Death Dues (8 page)

Forbes was a big man, though clearly not in every sense, given his barely concealed lack of interest in the late John Harrison. He had a jowly red face that could have looked jolly but for the mean grey eyes. Still there was a surface bonhomie there. But scratch the surface and pretty soon the real Forbes emerged; the small town thug who thought he was Mr Big.

Rafferty’s teeth grated together as he awaited some derogatory comment.

But today, with them, Forbes was clearly in a magnanimous mood. He invited them to sit down and asked how he could help.

With difficulty, they squeezed onto two narrow chairs wedged under the barred rear window. ‘We wondered what you could tell us about the victim,’ Rafferty began. ‘Whether anything about him can have contributed to his death.’

Forbes frowned, turning his beetling brows into a mono-brow. ‘But surely this was just another mugging like the other two cases?’ The welcoming smile vanished with his question to be replaced by the ferocious scowl of the true thug. His expression made clear that no one damaged his business or his employees and got away with it. He was the one who doled out the violence and threats of violence. It made Rafferty hope that they caught the perpetrator before Forbes did: he wouldn’t like to be on the receiving end of Forbes’s retribution.

‘Had the late Mr Harrison worked for you for long?’ Rafferty asked.

‘Eighteen months or thereabouts. I can check my records if you like.’ It was a tight squeeze in the small office as he swivelled his chair round towards a filing cabinet, reached for a file and handed it over.

 ‘Tell me, had any of your clients made threats against him?’

Forbes gave a cynical laugh. ‘Most of them, I should think, at one time or another. It goes with the territory. Our client base is not of the brightest and tend to relieve their anger at being expected to repay their loans by making empty threats. They’re happy enough to borrow money from me, but less happy when they’re asked to start paying the instalments. Such threats are part and parcel of the job.

Forbes cracked his knuckles and said, ‘But I know how to deal with them. Let the punters backslide once and they’ll expect to be able to do it again. The trick is not to let them backslide at all. Gentle persuasion usually does the trick.’ Forbes’s irony was heavy handed and cynical. The persuasion was only gentle if broken arms and smashed jaws came into that category. ‘Nothing has ever come of any of their threats.’

‘Until now,’ Rafferty reminded him. Though, as yet, they had no clear evidence apart from their close proximity to the alley to point to any one of the debtors on Harrison’s round having murdered him. ‘I’ll need to know the names of those who issued the threats. One of them might be Mr Harrison’s murderer.’

Forbes leaned back in his chair and gazed at him from under his thick, black brows. ‘I doubt it. Weak old men and stupid women, most of them. Harrison was a strong man. A big, muscular man. It would take, I would have thought, someone with the strength stronger than their threat to kill him.’

 ‘Maybe so. But we have to investigate every avenue. One of them will lead us to the murderer.’

Rafferty glanced quickly through John Harrison’s staff file. There wasn’t much of it; references about good behaviour and a pleasing disposition were unlikely to be required in Forbes’s business. A full set of muscles and a menacing air provided all the references required. He hefted Harrison’s file and asked, ‘OK if we take this?’

Forbes gave a shrug of acquiescence. ‘No use to me.’

Rafferty handed Harrison’s file to Llewellyn and reminded Forbes, ‘About those threats. If I can have some names?’

Forbes shrugged his meaty shoulders again. ‘As I said, threats are an occupational hazard. I only hear about them if my collectors feel something might come of them.’

‘And did Mr Harrison mention any such threats?’

‘One or two.’ Forbes shifted in his chair and it gave a protesting creak. It was a big, sturdy executive chair, but it clearly found Forbes’s weight at the edge of its limits. ‘A couple of little old ladies who were more feisty than usual, that’s all. Nothing to frighten a grown man. He only told me about them because he wanted to give me a good laugh. Names of Mrs Noades and Miss Peterson.’

Rafferty did a quick check of his memory banks. Neither of the women lived on Primrose Avenue. ‘So nobody from Primrose Avenue threatened him?’

‘Not to my knowledge. If they did, he didn’t see fit to mention it to me.’ Forbes rose from his chair, his bulk seemed to fill a good half of the cramped office. ‘If that’s all?’

