Die Happy lah-24

by J M Gregson

  ‘January the tenth.’

  ‘That tallies with our information. Carry on.’

  Sam had no idea whether they had any information or not. He said desperately, ‘I’d snorted a bit of coke at a new year’s party. I bought a small amount a day or two after that, in a pub. I remember being appalled by how much it cost.’

  Hook nodded. ‘What do you do for a living, Sam?’

  He wanted to tell them that was irrelevant, wanted to avoid the sniggers and contempt which would be the inevitable reaction of the pigs. But his resistance was exhausted; he wanted only to convince them that he was being honest, when he knew he had so little to give them. ‘I’m a poet.’ He waited for the uproar of derision, but there was only silence, with perhaps the slightest nod from Hook. ‘I’ve had a few things published and I make a bit from poetry gigs, where I read my stuff and talk about it. But it’s not easy to make a living from poetry.’

  This time Hook definitely nodded. ‘Even T.S. Eliot had to get himself a job with a sympathetic publisher, didn’t he? Even Philip Larkin had to be a university librarian in Hull to support his writing. Is that why you started to deal, Sam? To support your poetic career?’

  Sam Hilton’s mind reeled. A copper talking about two of the men who had made him want to be a poet himself. He said limply, ‘Yes. I realize now it was daft, but the man made it seem so easy.’

  Hook smiled sadly. ‘Tell us about the man, Sam’

  ‘I don’t know his name. He had blue eyes, I think, and a flattish nose, which might have been broken at some time. He was burly. Just above average height, but thickset. A bit like your build, but younger.’

  The smile this time was from the otherwise immutable DI Rushton. Hook said only, ‘What did he wear?’

  ‘Jeans, trainers, a blue quilted anorak. He wore the same every time I saw him afterwards, whatever the weather and the temperature.’

  ‘And who pulled his strings, Sam? Who supplied him?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t even know his name. The first rule he gave me was that I shouldn’t ask any questions. No one asked questions if they knew what was good for them, he said.’

  The old story. And it wasn’t a false threat. Many a dealer who had said a little too much had ended up with a bullet through his head or at the bottom of a river, or simply never been seen again. Hook said quietly, ‘It’s not much, Sam. What else can you offer us to try to protect you from the law?’

  ‘Nothing. I can see it’s not much, but it’s all I know. And I’ll never deal again. You have to believe me.’ The desperation and fear almost oozed through his pores as he strove to convince them.

  Rushton said, ‘We don’t have to believe you, Mr Hilton. You forfeited all credibility when you chose to break the law. However, I am satisfied for the moment that you have told us what little you know. You will be released within the hour and your possessions restored to you by the custody sergeant. The decision as to what charges you will face will be made within the next few days and you will be notified in due course. Interview terminated at five past ten.’

  Rushton and Hook remained in the interview room for a moment after Hilton had been returned to his cell. ‘Not much there,’ said the Inspector dolefully. ‘But we didn’t expect much, did we? The Drug Squad would have wanted to handle it themselves if they’d thought he’d anything worthwhile to give them.’

  Bert Hook nodded. ‘From his description, his dealer was Mercer, but we could have guessed that. I think he told us all he knew.’

  ‘Is that a plea for mercy, from hard man Hook?’

  Bert grinned. ‘I’ve got boys of my own. That young man we just interviewed is twenty-two, but frighteningly naive and vulnerable. He saw easy money; I don’t think he’ll make the same mistake again. As a first-time dealer with a previously spotless record and a good education, he’d get a suspended sentence. Hardly worth the effort of taking him to court.’

  ‘I agree with you that he probably won’t re-offend. Fortunately, the decision about whether to prosecute won’t be in your hands. But I’m quite prepared to report that we found him both contrite and anxious to help.’ For a DI usually anxious to pursue cases where results were guaranteed, it was a notable concession.

  Bert Hook believed and hoped that young Sam Hilton had seen the error of his ways. He could not have known at that moment that within a few days he would be interviewing him again, over very different police suspicions.

