by J M Gregson
It was a thought which brought a moment of silence even to experienced policemen, hardened to bloodier deaths than these. The Chief Constable drew a hand over his frizzy grey hair. ‘Who else?’ he asked curtly.
‘A man we’d love to pin a serious crime on. Charlie Kemp.’
‘You can say that again.’ Harding was well aware of the villainy perpetrated without retribution by the elusive Kemp. ‘It’s not just wishful thinking?’
Lambert smiled grimly. ‘I’m trying to guard against that, sir. But one of the threads running through the crime seems to be the Roosters club at the football ground. Kemp controls that, whether or not the licence says he’s officially in charge.’
‘What’s his connection with the two victims?’
‘He knew both of them, though at first he tried to deny it. Our one bit of luck so far is that we have a drugs squad officer operating in the Roosters club. Drugs are being bought and sold there. It’s the usual tale: the drugs squad sergeant’s biding his time, hoping to get at the suppliers behind the pushers. I haven’t confronted Kemp or anyone else with him so far, and unless it proves really necessary we certainly don’t want to blow his cover. But he’s observed quite a lot of interesting comings and goings at the Roosters , apart from the drugs traffic.’
‘Including Charlie Kemp’s.’
‘Exactly. Incidentally, it seems quite possible that Kemp is part of this drugs ring, but he’s far too astute to be seen at the front of things. But that’s not our concern at the moment. He could have committed both murders, from the timings we know about. Julie Salmon had been in the Roosters with Darren Pickering, so Kemp would know her at least by sight. He had sex with Hetty Brown in what he treats as his private suite at the Roosters on at least three occasions: he’s admitted as much. On the night of her death, he says that he saw her, but that she wasn’t with him. He has no alibi from nine o’clock onwards on that evening. He says he was alone in his office for two or three hours – most unlikely – and that he arrived home at “about midnight”. He and his wife sleep in separate rooms, so that she is unable to confirm that.’
Kemp had been able to thumb his nose at them for far too long. But the knowledge of the satisfaction it would give to Lambert and his team to pin this one on him sounded a note of caution in Harding’s Chief Constabular brain. ‘Anything at the scenes of crime that suggests Kemp was there?’
Lambert shrugged. ‘Not so far. But then there isn’t anything definite for anyone, or we’d have pulled them in. The shoeprint near Hetty Brown’s body could be Kemp’s, but we haven’t enough evidence yet to ask for a search warrant.’
‘Anyone else I should know about?’
‘There are various people we are still keeping an eye on: most of them are regulars at the Roosters. But I’m afraid we’re working on negative rather than positive evidence. They’re people who can’t give convincing accounts of themselves for the nights of either murder, but who were also not sighted anywhere near the places of the deaths.’
It was Bert Hook who said, ‘Has anything further come up on Benjamin Dexter?’
Harding raised an eyebrow at what was a new name to him. Unexpectedly, it was Don Haworth who enlightened him. The police surgeon said slowly, ‘Ben Dexter spends a lot of time around the Roosters, much of it in the company of Darren Pickering, whom you discussed earlier. They make a very odd couple, and I think young Dexter rather likes that.’
Lambert said, ‘Dexter enjoys baiting the police. His father was a chief superintendent in the Met Police. He’s retired now: his son was born when he was forty-seven. They have no contact with each other, but it does mean that young Dexter knows more than we would like him to about our procedures. We could pull him in on minor drug charges any time we want. He’s a user. As far as we are aware at the moment, he may be no more heavily involved than that. But he was heard exhorting Pickering not to take Julie Salmon’s rejection lying down. And we think he’s one of the people who’s been helping to organize the hooliganism which has grown with the success of Oldford FC. He’s never at the centre of it, but he always seems to be somewhere around.’
Haworth said, ‘Dexter is a strange young man. Well educated, with a lucrative job. He seems to enjoy what he calls “slumming”, which perhaps accounts for his association with Darren Pickering. They usually seem to be together when I see them at the Roosters.’
