Death of a Nobody (11 page)

‘And no doubt during all this time you knew nothing of your husband’s death?’

‘No. I drove back here in my own car at about six. I didn’t know there was anything wrong until I saw your plastic tapes cutting off access to my husband’s garage and the constable on duty there. George Lewis told me about Jim’s death.’

It held together, as far as it went, better than many alibis offered by innocent people. He wondered a little about the theatre visit, but she had provided all they could reasonably expect. If it was true, the dead man’s widow and Faraday alibied each other. Two prime subjects eliminated immediately: he should have been pleased about that. Instead, he was reluctant to concede yet that it was so. He said, ‘How long have you and Mr Faraday had this association?’

‘Over a year now. My marriage to James was over long before this began. He has — had lots of women. I gave up worrying about them years ago. I thought at first that I was just having a fling with Ian — perhaps even just getting back at James. It developed into something deeper.’

She was earnest about this, wanting to convince him of her seriousness, like a young lover. He knew suddenly that there had been very few affairs, perhaps none, for her before this one.

‘Mr Faraday was an employee of Berridge Limited. Were you not afraid of your husband’s reaction if he found out about this liaison?’

She nodded. Apparently she was as ready to talk about this as she had been reluctant to give them the information they needed earlier. ‘We were very frightened. James was both vindictive and vicious, as you no doubt know. He would have got rid of Ian and done his best to prevent him getting another job, for a start — and perhaps much worse. I don’t know how he’d have punished me, but he’d have found a way. But it wasn’t too difficult to deceive him. He was away a lot of the time, and he’d long since stopped caring much about what I did.’ She paused, then smiled a curious, elated smile. ‘I was about to set about getting a divorce from James. That won’t be necessary, now.’

‘You know how your husband was killed?’

For a moment, she looked alarmed, as if he was accusing her of witnessing that violent moment. Then she understood him and nodded. ‘Yes. He was shot at close quarters. They explained that to me at the mortuary, before they let me see the body.’ ‘Do you know if your husband possessed a firearm?’

‘Yes, he did. He kept a gun in his desk.’ Like most non-users, she was unaware of the correct distinctions. ‘A pistol?’

‘Yes. He had it in the top drawer of his desk.’

‘Was it a Smith and Wesson .357?’

‘I think that was the name, yes. The number means nothing to me.’

‘A pistol was found by the body. Very probably the one we have just described. We may need to ask you to identify it, in due course.’ There was no record of Berridge having a licence for the pistol, but that was rather what he would have expected. ‘Where did he keep this pistol?’

‘I told you, in his desk. In the top right-hand drawer, I think. I haven’t seen it since we moved in here.’

‘Yet you knew of its existence.’

‘Yes. James showed it to me when he first got it. He was the kind of man who liked the trappings of violence. He wanted me to know that he had it. It only replaced another, less powerful gun.’

‘When?’

She thought for a moment, completely at ease in discussing the instrument which had in all probability dispatched her husband from the world. ‘About two years ago, I think. I couldn’t be sure, but it was at about the time when we moved in here.’

‘And as far as you know it was in the desk until the time of your husband’s death?’

‘Yes. I certainly wouldn’t have touched it — I can’t stand the things. And he kept the drawer locked.’

They left then, with instructions that she should not disappear again without letting them know of her whereabouts. ‘More of the routine, I expect,’ she said, teasing them a little now that it was over. The sergeant smiled at her, thanked her politely for the coffee.

She watched the old Vauxhall turn out of the car park and convey them slowly down the drive. Once they were safely on their way, she would ring Ian and report. The very tall one, the superintendent, had been sticky at first. But on the whole, it had gone as well as could be expected, she thought. That would be a relief to Ian. She pictured his anxious, vulnerable face and wished she could be with him. But she knew they must be patient and careful for a while longer.

She gathered up the coffee cups and took them into the kitchen. As she washed them, she reflected on how the one, very necessary, lie had led on to others.

