The Killing Club

by Angela Dracup

  ‘It would be helpful,’ Swift said, noting that Brunswick was still doing his job for him.

  ‘Let’s think. No, sorry, there wasn’t anyone around.’ A pause. And then a smile of triumph. ‘But I stopped at a garage just down the road in Pateley Bridge as I needed to fill up. I bought some chocolate bars in the shop attached when I paid for the fuel. I’m pretty sure I’ve still got the receipt, and probably the number to call. He patted both back pockets of his jeans. ‘Yes, wait a moment, it’s here in my wallet. Westside Garage, 52 litres. Payment timed at 07.37. And here’s the phone number. Got a pencil?’ The words flowed out of him, presto and staccato.

  Swift duly wrote down the contact number.

  ‘They’ve probably got CCTV,’ Brunswick said cheerfully. ‘And I’ll bet the guy who was on the till remembers me; most people do. There aren’t a lot of guys six-four with bright red hair.’

  No problem with self-image here, Swift thought. He wondered whether to press further. He’d need to check the alibi with the landlord and the garage, together with a consultation of an ordnance survey map. But even then he didn’t think he’d got much to go on. The distances were probably too small and the time frame of the time of death too large to come to any conclusions. And there was something so deeply confident in Brunswick’s manner and answer it led him to suspect he hadn’t had anything to do with Christian Hartwell’s murder. On the other hand, he wasn’t going to rule him out entirely. Not yet. He might just be an ace bluffer. And if Harriet had filled him in fully on her conversation with him at his cottage yesterday evening, Charles had had a lot of time to get his story in order.

  ‘Mr Brunswick … about the incident in Algiers?’ Brunswick raised his eyebrows, a gesture which almost seemed like a silent rebuke to the detective for bringing up such a distasteful matter. ‘Oh, come on! That was nearly twenty years ago.’

  ‘But you were there in a party including Christian Hartwell and you were charged with a murder.’

  ‘Yes, and the charge was almost instantly dropped. The policing in Algiers twenty years back was somewhat primitive. Probably still is.’

  Swift looked hard at him. ‘Why did you say you hardly knew Christian Hartwell, when you spent a few weeks in his company in a lonely desert area? And he’s been your brother-in-law for some years.’

  Brunswick was in no way disconcerted. ‘We didn’t get on in Algiers,’ he said. ‘We just didn’t click, and that’s why I said I hardly knew him. We spent no quality time together, as the saying goes. You must have quite a few acquaintances from the past who don’t count for anything in your life now,’ he said to Swift, who refrained from commenting. ‘And of course he wasn’t my brother-in-law as you must know by now. No blood relationship to Harriet. And the three of us certainly didn’t do get-togethers.’

  Swift recognized that he wasn’t going to get much further with Brunswick until he had done some further digging. He stood up. ‘Thank you Mr Brunswick, you’ve been very helpful.’

  Brunswick followed his lead. ‘Not a problem, Chief Inspector.’ He offered his hand again.

  Swift shook it with professional politeness. As he walked to his car, Brunswick’s voice echoed in his head, the rock-solid self-satisfaction grating like the buzzing of an insect in his ears.

  DAY 7

  Ravi Stratton welcomed Swift with a warm handshake and the offer of freshly brewed coffee. She had invited him and Cat Fallon for a review of the findings to date on the Hartwell case and his report lay on her desk, neatly stacked and, Swift guessed, already carefully considered. Cat had arrived at the station but was currently occupied in fielding an urgent phone call which had come in just before the review meeting began. She would join her colleagues as soon as possible.

  Looking around Stratton’s office, Swift noted that the stand-in superintendent was sensitive to the fact that the room was still the domain of its previous occupant, Damian Finch, as she had made no major changes in its arrangement or decor. There were just one or two small personal details that reflected her personal preferences – a family photograph on the desk together with fresh carnations in a slim glass vase. He noticed too that Finch’s reproduction of the Mona Lisa painting, which had presided in a quietly judgemental way over the room, had been replaced by a gentle watercolour depicting a waterfall set against the slope of a hill and a pale-blue sky.

