Body Politic

by J M Gregson

  ‘And was anything different from the way you had left it in the morning, Joe? Had anything been moved?’

  He looked startled by these questions, which he had not expected. ‘I don’t think so. I only had a torch, because I didn’t want to put on any lights in the place. I didn’t go into the lounge, but everything in the kitchen looked just as I’d seen it in the morning.’

  ‘And the body hadn’t been moved?’

  ‘No. I’m certain of that, because his head was twisted a little to one side, resting on the skirting board. His—his eyes were open, you know.’ He was stilled for a moment by the memory of the staring eyes of the man he had hated, glinting wide and unseeing in the spotlight of his torch beam.

  ‘So what did you do with him, Joe?’ It was curious that a voice as quiet as Lambert’s could seem quite so relentless.

  ‘I thought for a minute that I might just leave him there, after all. Then I remembered how he had treated me and Debbie, how he had refused even to see me, even to consider the new evidence I was bringing him. So I pulled his legs into the kitchen, to give myself more room to pick him up. I got him over my shoulder and took him out in a fireman’s lift. He was heavy, but I knew I could do it.’ He looked as though he expected to be praised for the huge effort he had made.

  ‘Was he easy to move, Joe? He hadn’t stiffened up in the time he had been lying there?’

  ‘No. I didn’t notice anything. His face might have been a bit set, but I got him over my shoulder without too much difficulty. And he straightened out again when I threw him into the back of the van.’ Like fresh dead meat, they thought. Which was how Walsh had been treating him.

  ‘And then you drove to the place where you dumped the body.’

  ‘Yes. I drove very carefully. It was frosty, and there were patches of ice where the road was damp under the trees. But there was no one about, and I made myself take my time.’

  Despite your grim cargo, they thought. It took nerve, even in a man as unbalanced as Walsh was, to drive carefully, with those staring eyes waiting to be discovered behind your shoulders. Lambert’s voice, prompting like the psychiatrist who would surely be assessing this man’s state of mind in the next few days, said, ‘And you knew just where you were taking the body.’

  ‘Yes. I’d walked past the pool with Debbie, in the old days, when we used to take picnics out. It seemed, well—appropriate. I’d driven out to check the place exactly during the day. The ground between the pond and the lane was more overgrown than I remembered it. But that seemed a good thing. I found it easily enough that night. There was almost a full moon, you know.’

  ‘Yes.’ Lambert remembered Gerald Sangster telling them the same thing about his walk home from the Yates house. ‘Did you leave your van on the road, Joe?’

  ‘No. I drove it under the trees, through what had once been a gateway to a track. I didn’t think I could drag him all the way from the lane to the pond. And it meant that if any cars came past, they wouldn’t see my van, under the trees and thirty yards from the road. But nothing did come past while I was there.’

  ‘Did it take you long, Joe?’

  ‘No. I reversed almost to the edge of the pool, so that the water was below me. Then I pulled him out by his shoulders. I dragged him to the edge of the pond by his feet and flung him as far as I could over the ice.’

  Walsh, who had been all intensity as he lived again through that macabre journey, was now suddenly shaken by silent laughter, until they thought he would dissolve into hysterics. But the internal, silent giggling passed as abruptly as it had arrived. A small smile remained on the pinched face, as it stared at the cassette turning silently in the machine at the side of the square table.

  ‘What is it, Joe?’ said Lambert.

  ‘He nearly didn’t go into that pond at all, you know. It was frozen and he slid across the surface a little, then stopped there. I thought it was frozen too thick for him to sink. But then it cracked. Like pistol shots, it was, in the quiet of those woods. I watched him disappear. Then I stood for a few minutes, until the patches of ice stopped rocking and came together again, and everything was still.’

  They didn’t remind him about the toggle from his duffle coat. There was no need now. There was a pause before Lambert said, ‘Did you drive straight home from there, Joe?’

