by J M Gregson
‘You display your usual percipience, sir. As a result of persistent enquiries and the extensive network of informers maintained by our vigilant CID officers, we have indeed unearthed a lover.’
Tucker rocked himself back and forth in his leather admiral’s chair, a movement designed to convey to lesser brains that he was thinking. ‘This could be the lead we were looking for, you know.’
‘Yes sir.’ Percy raised his wrist dramatically and glanced at his watch. ‘It seems that this man has worked for eight years in the SAS and latterly as a mercenary soldier, so he is well acquainted with weapons and with violence. Hopefully, DS Northcott and DS Peach are interviewing the man in question at this very moment, sir.’
‘DS Peach?’ Tucker relapsed into his bewildered goldfish look.
‘My wife, sir. The former DS Lucy Blake. Promoted and assigned to me by your good self four years ago. No longer works directly with me because of our marriage. She is supplementing our team on this occasion because we are using all our resources to secure a swift result. You approved that yesterday, sir.’
‘Eh? Oh, of course I did! That just shows how urgent I think it is for us to have a result on this one, Peach.’
‘Yes, sir. The resident staff who’ve moved into Thorley Grange most recently obviously attracted our attention, in a case like this.’
‘Eh? Oh, obviously, yes. They’d have the opportunity, wouldn’t they? Good thinking, Peach. What have you turned up?’
‘Nothing very promising so far, sir. There’s a Vietnamese man who wants to become a chef and is learning the trade. Chung Lee. All we’ve discovered so far is that he’s given every satisfaction with his work in the kitchens.’
‘Vietnamese, eh? You’d better give him close attention, Peach. You never know what these foreigners are up to. They have different standards from us.’
Percy reflected that in this case that might be a good thing. He said patiently, ‘We’re checking him out, sir. The other recent arrival is a single woman of thirty-five, Janey Johnson.’ He waited for Tucker to add sexism to his racism, but the man remained silent. ‘She’s a widow, not divorced. Her husband was Sam Johnson; no evidence he was a man of letters, however.’
Tucker did not pick up the reference. ‘Have you reason to suspect this woman?’
‘None whatsoever, at present, sir. She excited our interest only because she’s a recent arrival among the resident staff. She seems like Lee to be giving every satisfaction in her work. She is already highly rated not only by the housekeeper at the Grange but by Mrs Ketley herself.’
‘Not promising, then. Scarcely a suspect at all, from your account. Have you nothing more likely to offer me?’
‘I have indeed, sir. It may be that I have left our prime suspect until the last. Oliver Ketley’s death may well have been a contract killing.’
Tucker’s face rose for a moment, then fell dramatically. Even he realized that the chances of bringing a contract killer to justice were slim. ‘Do you know which one?’
‘Chap named George French, sir. Lives in Oldham. I’ve already been to see him. Took DS Northcott with me, in case things turned ugly.’
‘And did they?’
‘No. sir. But we didn’t make much progress. French simply denied any connection with the shooting of Ketley and challenged us to place him at the scene.’
‘Which you’ve not been able to do?’
‘Not as yet, sir. However, we do have evidence of a first payment made to French for the killing, delivered some ten days before Ketley was shot. The final instalment is normally made when the liquidation has been successfully completed. We have not so far been able to find the details of that second payment.’
Tucker pursed his lips, removed his glasses, and polished them slowly; these were the mannerisms he used to convey deep Chief Superintendental deliberation. Eventually he said, ‘This French fellow could well be your man, you know. What you need to bring him to court is further evidence.’
Percy Peach left the enchanted world of Tucker’s penthouse eyrie and slowly descended the staircase towards real life. He tried to console himself with the thought that, in a world of bewildering change, there were still things which did not alter. One of these was the head of Brunton CID’s capacity for the blindin’ bleedin’ obvious.
‘This is a private matter, Mrs Ketley. I think you would find it less embarrassing if you spoke to us alone.’
