A Necessary End

by J M Gregson

  Neither of these women who were bound so unusually together could know that DCI Peach was on his way at that moment to speak with Ms Preston about exactly why she might have killed Alfred Norbury.

  NINETEEN

  ‘Report to me at midday.’ The order from Tommy Bloody Tucker was stark and uncompromising. Percy Peach didn’t like it, but he’d been half-expecting it. His afternoon appointment wasn’t until two-thirty, so he couldn’t say it was inconvenient. Better attend and take whatever fun he could from the meeting.

  ‘It’s a week today since this happened, Peach. Are you close to an arrest?’

  ‘We have made progress, sir. Research into the backgrounds of those involved has thrown up several possibilities.’

  ‘Possibilities, Peach? I want action. Drastic action. As far as I’m concerned, possibilities are just gobbledegook.’

  ‘I bow to your superior experience in that field, sir.’

  Tucker looked puzzled and even more vacant than usual, but one had to be an expert of Percy’s calibre to note the difference. ‘There are important people involved in this case, Peach. You need to tread carefully.’

  ‘At the same time as taking drastic action? I see, sir. Mrs Sharon Burgess is one of our leading suspects.’

  ‘Of Burgess Electronics? Involved, but surely not a suspect, Peach. She is a friend of mine.’

  ‘That doesn’t automatically exclude people from suspicion, sir. Our murder victim caused Mrs Burgess much pain some years ago. She has told us that he came near to breaking up her marriage. She also claims she has never been in Mr Norbury’s car in the last few years, but a glove worn quite recently by her was found beneath the passenger seat of that car. She has so far failed to provide us with a satisfactory explanation for that.’

  Tucker wore his baffled-goldfish look now and Peach felt rewarded. ‘I suppose you have questioned her thoroughly.’

  ‘I’ve done that, sir. Perhaps it needs your expertise. Would you like me to get her into our smallest interview room and shine an arc lamp into her face whilst you grill her, sir? I know you hail from a more brutal age of policing, but I’m sure—’

  ‘You will treat Mrs Burgess with proper courtesy, Peach. And don’t allow that black bagman of yours to go terrifying her. Do you hear?’

  ‘I hear, sir. I admire the way you keep your inclination towards violence under such strict control. I presume you will not wish to put the thumbscrews on Ms Enid Frott. She makes no secret of the fact that she is the late Frank Burgess’s former PA and mistress, who also had good reason to hate Mr Norbury.’

  A bright thought flooded suddenly into Tucker’s face, making him look for a moment almost intelligent. ‘This won’t be a woman, you know. It was a shooting.’

  ‘I see, sir. I don’t think we can simply rule out all women. The weapon was provided ready to hand by Alfred Norbury, who advertised its presence in his car to the five people he met on the night before his death. And the pistol was simply held close to the side of his head and fired: no expertise or previous firearms experience was needed.’

  Tuckers lips set sullenly. ‘This will be a man, Peach. You mark my words.’

  ‘I always do that, sir. They have given me much food for thought over the years. We have a man in the frame who was just six years younger than Norbury and was a former work colleague of his. He is a political and sports cartoonist who operates freelance and is doing rather well. However, he claims he lost his full-time post with the Daily Mail some years ago because of the treachery of Alfred Norbury, who also severely damaged his marriage – Mr Fosdyke is now divorced. He contrived a false alibi for the time of the murder, which we have now exposed.’

  ‘Well, there you are, then. Bring him in. Charge him and get him behind bars. Furnish me with the details and I’ll arrange a media briefing.’ Tucker’s eyes shone with the missionary light which always blazed in them with the prospect of good publicity.

  ‘We need proof to arrest him, sir. He hasn’t yet confessed.’

  ‘Break him down, Peach. He sounds to me like your man. But you’ve also got a young thug on your list too, haven’t you? This Jamie Norris fellow. No regular employment for years.’

  ‘No, sir. He has ambitions to be a writer, sir.’

