Least of Evils

by J M Gregson

  Twenty minutes passed slowly. He didn’t mind that; it was what he had expected. He could feel the tension rising as the moment came nearer, like an actor fighting stage fright as his entry approached. He felt his pulse pounding a little faster in his temple as he watched the door of the club. His mouth was dry now; good. He ticked off the symptoms as the time approached, registering them as old friends who guaranteed his efficiency.

  The big maroon Jaguar arrived within five minutes of the time he had calculated. They set themselves up for trouble, these people, driving big, flashy, noticeable cars like that. French was out of his car as the Jag eased into its parking place, walking swiftly towards the driver. He was thin, wiry, easily missed in his shabby blue anorak. The Jaguar driver was a heavy man, overweight as many of his like became around fifty, the result of a lifestyle which was too easy and too affluent. He blew out his cheeks as the cold wind hit him after the warmth of the car, then moved towards the door of the club.

  George French had timed it right. His quarry was within two yards of the door when he brushed against him. There was a silencer on the pistol, but he also had it against the man’s chest when he fired it. The sound was minimal. The only witness was a hundred yards away; he thought at first that the man had just slipped and fallen. The target was dead or dying, but French put a second bullet through his temple to make absolutely sure.

  He was back in the Focus before anyone appeared from the club, easing away from the kerb, then departing quietly in the opposite direction from that which the Jaguar had arrived. This time the high blocks of council flats which heralded the motorway were a welcome sight. French observed the fifty limit carefully, then eased the car up to over seventy when it ended. Early afternoon was the quietest time on the busy M6; he was back in his anonymous bungalow in Oldham within a hundred minutes.

  He changed swiftly into his gardening clothes and completed the digging of the vegetable plot at the bottom of his patch. His neighbour came in when he had been there for two minutes and complimented him on his industry on this raw day.

  ‘Good temperature for digging!’ said George with a smile. ‘You don’t feel the cold, once you get going. I shall be finished soon – I’ve been at it for two hours. And enough is enough!’ No harm in encouraging the odd witness to your whereabouts at the time of the latest gangland killing in Birmingham.

  Three hours later, he rang Jack Burgess in Alderley Edge. ‘Market day Wednesday,’ he said. He didn’t need to give his name; it was the code they had agreed to signify the successful conclusion of an assignment.

  ‘Excellent. No stall this week.’ As expected, Burgess had no further work for him at the moment.

  Before he could put the phone down, French said, ‘The Brunton market. The Ketley job. Someone blabbed about the down-payment. Someone at your end. The police knew.’

  A pause, so long that he wondered if the man was going to react at all. Gangster bosses didn’t like being told there were flaws in their organization. Then Burgess’s heavy voice said, ‘Thanks for the information. I’ll make enquiries.’

  Chung Lee had every reason to be pleased with his accommodation at Thorley Grange. The room was fourteen feet long and nine feet wide. Chung, with his fascination for figures and precision, had measured the place as one of his first actions after moving in.

  That did not include the en suite, with its lavatory and washbasin and shower, which was a further seven feet by six feet; at one time he would have used metric figures, but the British preferred feet and yards, so that was good enough for Chung, who believed that he should fit unobtrusively into his adopted country.

  He liked England. He was learning things he had never thought he would learn. Perhaps he would stay here. Perhaps he would indeed open up his own restaurant eventually, as he told everyone he wanted to do. But he wasn’t looking too far ahead; these things might be outside his control.

  It was the first time the CID men had seen his quarters. They looked unhurriedly around them, as was their wont in new surroundings, and decided as he had that Lee was fortunate in the living quarters allotted to him. When you were a single man operating as a full-time residential employee, the room you were given was a highly important factor in your life. It was the place where you lived and slept, where you spent more than half of your existence. Job satisfaction was important during your hours in the kitchen, but for resident staff, accommodation almost merged with job satisfaction. If you found where you lived depressing and claustrophobic, you were hardly going to give full value in the kitchens, or to get much joy out of life in general.

