[Inspector Peach 13] - Wild Justice

by J M Gregson

  But Ballack was now to act not as a partner but as an employee. He was allowed to retain a minor role in charge of the now very small research and development department at Hayes Electronics and the token managership of one small backstreet betting shop, on condition that he joined Gamblers Anonymous and gave evidence of complete reform.

  Matthew made his token, hopeless protests against his humiliation. ‘We came up together. We’ve been through so much. You owe me more than this,’ he protested pathetically.

  ‘I owe you nothing,’ said Hayes viciously.

  ‘You can’t do it. We have agreements.’

  ‘I can and I will. We’ve never bothered much with written agreements. You’re lucky I didn’t let you go the whole hog and put yourself on the streets.’

  ‘Ros left me last year and took the kids.’

  ‘Wise woman. She should have gone earlier.’

  ‘She took the house and I have to pay maintenance. The business is all I have left.’

  Tim saw that the man was near to tears and exulted; the sight moved him not to sympathy but to domination. ‘Correction. Had left. You’re lucky to retain what I’m offering. Take it or leave it.’ Matthew Ballack had taken it, of course. He’d had no option. In the shock and the humiliation of his distress and his addiction, he had been unfit to make a fresh start anywhere else. He had thought that he might be a junior partner, with status maintained despite the drop in his income, but, as the months stretched into years, Hayes made sure that he was more and more marginalized. Other men, hard men whom Matthew did not know, were brought in to occupy the posts and to do the things he had once done.

  Today, although Matthew Ballack did not as yet know it, was to mark one more stage in his degradation.

  He knew he should suspect something when Hayes arranged to meet him at home instead of in the casino where he was still officially based. Ballack lived in a small flat near the centre of the town, in an area which a century ago had been the most expensive part of the prosperous cotton town, with high Victorian houses and spacious gardens filled with geraniums and lobelia and snapdragons.

  Those days were long gone. The gardens were now concreted over to accommodate cars in various stages of roadworthiness, whilst the once-proud houses were rabbit warrens of flats and bedsits, housing a floating population. Few people stayed for long. Those who could afford it moved out to something better, those who failed ended in squats, or in the prisons which were the inevitable destination for an ever-increasing minority of them.

  Matthew Ballack had one of the better residences in this down- at-heel area, a large bedsit on the ground floor of what had once been an elegant Edwardian semi-detached. He was the longest resident, and he paid his modest rent on time, so he was the landlady’s favourite tenant. If she wondered privately why he did not move on, she had far more sense than to ask. In fact, once Ballack had paid the maintenance to his wife and children, which had been computed on his income in palmier times, this was all he could afford.

  Tim Hayes had been here only once before; he decided that it must have been at least three years previously. He looked up at the high, smutty ceiling, with its marks of damp in the comer of the outside wall, then at the faded wallpaper, with its strips tom away by the children of some previous tenant. The light was on because of the early dusk, but the single bulb had no shade.

  Hayes turned his attention to the occupant. Ballack was almost the same age as him, but Tim thought he looked at least ten years older than his forty-nine years. Most of the hair on his large head had gone; the fringe and the thin covering he combed over the top of his skull looked lank and greasy. He had not bothered to make himself tidy for this meeting: Tim wondered whether that was deliberate, whether he was offering the only pathetic defiance left to him. One of the buttons on the stomach of his shirt was undone, which accentuated the pot belly which bulged over the belt of his trousers. His broad nose had grown more bulbous in his decline, and the once sharp brown eyes on each side of it were watery and slightly bloodshot.

  Hayes deliberately ignored his former partner’s appearance. Instead, he glanced again at the walls and the ceiling, at the shabby kitchen area at one end of the big room, and said, ‘I’m surprised you stay here, Matt.’

  ‘I don’t have much choice. What did you want to see me about? Why the mystery?’

