Unlucky For Some (40 page)

“Look, Mr. Finch—I didn’t want to grass the guy up, but if you’re going to come here accusing me of murder and blackmail and I don’t know what else, I’ve no option. I saw Stephen Halliday take a baseball bat out from under his jacket, hit that old girl over the head and snatch her handbag. He dropped it at the mouth of the alley, and ran across Waring Road toward the old police houses. And I’ll give you a formal statement any time you want.”

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTEEN

Tony lay down on the bench, there being nothing else to do. He might as well try to sleep. Now, he really was in a cell, and he didn’t suppose any of these people would ever understand. He had had to commit murder eventually. Talking to murderers, writing about them, watching them die in gas chambers and in electric chairs—what good was that if you had never experienced the taking of another human being’s life firsthand?

When he had had to get inside Challenger’s mind, when he had had to
become
Challenger, he had experienced some of the power that Challenger must have felt as he homed in on his victims. He had known then, though he hadn’t fully acknowledged it at that time, that he was a serial killer. He was just one who hadn’t murdered anyone yet.

He had told Lloyd that murder for murder’s sake was the purest form of murder there was. He hadn’t achieved that, because he had to have a reason to do something, and because there seemed to him to be little point in murdering total strangers with no motive—where was the sport in that? It was like Halliday shooting foxes. But motives were so mundane. Murder for gain was crass, and murder for emotional reasons was nothing more than a lack of self-discipline. Removing some perceived ill from society had its merits, but it was a little too evangelical for Tony.

He felt he had achieved a nice balance, all in all. He had murdered people whose deaths he had no active desire to bring about, and had therefore been able to murder to order, leaving no clues for the investigators. But it had all been building up to the death that he did want to bring about, and he was entirely convinced that if he had been able to see his carefully laid plans through to fruition, he would have succeeded in doing that without the crime ever being brought home to him.

He couldn’t have foreseen Jack Shaw’s intervention, and it was only then, when he deviated from those plans, that it had all gone wrong. In effect, then, he had achieved what he set out to achieve. But now he would go to prison, and he hadn’t wanted that at all. He was not one of those who subconsciously wanted to be caught. He had wanted to get away with it.

But he had the satisfaction of knowing that Stephen Halliday wouldn’t get away with it either. Halliday’s murder had been a sordid affair, not worthy of anyone’s attention. That was why Tony had arranged things to make it seem a little more intriguing. But in the eyes of justice, who had no taste in these matters, murder was murder, and even for that undistinguished little crime, Stephen Halliday too would be receiving a life sentence.

“Tom, we have to charge him. We have five witness statements.” She counted them off on her fingers. “We’ve got Waterman, who saw Stephen enter the alley with Wilma Fenton. We’ve got Baker, who interfered with the scene of the crime in order, he says, to give Stephen Halliday an alibi. We’ve got Jerry Wheelan and Jack Shaw, who saw Stephen running from the scene. And now we’ve got Keith Scopes, who says he saw Stephen do it.”

Tom was shaking his head, his face flushed. “What do they amount to?” he asked. “There are only two normal people in that lot, and they both saw the same thing. The others are a man who wanted Stephen beaten up, the man who was going to do the beating up, and a man who was trying to frame him for murders he himself committed.” He was pacing backward and forward as he spoke. “Who’s going to believe a word they say?”

“Sit down, please, Tom, you’re making me dizzy.”

He threw himself down on a chair, like Charlotte did occasionally when she wasn’t allowed her own way.

Judy sighed. “We’ve got no proof that Waterman wanted Stephen beaten up,” she said. “So he is simply a respected businessman, Scopes and Wheelan are two of his security officers, and Shaw is another long-standing employee of his. And with the sole exception of Scopes, they are telling the truth. Even Baker isn’t lying, because he does genuinely believe that Stephen killed Wilma Fenton.”

“But we know he didn’t.”

“It isn’t up to us. And for the very reasons you’ve just given, the waters are muddy enough for the CPS to decide not to prosecute. Even if they do, Stephen won’t necessarily be found guilty. If the defense can make a case that it could just as easily have been Scopes, it might well succeed. We’d be prosecution witnesses, and we’re not going to argue with that, are we?”

