Least of Evils

by J M Gregson

  ‘Of course. But I thought the fact that you came here at about the same time might have given you something in common.’

  Janey wished they could move on to the stuff she had prepared for them. She hadn’t expected to start with this. ‘In my limited contacts, I’ve found Chung a pleasant and polite man. I think we’re both rather cautious about new relationships.’

  ‘And perhaps neither of you wanted to become close.’

  She smiled. ‘That might also be true. From what I hear, Mr Lee is determined to make himself a master-chef and is working very hard to do that. As for me, I’ve learned to be cautious. Men, or at least a lot of men, take friendliness as an invitation to something more. If you don’t want that, you’re very cautious about the sort of conversations you get yourself into. I find it easier to be friendly when there are other women around.’

  ‘Let’s forget about Mr Lee, then. It’s just that we have certain queries about him and another member of staff suggested that you were closer to him than you obviously are.’

  She wondered who that might be. But she mustn’t think about it now. ‘I wouldn’t want you to think that I’ve anything against Chung. I rather like the fact that he’s quiet and polite. I feel sorry for him being so isolated, especially now that Mr Ketley’s death has introduced all sorts of uncertainties about the future of this place.’

  Peach, sensing that there was some other thing she wanted to add, merely helped her onwards. ‘You’re right about him feeling isolated, I think. He’s also pretty scared of policemen and what we might do to him. He’s very conscious that he hasn’t anyone to vouch for his whereabouts at the time of Mr Ketley’s death. He doesn’t realize that he’s not the only one in that position, but it’s hardly up to us to tell him that.’

  Her forehead furrowed; curiously, that made her look younger and more attractive. ‘I might be able to help you there.’

  ‘Really?’ Peach arched his eyebrows alarmingly high, but Janey was concentrating on her own thoughts.

  ‘I’m pretty sure he was in his room last Saturday night.’ She saw Northcott preparing to make a note and concentrated even more fiercely. ‘I passed his room, because I went down to the entrance hall to check on my flower arrangement there. With Mr and Mrs Ketley both here for the weekend, I wanted to make sure it was still looking fresh. His television was on when I passed: I’m sure I heard it, because it was tuned to the wildlife programme I’d been watching.’

  Clyde Northcott made his note, then spoke almost apologetically in his quiet bass voice. ‘We CID men are suspicious creatures, Mrs Johnson. We have to remember that a room is not necessarily occupied when a television set is switched on.’

  ‘No, I realize that, but I’m sure I saw him come out of his room as I returned to mine. We almost bumped into each other.’ She frowned again, working fiercely on her memory. ‘I can remember the incident, because we both apologized at the same time and then laughed about it. He said he’d left his book in the kitchen annexe – that’s where the catering staff go when they take short rests.’

  The dark-brown voice said quietly, ‘What time was this, Mrs Johnson?’

  ‘I remember the incident clearly enough, but I couldn’t have told you until now exactly what day it was, let alone what time. But that television programme helps. It must have been Saturday. And it must have been about nine, because the programme was just coming to an end when I slipped out to go down to the entrance hall.’ She watched Northcott note it. ‘Is that any use? I’ve no idea when Mr Ketley was killed.’

  Peach was almost effusive. ‘It’s very useful, Mrs Johnson. I wish everyone else would go on thinking, as we exhort them to; it’s surprising how often people recall significant details. This can only help Mr Lee.’

  ‘Good. I’m sure he had nothing to do with Mr Ketley’s death. Chung seems a nice, inoffensive man, from what little I’ve seen of him.’

  Percy knew one or two nice, inoffensive men and women who had committed murder, but he wasn’t going to waste time voicing the thought. ‘Tell us about your own relationship with Mr Ketley, please.’

  It was another of those abrupt switches of ground, but Janey told herself that she was prepared for it, that she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of being shocked. This was an expected question and she had an answer ready for it. ‘I scarcely knew him. He appointed me, but after that I hardly spoke to him, or he to me. I met him around the house and the business suite a few times, but it was the housekeeper, Mrs Frobisher, who allotted me my duties. I answer to her.’

