Death of a Nobody (8 page)

There was a confusion of metallic murmurs before the distorted tones of Berridge came snarling through the device. ‘I’m busy, Lambert. Why don’t you piss off, instead of harassing innocent citizens?’

Lambert felt that being thus identified had lost him the first round in this strange contest. Had Berridge seen him arrive from behind the unlit windows? Or had he recognized his voice, even through that tinny medium? Perhaps he had been half-expecting him, though presumably not here. If so, it was further confirmation of a connection with Pegg’s killing, though, like everything else they seemed to find out about James Berridge, quite useless in a court of law. Lambert rang the bell again lengthily and raised his voice from the discreet to the clamorous. ‘Open the door, please. Unless you wish us to make the reason for this visit more public.’

A light went on suddenly behind the thick upstairs curtains, and there were muffled sounds of movement. A few moments later, the security locks on the door clicked back and it opened a reluctant six inches. Lambert moved forward immediately, like an importunate door-to-door salesman. ‘Thank you. I need to see Mr Berridge urgently, or I should not have been so insistent.’

The woman looked at him for a moment with open hostility, then turned abruptly and went back into the lounge. She drew the curtains before she put on a light, so that for a moment they were in the inappropriate intimacy of darkness. When the standard lamp went on, she stood beside it, fastening the top button of her blouse before she looked at him.

He stood awkwardly, a tall man whose head almost brushed the door frame of the small lounge, but she did not ask him to sit down.

She was quite small, though in this setting she did not appear so: she might have been chosen to complete the furnishings of that neat room with its Chinese carpet, its draped ruched curtains and its soft cream leather suite. There were no ceiling lights, so that it was impossible to speculate whether the blonde hair which gleamed lustrously in the light of the lamp was natural or contrived. She had clear skin and a well-formed figure; she checked the side fastening of her expensive skirt as if to draw attention to her slim waist. Her eyes glittered blue and angry as she faced him. ‘You people have a bloody cheek! You barge in here without—’

‘Sometimes it is necessary for us to be determined. Sometimes the people we wish to see can be very elusive.’

She whirled angrily away from him. In that small room, it was not possible for her to put much distance between them, but she busied herself pointedly with the things she might have done had she been alone. She switched on the small brass wall lights on each side of the fire, then lit the living-flame gas fire with a violent twist of its electronic starter.

Lambert was pleased to be ignored: he had no intention of getting involved in an argument with this woman. If she had thought to embarrass him by leaving him standing, she failed completely. He was well used to hostile receptions, and he had no wish to confront James Berridge from the comfortable depths of one of the armchairs. He stood quite still, listening intently to the sounds from the room above. He moved only when he heard the sound of feet on the stairs behind him. At that point, he stepped briskly into the centre of the room and turned to confront the man he had sought out here.

James Berridge was flushed and breathing heavily. He had scarcely troubled to disguise the fact that he had been in bed with the woman who had admitted Lambert. His tie was still unfastened, his hair a little tousled. The flush on his face no doubt came as much from the pleasures which had been interrupted as from the annoyance he felt at this untimely presence. Lambert was reminded of his first gaffer in London a quarter of a century earlier, who had believed in bursting in to catch villains between the blankets whenever possible. ‘A man who’s bollock-naked never feels in a position to argue,’ had been his dictum. ‘Take ‘em on the nest and keep ‘em away from their pants until the tarts are well into their knickers!’ Those had been cruder days, with simpler criminals than this. Now he had unwittingly brought the old man’s precepts into play with this subtler and greater villain. Well, there was no harm in that.

James Berridge was a powerful man, capitulating a little to the thin layer of fat which descends so easily upon affluence, but with the build and upper-body strength of a wrestler. He paused inside the door, setting himself in balance upon his powerful legs, as though he might spring at any moment upon this unwelcome visitor. He was very angry, but he was too practised in his dealings with the police to let anger take him over. Exasperation could upset the judgement, could lead a man into intemperate action. It was intensely annoying that this tiresome enemy should have tracked him here, but no more than that. His traces were well covered; this man could be no threat, if he kept his head. And he never had difficulty in doing that, nowadays.

He said, ‘You’ve got a hell of a cheek! Who told you I was here?’

