A Killing Karma

by Geraldine Evans

  Casey kept a discreet silence.

  'I gather from the newspapers that he was found in an alleyway here in King's Langley early on Monday morning?’

  Casey nodded, but said nothing more.

  ‘Well now, let me see.’ He stared off into space in recollection, then he nodded as if in remembrance of the day, turned back to Casey and said, 'I had a late start that day and was still at home with my wife till gone nine. Check with her if you like.’ He rattled off his address and phone number.

  ‘And what about Friday evening around nine and into the early hours of Saturday morning, which is the time we believe Mr Oliver to have been killed? Perhaps you could tell me where you were between those hours.’

  ‘Certainly. I was again at home with my wife. There were again just the two of us, I'm afraid.’ He shrugged and stood up, adding a little joke: ‘Hope she's good for the alibi.’

  And suddenly he became very business-like, all joviality vanishing. It was as if he wanted to make clear what a busy man he was and even murders of business rivals mustn't hold him up.

  ‘Now, if that's all, I have a very full day ahead of me. I don't see why I should allow the dead Oliver to disrupt my day any more than I did the live Oliver.’

  Casey nodded and allowed himself to be ushered out. He would take a harder line if Mrs Patterson failed to corroborate her husband's story.

  The other three rival businessmen with whom Oliver had been embroiled in court battles all turned out to have firm alibis, being at the same conference in the Midlands. The information they supplied was soon checked out. It felt good to be able to cross some more names off their now diminishing list of suspects.

  After another day of full-on checking and eliminating, Casey called the team to the incident room for a well-deserved pat on the back.

  ‘You'll be glad to know that, of the suspects known to the victim and who might have reason to want to kill him, because of your hard work we've eliminated many and these suspects are now reduced to nine in number.’

  ‘Unless some more ladies come out of the woodwork,’ Catt pointed out from where he was propped against the wall combing his hair. ‘And always supposing it wasn't a stranger murder — a mugging gone wrong.’ Catt always liked to look his best, but his fiddling with his comb was a bone of contention between him and Casey. However, for now, Casey ignored it.

  ‘Yes, we're still not able to discount that possibility, though given that the pathologist has confirmed the victim was moved after death, that seems increasingly unlikely. Anyway, to get back to what I was saying, Mrs Alice Oliver, the victim's wife, who readily admitted she knew of his serial infidelities, is one of our suspects. As are Amanda and Roger Meredith, Sarah and Carl Garrett and Max Fallon and his live-in partner, Carole Brown, all of whom are numbered amongst his lovers and their partners. Like Mrs Oliver, Fallon and Carole Brown only live around the corner from the alleyway where Oliver was found. Max Fallon, Carole Brown's partner, is obsessively jealous according to what Catt found out from the neighbours. He had supposedly learned about his girlfriend's affair only a few days before Oliver's death. He's had a few run-ins with us but little has come to anything.’

  ‘Another indicator of possible guilt is the fact that Ms Brown claims she and the dead man were going to leave their respective partners and set up home together,’ Catt put in. ‘She rang up earlier with this titbit,’ he told Casey. ‘Wonder if she thought it a good excuse to take her out of the running? If this Max Fallon found that out also—'

  ‘Quite,’ Casey broke in. ‘Always supposing it's true. It doesn't sound likely, given that Mrs Oliver claims her husband was commitment-phobic.’

  ‘Perhaps, as Sergeant Catt said, it's just a crude attempt on Carole Brown's part to make us believe she had no reason to kill him?’ Constable Jonathon Keane put in from the back of the room.

  ‘Maybe,’ Casey said. ‘Certainly, we found nothing at either Mr Oliver's home or his business premises to indicate he had plans for a new life with Carole Brown or anyone else.

  ‘Max Fallon is something of a ne'er-do-well. He has criminal associates and is known for being violent. There are rumours from Sergeant Catt's sources that a knife is his weapon of preference. Carole Brown is much younger than Fallon and reputedly flirtatious. We've yet to question any of these men as to their whereabouts when Gus Oliver was killed, though Mr Meredith was, according to his wife, at home at the time and working in his office at the top of the house.