Rafferty nodded, glad he wasn’t on the receiving end of intimidation from such a man. It was clear there was little else to be gained by prolonging the conversation. ‘We’ll see ourselves out.’

‘All right?’ the assistant asked as they came through the door.

Rafferty nodded and thanked him.

The assistant let them out through the grille. And once they were back on the street, Rafferty said, ‘Mr Forbes wasn’t too chatty, was he, seeing as it’s one of his staff who’s dead. Reckon he intends to find out who killed Harrison himself and mete out his own punishment?’

‘It would certainly fit his profile.’

‘Or maybe he’s hiding something else?’

‘What? Do you think he might have had something to do with Mr Harrison’s death?’

 ‘I don’t know. Why would he? The only reason I can think of is if Harrison was helping himself to some of the money he collected and Forbes found out about it.’

Although  the rain had stopped, it was another chilly day. Rafferty said, ‘Come on, let’s step on it and get back to the car. My feet are like blocks of ice.’

They increased their pace, rounded the corner, and made for the car.

‘But would he murder Harrison if so?’ Llewellyn mused out loud on Rafferty’s previous point. ‘Rather a drastic way of teaching someone a lesson.’

‘Mmm. Admittedly, it would be difficult to learn that or any other lesson when you’re dead. But maybe Forbes would be more concerned with keeping up his reputation as a man not to be crossed. Collectors like Harrison are probably ten a penny. Nothing like throwing your weight about and getting paid for it. It must be a nice little number for a certain type of man.’

Rafferty opened the car door and got in, glad to get out of the wind. He started the engine and turned the heater up to its maximum setting, willing it to kick in quickly. ‘Though if Forbes had anything to do with Harrison’s murder, I reckon we’ll be the last to hear. Like the mafia’s code of Ōmerta, that sort of information is unlikely to be for our ears.’ He checked the mirror and pulled out. ‘Let’s get back. Maybe something new has come in.’

But once back at the station, there was no revelatory news awaiting them; just more of the labour intensive paperwork that was so familiar. And Superintendent Bradley demanding a progress report. He ordered Rafferty along to his office and he was told to shut the door and sit down.

'So what's doing on the murder front? You must have some suspects, but,' he said as he sat behind his massive desk.

'We have a number of suspects,' Rafferty told him as he studied the array of photographs of Bradley cosying up to the great and good on the wall behind his desk. 'Half the residents of Primrose Avenue had the opportunity to kill Harrison and all of them had good reasons to murder him.'

'Anyone specific in mind?'

'Not yet. It's early days. But there are several youths who'll bear closer scrutiny.'

Bradley nodded. 'I shall want a report by the end of the day. And not one of your usual scrimped efforts. And no getting Llewellyn to do it for you. You're the investigating officer. Remember it.'

If only I could forget, thought Rafferty as the super let him go. With a succession of long days I'm not going to be flavour of the month with Abra. Worse, the evenings spent alone would give her even more opportunities to come up with novel ways of over spending.

‘I think we should take a thorough look through Harrison’s home,’ Rafferty said when he returned to his office. He sat down and leaned back in his chair away from the incessant paperwork. Annie Pulman had earlier been persuaded to identify the body; they’d dropped her back home on their way to interview Malcolm Forbes. ‘If he was helping himself to some of the cash from his collections that’s where we’d find it. It’s not as if he’d be likely to put it in a bank or building society.’ He glanced down at the high-piled paperwork the house-to-house had produced and sighed. Then his emotions rose at the realisation that the visit to Jaws Harrison’s place would enable him to put off fighting his way through it for a while. And if they found a stash of cash or anything else of interest there, the paperwork could be put off for even longer as they chased evidence against Forbes in the role of murderer.

‘It’s still possible we’re on the wrong scent and that someone had reason other than debt to want him dead.’

‘We’ve no evidence for that,’ Llewellyn pointed out. ‘The facts point the other way. Few enough could have had the opportunity to kill him down that alleyway. The killer would surely have been seen either going in or coming out, no matter what motive they might have had.’

‘Maybe, but we’ve only the word of Tony Moran for that. The other three yobbos in their little gang are sticking pretty much to their “no comment” stance, though at least Jake Sterling backed up Moran about the identities of the three women who left the Avenue that afternoon and seemed to take a delight in doing so. No one else has so far come forward with any evidence.’

