Malice Aforethought

by J M Gregson

  He had thought that she would deny it, might even fly into a rage at him. Instead, she nodded bleakly and said, ‘I know. I joined Rendezvous myself purely to find out exactly what was going on. The girl at the desk showed me some photographs of escorts and I picked out Ted’s. She let me glance at his file to see his background. That’s how I found out about Mrs Connie Bloody Elson and her designs on my man.’

  ‘He was going to marry her?’

  ‘No!’ The monosyllable rang like a shot in that quiet, tasteful room. ‘She thought he was. But that’s as far as it went. He was going to marry me. I’m not defending the way he behaved, the way he deceived other women, but that’s the way he was. I’d have changed him, given time, but I won’t have the chance now.’

  The old female belief, noble but mistaken, that they could change the men they loved, that the rogue could be taken out and the hero enlarged. Lambert had heard it too often to be surprised by it when an intelligent woman voiced it. He kept his face impassive, devoid of any hint of cynicism, as Zoe Ross lapsed again into tears. Then he said, ‘Forgive me, but I must ask you this. If you were so sure that he was going to marry you, why should you be so resentful of Mrs Elson? From what you say, she was being exploited by Ted Giles, but she didn’t represent a threat to you.’

  She sighed, acknowledging with her slender, ballerina’s hands that it was a fair point. ‘I suppose she represented the whole tawdry world of Rendezvous. And if I’m honest, those things in Ted which I saw and didn’t like. She offered all the wealth he craved — and she was good in bed. He made no bones about that. But he was going to marry me. When I heard he’d been murdered, my first thought was that it was a jealous woman who had done it. Someone who had hoped to have him permanently, and then found out that he was going to marry me and give up the easy pickings. Connie, or just possibly one of the other women who had enjoyed his favours through Rendezvous.’

  But that argument could just as easily be turned on its head, thought the two men who sat on Zoe Ross’s fashionable sofa. If she had found out that he proposed to continue playing the rewarding field at the agency, or that he was opting for marriage to the wealth and opulent charms of Connie Elson, the slender woman opposite might have taken her own passionate revenge. Lambert glanced at Hook, and that stolid figure looked up from his notes and asked calmly, ‘Where were you on the night of Saturday the tenth of November, Miss Ross?’

  Her face showed that she knew the reason for the question. ‘Here. I was waiting for Ted, but he never came.’

  Or he came and met his Nemesis in the form of a steel wire tightening round his throat, thought Lambert. He said, ‘Do you know a man named Aubrey Bass? A neighbour of Ted’s.’

  ‘His next-door neighbour? Creepy sort of bloke with a beer gut? He used to watch me coming and going, when I first knew Ted.’

  ‘That’s the man.’

  ‘Well, I know him, then. Just about. He leered at me once or twice when I was on my way into Ted’s flat. Made it pretty clear his athlete’s body was available to me if I should require it. He kept some pretty unsavoury company, according to Ted. Haven’t seen him for months. Why?’

  ‘I can’t tell you that.’

  But Zoe Ross knew Bass, by her own admission. Had known him for months. Had all but indicated that he might not be above acting as an accessory in the disposal of a corpse, if the price was right. ‘Please don’t leave the area without letting us have an address,’ said Lambert as they left.

  She nodded dutifully in the doorway of her house, understanding the implications of what they said, seemingly not frightened by the injunction. They would have given a lot to see her face in the moments after she had shut the door of the house upon them.

  Eleven

  It was Lambert who took the decision to release Aubrey Bass.

  In truth, there was little the police could do to hold him for much longer. They had already kept him in custody overnight and for the whole of Sunday morning on suspicion of his involvement in a serious crime. It would have been necessary to charge him to keep him longer, and they had not been able to add to the initial forensic findings that his van had been used for the transfer of the corpse of Edward Giles to the churchyard at Broughton’s Ash on the night of November 10th. A known associate of Bass’s, a petty thief called Alf Chetwood, had said when questioned that Aubrey had been drinking with him for three hours on that Saturday evening, a period which amply covered the times when a white van had been sighted by the residents of Brompton’s Ash.

