[Inspector Peach 12] - Pastures New

by J M Gregson

  ‘That’s a pity. Still, I can bring you up to date with developments; we’ll see if that prompts any inspiration. I’m afraid it’s looking more and more likely that someone close to Mr Aspin killed him.’

  ‘A business associate, perhaps. People in business make enemies: it’s inevitable. Even someone as pleasant and caring as Geoff Aspin must have made himself a few enemies.’

  ‘Yes. I believe you suggested as much last time we spoke to you. And as I promised, we have not neglected that thought. We have made detailed inquiries into the workings of Aspin and Oakley’s.’

  ‘And have you come up with anything useful?’

  ‘That will have to remain strictly confidential, for the moment at least.’ Peach gave him his most knowing smile. ‘It is entirely natural that your instinct should be to distract us away from the family and towards other candidates for this crime, Mr Hawksworth. However, it is correspondingly appropriate for us to investigate Mr Aspin’s family: I’m sure you see that.’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  Steve found that he felt very cool. That was reassuring. He assessed the position. They surely couldn’t be considering Louise for this, could they? They might be thinking about him, but he was certain he couldn’t be high on their list. More likely that man who had never let the rest of the family into his private world: Jemal Bilic. He was surely a man capable of killing, and these professionals must by now be aware of that. Even Carol Bilic, who so effortlessly and unthinkingly patronized him and Louise, might be on their list: she had never seemed to him to be very close to her dad, and she was ruthless in pursuit of anything she wanted.

  Peach studied him as if he divined the thought patterns behind that thin, anxious but composed face. ‘Where were you on Saturday evening, Mr Hawksworth?’

  ‘Well, I waited at the Towers until almost everyone had left, as I think I told you.’

  ‘You did indeed. And the rest of the evening?’

  This was clearly the important part of the interview, the bit where he must keep calm. Steve said unhurriedly, ‘I drove back here alone and helped Louise with the children. It was a bit hectic, because they’d been playing with the friends who looked after them during the afternoon and they were rather overexcited and overtired. It was well past their normal bedtime when we got them down.’

  ‘I see. So you helped to put them to bed, read stories, that sort of thing.’ Peach drew on his slim knowledge of family life.

  Steve wondered what Louise had told them. They hadn’t talked to each other much since the shock of her father’s death. That was understandable, but regrettable, he now realized. He’d better be careful not to contradict anything she’d said, if he didn’t want to excite suspicion. ‘I was tired, although I’d been sitting down for most of the day. Making a speech is more draining than you’d think when you’re not used to it.’ He gave an apologetic giggle, which died too quickly. ‘I bathed Daisy and got her into her pyjamas. Then, as far as I remember, I came down again and left Louise to get them into bed and do the stories. It takes a long time, especially when Michael gets overexcited; that makes him less co-operative. He’s a good lad really, but you need patience: he doesn’t understand it when you try to hurry him.’

  There was a pause whilst Northcott made a note. In the silence, they could hear the Down’s syndrome boy banging away on some sort of musical toy, with faint, encouraging talk from his mother.

  Peach, smiling his appreciation of the domestic scene Hawksworth had painted, said almost casually, ‘And how long was it before this process was complete and you and your wife were together again?’

  He should definitely have agreed something on this with Louise; they needed each other, to take themselves safely out of this. ‘I couldn’t really be precise. I felt at the time that it was perhaps a bit longer than I expected. I should think it was about an hour, but obviously I didn’t time it. I’m rather going on the fact that it didn’t seem to be long before we had a cup of tea and went to bed ourselves.’ He glanced at Northcott. ‘I’m sorry to be so vague.’

  Peach shrugged. ‘Only natural, sir, isn’t it? Innocent people didn’t know these timings were going to be important, did they? Did you go out again on Saturday night?’

  How abruptly the questions came! Just when the questioner hoped you’d be relaxing, Steve supposed. He said equally brusquely, ‘That’s when it happened, isn’t it? Geoff was killed later on Saturday night, not immediately after the party at Marton Towers.’

