by J M Gregson
‘Was your husband involved?’
She smiled. ‘Peter wasn’t even there.’
‘I know that. Was he involved?’
‘What a preposterous idea! Of course Peter wasn’t involved. He scarcely knew Jim O’Connor.’
‘He handles what he calls security for the Lennon group of enterprises. We all know what that means: Peter Coleman deals in violence and sometimes in death. As the Lennon organisation is now planning to control the group of criminal enterprises formerly run by James O’Connor, it is perfectly logical that he should have eliminated the former owner. Or arranged his elimination.’
‘He did neither. Place that on record, please, DS Northcott.’ She savoured echoing Peach’s direction to his bagman, then turned back to him. ‘You have an over-developed imagination, DCI Peach.’
‘My imagination is fine. What I at present lack is the evidence to support it. That will come, in time. So who did kill James O’Connor?’
‘I’ve no idea. I never left the banqueting hall during that comfort break; my neighbours at the table will confirm that for you. I’ve always had a strong bladder, among other things. For the record, I hope the creaking police machine gets a result on this one. I liked Jim.’
Clyde Northcott drove the car down the drive between the immaculate lawns and back to the station at Brunton. He had the good sense to say nothing to Peach, who stared straight ahead with a face like thunder. Eventually Percy said, ‘She’s a dangerous woman, that one. And we made no impression on her. Linda Coleman is going to be a dire influence on Brunton, unless we can nobble her.’
Clyde braked sharply to avoid a Brunton cat which seemed bent on suicide, then waited his moment to pass a learner driver who was exercising extreme care. Only then did he say, ‘She was very determined to let us know that she never left the banqueting hall during that ten minutes when the murder took place.’
‘Indeed she was. And if we check it out with other statements, I’m sure we’ll find it was exactly as she says. She wouldn’t have drawn our attention to it otherwise.’
‘No. Cast-iron alibi. It’s almost as if she knew something was going to happen in those ten minutes.’
‘Good thinking, Clyde. That’s why you’re a DS and not just a DC nowadays. I’ve always said you were more than just a hard bastard.’
It was only Percy Peach who’d ever called him that, but Clyde was much too astute to remind him of it now.
DS Lucy Peach was well aware of the dangers she ran. There was a heavy irony to them, in her view. The police regulations stated firmly that husband and wife should not work together, which meant that since her marriage she had needed perforce to undertake other duties in the CID section.
The nature of these meant that she felt in far more danger than she ever had felt whilst working alongside Percy. Brunton had an Asian population which now constituted almost thirty per cent of the whole. Amongst the tiny lunatic fringe of the Muslim fraternity, there lurked fanatical young men and a few ruthless older ones who directed them. Lucy Peach was ever more heavily involved in the campaign to frustrate these most dangerous forces. The anti-terrorism unit gathered more and more information and made itself more and more effective. Knowledge was power, but it was also a highly dangerous commodity, in this context.
There were also decisions which called for the most delicate of judgements. The policy was to let plots against the state and its citizens proceed as far as possible, as long as they did not risk injury or death to the public. Lucy and the officers who worked with her were aware at this moment of several embryo plots, over which they maintained a watching brief. They wouldn’t move in to frustrate them unless it was felt that the safety of the public was in jeopardy. The reason for this was that they wanted to capture not merely the rabid young males who were prepared to sacrifice their own lives in pursuit of mistaken ideals, but the subtle and even more sinister men behind them who plotted the continuous ‘war against the infidel’ in which these were merely incidents.
It was a delicate balance. You wanted to intervene decisively, but at as late a stage as possible, in order to catch the generals as well as the advanced troops in this malevolent army. Lucy was too junior to take such decisions, but she felt her responsibility keenly. When you were front-line in these operations, it was often you who had to advise on when terrorist planning would actually explode into action. Wrong advice could result in the deaths of innocent people who might otherwise have been saved.
It was almost a relief today to be involved in a different type of operation. Yet she was quickly changing her view about that. The people she was now investigating were almost more hateful than the terrorists, who were at least driven by a mistaken idealism. These people were preying on the young, selecting for their targets perhaps the most vulnerable of all people in a damaged society.
Lucy stared with undisguised distaste into the dark brown eyes on the other side of the square table. ‘You were seen, Mr Atwal. One of our officers was watching you.’
Hostility flashed across the narrow face. He hated being questioned by a woman. He wouldn’t underestimate her because of her sex, but something deep in his breeding said that he should not be forced to answer questions from her, that at least his adversary should be a man.
Lucy was well aware of that, but she would turn it to her advantage if she saw the opportunity. If there was a chance to humiliate him, she would take it, because resentment made people vulnerable, just as any other emotion did. Atwal said, ‘This is mistaken identity. I was at home at the time. I can get people to swear to that and make you look stupid, DS Peach.’
He looked at her with contempt, which changed slowly towards a lust he did not trouble to disguise. She was an attractive woman, with flesh in the right places: buxom, the decadent English called it. She’d be good for one thing, and that wasn’t strutting about pretending to be police. He let his eyes roam over her breasts, then slid his chair back a little and attempted to review that portion of her body she kept behind the table. She wouldn’t come willingly, but resistance would give an extra spice to shagging her; he tried to convey all of this in his silent, brazen assessment of her charms.
