by J M Gregson
‘True.’ Lambert wondered exactly what had happened to the old Puritan Rushton last night: it was not usual for him to speculate like this about emotional matters. ‘Are we any nearer to establishing a time of death?’
Rushton shook his head. ‘Only in a negative way. I’ve collated all the door-to-door and other information on the computer. We haven’t turned up anyone who saw Alison Watts later than five o’clock on the evening of Friday the twenty-third of July. Of course, she might have moved out of the area altogether when she disappeared. But we know that her body was put into the Wye in this area eventually, so she was almost certainly killed somewhere round here. Everything points to the fact that she died shortly after she was last seen. It could have been a woman, of course. A ligature was used, and it bit into the front of her neck, so she was almost certainly attacked from behind. It didn’t require great strength. But equally, she might have been killed by someone we haven’t even located yet.’
Hook said, ‘Meantime, we have to concentrate on the candidates we have. Robert Watts, Jamie Allen, Jason Bullimore. Three likely lads.’
Lambert nodded. ‘Plus an outsider coming up on the rails. Thomas Murray, headmaster and devious bugger. He’s hiding something, but as yet I’m not quite sure what.’
*
However diligent a police investigation, however extensive the team, chance plays more part than the public think. Especially when a crime has been committed well before the enquiry begins, a lucky break is often necessary to trigger a successful outcome. They had such a break later that day. It came from an unlikely source, but it was just the sort of information which seemed likely to be highly significant. It proved that one at least of the people who had been closest to Alison Watts had lied to them in his statement.
At three o’clock, Margaret Peplow, Director of Sixth Form Studies at Oldford Comprehensive, rang in to the station and asked to speak to Superintendent Lambert in the CID section. She came straight to the point when she was put through. ‘One of the girls who spoke to you in the group last week has come up with new information.’
‘We shall need to speak to her face to face, Mrs Peplow. We can’t take anything on hearsay in a murder investigation.’
‘Of course. But I’d rather you didn’t come into the school, if it could be avoided. There’s enough speculation going on here, as you can imagine, without it being fuelled by another visit from your team. I’ll bring the girl in after school, if that’s acceptable. Say in an hour from now?’
‘Yes. That would be ideal. And stay with the girl while we question her, if you’re willing to do that. It might be helpful.’ And it would let a sensible woman see that they didn’t use the third degree methods on adolescents of which they were so often accused.
‘Fine. Thank you. She’s a reliable girl, Jane. I’d be pretty certain what she tells you will be true.’
When they arrived, an hour later to the minute, Lambert immediately recognised the dark-haired girl who had been their main source of information during their initial meeting with the group of sixth form girls at the school. Jane Harvey looked a little overawed by the police machine and the fact that she was now to be interviewed with Mrs Peplow sitting alongside her. But she was observant, intelligent, composed, considering her age and the circumstances of this meeting. Lambert, anxious this time to have the full truth as she saw it, decided that it would do no harm to ruffle her a little.
‘You said that you were not aware of any association between Alison and an older man. That wasn’t quite true, was it, Jane? You were quite aware that Alison had had an affair with Mr Bullimore, who taught her English, but you chose not to reveal that to us.’
The two female faces were both startled. Margaret Peplow was going to speak, but before she could do so, Jane Harvey said quickly, ‘You asked us about the months before Alison’s death. Whether she had any connections with older men in those months. I said I didn’t know of anything which happened then. Her relationship with — with Mr Bullimore had ended before that.’
It was casuistry, and she knew it. Lambert let it go. ‘All right, Jane. I think you know you should have told us, but you had a mistaken sense of loyalty. Incidentally, you will notice we haven’t arrested Mr Bullimore, so the connection didn’t automatically mean that we thought we had our murderer. It would have been better if you’d told us, wouldn’t it?’
‘Yes. I suppose so.’
‘I can assure you it would. Because this is a murder enquiry, and we were always going to find out things like that. So what is it that you have to tell us now, Jane?’
