by J M Gregson
She nodded impatiently, anxious to tell her tale and have done with it. ‘There’s been a little gossip around the office. Mr O’Connor apparently had what one of the women here called a roving eye. Lots of men have that. The higher up they are in the system, the more they suffer from the gossip. People love to spread rumours about the boss. How much was just innocent flirting and how much was more serious than that I really couldn’t say.’
‘Couldn’t or wouldn’t, Mrs Parker?’ Percy was quietly insistent, despite his smile.
‘Couldn’t, Mr Peach. I try to steer clear of tittle tattle. I see that as loyalty to my employer and thus part of my job. Dominic’s business life, not his private life, was my concern.’
‘Admirable, I’m sure. But a pity, nevertheless, from our standpoint, in view of what has now happened to Mr O’Connor.’
She shrugged her slim shoulders beneath the lightweight jacket. ‘If you want my opinion, I think Dominic had affairs. I think that is why he had difficulties with his marriage. But that is no more than an opinion. I cannot give you any facts or any significant detail to support that view.’
‘So he was a womaniser.’ Peach waited for her reaction to the word. She frowned but said nothing. ‘Not a good thing, from where we stand. Sex leads to passion and passion too often leads to violent and impetuous actions. But so, in our experience, does success in business. And his work is something you do know about, as you’ve already told us. Very few people succeed in business without making enemies along the way. No doubt you can identify for us some of the enemies Mr Dominic O’Connor made.’
Clyde Northcott flicked ostentatiously to a new page in his notebook and reflected once again on how his senior made bricks from however little straw was offered to him — this woman had said she knew only his working and not his private life and he’d immediately quoted that to make her speak.
But now Jean Parker picked her words carefully; Clyde couldn’t be sure whether that came from a natural caution she had developed with her job or whether she was really trying to hide something. ‘Dominic wasn’t the owner of this business. He was the successful finance manager within it.’
‘He was a partner. He became a partner two years ago. We’ve already checked that out.’
They thought in the pause which followed that she was going to say she hadn’t known about that. But she eventually said, ‘That is a tribute to his efficiency. I don’t think you will find anyone in the firm who will say that Dominic was other than highly efficient.’
Was there a tiny suggestion of bitterness in her repetition of that last word? Peach let the thought hang in the air for a moment before he said, ‘One man’s efficiency is sometimes another man’s dirty trick. Verdicts can alter with where you stand and how actions affect you. We’d like the names of anyone who felt aggrieved by any action taken by Dominic O’Connor.’
She was a surprising woman. They would have expected evasions, after what had gone before. Instead she said abruptly, ‘Brian Jacobs. I’m not saying he had anything to do with this, mind. I haven’t seen him for years. I think he still lives in the area, but I can’t give you an address.’
‘Did he work for a rival firm?’
‘No. He worked here. He did the job that Dominic did, when the firm was smaller than it is now.’
‘And he resented the way Mr O’Connor behaved?’
‘You’d have to ask him about that. I don’t know any details. I hadn’t been here long, at the time.’
Northcott made a note of the name, then asked, ‘Is there anyone else who had a grudge against Mr O’Connor?’
‘No. There must obviously be a whole range of people in other firms who were business rivals, especially after he became a partner here, but I don’t know that any of them would admit to having a grudge against Dominic.’
She came to the door and watched them depart, a slim, composed figure, with shrewd grey eyes and an air of being in total control of her office domain. They were half a mile away in the car before Peach said, ‘Pretty formal in her attitudes, Mrs Jean Parker.’
‘Yes. Goes with the job as a PA, I suppose.’
‘Yes. But she slipped into calling her employer Dominic pretty quickly, didn’t she? I appreciate that office conventions are more relaxed than they used to be, but I wonder just how close the very composed Mrs Parker was to her late employer.’
