Backhand Smash

by J M Gregson

  She said calmly, ‘I prefer “Mrs Grice” to “Ms”. I was working full-time and quite intensively as a PA in Preston before I came here. I live in Brunton and I knew of Jason Fitton as a prominent local businessman, as you might expect. I knew him largely by reputation. I can’t see how that distant and third-hand sort of acquaintance can help you at all in solving the mystery of his death.’

  She was good, Peach thought, and cool, or apparently cool. Perhaps that came with her training and experience as a PA. He said grimly. ‘We know all about your relationship with Jason Fitton, Mrs Grice. It’s time for you to come clean.’

  Her brown eyes were wide and serious between the immaculately styled short dark hair. She forced a smile she did not feel into the alert, attractive features. ‘All right. I did at one time know Jason Fitton quite well. I suppose this is what you call a fair cop.’

  ‘It is an instance of someone attempting to deceive us about a close relationship with a murder victim. That is of great interest to us. You have a lot of explaining to do, Mrs Grice – if, of course, explanation is possible. Confession would be more appropriate, perhaps.’

  ‘The explanation for my reticence is simple. When you hear that someone has been murdered, you are not inclined to declare a long-term relationship that ended in bitter acrimony. You panic and conceal that intimacy.’

  ‘You don’t strike me as a woman who panics easily, Mrs Grice. Having said which, you had now better give us a full account of your relationship and dealings with Jason Fitton. Leave nothing out, please.’

  It was an absurd phrase, that, Anne thought. Was she to give the details of their tumblings and wrestlings and sweatings in bed, for instance? Did they want to know what she’d shouted and he’d promised? Recollections that were never going to be made public flashed across her mind. ‘I did know him, as you’ve obviously discovered. I should have realized that you would, but I didn’t realize the extent of the questioning that goes on in a murder investigation. You’ve been back to people who worked with me in my old firm in Preston, haven’t you?’

  ‘Members of our team spoke to them and to others after we’d talked to you on Tuesday morning. You brought this upon yourself by not being frank with us then, Mrs Grice.’

  ‘I met Jason Fitton socially whilst I was still married. My marriage ran into a few problems and Jason could be very charming. I began an affair with him. It went further than I’d ever intended. I suppose you’ve heard that phrase quite often.’

  ‘We seek significant facts, Mrs Grice; we don’t strike moral stances. How long ago was this?’

  ‘It began five years ago. It took me more months than is nowadays fashionable to go to bed with him. Once I’d done that, things moved fast.’

  ‘How fast and how far?’

  ‘Jason was genuinely attracted, I believe. I like to think that wasn’t surprising: I scrubbed up quite well, five years ago.’ She gave a bitter smile. She was a highly attractive woman now, at forty-four. It was indeed not surprising that even a practised womanizer like Fitton had found her irresistible. Probably the very fact that she hadn’t been an easy conquest had added to the excitement for him. For men who pursued women relentlessly and unscrupulously, resistance was often exciting. ‘Things moved fast once he’d won me over, as I said. It didn’t take long to finish my marriage.’

  ‘Do you blame Fitton for that?’

  ‘I blame myself more than anyone. I lost all sense of reasonable behaviour for a time. I was in love with Jason and I thought he was in love with me. He said consistently that this wasn’t just another affair for him, that he wanted to marry me. I took him at his word and didn’t bother to conceal the things I was doing with him. Richard, my husband, sued for divorce and I didn’t contest it. He was given custody of our two teenage children – one of them is now in her third year at university and the other one goes at the end of next month. They come to see me regularly and I’m grateful for that. Sorry, that isn’t something which interests you, but it’s important to me.’

  ‘What went wrong with your relationship with Fitton?’

  ‘Nothing I couldn’t have seen coming. Nothing other people wouldn’t have warned me about, if I’d cared to listen. We women are stupid when we fancy we’re in love.’

  ‘No more stupid than men, I can assure you. We’ve seen men do some pretty stupid things when they thought that infatuation was love, haven’t we, DS Northcott?’