  Peach had seen all kinds of rooms where single people had to exist; this was one of the best. It was neither depressing nor claustrophobic. It had a large, west-facing window with a view over the kitchen garden at the rear of the Grange to the woods beyond the wall of the estate. There was a close-fitting blind which would shut out the evening light when the setting sun threatened to dazzle. There was a picture on each of the long walls, one a Lakeland view of Blea Tarn and the Langdale Pikes, the other a still life of fruit in a bowl. Both, he judged, had been provided by the anonymous furnishers of the Grange rather than by Lee himself. There was a television on a stand, with a remote control beside it, a single wardrobe, a chest of drawers, two easy chairs and a bed, all sitting upon a fitted carpet. Everything was scrupulously neat and clean.

  There were no photographs, no ornaments which seemed personal. There was nothing to identify this pleasant, comfortable room with its occupant. That might be no more than a reminder that Chung Lee had only occupied it for a few weeks. It might on the other hand mean that he was a man who habitually travelled light and did not put down roots.

  As if he felt no sense of ownership, Chung stood awkwardly waiting whilst the CID men inspected his quarters. It was left to them to decide the positions for the trio in this mini-drama. ‘Cosy, this!’ said Percy Peach, as if he came habitually into the quarters of domestic staff at places like Thorley Grange. ‘I think I shall sit here.’ He moved one of the easy chairs a yard, so that it had its back to the window. ‘And Detective Sergeant Northcott will be perfectly comfortable sitting on the edge of your bed.’

  Chung watched them dispose themselves, then sat uneasily in the second armchair, aware that his vision could not take in the man on his left at the same time as Peach sitting opposite him. The DCI smiled blandly at him. Those who knew Peach, as Lee did not, would have expected this to be a prelude to aggression. He said quietly, ‘We needed to see you again, as I think I warned you we might when we spoke on Monday. There are certain omissions in the account of yourself and your movements which you gave to us then.’

  ‘Omissions?’

  ‘Things you did not tell us, Mr Lee. A less charitable man than me might have used the term deceptions.’

  ‘I did not deceive you, Mr Peach.’

  Peach’s eyebrows hoped skywards alarmingly. ‘Really? I think you did, Mr Lee. Well, we shall perhaps be able to establish just what you did and why in the next half hour or so.’ He stretched his legs in front of him and crossed his ankles, well aware that half an hour seemed an impossibly long time for an interviewee with things to conceal.

  The DCI nodded a couple of times, then said, ‘Your brother, Mr Lee. The one who plays for Norwich City.’

  ‘The soccer player, yes. I have not spoken to—’

  ‘He doesn’t exist, does he? It is an entirely different Lee who plays football in Norwich. He’d never heard of you.’

  Chung looked at Peach’s shoes. They seemed very black and extraordinarily shiny. ‘It’s – it’s not important. It has nothing to do with Mr Ketley’s death.’

  ‘It’s always important when you tell lies to the police. Why did you do it?’

  ‘I don’t know. Really I don’t. Someone asked me quite a long time ago if this man was my brother and I said yes. I was new in the country then and it seemed to make me – well, less of a foreigner, I suppose. It had that effect on the man who asked me. So I buil
t it into my background, when I talked to other people, and it helped me. The English people seemed to find it easier to accept me into their midst as a working colleague with a brother who played football. Your soccer is very important to you, is it not?’

  Peach thought of the agonies and ecstasies he had endured during thirty years of following Brunton Rovers and smiled. ‘It is, yes. But that does not excuse your lying to CID officers in a murder investigation.’

  ‘No. I am sorry for that. It had become a habit for me to claim this Lee as a brother. I have never been to Norwich.’

  ‘I see. Do you have your passport here?’

  He did not reply, but walked across to the small dressing table and opened the top drawer. ‘Here it is. You will find it is quite in order.’