Back in the office they had left, Jean Parker was examining her reactions to their visit. She should have felt relieved. Instead she found she felt curiously empty, now that it was over. She’d told them exactly what she’d planned to tell them and it seemed to have gone quite well. Now she wanted to ring Brian Jacobs and warn him of what she’d said.
There was really no need for that. What she’d told the CID was what they’d agreed beforehand, no more and no less. It was Brian who’d said that they’d be determined to find out about him, that it was better if they heard it from her lips than dug it up for themselves. He’d planned it and he would handle it, as they both knew he could.
But Jean Parker felt deprived. She would have liked to be at Brian’s side as he saw this through.
They didn’t have much time for reflection when they got back to the police station at Brunton. The station sergeant stopped them at the front desk as they moved towards the CID section. ‘God Squad’s waiting for you in your office, Percy. Catholic priest from St Catherine’s. What you been up to? I told you to keep away from them choir boys!’
Police humour is robust and predictable rather than subtle. Percy smiled sourly. ‘If you’ve been rifling his poor box, George, your best chance is to admit your guilt and go for mitigating circumstances. I’d like to tell him you’ve been working hard and been under stress, but they might have me for perjury.’
When he reached his office, he reflected wryly that he should have learned by now not to form cliched premonitions about occupations. He had been expecting a red-faced and portly middle-aged cleric with an Irish accent. The man who introduced himself as Father Raymond Brice was tall and slim and no more than thirty-five. He had a tanned face and a firm chin and he spoke English with a slight Geordie inflexion. ‘I’m not sure if I should be here at all, DCI Peach. You must send me away quickly if you think I’m wasting your time.’
‘We’re glad of all the help we can get, Father.’
‘I know the family. The O’Connors, I mean.’
‘James or Dominic? They’re both murder victims.’
‘And I knew both of them. I’m here about Dominic, the younger brother. He’s the one I knew well. I know the family — well, husband and wife. They weren’t blessed with children. I suppose that might be a good thing now, with Dominic lying in the morgue.’
Percy decided to save time and take the initiative. ‘We heard earlier this morning that this was not a straightforward marriage. Perhaps you can throw more light on that for us.’
Father Brice looked troubled. He sighed and said, ‘That’s why I’m here. I’m still not sure whether I should be.’
‘You’re worried about whether you should reveal the secrets of the confessional to us?’
The priest smiled and relaxed for the first time since they had arrived. ‘No, it’s not that old chestnut. Modern Catholics don’t use the confessional as much as they used to, which may be a good or a bad thing. We priests still don’t disclose anything revealed to us in that private little cell, which is one of the strengths of the system. If people don’t believe they can trust us completely, they don’t seek absolution for their sins. And forgiveness comes from God, not from us. That’s another illusion many of the public have, that priests can forgive sins. We’re just intermediaries between man and God.’
‘Forgive me, Father, but I know all this. I began life as a Catholic.’
For a moment, it looked as if Father Brice might embark on a mission to retrieve the lost sheep, but something in Percy Peach’s countenance made him think better of it. ‘None of what I have to say here comes from the confessional.
I have gathered it from other and less formal contacts. The modern pastor is expected to get to know his flock. I’ve learned quite a lot about Dominic and Ros O’Connor, both from themselves and from other people.’ He sighed. ‘We’re expected to be counsellors as much as confessors, these days.’
‘So what can you tell us?’ Peach tried not to show his impatience with this well-meaning man who had obviously found it difficult to come here.
‘It’s Ros O’Connor.’ The priest’s relief at being pushed to reveal the name was obvious. It made it seem as if the detectives and not he had taken the initiative and given him no option. ‘She’s a good woman, but a woman under stress. I’m not a psychologist and I’m not sure how they would define the word, but I think she’s unstable.’
Peach said quietly, ‘You’d better give us the details.’
