The Hanging Tree

by Geraldine Evans

  Llewellyn nodded.

  'Check with the Social as well. They might have Smith cross-referenced in their files under his original and his current name. It's possible they gave his address out to someone. Whoever's responsible for this local spate of “outing” threats is getting their information from official sources. Trouble is, it may be difficult to get to the bottom of it. Most of the coppers I've spoken to about the case were of the private opinion that whoever killed Smith did an excellent job. If one of them provided Thompson with Smith's whereabouts, he's unlikely to admit it.'

  `Rafferty was sure that if Thompson was guilty, he and his informant would be likely to hang together, scared, as the saying went, that, if they didn't, they'd hang separately.

  'Anyway,' he decided. 'After what we learned from Mrs Nye, we'd better make checking the alibis of Stubbs and Thompson a priority. If they were supplying information to those three women we need something to tie them together. All we've got at the moment is the fact that Smith opened his door willingly, tied to the probability that Sinead Fay's old Zephyr was parked outside his flat. What we need if some proof.'

  He fastened his seat belt. 'Come on, let's get back to the station. Maybe, by now, Liz Green and Lilley will have turned up a nosey neighbour or two for us.'

  CHAPTER NINE

  They drove back to the station. The Council workmen had finished the belated erection of the Christmas decorations and were standing about admiring their handiwork as throngs of busy shoppers bustled past.

  With a guilty pang, Rafferty remembered he hadn't yet been to see his niece, Gemma, as he'd intended. Hopefully, if nothing broke between now and Christmas, he'd be able to make time to get round to his sister's.

  It wouldn't be today, though, he realised, when they entered the office. Although Liz Green and Lilley had yet to return to the station – with or without a few nosey neighbours in tow – there was plenty to keep them busy. On his desk, a pile of reports awaited attention, among them statements from householders near the woods, from motorists who had been in the vicinity and had come forward, as well as those routinely stopped and questioned.

  Rafferty read through them swiftly and pounced on the several that reported seeing an old Zephyr on the road to the west of the wood. The time was about right, too, he realized excitedly. As he read them, he passed them to Llewellyn, waited impatiently for the Welshman to finish, and then said, 'First we had a Zephyr parked outside Smith's flat; now, we've got a sighting of the same make of car by Dedman Wood at the appropriate time and not just by one witness, but by several. What would you say to us pulling Ms Fay and her friends in for further questioning?'

  'I'd say it would be unwise – unless you're anxious for some bad publicity. It seems likely, given that Ms Fay and her friends seem able regularly to put forward their views and opinions in the media, that if we do, they must have several tame newspaper editors more than willing to supply damning front-page headlines. We've no more than circumstantial evidence to link them with Smith, no more than our own suspicions to say they had anything to do with his murder. A clever lawyer would tear such evidence apart in five seconds.'

  Automatically straightening the reports that Rafferty had disordered, Llewellyn went on. 'You said yourself that what we need is proof. Don't you think it would be better to wait to see if WPC Green and Lilley come back with some? After all, we don't yet know if these three women were even acquainted with any of Smith's victims, so if they saw one of them dragging a suspicious-looking shape down the fire stairs, why should they interfere?'

  It was a point Rafferty hadn't previously considered. 'You're right – we don't know if they even met or counselled Smith's victims. Maybe it's time we found out.'

  He began hunting through his desk; bits of paper fluttered to the floor as he shifted and shunted the contents. 'What did I do with Mrs Nye's phone number?'

  Llewellyn, to save Rafferty's desk from any more wanton trashing, produced his own notebook. 'I've got it here.'

  Rafferty read the number and dialled. His call was answered almost immediately. He knew it was a policy of Mrs Nye's; as she warned her staff and volunteers, it might be a distraught young girl on the other end and an endlessly ringing telephone could be enough to put her off trying again. Once put through to Mrs Nye, Rafferty explained what he wanted.