  ‘Well, there you are, then. I’m surprised you haven’t got the idle young sod locked away by now.’ Tucker seemed to see no lack of logic in offering his DCI two very different candidates for arrest. All part of the necessary bollocking process, as far as Thomas Bulstrode Tucker was concerned.

  ‘Mr Norris was something of a protégé of the dead man. It seems possible that Alfred Norbury had sexual designs upon him which were not reciprocated.’

  Tommy Bloody Tucker was triumphant. ‘Dissolute, you see. This yobbo has been a drain on the state whilst he farted about pretending to write, and now turns out to be a pooftah as well. A pooftah who’s fallen out with his bedmate and ends up by shooting him! Happens all the time nowadays, this sort of thing.’ The Chief Superintendent’s noble features tightened into a prim disdain.

  ‘A commendably forthright attitude, sir. I’m sure it will be received sympathetically at your media conference. In view of your certainty, it seems hardly worth mentioning our fifth suspect, but I shall do so in the interests of comprehensiveness. In addition to Mrs Burgess and Ms Frott, a much younger woman was also present at that meeting on the eve of Mr Norbury’s death. She goes by the name of Jane Preston, sir. She is a lecturer in English Literature at the University of Central Lancashire. Perhaps seen by Mr Norbury as an intellectual challenge, but that hardly gives her a motive for murder. However, we have discovered—’

  ‘She is obviously as unlikely a candidate as the other two women, Peach. Don’t waste my time any further. I have given you the informed overview that you demanded of me. I now expect action.’ Tommy Bloody Tucker jutted his jaw at his most heroic angle and dismissed his junior from his presence.

  The toad in the hole was much better than usual in the police canteen. A new chef had started this week and he was male. Percy held his peace on that, listening with interest to the comments on the food from his female colleagues. Then he locked himself in his office and did his homework. He had no idea what to expect during the afternoon. Blank denial? An assertion that the most extreme of actions had in this case been justified? Silence and a blunt challenge to prove what he alleged?

  He was determined to be prepared for whatever he met. He called Clyde Northcott into his office, made sure that the big man thought as he did. Having checked that his DS was as well briefed as he was, he went down to the police Mondeo with firm resolve. Most of the men and women who worked with him thought Percy Peach never felt pressure, and he did everything he could to foster that impression. But there were occasions when he needed his privacy and a period of solitude to summon his resolve. This had been one of them.

  Northcott drove and neither of them spoke much on the ten-mile journey to the University of Central Lancashire. He could have brought Jane Preston in to the station and interviewed her there. He could have talked to her with others able to observe from outside the room because of the modern technology. He hadn’t quite come to terms with the one-way glass wall yet: sometimes he thought that the knowledge that he was being observed by people he couldn’t see from beyond the glass disturbed him more than it did his subjects.

  He also had an instinct that on this occasion the subject might speak more freely in her own surroundings.

  Jane Preston certainly seemed quite relaxed as she collected them from the reception area. She commented on the latest developments on the campus as she led them a considerable distance to the tutorial room which had her name displayed clearly upon its door. ‘We won’t be disturbed. I’ve no classes for the rest of the day. Not that I’m anticipating this will take as long as that!’ Her little giggle might have been a sign of nervousness, or mere social unease. She’d never entertained senior policemen in her room before. And never would again, she hoped.

>   Peach gave her one of his enigmatic smiles. They usually made people nervous – especially younger people like this one, who had no criminal background and weren’t used to his approach. He sat in the chair usually occupied by a nervous student who was here to discuss an essay and said, ‘You don’t look like a serious criminal. But I learned long ago not to trust appearances.’

  Jane smiled back at him and decided not to react to that. She was aware that her fair colouring was against her here. Her naturally blonde hair and clear blue eyes had brought her many advantages over the years, but her fair skin could be a disadvantage when she was nervous. You blushed more easily than people with sallow skins – not that she expected to blush much here. But you also tended to turn more obviously pale when you were nervous or when something shocked you. The blood seemed to leave your face more visibly than it did with darker-skinned people. She glanced at Detective Sergeant Clyde Northcott, sitting with the smoothly polished countenance of an African god beside his chief, and thought how little trouble he must have with his skin when it came to concealing feelings.

