Death of a Nobody (5 page)

Hook said, ‘Yes, I would. I very rarely say no to a cup of tea. But will you let me get it for us?’

She nodded, surprised by nothing after the awful shock which had filled her day. He sat her in a chair, made the tea, decided which had been Charlie’s favourite chair, and carefully avoided it. Perched awkwardly on the edge of the sofa, he waited until she had taken two gulps of the hot, sweet tea before he said, ‘I have to ask you a few questions, Amy. So that we can get on with the business of finding out who did this to him, you see.’ And so that I can officially eliminate you from the enquiry and leave you to your grief.

She nodded, turning her ravaged face directly towards him for the first time. ‘He was giving you information, wasn’t he? We never mentioned it, and he thought I knew nothing about it. But I knew.’

‘I think he was, yes. But not to me. It was Superintendent Lambert he used to speak to.’

‘Good man, he is. His wife taught my children, you know.’ Bert’s experience of bereavements made him used to such inconsequential statements. They were sometimes the first steps towards an accommodation with the world which had to go on.

‘Did Charlie come home yesterday evening?’

‘Yes. He had his meal here. We watched
Coronation
Street
before he went out.’ She sounded surprised that he should not know such things.

‘So he left here at about eight.’

‘Yes. Perhaps just after eight. He said he was just going to the local pub in the village.’ Her face clouded with pain, whether at the deception or the thought that he might have been safe there he could not tell. ‘He took the van. He wouldn’t have done that to go down to the village.’

‘We found his van, Amy. Near where he was found in Gloucester. He seems to have gone to a pub there. Have you any idea why he would have gone there rather than to the village?’

She thought for a minute. Her round face was distorted by grief, her eyes hollowed and sore with crying, but her forehead wrinkled now like a child’s, as if she was showing him the honesty of her mental effort. ‘No. I don’t think it was anything to do with the business. He’s gone independent now, you know, with his joinery building work.’ She produced the familiar phrase with a little flash of pride, then realized that the present tense would never again be appropriate for it. The tears they both hoped had finished gushed anew down the cheeks that were sore with their passage.

Hook said, ‘And when did you expect him back, Amy?’

‘About ten, or half past. But I didn’t worry until after eleven. I thought he’d just got talking to his pals and stayed on.’ She smiled bleakly. Even the weaknesses of a loved one became attractive with his passing.

Bert put the key question as gently as he could. ‘But you didn’t report him missing until this morning, Amy. Why was that?’

She did not seem to feel threatened. ‘I don’t know. I suppose I just didn’t think anything horrible could happen to him. I went to bed eventually, sometime after twelve. I just thought he’d come creeping up to bed at some point during the night.’ Again that picture seemed to give her a little painful pleasure.

‘You didn’t think he might be in danger?’

‘No. Not at first, anyway. I was more worried when I looked out for him about midnight and saw the van was missing.’

‘But you didn’t give the station a ring, even then.’ He looked at the telephone on the sideboard in the corner of the room, and she caught his glance and followed it.

‘No. I — I didn’t know who he’d gone to see, did I?’

Hook nodded, understanding the whole world of the Peggs’ existence which lay beneath those simple words. Charlie was a jailbird, branded as such forever in police eyes, even if his reformation had been achieved a long time ago now. And the process was two-way: he would never quite trust the police, and neither would his wife. There was a reluctance in Amy to associate with the forces which had put Charlie away all those years ago, even though it was she who had insisted that he should not transgress again. The instinctive fear of the police was the rule rather than the exception in Charlie Pegg’s world.

‘Can you think of anyone who would have wished to harm your husband, Amy?’

‘No. Would it be someone he was — was grassing on?’ She brought out the word with an effort, facing for the first time the probable reason for his death.

‘It’s too early to say. But we think it might have been, yes.’

She shook her head sadly. ‘I don’t know anyone from that world. He kept it quite separate from his joinery work. He didn’t even think I knew about it. Perhaps if I’d pressed him, he’d have given it up. But the money was useful, you see, until he got on his feet.’

‘Of course it was. And he was bringing bad men to justice, Amy. Never forget that.’ It was suddenly important to him that this decent woman should not blame herself for her husband’s death.