  ‘Not to Mrs Ketley?’

  ‘No. It’s true I’ve worked more closely with Mrs Ketley recently, but that’s only because she wanted someone from the household close to her over the last few days. I expect that’s the blow of her husband’s death.’

  ‘And the manner of his dying.’

  ‘And the manner of his dying, as you say. It must have been a great shock to her.’

  ‘Must it?’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure it must.’ She stared hard at him, defying him to challenge her.

  ‘Of those who live here, you’ve been closer than anyone to Greta Ketley since her husband’s death. How much of a shock do you think it was?’

  ‘I think you may have an exaggerated idea of how close I am to Mrs Ketley. She has been kind to me and I have tried to be helpful to her in difficult circumstances. But we’d hardly spoken before last Saturday. I like her and I think she likes me. But I’d say that we’re still getting to know each other.’

  ‘Did you know that she was conducting an affair outside her marriage?’

  How abrupt the man was! How quickly he switched from the mundane to the disturbing! Janey made herself take her time. ‘Not until yesterday. Greta told me herself. It’s flown round the Grange in the last few hours, as gossip will. I’m quite sure no one even suspected it earlier.’

  ‘No doubt you’re right. If Oliver Ketley had known anything about an affair, he would have taken steps to end it very quickly.’

  ‘I expect you’re right. You obviously know far more about Mr Ketley than I do.’ She got a little pleasure from this prim reply.

  ‘And perhaps you know more about him than you care to admit to.’

  She glanced up at him instinctively. He was observing her every reaction, as he had done throughout. She kept her voice very steady. ‘What I know is mostly second-hand. I was told early on that he was a womanizer. He gave me the impression when he interviewed me that he would welcome sexual favours. I needed the job, but I didn’t give him any encouragement.’

  ‘And once you were living in the house, did he make any advances, welcome or otherwise?’

  A little shudder ran through the slim body. ‘They would not have been welcome. And I had no real trouble. I took care not to get into situations where he might paw me or suggest private meetings.’ She allowed herself a bitter smile. ‘When you are a youngish widow, you develop a certain expertise in these things.’

  ‘I imagine you do. What did your husband do for a living, Mrs Johnson?’

  She dropped her eyes from his near-black, all-seeing pupils, finding that an aid to concentration. ‘Sam ran a general hardware store, in Preston.’

  ‘Ran it and owned it, did he not?’

  ‘We did own it, yes – with the help of a large bank loan. It didn’t feel like ours, but no doubt it would have done, with time.’

  ‘A general hardware store with a lucrative sideline. Your husband obtained a licence to sell guns, did he not?’

  ‘You obviously know he did. You’ve done your research. But the gun trade wasn’t very lucrative. Sam believed it would have become so, given time.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘It was all strictly legal. Most of the trade was shotguns, for country shooting. There were a small number of sales of other weapons, all properly documented – licensed for use in controlled environments such as shooting clubs, I believe. I helped prepare the books for the accountants, but otherwise I know nothing about it.
I’ve never had any interest in guns.’

  ‘How did your husband die, Mrs Johnson?’

  She looked up at him on that, then shot at him bitterly, ‘Why ask me, when you obviously know all about it?’

  Peach said with a sudden, surprising gentleness, ‘Not all. I don’t think anyone knows as much as you do, Mrs Johnson. I’d be grateful if you’d answer.’

  ‘Suicide, everyone said.’

  ‘Not everyone, Janey. The Coroner’s Court jury returned an open verdict. They were advised by the police to do so. The case is still officially open. I think we know that it wasn’t suicide. I think we know who killed Sam, but I don’t expect us to find convincing evidence at this stage.’

  For a moment, she was grateful for his honesty. Then she looked at him bitterly; what was the point in telling her they knew Sam had been murdered, then saying in the next breath that he’d never get justice? She said dully, ‘Everyone who lived in the houses around me thought it was suicide. Someone went into court and said Sam had “business worries”. He hadn’t; we had a big loan, but the shop was a success. We were paying the mortgage off each month, as the terms said we had to.’

