by Gregson, J M
‘You knew that at the time when you reported the letters to us? Wasting police time, were you?’
‘No. Well, yes, I suppose I was, if I’m completely frank.’
‘Much the best policy, Mr Cartwright. Even if it does have an air of novelty about it, for you.’
‘Eric was trying to scare me.’
‘And why would he want to do that, Mr Cartwright?’
‘I owed him money. Not a huge sum, but we were in dispute about it.’
‘Money for what?’
Cartwright looked at them sharply, trying to assess how much they knew. He failed. ‘Eric was a great man for the women, you know. And he provided … well, certain services.’
‘He provided lists of drawer-droppers. Women who were prepared to sell themselves.’
‘Yes.’ Darren Cartwright looked thoroughly miserable with the admission that he had to pay for sex. ‘Eric Walsh charged for that information. I hadn’t paid him. He was asking for more than we’d agreed. It wasn’t a large sum, but it was a matter of principle.’
He looked nervously at Peach, who broke into a delighted grin. ‘I was almost believing you, until you spoke about a matter of principle. I’d say you hardly know the meaning of the phrase.’
Cartwright made a weary attempt at protest. ‘If you’ve just come here to be gratuitously insulting, then —’
‘You weren’t receiving death threats over a trifling sum. There was more than that involved. You said a couple of minutes ago that you were going to be completely frank.’
Darren had a hunted look now. They probably know all about this anyway, he thought. ‘All right. He was blackmailing me. I’d made him a couple of payments, but he wanted more. More than I could possibly afford.’
‘He knew about the loan-sharking?’
‘Yes. He never called it that. He always spoke about the “unofficial aspect of your business empire”. He had information about a bit of persuasion that went wrong, last year. Threatened to give it to you people.’
‘He knew about the man who was roughed up so badly he lost an eye?’
‘Yes. Your people tried to pin it on me at the time. They hadn’t the evidence.’
‘Wish I’d been given the case, sunshine. I’ve read the file: I reckon I’d have had you last year.’
Darren thought he probably would have, too. He tried hard to concentrate on what he had to say. ‘Walsh was threatening me to make me pay up. I came to you last week because I thought that might scare him off.’
‘And when it didn’t, you took the initiative yourself and garrotted him. Decisive, that.’
‘I didn’t kill Walsh.’
‘You’ve just given us a full account of how convenient his death was for you.’
‘But I didn’t kill him. All right, I’m glad the bastard’s dead, but as I told you on Monday, I wasn’t around when he was killed.’
‘You told us that, yes. Even at the time, we weren’t inclined to believe you. And now that you’ve given us a motive …’ Peach completed the thought with a shrug of his powerful shoulders.
‘Look, you can’t pin this on me. I told you, I went down to the centre of the town for a casual drink and happened to drift into the White Bull.’
‘Which wasn't convincing, even at the first time of telling. You don’t use the White Bull as a drinking place. You went there because you knew Eric Walsh was going to be there that night.’
Darren Cartwright stared wide-eyed at Peach for a moment. Suddenly both hands rose and ran themselves through his carefully arranged hair, leaving it comically askew; he looked down at the offending limbs as if they had moved without his command. ‘All right, I knew it was the Lodge Ladies’ Night and I knew Walsh would be there. I suppose I was hoping for a chance to reason with him, perhaps with some of our Masonic friends in attendance. I didn’t get the chance. And I told you, I left before the time you said he was killed. I was away from the pub just after eleven, long before he died.’
‘Wrong, Mr Cartwright. What you actually said was that you left shortly after last orders were called, when the public bar shut for the night. But the bar shuts at eleven thirty, not eleven, on Friday nights. On your own account, that puts your departure at around twenty to twelve. Eric Walsh was dead by then.’
Darren Cartwright stared past Peach and Blake towards the beautifully framed pictures of the Lake District on the walls of his office. But he did not see them. He said flatly, ‘I thought I’d convinced you that I’d left by ten past eleven.’