  No policeman would give any credence to the word of Alf Chetwood, but his evidence would have the same standing in a court of law as that of the most upright citizen. More to the point, successive attempts had failed to shake the story of Aubrey Bass himself. He had been questioned at intervals by Rushton, Hook and Lambert. He had dithered; he had scratched himself with increasing vigour; he had filled his cell and a series of interview rooms with nervous flatulence.

  But he had not changed his story. His van had been parked behind the flats where he lived, in its usual place. For the whole of the night of November 10th, as far as he knew. If anyone had used it that night, it certainly wasn’t him. For a man who normally switched his ground under police pressure and whined his way into trouble like the petty crook he was, Bass held to his story with remarkable consistency. As he shifted himself from buttock to buttock and scratched beneath each arm in turn, it began to seem that Aubrey Bass might for once be telling the truth.

  Rushton told him he was being released because he was a health hazard to the whole station, and sent him on his way. Aubrey essayed a little truculence and tried to speak loftily of the dire consequences for the police of wrongful arrest, but it emerged too shakily to give even him any satisfaction. He made noises about the return of his van, trudged homeward with a weary relief, and shut the door of his flat upon the world.

  Although it was still early in the afternoon and no one could see into the windows of his first-floor flat, he drew the curtains before he made his call to Alf Chetwood. ‘Thanks, Alf. Do the same for you, you know. Have done, haven’t I?’ Might as well let him know it was a favour called in rather than a debt to be repaid. ‘We mustn’t let the bastards grind us down.’

  They went through a ritual denunciation of the police, crowed a little at their small frustration of the activities of the filth. Then Alf asked what they had being trying to frame him for, and Aubrey became evasive. Murder was right outside their league, and the mention of it brought a chill even to their dubious world. And there was no need to tell Alf how big a favour his lie had been.

  After he had fulfilled his obligations of gratitude, Aubrey opened a can of beer to wash away the taste of the police cell, belched loudly and extravagantly in the privacy of his kitchen, as if to convince him-self that he was free, and sat down in front of his television set to make ready for the afternoon’s football on Sky.

  When the knock came at his door, he wondered for a moment whether to ignore it. But if it was the fuzz again, he knew they certainly wouldn’t go away. With a weary curse, he laboured himself out of the battered armchair and went to the door.

  It wasn’t the police. It was quite the prettiest face he had seen for some time, with a lithe young body beneath it, and Aubrey was glad to have both of them within his walls. Zoe Ross perched on a dining chair opposite Aubrey Bass, keeping her delectable knees fastidiously together. ‘We need to talk,’ she said.

  ***

  Colin Pitman hunched his big shoulders against the rising wind as he went reluctantly out to the garage. Though it was scarcely six o’clock, it was already very dark. There was no sign of a moon, and the low, racing clouds obscured any light the stars might have given him. He hunched himself over the steering wheel of the Jaguar XK8, allowed himself an ill-humoured oath, and turned the key to roar the great engine into life.

  Even now, when he was threatened, the sound of that engine, with its six cylinders roaring like a caged beast before they settled to a smooth,
powerful purr, brought him a little thrill of pleasure, natural to a man who had dealt with engines and machinery for all of his successful working life. The Jaguar was one of the few tangible badges of success he allowed himself to wear for others, and its engine note was the quiet, half-conscious assurance to himself that he was a success in his work. Even tonight, the quiet power of the XK8 gave him a tiny injection of confidence, as he eased the big car onto the A449 and drove northwards. Yet that was soon submerged under his anxiety and rage. Colin Pitman was a man not used to being summoned to meetings against his will.

  Indeed, it was a long time since anyone had made this man do anything: he controlled his own destiny and was proud of it. Yet tonight he didn’t see how he could have done anything else — even now he didn’t, though he had thought of nothing else in the hour since the phone call had come.

