The Murders of Mrs. Austin and Mrs. Beale

by Jill McGown

  ‘You can’t do this!’ he said.

  ‘Can’t do what? I’m not doing anything except taking a suspect in for questioning.’

  ‘You’d have to give me some sort of protection!’

  ‘Who from?’ She looked puzzled.

  ‘You know damn well who from! Beale! He’ll see me – he’ll know she was blackmailing me!’

  ‘But if you didn’t murder his wife, why would you need protecting from Frank Beale?’ she asked.

  He sat down again, the prospect becoming clearer and clearer.

  ‘He’d have me killed,’ he said, his voice hardly audible. ‘You know he would.’

  ‘All I can guarantee, Jonathan, is that the state won’t have you killed.’

  My God. Don’t be fooled by the big brows eyes. He stood up again. ‘Isn’t this duress?’

  ‘I didn’t say Frank Beale would kill you,’ she said. ‘ You did.’

  Jonathan ground out his cigarette. ‘I just hope you’re as clever at finding Leonora’s murderer,’ he said.

  ‘People keep making that mistake,’ she said. ‘I’m not investigating Lennie’s murder, Jonathan. I never was.’

  ‘That’s all right, Mrs Sweeney, well see ourselves in.’

  Steve heard Beale’s voice, and wondered a little about the plural. He didn’t have to wonder long, as the door opened with a rush, and Frank plus two heavies stood in the doorway.

  ‘Stevie,’ he said, walking in.

  Stevie was bad. The other two came in behind him, one of them closing the door quietly.

  ‘Frank,’ said Steve. ‘Mervyn said to tell her. She knew it all anyway – she just had to have it in writing, that’s all. I knew you’d be well out of it. They wouldn’t have anything on you.’

  ‘They didn’t, Stevie. As you see, I’m here. Free as a bird.’

  ‘So why the visit?’

  ‘I owe you money, Stevie. A fat bonus I said, and a fat bonus it is. You co-operated, and she got him. I told you I had faith in her.’ He reached into his pocket, and drew out a bulky envelope, tossing it on to the bed.

  Steve picked it up gingerly, as though it might contain explosives. But it didn’t. Just at least a hundred used twenty pound notes.

  ‘That counts as small denomination these days, Stevie,’ he said. ‘I thought it would be more useful than larger notes.’

  Steve put it back down on the bed, still moving carefully, still unhappy with the tone of the proceedings.

  ‘She had me taken in for questioning,’ Beale said, with a smile. ‘I knew she was good. Keeping me out of circulation until she had Austin safely tucked away where I couldn’t get at him.’ He took a huge cigar from his breast pocket, and bit the end off. Then he spent some moments lighting it. ‘ Can’t smoke them too often,’ he said. ‘Heart, you know.’

  The expensive smell filled the room.

  ‘But I’m having one now because that young woman got him, even if I didn’t. Rosemary would have liked her,’ he said. ‘She’s got it up here.’ He tapped his temple. ‘But pulling a stroke like that left my boys here at a loose end,’ he said. ‘So we thought we’d visit you.’

  Steve’s heart began to beat faster. Outside, there was just a chance of running. Here he stood no chance. But there was Mrs Sweeney, he thought, relieved. She’d call the police as soon as she heard anything going on.

  ‘Very nice woman, your landlady,’ said Beale.

  Dear God, he could read minds.

  ‘Said to tell you that she was on her way over to her friend’s, but she’d be back at teatime. A young lady friend of mine is giving her a lift over there in the Rolls, as it happens.’

  Steve didn’t speak, didn’t look at him. He breathed in cigar smoke, and waited.

  ‘See, Stevie, there was a good reason why they couldn’t tie me in with this crazy blackmail and drug-smuggling business. I didn’t know anything about it.’

  Steve looked up then. ‘What?’

  Beale shook his head ‘No,’ he said. ‘Nothing. Or I wouldn’t have made a fool of myself accusing Austin of having it off with Rosemary, would I?’

  Steve hadn’t thought of that.

  ‘The brain, Stevie. You should use it now and then. I didn’t know about Rosemary’s plan – I’d have talked her out of it. She knew that, so she didn’t mention it. Thought she’d just show me how clever she’d been. Or maybe she wanted to be financially independent. Crazy. It would never have worked. But you knew, Stevie. She told you. Pillow talk, Stevie.’

