[Inspector Peach 12] - Pastures New

by J M Gregson

  Rather to her surprise, they left it at that. However, she had a feeling, which grew swiftly into a certainty, that they would be back.

  Thirteen

  Louise Hawksworth was much more affected by her father’s death than her elder sister.

  She had to hold herself together during the days, for the sake of her children, but during the short hours of darkness, she found herself unable to sleep and wracked by frequent, unpredictable bouts of weeping. For some reason, her husband seemed unable to comfort her.

  Steve had always been a tower of strength in times of stress. She remembered that awful moment when they had been told that they were going to parent a child with Down’s syndrome. As the doctor had taken them through the long-term implications of that simple fact, Steve had put his arm round her shoulders, pulled her to him, and convinced her by his loving strength that they were going to deal with this.

  Yet through the Sunday which followed her father’s death, he had been curiously distanced from her, so much so that in the evening she had tasked him with seeming cold. ‘I’m sorry, love. I took the children out, got them out of your way for a while, didn’t I? I suppose I thought that was the best way of dealing with your dad’s death, to leave you some time to yourself for private grieving.’

  It had made sense, she supposed. But now, a day later, he had come home from work and was still treating her as cautiously as if she were a stranger drawn into a tragedy by accident. Perhaps she needed to make more of an effort herself. While in the adjacent room the children were watching television as if nothing had happened, Louise raised a bleary smile and said, ‘It was good of you to look after the children yesterday, while I was still trying to come to terms with Dad’s death. I’m being selfish, as usual.’

  ‘You’re never selfish. But I have my own grief to deal with too, you know. I was very fond of your dad. He’d been good to me over the years. He was planning to be good to me again, until...’ His voice tailed awkwardly away. He should not have said so much. Now that he had, he did not know how to go on.

  ‘Until bloody Pam Williams turned up, you mean, don’t you?’ The little flash of pique was a relief to her, after the long lethargy of her grief.

  ‘I suppose so, yes. But this isn’t the time to talk about that. I liked your dad a lot, as I said.’

  She wondered why men found it so difficult to use the word ‘love’. She nodded at Steve and said, ‘You’d grown quite close over the years, hadn’t you?’

  ‘Yes. And I’d just been making the speech about all his virtues when he was... struck down.’

  ‘Murdered, you mean. Let’s have the proper word. “Struck down” sounds to me like natural causes.’

  He glanced at her. ‘You’d have suffered too. It would have affected your life if he’d gone ahead and married this Williams woman.’

  ‘I suppose so. It’s not something I want to think about at the moment.’

  A pause. Then he said unexpectedly, ‘You and he were never as close after the birth of Michael, were you?’

  She looked at him sharply. ‘I suppose not. But we’d got over all that. He was good to both of our children.’ It sounded very lame and muted.

  It had been a stilted conversation, not their usual spontaneous exchange. They continued in the same vein throughout that Monday evening, after the children had gone to bed. Almost as though they had been made strangers by this death, she thought.

  At about ten o’clock, he said, ‘The police will want to speak to you tomorrow, I should think. I’m surprised they weren’t round here today. They don’t seem to know much yet. They were all right with me. I don’t think they’ll give you any trouble, if you play it straight.’

  She looked up at him from the magazine she had been unsuccessfully trying to read, struck by the nervous staccato manner of his speech. ‘Why should I have any trouble?’

  ‘No reason. You’re just not used to being questioned by the police, are you? And you’re still upset. They’ll be regarding everyone as a suspect until they get things clearer. I just think you should be careful about what you say.’

  Louise gave him a hard look, but he seemed determined not to catch her eye. She was too weary with shock and lack of sleep to argue with him.

  She took two paracetemol tablets to try to get some sleep, but they did not work. She awoke after an hour or two of bizarre dreaming to find Steve lying with his back to her, on the other edge of the bed. She wanted his arm round her, his body firmly against the back of hers, as it usually was when she was upset about anything.

