A Killing Karma

by Geraldine Evans

  ‘All the more for me, then.’

  Casey finished his coffee, kissed Rachel goodbye and ran through the downpour to his car.

  As the questioning of the staff and the trickle of early customers at Max Fallon's' nightclub had yielded little to go on, Casey knew they would have to dig deeper. It was a shame they still had no results, he mused, as he stared down at the latest reports that had come in. He had to outline the progress on the case to Superintendent Brown-Smith later. Unless Catt's re-watching of the CCTV tapes bore fruit he didn't know what he could tell him, though he supposed he should be grateful that, unlike in his previous case, the victims weren't Asian. Brown-Smith was so politically-correct he always preferred his suspected criminals to be white; it confirmed his prejudices. And as he remembered his last telephone conversation with Moon, Casey could only imagine how hot his superintendent's prejudice would run if they were officially investigating the deaths at the commune. He supposed he should be grateful for small mercies.

  Moon had told him the murders had, in their wake, brought an atmosphere you could cut with a knife. Several of the commune had taken to barring their bedroom doors at night. And not just the commune women: Scott ‘Mackenzie’ Johnson and Randy Matthews had, by Moon's account, taken similar precautions.

  ‘Willow Tree,’ his mother had pleaded, ‘hurry up and find the killer before the commune is destroyed. Star and me are too old to start over somewhere else.’

  He had assured her he was trying. ‘But it's a bit difficult attempting to solve a case, as I'm doing, at one remove.’ Especially when he was receiving so little help from the commune members themselves. He paused, not sure he really wanted an answer to the question he had felt forced to ask several times already, but he posed it anyway. ‘How's Star bearing up?’

  ‘He's all right. Nothing much affects him. Not now he's getting his normal ration of sleep, anyway. He's as laid-back as ever, but then he's never been one of life's worriers, though I was anxious he'd blurt something out to the cops.’

  ‘He didn't though?’ Casey broke in urgently. ‘You said he hadn't.’

  ‘No. But it was a close run thing. You know how out of it he can get. At such times he'll tell anybody anything. I had to sit beside him and keep pinching him when he was questioned.’

  ‘Surely the police questioned him alone?’

  Moon laughed. ‘They tried to. But all they got was monosyllables. In the end they admitted defeat and allowed me in to prompt him — not that they got much more sense out of him then — something I made sure of, as you can imagine, hon.'

  The court case was scheduled for later that afternoon and Casey could only hope his father maintained this Sphinx-like silence. He'd be on tenterhooks till it was over. It wasn't even as if he could attend in case someone recognized him. He'd just have to rely on Moon's report afterwards — always assuming their brief managed to get bail for the pair…

  Casey glanced at his watch and sighed. He still had a lot to do before he could set off for the Fens and the commune to see how the court case had gone and, now they'd had time to let the consequences sink in, to find out how the murders had affected them all after they'd been questioned by a Crown Prosecution Service barrister.

  Catt came into the office. ‘I've worked my way through two of the CCTV tapes,’ he told Casey. ‘I'll try the rest when we get back.’

  Casey nodded. Soon after, he and Catt were on their way to see the Merediths again.

  So far, several of Oliver's lovers and their partners had signally failed to provide alibis worthy of the name. And the Merediths were no better in this regard than the Garretts or Max Fallon and Carole Brown.

  Once they were admitted to the Merediths' expensive detached home and seated in the living room, Casey became aware of a simmering atmosphere. Had Roger Meredith succeeded in getting the truth from his wife about her infidelity? Had she admitted it after their visit in response to her husband's probing? Or had he discovered it prior to Oliver's murder and concealed the knowledge, only now, after Casey and Catt's previous visit, letting his suspicions surface?

  'I think it's safe to say, Mr and Mrs Meredith,’ Casey began, ‘that neither of you has an alibi for the night Mr Oliver was murdered.’

  ‘No. That's true enough,’ Meredith blithely confirmed. ‘Though why you think we need alibis is beyond me. I barely knew the man and he was nothing more than a sometime acquaintance of my wife. Isn't that so, Amanda?’

