The Hanging Tree

by Geraldine Evans

  Vowing to make sure to tell the desk staff that he was out — permanently, should she decide to make visits to the police station a regular event, he sat back and, as far as he was able, let her crisp tones float over his head. He was becoming convinced she intended to haunt him.

  Her voice rose, as if she suspected he had stopped listening, and he breathed a sigh of relief as he tuned in again and learned she would be returning to Burleigh the next day.

  'That's why I felt I had to come in,' she explained. 'I imagine, now that you have found the body, you'll want to go through my statement again.' Mrs ffinch-Robinson didn't wait for his agreement to this any more than she had for his confirmation that he had chastised Lilley and just proceeded to go over, not only her statement, but her view of the murder, what she had deduced, and her recommendations as to how he should proceed, apparently of the opinion he'd need all the help he could get.

  Maybe she's right at that, Rafferty thought grimly and he attempted to butt in, but she obviously had huge experience at quelling mutinous males be they felons or middle-ranking police officers and his attempt to board the debate dinghy was ruthlessly crushed.

  'Obviously, Smith's body must have been left in the woods during darkness on both occasions,' she told him. 'Even in winter there are too many people about during daylight hours. That being the case, you'll certainly want to have a word with the local poachers. I've spoken to my opposite numbers on the Bench in Elmhurst and they've supplied me with the details of those who come up before them most often.' She rustled in a large, business-like leather handbag and produced her list, which she placed under his nose.

  'If one or two of them were about their usual nocturnal activities they may have seen something of that car I heard in the lane before I found the body. If you remember, I told you it never passed me and next I heard an engine revving and a car drove off and a few moments later I found the body. The two things must be connected. And another thing...'

  Worn down by her determined vigour, Rafferty reflected weakly that the Age of Empire might have died, but its natural inheritors were still alive and kicking. No longer, like their forbears, in a position to boss half the world, latter-day memsahibs had simply lowered their sights to Mother England's more limited shores. Magistrate's Benches, Council Committees, and Police Authorities up and down the country were littered with clones of Mrs ffinch-Robinson, dispensing justice, Council Tax spending allocations and strongly-worded directives about where the police force was going wrong.

  In many ways he admired such women. If only they weren't so exhausting to the rest of us, he wryly mused. Still, he shouldn't complain, he reminded himself again. Her information at least helped them to pinpoint the time of death more accurately, and if, as seemed likely, a ten-year-old vengeance had finally caught up with Maurice Smith, this information could be vital.

  When he'd finally convinced Mrs ffinch-Robinson that he had taken her advice to heart and that she could go home with a clear conscious, he walked along to the canteen. After collecting tea and the spicy and delicious, if now, cold, sausage rolls, that Opal, the cook, made to her own recipe, he rounded up the officers he had earlier despatched on special duties and brought the lot back to this office.

  'Right,' he said. 'You first, Andrews. 'What did you find out about the Bullocks' and Smith's visit to them?'

  Andrews pulled a face. 'Not a lot. Couldn't get anybody to confirm or deny what time Smith arrived and left the Bullocks' place on Wednesday. And if he was at the flats at all on Thursday evening I couldn't find anyone who'd seen him. Course it was bitter weather both nights, so everyone would have been indoors. I checked in the pub on the corner and both the Bullocks were in there on the Thursday night. The son, Kevin, from about seven and Bullock himself from about nine-thirty, though, according to the landlord, it was unusual for Bullock senior to arrive so late.'

  'Mm. Interesting — especially when you consider I was given the impression that they went to the pub together.

  'Do you want me to go back and question them further?'

  'No. I'll do that. I'd like to hear what Jes Bullock has to say for himself. He's not the sort to be late for his pint, not unless he has something important on. I'll give him a day or so to stew, first, though. Let him get nicely softened up.' Rafferty paused and, turning to Llewellyn, he changed the subject. 'Has the rest of the paperwork arrived from Burleigh yet?'

  Llewellyn picked up the phone. 'I'll check.'