‘I want Mrs Johnson to remain with us. She will be a witness to what is said here this afternoon.’ Greta made the words sound as insulting as she could, but Peach was not at all discomforted. He was used to much worse police insults, could if necessary deliver much more cutting thoughts himself.
‘That is your choice, Mrs Ketley. I hope you will be more cooperative than when we spoke to you on Sunday.’
Greta flashed them a look of pure hostility. For an instant, she was transformed from cool Scandinavian beauty into dangerous cat. Her blue eyes, which for some years she had striven to make as cold as her husband’s, glittered with hate. It was an instant only, but a revealing one. Both Peach and Northcott knew in that moment that this was a woman who could envisage murder as a solution and perhaps execute it, if someone stood between her and her desires. ‘I cooperated fully with you on Sunday. I identified Oliver’s body as you requested. I answered your questions and I told you no lies.’
‘Concealing information can be as harmful as direct lies, when we are pursuing a murder investigation. You are an intelligent woman; you must be able to see that.’
Janey Johnson, who was sitting protectively beside her mistress on the sofa as she had been bidden to do, said, ‘None of us likes to reveal the innocent details of our private life unless it is strictly necessary. Our instinct is to keep close relationships secret from the world at large.’
Peach wondered how much had been agreed between these two before the CID arrived; they would have had no more than half an hour, but that was enough to arrange simple tactics. ‘I can see that argument: I could even sympathize with it, in ordinary circumstances. But serious crime is extraordinary, and murder is the most serious crime of all. Murder makes its own rules. You must see that anyone who conceals information invites us to treat him or her as a suspect. Deceit is a sort of disease; it corrupts the person who practises it.’
Greta Ketley’s eyes shone with passion. ‘I love a man who was not my husband. I cannot help that. I deny that it is corrupt.’
‘And your husband has been brutally murdered. You must see that you and Martin Price have to be suspects, the more so since you have attempted to conceal your relationship.’
There was a gasp with the first mention of Price’s name, as if she had been struck a physical blow. ‘As far as I was aware, no one here knew I was seeing Martin. I wished to keep it that way when my husband was shot through the head. That was surely understandable.’
‘Understandable it may have been. Mistaken it certainly was. It now appears that Oliver Ketley was shot between nine and ten last Saturday night. Where were you at that time?’
Greta swallowed hard. They were not going to treat her sympathetically any more. The pose of grieving widow was gone and that of scheming and unscrupulous lover now accorded to her by her questioners. ‘I was here, watching a DVD. The television is rubbish on a Saturday night.’
‘Can anyone confirm your presence here?’
‘I wouldn’t think so. The staff are off duty and concerned with their own pleasures on a Saturday night.’ She glanced automatically at the woman beside her and received a comforting smile and a tiny nod of assent.
‘Did Mr Ketley say where he was going?’
‘No, and I didn’t ask him. I knew better than that.’
Her face had set grimly, but Peach said, ‘Could you explain that, please?’
For a moment they thought she would refuse to answer, but the DCI ignored her clear-eyed hostility and waited. Eventually she said harshly, ‘Saturday night was his night for women. He sought out whoever he had per
suaded to meet him. If no one was so stupid, he went to prostitutes, I think. I can give you no details because I’d long since ceased to care.’ She delivered this in a weary monotone. Then she added with angry irony, ‘I’d got my own lover, you see, as you’ve so cleverly discovered. I’d no interest in Oliver. I merely wished to be rid of him!’
There was an electric moment whilst the damning words hung in the quiet room. Then Peach said, ‘And how exactly did you contrive that, Mrs Ketley?’
‘I didn’t. As I’ve just told you, I was here on Saturday night.’
‘You’re an intelligent and resourceful woman, Mrs Ketley. You’re as aware as I am that you didn’t need to be in that car to commit murder. If I’d been in your position, I should have employed a contract killer.’
She looked at him steadily. ‘I know they exist. I have no idea how to contact such a person.’