‘We have our methods.’ Lambert did not think it would take James Berridge long to find out who had given him the name of Sarah Farrell, but he would not help him. Perhaps Ian Faraday would have his excuses ready. ‘We take a little trouble, when there is a serious crime involved.’

‘If your methods were more efficient, you wouldn’t waste time interrupting the lives of honest businessmen.’ Berridge knew it was no more than the preliminary fencing, but he went through the ritual, as if he might lose face by not observing it, like some Japanese tycoon. He had not seen Lambert for over two years, since he had last shrugged off his accusations and got the better of him. He thought the man was looking older. There was a greater grizzling of grey amidst the plentiful crop of hair, and more lines around the grey eyes which studied him so steadily. Perhaps there was a hint of the tall man’s stoop as he stood not more than five feet away. This evidence of frailty gave Berridge a sense of superiority.

Lambert said, ‘A man who worked for you has been killed.’

‘I’m not aware that any of my employees have not appeared today.’ He liked the formality of that; it enabled him to mock without appearing to do so. He was aware of Sarah behind the superintendent, watching the exchange: it made him careful to be even calmer.

‘A man called Charles Pegg. He worked in your flat at Old Mead Park. Doing work for you and your wife.’ Lambert had his eyes fixed on the small patch of skin and chest hair he could see where Berridge had missed a button on the front of his shirt.

Berridge smiled, taking care not even to glance at Sarah Farrell. ‘No doubt he was retained by Gabrielle to construct certain additions to the furnishings. I tend to leave these things to her.’

‘Pegg knew quite a lot about you. Damaging things.’

‘Which he no doubt failed to communicate to you, as you show no signs of producing them. And now he’s dead. Look, Lambert, I’ve heard quite enough of your fairy tales before. If you’ve nothing better to offer me than this, then I suggest ‘

‘Where were you last night, Mr Berridge?’

‘It’s none of your business. But I’ll indulge you, if it will get rid of you more quickly. I was in London. You can check it out easily enough.’

‘I expect we shall. But I have no doubt you were where you say. You always did take care to be well out of the way when the dirty work went on.’

It’s a trick I learned from the police, I expect. What
is
your detection rate for burglaries in the last year, Lambert?’

‘What was your business in London?’ Berridge had not expected this. He had been prepared to brazen out questioning about the mean little street where Pegg had been struck down, to enjoy baiting this flatfoot from the strength of a cast-iron alibi. He said, ‘That’s my affair. I have no intention of discussing my business concerns with you.’

Sarah Farrell said suddenly, ‘I think I shall go and make some tea,’ and moved towards the door into the kitchen.

Without detaching his eyes from Lambert, Berridge said, ‘Don’t do that. We’ll get rid of this pig first. Then we can take the tea back to bed.’ Through his mirthless smile, Lambert detected the first faint signs of worry. Like many careful planners, Berridge was disconcerted when events did not follow the course he had envisaged.

‘They’ve arrested a man in London, you see. One of a chain of drug dealers. He’s begun to talk about the people who employ him. About those who set up the big deals. Some interesting names have come up. Not unexpected, but interesting.’

‘And no doubt they include mine. They would, if you were involved.’

‘Oh, you know I couldn’t tell you that. Not at this stage.’ Lambert had gone as far as he dared. It was a phone call from the drug squad that morning which had both given him information and authorized him to dangle this much in front of Berridge. There were men already under surveillance in Bristol whom Berridge would surely have to contact, if he was worried about his drug deals. If he did, they would be pulled in. And in view of what was now known about their activities, they would surely talk.

Berridge fell into a bravado he would not have attempted before he was rattled. ‘Of course you won’t tell me, because there is nothing to tell. You’ve made the mistake of making allegations in front of a third party this time.’ For the first time since he had entered the room, he glanced at the blonde woman beyond his adversary, as if reassuring himself about her support. ‘I’m sure my lawyers would be very interested to—’

‘Your lawyers will soon be fully occupied with your defence, I think. In the meantime, I am concerned with a murder investigation. Will you tell me what orders you issued yesterday to two men called Jones and Sturley?’

‘None at all. I give those men no orders. They are under the control of the manager of my club in Bristol.’

‘Yes. It’s surprising that you even recognize their names so promptly.’

Berridge’s brain was racing, not with this, but with the suggestion that the police had information about his drug deals. ‘I know nothing about the way Pegg died. I expect he had it coming to him, if he went about prying into the affairs of his betters and grassing on them.’ There had been no suggestion until now that that was the reason for his death. It was an admission, a minor mistake, but again not one which would be worth anything in the hands of the Crown Prosecution Service.

