by Paul Charles
‘Kennedy?’
‘You said that? You meant that? I mean, wow. Shit, you’ve never even said that to me. I suppose,’ he went on, trying to get back into his stride, ‘that it’s par for the course. Lawyers hear everything first.’
‘Thanks. Well, I’m glad to hear you’ve perked up a bit. Anyway, it wasn’t really a surprise that Leslie invited me out. Mary told me that it would happen sooner than later. It’s not that he’s a ladies’ man or anything, he just likes new girls.’
‘Did Mary tell you whether she’s had a scene with Leslie?’
‘No, I mean, no, she didn’t say. I can’t believe you. Here I am declaring my undying love for you, and ten seconds later your mind is tripping back on to the case. You see that is one of my biggest fears, getting taken for granted. I just didn’t think it would happen this quickly,’ ann rea laughed. As Kennedy heard her laughter down the telephone line, he imagined how her eyes would look. When ann rea’s eyes were smiling she could rule the world.
Good news tends to create good moods. Kennedy’s mood had definitely moved up quite a few gears into good. Although it would be unfair, not to say inaccurate, to say that his previous mood had been bad. Solemn would be a better world.
‘Well, Kennedy, you may have time for tittle-tattle, but I haven’t. Some of us have work to do. See you tonight.’
‘And that’s a fact.’
And with that ann rea was gone, leaving Kennedy with an earful of electronic crackle.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
I wish I was a fisherman
Tumbling on the seas
Far away from dry land
And its bitter memories
- Mike Scott
‘Why do we take it as read that we should be able to find the murderer?’ Kennedy and DS Irvine were travelling down Parkway by car, in the general direction of Islington with the eventual hope of reaching Yorkshire Road, E14, the location of the RAMS shop.
‘I mean, it’s pretty big-headed of us to assume that. What we’re effectively saying, Jimmy, is that we are a lot smarter than the villain,’ Kennedy persisted. DS Irvine had assumed the DI’s question to be rhetorical, so he hadn’t replied, conserving his brain power to negotiate the car around the pedestrians crossing the road against their own red light on the corner of Parkway and Camden High Street.
It was quite a drive to the east end, and DS Irvine hoped Kennedy would listen to one of his loves (Radio Four) and not engage him in conversation. DS Irvine found it difficult to drive and talk at the same time – especially with DI Kennedy. General banter was fine, but Kennedy’s conversations were usually a lot more thought-provoking. Often he would voice his thoughts on a case, whether they made enough sense to be worth voicing, or not.
Sometimes this was quite amusing and DS Irvine would have a hard time keeping his laughter undercover. Kennedy would castigate himself: ‘Oh don’t be such an idiot, Kennedy!’ Or reason with himself. ‘You don’t really think that old son, do you?’ followed by, ‘No, I didn’t think you did. Back to the drawing board.’ When the penny finally dropped, as it invariably did, ‘Idiot, idiot. If it had been a dog it would have bitten you!’
Today was going to be one of those days. Radio Four remained entombed behind the on/off switch as Kennedy rattled out his ideas: ‘Now, take this O’Browne matter. At some point in his life he did something, probably unconsciously, and this thing, whatever it was, caused our murderer to make a decision to end O’Browne’s life. O’Browne crossed a line.
‘I wonder if he was aware he was doing it. I wonder, if someone had said to him, “Look, you do that, and you are going to lose your life as a result of it,” what he would have said. “Bugger off and don’t be stupid,” or something similar? Or would he, given the choice, have apologised and said, “You’re perfectly right. How could I ever have considered doing that?” and backtracked and lived to tell the tale.
‘It’s a funny old show really, when a solution to a problem is to take another’s life. Why should that be a possibility? Why should it be a solution? How come, we, the so-called intelligent species, behave in such a manner? Like the animals we consider ourselves superior to. Even they generally kill only of necessity, for food!’
DS James Irvine thought, God, he’s definitely off on one, I’ll leave him to it.