  Cigar smoke was puffed into his face as Beale bent down towards him. ‘Clever girl, Rosemary,’ he said. ‘ But she always wanted more than I could give her. Funny – a lot of women from her background get turned off, but I think with Rosemary it was a labour of love, if you see what I mean. She did stray, too often. So, when I take someone on to keep an eye on her, and she can’t stray without my knowing about it, she just has it off with him. I should have guessed. I really should.’

  Steve didn’t dare breathe as Beale straightened up. A horn sounded, and he smiled. ‘ That’s my friend back with the Rolls,’ he said. ‘ I’m sorry, Stevie, but I really must be going now. I’d love to stay and chat, but you know how it is. My friends will be pleased to keep you company, though.’

  Beale was gone; all that remained of his presence in the room was a pall of heavy, sweet smoke, two men whose combined ages didn’t reach his, and an envelope containing payment for their services.

  ‘Are you still worried about the reasonable doubt?’ Drake asked, as they turned into Queens Estate.

  ‘No,’ said Lloyd, slowing down at the turn into Lady Jane Avenue, glancing at the numbers of the houses.

  ‘Well, he is the only one left in the frame now,’ said Drake. ‘ It may be circumstantial, but Allison’s quite happy about it.’

  ‘He’s very strong on not having to prove motive,’ said Lloyd. ‘I’m happier when I understand why someone has done something.’ It had its number on the gate, nice and clear. He indicated to the following car.

  ‘She led him on, then didn’t want to know.’

  Lloyd pulled up outside the little semi with its neat garden, and released his seat-belt. ‘No,’ he said. ‘ That wasn’t the motive.’

  Drake frowned. ‘You’ve got some new information?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ Lloyd said. He looked back to see the squad car pulling in behind him, and two constables get out. ‘ Old information. Information we’ve had all along. Let’s go,’ he said, looking at the young man’s puzzled face.

  They trooped up the narrow path; his finger was just about to push the bell when he heard sounds coming from the curtained room. He tried the door, but it was locked.

  ‘Round the back!’ Drake shouted to the other two, and then applied his shoulder to the door. It took several heaves, but the lock broke just in time to see one disappear down the corridor. The other, not as quick off his mark, was within grabbing distance.

  ‘Stop,’ said Lloyd, catching hold of him. ‘We’re—’

  A fist smashed into his face, and sent him reeling backwards. He saw a boot, and closed his eyes, but the blow never landed. He got to his feet as Drake overpowered the youth, and bundled him towards the squad car, while the other two caught up with the one who had at least had the sense to give in gracefully rather than assault a police officer.

  Drake was supervising their arrest; Lloyd rather shakily made his way into Tasker’s room, aware that Judy wouldn’t have been just as useful as Sergeant Drake had been on this occasion.

  Tasker was kneeling on the floor, his hands on the bed, as he pushed himself into a standing position.

  ‘Do you need a doctor?’ Lloyd asked.

  ‘No,’ he said, checking his rib cage. ‘Where did the cavalry come from? They’d hardly got started.’ He was breathless, bleeding, and smiling. ‘ I never thought I’d be glad to hear the police smashing down my door,’ he said.

  Drake came running back up the path, and into the room. ‘ Lloyd? Are you all rig
ht?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Lloyd. Thanks to you.’

  ‘You’ll have a black eye,’ said Tasker, then smiled at Drake. ‘Oh, it’s you,’ he said. ‘You’ve had a lot of experience of smashing doors down, of course.’

  ‘Do you want to be seen by a doctor?’ Drake asked.

  Tasker frowned. ‘Now that sounds official,’ he said. ‘No, I don’t, thank you.’

  ‘What’s this?’ Drake picked up the envelope.

  ‘A present from Mr Beale,’ said Tasker. ‘ For helping the lady chief inspector to get Austin.’

  ‘He gives you money and then has you beaten up?’

  Tasker shook his head. ‘ This had nothing to do with Mr Beale,’ he said, indicating his battered face.

  Lloyd sighed. Beale was protected by some sort of guardian devil. ‘We could take you to the out patients,’ he said. ‘Have your ribs checked over.’

