by Gregson, J M
‘Don’t be ridiculous. Peach!’ Tucker leaned forward confidentially. ‘I want you to give this case your utmost attention. The press will make a lot of it once they get on to it.’
‘Yes, sir. Do you think we should use the media to help us find the culprit?’
Tucker was immediately suspicious. ‘How on earth could we do that?’
‘Well, I thought if I let old Alf Houldsworth know the details of the killing, and pointed out that it was probably a Masonic crime, the Masons in this area being four times as likely to commit serious crimes as ordinary citizens, we might frighten whoever —’
‘Peach! You will do no such thing. I don’t know where on earth you got this statistic about the Brotherhood from anyway, and I certainly forbid you to go promulgating any such ideas through that old soak Houldsworth!’
The one-eyed Alf Houldsworth, retired for his final working years from a national daily to the cosier pages of the local Evening Dispatch, was an occasional drinking companion of Percy’s, with a similar well-honed contempt for Superintendent Thomas Bulstrode Tucker.
‘You don’t think Masons should be investigated, sir? Even when one of their number is killed in their midst? Well, that will cut down on the work and the overtime budget very considerably, I must say. The benefits of your overview will be demonstrated in very practical terms. I dare say the media will be curious about why we’re laying off the Masons, but —’
‘Peach, I didn’t say that! Why do you wilfully misunderstand me in these things? Of course you must investigate the members of my Lodge. It’s my belief that you won’t find the killer among them, but you must treat them exactly the same as everyone else.’
‘Exactly the same, sir?’
‘Exactly. There must be no allowances made.’
‘And no exceptions, sir?’
‘Certainly not.’
‘Very well, sir.’ Peach nodded several times, as if he might thus embed a difficult concept into his memory. ‘So where were you between eleven twenty and midnight last night, sir?’
‘Where was I between — ? You’re not seriously suggesting that I might have killed the wretched man?’
‘No exceptions, you said, sir. Just trying to eliminate you from the enquiry, cut the number of suspects down. You know the form. And did I hear you call the victim “the wretched man”, sir? I don’t like that. Most unfortunate expression, from your point of view. You don’t want your solicitor present for this, do you?’
‘No I damned well don’t! And you just be bloody careful, DI Peach. You can go too far, you know.’
‘Yes, sir. Sorry, sir. So are you refusing to tell me where you were between eleven twenty and midnight, then?’
Tucker longed to tear a real strip off this odious tormentor. But he knew that his own reputation rested on the broad shoulders of this squat little Torquemado. And being intensely media-conscious, he saw everything in terms of headlines. ‘Head of CID Keeps Mum in Murder Probe’ is the one which sprang to mind, if Peach leaked this exchange to that old rogue Houldsworth. Tucker said through gritted teeth, ‘I was in the main dining room with the rest of our group, I suppose.’
Peach recorded this eagerly in the small leather-backed book he produced from his inside pocket, mouthing the words ‘I suppose’ with silent satisfaction as he wrote them. ‘You didn’t leave the room for anything during this forty-minute period, sir? No calls of nature or other unspecified absences?’
‘Of course I didn’t! Well, I may just have gone out to the gents in that period, I suppose. The meal and the speeches had gone on for quite a long time, and we’d drunk a fair amount. Yes, I think I did go to the men’s cloakroom during that period. I couldn’t be sure exactly when.’
Peach nodded thoughtfully over his notebook. ‘Pity about that. But understandable, I suppose. Can anyone vouch for your movements?’
‘Vouch for my movements?’
‘Yes, sir. To put it bluntly, as we’re in the business, is there anyone who can confirm that you went to the bog and only to the bog, rather than nipping out to garrotte the Irish nightingale in the car park?’
‘No. I don’t remember anyone being in the cloakroom when I was.’
Peach shook his head sadly, looking at his notes. ‘Can’t eliminate you from suspicion, can we, sir? Not at the moment. But I should assure you that as far as I’m concerned, it’s just a formality.’
‘I’m glad to hear it.’
