Who Saw Him Die? (Inspector Peach Series Book 1)

by Gregson, J. M.

  Impulsively, she reached out her hand and put it on top of his; it was the kind of gesture she would have made to a child: she knew how to console them. “You’re not without friends, you know. It’s not an easy world for you, but you mustn’t feel you’re fighting it on your own.”

  Michael Ashby looked down at the slender hand on top of his own. The blue veins of the wrist were very noticeable against the white skin. For two seconds, he savoured the warmth of the palm against his knuckles; then he put his other hand on top of it and gave it an answering squeeze. “You’re very good to me,” he said, allowing a suggestion of huskiness into his voice.

  The hardest thing about an open prison for him had been the deprivation of sex; he had never bothered to deceive himself about that. The masturbation advocated by prisoners and screws alike was a poor substitute for anyone with a reputation as a ladies’ man. He was not that much older than Ros Harrison, and she was a good-looking woman, if only she would choose to make the most of herself.

  Ros felt a little awkward, but she did not withdraw her hand from between his larger ones. It was not the moment to imply any kind of rebuff to a man fighting against the odds. She said only, “We try to give you whatever support we can. But of course in the end everything —”

  “It’s your support I need, Ros!” He ran his fingers lightly up the smooth skin of the inside of her arm, felt her tremble, and misinterpreted the reason. He swung her abruptly to face him, running the fingers of his other hand through her springy hair, feeling her ear like intricate china beneath his touch.

  The scent of her hair after his long deprivation would have intoxicated even a less susceptible man than Ashby. He closed his eyes and moaned softly, seeking her lips with his. His mind was springing already to the beds upstairs. There was only Hogan around, and he would keep his mouth shut if it should become necessary. Old Harrison would keep to his own quarters; in any case, he was probably out playing golf. “Ros, Ros!” he muttered urgently. It was only partly a technique: his voice was tremulous now with a quickly rising lust.

  She pushed him roughly away. Her anger was as much at herself as at him, for allowing herself to be put in this position. She was embarrassed, but not at all frightened. “Don’t be silly, Michael,” she said. It sounded like a Victorian maiden; perhaps that inflamed him only the more.

  He did not let go of her, though he held her at arm’s length now. Probably that stodgy Trevor didn’t give her half enough, his senses told him coarsely. Lots of women liked to struggle a little before they went along with it. “Come on Ros, don’t fight it. You won’t be disappointed, I promise you!”

  The crack of her palm against his cheek was like a rifle shot. “That will do, thank you,” she said, smoothing her skirt automatically, though he had scarcely touched it. She felt like a schoolmarm correcting an impertinent boy. “The service doesn’t extend to that, so don’t be in any doubt in future.”

  He backed away, flushing high up into his thinning hair. “I wasn’t trying to force you into anything,” he muttered.

  “That’s just as well. Because you might well have got hurt if you had.”

  Seeing her breathing so fiercely, her back against the light, he believed her implicitly. “I — I’m sorry. I got the wrong end of the stick… I must be getting back.” He pretended to look at his watch, snatched up his coat, and was gone. His tea still steamed slowly beside the untouched sandwiches.

  Ros watched Hogan measuring the distances between the cabbage plants he was planting, as if the slow rhythms of work with the soil could restore her equilibrium, even at second hand. She felt the blood hot in her neck and face, as if it were she and not Ashby who had committed a sexual indiscretion. Why on earth did her life have to lurch so absurdly between high drama and low farce?

  “Now perhaps you’ll listen to me when I tell you you’re asking for trouble with these people!”

  She started so violently that for a moment she thought she might faint. The voice gave her a far greater shock than anything Ashby had done. She had to hold hard on the back of a chair for a moment before she could turn round.

  Tom Harrison stood like an Old Testament prophet in the doorway. His white hair was tousled, his blue eyes glittered with the excitement of vindication. Ros could not remember when she had last seen him so animated; she felt rather like the woman taken in adultery.