  ‘Then there's Mr Patterson of Kincaid's. The only person he was able to produce to confirm his whereabouts was his wife, though we've yet to question his neighbours. One of them might have noticed him going out. Lastly, we have Caitlin Osborne, the victim's illegitimate daughter. When we questioned Mrs Oliver about the identity of anyone else with a possible grudge against her husband, she mentioned the girl and that Oliver had refused all attempts by his daughter to have a relationship. The daughter sounds a troubled girl. She's apparently left her adoptive parents' home in Liverpool during the last few weeks and is now alone in the world and probably nursed a grudge against her father. She's a known drug user and has been in and out of prison for the last few years owing to thefts she used to support her drug-taking. She has also been sectioned in psychiatric hospitals several times as she suffered some psychotic episodes. We've still trying to trace her, but it's possible she travelled to King's Langley to make one last ditch attempt to persuade her father to let her into his life.’

  ‘Or to remove him from it permanently,’ Catt put in. ‘Maybe the method of murder was symbolic,’ he suggested. ‘Maybe, if Cally the Scally was the one who cut off her father's tackle, she was ensuring, in some way that appealed to her crazed mental state, that he couldn't father any more unwanted children. It could be the kind of violent action that would appeal to the psychotic mind.’

  ‘And not just the psychotic mind,’ Casey quietly pointed out. ‘This was a man, remember, who went in for sexual betrayal on the grand opera scale. Any one of his lovers who have failed to provide sustainable alibis might have been tempted to emasculate him, once they discovered they were merely one in a long line of convenient females. So might their various partners.’

  He paused and glanced at Catt. ‘As to the other possibility — that he was killed by a mugger — since the post-mortem results, as I said, that's looking less likely, as the victim didn't die in that alley as was originally thought possible. His body was clearly moved after death, as Dr Merriman makes clear in his report on the hypostasis — the blood that sinks to the lowest extremities after death,’ he explained for the benefit of the younger members of the team whose experience of death was limited.

  ‘Muggers tend to have more interest in fleeing the scene of their crime than in concealing the body of their victim, so I suggest we concentrate our efforts on digging deeper into those known to the victim and who lack an alibi: his wife; his three unalibied lovers; their partners; Mr Patterson; and the victim's daughter, Caitlin Osborne.'

  ‘There's still the fact that his wallet was missing,’ Catt pointed out, like a dog after a particularly juicy bone. As so often, he had chosen to play the role of devil's advocate.

  Casey nodded. 'I hadn't forgotten. But as I said, his killer could have taken it simply in an attempt to delay any identification. The mutilation could have been done to muddy the waters. We really can't afford to discount anything at this stage, but for now I'd like to concentrate our efforts. Time enough to cast our net wider if the more likely suspects prove innocent of this crime.

  ‘Right,’ he said, ‘let's get moving. I want our suspects' friends, neighbours and family questioned again. The suspects themselves will be firmly questioned, too, of course. Sergeant Catt and I will take on that role. The rest of you, closely question everyone else — you can sort out the details between you. I want to know any gossip you can extract, indications of temperament and, given the level of violence perpetrated against the victim, anyone else, apart from Fallon, with an inclin
ation to violence.

  ‘Although only one of our suspects has a criminal record — Fallon, the nightclub proprietor — ask around to discover if any of them has a reputation amongst their neigh-bours for aggression. Most people, in my experience, unless they have mental health issues, tend to build up to the kind of violence that was used here. They don't just start at this kind of level, not even nowadays with the rising levels of gratuitous violence in modern society. Okay. Off you go.’

  As the team filed out, Casey glanced at his watch. It was approaching the time for him to ring his mother to find out if there had been any developments at the commune that ThomCatt's Lincolnshire police friend hadn't already confided.

  He nodded at Catt and tapped his mobile. Catt immediately grasped the significance of the gesture, as his grin confirmed. ‘I'll wait in the car,’ he said. ‘Remember me to your parents.’

