Death Dues (4 page)

 ‘Got an ID yet?’

‘We believe so. A collector for a local loan shark named Malcolm Forbes. So we’ve got a motive likely to apply to a number of our street residents.’

‘Och. There’ll not be too many loose tongues, then. Not talking to the police, anyway. Though they’ll doubtless be happy to curry favour with your man Forbes if they know anything. Likely there’ll be some willing to tell tall tales to get in well with him. Could be an opportunity for one or two to settle old scores.’

‘That’s what I’m afraid of. An early post mortem would be good, Sam.’

‘Would it, now? Always in a rush, Rafferty, that’s your trouble. You’ve got enough to be going on with, I’d say. Leave the timing of the post mortem to them as knows what else is awaiting attention. I’ll get back to you.’ With that, Dally picked up his bag of tricks and fought his rotund way back down the alley.

Now he had a likely weapon, Rafferty set some of the team to checking the sheds and outhouses for missing hammers and other metal headed tools. The search of the alley had turned up nothing but the usual rubbish of discarded cigarette and crisp packets and condoms; the quantity of the latter indicated that this was some sort of neighbourhood Lovers’ Lane.

After having a quick word with Adrian Appleby, head of the SOCO team, Rafferty, relieved to get out of the reach of the weather again, picked up a loitering Llewellyn and drove back to the station. On the way, they discussed the case.

'I'm worried this might be something more than a routine mugging gone wrong,' Rafferty confided as he overtook a slow-moving milk cart. He noticed Llewellyn – always a nervous passenger when Rafferty was behind the wheel – clutch the edge of his seat with white-knuckled hands as the speedometer touched fifty-five. He eased back on the accelerator as he passed the milk float and said, 'You can let the seat go now. I was only doing fifty odd.'

'In a thirty mile limited,' Llewellyn pointed out. 'That's breaking the law. And the wet roads won't help with braking distances.'

Rafferty's lips pursed at this, but he said nothing further about it. 'As I said, this case has all the hallmarks of a turf war.'

'Possibly,' said Llewellyn, his manner as dampening as the weather. 'But we ought to wait until we've got more evidence before we come to any conclusions.'

'You can wait if you like. Me, I think we ought to consider every angle sharpish. If this does turn out to be a turf war we could face riots in the streets. Superintendent Bradley’ll be able to get his plump cheeks and shiny buttons on the telly again. He’ll like that. How about you? Fancy being a media celebrity?’

Llewellyn’s shudder was answer enough.

Silence fell, a silence that lasted until they reached the police station and Rafferty executed what he considered a nifty piece of parking. Which brought a protest from Llewellyn, followed by a strained atmosphere. To escape it, Rafferty made a speedy exit from the car, leaving Llewellyn and the strained atmosphere trailing.

Rafferty popped into the gents. His hair was dripping annoyingly down the back of  his neck and his wet trouser ends flapped around his ankles with each step. He got the worst of the wet off under the hand dryer, propped up on one of the sinks to do his trousers.

Dried off, he returned to his office to find Llewellyn busily engaged on the phone. Back at his desk, it wasn’t long before Rafferty was in possession of the list he had requested of adults and juveniles living in the houses on the oddly numbered side of the street. As Claire Allen had said, there were thirteen all told, including the pregnant single mother Tracey Stubbs, who lived at number nine and the two pensioners, Mrs Emily Parker and Mr Jim Jenkins, both of whom lived alone and whose houses were numbered thirteen and eleven respectively.

Of the thirteen, Billy Jones, the younger son of the Joneses at number five, claimed to have been at work at the canning factory that backed onto both Primrose Avenue and the alley; another, Dennis Jones, the elder son, claimed to have been at the Job Centre on Elmhurst’s High Street from two-fifteen to three-thirty, and a third, Anthony Clifford of number three, said he had been putting up shelves at his soon to be mother-in-law’s two streets away prior to when the body was found.

That still left ten of the residents who had the greatest opportunity to murder Harrison. Some of these had been with family members the whole time, so unless there had been collusion, their potential as suspects was lessened though not completely out of the park.

Llewellyn came off the phone and Rafferty shared his conclusions. ‘A lot depends on what we manage to get out of those youths. If Sam Dally’s time of death is as accurate as it usually is, most will be in the clear. Providing, that is, their stories check out.