Harding said, ‘Girlfriends?’
Rushton said, ‘No regular ones that we’ve been able to find. And no boyfriends either. He strikes you as an unpleasant young man with a capacity for violence, but enough intelligence to cover his tracks. Of course, we haven’t taken him to task about the drugs yet – that’s drugs squad business, and they’ll move when they think the moment’s right. When we had him in here, Dexter was polite, even cooperative on the surface, but he was ready to sneer at you as soon as you turned your back.’
Lambert said, ‘He has no previous convictions, of any sort.’
‘I’m no psychologist,’ Don Haworth offered, ‘but it would be interesting to see what one made of Ben Dexter.’ He looked around the table, waiting for the routine police winces at the mention of this branch of medicine, but received none on this occasion. Perhaps that was a measure of the anxiety. ‘It may be that the drugs account for the oddities in his behaviour, but I have a feeling you may be dealing with an unbalanced mind there.’
There was a little pause while they weighed the thought, looking to the cabinets behind the doctor which held the clothes of the two dead girls. Then the Chief Constable glanced at his watch and said, ‘Anyone else?’
Lambert said, ‘One of the troubles with killings of this kind is that there may be no apparent motivation. That makes it difficult to narrow the field by elimination. No one else seems as strong a candidate at the moment as the four we’ve mentioned. Equally, I have to say that the evidence is not so strong against any one of those as to stop us looking further. I’m afraid it’s quite possible that our man may be someone else entirely, someone we’ve hardly considered as yet. I’ve told the team as much, and emphasized that they must remain vigilant for any new leads.’
It was a bleak but realistic thought on which to break up the meeting.
Lambert was dealing with the mountain of paper he had pushed aside to pursue the Strangler when there was a discreet knock at his door.
Rushton came in quietly, almost apologetically, not at all like the erect and confident bureaucrat he usually presented to his chief. Lambert concealed a spurt of irritation, which derived as much from his dissatisfaction at their lack of progress as from the interruption. ‘What can I do for you, Chris?’ He made himself use the Christian name, prepared himself to squash the ‘sir’ which Rushton persisted in allotting to him, even when they were alone together.
The Inspector, who usually would have had to be asked, sat down absently without invitation in the chair opposite Lambert. ‘It’s personal, sir.’
It was the one thing John Lambert had not been prepared for. Rushton usually behaved as if he did not have a private side to his life; even if he had problems there, they did not have the kind of relationship which would have made Lambert a natural confidant.
He pushed aside his papers, leaned forward a little. ‘What is it, Chris? Illness?’ He sought desperately for the name of Rushton’s wife. Christine would have been able to tell him; for a policeman, he was very bad on names, and getting worse as the years passed.
In this case he need not have worried. Rushton, clasping his hands for a moment on his knee in front of him in a gesture which was so uncharacteristic that it made him seem strangely vulnerable, said, ‘No, nothing like that. It’s Anne. She’s left me, you see.’
There was really no reason why Lambert should feel so shocked. It was common enough anywhere now, and commoner still in the police force. Everyone knew that. Broken marriages were a hazard of the job. But it was still a shock when it happened to someone working with you. ‘It may be nothing permanent, Chris. We’r
e all working under a lot of stress at the moment.’
‘She’s gone off to her mother’s and taken Kirstie with her.’
Again, he would never have got the name for himself. The child couldn’t be more than two years old; he remembered Rushton with the first pictures of the baby, surrounded by WPCs. He said, ‘It may not be too serious. Most women do that at some time.’
He could think of nothing but clichés. He wanted to tell the man in his suffering how even Christine Lambert, the wife everyone said was the perfect police wife, had almost left him twenty years and more ago. How she had screamed her frustration and isolation at a man too immersed in his work, had demanded that he choose between her and the force. But he did not know how to start, and in the end he said nothing: it seemed like a treachery to Christine even to attempt it.
Rushton said dully, ‘We’ve had a few shouting matches. I hadn’t thought it would come to this.’