Lambert said, ‘Sturley and Jones will talk, once we have them pinned down. They might even save themselves a few years in a high-security nick, once they reveal who gave them their orders to kill little Charlie Pegg.’

He turned for a moment to Sarah Farrell, whose blue eyes were open wide as they caught the light from the standard lamp. ‘I’m sorry I had to come into your house like this. Perhaps you should be more careful of the company you keep.’ He opened the door himself, then passed out through it without a further glance at the man he had come to see.

Berridge stared at the inside of the door for a full half minute, as if its dark wood could reveal the full extent of the knowledge possessed by his tormentor. The woman behind him said eventually, ‘I’ll get that tea now, and we’ll go back upstairs, as you said. If you’d like to—’

‘Forget it!’ Berridge said harshly. ‘Go into the kitchen and make us a snack. Put the radio on. And shut the door.’

She looked for a moment as though she might disobey him, her face whitening with fury. Then she snatched at the brass handle of the door and went out of the room, slamming it fiercely behind her.

When the music blared out from the transistor in the kitchen, Berridge reached for the phone. At least the instrument here would not be tapped. For the first time in years, he felt the stirrings of panic.

11

Christine Lambert watched her husband’s head beginning to nod in front of the television set. Soon his chin would drop on to his chest and he would be well away. If he woke in less than half an hour, he would protest that he had never really been asleep, that he had merely taken refuge from ‘this rubbish’. With that, his gesture towards the technicolour blinkings from the corner of the room would suggest that it was she who had introduced these banalities into their living space, whereas it was he who had switched on automatically before he slumped into his chair for the evening. John could be reassuringly male at times.

She had better strike before he subsided. ‘You haven’t forgotten that Caroline and the family are here for the weekend?’ she said.

‘Of course I haven’t,’ he said. It had merely slipped his mind: he hadn’t really forgotten it. He stirred his defensive mechanisms into action. ‘I may have to go to the golf club on Saturday, though. We’ve to play the next round in the knockout, and I think our opponents can only play then.’

Christine smiled, recognizing the tactical withdrawal she had often heard before. ‘That won’t be a problem. So long as you make sure to be your normal sunny self when you come back.’

‘When did you know me any other way? I’ll make polite conversation with my son-in-law; I’ll wash up; I’ll even read to the children. Probably
Winnie
the
Pooh
again, I expect. They seem to want to hear it over and over.’ He tutted in deprecation, though secretly he looked forward to laughing conspiratorially over Eeyore and Piglet again with the youngsters on his knee. He had taken to grandfatherhood with unexpected delight, though he made the protests expected of him about a full and noisy house.

‘You’ll know it by heart soon,’ agreed Christine. Tut you’ll survive. I expect you may even need to play golf on Sunday morning, if the going gets rough.’ He grunted, apparently suddenly interested in the television programme he had just despised: there was no point in acknowledging how thoroughly she understood and indulged him nowadays.

She knew he was on a murder case, that she could prod him into talking a little about it, if she chose. The days when he had hugged the job to himself, had used his home as no more than a sleeping place, an unwelcome interruption to the intensity of his hunting of men, were long gone now. She found it difficult sometimes to understand how near she had come to leaving him, to taking her small daughters and herself to somewhere, anywhere, away from the mysteries of police work and its exclusive camaraderie of thief-takers.

Nowadays, she accepted that he would work fourteen-hour days when the job demanded it of him. She saw the adrenaline rise in him when the quarry was near, and found herself glad to see such energy and intensity still. But because she accepted these things, she was the more jealous of his leisure; she guarded his periods of regeneration away from the job, watching them as carefully as if she was protecting an invalid, instead of a man whose work-rate sometimes left younger CID officers protesting in his wake.

On that evening, he dozed a little longer in front of the television set. But at three in the morning, he was wide awake. She lay wordless beside his long body, aware without a word from him that he must feel himself close to an important arrest.

***

Policemen like to pretend to outsiders that they exist in a world of routine, where there are occasional dangers but few real excitements. It is a myth, of course; in part a reaction to the image of police work which the public has assembled for itself from the distortions of cinema and television over the years.

