Her response was cut short by the former licensee appearing in the passage behind her, his corpulent body dressed in a grubby vest under a shapeless brown cardigan. Unshaven and bleary-eyed, he was an unsavoury sight, but he pulled her out of the way and confronted the two policemen.
‘What’s it this time? I’m on bail until next Thursday.’
‘A few questions about the old days, Olly,’ said Hartnell. ‘We’d better come in, unless you want another trip downtown.’
Reluctantly, the fat man waddled back down the passage to the kitchen, where his wife vanished into the scullery after a poisonous glare at the detectives. Preferring not to sit down in the scruffy room, the two officers stood to confront Franklin.
‘Did you know a chap called Jaroslav Beran when you were running either of the pubs?’ demanded Hartnell. ‘He was a foreigner, had been in the Czech army.’
Expecting a sullen denial, Trevor was surprised when Olly nodded his head, the wattles under his chin bobbing up and down.
‘Yes, “Johnny B’rum” they called him, easier to say. Real rough bugger, Johnny was, always in fights.’
‘What did he do? Any sort of work?’ asked Rickman.
Olly leered. ‘Work? Not many of Doyle’s boys did any work, other than thieving or coming the heavy on anybody Mickey didn’t like.’
‘So he was one of Doyle’s gang,’ confirmed the DI. ‘What happened to him?’
Franklin shrugged his heavy shoulders. ‘Dunno, he just disappeared, years ago. Mind, that’s what happened to them all, they came and they went. Some got banged up in jail, others went off thieving somewhere else, I suppose. Mickey didn’t keep them around long enough for them to become serious competition to him.’
‘When was this Beran fellow around, d’you remember?’
Olly stared at the ground for inspiration. He didn’t mind answering this sort of question, which seemed remote from his own troubles with the police.
‘I came here in ’forty-four, he was here then. Can’t recall when he went, must have been a year or two later.’ He suddenly looked up at his interrogators. ‘You’re not thinking he was the bloke with the head, are you? Couldn’t be, nothing like him! I know the head was a mess, but it wasn’t Jimmy.’
Hartnell waved a hand at him. ‘No, this chap is alive and well. But did he have any special crony in those days, a chap quite a bit smaller than him?’
Olly shook his head slowly. ‘Not that I recall. There were up to a dozen of Doyle’s mob who used to come to the pub. I didn’t know the names of most of them — safer not to be too nosey, in fact.’
‘Any other foreigners?’ ventured Rickman. ‘We know about the Czech, was he the only one? What about Americans, for instance?’
Franklin scratched his bristly head. ‘Half of them were Irish, but there was a Pole as well — and they used to talk about a bloke they called “The Yank”, but I can’t recall seeing him. I think he was one of Doyle’s collectors on the protection rackets.’
This interested the two detectives, but in spite of further probing, it was clear that Olly’s memory was not going to come up with any more details. When they left him in peace to enjoy his bail and to wonder what was in store for him when he was hauled before the magistrates the following week, Hartnell and his sergeant went back to Winson Green station and sought out the chief inspector.
‘All we could get from Franklin was the fact that one fellow he remembers from the Doyle days was known as “Yank”,’ reported Trevor.
‘But he says he can’t recall what he looked like and wasn’t sure he ever saw him, sir,’ added Rickman. ‘He thought he might have been involved more as an enforcer, rather than an armed robbery man.’
The DCI mulled this over. ‘It might fit with what we heard about the head being shown as a warning to anyone tempted to rip off Mickey Doyle, I suppose.’
‘And a Yank is more likely to know about Batman,’ said Hartnell. ‘So what d’you want to do about it?’
What the CID top brass did was to send both of them back down to Aberystwyth very early next day.
The three-hour drive got them there before mid-morning and Meirion Thomas, who Trevor had warned of his coming, gave them a substantial canteen breakfast while Trevor told him of the rather vague information they had dragged out of Olly Franklin. The local DI had been tempted to order Welsh laver-bread to go with the eggs, sausage, bacon and beans, but decided that boiled seaweed might hamper the cordial relations between the two police forces.
