A Killing Karma

by Geraldine Evans

  Casey stared at him. Fallon was taking this interview a little too casually for his liking. Was the man really so relaxed about such a social taboo as gonorrhoea? Casey didn't think it likely. What man — least of all the sure-of-himself, nightclub-owning Fallon — would take such an infection so in his stride? He'd smashed Carole Brown in the face for giving him the disease. What was he likely to do to the man who had him for a fool twice over: firstly in sleeping with his girlfriend and secondly being the cause of such an infection?

  Aware the interview wasn't progressing smoothly, Casey glanced at Catt, who formed his back-up and nodded.

  ‘We've questioned the witness who saw you in the vicinity of Oliver's house,’ Catt told Fallon. ‘This witness says he was behind you all the way from the nightclub to just yards from Oliver's home.’ Catt didn't add that the neighbour had turned off then and didn't see if Fallon had parked up by Oliver's house.

  ‘What do you want me to say?’ Fallon demanded. ‘That I waited for Oliver to come out of his house and then knifed him? Hell, I don't even know where he lived. Why would I? And how would I find out his address?’

  ‘Carole Brown springs to mind. I presume she'd taken the trouble to get his address before she went to bed with him. Is that why you smacked her about?’ Catt probed. ‘So she would tell you Oliver's address?’

  ‘No. She got the black eye for the reason you already know about. Besides, she didn't know Oliver's address. The creep had apparently been too cagey to give it to her.’

  ‘So you did ask her for it?’

  Fallon scowled at his faux pas but said nothing.

  ‘Okay. So you found it out some other way. I'm sure it's not beyond you to have him traced. I recall you claiming you would have killed him if you'd caught up with him. Strange if you're not guilty of his murder when you managed to find your way to within yards of his door.’

  ‘Coincidence, Sergeant, as I said. Sheer coincidence.’ Fallon stood up. 'I think my brief would tell you you'll have to do better than that. to keep me here.’ He shot his cuffs. There was a glint of gold as he made for the door. ‘That being the case, I'm out of here.’

  Catt looked at Casey, the question — Shall I stop him? — in his gaze.

  Casey shook his head. And as the door closed on Fallon, he said, ‘We can't hold him, ThomCatt. You know that. As the man said, his brief would soon have him released. No.' Casey sat back ‘I think we should try a more subtle means to get at the truth. Didn't he say Carole Brown was now his ex-girlfriend?'

  ‘That's right.’ Catt grinned. 'A woman scorned. She must surely be keen to get back at him.’

  ‘That's what I thought.’ Casey glanced at his watch. ‘I wonder if she's busy packing her stuff up? We'd best get around there before she leaves and goes we know not where.’

  Carole Brown was in a vengeful mood. She carried on throwing her clothes into a couple of suitcases while she spilled what beans she knew.

  ‘You know,’ she said, pausing in her frenetic activity, ‘you should get the Fraud Squad to check out the finances of Max's nightclubs. They're far from kosher. His accountant has some scam set up to hide the bulk of the profits from the taxman. I often heard Max boast about it to show off how clever he'd been.’

  Casey, having enough to contend with in the two murder investigations, wasn't interested in whatever crooked scams Fallon and his accountant had going. Time enough for that when he’d got his current investigations squared away. 'I wanted to ask you about the late Gus Oliver, Ms Brown.’

  ‘Him again. What about him?’ The brief hiatus in the packing came to an abrupt end as more clothes were hurled into the cases and she added, half to herself, ‘Maybe I should slash his expensive suits? That would hit him where it hurts.’

  'I think you already did that,’ Catt told her. ‘You infected him with gonorrhoea, remember?’

  ‘So I did.’ She shrugged. 'I don't suppose it's the first time he got a dose. Occupational hazard I would think, in his line of work.’

  'I asked you about Gus Oliver,’ Casey prompted.

  ‘Another shit. The world's full of them.’

  ‘Did Fallon ever let slip if he had anything to do with Oliver's death?’

  ‘No. But then he wouldn't. Would he be likely to tell me when he must have already been planning to dump me?’