  She found her voice at last. “How long have you been there?”

  “Long enough.” He came into the room, releasing them both with the movement, as if they were stepping out of a Victorian picture. “I would have intervened, if it had been necessary.”

  “I can take care of myself, Tom, thank you.” In the anguish of the moment, she had used his forename, as she could never bring herself to do when they were calmer.

  “You shouldn’t have to. These people are scum. At least you’ll realise that now. Are you all right?”

  “Of course I’m all right. I told you, I can look after myself. It was embarrassing, nothing more. Especially now I know that it was being watched.”

  “You must have been frightened. If I’d realised what was going on —”

  “I wasn’t frightened. Michael isn’t the kind of man to push it once he’s rebuffed.”

  He was astonished by her composure: he had expected her to be near collapse, grateful for his consoling presence. Instead, she seemed almost to resent the fact that he had been around to offer protection. “I don’t think you quite realise the danger. May I remind you that Ashby and the others are criminals. Being here in the house alone with them during the day is asking —”

  “You talk as if I’d just escaped rape. I repeat, I can take care of myself. Perhaps you don’t realise how often women have to reject advances. Michael Ashby made a pass at me and was rejected, that’s all. Thank you for your concern, but it’s not necessary.” She rode on her irritation, speaking more fiercely than she had intended.

  Tom felt thoroughly confused now. In truth, he had heard only the very end of her dismissal of Ashby; perhaps he had indeed made more of the incident than it warranted. He had sprung into the room feeling that at last his feelings about the men in this house would be heeded; now he felt as if he were being reprimanded more severely than Ashby had been. He said sullenly, “So what that jailbird tried to do with you is all right, is it?”

  Suddenly she felt sorry for him. He looked very old now as his confidence crumbled. He had stood very erect in the doorway in the excitement of his righteousness; now he seemed physically smaller, with his stomach spreading a little over his waistband as his posture slumped. She was irritated more by the fact that her embarrassment had been witnessed than anything else. And the old boy had meant well, after all. In more serious circumstances, she would have been glad of his arrival, old as he was. She pulled out a stand chair from the table and indicated that he should sit down. “Did you want to see me about something?”

  He remained standing, his hand plucking at his blue cardigan. For a moment, he could not remember why he had come. Then he said dully, “I thought I would have a talk with you about Trevor’s plans for an extension — find out what it was all about, without getting too excited.” He smiled at his own expense at the last phrase.

  “What a good idea!” Her voice rang falsely bright in the quiet room, like that of a schoolteacher trying to encourage a diffident child. “Shall I get the plans and spread them out on the table for us to —”

  “There’s no point. Surely you see that now? I could never countenance more of these people in the house. I shall be selling the place, putting an end to the whole misguided business.”

  He was gone before she could argue. She was left with an empty, awful feeling of finality.

  Chapter Eight

  It was Sunday night. The night when Trevor Harrison held his weekly “House Conference”.

  The participants assembled with a mixture of curiosity, apprehension and resignation. Trevor had originally called the meetings Evaluation Sessions,
but now felt this term put too much pressure upon those not making much progress on the hard road back to rectitude and independence. And the more neutral word conference allowed discussion on anything that concerned the current occupants of the house: such as the item he had to raise himself this evening.

  Everyone in the house was invited, and the ex-prisoners soon learned that their attendance was expected, however optional it might be in theory. The only person who had never attended was his father. Trevor had encouraged him to do so, and been mortified by his steady refusal to come, but on this occasion he was secretly glad that Tom held to his habit of absence. Public confrontation could hardly be expected to resolve their differences on the important matter he had to raise at the end of tonight’s unofficial agenda.

  With the exception of Tom Harrison, everyone was there. They sat round the edge of the room in a variety of shabby but comfortable armchairs, with the idea of discouraging hierarchy and fostering the informality which encouraged people to contribute. Ros did not sit next to her husband, exercising her independent judgment on the other side of the room. Nor did she act as secretary: that would have been a sexist role. In so far as notes were necessary, Trevor would ask Michael Ashby to record things.