‘Well, I don’t know and that’s for sure, but I can tell you that in my mind that’s the major flaw in the perfect beast, the human. Someone fucked up big time with the initial programming of the super beast. Super beast? I don’t think so!’ Kennedy lectured.
‘Of course, sir,’ offered DS Irvine. ‘If they had done their programming properly, you and I would be out of a job, wouldn’t we?’
‘No, not really. The job would not have existed in the first place, would it?’
‘Mmmm,’ conceded Irvine.
‘What would you have done if you weren’t doing this, Jimmy?’ Kennedy noticed a wry smile float onto the detective sergeant’s face. ‘No, Jimmy, I don’t think spending more time in the sack with the able Staff Nurse Rose Butler would count as a job.’
‘No, probably not, sir, but it is damned good fun.’ Irvine thought about it. ‘A farmer, I think. I would have liked to have been a farmer. What about you, guv?’
‘A carpenter,’ Kennedy replied without a moment’s hesitation. ‘Ah, here we are.’ They pulled into a gift of a parking space directly in front of RAMS. Kennedy read the sign above the shop window, RAMS – Rope and Marine Service Ltd. Established 1948. The shop would have been one year old when Kennedy was born.
The ram’s head used above the shop was identical to the one the Forensic Department – bless their cotton socks – had turned up on the corner of the torn receipt.
As Kennedy walked into the shop and saw the pulleys and ropes he thought of the hangman’s noose. ‘Well, our killer is either a wimp or a woman!’ he said quietly to DS Irvine.
‘Isn’t that a bit sexist, sir?’
‘What I meant was that the hang-person used a pulley system to hoist Peter O’Browne off the ground,’ Kennedy replied still in a quiet voice.
The smell of the ropes and wood varnish from boat fittings filled the DI’s nostrils as ropes and pulleys and pulleys and ropes and tackle and hoists and wooden accessories engaged his eyes. Some of them were wood, hand-carved or machine-turned, hard to say these days. Others were in highly-polished brass. Posters, old and new, filled the little empty space on the walls, describing in great detail, with the help of bikini-clad nubiles, the uses of the various wares.
Kennedy purchased a small, compact eight-way pulley system with nylon rope, ‘Strong enough to hoist a car engine!’ the sales assistant assured him. Kennedy inquired if any similar purchases had been made over the last few weeks. He was, he advised the friendly shop assistant, thinking of someone non-trade, someone definitely not a boat person.
‘Well, I could check the stock files for sales but we get so many people through here in a day, let alone two weeks, it would be hard to put a face to the purchase. They don’t all look like boat people when they come in here, anyway. Some of them come in their lunch hour to pick up bits and pieces for their weekend tubs.’
The shop manager went round the rest of the staff, repeating Kennedy’s question. But without a photograph it was like looking for a needle in a haystack, worse in fact, in such a packed shop.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
I – I feel – feel like I am – in a burning building – and I gotta go
- Laurie Anderson
‘Let’s go back to Mayfair Mews Studio, Jimmy,’ Kennedy sighed as he painfully replaced himself in the car.
‘Do you think you are on to something?’
‘Oh, I don’t know, I was never great at physics, but I think I do remember a little.
‘The more pulleys you have in a system, the lighter the load becomes. But, the greater the distance you have to pull the effort-end of the rope. With this system, our pristine eight pulleys,’ Kennedy replied as h
e removed his purchase from the RAMS bag: two sets of four pulleys in a block with hooks at opposite ends, ‘the body will appear to weigh one quarter of its actual weight and you would have to pull the effort-end eight feet to raise the body one foot off the ground.’
DS Irvine tried to remember the sketches he too had completed in his blue exercise books all those years ago. He could remember how neat and tidy he was whenever the books were crisp and new, and how his neatness evaporated with the newness of the book. He thought this probably said a lot about him, though he wasn’t exactly sure what.
‘Do you think, then,’ he said, ‘that if, as you suspect, the murderer used a pulley system, his or her lack of strength was a significant factor?’
‘It’s a definite possibility.’
‘Well, that probably rules out Tom Best, and moves Carter-Houston further up the list. He’s a bit of a wimp.’
