by J M Gregson
‘Not me! Kevin Allcock ain’t no grass.’ The stubborn, hopeless attempt at pride, the familiar Pavlovian reaction of the small-time crook.
‘Then you’ll go down for a long time, Kevin.’ Peach, looking as if that would be an entirely satisfactory happening, folded his papers and seemed ready to leave. Then he said, almost as if it were an afterthought, ‘Unless, of course, you happen to be implicated in this murder we’re investigating at the UEL, in which case it could be life.’
The word ‘murder’ was inserted at the perfect moment, when the defeated pusher thought that things could not possibly get worse. It was a word which carried a certain glamour, even among lesser criminals. And to Kevin Allcock, the mention of the word brought a new fear. ‘What d’ you mean, murder? I ‘aven’t never —’
‘On the site at UEL, Kevin. Not more than two hundred yards from the spot you were apprehended trafficking in drugs last night.’
‘But murder’s nothing to do with me. I never —’
‘Often involved in modern murders in some way, the drug industry, isn’t it, Kevin? Billions of pounds involved. Well worth the odd murder, some people think.’
‘I know nothing about any murder.’
‘Have you for an accessory, I shouldn’t wonder, with your record.’
‘Look, I’m no murderer, Mr Peach. I’m a small-time pusher, that’s all.’ The defiant obscenities were now long gone, the tone was wheedling.
That whine of supplication, familiar in Peach’s ears from his dealings with hundreds of small criminals, showed that this meat was nicely tenderized. ‘You’ll need to prove that to me, Kevin, by telling me everything you know about the drug scene on the site. Completing the picture for us, as you might say.’
Perhaps Allcock really believed the bluff that the CID already knew a lot about the drug scene at UEL — Peach actually knew nothing, and a call to the Drugs Squad Superintendent before this meeting had revealed that they knew precious little more. Or perhaps the shabby figure in front of them was merely frightened out of his wits by now. He took a long breath and made a last attempt to be crafty, ‘Help me, won’t it, when it comes to sentence? If I tell you all I know now, I mean?’
‘We don’t do deals, Kevin. Not with the likes of you. The drugs people will very likely point out to the judge that you’ve helped them to name some bigger boys, if that’s the way it turns out.’
‘Anyway, I ‘aven’t much choice, ‘ave I? You’ve got me banged to rights, as you said.’ He was rationalizing the fact that he was about to grass, as small men usually did. He looked desperately from Peach’s impassive face to Brendan Murphy, who gave him the briefest of confirmatory nods. ‘I don’t know where my drugs come from — honest I don’t. There’s a drop for me. I pick up what I’ve ordered and leave a list of what I want the next week.’
‘Where’s the drop, Kevin?’
‘Behind an empty warehouse, in Burnley. Small room at the back. Used to be a nightwatchman’s place, I think.’
Peach would leave the Drugs Squad to get the details, to see how much more they could squeeze out of this dubious accessory. It was their case, once he had checked there was no connection with the Carter killing. ‘What about the university site, Kevin? Fill us in on what you know about that.’
There was the briefest of hesitations: they could see him forcing himself to break the only real code he had, that you didn’t grass. Then he said, ‘I guess you know most of this. The guy who controls drugs in the university works on the site. McLean. Malcolm McLean.’
Peach concealed his excitement beneath a nod which implied that this was no news to him. ‘And how does he control it, Kevin?’
‘Tells me where to contact people. How and what to supply. Lets the students and a few of the staff on the site know where to come for the goods, I suppose.’ He had turned sullen, but he was giving them information, which was all that mattered. He looked up suddenly. ‘But you know all this already, don’t you.’
‘Maybe, Kevin. But I’ll put in a word for you, whenever I can. Say you did your best to be helpful. Know where he lives, do you, this McLean?’
‘No. He’s a lecturer in the place, though, isn’t he?’