  'What about you and Liz?' Rafferty asked Lilley, as Llewellyn spoke quietly into the phone. 'Manage to find out anything new?'

  Lilley nodded. 'We spoke with Smith's neighbours as you told us, guv,' Lilley reported. 'You wanted to know if anyone had been hanging around recently. Well, someone had. Several someone’s, in fact. This little old lady, by the name of Miss Primrose Partington, who lives on the corner of the next street, to Smith's, says that a stranger's car was parked outside her house from Wednesday morning to Thursday evening, when it left suddenly. She's not seen it since. Said she doubted she could recognise them again, but she did say they were females, three of them, and that they seemed to be taking turns at some sort of guard duty. All they did was sit there, though, at least that was all they were doing each time she looked. I checked, and from where they were parked they'd have had a good view of both the front and back of Smith's home. They could have seen anyone entering or leaving from either the front door or the fire escape.'

  'Does she know the exact time this car left?'

  'Afraid not. But it was gone when she looked out at ten o'clock before going to bed.'

  'I suppose it's too much to hope that she took the registration number?'

  Lizzie Green answered. 'Wrong angle. But she recognised the make —-an old Zephyr. Said her uncle used to have the same car.'

  'You've checked they're not our own officers on surveillance for some drugs bust?'

  Lilley nodded. 'The station knows nothing about them. It's odd though, don't you think, guv, that the car should have left the spot on the Thursday evening; the night Smith died, yet before his identity was disclosed. They've not been back since, though they'd not moved before that. It's almost as if they'd been watching him for some reason and, knowing he was dead, called a halt.'

  Knowing he was dead – Rafferty repeated Lilley's words silently to himself as he recalled the threat contained in the 'outing' letter. Who would have known he was dead but his killer or killers, or the person or persons who were responsible for moving his body?

  Llewellyn interrupted his train of thought to advise that the Burleigh papers had arrived. Constable Beard was bringing them up.

  Rafferty nodded and turned back to Lilley. 'You said Miss Partington wasn't able to give you a description of these women, but, surely, she must have noted something to know there were three of them.

  Lilley pulled a face. 'Afraid not, guv. She said it was more impressions — of hairstyles and so on rather than individual features that made her believe there were three of them'

  'So, it could just as easily have been one woman with three different hairstyles,' Rafferty muttered.

  Liz Green seemed to find it necessary to make excuses for the old lady. 'She has got a long front garden, sir. It's got a lot of bushes in it, so it would have been difficult for her to see plainly. And she doesn't go out as she can't walk far.' With a toss of her dark curls, she added provocatively, 'She did say that if it had been men rather than women parked there she would have phoned us without question.'

  Rafferty snorted. 'Sure to be up to no good, men. Not like the girls — they're made of sugar and spice and everything nice. Everyone knows that.' He took a huge bite of his sausage roll before continuing. 'What about the gate? Manage to find out when it was damaged?'

  Liz Green told him, 'Several of Mrs Penny's neighbours seem to think it can't have happened before Thursday. A wind got up on both that night and the Wednesday night but they only heard the gate banging on the Thursday night. Complained it kept them awak
e. If it had done the same the previous night they'd have remembered.'

  Rafferty nodded. 'Well done. Right. I want you two to go back to that street and keep knocking on doors till you get some more answers. The old lady can't be the only one to remember the car, seeing as it was parked there for the best part of two days. It's the sort of thing people notice; very territorial the human animal. Don't like strangers parking on their street. Seem to think they own it.'

  He knew the station received plenty of complaints from irate householders on the subject. Many times, when he'd been in uniform and on desk duty, he'd had to bite his tongue to stop some sharp retort and explain politely that the driver had a perfect right to park his car where he liked as long as he wasn't on a yellow line or in some other restricted area. It was possible another of Smith's neighbours had been annoyed enough about the interloper to note down the number and to ask the police to tell the occupants to shift it. It was something of a long-shot, but worth checking.