Tucker tried to weight his words with a heavy irony, but Peach did not seem to notice it. ‘You’ve no reason to dislike the deceased, have you, sir?’
‘Eric? No. No reason whatsoever.’
‘Only you did refer to him as “the wretched man”, if you remember. You didn’t owe him any large sums of money?’
‘Of course I didn’t. Look here, Peach —’
‘And he hadn’t been paying unwelcome attentions to your desirable wife?’
The adjective threw Tucker. For a moment he wasn’t certain that his inspector was referring to the formidable Barbara. Then he said, ‘No, of course he wasn’t. This is preposterous!’
‘But it was you who pointed out to us in your address to the CID section last month that sex and money were overwhelmingly the most common motives in crimes of violence, sir.’ Percy didn’t see any reason why Tommy Bloody Tucker’s inclination for stating the blindin’ bleedin’ obvious should not be invoked against him.
‘Look, Peach, I didn’t kill Eric Walsh, and both of us know that. He hadn’t lent me money and he wasn’t bedding my wife.’ Tucker decided it was time he went on the offensive. ‘Now, I suggest you get on with finding who did kill him. Why were you sniffing round the scene-of-crime team when Jack Chadwick is a perfectly competent officer who has been doing the job for years?’
‘Because Sergeant Chadwick isn’t at the White Bull, sir.’
‘Well why the hell not? He’s our most experienced scene-of-crime officer.’
‘Indeed he is, sir. And he was at the White Bull with his team. But he transferred it, sir. Left a couple of his constables in charge of the car park site at the White Bull. That’s why I thought I ought to go down and check on them, sir. Maintain an oversight of their activities, as you might say.’
Tucker chose to ignore the insolence of the phrase. ‘Why the hell did you move Chadwick away from there? I told you, this is a high-profile crime, and Chadwick should be where he’s needed most.’
‘Yes, sir. That’s why he transferred the team. He’s attending the scene of a burglary.’
‘A burglary! When there’s murder been done?’
Peach tired of the game. There was work to be done. ‘A burglary at Eric Walsh’s house, sir. During the night. By person or persons as yet unknown.’
He decided as he went back down the stairs that he had seen goldfish who looked more alert than his flabbergasted chief.
Eight
The woman was now called Mrs Pearson. She was probably in her late forties, but very well preserved. To Lucy Blake she did not appear to be much affected by grief.
The widow of the late Eric Walsh looked out of the window of the Edwardian house as if assessing the state of the lawn, which was green and neatly edged even at this time of the year. It stretched away for eighty yards towards mature laburnums and cherries, and Lucy wondered if it was a condition of residence in the plush suburb of Alderley Edge that you kept your own patch of Cheshire in prime horticultural condition.
Then the former Mrs Walsh said, ‘I’m not going to pretend to be devastated by Eric’s death. But the manner of his death was certainly a shock.’
‘It must have been. And I’m sorry we have to intrude at a time like this. But in the case of a violent death there are … well, there are certain things we need to know, as quickly as possible.’
‘Like whether his ex-wife killed him or not, I suppose. I’m happy to say that I didn’t.’
Lucy smiled. She felt she could get on well with this woman, in happier circumstances. She liked peop
le who talked straight, who cut out the fripperies which surround so much of human conversation. ‘No one is suggesting that you did. But since you’ve raised it, you’d better tell me where you were last night.’
The grey eyes looked at her with a hint of mockery. ‘We — that is to say, my second husband and I — were at a dinner party. So I have seven witnesses until around midnight. After that I was with my husband alone. Fortunately we occupy the same bed.’
‘You can account for the period up to midnight. That is quite sufficient.’ Lucy was already thinking that Eric Walsh must have been a fool to abandon this bright and attractive partner.
The correction to that thought came as promptly as if the widow had read her mind. ‘I tired of Eric and his way of life many years ago now. I haven’t seen him for the last ten of them. No doubt I wouldn’t have seen him for the next ten either. You can see why I’m not pretending to a grief I don’t feel. When the woman police officer came round with the news this morning I was shocked, as you’d expect, by the suddenness of it. But not anguished.’ She sounded as if she was analysing her own reactions and finding them of interest to her.