  'I'll have to go through my records for the other two, Inspector,' Mrs Nye told him, 'but I know Ellen Kemp did similar work in Burleigh, some years ago. I'm not sure exactly when, though.'

  'Perhaps you could let me have the details of your opposite number in Burleigh and I'll check it out myself.'

  Mrs Nye supplied the details with her usual efficiency and also checked on Sinead Fay and Zonie Anderson, ringing back with the information that neither had worked as a support volunteer ten years earlier. Zonie Anderson, could, anyway, have been no more than fifteen at the time — hardly old enough to counsel rape victims.

  After thanking her and ringing off, Rafferty told Llewellyn what he'd learned. 'It would be a turn-up if Ellen Kemp did counsel one of Smith's victims. It would give us our link - and the third circumstantial connection.'

  After some minutes' difficulty, he managed to decipher his scribbled notes and dialled the number for the Rape Support Group in Burleigh. But his hopes were dashed as quickly as they'd been raised. The link he had hoped to establish between one of the breakaway RSG women and Smith's victims didn't exist. Ellen Kemp hadn't become a volunteer until nearly two years after the Smith case and had never counselled any of his victims. Rafferty scowled and as soon as Llewellyn set off to see Smith’s landlady, Mrs Penny, he bent his head back to the reports, hoping to find evidence that would satisfy even the Welshman's requirements.

  Llewellyn was gone for more than an hour. When he returned, Rafferty pushed aside the paperwork with a frustrated sigh and asked, 'How did you get on?'

  'Smith knew several weeks beforehand that Mrs Penny would be going out that night.'

  'Time enough for him to confide the information to his loving family, then,' Rafferty concluded. 'Go on.'

  'Apart from the local shopkeepers, Mrs Penny was certain she told no one else. She told me there was no one else for her to tell.'

  'Mmm. Gives us a lead to Jes Bullock, if nothing else. What about the neighbours? Did any of them notice a strange car on Mrs Penny's hard-standing?'

  'Unfortunately, that alleyway leads not only to the back gardens of the houses, but also to a row of rented Council garages. One of the men who rents a garage there works as a mechanic in his spare time and uses it for his workshop, so there are often strange cars parked there; I gather he tends to park the overflow where he can fit them, though, for what it's worth, none of Mrs Penny's neighbours could remember seeing a strange car parked on her hard-standing that night. If there was one it wasn't there long.'

  Rafferty was just digesting this when Liz Green and Lilley reported back. He was gratified to learn that one, at least, of his ideas had borne fruit.

  Miss Primrose Partington hadn't been the only one of Smith's neighbours to notice the strange car parked on the street. With the single exception of the baker's, it was a residential road, the nearest parade of shops was half a mile away. So apart from the residents and their visitors few strangers would have reason to park there, certainly not for longer than the time it would take to make their purchases at the baker's.

  Lilley and Liz Green found several of Smith's neighbours who had noticed the strange car, and one, a man who worked as a commercial traveller, had even taken down the number as a prelude to ringing the police, but his wife had persuaded him against it. Only trouble was, he was back on the road and could be anywhere as he followed no particular schedule. But his wife said he rang in several times while he was away.

  Lilley said she expected a phone call from him this evening and had promised she would ask him about the car. Rafferty, not one to rely on such promises, told Lilley to go back early that evening and wait for the husband to call, addin
g, that if the man didn't have the number on him, he could at least tell them what he had done with it. He prayed it hadn't been lost or thrown away in the meantime.

  More reports came in and Rafferty dismissed Lilley. The forensic teams that Rafferty had sent to Smith's flat and Dedman Wood had finished their on-site investigations. They had turned up little enough at the Wood; the ground had been too hard for tyre tracks. And, so far, all they had been able to find out about the rope used in the second hanging and the few fibres left behind from the first were not encouraging. Whoever had strung Smith up had used rope commonly available from marine stores supplying the yachties up and down the Essex coast and beyond. It sold in huge quantities in all coastal areas and it was doubtful if further investigations would turn up anything more.

