[Inspector Peach 05] - The Lancashire Leopard

by J M Gregson

  Peach said, “You understand right, lad. Chap by the name of Tony Palmer. He’s very cut up about what happened to Hannah. He’d have to pretend to be, of course, if he’d killed her. But we’ve had him checked out by the local fuzz; he’s in the clear. He was in Guildford on the night in question, with five of his mates. Not here in Brunton, like you.”

  Lucy Blake sensed that this was a young man who was still stricken by the death of a girl he had idolised. That didn’t mean he hadn’t killed her whilst in the grip of some fierce fit of resentment, of course, as Peach would swiftly have reminded her. She said gently, “We need to eliminate you from our enquiries, Jason, in the same way as we have eliminated this other lad in Surrey.”

  “If we can, of course,” said Peach curtly.

  Jason wondered if this was the tough cop/friendly cop routine he had heard about as one of the methods the police used to prise one open. The truth, had he known it, was that it hadn’t been worked out like that as a tactic: Peach and Blake each used their own strengths, did what came naturally to them, and found that they complemented each other as an interviewing pair. There was nothing planned about it, but it meant that Peach was prepared to give his sergeant her head nowadays, even when she sometimes appeared to be undermining the effects he created by his more robust approach.

  Jason looked from Blake’s soft smile to Peach’s bristling aggression and said uncertainly, “I saw Hannah that night, yes. But I didn’t kill her.”

  “Where did you see her?” Peach knew the answer to his question perfectly well from the researches of Tony Pickard and Brendan Murphy, but one of his maxims was “Always give ’em the chance to lie”. That way you could expose them from the start, go in for the kill, and press them into telling the truth in more important areas. Peach had been a dancing, quick-footed batsman in the Lancashire League until a couple of years ago, and he had always found that an early boundary persuaded the bowler to bowl less searchingly for the rest of your stay. No one dispatched a loose lie over the ropes more effectively than Percy Peach.

  “I spoke to Hannah in King George’s Hall, on the night she was killed. I was at the dance on that Saturday night.” Jason chose his words carefully, convinced that if he strayed accidentally into any error this man would pounce upon it like a dog upon a bone.

  “Pity, that. Shame you couldn’t have been in Manchester, or Liverpool, or Timbuktu. You’d have been in the clear then.”

  “I’m in the clear now. I didn’t kill her.”

  “Correction, lad. You may not have killed her, but you’re not in the clear until you can convince us of that.” Peach smiled, as if he considered that a highly satisfactory state of affairs.

  Lucy Blake said, “When did you last see Hannah, Jason? At what time in the evening, I mean, as accurately as you can remember.”

  “I danced with her. Some time between ten thirty and eleven, that would be.”

  “Did she seem in any way distressed at the time?”

  “No.”

  “She didn’t say that anyone had been bothering her during the evening?”

  For an instant, Jason was tempted to invent some distress in Hannah, to point the finger towards some mysterious danger and away from himself. Then he saw Peach’s baleful, unblinking scrutiny and said, “No, she didn’t. You can’t hear a lot on the dance floor, of course. Not while the music’s playing. It’s too loud to allow you much conversation.”

  He allowed himself an apologetic smile, and found it returned by a brief and savage one from Peach, like a tennis shot being volleyed fiercely back across the net before you could get into position. “You didn’t have much of an exchange with Hannah, then?”

  “Not while we were dancing. I took her back to where she was sitting with her friends at the end of the music and — well, I asked her if I could take her home at the end of the evening.”

  “And she told you to piss off and you were infuriated by that refusal, and followed her anyway.”

  “No!” Jason was horrified by the way in which his candour had been received. He had expected to be congratulated upon his honesty, but this little sod seemed determined to put the worst possible interpretation on everything he said. “She was quite polite, even sympathetic. She just said she didn’t think it would be a very good idea.”

  “Hard to take, sympathy, isn’t it? When you’ve been close to someone I mean, and you see them feeling not attraction but pity. Enough to make you lose your rag completely. Do things you later regret. Things which horrify you, in the full light of day.”