  ‘Put like that, it seems unlikely.’

  ‘Believe me, if I knew anything about it, I'd tell you in a heartbeat.’

  Casey nodded. It seemed she could tell them nothing more, so they left her to her packing, but not before Casey added the rider, ‘You won't forget to let us know where you're going to be staying, will you, Ms Brown? We don't want to have to come looking for you should we need to question you again.’

  She gazed sullenly back at him. ‘I’ll be staying with a girlfriend,’ she told him. ‘I'm off men.’ She rattled off a name and address and Catt's pen raced across the page as he noted them down.

  Questioning Carole Brown about Oliver's death had been a long-shot. And, like most long-shots, it hadn't come off. Still, as Casey remarked to Catt once they reached the pavement, Max Fallon was still in the frame. He'd had the motive and the opportunity to kill Oliver. Maybe, if they could find the murder weapon, it might still retain some traces of the murderer.

  ‘He'll have got rid of the blade, for sure,’ said Catt.

  ‘Of course. Friend Fallon might be a lot of things, but I doubt if he's foolish enough to hang on to it. I think we should redouble our efforts to find it. That and the clothes he was wearing that night. If he planned on killing Oliver, he'd have been prepared with a fresh set of clothes and would have dumped the suit, shirt, tie — even his shoes and socks along with the knife as they would have been heavily blood stained.’

  ‘Maybe some tramp got lucky and is walking around dressed to kill,’ Catt put in.

  Once in the car, Catt picked up the mike. ‘I’ll get the lads to check out the local hobos.’

  ‘Get them to check the local shops that deal in expensive second-hand clothing, too. If a tramp found a suit of fancy clothes it's more likely he'd sell them to buy the next bottle or three.’

  ‘Good thinking.’ Catt relayed the message and sat back. ‘Now what?’

  ‘Now we wait.’

  Chapter Fifteen

  Randy Matthews and Scott ‘Mackenzie’ Johnson still hadn't been traced two days later in spite of the combined efforts of the Lincolnshire force.

  Casey, as he arrived home from the station, convinced the commune members must have some idea where the pair had gone even if they had failed to confide the fact of their going until questioned, decided he'd have to drive to the Fens once more and delve a bit more deeply. It was a depressing prospect; not only were their memories drug-impaired, but they were just as likely to come up with something — anything — in order to get rid of him; they seemed now to be as tired of his questions as they were of those of the official investigators.

  But then, answering questions from the police had never been their favourite pastime; most of them had been busted for drug possession too often in the past to welcome such attentions. But questioned again they must be; maybe one of them had remembered something relevant to the investigation. He kissed Rachel goodbye, told her he'd see her later, and went out.

  It was with a mixture of hope and the expectation of disappointment that Casey again drove to the Fens. By now the commune members had abandoned their brief flurry into being security conscious and the big gate to the smallholding was wide open. Craggie, the smelly and over-affectionate mongrel, was out in the yard with the other two dogs: clearly they'd abandoned attempts to keep the dogs separate much as they'd abandoned their security measures, because all three dogs came racing towards him, zigzagging between the car wrecks, as he got out of his vehicle, Thankfully, this time they recognized him as a welcome visitor and didn't set up their previous frenzied barking. The only attentions Casey received were drools over his trouser legs and the attempt by Craggie to h
ug him to death while breathing his halitosis fumes in his face. He escaped this unwelcome embrace and hurried into the farmhouse, shutting the door firmly behind him.

  For once, the living room was deserted — even hippies had to do some chores if the place was to remain habitable. Casey shouted, 'Hello?’ and Moon appeared from the depths of the farmhouse.

  ‘Hi, Willow Tree. Didn't expect you.’

  Casey, having thought it might be advisable to come unheralded, ignored this observation and simply asked, ‘Where are the others?’

  ‘Oh, they're around somewhere,’ Moon replied vaguely, waving her hand to encompass the entirety of the house and yard. ‘What do you want, anyway?’

  'I suppose a cup of tea's out of the question?’ He hadn't stopped for a meal or a drink, but had left home five minutes after his arrival from work.

