Death of a Nobody

by J M Gregson

  He kept the clothing tightly bundled until he had it at the fire. Then he poured a little paraffin into the midst of the bundle, holding it tight again for a moment until the liquid soaked into its recesses. Then, after a final check that no curious eye was turned upon him, he unfolded the trousers and the sweater and cast them upon the blaze.

  The paraffin made the column of flame leap like a live thing, twelve feet and more into the air. He put the shirt into the middle of the flames immediately, whilst the heat was at its fiercest. He did not want any trace of it to remain for anyone who came to rake over the ashes of this pyre. The clothes were soon gone, in that fierce heat. He piled more debris upon the fire, closing the chapter. It was, in its way, very satisfying.

  He did not stay much longer with his fire. As the conflagration died down and he could get near the heart of it again, he raked the charred remnants of branches into the mound of whitening ash, turning the centre of the heap to check that no scorched vestiges of his garments remained for prying hands to recover, watching the subsidiary blazings with the gratification that comes from a task accomplished.

  As his fire died, he was pleased to find no evidence that his sweater or shirt had even been part of it; not even a button had survived that Promethean heat. There was a blackened zip from the trousers. He took it and put it at the bottom of his rubbish bag. The refuse men would be round later in the day to remove it. Everything seemed to be working for him, today. With a last look at the gently rising column of smoke from the bottom of his garden, he went indoors to get changed.

  He had showered and dressed, was almost ready for the road, when the phone bleeped in the hall. He hesitated for a moment, then answered it. It was the very voice he most wanted to hear: this must really be his day. As soon as Gabrielle had announced herself, he said eagerly, ‘I’ve burnt the clothes I wore that night, as we agreed. No problems: they’ve disappeared without trace.’

  She was scarcely listening to him. He caught the alarm in her voice as she said harshly, ‘That man Lambert’s been here. He asked about the gun.’

  ‘But I told you, no one could know you removed it from Jim’s desk. He didn’t suggest you did?’

  ‘No. Not quite. But they’ve found a print on that damned pistol.’

  He said stupidly, his brain refusing to work, ‘A print?’

  ‘A single thumbprint. Ian, it can only be yours!’

  19

  The taxi-driver’s name was Milton. It caused him fewer problems as his clientele became progressively less literate, but he still told them firmly that his first name was Billy, not John. Too many schoolmasters had enquired if he was the original ‘mute inglorious’ Milton; too many of them had said when his attention wandered, ‘Milton thou shouldst be living at this hour’. Billy had inevitably been a little scarred; we are sensitive in our youth.

  Billy Milton was twenty-nine. He had been driving his cab for three years now, after a series of other jobs had sailed on to the rocks of recession. He had taken pains to cultivate the air of experience that seemed part of the necessary equipment for anyone driving a cab. He was literally street-wise now, having an excellent working knowledge of the twisting thoroughfares of the ancient towns of Herefordshire and Gloucestershire, and even a degree of familiarity with the labyrinth of old and new that helped to make up the street map of the city of Bristol.

  Nevertheless, he was feeling his way a little in this particular matter. Was discretion a part of the taxi-man’s job? When he accepted customers, did he take on also an unwritten agreement to keep silent about things which might embarrass them? He had protected a few adulterers when questioned by their spouses, had even occasionally turned a blind eye to fornication four feet behind his head as he drove. Though that was against company policy, the tips had been handsome enough to encourage a little laxity. And Billy, while not vicious, was certainly no angel: that was the image he wished to cultivate. A Jack-the-lad who knew the score and had his own transport was much in demand with the girls.

  But did you protect the clients whatever the circumstances? Even when the police might eventually be asking you why you had kept silent? Billy Milton found he was not as street-wise about these matters as he pretended to be in conversation. He decided he had better seek out a little advice. He thought about it for five minutes, whilst he ate his sandwiches in his cab and pretended to read his Daily Mail. Then he brightened: he had thought of someone he could consult without losing face.