Father Brice leaned forward, clasping his hands and pressing them hard together. It was obviously a gesture he made which helped him to think. He looked slightly ridiculous, as if squeezing some imaginary orange in search of juice. But priests did not have wives to tell them to abandon ridiculous gestures; Percy had a sudden vision of the loneliness of clerical evenings, of the quiet desperation of a life lived alone with problems you could not reveal. Then Brice said, ‘They’re good Catholics, the O’Connors — whatever that means nowadays. They attend Mass each Sunday and receive Communion most times. That doesn’t mean that they’re not subject to the same pressures of modern life which others feel.’
Peach felt for the priest and saw the internal struggle this was costing him, but he now wanted whatever he could get from this to be delivered quickly. He said briskly, as if he already had the information from some other source, ‘They weren’t faithful to each other, were they?’
Again Brice looked as if being led was a relief to him. ‘No. There were all sorts of rumours about Dominic.’
Clyde Northcott said eagerly, with pen poised over notebook, ‘We need the details, Father.’
Brice glanced across at him as if he had forgotten for a moment that the DS was in the room, a difficult thing to achieve with Northcott’s formidable presence. ‘I can’t give you details.’
‘I appreciate that you cannot reveal the secrets of the confessional, Father, but you should be aware that this is a murder-’
‘It’s nothing to do with the damned secrets of the confessional! I told you that!’ The near-shout showed the strain the priest was enduring. He controlled himself with a visible effort and a very deep breath. ‘Neither Dominic nor Ros confessed any sexual sins to me. It’s embarrassing to parade your defects to someone you know, as you can probably imagine. Most people prefer to go to priests who do not know them when they have serious sins to confess. They feel the need for absolution, but they prefer a more anonymous intermediary between themselves and Almighty God than the man they know and the man who knows them.’
Peach nodded. He felt as if he himself was now assuming the role of therapist to this troubled man. ‘But the O’Connors talked to you about this.’
He nodded eagerly. ‘But not in the confessional and not together. And Dominic scarcely at all, except in the most general terms. But Ros is a tortured soul. She was quite frank with me when she felt desperate. And you hear rumours from other people, even when you don’t want to hear them. They assume you know all sorts of things which you don’t know.’
Peach prompted him. ‘We already know from other sources that Mr O’Connor was a womaniser. He is now a murder victim and his womanising may be a factor in his death. Can you give us any information about his liaisons?’
Father Brice shook his head. ‘I’m sure they exist and perhaps there have been several of them. But my only source is Ros and she isn’t reliable when she speaks of this. She loses judgement and becomes hysterical. According to Ros, Dominic was bedding almost every woman he met, which was plainly ridiculous. I tried to point that out to her and she’d nod and agree with me, but then come up with something just as outlandish a moment later.’
‘But you have some information for us about Ros herself. That is why you came here this morning.’
‘She is a troubled soul and I fear unstable, as I said at the outset. I believe she has turned elsewhere for consolation, despite my advice. Sometimes I’m treated as a marriage guidance counsellor, when I have no training in such fields.’
‘We need names, Father Brice.’
‘Mrs O’Connor is not a promiscuous woman. She has acted rashly, under stress. I can give you one name, in strictest confidence. A man called John Alderson.’
He enunciated the syllables with obvious distaste, so that Peach said, ‘He is obviously a man of whom you don’t approve.’
‘I couldn’t approve any association outside marriage, could I? I haven’t heard much that’s good about Alderson from other people, but it’s hardly fair for me to condemn a man I hardly know. But I can’t approve his relationship with Ros O’Connor and I’ve told her that several times.’
‘You said she isn’t promiscuous. But is there any other person connected with her whom you think you should name here? Bear in mind that we are looking for a murderer.’
They could see him relaxing. Plainly he had rid himself of the burden he had brought here with him when he named John Alderson. He gave full attention to their question, but he was not wrestling with his conscience as he had been until now. ‘There’s no one else I know who is close to Ros. I’m sure there are several people who had reasons to wish Dominic O’Connor ill, in his private as well as his business life. But I cannot name any of them for you, because Dominic didn’t confide in me as Ros did.’
