Least of Evils

by J M Gregson

  The DCI moved his own hands slowly and unthreateningly to the young man’s slim waist, then lifted the shirt as tenderly as a nurse. The blue, green and yellow hues of various bruises covered most of the lean torso. ‘You could sue them for this, you know, even though you committed the first offence. Use of excessive violence, the lawyers call it.’

  ‘But I’m not going to, am I?’

  This time Peach’s smile was small and rueful. Barton was right; Ketley and his minions would never allow a hostile witness to make it into court against them. The very suggestion might bring serious injury or worse to this pathetic creature who had strayed so far out of his depth. ‘No, I don’t believe you are, Eddie. Off the record, I can’t even recommend that you should. But I think you should tell us everything you know about the set-up at Thorley Grange right now.’

  Barton glanced at the tall figure beside him. DS Northcott nodded vigorously; even his encouragement seemed to carry menace. ‘There’s not much I can tell you. I was trying to pinch Mrs Ketley’s jewels. I knew just where they were, see?’

  He paused automatically, expecting them to ask about the source of his information. But all Peach said was a soft, ‘How’d you get in, Eddie?’

  ‘Through the old building; through the room they call the old library. I forced a window and slipped in. Piece of piss, it was.’ For a moment, his pride in the speed and efficiency of his entry shone through. Then he recalled to whom he was speaking and said hastily. ‘Then I was up the stairs and into the bedroom. I took the jewels and a couple of miniatures from the dressing table. Ignored everything else.’

  ‘Very professional,’ Peach murmured drily. ‘I expect you’re going to tell us you almost got away with it.’

  ‘I did. I was back through my window and away before anyone saw me.’

  ‘But someone did see you, didn’t he?’

  ‘Not until I was out of the place and away on my toes he didn’t. I was away the way I came and back over the wall before he was. I’d have outrun him, too. I was leaving him well behind when he gunned me.’

  ‘Who was he, Eddie?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t know anything about the place, except where the jewels were.’

  ‘And how to get in.’ Again Peach didn’t ask about the source of his knowledge. That would only put someone else in danger.

  They asked him more questions, but his answers only confirmed that Barton had already told them all he knew. Eddie Barton rose automatically from the edge of his bed when he felt the easing of the springs as the big man beside him stood. He saw Peach go through the door, prepared to shut it behind his sidekick and collapse in relief on to his bed. But DS Northcott turned at the door to face him. Eddie thought for a moment that he was going to take a handful of his shirt, but he did not touch him.

  Instead, Clyde Northcott stood tall above him, pinning his man against the wall by his very presence. ‘You’re probably not going to heed this. Daft buggers like you never do listen to good advice. But get yourself a job, son. You may think you’ve not got a lot going for you, but you’re not on drugs and you’ve got a mum who still loves you. Get yourself a job, turn up on time, and do what you’re told to do. That’s what the Poles are doing and it’s working for them. It might not pay much but you won’t end up inside and you won’t have a chest and a belly like that.’

  Eddie cringed instinctively, but the man did not touch the bruises as he had expected. He held Eddie’s eyes against his own deep brown ones for a second, then turned and went down the stairs without a backward glance.

  Both officers were quiet as Clyde Northcott drove the police Mondeo back towards the station. The frowning Peach was thinking how a huge problem had appeared from nowhere with the arrival of Oliver Ketley and his crew at Thorley Grange.

  Clyde Northcott reflected that they hadn’t got very much out of Barton because he hadn’t had much to give. Clive hadn’t been Percy Peach’s bagman for very long. But he had already learned that his DCI was an expert at making sizeable bricks from very little straw.

  The work you do for a man gives you a different perspective. The people who served Oliver Ketley in any of his business ventures estimated him in almost the same way as the police who sought to trap him. He paid well, as you had to for work which was physically dangerous or outside the law. But they knew he was a villain, just as clearly as they knew that they must keep that knowledge strictly to themselves. Ketley didn’t favour discussion of the work they did, even among his own staff.

