Making a Killing

by J M Gregson

  Rushton knew without looking at the reports of his detective-constables. ‘Nothing yet. There were two front of house staff and an usherette in the cinema: none of them remember her. The place was almost full.’ Of course. It would be for a popular film; this woman, if she was trying to deceive them, would no doubt have taken account of that.

  ‘Any of them male?’ A red-blooded man was more likely to remember those dark eyes and lustrous black tresses.

  ‘Only the house manager. He spent a lot of the evening checking takings.’

  ‘What about her car?’

  ‘A green Volvo. A better chance of someone seeing a car like that than a Ford or a Vauxhall. But no sighting recorded yet. Of course, she says she left it in the public car park.’

  ‘And of course she conveniently went nowhere except to the cinema. No snack, no drinks?’

  Rushton shrugged his shoulders. ‘It’s a long film, which would occupy most of the evening. And she was a woman on her own.’ Both reasons why she should not dally in Tewkesbury, certainly. The fact that no one could so far confirm her alibi might not be significant: no one had seen her elsewhere either. Somehow, she did not seem the kind of woman who would habitually visit the cinema alone, as she claimed. Had she been with anyone else on that Wednesday evening?

  ‘What progress on George Robson’s story?’

  ‘More to report there.’ Rushton was glad to have something more positive as evidence of the team’s industry. ‘He was seen up on the common that night with his dog.’

  Lambert should have been relieved to find one at least of his suspects being eliminated. In fact, he had been remembering the way he had seen Robson eyeing Denise Freeman at the funeral, and toying with a lurid hypothesis involving them as joint murderers. Reluctantly, he abandoned the notion.

  ‘What exactly did he say to us about his movements, Bert?’ he asked Hook. Rushton, anxious to give chapter and verse to his findings, was left to cool his heels while the Sergeant thumbed ponderously to the right page in his notes, then enunciated his summary as clearly as if he was in court. ‘He was up on the common with Fred, the labrador. He says he always is between eight and nine in the summer. He couldn’t remember actually speaking to anyone on that night, though he often does. He and Fred went right up on to the moor because the dog had been in all day. Fred was chasing rabbits, but he never catches any,’ he ended inconsequentially.

  ‘That tallies with our witnesses,’ said Rushton, his tone just edging his impatience with the delay. He was young for a detective-inspector, still without a grey hair, his face almost unlined; he played things carefully by the book, but knew when and how the book could help him. Before too long, thought Lambert, I shall be out to grass and replaced by someone like him. He tried to welcome the idea, failed, and was irked by his own pettiness.

  Rushton thumbed through his own pages, arriving at the right one much more quickly than Hook, speaking with no more than an occasional confirmatory glance downwards. He was on top of this, his demeanour said.

  ‘DC Sampson has found three people who saw him up there. None of them actually spoke to him, because he was too far away, but they waved and Robson waved back. They all know Fred, because he’s a character among dogs, apparently. Among other things, a right randy bugger. Two of our sightings had bitches.’ How straightforwardly these things were arranged in the canine world; if the couplings and aspirations of the human participants in this case were only so manifest, all might swiftly be illuminated. ‘Fred went away with his master up on to the moor, diverting his energy into chasing the wildlife as Robson said.’

  ‘What was Robson wearing?’

  ‘Old trilby, green wellies, sports jacket. The gear he always wears for walking the dog: we’ve checked it out.’ Rushton was glad to have been asked, and thus allowed to demonstrate the diligence of the work he was orchestrating.

  ‘Wellies on a summer evening?’ said Hook.

  ‘Dog-walkers tend to stick to what is comfortable, summer and winter,’ said Rushton, who had a dog himself. ‘It seems to be what Robson always wears; we saw the clothes at his house.’ Lambert nodded, recalling Robson dressed exactly thus when he returned to his house with Fred to find them waiting to interview him.

  ‘What about Emily Godson?’ he said. To Rushton, who had expected some recognition of his efficient dismissal of Robson from their list of possible murderers, it seemed almost a snub. He took a deep breath before reporting what Lambert already knew. ‘She says she was at the house of her aunt, Alice Franklyn. DC Pearson says her aunt supports this, but that it wouldn’t stand up in court.’ Rushton looked at his notes in some puzzlement.

