by J M Gregson
‘Not particularly.’ Lucy was working with Asian officers and the national network on anti-terrorist action. We’re aware of certain things. Waiting for them to develop. That sounds ridiculous when people are plotting mass murder, but it’s what you have to do to get worthwhile evidence to present to a court.’
‘I might be able to use you on the Ketley case. Maybe even let you see Clive’s strengths for yourself.’
Neither of them knew it, but it was at exactly that moment that Northcott was with Joey Harrison, gathering the information which would open up a new strand of the enquiry. One where Lucy Peach would shortly join him.
SIXTEEN
On Wednesday morning, Clyde Northcott was using the CID computers at eight o’clock. After Peach had briefed the murder team on progress and allotted tasks for the day, he reported his sensational news to his DCI.
The grieving widow had a lover. His name was Martin Price.
Percy Peach was not unduly surprised. Oliver Ketley had not been a man to inspire loyalty. The immediate thought was that Greta Ketley and her lover must have both spirit and cool nerve to risk the consequences of discovery. If, that is, their liaison was fact, rather than gossipy speculation. ‘How reliable is your snout?’ was the first question he addressed to Northcott.
‘Very reliable,’ said Clyde sturdily.
‘You’ve had stuff from him before?’
‘It’s a she. And I’ve had one tip-off from her before, which led to an arrest and a conviction. I don’t anticipate any more after this one.’
Peach glanced at him sharply, but didn’t question what he said. It was part of the bond between DCI and bagman that you trusted his judgement and used whatever he brought you. Northcott wouldn’t be working beside him if he wasn’t prepared to rely on him. ‘How significant do you think this is?’
‘It could be very significant. I’ve looked up the resident at this address on the electoral register and done some work on his background. He’s ex-SAS. He made captain, then left suddenly.’
A man used to violence then, who wouldn’t shrink from it if he thought it necessary. A man trained to kill, in fact. ‘You’ve been busy. How long since he was SAS?’
‘Around eight years, as far as I could tell from the conversation. You know what army records people are like: they protect their information like bank managers and they’re not as easy to convince. I think we should confront Price as soon as possible and see what he has to say for himself.’
‘I agree. But I’d like to find out as much as I can about the bloke before I confront him. With his background, he won’t be an easy nut to crack, if he did see off Ketley. We’re overstretched on the Ketley case, so I’ve arranged for Lucy to help us out. Take her with you and try to see him this morning. Depending on what you find and what you think, I’ll interview him at a later stage; hopefully by then we’ll have a few more bricks ready to throw at him. You happy with that?’
It was a surprising development for Clyde, but he didn’t show that. His dark features cracked into a rare smile. ‘Very happy. Be like old times, working with Lucy again.’ Clyde had known and admired Lucy Blake, as she had been then, from the moment he entered the police service. He had been Peach’s best man at their wedding, an impressive modern figure in the centuries-old village church.
Peach growled, ‘Don’t relax too much. I’ll be back on your tail very soon. And there’s one thing you should remember.’
‘Sir?’
‘DS Lucy Peach is senior to you in terms of service, but you’re in charge. This is your case and you’ve been on it from the beginning. She’s helping out because our resources are stretched. Understood?’
‘Yes, sir. Thank you. I don’t think there’ll be any problems.’
‘Neither do I. But I don’t want you hesitating to take the initiative.’
Typical of Percy to make support seem like a reprimand, thought Clyde. He collected Lucy and she drove the police Mondeo through the traffic to Chorley almost as quickly as he could have moved on the Yamaha. As the old Georgian house which was their target came into view, she said, ‘This is your case, Clyde. You lead, I’ll follow. I’ll take a few notes on what he has to say. Use me as you think necessary.’
DS Northcott didn’t tell her that her husband had already indicated the pecking order. He was learning lots of things as his career developed. Tact was a quality he had rarely needed before he entered the police service.