  Peach took it and studied it for a moment. It seemed to be absolutely in order. It might of course be a forgery, but he did not know what to look for to establish that. He handed it back to the anxious-looking man and motioned him to sit down. He thought the olive face was a little paler, but that was probably imagination or wishful thinking. ‘You have been in this country for five years.’

  Chung wasn’t sure whether it was a statement or a question. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why did you come here?’

  ‘It seemed that there would be more opportunities for me here.’

  ‘There is no work in Vietnam?’

  ‘There is work, yes, but more chance here. More chance to develop yourself. Perhaps I shall eventually return. If I do, what I have learned here and the experiences I have had will help me to get a better position in my home country.’

  ‘I see. What did you do there, before you decided to try your luck over here?’ Peach had no idea what the racial relations mafia would make of this line of questioning, but he would pursue it as long as the man did not object to his questions.

  ‘I was a teacher. I had not taught very much. I had not long been qualified.’

  ‘I see. Forgive me, but it does not seem a very logical progression, this. You are a teacher, in your own country, at the outset of a career. You are an intelligent man, with a facility for languages – I say that because of your excellent English. Yet you come here and apparently take whatever work is available. Even this desire to embark on a career in catering seems to have come upon you only in the last couple of years.’

  ‘Yes. I agree it is unexpected.’ He hesitated a little over the clumsy, four-syllabled word, as if asserting that his English was not after all so perfect. ‘But I wanted to broaden my horizons by travelling, the way the books and the brochures tell you to do. I wanted to sample western civilization.’

  He stopped as if he expected to be interrupted, so that Peach was reminded of Gandhi’s remark that western civilisation would be a very good idea; the villainies you saw from people like Oliver Ketley tempted you towards thoughts like that. He switched his ground now, in the manner which had outwitted more experienced deceivers than Chung Lee. ‘Why did you lie to us about where you were last Saturday night, Mr Lee?’

  ‘What? You’re talking about when Mr Ketley was murdered, aren’t you? I told you on Monday, I was with my friend Fam Chinh at the restaurant in Market Street. We had a green curry. I had ice cream to follow.’ He rattled the list off quickly, as if he could convince them with the detail.

  ‘No, Mr Lee, you were not.’

  ‘There is some mistake I think.’ But he did not think that. He knew now that it had been a foolish plan.

  ‘Our detective constables interviewed Mr Chinh. He tried to support you, but they could see that he wasn’t happy. When they challenged him, he admitted that this was just a story you had asked him to tell for you. He did not see you at all on Saturday night. Instead, he admitted that he had eaten with you on Sunday evening and that you had asked him to tell this tale for you then.’

  Chung’s brown eyes stared steadily, unblinkingly, at the carpet between his feet and Peach’s. His voice was a monotone as he said, ‘I should not have asked Fam Chinh to lie for me. I do not know him as well as I said I did. We worked together for a few months, that is all. We looked out for each other, as you English say. He is a good man, who fears for his family in a foreign country.’

  ‘He has nothing to fear from us. Unless he makes a habit of lying for possible murderers.’

  ‘I am not a murderer. I did not kill Ketley. I was scared, that was all.’

  It was the first time he had not accorded Ketley his title. From beside him, out of his vision, Clyde Northcott said, ‘Then where were you on Saturday night, Mr Lee?’

  ‘I was here. But because no one can say that to support me, I was afraid that you would suspect me. In my land the police are not as honest as here. They want convictions. They fasten on the weakest story.’

  Clyde had no knowledge of the police in Vietnam. The situation Lee had described wasn’t unknown in Britain, but this wasn’t the moment to acknowledge that. He said calmly, ‘You have made the situation much worse by lying to us. We now cannot trust anything else you have told us without checking it out.’

  Chung didn’t turn to look at him. He ran a hand briefly through his dark straight hair and said. ‘I am sorry. What you say is true. But I was very afraid, being questioned by the police in a strange land. I made a mistake.’

  Peach said quietly, ‘When did you come to England, Chung?’

