by J M Gregson
In this derelict place, it seemed even colder than elsewhere. He found that there were rough tracks flattened through the debris, presumably made by the machines of the development company. He picked his way through the undulating mass of broken bricks and stone, using the small circle of pale light cast by his torch to make sure that he trod always upon crushed bricks rather than mud, so that the soles of his trainers would leave no trace behind him. He realized that he was behaving like a guilty being, but the knowledge did not alter the tactic.
He came eventually to strands of new barbed wire. He lifted the torch, casting its pale beam away into the darkness, wishing he had thought to renew the batteries before he came here. At the very fringe of his vision, the light of the stars caught the gleam of a wide, shallow pool of standing water. The scene in the darkness and the silence reminded him irresistibly of a First World War battlefield.
Except that only one body had been buried here, he thought, as he turned out his torch. He wanted to turn away, but he was held for a moment like one at a graveside, paying a last homage to the departed one. It was then, in the darkness, that he saw the covering tarpaulin sheets and the single light, a hundred yards and more away across this no man’s land of detritus.
That must be where she had been found. The police had finished their work there now, had taken away anything which interested them. He wondered exactly what they had found amid this bleak and desolate industrial wasteland. He was going no nearer than this, that was for certain. He wondered belatedly why he had come here at all.
He moved more quickly on the way back to his car, picking his way still on hard ground, resisting the urge to break into a trot as the shape of the car loomed up through the gloom. He threw himself quite hard into the driver’s seat, feeling the shape of it like a protection around him, shutting his door hard to cocoon himself in his cave of warmth against a hostile world outside.
He had always known that she would be found eventually, he told himself. The discovery of her body meant nothing, without evidence.
He had moved away too quickly for the solitary constable who now guarded the site to ask him why he had come there at this hour of the night. The PC had to content himself with noting the illuminated registration number of the Vectra, as it lurched swiftly away.
Five
‘You’d better put me in the picture about this clearance site murder of yours,’ said Thomas Bulstrode Tucker.
Typical of him, thought Peach. All the murders which look like being insoluble are mine, all the straightforward domestics where we have a confession with hours and a killer pleading guilty are his.
But at least the sun was shining brilliantly into the Chief Superintendent’s office on this last Wednesday morning in February. Peach gave his chief his most brilliant smile and said, ‘I think you’ll find this is one of yours, sir.’
Tommy Bloody Tucker responded with the look of apprehension which always cheered his Chief Inspector. ‘It’s no use trying to shrug these things off, you know, just because you think they might be difficult. I didn’t secure your promotion to DCI just so that you could—’
‘Wasn’t even around, sir, when this one died, I’m afraid. Right in the middle of your patch it seems to have been, when you were still a humble DI yourself, slaving away at the crime-face. If you can still remember those days, sir.’
‘Of course I can, Peach. But before you shuffle off the responsibility, you should be very sure that—’
‘I’m very sure I wasn’t around when this woman died, sir.’
‘I don’t see how at this stage you can be so certain exactly when that—’
‘Hirohito, sir.’
‘Pardon?’
‘Hirohito. Japanese Emperor, sir. In power at the time of the 1939–45 War, sir. Said the Japanese had to fight on to the last man, sir. Americans dropped the atom bomb and changed his mind, sir. Apparently. I wasn’t around at the time myself. Don’t suppose you recall the—’
‘Of course I don’t, Peach! And what on earth has this Haryhoto in 1945 got to do with—’
‘Hirohito, sir. And he hasn’t got anything to do with it, sir, not in 1945.’ Peach took pity on the blank-faced man on the other side of the big desk. ‘His funeral was on the twenty-fourth of February, 1989, sir. And that’s the week when those terraced houses where the body was found were vacated by their last official tenants, sir. So I am reliably informed.’ He didn’t think it politic to inform Tucker that his reliable informant was the 86-year-old mother of a petty criminal.
‘And you think this woman was killed at around that time?’