  “No!” Jason hated this smiling torturer, would have done almost anything to remove the smile which beamed upon him from beneath that shining bald pate. Peach hurt him more because he was so near to the truth of what he had felt on that fateful night. He had felt first humiliation, then frustration and anger, as Hannah’s kindness came through to him as pity. “I didn’t do anything! I would never have done anything, not to Hannah! I never saw her again, after that dance.”

  “Good lad! Now, if you’ll just tell us how you got home and at what time, and then give us the name of someone who can confirm this, we can all stop wasting our time.” Peach flashed his teeth in a tigerish smile.

  Jason noticed for the first time that the inspector’s upper canine teeth were missing in an otherwise perfect and very white set; although what should have been the fangs were missing, he was reminded vividly of Count Dracula. “I...I did look round for Hannah, at the end, but I didn’t see her. She must have left quite quickly with her friend, Anne, I think. I walked home on my own. I must have arrived at about twelve thirty or twelve forty, I think. I…I’m afraid I can’t think of anyone who can confirm that. Everyone at home was in bed.”

  Peach raised his eyebrows more than Jason Wright would have thought was humanly possible. Lucy Blake said quietly, “The time when you arrived home is not so vital, Jason.” There was a pause, in which Wright realised that she meant that he could have arrived home at twelve forty having murdered Hannah. He gulped for oxygen in the airless room as Lucy said, “What we’d like is someone who could confirm where you were at about quarter past midnight.”

  “That’s when she died, isn’t it?” His voice rose on the question. For a moment, it looked as if he would burst into tears. Then he controlled himself, looked down at the table between them, and said in little more than a whisper, “I was two miles away from where she died, walking up Preston New Road on my own; seeing how beautiful the new snow looked on the hedges; wishing I had Hannah beside me to enjoy it with me.”

  There was another pause, whilst they considered this picture. Then Peach said quietly, “You can go now, Mr Wright.”

  Jason looked up at the man who had seemed so determined to trap him, and this time there were tears in his eyes as he said dazedly, “But I haven’t anyone to vouch for what I’m saying.”

  “No. That isn’t necessarily damning, though. The guilty can usually give a convincing account of themselves, with witnesses to prove it. And lots of perfectly innocent people don’t have alibis.”

  Peach glanced at DS Blake, then gave the boy his least threatening smile. “We don’t believe you killed Hannah Woodgate, Mr Wright. If we should have second thoughts, we’ve got your address.”

  Jason realised that his ordeal was at an end, as abruptly as it had begun. He said, “Yes. I shan’t be going away. I’m on a business studies course at Brunton College of Technology.”

  Peach’s smile was again curiously without any threat. “Yes, we know that. And you’re a local lad. Keep your ear to the ground, see if you can pick anything up. See if you hear of anyone behaving strangely. You probably realise that this bloke has killed three times now. And I think he’s a local. If you hear of any odd bods that you think might even possibly be our man, let us know. Don’t worry about wasting our time: we’ll be checking out a vast range of people in the next few weeks, including names given to us by all kind of crackpots. And don’t think anyone you name will ever know where the infor
mation came from.”

  Earnest requests for help from amateurs now, thought Peach as he went back to his office. A sure sign of desperation, that. He’d be asking Tommy Bloody Tucker for his ideas if things got any worse.

  DS Blake guided Jason Wright through the labyrinth of the CID section and back to the reception area. She smiled into the exhausted young face as she prepared to leave him. “You have to be pretty good, to convince DI Peach, without witnesses. Try to get on with your life without Hannah Woodgate now. Look to the future, not to the past. And rest assured: however long it takes, we’re going to get whoever killed Hannah.”

  Seven

  Tuesday, January 8th

  “You’re telling me you still haven’t got anyone in the frame, a full two days after the body of this Woodgate girl was discovered?” Superintendent Tucker believed he saw an opportunity to put what seemed a rather muted DI Peach in his place.

  “No, sir. Not unless you make it a pretty big frame.”

  Tucker looked puzzled for a moment, then resumed even more truculently. “It’s no use playing with words. Have you or have you not got someone for this murder?”

  “No, sir.”