  ‘We're not entirely uncivilized, you know. We can run to a cup of tea, though you'll have to have it black as Madonna had her baby and drank the last of the milk to build her strength up for feeding the kid.’

  ‘Oh? What did she have?’

  'A boy. Going to name him David.’

  ‘Nice name.’ Nice normal name, thought Casey. It seemed he hadn't been wrong about the younger generation turning conservative against the Sixties’ rebels. He followed Moon into the kitchen. As he got nearer, the smell of curry powder and other eastern spices became stronger, mixed with the scent of burnt toast and rancid cooking fat. Strangely, he had never ventured into the dim recesses of the house as far as the kitchen, for which he was grateful, it being better to imagine the shambles of encrusted food on the cooker and the damaged and unhygienic work surfaces than to know for sure. He hoped they didn't bring the new baby in here. But then, he reminded himself, the other children of the house had been mostly born and brought up here and survived virtually unscathed. And didn't they say a few germs were good for you? But then ‘they’ could surely not have encountered so many germs in one place.

  It was the drugs, of course, always the drugs. And although Casey thought it probable that Kris Callender had been the only one using crack cocaine, the rest of the commune had their own drugs of preference.

  Dirty mugs and plates overflowed every flat surface, along with empty takeaway containers which were piled on top of one another higgledy-piggledy rather than put in the bin. None of this piled-up detritus fazed Moon; she simply picked up two of the mugs, dunked them under the tap in a cursory wash and put the kettle on. Once it had boiled and she'd made the tea, she cleared assorted junk from two of the chairs and, ever the punctilious hostess, she took the chair with the broken back after telling Casey to sit down.

  Casey, who should have known better than to eat or drink from any of the dishes in this house, forced the tea down once it was poured.

  ‘As I recall,’ he began, ‘Foxy Redfern said the idea of growing the plants in the loft had been Kris Callender's. And the rest of you simply went along with it?’

  ‘No,’ she contradicted him. ‘It was a mutual idea. We'd been batting around possibilities of how to make some bread, seeing as how the government sees fit to give us a pittance. We're not as work shy as people seem to think — it took plenty of labour to lug all the equipment up those rickety stairs to the loft. All Kris did was find a contact willing to put up the money for the equipment.’

  ‘Who was the contact? His usual drug dealer, Tony Magann?'

  ‘No. It was someone else. Some Vietnamese, I think. He wasn't very forthcoming about his identity.’

  ‘I'm not surprised. Honestly, Moon, have you and the rest no sense? Some, if not most of these Vietnamese who are part of drugs gangs are extremely dangerous and you've already said that Kris Callender had been cheating you on your other produce. Didn't it occur to any of you that he might try the same tactics with this Oriental Man?’

  Moon just gave a shrug to this, then added, ‘Hardly matters now, seeing as the cops have confiscated the lot. And with them still sniffing around it's unlikely we'll see the Viets for dust, seeing as they're probably all illegals.’

  Moon gave another shrug. She seemed remarkably unperturbed by this.

  Casey shook his head. It didn't seem possible to get through to her that they might all be in danger. Still, he comforted himself, the Lincolnshire force was aware of the situation and must have put feelers out. Perhaps they'd caught the Vietnamese already. He questioned Moon some more and learned that they hadn't confided this knowledge to the Lincolnshire police.

  ‘Why not?’ he demanded.

  'I don't know. One or two of the others suggested if we kept quiet we might be able to do another deal with the Viet when he came calling as he seems sure to once all the hullabaloo has died down.’

  ‘You're to tell them now,’ he insisted. ‘Do you hear me, Moon?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah. I hear you.’

  But would she obey? was the question. He could but hope while thinking that yet another suspect had entered the ring. Was it possible that Callender had attempted to cheat this Vietnamese as he had cheated his fellow commune members? Maybe so, with the confidence-giving properties of crack cocaine behind him. And if he had and he was caught, Kris's contact would want to teach him a lesson and Vietnamese drug gangs were ruthless and unlikely to consider killing a lesson too far. But that still didn't explain the murder of DaisyMay…

  Casey sighed and asked the question he knew he should have asked before. ‘So how long had this arrangement been going on and how did he meet up with his contact?’