  ‘We believe he was, sir, yes. And if you were safely tucked up at home, it would take you out of the equation, wouldn’t it?’

  Steve smiled blandly back, showing the man that the question didn’t worry him. ‘I suppose it would. And I’m happy to tell you that I didn’t go out again that night.’ He gave Peach a smile which was not triumphant but which showed a little relief: that was surely only natural.

  ‘From what you say, you can confirm that your wife also did not go out again during the evening.’

  ‘I certainly can. Unless she shinned down the drainpipe and was away like the wind whilst I thought she was telling Daisy her story. Hardly Louise’s style, though, that!’ He laughed at his ridiculous conjecture and found for the first time that they seemed to share his amusement.

  ‘How much do you know about Mrs Williams?’

  Another startling switch. He would have expected them to question him about Jemal and Carol, or perhaps to follow up his suggestion about business associates of his father-in- law. They seemed at any rate to be accepting that he and Louise were in the clear. ‘I know that she’d had a previous legacy in dubious circumstances. I don’t mean to suggest that she killed anyone to obtain it. Just that she - well, cultivated an old man and made sure that he left money to her. That’s only what I’ve heard. When you work in the town and advise people about their monetary affairs, you tend to pick up things like that.’

  ‘Rumours, you mean.’

  He smiled deprecatingly. ‘A little more than rumour in this case, Chief Inspector. I think the facts of the legacy are clearly established: it’s only what Mrs Williams did to secure it which is a matter of conjecture.’ He knew he was sounding petty, but he had no compunction about implicating the Williams woman in shady dealings. After all, she’d prompted all this. If she hadn’t come upon the scene, Geoff Aspin would have been alive and well at this moment.

  Percy said, ‘No doubt you would have informed Mr Aspin of this, if he had remained alive. Or had you already done so?’

  ‘No, I had not. And yes, we probably would have told Geoff, if someone hadn’t murdered him. I imagine Louise and I would have discussed the matter with Carol and her husband, and then told Geoff. He clearly had a right to know everything possible about the woman he intended to make his second wife.’

  And you’d have put it in the worst possible light, you prim sod, thought Percy. Or more likely got Carol Bilic to do it: she’d have been even more delighted to put the boot into Pam Williams.

  ‘You were right about the participants in the argument you heard in the cloakroom at Marton Towers,’ Peach informed him. ‘Mr Aspin and Mrs Williams were having a blazing row.’

  Steve wondered why they should be so interested in the Williams woman. ‘What was the disagreement about?’

  ‘Mrs Williams says she was taking him to task about his proclamation that he was going to wed her. She says that they hadn’t discussed it and that it was far too early to be making public announcements.’

  ‘I can’t believe that is true. Can you?’

  Peach gave him a small, rueful smile. ‘We have no reason to disbelieve it, Mr Hawksworth.’

  ‘Except that it runs in the face of the facts. However, it doesn’t make the Williams woman a murderer, does it?’

  ‘No, it certainly doesn’t. The facts you are so fond of would argue that it was very much in her favour to keep him alive.’ He was certainly not going to tell Hawksworth about that other interesting fact, the papers which Aspin had signed to clear
Pam Williams’ mortgage. But he decided to offer him another opportunity to indulge his taste for gossip. ‘How healthy is the state of your sister-in-law’s marriage, Mr Hawksworth?’

  ‘Carol? Oh, you’d need to ask her about that. Perhaps you already have, for all I know. You may have gathered from our little exchanges and from what he has told you that there is no love lost between me and Jemal Bilic. He’s a chancer, in my view, and he associates himself with some pretty dubious people. Personally, I think Carol would be well rid of him, but that’s her decision, isn’t it?’ A delicious idea took possession of him and he leaned forward and said daringly, ‘You haven’t got Bilic in the frame for this, have you? I’d say he’d be well capable of it, but I’m hardly an unbiased witness, I suppose.’

  ‘And why would he have done it? He was probably no more pleased than you by the advent of Mrs Williams, but he doesn’t seem short of funds, does he?’