  ‘No mystery. Matt. I just thought it better to do this in private.’ He sat down in a threadbare armchair, stretched his legs unhurriedly, stared with approval at the shine on his expensive leather shoes for a moment, as if it was necessary for him to assure himself of his own quality in this place where squalor prevailed. ‘No business remains successful by standing still, Matt.’

  ‘I don’t need the cliches. I understand business as well as you do, Tim.’

  Hayes looked again at the peeling wallpaper, the shabby suite, the scratched table and the outdated kitchen area. His smile was more infuriating to his host than any frown could ever have been. ‘If you say so, Matt. The point is that decisions have to be made. I need to take account of what is expanding and what is declining in my empire.’

  ‘It would have been “we need to take account” and “our empire” at one time.’ Matthew Ballack had no idea why he made this hopeless protest. Perhaps it was because he wished to delay the unwelcome news he sensed was coming.

  ‘Those days have gone. Matt. That was your fault, not mine.’ For a couple of seconds, Tim sounded genuinely sorry about that. Then he addressed himself to turning the knife in the wound. ‘I need a younger man to take charge of the betting shop. The government is freeing things up. With a bit of luck, we’ll be able to turn ourselves into a proper, Continental-style casino in the next year or two. I need someone with his finger on the pulse.’

  ‘You mean you’re kicking me out.’ Ballack spoke with dull resignation; everything about this clandestine meeting made sense now.

  Tim Hayes smiled, deliberately unhurried, deliberately relaxed. ‘I’m moving you sideways, Matt. Into a growth area. You could look upon it as a promotion.’ The irony in his smile said that it was certainly not that.

  ‘What is it you want me to do now?’

  ‘A job that’s right up your street. Matt. Management of an area in which your personal experience will be invaluable.’ He paused to savour that phrase, watching the heavy features of the man in the other armchair as recognition of its implications dawned on him. Then he nodded and smiled. ‘I want you to take responsibility for the welfare of the most attractive of our female employees.’

  There was a pause of several seconds before Ballack said dully, ‘You’re putting me in charge of the brothels.’

  ‘Come now, Matt! You know that’s a term we never use. That would be acknowledging that such places exist! You know that Hayes Electronics needs to be morally beyond reproach.’

  ‘You want me to make sure the tarts give us their forty per cent. That they pay up for their protection and look cheerful.’

  ‘Not cheerful. Beautiful, Matt. Comely, even. Cheerful isn’t enough for people in their trade. Not for the best ones, anyway. And we only want the best ladies working for us, don’t we, Matt?’

  ‘You want to put me in charge of a business which officially doesn’t exist. To kick out ageing toms when they reach their sell-by dates.’

  ‘That’s the idea, Matt. I knew you’d appreciate what was involved, or I wouldn’t have chosen you. Of course, there’ll be more positive things, too. You’ll have to recruit new, young, attractive staff and install them in our properties - I expect you’ll enjoy the auditions. And all the time you’ll need to pretend that this aspect of our business doesn’t exist. Discretion is the watchword, as always. But I know that I can rely absolutely upon your discretion, Matt.’

  ‘You mean you know things which will ensure that I keep my mouth shut if the fuzz come sniffing around.’

  ‘You see things very negatively these days, Matt. But of course I bear such things in mind. One considers everything, when
making the appointments in different sections of the empire.’

  ‘Do I have a choice?’ The question which invited further humiliation was out before Matthew Ballack could prevent it.

  Hayes leaned a little further back in his chair, raised his eyes to the damaged ceiling, let them travel unhurriedly again around the walls of this dingy room. ‘You could always look for something elsewhere, I suppose.’ He brought his gaze back sharply to the face of his erstwhile partner. ‘But I have to tell you frankly that I’d be disappointed if you did that. Matt. I’d like to keep you with Hayes Electronics, if at all possible.’

  Moments later, Tim Hayes stood for a moment beside the big BMW in the shadow of the high building. He looked up and down the shabby street, relishing in that moment not only how far he had come but how far Matthew Ballack had fallen. Then some belated qualm of conscience overtook him. He looked towards the orange light behind the curtains which did not meet in that high, depressing front room and was sorry for the man who had to live there.