  ***

  George Lewis made Billy welcome in his porter’s den at Old Mead Park. He shut the door, put on the kettle and unfastened the buttons of his green jacket, three actions which signified friendship on equal terms and even a degree of intimacy. They were companions in here against the uncertainties and injustices of the world outside.

  George looked chubbier now that he had allowed his embonpoint free rein beneath his opened jacket, like an elderly woman who had divested herself of corsets. He gazed down with something near fondness at the young man he had seated in the room’s only armchair. George was a man who had never been in a position to enjoy the luxury of giving patronage; now he felt very like a patron to this fresh-faced, vulnerable young man.

  He had offered Milton an increasing amount of trade over the last year. It was automatic now that whenever anyone in the apartments asked about taxi services, he recommended young Billy. When visitors had to be picked up or the residents taken to the airport for their foreign holidays, it was Billy who was contacted. And he had been entirely reliable: punctual, cheerful and helpful with luggage when necessary. His efforts had brought profit to him and another small addition to George’s standing as the factotum of Old Mead Park.

  Now George smiled down encouragingly at his protegé. ‘You said you had something to ask me,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, it’s nothing really,’ said Billy. It did indeed seem unimportant, now that he had brought himself here. Perhaps it was something he should have sorted out for himself, after all. He did not want to lose face, even with friendly, unthreatening old George.

  ‘Let’s have it out and done with, then,’ said Lewis, pouring the boiling water carefully into the china coffee mugs. He felt quite paternal: perhaps this is how it would have been, if he had ever had a son.

  ‘Well, it’s connected with that man who died here on Tuesday night,’ said Milton.

  ‘Was killed, you mean,’ said George, pushing the bowl of brown sugar at his guest with the china mug of coffee. One had to give these lads standards; probably young Billy had chipped mugs and sugar from the packet in his bachelor flat. George opened the tin and put the ginger biscuits carefully upon a plate. His dead wife would have found a doily, but that would be a bit too much between two busy men of the world. He sat down on his stand chair. ‘I wouldn’t tell everyone this, Billy, but that Berridge who was killed was a right bastard. The police were after him for drug dealings, I think. And for murder. Don’t you lose any sleep over Berridge — the world’s better off without him.’ His face hardened as he thought again of Charlie Pegg lying dead in the gutter, of poor Amy Pegg ravaged with tears when she shut the door of her house after his visit.

  Billy thought irritably that he had never expressed any regret for the dead man; until this moment, he had not even thought about the matter. Perhaps George was just claiming a little part for himself in the dramatic events of that night: he had noticed from his fares how people tended to do that. ‘I didn’t know anything about this Berridge. He never used my cab. But if you say he was killed by someone on Tuesday night, that affects what I came to talk to you about.’ He bit into a biscuit, munched it systematically. He was trying to come to terms with the notion that he might just have carried a murderer in the back of his cab.

  George Lewis said comfortably, ‘Whoever killed James Berridge has my sympathy. But I agree, it makes anything connected with his death more serious. What’s worrying you, Billy?’

  ‘I picked a fare up near here, on Tuesday night.’

  ‘W
hat time was that?’

  ‘About ten o’clock, I think. Perhaps just before ten.’

  The porter thought for a moment, going through his residents before he came back to the most obvious candidate. ‘Was it Mrs Berridge?’

  ‘No. I know her: she’s used me quite a few times, dropping her off to meet someone.’ He didn’t mention a lover, wondering if Lewis knew anything about that. Lewis did. He knew even the name now, having chatted to the lady yesterday. But like his visitor, he didn’t volunteer anything. For a moment, the two men sat sipping their coffee, smug with a mutual discretion. Then Billy said, ‘It was a blonde woman. She rang from the public phone down the road, near the pub. But she could easily have walked from here.’

  ‘And what’s your problem about it?’

  ‘I heard the police appeal for witnesses on Wyvern Radio. I haven’t said anything yet. But I wondered if I ought to tell them. It’s just that I wouldn’t like to get one of my customers into any sort of trouble.’