  Rafferty turned to Hanks. 'How did you get on? Did you manage to track down the current addresses of Smith's victims and their families?'

  Hanks nodded. 'Of the four families, two have moved from Burleigh — the Walkers and the Masseys. The Walkers, the family of the young girl who killed herself, emigrated to Australia six years ago.'

  'What? The whole family?' Hanks nodded again. 'Get onto our Aussie opposite numbers, will you? Ask them to check that none of the family was missing from home during the relevant period, though it seems unlikely. If you're intent on revenge you don't move to the other side of the world. What about the other families?'

  'The Dennington father's dead; died of a heart attack shortly after Smith was released. The girl's two brothers are in the army in Cyprus.'

  'Should be easy enough to check they were with their units. You can do that when you're finished here. What about the daughter?'

  'The girl – Sally – is now twenty. She still lives with her mother in their old home in Burleigh.' Hanks consulted his notes. 'The Masseys moved to London eight years ago when Frank, the father, was released from prison after his attack on Smith. The daughter, Alice, is now eighteen. She was — is, an only child.'

  Hanks cast a speculative glance at Rafferty as he laid his papers on the desk. 'I know you told me to be discreet, but it seemed a waste of time not to dig a little when their old neighbours were so chatty, so I thought—'

  Rafferty nodded and gestured him to go on.

  'I gather from their old neighbours that Massey had a breakdown and was still a mass of neuroses when they moved. One particular set of neighbours still keep in touch with Christmas cards and the like and told me the parents have since split up.

  'As for the Figg family, they stayed in their old home — it's their business as well. They're scrap metal dealers, bit of a rough and ready crowd, well known at Burleigh nick, apparently. If anyone was going to kill Smith, they'd be the most likely ones to try it. From what I heard, you don't cross the Figg family; not if you've got any sense. The two eldest boys have put several people in hospital. And they don't just use their fists, a knife's their favourite weapon.'

  Rafferty congratulated them all. 'You've done well. Keep it up and we might have this case over before Christmas. Is that your report, Hanks?'

  Hanks nodded and picked up the sheaf of typed papers from the desk beside him and handed them over.

  'What about the rest of you?' Rafferty asked. 'Where are your reports?'

  A chorus of excuses followed this question and Rafferty held up his hands. 'All right, all right. Just don't forget to get them written up. When they're done, I'll get Sergeant Llewellyn here to check your spelling — you know how much he enjoys a good laugh.'

  They grinned at this and filed out.

  Llewellyn's lugubriousness was becoming as much a byword at the nick as his cautious driving, earning him the title of Dashing Daffy, the Tittering Taffy or 'DDT' for short, the short-form encompassing also his deadly way of dealing with the more pestilential form of policeman that hung round the canteen. This last trait had ensured the station wits took care to keep him in ignorance of his new name. But at least, the fact that they had given him a nickname indicated to Rafferty that the intellectual Welshman was starting to gain acceptance at the station. He was pleased to discover it.

  Rafferty and Llewellyn settled down to read the rest of the reports that had accumulated in their absence from the station. Rafferty broke off when Constable Beard brought the papers from Burleigh, to ask him to fetch coffee, strong, black and plentiful, from the canteen. It was going to be a long night.

  Rafferty finally called a halt at 10.00 p m. He was nearly home before he remembered his promise to Llewellyn. He'd have rung his Ma and asked her about accommodating Llewellyn's mother, but, even if he'd thought of it, he'd had no chance during the day and he knew his ma hated getting telephone calls late at night; she always expected disaster.

  But a promise was a promise. She'd still be up, he knew, as she rarely went to bed before midnight. With a tired sigh, he turned the car and made for her home.

  He opened the door with his key, shouting, 'It's only me,' as he shut the front door and opened the one to the living room.

  His Ma was sitting in her armchair, staring into space, at her feet the box containing the Christmas decorations, and in her hand the baby Jesus from the manger scene she always set up in the corner.