On that Thursday morning in Oldford, the CID room was more animated than Bert Hook could ever remember seeing it. He was reminded of those scenes in the war films of his youth, in which information poured into a tense operations room and the picture of triumph or disaster gradually emerged over the hours. Normally, police work produced results over weeks, even months, of painstaking routine. Just occasionally, as this morning, the results of that work came together, the different strands began to interweave, and the pace quickened towards a result.

Every few minutes, there seemed to be some new small item which built towards the outcome they all wanted, so that the cumulative effect of the efforts of different sectors gave an air of inevitability to the downfall of James Berridge. There was a phone call from Forensic about some fibres of cotton found on the body of Charlie Pegg, a sighting of William Sturley in the Star and Garter in the hours before Pegg’s murder, news from the drug squad of a most interesting meeting later in the day between two of the barons of that evil industry.

Everything suggested that they would be able to arrest James Berridge before the day was over.

To understand the excitement in the CID section, one would have had to have been a party to the unsuccessful attempts to bag Berridge over the preceding years. Most of the men who gathered round Rushton’s computer screen on that morning had been involved. Two years ago, they had almost had him. Then a key witness had refused to testify, and two others had disappeared. Berridge had enjoyed their frustration. And none of those involved had forgotten that enjoyment.

By eleven o’clock there was enough information to bring in William Sturley and Walter Jones for further questioning about the murder of Charlie Pegg; Rushton began setting up an identity parade for Sturley. The two hard men were picked up as they arrived at the Curvy Cats. By midday, Lambert was equipped with search warrants for the business and domestic premises of James Albert Berridge.

There was one snag. No one knew exactly where Berridge was. The grey-haired personal assistant at the Bristol offices was today more directly helpful: Berridge had been expected at the office, but had not arrived. That was unusual, but what was without precedent, she insisted, was that he had not phoned in to announce any change of plans. Like many major crooks, Berridge was punctilious about the etiquette of regular business practice.

He was not at the Bristol club. The anxious voice of the manager of the Curvy Cats, John Murray, assured them of that. He was not in London. There was no reply from his home number in Old Mead Park. Nor, on this occasion, was there any reply from the mews cottage on the outskirts of Gloucester which Sarah Farrell had so grudgingly allowed John Lambert to enter nineteen hours earlier.

There was muttered speculation among those on the fringe of the hunt that the bird had flown. Two of the younger detective constables were nodding to each other and exchanging defeatist whispers about Marbella and the Costa Crime when Rushton descended angrily upon their inexperience. They had not known until now that the detective inspector’s invective could be so inventive and colourful, nor that his passion could run so high when the morale of his team was at stake. ‘In any case,’ he concluded his tirade, ‘you should be aware that for drugs offences we would get him back, even from Spain. Of course, you might have a limited interest in that, if you were back on the beat by then.’

Lambert chafed at this last delay when he was so close to his prey. Eventually, he left Rushton with instructions to contact him on the car phone with news of any developments and took Hook out with him to the old Vauxhall. He did not understand this: if Berridge had moved far from home, he should have been picked up.

It was quiet in the middle of the day as they drove up the wide black tarmac drive of Old Mead Park. In the trimly kept communal gardens of the residences, pink and red camellias were still in full flower, and the bright blaze of the first Japanese azaleas lit up the front of the beds as the sun was hazed by high clouds. The birds sang of burgeoning spring and the gardens of diligent horticultural effort, but there was no visible human presence on the wide green lawns. High above them, as they got out of the old car in the deserted car park, the wide spans of the double glazing of the penthouse flat gleamed out over the landscape. It was impossible to tell from below whether any unseen observer had noted their arrival.

The place was eerily quiet. It was almost a relief when George Lewis came out from his porter’s office to meet them. ‘Good morning, Superintendent Lambert,’ he said. Not many people recalled a detective’s name after a single meeting. Lambert reflected that a memory for names was probably a useful part of Lewis’s working equipment.

At least he could reciprocate. ‘Have you seen Mr Berridge go out this morning, George?’ He made no reference to their conversation about Berridge on the previous day, sensing that Lewis would be a little flattered if he thought it was a secret between them.