  ‘Indeed we have, sir. Ours might be the more stupid of two unpredictable genders, if we count heads. But in our game we see more of stupid men than we do of stupid women. And you’re certainly not stupid, Anne.’

  She had so set herself upon a contest with the aggressive Peach that she was disconcerted by the quiet and much deeper tones of the big black man and still more by his use of her first name. She didn’t welcome it, but it was almost as if by calling her Anne he had declared his sympathy for her. She smiled ruefully. ‘I’m not sure I find that consoling. When I look back on it now, I was certainly very stupid. I took Jason at face value and accepted his assurances, when any rational assessment of his previous philandering would have warned me against doing that.’

  Clyde nodded. The pen looked absurdly small in his huge hand as it was poised over his notebook. ‘When did the relationship end?’

  She was sure that they knew the answers to most of these questions now, after the research they had clearly done on her and Jason. Perhaps they wanted her to get the details wrong or to conceal things, but she wasn’t going to do that. ‘Two years ago. I challenged him to set a date for our marriage and he laughed in my face. He said that I was a mature woman, not a stupid little tart, and that I should have known from the start that there would be no permanent arrangement. It had been good in bed, but it had now run its course. It was time for me to find myself a new prick to sit on. That was his very phrase. It seemed pretty dismissive to me at the time and it still does.’

  Clyde made a note of the phrase and said calmly, ‘It sounds very cruel as well as very final to me, Anne. You must have felt very bitter indeed towards him.’

  It was an open-ended observation which invited further revelations from her, and it brought them. ‘I denounced him to anyone who chose to hear me. I told my friends and workmates – anyone who would listen, I suspect – that I would get even with him for what he had done to me.’

  ‘Did you say you would kill him, Anne?’

  ‘I might have done. Probably I did. If I could have torn his face with my nails at that time, I would have done it.’ She was breathing hard, wondering if she should say these things. But perhaps they knew them already. ‘I wouldn’t have killed him, not even then. And certainly not now, when things have cooled down and I can look back at myself as the fool I was. I said all sorts of things in that situation, but I don’t have the stuff of a killer in me.’

  ‘I sometimes think all of us have the stuff of a killer in us, if we should be placed in a particular situation.’

  ‘Do you, Detective Sergeant Northcott? It’s an interesting thought. I’d need to consider it for a lot longer before I could tell you whether I agreed with it.’ Anne was pleased that she’d remembered his name and rank: it seemed to assure her that she was still in charge here, despite the things she was revealing to them.

  Clyde flicked to a new page in his notebook. He watched her as closely as ever as he said, ‘Tell us exactly where you were between one and three on Sunday morning, Anne.’

  She could feel her pulses racing now, even though she knew what she was going to say. She paused, took a deep breath and set herself for the obstacle, like a high jumper staring hard at a raised bar. ‘I told you on Tuesday. I was safely tucked up in bed at home. Nowhere near the place where Jason died.’

  ‘With no witnesses.’

  ‘I cannot help that. The innocent do not plan alibis.’

  Peach came in again now, having watched his bagman with approval for the last few minutes. ‘That is true, Mrs Grice. It is very inconvenient for
us, because we like to proceed by elimination. Your being alone makes it very difficult for us suspicious coppers to eliminate you from consideration.’

  ‘I’m sorry about that, but I don’t see what I can do about it.’ The dark eyes were earnest, the heart-shaped face enhanced by a regretful smile.

  ‘I’m sure you can see our difficulty. You have just declared a hatred for our murder victim. You have admitted that you declared publicly two years ago that it was your intention to kill him.’ Peach wore now an apologetic smile, a great rarity on that mobile face.

  ‘You’re not going to give me that old cliché about hell having no fury like woman scorned, are you?’

  ‘“Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned” are the exact words, I believe. It’s often misquoted, but I sometimes think Congreve would have preferred your version if he’d had longer to think about it.’