  George smiled reassuringly at the anxious face of the younger man, pleased that the advice being sought from him should be so obvious. ‘I don’t think you have any choice, Billy. Superintendent Lambert has been here several times, and he assures me that this is a murder enquiry.’ Name-dropping was another unaccustomed pleasure for George. ‘I think you should tell the police all you can about your fare.’

  Milton scrambled to his feet. It seemed clear to him now that he had no choice, but he was grateful to his mentor for making it so. ‘I’m sure you’re right, George. I’ll get on to the CID at Oldford right away.’

  ‘Ask for Superintendent Lambert. Tell him I told you to use his name,’ said Lewis grandly. As the cab-driver reached the door, George’s thirst for information asserted itself. ‘A blonde woman, you said. The police will want the fullest description you can give them, of course.’

  Billy stopped with his hand on the door handle. ‘Yes. It was dark and I couldn’t see very much.’

  Lewis smiled, an old hand now in these matters. ‘Nevertheless, you must tell the police about that fare, as soon as possible. You’ll find they’ll ask you questions about her which may help you to remember things.’

  Billy Milton brightened a little: like the porter, he was not averse to a peripheral role in these happenings: it might even be good for business in the long run, if it gave him a tale to tell. ‘I do remember one thing, though, now. She’d been knocked about a bit. One of her eyes was almost closed.’

  ***

  DI Christopher Rushton was anxious to demonstrate how helpful his computer had been in the investigation. He was oversensitive about his chief in these matters: Lambert liked to protest his scepticism, but he was well aware of the time that could be saved in areas like record searches.

  Rushton said a little desperately, ‘Most of the search data is useful, but negative. For instance, there is nothing to indicate a gangland killing. None of our sources suggest a recent quarrel among themselves. On the contrary, business for Berridge and his partners in crime was going rather well. His drug deals were getting bigger, and the men he was buying from hardly appear in this country at all. There is always competition among the villains involved in London gambling and strip clubs, but Berridge seems to have kept his place in the pecking order and not been too greedy.’

  Lambert said, ‘Forensic have just forwarded their report on the package found beside Berridge on the front seat of the car. Drugs, as we thought. LSD tabs, in fact. To a street value of between four and five hundred thousand pounds.’ There were a couple of token whistles from around the table, but no great surprise. Such sums were routine, nowadays. This package had been no bigger than the average briefcase. ‘Presumably, that’s what he went back to the flat to collect, after I’d seen him at Sarah Farrell’s place. He must have known we’d have a search warrant within twenty-four hours.’

  ‘Are there any hit men known to have been in our area in the days before Berridge died?’ asked ‘Jack’ Johnson, the sergeant who had organized the Scene-of-Crime team at Old Mead Park.

  Rushton shook his head. ‘None known to be active. There was a killing in Birmingham by one of them on the same night, so that rules him out. Of course, they’re shadowy figures, paid killers. If they’re not anonymous, they’re not successful for long. There’s always the possibility of one we haven’t yet identified, but all the evidence is against it.’

  Lambert said, ‘And I can’t see a professional leaving the LSD behind—not when it was worth as much as that.’ There were nods from the others before he said, ‘We know there are hundreds of people with good reason to wish Berridge dead. But there aren’t too many who had access to him on Tuesday night. Let’s go through those.’

  ‘Right. The wife first, then.’ The methodical approach, the ticking off of lists, was what Rushton liked best. And with reason: it was the basis of all CID work. Lambert thought he noticed a relish as the DI turned to the widow of James Berridge, and wondered again how deeply Rushton’s desertion by his own wife had bitten. For the copper whose marriage had disintegrated, work could be either a welcome companion or a damaging obsession.

  Rushton checked the read-out from his machinery. ‘Gabrielle Berridge says she was in Stratford at the time of the murder. There appears to be a question mark about that.’