‘Any memories of a dodgy American around here in those days?’ he enquired as he attacked the food.
‘That’s the problem,’ said Meirion. ‘It was so long ago, I wasn’t even here then. And during and immediately after the war, the country was awash with Yanks.’
Hartnell sighed. ‘We’ll just have to play it by ear, then. Perhaps if he thinks that we know more than we really do, he’ll throw in the towel.’
The Welsh inspector doubted it. ‘Not if he thinks he’s being put in the frame for the murder. The prospect of a long drop at the end of short rope is a powerful incentive to keeping his mouth shut!’
James Brown, the former Jaroslav Beran, was not pleased to see them again, when they sat across the table from him in the dismal interview room. With his rather inert solicitor alongside him, he ranted in his fractured English about illegal imprisonment, threatening to sue everyone from the Queen downwards. Tom Rickman sat slightly behind the two detective inspectors and stared intently at the prisoner. As soon as there was a break in Beran’s tirade, the sergeant pointed a large forefinger towards the man.
‘I remember your face; they called you “Jimmy” around the boozers!’ he boomed. ‘When I was a beat constable in Handsworth, I helped nick you one night for drunk and disorderly. You were one of Mickey Doyle’s gang of thugs.’
Brown-Beran scowled, but made no reply, as the sergeant turned to Hartnell.
‘It’s him right enough, boss. A real nasty bit of work, he was.’
The solicitor opened his mouth to protest, then decided to close it again. Now Trevor Hartnell began the proceedings, referring to some brief notes before him.
‘Brown — or whatever you want to call yourself — you’re in deep trouble! Known to have been a criminal associate of Mickey Doyle in Birmingham, you’re found living within sight of a possible murder scene. In a van that belonged to you, we’ve found human blood, of a rare group that matches the dead body — and its head was found in the same part of Birmingham as that which witnesses say it was displayed by Doyle.’
He paused to let this sink in. ‘Now we have reason to suspect that the murdered man was another one of the same mob that you ran with, known as “Yank”, who seems to have vanished from Birmingham at about the time you came here.’
The DI was massaging the truth a little, but nothing he had said was actually false, and the lawyer found no objection to offer.
‘You attempted to escape from police questioning, which doesn’t fit well with your protests of innocence, so before you dig yourself deeper into the shit, I suggest that you tell us what you know.’
Beran chewed hard on his lower lip, staring down again at his big hands clasped before him on the table.
‘I want speak with this lawyer,’ he said abruptly.
Trevor Hartnell agreed, hopeful that this heralded a change of attitude. The police went into the corridor for a smoke, leaving him alone with the rather ineffectual young man who was supposed to be advising him on his legal rights.
‘Think he’s going to cough, boss?’ asked Tom Rickman.
‘He’s obviously thinking of it, or he wouldn’t be trying to find out from his brief which is the best way to jump.’
Meirion was scornful. ‘He won’t get much help from that chap — he’s hardly the smartest egg in the nest!’
The consultation was certainly short, as a few moments later, the constable who was standing inside the door of the interview room poked his head out to call them back inside.
The podgy, bespectacled solicitor addressed them as they sat down again.
‘Mr Brown is willing to make certain facts known, on the understanding that he denies any part in the death of the man found in Borth Bog.’
The Aberystwyth DI answered him, being the person technically the custodian of Jaroslav Beran.
‘We’ll hear what he has to say, but he can’t qualify it in any way. Anything he tells us will go on the record, whether to his favour or otherwise.’
This was another way of saying there were no deals on offer, and he turned to the Czech.
‘Right, just tell us what you know about this business. The sergeant here will be writing down all you say.’
Tom Rickman put his notebook and pen on the table before him and the solicitor had a yellow legal pad at the ready as Beran grudgingly began his story.