Lucy knew what he was about. She wanted to tell him that she was proof against it, that she had endured all this and more from white youths who did not trouble to moderate their language or disguise their lecherous thoughts. Sexual insult was par for the course for her, even a little tedious by now. She spoke slowly and distinctly. ‘You waited outside the council care home. You spoke at length to three of the girls who are resident there. You attempted to recruit them for prostitution. All of them were under age.’
‘All of them were white trash who were prepared to sell themselves.’
‘And how would you know this? You said a moment ago that you weren’t there.’
He was shaken a little, but he didn’t show it. ‘I wasn’t. I know these things, that’s all. It’s common knowledge. They wouldn’t be in these homes if they weren’t trash.’
‘They’re in these homes because they haven’t got anyone to speak up for them or defend them. The very reasons why scum like you attempt to recruit them and exploit them. But I don’t need to tell you that. It’s because you know it that you hang around these places.’
‘These girls are white whores. They’re bred for it. They love it. They get paid for it.’ He looked her up and down again, studied her red-brown hair for a moment, flashed her a predator’s mirthless smile. ‘There’s plenty of older white women gagging for it, if they can get it.’
‘We’ve got enough to charge you, Atwal. Do you want a brief ?’ At least it would be interesting to find where his lawyer came from and who was financing him.
‘You won’t be charging me. These kids won’t go into court. They’ve got more sense than that.’
‘But not enough sense to avoid scum like you? We’ll give them protection, Atwal. And if you dare to—’
‘You can’t protect them! You and a whole bloody a
rmy couldn’t protect them. Not against Lennon.’
The name was out before he could stop it. Anger had betrayed him, as Lucy had hoped it would. There was always a hope of that, with the thickos who operated down the order. His face telegraphed his mistake; for a brief moment fear flashed across his thin features, where there had heretofore been nothing but derision.
Lucy let the full implications of his blunder sink in for a moment before she said, ‘I’m sure Mr Lennon and his muscle men would be interested to hear you quoting them in this context. We may need to call you as a prosecution witness, when this case comes to court. You could make quite a name for yourself, Mr Atwal, because there will be national publicity. I wouldn’t like to be in your shoes afterwards, though. Especially as I don’t think you’d be a high priority for the police protection services.’
‘You’ll never make this stick, darling!’ He tried to add menace to the last word, but it didn’t really work.
‘The best thing you could do is come clean right now. Luring minors into prostitution is regarded very seriously, and I don’t fancy your chances inside. Some of the crazy villains in Strangeways take as strong a view as we do, and they aren’t inhibited by the legal restraints that we have to observe.’
‘I’m not worried by you, darling.’ He glanced at DC Brendan Murphy beside her. The big, fresh-faced copper had said not a word, though he looked ready to use his fists at any second. Atwal blundered on blindly. ‘You lot don’t know what violence is. You lot don’t know what we can do and get away with.’
Lucy Peach leaned forward a little and said with deliberate contempt, ‘Murder, you mean? James O’Connor? Oh, I wouldn’t be too confident you’ve got away with that. Not confident at all, in fact. I think your Mr Coleman may be helping our team with its enquiries at any moment now.’
A hit. A very palpable hit. Amazement and fear flashed across Atwal’s mean features in quick succession. He uttered a few more phrases of ritual defiance before they returned him to a cell to stew for another couple of hours. Lucy watched him go, then contacted her husband on his mobile. ‘I don’t know quite where you’re up to on the James O’Connor case. I’d go hard after Coleman and the rest of Lennon’s muscle, if I were you.’
EIGHT
Peter Coleman was a contrast to his wife. She had been a smoothly finished product, well adapted to concealing her inner feelings. He was rough at the edges and apparently proud of it. He wasn’t at all effective in disguising the fact that he traded in violence; indeed, he delighted in making it only too obvious to the people he was employed to threaten.
He chose to meet the filth in a builders’ hut at the edge of a demolition site in the older sector of Brunton. The mill and the foundry which had once stood there were long gone. Now one of the last of the terraces of houses which had surrounded them was being removed to facilitate the building of new office blocks. Two hundred yards away, a new casino block with ample parking for its punters flashed its neon blandishments, even in the clear light of a May day. It was a depressing sight to anyone with a sense of history. The tawdriest of modern man’s amusements was being set against the fresh air and clear skies which would once have turned thoughts of hard-driven mill workers to healthier pastimes.
This was very different from the way in which Mrs Coleman had recently received them. Coleman wrenched two stacking chairs from a pile of five in the corner of the shed and banged them down for his visitors, taking a third one for himself and placing it exactly opposite them, no more than five feet away. He scratched his left armpit deliberately, then said in a broad northern accent with a Geordie inflection, ‘This canna take long. I’ve a work force to supervise. The buggers skive their arses off if they think I’m not around.’