‘A small thing. It’s probably not important. But Mrs Peplow thought you should know about it.’
‘Quite possibly both of you are right, Jane. We have a whole multitude of facts about Alison and the people she knew on record now. And we shall have many more before the case is solved. Most of them are bound to be unimportant, eventually: you’re right about that. But we don’t know which ones at this stage. So Mrs Peplow is right, too. We have to know. What is it you have to tell us?’
‘It’s Jamie. Jamie Allen. Alison’s boyfriend.’
‘Yes, we know Jamie Allen.’
‘Well, I’m sure it doesn’t mean anything. But I know he told you he didn’t see Alison after we all left school at lunch-time on that Friday at the end of the summer term. We’ve talked, you see, at the school, all of us, this last few days.’
Lambert smiled at her. ‘I’m sure you have, Jane. It probably seems as though you’ve talked of nothing else. But what is it you have to tell us about Jamie?’
‘Only — well, he did see her again after that. He saw her that Friday evening. As a matter of fact, I think they had a blazing row.’
*
Christopher Rushton was tired but happy. Well, ‘relieved’ might be a better word, he thought. He’d got through the day all right, and Clever Bastard Lambert and Sarcy Bugger Hook hadn’t been able to break him down, or find out any of the details of what had happened last night. He’d even managed to hint to Lambert as he left that this had been a job well done, that although the results had been negative, DI Rushton had displayed resource and insight in an undercover role that went beyond the call of duty.
Had even displayed, in fact, a hitherto unsuspected versatility. That magic word might after all now appear on his file. John Lambert might have a warped sense of humour at times, but he was fair, and he had a reputation for looking after his staff.
And now Chris could relax at last in his empty, tidy house. He went and helped himself to one of the cans of bitter which had lain undisturbed in the fridge for months. A modest celebration seemed in order. He was so exhausted that he suspected he might eventually fall asleep in front of the television, but that wouldn’t matter. For almost the first time since Anne had left him, the house seemed a private haven he was glad to reach, instead of a lonely, sterile place. He deserved a rest, after what he had been through in the last twenty-four hours. Thank God it was all over, without any real damage done.
The telephone rang several times before its insistent note pierced his slumber. He looked hastily at his watch as he stumbled into the hall, kicking over the empty can beside his armchair. Half past eight already: he must have been asleep for over an hour. He blurted the number automatically into the mouthpiece as he snatched up the phone.
‘Mr Lloyd. I thought you weren’t there.’
A female voice, cool and businesslike. He almost said it had got a wrong number. Then he remembered last night, and horror flooded into his head. ‘Who — who is that? If it’s Sherry, I’m terribly sorry, but it was all an awful misunderstanding. I can only —’
‘Relax, Mr Lloyd. Frank, isn’t it? This isn’t Sharon, or Sherry, as I think she’s known to her intimates. I expect you’re pleased about that, Frank.’
‘Look, who is this? I don’t —’
‘We heard about your little misunderstanding with Sharon, Frank. We’ve smoothed her down for you. Put her in touch with what we think might be a more
appropriate gentleman. Less — well, let’s just say less ardent than you, Frank.’
‘Look, unless you tell me who you are and what this is about, I shall ring off.’ But he knew by now that he wouldn’t, even as his mind struggled to focus. There was a tap on his phone. Priority. By now, the call would be being traced. He must keep this mysterious woman talking.
‘All in good time, Frank. I wouldn’t ring off, though. That might not be to your advantage.’
The silky voice took on menace in the last phrase. And Rushton, disconcerted as he was, was enough of a policeman to scent something evil at the other end of the phone. ‘What is it that you want with me?’
‘We’d like to supply your needs, Frank, that’s all. At a price.’
‘What sort of price?’ Rushton tried desperately to think not as a CID man but as Frank Lloyd, Sales Director in search of sexual excitement.
‘That’s more like it, Frank. Interested, are we?’
‘I suppose I might be, if the price was right.’