  “I wonder how you spend your days sometimes, I really do. You have a team of sixty and you produce nothing. Or very nearly nothing. And I told the Chief Constable the other day what a quick and incisive detective you were.”

  Peach shut one eye and regarded his chief narrowly through the other one. “Most unwise, sir.”

  “I might have known you wouldn’t even appreciate it when I tried to help you. What do you mean, anyway, when you say that you might have people in the frame if it was a very big frame?”

  “Pretty big, sir, I think I said. I’ve had DCs Pickard and Murphy compiling a list of all the men who were at the dance in King George’s Hall on Saturday night and can’t account for their movements afterwards. There appear to be between thirty and forty of them.”

  “Yes, I see. That seems a sensible place to start.”

  It was a bloody obvious place to start, you gormless old windbag, thought Peach. The place where any young constable with six months service behind him would have started. “Thank you, sir. I’ll pass on your encouragement. It’s tedious work, as you can imagine, but necessary, I thought.”

  “And what has this tedious but necessary exercise produced? Have you lined up two or three suspects from whom our man must come?”

  “Not two or three, sir, no. Twenty or thirty would be nearer the mark, at present. But we’re whittling down the list all the time. If you’d like to apply your expert eye to it, and use your vast experience to—”

  “Don’t bother me with the detail, Peach. I’ve told you before, it’s my job to keep an overview of the situation, to make sure the team is working, to keep the CC and the public informed of our efforts.”

  “Yes, sir. I remember that, now. I’m always reminding the lads and lasses who are working twelve-hour days of the overview that you have of the situation. I tell them just how valuable that is. In detail. I shall—”

  “Twelve-hour days? You’re not going overboard on the overtime budget, I hope. I gave strict orders that—”

  “Sorry if I’ve got this around my neck again, sir. I thought you told the nation on television that ‘no stone will be left unturned’ and ‘no resource will be left untapped’ in the hunt for the Lancashire Leopard. I’m sorry if I misunderstood you, sir, but I thought—”

  “You thought nothing, Peach! Because you know perfectly well that one has to say such things to reassure the public. That these statements have very little to do with the practical running of the station, where we have to husband resources, to be prudent in the use of public funds, to—”

  “Yes, sir. I appreciate what you mean, now. Shall I leak it discreetly that the hunt for the Lancashire Leopard has been stepped down, then? Alf Houldsworth of the Evening Dispatch tried to buttonhole me as I left last night, but I said I hadn’t any news to give him. I’m sure he’d appreciate a little titbit like this, especially if he got it before the rest. Might make quite a little spread of it, I should think, and it’s only fair that the old bugger should get first crack at—”

  “PEACH! You will not speak to the press!” Tucker delivered the monosyllables clearly, loudly and very slowly. “Is that crystal clear?”

  “Very clear indeed, sir. Sorry I misunderstood. It’s just that I know how you pride yourself on your relationships with the media, and—”

  “You will leave any bulletins to the press officer, and any major announcements to me or the Chief Constable.”

  “Yes, sir. Of course, sir. Sorry, sir. It just seemed a major change of policy for us to de-escalate the search for the Lancashire Leopard, and if poor old one-eyed Alf was going to miss out on—”

  “Leave poor old one-eyed Alf to look after himself!” said Tucker grimly, as the headlines swam before his mind’s apprehensive eye. Bluster didn’t seem to have cowed this awful lieutenant of his; he decided to try sarcasm. “And of course we’re not de-escalating the search. I just thought that after two whole days with the extensive team I have secured for you, you might have produced some results. Or is that asking too much of you?”

  “Depends what you mean by results, sir, doesn’t it? I’d say we’re narrowing the field, myself. We’ve narrowed it quite a lot, in the two whole days you mentioned. Rather more than the Serious Crime Squad had been able to narrow it in two whole months, in fact. We’re comparing notes with them and using their help too, of course.”

  Tucker stored away the thought of two days of his investigation against two whole months spent fruitlessly on the previous two murders: it might be useful, that, if the CC or the media got on his back. He said dismally, “I suppose there’s no doubt now that Hannah Woodgate died at the hand of the same man who killed the previous two women?”