They dismissed him then, quickly. Peach could scarcely conceal his excitement until the wretched figure had been led from the room. A drug scene at the UEL, and a member of staff controlling it, apparently. Murder might have a drugs connection, after all.
*
On a crisp November morning, Detective Sergeant Lucy Blake was quite envious of the students of the University of East Lancashire. There seemed more sun and more bracing air here on this green campus than in the old cotton town of Brunton, which was no more than four miles away but completely invisible from this site in the Ribble valley. The students ran or walked between the modern, well-spaced buildings of the different faculties, hailing friends, exchanging banter. They were privileged, spending three years in a place like this, whilst the contemporaries of their school years were discovering the harshness of real working life in factories or offices. She didn’t mind the privilege: she just hoped they appreciated it. Not yet twenty-seven and already thinking like a middle-aged woman, Lucy told herself ruefully.
Give extra attention to all the people who live or work on the site, Carmen Campbell had said. It remained to be seen whether that was genuine advice or an attempt to get the police attention off her own back. The man Lucy was going to see didn’t live on the site. But he held a unique position there, and occupied his own headquarters. And cross-referencing on the police computer had thrown up one startling fact about him.
She had parked her bulbous little Vauxhall Corsa in the main car park quite deliberately. It wasn’t just that it would be nice to arrive unheralded at her destination; she wanted to absorb as much as she could of the atmosphere of this academic centre where a murderer might be lurking. It took her ten minutes to walk to the extreme edge of the campus which was her destination, but she found the walk in the sunshine instructive as well as enjoyable.
The Reverend Thomas Matthews had been disappointed by the attendance for Holy Communion on this Thursday morning, but the few students who were there had promised to try to drum up a little more support for the three Thursdays which remained before the Christmas vacation. He was wandering round the cold and rather bleak chaplaincy when he saw the red-haired young woman studying the board outside which announced his name and the hours he was here.
His first thought was that this was someone wanting his services as chaplain; he was both disappointed and disturbed when she showed him her identification as a detective sergeant from Brunton CID. They went into the small study cum robing room behind the main room of the chaplaincy where he held his services and talked to his religious action groups.
‘This is a routine visit as a result of our investigation into the murder of Dr Carter,’ Lucy said. ‘We’re questioning everyone who has a base on the site. There may be things which don’t seem important to you but which become significant to us, as part of the picture of the life of Dr Carter which we are assembling.’
He had seemed nervous when she mentioned the purpose of her visit, which the detective in her said was a good start. She had never had to question a clergyman before, not on her own. She had to conquer a surprisingly deep-seated prejudice which told her that a man in a dog collar could not possibly be involved even peripherally in a murder inquiry. The Reverend Matthews now said, ‘I don’t live on the site, you know. I have a base here, but I live at my parish: St Catherine’s, in Brunton. They’ve sold the old Victorian vicarage and build a small modern replacement; it’s more than adequate for my needs.’
He was talking quickly, in danger of saying too much: it was another sign that he was uneasy. Lucy said, ‘You have a special position here, though, and I imagine that because of your function you move about the campus more than most tutors.’
‘Yes. I go wherever it seems I can be of use. I visit a student who has problems on his or her ow
n ground, if that seems appropriate. But only if they invite me, of course.’
‘So you know what is going on better than most.’
‘I wouldn’t say that. Sometimes I think I’m the last to get to know things.’
‘But you knew about Dr Carter’s death pretty quickly.’
He started visibly, as if this were an accusation. He was probably in his early forties, but he had the fresh complexion and open face on which emotions are quickly visible. He had plentiful dark hair, cut short in an almost military fashion; with the curious combination of a thick-ribbed, V-neck green sweater and a dog collar above it, he looked younger than his years and curiously vulnerable. Or perhaps, thought Lucy Blake with quickening interest, he really had something to hide.
For he now said, as if he were framing an apology. ‘It’s true that I was aware of what was going on pretty quickly on Monday morning. But it’s part of my job to be aware of such things, I’d say, so that I can offer any spiritual help that’s called for. And the whole site was seething with the news very early on Monday, you know.’
