Mortal Taste

by J M Gregson

  That should have been a consolation. It was the sentiment they had offered to each other often enough in the past, when they had had to part.

  As she watched him drive away, she found herself wondering for the first time whether that future was actually going to happen.

  Daniel Price told his secretary not to put through any calls for the next hour. In the privacy of his own office, he paced around, then placed his forehead for a moment against the cool of the wall, trying to make the brain which worked behind it behave normally.

  The voice on the phone had been calm and deliberate, the words enunciated carefully in the Herefordshire accent. A detective sergeant from Oldford, it said. They needed to see him urgently. He didn’t like that word ‘urgently’. Nor did he like the fact that the voice would not tell him what this was about. He would find out soon enough: the rich local tones had suddenly taken on a threatening note in his ear.

  The policemen came quickly, long before he had organized his teeming mind to deal with them. A tall superintendent and the sergeant, whose voice he recognized; he asked them to sit down and took up his station behind his desk. The clock on that desk showed half past nine: too early for coffee. He said briskly, ‘I hope this won’t take very long. I’m anxious to help the police in any way I can, of course, but you will understand that I’ve a busy schedule and—’

  ‘How long it will take is the least of your worries,’ said John Lambert. ‘It would be advisable to cancel your schedule for the rest of the day.’

  He was looking at his man with unconcealed dislike. Daniel had never met such immediate and open hostility. He was used to business dealings, where you masked animosity in polite phrases and gestures, however false they might seem to you and your opponent. And even when the traffic police stopped you for speeding, they called you ‘sir’ and told you what would happen with a cold politeness, keeping things deliberately impersonal. But these policemen in their grey suits seemed to have assumed he was guilty before they started and to see no profit in disguising their feelings. He found their hostility more unnerving than he would have thought possible.

  Daniel Price went into the only speech he had had the time to rehearse. ‘I don’t know what it is that you want to question me about. I run a legitimate business here. We supply computer software to a variety of reputable firms. I don’t see why I should discuss them with you, but our financial statements and the record of our dealings are in a filing cabinet on the other side of that wall. You are welcome to peruse them for as long as you like and to come back to me with any questions you like to raise. In the meantime, you must understand that I have—’

  ‘Not interested,’ interrupted Lambert. ‘Price Computer Supplies may be a wholly legitimate business. Probably is, if you’ve got any sense at all. It’s your other activities which interest us.’

  ‘I’ve no idea what—’

  ‘Illegal drugs. Class A, for the most part.’

  ‘I don’t deal drugs. I never have.’

  ‘Possibly not. The charges will be more serious than that. Running a network of dealers. Providing supplies of a variety of illegal drugs. You’ll go down for it. The only question is how long you’ll be inside.’

  ‘You’ve got the wrong man. You’ll regret this, when I sue. Because I’ve never in my life—’

  ‘Save the denials for the Drugs Squad, Mr Price. They’re the experts. They’ll tie you up so neatly that Houdini wouldn’t escape. I’m here to investigate something even more serious. The murder of Peter Logan.’

  ‘You can’t possibly think I had anything to do with that.’

  ‘Can’t I? I’m prepared to listen to your explanations. They’d better be good. If they are, we shall be checking them out. Very carefully. Because I’d rather like to pin a murder charge on a man who lures youngsters into dependence on heroin and cocaine.’

  ‘You can’t pin this on me. I didn’t kill Logan!’ Price could hear the fear in his own voice.

  Bert Hook looked up from his notebook, adding his quiet insistence to the anger Lambert had allowed himself. ‘You’re going to have to convince us of that, Mr Price. We know you run a network of dealers. David Sullivan is already under lock and key. Your other four dealers are probably being arrested at this moment.’

  ‘I don’t believe that!’ But even as he shouted the hopeless denial, he knew that it was true.

  Hook continued as if he hadn’t spoken. ‘You were too greedy, you see. Pushed your men too hard, too soon. The Drugs Squad officers have been watching them for some time.’