In spite of what Llewellyn said, it was certainly a possibility that someone other than one of the Primrose Avenue residents had killed Harrison, especially when the late Harrison’s personality was taken into the equation. He spent his life throwing his weight about and threatening those in no position to retaliate; maybe he’d met his match, and his murderer had been someone whose visit to the Avenue Moran had preferred not to mention. Like Malcolm Forbes, for instance.

Annie Pulman answered the door. She looked surprised to see them again so soon. Given her so recent bereavement, her tears seemed to have dried up remarkably quickly after identifying John Harrison’s body. She’d obviously re-done her make-up and was quite the painter’s palette of primary colours. Clearly not cut out to play the grieving widow for long.

Rafferty explained the reason for their visit. Annie Pulman stared at him, hostility writ large, for several seconds, but then she stood aside to let them pass.

‘Isn’t it enough that my John’s dead?’ her plaintive voice followed after them up the stairs and down the hallway, ‘without going through his things? You’re just in time anyway. I was getting his clothes and stuff packed to sell on ebay.’

It had been one day since Harrison’s murder; clearly she hadn’t let grief come between herself and the prospect of making some money from his possessions.

As he and Llewellyn went through the bags of Harrison’s clothes, Rafferty questioned the woman.

‘Were you happy together?’ he asked. Though, to judge from a bruise around her eye that had just started to come out, the pair couldn’t have been love’s young dream or anything like it.

‘We did all right.’

The bruise contradicted her claim. So here was another who had reason to harbour resentment, hatred even, of Jaws Harrison. He supposed it was too much to expect Harrison to have left his bullying tendencies the other side of his front door.

Rafferty, still considering the possibility that someone other than their current crop of suspects had killed him, questioned her about her whereabouts on the day of the murder and received evasive replies.

'What are you asking me for?’ she demanded, eyes flashing. ‘I didn't kill him. I told you, we did all right. I had no reason to wish him dead. I won't even be able to stay here in the flat as I can't afford the rent on my own. Do you think I want the trouble of moving so soon after I've lost John?'

Not that he thought it likely she’d trailed Harrison all the way to Primrose Avenue — he asked about transport, but she claimed not to have a car or anyone close from whom she could borrow one. He’d have to check with the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Centre and amongst the neighbours.

'You must know some of his friends and acquaintances. If you could let me have their names and addresses?'

'He didn't have many friends. Apart from me, he was pretty much a loner. He had a few acquaintances, but I don't know much about them. Only their first names. I've no idea where they live.'

He managed to get this small stock of information from her. Then they left her alone and went into the bedroom she'd shared with Harrison.

To Rafferty’s surprise, they found a notebook hidden at the back of one of the drawers in the bedroom chest of drawers. To his frustration, the notes seemed to have been written in some sort of code. He couldn’t make head nor tail of it anyway. They also found a stack of cash. It came to a thousand pounds. Had the money come from thieving from Forbes? Or had Harrison made some money on the side from blackmail? He was certainly in the right job for ferreting out secrets, lurking around back alleys as he did. He showed the notebook to Annie Pulman and asked if she knew anything about it. She denied it.

‘What’s in it, then?’ she wanted to know. ‘If it was John’s then that means it’s mine now. I was his common law wife.’

There’s no such thing in law, Rafferty felt like telling her, not liking her eager grasp of the so recently deceased Harrison’s possessions. But he restrained the urge. There was little point in telling her that unless Harrison had made a will, which seemed doubtful, then she was unlikely to receive any of his belongings.

Not, he suspected, that the finer points of the Intestacy Law would trouble her. She had already sorted through her lover’s clothes to sell them. Anything of value may well have already been pawned or sold. He doubted, looking round the cheaply furnished flat, that there could have been much of any value. She was welcome to it as far as he was concerned.

But he was taking Jaws’ notebook, as he told her. And the money. As was to be expected, she made far more of a protest about this when he told her of its existence. But as she was unable to tell him how Harrison had come by such a sum of money, he insisted on taking it as evidence. Silently, he wrote her out a receipt.