Kennedy offered, ‘It must also promote Colette Farrelly to our list, wouldn’t you say?’
Later, when Kennedy repeated this thought to ann rea after she joined them at Mayfair Mews Studio, she disagreed violently.
‘Not possible, Kennedy. Not even in your wildest dreams.’
‘And why not?’
‘Well, just look at her – a loving mother like her is not going to commit such a crime and risk leaving her children motherless when she’s sent to prison.’
‘But you’re assuming she thought she was going to be caught. It is my experience that murderers – though I grant you, I am talking about murderers who plan and not those who kill accidentally or commit crimes of passion – it is my experience that they never believe they are going to get caught. That’s part of the buzz, avoiding detection. The planning, down to the last little detail is a very exciting part of the process.’
‘But why would she want to kill him? She liked him, she was obviously very fond of him, even though I don’t think we could say she loved him. Hell, she even fixed him up with a girlfriend, so she couldn’t have been jealous. And she convinced Martyn to contact Peter again following their falling out. I just can’t see why she would want Peter dead.’
‘Other people’s relationships are never quite what they seem. And DS Irvine here will tell you that not all murderers are schizos with piercing heartless eyes, dishevelled hair and dog’s breath, who chew off cats’ heads just for fun. Sometimes they are normal, loving, family people. Sometimes something in their lives just snaps and they’ll carry out the evil deed and manage to keep it separate from the rest of their lives, leaving no obvious clues in their daily existence. But there will be something lurking just under the surface, and if you can dig deep enough to uncover it, you’ll expose the whole ugly can of worms.’
DS Irvine was saying nothing. He was keeping well out of it. He liked ann rea, she was good for Kennedy. They were good for each other. Neither letting their partner get away with shit.
He could never imagine ann rea and Kennedy in a scene, with ann rea at home, getting the supper, slippers and pipe ready for Kennedy. She was a fiery lass and a bit of a cracker. Of course this was something he would never voice to Kennedy, but DS Irvine thought that ann rea had a body to die for. In fact, some nights when he’d had a few whiskies and he and Staff Nurse Rose Butler were playing doctors and nurses he found himself thinking about ann rea. But that was another story. He was even scared to think about it, let alone talk about it.
Kennedy tied a rope around the rafter in the studio roof and attached the pulley system to it. He stretched the pulley to its full extent, bringing to the lower end to about six inches above his head. To the lower end he fixed another piece of rope which he secured under his arms, a procedure he’d seen used in helicopter rescues. The DI then invited ann rea to pull on the effort-end rope, with him as the load. ann rea complied with his request with great frivolity.
‘Ah, Kennedy, now I have you exactly where I want you.’
Kennedy was rising slowly into the air, an inch at a time, as ann rea pulled on her end of the rope, eight inches at a time. Quite soon he was dangling and rotating in the air about a foot above the concrete floor.
Suddenly the penny dropped with ann rea. ‘You mean bastards. You just brought me here to see if a mere woman could lift a solid man off the ground.’
An impish smile stole across her face as she extended her end of the rope to the far wall and tied it around a wooden beam used to support the workbench. ‘Detective Sergeant James Irvine and myself are going to go and have a leisurely cup of cappuccino,’ she announced as her accomplice checked the rope was fastened securely. She took DS Irvine by the arm and led him in the direction of the door.
‘ann rea, ann rea! ann rea, come on, let me down!’ Kennedy pleaded catching a fit of the giggles.
‘Or what Kennedy? What will you do if I don’t let you down?’
‘I’ll… I’ll spell your name in capitals from now on, that’s what I’ll do!’
ann rea and Irvine both laughed loudly. ‘That’s below the belt. But all right, if you’re going to play dirty, I’d better let you down.’ She shrugged her shoulders in mock surrender.
‘Okay, one last thing.’ Kennedy said through his giggles as he was lowered gently to the floor. He disengaged himself, detached the pulley, threw the rope over the rafter and again fixed himself to one end. The other he offered to ann rea, asking her to try lifting him from the ground again.
She couldn’t.