  But you saw things differently if you were merely the kind of domestic staff whom any person with Ketley’s resources could afford to employ. Thorley Grange was a big house. When you added the old original wing to the vast modern complex which had been built so quickly, there were in all fourteen bedrooms in the place, as well as suites of entertaining rooms and a large indoor swimming pool in the basement. There were two gardeners, a housekeeper and a large domestic staff.

  Yet for most of the year these facilities were not extensively used. This meant that the people who maintained the Grange enjoyed what was most commonly called ‘a cushy number’. Except for a few occasions in the year when the rooms were full and the meals in the dining room elaborate, the work was easy and the pay was good. If you kept your mouth shut and did your limited work conscientiously, it was an easier life than that experienced by most people who did domestic work.

  Janey Johnson certainly found it so. She had worked at the Grange from the outset, being taken on two years ago, when the new building work was completed. She had worked here for a few weeks before even Oliver Ketley and his wife had moved in. She was thirty-five, small, dark, quietly pretty and self-effacing. The experienced housekeeper who had taken her on had recognized at interview a woman who was by no means stupid but had few qualifications, having left school to support an ailing mother without taking GCSEs. Just as important, she was a widow who needed the work. She was likely therefore to be uncomplaining and reliable.

  Mrs Johnson proved just that. Like most of the staff, she lived in Brunton and came in daily to work at the Grange. She was never late; she could be relied upon to work steadily without being supervised; she never ‘threw a sickie’ to take time off when it suited her. On the rare occasions when there was room for it in a house that ran so smoothly, Janey Johnson showed initiative, as well as the eminent common sense which characterized most of her behaviour.

  It was no surprise that the housekeeper developed a liking for the unobtrusive and uncomplaining Mrs Johnson. She was originally employed purely as a cleaner, moving as she proved her efficiency and trustworthiness from the kitchens and the more public rooms to the living quarters and bedrooms of the senior household staff and occasionally even into the quarters occupied by Oliver and Greta Ketley. Janey was willing and able to turn her hand to most things. She waited at table when a full house required it. She showed a talent for flower arrangement, so that eventually most of the floral displays in the house, including the one in the hall which everyone saw, were put together by her.

  In her three years at Thorley Grange, Janey Johnson had scarcely spoken to the owner. Oliver Ketley was a man you only addressed when you were spoken to, and he had little occasion to speak to the unobtrusive Mrs Johnson. But a week after Eddie Barton had attempted his burglary at the house, she was called into the presence of the owner. She stood before him as demure and quiet as ever, but she felt her heart beating like a trip hammer in her breast at the interview.

  With his very pale blue eyes, slicked back hair and square, automaton’s face Ketley was a sinister figure, especially to one who had never been alone in his presence before. His size made him even more intimidating to the diminutive Janey. She was glad when he sat down, then fearful again as he looked her up and down for several seconds without speaking. The fact that he obviously intended to make her apprehensive only added to the effect. He left her standing in front of him for what seemed a long time before he said abruptly, ‘Sit down, Mrs Johnson.’

>   Janey sat down as demurely as she could on the dining chair in front of him, crossing her trouser-clad legs at the ankles, feeling very exposed. She wished that he had taken her into the business office where she had never been, so that at least there would have been a desk between them.

  Ketley assessed her legs for a moment, running his gaze slowly up her thighs and stopping without shame at her crotch. Then he said heavily, ‘I wanted a word with you about the burglary we had here a couple of weeks ago.’

  ‘Yes, sir. I don’t know anything about it. I wasn’t even here at the time. It happened on my day off.’ She poured out every fact she could think of to establish her innocence, in a flow that only made her sound more defensive and more guilty.

  ‘I know that. You wouldn’t be still working here if I thought you’d any connection with what happened.’ He tried to smile, to put her a little more at ease; he quite fancied this trim woman he had never noticed in his house. But smiling didn’t come naturally to him. The only effect of his words was to leave her in no doubt that whoever crossed this man could expect big trouble.

  ‘I’ll tell you whatever I can, sir.’