  Rafferty and Llewellyn had debated on the difficulty of suspending a body and whether one could do it alone or would need assistance. Forensic had confirmed that, although the task would be made no easier by being done at night, it was not impossible to do it singlehandedly, particularly as Smith had been slight, weighing only eight and a half stone.

  Of course determination would provide extra strength if any were needed, Rafferty knew. And whoever had killed Smith and carted his body to Dedman Wood for his ritualistic hanging had been very determined. Pity they'd chosen the dead of winter for the deed. Pity too, that the body had vanished after its first suspension. It meant they couldn't be sure that the rope used the second time had been the original. It could have been removed, like the wrist bindings and hood, and another substituted. Consequently they couldn't afford to let the type of knots used encourage them to jump to conclusions about the killer's identity; the professional-looking noose could easily be a deliberate red herring intended to lead them astray.

  Of course, as Rafferty now remarked, whoever had strung him up the second time was unlikely to know that the police had already learned of the first hanging. They must have hoped to conceal the ritualistic aspect of his killing, maybe even the cause of death. If so, as Sam Dally had commented, it had been a forlorn hope. Were they blind, stupid or just panic-stricken?

  Perplexed, he shook his head. But if the body-snatchers had merely hoped to sow doubt and uncertainty they had succeeded very well with him at least.

  Obfuscation, Llewellyn had called it. Rafferty had merely nodded his head when Llewellyn had made this pronouncement and had taken the first opportunity to surreptitiously check up in the office dictionary. To obfuscate, he had read: to obscure or darken; to perplex or bewilder. That sounded about right, he agreed, though he wished Llewellyn would give up using long words when a short one would do. It was an irritating habit.

  While Llewellyn had been with Mrs Penny, Rafferty had checked on local Zephyrs. There were only twelve within a twenty-mile radius and a check had revealed that nothing was on file against their owners. Of course, as Rafferty commented, that didn't mean another family member hadn't taken the keys and "borrowed" it. That was the trouble, he mused. Every time you found a worthwhile area to investigate, it meant checking out all a person's friends and relations, which meant a reduced team to check out everything else. It was important that they pin down the Zephyr parked outside Smith's flat. If they could at least get as far as a probable on Sinead Fay's car, they'd have a little more to go on.

  Trouble was, of course, it still wouldn't be proof and he decided to leave further checks on the Zephyr owners till Lilley had been able to speak to Smith's other neighbour.

  The work of the forensic team had proved more fruitful at Smith's flat. Although the only fingerprints found in the room were those of Smith and his landlady, forensic had confirmed that the small patches of blood on the armchair and the fire escape stairs were Smith's. They had also confirmed that the threads found on the stairs had definitely belonged to the tracksuit in which Smith had been found.

  Rafferty had discussed the matter with forensic and had been told that this knife must be at least 10" long, as it had gone through the thin padding of the cheap armchair in which Smith had been sitting, before penetrating the flesh and piercing the heart.

  A fluke? Rafferty wondered. Or a knowing thrust? They were aware of no one with any reason to kill Smith who had sufficient medical knowledge to pierce the correct spot knowingly; certainly not from behind and through a padded chair. Rafferty stared at the report with anxious eyes as the face of Stubbs danced before them. A policeman would have more opportunity than most to learn.

  Archie-Archibald Stubbs; unhappily, Rafferty rolled the name around on his tongue. Although he was much older, grey, taciturn and given to cryptic observations, Rafferty felt that beneath the superficial differences, he and Stubbs weren't so dissimilar. They even had unfortunate names in common, though at least Ma hadn't saddled him with Aloysius as a first name.

  Stubbs had been a good copper, a straight copper, everyone he had spoken to about him had agreed on that, though he had the unfortunate knack of rubbing his superiors up the wrong way; another similarity. Rafferty found himself smiling ruefully.