‘Men like the ones who have done this to him?’

‘Yes. Men like that. Violent men, not petty thieves.’

She nodded, apparently satisfied on that score at least.

He checked that her daughter was on the way over, then left her washing the cups and saucers. But she came and stood on the doorstep as he climbed into the car. She looked like a woman seeing off a departing visitor conventionally. Wanting to say something by way of farewell, he could think only of, ‘We’ll get the men who did this to Charlie, Amy.’ He immediately regretted it, for he knew their chances could not be high, and he hated false comforts.

But she called back, ‘Make sure you do. And you’d better lock them away from me, Bert Hook!’

It was the first time he knew that she was aware of his name.

8

The routine of the enquiry produced very little on that first day. Several people had seen Pegg at the Star and Garter. One or two had seen him drinking with a man, perhaps for half an hour. No one could give a description of this companion. Or no one was willing to.

Lambert took Hook’s report of his meeting with Amy Pegg and put it glumly together with the negative findings from the house-to-house and Scene-of-Crime teams. DI Rushton was running a computer search for similar killings when Lambert called him into the newly established incident room.

Charlie Pegg was getting the same treatment as any other murder victim. Lambert had set the centre up immediately as a visual reminder to his CID section that all deaths have to be investigated impartially, whatever the background of the victim, whatever the possibilities of success. Charlie Pegg would have been surprised and immensely flattered to know that his death had been accorded this measure of importance.

In truth, there was little in the room yet. The clothes which would eventually be carefully bagged to appear as exhibits in court were still with Forensic. The files of interview evidence which would in due course fatten to an alarming volume, even in a case like this, had scarcely been opened. Some enlarged photographs of the corpse and the place where it had been found had been pinned on a sheet of plasterboard, but there was little else to suggest that this was a murder room.

Rushton gave them a résumé of the largely negative findings he had collated so far. He said, ‘The only interesting thing is that the landlord thought he saw Pegg making a phone call last night. It would be useful to know whom he was trying to contact.’

Lambert smiled grimly. Not all that interesting, I’m afraid, Chris. It was me. He got through and we arranged a meeting — that should have been in our usual place tonight.’

‘Any idea what he wanted to talk about?’

The superintendent shook his head ruefully. ‘He had information about someone. Some job that was coming up, I expect. He never rang me without it. But we didn’t even exchange our own names on the phone, let alone any facts. He was too well versed in his trade for that.’

But his knowledge didn’t save him, they all thought.

Hook said, ‘Haven’t you any idea, sir, from previous contacts?’ There was almost a superstition about the exchange: even now, when the man was dead, neither inspector nor sergeant mentioned the place where the snout would have met Lambert, nor speculated about the men whom he might have been planning to expose. They would wait for Lambert to give the lead. Informing was a curious business, and the danger of it had just been vividly underlined.

Lambert said, ‘I have ideas, yes. Proof is going to be very difficult, if the man responsible is the one I suspect. Jim Berridge won’t have done this himself.’ He looked at the picture of the corpse, with its long trail of dark blood running away down the gutter, whilst the other two pondered the name he had given them. ‘There is one thing already from the pathologist. This wasn’t a beating-up that went wrong, a warning-off that got out of hand. The man or men who did this came with a knife to kill Pegg. That was their intention from the start.’

Rushton said, ‘I think you’re right. And I see what you mean. Most grasses get a nasty attack of GBH. To stop their tricks and warn off anyone else who might be thinking of doing the same. Not many of them are actually killed, even today.’

‘That’s what I’m thinking. Even now, not many criminals are prepared to contemplate homicide, if they can avoid it. They know that if it goes wrong there is an automatic life sentence. So they don’t kill, unless they are desperate, or stupid. The way this killing was achieved shows that these men were neither. I think that we are looking at men in the big league, confident and ruthless. And satisfied that we won’t be able to pin this on them, even if we suspect — even if we know — who they are.’