  ‘DC Pearson shows a mastery of understatement that could take him to high rank,’ said Lambert with a dry smile.

  ‘Bert and I found her quite charming, but as nutty as a Brazilian barmcake. Emily could have used her for that very reason if she was desperate. For what it’s worth, I think Emily is bright enough to arrange a more reliable alibi if she was our killer.’

  ‘Has she a wide circle of friends, sir?’ said Rushton. He felt as if he was trying to retrieve lost ground. His Superintendent left the reply to Bert Hook, with the benefits of his local knowledge.

  ‘She’s lived in the area all her life, and worked at Freeman Estates for over thirty years. She must know most of the locals. I doubt whether she has many really close friends among them, though.’

  Rushton tried not to sound too eager. ‘It’s possible, then, that she hadn’t too many options in framing an alibi. We’re saying that the story that she was with her aunt isn’t worth a lot. From where she stands, it may simply look impossible to disprove.’

  Lambert felt he was being corrected on an obvious point: suspects did not have to prove their innocence. He wondered if his vague desire to discomfort Rushton came from anything more than resentment of his relative youth. ‘All right. In our terms, Emily Godson goes down at present as having no satisfactory alibi.’ How gruff and grudging he sounded. He was glad Christine could not see him managing his team: schoolteachers were too ready with applications of amateur psychology. ‘What about young Mr Hapgood?’

  ‘Not quite so young as he appears at first sight, sir. Simon Hapgood is thirty. We’ve been digging a little.’ Rushton was back in his stride now. From widely divergent sources, they had built a better background to the recently promoted Senior Negotiator than any of the others. They had listened to gossip, examined his application form for his original post with Freeman Estates, enlisted the Sussex CID to enquire discreetly into his previous career.

  ‘Hapgood left his public school without taking A-levels, under something of a cloud. The head, now retired, says he was “not a good influence” on the other boys. He hinted at homosexuality, but there is no subsequent record of it. Either it was a stage in adolescence, or what he was expelled for was more a combination of factors.’

  ‘Drugs?’ said Lambert. He was aware that Rushton was making a meal of this, and absurdly delighted to see him deflated by the anticipation of his next revelation. This was an efficient colleague he was needling: he tried unsuccessfully to feel guilty.

  ‘Indeed yes, sir. Hapgood was bound over at Hastings eighteen months later. Possession of cannabis and LSD. No suggestion of trafficking. Arrested at a party.’ He offered each detail as if making a plea of mitigation in court. Rushton, for all his consciousness of rank, was not much older than Hapgood. Perhaps attitudes to the drug culture were conditioned by age as well as occupation. ‘He seems to have learned his lesson, in that respect, anyway. There is no subsequent connection with hard drugs.’ Lambert thought of Hapgood’s trembling hands as they caressed a cigarette in the final stages of their meeting; perhaps it was just that his drug dependence now was legal.

  Rushton went on with his carefully gleaned information before there could be any more inspired guesses from his chief. ‘After a series of jobs in small firms, possibly obtained by his father’s influence in the area, Hapgood had three years with a fir
m of stockbrokers in Brighton.’

  ‘Why did he leave?’ Failure was always more interesting to policemen than success.

  ‘He left under a cloud.’ Rushton ruefully acknowledged that he had been anticipated again. ‘There were some rather dubious share-dealings on his own account and a suggestion that he was unloading dubious shares from one client to another. He was warned, and apparently desisted. What finally sent him on his way was an attempt at what the broking fraternity call “insider dealing”: using confidential information for personal profit at the expense of the public. The Fraud Squad spend untold hours on it in the City at the moment, as you know. Hapgood was a boy in a man’s world, attempting to use a London contact to get in on the act.’

  ‘And no doubt he got caught while the big lads got away. Was there a prosecution?’ said Lambert, knowing the answer even as he spoke. The people who screamed for convictions were often the last to pursue prosecutions when it was inconvenient.