DS Irvine had a go. After a lot of huffing and puffing and the galvanising of a good deal of macho Scottish pride, he finally managed to raise Kennedy from the ground.
‘So it was either a woman or a weed,’ conceded ann rea. ‘Now, do I get my cappuccino – which I hope is on Camden CID?’
‘Of course. You have been a great help to my research,’ Kennedy smiled as he picked up the rope and pulleys and the three of them went to Café 79, as famous for its great cup of tea as it was for cappuccino and cakes.
Kennedy was glad to sit down. He probably shouldn’t have subjected himself to all that strain with his bruised ribs.
‘What about Mary Jones?’ Kennedy inquired, as he wiped a dab of cream from the corner of his mouth and washed the remains of a delicious cake down with a mouthful of tea.
‘What about Mary Jones?’ ann rea replied. ‘You are not starting to think it could have been Mary, are you?’
‘Look, don’t string me up again, but we’ve got to give everyone another look, this time giving a bit more attention to the females.’
‘You’ll enjoy that, Kennedy, won’t you?’
‘She’s not really my type.’
‘Really? What is your type?’ ann rea inquired playfully as DS Irvine went off to pay the bill.
‘Oh, you know, the unavailable type.’
‘You don’t know the half of it,’ she joked. ‘The sad thing is you’re probably not kidding.’
‘Yeah. But come on though, ann rea – what about Mary? Any more thoughts?’
‘Well,’ ann rea began, deep in thought, ‘I suppose, if I’m honest, I’ve always thought that Mary had a bit of a thing about Peter – unrequited, unfulfilled I suppose, but as you keep telling me you just never know.
‘Quite frankly though, I should have thought even Mary would be a more likely candidate than Colette Farrelly.’
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
She said she’d stick around
‘Til the bandages came off
- Tom Waits
The following day, Tuesday, brought confirmation that Kennedy had indeed cracked a rib in his skirmish with Barney Noble. This fact would still have remained undiscovered had it not been for ann rea, who thought Kennedy’s continuous wincing was indicative of something more serious than Kennedy’s diagnosis: ‘Oh, I just pulled something.’
Kennedy had an aversion to doctors and hospitals. How could you not be suspicious of a profession whose emblem was a serpent on a stick? Dentists were not too far behind, if they were behind at all. He hated taking medication of any kind. He
worked on the principle that to be doing you some good, a drug had to be inflicting harm on another part of the body. Add to that the fact he detested being under the influence of anything unnatural.
Instead Kennedy maintained to himself that if you ignored an ailment it would eventually go away. ann rea was more of the if-it’s-slightly-wrong-fix-it-before-it-breaks school. She felt guilty now about having kept him suspended on the rope in Mayfair Mews Studios. But it had been funny at the time and Kennedy had probably laughed the loudest.
The doctor at the local Primrose Hill Clinic bound him tight and he returned to the waiting room to greet ann rea with, ‘It couldn’t have been Mary Jones.’
‘What?’
‘It couldn’t have been Mary Jones,’ Kennedy repeated more quietly to avoid the stares of the patients in the waiting room. When Kennedy and ann rea were out in the street he elucidated. ‘Mary Jones was with Peter O’Browne when he was leaving Camden Town Records on Friday night. She was with him, and the receptionist at Camden Town Records confirmed this when he took the call inviting him, we assume, to Mayfair Mews Studio. So obviously, the caller wasn’t Mary.
‘Then she went on to the Forum in Kentish Town and was in company for the remainder of the evening. So that rules her out.’
Back at North Bridge House, Kennedy leant back in his chair and stretched his arms behind his head. He sighed. Of course he had to accept that he was making progress. They had solved the England’s Lane fire mystery and uncovered the chart-hyping teams; they had cleared Martyn Farrelly, but not his wife Colette. They had established, they thought, how Peter O’Browne had been murdered.
But, and it was indeed a big but, not only had they failed to identify the killer, they appeared to be no closer to doing so. The trail was getting so cold you could practically chill your beer on it. That was, of course, if you could find the trail in the first place.