  ‘No thanks, Mr Lloyd.’ He took his money from Drake, and pulled a bag out from under the bed, wincing as he bent down. ‘I’m grateful for the rescue, but I’ll be on my way.’ He frowned. ‘Why are you here anyway? Did the old girl get suspicious and call you?’

  ‘Something like that,’ said Lloyd, ignoring the look that he knew he was getting from Drake. ‘Thank you for your help, Mr Tasker. Might I suggest that you look for less hazardous employment wherever you do go? And you will of course let the police and your probation officer know? It is a condition of your parole, and you may be required to give evidence.’

  ‘Already done, Mr Lloyd,’ he said. ‘ Just didn’t get on my way soon enough, that’s all.’

  ‘You’d have missed out on Mr Beale’s present,’ said Lloyd.

  Tasker smiled.

  Lloyd went out into the grey afternoon, and his face began to throb now that it understood that someone had punched it. No one had punched it since he had been on the beat, and it didn’t care for it at all.

  Drake got into the car beside him, and Lloyd pulled away, on his way back to the station.

  ‘Lloyd,’ said Drake. ‘Don’t you think Mr Allison was expecting you to make an arrest?’

  ‘That’s all right, Mickey,’ said Lloyd. ‘I am making an arrest.

  ‘You’re not obliged to say anything, but anything you do say will be written down, and may be given in evidence.’

  He was concentrating on the road. He couldn’t see the young man’s face.

  ‘I couldn’t understand,’ he went on, ‘how you had ever got on to the special course, never mind succeeded. Trying to revive a woman whom a child of two would have known was dead, touching things at the scene of the crime, being knocked for six because you’d seen a dead body. But you were knocked for six because you’d killed her, Mickey.’

  ‘Is this a joke?’

  ‘The last time your work went off it was a woman. A woman who made you give up smoking. Mrs Austin didn’t like her husband smoking.’

  ‘Lots of people don’t like smoking!’

  ‘True. But you know what was odd, Mickey? Pauline Pearce stopped seeing Mrs Austin – or Miss Hovak, as she then was – after Tasker was arrested. Because every time she went there, there was a police car outside the house. But we weren’t interested in Miss Hovak, were we? We didn’t charge her, we didn’t question her – Jack Woodford said if she hadn’t been in bed with the man when we went in, she would never have figured on the paperwork. So why was there always a police car outside, just when you started giving cause for concern? Just when you got involved with another woman?’

  ‘Coincidence.’

  Lloyd prayed there would be no traffic hold-ups. He could feel the tension in the car; Drake would make a run for it if he had to stop, for all his bravado.

  ‘And the crack factory,’ said Lloyd. ‘Everyone told me it was impossible. There wasn’t any crack in Stansfield. And if there ever was, it wouldn’t be being made in an area like that. Oh, but I said, he’s been with the force drugs squad – he’s got good contacts. Let him try. If he spots anyone, then we’ll set up surveillance and all the rest.’

  He was coming to the roundabout. One car, approaching from the right, but a reasonable distance away. He pressed down on the accelerator in a way that was foreign to his nature, approaching a junction, but he got on to it without having to stop.

  ‘I saw that flat today, Mickey,’ he said. ‘No crack factory.’

  ‘No – they’ll have moved out. I was spotted, that night. I was going to tell you, but all this … in fact,’ he said, ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t Tasker who spotted me.’

  ‘It very probably was, Mickey,’ said Lloyd. Two more roundabouts, and two pedestrian crossings, as he recalled. He’d just have to keep his fingers crossed, ‘He recognised you straight away today, didn’t he? As soon as you walked into the interview room. He has a better memory than you, it would seem.’

  Drake didn’t speak, and the pedestrian crossing was winking in the distance.

  ‘You go to Crown Court to give evidence that’s going to send a man to prison for five years, and you don’t remember what he looks like?’

  This time he slowed as he saw someone approach the crossing, and moved slowly towards it. Get on to it if you’re going to, for God’s sake, he thought. The pedestrian crossed, and Lloyd’s foot went back on the accelerator.

  ‘I found that very hard to believe, Mickey. So maybe Tasker did spot you – he was in the area. But that flat has never even had squatters in it. Developers these days look after their properties – they want to sell them, and it’s a buyer’s market. They can’t run the risk of squatters, and they don’t.’