15

The men who had killed Charlie Pegg were left in separate cells for three hours in the Oldford nick.

They were hard men, who had endured this treatment and worse before, but it had its effect. Even men without much imagination find that uncertainty creeps in when they are left to sweat it out alone. They never admit it, of course, but the effects are there to see for their guardians, studying them at intervals like goldfish in a bowl. After three hours, Sturley and Jones were feeling more like rats in a trap.

They were on a murder rap. That was what was new. They had killed before, more than once, but the pigs had never got close to pinning them down. This time it was all to be different, and over three hours that realization gradually sank in. Like most men who dish out physical violence from positions of strength, they were cowards at heart. That meant that they had scant resources to deal with this new situation.

It was Sturley, the more intelligent of the two, who was brought up first. They let him stew for another ten minutes in the airless interview room with its single high light behind the wire cage. Then Rushton came to him with Hook, the two of them grimly confident, the memory of Sturley’s victim lying dead in the gutter as their stimulus.

Rushton brought an excitement, a grim anticipation of pleasure, with him into the tiny room. Policemen are human, and the prospect of bullying a bully appealed to him. He looked at the big, raw-boned face opposite him and said, ‘So it’s come to this at last. A murder rap.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re trying to fit me up. I want my brief.’ There was a pause between each of the sentences, as Sturley waited for a reaction. He got none; the result was that his attempted truculence rang increasingly hollow. They heard him out with apparent interest, even looked surprised when he failed to offer more.

Then Rushton said, ‘The one you asked for seems to be no longer available. We’re still trying, of course, but Jim Berridge’s empire seems to have collapsed with him.’ They would know about Berridge’s death by now, but all the media reports had implied it was a suicide by a man about to be arrested: the police press relations officer had done a good job.

Sturley muttered, ‘I want Flynn. No one else.’ It was the formula they had been told to mouth, if they were ever arrested. He was not sure whether it still applied, now that Berridge had gone, but he did not know what other tactic to adopt.

‘And you shall have him. If he’s still in the country. If he still wishes to act for scum like you. If he thinks you will be able to pay him, now that the Berridge umbrella is removed.’ Rushton took an unopened packet of cigarettes out of his jacket pocket, watched Sturley’s eyes switch to it like a starving child’s, then returned it casually whence it had come. ‘You’re going to need a good brief this time, aren’t you, Sturley? But you’ll find he’ll have to confine himself to mitigating circumstances, and he’ll find precious few of those.’ He contemplated the bear of a man across the table, noting with satisfaction the damp beneath the arms of his T-shirt, savouring the scent of the sweat upon him as if it were an exotic perfume.

Sturley, who had been determined three hours ago to say nothing, now said grudgingly, ‘If you’re still on about Charlie Pegg, you can go stuff yourself. You’ve got nothing on us for that one.’

Even the mention of Pegg was a sign of weakness, and all three men in the room recognized it. It was Hook who now leaned forward and said, ‘Funny. That isn’t what your mate says.’ His smile was positively Machiavellian; it would have shocked those young colleagues of his who thought of him as an old-fashioned village bobby who had somehow strayed into CID work.

Sturley glanced sharply at this new and unexpected source of torment. He said, ‘Jonesey wouldn’t talk.’ But where he had meant there to be confidence, there was anxiety in his tone. They caught that doubt, and smiled at him. He longed to leap forward, to smash his great fists into those smug faces, to feel the breaking skin and raw flesh beneath his knuckles, to shout his hatred and move in with the boot once they were down. But he knew he could not, and with the removal of that physical outlet he felt the weakness creeping through his limbs.

Hook said, ‘Quite a little talker, your pal Jonesey, when he gets going. He surprised me: I didn’t think he had that many words in him. But he was scared, you see. You know how that makes men shout for mercy.’