  Having drunk her coffee, Stratton, formally dressed in a black suit, sat for a few moments with her hands laid on the desk in front of her, her face still and thoughtful. ‘Thank you for this, Ed,’ she said in formal, polite tones, tapping her fingers on the first page of the report. ‘It’s very clear and comprehensive. But I do have one or two questions.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘Shall we make a start?’

  ‘Please go ahead,’ he told her.

  At this point there was a tap on the door and at Stratton’s call to enter Cat Fallon slipped through looking apologetic and slightly harassed. ‘I’m so sorry to be late, ma’am,’ she told Stratton. ‘A difficulty has cropped up on the case I was working on before I left Central.’

  ‘We haven’t quite started,’ Stratton reassured her. ‘I think you already know Chief Inspector Swift.’

  Cat turned to him. ‘Good morning, sir.’

  He noted that her formality in addressing him was accompanied by a glint of irony in her eyes as she smiled at him. She was wearing a pale-green cotton dress printed with bright red flowers, bringing a touch of exotica to Stratton’s mainly monochrome environment. He also noticed that she had dark rings beneath her eyes as though she had had one or two sleepless nights. He tried to put aside any theories as to why that might be, especially as regards her weekend activities with Jeremy.

  Stratton handed Cat a copy Swift’s report.

  ‘I’ll try to get up to speed as soon as possible,’ Cat said, her eyes flying over the lines of print.

  ‘I was about to ask Ed about his mention of there being sheep in the field close to the point from which Mr Hartwell fell,’ Stratton explained.

  He confirmed that sheep had been present in the field she mentioned.

  ‘And deer, also?’

  ‘That’s correct.’

  ‘And also that the netting separating these animals from the footpath was not wholly secure?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are you suggesting that one or more of these animals got loose and maybe ran into Mr Hartwell, causing him to fall?’ Stratton enquired. ‘It would seem to be a possibility.’

  Cat was still busy skimming the report but Swift was aware that she would be taking in every detail he had mentioned, whilst at the same time attending to the verbal discussion and filing it all away with enviable accuracy.

  ‘There is no forensic evidence to support a theory that contact with an animal could have caused Christian Hartwell’s fall,’ Swift said. ‘But for the pathologist’s and coroner’s benefit I thought it was useful to give as full a picture of the nature of the locality in which Hartwell died.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I see,’ Stratton said, sounding doubtful. ‘As regards Mr Brunswick,’ she continued, ‘can we rule him out, or not, from having had a part in Mr Hartwell’s death?’

  Swift noticed Cat smiling to herself, and looked forward to an explanation of why later, although he had a pretty good idea of what was entertaining her. He realized that his style of reporting was too even-handed for Ravi Stratton, as indeed it had been found to be by other bosses he had worked with. He belonged to the on the one hand on the other hand camp, resisting the temptation to come to clear-cut conclusions until he had all the necessary evidence to convince him. Others preferred the single-minded view.

  ‘Clearly we can regard the dead man as closer than just a family friend. He did make the effort to change his name to Hartwell, which suggests some strong kind of bond with the family. And as we know, the majority of murder victims are killed by people they know, with family and friends at the top of the list. So as regards Brunswick, I think we should keep him in the frame. Fo
r a start, it’s interesting that the alibi he gave doesn’t quite add up. I didn’t get anything from the CCTV at the garage he told me had visited – they wipe their tapes every day and re-record over them. And when I asked the cashier if he recalled serving a tall red-haired male early Tuesday morning, he seemed doubtful.’

  ‘But when you asked what car the man had been driving he instantly remembered it,’ Cat commented, having now caught up with her reading. ‘What does Brunswick drive, as a matter of interest?’

  ‘A red Audi RSS sports with registration CB 777. The cashier had looked out of the window and been very impressed. I’d noticed it in the car park at the Black Sheep Inn and been quite taken myself,’ he added.

  Cat raised her eyebrows. ‘A bit flash for you, I would have thought,’ she murmured.

  Swift suppressed any response. As he glanced towards Stratton he noticed that she was frowning, concentrating hard on his words, her expression faintly sceptical.

