Murder at the Lodge (Inspector Peach Series Book 7)

by Gregson, J M

  ‘So he went through most of the house?’

  ‘He did. And the way he did it suggests he knew there was no one in the house and that he wouldn’t be disturbed. There’s no hint that he went about things stealthily. Drawers are thrown open and things scattered about quite carelessly. He must have made quite a noise.’

  Peach nodded slowly. Both of them knew what he was thinking before he voiced it. ‘This suggests that he already knew that Eric Walsh was dead. Only a few hours after it happened.’

  ‘It looks like it. That’s what made me think he was looking for something that he didn’t want us or some other third party to find in Walsh’s house.’

  ‘It also suggests that Walsh’s death and the search of his house are directly connected. That it may even have been the murderer who went there, later in the night.’

  Jack Chadwick nodded. ‘You know more about your suspects than I do. But I’d be pretty certain that whoever went into that house knew that Eric Walsh was already dead.’

  ‘I agree. And even if he didn’t kill Walsh, he must presumably have been among the gathering at the White Bull on Friday night, to know that he was dead.’

  ‘That would leave the staff of the hotel as well as those Masons and their wives who were there after eleven twenty, though. Still quite a number of people.’

  ‘Too bloody many!’ said Peach gloomily.

  ‘There’s no knowing whether they’re connected with the break-in, but we found a couple of spots of blood on the step outside the house. We’ve taken a sample and the blood is fairly recent, but you can’t be certain that that blood came from the person who’d illegally entered the house.’

  ‘And you’ve no idea what was taken away?’

  ‘For what it’s worth, my opinion would be that chummy didn’t find everything he wanted to remove from Walsh’s house. I suspect he tried to delete things from the computer, but couldn’t get at them.’

  ‘What makes you think that?’

  ‘You need passwords to get into files, so it wouldn’t be easy. But there’s a lot of evidence of frustration in the dining room of the house where we found the computer. It’s a laptop — quite compact. But it had been flung on the floor quite violently. And the monitor had been smashed with a shoe. We’ve got a heel imprint on some of the glass. There’s not much of it, but if you could provide us with the actual shoe we might try for a match.’

  Peach shook his head in frustration. This wasn’t going to help at this stage: no one would give him search warrants to collect shoes from all and sundry. It might help the lawyers to construct an eventual court case after they had made an arrest, that was all. Assuming they did make one. ‘Is the computer still working?’

  ‘It seems to be. I’ve passed it on to the boffins. They’ll get into those files, given time.’

  Peach sighed. ‘Apart from the evidence of a break-in, did you find anything of interest in Walsh’s house?’

  ‘Various things which connected Eric Walsh to extreme Loyalist factions in Northern Ireland. But nothing which suggested that he was active in any recent terrorist activities. Walsh was a bigot who wouldn’t concede a single inch to the Republicans, but there are plenty of those about.’

  ‘And nothing else of interest?’

  ‘We didn’t have any very clear brief of what we should be looking for, of course. I brought some photographs from the top drawer of his bureau.’ He reached into the briefcase at his feet and produced a carefully labelled folder.

  Peach went methodically through the pile, taking care not to disturb the order in which they had been found. They were a series of snapshots of women, sometimes alone, sometimes with a smiling Eric Walsh. They looked like a collection of his conquests, preserved as much through vanity as sentiment.

  But vanity has its uses in a murder case. The last and largest of the photographs, the one Chadwick had found on top of the pile, showed the dead man with his arm round the waist of a smiling Ros Whiteman.

  *

  ‘We meet again, Mr Afzaal,’ said Peach.

  ‘Yes. I can’t think why,’ said Wasim.

  They were in the same office where they had seen Tom Cook two hours earlier. The sous-chef had been sent home and they had taken the young Asian in here as soon as he arrived for his evening shift.

  Peach lifted his expressive black eyebrows. ‘Really?’ He turned to Lucy Blake at his side. ‘Mr Afzaal can’t think why we should want to see him. Rather strange, that.’