Peach regarded the broad face steadily and without obvious emotion. ‘They won’t have to contend with you for much longer. Still, they might get someone who knows a little more about demolition and building and a little less about murderous violence, when you’re off the scene.’
Coleman allowed himself a smile. He and Peach had clashed many times before, as each had risen up the ranks on opposite sides of the law. Peach had put him away for a year when he was in his twenties, for using a knife during an affray. Since then he had skirted the law and narrowly avoided conviction. It is one of the paradoxes of modern justice that as you rise higher in the criminal fraternity and become more dangerous, it becomes more difficult for those who attempt to uphold the law to charge you and make it stick.
You become a bigger player, moving away from street violence as you instruct others to do that for you. You have expert lawyers to insulate you against prosecution, as you did not have when you were taking on street fights against your low-level rivals. You cover your tracks and ensure by a variety of means that there is no one willing to bear witness against you, so that the Crown Prosecution Service lawyers tell indignant police officers that they are unwilling to pursue a case with scant chance of success.
The biggest danger is that you can begin to feel impregnable. Overconfidence is an Achilles heel for many men who live by violence.
Peter Coleman regarded DCI Peach with a smile flicking at the edges of his mouth. ‘I don’t know why you think I would involve myself in violence. Those days are long behind me. I was a wild lad, I admit, until I saw the error of my ways. I’ve now got myself a respectable job and a respectable wife.’
He couldn’t resist brandishing his wife, that elegant creature they had recently left in the huge house her money had bought for them. But men were vulnerable through their women, as they were through anything for which they cared. Peach said, ‘A rich wife, not a respectable one. You know where Linda’s money comes from, so you shouldn’t make that mistake.’
‘Linda knows what she’s doing. You shouldn’t be jealous because she runs successful shops in the town.’
‘Successful shop fronts. You know as well as anyone that she’s laundering money from very different enterprises. Drugs and prostitution, principally, with you providing the necessary muscle.’
‘You’ll never make that stick. I should be recording this. You’d think twice about saying these things, if I was.’
But Coleman was rattled, in spite of his words. His broad, coarse-featured face was flickering with anger, even as he sought an easy defiance. Peach said, ‘I’m sure DS Northcott has a cassette machine in the car, if you’d really like to have this on record. I don’t think your brief would advise it. But we’re not quite at the brief stage. Not yet.’
A bulldozer started outside, its powerful engine even more raucous in the silence of the hut, which shook a little as the machine began to move earth and stone which had been compacted by centuries of anonymous feet. Coleman said, ‘I should be directing that machine. I told you, I’ve got better things to do than waste my time in here with you.’
‘We know you killed James O’Connor.’
If he’d been rattled earlier, he was even more so now. Instead of denying it, he resorted to the villain’s more desperate tactic. ‘You’ll never prove that.’
‘We can and we will.’
‘And who’s going to stand up in court and say so? Get real, Peach.’
‘I wouldn’t dream of telling you that. I’m not giving you any targets for the sort of violence you deal in.’
‘You’re bluffing, Peach. I can see it a mile off.’
‘Your vehicle was spotted. They’re necessary evils, cars, don’t you think? You need them to get there and get away swiftly afterwards, but they can be a dead giveaway once they’re spotted.’
‘You’re bluffing, Peach,’ he said again. ‘I’d like you to fuck off out of it now. I’ve seen enough of you for one day.’ But his tongue flicked quickly over his thick, dry lips. He was more used to threatening than to being threatened and he was very worried.
‘Don’t leave the area without giving us an address, please. But you’ll find there isn’t anywhere to run to, with murder on your hands.’
Coleman move
d towards Peach as he stood up and turned away, causing Clyde Northcott to utter his only words of the meeting. ‘Don’t even think about it, Coleman! Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to give you the sort of beating you’ve dished out so often to others.’
The hard bastard had his uses, thought both policemen, as they removed their car from the path of the bulldozer.
Sarah O’Connor switched the lights on in the front room of the house, the dining room which was now rarely used. The police were working late on Friday night, but the dead man’s widow wasn’t going to give them any kudos for that. Instead, she said, ‘I’ve been told I can’t organise James’s funeral yet. There will be a lot of people coming over from Ireland for it. Can you give me a date when the body will be released?’
DS Lucy Peach assessed her carefully. You had to be careful with grieving widows, but this one looked strong enough to take the truth. ‘I’m afraid we can’t, as yet. When we make an arrest, the defence solicitor will have the right to ask for a second post-mortem, if he thinks it might help his case. I think it is unlikely that he or she will do so in this case, but until the question is answered we cannot release the body. I know this is difficult, because the family needs to feel closure, but we do not have any choice in the matter.’
Lucy Peach watched the widow nod thoughtfully. She was doing her best to divine what this cool woman with the shining, freshly washed black hair was thinking, but not having much success. Percy had said it would be useful to have another opinion on the widow other than his own when he had been allowed to add Lucy to his team. She was surprised that he wasn’t pursuing someone so close to the victim himself, as he usually did. Percy hadn’t told her about Linda Coleman’s scarcely veiled threats in connection with Lucy’s child prostitution enquiries, which had shaken him more than he cared to admit even to himself.