‘Not clear on that yet, sir. Could have been before or after that date. We have a house-to-house going on at the new estate to which most of the inhabitants were transferred. But as yet no one has come up with an identification of the victim, or given us any reason to think they may be concealing significant information.’
‘But you think that this death dates from around that time?’
Peach repeated himself patiently. ‘Probably a little before or a little afterwards, sir. When you were the CID Inspector dealing with that particular patch.’ That thought seemed to give Percy Peach considerable satisfaction. He nodded thoughtfully two or three times at the wall above Tucker’s head and then said brightly, ‘You don’t recall anyone reporting a particularly puzzling MISPA in the area at around that time I suppose, sir?’
Tucker shifted uncomfortably. ‘Thousands of people go missing in this country every week, you know.’
‘Actually I do know that, yes, sir.’
‘You really can’t expect me to remember a particular MISPA at this distance in time?’
‘No, sir. I didn’t really expect that. Especially as there’s nothing on the files.’ He didn’t think there was much chance of Tommy Bloody Tucker remembering the Abominable Bleeding Snowman, fifteen years on, but he might as well make as much as he could of a murder on Tucker’s patch that had passed him by. ‘Files seem pretty sparse for those years.’
‘In those days, we didn’t have the abundant clerical help and the computers which you have, Peach. Now, if you’ve quite finished taking up my few spare minutes, it’s time for me to get on with a busy day.’ He waved his arm expansively over his empty desk, as if the gesture could produce the paper evidence of a hectic schedule.
‘You don’t recall any reports of a young Asian woman going missing, sir?’
‘Asian?’ It seemed a new concept to Tucker, though the town had one of the highest intensities of Pakistani immigrants in the country. He made a pretence of giving the matter some thought, then said, ‘I can’t say I remember any Asian girl being reported missing at the time. They tend to be close-knit families, you know, the Asians.’ He sounded as if he were announcing some mystical religious rite, the result of intensive research on his part.
‘Really, sir? I’ll bear that in mind.’ Alongside all the other blindin’ bleedin’ obvious clichés you visit upon me. ‘There’s a strong possibility this woman isn’t a native of Brunton, sir. The local dentists haven’t turned up anything for us. And we’re not likely to have any success with dental records nationally without a name.’
‘Then I suggest you set about the business of finding a name, Peach. It’s already nearly two days since this corpse was found, and you haven’t even got an identification yet.’
Peach thought as he went back down the stairs how hard he had worked the system to have got what little they had by this stage from forensic and the post-mortem. For a few delicious minutes, he toyed with the beguiling thought of burying the body of Tommy Bloody Tucker beneath tons of concrete and a five-storey office block.
But his first piece of luck in the case was waiting on his desk.
‘I suppose you’re involved in this latest murder case, our Lucy. This woman who was murdered years ago in a slum house.’ Agnes Blake found herself falling into a ritual of anxiety about the well-being of her only daughter.
DS Blake said stiffly, ‘We’re not
allowed to talk about cases at home. I’ve told you that before, Mum.’
‘Glad to hear you still think of this place as home.’ Agnes ticked off a small point scored in the mother–daughter phoney war.
Lucy looked round the familiar low-ceilinged living room in the cottage where she had grown up. It held many dear memories for her, but at this moment it seemed a long way from her own neat modern flat. And even further from that bleak and cheerless spot where the anonymous woman had been unearthed by the bulldozers and cranes. ‘This will always be home to me, Mum.’ She looked automatically at the mantelpiece, where the silver-framed photograph of her dead father in his cricket gear held pride of place, with the more surprising image of Percy Peach, dapper in his white sweater and red cap, now beside it.
Agnes Blake was nearly seventy now, but her brain was as acute as ever. She caught her daughter’s glance and exploited the situation immediately. ‘It’s true I don’t feel quite as worried about you now that I know that Percy is around to look after you.’ She smiled at her daughter and added, complacently and unnecessarily, ‘He’s a good lad, your Percy.’