  ‘Very strange,’ said DS Blake. She turned with relish to a blank page in her notebook and took the top off her slim gold ballpoint pen. She had the air of one who expected to make copious notes on an interesting subject.

  There was no hint on the smooth olive features of the turmoil behind them. ‘I made restitution to Harry Alston for the damage we did to his shop. I understood the incident was closed. If you’re —’

  ‘Nothing to do with that,’ rapped Peach. ‘This concerns events in this hotel. To be specific, the murder of one Eric Walsh last Friday night.’

  ‘I can’t help you with that, I’m afraid. I was here, of course, but I gave my statement to one of your officers along with my colleagues who were working that night. If you’re singling me out for special treatment, I’d have to ask whether my racial background had —’

  ‘You’ve singled yourself out for special treatment, lad. Doesn’t matter whether you’re black, pink, yellow or two-tone.’ Peach inspected the man on the other side of the big managerial desk carefully, as if trying to decide which of these he might be.

  ‘I gave a statement to your PC Curtis. I don’t wish to alter anything in it, because it’s correct.’

  Peach wondered if Asians were better liars than native Lancastrians, or whether he just wasn’t an expert at reading the signs. He had dealt with thousands of Asians by now, but he still found it difficult. ‘I see. You’re saying that you knew nothing about the killing of Eric Walsh.’

  ‘I’m saying just that.’ Wasim expected a challenge, but none came, and he filled the silence by saying, ‘I didn’t even know the man.’

  He looked quickly from Peach to Blake to register their reactions, and Percy knew in that moment that he had told a lie. ‘Then why did you bring pressure on a colleague of yours to change his statement? To add matter that was demonstrably false?’

  Despite his dismay, Wasim kept his face calm. ‘I suppose you mean Tom Cook.’

  ‘You suppose that, do you? Are there other people you have persuaded to lie for you?’

  ‘No, of course not.’

  ‘There is no “of course” about it, Mr Afzaal. We have turned up one case where you have attempted to pervert the course of justice. For all we know, there may be others.’

  ‘I wasn’t attempting to pervert the course of justice. I was just trying to protect myself. I realize now that I may have been a little foolish.’

  ‘Not a little, Mr Afzaal. Though perhaps you have not been foolish at all. Perhaps you had a lot to lose. Perhaps you had a serious crime to hide. The most serious of all.’

  ‘Now look here, I —’

  ‘No, you look here, lad. If you want a lawyer, get yourself one, and we’ll continue this at the station. We’ll arrest you and hold you for twenty-four hours whilst we determine whether there’s enough material for a murder charge. It’s up to you. I’m sure your father could provide you with a sharp brief.’

  The mention of his father brought the first flash of panic to the brown eyes. ‘I don’t need a brief. I haven’t done anything. I didn’t do anything in those forty minutes you asked us about. But I couldn’t prove that, and I panicked when I saw you come into the hotel to take charge of the case. I thought that as you’d seen me about Harry Alston only a few days earlier, you’d have it in for me. So I asked Tom Cook to say he'd been with me throughout those forty minutes.’

  The words came in something of a rush, but he managed to deliver them quite smoothly. Too smoothly for Percy Peach, who said, ‘No. You had something
to hide. If you didn’t go anywhere near Eric Walsh’s car, you’d only to say so and brazen it out. Whatever we thought, we couldn’t have proved you wrong.’

  ‘I was frightened. You don’t realize how you can frighten ordinary, innocent people.’

  Percy smiled. He did know. He frightened them all the time. And not just the innocent ones. ‘What was your connection with Eric Walsh, Mr Afzaal?’

  ‘I hadn’t any connection. I was only working at the White Bull on a placement for my university course. I was there quite by chance.’

  ‘And yet you thought it worthwhile to pressurize a witness into giving you an alibi. It doesn’t add up.’

  ‘I told you, I panicked. I thought you’d victimize me.’

  Wasim looked from Peach’s implacable face to the softer, female one beside it, hoping that he might find more understanding there. Lucy Blake looked up from her notes and said quietly, ‘Did you make illegal entry into Eric Walsh’s house later on that night?’