  Steve felt the skin on the back of his neck prickling with resentment. Did they mean that the possible withdrawal of Geoff Aspin’s financial support was more important to him than to bloody Jemal? That he was less able to provide for his wife and family without outside support than that crook?

  Steve said huffily, ‘I have no reason to think that Bilic killed his father-in-law. I should have told you at the outset if I had. You appeared to be asking me for my impressions, and my impression is that Jemal Bilic is a dangerous man.’

  Peach agreed with him there, but he hadn’t as yet come up with any real motive. He stood up and said, ‘Thank you for your help, Mr Hawksworth.’

  ‘That’s all right. I’ll come out with you and get off to work. I’m afraid I’ve not really been able to offer you much.’

  ‘Oh, you may find that you’ve been far more helpful than you think, when we fit this into the pattern of other people’s statements,’ said Peach gnomically.

  Steve Hawksworth was still trying to work out the implications of this as he arrived at work twenty minutes later.

  * * *

  Jemal Bilic’s eyes flashed with annoyance. He was used to his orders being obeyed without question, but in his home that had long since ceased to happen. He said harshly to his wife, ‘You should have talked to me before the police came here to see you. We should have discussed what you were going to say. We need to agree things, if we’re to get through this.’

  ‘It’s a little late for co-operation. You should have thought of that earlier. Much earlier.’ Carol’s drawn white face twisted with contempt.

  ‘We don’t have a choice in this. We need to defend ourselves. They’ll pin this murder on to one of us, unless we work together.’

  It was the first time she could remember seeing fear in that dark, acquiline face. She noticed it with a mixture of apprehension and exultation. She realized now how much she hated her arrogant husband, how much she would like to see him brought down by this or any other offence. ‘I want a divorce.’

  ‘Do you? Well, you won’t get one. I’ve more important things to deal with than a whining wife at the moment.’

  ‘I’ll get one, whether you like it or not. You don’t have a choice!’

  He wanted to leap across the room and fling the back of his hand against her complacent face; to shake her, to tell her to get her priorities right and deal with this before she screamed on about her damned divorce. He knew that he should be bargaining with her, telling her that she might just get what she wanted if she went along with his wishes in this. But that wasn’t his way. Jemal Bilic wondered now what he’d ever seen in this defiant woman, whether it had just been a challenge to him to carry her off in the face of her rich father’s opposition. ‘We’re in danger. Both of us are in danger!’

  ‘You might be! I’m not. The police don’t believe that a daughter would kill her own father.’ Even as she said it, she knew it wasn’t true, but she delivered it with all the confidence and contempt she could muster. Then she said more quietly, ‘Where did you go to on Saturday night?’

  ‘To see a business colleague.’ He did not want to make any concessions to this haughty woman who now seemed like a stranger, but he forced himself to say, ‘I did not kill your father.’

  She was too far gone in hate to discuss anything now. Her voice was full of bile as she snapped, ‘You’ll need to convince the police of that, not me.’

  * * *

  Denis Oakley was not afraid of work. He wanted to show that to the staff at the factory. He had been working in shirt sleeves for most of the day, clearing out old files and creating one or two new ones for important customers. The fact that he had also been able to remove one or two of the personal memos which a concerned Geoff Aspin had sent to him over the last few months was quite incidental.

  It was just as well these had gone through the shredder when the CID paid their unexpected visit to Aspin and Oakley’s. Denis gave DS Lucy Blake his most winning smile and said that he was glad to see her again, hoping that DCI Peach would sense the unspoken rider that he was not at all glad to see him.

  Peach showed no sign of being abashed. ‘Our man has been out to the bank,’ he announced breezily. ‘Boring work, to my mind, but fortunately young DC Brendan Murphy is very thorough and conscientious.’

  ‘I thought the details of personal finance were confidential,’ said Denis Oakley sullenly.

  ‘Not in a murder inquiry,’ Percy explained cheerfully. ‘Opens all the doors, does murder. Has its advantages that way. Not for the victim, of course.’ He looked around the disarray in what had until last week been the victim’s office. ‘Having a clear-out, I see.’