The grounds behind the house had been used for new building, but the original Georgian mansion had been converted into four handsome flats, two on each floor. They had private garaging and a spacious car park for visitors. At ten forty in the morning, this was empty save for their police vehicle. There was no sign of life in the flats, but each of the pair had the feeling that their arrival had been witnessed.
They turned left in the small entrance hall and knocked at the handsome oak door of Number One. It opened immediately and they stood looking at a man whom Clyde recognized from Joey Harrison’s description. He was just under six feet, lean and alert. His fair hair was cut short, but not shaven; it was nearer to an old-fashioned crew cut of the sixties. His keen blue eyes appraised them as they announced who they were. Two detective sergeants: an unusual combination. He didn’t voice the expected, ‘You’d better come in,’ but merely turned and led them into a large sitting room, where the minimalist modern furnishing sat unexpectedly well beneath the long Georgian windows, which the ‘listed building’ status had preserved intact.
Northcott sat down carefully on the elegant settee indicated by Price: he was pleased to find it much more robust than its appearance had implied. The exquisite tidiness of the room combined with his own nervousness to make him resort to the most formal of openings. ‘We’re here in connection with the death in suspicious circumstances of Oliver Ketley last Saturday evening.’
‘I thought you might be.’ There was a trace of a smile at the edge of the thin-lipped mouth, as if Price had been awaiting this moment since the news broke upon the world. He certainly didn’t seem apprehensive.
‘Yet you chose not to come forward. You hid yourself away, in fact.’ Clyde was pleased to discover the note of aggression Peach would have favoured.
‘As I had no connection with the death and can contribute nothing to its investigation, that seemed appropriate.’
‘We decide what matters, not you. We take statements from everyone. That way we can decide where you fit into the full picture.’
Price nodded, looking faintly amused. ‘I gather you’re not yet near an arrest. You wouldn’t be here otherwise.’
‘We may be nearer to an arrest when we leave here, Mr Price.’ Clyde tried to put conviction into the thought, but he couldn’t capture Peach’s air of quiet menace, nor the relish with which he delivered thoughts like this.
‘Who told you about me?’
This was easier. Northcott gave his man a small smile as he said, ‘You wouldn’t expect us to reveal that, Mr Price.’ He noticed the man nodding his acceptance as he went on, ‘You’ve been seen here with Mrs Ketley, on more than one occasion. Are you denying that there is a serious relationship between the two of you?’
Martin had a sudden, disturbing picture of Greta, admitting their liaison, trumpeting it, telling them she was proud of it, announcing that they could do whatever they liked about that. He loved her for that defiance, even as he saw the extravagance of it. ‘Isn’t it up to you to prove things like that?’
‘It’s up to the public to give us every help, when we’re investigating a serious crime.’
‘Even when we know that we have nothing to do with that crime?’
Clyde found it easier to deal with this resistance than with cooperation. ‘With a background such as yours, Mr Price, you should not pretend naivety. I am sure that you are aware that the spouse of any murder victim is always an immediate focus for police attention. In cold statistical terms, the widow or widower is the person most likely either to be involved in
the crime or to know who committed it. Any relationship she has is therefore bound to interest the investigating officers.’
Martin nodded his head. He was still trying to work out how they had discovered him. If Greta had let anything out, she would surely have rung to warn him. ‘All right, I accept that. It’s just that when you know you have no connection with a murder, you don’t feel like parading your private life in front of a lot of curious policemen. And women.’ He gave a sardonic smile to the woman with the striking chestnut hair, who in dark blue trousers and a lighter blue sweater looked nothing like his mental image of an officer of the law.
Clyde leant forward a little towards his man. ‘You admit that you have a close sexual relationship with Mrs Ketley?’