‘I described you as resourceful. I’m sure you could have made a few discreet enquiries and discovered how to contact a professional killer. Your friend Martin Price could certainly have helped you.’
‘Martin had nothing to do with this!’ With the mention of her lover, her fury against this persistent, determined little man redoubled. Her blue eyes flashed not just defiance but hatred. ‘Neither he nor I had anything to do with this. Please get that into your stupid head!’
Beside her, Janey Johnson reached out a hand and put it on top of Greta’s, stilling the increasingly undisciplined movement of the older woman’s arms. Greta flung it aside angrily, then glanced apologetically at Janey and nodded.
Peach watched every movement, as if he was learning things that mere words could not reveal to him. Then he said, ‘I’m not going to give you the old line about everyone being a suspect, mainly because it isn’t true. I shall merely point out that by concealing your association with Mr Price when we saw you on Sunday, you forfeited any right to be automatically believed. You played the grieving widow then, when you must have been exulting in a death which cleared the way for you and Martin Price. We have to ask ourselves what other deceptions you were perpetrating.’
‘All right!’ She glared at an unrepentant Peach as if she wished him in the mortuary with her husband, causing Janey Johnson to put a warning hand across hers again. This time Greta did not shrug her aside, but nodded a small smile towards her, reassuring her that she was in control and not about to implicate herself further. ‘I can see that if I put myself in your position, the fact that I tried to conceal Martin from you is suspicious. But if you could in turn look at things from my point of view, you might understand – not approve, I’m not expecting you to do that – but understand. We’ve spent a year concealing what we felt for each other from everyone around us, friend as well as foe. You know by now what sort of man Oliver was; if he’d had the slightest suspicions about Martin, he’d have been a dead man. Secrecy had become a habit for me, one on which life and death depended. Every instinct forbade me to abandon secrecy, even with Oliver dead.’
She spoke with real passion and there was logic in what she said. But Peach wasn’t going to admit that. Without turning to the man at his side, he said by way of introduction, ‘DS Northcott spoke to Martin Price this morning, as you already know.’
Clyde eased himself forward a few inches and asked the question he had agreed on their way here. ‘You say you were here when your husband was being murdered on Saturday night. Was it Martin Price who was shooting your husband through the head at that time?’
Greta gave a little gasp of astonishment. It was a long time since anyone had spoken to her in such blunt and dramatic terms. Even Oliver had chosen to leave his threats unspoken as they had grown further apart. ‘Of course he wasn’t.’
‘There’s no “of course” about it, Mrs Ketley. We have to look at things objectively. Martin Price has so far no alibi for Saturday night. He is a man whose background, experience and skills fit him ideally as a man able and willing to plan and execute violent death.’
She gazed into the challenging black face and wondered if there was something personal in this. She had assumed Northcott’s background was Caribbean. Was it in fact African? Did the fact that Martin had organized men like him into killing bands in Africa motivate his present hostility? She told herself firmly that she was being fanciful and melodramatic, even racist. This was a policeman following his trade, looking for a conviction. His question had logic and needed answering. She admitted to herself now that it was Martin’s capacity to live violently and survive, his air of latent menace, which was part of his attraction for her. She said with all the conviction she could force into her words, ‘Martin didn’t shoot Oliver. I know that, because I know Martin, but I can’t prove it to you. Don’t they say that it’s always difficult to prove a negative?’
Peach had at that moment no idea who had killed Oliver Ketley; he still rather favoured George French for the crime, though he knew how difficult it would be to pin it upon him. But if the killer was Martin Price, he had a doughty ally in his lover; Peach would much rather have Greta Ketley on his side than against him. With one of his quick switches, he said quietly, ‘Did your husband carry a personal weapon, Mrs Ketley?’
Greta switched her attention from the long, menacing black face to the round white one beside it. ‘A personal weapon?’
‘A firearm for his own use. A pistol or a revolver. Most people involved in the activities in which he made his money carry some form of personal protection.’
‘He had bodyguards to protect him, when he went into dangerous places. You should be asking James Hardwick about this. He organizes that side of things.’