Lucy Blake, sensing a confession, said softly, ‘Are you telling us that you killed Eric Walsh, Mr Cartwright?’
In the same flat monotone, he said unconvincingly, ‘No. I didn’t kill him. I’m glad someone did, but it wasn’t me.’ Peach stared at him for a moment. Then he said, ‘There’ll be plenty of time for us to look for the evidence. The officers in charge of that case will be arresting you in connection with the injuries suffered by Beth Kershaw. Don’t leave the district, Mr Cartwright.’
Twenty
On Friday morning, Peach found Superintendent Thomas Bulstrode Tucker brimming with an excitement he could hardly suppress.
‘It’s not for myself that I’m pleased, of course,’ he said unconvincingly. ‘It’s for the CID unit as a whole. And of course for you, Percy.’
‘You’ve found out who killed Eric Walsh, sir? Well, that is certainly reason to congratulate yourself. Bears out what I tell the lads and lasses down the pecking order, that does. “You may think the chief just sits up there and takes the plaudits, you may think he rides on the backs of us people labouring away at the crime face, but he’s up there thinking,” I tell them. “Using his experience and his brainpower to guide us to a solution.” So who killed the brawny Brunton baritone, sir?’
‘Eh? Oh, that. I haven’t discovered who murdered Eric Walsh. That’s your job. And in the grander scale of things, it is a mere detail.’ Tucker drew himself up to his full height and gazed out with Churchillian vision over a world of pygmies. ‘I am speaking of our promotions, Percy. The elevation in our ranks which will enable us to take the CID section forward to new heights.’
‘I see, sir. Do you want my report on the latest developments in the Walsh case?’
‘Have you made an arrest?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Then I really don’t think I can be bothered with the detail of the case, Percy. Not this morning.’ He turned from his contemplation of the old cotton town through the wide window of his penthouse office. ‘You and I have bigger fish to fry.’
‘I see, sir. It’s just that diligent work by the team on the ground has thrown up an interesting detail, and I thought you might like to be kept fully aware of what I planned —’
‘Oh, I don't think so, not this morning.’
For once, Tucker could not bring himself to sit down behind the big desk he normally saw as the symbol of his authority. ‘You don’t seem to see the significance of what I’m saying, Percy. Oh, your preoccupation with solving the latest crime on our patch is all very praiseworthy, I’m sure, in the normal order of things. But one needs to stand back and take the wider view sometimes. This is one of those occasions.’ He set his chin at his indomitable Churchillian angle again and turned back to gaze out over his empire.
‘Well, of course, you’ve always been good at the overview, sir, whereas I have busied myself with the mundane —’
‘Mundane!’ Tucker seized upon the word with unusual alacrity. ‘That is the word for your attitude, I’m afraid, Percy.’
Peach gave up. You couldn’t taunt a man with his head so high among the clouds. ‘You have news, sir?’
‘Indeed I have, Percy. Good news. The very best of news.’
‘Is my research monograph on Masonic crime in the North-West of England to be published, sir?’
Tucker gave him a thin smile. Not even Percy Peach was going to spoil his morning. ‘The news of our promotion board is through, Percy. You could be back in uniform and no longer
under my direct command very soon, if you become a chief inspector.’ He could not suppress a smile of anticipation at that prospect.
‘I see, sir.’
‘This time in a couple of weeks, I shall be chief superintendent.’ He elevated his chin a fraction, gazing over the town’s few remaining mill chimneys to the clear blue sky and the lofty heights beyond. He sighed a reluctant sigh and turned back to the sordid reality of the man behind him. ‘And you, of course, will be a chief inspector, Percy. If you play your cards right.’
‘Yes, sir. Do you think I should mention my research interests? I thought it might go down well, with all this emphasis on the need for a cerebral input in modern policing.’