  ‘Yes. She stayed the night there all right. Says she was at the theatre and produced a programme for The Winter’s Tale, which was the performance that night. She could have picked the programme up at any time. They’re prepared for the run of the play and not dated for particular nights. If this was fiction, there would be some variation in casting or some abnormality in the performance on the night which would trip her up in her account of it. We’ve checked with the theatre: it was a routine performance to a full house, with no hiccups that anyone in the audience could be expected to pick up.’

  Rushton said, ‘A full house? Doesn’t that mean that they couldn’t have booked on the night?’

  ‘Unfortunately not. There are nearly always cancellations available at the box office of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, if you queue for a few minutes before the performance. People have to book so far ahead to be sure of seats that it is inevitable there should be returns.’

  Rushton said, ‘There was an interesting snippet came in from the station at Stratford today. Apparently Gabrielle Berridge went back to the hotel where she stayed on Tuesday night yesterday. Tried to persuade the proprietor to say she had been there to book in before the theatre performance. No use, of course: he’d already been interviewed and told our man he hadn’t seen them until eleven-thirty that night. He phoned the station to tell them about La Berridge’s latest visit — I expect he has his licence to think about.’

  ‘So she could have been at Old Mead Park at the time when her husband was killed. The porter didn’t see her that night, but he couldn’t say at what time she left the flats. Incidentally, I wouldn’t put it past George Lewis to have turned a deaf ear to her departure if it was late in the evening. He was an old friend of Charlie Pegg, and he knows Berridge organized that death. I think he’d be quite happy to see his killer get away with it.’

  Rushton said, ‘Does that put him in the frame with the rest?’

  ‘It must do, as far as opportunity and motive go. He had less to gain from this death than the others, but we all know revenge can drive men to do foolish things. What do you think, Bert?’

  ‘Unlikely. He had the opportunity, perhaps more obviously than anyone. But you would have to say that about whoever held the job of porter in those flats. Just as domestic staff are always the first suspects in burglaries. They rarely turn out to be the culprits, if only because of that very fact. And George has been very helpful to the investigation: he’s saved the door-to-door enquiry team a lot of time and confirmed many of the habits of the residents of Old Mead Park.’

  ‘And he has no previous history of violence,’ agreed Lambert. ‘But we must remember that he had access and apparently a strong emotio
nal drive: he’s made no secret of his dislike of Berridge since he found out about Charlie Pegg.’

  Rushton turned firmly to his own favourite for this crime. ‘Ian Faraday. Motive obvious. Apart from the fact that he has been carrying on a serious affair with the wife of the deceased for at least a year, he makes no secret of his dislike for his employer.’

  Lambert said gloomily, ‘None of the suspects has troubled to disguise his or her feelings about Jim Berridge. One could wish for a little deceit in these matters: it sometimes makes things easier for us when we can get our teeth into a few lies.’

  Rushton said, ‘Faraday also says he was in Stratford at the time of the murder. But we have a thumbprint on the pistol from him. And Forensic say there is a rather smudged print on the other side of the handle which might just be that of his first finger. Hardly matters, does it, if they’re so definite about the thumbprint?’ Like all CID men, he tended to think in terms of cross-examination by a defence counsel.

  Lambert looked at Hook. ‘I think Bert has turned up something interesting about this Stratford alibi. It’s an alibi, you see, for the two of them, if we accept that they were there as early as they claim to have been.’

  Hook said, ‘I went over there this morning. Had a look round the theatre. One of the things Ian Faraday produced was the stubs of theatre tickets for the performance on Tuesday night. The tickets have the date printed on them, you see, so that was much better evidence than Gabrielle Berridge’s programme. Well, last night’s play was Macbeth. And in the big rubbish containers at the side of the theatre — the ones into which the smaller bins from the theatre foyer and the terrace outside are emptied, I expect — I found these.’ Rather apologetically, as if he saw the image of a triumphant conjuror and was trying to avoid it, he produced two ticket stubs for the previous evening’s performance.