  He looked up at them, reluctant for a few seconds to leave that scene he had recreated so vividly in his own mind. ‘Yes. I didn’t see a single vehicle on the way. I remember thinking, “Well, they won’t find Mr Bloody Keane in a hurry now, will they? You’ve done your bit, Joe Walsh.”’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  At nine o’clock the next morning, the forensic laboratory rang through with unexpected news. The bristles on the stiff brushes used by Joe Walsh to clean the inside of his van had retained minute fibres. These appeared to be from the sweater taken from Raymond Keane’s body. Chris Rushton received the news philosophically. Ironically, this unexpected bonus finding scarcely mattered, now that that tatterdemalion figure had confirmed the details of Keane’s last journey in his van.

  It was while Lambert was driving the old Vauxhall through the intermittent mists of a still, cold morning that he told Hook who had killed Keane.

  The DS said nothing for a full minute, an interval that was enlivened by his chief’s narrow failure to hit an unkempt sheep, which had heard about the free grazing afforded by the common land in these parts but not about motor cars. ‘Sheep were here before cars were!’ said Bert smugly in response to Lambert’s relieved expletive. Then, as another sheep appeared through the mist on top of a stone wall like the monarch of the glen, he said, ‘Can you prove it?’

  Lambert mused on this, visualizing the actions and reactions of that old CID bugbear, the wily counsel for the defence in a British law court. ‘No, not yet. But I don’t think proof will be necessary, after this morning. I rang from home: they’re expecting us. I shall need your judicious help, as usual, of course.’

  The chief was hoping for a confession, then, thought Hook. Well, they certainly wouldn’t have needed proof with Joe Walsh, if he had done it: he had spilled the beans about his role as accessory quite completely, in the end. But he was a special case, an obsessive excited by the death he had yearned for months to encompass. Hardly your typical murderer.

  They were losing height now, as they passed Robinswood Hill and the road wound along gentle Cotswold slopes. Then the sun burst suddenly upon them, illuminating a huge patch of blue sky which seemed the more brilliant after the previous grey gloom. As the car turned a bend, they caught a glimpse of one of the Severn’s wide, still curves, motionless as blue glass and brilliantly clear. Hook could see the markings on the herd of Herefords that were unexpectedly present on the field which rose steeply to the farm on the far bank.

  Unusual for cattle to be out this early in the year. The farmer must be expecting a mild spell; Bert retained from boyhood a faith in the absolute reliability of farmers where weather was concerned. His mind was reeling from what Lambert had said; as always, he tried to steady it by a contemplation of the natural world, which had so often represented a working release for him during his teenage days in the home, when puberty had added its insistent distractions to the problems of finding out who he was.

  There were few obvious signs of activity in this village which had become a distant suburb of Gloucester: it was that hiatus time when people had gone to work and the children had been safely delivered to school, and the rows of respectable, gardened houses paused to catch their breaths before getting on with the rest of the day’s business. There was no human presence visible as they turned into the cul-de-sac and drove carefully to the house which still had its secrets to reveal.

  There was, however, a large red Mercedes parked in the drive behind the blue Vauxhall Cavalier, Lambert noted with satisfaction. The news of their coming had brought out the third musketeer.

  Standing slightly above them on the stone step of his house, his right hand still
on the catch of the door he held half open before them, Dermot Yates affected to be pleased to see them. Bert Hook did not think the pleasure extended to the wide brown eyes, which were within two feet of him; perhaps eyes were, as the romantics said, the windows of the soul.

  ‘You’d better come in,’ Yates said. He led them reluctantly through the neat modern hall and into the long lounge, with its three-piece suite and extra armchairs. Gerald Sangster was here, as they had expected when they saw his car, sitting well back in one of the wide, heavy chairs of the suite, smiling a welcome he did not feel, trying to look at ease and unworried by this visit.

  Dermot went to the foot of the stairs and called up to his sister, ‘The policemen are here again, Moira,’ though all of them felt that the invisible woman was well aware that they had arrived. Dermot followed them into the room and sat down, opposite the two supplementary armchairs which were already occupied by the CID. There was an awkward silence. No one wanted to begin without Moira present.

  Within a few seconds, that lady was with them, moving gracefully and unhesitatingly down the length of the room, settling herself elegantly on one side of the settee, composing her long legs and shapely arms without haste, turning her brilliant dark eyes fully towards them only when she was ready. In every sense, she had made an entry.

