by J M Gregson
At the beginning of March, the worst of winter was surely over; indeed, an anti-cyclone over the country and a clear bright day proclaimed the approach of spring. When Peach arose at eight and peered between the cotton curtains of his bedroom at the world outside, there was a white frost on the nondescript lawn at the back of his ageing semi-detached. But there was enough warmth in the rising sun for it to have already disappeared where the grass was not in the shade.
Percy’s spirits rose. The golf course would be open and the frost was not severe enough for the course manager to switch the players to temporary greens. He would join his friends at lunchtime for an afternoon round, friendly banter, and the noisy exchanges of the nineteenth hole. The North Lancs course, which was the best in the area, was on high ground north of the town, stretching the cultivated arms of its fairways out into the moorland heather at its highest point. On a sunny, windless day like this, the golf would be good - or if it was not, there would be no excuses possible. And even if performance fell short of expectation, as it usually did for most golfers, there would be the consolation of the splendid views of Ingleborough and Pen-Y-Ghent away to the north, their impressive outlines looking deceptively close on a day as clear as this.
Tomorrow, buoyed by this afternoon’s less serious golf, he would undertake the monthly medal and try to lower his handicap of eight a little further. Everyone said that he had done exceptionally well to get it so low in the three years since he had forsaken cricket, but he knew that with a little application and the practice he did not have time for, it could be lower still. Percy Peach had already acquired the unreasoning optimism which is a characteristic of all serious practitioners of this most infuriating of games.
He had no worries about his evening meal. He was dining with Lucy Blake in the neat, bright modem flat which was such a contrast to his nineteen-fifties semi. He would take a bottle of wine to accompany the meal and afterwards drift towards a pleasant somnolence on her sofa. A resting which would be but a preparation for the glorious exchanges of her bed, where his lust would run riot and his most energetic sallies would be welcomed and reciprocated. A wide, uncalculating smile of boyish bliss spread across Percy’s round face at the prospect.
He shivered a little as he shaved in the bathroom which Lucy Blake swore was kept at fridge temperature. He would have bacon and egg and tomatoes, this morning, he decided. Possibly, with no one there to tut-tut at him about cholesterol, he would even allow himself the ultimate hedonism of fried bread. A weekend of relaxation stretched appealingly before him. A weekend without the depressing shadow of Tommy Bloody Tucker. The chief superintendent’s golf had never risen above the aspirational, so that his handicap confined him to the lesser tests of Brunton Golf Club. It was a source of enduring resentment for Tucker that his handicap had meant repeated rejections of his applications to join the North Lancs, where his hated junior had been accepted at the first time of asking.
The phone shrilled as Peach went downstairs, its note like a death-knell in his imaginative ears. It wouldn’t be Lucy Blake, and he didn’t want to hear from anyone else, with his weekend stretching itself like a friendly Labrador before him. He hesitated, letting the instrument ring for a moment, hoping that it would stop after a few bleeps. It went on. He picked it up with a sigh which anticipated his impending doom.
The voice from the station sergeant was not even apologetic: uniformed men rather enjoyed ruining the weekends of senior CID officers. A suspicious death at the Gisbum Hotel. A corpse in the car park. A death which required immediate CID attention.
Bugger it.
* * *
Eight miles away in her mother’s cottage, Lucy Blake was not anticipating the morning with as much pleasure as her fiance.
When she had said on the previous evening that she was too tired to concentrate on the final invitation list of guests for her wedding, her mother had closed her folder reluctantly and said, ‘We shall have to get on with it early in the morning, then, our Lucy. I want to get the letters off this weekend.’
At quarter to eight, Lucy’s mother appeared like Lady Macbeth in her darkened bedroom. She looked just as determined as that formidable matriarch, but she carried not daggers but a breakfast tray. ‘You spoil me, Mum!’ said Lucy feebly.
Agnes Blake was not to be diverted. ‘I’ve been spoiling you for twenty-nine years, my girl. Get this lot down you and get yourself up and dressed. It’s a grand morning and we’ve work to do.’