  When you are wide awake at three o’clock in the morning, things in your life get wildly out of proportion and the mind plays strange tricks. Louise Hawksworth was suddenly seized by the notion that her husband had suspicions that the woman who shared his bed might have killed her own father.

  * * *

  Jemal Bilic looked at the two men with distaste. You needed to use men like this; they were no more than the tools of the trade. He knew that. But that didn’t mean that you had to like it.

  He said, ‘You’ll need to lie low, for the next week or two. I don’t want you around.’

  The slighter of the two was the man who did the thinking and the forward planning. ‘We’ll need to be in touch, Mr Bilic. There’s another delivery due on Thursday. We’ll need—’

  ‘I know what you need. But you know the people who take delivery. Liaise with them, not with me. The machinery’s in place, so just use it. I’ll get in touch with you, when I think it’s safe to do so. Safe for you, and for me.’ They needed to be reminded that their own futures were at stake as well as his. The trade was lucrative for all of them, but there was no such thing as unthinking loyalty with men like this. The best you could hope for was to convince them that you had a common interest, that you survived or fell together.

  The second man was more thickset, with an olive skin, an old scar on the back of his wrist, and a clipped black beard.

  He said, ‘We need you, boss. We need your direction.’ He glanced sideways at the man beside him, aware that he was saying that he didn’t really trust his judgement, wondering what the reaction to that would be.

  Bilic said harshly, ‘Look, I’m telling you what’s going to happen, not discussing it. My father-in-law was killed on Saturday night. The police have already been sniffing around. They’re going to come back. They won’t leave us alone until they have an arrest.’

  The squat man made a mistaken attempt at humour. ‘Saw him off yourself, did you, boss?’

  The mirth died in his throat. Bilic seized the front of the thug’s collar almost before he had finished the question, his steely grip stopping the breath in the throat of even this powerful man. ‘Don’t even think that, let alone say it! One more crack like that and you’ll be back in the gutter where I found you! Understood?’

  ‘Understood, boss. I didn’t mean no ’arm, ’onest!’ The heavy man raised his powerful forearms, then thought better of laying his hands upon this dangerous, unpredictable employer.

  Jemal Bilic held the throat of the coarse shirt for seconds more before he released him, twisting his grip so that the man was struggling to breathe, fastening his own dark pupils on the suddenly alarmed eyes beneath them, enjoying the feel of raw physical power in his fingers. He relaxed his grip slowly, as if reluctant to let the rough fabric slip from his grasp. He looked at the other man, the man who would need to control the mouth as well as the limbs of this oaf. ‘Aspin’s death had no connection with what we do. But it’s brought the law sniffing around, as I said. We need to be careful. That means all of us.’

  The bearded man made the right noises, assured Bilic that he knew what the score was, that he wouldn’t be in touch with the man who controlled things until he knew that it was safe to contact him again. Jemal realized that this man had picked up some of his own anxiety, which was a bad thing. Nervous hirelings tended to panic when you withdrew direct control.

  He gave them a few words of reassurance, reminded them
how rewarding this trade was for all of them, how worthwhile it was for them to be cautious for a while. He dismissed them, then stood frowning at the door through which they had disappeared

  That was one of the disadvantages of what he did. You needed scum like that to operate this racket.

  * * *

  Louise Hawksworth received the expected phone call at nine o’clock. It was in the comforting, apologetic tones of her old friend Lucy Blake. ‘We need to speak to you, I’m afraid. I know you must still be very upset, but we can’t really put it off any longer.’

  ‘You’ve already spoken to Steve.’ Louise didn’t know why she said that.

  ‘We have indeed. And to lots of other people as well. But we need to speak to everyone in the family. It’s routine procedure, as you probably realize. I’m afraid we need to see you today. When would be convenient?’

  ‘This morning. As soon as you like. Daisy’s at school and Michael’s at the care centre. We won’t be disturbed.’ She rang off before Lucy could go into the cliches of sympathy. She needed to prepare for this.