‘Take some time off. Go and speak to Anne. Tell her you need her. Women like to feel they’re needed.’
He wondered why he was so reluctant to use the word ‘love’. It had seemed an effrontery to bring it into lives he scarcely knew; was that what had driven him into that stupid generalization about a whole sex?
‘That’s good of you, John.’ Rushton brought out the forename self-consciously, even amid his pain, like a grown-up child who is told that he must address a parent thus for the first time. He seemed absurdly grateful for the offer of leave; it was a concession which would have been no more than his right, in these circumstances.
Lambert found that any advice seemed presumptuous to the point of fatuity. Yet his inspector, normally so assertive sat there as if waiting for it. His head was bowed, and there was not a sign of grey in the dark brown hair. Should he tell Rushton to plead with her? From what little he had seen of the lady, that hardly seemed right. Should he reason with her, putting his need for dedication to his work, the progress he was making in the force, the home he was able to provide? He knew Rushton well enough to know that he would have done that fully already; perhaps too often. He said, ‘Tell her you’re a family unit. That Kirstie needs you, that the three of you together are more than you can ever be apart.’
Was that what had saved him and Christine when the children were small? He had a dim idea that it was, though he had never framed any argument on those lines. ‘Don’t tell her what she needs or you need, but what Kirstie needs, what the three of you are together.’
Rushton looked up into his face for the first time since he had sat down. Lambert saw surprise, and wondered if he was going to be rebuked for his presumption. But Rushton said, ‘Thank you. I will go and see her, but I don’t need time off. I’ll leave it until the weekend.’
A part of Lambert’s mind breathed a sigh of relief. This Strangler business was stretching his team to the limits; Rushton’s efficient grasp of the steadily accumulating documentation would have been sorely missed. ‘Well, play it by ear, Chris. You only have to ask. A cooling off period might be a good idea. I’m sure the damage isn’t irreparable.’ Even the use of that multi-syllabled word seemed a mistake, distancing him, when he should have been close and spontaneous.
Rushton didn’t seem to notice. ‘I’ll go up at the weekend. Her father should be there then; I’ve always got on well with him, and Anne listens to him.’
‘That sounds like good tactics. I’m sure you’ll find in the end that it’s not as serious as it seems now.’
He had dropped back into conventional assurances to cover his embarrassment, and Rushton’s response came like a slap of rebuke. ‘Sometimes I think I hate all women. They’re so damned unreasonable!’ His voice for an instant was raw with passion. Then he dropped quietly back into his normal mode to say, ‘She’s talking about a legal separation.’
‘I’m sure it needn’t come to that. Tell her that Kirstie needs a father, almost as much as you need a daughter.’ Lambert forced a smile.
Rushton nodded absently and stood up. ‘I’ll get back to work then. I – I just thought you ought to know, sir.’ He looked to Lambert absurdly young, like a boy being brave about a cut knee. It was almost a surprise when he did not limp from the room.
He had got to the door when Lambert said, ‘You did right to come in and tell me, Chris. Keep me posted on the situation.’
Rushton managed a small smile that might have been gratitude. ‘I will. Thank you, sir.’
He had gone out, as he had come in, on that ‘sir’. And both of them in the end had been happy with it. Lambert resolved to think more deeply about Rushton’s situation, to provide real rather than token support over the weeks to come. In that naked moment when the inspector had cursed all women, he had seen the strain behind the mask of professional efficiency.
It did not take long for events to thrust that resolution to the back of his mind.
CHAPTER 12
Amy Coleford was a brave woman. Foolhardy, as is often the unfortunate way of these things, but undeniably brave.
She had been badly scared by her experience near home, but she decided that if she did not venture forth the next night, she might lose the confidence to do so at all. Her father had always said you had to remount the horse immediately when you fell off, or you would lose your nerve.
Amy still remembered many of her father’s sayings with affection; now that he was no longer around to offer his advice, it seemed even more necessary to take heed of them. It was a kind of homage, after all.