  ‘No, sir. He was sacked, but as usual the firm said there wasn’t enough evidence for a court case. Which means, of course, that they’re an old-established firm who wouldn’t want that kind of publicity and a loss of confidence among colonels retiring with their gratuities.’ Superintendent and Inspector were united at last in their moment of ritual resentment against an uncaring public. It enabled Rushton to continue with greater relaxation.

  ‘Hapgood moved to a rather dubious financial services firm in Hampshire, who have since gone out of business. He was plugging speculative investments at high rates of interest. He seems to have pushed things a bit too far even among those chancers, because he was sent on his way just before they packed up.’

  ‘No form?’

  ‘Not apart from the early LSD.’

  ‘Any violence?’

  ‘None at all that we’ve been able to find.’ Yet this death, with its subtle, quiet suffocation, disguised as an EXIT suicide, was in a way non-violent. No bludgeoning with a blunt instrument, no blowing a man’s head away. Just a quiet, ruthless dispatch into eternity. Was he rationalizing because of his dislike of Hapgood?

  ‘Sexual inclinations?’

  ‘Women. Consistently. None of them for very long. Whether he prefers it that way, or whether they tire of him, is not very clear. Perhaps both.’

  Simon Hapgood was not so uncommon a type in police experience, after all. With an education and obvious good looks, they lived on their wits in their twenties. If successful, they became with experience and discretion successful businessmen in their thirties, then pillars of a society in which wealth was the easiest measure. If they failed, they often declined into seedy confidence-tricksters in middle age, preying on the gullible young housewives and elderly widows who lived in the unreal world of cheap romances.

  John Lambert had a sudden fantasy which involved the active body of the fair-haired, blue-eyed Mr Hapgood. Perhaps he had settled to life at Freeman Estates, even if he occasionally pushed its possibilities to a point only just within the law. But he surely did not live a life of monastic seclusion in that aseptic lounge of his. Lambert wished he had seen the décor of the bedroom. Before the thought could induce too much excitement in a middle-aged superintendent, he turned briskly to Hook, that bromide among sergeants.

  ‘Did you check his story with the pub, Bert?’

  ‘I did better than that. I found witnesses.’ Hook was human enough to change to a more brisk delivery in response to Rushton’s efforts. ‘The landlord at the Stonemasons’ Arms in Cornbrook confirms he was there that Wednesday night. They were quite busy and he can’t be sure about times. He remembers Hapgood ordering a round of drinks at what he thinks was about nine-thirty, because Hapgood was quite boisterous about it. He had the impression he’d been there for some time, but he couldn’t be sure of that. But Hapgood gave us the names of three people who’d been with him, and I’ve spoken to two of them. They confirm his presence, but they can’t be precise about the time we know is important.’

  He flicked the leaves of his notebook and found the names he wanted with unaccustomed celerity. ‘Julian Armitage remembers Hapgood ordering that round of drinks as soon as he joined their little group. He gave them the impression he’d already been in the pub for some time with other people before coming over to them, but when I pressed him for names he hadn’t actually seen anyone: it’s possible the idea is no more than a notion planted by Hapgood. Hazel Smythe-Walker is even less use: she joined the group at about nine forty-five, and can vouch for the fact that Hapgood stayed with them until closing time, but she obviously can’t know about the time of his arrival. She thought Hapgood had had a few and been there for quite some time, but that again might be no more than an impression he worked to create. Incidentally, Hapgood might have been working on his alibi since the murder. He’s been back to the pub three times in the last week, each time from eight o’clock onwards.’

  Lambert, who now thought he knew where Hapgood had been for at least some part of that Wednesday night, had not yet an iota of proof. He leaned forward to Rushton, all differences forgotten in the excitement of a new idea. ‘How many of the staff of Freeman Estates were involved with Lydon Hall?’

  Rushton was shrewd enough to pick up his chief’s train of thought quickly; his own agitation rose as he replied. ‘Only Stanley Freeman, I think. He handled the whole thing himself, even the measuring for the brochure. Robson and Hapgood seemed quite put out, but thought they’d get their chance at a sale if it didn’t go immediately.’

  ‘So as far as we know, only Freeman ever visited the place officially. It has a gravel drive to the front and both sides. Has anyone checked the tyres of our suspects for traces of gravel?’