‘OK, I did some jobs for Doyle when I lived in Birmingham. I knew some other guys there; one was the Yank, as we called him.’
‘What was his name?’ interrupted Hartnell. ‘Was he really an American?’
‘We knew him as Josh Andersen, though God knows if it was his real name. Said he was from New Jersey.’
‘A deserter from the US forces?’
Beran shook his head.
‘He was a sailor who jumped ship in Liverpool in ’forty-two. Said he wasn’t going risk being killed on another convoy trip. So he just melted into wartime England.’
‘And like you, he turned to crime, working for Doyle?’
Beran stared sourly at Hartnell.
‘Not much crime, no heavy stuff. For two years, he was collector for Doyle, going round for protection money, tart’s takings and the cash from his gaming clubs.’
‘So where did you fit into all this?’ demanded Meirion.
Jaroslav hesitated; this was where he was entering dangerous territory.
‘Just before end of war, Doyle was easing off on the violent stuff like armed robbery and raiding shops. He went more for the black-market rackets and stealing from big houses out in countryside. He sent me down here to run a front business, with furnitures and stuff, so as to have an extra outlet for what was stolen.’
‘Like your shop here in Aberystwyth?’ suggested Hartnell.
‘Yeah, before that, I was moving around, like in fairs and markets, to be harder to spot by you bloody police.’
His accent became more marked as he became agitated, and he broke off to fumble in his pocket for a packet of cigarettes and a lighter. When he had drawn down his first lungful of smoke, he continued at a rush.
‘After a while, must have been late ’forty-four, Josh appeared here and I had to take him as assistant. I don’ know why, but Doyle wanted him out of Birmingham. I think police were making it too hot for him over something to do with protection money, maybe some punter complained too hard. Anyway, he stayed with me for couple months, then one day vanished back to the big city.’
He glowered at Trevor Hartnell. ‘You must know about his troubles, if you bobbies were breathing down his neck.’
The DI only wished he did and made a mental note to urgently get the records searched for the activities of a Josh Andersen eleven years earlier.
‘What happened next?’ growled Meirion Thomas, only half-willing to believe what Beran was telling them.
The Czech picked a shred of tobacco from his tongue as he considered his answer. He was getting perilously near the point of no return.
‘I rented cottage and a barn ten miles away, where stolen stuffs were stashed. Doyle paid the rent and one of his guys came down now and then to bring me new heists and pick up the money I made by sales. I also arranged for them to buy black-market food from farms, and spot places to steal animals, maybe fifty miles around. I used the van for all that.’
‘You were Doyle’s agent, then?’ summarized Hartnell. ‘But we haven’t heard a word about any dead body yet, so get to the point!’
This made Beran angry. ‘Look, you want me to talk, so I talk! And I already done two stretches for dealing in stolen goods, so you got no reason to bring that up again! Anything else like black market is years ago, and you got no evidence, mister!’
The detectives were unimpressed by his outburst, though the lawyer moved himself sufficiently to hold up a warning hand to his client.
Trevor Hartnell continued. ‘What about this Josh Andersen? How did he come to be dead, eh?’
Jaroslav seemed to deflate and he sank back on to his chair, then crushed out his half-smoked cigarette on the edge of the scarred table.
‘I said he had gone back, but a month later, two guys from Handsworth came late one night to my house. They had old Mercedes, which they said they’d nicked from a car park in Dudley. In boot was a body, trussed up like chicken, but with no head. They didn’t say anything much, except Mickey Doyle ordered me to get rid of it real good. They just dumped it in my back garden, and said that if it ever turned up again, Doyle would have me killed. Then they drove off and left me with the bloody thing.’
In spite of his earlier scepticism, Meirion Thomas felt that there was a ring of truth in the Czech’s voice.
‘So what did you do then?’
Beran looked sideways at the solicitor, who turned his palms up in despair, then plunged on with his confession.
‘What could I do? The guys went away and left me. I heard later they torched the Merc miles away, there must have been a pick-up car there for them.’