Martin volunteered a sardonic smile, emphasizing that he was still in control, even though he now chose to volunteer information to them. ‘Sexual. You people are always interested in that, aren’t you? Well, that’s understandable; sex is important. I’ll make life easy for you. I’ve known Greta for around ten years now – perhaps I should say rather that I first met her ten years ago. It was just under a year ago that we began what you just called “a close sexual relationship”. That has continued and developed. You could call us lovers, in the fullest sense of that word.’ He could almost hear Greta applauding him in the background, as he watched DS Peach making a note with the small gold ballpoint she held above her pad.
It was Northcott who said, ‘Thank you. Who else knows about this relationship?’
‘You tell me. No one, as far as we were aware. But some bugger saw fit to run to you with the information.’
‘You had told no one about it?’
Again that sardonic smile, asserting that Price knew more about life and death than either of the other people in the room. ‘I suspect that as police officers you knew what sort of man Ketley was before his death. You’ll know a hell of a lot more now. He wasn’t a man you took risks with. If he’d known anything about me and Greta, I wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you. I’d be under tons of concrete or on the bed of the ocean.’
‘Yet you chose to work for him.’ Lucy Peach’s calm statement was more cool and cutting because it was the first time she had spoken.
Martin Price had been determined from the outset to give them as little as he could, feeling his way until he had found out how much they knew about him. They knew more than he had hoped they would. He said coolly, ‘That was years ago. That was when I first met Greta, but only briefly. I did a little work for Ketley, yes. Nothing illegal. Frightened a few people, but didn’t implement any threats. I got out when I discovered exactly what sort of man he was.’
He was putting the best interpretation on that period, no doubt. Lucy would have liked to press him on exactly what sort of work he’d done, but he wouldn’t give them anything he didn’t have to. In any case, she couldn’t see much relevance to the present investigation. She said quietly, ‘You did eight years in the SAS. Made the rank of captain, with a promising career beckoning. Why did you leave so abruptly?’
He didn’t think she could know. Closing ranks was one thing the army in general and the SAS in particular were good at. They kept things within house; that was the phrase used at his last meeting with his CO. ‘A career shift. I’d enjoyed my time with the SAS, but it’s a young man’s game. I decided to get out whilst I could still do other things.’
‘So you ended up with Ketley, doing work you’ve just told us was pretty dubious.’
‘That was a stopgap. I’ve just told you that it was a mistake.’
‘So you got out. And then went to Africa, to lead the dangerous life and gather the tainted money available to a mercenary. Not so different from life in the SAS, was it?’
‘It was a bloody sight worse!’ The phrase was out before he could prevent it, a protest against the cards he had been dealt, a burst of the resentment he thought had long been dispelled.
Lucy said quietly, ‘You’ve killed people, Mr Price.’
‘Of course I have. It was my job to do that, at different times. In Iraq, with the SAS. In Africa, when – when there was no alternative.’ The last phrase came lamely, but he stopped himself in time. There was no way they could know about Africa, no way he had to tell them. He hadn’t even told Greta about those deaths.
His words were nevertheless revealing, exposing parts of the man he would rather have left hidden. Clyde Northcott let them hang in the big, low-ceilinged sitting room for a moment before he said, ‘Of all the people we have spoken to, you were the man best equipped to kill Oliver Ketley.’
‘Better than a contract killer? I doubt that. Better than some of the thugs he paid himself? Better than the muscle employed by his rivals in prostitution and drugs? I doubt I’m as well equipped as any of those, DS Northcott.’
Just when he was channelling his resistance towards the black man, the cool female voice beside him took up the dialogue again. ‘And no doubt you could find us motives for some of these people, given time. But you have the clearest and most compelling motive of all. One of the oldest, but still one of the clearest, Mr Price.’
‘It’s a big step from motive to a conviction in court, as you well know. In this case, you won’t be able to take that step.’
Clyde rapped out, ‘Where were you last Saturday night, Mr Price?’
Martin had known from the start that this question would come. It was almost reassuring to hear it voiced at last. He said evenly, ‘I was here, DS Northcott.’
‘Is there anyone who can confirm that for us?’