  The feeling did not persist. As he turned up the heating and eased the big limousine away from the place, his mind turned swiftly to his next concern.

  Chapter Four

  Darren Simpson was fond of his children. Nevertheless, both they and he were secretly relieved when Sunday was over and it was time for them to go back to their mother. It wasn’t easy to fill the day in January. Boys of four and six were quickly bored when they were away from home and their familiar toys.

  He saw his wife and the new man through the uncurtained window as he drove up to the house. It was almost as if they wanted him to see them, he thought sourly. He didn't want to speak to Hetty, but he had to ring the bell and see the small boys safely into the house. They ran straight in when the door opened, without a backward glance at him. He heard them shouting a greeting to the man who now shared his former wife’s bed. Hetty said as if she did not much care, ‘They been all right for you, have they?’

  ‘Yes. They had a bit of a bust-up with each other this afternoon, but it was soon over. They’re good kids, really.’

  ‘You’re behind with the maintenance again.’

  ‘I know. The lads aren’t going short though, are they?’ He glanced at the Jaguar in the drive.

  ‘We’ve had this argument before. That’s got nothing to do with it.’

  ‘No. Well, things are tight for me. January’s always a slack month in betting shops, after people have spent up at Christmas. And several days of racing have been abandoned because of frost.’

  ‘Not my problem. I'm afraid.’ She thrust her head forward in that aggressive, bird-like gesture he had thought beguiling when they were eighteen.

  ‘The Focus needs new tyres. And the shop isn’t in the best part of town, as you know. I’m finding it difficult to raise the rent, let alone to—’

  ‘Not my problem, as I said. I don’t want to take you to court, Darren.'

  She shut the door before he could make any rejoinder. That was just as well, because he couldn’t imagine what he might have said.

  He felt very depressed as he drove back into the town. It was just as well the flat over the betting shop came cheap, or he wouldn’t have survived this long. He couldn’t think of anything he could do to increase turnover. Advertising was useless; everyone knew that betting was an industry in which you were notoriously at the mercy of outside influences. Apart from the vagaries of the weather which sometimes meant there was little sport left to bet on, far too many favourites had won in the last few weeks. Sometimes he thought he’d just get out and start anew somewhere else, somewhere a long way away. But if you left debts behind you, they had a habit of seeking you out.

  It was probably because of his increasing despondency that Darren Simpson did not notice the headlights of the vehicle which remained a steady hundred yards behind him.

  The shop and the flat above it were in complete darkness, looking anything but welcoming. He felt very weary as he pulled into the small walled parking area behind it: the boys were good lads really, but a day with them in his cramped accommodation and in the corporation park was pretty wearing. He turned off the engine and sat still in the darkness for a moment or two.

  The street was deserted as he rounded the comer. He had his key out and had almost reached his shop when he saw the two figures in the doorway. They wore anoraks with the hoods up. He couldn’t see their faces in the gloom. It wasn’t until he was very close to them that he realized that both of them were black.

  He turned, tried to run, but found an arm round his neck. The coarse material filled his mouth, smelling of petrol and tasting foul. ‘I’ve no money on me,’ he rasped desperately. The voice sounding in his ears was that of some other frightened creature, not his own. ‘Not more than a couple of quid at most. You’re welcome to it, but it’s all I’ve got. Honest it is!’ Their silence made him go on talking, even shouting, as if his ceasing to speak would be the signal for something damaging.

  Leroy Moore said, ‘Shut up, Simpson. This isn’t a mugging.’ They knew his name. This wasn’t random, then: he had been targeted. He still could not see faces, but the light from the distant street lamp flashed intermittently on the whites of eyes. ‘Who are you? What do you want?’

  ‘Your rent for this place. Here and now.’

  ‘I haven’t got it. I’ll pay this week. Somehow I’ll pay this week.’