The porter shook his head. ‘Haven’t seen anyone from the penthouse today. He usually goes out early, if he’s here. Of course, I don’t see all the comings and goings. I have other duties as well.’ But his slight smile indicated that he was confident he saw most of the daylight activity. Certainly, the square window of his office commanded a comprehensive view of the drive which all must use for arrivals and departures, as well as a side view of many of the garage doors which were discreetly screened by rows of shrubs in the basement storey of the exclusive block.

Lambert said, ‘We need to get into the penthouse flat. There is no need for you to alarm the rest of the residents with this, George, though the news will get round quickly enough. We are here to arrest James Berridge.’

Lewis’s reaction amused Bert Hook. It was that of the trained butler rather than the porter. His eyes opened a little wider, but his features remained otherwise impassive, as if it was a professional challenge not to register shock or emotion. He did not say, ‘Indeed, sir,’ as Hook half-expected from the rest of his bearing. Instead, he turned quietly and unlocked the steel cupboard behind him which resembled a small safe. ‘You won’t mind if I accompany you into the flat, gentlemen?’ he said, producing a bright metal key. ‘The Residents’ Committee would prefer it, I think.’ His bearing announced that if there was to be any melodrama, it would be even more important that the etiquette of the occasion was properly observed. George Lewis put on his smart green porter’s jacket and straightened the knot of his tie.

‘It’s very quiet round here today,’ said Hook as they went up in the near-silent lift. He wasn’t sure himself whether he was merely making conversation or gathering information against all eventualities, as was the normal CID officer’s instinct.

Lewis seemed to have caught the same need for precision. ‘There are usually only four of the eleven residences occupied in the middle part of the day,’ he said with authority, as they moved over a carpeted landing to the door of the penthouse. ‘And sometimes it is fewer than that, if the occupants are out shopping.’

They heard the electric bell ringing clearly inside the apartment; as they had expected, there was no sign of movement in response. At a nod from Lambert, the porter inserted the skeleton key and the lock turned smoothly. ‘It’s the first time I’ve been in here since I came to let in Charlie Pegg and set him to work for Mrs Berridge,’ he said, as he turned the brass handle and pushed on the rosewood panel. Probably he spoke just for the sake of words, trying to disperse the tension they all felt suddenly rising as the door opened and the oblong of light fell upon the landing. But the mention of his murdered friend seemed only to add to it.

Lambert moved swiftly through the huge drawing room, with its panoramic views over the Gloucestershire countryside, into the dining room, with its oval mahogany table and reproduction Chippendale chairs. The kitchen was neat, almost clinical in its cleanliness; there was no crockery in the washing-up machine. The arrays of units were surely far too elaborate for the culinary requirements of the two residents. After a moment’s hesitation, he pushed open the door of the main bedroom, noting in passing the two pillows at the middle of the top of the king-sized bed, indicating perhaps that one person slept alone on that generous surface. The
en
suite
bathroom was empty. So were the main bathroom and the second bedroom.

Hook, feeling like a character on stage, went and opened the door of a cloaks cupboard near the entrance. He saw only three coats and a vacuum cleaner; no body tumbled hideously forward into the room. He rejoined the others in what was plainly James Berridge’s study. It was as deserted as the rest of the penthouse. Lambert walked over to the desk and tried the top right-hand drawer; rather to his surprise, it was not locked. But it was empty apart from some blank envelopes and writing paper. The other drawers of the desk were locked. He resisted the impulse to investigate further, to open cabinets and look for evidence which might help to put Berridge away. There would be time for that in due course. Better to let the fingerprint boys loose before they began to open desks and filing cabinets.

He said to Lewis, ‘When was Berridge last here, George?’

The porter shook his head reluctantly, as though to confess ignorance was a blot on his professional expertise. ‘I couldn’t say. I haven’t seen him for a couple of days. But I finish officially at six in the evenings and I can’t see as much from my flat as from the office. In any case, I have very little idea of who is coming and going in the hours of darkness. The Berridges have two garages, but they are on the other side of the block from my place, so I don’t hear any sounds of activity from there.’

‘We’d better check those garages before we go.’

Lewis nodded and began the business of closing doors and locking up the apartment. It took a little time to descend to the garages beneath the block; during this interval, Hook and Lambert elicited the information that the Berridges rarely moved about together, that they seemed more and more to lead independent lives. Lambert thought merely that it was a mercy that Mrs Berridge was not likely to be too devastated when her husband was put away for a long stretch. In view of what they found in the next few minutes, the information suddenly became of much greater interest.