  Her brother made an attempt to take back the initiative she had seized from him without speaking a word. ‘What can we do for you, Superintendent?’ he said quickly.

  ‘I think you can help us to complete our enquiries into the murder of Raymond Arthur Keane,’ said Lambert calmly. ‘If, that is, you are all prepared to be more frank with us than you have been previously. I advise you to be honest this time; we shall arrive at the truth, you see, with or without your assistance. If you do not cooperate, it will merely take a little longer.’

  Gerald Sangster said smoothly, ‘I’m sure no one here has deceived you, Mr Lambert. Not willingly, certainly. It may be that in having to recall events from—’

  ‘No!’ Lambert’s monosyllable came like a pistol shot. ‘All three of you have lied, in a deliberate attempt to frustrate the course of justice. If you now plan to continue that policy, you can do it at the station, with your lawyers present if necessary.’

  Moira smiled brilliantly at them from the settee. ‘I’m sure this can all be resolved quite easily. What is it we have said that is troubling you, Superintendent?’

  Dermot Yates flicked up a nervous hand as he attempted to stop her. ‘You can have no quarrel with my sister, surely, gentlemen. And I must remind you that she is still a sick woman, in no condition to be upset by needless arguments.’

  Lambert had not taken his gaze from Moira’s face; their eyes held each other’s steadily, as if connected by some invisible beam. He did not look at Dermot even as he said, ‘Then I suggest you begin by telling us about why you lied to us about your movements on Christmas Eve, Mr Yates.’

  ‘Christmas Eve? My movements?’ It was always a sign of guilt when they repeated the question, thought Hook: it meant they were playing for time, that they had no answer ready. Dermot Yates’s broad, open face looked suddenly shifty as he said, ‘I told you. I went to the Humes’ house, just down the road. I was there for three or four hours. From about half past three until about seven, I think. I’m pretty sure George Hume could confirm that I—’

  ‘Mr Hume wasn’t home until half past five, was he? And his wife tells us that you were missing from the house for a considerable period immediately before that: possibly as much as one and a half hours.’

  Yates must have been expecting this, but nevertheless it hit him hard. He raised a hand pointlessly to his mouth, then let it drop limply back to the arm of his chair. ‘I—I’m sure it wasn’t quite as long as that, Mr Lambert. And I don’t quite see how—’

  It was Gerald Sangster who cut in smoothly with an attempt at rescue. ‘I hardly think Doris Hume can be completely reliable, Superintendent. She’s a nice woman, but you must have noticed that she’s getting on in years. And she must have been busy with other guests at the time you mention.’

  ‘Mrs Hume is entirely reliable, Mr Sangster. We’ve checked her recollections with some of those other guests, you see. Incidentally, she also told us that you don’t drink at all. Whereas you went out of your way to tell us that you had been drinking heavily here on Christmas Day, before you walked home late in the evening. A clumsy lie, that. And a pointless one, in the event.’

  Sangster looked at them, his hands still steady on the arms of his chair. Whereas Yates had been immediately ruffled, he seemed to be calmer, to be gathering strength in the crisis. ‘All right. I admit I was stone-cold sober on Christmas night. I walked home, exactly as I said. I could have driven over to Keane’s place—I was perfectly fit to drive and do anything else I thought fit. But you may have difficulty in proving that I did that.’

  ‘We should find it impossible. As you anticipated. You knew that we’d find out from someone that you didn’t drink; you could even have let it slip yourself, if necessary. But you didn’t go over to Keane’s cottage that night, or at any other time in that period. You were simply setting up a false trail for us. That is a serious offence, and you may find yourself charged with it in due course. What concerns me at this moment is why you attempted to divert us.’

  Moira Yates, her nyloned legs still elegantly crossed as she sat slightly side-on to them on the sofa, smiled a wide smile, perfectly motionless, still perfectly assembled in the pose she had chosen for herself when she came into the room. Then she delivered the words she had also prepared for the occasion. ‘This insight into police procedure is all quite fascinating, Superintendent Lambert, particularly so for innocent people like us. But you have already told us that you believe Mr Sangster had nothing to do with this crime. May we ask what is the point of your detailed investigation into Mrs Hume’s Christmas Eve celebrations?’