  Amanda gave a brief nod.

  Casey stared at Meredith. Meredith stared back as if daring Casey to contradict him. But he got the strongest feeling that Roger Meredith had known that Gus Oliver was rather more than a ‘sometime acquaintance’ of Amanda's. He wondered if Oliver had also passed gonorrhoea on to her. It seemed a distinct possibility. Had she, in turn, passed it on to her husband? Or had she or one of the other harem members been the one to pass the disease on to Oliver? If Meredith hadn't been playing away himself, he, like Max Fallon, would know his wife had been unfaithful as soon as he had his symptoms checked out. No wonder, if so, that the atmosphere felt so tense. Such a betrayal would stick in the craw of anyone.

  According to what the Merediths had told them so far, they had both been at home at the relevant times — Mrs Meredith watching television in the first-floor living room and her husband working in his study at the top of the house. Either could have sneaked out without the other being aware of it. It would, of course, have been taking a chance, but presumably they were each sufficiently familiar with the other's habits and routines and would know when the other was settled for several hours.

  Amanda Meredith was more voluptuous than either Carole Brown or Sarah Garrett. She also struck Casey as being, beneath her frilly femininity, far tougher than either of the other two women.

  Roger Meredith was rangy and lean and looked to keep himself very fit. He was good-looking in a sharp-faced way and dressed expensively and well. It was clear he was a man with more than his share of pride. How must he and the other harem husbands/boyfriends have felt when, in Fallon's case, and if in that of the other men, they had discovered their partners' infidelity? Casey guessed Meredith, for one, wouldn't sit back and take it. He also guessed he would find it hard, if not impossible, to forgive. He would want revenge on someone. Though whether that someone was his wife or Gus Oliver was something they had still to discover.

  ‘Are you sure that neither of you went out that evening?’ he asked.

  Meredith answered with a sharpness that equalled his angular features. 'I told you, we were both at home all evening.’

  Casey thought it would be worth questioning the neighbours again. He'd do that in any case, as part of the normal house-to-house routine. But this time, to judge from the shiftiness of Roger Meredith's gaze, he thought he might just get something useful. Maybe there was a lonely old woman in their street who had nothing better to do with her time than watch the neighbours' comings and goings.

  But, for now, it was clear they would get nothing more out of the pair but pleas of innocence, which, for all Casey knew, might even be true.

  Back in the car on the way to the station, he and Catt discussed the case.

  'Gus Oliver really set the cat among the pigeons with these three couples, didn't he?’ Catt commented. ‘Do you think Oliver knew he'd caught the clap? And was he impervious to who he passed it on to?’

  ‘God knows. But symptoms of STDs show up far quicker in men than women, so it's a possibility he knew and carried on regardless.’

  'If so, it seems possible one of the six thought he deserved to die. It's like those cases of men — it's usually men — who have unprotected sex knowing they have the HIV virus.’

  Casey went down to second gear as he approached the red traffic light at the corner. He braked and put the gear lever into neutral before he changed the subject and told Catt, ‘I'm going to the commune tonight. I want to hear from the horses' mouths how the court case against them went. I think I'll have a chance of getting mor
e out of Moon if I'm there in body rather than just a voice over the telephone.’

  ‘Well, be careful. And check around the lanes yourself before you approach the commune. It's possible the Boston cops have been trying to lull them into a false sense of security by removing their presence, only to take up a watching brief on the place again. The last thing you want is to risk them becoming aware of the association. It wouldn't do your promotion prospects much good if it became known. You might even need your Get out of Jail Free card.’

  ‘Remind me to take it out of the Monopoly set before I go.’ Casey gave a wry smile as he moved the gear stick into first and pulled away from the lights.

  Superintendent Brown-Smith’s down-drawn lips declared his sour mood when Casey went to see him to report on their progress on Gus Oliver's murder; a mood not improved by the lack of results on the case.

