by J M Gregson
Lambert said carefully, ‘But you asked to see the officer in charge of a murder enquiry. So you believe you have some information which could be of interest to us.’
‘Yes. But you may already be in possession of it, for all I know.’ His confidence was draining with each passing minute.
‘Let’s have it, shall we? It will go no further, if it has no bearing on the case. You needn’t fear that you’ll be embarrassed.’
‘His business was making a loss!’ He’d blurted it out suddenly, in the end, reddening as he did so.
Lambert smiled at him, not wanting to discourage him when he had made the effort to come in and do his duty. ‘Let’s have a few more details, shall we, Mr Tillcock? Hudson Office Supplies wouldn’t be the first business to struggle, but you obviously feel there are some suspicious circumstances about these particular financial difficulties.’
‘Yes. It was making a loss when he married Judith. He took her money and poured it in to keep the firm going.’
Lambert shrugged. ‘So he used his wife’s money to turn a struggling business into a prosperous one. It’s not the first time that’s happened. You could even say that it reflects credit on him, shows how as an entrepreneur he just needed capital to realize the potential of his ideas.’
He was trying to provoke Tillcock into a reaction, and he succeeded. ‘Hudson didn’t revive the firm as he claims. He frittered away his wife’s money. It was still making a loss when that was gone. He wanted me to disguise it, to cook the figures for the auditors. I said I couldn’t continue to do that. So he got rid of me.’
This was undoubtedly a bitter man. Everything he said and did now bore witness to that. But if there was substance in what he said, it might still have a connection with a murder or murders three years later. Lambert said, ‘You’re sure of this? Sure that business did not pick up after you’d left?’
‘I’m absolutely sure. It’s a small firm. I’ve kept in touch with what’s happening there. Most of the people who work there don’t want to ask too many questions about the viability of the concern. So long as their pay cheques arrive on time and there’s no threat of redundancy, that’s good enough. That’s understandable, but it’s helping to hide what’s really going on there.’
‘Which is what?’
Chris Tillcock leaned forward. Now that he was animated and assured of an audience, he seemed a much more incisive man. His small brown eyes glistened with excitement, his hands clasped together in a gesture of urgency. ‘It’s my belief that he’s running Hudson Office Supplies as a front for something more sinister.’
‘Using a loss-making firm as a money-laundering agency, you mean?’
He nodded eagerly, delighted that a senior policeman had put into words the accusation that as an accountant he had hesitated to make. ‘That’s exactly it. I’m sure he’s involved in something much more sinister, making money he could not legitimately disclose. Big money.’
Drugs. Tillcock didn’t want to say the word, but that’s what he meant. And they already knew from talking to Martin Carter and others that he was probably right. Lambert said quietly, ‘Can you substantiate what you say about the finances of the firm?’
‘I can up to the time when I left it. I’ve kept my records from then, and I can provide detailed chapter and verse. It’s vaguer after that, but I can still give you pointers: his bank credits will represent far more than is being generated through Hudson Office Supplies.’
Lambert nodded. ‘Keep this information and these views strictly to yourself at present.’
‘Yes. I won’t give him the chance to plan any cover-ups beyond what he’s done already.’
Lambert hadn’t been thinking of that, but of Tillcock’s personal safety. It was probably better not to emphasize that. Roy Hudson was becoming a more unsavoury character with every new fact they learned about him.
But was there a direct link with the deaths of Clare Mills and Ian Walker?
Twenty-Seven
Eleanor Hook was having trouble with her husband.
She could not recall him ever having asked her to help him like this before. ‘I can’t do it myself,’ he explained patiently. ‘It wouldn’t be right. After all, the man is still a leading suspect in a murder investigation.’
‘But you want me to do it. I see.’ Her lips set in a thin line of the resentment which she did not feel: she enjoyed teasing Bert when he became earnest. And he was secretly very proud of her work for Amnesty International, though he affected to find it a professional embarrassment. The ways of partners are strange, unfathomable to outsiders, even a little touching.