Lucy said quietly, ‘Do you know of anyone who will benefit from his death?’
The woman who had once been Deborah Walsh smiled into the young, earnest face beneath the aureole of red-brown hair. ‘You mean was it worth my while employing a contract killer to see Eric off? I don’t imagine he was worth very much, Detective Sergeant Blake, unless he’d altered his habits considerably. And I’m sure he wouldn’t have been leaving anything to an estranged wife he hadn’t seen for ten years. Nor would I be interested: my present husband is on the board of his company and it’s doing well.’ She glanced around, taking in the softly gleaming antique furniture, the house and its grounds. She was comfortable rather than apologetic about the opulence in which she lived.
‘I wasn’t suggesting a motive for you. We need to build up a picture of a murder victim about whom we know almost nothing at present. I thought you might be able to tell us something about his way of life.’
The pause stretched for so long that Lucy thought the older woman was refusing her any response. Then the widow said quietly, ‘I haven’t seen him for ten years, but I don’t expect the leopard changes its spots. You persuade yourself a relationship is deeper than it is for the sake of your own vanity, I think. When I look back, although our marriage lasted nine years, there was never much more than sex between Eric and me.’
It was spoken with a measured regret, and coming from this attractive, intelligent woman, it gave Lucy a sudden chill. Would she be talking about her own relationship with Percy Peach in the same terms in twenty years’ time? She said, ‘I don't want to pry into why you split up. But is there anything you can tell us about Eric Walsh which might help us in the search for his killer?’
There was another pause, not quite so long this time. Then the woman who had been married for nine years to Walsh said, ‘He could never resist a bit of skirt, Eric. I don’t think for a moment that he would have changed in that.’
*
Superintendent Tucker was not the only one to make an unscheduled visit to work on this bright winter Saturday. John Whiteman also chose to go into his office on the morning after the murder of Eric Walsh. Moreover, unlike the egregious Tucker, Whiteman chose to spend the whole day in the labyrinthine Victorian building which housed the offices of JS Whiteman and Son, Family Solicitors.
Percy Peach wondered why.
Whiteman offered a breezy explanation. ‘I couldn’t settle to anything at home — not after last night’s events. And I had a particularly tricky bit of conveyancing to work my way through. It seemed like a good opportunity to get the office to myself.’
Peach didn’t find the explanation convincing. In his experience, solicitors rarely showed such a sense of urgency, and certainly not about conveyancing. He wasn’t going to say so, not yet anyway. But he didn’t see why the man he had come to interview shouldn’t be ruffled; indeed, ruffling people was so much a habit to him that he scarcely needed to think about it. He nodded towards the big, fresh-faced officer at his side. ‘This is Detective Constable Brendan Murphy. He’s a Roman Catholic: that’s not going to make it difficult for you to talk, is it?’
John Whiteman looked puzzled. ‘No. Why should it?’
‘You being a Mason, sir. Master of a Masonic Lodge, indeed. There’s no love lost between you and the Roman Catholics, is there? The Pope condemned Freemasonry, I seem to remember.’ Peach remembered it in fact very clearly: it had been reiterated to him many times by the Irish Christian Brothers, in what now seemed another life.
John looked carefully at the impassive round face beneath the shining bald pate. It didn’t look as if the man was joking. So John smiled his most urbane smile. He was good at urbanity, and he knew it. ‘You’re very much out of date, I’m afraid, Inspector. It’s true that well back in the past there was a certain animosity between us and the Catholic Church, but that is long gone. We make no distinctions on the grounds of race or creed. Indeed, I think the North Brunton Lodge has several Catholic members.’
‘I’m glad to hear it. I’m sure that’s an excellent thing.’ Peach nodded thoughtfully; whether he thought it a excellent thing for the Order of the Free and Accepted Masons or the One Holy Roman Catholic Church was not clear. His voice hardened. ‘Because we need complete frankness here, Mr Whiteman. Yours may be a secret society, with its own arcane rituals, but we are here to investigate a cold-blooded and brutal murder. We want nothing held back on account of loyalty to the Brotherhood.’