  He remembered most of the decorations from childhood; the paper bells and lanterns that hung from the ceiling, the cheap balls with the chips of colour missing that hung from the tree. They were all pretty tatty by now, but as they held years of memories in their every chip and tear, his Ma refused to throw them out. Every Christmas, when she dug them out, she'd smile and say the same thing, 'Do you remember—?'

  Strangely, this time, she said nothing at all.'

  Ma?' Rafferty finally gained her attention. 'What's the matter? You look a bit down.'

  Kitty Rafferty sighed and told him, 'Sure and I've had some bad news, son. It's Gemma. She's pregnant.'

  Rafferty stifled a groan of dismay. Gemma was his eldest niece, the daughter of his first sister, Maggie. Gemma was sixteen and looked even younger. He searched the mass of family photographs on the wall for the latest one of her; his Ma had so many of them all — angelic babies, grubby-faced toddlers, cheekily-grinning school-kids, serious at First Communion and Confirmation ceremonies.

  He finally found the photo he was looking for; it could only have been taken a few months ago and, from the happy smile, had been before she had known she was pregnant. She had a dimple in the chin like him. Dimple in chin, devil within, his gran had always said. She'd certainly been a little devil when she was younger and was always the first to lead the rest into mischief. He supposed that was why she was his favourite.

  Rafferty hunkered down beside his Ma's chair and gave her a hug. 'It's not the end of the world.' He paused and tried to cheer her up. 'You wait — in another few days you'll be looking forward to the birth and knitting like a demon. And you'll be the first great-grandma on the street. It's one in the eye for her next door, hey?'

  Kitty Rafferty gave a watery smile. 'I suppose so.'

  'So, when's it due?'

  'She's only two months gone. That worried me, too. It's bad enough that she's pregnant, but today, when Maggie told me, she said Gemma's daddy was pushing for her to have an abortion. Just like a man, looking for a short-term solution and creating a long-term problem.'

  Rafferty knew an abortion would upset his Ma even more than the pregnancy. Unlike him, she was a staunch Catholic, and although she had her little idiosyncrasies and didn't blindly follow the Vatican line on everything, abortion was a subject on which she felt very strongly.

  'What about Gemma? What does she want?'

  This time the smile was more definite. 'Apparently, she told her father she was going to make him a granddad whether he liked it or not.'

  'That's our Gemma. And what about after? Will she keep
it or have it adopted?'

  'Adopted? My first great-grandchild?' Ma's voice was indignant. 'She'll not have it adopted, not if I've got anything to do with.' She got up and made for the adjoining kitchen, adding, in a firmer voice, 'It's early days yet for such decisions. Wait till the baby's in her arms and then let her see if she could let him go to strangers.'

  He heard the kettle filled with water and plonked on the gas stove, her voice raised to be heard above the kitchen noises. 'It's not as if young Gemma has no one to turn to; she's got a large family. She'd never forgive herself if she gave the baby up; she'd always be wondering what he was like, whether the new parents were kind to him or whether he had been shunted aside by the arrival of a natural child. I knew a girl when I was young who gave her baby up. She never got over it. I don't want that to happen to Gemma.'

  Rafferty propped himself against the kitchen door. 'What about the father?'

  His ma sniffed. 'He's no more than a kid himself. Same age as Gemma. What sort of a father would he make?'

  The kettle boiled and she made the tea, automatically she began buttering bread while she waited for the tea to brew. The scratch meal was soon ready and Rafferty carried it into the living room.

  'So,' his Ma began. 'You never said. What brings you here so late?'

  Rafferty told her.

  The idea of the visit from Mrs Llewellyn seemed to cheer her up immensely. 'Of course, she'll come for Christmas,' she decided. Rafferty tried to dissuade her, but she was adamant. 'It'll give her a chance to meet all the family.'

  'Are you sure that's a good idea?' Rafferty asked.

  'And why wouldn't it be?' She bridled. 'Admittedly, Maureen's mum's likely to be a bit of a starchy-arse, her and her lah-di-dah notions, but I can always give her a jollop of something to loosen her up a bit.'