‘Yes, I know that. I was here myself pretty early on Monday.’ But according to your board outside, you’re normally here on Tuesdays and Thursdays, she thought. And you’re embarrassed about something.
‘In that case you’ll know how people were talking. And the place was alive with police cars and vans.’
Not quite. The only police vehicles on the site had been discreetly parked up against the double garage of the Director’s house, where they were invisible from most points on the site. So this man had been round there, or found some vantage point from which he could watch what was going on. Curiouser and curiouser. Lucy said as casually as she could, ‘Did you know the Carters well, Mr Matthews?’
An innocent enough question, surely. And one he should have known she was bound to ask. Yet he had twitched a little, again, she was sure of it. He said, ‘Do call me Tom, please. Everyone does. Well, I suppose I did know the Carters quite well, yes. That’s why I went round there so promptly to offer my condolences when Ruth came home on Wednesday.’ He said it almost aggressively, as if he were challenging her to defy his logic.
Lucy looked squarely into his blue, anxious eyes. ‘I see. And what about Dr Carter himself, Tom? Would you say that you knew him pretty well?’
‘No. He wasn’t — well, he wasn’t an easy man to get to know.’
It was lame, and she could see he realized that. And it contradicted his first statement that he had known the Carters ‘quite well’. There was something here he didn’t want to reveal, but Lucy couldn’t see what it might be. It was frustrating, because the Reverend Matthews didn’t strike her as a very good liar. But he was not under arrest; he was merely helping the police of his own volition, and he could refuse to cooperate at any point. She said gently, ‘He’s been murdered, Tom, and we’re trying to build up a picture of him. You can help me a little more than that, I’m sure. It’s not a time for mistaken loyalties: we’re trying to establish who might have disliked him enough to kill him.’
Tom Matthews nodded his acceptance of that. ‘But it might have been someone who scarcely knew him at all, mightn’t it? He might have simply stood between someone and something they desperately wanted.’
‘Yes, he might well have done just that. There are all kinds of reasons for murder. But it’s your duty to tell us as much as you can about him.’
He seemed to take a decision. ‘All right. No one liked him very much. He was a pompous ass, in many respects. But a dangerous one. If anyone stood in the way of his own career, he wouldn’t scruple to trample over him. Or her.’
‘Do you speak from personal experience?’
‘No. Rather the reverse, in fact. He was very anxious that the new university should have a chaplain of some sort; he thought it would be good for its image in the local community. The funds would only run to a part-time appointment, but he was determined to have one. I could afford to take two-fifths of a university lecturer’s salary; indeed I was delighted to do so. It’s a good supplement to the meagre stipend of a parish whose congregation has been in steady decline for fifty years.’ He sounded like a man anxious to do justice to a Director who could no longer defend himself.
Or perhaps, thought Lucy, he was just happy to divert the talk into areas he knew were safe. She brought him gently back to the subject which interested her. ‘But Dr Carter had a reputation for ruthlessness.’
‘Yes. It’s mostly hearsay, as far as I’m concerned, but well established. And, well — he wasn’t very well respected as an academic. That matters in a place like this, you know. They used to call him Claptrap Carter.’
‘Yes. Everyone seems to say that. What else can you tell us about him, Tom?’
Perhaps he caught her impatience. He looked at her quickly and said, ‘His children didn’t like him, I’m afraid. Part of it was probably just adolescence, but it went deeper than that.’
There was a little pause before Lucy said, ‘Treated his wife badly, did he?’
He glanced at her sharply. ‘Yes. That was quick of you. I suppose you get used to seeing these things.’
‘Just as you do, I expect.’
‘Yes. You see things in other people’s lives that you’d never have met in your own, when you’re a clergyman. Or a police officer, I suppose. Yes, George treated Ruth badly, over the years. No beatings, or anything like that — as far as I’m aware. More what the courts would call mental cruelty, I think.’