  It was true. He’d been greedy, had tried to grow too fast, in an industry where the profits were huge but caution was the watchword. He felt the sour bile rising to the back of his throat, had to fight down the need to be physically sick as his world collapsed about his ears. His voice was very low as he said, ‘You can’t have me for murder.’

  ‘That remains to be seen.’ Lambert was at him again, brisk when Daniel needed the time to gather what remained of his wits. ‘Peter Logan knew about what was going on in his school. He was gathering information which could have affected the whole of your operations.’

  ‘He was being a nuisance, that’s all.’

  ‘A bigger nuisance by the day.’

  It was almost the exact phrase he had used himself, when he had complained to those above him about Logan. To hear the words coming from this opponent with such chilling contempt shook him, convinced him that they knew far more than he had thought until now. Daniel said sullenly, ‘Logan was prying into things he should have left alone.’

  ‘So he had to be removed, didn’t he?’

  He nodded, scarcely believing that he was admitting this, not daring to put it into words.

  Lambert’s voice was as quiet as his question was deadly. ‘Did you kill him yourself, Daniel? Did you place the pistol against the back of his head and blow him out of your life?’

  ‘No!’ He yelled out the monosyllable, as if decibels could convince them that he had not done this. ‘I never killed him. You can’t have me for murder!’

  ‘So who can we have, Daniel? Who killed an innocent man to keep your evil work alive?’

  ‘I don’t know! Look, all I did was pass the word upward.’

  ‘What word, Daniel? The word to eliminate Peter Logan?’

  He shook his head, looked suddenly round the room as if he was a stranger in his own office. He wanted to convince them he knew nothing about this, that in all probability this wasn’t a drugs killing at all, but he could find neither the words nor the manner to convince. He said in a flat monotone, ‘I passed the word upwards that Logan was finding out too much, that’s all. He was keeping the information to himself until he knew enough to do us serious damage.’

  Lambert studied Price in his wretchedness, calculating whether they had really had every scrap of information out of him, concluding reluctantly that he probably knew no more than he was giving them. That was the way with drugs: the barons at the top used ignorance as a tool, keeping those below them as unaware of their thinking as of their actions, operating like Stalin’s secret police. It did not pay to know too much about what they planned, and if Price comprehended what was good for him he would not have tried to find out.

  He stood over the hapless man for a moment, then said, ‘The Drugs Squad officers are waiting outside. They already know quite a lot about your organization. You would be most unwise to hold anything back from them. And if you wish to offer anything in court in the way of mitigating circumstances, you had better give us any assistance you can in discovering the murderer of Peter Logan.’

  The office staff of Price Computer Supplies stood awkwardly aside as the two CID men passed through the outer office. They had heard enough of their boss’s desperate shouting to know that something was seriously amiss.

  Price’s secretary peered fearfully round the door of his room. She saw an abject figure with his head in his hands, a man whose prosperous world had fallen about his ears with an apocalyptic
crash.

  Twenty-Two

  The Drugs Squad superintendent was uneasy. He was used to running his own show. He had undercover officers of both sexes operating within the seamy echelons of the drugs industry, and his prime concern was always to safeguard them from discovery. Murder had to be investigated, of course it did, but it was a complication. He had to be sure that following up even the most serious crime of all did not jeopardize the safety of his operatives.

  DI Rushton understood all of this, knew that the tight-knit unit of the Drugs Squad enjoyed more autonomy than any other branch of the service. He understood the reasons for that autonomy. But he knew also that he and the rest of John Lambert’s team had to discover the killer of Peter Logan.

  If this death was drugs-related, that would make their task much more difficult: the illegal drugs industry employed contract killers, and these professionals were the most difficult of all to pin down. You might be certain in your own mind who had killed one of their targets, but you had to unearth the evidence which would convince the Crown Prosecution Service that this was a case worth taking on.