  Over the last thirty years, he had made bluntness a virtue, had scorned those who refused to face facts, who made issues more complicated than they were. Basically Pitman was honest and straightforward, in both his business and his personal dealings. His late wife had often complained with irritated affection that he was too straightforward, too determined upon logic, that he refused to see the complexities of any problem. He would have liked to be able to talk to her now, for he felt confused as well as angry. He was realising that a single rash act brought in its wake a whole series of dilemmas he had not expected.

  As he drove into the outskirts of Worcester, he became aware why the man had chosen this time and this place. The warehouse lay alongside other such buildings, at the end of a cul-de-sac, and at this time on a Sunday night there seemed to be not a light in the entire area. There was a stretch of old cobbles from an earlier era to the right of the high doors of the place. Pitman resolved that if the man had others with him he would swing the Jaguar in a tight circle and race away. You could not build up a business in haulage without making enemies, and whatever reasons lay behind this strange summons he was not going to risk an ambush in this deserted place.

  But the fierce headlights of the Jaguar picked out a single figure, pressing back automatically against the door of the warehouse, shielding its eyes against the blinding glare of the twin beams. Pitman stopped the car, keeping the engine running, letting its power die to an idling that was almost inaudible within its leather interior. He considered for a moment whether he should beckon the man over, conduct this exchange on his own terms from within his own cave of warmth. Then he switched the engine off and climbed out stiffly into the cold night air. He didn’t intend that there should be any violence, but if there was, he wanted to be standing balanced upon his own two feet. Pitman gripped the length of heavy piping in the pocket of his car coat as he went towards the suddenly scarcely visible figure in the shadow of the warehouse entry.

  ‘You’d better have good reason to get me here like this, Matt Walsh,’ he rasped.

  He had left the lights on in the Jaguar, but the headlights had switched off automatically when he removed the keys from the ignition. As his eyes became accustomed to the dimmer light of the sidelights, the man turned half towards him and he saw the face he recognised. A thin face with a prominent nose; birdlike, crafty, sidelong, as though it was meant to be seen perpetually in profile. “Tis I, indeed, Mr Pitman. And I alone, as I said it would be, d’you see.’ The voice had a familiar, wheedling tone, and Pitman was suddenly nauseated that it should have brought him here like this.

  He had sacked this Irishman a year ago, for tampering with his tachometer, and lying on his returns about the mileage and the hours that he had been driving. Suddenly he hated both this man and himself for being here with him. He did not trouble to keep the loathing out of his voice as he said, ‘You were sacked fair and square, Walsh! You and I have nothing more to say to each other.’ Yet even as he said it, he knew it couldn’t be true. Else why would he be here, at the behest of this pathetic creature?

  ‘You’ve put your finger on it, sure an’ all, Mr Pitman. I want my old job back, drivin’ the lorries for you. Nothing more than that.’ The wheedling tone of the voice overrode the Irish accent, even now, when Matt Walsh was trying to dictate terms. Pitman was the strong man here and Walsh was the subordinate, and not just in physical terms. The big man was used to controlling his world and those who inhabited it; the slight figure beside him was a natural follower.

  Yet it was Walsh who was in control, who had set up the time and the place for this meeting, and Pitman knew that even as he said roughly, ‘And why should I give you that? I told you, you were sacked fair and square!’ He repeated the phrase harshly, as if the justice of the man’s dismissal could carry weight, even now when he had put himself in the creature’s power.

  ‘I know where you were on Saturday night, the tenth of November, d’you see?’ Walsh iterated his one precious fact care-fully, almost apologetically.

  Almost as if it were not a threat, thought Colin Pitman bitterly. His hands were thrust into his pockets, and the fingers of the right one closed now upon the length of piping. He wanted to hit this sly, wiry man alongside him, to express his outrage that he should be threatened by this contemptible presence. But that would solve nothing —would lead indeed to greater problems.

  Unless he killed him.