‘He’s a good case.’
‘But a murder suspect. And I don’t even know him.’
Bert knew now that it was going to be all right. No stranger would have understood the marital code, but Bert knew even at this stage that Eleanor was prepared to help him. She trusted his judgement. He said happily, ‘You’d like him if you did. You’d think him well worthy of your support.’
Eleanor sighed resignedly. ‘What’s his name?’
Bert gave her an apologetic grin. ‘He calls himself Denis Pimbury. But that’s not his real name. He spun us a wild story about having been born in this country and then brought up in Croatia, where his mother hailed from, but that’s patently untrue. He’s got himself a passport through some dubious source; those unscrupulous people will have overcharged him fiercely for it, poor bugger. It’s a bogus document that’s completely useless to him, of course.’
‘So he’s an illegal immigrant, trying to defraud the system, and a suspect for two murders.’ Eleanor counted off the offences on her fingers. ‘And you want me to help him.’
Hook grinned. ‘That’s about it, yes.’
‘Can you give me any good reason why I should?’
Both of them were enjoying the fencing now, knowing that she was going to help, knowing that if necessary she would do it on no more than his say-so, knowing that in the end this business would only bring them even closer together.
Hook did his best. ‘I’m pretty sure he’s been through some dire times during the war in Kosovo, but he can’t talk about that, of course. Can’t even admit that he’s been in the fighting, you see. But I’m privately certain that he’ll be in danger of his life if he’s sent back there. And he’s a hell of a good worker on the farm where he’s employed, so he won’t be a drain on the state. He’d done three years of medical studies when the war ended all that. He might even become a doctor here, if we can sort out his residence.’
‘And “we” means me.’
Bert’s smile got wider. ‘You and whatever formidable resources you can muster to help you, yes.’
‘Because Detective Sergeant Bert Hook can’t be seen to be helping a murder suspect who is also an illegal immigrant to the UK.’
‘That’s about it, yes.’
‘And why on earth should the gullible Mrs Hook get involved?’
‘Because she’s a wonderful woman. Because he’s a deserving case. There’s something about him. You’d agree with that, if you saw him. Oh, and by the way, he didn’t do either of those murders.’
‘Who says he didn’t?’
‘Detective Sergeant Bert Hook. Relying on many years of CID experience.’
‘And what does Chief Superintendent John Lambert think? With the benefit of even more years of CID experience?’
‘You’re a very acute woman, Eleanor Hook. You always spot the technical weakness in a case. Denis Pimbury needs a woman like you on his side, whatever his real name is.’
‘So John Lambert thinks he might well have killed that woman. And the man who used to be her husband.’
Bert pursed his lips, as though weighing the facts of the matter. ‘He hasn’t committed himself yet. He’s a cautious old bird, John. But then with his rank, he has to set the example, you see, show other people lower down the hierarchy that you mustn’t jump to conclusions without proper evidence.’
‘He doesn’t allow h
imself to be swayed by sentiment, you mean.’
‘Perhaps. But you can take it from me that Denis Pimbury didn’t commit these murders.’ Bert found that he was suddenly not quite as sure as he sounded.
‘So who did?’
‘Remains to be seen. Perhaps even the woman’s mother. She’s got Asperger’s syndrome, I think, and she’s difficult to work out. She doesn’t seem to have any normal moral sense about her actions, and she admits she wasn’t on good terms with her daughter. Still less with the man who used to be her husband.’
‘There’s a stepfather, isn’t there?’
‘Yes. Dubious character, involved in illegal drugs. And almost certainly in money-laundering, to disguise the profits from the drugs trading. Was in touch with his daughter in the weeks before her death, though he denied it at first. Appears at the moment to have alibis for both deaths.’
‘Any others?’
‘Two, I’d say.’ Bert hastened to reduce the odds on Denis Pimbury. ‘There’s a female tutor at the university, who was conducting a lesbian affair with the dead woman. We’ve just found that they had a big separation two days before the woman was murdered. Apparently a final one.’
