by Gregson, J M
‘I think you came to the area three years ago with the specific intention of harming Eric Walsh. Whether or not you intended to kill him at that time I’m not sure. It is in any case irrelevant now.’
‘And why should I want to kill the man?’ For the first time, the southern Irish brogue was apparent in his voice. ‘If you’re dragging up the old times when we were on opposite sides in Ireland back in the eighties, I’d say that we were both then young men and that since that time we’d learned —’
‘Your sister committed suicide as a result of the Walshes’ attentions! I can’t speculate on how much weight a court will allot to that when it comes to a recommendation for mercy. I assume you know that there is a mandatory life sentence for murder.’
‘I wasn’t even around when Walsh was killed. I’ve already explained to you that I left the White Bull some time before he died.’
‘Yes. You seemed from the start to have a very clear idea of the exact time when Eric Walsh died.’
‘That’s as may be. I told you when I left. And as it happens, you turned up a witness from the hotel staff who confirmed that time.’
‘Maybe it wasn't “as it happens’’, Mr O’Connor. More probably it was a very deliberate act. I believe you took pains to ask the hotel waiter the time just so that he would be able to confirm to us later that you left at ten past eleven. You’d already told us that the clock in your car read eleven fifteen as you drove out, and you wear a watch. You hardly needed that waiter to tell you the time. But it planted your departure firmly in his mind.'
O’Connor smiled. ‘Interesting to see the way a suspicious brain works. But the fact remains, I left well before Walsh was killed. And I have a witness who confirms it. Unless you choose to call him a liar as well.’
‘On the contrary, we always listen to people with no axe to grind. And there was no need for your little ploy; as it happened, another member of the hotel staff watched you drive out because he was afraid you’d scrape someone’s car. But we always proceed from facts. We can’t afford to do anything else, when we decide to make an arrest.’
‘And the facts tell you that I drove away from the White Bull at a quarter past eleven last Friday night. Having been seen going out to my car at ten past eleven.’
Peach nodded. He did not volunteer any of his range of smiles: the situation was too serious for that. But his dark eyes never left his man’s face. ‘Agreed. However, it is the recording of your car in another place which is the most interesting fact.’
For the first time, Adrian O’Connor looked a little uncertain. ‘I can’t think where that might be. But surely the fact that my car was seen miles away from the White Bull can only confirm that I could not have killed Walsh. Or are you now trying to make out that I brought someone in to do the killing for me?’
Peach nodded to DS Blake, who said in a clear, even voice, ‘No, Mr O’Connor, we are not. But nor was your car seen miles away from the White Bull. It was recorded by one of the constables on town centre patrol as having been parked in Albert Street at twenty to twelve. A side street approximately one hundred yards from the car park of the White Bull. You drove it away from there at just before midnight.’
O’Connor would have argued with Peach. Even if he had been beaten down, he would have blustered automatically. But this cool, seemingly dispassionate female voice carried a ring of doom in his ears. He said feebly, ‘There must surely be some mistake.’
Peach said quietly, ‘There is no mistake. You parked in the shadows of that quiet cul de sac and walked back to Eric Walsh’s car in the car park of the White Bull. You waited in the back seat of the car until he came out to it and then killed an innocent man in cold blood.’
‘Innocent? Eric Walsh was guilty as hell!’ Whether by accident or design, Peach had found the word to trigger an outburst. ‘You don’t know what mayhem the Walshes caused in Belfast. And they defiled an innocent girl. Broke her mind and her spirit. Drove my poor sister Kathleen to suicide and to mortal damnation. And Eric was the head of the whole bunch of them! I swore I’d get him years ago. And sure, I told him just why he was dying as I tightened the cord around his neck!’
There was something medieval in his wildness as well as his theology. The Irish accent grew stronger throughout his outburst. He stopped, panting, interested only in the effects of his self-justification, in whether he had convinced his listeners that there was a kind of justice in this death.
Lucy Blake stepped forward and pronounced the words of arrest in a clear, even voice. O’Connor made no resistance, even when she concluded the familiar formula and slid the handcuffs around his wrists.
The young, fresh-faced uniformed men regarded him curiously when they took him out to the waiting patrol car. Their first murderer. And so normal-looking. A bloke in an expensive suit, with a good job and a flash car. A bloke who could afford to live in a place like this.
Peach and Blake went back into the flat. They found a bright, newly-cut key to Eric Walsh’s Triumph Stag in an antique tobacco jar on the very centre of the mantelpiece. Adrian O’Connor had been as confident as that that he would not be caught. Or perhaps he had wished to preserve the key as a trophy of war, a kind of medal.
They spoke little to each other as they moved through the big rooms of the flat. There was the now familiar sense of anticlimax, the deflation of spirits that followed the high excitement of a murder arrest.
It was not until they were back in the car that Percy said, as if shutting the lid on something unpleasant, ‘He’ll plead guilty, I expect. Get a clever counsel to play up his sister’s death as a mitigating circumstance. Blame ancient Ireland for his upbringing in a war of hate.’
‘And Tommy Bloody Tucker will claim the credit for his arrest,’ said Lucy Blake resentfully.
It took Percy Peach all of ten seconds to find consolation for that. ‘At least the murderer was a Mason,’ he said, with his first smile in an hour.
‘I’ve no doubt you’ll make something of that,’ said Blake.
‘And this time next week it will be Chief Superintendent Tommy Bloody Useless Tucker.’
‘It’s an imperfect world we live in,’ said Lucy Blake with a contented smile.
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