  ‘The world doesn’t stand still. When we lose someone as important as Geoff Aspin, it’s even more important that the rest of us roll up our sleeves and get on with things.’

  ‘I expect it is, yes. And I expect you’ll be using the firm’s accounts to sort out your personal financial embarrassments, now that you’re in sole charge.’

  Denis glanced towards the door to the outer office, which he had shut firmly as his visitors came in. He hoped that the personal assistant at her desk out there wasn’t able to hear any of this. She’d been very fond of Geoff Aspin, and she’d spoken to members of Peach’s team earlier in the week. Denis wondered exactly what she had said about the relationship between the two partners who had driven the firm along for so long.

  Denis said calmly, ‘I do not own this firm, but I now have almost complete autonomy in the direction of it. That is the arrangement Geoff and I made many years ago, when we set up in business together, to cover the demise of either partner. I don’t believe it was ever rescinded.’ He spoke with the confidence of a man who had checked that out less than a month ago, when he first became aware that Pamela Williams was a serious presence in his partner’s life.

  Peach nodded. ‘You have certain standing orders at the bank which are of a very personal nature.’

  Denis beamed, first at Lucy Blake and then rather less affably at Peach. A winning frankness was clearly the order of the day, when they knew as much as they plainly did. ‘I like women. That has been at once my pleasure and my cross over the years. I have certain obligatory payments - ex-wives do not come cheaply in these days of equality. There are also certain other less regular payments, which I feel obliged to make as a gentleman to certain ladies of my acquaintance.’ He bestowed his most roguish grin upon DS Blake and said, ‘There! I have made a clean breast of it. I wish I could say that I feel better for doing so, but I confess to feeling only a rather unmanly embarrassment.’

  Peach gave him a conspiratorial, understanding smile, which made Oakley relax more than he should have done. Then the chief inspector’s amusement vanished abruptly and he said, ‘Your personal finances are in a mess, Mr Oakley. Your overdraft facilities have been curtailed. You wouldn’t have been able to make these payments from the firm’s coffers if Mr Aspin had been in this office today, would you?’

  Denis mustered what protest he could. ‘That is a matter of speculation, DCI Peach. I certainly ha
ve the authority to make these payments. Any irregularity will be a matter of discussion between me and the auditors at the end of the financial year. I do not anticipate any difficulties.’

  Lucy Blake snapped shut the notebook in which she had made the briefest of entries. ‘I think you have confirmed our views, Mr Oakley. We came here to hear from you what difference Mr Aspin’s death had made to your personal situation: you have made that abundantly clear to us.’

  It seemed clear even to Denis that the Oakley charm had made no impression on DS Blake. He sat down in the deserted office and pondered his position. It was a long time before he resumed work on the files.

  * * *

  It was the first time Lucy Blake could remember having all the windows open in Percy Peach’s rackety, pebble-dashed, semi-detached house. On this sweltering July Lancashire evening, she did not even feel cold.

  Even Percy’s neglected and rather sorrowful back garden looked green and pleasant when gilded by the setting sun. They enjoyed a gin and tonic, perched a little precariously on chairs he had dug out of the garage for the occasion. ‘I’m not much of a gardening man,’ he understated thoughtfully. ‘I always seem to be too busy. Perhaps things will change when I’m wed. Perhaps I’ll do the traditional copper’s thing and become a rose expert.’

  Lucy instinctively shied away from the mention of marriage. They went inside and she sat in a battered moquette armchair and sipped her drink whilst Percy made a surprisingly competent job of dishing up the Marks and Spencer’s food he had bought for them. She discussed the case with him over the meal: it was the one thing she could be sure would divert him from wedding dates.

  At the conclusion of her thoughts, Percy said reflectively, ‘He’d have been alive today, our Mr Aspin, if he hadn’t planned a second marriage. Dangerous things, second wives.’ He took an appreciative sip of his claret. ‘That’s what you’ll be for me, of course. A second wife.’