‘Ah! Now, you sell things yourself, Frank, so you know that the kind of thing you seem to be after doesn’t come cheap. Not if the quality is high. And I can tell you that the standard of the goods we are offering is of the highest quality. ‘Attractive female company, with no holds barred,’ you said you wanted, in your application to Cotswold Rendezvous. Well, for the right people, there needn’t be any holds barred. But we’re talking big bucks, Frank. Big bucks and young, pretty girls. Unsoiled goods, you might say. The very best. For those who can pay for the very best. Interested?’
‘I said I was, didn’t I? But I’d need more details.’
‘All in good time, Frank. It’s got to be discreet, this. We don’t want the law cutting in on us, do we? Restrictive, lawyers are, when it comes to sexual services. Some of the things we can offer, they don’t approve of, if you take my meaning.’ The female voice was as silky as ever, but it sounded older now. ‘What we like to do is to establish exactly what our clients would like in the way of sexual services, and then see if we can provide it for them. And Frank, just to excite you, I have to tell you that we can usually supply what the client wants. If he wants it badly enough to pay the rate.’
‘I can pay, if I get what I want.’ Chris was surprised how assertive his voice was, how easily he had dropped into the personality this seemed to require.
‘I’m glad to hear that, Mr Lloyd. We’ll need to process your application, discuss terms. Discreetly, of course. That’s in the interests of both sides.’
‘Yes. I would certainly want any involvement on my part to remain private.’
‘Good. We can assure you of our discretion. We provide certain other supplies as well as sexual ones. Supply certain substances which the lawyers also don’t approve of. Some of our clients feel that is a valuable service. But all that can be discussed later, when we have assured ourselves that you have the means to proceed with your little project.’
‘And when I have seen the quality of what you have to offer.’
‘Quite. You sound like a man with whom we could do business, Mr Lloyd.’
With whom. For a moment, he wanted to laugh at the precision of her grammar, in the light of what she was offering him. That showed how strongly the adrenalin was flowing, how careful he must be. He had better cut this as short as he could, if he was not to make some sort of mistake. ‘I hope so. Because you sound as if you can supply what I am looking for.’
‘I’m sure we can.’ With the fish securely hooked, she too wanted to finish the conversation now. He might start wanting more information if she gave him time to think, and there was no way she would give him that. Better to finish this while his senses were still reeling with the heady prospects of sex. ‘Pretty young girls, for a start, Mr Lloyd. Untarnished goods. I think I sense from talking to you that you could be in the market for them.’
She was pleased with that; his breathy, eager reaction showed that she had guessed right about his preferences. She gave him the address he should attend if he wanted to take this further, the name of the man he should ask for. Then she put down the phone and entered the name Frank Lloyd on her list of ‘Potential Clients’. Another rich sucker in tow. What gullible fools men in search of sexual excitement were!
Mr Hurst would be pleased with her efforts.
Chapter Sixteen
HOOK rang Jamie Allen’s house at eight in the morning on Wednesday, 20 October, to say they were coming to see him. It put that formidable mother on her guard, but it was better to confront the redoubtable Mrs Allen than to see Jamie at school, with all the attention that would bring.
Lambert was in no mood to waste time. He tackled the boy head on, in front of his mother. ‘You lied to us, Jamie. Wasting police time is a serious offence. Especially when a murder is being investigated. And it won’t benefit anyone, least of all yourself. We’re now asking ourselves why you chose to deceive us when we first came to see you.’
They were sitting on upright chairs in the dining room of the Edwardian house. There was a musty smell on this cool autumn morning. Jamie sat with his mother on one side of the heavy mahogany dining table. The boy was pale, the length of his thin neck accentuated by the T-shirt he had chosen to put on when he took off his school shirt. Perhaps he had intended to look relaxed; instead, the shirt, with its message about protecting badgers, merely made him look vulnerable. His pale arms stuck out like those of a pipe cleaner figure; he eased his elbows on to the edge of the table to imply relaxation, but it looked a stiff, awkward movement.