  Roundabout. Cars. If he could just edge his way on, just push out enough to inhibit the one with the right of way. A horn sounded angrily, but he’d made it.

  One more roundabout, one more crossing, and he’d be at the station. He wasn’t convinced he’d hang on to him there, but he could park with the nearside tight against a wall.

  ‘No, you made it all up, so that you could spend time up there watching Mrs Austin. Talking to her. Calling on her. Alarming her enough for her to tell her husband. And to tell you that she knew your boss, and she could get you into trouble. Mrs Hill was your boss at the time, Mickey.’

  Roundabout, empty. Almost there.

  ‘You wanted to be there in the evening. Three nights, you said. And the third night would be Wednesday, when she would be alone in the house, because her husband went to Barton on Wednesday evenings. But you didn’t make it to Wednesday.’

  Silence, now. Just silence.

  ‘Tasker’s almost fifty – it wasn’t him she was afraid of. The one she was afraid of was young. She told Austin that she would have thought he would have grown out of it by now.’ He sighed. ‘But you hadn’t, because you’re an obsessive, aren’t you, Mickey? Sixty cigarettes a day, then you give them up because she asks you to, and become obsessed with her instead. When that gets too much for her, she starts avoiding you, and you throw your obsessive soul into your work, apply for the special course, come through it with flying colours. But then you came back here, and the old obsession took over again.’

  Pedestrian crossing, people. He had no option. With great reluctance, he stopped the car.

  Drake didn’t run. Lloyd didn’t look at him.

  ‘If there’s reasonable doubt about Tasker,’ Drake said, ‘then there’s reasonable doubt about me.’

  ‘No,’ said Lloyd, moving off again, the station in sight. ‘ Because in your case, we have a witness.’

  ‘Witness? Where did a witness come from all of a sudden? There’s only the next-door neighbour, and she saw nothing at all.’

  ‘Quite,’ said Lloyd, almost scraping the car against a wall as he brought it to a halt. ‘She saw nothing at all until the police car came.’

  There was a silence.

  ‘But she should have done, Mickey. She should have seen you.’ He looked at him now; his face was deathly pale under the red hair, and he wasn’t looking at Lloyd.

  ‘She
was at the window while the noises were going on, and she stayed there after they had stopped. According to you, you were walking towards the flats, getting the radio message. And you told them you were right outside, and ran into the flats. She couldn’t not have seen you, Mickey.’

  He didn’t speak.

  ‘You were inside before the message ever came. It probably stopped you hitting her again. You answered the radio, then opened the balcony windows with the tissues you used to get your prints off the murder weapon. Then you scattered the others round. You had to say you had tried to revive her to account for the blood on your clothes. You had to say you’d pulled the furniture away, because you had. So that you could get at her.’

  Drake wouldn’t look at Lloyd as he continued. ‘ It’s your story that doesn’t bear examination, Mickey. You left the flats at a few minutes after eleven, and you saw them at ten past. You were worried, turned round and came back. So how come a five-minute journey took you twenty minutes? If it had been Tasker – why would he wipe the murder weapon and not the phone? Whoever cleaned the murder weapon wanted Tasker’s prints found. We’ll ask the right questions this time, Mickey.’

  He lifted his head slowly. ‘It wasn’t my fault,’ he said slowly.

  Lloyd switched off the engine.

  ‘She wouldn’t have anything to do with me,’ Drake went on. ‘She was married, she said. I had to go away. She would tell her husband, she would tell Judy Hill – she couldn’t have anything to do with me, she was married now!’

  His eyes blazed again, as his voice grew louder. ‘And then I see her with that … that scum. Someone who sells poison to school-kids, someone she said she would never have anything to do with again!’

  His head dropped down.

  ‘I wasn’t sure, I wasn’t sure,’ he said. ‘ That’s why I went back. The door was open. I could hear her.’ He was shaking. ‘I picked up the ashtray, and went in. I saw them. I saw her. She was in there with him – I could hear her. Promising to meet him, saying she couldn’t wait! And the phone ringing all the time – she just let it ring while she let him—’ He shook his head. ‘It rang and rang … then he went, and she answered it, but there was no one there. I watched her. Looking at herself. Looking in the mirror at herself. Undoing her blouse, looking at herself. Pleased with herself. It wasn’t my fault. It was her own – it was …’