  Peached sighed. ‘You told us on Saturday that you had no long-standing grievance against Alfred Norbury.’

  Jane gave him a wide smile. ‘I hadn’t met him before that Monday-night meeting of our book club.’

  Peach stretched his legs in front of him and looked at the shine on his shoes, almost regretfully, it seemed. ‘Perhaps not. You knew a lot about him, though, didn’t you?’

  ‘It was Mrs Burgess who persuaded me to go along to the book club. I didn’t really want to join anything like that, but she convinced me that it might be fun.’

  ‘Yes. I can picture you acting out your reluctance to join. I should think you were quite good at it. You seem to have a talent for deception.’

  ‘I think you’re trying hard to be offensive. Is this part of your technique, Chief Inspector? I can’t think that I’ve done anything to merit your hostility.’

  ‘How long have you been calling yourself Jane Preston?’

  She looked blank; did it rather well, she thought. Pale skin was at least excellent for looking blank. ‘As long as I’ve been alive, I suppose. Certainly as long as I can remember.’

  ‘You lie well. I’ve seen a lot of liars over the years, but you’re certainly as good as most.’ His voice hardened. ‘We know that you are Eleanor Garside. Usually known as Ellie. Universally known as Ellie, in your native Penrith.’

  ‘Jane Preston was for professional reasons.’ She kept her face straight, with that slight, enigmatic smile playing about the corners of her mouth. Behind it, she was frantically trying to think of how there could be any professional advantage for her in her change of name.

  ‘You didn’t change your name by deed poll. That is why it took us longer to unearth your deception.’

  ‘It’s not illegal. I used Preston when I applied for the post here. Everyone here knows me as Jane Preston. If the bureaucrats had chosen to check my qualifications, they’d have found they were in my original name, but they rarely do that. Jane has always been my second name. I decided to use it. I’ve grown quite used to it now.’

  Peach stood up without taking his eyes from her face. He took the single step which was all he needed and picked up the photograph which had been facing her on her desk. It was another copy of the colour photograph of her and her brother she kept in the house. It had been taken eighteen years ago, when she was still a child and Adam was a foot taller than her. Peach looked at it for a moment, then set it carefully back on her desk exactly where it had been, looking at her sympathetically as he did so.

  He sounded almost reluctant as he said, ‘Why did you tell me those lies about being a solitary child when we spoke on Saturday? Why did you try to give us the impression that you were an only child?’

  She couldn’t think of any reason. He seemed so calm, so certain, that it seemed scarcely worth the effort of trying to contest things. But he might be merely probing, trying to build on a little knowledge to secure further revelations from her. She forced a smile. ‘I don’t know why I did that. It was silly, really. You were pressing me about Penrith and how I grew up there and why I didn’t go back there very much. It just came out with the rest of what I was telling you. There was a difference of six years between my brother and me. I suppose I felt like an only child sometimes, especially after Adam had grown up and gone away.’

  ‘But you were very close, weren’t you, you and Adam?’

  It was the first time he had used the name and she felt almost violated. Adam was hers. She didn’t want other people bandying his name about. She felt the first crack in her voice as she said, ‘Yes. We were very close.’ She was sure she’d gone pale now, that the blood had drained from her face with his mention of Adam. ‘He looked after me, Adam did. At home, at school, when we played with other children. Even in the house. If he felt Mum and Dad were being hard on me, he always spoke up for me.’

  ‘You missed him when he grew up and moved away.’

  ‘Yes. It felt as if I was alone for the first time. Dad and I were never as close as some fathers and daughters. It was Adam I always looked to for guidance and help. Both of us knew that.’

  ‘I expect you missed him even more after he died. Even though you’ve grown up and made a career for yourself since then.’