‘Some lad! He’s thirty-eight and bald as a coot! And I’m not sure he’d like to be described as my Percy.’
‘Oh, but he would, you know! He’s smitten, is your Percy. Men are a daft lot – without the sense they were born with, most of them, when it comes to women. But your Percy’s got his head screwed on the right way. He’s got all his chairs at home, has Percy.’
‘It’s a long time since I heard anyone use that expression, Mum.’ DS Blake played for time, trying to think of a way of diverting this conversation from where she knew it was heading. It was a source of lasting surprise to Lucy that her mother and Percy, whom she had thought would have so little in common, had got on like a house on fire since their first meeting.
Agnes went and picked up the picture of Peach from the mantelpiece, looked at it fondly for a moment, and set it down even nearer to the black and white photograph of her dead husband. ‘Percy will be wanting to settle down, I don’t doubt, now he’s given up cricket.’
Lucy decided to ignore this glorious non sequitur. ‘He’s very wrapped up in his career, Percy. He’s a Detective Chief Inspector now, don’t forget.’
‘He’s not so wrapped up that he doesn’t recognize a pretty girl when he sees one. And he’s bright enough to see that this girl has more than good looks and a few curves, too. And don’t give me this Chief Inspector stuff. He’s not interested in rank, your Percy. He’s interested in villains, and locking villains away.’
Agnes gazed out of the stone-framed window at the long slope of Longridge Fell, and her daughter was left wondering how the old lady who rarely journeyed even as far as Brunton could know so much about her man. ‘You’re probably right, Mum. About putting villains away, I mean. He was even refusing the promotion at first, because he knew an inefficient superintendent was riding upwards on his back. I had to badger him into taking it.’
‘Listened to you though, didn’t he, our Lucy? When he wouldn’t have listened to others, no doubt. I shouldn’t think our Percy listens to many people. It’s time you let him make an honest woman of you. He’d listen to you about that as well, I’ve no doubt.’
Lucy found herself blushing in spite of herself. ‘We wouldn’t be allowed to work together if the police authorities realized we had a serious relationship, Mum.’ It was one of the few good things about Tommy Bloody Tucker’s inefficiency, that he still didn’t recognize that she and Percy Peach had become an item.
‘There’s ways and means, I’m sure, our Lucy,’ said Agnes Blake gnomically. ‘It’s high time you two were thinking about giving me some grandchildren. I shan’t be here for ever, you know!’ But by the set of her chin, she intended to survive for a considerable period yet.
‘I’ve a career to think of, you know. I enjoy my work.’ The familiar argument sounded a little desperate even in Lucy’s own ears.
Agnes sniffed. ‘Modern women!’ The phrase carried a contempt for the whole of contemporary mores. ‘You can’t stop the march of time with your talk of careers, you know, our Lucy. You might pretend not to hear it, but your biological clock is ticking, all the time.’ She nodded home the phrase; she had been storing it up all week, since she had heard it bandied about in the supermarket where she still worked part-time.
It was uncomfortably near the thoughts Lucy had been indulging herself, but she could never admit that here. ‘I’ve worked hard to get where I am, and I don’t want to give it up now.’
Agnes smiled unexpectedly. They had this conversation about three times a year, and it was time for her to switch her ground if she was to keep it going. ‘I’m not against women having a career. I’m glad you’ve had opportunities I never had. But you needn’t give up your career when you have a family. Not nowadays. Not in the police force.’
‘It’s good to have such a well-informed mother,’ said Lucy acidly.
‘Perhaps I’d better ask Percy, if I can’t get any more sense out of you,’ said that mother darkly. If persuasion and sound arguments didn’t work, you might as well try threats.
‘Don’t you dare!’ said Lucy, a little too hastily, her mother thought. She added earnestly, ‘I really do like the work, Mum. This latest death you mentioned, for instance. That body found under the bricks and mortar is a real puzzle.’
