be nice, wouldn’t it? But it’s too much to hope for, I’m sure.’
Nice wasn’t a word DS Blake associated with Percy Peach. She said cautiously, ‘What would be too much to hope for?’
‘To be able to go upstairs to Tommy Bloody Tucker and tell him that it was the butler what did it!’
Nine
The post-mortem report was a mixture of disappointment and usefulness for the team who eagerly awaited it.
There was still nothing to identify the body. The fire had destroyed all the clothing; even the shoes, so often a clue to identification, had almost entirely fused with what was left of the feet within them. Certain fragments had been sent to forensic, but all that could be said with any certainty was that the shoes had probably been trainers, the most common of all footwear in the Britain of the twenty-first century. There were no rings and no watch. It was quite possible, of course, that these had been removed after death by whoever had placed the body in the old stable block, but too little of the fingers and flesh remained to indicate whether a ring or a watch had been regularly worn by the deceased.
But certain significant facts had nevertheless emerged. The corpse was that of a man in early middle age, most likely in his early forties, in the pathologist’s opinion, though he warned that under questioning in court he might have to give a wider age band. If local questioning failed and they had to resort to combing the Missing Persons register in a search for identity, that would be some kind of help. The overwhelming majority of what the police call MISPAs are young people: this information would at least make for a more manageable field.
The man had died between not more than four and not less than two days before the fire. Again this opinion was hedged with the qualifications about the boundaries which could be asserted in a legal situation, but the pathologist had worked with Peach before and was prepared to give an ‘informed opinion’ which pinned the time of death down a little more. This man had probably died on the Sunday before the fire. It was not as exact a time of death as the police would have liked, but it was far more precise than Peach and Blake had feared, when they had looked at that blackened shape against the wall of the ruined building.
Most significantly of all, there was an indication of how the man had died. Peach had feared when he saw that gross cinder among the charred remains of the stable block that they might never know how he had met his end, but pathology and forensic medicine make great strides with each passing decade. In the view of the man who had conducted the post-mortem examination, this unknown victim had died from asphyxiation. There was more than that: he had not been manually strangled, but despatched by means of a cord or cable tightened about his neck. No trace of this remained upon the body, and the finger ends and finger nails where they would have looked for signs of a struggle and material from a killer were completely destroyed. But there was enough of the throat and of the lung cavities in the torso for the pathologist to be certain that this is how the man had died.
Murder, then. What they had all suspected from the start was now scientifically confirmed for them.
The bare facts went out on Radio Lancashire at one o’clock. An unknown male body had been discovered in the aftermath of the fire on Wednesday night at Marton Towers. Foul play was suspected. The victim was probably a man in good health at the time of his death, and almost certainly aged between thirty-five and fifty. Police were anxious to speak to relatives or friends of any local person of that age who had disappeared without explanation in the week before the dramatic events of Wednesday evening.
Peach put DC Brendan Murphy beside a phone for the afternoon to deal with the plethora of calls which would inevitably result from this. Wives whose husbands had disappeared with younger models. The bitter spouses of husbands who had disappeared rather than pay the maintenance which had been allotted to their wives and families. Sons who found the increasing pressures of life with an Alzheimer’s or physically disabled parent too much on top of a full-time job. The myriad other casualties of stress in what is asserted to be the most advanced state of civilization the world has seen.
Brendan Murphy was both sensitive and patient, the ideal man to deal sympathetically with calls which had to be listened to, but which you knew within ten seconds were going to be a waste of police time. He was also shrewd and intelligent: if the one call in a hundred came through which was vital, he wouldn’t miss out on the importance of it.
The radio news item brought a swifter response than Percy Peach had dared to hope for. As it happened, Brendan Murphy’s skills of diplomacy were not involved. The woman did not pick up a phone. She came into the town, sought out the raw brick of the huge new police station, and asked for the man in charge of the case.
Murder opens doors more quickly than any other crime. The desk sergeant knew his job, and the woman was ushered into DCI Peach’s office within five minutes of her arrival.
Policemen are very good at assessing ages: it is part of their early training, part of the precision about detail which makes for accurate descriptions of suspects and witnesses, and it quickly becomes second nature to them. Peach put this woman at around seventy, or possibly a little younger. She appeared to be very disturbed at the moment, and distress always put years upon people’s ages.
He took one look at her and ordered tea, without asking his visitor whether she wanted it. She was too full of emotion to engage in any of the social preliminaries of conversation. She said abruptly, ‘It’s this body you’ve found. The one it talked about on the radio at lunchtime. I think it might be my Neil. Please God it isn’t, but I think it might be.’
Peach gave her his understanding, sympathetic smile: the one in his considerable range which the criminal fraternity of the area never saw. ‘Please God it isn’t, as you say, but you’ve done the right thing to come in here straight away, Mrs …?’
‘Simmons. Brenda Simmons. And my son is Neil. And in good health, as it said in the news. And he’s forty-three. Well within the range you specified on the radio.’
‘I see. Well, you’d be surprised how many men in that age range have disappeared in the last week, Mrs Simmons. I have an officer who’s been taking calls all afternoon about them. What makes you think that your missing son is the man we’re trying to identify? Were you expecting to see him at some time during the last five days?’
‘No. He never comes home.’ She stopped abruptly, wondering if she was correct still to be speaking in the present tense, and with that thought the fingers of her right hand flew suddenly to her mouth. ‘It’s Norman, you see. He doesn’t get on with Norman.’
‘Your partner?’
She looked at him as if she did not quite comprehend the word. ‘My husband. My second husband. Not Neil’s dad. Th
e two of them have never got on. I’ve tried to make them like each other, but they never have, and there it is.’ It came out with scarcely a breath between the phrases, as if she had somehow to apologize for her part in this common modern phenomenon. When he thought she had finished, she added bleakly, ‘He won’t come into the house at all, now, Neil. Not as long as Norman’s there, he says.’ She put both hands up to the hair at the sides of her head and felt around it carefully, as if she felt she could bring these two feuding men back together by maintaining the neatness of her coiffure.
Peach said, ‘But you were expecting Neil to contact you in some way.’ His heart was already sinking: she hadn’t even been expecting to see her son during the important days. The tea had arrived. He poured her a cup, tried not to look at his watch as precious minutes slipped away.
‘He phones me. Every Saturday or Sunday night, when he knows Norman is down at the snooker club. Failing that, some time on Monday. He never misses. He’s a good son to me, really, though he’s never stopped missing his dad. That’s why he can’t stand Norman, you see. But Norman’s good to me – I can never make Neil see that.’
A forty-three-year-old man who’d omitted to ring his mother. It wasn’t promising; Percy thought sadly of his own failings in such matters. He said, ‘He’s probably just been busy, Mrs Simmons. Have you tried to contact him yourself since Sunday?’
‘I’ve tried, yes. He has one of those mobile things. But he hasn’t answered me. It’s ringing out of order.’ She sipped her tea absently; her features twisted into a small, involuntary moue of distaste at its strength. Then, as if aware of the need for manners even at this time of suffering, she said, ‘It’s nice and hot, though.’