‘I know he does and I’ve already spoken to him. Now I’m speaking to you, I’m asking you for a second time, did your husband carry a firearm on his person?’
‘He had a handgun of his own.’
‘I see. Was he carrying it on the night he died?’
They’d questioned others; Peach had already told her that. She needed to be very careful what she said now. ‘He had a pistol. I don’t know any details. I never let him tell me. I hate things like that.’ She was making every effort to convince them, but her voice sounded to her very flat as she spoke.
‘How did he carry this pistol?’
She glanced sideways at Janey, then down at the hand which lay still on top of hers. ‘I don’t think he carried it all the time. But as I say, I’m not really sure about that – we haven’t been very close in the last few years, and certainly not since I began to see Martin.’ She spat the last phrase at him vehemently, as if it were an assertion of integrity. ‘He had some sort of harness which fitted the pistol beneath his arm.’
‘Yes. A shoulder holster. He was wearing it when he died. Do you know the make of his pistol?’
‘No. I hate weapons and bullets, as I said, because they frighten me. I – I think he might have changed it recently, because I saw him loading it and examining it carefully.’
‘How long ago was this?’
‘A few weeks back. I can’t be precise. I hate the things and try to avoid them.’
The third time she had asserted that. It was probably true, but Peach wondered whether the lady did protest too much. ‘Where did he keep this handgun and its ammunition?’
‘Not in the bedroom. I wouldn’t have that. Probably in his office somewhere.’ She looked from one to the other of the police faces. ‘He was shot with this pistol, wasn’t he?’
‘We believe he was, yes. There was a rather clumsy attempt to make it look like suicide.’
She flinched on that, which made them wonder if she took it as an insult to her or her lover’s handiwork in the Bentley. Peach asked, ‘Would you be able to identify the weapon, if it was indeed the one he carried?’
She said dully. ‘No, I wouldn’t. I’ve never wanted to know one weapon from another. I don’t know who did this. It wasn’t me and it wasn’t Martin. I’ve told you all I can.’
Greta turned to look at Janey Johnson and answered her encouraging
smile with a small one of her own. She looked exhausted, almost as if she had been confronting the detail and the reality of her husband’s murder for the first time.
SEVENTEEN
George French didn’t feel the cold. A raw wind was swirling between the high buildings, making most people hurry about their business. But when he was on a job, George never felt the cold. Afterwards, perhaps, when the business was done and the man dead, he would notice the temperature, would feel the cold biting suddenly in fingers which had been warm and supple minutes earlier when they were working.
He had never lived here. Birmingham always felt an alien city to him. He felt no glow of recognition as the multiple towers of high-rise flats came into view and he turned his car off the M6 and towards the city centre. Yet he knew the small section of the city which was his goal, near the old canals and a mile away from the redeveloped Bullring, almost as well as if he had grown up in the place. He had killed here before. He had a map of the terrain around him committed to his memory. He was familiar with the labyrinth of streets and their buildings, old and new, almost as if he had been raised among them.
He parked the dark blue Ford Focus very near the corner, where it was at the head of the row of parked cars and no one could park in front of it. Ready for a quick getaway. But not so quick that it would excite attention, he hoped. That would mean that things hadn’t gone to plan. The Focus was deceptively powerful, with a two-litre engine which could accelerate swiftly to well over a hundred, if necessary. But that too was only a precaution, so that speed was there if needed. He had accelerated hard in the Focus only twice in the three years he had driven the car. Speed excited attention; if you killed people for money, it was much better not to draw attention to yourself.
He could see everything he needed to from here. His car commanded a view of the crossroads, with the high warehouse on his right and the thirties cinema which was now a nightclub with lap-dancing club on his left. He picked up the Daily Telegraph from beside him and pretended to read, his eyes not on the print but on the comings and goings of the vehicles and pedestrians in front of him. He liked to use the Telegraph, that organ of the conservative middle classes, when he was preparing to kill.