‘That leaves a bunch of students at number seven who all seemed to be out, Mr and Mrs Jones who are both unemployed and live at number five along with their two sons and the lodger Peter Allbright, Anthony Clifford’s live in partner Josie McBride at number three, Samantha Dicker, the lodger at number one, the pregnant Tracey Stubbs, plus the two pensioners. The family at number one, it has finally been discovered are currently on holiday in Spain, lucky buggers, though their lodger, Samantha Dicker said she was home at the estimated time of Harrison’s murder.’

The residents on the other side of the street whose back gardens adjoined a separate alley had also been questioned, but as they didn’t have immediate, discreet access to the murder scene, as suspects they featured lower down the list.

‘Of immediate interest, of course, are those who might have had a motive for murder.’ He grinned at Llewellyn and in an attempt to jolly him out of his attack of the sullens, said, ‘They don’t call me a detective for nothing.’

‘One would have thought you could then detect the 30 mph speed limit sign.’

‘Oh, get over yourself, man. There are worse crimes than going a little over the limit. As we should know.’

He ignored Llewellyn’s muttered, ‘Like going
twenty-five
miles over the limit, for instance,’ and grabbed his phone to ring Lizzie Green on her mobile.

‘Lizzie. How are you doing on getting that list of Forbes’s debtors in Primrose Avenue?’

‘I’ve got it, Sir, as well as the details of the dead man’s next of kin. He was living with a woman called Annie Pulman in a flat off the High Street.’ She rattled off the address. ‘I’m on my way back to the nick.’

‘Good man. Come straight to my office. If we can do some mixing and matching on opportunity and motive, we might get somewhere sooner than expected.’

Rafferty replaced the receiver and sat back, contemplating the ceiling. He’d given up smoking, but would give anything for a drag or two right now. But he refused to give into the craving. Instead, he would have to rely on that other stalwart crutch for cases of emergency. He needed tea, hot and sweet. It helped him to think. Or so he believed. It would, anyway, help him get through the next few hours. He walked to the office door and opened it, collaring Timothy Smales who was passing by. ‘Finished with Eric Lewis and his statement?’

‘Yes sir.’ He handed the paperwork over.

‘Get me and Sergeant Llewellyn some tea, son, there’s a good lad. Have you managed to dry out?’

Tim Smales smiled and nodded. ‘I use the old plastic bag inside the shoe trick. Keeps the feet nice and dry.’

Rafferty grinned. ‘You’ll do. Getting as savvy as an old timer.’ Though not
this
old timer, unfortunately, Rafferty thought. The dignity of rank meant his feet had to go plastic-bag-less. It wouldn’t do for the plastic to peep over his shoes.

Mission accomplished, Rafferty returned to his chair. The ceiling, having proved unhelpful as a provider of answers, he contemplated his navel instead. But all it told him was that he was getting the beginnings of a paunch. He was glad when Lizzie knocked on the door and brought in the list of Primrose Avenue debtors.

Six of those in the odd side of the street who were at home and had the opportunity to kill also had large debts with Malcolm Forbes. The rest, on the surface at least, had no motive that they had yet discerned. But it was early days. Too soon to be leaping to conclusions as Llewellyn would undoubtedly tell him if he was foolish enough to voice another theory so early in the investigation.

Still, he reasoned, those six were the most interesting to a suspicious policeman. Questioning them was a matter of urgency, but he’d postpone that until after the post mortem. He wanted to be armed with a more certain idea of the time of death than he currently had before he questioned anyone further, apart from the four street corner hanging youths.

As soon as Sam Dally had provided a description of the likely weapon, Rafferty had set a couple of the uniforms on checking out back gates and shed doors for locks. None of the back gates had either locks or bolts and few of the sheds. Anyone with a mind to could have entered the back garden of one of the houses, helped themselves to a hammer or some other tool, and waited for Jaws to come along. On the surface, those with gardens that backed on to the alley where it curved would have had the best chance of killing him out of sight of the youths at the top of the alley. But the youths would doubtless have spent their time moving and mucking about so wouldn’t necessarily have a view down the alley all the time so he couldn’t remove the residents of the lower house numbers from his suspect list.

