by J M Gregson
‘And people like you don’t believe a word we say.’
Peach seemed to find this amusing again. He didn’t trouble to deny it. Instead he asked, ‘So make me believe you. Tell me what you really did in the James O’Connor organisation.’
Tracey noted the past tense but said defiantly, ‘I am in charge of security. I make sure that things which are confidential remain so. It is important that certain facts and certain plans remain secret until we choose to reveal them. I make sure everyone knows that and that rival organisations don’t get information they shouldn’t have.’
He was obviously repeating a well-rehearsed script. Peach wondered aloud where the words had come from. ‘Jim O’Connor handed you that stuff, did he? I shouldn’t think the palookas you use to enforce things would understand a word of it.’
‘I don’t know what the hell you think you’re-’
‘Good word, that. Palookas. Straight out of black-and-white Hollywood gangster films. Which is where you and your muscle belong, Tracey. You’re as out of date as that.’
The big man with the cropped hair stayed in his seat with difficulty, his knuckles whitening on the wooden ends of the arms. ‘You wouldn’t say that if you. .’
He stopped dead just short of a threat, realising where he was being led, wondering what he could do to get out of this. Peach gave him a smile which combined amusement with derision. ‘Did you shoot your boss, Tracey?’
‘No. Course I bloody didn’t.’ He stared sullenly ahead of him, willing himself not to be riled by this bouncing ball of a chief inspector. ‘Why the hell would I want to do that?’
‘Because some other tycoon paid you handsomely to do it? Because this other villain’s now guaranteed you employment at a higher price? Violence is always there to be bought by the highest bidder, isn’t it?’
‘Get stuffed, Peach!’
‘So why didn’t you protect O’Connor, Steve? That was your job, surely? Can’t do your reputation any good, when the man you’re supposed to be protecting is shot down in cold blood, with you in attendance. Sheer bloody incompetence, I’d say. Wouldn’t you, DS Northcott?’
‘I would indeed, sir. Make it very difficult for Mr Tracey to secure other employment, I’d say, a cock-up like that would.’
Tracey was in before he could stop himself. ‘That’s where you’re wrong, black boy! You’ve no bloody idea about these things. You should stick to what you fucking know!’
There was a silence in the room, with the only audible sound that of Tracey’s heavy breathing. He’d given himself away. He’d forgotten how temper could betray you with the filth. An elementary mistake, for one with his experience.
Peach savoured the moment, letting a grin which became impossibly wide steal slowly over his expressive features. Finally he glanced at Northcott. ‘So he’s got himself other employment already. The biggest rat has deserted the sinking O’Connor ship with record speed. But then he probably couldn’t believe he’d been offered a new job, after his evident incompetence in the previous one. Or was this by prior arrangement, Tracey? If you didn’t shoot O’Connor yourself, did you leave him deliberately exposed because you’d already sold out to an even bigger rogue?’
The big man with the close-cropped hair glared at him, then said sullenly, ‘Get stuffed, Peach!’ But this was no more than muted, ritual defiance. He had sold himself by his temper; he wasn’t going to say more than he needed to from now on, but he’d done the damage.
Peach was determined to make the most of the gift he had been offered. ‘Who’s taken you on, Tracey? You and a couple of your palookas, I should think.’ He savoured the obsolete word again, pronouncing each syllable resoundingly. ‘My money’s on Lennon. Wouldn’t you say so, DS Northcott?’
‘From information received, I’d be almost certain of it, sir.’ Clyde brought his uncompromising face closer to Steve Tracey’s and gave his adversary a grin which held much aggression and nil humour.
Tracey, still reeling from his earlier mistake, was now shaken by the accuracy of their information. ‘Get stuffed, black man! It’s my business who I work for, not yours, pig!’
Peach regarded him balefully. Men like these, who dealt out violence to order, without even the passion of rage or resentment which drove domestic disputes, were the lowest as well as one of the most dangerous forms of life for him. ‘Not true, that. You’ve no right to privacy, when your business is beating up people. Or killing them, when the need arises. Did you kill O’Connor? Was that part of the deal with Lennon?’
