by J M Gregson
‘But you followed him with a weapon, didn’t you, Alex, in case it turned out that he wasn’t a man prepared to listen to reason?’
Fraser looked genuinely puzzled. ‘A weapon? No, I didn’t have a weapon.’ Then his hand flashed briefly to his mouth; they saw in that instant how tightly his fingers were clasped. ‘Oh, you mean the tree-tie, I suppose. I found that in the pocket of my old anorak. It was there from months ago, when we’d been securing young trees against the spring gales. It was quite cool after the thunderstorm, so I grabbed the anorak as I went out.’
Better for him than if he’d deliberately removed it from the tree near the scene of death as they’d thought, Hook decided. A minimal difference, but one a skilful defence counsel might make something of. Just as a prosecuting counsel would imply that he’d picked up the murder instrument deliberately rather than found it by chance in his pocket. Bert prompted, ‘So you put your arguments to him, Alex?’
It looked for a moment as if he would refuse to go on. His lips set into a dark, ultra-thin line. But then it seemed hopeless. The police always seemed able to collect information you didn’t think they’d have, to know far more than you were prepared for them to know. Eventually Alex said dully, ‘I told him that I hadn’t started the rumble in Cheltenham, that I’d had no choice about fighting. He said that the police didn’t think that and that I would shortly be charged with causing an affray and GBH. He said he would have no alternative but to inform the Trust and recommend that they dispensed with my services, either immediately or at the end of my apprenticeship here.’
He fell silent, his face a picture of recollected despair. Hook said, ‘That seems a very premature reaction. I expect you told him that.’
Alex stared at him. If only he’d had this man or Ken Jackson at his side to argue for him. It was only when words failed him that he sprang into desperate and calamitous action. But that was a stupid idea; this man was filth. He shook his head, as if trying to clear it. ‘I told him that no court had convicted me, that we didn’t even know yet if the police were going to bring charges, but he laughed at that. I think it was the laughing that really got to me. It was my whole life that the bastard was laughing away.’
‘Was that when you attacked him?’
‘No. No, I tried to go on arguing, but I felt my words getting feebler after he’d laughed in my face. I think I told him that he should take my work here into account, that Mr Hartley would tell him I was one of the best workers. Perhaps even the best. That I was surely still innocent of anything in Cheltenham until a court of law proved otherwise. He said he’d think about it, but he really couldn’t see much sense in prolonging the agony for me.’ He stopped, stared gloomily at the floor for a moment and said hopelessly, ‘I don’t think he would have sacked me, not when he found that no charges were being brought about the Cheltenham business. I think he was just enjoying the feeling of power you talked about.’
He was silent for so long that he prompted the first words from John Lambert. ‘Was that when frustration took over and you attacked him, Alex?’
He bridled for an instant at the different voice. But Lambert’s long, lined face seemed as sympathetic as Hook’s as he turned to confront it. Defiance turned to helplessness and Fraser said quietly, ‘No, it wasn’t then. Not quite. He said some stuff about the quality of my work here being now irrelevant and said we’d talked long enough. He was smiling as he turned away from me. I think that was what did it.’
Hook said quietly, ‘Yes, you should tell us exactly how it happened, Alex. It might be important.’
All three men knew that he had gone too far now to fling the suggestion back into the rubicund face. Fraser looked straight ahead and spoke as if he were supplying the commentary to a video film running in his mind. ‘He was grinning, like I told you. And I realized I’d been gripping the tree-tie in my pocket for five minutes at least. I used both hands to throw it round his neck as he turned his back. Then I twisted it tight. I didn’t mean to kill him. I just wanted him to shut up and stop laughing and listen to what I had to say. But he wouldn’t listen and eventually I felt him go limp. I put him on the ground and tried to get some air into him. But I didn’t know what to do and I knew I mustn’t leave prints. So I panicked and left him, hoping that he’d recover with just the fresh air. It wasn’t until early on Monday that I heard how Matt Garton had found him dead.’
Hook moved the short distance forward, put his hand on the wiry shoulder, and quietly pronounced the words of arrest. Alex Fraser heard the familiar phrases about not needing to speak and not concealing evidence he might wish to rely on at a later date in court as if they were phrases in some familiar religious litany, to which he should provide the appropriate responses.
He said dully, ‘What put you on to me?’
It was Lambert who said quietly, ‘Once we realized that a tree-tie had been used for the killing, it was always likely to be one of the gardening staff. Only one of them had panicked and fled the scene on the day the murder was discovered. It’s all circumstantial evidence, but it adds up.’
‘And I’m the one with the history of violence.’
‘You’ve tried to solve your problems with violence over the years, yes. And you were in the habit of arming yourself with some sort of weapon when you went to meetings. We couldn’t simply ignore that.’
They only realized quite how perfectly erect Alex Fraser normally held his slim frame when they saw how slumped his shoulders were as he was led from the room. Hook said, ‘There are things you can do when you’re locked up, Alex. You can get yourself qualifications. Horticultural ones, if you want to.’
The white young face looked at him uncomprehendingly. Then Fraser thrust his hands out to the uniformed officer in the anteroom who held the handcuffs. ‘Too early, Bert,’ muttered Lambert as he led him back into the murder room.
As the police Mondeo bore him away through the gates of Westbourne Park, Alex Fraser sat hunched and defeated, not even taking a last look at the gardens which were to have transformed his life.