  ‘The alibi seems good until you look at the map and see that the petrol station is, in fact, four or five miles south of the Black Sheep Inn,’ he continued. ‘Brunswick told me that he was preparing to walk up to Great Whernside on Tuesday morning. If that were the case, he wouldn’t have needed his car, as he could simply have walked. Moreover, the access to the east side of Whernside is only a few miles directly east from the Black Sheep Inn, and you can’t actually get there by car; the road ends at the pub.’

  ‘So why would Brunswick need to drive to Pateley for fuel if he couldn’t use the car to get to Whernside?’ Cat queried.

  ‘Hard to say. Although he might have wanted to top the car up so that his companion could use it whilst he was off walking up a big hill.’

  Cat raised her eyebrows. ‘Companion?’

  ‘He’d signed Mr and Mrs Brunswick in the book.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ Cat sighed.

  ‘And according to what Harriet suggested,’ Swift continued, ‘Charles was spending some time on his own. Moreover, she didn’t drive up to Yorkshire until Saturday morning.’

  Cat snorted. ‘Men!’

  ‘I didn’t see his “companion”.’ Swift said. ‘But I doubt it was Harriet Brunswick. She was talking to me on Saturday evening until around ten o’clock, as you’ll see in the report. And she didn’t seem to have very much idea of his precise whereabouts, or just what her husband was up to.’ Swift had pondered for some time after he had realized the seriousness of Harriet’s unspoken fears that her husband might be a dual murderer. And then had wondered what she would make of his being an adulterer.

  ‘Right.’ Again Stratton sounded doubtful. ‘So could Mr Brunswick have had the opportunity to kill Christian Hartwell?’ she asked.

  Swift had the sudden thought that maybe Ravi Stratton wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, and instantly rejected the theory as unworthy and unjustified.

  ‘Not if he was at a garage in Pateley Bridge at the time he claimed.’

  ‘He could have got up in the night and driven to the crag,’ Cat pointed out.

  ‘Yes, I’d considered that. He’d have had to have been very quiet not to wake his companion and the other occupants of the pub. The car park is no more than a section of the pub’s front terrace and the Audi has an engine that roars like a pride of lions. Someone would have heard him.’

  ‘Should we check on it?’ Stratton suggested.

  Swift considered. He was not averse to another drive up to the scenically situated Black Sheep Inn and having a further talk with the pub staff. Moreover, he doubted if there would be much else for him to do unless they had a sudden new lead. Of course, if the ‘companion’ had already left, they would have difficulty tracing her, and even if they did she would probably simply support Brunswick’s story – or deny any knowledge of him. But still. ‘I’ll go later today,’ he told Stratton.

  ‘What about the burning on Hartwell’s clothes and body?’ Cat said. ‘I’m assuming we don’t know if this was done by the person who pushed him off the crag, or by someone else.’

  ‘Correct,’ Swift confirmed. ‘And neither Tanya Blake nor forensics have been able to help us on this so far. No DNA apart from Hartwell’s own has been found on his body, or at the site.’

  ‘Personal items were taken, but not money,’ Cat mused. ‘Which seems to rule out a random attack from passers-by. I see from Tanya’s report that the money was found in a back pocket of Hartwell’s jeans.’

  Swift nodded, catching her drift and working on from there. ‘And the missing items were likely to have been in his shirt and the front pockets of his trousers.’

  ‘That suggests that the person who took them knew what they were looking for. And then burned relevant parts of his clothing to destroy any evidence he or she had left on Hartwell’s body.’

  Swift thought about it, and smiled at Cat. ‘I’m happy to go with that theory, for the moment,’ he said, glancing at Stratton for a response, but she made no comment, and moved on to a new topic.

  ‘Turning to the episode in the desert,’ she said, ‘do you think that was relevant in regard to Hartwell’s death?’

  ‘I certainly think it’s worth investigating that further,’ Swift said. ‘Although I suspect the effort and time involved might simply involve us in getting entangled in the jaws of a red herring.’

  Ravi Stratton stared at him, her large brown eyes puzzled. ‘I see,’ she said politely.

  No more attempts at jokes, Swift reminded himself.

  ‘I’ll handle that,’ Cat offered. ‘Talk to the police in Algiers. Polish up my French.’

  ‘You speak French?’ Swift enquired, not aware that this was one of Cat’s talents.

  ‘Mais oui, bien sur.’