‘We must stick together, Percy. Support each other. I shall tell them what a splendid officer you have been, loyal and supportive. And I expect you, Percy, will wish to dwell upon the unswerving support you have always had from your leader. Not that I would wish in any way to colour your opinions, of course. That goes without saying.’
‘I see, sir. Well, I shall be happy to enlarge upon the degree of support I and others have had from you.’
‘The assistant chief constable will certainly be on the board, I understand. I don’t know who else, as yet.’
‘Will the chief constable be there, sir?’
‘It’s possible, I suppose, in a small force like ours. But I doubt it.’
‘Pity, that. We don’t get much opportunity to speak to the top brass. Tell them what we really think of the way things work. Show them that we have initiative and a capacity for original thinking.’
Tucker coughed nervously. ‘Promotion boards are not the occasion for original thinking, Percy.’ He inclined his head confidentially towards his inspector. ‘It’s my belief that if we play this carefully, our interviews will be little more than a formality. We need to stick together.’ He forced a smile. ‘For my part, I shall enlarge upon your splendid achievements.’
‘And what shall I do, sir? After I’ve outlined the kind of support you give us, I mean.’
Tucker’s smile died as abruptly as it had appeared. ‘It’s not for me to say. It should be obvious.’
Percy’s round face displayed total puzzlement, then a dawning of enlightenment. ‘I could talk about you, sir, couldn’t I? Enlarge upon the role you play in our tight little organization.’ He beamed happily, turning the full force of his happiness upon his chief. ‘I feel much happier about it now, sir. I certainly shan’t be lost for words!’
*
The romantic view of detection is that it is all about intuition. A brilliant individual — The Great Detective — spots something which no one else sees. His feel for the case and his huge intellect then enable him to make deductions which would elude ordinary mortals. Case solved.
The people who actually make arrests know that the reality is very different. Neither criminals nor policemen are quite as brilliant or original as fiction would have us believe. Most CID men would support Edison’s definition of genius as one per cent inspiration and ninety-nine per cent perspiration. The old proverb that genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains might be even nearer the mark. Certainly when carelessness creeps in murderers get away with far more than they should, as the tragic instances of Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, and Frederick West, the multiple killer of Gloucester, amply demonstrate.
The team working on the murder of Eric Walsh was diligent and careful, and it eventually turned up a key fact. It was a small item, insignificant to an outsider, but to the man in charge of the case, DI Peach, it was gold dust.
The numbers of a dozen cars belonging to people involved in the investigation had been issued to the uniformed men working on the case, with the instruction to check their whereabouts in the hours before and after the murder. There were inevitably many blind alleys, many recordings of vehicles which looked interesting but led nowhere.
Then one sighting in a small side street near the centre of the town, by a constable who was not even part of the murder team, caught and held Percy Peach’s attention. It was one of several numbers recorded by a constable patrolling his town centre beat at night. He’d noticed the inside light was on as the driver’s door was left ajar; the keys had been left in the ignition.
When he rejoined the real world after seeing Tucker, Peach spoke to the constable concerned. He checked the detail, the one which Thomas Bulstrode Tucker had refused to hear, went over the times with the alert young officer, and called in Lucy Blake.
When he had briefed her and they had exchanged reactions, he said grimly, ‘I don’t want you to contact him at work. I think we should go round to his residence tonight. I don’t want him to have any notice of this.’
*
Though it was only half past six, there was a winter darkness on this November night. There would be a frost again later. The stars shone white against a navy sky and there was no wind to shift clouds across the thin, bright crescent of the moon.
In a few hours, it would be exactly seven days since the murder of Eric Walsh; they were just within the week which Tommy Bloody Tucker had quoted so blandly as their deadline. Peach smiled sourly at that thought in the blackness as they got out of the car.
He was very focussed at times like this, thought Lucy Blake. She wished she could be as single-minded, shutting out all thoughts but the tactics for those moments before arrest as Percy did. Instead, she found herself saying nervously, ‘Will he give us trouble, do you think?’