  It was the first use of his forename. They were strange, the English and their little rituals. It might denote some sudden switch in the senior policeman’s attitude, but he had no idea what that might be. ‘I came here in 2005.’

  ‘And what kind of work did you do?’

  A long pause. ‘I took whatever I could get, at first.’

  ‘You worked on a building site, did you not?’

  ‘Yes. It was the only work I could get.’ He wondered just how much these people knew. This quiet, persistent, apparently sympathetic man was releasing his knowledge in scraps, as it suited him.

  ‘It was the only work you could get in a particular area. In Lancashire.’

  ‘In Liverpool, yes.’ Chung looked down at his soft hands, as if wondering how they could ever have done that work with bricks and the cement.

  ‘Between Liverpool and Southport, to be precise.’

  ‘Yes.’ They did know, then. But he must be careful, nonetheless. They would have to prove things, in this country, before they could lock him away. There was no reason why he should confess everything.

  ‘Strange work for a teacher to undertake.’

  ‘I told you, I wanted travel and experience. You can’t pick and choose what you do. The type of work didn’t matter much, so long as I could support myself.’

  A pause again; Chung wondered whether they were weighing the merits of what he’d said. Then Peach said quietly, ‘I suggest the type of work didn’t matter, Chung, so long as it was in the right part of the country. I suggest you wanted to work as near to Southport as possible.’

  ‘No. I took work where I could get it.’

  ‘We have your employment records, Chung. Why did you begin work in that particular part of Lancashire?’

  ‘Anywhere in the country would have been all right. I had a contact near Liverpool who helped me to get work.’

  ‘Name?’

  ‘I do not remember his name. He is no longer in this country.’

  ‘Let me make a suggestion, Chung. In my opinion, you wished to work as near Southport as possible and you took whatever work you could get to be there. You wished to get as near to Oliver Ketley as you could.’

  Lee was an undemonstrative man, adept in concealing his feelings behind an inscrutable exterior. There was no sound from him now, but the mention of the dead man’s name brought a sharp twitch of the shoulders and a stiffening of the neck above them. He said nothing, continuing to stare at the carpet, so Peach was forced to venture a little further with his conjecture. ‘I believe you lost someone very close to you and blamed Oliver Ketley for his death.’

  ‘Ketl
ey was a very bad man.’

  It should have been banal, but his sincerity in the quiet room carried them with him. Peach said softly, persuasively, ‘He was indeed a very bad man, Chung. We can agree on that. I can see why you would want to kill him.’

  ‘I did not shoot Ketley.’ He repeated it doggedly, as if that was necessary to convince them.

  Peach, watching him keenly, decided that this was the moment when he had to move from the certainties he had used so far to speculation. ‘Fifth of February, 2004. The night of the cockle-pickers, when at least twenty-three illegally employed workers died on Southport sands. You lost someone that night, didn’t you, Chung? Someone very close to you.’

  ‘My brother. Ketley took him on, put him in charge of the Chinese labour. I know that now. He was the only man from Vietnam who died that night.’ It was an immense relief to have it out at last, when he had concealed it for so long, from others as well as the police. ‘His body was never found. He shouted for help on his mobile phone, but those were his last words. No one could find him. He must have been washed out to sea.’ His voice broke on the last, hopeless statement.

  ‘But you found you couldn’t get near Oliver Ketley.’

  This quiet man with the round white face and the bald head seemed to Chung to know everything, even to understand everything. ‘No. I couldn’t even get to see him. And I realized that he must never know that I was here or that I even existed. He would wipe me from the earth as he might swat a fly. But I had time; I did not need to hurry.’

  ‘So you moved into catering, and eventually into Thorley Grange.’

  ‘Yes.’ There was suddenly a small smile on the small, perfectly formed lips. ‘I found I was quite good in the kitchen. I might even make a career of it.’

  They smiled with him, grateful for any small relaxation of the tension which had dominated the last few minutes. Then Peach said with deadly seriousness, ‘And on Saturday night your chance came. You shot Oliver Ketley through the head and avenged your brother.’