  This time he was shaken. There was a hint of panic in his voice as he said too loudly, ‘No! Of course I didn’t. I was nowhere near Park Road on that night.’

  Peach let his smile spread slowly beneath the shining bald pate, allowing Afzaal to realize the mistake he had made, savouring the moment when the fish had swum unexpectedly into his net. ‘So you know where he lived. Unusual, that, for a man who claims not even to have met Eric Walsh.’

  ‘I — I didn’t say I hadn’t met him. I said I didn’t know him well.’

  Percy glanced at DS Blake. ‘Not what my notes say, sir. “Didn’t even know the man”, was the phrase. I think. And later Mr Afz.aal reiterated that he “hadn’t any connection”.’ She looked into the troubled young face. ‘I expect you’ll want to change that, now.’

  ‘All right, I knew him a little, that’s all. I was interested in his singing. I was trying to persuade my dad to employ him for one of his functions. And we were both bachelors. We had an interest in girls. We had the occasional drink together, when I was home from university. That’s all there was to it.’

  It was desperately improvised stuff, and it sounded like it. Peach gave it his dismissive smile and said, ‘But what was the real connection, Mr Afzaal?’

  ‘There wasn’t one. There was no more than that. I panicked because I thought if there was any connection at all you might put me in the frame for his murder.’

  His face set like a mask on that, and though they pressed him, they got no more from him. He said eventually, ‘I’m helping you voluntarily, as a good citizen should. Arrest me, if you think I’m not telling the truth.’

  Peach smiled, concealing his anger. ‘You know the law very well, as I might have expected. No, we won’t arrest you. Not yet. We may come back to do that, after we’ve talked to other people. In the meantime, if you are as innocent as you claim, you would be well advised to come back voluntarily with the full facts. Good night, Mr Afzaal.’

  Wasim went straight to the washroom and doused his face in cold water before he changed into his evening dress for the night’s work. He could feel his pulse racing. But he didn’t see how they could get him for this, if he kept cool and stubbornly silent.

  Fourteen

  Tuesday was going to be one of those November days when the clouds stayed low, and the light was so poor it was scarcely more than an interval between nights. Even the big, well-spaced houses in Brunton’s best residential road looked drab in this light, as though huddling themselves against a hard winter ahead rather than looking back to the glories of summer.

  There were dahlias still in bloom beside the drive of the Whitemans’ house, but their petals were sodden with wetness and refusing to open, as if waiting for the mercy killing which would arrive with the first frost. Lucy Blake swung the Mondeo round the tree in front of the big double garage and left it pointing towards the gate. She had a feeling she might want to get away quickly after they had finished their business here.

  Ros Whiteman looked more in control of herself now than when they had seen her two days ago, on the Sunday morning after Walsh’s death. She managed a smile of welcome, whatever her real feelings were, and she moved with a swift grace as she led them through a hall and into the drawing room where they had seen her forty-eight hours earlier. ‘I made some coffee,’ she said. I know it’s early in the day, but on a clammy morning like this I thought it might be welcome.’

  Her hand was perfectly steady as she poured coffee and milk and handed them the cups, but there was a tiny, involuntary sigh of relief as she sat down in the armchair on the other side of the long coffee table. It seemed she had set herself some small test and acquitted herself satisfactorily. ‘Have you made much progress?’ she asked. ‘Are you any nearer to arresting Eric’s killer?’

  Peach, who would sometimes hardly allow a person to think or to speak when he was on one of his tirades, could be completely silent when it suited his purpose. He had said not a word as the rituals of formal welcome and coffee had been conducted, allowing Lucy Blake to make the small, meaningless phrases of acknowledgement as he studied the lithe movements and pale face of Ros Whiteman for anything they had to offer him.

  He looked into her face now for a moment before he spoke, as if he had been waiting for her to settle and give him her full attention. Then he gave her a small smile and said, ‘You wouldn’t expect me to discuss the details of our progress with you, Mrs Whiteman. But no, we haven’t made an arrest and we don’t yet know who killed Eric Walsh. Not for certain.’