That wasn’t the right thing to say, obviously. Tom jumped to his feet again. “What good will that do Halliday? He might not be in prison, but he’ll have to spend the rest of his life with people wondering if he really did it or not. If we can get a search warrant—”

“But we can’t. Anyway—if he’s got the sense he was born with, Scopes will have got rid of the cosh by now. He probably got rid of it as soon as he found out Wilma had died.”

Judy knew exactly how Tom felt, but she could hardly release Stephen without charge with five witness statements like that. And she had to do something very soon, so charging him seemed the only course open to her.

In the big office, Gary could hear every word that was being said, as he read and reread the files, racking his brains to think of anything that anyone had said that would prove that Stephen couldn’t have killed Mrs. Fenton, but there was nothing. It was ridiculous that everyone but Scopes could be telling the truth and still leave Halliday as the fall guy.

He thought of what DCI Hill had said about Scopes buying drugs with Mrs. Fenton’s money, and of Scopes’s performance when Sergeant Kelly had been interviewing him, sitting there smugly aware that they had nothing on which to hold him, because he hadn’t any of the stuff in his possession anymore. He had unloaded three hundred and fifty pounds’ worth of drugs to street dealers in less than an hour—Gary hated to think of the damage that had done, and to how many kids. And because he had done that, the police had found nothing to incriminate him. A good night’s work all round. And then he had sat there almost laughing in their faces, saying that he’d been given the package to post, that he’d owed Cox the money that he was so evidently handing—

Gary’s head shot up, and he went over to the closed door, hesi-tating a moment before knocking, waiting for a lull in the heated conversation.

“Come in!” called Judy.

Tom was relieved that someone had interrupted this frank exchange of views, because he knew he was being unfair. There was nothing Judy could do. Before, when it had been circumstantial, she might have been able to let Stephen Halliday go, but thanks to his bright idea of going to see Scopes again, now she had someone who was prepared to stand up in court and say that he had witnessed Stephen murdering Wilma Fenton.

It was all his fault, and he felt terrible about it. He had thought he’d been so clever, maneuvering Waterman into declaring hotly that he hadn’t given Scopes any money that night, but the whole thing had backfired, and he was looking for someone to blame.

Gary Sims came in, looking excited. “I’m sorry, ma'am,” he said. “I couldn’t help overhearing.”

“I shouldn’t think you could,” said Judy, smiling. “The silly thing is that we actually agree. What can I do for you, Gary?”

“I think we do have evidence.”

Tom and Judy exchanged glances, and Tom knew that he looked like she did, almost afraid to hope that Gary was right.

“What evidence?” she asked.

“The money. Scopes bought drugs with it. Only two other people went there that night, and they were being tailed, so we know they were nowhere near Malworth.”

Tom frowned, wondering where this was heading. Gary seemed to think it was heading somewhere good, but then he’d thought that more than once during this inquiry.

“We’ve got film of Scopes handing money over to the dealer, and he was quite happy to admit that he did give him money—he just denied that it was for drugs.” He smiled. “But it doesn’t matter what it was for, because that flat was raided, and the equipment, the drugs and the money were all taken as evidence. We’ve still got it, pending trial. And we know the numbers of the fifty-pound notes taken from Wilma. If those notes are among the haul from the drug dealer, then there’s only one way they could have got there.”

“Gary Sims,” Tom said, “I could kiss you.”

“I’d much rather you didn’t, sir.”

“Mike? Ray here. Hold on to your hat.”

Michael frowned. “Why? What’s happened now?”

“What hasn’t happened? Tony Baker has confessed to two murders and two attempted murders. He was killing these people himself, would you believe? I expect he’ll go for diminished responsibility. I wondered about him once or twice, but never really seriously. But he killed those people without a second thought, just because it suited him to do it.”

Michael had been listening, his mouth slightly open, glad that Ray was chattering on, because he couldn’t speak. At last, he found his voice, but he could only think of one word to say.

“Why?”

“Oh—sorry, Mike, I can’t really go into it. I shouldn’t really have told you that, but most of it will be public knowledge quite soon, and I thought you ought to know, because you were quite friendly with him, weren’t you?”

“Well . . . yes, I suppose I was. It’s a shock.”