  Chris Rushton wished he could see the man he was speaking to. It was difficult to conduct an argument with an officer of higher rank, and even more difficult when you were pitching your arguments into the mouthpiece of a phone rather than operating face to face. He said, ‘I think we’ve had all we’re going to get from this man Daniel Price. He’s scared and he’s singing, but I don’t think he’s got any more to give us.’

  There was a pause. He could almost see the other man nodding. Then the gravelly voice said, ‘You could bail him. See what happens when he gets out. They won’t like it, if he’s been singing, these people. When they find he’s given things away, they might want to make an example of him. Pour encourager les autres.’

  The French phrase, perfectly pronounced, dropped oddly from that harsh voice. Rushton said, ‘Use him as a tethered goat to bring out the lion, you mean.’

  ‘If you like. He’d be no loss to society, even if they got him, a man like Daniel Price.’

  ‘You’re probably right. But we can’t do it, and you know we can’t. Putting a man’s life in danger to make an arrest. You know the view the law would take of that.’

  He had quoted the book, as the other man had known he would. There was a sigh from the other end of the line, then a moment of silence in which the two very different men were united in a silent contempt for the judges who knew so little of the criminal world. Then the superintendent’s voice said wearily, ‘What do you propose to do about it, then? I want Logan’s killer caught as much as you do, but my priority has to be the safety of my officers.’

  ‘They use Minton for their contract killings, don’t they?’

  ‘Recently they’ve used Minton, yes.’

  ‘We could interview him. Put a bit of pressure on him. Ask him about his movements on Monday the twenty-eighth of September. See if he gives anything away.’

  Chris thought he caught a snigger at the other end of the line, but he couldn’t be sure of that. The deep voice was perfectly even as it said, ‘You won’t get anything out of Minton. He’s a professional. He’ll have covered his tracks efficiently enough, if he did it.’

  Chris knew it was true, but he was riled by the other man’s dismissal. ‘You never know what you might turn up. Even if we could eliminate him from the inquiry, it would be a help.’

  The old CID excuse for sticking big feet in where you did not want them. But it was an argument to which there was no real answer. The superintendent said reluctantly, ‘I suppose it might. But we’d need to be absolutely certain you weren’t using any information which might blow the cover of any of my officers.’

  Chris Rushton said, ‘You’d have that guarantee, of course, sir. I might even undertake to interview Derek Minton myself, if Chief Superintendent Lambert sanctions it.’

  He had thrown Lambert in at the end to outrank that sardonic voice from the Drugs Squad. It was not until several hours later, when he was driving up the M5 towards Birmingham, that DI Rushton thought this might not be such a good idea after all.

  Steve Fenton drew up chairs for his visitors and positioned them carefully where he wanted them. He felt as though he was moving pawns in a game of chess which was rapidly running against him.

  Lambert said, ‘I wanted to check that you hadn’t thought of anyone who could vouch for your whereabouts on the Monday night when Peter Logan was killed.’

  ‘No. Except for Jane Logan, of course.’

  Lambert gave him a thin smile. ‘You didn’t have any phone calls during the evening?’

  ‘None that I answered, no.’

  Hook coughed discreetly. He had not taken his eyes off Fenton since they came into the comfortable office, with its prints of Tewkesbury Abbey and Gloucester Cathedral on the walls, its sepia photographs of a frowning W. G. Grace and a smiling Wally Hammond. He said, ‘There is a weapon unaccounted for, Mr Fenton. You admitted to possession of a Smith and Wesson revolver, of the type we are now certain was used in this killing.’

  ‘I don’t think I told you the make of pistol. But it was a Smith and Wesson, as a matter of fact. I think I did tell you, however, that I haven’t had such a weapon for several years now.’

  ‘That is correct, sir.’ Hook nodded, as though very contented to see things falling into place. ‘You told us you had given the weapon to the Cheltenham Small Arms Club.’