  ‘That’s all I need. As nothing was eventually taken, it didn’t seem necessary to involve the police. Mr Hardwick and I have already conducted an investigation into the affair and we now have a clear idea of what happened. Do you know Mr Hardwick?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Not well, sir. We don’t see each other very often.’ Nor did she wish to. James Hardwick, bodyguard and enforcer for the boss, kitchen gossip said. There were dark tales of some of the brutality that unsmiling man had arranged in the course of his work, but Janey knew that rumour always exaggerated.

  ‘No. Mr Hardwick is largely concerned with my business affairs. But as he lives in, he has a detailed knowledge of the workings of the household.’

  It sounded like another warning that she should hold nothing back. She wanted to assure him that she had no intention of doing that, but she merely nodded, her attention all on the big, expressionless face which made her feel as if she was sitting naked on her chair. Because he said nothing and she felt an overwhelming need to fill the silence, she blurted out, ‘I heard the man didn’t get away with anything.’

  ‘He didn’t. And he’s been dealt with.’ A trace of satisfaction coloured the inscrutable voice for an instant. ‘But we are naturally concerned that there should be no repetition.’

  ‘No, sir. Of course not.’

  ‘It appears that the man who broke in was given certain information. What do you know about that?’

  This was why she was here, then. To help in the hunt. Janey didn’t want to incriminate anyone, but she knew in the same thought that she wasn’t going to risk denying anything she knew to this man. She heard her voice shake as she said, ‘I don’t know anything, sir.’

  Another of those terrifying pauses followed. The pale blue eyes regarded her like those of a wild animal which has its prey cornered and helpless. ‘You probably know more than you think you do, Mrs Johnson. I stress that no suspicion attaches to you, but you would be most unwise to try to withhold information.’

  ‘I shan’t do that, sir.’ She managed to hold her voice steady this time, to imbue the simple statement with some of the conviction she felt.

  ‘It seems likely that someone informed the intruder about certain things. He seemed to know the most vulnerable window to force. He knew the way to our bedroom. Most significantly of all, he knew exactly where Mrs Ketley’s jewellery was kept. He could only have been fed that information by someone who works here.’

  ‘Yes, sir. I follow that.’ She managed with difficulty not to protest her own innocence again.

  ‘Not many of the staff have access to my wife’s bedroom. Not many of our domestic staff live-in.’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘What can you tell me about Amy Collinson?’

  She had known that would be the name. ‘Not much, sir. She’s younger than me.’

  ‘But she lives near you in the town.’

  Janey felt a new thrill of fear. They’d been checking on her. But of course she’d filled in her address on an application form when she came here; Amy must have done that too. ‘Two streets away, sir. But I hardly know her.’

  ‘You went to the same school.’

  ‘But not at the same time, sir. We were never at the comp together. She’s much younger than me.’

  ‘Yes. Almost exactly the same age as the man who broke in. Do you think they knew each other?’

  ‘I don’t know, sir.’ She bit her lip. ‘It seems likely.’

  ‘It does. Especially as they were in the same year at the school. Can you think of anyone else who might have fed our burglar with the information he needed?’

  She made herself pause, hoping that he would think she was giving the matter some thought. ‘No sir, I can’t really. But I don’t know anything.’

  He looked hard into her brown eyes for a moment, as if he wished to probe the darkest secrets of her soul. She was an attractive woman, slim but curvy. Janey: he filed away the name for future use. Then he said, ‘Thank you. That will be all.’

  She stood, paused for a moment to try to check the nervous trembling in her knees, then walked as steadily as she could to the door. It was a relief to find that there was no one in the staff loo. She pressed her forehead hard against the cold smoothness of the mirror.

  Amy Collinson disappeared quietly from the house and her employment there. A week later, Janey was relieved to see her four aisles away in the supermarket. Her treachery hadn’t brought any more retribution than dismissal from her cosy job without a reference. Ketley didn’t want to excite attention by eliminating low life.

  On the next morning, the housekeeper, Mrs Frobisher, a seemingly unflappable woman of around fifty, called Janey in at the end of her morning stint. She smiled at her. ‘You’ve given complete satisfaction in your work here thus far, Mrs Johnson.’