His mother glanced sideways at her son. She had dressed for this occasion in the half hour since Hook’s phone call had caught her preparing breakfast in her house-coat. Over-dressed, some would say, for this time in the morning. She wore a deep maroon dress with a necklace of small rubies. A dark red comb was precisely placed in the middle of her thick head of hair, restricting any tendency the hair might have to move if she became agitated. A gold bangle gleamed softly on her wrist. She was dressed for some elegant but sombre social occasion, not for this sordid exposure of her son’s evasions.
Lambert remembered being taken by his own mother to stand outside the high, studded doors of Wormwood Scrubs in the early ‘sixties. He could not have been more than fourteen. It was when he had first said he wanted to become a policeman, and his appalled parent had taken him to watch a mother’s last visit to the son who was to be hanged in the morning. That working-class woman had dressed in her best clothes, had come to the prison in a long, dark dress and a hat which might have been more suitable for a wedding than for this last, hopeless meeting. Lambert had had no idea what effect his mother had intended, but the incident had not put him off a police career. Rather had he been fascinated with the awful melodrama of that morning, of the man he would never see who was about to be executed, and the tragic, doomed elegance of the grey-haired, erect woman in the dark dress, moving in patient silence to the last meeting with her son.
Mrs Allen’s son could not be hanged, whatever he had done to the girl who had rejected him. But his suffering mother seemed to have dressed for a wake, to have acquired the same awful dignity as that other woman from all those years ago. She said softly, ‘You had better tell the Superintendent what he wants to know, James. The whole truth, this time.’
This time Jamie made no attempt to exclude her from the interview. Perhaps he was glad of whatever support he could get in this room where his lying was about to be exposed. Perhaps, thought Bert Hook as he turned to a new page of his notebook, they were moving swiftly to the last act of this drama, and the boy expected to be taken out to the police car and driven away from his family at the end of it.
Jamie suddenly shivered. His T-shirt was woefully inadequate for this musty, cold room. He said, ‘What I told you about Allie and me is true. We were very close, closer than anyone else knew. We’d have got back together all right, if — if…’
Suddenly he was in tears, and the mother who had so hated his liaison with the dead
girl moved her hand along the table to clasp his unresisting fist. Lambert and Hook watched the pair dispassionately, almost cruelly, for a long moment. Then Lambert said, ‘That may be, Jamie. But you lied to us. Lied to us about the most important thing of all. The time when you last saw Alison Watts.’
Jamie nodded sharply, almost eagerly. He drew a long, shuddering breath, composing himself to speak evenly. ‘I’m not quite sure what I said about that, Mr Lambert.’
The title came oddly, reminding them of this lad’s determinedly respectable upbringing, of the shame and agony that his arrest and trial could bring to this house. ‘I think you do remember what you told us, Jamie. But I’ll remind you. When asked about your last contact with a murder victim, you said that you didn’t see Alison Watts after midday on Friday the twenty-third of July. We now know that that wasn’t correct. As you knew it wasn’t at the time you told us.’
Jamie glanced sideways at his mother, whose face seemed to have turned to stone. He now seemed happy to have the woman whom he had so furiously rejected from their first meeting in this house sitting at his side. Hook, preparing to record a new version in his notebook, wondered what had passed between the pair in the three days since they had last been here. Jamie said abruptly, ‘You’re right. I did see Allie again that day. In the evening.’
‘At what point in the evening?’
‘Early. Before six o’clock. I went round to see her at her house. We went out for a walk so that we could talk.’
‘So when was your last sight of Alison?’
‘About six-thirty.’
‘Right. So the next question we have to ask is why didn’t you tell us this five days ago?’
‘I — I suppose I thought it wouldn’t reflect very well on me, in your eyes.’ He glanced sideways at the still, silent figure of his mother. ‘And I didn’t want it recorded that my final words with Allie had been spoken in anger.’ He blurted out the last phrase, close to a renewed descent into tears. They watched the mother’s fingers tightening white over what suddenly seemed the small and childishly vulnerable fist of her son.