‘Yes, Miss Moss!’ Lucy pulled herself upright in the bed, straightened her back against the headboard, and imitated the tone she had used as a six-year-old to her favourite primary- school teacher.
She was rewarded with one of her mother’s dismissive sniffs. ‘Work first, then you can fool about, our Lucy. The water’s hot for your shower and it’s time you were moving.’
Lucy looked at the tray. There were cereals, a boiled egg which she knew would be just as runny as she liked it, two slices of wholemeal toast, a tiny pot of tea with a knitted woollen cover to keep it hot. She was filled with a familiar rush of affection for this mother whose world she dominated. ‘It’s lovely, Mum. I promise I’ll be fed, washed and ready for action in half an hour.’
‘Make sure you are, then. I’ll be watching the clock. I don’t want to have to tell Percy you’ve been dragging your feet again.’ With this final friendly threat, she was gone and Lucy settled down to enjoy her breakfast. It was brilliant really, this unexpected bond between the two people she loved most in the world. Where most men moaned about their mothers-in-law, Percy would not hear a word against his. Where most mothers could not find a spouse worthy of their only child, Agnes Blake had found an unexpected kindred spirit and been wholly, almost girlishly, delighted. Lucy knew she was enormously lucky really, even though she had no chance against the two of them when they ganged up on her. She enjoyed her breakfast, but did not linger over it.
Her mother had the table strewn with papers already when she descended the narrow old staircase. Lucy sighed in mock horror. ‘I’ll wash the dishes and be with you in two minutes.’ Agnes did not look up. ‘It shouldn’t take too long, once you put your mind to it. I’ve already separated them into certainties, probables and possibles. If you concentrate, we can have the list completed and the cards written out in a few hours. If you behave properly, I might even let you take me to the pub for lunch.’ Respectable women hadn’t gone to pubs when Agnes Blake was a young woman; indeed, they had rarely eaten out at all. She had needed a lot of persuasion from her daughter before she went to eat at the Red Lion. Now, although publicly she disapproved of the extravagance, she found it a delightful treat to go out and eat pub food with Lucy.
Lucy noted that the certainties pile was by far the deepest. ‘We wanted a quiet wedding, you know. Just immediate family and friends.’
‘That’s what you’re getting, girl. I’m keeping this to a minimum, just to oblige you. We'll end up by offending people.’
‘Percy hasn’t got many people to invite,’ Lucy called defensively from the kitchen.
‘He must have some of his old cricketing pals. I shall have to speak to him about that.’
It sounded like a threat. Lucy grinned over the washing-up bowl and called defensively, ‘I expect he’d like to have one or two of his golfing pals, too.’
‘Golf!’ The familiar derisive monosyllable exploded most gratifyingly from the low-ceilinged sitting room.
It was at this point that the phone shrilled. Lucy heard her mother muttering her irritation as she went to answer it. She was drying her hands when Agnes Blake appeared in the doorway of her kitchen. She said dolefully, ‘It’s Percy. He wants to speak to you.’
Agnes knew just what was going to happen. She could almost have written the dialogue. Within two minutes she was back in the sitting room, looking apologetically at the papers on the table, and saying, ‘I have to go, Mum. I’m sorry.’
To her credit, she sounded regretful. And she was sorry - not to get away fro
m that wretched list, but to disappoint her mother. ‘There’s a suspicious death, Mum, at the Gisburn Hotel. I need to be there.’
‘Even on a Saturday morning?’
‘Crime doesn’t take weekends off, Mum. This sounds as if it might be a serious one. I’m meeting Percy at the scene.’
Agnes accepted the inevitable with a nod and what grace she could muster. ‘Be as quick as you can, love.’
‘I will, Mum. I might even be back for lunch.’ They smiled at each other, knowing that was not going to happen.
It was only a few miles to the Gisburn Hotel. As she waved to her mother and drove the blue Corsa swiftly away, Lucy felt the guilt of the familiar paradox: sympathy, for a victim she did not know as yet, and excitement, at the prospect of the hunt. The thrill of anticipation which the most serious crime of all always brought to the CID officer.