  ‘I don’t believe Sam committed suicide, either, Janey. But they sealed him in the car with the pipe running from the exhaust to the interior – one of the classic suicide methods.’

  ‘He was unconscious when they put him in there. No one could prove it, but I know he was. Even if he’d been in trouble, suicide would never have been Sam’s way out.’

  ‘There was evidence of blows to the head, though nothing to prove conclusively that he was unconscious. Hence the open verdict.’

  She was very white now, very determined with the memory of it. ‘The police who’d been working on it wanted a suicide verdict. To take a case off their books which they were never going to solve.’

  It was possible she was right. Long-term murder enquiries absorbed precious resources, and in this case there would have been little hope of success. ‘I can’t comment on that, Janey. The car was on the cliffs at Bispham, outside Blackpool. The investigation was by another force. I can only say that I am as convinced as you that Sam was murdered. And as convinced as you who it was who ordered his death.’

  ‘Oliver Ketley.’

  Peach nodded and sighed. ‘Yes. But you probably think I’d never have been able to prove it, and you’re probably right.’

  ‘He wanted our shop in Preston. Apparently it would have been a nice cover for some of his dodgy operations. The licence to sell weapons appealed to him. Sam wouldn’t sell. He never saw Ketley; it was all done through his hard men. They threatened Sam, said he had no real choice in the matter. They didn’t know my husband.’ At this darkest moment of her recollection, pride flashed out. ‘Threats made Sam dig his heels in. He said he was developing a good, legitimate business and he wasn’t selling out to crooks. So Ketley had him killed.’

  ‘And being Ketley, he got away with it.’

  ‘Because he was too strong. Too strong even for the police. A law unto himself.’ She rapped out the phrases she had hugged to herself for five years.

  ‘We’d have got him in the end, Janey. Even gangster bosses overstep the mark. They take on too much, or they get too confident. They begin to think they’re above the law and get careless. It may take years, but in the end we get them.’

  ‘And during those years, small men like Sam get killed. They’re just part of the game. They get no justice, because there’s “insufficient evidence”.’ She hissed out the last phrase, which some unfortunate copper had probably offered to her in the past.

  ‘So you administered your own justice.’

  She looked at him, gathering in the meaning of his quiet phrase, bringing herself slowly back to this time and this place. She looked around the room as if she needed her photographs and her paintings to confirm to her where they were sitting. ‘No. I lay awake the other night wishing it had been me that put the bullet into his head. But that’s silly; in daylight, I’m just glad Ketley’s dead.’

  He looked at her, still sympathetically, then said quietly, ‘Why did you come here, Janey?’

  ‘To Thorley Grange? To get as near to Ketley as I could. I had a vague idea that I would be able to do him some damage at some time in the future, if I could establish myself here. But someone took the matter out of my hands.’ She looked round the room again. ‘I don’t know what I shall do now. Greta wants me to stay with her permanently, whatever happens to this place. She says she’ll have the money to keep me on.’

  ‘Ketley’s money.’

  She looked as if he had slapped her face. ‘I hadn’t thought of that. I suppose it is.’

  ‘I don’t think you should even consider it. Money’s just money, a means to an end. After a few years. It’s almost impossible to say where it came from. And Mrs Ketley’s new partner is a rich man in his own right.’

  ‘She’s going to marry him, you know. It wasn’t just a fling.’

  ‘I gathered that. This death is very convenient for both of them.’

  She was still and quiet for a few seconds. ‘That’s a lousy thing to say.’

  ‘Lousy maybe, but a fact. Sooner or later, Oliver Ketley would have found out about Martin Price, however careful the two of them were. And you know better than most what happened to enemies of his.’

  ‘I accept that. I don’t know anything about Martin Price, except what little Greta has told me. She says he used to be in the SAS. I didn’t even know he existed until yesterday.’

  ‘He was also a mercenary in Africa. He lived by his wits and by the use of violence for many years: that’s what mercenaries do.’

  ‘You’re saying he has the right background and the right motive to kill Ketley.’

  ‘Both of those are obvious enough. I’m not saying he killed him, though. Do you think he did?’