  Harry Bradshaw, who understood the purpose of all these dispositions, thought the outcome showed how atmospheres were always stronger than the arrangements made to disperse them. For the initial exchanges were stilted and artificial. Trevor, accepting the role of unofficial chairman which circumstances thrust upon him, was awkward and halting where they all wanted a brisk lead. His initial review of the week was unprepared and halting, so that it appeared longer and more tedious than it actually was.

  The plan was that this should be followed by a report from each of the four ex-prisoners on their progress in rehabilitation in the world at large: as far as they were concerned, that grandiose phrase boiled down to how near they had managed to get to the kind of permanent employment they thought suitable for them.

  The exercise got off to an uncertain start, for the first man to report was naturally the one who had been here longest, Fred Hogan. It was not a natural exercise for him, for he had never had to deliver a formal report on his activities until he came here. “No signs of work for me yet, Mister ’arrison,’ he said. Despite many injunctions over the weeks to do so, Fred found it impossible either to use Trevor’s first name or to address his remarks to the meeting at large rather than to his benefactor.

  “What sort of work would you think suitable, Fred?” asked Dick Courtney. Trevor glanced at him sharply, wondering whether he was joining in helpfully, as was the intention behind the conference, or setting out to torment Hogan. There could scarcely be a greater contrast than that between the youngest man in the room and the oldest. Courtney was still only twenty-four. His black hair was beautifully cut — Trevor was not sure by whom. His mouth as he smiled encouragingly could have been drawn from a toothpaste advertisement, in contrast to Hogan’s yellowing, incomplete line of teeth.

  Courtney’s clothes were not expensive, but Dick had that capacity which Trevor noticed sometimes in others and felt conspicuously lacking in himself to make whatever he wore look right. Perhaps it was something to do with his slim build and narrow waist. The jeans and sweat shirt he wore on this warm evening were almost the standard uniform of his generation; on him, they looked neat, even stylish. Trevor wondered where he had got the blue and white trainers beneath them; they looked new.

  Hogan was as suspicious of the young man’s question as Trevor: he peered at him suspiciously, but Courtney’s smile of polite enquiry did not waver. Fred said desperately, “Well, any sort of work would do me. I’m not proud. But with my record, work’s not easy to come by.” He had the old lag’s propensity to pick up crumbs of well-meaning counsel and throw them back at the world as excuses. The rehabilitation officer had warned him at his interview a week before he left prison that his record would make it difficult to place him in work; he had fastened upon the phrase that was meant to exhort him to virtuous effort as an excuse to make none.

  Trevor intervened unwillingly, “I think we all appreciate that, Fred. As you say, you will have to be prepared to tackle almost anything. I think that is the realism being looked for by our young friend here.” He was furious with himself because for a moment he had forgotten Dick Courtney’s name. It was the kind of inexplicable mental block that affected him in moments of stress. Courtney registered the omission with a quick glance and a little flick of contempt about his mouth.

  Fred Hogan said, “Well, I’ve been working hard about this place, you know. There’s lots of jobs in a house this size, more than most people realise. I hope my work here has been satisfactory?”

  “Oh, er, very much so.” Ros Harrison had allowed her attention to stray from this routine section of the meeting to the issue her husband must raise later; she had not thought she would be called upon here. “Fred’s work around the outside of the house in particular has made a real impact. We commented last week on the painting, which you helped him with, Dick. But I don’t think I’ve ever seen the grounds of Westhaven look as good since I came here twelve years ago. Fred’s doing a really good job out there.”

  Hogan smiled his crooked, gap-toothed grin. No one in the room knew how important Ros’s praise was to him, not even himself.

  Trevor Harrison was aware that Hogan wanted to stay here as long as possible. It was a problem, but not one he had yet confronted head on. He consoled himself vaguely with the fact that at least the little man was being useful. And at least while he was under their eye, he was unlikely to be tempted into serious mischief elsewhere. That, after all, was the object of their work here. He thought they had better pass on before Dick Courtney made Hogan’s aims apparent to all. “What about you, Michael?” he said rather abruptly to Ashby.