  For a moment he toyed with the thought. Then he was appalled by it. Had it come to this then? Had he been reduced to this? For a searing moment he longed for the wife who was dead, who would have guided his conduct in the first place, who would have made sure that he would never put himself in a position to be threatened by the likes of Matt Walsh. Then he said dully, ‘And if I give you a job, what then? Will you be in to my office every time the going gets rough, threatening me again, wanting your own way, wanting more money?’

  ‘Indeed that I won’t, Mr Pitman. You’ll have my word on that. A job driving the lorries again, and you’ll hear no more from me, you won’t.’ With the recognition that he had probably won, there was an earnestness now in Walsh’s whining, a relief that he should be back in his natural position of supplication. ‘I swear you won’t, Mr Pitman. It’s just that I need the job, you see.’

  A blackmailer apologising, thought Pitman sourly. For he was being blackmailed, and both of them knew it. He said heavily. ‘You’re lying, Walsh, just as you lied last year, about your mileages. You can’t know where I was on that Saturday night, because I was at home.’ Even as he said it, he knew it could not be true: a man like Walsh would never have dared to threaten him without being sure of his ground.

  The voice beneath him sounded almost regretful as it said, It’s true, Mr Pitman, really. I know where you were. Seamus Connelly saw you.’

  For a moment, he could not place the name. Then he realised that Connelly was an employee of his, an Irishman who drove lorries to the Continent, right across into Eastern Europe on occasions. He said dully, as if it was a proof that he could not have been seen, ‘But Connelly was on holiday at the time. He only took out his first load again on Friday.’

  ‘Yes, but he saw you. There’s no doubt of it, Mr Pitman.’ The nervous voice came out of the darkness as if the words gave the speaker pain. There was a stink of bad breath, a whiff of the whisky which had steeled the speaker to this task.

  Colin Pitman paused, forcing himself to think with something nearer to his normal clearness. He could ask for assurances, guarantees that this wouldn’t go any further, that once this repellent creature was back in his employment there would be no further mention of this, no further exploitation of the knowledge Walsh held about that fateful night. Such assurances would not be worth the bad breath that voiced them. He thrust his clenched fists against the lining at the bottom of his pockets, fearing that if they came out they would grasp the throat of the puny, insistent man who trembled in the darkness beside him. Then he said, forcing the words out as his voice grated with his reluctance, ‘All right. You can have your job back. Come into the office tomorrow afternoon. I’ll make sure they’re expecting you by then. But if you e
ver breathe a word of this to a living soul, you’re a dead man, damn you!’

  ‘Oh, it won’t go any further, Mr Pitman, so help me God it won’t! It’s none of my business, and it will be forgotten. Sure it’s just that I need the job, you see, or I’d never have raised it at all, honest I wouldn’t!’

  With his aim achieved, Walsh was only too anxious to get away. Colin Pitman had only seen blackmailers on film, and they had always been truculent and confident. You could not have had a more unaggressive enforcement than this, he thought sourly. He dismissed the man, as if he and not Walsh had been in control, and the small figure scuttled away. Like a rat bolting into the darkness, thought Colin bitterly. He heard a small car engine fire twice before it struggled into reluctant life a hundred yards or so away.

  Pitman stayed where he was for two minutes, until the notes of that engine died away in the distance. He knew as he went slowly back to his Jaguar that it was the man in the expensive clothes and the big car who had made the concessions here. The six cylinders of the four-litre engine purred into life at the first touch of the switch.

  For the first time, the noise did not give him the accustomed small thrill of comfortable contentment.

  Twelve

  In almost thirty years as a policeman, John Lambert had trained himself to remain calm whatever the situation. But the un-expected could still shock him.

  And he was not prepared for the hospital crest on the stark white foolscap envelope as he gathered up the post on Monday morning. He felt his heart pounding as he resisted the urge to open the letter himself, to protect the wife who seemed now so vulnerable, after being for so many years the rock to which his family was tethered. Christine was sitting at the table as he took the post into the warm kitchen. ‘I think your letter from the hospital’s come,’ he said. He wondered at the banality of the words; his voice sounded strangely high and brittle in his own ears.