‘But it’s a big step from separation to murder.’
‘Agreed. But this woman has a previous record of violence in similar circumstances. And she concealed the bust-up with Clare Mills from us when we spoke to her.’
‘Probably didn’t want to broadcast her humiliation.’
‘Maybe. But there’s another candidate as well. Young man we caught dealing drugs. He’d been keen on Clare for years and he tried to take up with her when she said same-sex relationships weren’t for her after all. He admits he didn’t take kindly to her rejecting him. And also that he was jealous of her first husband, a waster who he thinks still had a hold over Clare.’ Bert was working hard to see the pale-faced Martin Carter as a killer, conjuring up the vision of his vivid red hair as an assurance that he must have a quick temper.
‘In view of this array of villains, I suppose I’d better do what I can for your Mr Pimbury.’
Bert searched her face for irony, and eventually his anxiety brought an instinctive smile from her. It seemed as though that intense, fierce, hard-working man on the farm had a staunch advocate on his side now.
An hour later, DS Hook was thinking that Mark Jolly might be the most inappropriately named man he had ever met.
He had huge arms, the lower parts of which bulged out of the shirt sleeves which were supposed to contain them. The hairy forearms had tattoos of Union Jacks and crowns, though any monarchist would surely be disturbed to have this man for a supporter. There was a recent scar on the forehead above the small, close-set eyes, which were made to seem even tinier by the size of the coarse features which surrounded them. The man’s hair was cut very close, and yet contrived to look both greasy and in need of a wash. His T-shirt with the beer advert stretched across its chest looked as if it had not been washed for weeks. Even with a desk to keep you apart from him, you could catch the smell of onions upon the man’s breath, the scent of stale sweat from beneath those huge arms.
Anything less jolly would have been difficult to imagine.
‘I got nothing to say to you.’ The man’s attitude chimed perfectly with his appearance.
‘You will have.’ Lambert smiled grimly at him, perfectly at home with his belligerence. He had dealt with thousands of Jollys in thirty years of police work; this was like coming home to familiar territory. In the game of bluff and counter-bluff that he was about to embark upon, he was confident that they could outwit this dangerous oaf. In a dark alley with a cosh or a knife, Jolly would have been favourite. In this war of words and minds, he might play a negative game for a while and refuse to cooperate, but he had no decent cards in the hand he had to play.
‘You need to talk to Mr Hudson. He’s my employer. I’ve nothing to say.’ Mark Jolly repeated the phrases he had prepared as if they were some sort of formula.
‘Worked long for him, have you?’
Jolly considered the question for a moment, prepared to block it with a surly ‘No comment.’ But there couldn’t be any harm in answering a question like that. Even a brief would tell you to answer that, to offer the trappings of cooperation to the pigs. ‘Three years.’
‘And what is your job description?’
He glared at them suspiciously. He’d never had anything as official as that. ‘I do whatever Mr Hudson asks me to. Help out around here. Drive him, sometimes. Make sure people are available when he needs to speak to them.’
‘You must be invaluable to him.’
He glared at the long watchful face. He’d like to put a fist into it, to feel the grinding of bone and gristle under his knuckles, to watch the blood spurt from the nose and hear the yell of pain. That would show the clever sod who was boss. But he knew he couldn’t do that. Not here, anyway. Not now. ‘Mr Hudson uses me quite a lot. You could say he relies on me.’ No harm in building your job up a bit, the boss had said, so long as you don’t give them any details.
‘Relies on you to frighten people, I expect.’ Lambert nodded repeatedly, as if this thug had confirmed something they knew already. ‘I expect you can be quite good at that.’
Mark Jolly was suddenly uneasy. He hadn’t said that. They were twisting what little he’d said, but he couldn’t quite see where it had gone off the rails. ‘I didn’t say that, did I? I don’t know why you should suggest that.’ He lifted his huge arms in the air for a moment, as if he proposed to take a swing at his questioner, then let them drop back awkwardly to his sides. He looked like an amateur actor caught wondering what to do with his hands on stage.