  “None whatsoever, sir, I’d say. MO exactly the same, and none of the women sexually assaulted. But you’ll have read all that in my report, sir.” He nodded at the unopened file marked “Confidential” on the superintendent’s desk.

  “Of course.” Tucker, who had started guiltily, tried again to assert himself. “But all of this is very general stuff, isn’t it? Compiling lists, narrowing the field. It might be good enough for the general public, but it doesn’t deceive old hands like me. We’re old sweats together, Peach, in CID work.” He leaned forward, allowing Peach to assimilate the nightmare vision of Tommy Bloody Tucker as a colleague at the crime-face. “I want names, Peach. Accounts of villains you have put in the frame and gone after.”

  Peach studied his chief for a moment, his dark eyes unblinking. Then he abruptly spat the words, “Billy Bedford.”

  Tucker recoiled a foot — almost as if he had been slapped on the cheek with a wet cod, thought Peach pleasurably. The superintendent said stupidly, “Billy Bedford?”

  Peach realised with delight that Tucker didn’t know the man, whereas he could guarantee that every other member of Brunton CID would have recognised the name immediately. “Flasher, sir. Mucky magazine type. Several previous convictions. Did time for the last one. Fifty-four. Lives alone with his mother.”

  Tucker’s eyes lit up. “Can he account for his whereabouts at the time of the murders?”

  “Not satisfactorily, sir, no.”

  “Then why isn’t he in a cell?” Tucker stuck out his chin in his most decisive manner.

  Peach took a metaphorical swing at it. “Because he didn’t do it, sir. Not in my opinion. Of course, if you’d like to have a go at him yourself, I can arrange—”

  “No!” Tucker’s eyes widened with apprehension at the thought of real police work, as Peach had known they would. “I trust my staff, as you should know by now. If you say he didn’t do it, that’s good enough for me.”

  And if I was wrong, you’d hang me from the nearest lamp post without a moment’s hesitation, thought Peach. Aloud, he said, “Your loyalty to your team has always been one of your most valued virtues,
sir. Binds us together in the pursuit of crime, I often think, that does. The knowledge that you would never ever let us down.”

  Tucker peered suspiciously at the round countenance with its smile of contentment, but found the eyes now fixed upon a point a foot above his head. “Yes, well. Who else have you been to see?”

  “We’ve had the ex-boyfriend in here, sir. Gave him a bit of a grilling in an interview room.”

  “And?” Tucker reflected upon the fact that this supremely irritating man, whose flow of words could not be arrested when he was on the wrong tack, seemed to stop and require prompting on the rare occasions when you actually wanted him to speak.

  “Well, he admits he was at the dance on Saturday night. And he admits that he was still smitten by the dead girl, that he asked if he could take her home, that she refused the request.”

  Tucker sought for a penetrating question. He could not keep the excitement out of his voice as he came up with, “And can he account for his movements at the time when the girl was being killed?”

  “Not satisfactorily, sir. He says he walked home. Alone. There doesn’t appear to be anyone who can corroborate his story.”

  Tucker struck his most authoritative pose; his chin was almost as high as his nose. “Then why isn’t he in a cell? And why wasn’t I told this earlier?”

  Peach was suddenly weary of the man. He snapped, “Because we’ve no evidence to put him there. Because there’s nothing at all to connect him with the previous deaths. Because he didn’t do it. In my opinion and that of DS Blake, who interviewed him with me. Sir.”

  He rose and left, without taking his eyes off his superior officer, without waiting to be dismissed.

  *

  Friday, January 11th

  Clyde Northcott was inspecting his pay packet and looking forward to the weekend.

  The money was never as much as you expected, even when you’d done the overtime. Six hours at time and a half he’d put in this week, and he had well over two hundred pounds to come, but the figure was still less than he’d expected. Big lump of tax off it. Fucking Government! he echoed the ritual phrase of all the other lads on his shift; it was nothing to do with politics — you said it whichever of the parties was in power. That didn’t seem to make any difference to you, nowadays. The single blokes were paying for all these brats, supporting all these sponging girls who had kids by God knew who and then called themselves single mothers.