‘No!’ There was panic in Tracey’s insistence. He had realised now how bad it looked for him. He hadn’t thought they’d have known anything about his new employment with Lennon. It must look as if he’d defected immediately after O’Connor’s death, or more probably by prior arrangement. If these start-lingly well-informed pair of filth thought that, they probably thought he’d killed the man as part of the deal. ‘I served James O’Connor well — did everything he asked me to.’
‘I’ll bet you did.’ Peach looked at him as though he was something he’d scraped off his shoe. ‘As long as it suited you. Until someone else offered you more. Until one of your employer’s rivals bought you and your palookas.’
Steve wished the man wouldn’t keep throwing in that strange word. He was fighting for his life here, with the pig flinging in daft words whilst he tried to think straight. He said between jaws which were suddenly stiff, ‘I didn’t shoot O’Connor.’
‘Then who did, Tracey? You seem like our prime suspect to me, and I’m happy to have it that way.’ Percy gave the man a smile which emphasized that pleasure.
‘I don’t know.’
‘You’ll need to do better than that, won’t you? From your point of view, I mean, not mine. I’m happy to let suspicion gather around you.’
Peach wasn’t, of course. They’d need significant sightings to pin this on Tracey. The Crown Prosecution Service wouldn’t look at it until they were given solid evidence to mount a case. But men on the other side of the law didn’t always appreciate that: they thought coppers could rig a case against anyone they chose to frame. Peach had no real reason to think this man had killed O’Connor, but he would exploit his fear as he would exploit any other emotion to help to elicit facts. ‘You claim you didn’t kill this man you were handsomely paid to defend. So who the hell did?’
‘I don’t know.’ Tracey thrashed his brain in search of words to frame some defence, then shook his head dumbly.
‘Because even scum like you would have to admit that it doesn’t look good for you. You’ve just been offered new and lucrative employment with the man who is planning to take over O’Connor’s dubious empire. Immediately after your previous employer has been gunned down in cold blood. Now why would an efficient sod like Lennon take on someone who has just failed to protect the man who previously paid his wages? Answer: because he was rewarding an assignment which had been efficiently completed.’
‘He wasn’t. I didn’t fire that bullet.’
‘Looks like an open and shut case to me, DS Northcott. Wouldn’t you say so?’
‘I would indeed, sir. An open and shut case.’ Clyde Northcott repeated the cliche appreciatively, as if he had just encountered it for the first time. ‘I should think the Chief Constable will be delighted to have this cleared up so quickly.’
‘I didn’t do this,’ Tracey repeated, dogged but hopeless. ‘I want a brief.’
Percy beamed delightedly. ‘Most sensible thing we’ve heard from you this morning, Mr Tracey. But you’re not under caution. Not yet. On paper, you’re a good citizen helping the police with their enquiries.’ He shook his head and smiled a little at the absurdity of that. Then his voice was suddenly as hard as steel. ‘So if you didn’t kill him, Tracey, who the hell did?’
‘I don’t know. I’d tell you if I did.’
‘Would you, indeed? Let me put this another way, then. Why didn’t you protect the man who paid you to do just that?’
Steve T
racey wanted to say that the protection of his employer had been only an incidental part of his brief; that his job had been principally to frighten others and to bring them to heel by violence if they did not comply. But beating people into submission was hardly a job description he could pursue with the filth. He took a deep, hopeless breath. This wasn’t going to sound good. More importantly, it wasn’t even going to sound believable, not to these men who wanted to put him away for a long stretch. But he couldn’t see how to dress it up as anything stronger. ‘I asked James O’Connor if he wanted protection only minutes before he was shot. He announced a comfort break before the speeches which hadn’t been scheduled in the programme and I offered to stay with him through it. He said he didn’t need me.’
He did his best to make it sound like a dereliction of duty on O’Connor’s part, thought Peach. And it was true that his departure from the official programme was the sort of change security men never liked. In this case, indeed, you could say it had been a fatal change. ‘But what happened showed that he did need you — assuming that we accept for the moment your claim that you were still on his side. So who killed him? You must see now that if it wasn’t you, it’s very much in your interests to reveal who did this. You don’t need a brief to tell you that.’