It was a measured statement which he’d obviously thought about before he came to the station. Peach looked at him hard, but eventually believed him. He didn’t give undue weight to the cloth clergymen wore any more, but Father Brice was patently sincere and genuine, a man who had found it hard to come here and had done so from a sense of duty, not personal interest. Percy thanked him for his help and then, with their meeting all but concluded, pointed out, ‘You’ve twice used the word “unstable” about Mrs O’Connor. You clearly have an incident or incidents in mind.’
Raymond Brice nodded, regretful and relieved at the same time. He wanted this out. It was what he had come here for, to pass the burden of knowledge on to the appropriate temporal authority whilst he wrestled with its spiritual implications. ‘Ros said she could kill her husband.’
Peach smiled. ‘It’s the kind of thing many wives say under stress. I think I’ve even heard it said about someone as innocent as me, in moments of wifely stress.’
Father Brice smiled back automatically, but then his mouth wrinkled with irritation. ‘Give me credit for a little understanding of the way people think and talk, DCI Peach. Killing Dominic was mentioned several times over a period of months and it wasn’t humorous. On the last occasion, Ros O’Connor said she was fearful of what she might do.’
Peach was on his way out of the station when the summons came. He considered ignoring it, but he had always chosen to face bad things quickly rather than put them off. Ogres always grew more fearful with anticipation. And there was no greater ogre in Peach’s world than Chief Superintendent Thomas Bulstrode Tucker. He climbed the stairs to the penthouse office of Brunton’s Head of CID with a steadily sinking heart.
Tucker regarded him balefully over his rimless glasses, as if waiting for the abject apology which was not Percy’s forte. ‘So,’ he said eventually. ‘We have an arrest for the murder of James O’Connor.’
‘Peter Coleman has been arrested, charged and remanded in custody this morning, sir. Be good to see one of our least savoury residents put behind bars for a very long time, don’t you think? Even the CPS wankers are happy with the case we have delivered to them.’
When you mentioned lawyers, one of the banes of police life, you could usually rely on a moment of agreement even with Tommy Bloody Tucker. A moment for the mutual casting of eyebrows to heaven would certainly have been in
order. This would have been followed by congratulations from the chief on a swift success in a high-profile case, if there had been any justice.
But this was T.B. Tucker and there wasn’t. He shook his head vigorously and said, ‘It won’t do, Peach.’
Percy strove to keep a check on his blood pressure. Tucker in bollocking mode was one of life’s more stringent trials. ‘What won’t do, sir?’
‘What’s happening on our patch won’t do! I call a media conference and trumpet our success in solving the murder of a popular local businessman and former rugby international. I tell television, radio and press how efficient we have been. Good PR, Peach! Something you know very little about. But the next thing I hear is that you’ve landed me with another murder, before I can even catch my breath. It won’t do!’
‘Is that me or the CID unit as a whole that’s landed you with another murder, sir?’
‘Don’t be impertinent, Peach. I’m not in the mood for it.’
‘Then perhaps you will explain to me how we are responsible for the death of Dominic O’Connor, sir.’
Tucker’s hands rose and fell at his sides. He repeated the gesture, reminding Percy of a portly young blackbird who had but lately left the nest and had not yet learned the full secrets of flight. ‘Detection is not merely about reacting to crime, Peach. You should anticipate things and nip them in the bud.’ His face brightened as a phrase surfaced suddenly in the heaving swamp of his mind. ‘A decent Detective Chief Inspector needs to be proactive, not reactive.’
He drummed his fingers on the shining desert of his desktop to emphasise his point, whilst his junior wondered which management course had provided him with this phrase. Percy’s face brightened as if illuminated by an unexpected gem of thought. ‘Perhaps your comprehensive overview of crime in the area should have revealed the prospect of a second O’Connor killing to us, sir.’ Percy beamed his satisfaction at that idea.