  ‘Yes. I wasn’t shooting any more, even at the club. When the regulations were tightened up after those terrible shootings at Hungerford, I thought I’d get rid of it rather than keep paying to renew a licence I didn’t need.’

  ‘Yes, sir. That’s what needs clearing up, you see. The club has no record of receiving such a gift from you.’

  Hook had spoken so quietly, adopted so thoroughly the pose of a man fulfilling a dull routine, that his bombshell left a silence on its heels which seemed the more profound. In the pause which followed his statement, they could hear voices from the rooms outside, a shout from the street beyond them, a sudden burst of laughter from somewhere along a corridor. Eventually Steve Fenton said very quietly, ‘You think I used that pistol to kill Peter Logan, don’t you?’

  ‘And did you, Mr Fenton?’ This was Lambert, as brisk and direct as Hook had been measured.

  ‘No.’

  ‘So where is that weapon now?’

  ‘I don’t know. I – I haven’t seen it for years. I thought I’d given it to the shooting club.’

  A murderer needs to lie better than that, thought Lambert. This man isn’t a natural killer. But then not many murders are committed by natural killers. The majority of killings are committed by ordinary people who find themselves in a desperate situation. He said, ‘You’ll have to give us a better explanation than that. Peter Logan was shot through the back of his head with a Smith and Wesson.’

  Fenton shook his head hopelessly. ‘I didn’t kill him. I haven’t seen that pistol for years.’

  They probed a little more, received nothing from him, then left him sitting dejectedly at his desk. He was well aware that they didn’t believe him about the pistol.

  It is boring work, keeping a man under surveillance. And cold, once it gets into October. DC Cox was glad of the pale autumn sun which shone fitfully on the windscreen of the Rover, warming the little box which was his prison for most of his eight hours of duty.

  Martin Sheene wasn’t going to go out again, that seemed pretty clear. Not in the daylight hours, anyway. Just his luck that the bloody man should go out last night half an hour after his shift was over. The murder team seemed quite excited by what they’d found when they’d followed him. Not that they bothered to tell DC Cox about their findings, of course: the blokes who hung around all day and did the weary work of surveillance were the last to be told what was going on.

  Just when he had slumped into his seat and thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his jacket, there was action. Limited action, but definitely better
than nothing. Sheene had a visitor. A man with the collar of his car coat turned up; a man who looked to right and left along the road before he went up to the door of Sheene’s place; a man who gave every sign of being up to no good. DC Cox noted the time of his entry as

  14.13 precisely.

  Martin was glad when the man announced that he was from the group. He didn’t need to say which group; a friendly face from people who shared his interests was just what Martin needed.

  But when he had taken his caller inside and invited him to sit down, Martin Sheene found that this man was anything but friendly. He ignored the seat suggested, then cut through Martin’s nervous remark about the weather and said, ‘You shouldn’t have come last night. You were told not to come.’

  ‘I know. But I needed the company. Needed someone to talk to. My mind was reeling. I’m suspended from Greenwood School. I’ve probably lost the only job I’m any good at. The only one I really want to do. I needed someone who’d—’

  ‘You shouldn’t have come. I’m here to tell you that. I’m also here to tell you that you’re out. No one wants you there again.’

  Martin Sheene could not believe that the group was shutting him out. He felt the last planks of his rickety refuge splintering about his ears. ‘Who are you? What authority have you to—?’

  ‘Every authority. I’m employed by the group. Employed among other things to see that little turds like you get the message. You’re not wanted, Sheene.’

  Martin felt the panic he’d always felt in the face of physical violence, whether real or threatened. He tried hard to assert himself. ‘Now look here, you can’t just come into my house and—’

  ‘But I have done, haven’t I? And unless you cooperate with me, things could get a good deal worse for you, Mister Sheene.’

  He lingered contemptuously over the three syllables of the name, hissing the sibilants with a curl of his thin lips, and Martin was suddenly back in the world of the playground bully, fighting against the panic he felt hammering at his temples. He said faintly, ‘Who are you?’