  ‘A literary policeman? The world is full of surprises, Detective Chief Inspector Peach.’ Her full lips slipped for a moment into a taunting smile. She had thrown the full rank at Peach this time, and she was ridiculously pleased by it. The adrenalin must be working overtime in her veins.

  But Peach seemed to play along, to enjoy this as much as she was doing. ‘Clichés become clichés because they reflect reality, Mrs Grice. You’re a very efficient woman: everyone tells us that. I think part of your efficiency is to be cool and well organized. I think I would dispute your view that you do not have the stuff of a killer within you.’

  ‘Then I would quote your sergeant back to you: he says that almost everyone could be a killer in a particular set of circumstances.’

  Peach’s smile became now puzzled; his forehead puckered into a fierce frown beneath the baldness above it. ‘Have you had many relationships since the one with Fitton hit the rocks, Mrs Grice?’

  ‘I don’t think that’s any of your business.’ She sighed. ‘But I suppose you’ll tell me that in a murder enquiry everything is your business. There have been one or two short-term things. I’m not a nun and I don’t aim to live like one. But there’s been nothing serious.’

  ‘I see. Nothing that would have any connection with this death, then?’

  She looked at him for a long moment. But he wasn’t going to offer her anything more specific. ‘Nothing that would have any connection with Jason’s death, no.’

  Peach glanced at Northcott, arched his black eyebrows for a second and said, ‘Tell us again how you get on with your new employer.’

  ‘I told you all you needed to know on Tuesday. We work together very well. So well, in fact, that we have become friends.’

  ‘All we needed to know, or all that you wanted us to know at that point? Do you have a sexual relationship with Robert Walmsley, Mrs Grice?’

  The question had come abruptly at last, like a slap in the face. Anne looked very shaken by it. She eyed the carpet rather than her questioner. It took her a long time to say, ‘How did you know?’

  He hadn’t known, of course. But things had led logically to this. He didn’t answer her question but said instead, ‘You are now going to tell us about it, Mrs Grice.’

  ‘It’s only recent. I’m a free woman, but I would remind you that Bob Walmsley is a happily married man and I don’t wish to destroy that marriage. He’s been operating under a lot of strain, with Jason Fitton running down the business and using its profits for other purposes. And I’ve been under strain, too, of a different sort. I wasn’t tucked up alone in bed last Saturday night, as I told you I was. We knew several days beforehand that Bob’s wife was going to be away at her mother’s that night. It seemed too good an opportunity to miss. I was in my bed all right, but I wasn’t alone. Bob Walmsley was with me.’

  ‘An alibi, then, for both of you. Why did you not reveal this earlier?’

  ‘I don’t think you really need to ask that. It’s merely embarrassing for me, but potentially disastrous for Bob. And as neither of us had anything to do with Jason’s death, we thought for a long time that this could remain our secret.’

  She sat still with her head in her hands for a while after they had left her, then tried Robert Walmsley’s mobile. It was switched off during his meeting with the solicitors, as she had anticipated. She texted the simple message Bob must have been half expecting. ‘I had to tell them.’

  SIXTEEN

  Younis Hafeez was not used to being fearful. Fear was a tool he used with skill and for his own purposes. Fear made others do his bidding. On the evening after he had spoken with Peach and Northcott, he experienced real fear himself, as he had hardly done since he was a boy.

  A sound English education had been a great help to him. It had enabled him to make his way in business, to establish trust with people who should not have trusted him. The English establishment appreciated education amongst its former colonials. If you joined their system and did well in it, the mysterious people who operated the establishment made exceptions.

  It all went back to Oxford and Cambridge and their acceptance of rich Indians early in the century. Indians like Ranjitsinhji had been accepted there, even welcomed. Had not Ranji even played cricket for England and been considered one of the greats? That had been long before India gained independence, long before Younis’s country of origin, Pakistan, had even existed. Ranji had been an Indian prince, which must surely have sugared the pill for the reactionary English peerage. Even that arch-agitator Gandhi was for a long time afforded an amused tolerance by the English toffs because he had studied law in London.