  ‘Kris obtained the equipment to set up in the loft around four months ago as far as I recall. As for how he met up with his contact—' Moon gave yet another careless shrug. ‘I've no idea. Kris tended to be secretive and wasn't too into sharing.’ Dryly, she added, ‘As we found out to our cost.’

  Casey nodded and changed tack to ask, ‘You've still got the mobile?’

  ‘Stop worrying, Willow Tree. I've still got it. It's in a safe place.’

  The loud cry of a new-born disturbed the rare peace and Moon got to her feet. ‘Duty calls. Madonna has no idea about looking after a baby and Lilith, her mum, tends to leave the girl to get on with it on the basis that she'll learn through doing.’ She glanced out of the window. ‘There's Jethro. I sent him to the shop for some more milk.’

  ‘Madonna's breast feeding?’ It was probably de rigueur at the commune.

  ‘Trying to. Not very successfully. Will you have another cup of tea now that the milk's arrived?’

  Hastily, Casey excused himself. There had been some foreign body in the first cup so he was unwilling to risk a second. ‘I'd like a word with Dylan Harper before I go, Moon.’ He felt he'd given the widower more than enough considerate leeway. ‘Can you go and get him?’

  Moon gazed at him with a disappointed air, but nodded and went out.

  Dylan Harper, when he finally appeared, along with Jethro and the milk, looked dreadful. His olive skin was sallow and his face sunken. His hair an uncombed tangle of black curls, he slouched into the kitchen and sank on to Moon's vacated chair.

  ‘You wanted to speak to me,’ he bluntly observed.

  ‘Yes, Mr Harper. As I presume you know, I've questioned the others several times.’ With little result for his trouble. 'I thought it was time I spoke to you.’

  Dylan shrugged — this bodily gesture seemed to have reached epidemic proportions in the commune. Casey found it increasingly irritating.

  'I can tell you nothing, man. You should question the others again, though. It would, I think, serve you better than questioning me.’

  Casey chose not to take his advice. Instead, he changed the subject and to Dylan's surprise, commented pleasantly, ‘You seem very relaxed about the mumps outbreak, Mr Harper. Moon told me you were unfazed in the face of the other men's anxiety.’

  Dylan Harper laughed. There was an edge of relief in his voice. ‘Is that all you wanted to ask me? I had mumps as a boy, so it didn't trouble me. There's no worries about my fertility. I've already proved it,
even though I've no baby to show for it.’ He scowled. ‘Maybe the others aren't quite so sure of their baby-making abilities.’

  ‘Have you any idea as to who might have killed DaisyMay?'

  ‘Could be any of them, though I doubt Star could find the energy.’ His lips pulled back in a twisted grin. ‘Moon, though, now I could see her doing the deed, especially if she discovered Star had found his lost libido with my Daisy.’

  Casey stared at him, unwilling to rise to the bait. ‘What about the others?’

  He shrugged again. ‘As I said, it could be any of them. It's about time you found out.’

  'I agree, Mr Harper. That's just what I intend to do.’

  A shadow passed across Harper's face and he said abruptly, ‘Is that it?’

  ‘Yes. For now. Warn the others not to attempt a flit like Scott and Randy, won't you?’

  Dylan didn't answer, but simply got up and left.

  Casey found Moon and said goodbye. Star was nowhere to be seen; he was probably asleep somewhere where he couldn't be rousted out to help with the chores.

  He told Moon to give his love to Star, reminded her, with some force, that she must tell their local police about the Vietnamese drug dealer, and headed back to King's Langley.

  The weather was once again atrocious. Rain flung itself down in torrents soon after he hit the A17, keeping the wipers doing double time from the spray thrown up by the lorries. He was glad to reach King's Langley and the station as his neck and shoulders ached with the tension of concentration.

  He was surprised to find Catt waiting for him. ‘Thought you'd gone home,’ he murmured as he took off his damp jacket.

  ‘Decided I'd hang around and see if you came back to the station. Get anything more from the great unwashed?’ he asked.