  As soon as Catt had left, scared of prying ears, Casey removed himself from the confines of the police station to the street around the corner to make his call. He found an empty doorway and rang Moon, praying that the murders in her midst would have encouraged a degree more responsibility than she had ever previously displayed. It was important to find out what interactions and revelations had gone on between the commune members when they were on their own. They could yet prove revealing.

  To Casey's surprise, his mother answered her mobile on only the sixth ring: a veritable model of efficiency for her.

  ‘Willow Tree, hon. I almost forgot you were ringing. What time is it?’

  ‘It's seven o'clock, Mum. The time I arranged I'd ring you.’ Although Casey did his best to keep disapproval from his voice, from his mother's reply it was clear he hadn't entirely succeeded.

  ‘Don't hassle me, son. There's been enough hassle here to last me and Star through any number of karmic incarnations.’

  ‘And will be until DCI Boxham finds out who killed your friends,’ Casey reminded her, in the hope that it would incline her to face up to the reality that she and Star were witnesses — suspects Casey reluctantly corrected himself — in a double murder inquiry. And that the sooner they provided him with some evidence that pointed to one of the other commune members being the murderer, the sooner the hassle would stop. ‘So tell me, what's been happening?’

  ‘Like I said, hassle, man. Accusations. More arguments. Jethro's started most of them.’

  Jethro Redfern, Casey recalled, was the brother of the pregnant Madonna and the teenage son of Lilith and Foxy Redfern — unless, that was, the evidence of his own eyes that he bore a marked resemblance to Star Casey meant he was his own half-sibling.

  ‘That boy's got so much anger in him,’ Moon complained. 'I said to him, “Stay cool. Chill out. Smoke some weed,” but he wouldn't listen.’

  Good for Jethro, Casey thought. ‘So what were these arguments about?’

  ‘Apart from these two deaths, it was the usual stuff. He was hassling his father for not taking better care of his daughter; hassling Kali Callender because it was her old man who got his sister pregnant.’

  ‘Why did the boy blame Mrs Callender for the fact her husband made Madonna pregnant?’

  ‘He seemed to think Kali should have been able to control her husband.’ Moon laughed. ‘Kid's got a lot to learn.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  There was a silence on the other end of the line. It lasted all of ten seconds, then Moon said, ‘The commune has a real bad aura now, Willow Tree. It's not the same place at all.’

  As far as Casey was concerned the commune had always had a bad aura. It didn't smell too sweet, either, but he let the comment pass.

  ‘Some of the others are talking of moving on.’

  ‘That would be very foolish,’ Casey warned. There was no one else to try to stop them doing something stupid that would, to suspicious police minds, be as indicative of guilt as running away. ‘Tell me you and Star aren't thinking of joining this would-be band of travelling hippies.’

  ‘Hey, Willow Tree, I'm not stupid, you know. Besides, Star's got no appetite any more for a life on the road, moving from place to place. He likes the creature comforts of the commune. Don't worry, hon, we're staying put.’

  Casey was glad to hear it, not relishing a manhunt for the pair, though he smiled as he thought of the ‘creature comforts' of their dilapidated and much neglected smallholding. It was as well that Star was easily pleased. ‘Good. Make sure you do. Doing a flit would concentrate DCI Boxham's eye quicker than an eagle on a running rabbit. Let the others run away if they must.’ He paused. ‘So who was it, exactly, who was so keen to leave?’

  ‘Oh, I don't know. They were all talking at once, so it wasn't clear, though I think Foxy Redfern would have gone like a shot, only Madonna's near her time and not feeling well and when he suggested they leave, she started to cry. That caused another row between Foxy and Lilith, Madonna's mum.’

  ‘Any others who said they wanted to leave?’

  ‘Young Randy wanted to go. He's a sensitive soul. But Scott talked him out of it. He said that, with them both being gay, neither of them had any argument with DaisyMay. And it's true, they didn't have any. We all know one another's business in the commune. And another thing, you wouldn't believe how much they were looking forward to the two babies being born. Madonna's and DaisyMay's. Randy even taught himself to knit and made the most fab sets of booties. So cute.’

  There wasn't much of anything to help solve the case amongst what Moon had told him, Casey realized. So he probed deeper. ‘You said there were accusations bandied about,’ he reminded her.