  She looked sharply at him on that last phrase, but the small smile was still there, teasing her, probing for any sign of nervousness in response to this enigmatic reply. ‘I’ll do whatever I can to recall that dreadful evening for you, of course. I feel rather more composed now than I did on Sunday. I suppose I was still suffering from delayed shock then. But I doubt if I can offer you much help.’

  Peach was rather amused by these middle-class niceties, like the first modest bids at bridge as people tested the hands held around the table. But he could afford to be amused: he held all the aces in this deal. And it wasn’t like bridge bidding at all: he didn’t have to reveal what was in his hand until he chose to. He said unhurriedly, allowing the menace to come through in the words rather than in his manner, ‘Oh, but I think you can be very helpful to us, Mrs Whiteman. Assuming that you’re prepared to be more honest than on Sunday, of course.’

  She looked at him sharply, and found his dark pupils staring unblinkingly at her. It was her gaze which eventually dropped to the carpet. She said dully, ‘I don’t know what you mean by that. I told you everything I know. I can’t think who might have killed Mr Walsh.’

  ‘I think it’s time you were more honest with us about your relationship with the murder victim.’

  There was a tense pause. Lucy Blake wondered what she would do if the woman went into angry denials or, much worse, hysterics. Ros Whiteman did neither of these things. Instead, she eventually said, ‘You know about Eric and me, don’t you?’

  Peach was not going to reveal the limited extent of their knowledge. He nodded and said gravely, ‘As you would expect, we always conduct a detailed search of the house of a murder victim. Among other things, there was a collection of photographs. This was one of them.’

  He waited whilst Lucy Blake produced the photograph of Eric Walsh with his arm round the waist of the woman who now sat opposite her. She looked at it for a moment and said wistfully, ‘He kept it, then. I remember that being taken.’ Then, with sudden, surprising bitterness, she said, ‘I expect there were others, weren’t there? Other women, with Eric smiling beside them. Other trophies!’

  Peach said, ‘There were other photographs, yes. But this is the one which interests us at the moment. This is the one which brought us here today. This is the one you chose not to mention on Sunday.’

  She gave him an acid smile. ‘You can see why I didn’t want my husband there when I spoke to you then.’

  ‘You had been conducting a relationsh
ip with Mr Walsh, hadn’t you?’

  She grinned caustically at the formality of his words. ‘We had an affair, if that’s what you mean. I slept with Eric Walsh, yes. Repeatedly.’ For a moment, it seemed she would venture on into coarser phrases. Lucy was aware of Peach’s intense concentration at her side. He had a reputation for intensive grilling of people with information, but sometimes, as now, he used silence as much as aggression as a tool to secure revelations. In that quiet room, the tension stretched for long seconds before Ros Whiteman said, ‘My husband doesn’t know about this. I’d like it kept that way.’

  Peach said, ‘My guess is that that won’t be possible. We don’t release confidences, even to spouses, unless the information has a bearing on the investigation. This time it may well do that. Especially since you chose to conceal the matter from us initially.’

  ‘John knows nothing about Eric and me. If he had, he’d have —’ She realized just in time where she was going and stopped abruptly.

  Peach completed the thought grimly. ‘He’d have killed him, you were going to say.’

  ‘It’s a figure of speech, no more. He’d have reacted violently, that’s all. I don’t blame him. And it may not be relevant to your inquiries, but I must tell you for my own sake that it’s the only time I’ve strayed from the straight and narrow since our marriage.’ She smiled; whether it was at the old-fashioned expression or her own protestation of fidelity was not clear.

  Lucy Blake said quietly, ‘Are you sure your husband didn’t know about you and Eric Walsh?’

  Ros Whiteman looked into the young, serious face beneath the lustrous red-brown hair. ‘I understand why you ask. It would make him a suspect, wouldn’t it? But no, John didn’t know anything about Eric and me. And he would never have known, because it was over by the time Eric died.’

  She looked from the sergeant to the inspector, seeking for the effect of her own bombshell, but they registered no more than mild surprise. It was Peach who said, ‘Why did it finish?’