  ‘You'll have to do better than this, Casey,’ Brown-Smith told him when Casey had outlined what was happening. ‘It's the thin end of the widget.’ The superintendent had a habit of mangling his metaphors and vocabulary, especially when agitated. ‘You have enough suspects. What about this Fallon type? He sounds a likely prospect. I want you to look deeper into his motions.’

  ‘We're already doing that, sir,’ Casey replied, understanding his boss's intended meaning, and trying to expunge from his mind the toilet-image the superintendent had unintentionally conjured up. 'Catt's looking through the CCTV footage again to see if he can spot FalIon's car anywhere close to the alley where the body was found.’ Indeed, anywhere at all at the relevant times, Casey thought, seeing as Fallon had been emphatic that he'd left the night-club in the early hours of Saturday morning.

  ‘He won't see it if the man left his club with murder in mind. He sounds to me to be smart enough to take steps to avoid incriminating himself.’

  Casey swallowed an involuntary sigh at this self-evident truth.

  ‘You'll need to check the footage for the cars of his staff as well. Likely he borrowed a vehicle from one of them.’

  ‘Yes, sir. I'll get Catt or one of the others to do that as well.’ He already had that in hand, but it was as well to humour Brown-Smith by letting him think he was the only one with the good ideas.

  The superintendent let him go soon after.

  Catt was still checking out the CCTV footage when Casey set off for the Fens. He couldn't help but wonder what he'd find at the smallholding now the atmosphere of fear and suspicion had had time to breed.

  Chapter Fourteen

  As Casey got nearer to the smallholding, in the distance he could see Boston Stump dominating the grey skyline. This was the name given to the tower of St Botolph's Church and was a misnomer since the tower, to Casey's knowledge, soared not far off 300 feet and could be seen for thirty miles around. Apart from the misnamed tower, the church was well known for its abundance of bizarre medieval carvings in wood and stone: a bear playing an organ; a man lassoing a lion; a fox in a bishop's cope taking a jug of water from a baboon. Moon had told him about them and he had gone to see them himself on an earlier visit.

  But now was not the time for musing on bizarre carvings, he told himself as he approached the smallholding and braced himself for an unfriendly welcome.

  The brand new 4x4 had vanished from the smallholding's yard, Casey immediately noticed as he pulled up. Had some of them gone for a joyride following the court case after an unexpectedly good result? he wondered as Moon opened the gate and let him in. He shrugged and thought no more about it apart from going in for a brief headcount as he entered the living room. As expected, the elusive Dylan Harper was still conspicuous by his absence; probably he was once more secreted in his bedroom away from those he presumably suspected of murdering DaisyMay.

  His headcount revealed that Scott ‘Mackenzie’ Johnson and his lover, Randy Matthews, were not amongst the motley crew sprawled about the untidy living room. They had previously been a silent but visible presence, sitting close together and seemingly with eyes only for each other. Casey questioned Moon and soon learned that, unlike the rest, Randy and Scott had decided to remove themselves from the area of suspicion.

  ‘They've done a bunk? And taken the four by four?’

  Moon gave a glum nod.

  The taking of the new car clearly rankled: was Moon getting a liking for the pleasures of property ownership in her middle years?

  ‘Randy must have persuaded Scott the police would be on their case, you lot being so against their kind.’

  Casey smothered an amused smile. She wouldn't say that if she knew Superintendent Brown-Smith. It was his own kind he had a down on. He was almost as keen on homosexuals as he was on ethnics; he even wore a ribbon in his lapel on Gay Pride days, so determined was he to suck up to minorities. Anyway, doubtless DI Boxham would have circulated the details of the car as Casey presumed the pair had failed to show up at court.

  Moon confirmed it.

  ‘Any idea where they've gone?’ he questioned the room generally. But no one knew the pair's whereabouts. Or, if they did, they weren't saying. Unsurprisingly, the commune, in spite of the festering suspicions, seemed to have closed ranks even against Casey, who was doing his best to help them.

  ‘Dare I presume that you've reported their disappearance to the police?’ Casey asked.

  'Hey man,’ Foxy Redfern put in, ‘we just have, right?’