Percy nearly said that she wouldn’t be here if he thought there was any danger to her precious person. But she wouldn’t like that, not in these days of sexual equality; he wondered at the myriad sensitivities he was having to learn. He said, ‘No, I don’t anticipate any trouble. We could do with an admission from him.’
Lucy realized that he was tense; his clipped words came through the darkness, hushed with something very like stage fright. Except that this melodrama was for real. She said, ‘He could be armed, I suppose.’
‘He could have a weapon somewhere in the place. But if we arrive unannounced, he won’t be any danger to us. He’s not stupid: he’ll know when the game’s up.’
In his own very different way, he was as nervous as she was. Lucy found that curiously consoling.
The flat was part of a conversion in a fine old Victorian house, built into the side of a hill, with fine views to the west and the north. In the days of King Cotton and nineteenth-century electoral reform, the town’s Member of Parliament had dwelt here, holding court to his newly enfranchised male constituents very much in the way of the old lord of the manor. Those days were long gone, as were the days of the low wages which had allowed a multitude of servants to maintain a comfortable life for the denizens of the house. But the spaciousness of the original building had allowed a conversion into six large and luxuriously appointed flats for the occupants of the twenty-first century.
Peach looked automatically to the north from the car park. He knew that in daylight there would be a fine view of the distant heights of Ingleborough and Pen-y-Ghent. Now they could see nothing but the vastness of the night sky and its multitude of uncaring stars. Not even the lower and much nearer bulk of Pendle Hill was visible now. There was only the gaunt black outline of the house against the winter sky; the only relief in this forbidding silhouette was the soft orange of lights behind curtained windows, which looked very small within the bulk of the high walls of the massive building.
They pressed the right bell among the names, and the answering voice, a little metallic through the speaker, said, ‘Come up, Inspector, by all means,’ with just the right inflection of surprise.
He was there when they walked out of the lift on the first floor, standing tall in the open doorway of the flat. Adrian O’Connor led the way inside and said, ‘Friday night and the end of the week, for most of us. Can I offer the two of you a drink — alcoholic or otherwise, as you prefer?’
To Lucy Blake, this seemed entirely unreal. A murderer going through the so
cial graces in an apartment the estate agents would surely have described as ‘spacious and beautifully appointed’. There were three windows in the big sitting room, each of them with curtains hanging to the floor. There was a wide-screen television and a stack of high-fidelity equipment, gold-framed pictures on the wall, and two deep sofas, maroon against the softer red of the carpet. Yet, accustomed as she was to her own small flat and the low-ceilinged cottage where she had grown up, this seemed to her too perfect, too tidy, like a show flat rather than one which was lived in.
As if he read her thoughts, O’Connor said, ‘This is a comfortable place. Very comfortable, as a matter of fact. But I’m not here all that often. I bought the fixtures and fittings with the place when I moved in.’
‘Didn’t intend to be here very long, perhaps?’ said Peach.
O’Connor looked at him sharply. ‘I’ve already been here three years. It just suited me to have the place ready-furnished. I’m a busy man, with a demanding job. I prefer to spend what leisure I have on other things.’
They were like two dogs circling each other, waiting to see who would make the first aggressive move in the fight they knew was coming, thought Lucy Blake. She sat down on the edge of the sofa, then watched the two men sit at the same time, lowering themselves to the seats as if moving in slow motion. Peach said, ‘You told us your first pack of lies at the station, your second in your office. I thought you might like to be arrested in your home.’
If he intended to throw his man off balance, there was no visible sign that he had succeeded. Adrian O’Connor took his time, whatever frenzied brain activity was going on beneath his heavy crop of brown hair. Then he said, ‘I presume you’re referring to the murder of Eric Walsh. I’ve never made any secret of the fact that I didn’t like the man: you know something of the history of that. Perhaps I should now reiterate that I didn’t kill him.’