‘Are you telling us you buried the body on your own?’ grated Meirion.
‘Sure I did, I had no choice! I dragged it further into the yard, covered it with sacks and kept the dog away. Next day, I went walking on the bog and worked out a route to a place that seemed OK. I did not want risk taking it far, in case I was stopped.’
‘So you used the van, did you?’ snapped Hartnell.
‘Sure I did! It was too far to carry it all the way. Next night was dark, no moon. I lifted it into back of van, drove half mile on road, then dragged it down through field to bog. Spent bloody two hours digging hole with shovel, dropped it in, filled up and went home.’
His hands were shaking now, as he played with his cheap lighter, made from a brass bullet casing.
‘And you expect us to believe that?’ barked Meirion.
Beran shrugged indifferently. ‘Take it or leave it. I got nothing else to tell you.’
‘You killed him, didn’t you?’ snapped Hartnell. ‘I’ll buy the part about you burying the body, but all that about the two men and the Mercedes is a fairy story.’
Jaroslav shook his head, like a bull confronting matadors.
‘Why I do that? I hardly knew the Yank, he was just a pair of hands sent down to me to get him out of the heat in Birmingham, so they said.’
‘When did you stop working for Doyle?’asked Trevor.
‘When I got nicked over some of his stuff from house robberies. Long time after this dead body shit, he didn’t want anyone once they’d been fingered by you police.’
The interview ground on, going back over the story for dates and places, though Beran was conveniently vague about details. Eventually the solicitor, who had been silent most of the time, declared that his client had had enough for one session and they broke up the interview.
Upstairs in the DI’s office, the three detectives were joined by Gwyn Parry and they reviewed what they had so far.
‘He seems determined not to tell us who actually strangled this Josh fellow and cut off his head,’ said Hartnell. ‘But his admissions are enough to charge him as an accessory to murder, as well as all the stuff about obstructing the coroner and illegal disposal of a body.’
‘Do we believe in these two mystery men from Birmingham?’ asked Meirion.
His sergeant pointed out that the head had been found a hundred miles away, so perhaps Beran’s claim to have been in Cardiganshire when the killing took place, possibly had some validity. ‘And we should be able to trace police and fire service records if a Merc was bu
rned out between here and the Midlands around that time.’
They kicked the evidence around for a time, until Meirion decided he had better go and tell David John Jones what had taken place.
‘It’s up to the brass to decide what happens next — especially who runs this prosecution, us or your lot, Trevor?
Hartnell pondered this for a moment. ‘I’ll be ringing my boss in a minute, but I think it has to be a Birmingham case from here on. You’ve got an unlawful burial, but it looks as if the murder was in our patch.’
The local DI nodded his agreement. ‘I’m sure you’re right, and it’s not our problem. But who the hell strangled him? Beran seems to have been down here, so either the two hoods who brought the corpse killed him — or even Mickey Doyle himself.’
‘And until Spain signs an extradition treaty, we’ve not got a snowball’s chance in hell of finding out,’ said Trevor Hartnell with an air of finality.
TWENTY-ONE
After the first few days of January had come and gone, it felt in Garth House as if the festive season had never been. A faint air of anticlimax hovered over the staff as they settled down to pick up their routines.
Sian’s microscope sections of the heart in the ‘road rage’ dispute had allowed Richard to confirm his previous suppositions. The thrombus in the coronary artery was seen to be at least several days’ old, certainly well before the incident with the truck. This fitted with the suggestive results of the TTC experiment that there was infarction of the heart muscle, tissue damage which had to be well in excess of the one-hour interval between the altercation on the road and the time of death. Having explained all this to the Hereford coroner, that worthy was able to placate the relatives sufficiently for them to abandon their intention to bring a legal action against the other driver.
Angela and Richard had two other matters coming up for their attention. In a few days, they would be going to the Royal Courts of Justice for the Millie Wilson Appeal — and soon after that, they were to investigate the intriguing case of the vintner’s Prodigal Son.
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