  Lambert regarded her steadily for a moment, willing her to more speech. She seemed again keyed up for this meeting, though whether the adrenaline was natural or drug-assisted he had no idea. To his disappointment, she said no more. He turned abruptly back to the unhappy Dermot Yates. ‘You left the Humes’ house within half an hour of your arrival. You were away for the best part of an hour and a half. What did you do in that time?’

  Yates ran a hand through hair that was now tousled, then looked at his palm as if it enjoyed a facility to move on its own, without his approval or control. ‘I didn’t think I was away that long. I came back to check on Moira. I knew she’d been excited and upset before I went, you see, and I wasn’t happy about leaving her.’ He looked desperately at Moira for support, for some confirmation of the fact that she had been in this room and in need of his help, that he had come back to give it on that fateful afternoon.

  She spoke, but what she said filled her brother with horror. ‘Dermot didn’t commit your murder, Superintendent Lambert. And neither did Gerry. But I expect you know that. You seem to have worked most things out.’

  Sangster had started forward at last to the edge of his armchair with her words, and Dermot shouted, ‘Moira, don’t! You mustn’t—’

  ‘Oh, but I must, Dermot!’ She turned her dazzling, unreal smile from Lambert to her brother, and it softened into a genuine affection. ‘You’ve done everything you can for me. Both you and Gerry. But it’s time to stop the protection now. I’m not having the two of you getting yourselves into more trouble on my behalf.’ She was as masterful as a mother taking charge of troublesome children.

  And she had the same effect as a mother upon her charges. The two resourceful, intelligent men to whom she spoke were cast into immediate defeat and dejection by her words. Their shoulders slumped, their heads dropped, they stared in dull defeat at the carpet by their feet. Their controller turned her attention back to the two CID men opposite her. ‘Dermot left that drinks party on Christmas Eve because he saw his car drive past the Humes’ window. When he came home, he found that I had been at the wheel of i
t.’

  Dermot made another feeble effort to check her, raising both arms, then dropping them hopelessly as she stilled him with a slight, imperious gesture of her slender hand. Lambert said quietly, playing to the central figure in this drama, ‘Tell us where you went in your brother’s car, please, Miss Yates.’

  ‘I think you know that. I went to Raymond Keane’s cottage. Though why you should suspect an agoraphobic of going out, I still don’t know.’

  ‘Because we have trained ourselves to be suspicious. Because you were described to me as “a classic case” when I outlined your symptoms to a medical man. Too classic, perhaps, especially when I discovered you had trained as a psychiatric nurse. Perhaps you simulated the symptoms almost too well.’

  She pursed her lips, smiled a small, regretful smile. ‘It was genuine enough at first, you know. When Raymond ditched me so suddenly, I just didn’t want to leave the house. Couldn’t leave it, for a week or two. Then I thought to myself, “You can use this, girl. He’s brought you to this state, and now you can use it to get back at the bastard.”’

  She turned to her brother, who was still staring at her aghast, fearing what was to come, yet powerless to stop her. ‘I’m sorry, Dermot. I didn’t want to deceive you, but I had to, if you weren’t to be involved. And you too, Gerry. You were both so concerned about

  the agoraphobia that there were times when I longed to tell you what I was about, but I knew I mustn’t.’

  Lambert, pointing her back the way he wanted her to go, said, ‘None of the doors were damaged at Keane’s cottage. That pointed to someone who had a key to the place.’

  ‘Which I had, of course. I returned all his presents in high dudgeon at the time when we split up, but I found the key two months later, when I was well into my plan. It seemed like a sign to me.’ She nodded to herself at the recollection, seemingly contented.

  Hook recalled how they had talked of Joe Walsh shutting himself away in his own private world, losing touch with reality, creating the personality which might do abnormal things. This woman had shut herself away from reality just as firmly, with a more awful result.