  When they came, there were two of them, which she somehow expected. But neither of them was Lucy Blake. She hadn’t anticipated that; she felt a thrill of fear as she saw the two men on her doorstep.

  The smaller of the two, who seemed full of a bouncy energy beneath his surface politeness, said that he was Detective Chief Inspector Peach, the man in charge of this investigation. The young black man beside him was tall and lean, with a neatly trimmed beard. The DCI introduced him as Detective Constable Northcott. Perhaps Peach had seen the apprehension in her face, for he explained that it was not appropriate for Detective Sergeant Lucy Blake to be involved in this interview, because of her previous close friendship with Louise.

  They took her through the routine stuff about Saturday’s gathering, about Steve’s speech proposing the health of her father, about what her dad had said in his reply.

  Then Peach said, ‘Other people were apparently unprepared for Mr Aspin’s announcement that he intended to marry Mrs Williams. Did it come as a surprise to you?’

  ‘Yes, it did. I suppose we - the family, that is - realized that the affair was getting serious. I don’t think anyone thought it had moved as far as marriage. I would have expected Dad to discuss it with us beforehand, rather than just announce it like that to the world at large.’

  She wondered how much of her resentment had come out as she said that. You couldn’t watch yourself from the edge of the room, couldn’t even hear clearly exactly how you were speaking. Peach looked hard at her for a moment and then said, ‘Do you like Mrs Williams?’

  She had not prepared herself for anything as blunt as this. Yet she knew now that she should have expected it, from policemen. She glanced at the impassive, unrevealing features of the tall man beside Peach, who was watching her and making the odd note. But mainly watching her, it seemed.

  Louise said carefully, ‘I hardly knew her. Dad kept her to himself. None of us has really seen much of her.’

  ‘And yet you all seem to dislike her quite fiercely.’

  She was going to spring into a denial, but she stopped just in time. They’d talked to a lot of other people as both DCI Peach and Lucy Blake had already reminded her. There was no knowing what the others had said.

  She forced a wintry smile and said, ‘I suppose we resented her presence, rather than disliked her personally. She’d come unexpectedly into Dad’s life, when we’d rather anticipated that he wouldn’t get himself into any serious partnership again. We’d really no right to think that things would be that way, but I suppose we all knew how close he’d been to Mum and thought that he wouldn’t want another wife.’ She looked at the two unresponsive male faces and said a little desperately, ‘You’d expect daughters who’d been very close to their mother to resent someone coming into her place, wouldn’t you?’

  Peach answered her little smile with a broader one of his own. ‘We learn to expect nothing in CID work, Mrs Hawksworth. We have to establish the situation by talking to people. Lots of people, with many different viewpoints.’ He made that sound like a warning.

  ‘I suppose so. Pam Williams seemed like a money-grabbing harpy to us, but you can hardly expect us to be unbiased, can you?’

  He left her nervous question hanging in the air for a moment. Then he picked up her adjective and mused upon it. ‘“Money-grabbing”, you say. That made her a financial as well as an emotional threat to you, didn’t it? And policemen are sordid creatures - they have to be interested in money. It’s part of the job, you see. Your father was a rich man.’

  ‘Yes. He’d worked hard and long for that.’

  ‘I’m sure he had. And you and others saw Mrs Williams arriving unexpectedly on the scene and taking your father’s money away from you. I see that.’

  She was suddenly full of rage. Rage at this blunt, round-faced bald man, who wrapped up nothing and seemed to enjoy insulting her; rage at herself for inviting this line of questioning by her own thoughtless phrase. She flushed and said, ‘I think we all had plans of different sorts. Plans we thought might be disrupted by a second wife for Dad.’

  ‘Have you any evidence that Mrs Williams was planning to spend your father’s money on her own schemes?’