  Casey breathed in on a sigh and told him, ‘You know very well that I'm investigating unofficially and can't report my findings to the Lincolnshire police. You'll have to do it. It'll look better if it seems you're trying to help them.’ As opposed to hindering them, which was what they seemed determined to do to him. He was surprised Boxham hadn't called in to question them, but when he asked about this he learned the police had so far failed to put in an appearance. But they might yet do so, he realized, so he told them he was moving his car to the rear as a precaution and went out.

  When he returned to the living room, he asked, ‘So when did you notice Johnson and Matthews had gone?’

  'Latish this morning,’ Moon told him. ‘When they hadn't stirred from their room for our court appearance I went and checked on them. All their stuff had gone. They'd even taken all our scented candles.’ Moon sounded more put out about this than she had at the loss of the 4x4.

  ‘Well, they did buy them,’ Kali put in. ‘Why shouldn't they take them?’

  Moon, in spite of her firm belief that property was theft and that everything in the commune belonged to them all, clearly excluded the purchasers of the candles in her Utopian vision. But, equally clearly, she had no answer to Kali's pert observation.

  ‘Would they have gone on the road?' Casey asked. ‘Joined a bunch of travellers, perhaps?’

  Moon scoffed. ‘Not those two. Very particular, they were. Forever complaining about what they called our slovenly habits. They'll have found some comfortable place to nest in.’

  ‘Real pair of queens, those two,’ Foxy put in from the sofa where he had again taken up a sprawling residence. ‘Our ways weren't good enough for them. Just as well they've gone. I've longed to boot them out for some time. Can't stand fairies, man. The way they used to keep their own company as if the rest of us weren't good enough for them stuck in my craw.'

  Yet more evidence of their brotherly love, Casey thought as he nodded. In spite of his misgivings about the stained state of the furnishings, he propped himself on the arm of one of the moth-eaten settees, determined to get something more in the way of information from them than he'd so far gained.

  ‘You must know something,’ he insisted, ‘living cheek-by-jowl as you do. Come on, Moon.’ He turned to his mother. ‘Even if it's true that you don't know where our errant pair took themselves off to, you must have some idea as to who killed DaisyMay and Callender.` It was for certain, beyond a few unsubstantiated theories, that he didn't. ‘You're all living in suspicion of one another. Surely it's better to get such suspicions out in the open?’

  Moon didn't look too sure of
this, so he mentioned that DaisyMay and Callender had been seen together in a local pub, being very touchy-feely.

  ‘Means nothing,’ Moon told him. ‘That's how we are. We love one another, man.’

  Having just listened to Foxy Redfern's tirade of hate against the missing pair, Casey dredged up a faint smile at this.

  ‘DaisyMay hadn't been feeling too well, what with her pregnancy. I imagine Kris had taken her out to cheer her up. It's what we do, hon: support one another.’

  Only if they're as pretty as DaisyMay had been, in Callender's case, was Casey's immediate thought. He'd never noticed the man being touchy-feely or loving to anyone else, including his wife.

  ‘Surely it was up to Dylan to offer solace and cider, rather than Kris Callender?’ Casey remarked.

  ‘We're family,’ Moon insisted. ‘We're not exclusive to our regular partners when someone else is in pain. Love, hon, is what it's all about.’

  From what she had told him over the phone, the other women in the commune — who had taken to locking their bedroom doors at night — clearly didn't embrace this sentiment. Or, if they once had, they did so no longer.

  Neither, it appeared, did Scott or Randy or their resident homophobe, Foxy.

  But, if they suspected one another of murder, none of them was inclined just yet to grass to the cops, even one such as Casey. That much was clear. So after enquiring about the court case and getting mumbled responses, Casey heaved himself from the arm of the settee and left them to their mutual suspicions; maybe, given sufficient time, their suspicion and fear would overcome the brotherly love.

  Swamped with possibilities on two murder investigations, Casey felt he needed a break. Rachel was playing in the orchestra in a local venue, so that evening, after visiting the commune and driving back to King's Langley, he took himself off to the local theatre. He arrived just on the interval when everyone was piling out to the bars to get their alcohol intake.