Indeed he didn’t. Steve desperately wanted them to believe him, but he knew that in their place he’d be every bit as sceptical as they were. He stared straight ahead of him. ‘I don’t know. My money would be on a hit man employed by one of his enemies.’
‘Evidence?’
‘The way in which he died. The papers say he was shot in the head. I haven’t anything else.’ Still he gazed straight ahead. To look into the round, unbelieving face of his tormentor would shake his own belief in the words he was mouthing.
Peach let those words hang for a moment, as if he wished to emphasize how inadequate they were. Then he said, ‘Where were you during this interval?’
‘I was in the reception area at the front of the building. I spoke to two of my men who had been on the lowest table, at the end of the banqueting hall, where they could see everything that was going on. I wanted to know if they’d seen anything suspicious.’
‘I’m sure you did.’ Peach let his cynicism hammer each monosyllable hard. ‘And no doubt they hadn’t.’
‘No. And I had to tell them that Mr O’Connor felt he didn’t need protection that evening. If he hadn’t said that, maybe he’d be alive now.’
‘Maybe. And maybe you wouldn’t. Assuming, that is, that you’re telling the truth. Very big assumption, that is. Make a note that this man was absent from the banqueting hall at the moment when James O’Connor was killed, please, DS Northcott.’
Clyde nodded. ‘Already done, sir.’ He shifted his chair even nearer to Tracey’s. ‘What weapon do you carry, Mr Tracey?’
Steve started a little as the point of attack changed from the white and smiling round face of Peach to the stern black features of his bagman. He wanted to say he wasn’t armed, but that would be ridiculous in someone paid to do the things he did. ‘A Smith amp; Wesson.357.’
Northcott didn’t comment, but allowed himself a rare grin as he wrote the details down. Tracey said defensively, ‘There are a lot of them about.’
Peach was back in immediately. ‘There are indeed, Mr Tracey. Especially in criminal circles. And a lot of them are used as murder weapons, as in this case. Don’t leave the area without telling us exactly where you’re intending to flee to, will you?’
And as suddenly as they had arrived, they were gone, leaving Steve Tracey feeling more limp than he had ever felt in his adult life.
It was a bleak May day in north-east Lancashire. No rain threatened, but the sky was the colour of pewter and a light but cutting wind blew from the east.
Detective Chief Inspector Peach’s temper had not been improved by his morning interview with Steve Tracey, who was the kind of villain he found most frustrating: violent and destructive but also elusive. He couldn’t see any easy or swift solution to the Jim O’Connor murder. The toad in the hole in the canteen was undercooked and indigestible. When he returned to his office, his gloom was completed by a summons to consult with the head of the Brunton CID section, Chief Superintendent Thomas Bulstrode Tucker.
‘Are you near to an arrest, Peach?’ was Tucker’s greeting.
‘Your statement to the media said that enquiries were proceeding satisfactorily, sir.’ Percy decided to sit down in front of the chief’s large and noticeably empty desk.
‘Stalling exercise, as you well know, Peach. The official bullshit for “We haven’t got anywhere yet, but we’re trying”.’
‘Yes, sir. Fair summary. Surprisingly percipient of you, sir.’
Tucker couldn’t remember anyone calling him percipient before, but he supposed it was a compliment. ‘Don’t try to bullshit me, Peach! I handed this investigation over to you with a brisk start made and house-to-house enquiries already under way. I want to know what progress you’ve made.’
‘A brisk start? I see, sir. Well, I’m afraid the house-to-house has produced nothing. There aren’t too many houses around Claughton Towers and their occupants tend to be safely indoors during the hours of darkness.’
Tommy Bloody Tucker ignored this, as he ignored most things which made unpleasant hearing. ‘You have a huge team on this, Peach. I expect results. Jim O’Connor was a well-known and popular figure because of his rugby past. He was also a successful local businessman. This is a high-profile case. I’m having to hold radio and television at bay, as well as the press. I need something to feed to them.’