  It was the other man, the man who hadn’t spoken, who hit him first. A blow to the cheek, breaking the flesh, doing heaven knew what to the bones beneath it. A knuckleduster: Darren felt the metal in the wound even as he gasped. Then a blow came from the other side, hard into his ribs, doubling him up fiercely, so that the blow to his chin was redoubled in force, buffeting his head back on his neck as if it had been that of a doll. He felt the top of his head hit the handle of the door as he went down, felt his ear tear against the edge of the step beneath the door.

  He screwed himself into a feral hunch as the kicking began. He did not shout for them to stop. It took him a moment to realize that the gasps of pain were coming from him. They kicked him systematically, with the one who had spoken delivering blows at his stomach and his vitals, the other man alternating with a booting of his back and his thighs and his buttocks. He wondered how long it would go on, how soon he would pass into unconsciousness.

  But Leroy Moore was a professional, if there could be such a thing in this barbarous trade. Hayes paid him, and Hayes had told him he didn’t want serious, life-threatening injuries. Moore flung a fist against the chest of his brutal assistant and said abruptly, ‘That’s enough!’ The man aimed a final boot at the small of the back of his prone victim, like a child brought in from play who gives a last, valedictory kick at a football.

  Leroy looked down at their victim, checked that he was breathing, listened for the groan which might mean that Simpson was still conscious. He looked up and down the street, which remained deserted. It was quieter and less dangerous here than Moss Side, where he had learned his vicious skills. He spoke the words which had become almost a formula to him: ‘It’s a warning, Simpson. Pay up and pay up on time. Otherwise next time you may not get the chance!’

  There was a short, mirthless, scarcely human laugh from his companion at this. It was the first sound the man had uttered throughout their business.

  * * *

  Ten miles away from the shop doorway where the injured Darren Simpson lay, a very different scene was being enacted by a very different trio.

  DCI Percy Peach was at the home of the woman who was scheduled in a few months to become his mother-in-law. That conventional target of politically incorrect comedians was in fact one of Peach’s favourite people. His fiancee, Detective Sergeant Lucy Blake, who was normally both intelligent and resourceful, found the combination of the two far more than she could cope with.

  Percy’s picture was on the mantelpiece beside that of her dead father. Both photographs showed men in cricket whites, and the pictures stood like icons upon this cottage
altar. Her father’s picture was in black and white, showing a shy man, weary but happy, ascending the pavilion steps at Blackpool after taking six wickets in the Northern League. Percy Peach’s picture was in colour: it had been taken only three years previously. A cap worn at a jaunty angle covered his bald head, making him look much younger. The words written beneath in Agnes Blake’s neat, careful hand told the reader that this was ‘D.C.S. Peach leaving the field after another unbeaten Lancashire League half-century for East Lancs.’

  Agnes Blake had been a cricket fanatic for sixty years. Percy’s three initials had forged an immediate link with her. Agnes was one of the few people who now recognized them as those of Denis Charles Scott Compton, the dashing cavalier of English cricket in the ten years after the Second World War, and in Agnes Blake’s formidable opinion the most attractive and gracious of all English cricketers. Compton had been a hero of Percy’s long-departed father, who had determined on these Christian names for him. An unromantic police service, with no respect for sporting tradition and a penchant for alliteration, had long since determined that the man should be simply Percy Peach.

  The three had enjoyed one of Agnes’s special high teas. Roast-ham salad had been followed by her delicious baking, which her daughter tried to resist and Percy made hay with. Scones had been followed by flapjacks and Agnes was now preparing with some ceremony to cut into the fruit cake she had prepared specially for the occasion. 'This is Simnel cake,’ she announced portentously. 'We should really have it on mid-Lent Sunday, but as this is the nearest you busy young people are going to get, I’ve got it out today.’

  ‘It looks most impressive, Mrs B,’ said Percy reverently. He struck a note of humility Lucy never heard from him save in her mother’s cottage. She shot her man a molten glance, which he ignored with practised aplomb.