Neither of his listeners offered an opinion on that. If they thought the confidence of these known purveyors of violence was justified, they knew Lambert too well to say so. Instead, Hook said, ‘Amy Pegg gave me Charlie’s little red book.’ He handed over a small, rather battered red notebook, of the kind that could be bought in any stationery shop. It’s pretty cryptic, as you would no doubt expect. It might mean more to you than to me, as you’d been his contact for so many years.’

Lambert thumbed quickly through a few pages. The only things which were definite were a few dates. People were referred to by no more than an initial. He wondered if even those were genuine, or whether they represented some kind of code. But he saw a note on the last of the pages the little man had used which said, ‘Ring L.’ and realized with a curious cold thrill that the entry referred to himself. He said, ‘I’ll go through this later. It might give some idea of the people we’re after, but I’m pretty sure there won’t be anything that would be very convincing as legal evidence. Charlie Pegg was too cagey to leave much around for his enemies.’

On the table behind them, the telephone bleeped, as if giving a signal to kick-start the machinery of the investigation into life. Rushton had the receiver in his hand before it had the chance to sound again. He gave little more than two affirmative grunts to punctuate his listening.

As he put the phone down, he said to the two who waited, ‘They’ve got the man Pegg spoke to in the pub last night. They’re bringing him in now.’

***

Lambert spent an hour poring over the late Charlie Pegg’s little red book. It was an irritating document, full of suggestion but delivering very little concrete information. At the end of the hour, he went off to see the one person who had actually been named in the book.

George Lewis came out to meet him from the porter’s office when Lambert parked his big old Vauxhall in the section reserved for visitors to Old Mead Park. It was impossible to tell from his bearing whether he had been expecting a police visit; perhaps he felt it was his duty to show a presence to all visitors to the block of luxury flats. As the end of the century approaches, the defence of riches is eternal vigilance; Lewis had been made aware by the trustees when he was appointed that he was to be the major and most visible element in that vigilance.

He knew who Lambert was, though they had never met previously. And he seemed to have heard about Pegg’s murder, for he nodded curtly when the superintendent told him why he had come, then took him swiftly into the warm little cubicle which was his private domain against the comings and goings of a busy world.

The room had a radiator, which was heated by the boiler which warmed the public sections of the block, so that there was no need for a fireplace in the room. If the room had a focal point, it was no more than the small cupboard on which stood an electric kettle and a tray with assorted mugs. There was a coloured plan of the flats on the wall above this, an adaptation of the architect’s original drawings, which showed the disposition and ownership of the apartments on the different floors.

Lewis had long since ceased to need it, but it came in useful occasionally for directing visitors arriving in the place for the first time. Beside it there were the small red lights of a complicated electronic alarm system, which would sound in here as well as elsewhere if any of the rooms around and above him were entered illegally. George considered its presence here was a visual deterrent to any thief who might come in with the idea of establishing his bearings; certainly there had been little trouble in the two years since the flats had been completed.

Lambert, studying the plan and the alarm system surreptitiously, could have given him another opinion about that, but that was not why he was here. He said, ‘You knew Charlie Pegg? Your name is in his book of notes.’

‘Yes, I knew him. Pretty well.’ For a moment, it seemed that Lewis was going to say something more. Then the kettle came to the boil and he poured the scalding water carefully into the teapot. ‘I was able to put him in the way of some work here, when he was getting going on his own.’

‘And his work was satisfactory?’

‘More than that. Charlie was the best. He knew what he was about, and he was prepared to spend the time, even if it took longer than he had thought it would when he gave his price.’

Lewis had the air of a man who had sponsored a protégé and is proud of the results. Lambert was reminded for a moment of an ageing impresario he had interviewed years earlier, who had claimed to have given Tony Hancock his first billing. He wondered how best to phrase his next enquiry. ‘You were quite happy to let him work in the flats on his own?’

Lewis’s eyes narrowed for a moment; then he decided to smile rather than take offence on his friend’s behalf. ‘I knew about Charlie’s record, if that’s what you’re hinting at. Between you and me, I even did the odd bit of thieving with him myself, for about six months after we came out of the army. Before I got married and saw the light.’ He looked at Lambert; rather to his disappointment, the superintendent’s face registered no surprise.