Any one of the residents of the entire row could have waited their chance, nipped along the alley while the youths amused themselves further up the street and then slipped around the curve in the alley and into a neighbour’s back garden while they waited for the collector.

So far, they had eight possible suspects; even the very pregnant Tracey Stubbs could have wielded a hammer from behind the victim without too much strain. So could everyone else. That was the problem. But at least the five students in number seven had, it had been discovered, all gone back to their family homes for the holidays. They had been checked out and exonerated.

Tea finished, Rafferty heaved himself to his feet. ‘Time to have a little chat with the Likely Lads,’ he told Llewellyn and they headed for the custody suite on the ground floor.

Tony Moran, one of the less cocky of the four youths, provided some answers. After a brief show of bravado, Moran admitted to hanging around the street corner for most of the afternoon, mucking about and being rude to passers-by.

'It was only a bit of fun, like,' he artlessly confided.

'I presume you saw the victim, Mr Harrison, enter the alley?'

Moran nodded.

'And did you see anyone leave Primrose Avenue after you'd seen Mr Harrison?'

'Yeah. I saw a few women going to the shops. Two, no, three.'

'And do you know their names?' Llewellyn asked.

Moran shook his head. 'I'm no good with names.'

'Can you describe them?'

'Yeah, I suppose.' He proceeded to do so and Llewellyn nodded to confirm he recognised the women concerned.

'So,' said Rafferty as they left Tony Moran to be escorted back to his cell and Llewellyn had confided the identities of the women Moran had described, 'if we fail to find the weapon, one of the three women who left the street for a short time: Mrs Jones, Mrs Parker and Josie McBride, were the only ones who could have disposed of it away from Primrose Avenue.

‘Check whether we’ve got any previous for any of the residents, Dafyd, plus the two youths who don’t live on the street: Des Arnott and Tony Moran. You’ll probably find a few drunk and disorderlies and affrays as well, but I’m looking for something more meaty. It might give us a lead.’

Leaving Llewellyn to make for their shared office and his computer, Rafferty veered off in the direction of the canteen in search of more tea and a bacon butty. Mission accomplished, he returned to his office and addressed himself to his tea with the desperation of the addict denied his craving. Having rapidly consumed his tea, piping hot as it was, he searched his pockets and found the electronic cigarette that he had recently purchased. He sat back and drew deep, still mildly disconcerted that the end glowed
green
. Who thought
that
was a good idea, he wondered? Cravings temporarily sated, Rafferty asked Llewellyn how he was getting on.

It seemed. Jake, the elder of the two Sterling boys was well in the frame for a mugging gone wrong as he’d had a chequered criminal career for one so young.

‘Apart from Jake Sterling and his friend, Des Arnott, no one has been up on any serious charges. A certain amount of brawling is the worst,’ Llewellyn said.

‘And that’s just the women,’ Rafferty joked. ‘A one-off killer then. It always pointed that way. Oh well, now you’ve dashed my hopes, can you attempt to replace them with better ones?’

‘I can but try.’ Llewellyn studied him for a moment with his serious brown eyes.’ The psychological angle—’ he began.

‘No,’ Rafferty groaned. ‘Spare me that. No mumbo jumbo about Oedipus complexes and the like. If this isn't the first shot in a turf war, this is your typical act of madness with a certain amount of premeditation thrown in, to my way of thinking. The weapon at the ready suggests that.’

‘Not necessarily,’ Llewellyn contradicted. ‘The murderer, like Mr Jones at number five, could simply have been innocently doing a few odd jobs in the garden when he or she saw their chance.’

‘And grabbed it. Mmm. I suppose you’re right.’ Frustratingly, Llewellyn usually was. ‘OK. Scrub that theory. Any other ideas?’

‘To return to the psychological angle—’

‘Let’s not. I told you, it’s something meaty I want. How many hammers are we missing?’

‘Three. One each from the sheds of numbers one, three and eleven. But as those sheds were as lacking in locks as the back gates it gets us no further forward. Anyone could have helped themselves from most of the garden sheds along the row.’

‘You’re no use, are you? I ask you to give me hope and all you do is give me facts I already know.’ Rafferty slumped back in his chair and returned to his study of the ceiling. ‘Throw me a few straws I can clutch at, for God’s sake.’