Agnes knew when she was being diverted, but she’d said her piece. She contented herself with a derisive sniff. ‘So long as they don’t find the skeleton of my daughter in a place like that, in twenty years’ time.’
‘There’s no danger of that, Mum, and you know it. But we don’t even know who that poor woman is yet. And when we do, we’ll have a devil of a job discovering who it was that killed her all those years ago.’
Agnes was silent, thinking for a moment of the hidden sufferings, of the life that the world might never know about which lay behind this obscure tragedy. ‘It’s not the sort of thing that I ever thought a daughter of mine would get involved in.’
But she could not keep the disapproval in her voice as she spoke. She would enjoy telling them when she got to work that her daughter was involved in this case, the latest local sensation.
As if responding to a cue, Lucy Blake’s mobile phone shrilled in her bag. She picked it up and looked at the call indicator. Percy. She went into the kitchen and put the instrument carefully to her ear.
‘Where the bloody’ell are you?’ said Peach, characteristically benign.
‘I’m on my day off, as you very well know, DCI Peach,’ she said firmly.
‘Not in the bath are you?’ he said hopefully.
‘No. Not likely to be at just past midday, am I?’
‘I were always an optimist.’ He dropped into the broad Lancashire accent he adopted on occasions just for her. ‘I’d be prepared to scrub thee back for thee, lass. Get the coal dust out. And then I’d—’
‘I’m having a conversation with my Mum, actually.’ She pushed the kitchen door to with her foot and lowered her voice. ‘The one about babies. She’s on about biological clocks.’
‘Bright lass, your mum. And a woman who knows about cricket. There’s not many of them about.’ He changed back to his normal voice. ‘Something’s come in about the Sebastopol Terrace body. I’m planning to do an interview tonight. Thought you might want to be involved.’
‘I’ll be there.’
Before my biological clock sounds off its damned alarm.
Six
There were not many empty seats in the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester. The Hallé had its main conductor, and the programme was a popular one. You could always pull them in for Beethoven. He was the surest of all the great composers when it came to putting bums on seats.
And of all the piano concertos, the Emperor was the most sure-fire hit. The old sweats among the orchestra players, the second violins and the back-row brass who had seen everything, said cynically that you could even get away with rubbish fingerin
g in the Emperor. Great music could always triumph over crap playing. And concertos didn’t come any better than the Emperor.
Yet even the most sceptical among the Hallé players realized that they were in the presence of something special here. Those who had heard the young John Ogdon thirty years earlier felt a stirring of remembrance when they witnessed the extraordinary virtuosity of this young man. It was undemonstrative, but it was undeniably brilliant, that word musicians are always reluctant to allow because it is so overworked.
There was a rapt silence among the audience during the limpid account of the slow movement. Silence is always significant in a concert hall at the end of February, that peak time for coughs and snuffles. The coughing which had preceded this, in the pause at the end of the first movement, had been a release of tension after the excitement of the soloist’s electrifying performance and the way the playing of the whole of the Hallé Orchestra had risen to support it. It was as much an acknowledgement of greatness in its own way as the roars would be at the end of the performance.
Now the piano delicately, diffidently, picked out the notes of the great final theme and then, having found it, sounded it out triumphantly, with the full orchestra thundering behind it. A pleasurable tension swept through the listeners, as the hands of the slight young man at the centre of it raced up and down the keyboard. There were ten minutes of this yet, as Beethoven teased and delighted his listeners with what he had never been able to hear perfectly himself, and his accomplice at the Bechstein grand detonated the fireworks he had set up for them.
The fingers sped faster and faster, the crescendo built and rebuilt; the notes glittered clear and individual as icicles, even as the speed seemed impossible. There was no flourish from the slight shoulders or those lightning hands until the very last, triumphant chord. And then there was that tiny, absolute pause which always seems to happen on the greatest musical occasions as a prelude to the audience’s salute.