‘But Charlie’d been going straight for a long time. If I hadn’t known he was safe, I’d never have recommended him — more than my job’s worth. I went in with him at first, but I’d have done that with any workmen who came, if the residents were out. And Charlie would never have let me down. We go back a long way, you know.’

Lambert, thinking of the cryptic entries in that little red book, suspected that there were other, more intangible things than property which might have been at risk from Pegg’s observant presence. ‘How many of the residents did Charlie work for?’

George Lewis looked at him suspiciously. ‘Six, perhaps seven.’ He glanced up at the plan on the wall. ‘I could give you a list. But I told you, Charlie would never have—’

‘Charlie Pegg was murdered, Mr Lewis. All I want to do is to find out who killed him.’

Lewis looked at him for a moment as if he did not believe that, as if he was seeking for some other, more convincing motive for this questioning. Then he nodded, pushing a mug of tea into the hands of the seated Lambert. ‘All right. I want that too — more than you could possibly realize.’

There was such feeling on the last phrase that this time Lambert did not let it go. ‘Perhaps you should tell me about that. I go back quite a long way with Charlie myself.’

Lewis said, ‘I know. Charlie told me how you helped to get him going with a job when he came out of the nick.’ But not, presumably, that he had acted for ten years as a snout: Lewis would surely have mentioned that relationship, had he known of it. Tut I knew him much longer than that. As I said, we were in the army together, for National Service.’

Lambert smiled. ‘They caught me for that, too. It seems a vanished world, now.’

‘It is, more’s the pity.’ Lewis frowned, and Lambert thought he was about to go into the ritual denunciation of the lack of discipline among the present generation of adolescents. Instead, he said unexpectedly, ‘But National Service was a waste of time, for most of the two years. Taught a lot of people how to skive, even if their boots shone.’

Lewis seemed about to develop a philosophical strain which would have been just as much of a diversion as the calls for square-bashing and blind obedience which the superintendent had been expecting, so he tried a little desperately to bring the conversation back towards the dead man. ‘Did you get abroad, or were you stuck in barracks here?’

Lewis looked at him as if he were grateful for the correction. He took a reminiscent pull at his mug of tea, for all the world as if he had been relaxing in some far-off NAAFI. ‘We were in Cyprus, Charlie and I. He was a good lad. Younger than me, but he knew what was what.’

There was plainly more to come. Lambert sought for a phrase to grease the machinery of articulation. ‘That would be during the troubles in Cyprus, I suppose.’

‘Not ‘arf. Makarios was making more trouble every week with the politicians, and Colonel bloody Grivas was organizing EOKA to gun down the troops.’ The old names, half-forgotten even by Lambert, sprang to his lips with the freshness of a grievance remembered. He pushed the biscuit tin at Lambert, scarcely noticed his refusal, and said quietly, ‘He saved my life, you know, did Charlie.’

It was so unexpected, and the dead Pegg was so much the opposite of a heroic figure in his appearance and bearing, that Lambert must have shown his surprise. Lewis banged the tin back on to the top of its cupboard with a clang of irritation and said, ‘I’m not exaggerating. It’s no more and no less than the truth. We were different then, you know, all of us.’

It was the perennial appeal of ageing men to be remembered in the pride of their youth. This time Lambert responded immediately. ‘We were indeed, George. Tell me about it, then.’

‘We ended up on patrols in the hills, looking for the terrorists who were waging the war the politicians weren’t allowing us to fight. I know not very many were killed overall: the brasshats kept telling us that. But those who were killed were shot in the back. Those EOKA buggers knew their way round those hills and we didn’t — we were sitting ducks, looking round the rocks and trying not to shit ourselves.’ Lewis, carried back to the attitudes of over thirty years before, did not even notice phrases he had long since abandoned in his present life.

‘And they nearly knocked you off?’

‘Knocked me off. Not Charlie. Yes, the buggers nearly got me. I was the lancejack in charge — there were only four of us; we’d started off as just a roadblock. But there was activity in the foothills just above the road, and we were ordered in by radio. As the NCO, I was at the front of the four, waving my rifle and trying to look like John Wayne. We were about to turn back and report that we’d found nothing when the incident occurred.’