She selected her very best dark skirt, put on a new pair of fishnet tights and a little more make-up than usual, and went forth determinedly into the world which had so nearly seen the end of her on the previous night. She kissed the children with more than her usual fervour, but she was an affectionate mother, and Mrs Price noticed nothing unusual as she settled down in front of the television. She was still too full of the excitements of the American melodrama she was following to give Amy her full attention.
‘You watch out for that Strangler, dear,’ she said. ‘Should be strung up, he should, when they get him, but he won’t be. Them do-gooders will see us all raped before they’ve done.’ She smacked her lips in salacious horror at the idea. It was no more than a ritual reaction, a revelation of her own vicarious excitement in the killings rather than a real warning to her neighbour.
Mrs Price had decided that young Mrs Coleford must have got herself a boyfriend, to be going out so regularly now in the evenings. So no doubt she was safe enough. There was a touch of naivety about this middle-aged woman who thought herself so worldly-wise.
Amy was brave and foolhardy, but not completely stupid. She had the sense to realize that Oldford was going to be a dangerous place until the Strangler was caught – hadn’t she had evidence of that last night? For the moment, she would look for trade somewhere else. It was a pity, for she liked the Roosters and knew enough people there to feel comfortable. But Charlie Kemp had ruined all that for her, when he had taken her up to that wood-panelled room and treated her like dirt. She decided that she would go back to the club in a few days, when she had got over that horrid episode. For the moment, she could not face it.
Perhaps unconsciously, she turned towards somewhere with happier associations. Years ago, she had been with her father to the ancient docks at Gloucester. She remembered standing with her small hand in his large one, watching the barges and the men stripped to the waist who unloaded them. She thought it had been beneath a blue sky and flying white clouds, but most of her childhood memories seemed to be framed in such a context. They said the docks were a beautiful place now, quite a tourist attraction, with a glass-topped building full of shops and a museum. Perhaps, if it was as good as they all said, she would take the children there during the day, when the holidays arrived in a week or two.
She did not see the man who watched her leave the house.
Amy had not realized how long it had been since she had visited the docks as a child. She had some difficulty in finding her way down to the wate
r over the newly paved approaches. Everything had been tidied up, and looked different from the way she remembered it. Where once there had been interesting dirt and disorder, there was now an almost clinical tidiness, especially on a quiet, still night like this.
But it was beautiful. She decided that as she came quite suddenly upon a wide stretch of water and wandered between the huge silhouettes of former warehouses. A bridge ran over the broad canal which connected this water to the main basin of the docks. She found herself beside a big, brightly painted boat. The water scarcely moved against its hull, so still and warm was the night. Queen Boadicea II, said the letters near the bow. You could take boat trips on this spruce vessel during the day. She would treat the kids to a sail, if the weather was good. She smiled at the thought of their eager, open faces. They would love it, and it would be educational for them, too. She could afford it, now that she had found out how to make money so easily.
The thought reminded her why she was here. She had somehow expected the docks to be rather sleazy, with dubious pubs and an even more dubious night life, where a girl might pick up men who had money and were anxious to spend it, where the authorities might turn a blind eye because they expected such activities here.
But it was not like that at all. There was a new shopping centre, which seemed in this light to be constructed entirely of glass – not a material to encourage surreptitious dealings. And the building beside which she now moved was actually a church. She grinned at the thought of the transactions she had proposed to conduct in its environs.
The only pub she could see was called Doctor Foster’s. It looked as innocent as its nursery rhyme name suggested – not at all the sort of hostelry where girls like her might operate profitably. She noticed how that phrase ‘girls like her’ had crept into her vocabulary. Well, she might as well accept what it was she was doing; perhaps Charlie Kemp’s brutal words had brought a necessary touch of realism to her thinking.
The pub was brightly lit, but quiet; it was but thinly patronized tonight. She walked past it and along the quay, heading automatically for the more dimly lit part of the area, though she knew now that she would do no business here. The black water of the main basin of the docks was as still as a mirror; the reflections of the lights in it almost as clear as the real lamps at the tops of their columns.