  Rushton shook his head dumbly, wondering how to frame his excuse. But Lambert was too excited to pause now. ‘Damn! My fault entirely. The old gardener told us the first day we were up there that Freeman had done all the measuring of house and garden himself. I just assumed with a property of that size and importance that most of them would have been up there at some time.’

  ‘I think we all did,’ said Rushton miserably. He was only too conscious that they had cast aside one of the few bonuses offered to them in a difficult case. He could think of only one fact to offer, and that a negative one. ‘I think Denise Freeman went up there with her husband. She was interested in seeing the Hall and its furnishings, and Freeman couldn’t shut her out as he did his employees.’

  Lambert said, ‘Check the tyres of the other four now. If they have good tyres – and as they’re all company cars they probably have – there might even be traces of gravel after eight days. Get a sample of Lydon Hall gravel to Forensic right away and tell the lab boys to test the tyre samples against it; top priority. Check Hapgood’s tyres particularly carefully: it’s a blue Sierra. Possibly the car seen by the Harbens, but we need more proof than they can offer us.’

  ‘How openly?’ Rushton was anxious for the relief afforded by action, but cautious still, as appropriate for a man steadily on the way up.

  ‘It doesn’t matter. The staff of Freeman Estates park their cars in the public car park behind their office. If they see uniformed men checking tyre-treads, I don’t mind stirring things up a bit. Pity we can’t observe their reactions; Hapgood’s in particular.’

  Rushton made a full and careful note: if there were subsequent questions about irregularities in procedure, it would be as well to make it clear they were on the Superintendent’s initiative. He picked up a phone and set his detective-constables to work, while his chief brooded darkly about missed opportunities. Then Rushton cleared his throat, received Larnbert’s affirmative nod, and moved to his next typewritten sheet.

  ‘Jane Davidson,’ he announced.

  ‘We haven’t even seen her yet. Anything for us to follow up?’ In his own mind, Lambert considered her the least likely of their suspects. As yet, they had found no obvious motive for the receptionist at Freeman Estates to kill her employer. Both Denise Freeman and Emily Godson had noticed something
strange in her relationship with Freeman, but it might have been no more than wishful thinking and a little spite. How much was his own view swayed by her sex and her youth? He remembered Christine’s assertion that there was a good girl lurking beneath a recalcitrant exterior. But experience should have taught him by now to dismiss no one as a possibility until he had built up a careful factual picture. He was anxious to reduce the field: perhaps too anxious.

  Rushton said, ‘She claims she was at home with her mother on the night of the murder. Not the kind of alibi I like. I saw the mother myself. She bears out everything her daughter says and probably it’s fair enough. But there’s something odd about both of them; I felt things were being held back. What bits we’ve been able to find support her story. The neighbour is a spinster who sees most of the comings and goings by day.’

  ‘By day?’

  ‘Until her television goes on. Which it does at about seven o’clock on most nights. She saw young Jane come in about six. She didn’t see her go out, but I doubt if she’d have noticed once she was glued to Coronation Street.’ It was true enough: people heard rather than saw the movements of their neighbours at nights and once the ubiquitous chatter of television and radio took over, little else was heard, a fact of great assistance to the criminal fraternity.

  ‘There is one interesting thing. It was Jane Davidson who took the phone message which put the viewing time for the Harbens back from eight-thirty to nine. She says it was a female voice she did not recognize – presumably Mrs Harben, since the change was genuine.’

  ‘But I assume she told Stanley Freeman?’ said Lambert, trying to work through the implications.

  ‘He wasn’t in the office.’

  ‘Car phone?’

  ‘No. Stanley Freeman didn’t think it was worthwhile in a small local business. I suspect he didn’t have one because he didn’t want to be contacted when he was away from the office.’ They paused for a moment, thinking of the sad figure of Margot Jones in Gloucester; she scarcely seemed to warrant any title as glamorous as mistress. ‘Jane Davidson left a message on Freeman’s Ansafone at home. It was cleared before we got there. Denise Freeman said she didn’t run it until the next day and cleared it then. It means she could have known the night before, of course.’