“And I’m afraid I’ve got another shock for you. Keith Scopes works for you, doesn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“He’s being charged right now with the murder of Wilma Fenton, plus some other stuff. That isn’t classified—it’s going on a press release as we speak. But it’s not all bad news, because it means that Stephen Halliday is completely in the clear, and will be released any time now. I wondered why you asked me to keep you informed about him—I didn’t know about him and Ben. You must have been really worried. Anyway, it’s all over now, so you can all get back to normal.”

Michael thanked him, and hung up. Normal? What was normal? Suddenly, all his certainties had been blown away. Baker, who he had thought was everything a man should be, was a cold, calculating, callous murderer. The man he had wanted Ben to meet, to talk to, the man he had wanted Ben to
emulate,
was a murderer. A murderer who killed innocent people without a second thought.

And Ray—Ray had just accepted that Ben and Stephen were a couple, and thought that he had too. He had just assumed that Michael knew and approved. What’s the big deal about me being gay? That’s what Ben had said. No big deal, compared to being a multiple murderer who even tried to make it look as though Stephen had attempted to kill his own mother. No big deal, anyway, as far as Ray was concerned. No big deal, period.

And Stephen. What was it Ben had said? That he was good, and kind, and kept him out of trouble. Michael had known that about Stephen, once, because Ben was right; something about Stephen reminded him of Josephine. He was decent, kind, straightforward and honest, and yet he had managed to demonize him in a matter of moments, when he had pressed the redial button that night and confirmed that it was indeed Stephen Halliday on the other end of the line.

If Josephine had lived, she would have made him understand that Ben had his own life, his own mind, his own emotions. If he was attracted to other men, that was something Michael just had to accept. If he was attracted to someone like Stephen, that was something he should welcome.

But she hadn’t been there to keep him out of trouble, and he had behaved like the thug he was, and had encouraged Keith to carry out his thuggery for him. He had set him on that boy Charles, used him in the way lowlifes used half-starved pit bull terriers. He had tried to set him on Stephen, who had never done anyone a bad turn in his life.

And, as he had feared all along, it was Keith who had murdered poor Wilma Fenton. Whose fault was that? Keith's? Or his? A bit of both. Unlike the pit bull terriers, Keith would have been a thug even without his encouragement, and he had certainly never encouraged him to mug anyone. But he wouldn’t have been in that alleyway at all if it hadn’t been for him and his insane attitude toward Ben’s sexuality. Ben was right. He was mad. Had been mad. Not anymore.

Had he really wished that Keith was his son, and that Ben wasn’t? Not quite. But he came very close. He had wished that Josephine was there to make Ben see sense, but that wasn’t how Josephine had read the situation, so she had made him see sense instead.

Oh, he had no doubt of it. Josephine had stepped in to save him before it was too late.

Stephen was given back his belongings, such as they were, and the police—all of them—seemed genuinely pleased to be letting him go. He wasn’t sure what had happened, but when he saw that photograph of Wilma’s body, and saw that she had the wrong prize money, he knew that Baker had to be at the bottom of all his problems. At first nothing seemed to have changed, and then, suddenly, they knew he hadn’t murdered anyone.

And he had always known, really, that Baker was trouble. Lately, he’d begun to blame his mother, but that wasn’t fair. All she had done was fall for him, and that wasn’t so surprising. He was handsome, glamorous—famous, even, in his way. And she had been lonely, Stephen knew she had. But he had always felt that there was something sinister about him, something not right. And whatever he had done with Wilma, it hadn’t been right.

As he left the police station, he saw his mother and Ben waiting outside in her car. They both scrambled out when they saw him coming.

“I’m free,” he said, smiling at them.

Ben threw his arms round him, and gave him a bear hug that practically lifted him off his feet. “Why didn’t they let you go sooner?” he demanded. “I told them you were with me that night.”

“Tony Baker did something,” Stephen said. “I’m not sure what, but I think he must have replaced the money that was stolen. I don’t think it happened like he said it did.”

“Don’t you know?” said Ben. “The police arrested him this afternoon. We think he killed those people, and he tried to kill Jack Shaw. But Keith Scopes has been arrested, too, so we’re not sure what it’s all about.”

Stephen looked at his mother. “Are you all right?” he asked.

“I am now,” she said, hugging him. “I think I must have taken leave of my senses. How I let him persuade me that all that stuff was—”