‘Anyway, their relationship wasn’t good.’
‘That would be putting it mildly. As a matter of fact, I know Ruth was planning to divorce him, later this year.’
That was the first they’d heard of that. The enigmatic Ruth Carter hadn’t pretended the marriage had been ideal, but had certainly not mentioned a break-up. It made this death very opportune for her. Lucy said as casually as she could, ‘And do you know what George Carter’s reaction to this would have been?’
Tom Matthews looked at her sharply, in that curious, open-faced way of his, like a child faced with an unexpectedly difficult question. He said roughly, ‘He wouldn’t have had much choice, would he? Not under the modern divorce laws. Anyway, he’s hardly led a blameless life himself.’
With the eminently beddable Carmen Campbell for one, thought Lucy. For a man sixteen years older than the lithe Barbadian, without obvious physical attractions, old Claptrap had done rather well for himself there. She said, ‘Other women, you mean. You’d better let me have the details, Tom.’
He shook his head violently. ‘I couldn’t do that. For one thing, I don’t know any details.’
‘Then it’s just gossip?’
He looked thoroughly uncomfortable. ‘No, I wouldn’t say that. But I really don’t know the details. And I can’t give you any source. This has to be confidential.’
‘Even in a murder inquiry?’
‘Even then. I shouldn’t have said so much, I suppose. But I thought you’d be certain to find out anyway, in the course of your investigation.’
‘We already do know a certain amount, that’s true. But I was hoping you could add to our knowledge. It’s —’
‘I can’t. I’m sorry.’
His lips set in a line of determination, like a child’s when it has said too much. More to keep him talking than for any other reason, Lucy Blake said, ‘You were an army chaplain at one time, I believe, Tom.’
‘Yes. I quite enjoyed it, to tell you the truth. Went into Kosovo in 1999 and 2000. They always like to have the padre with them, on active service, the armed forces. And it’s surprising how any prospect of death makes young men interested in religion. It was the time when I did my most valuable work, I think.’ His enthusiasm for those days came leaping out of him.
‘You were an expert marksman, too, I believe. That must be unusual, for a padre.’
She had tried to throw in this one strange fact lightly, but he became suddenly guarded, as if she had been making an attempt to trip him.
‘It is quite unusual, yes. But I’d shown an aptitude, for small arms shooting in particular, at school, and the army likes to foster the idea that all officers are potentially fighting men, so they encouraged me to develop it. They even sent me to shoot at Bisley, in 1997.’
There was something here, she was sure. He had shown a flash of dismay when she raised his shooting prowess, and then tried to divert her back to Bisley in 1997. She said, ‘I don’t suppose you fired a gun in Kosovo, though, did you?’
‘No. I was strictly non-combatant there. That’s how it had to be, and how I wanted it. It’s far easier to offer spiritual help when soldiers see you as a colleague, but not a fighting one.’
‘So you haven’t been back in civilian life for very long.’
‘Fourteen months. I was lucky to get the post at St Catherine’s.’ He grinned. ‘Well, not so lucky, perhaps, to be honest. The Church of England is chronically short of vicars, as you probably know, and the stipend was quite small. I was delighted to get the job here a month later to supplement it, as I said.’
Lucy nodded, then made a last attempt to drag him back from an area where he was comfortable to the one which had seemed to disturb him. ‘Dr Carter was shot through the head with a revolver, you know. A Smith and Wesson, according to the ballistics experts at forensic.’
He looked shaken again, but determined. He said without a smile, ‘I was something of an expert with a Smith and Wesson, DS Blake. But I didn’t shoot George Carter.’
Lucy permitted herself the smile he had not been able to manage. ‘I see. And have you any idea who might have done?’
‘No. If I think of anyone, I’ll contact you immediately.’
It was as near as a polite man could get to telling her that the interview was over. And indeed, she had nothing else to ask him, for the moment.