  Another of those sudden key questions, when she had thought they were finished with them. ‘I don’t even know him. I hope not, for Greta’s sake.’

  ‘Your friend and employer is an intelligent and resourceful woman. Do you think she and Martin Price could have done this together?’

  ‘No.’ And yet the arguments were persuasive, she thought. ‘Ketley must have had many enemies. Have you no one else in mind for this?’

  Peach glanced at Northcott, who had been studying her intently whilst she spoke about the mistress of Thorley Grange. Clyde said in his deep, dark-brown voice, ‘There is always the possibility with gangland bosses that they are taken out by rivals. That would almost certainly involve the use of a hit-man, a professional killer who makes a living that way. We know that Ketley had a rival who is anxious to take over his rackets in the north-west. We have a certain amount of evidence, but not yet enough to arrest the hit-man we suspect.’

  Janey Johnson had recovered from the stress of speaking about Sam’s death, but she was still very pale. ‘I hope it was this rival. And I’m glad Ketley’s been removed from this world, for Sam’s sake and mine. I can see that you have to try to arrest his killer, but as far as I’m concerned I shall be quite pleased if you fail.’

  It was not the first time they had heard that view expressed. Clyde Northcott, who had seen life from the other side of the law and was not as clear-sighted as DCI Peach, found himself sympathizing with the sentiment.

  TWENTY

  ‘I want progress, Peach!’ Chief Superintendent Thomas Bulstrode Tucker thumped his desk.

  Percy Peach noted that the chief was in his masterful mode. Pride often went before a fall, especially when pride came in the form of Tommy Bloody Tucker. ‘This is a complex case, sir. Oliver Ketley was a man with many enemies.’ Let the man see that he wasn’t the only one with a taste for the blindin’ bleedin’ obvious. Imitation was the sincerest form of flattery, they said. But even the omniscient ‘they’ didn’t know T.B. Tucker.

  ‘I’m asking for a solution, Peach. And all you give me is more suspects.’

  ‘When a man is shot through t
he head in his own car and the crime is not observed, there are inevitably many possibilities, sir. We’ve narrowed the field. One of the problems is that everyone we’ve questioned closely has a strong motive for wishing Ketley dead. That is probably inevitable.’

  ‘What about the people working at Thorley Grange? Didn’t you tell me the place was teeming with foreigners and women?’

  There were probably grounds for charges of both racialism and sexism in that simple question, but unfortunately no moral enthusiast was present to bear Tucker from Percy’s presence to the appropriate dungeon. ‘Not teeming with them, sir. In a house and business headquarters employing as many staff as Thorley Grange, women are inevitable and the odd foreigner highly probable, sir.’

  ‘I don’t want your views on the evils of modern society, Peach.’ Percy wasn’t aware that he’d offered any. ‘I want a solution to a serious crime. It’s what you’re paid to provide.’ His mouth set in the single sullen line of a child prepared to defy all logic.

  And what you also are paid to provide. Paid more handsomely than any of us, you bleating balloon of belligerence. Percy enjoyed his alliteration as much as the next copper. ‘We have been working diligently ever since the crime was discovered, sir.’

  ‘Bullshit, Peach. I hope that is not simply an excuse for cutting deep into our overtime budget.’

  ‘One can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs, sir.’

  It was the cliché that Tucker used whenever his superiors or the press taxed him with improvidence. The chief superintendent had a vague idea that he was being sent up, but as usual he couldn’t pinpoint the moment. He moved to what he considered safer ground. ‘The wife, Peach. You said she’d been acting in a suspicious manner.’

  ‘Greta Ketley. She’d been conducting an affair for a year before her husband’s death. Brave, even foolhardy, with a husband like hers. I believe she will now marry the man concerned.’

  ‘Didn’t you say he had a previous history of violence?’

  ‘Martin Price? Yes, sir. Not a criminal record, though. He was in the SAS and reached the rank of captain. He was then forced out and spent several years as a mercenary soldier in Africa. He was in charge of a group you could call guerrilla fighters, I suppose. I put full details of it in my e-mail to you.’