  NINE

  The police came at precisely eleven o’clock, the time they had arranged. An hour had given Peter Preston ample time to make his preparations for them.

  He watched the tall man climb a little stiffly from the passenger seat of the vehicle. This must be the celebrated Chief Superintendent Lambert, whom the local press seemed determined to make a detective superman. He exchanged a word or two with the burly man who had been driving as they looked at the front elevation of the house; Peter wished he knew what it was they were saying. He was down the stairs and into the hall by the time they knocked. He took a deep breath, then opened the oak door fully and bathed them in his most affable smile.

  ‘Good morning gentlemen. It is a rare and unexpected pleasure to welcome the long arm of the law into our humble abode, and all the more to be savoured on that account.’ He turned towards the kitchen behind him. ‘Edwina, could we have coffee in the drawing room, please?’

  ‘That will not be necessary, sir. But thank you for the offer. Hopefully this will not take us very long. This is Detective Sergeant Hook and I am Chief Superintendent Lambert.’

  ‘Cancel the coffee, Edwina!’ Preston flung imperiously towards the door of the kitchen. He led them into a sun-filled front room and gestured towards a chaise longue, whilst he planted himself in the only comfortable-looking armchair in the room. The two large men perched themselves gingerly on the red velvet of the chaise longue, which proved as uncomfortable as it was elegant.

  Peter smiled again to show them how composed he felt. Their slightly ridiculous posture had increased his confidence. He went into the deliberately over-the-top speech he had prepared. ‘I am indeed honoured to have in my house the celebrated John Lambert, super-sleuth of our area and acknowledged expert in his field — the man whose excellence has recently been recognized by our beleaguered Home Office with an extension to his service. A rare example of a sensible decision emerging from the echoing towers of bureaucracy, in my view. I welcome this unique opportunity to entertain a distinguished figure, to have in my company the big cheese, in the vulgar modern idiom.’

  This was a man who was so over the top that he seemed all the time to be sending up himself, thought Bert Hook. He wished the big cheese hadn’t refused coffee. It would have been interesting to witness not only the type of china favoured in this household but how long the central figure in it could sustain his overblown rhetoric. Preston might have been a character from Restoration comedy — Bert’s Open University studies had broadened his horizons. It was good to know that the verbose poseurs of those plays usually got their come-uppance in due course.

  Lambert said, ‘We are investigating some rather strange happenings, Mr Preston. We are looking for a connection between them.’

  ‘This sounds more intriguing by the moment. Do tell me more, Mr Lambert.’

  ‘In a moment. Are you a man with many enemies, Mr Preston?’

  Only the abruptness of the question suggested his impatience with the other man’s posturings. If he caught that, Preston chose to ignore it. ‘What an intriguing question, Mr Lambert! And how pleasingly direct you are! Well, I suppose that if I am being objective, I would have to point out that a man in my position does make enemies. One would have to hope one makes friends as well, of course, by one’s staunch defence of standards, and I have pleasing evidence to confirm that. But when one operates in the arts, one inevitably meets opposition as well as approval. That is what one expects, with healthy debate.’

  Lambert was rapidly losing patience with this self-serving man.
‘Indeed. And one would be inclined to ask for more matter with less art.’

  ‘Ah! A senior policeman who quotes the Bard! All is not lost for our civilization, after all!’ But something in Lambert’s features warned Preston against further self-indulgence. ‘Yes, I’m sure I have enemies, Chief Superintendent. Indeed, there are people in the arts world of this country whom I should be proud to record as such. It is a guarantee of one’s own integrity to have opponents such as-’

  ‘I am thinking locally rather than nationally, Mr Preston.’

  ‘Indeed? Well, at the time of the millennium celebrations, I conducted in the columns of that organ of enlightenment, the Gloucestershire Citizen, a prolonged correspondence with some of our local so-called intelligentsia. I can only say that in the last analysis-’

  ‘And recently, as well as locally. If we could concentrate on the last month or two, that might help both of us.’