  ‘No. It wasn’t like that. There was nothing as definite as that. But we all know of cases where a woman has come along and taken a rich older man for a ride. I expect you come across them yourself in your work.’ She waited for a reaction, but Peach’s hitherto mobile features became suddenly still.

  The man at his side spoke for the first time, his voice deep but unexpectedly soft from so uncompromising a face. ‘It is the opinion of your friend DS Blake that you were closer than anyone to your father. Would you agree with that?’ he asked.

  She hadn’t expected this. Lucy didn’t know what had gone on in the last few years. Couldn’t know, if she’d told them this.

  Louise Hawksworth spoke carefully. ‘I suppose you could say that. I’m not saying my dad didn’t like Carol, mind. But they say dads always favour the baby of their family, don’t they? He and I were always very close when I was growing up.’

  ‘But not so close recently.’ Peach was back in, sensing a hint of weakness here. He made it sound like a statement rather than a question.

  Louise wondered furiously what Steve had said to him. If only the fool hadn’t been so distant with her on Sunday and Monday, she’d have known exactly what he’d told them.

  She tried to sound as confident as she could. ‘When you move away from home and start a family, you have your own life to lead. We probably weren’t as close as we were when I was young and we were living under the same roof, but close enough. As close as most fathers and daughters, I’d say.’

  Peach was sure that there was something here, but it was too sensitive an area for him to probe any further with a bereaved daughter. He said quietly, ‘Who do you think killed your father, Mrs Hawksworth? You must have given it some thought in the two and a half days since it happened.’ Louise felt an absurd urge to tell him that her husband thought she might have done this unthinkable thing, to laugh in his face at the absurdity of the idea. She must be nearer than she’d thought to hysteria. She said, with a flash of resentment, ‘I don’t know, do I? I’m just as baffled as you seem to be!’

  Peach gave no sign of annoyance. He glanced at the man beside him and said, ‘Is there anything else you wish to ask Mrs Hawksworth at this stage, DC Northcott?’

  Again that soft voice came unexpectedly from the forbidding constable. ‘We need an account of your movements at the conclusion of Saturday’s celebration, Mrs Hawksworth.’ They wanted to know what she was doing at the time of the killing. She was a murder suspect after all, a woman who might have killed the father to whom she had just claimed to be very close. Patricide, that was the word; pedantry seized her when she least expected it. ‘I tried to get to Dad, but there was a big crowd around him. To be honest, I wanted to give him a piece of my mind
about what he’d just said about him and Mrs Williams. But I saw there was no chance of getting near him or having a private word. I wandered about a little, hoping to talk to Carol, my elder sister, to see what she thought about it.’

  ‘Did you speak to her?’

  ‘No. I couldn’t find her. So I went out to my car and drove home. I wanted to get back to the children. They were in good hands, but I’d been away for over four hours, and Michael tends to get agitated if I’m away for too long. It’s not easy to make him understand things like time.’ For a moment, her face was full of a tenderness they had not seen in it before.

  Northcott made a note and nodded. ‘Your husband didn’t go with you?’

  ‘No. Steve had his own car. I’d left as late as possible because of the children.’

  ‘So what time did he arrive home?’

  ‘About an hour after me, I think. Probably about eight o’clock. I can’t be certain. We didn’t know such things were important at the time.’ For a moment, her face crumpled towards tears, but she recovered and turned it into an apologetic smile.

  ‘Did he say what he’d been doing?’

  She couldn’t believe it. They were treating her mild, unassertive Steve as a murder suspect. It must be just the routine they went through, as Lucy Blake had told her. ‘I think he’d been waiting to speak to Dad, but he hadn’t managed it either. Oh, and he said he’d talked to the catering manager at Marton Towers. Thanked him for an excellent meal and good organization, that sort of thing.’

  ‘Did either of you go out again during the evening?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so. The children were up later than usual. They were overexcited and took a bit of calming down. It took me quite some time to get them into bed and give them a story. After that, there wasn’t much time left before we went to bed ourselves. It had been a tiring day.’