  Before his premature retirement from the force, Archie Stubbs had been generally regarded as an honest, plain-speaking man, the sort who called a spade a bloody shovel. Again like me, was Rafferty's immediate response. But when it came to devious behaviour, he'd been no match for the politicos upstairs. No match at all.

  Thompson, too, had paid the price for embarrassing the brass. Like Stubbs, he had decades of genuine service and successes under his belt, had passed his inspector's exams, and should have received promotion. Instead, because of one failed case – in which the decision to prosecute hadn't even rested with the police – he had been shunted sideways, back into uniform and his career had advanced no further.

  Who could blame either of them, Rafferty thought, if their resentment had simmered over the years; Stubbs, in his arid, lonely bungalow, and Thompson, denied the rank he must feel he deserved as less experienced men were promoted over him. Smith had been the catalyst of their misfortunes. But, he wondered again, would they act ten years later?

  Yes, he realised, they just might. If, as he and Llewellyn had discussed, another more recent occurrence could be traced back to Smith. Some tragedy or trauma that could be connected with him. Aware he had been putting off any further investigation into the police suspects, scared of what he might find, he knew he couldn't delay checking them out much longer.

  But for the moment, he was able to thrust the thought aside as more reports came in.

  The Australian police had got back to them. According to Hanks, the Walker family had checked out and were in the clear. None of them had made a surreptitious trip back to the old country. They had all been seen about their business in the normal way around the time Smith had died. So, that was one lot of suspects out of the running. Which – apart from the police suspects – left them with the Masseys, the Figgs and the Dennington families, plus Sinead Fay and her friends.

  The Dennington boys’ regiment had cleared them. They had both been on duty during the relevant time, the fact verified by senior officers. And, with the father dead, that left only the victim herself and her mother.

  Hanks also reported on his other assignment and Rafferty's forehead began to resemble a ploughed field as he learned that Ellen Kemp was either entirely innocent or had the luck of the devil. It turned out she had a double garage, a sizable old-fashioned affair that was built to house the larger cars of an earlier era; the Bentleys, Daimlers and Rolls and had more than enough space to accommodate two cars as well as providing ample space to work on them.

  Sinead Fay's neighbours had proved no help either. Hanks had checked and the neighbours on the other side of RSG woman had been out on the evening of Maurice Smith's murder. They had left home by cab around seven that evening and hadn't returned till the early hours.

  The elderly couple on the other side were no more helpful, even though Hanks said they seemed desperately eager to be so. His visit was, Hanks told Rafferty, obviously the most exciting thing
that had happened to them in years. Rafferty sighed. As he had guessed, the television had been on all evening and had drowned any sound from next door. What Ellen Kemp had told them about her daughter had also checked out.

  Rafferty perked up when Lilley returned to the station and reported that he had spoken to Smith's other neighbour, but he deflated again when he learned that the wretched man was unable to remember what he'd done with the piece of paper on which he had scribbled the registration number. Worse, his wife now thought that she'd thrown it away after persuading her husband not to ring the police and report it.

  'Isn't it just great?' he complained to Llewellyn after dismissing Lilley with the instruction to keep pushing the couple to find the elusive paper. 'Why did they have to be so damn reasonable that night of all nights? Any other time and half the street would have been behind the net curtains with their biros and scraps of paper, noting down strange men, strange cars and windscreens lacking the Road Fund Licence, left, right and centre.'

  Rafferty had hoped for a definite confirmation that the Zephyr had been Sinead Fay's. Now, he was still in Limbo-land and didn't know whether to accept that the piece of paper would never turn up and start, instead, to further check out the other Zephyr-owners, their friends and relations, in order to eliminate them or whether he should delay such checks in the now faint hope that the piece of paper would still turn up. In the end, he decided to wait and see.

  By the next morning they had received no more helpful news in the case and Rafferty knew he could no longer delay checking Stubbs and Thompson out. He turned to Llewellyn and opened his mouth to issue instructions, but his sergeant was far away in a world of his own, gazing out the window with an anxious frown.