  ‘I see.’ Preston withdrew himself reluctantly from the heights of national aesthetic debate over the last thirty years to a more tawdry and limited local context. ‘Recent conflicts seem to have been confined to the deplorable content and conduct of our local literary festival.’

  Lambert’s sigh of relief was audible and he didn’t care if this self-obsessed figure heard it. ‘Then I suggest you concentrate your thoughts upon that.’

  Preston’s answering sigh, if it was meant to be competitive, won hands down. The connoisseurs of melancholy would have treasured its length and its dying fall, but Lambert was not such a devotee. Hook poised his pen over a pristine page of his notebook with renewed hope. But there was still a preliminary. Peter leaned forward and said breathily, ‘May I be assured that what passes between us here will not be relayed beyond the walls of this room?’

  ‘No, you may not, Mr Preston. We maintain confidentiality wherever possible, but we sometimes have to take action which demands that we reveal our sources.’

  The broad features dropped suddenly into dismay, as if Preston understood at last that his monologue was not suitable for these men. The brown eyes behind the rimless glasses focussed on them for the first time, so that Lambert appreciated that there might be a shrewd man behind the stylized artistic bluster. ‘What is it you wish to know?’

  Lambert allowed himself a small smile to take the edge off his response. ‘I asked you a little while ago whether you had any enemies. Can you please give me some account of the number of people you have offended over the last few months?’

  ‘A number of people have offended me.’

  ‘I see. Well, we should hear about them as well. There may well be some correlation here between the offenders and the offended.’

  ‘There may indeed, Mr Lambert. How prescient of you to see that! I imagine prescience develops with experience in detection, as in so many other aspects of life. I find increasingly that experience is a sadly undervalued quality, nowadays. But to the point, before you begin to see me as Polonius again. I should hate to be stabbed through the arras!’ He chuckled lengthily at his cleverness.

  Bert Hook hastened to prevent apoplexy in his chief. ‘If you could just give us a list of the people concerned, we need not take up any more of your day, Mr Preston.’

  Peter studied DS Hook for a moment before deciding to give this representative of honest English yeomanry his approval. ‘One has artistic differences with people, which it is one’s duty to voice. Unfortunately, an honest difference of opinion is all too often interpreted as hostility, nowadays. The philistines are at our gates, Sergeant Hook.’

  ‘Yes. But I can quite see why a person with a different opinion would take offence, if you called him a philistine. Could we now have some names, please?’

  ‘Yes. Well, I am on the Oldford Literary Festival Committee. I have experienced some hostility there, in response to my sincere but trenchantly expressed views.’

  ‘I expect there has been hostility, yes. Names, please.’

  Hook had more success than Lambert in pinning down this exotic linguistic butterfly, perhaps because Preston considered it beneath him to waste his sweetness on the desert air around a mere detective sergeant. ‘The committee is chaired by a woman. I have, of course, no quarrel with that.’ Everything about him said otherwise.

  ‘So you have no quarrel with Mrs Dooks?’

  It disconcerted him a little that they knew the woman’s name. Then he remembered that John Lambert’s wife was herself a member of the committee in question. Probably they knew all about the committee members; lists of information were something the pedestrian police mentality could cope with. Perhaps they had even come here equipped with some thoughts of their own. ‘Marjorie Dooks is an unimaginative woman who shouldn’t be in charge of anything creative. But she has a lot of experience of running committees. I suppose that might have influenced the very predictable people who put her in charge.’

  Lambert said irritably, ‘Would you say she was an enemy of yours?’

  ‘No I wouldn’t, Chief Superintendent. We have our differences of opinion, but we respect each other for our different strengths, I’d say. Of course, if you want to know exactly what she thinks of me, you’d have to ask her.’

  Lambert allowed himself a sour smile and Peter realized with a shaft of dismay that they might have already done that. With his first hint of nervousness, he said, ‘There are people on that committee who dislike me, I’m sure. The younger ones simply don’t understand that one can reject their standards without intending any personal affront.’