  She looked straight ahead, speaking more to herself than her visitors now. ‘I still miss Adam. I’ll never stop missing him. Even though I feel better, now that he’s been avenged.’

  It was the first admission, the first acknowledgement that she wasn’t going to go on fighting them. As if marking a change of mood or introducing a different movement in music, Clyde Northcott took over the questioning. His voice was basso profundo, but not threatening. It was smooth, emollient, persuasive. ‘Adam died eight years ago, didn’t he?’

  ‘He did, yes. We took him home to Penrith to burn him.’ Her face twisted suddenly with the pain of the memory, but then in two seconds was clear and blank again.

  ‘Do you want to tell us about that death, Ellie?’

  She looked at Clyde sharply when he used that name, then glanced down at her desk and smiled. He was quite fit, really, this big black policeman. Dangerous, perhaps, but she’d always liked a bit of danger. Adam had warned her about that. Adam should be here now to talk to her about DS Northcott. Perhaps he’d have told her she was a big girl now and should be able to look after herself. Lots of other people had told her that, but she’d never felt it herself. Professionally she was independent, yes, but not in her private life. Not until last Tuesday, anyway, when she’d finally put things to rights. She said, ‘Alfred Norbury killed Adam, you know. Killed him as surely as if he’d put a knife through his heart.’

  ‘But that wasn’t the official verdict, was it, Ellie?’

  The big black man knew. He knew and he was sympathetic. He probably understood exactly why she’d had to do it. She smiled at him. ‘They said it was suicide. “Suicide whilst the balance of the mind was disturbed”, they said. Mum said they were trying to be kind. But being kind wasn’t going to bring Adam back, was it?’

  ‘No, it wasn’t, Ellie. Tell us how you think Alfred Norbury killed him, please.’

  She was glad he was calling her Ellie now. It brought a kind of relief to her, when she heard her name spoken in that soft, impossibly deep voice. Like a lullaby singing you to sleep. ‘Alfred Norbury took Adam up like a new hobby, just a fortnight after my brother came to live in Brunton. Nine years ago, that was. I was only eighteen and still in the sixth form.’

  ‘So you knew nothing about what was going on here.’

  ‘No. I’d never set foot in Brunton then. But I could tell things were going wrong for Adam just by speaking to him on the phone. He had his degree from Cambridge and he knew lots of things. But he didn’t know enough about life to beware of Norbury.’ She spoke the name like a curse, as no doubt it was to her. ‘Adam was a research assistant at Manchester University who was living here with on
e of his university friends. He wasn’t earning much, but there was talk of a full-time teaching post at the end of the year. Norbury got him work writing reviews of books. He helped him with short stories. He lured him into bed. That was Adam’s mistake.’ She was almost as anguished in admitting a flaw in her beloved brother as she had been at the thought of Norbury’s villainy. ‘Adam knew immediately that it was a mistake, but Alfred Norbury wouldn’t let him go. He threatened him with all kinds of things. He said Adam had no idea how vicious he could turn if he didn’t get his way. The Coroner’s Court said it was suicide, but it was Norbury who killed Adam. As surely as … well, as surely as …’

  ‘As surely as you killed Alfred Norbury himself last Tuesday evening, Ellie.’

  ‘That’s right, yes. Adam can rest in peace now, can’t he?’

  She looked up for the first time at Northcott, who gave her a grave smile and the smallest of nods. ‘You said earlier that you changed your name when you applied for the teaching post here.’

  She looked now at the wall lined with books in her tutorial room, as if she needed to remind herself where she was. ‘Yes. Jane’s my second name – I told you. I thought I’d use that and change from Garside to Preston. I needed to get near to Norbury without him suspecting who I was, you see. And he never did, until I told him in the car last Tuesday. I shot him immediately after I’d told him. I was glad he knew who I was and why he was dying.’ She spoke as calmly as if she had delivered a birthday present rather than death.

  Northcott let her words hang in the quiet room for a few seconds before he said, ‘You’d been planning to kill him for a long time, hadn’t you, Ellie?’