Sturley did. He had heard the pleas of desperate men often enough, as they had fallen under his blows. But he had never heeded them, and that realization filled him now with something like despair. These pigs had wanted to have him like this for a long time now, and they too would not show mercy. He was profoundly worried about what his companion might have said. Jones had always taken his lead from Sturley, had been contented to be a brutal and effective second string throughout the years of intimidation and violence which had been so lucrative for them as Berridge’s empire grew. Left on his own, he would be uncertain.

Sturley searched wretchedly for some of his original defiance. ‘You can’t pin Charlie Pegg on to us. No weapon. No connection with us.’ He looked from one to the other of the officers, willing one of them, either of them, to give him some sort of response.

Instead, they watched him in silence for a few moments, fancying that they could smell the fear now amidst the man’s sweat, knowing that they had the thing which would confound him. It was Rushton who said eventually, like one patiently offering instruction, ‘No. We do not have a weapon. You may choose to tell us at some later time just where it was that you dumped it. But there is at any murder scene what we like to call an “exchange” between the victim and his killers. With the benefits of modern science, we find that murderers leave something of themselves behind, however careful they think they have been. I’m delighted to tell you that you and Jonesey did that, Sturley.’

‘I don’t believe you. It’s all balls!’ But there was doubt now in his voice, where he had intended contempt.

‘It isn’t balls, Sturley. Your mate Jones was a little careless, you see. He let Pegg claw at him as he went down, I expect. There was a little blood on Charlie’s body that wasn’t his own, you see. Not much, compared with what Charlie shed. Just a smear. But enough. The DNA boys were delighted with their tests. Not too bright, your mate Jonesey, after all.’

It’s bollocks! It’s all part of your—’

‘And fibres, Sturley. Your mate left fibres. Not many, but enough. On poor old Charlie’s left shoulder and neck.’ Rushton produced a sheet from the inside pocket of his lightweight grey jacket, opened it with deliberation, consulted it, registered satisfaction as he found the detail he wanted. ‘Matched with the fibres of socks found in the flat of Walter Jones.’

Rushton put the sheet away and looked back at Sturley. Then he changed his delivery, so that the words spat like bullets across the table. ‘Couldn’t resist the odd kick when your man was down, could he, your mate? Pity he didn’t get rid of the socks where you threw the knife you stabbed with, wasn’t it? But then you buggers are never as bright as you like to think you are.’

He let his disgust pour across the table, up and over the huge, waxy face with its eyes filling with fear. He had won. He was savouring the moment, anticipating the final collapse.

Sturley wondered wildly whether to deny that he had been there, to put it all on Jones. But he knew he could never make that stick. Jones would tell them, insist upon it, even if he hadn’t done so already. As if to toll the knell of his hopes, Hook said, ‘John Murray, the manager at the Curvy Cats, has already blown your alibi. He’s admitted you were away from the club at the time of Pegg’s death. Once Berridge is removed, everyone is suddenly prepared to talk, you see. It’s a rotten old world.’ Hook’s expression said that at this moment he found this world entirely satisfying.

Sturley looked from one to the other. He said, Jonesey’s a stupid bastard. He should never have opened his mouth to pigs.’ It produced no reaction from the men opposite him; they all knew that it was irrelevant now. ‘All right. We were acting on Berridge’s orders. We had no option. We only did what he asked us to do. We didn’t even know what Pegg had done.’

It was the old, useless defence of obeying orders. It wouldn’t do him any good, but there was no point in telling him that. They had what they wanted. They told him about the statement he would sign. He nodded, defeated, eyes cast down, massive shoulders bowed. They released him then, had him escorted back to his cell.

The success was a bond between two officers who were temperamentally opposed. For a moment they were close. And in the future years, the gap between them would be reduced a tiny but tangible fraction by their memory of this success.

They looked at each other for a moment, smiled a tight little agreement. Rushton said to the desk sergeant, ‘You can have Jones brought up now. We’ll see what he has to say for himself.’