John Whiteman wondered if those dark eyes which studied his reactions so unwaveringly ever blinked. He had not detected a blink so far. He was more disconcerted than he would have thought possible by this thickset figure, with his strange prejudices and warnings. John was nothing like as suave as he wished to be as he said, ‘Of course. As a matter of fact, the secrecy of our Masonic dealings and rituals is nothing like what it was. And speaking for myself, I can only say that I welcome that. Now that we are in the twenty-first century, we —’
‘I’m glad you feel like that. Because it’s very possible that one of your fellow Masons, a member of your own Lodge, killed Mr Walsh last night.’ Peach paused, assessing the man opposite him, whose plentiful, well-groomed hair with its becoming grey at the temples was such a contrast to his own pate with its mere fringe of black hair. He waited for Whiteman to protest, as Tucker had, that he could scarcely contemplate a Mason as the perpetrator of this crime, but the man said nothing. So Percy said, ‘There is no room for any withholding of information. Still less for any deception.’
John Whiteman was planning to do both of these things. He wondered if he looked as flustered as he felt to hear them now voiced so specifically. His tone sounded weak in his own ears as he said with a weak smile, ‘Of course. I understand that. This is murder. But I’m afraid you’ll find that I’m able to offer you very little that will be useful. I was as shocked as anyone by what happened last night. I still find it difficult to believe that Eric is dead.’
Peach, without taking his eyes off the man behind the huge old desk, gave a tiny nod to Detective Constable Murphy, who said, ‘As far as we can determine, Mr Walsh was still alive at eleven twenty last night: he was seen then by a member of the hotel staff. His body was discovered at one minute before midnight. Could you tell us where you were between eleven twenty and midnight last night, Mr Whiteman?’
‘You think I might have killed him?’ It didn’t sound as preposterous as John had hoped when he had rehearsed it.
‘No, I think it’s unlikely. But we’re asking everyone the same question. In the absence of anything more positive, we have to work by eliminating as many people as possible.’
John Whiteman nodded. It was logical enough, of course. Indeed, it was what he had expected. And it was surely a good sign that they had, as the young DC said, nothing more positive to help them as yet. He wondered why he had to lick his
lips before he said, ‘I was in the bar next to the dining room, with a lot of friends, relaxing after the meal and the formal part of the evening. When you’re making a speech, it’s nice to have it over and done with. And you feel a certain responsibility for everyone enjoying their evening when you’re the Master of the Lodge.’
He faltered to a halt, feeling he was saying too much. He had expected to be interrupted, but this disconcerting man let him ramble on when he had nothing much to say. Peach nodded, ‘And do you think the evening was a success, sir? Until the discovery of Eric Walsh’s body, that is.’
‘It seemed to have gone quite well. People gathered round me and said so. Not least your own colleague, Superintendent Tucker.’
‘Yes, sir. You must have been relieved to have an experienced officer on the spot when the murder took place.’ He kept any tendency towards irony carefully out of his voice.
‘Yes, it was. He took charge of things, knew what to do immediately.’
‘Yes, he would, sir. And you’re telling us that you were in the bar with other members of the Lodge and their ladies throughout the forty minutes DC Murphy mentioned?’
John didn’t like that phrase ‘telling us’. It made it sound as if they were already setting a trap for him. He said pointedly, ‘That is what I said, and that is the truth. There are at least a dozen people who can bear me out. Not least, as I said, your own superior officer.’
Percy always liked it when they threw rank at him: he took it as a sign of weakness. ‘Ah, but I have already questioned Superintendent Tucker about this period. We have to eliminate people, as DC Murphy explained. And it emerges that Mr Tucker was himself absent for part of this period. So he cannot vouch for you, you see. Not for the whole of the forty minutes.’
John could not see why Peach appeared to find this so satisfactory. He forced a smile. ‘Well, I’m sure there’ll be lots of people who will confirm my presence in the bar during that period. The Master of the Lodge does tend to be the centre of a little group on an occasion like this. It’s nothing personal, of course; it’s the office which makes it so.’