  Lambert suspected that this man’s rejections would be very personal indeed. He said, ‘What about the people of your own generation? Sue Charles, for instance; wouldn’t she understand your arguments?’

  Preston bristled with indignation. ‘Sue Charles is hardly my generation, Mr Lambert, She is thirteen years older than me!’

  They saw not only his vanity but the emotion it aroused in him; emotion of whatever kind makes people vulnerable, and thus is always of interest to CID men. Lambert said easily, ‘But a kindred spirit, would you say?’

  ‘No, I would not! She is a writer, but in a field which by definition rules her out as a serious novelist. She writes what I believe is usually referred to as crime fiction.’

  ‘And you don’t think even a much published and well-reviewed writer of detective novels should be regarded as a proper artist?’

  ‘Not as a woman of letters, as we used to say in my youth. You may not be familiar with the expression. An old-fashioned term, but a useful one, in my view.’

  ‘And you informed Mrs Charles of your views?’

  ‘Indeed I did. I had little choice, if I was to retain my own integrity. Sue Charles is planning to import a well-known practitioner of detective fiction into our festival. I had to tell her that I felt this would lower the tone of the whole enterprise. You may in fact be aware of this, Chief Superintendent.’

  ‘Indeed I am. I have been asked to occupy the platform alongside David Knight and thus further lower the tone.’

  Peter decided not to comment on this. He had a feeling that this was not a man to be added to his growing list of enemies. He said, ‘I expect Sue Charles has taken offence at my sincerely held views. Women tend to be thin-skinned about these things.’

  ‘On the contrary, it seems that Mrs Charles regards your rather extreme views with what I’d call an amused tolerance, Mr Preston. I gather you have not won the argument within the festival committee.’

  ‘The ignorant and the ill-informed have prevailed, as they tend to do all too often these days.’

  In a rare lapse, John Lambert allowed his irritation to get the better of him. ‘I shall regard it as an honour to occupy the same platform as Sue Charles and David Knight. Who else have you offended on that committee?’

  Peter tried not to show how shaken and isolated he was beginning to feel. He thought of his locked filing cabinet upstairs, but decided it was best not to use the secrets within it when talking to these men. ‘The younger members have no standards
— and no sympathy with anyone who has. I expect they dislike me; I’m almost prepared to admit it’s mutual.’

  ‘Details, please.’

  ‘Well, there’s Ros Barker. She’s a painter, of sorts. I can’t say that I’m familiar with the girl’s work.’

  ‘Ms Barker is thirty. You will be able to see an exhibition of her work at the Barnard Art Gallery in Cheltenham next month, if you wish to enlarge your knowledge of her art. You don’t consider her a friend of yours?’

  ‘We have little in common. When I chose to question the invitation the committee was offering to a young northern versifier to parade his wares at our festival, she aligned herself with the unenlightened.’

  ‘Bob Crompton.’

  ‘I think that is the young man’s name, yes. His work would benefit from discipline, like that of so many of his contemporaries.’

  ‘You are familiar with Crompton’s work, then?’

  Surely policemen were not in a position to challenge him about poetry, of all things? Peter said uneasily, ‘I have a passing acquaintance, that’s all.’

  ‘Which you consider is enough to allow you to veto his appearance in Oldford. I see. This no doubt means that you have made an enemy of young Sam Hilton, who, as a friend of Bob Crompton’s, has been instrumental in securing his appearance at the festival.’

  It was a statement this time, not a question. Peter was disturbed by how much they seemed to know, how much homework they seemed to have done before coming to his house. ‘Sam Hilton has little in common with me. I considered it my duty to oppose the appearance of his more celebrated contemporary in Oldford. It was because Ms Barker sprang to his defence that I consider both of them my enemies.’ He watched DS Hook making a note in his round, surprisingly rapid hand. ‘May I ask what is the purpose of your visit here this morning?’