Lambert let him sit awkwardly like that for a moment. ‘Sent you to frighten Martin Carter at the university last Monday, didn’t he?’
Jolly felt his first spurt of apprehension. How could they know that? Had they been watching him, even then? Had they rumbled what the boss was up to, as early as that? ‘Don’t know what you’re talking about. I wasn’t anywhere near no fucking university. Don’t even know this Carter bugger you’re talking about!’
It was his first mistake. He should have merely refused to comment. He had given them a lie, which they could use against him, in due course. Lambert smiled an open satisfaction at that. ‘Strange, that. Mr Carter gave us a very accurate description of you. He’s in custody, you see, so I suppose he’s happy that you can’t get at him to beat him up. Surprising how it loosens people’s tongues, when they feel they’re safe from thugs like you, Mr Jolly.’
He didn’t like that use of the title. They used that sort of politeness when they had you in the station, when they were going to charge you with something. A full minute too late, he snarled, ‘No comment!’
Lambert laughed openly into his face, a small, mirthless sound. ‘You’ve chosen the wrong man to work for, I’m afraid, Mr Jolly. You could be in for quite a sentence here. Unless you choose to be more frank with us than you’ve been so far. But I expect you won’t be bright enough to see that.’
He turned his head sideways to Hook, who nodded and said, ‘In a lot of trouble, you are, Mark. Can’t see you getting the benefit of any doubt, either, a man with your record.’
He should have known they’d be aware of his previous, experienced pigs like this. He should have been ready for it. But he hadn’t been, and now he was on the defensive, as they weighed in on him from both sides. Like all bullies, he didn’t like it when he felt himself to be outnumbered. Physically, he could have smashed either of these men to the ground, and then put the boot in and finished them off, if the situation had called for it. But he knew he was at a disadvantage in any battle of words. And now there were two of them ganging up on him. As he felt himself losing his mental bearings, he fell back into the automatic, meaningless whine of the career criminal. ‘I ain’t done nothing wrong. I’m trying to go straight, keep out of trouble. And you bastards come trying to fit me up. This is harassment, this is!’
/> But his voice rang with desperation, not conviction, and the two men on the other side of the desk ignored him completely, contemplating their next move. He was softening up nicely, in Lambert’s judgement. ‘I’m afraid you’ve not made a very good job of going straight, Mr Jolly. You’ve chosen the wrong company, for a start. And the wrong employer. Once we’ve investigated everything you’ve been up to over the last twelve months or so, we should be able to lock you away for quite a few years. Wouldn’t you think so, DS Hook?’
‘Six to eight would be my informed guess, sir. Unless we discover more than we know already, of course.’
Lambert nodded thoughtfully. ‘Your best policy now would be to cut your losses and give us all the help you can, while you’re still a good citizen helping us with our enquiries, rather than a man under caution. But I don’t expect you’ll have the sense to see that. And I don’t see why we should counsel you to do it. It’s our job to lock away villains, and in my view the public would be much better off with you behind bars for eight years.’
Hook leaned forward. ‘He’s right, you know. I expect even you can see that, by now. I always like to give people, even the worst people like you, the chance to help themselves, but in this case—’
‘You need to speak to Mr Hudson, not me. I act under orders. I haven’t done anything that—’
‘Mistake relying on Mr Hudson, Mark.’ Bert Hook shook his head sadly at the mistaken tactic. ‘He’s in big trouble. You backed the wrong horse there.’
‘He runs a legitimate business. Office supplies. It’s very successful.’ He mouthed the phrases he had heard the boss use in the past, but they fell from his thick lips like phrases in a comedy sketch.
‘He’s going down for drugs offences. Serious drugs offences. He’s been running quite a network, as you know. And those who worked for him are going to go down with him. All of them. Including the muscle he used to put the frighteners on people. I could almost feel sorry for you, being caught up with something like that.’