  ‘Did I?’ Moon asked, her voice so vague, that Casey suspected he would be lucky to have his question answered.

  ‘Come on, Mum. Try to think. You're my only source of information.’ This last wasn't strictly true, of course. He had ThomCatt's channel into the Lincolnshire force. Not that he was about to confide that to Moon. Thomas Catt was already risking a lot to help him and his parents; he wasn't willing to have him put further at risk by letting Moon know of his involvement.

  ‘Help me here, Mum. Try to remember. If I'm to help you and Star, I need you to help me. And for you to do that, I need you to keep your wits about you. It might be an idea to lay off the weed,’ he suggested. And whatever other noxious substances she took.

  ‘Lay off the weed?’ For once, his usually laidback mother sounded put out. But then a combination of being a murder suspect and being asked to give up a favourite vice would be likely to do that to a person. ‘I've got no choice about that, have I? The pigs not only took the growing plants, they took my private stash too. And everyone else's. I won't have any money to buy more till my pension comes. I don't suppose ...' she began, in a wheedling voice.

  ‘You don't suppose right,’ Casey told her firmly. ‘Anyway, what about the money from your lottery win? Surely you haven't gone through that already?’

  When there was no answer to this, he added firmly, 'I want you to have a clear head.’ Or as clear as it ever got, anyway. ‘Now about those accusations you mentioned—'

  'I told you,’ she said flatly, 'I forget what they were about. Something and nothing, probably.’

  Exasperated, Casey for the moment admitted defeat. Before he bid his mother goodnight, he reminded her again to conceal the mobile somewhere safe and away from the house. ‘Until I ring you at the same time tomorrow evening. Seven o'clock,’ he reminded her. ‘Don't forget.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, I know.’

  The phone went dead. She hadn't even said goodnight, which was unlike the generally good-natured Moon. And if the situation at the commune was getting under her skin, it showed how bad it must be.

  Chapter Ten

  Casey dropped his mobile into his pocket and returned to the back entrance to the police station and the car park where Catt was waiting for him. He was hopeful that this evening would move them further forward. And even though their unofficial inquiry was making small progress and receiving little assistance to help him extract his
parents from their self-induced difficulties, he couldn't afford to let it make him neglect the Oliver investigation.

  ‘So, what did your mother have to say when you spoke to her?’ Catt asked as Casey climbed into the passenger seat.

  ‘Very little. And none of it much help. Though she did say there have been plenty of rows amongst the commune members.’

  ‘Brotherly love: it was ever thus,’ Catt intoned. ‘Though that's hardly surprising in the circumstances with a double murder hanging over their stoned heads.’

  ‘True.’ Casey fastened his seat belt while Catt manoeuvred the car out of the yard and on to the road, before he pointed the bonnet towards the park and Mrs Oliver's home.

  Casey was wary of letting ThomCatt know just how little cooperation he was getting from Moon. He might just conclude that if she couldn't be bothered to make some effort on her own behalf, why should he trouble to try to help them.

  Casey wouldn't blame him if he did come to such a conclusion. It was a conclusion that his own mind had played with intermittently. But, as he couldn't afford to have his limited posse of helpers diminish to nothing, he kept his mouth firmly closed and concentrated on reading over his notes prior to re-interviewing Mrs Oliver. It provided him with an excuse for his silence.

  When they arrived at Mrs Oliver's house, a lorry was backing into the drive. It was piled with rolls of new turf.

  After they had edged their way past the press pack crowding the gates, Catt glanced at Casey and raised his eyebrows as he parked up. ‘Strange thing for a supposedly grieving widow to get the garden re-laid at such a time.’

  ‘Probably forgot all about it until the men turned up. I had my turf re-laid last year and I had to order it in advance. I imagine Mrs Oliver didn't feel up to the likely row if she cancelled the job.’

  Catt shrugged and climbed from the car.

  They watched as the gardeners heaved the rolls of turf on to their shoulders and made for the side gate. The last of the three-man band — presumably the foreman — carried just a green tarpaulin.