‘You could tell them that O’Connor was under investigation by the Inland Revenue for tax evasion and by the Drug Squad for supplying and selling illegal substances, sir.’
‘I can’t go saying things like that about a murder victim. It wouldn’t be good PR. You don’t understand the importance of our image among the public, Peach.’
‘No, sir. I’m more concerned with putting villains behind bars, sir.’
‘Don’t take that line with me, Peach. It won’t work.’
Percy reflected that putting away criminals was hardly a controversial line, save in the strange world of Tommy Bloody Tucker. ‘The wife wasn’t able to provide us with anything useful, sir. It’s my view that Sarah O’Connor isn’t grief-stricken by this death, but I could be wrong.’
‘Ah! You may have stumbled upon something vital here, Peach. A woman could have done this, you know. It takes no great strength to pull the trigger on a pistol.’
‘Yes, sir. That thought had occurred to me. I think DS Northcott is aware of it, also.’
‘Bear it in mind, that’s all. You can’t trust women, you know.’
‘Yes, sir. I’ve become aware of that, during my twenty years of service. However, not many of them possess Smith amp; Wesson revolvers which can blow a man’s head to bits. Nevertheless, it seems there were several such weapons around O’Connor and his henchmen. It wouldn’t have been too difficult for his wife to get her hands on one, if she had a mind to murder her man. So far, we have no evidence that she had.’
‘The press are beginning to moan about our failure to protect the public. You know the kind of stuff — anarchy is stalking our streets unchecked, that sort of thing.’
‘I do sir, yes.’ For a tiny moment, these two very different men were united in the face of an unfeeling media. Then Peach said, ‘O’Connor employed his own muscle. It didn’t protect him very well, did it?’
‘His own muscle?’ Tucker did his goldfish impression, but on this occasion it merely irritated Percy.
‘I interviewed a man called Steve Tracey this morning, sir. He’s been in charge of Jim O’Connor’s security for the last four years.’
‘Security?’
‘It’s the current euphemism for enforcers, sir. Tracey and his men beat up people who tried to obstruct O’Connor’s activities.’
‘That’s illegal, Peach.’
‘Your grasp of
technicalities is as accurate as ever, sir. The problem is that we can never get witnesses to speak up in court, sir. There have been some bad beatings, but the victims aren’t prepared to stand in the witness box and point out the people who put them in hospital.’
‘This man Tracey sounds like a dangerous man, Peach. You should regard him as a serious candidate for this crime.’
‘Thank you, sir. Your overview of the crime scene in our area is as useful as it ever was.’
Tucker looked at him suspiciously over his rimless glasses. ‘There were a lot of people at that dinner, Peach.’
‘Sixty-two, sir. No doubt you considered that, before you decided to dismiss them to their homes on Monday night.’
Tucker decided to ignore this; he had long ago developed a deaf ear to turn towards unpleasant facts. ‘There must be other possibilities as well as the two you’ve mentioned. I learned long ago that one mustn’t jump to conclusions when engaged on a murder investigation.’
‘Another penetrating finding for your juniors, sir. We haven’t ruled out the idea that this may still be a domestic.’
Tucker stroked his chin judiciously. It was a gesture he’d worked on over the last couple of years. He felt it gave him gravitas when speaking to television presenters. ‘That seems unlikely to me, Peach. But I suppose you know your own business best.’
‘Very gracious of you, sir, I’m sure. The victim has a younger brother — six years younger. His name is Dominic O’Connor and he didn’t approve of the victim’s lifestyle. He called his brother a “chancer”, which he undoubtedly was. That and much more. I think Dominic had a much clearer idea of James’s businesses and the way he ran them than he cares to admit. That doesn’t mean he had anything to do with his death, of course.’
‘Indeed it doesn’t. Dominic O’Connor is also a successful local businessman. He could do us a lot of damage if we offend him.’
‘Even if he should turn out to be a serious criminal, sir?’