  “Not a lot to report, Trevor, I’m afraid.” Ashby wore a bright yellow sweater to signify that it was weekend; from Monday to Friday, he wore his suit and tie like a badge of status. His brown eyes were earnest as he strove to convince everyone of his sincerity. He looked round the room to assess the reactions as he spoke, but was careful not to catch the eye of Ros Harrison.

  “I won’t pretend life at Colley’s is everything I’ve always wanted. But it’s a job, which is more than most people with a prison record have at the moment. I could do a better job, even with Colley’s, but I don’t see myself being given the chance for some time.”

  “Well, early days, yet,” said Trevor superfluously. Ashby found this patronising, but he knew he needed this house. The pittance they gave him at Colley’s would never be enough for him to pay for digs, let alone the flat he aspired to rent in due course. He smiled resolutely, a little glassily, fixing his gaze on a point just above Trevor’s head.

  “Any chance of you being made redundant during this recession?” asked Dick Courtney. Again there was no way of telling from his alert, intelligent features whether the question was malicious or innocent. But he knew. And Ashby knew.

  Ashby looked at him for a moment before he said with a grim smile. “Not a lot. Not because I’m indispensable, but because I’m cheap labour. For what they pay me, I’m the best value in the place. I know it: I think they know it. If there’s any question of someone going, I’ll make bloody sure it isn’t me. I’ll go in my own good time, when something better is available.”

  For a moment, he looked more ruthless than his habitual slightly unctuous manner allowed, under the pressure of the challenge he felt in Courtney’s words. Not a man to cross: a man capable of more violence than any of them had understood until now. Ros Harrison shivered involuntarily on behalf of any woman who put herself in his power.

  Trevor said, “Well, that seems satisfactory, Michael, as far as it goes. One mustn’t expect too much too soon.” The veil of self-protection fell again over the face of Ashby, and he nodded absently. Ros wished her husband would allocate his clichés of consolation more sparingly: these men had heard them
too often not to recognise them for what they were.

  Trevor said, “What about you, Dick?” He spoke a little aggressively, as if he were turning the tables on the only one who had played his game and tried to initiate discussion on the individual reports.

  “Things are moving,” said Courtney confidently. If he had to play this game, he would change the rules, make it a contest between himself and these deadbeats, with whom he had to live for the present. “I haven’t got any permanent work yet, but that’s no bad thing. Gives me the chance to look around.” He paused, searching for scepticism.

  It was Ashby who took the bait. “You mean nothing has turned up yet,” he said. He was unable to keep the satisfaction out of his voice.

  “On the contrary, I have had two jobs this week, and in all I have four irons in the fire.” Courtney did not see any reason to acknowledge that Trevor Harrison had arranged the interviews for work which he now transformed into irons in the fire. “I’ve done a day’s work at one place and two at another this week.” There was no need to tell them that the first place had told him not to come back at the end of his first day. “One of them looks promising, but as I’ve got two interviews coming up this week, I won’t make any decisions until I see what is on offer.”

  Trevor said, “Yes, it’s always best to get the full picture. Well, that all sounds quite promising.” Courtney had taken two A-levels to add to his clutch of O-levels while he was in prison; he was both young and well qualified, two elements which most serious offenders could not usually offer. Trevor realised suddenly that he would be glad when this predatory young man left the house. The sense of unease he induced during these meetings showed his potential as a disruptive influence.

  Courtney had hoped to be questioned further, but no one responded. He wondered if this was the moment to insist on the “Richard Courtney” he planned to have printed on his cards. His mother had always insisted on the full name among his friends. In prison, it had been impossible: with the coarse possibilities of Dick, it had become a nightmare to take a shower, to expose his body to the foul-mouthed puns of screws and cons alike. Until, that is, he had managed to secure a certain protection…