  Now people like Younis Hafeez were taking advantage of the English tolerance to achieve wholly other things. He had never been a prince, but he was richer than he had ever im-agined he could be. He had begun by supplying men who could afford it, many of them Asians like himself, with all sorts of pornographic pictures of young girls, some of them very young indeed. He’d found a surprisingly large demand for pictures of boys too, and had succeeded quickly in meeting it. Things had moved rapidly after that. He provided girls in large numbers and people had paid him handsomely for them. When he found that there was a demand for young and inexperienced girls, he found it surprisingly easy to recruit them from care homes.

  He’d drawn a blank in Brunton, but it was surprising how lax had been the supervision in many care homes in the north and the Midlands. In many cases, the police hadn’t wanted to know about what was going on, even when local busybodies had brought it to their attention. Where Asians were prominent members of local councils, the police and others were afraid of accusations of racial prejudice. Money gives you all sorts of influence: for a thousand quid or so annually, you could fee an officer in many of the police forces. He would then keep you well abreast of the latest thinking and action. Hafeez was very rich now: he had acquired millions far more quickly and easily than he would have believed possible when he set out on this road.

  But Younis Hafeez began to miss Jason Fitton less than a week after he had been killed. He’d been glad to see him dead, eager to take over his local criminal enterprises. But he realized now that Jason had been a useful middleman, arranging the transfer of girls whilst Hafeez remained in the background. He’d been handsomely paid for that, but he had been a buffer which had made it difficult for the large police squad now investigating the procurement of young girls across the country to pin anything on Hafeez. Younis had financed the recruitment and movement of the desired sort of girls and boys, often little more than children, whom the press were now getting so indignant about. He had passed out a lot of money and in due course taken twice as much in return.

  But things were getting dangerous for him now, and Jason Fitton was no longer around to provide a cushion between him and the police. Peach, with his confident assertion this morning that Hafeez would be in court within months, had scared him more than he had cared to reveal at the time. It was because of that that he had chosen to meet the man from Oxford in his home this evening. It felt more private and thus safer than his penthouse office: the police might have that place and the comings a
nd goings of his visitors under surveillance. Or was he becoming paranoid? Was there less threat than he had felt there might be earlier in the day? It was difficult to tell with Peach. And also, more surprisingly, with that big black sergeant of his, who had joined the tennis club and might now be active as an unwelcome spy on Younis’s activities there.

  The man came precisely at the time arranged. But it was the wrong man. A heavily built Pakistani in his fifties, with a moustache and a shifty air. He did not have the appearance that would allay suspicion in anyone who might observe him. ‘Where’s Afridi?’ said Hafeez immediately. He could hear the nervousness in his own voice.

  ‘He couldn’t come. He sent me. He’s keeping a low profile. He advises you to do the same. He thinks the police have him under surveillance.’

  This wasn’t good. Afridi was a rich man, like himself. If he felt the police net closing around him, he was probably right. It was time to get out, to cut ties. Younis said, ‘Does he want the usual next month?’ It was a crude evasion they used, almost as though they were superstitious. Perhaps they did not want to confront the fact that they were trading in young lives. But it couldn’t be that sort of squeamishness in his case: he’d laboured long and hard to make himself immune to any such sensitivity. Sex was a lucrative commodity to retail, as long as you closed your mind completely to the lives of the youngsters you were committing to a kind of slavery.

  ‘He doesn’t want the usual. He says it’s too dangerous. I’m to tell you that all trade is suspended until further notice.’

  ‘But I’ve laid out money. I have the goods ready to convey to him. He’s committed to this.’ But he knew even as he spoke that you couldn’t argue with an emissary. This acolyte wouldn’t have been given the authority to wheel and deal. Hafeez and Afridi would have exchanged views as equals, but this man had been sent to close down the enterprise.