A suspicious death. Peach had said. Police jargon for something much worse.
* * *
The woman was from Eastern Europe. The manager had kept her in his office beside the entrance to the building, as if he wished to isolate her and this awful event as far as possible from the operation of his hotel.
‘Just tell Chief Inspector Peach what you saw,’ said the manager. ‘Don’t be frightened of him because he’s a police officer. There really is nothing to be afraid of.’ The manager looked at Peach and raised his eyes heavenwards: you needed to assure such people that they would not be imprisoned and tortured without trial.
Peach fancied that this was merely a woman very shaken by what she had seen. She was ten years younger than he had thought her at first sight. Her long face was very white and her wavy, unruly black hair kept dropping across her face. He smiled at her and said, ‘Mr Pearson is right. There’s nothing to be afraid of. But it is important to tell us clearly exactly what you saw.’ He turned to the manager. ‘I think it would be better if you left us alone for this. It won’t take long.’
The woman was probably no more than twenty-four years old, he decided. She watched the door close upon Pearson with some relief. When Peach motioned towards one of the armchairs and took the other one himself, she sat on the very edge of the seat, with her arms held out awkwardly in front of her and her hands upon her thin, blue-jeaned thighs.
Peach smiled at her. ‘What is your name?’
‘Natasha. The people here call me Tash.’
‘I shall call you Natasha. Will you tell me what you do here, please?’
‘I work in kitchen. I come here from Clitheroe. I have old car. Old Ford Fiesta.’
‘I see. And you came to work this morning. What time would that be?’
‘Six fifteen. I come at six fifteen. Maybe I was five minutes after that.’ She glanced fearfully at the door, as if fearing the wrath of Pearson if she admitted to being a little late.
‘Maybe ten?’ Peach smiled at her conspiratorially.
‘Maybe. Car not start well when cold morning.’ She did not return his smile.
‘So you arrived here about twenty-five past six and parked your car. Was it light then?’
‘Yes. Sun was not up but it was daylight.’
‘There wouldn’t be many other cars here at that time. I expect you can usually park quite near the hotel when you arrive.’
‘Yes. I do breakfasts. Help chef in kitchen.’
‘So you parked your Ford Fiesta near the hotel. Natasha, please tell me as clearly as you can remember it what happened next.’
The young forehead furrowed in concentration, as if to be trapped into a mistake of recollection could be costly to her. ‘I park in staff area, but I have to pass big car. Big blue car. I not know the make.’
‘That doesn’t matter. What did you see?’
A sudden, involuntary shiver shook her whole frame. Her hair fell across her face and she brushed it angrily aside, as if it were an outside agency which was deliberately making this difficult for her. ‘I see that there is someone inside this big blue car.’
‘In the driving seat?’
‘Yes. In the driving seat. From the other side he looks as if he is asleep. Then I think is too cold for anyone to be asleep here. So I go round to driver’s side, to see if I can help. There is much blood there.’ She thrust her small right fist against her mouth, unable for the moment to speak further as the horror of her recollection swept over her.
‘You realized that the man was dead, didn’t you, Natasha?’
‘Yes. His head - his head was—’ She lifted her hands hopelessly, then let them drop heavily back onto her thighs.
‘His head was badly damaged, wasn’t it?’
‘Damaged, yes. It was not there, not that side of it. There was much blood. On windows. On windscreen.’
‘Yes. This must have been very distressing for you, I know, Natasha. But it’s important: did you see anyone else around the car?’
‘No. No one else.’ She said suddenly, as if searching desperately for some detail which would make her story more believable, ‘There is still frost on most of car. Is all white. That is why I could not see blood from other side.’
‘I understand. You didn’t see anyone going back into the hotel, or watching you from there?’
‘No. Is no one about when I find. Only me there.’
‘I understand. It looks as if the body had been there all night, doesn’t it?’
She nodded eagerly. ‘Since last night, I think.’
‘I think you’re probably right about that, Natasha. Did you open the car door?’