‘No, I don’t think so.’ He watched the small gold ballpoint make the note in the neat female hand and then added, ‘The innocent often don’t have convenient alibis. We don’t see the need for them, you see.’
‘Have you been in contact with Mrs Ketley since this death?’
He thought about it, not troubling to dissemble. ‘Yes. There’s no law against a man offering his sympathy after a bereavement, as far as I’m aware. There isn’t even any law against two people exulting in a death, so long as they didn’t contrive it. Damned bad form and all that, but not illegal.’
‘So who do you think contrived this death which is so convenient for you?’
‘Do you know, I think I’d be tempted to withhold that name, even if I knew it. For the record, I don’t.’
Northcott nodded to Lucy and stood up. ‘If we don’t get that name quickly, I’ve no doubt we shall be back with more questions for you. Please don’t leave the area without telling Brunton CID exactly where we can find you, Mr Price.’
‘We need something we can give to the press and the television, Peach. This is a high-profile case. Don’t forget that as far as they’re concerned Oliver Ketley was a public benefactor.’
Percy sighed. He had more urgent things to do than brief Tommy Bloody Tucker, but life had never been perfect and never would be. ‘Perhaps you could begin to educate the public, sir. Perhaps let drop the odd hint that Ketley wasn’t the philanthropic giant he made himself out to be.’
‘That would be very difficult. We have to accept that—’
‘Or you could try the more direct approach, sir. Release me to the press. Let me tell them what a right bastard the man was!’
‘Good heavens, Peach! You’ve really no idea of good public relations, have you?’
‘No, sir. I tend to tell it as it is, in my blundering, old-fashioned way.’
‘Don’t say a word to press, radio or television. Is that clear?’
‘Perfectly, sir.’ Percy had no intention of speaking to anyone. He shunned all journalists save one aged crime reporter who now worked part-time for the local evening paper. ‘If anyone from the media approaches me, I’ll say you’ve gagged me, sir. That should stop ’em in their tracks.’
Lurid headlines of censorship by a chief superintendent blazed in Tucker’s cloudy imagination. ‘Just say nothing at all. Don’t mention anything about gagging. Now, bring me up to date on your progress, or lack of
it.’ He leaned forward and jutted his chin towards his junior. This was his no-nonsense Churchillian pose.
‘Much work, little progress, sir. I’d say we are nowhere near to an arrest. Partly owing to the fact that Ketley was a right bastard with lots of enemies. Or an angel who showered his gifts around, if I’m speaking to the press.’
‘This really isn’t good enough, you know. You’ve a big team on this. We’re entitled to expect results by now.’
‘We’ would be the Chief Constable and Tommy Bloody Tucker. And possibly that dangerous and blundering jellyfish known as Joe Public. Peach fell back on the one ploy which never failed. ‘Would you like to take over the administration of this one yourself, sir? Drive it forward with your usual verve? Perhaps it needs the Tucker dynamism.’
Tucker shied away from direct involvement as usual. ‘It is my task to have the overview, Peach. I have to retain the perspective on crime in our area, not chase about pursuing individuals. I have every confidence in the team I have allotted to this case.’
‘Really, sir? That’s most gratifying. I’d somehow acquired the impression that you were less than satisfied with our efforts.’
Tucker gave him the glare which signified that he had gone far enough. ‘Tell me about your leading suspects – assuming that is that you’ve managed to get as far as suspects.’
Percy allowed himself the sudden cackle which was one of his most disturbing effects. Tucker started violently behind his desk and continued to tremble for three or four seconds. Peach seated himself carefully on the chair in front of that desk and embarked on what promised to be a lengthy address. ‘There’s the widow, sir. Greta Ketley.’
Tucker sighed heavily. ‘There is usually a widow when a man is killed.’
‘What? Oh, very good, sir. Very droll. Greta Ketley is younger than her husband. Forty-two against his fifty-six, to be precise.’
‘Ah! She may have another man, then. Have you considered that possibility, Peach?’