***

Ian Faraday’s house had the depressing untidiness of a man who lives alone. It was neither dirty nor chaotic. There were no dishes in the sink, though the stacking drainer beside it was two-thirds full of the crockery which had been there for two days. There were two packets of cereals on the breakfast bar in the kitchen, which were probably never put away into one of the oak-fronted units.

The lounge into which the sales director led Lambert and Hook was clinically clean compared with some of the squalid rooms they had to enter in the course of their work. But there was a thin film of dust visible upon the china ornaments on the windowsill, and one of the drawers in the sideboard against the wall was slightly open. Yesterday’s newspaper still lay where it had fallen, beside what was obviously the only armchair in regular use. The chair was out of alignment with the rest of the three-piece suite; it had been turned to face the television in the corner of the room. The companion of the man who lives alone, thought Lambert. He wondered suddenly if Chris Rushton’s house was like this now, if, indeed, he was coping as well as this. Lambert had only been there once, and in those days the place had had the imprint of a competent young woman and the happy chaos of a toddler.

Faraday said nervously, ‘I hope you didn’t mind coming here. Policemen appearing at the office cause a lot of gossip, and we can do without that at the moment. There was enough talk when you came to see me on your own the other day.’

Lambert nodded. ‘And that was before your employer was murdered. A visit in connection with a murder investigation would only excite the natives even more. We are aware of the disturbances we cause, but they will be inevitable, I’m afraid, as long as there are serious crimes. Did our officer come in to get your fingerprints?’

Faraday nodded. He did not seem to think it strange that he should be included among the group who might have been around the scene of the murder. ‘He explained that it was just for elimination purposes.’

They had not yet been asked to sit down. Hook was looking through the patio doors at the back garden, which showed the same signs of partial neglect as the house set upon it as spring advanced. The lawn had been mown, but the edges were not cut. The roses were springing into growth, but they had not been pruned, and the tallest of them had been bent low by a gale, towards the ground where the weeds were beginning to burgeon. Faraday must have caught his glance, for he said, ‘I used to be quite keen on the garden. But I don’t seem to get the time now, and I must admit that for a lot of the time it scarcely seems worth the effort.’

With no one to show it off to, it wouldn’t, thought Lambert. He was suddenly grateful for the cosy domesticity which sometimes seemed so dull. He would make an effort to enjoy his extended family to the full this weekend, when Caroline and the grandchildren arrived. He sat down on the sofa which had seen so little recent use; Hook joined him and Faraday turned the armchair from the television to face them.

Lambert said, ‘We are checking the movements of people who were close to Jim Berridge in relation to the time of his death. We already know something of your actions at that time, Mr Faraday, but we need confirmation from you. And a little more information.’

He had not meant it to sound threatening, but it emerged so. Faraday took a deep breath and uttered the words he had determined on whilst he waited for them to arrive. ‘I should make one thing clear. I was not close to Jim Berridge, except when he came into our offices, which wasn’t very often. The more I saw of him, the less I liked him.’

‘In view of what we know about him, that can only be to your credit. We shall be checking how far, if at all, you were involved in his criminal activities in due course.’ All their information so far indicated that Faraday’s only involvement was with the legitimate woollens and men’s shop businesses which Berridge had used as a front for his seamier dealings. But there was no need to concede that at this point; it was better to keep their man hopping about on his back foot, as former fast bowler Bert Hook usually put it.

It was Hook, who had so far confined himself to making great play with his notebook preparations, who now said, ‘And Berridge had no reason to like you, had he, Mr Faraday? You were conducting an affair with his wife.’

Faraday had always thought privately of the liaison as reflecting credit upon him: it took a brave man to risk an affair with the boss’s wife, particularly when that boss was Jim Berridge. He had been surprised over the months by his own audacity. Now his actions had landed him in the position of a murder suspect. For the first time, he realized how serious a suspect he must be, from the point of view of these men. He said, ‘Fortunately, Jim didn’t know about Gabrielle and me. I shudder to think what he might have done to us if he had discovered it.’ Almost comically on cue, he was shaken by a small, involuntary shiver at the thought.