‘No. I see man dead. Nothing I can do.’ She looked as if she thought she was being accused of callousness.
‘Of course not. And it’s good that you didn’t open the door, from our point of view. Did you touch the car at all?’
Again that intense concentration, as if she feared that a mistake might cost her her liberty. ‘I think I may have leant on it for a moment. For a minute, I think I am going to faint. I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be sorry. It’s quite a natural thing to do. We shall need to take your fingerprints. There may be other fingerprints there, you see, from people who might not be as innocent as you. Do you understand that?’
‘I think so, yes.’
‘Well, I think that’s all, then. One of my officers will come and take your fingerprints, later in the morning. It’s nothing to be frightened of.’ He stood up, gave her a final reassuring smile. ‘Thank you for your help.’
‘There is something else. Something else I need to tell you.’
‘Yes?’
‘I not sure of the words. I - I - do you say, “throw up”? I’m very sorry.’
‘You vomited? Well, that’s nothing to be ashamed of. Some of our toughest policemen vomit, when they see horrible things like that. Was it on the car?’
‘No. On my way into the hotel. I very sorry about it.’
‘There’s no need to be sorry, Natasha. It’s a very natural reaction. I’m sure I did it myself, the first time I saw anything like that. It sounds as if it’s outside the crime scene - that’s the area we tape off around the car itself. If it is, it’s probably already been cleaned up. In any case, you mustn’t worry about it. I don’t think there’s any reason for you to mention it to Mr Pearson.’
She gave him a wan smile as she left. Her dark eyes were round with wonderment that a policeman could be so understanding.
* * *
In the car park outside the Gisburn Hotel, the tapes and screens delineating a scene-of-crime area were already in place around the big blue BMW.
Sergeant Jack Chadwick, a former colleague of Peach’s who had been shot and seriously injured in a bank raid, was one of the few serving police officers who still supervised scene-of-crime teams. DS Blake’s blue Corsa nosed up beside the tapes as Percy was talking to him.
‘The pathologist’s been and gone, Percy,’ said Chadwick. He smiled a greeting at Lucy Blake, whose pretty face and striking red-brown hair always lightened a sombre scene. ‘He says we can have the meat wago
n in and remove the corpse to his lab for the post-mortem as soon as we’ve finished. Which we almost have. I’m sure that will please Mr Pearson.’
Percy grinned, guessing that an anxious hotel manager had been hovering around the crime scene since Chadwick had arrived. ‘We all have our own concerns, Jack. It can’t stimulate bookings for weddings and conferences, having blood and gore all over your car park.’
Chadwick answered him with a sourer smile. ‘No such thing as bad publicity, Percy. Given a gruesome murder, a high-profile investigation and a sensational trial, people will be making special journeys to stand on this spot in awed silence within the year.’
‘You’re probably right. Murder, you said.’
‘I think so. Murder dressed up to look like suicide, but too clumsily to deceive old hands like you.’ His smile took in Lucy Blake, whom he now included in this flattering category.
Peach said very quietly, ‘Who is it. Jack?’
A grim smile, acknowledging that there wasn’t too much left that was recognizable. ‘Timothy Hayes.’
‘Of Hayes Electronics?’
‘That’s your man.’ He glanced at the chief inspector, knowing that a high-profile victim was always less welcome for CID than a simple domestic killing. Such deaths were usually more complex and certainly brought the press attention which was always intrusive and rarely favourable.
Peach glanced at the dark crimson film on the inside of the windscreen and the side windows, then went slowly, almost reluctantly round to the open driver’s door and all was left of what yesterday had been human. Every experienced police officer has seen dreadful sights, usually when attending serious road accidents in the early years of their career, but Percy winced a little when he saw this one, as if registering an unconscious concession to his own humanity.
Half the head and three-quarters of the face had disappeared completely. Bits of bone and what he presumed was brain speckled the blood on the fascia and windscreen. He was conscious after a second or two of Lucy Blake at his side, deliberately calm, deliberately displaying to Chadwick as she had done on previous occasions that squeamishness had nothing to do with gender.