  ‘Thank you. I’m glad to have the work. I like to feel I can turn my hand to most things.’

  ‘You’re a widow, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes. For five years, now.’

  ‘And you’ve no children?’

  A flicker of pain. ‘No. We were planning a family at the time of Sam’s death.’

  ‘How would you feel about a residential post here?’

  ‘All right, I think.’

  ‘It would represent promotion and a higher wage. You’d be expected to turn your hand to all kinds of things, but you’ve already shown you’re capable of that. And the accommodation would be free. In real terms, this would give you a substantial rise in income.’

  ‘Yes. Thank you.’

  ‘I’ll give you a job description and details of the wages and the pension scheme this afternoon. You may wish to have twenty-four hours to think about it.’

  ‘I shan’t need that, Mrs Frobisher. I’ll take the post.’

  The housekeeper relaxed a little. ‘That’s good. I don’t think you’ll regret it, Janey. I’m a widow myself, you know, and it wasn’t easy in the early years.’

  ‘No, it hasn’t been for me. But I’m coping better now. And this will be a big help. Thank you for thinking of me, Mrs Frobisher.’

  Five days later, Janey Johnson moved into a surprisingly comfortable room in the new part of Thorley Grange. It was more spacious than she had expected and it had its own built-in bathroom. Service had moved on a lot since the chambermaids and skivvies of the nineteenth century skipped up and down the narrow servants’ staircases in the old wing. Amy Collinson had been a fool to blab out secrets and lose herself a job like this.

  Janey hung her three dresses and her coat in the wardrobe. She needed only half of the spacious drawers to accommodate her tops and sweaters and underwear. She set out the delicate silver bonbon dish and the slender glass vase which were all she had brought with her from the wedding gifts she and Sam had received fourteen years earlier. The rest of her treasures she had taken to be stored at her mo
ther’s and father’s house in Leeds.

  She placed the wedding photograph of her parents on top of the slim chest of drawers in the corner of the room, pausing for a moment to smile at them fondly in their innocence. She hadn’t thought when she left school before her exams that her mother would still be alive now. Then she unwrapped the picture of her husband.

  She set Sam for a moment beside her parents, then reluctantly rewrapped the picture and slid it beneath the clothes in one of the drawers.

  EIGHT

  Janey Johnson settled in quickly at Thorley Grange, as she had known she would. She had worked there since the new building was completed two years earlier. The transition was only to residential accommodation and a more trusted role. The housekeeper, Mrs Frobisher, kept an eye on her protégé and was well pleased with what she saw.

  It took Chung Lee, the new employee in the kitchen, rather longer to find his feet. His work was good. The chef, Michael Knight, watched him closely in the kitchen and found him competent and speedy – speed is always a virtue for a chef, who has to work under pressure when his work is most on show. Lee’s English was fine, though his slight accent was a steady reminder to the people working with him that he had not begun his life in Britain.

  Because he wanted to convince the chef that he was as English as possible, Lee had told Knight at interview that he had been in the country for a long time. He had in fact arrived only three years ago. Though he was bright and intelligent enough to pick up the language and customs quickly, he still felt himself in an alien culture when it came to socializing. As a result of one or two rebuffs in the past, Chung was cautious in forming new friendships. This meant that being part of the residential staff at Thorley Grange proved at first a lonely life for him. He was surprised how comfortable the room provided for him was, but there weren’t many possibilities of new friendships when so few of the staff lived on the premises.

  Janey Johnson, whose room was only three doors down the corridor from Chung Lee’s, felt sorry for him: the man with the smooth olive skin and the pleasant, unassuming smile must surely be very lonely, when he was not working in the kitchen. But they didn’t see each other much in the course of their work, since she seldom ventured into the kitchen and he rarely worked outside it. And Janey was cautious herself about new friendships; she had long ago learned that a pretty young widow was a honeypot to questing bees, that friendly exchanges could too often be accepted as invitations by hormonal males. She kept a careful distance between herself and her new employer; now that she was living-in, Mrs Frobisher had dropped discreet hints about Ketley’s occasional assertion of something like droit de seigneur with junior female staff.