  Stratton bent her head, reviewing the last section of his report. ‘So is there anything further we should be doing to move this case along?’

  At this point Swift was personally concerned that this case could drag on and get nowhere very fast. There were still no witnesses who could throw light on what had happened to Hartwell, no useful forensics, no vital DNA.

  ‘We’ll go and speak to Ruth Hartwell and Brunswick again,’ he told Stratton. ‘And we need to check with uniform to see if they’ve got anything yet on Hartwell’s flat. And get updates from SOCO and forensics on the off chance some new evidence has come to light.’ He injected the maximum determination and optimism into his voice.

  Stratton regarded him solemnly for a few moments. ‘Thank you, Ed,’ she said, ‘for all your work and advice. It has been most helpful.’

  The genuine appreciation in the superintendent’s tone made Swift feel ashamed of himself for his previous doubts about her competence. Am I turning into a condescending bastard, he asked himself, as he and Cat left the superintendent to her own private deliberations.

  Cat sat down on the one spare chair in Swift’s office and blew out a long breath. ‘Ravi Stratton is a very pleasant and conscientious colleague, but she is a bit hard going.’ She glanced at Swift. ‘Sorry – that was a touch bitchy of me.’

  ‘You’ve simply mentioned something I’ve thought myself,’ he admitted. ‘So does that make me a bitch too?’

  She smiled. ‘You mentioned seeing Ruth Hartwell again. ‘Would you like me to do that? We could have a woman to woman heart to heart.’

  He thought about it. ‘Yes, sounds a good idea.’

  ‘You’ve already promised Ravi Stratton you’ll go dashing off to check on Brunswick’s alibi,’ she reminded him, her tone dry. ‘I think you should be setting off now, Boss,’ she added with another glint.

  Her dark eyes were vivid with humour and insight. The colours of her dress seemed to glow in Swift’s small bare office.

  He thought of the song Nice work if you can get it, and predicted that working with Cat would fall nicely into that category.

  Craig had got up early that morning, left his bedroom and crept across the landing to the bathroom. He listened for any sounds coming from the other rooms, praying he could leave the house
without anyone seeing or hearing him go. He wanted to have a shave, but it was too risky. He needed to go as soon as possible. It had been wrong to come. Mrs Hartwell didn’t really know him and it was wrong to expect her to help him. He hadn’t expected that was what she would do when he had decided to turn up on her doorstep. All he’d thought about was not being on his own and terrified of every little new thing that confronted him wherever he looked. But as soon as she’d spoken to him and urged him to come in through her door, he knew she was the sort of person who felt she should help him. But then her daughter had turned up and she didn’t like him at all, he could tell. And all of that was causing trouble for Mrs Hartwell.

  I have to leave this house, he told himself. He felt so shaky that it was as much as he could do to hold one thought in his mind. Letting any other in would do for him. I have to leave this house. Hold on to that.

  He tip-toed into the kitchen to find his jacket. The dog heard him. She got out of her basket, took a long stretch and approached him tentatively. He had a sudden memory of the dog he and his mum had when he was a kid; a big fluffy Alsatian called Beauty. He used to walk with her down the fields behind their house in the morning. Then Barry Jackson came along and parked himself in his mum’s life, and Beauty got banished to a kennel in the backyard. A hatred for Jackson rose up in his chest. He was glad that he’d stuck a knife in the fucker and killed him. Glad, glad, glad! He’d told the police that. And that was why the judge had him banged up for life.

  He found himself breathing hard. Looking down at the dog, he saw her back away. His heart contracted. He made his voice calm and soft. ‘Here, lass. Come here. There’s nowt to be frightened of.’ He squatted down on his haunches and the dog came slowly up to him and sniffed his fingers. He reached out to stroke her and the feel of her solid warmth under his fingers steadied him. ‘I have to leave now, lass,’ he told her.

  Carrying his plastic bag in one hand he stole down the hallway. The door was on a simple latch, no chains or keys needed to open it. He slipped through and pulled the door shut so gently that it made only the tiniest scratching click. He walked down the long path leading to the road. There were squares of lawn on either side of it, one of them still containing a child’s wood-framed swing. Keep walking, he told himself, wincing at the thought of getting to the main road and the busy pavements.