by J M Gregson
In no more than fifteen minutes, Lucy was in the little blue Corsa and hurrying her way through the deserted lanes of a silent and very beautiful Ribble Valley as the sun rose over Pendle Hill. The hunt was on. The beautifully formed CID nostrils were sniffing the chase. The adrenalin which visits any detective officer in such circumstances was coursing through DS Blake’s veins.
There were already three police vehicles outside the entrance to Brunton Rovers Football Club. The ‘meat wagon’ waited quietly at the end of the line. Presently, this grey van would ease itself forward to the shut wooden doors which currently opened sporadically to admit some new police presence; eventually the two men reading Sunday newspapers within the vehicle would be permitted to remove the corpse which was the centre of this activity to a place where it would be cut and investigated relentlessly in the pursuit of further evidence.
Percy Peach had supported Brunton Rovers since childhood, at first standing on the terraces and then, when all the bigger grounds became all-seaters after the Hillsborough and other disasters in the eighties, from the seat in the stands he had never aspired to as a boy. But he had never before been behind the scenes at Grafton Park. There was a labyrinth of passages here; since the establishment of the ground at the end of the nineteenth century, the demands of the game’s sustained popularity had resulted in an ever-growing bureaucracy and a honeycomb of office rooms to accommodate its operators.
There was very little natural light available; the single long outside wall of the ground had a few windows, but not many of the rooms and passages beyond had any direct connection with the world outside. There was an immediately claustrophobic effect, as if this world beneath the stand was designed to keep its secrets. The people who worked regularly in these rooms had an immediate advantage over strangers struggling with the design and geography of the piecemeal development.
The white-faced man who waited to greet Peach and Blake seemed a natural controller of this other world, a creature used to operating for most of the day without any knowledge of the climatic conditions in the world outside. He stepped forward without even the token smile which would have been normal and said, ‘I’m Darren Pearson, secretary and chief executive of Brunton Rovers. I’m here to give you whatever help you need.’
‘Thank you, Mr Pearson. I’m Detective Chief Inspector Peach and this is Detective Sergeant Blake. We’ll need a room for interviews. I don’t think we’ll set up a murder room here. I’ll be able to tell you more about our requirements by the end of the day.’
‘You – you could have Mr Capstick’s own office, I suppose. Once the. . . .’
‘Once the corpse has been removed from it, yes. Well, at the moment, that room is a crime scene, Mr Pearson. It will need to be thoroughly investigated before it can be available for any other purpose. Who discovered the body?’
‘One of our cleaners. We have them in at eight o’clock on the Sunday morning after we have had a home match on the Saturday. The hospitality area has normally been well used, as it was on this occasion. But the cleaners also take the opportunity to clean the various offices, which are rarely used on a Sunday.’
Pearson spoke quickly, grateful to have the outlet of speech to relieve his tension, happy to be on safe ground, where he knew more than his visitors and could provide harmless information. Peach said, ‘Were you here when the corpse was discovered?’
‘No. The lady who is in charge of the four cleaners who were working today rang me with the news. I came in immediately.’
‘I take it the lady who found the body is still here?’
‘Yes. She’s in the kitchen area. She’s–she’s very shaken, as I suppose you would expect her to be. I tried to give her a brandy, but she wouldn’t have it.’
‘I’m glad to hear it. We don’t like interviewing witnesses whose perceptions have been affected by alcohol.’
Pearson’s faint smile was almost a reflection of the one on Peach’s face. ‘I did slip a little whisky into her tea, I’m afraid. She was very shaken. I wanted to avoid hysterics.’
‘We’ll see her now. Get a brief statement from her. Then you’ll be able to send her home.’
‘Thank you. I’ll take you to her.’ He led them down a series of passages and a flight of stairs to a large kitchen, which had a welcome rectangle of natural light from a long window set high into the wall. He took them through the kitchen, back into the darker areas with fluorescent light tubes set into the high ceilings, the environment which seemed more natural for this grey-faced, shaken man. ‘You’ll find Mrs Hurst in there,’ he said, pointing to a door which carried the words ‘Catering Supervisor’ on a panel slid into a holder. Then, as he turned to leave them, he added the cliché they would have expected from him at the outset, ‘It’s a bad business, this.’
The woman who sat alone in the room looked up apprehensively as Peach knocked on the door and immediately opened it. Lucy Blake went and sat beside her whilst Peach pulled out the chair from behind the desk and set it down opposite the woman they had come here to see. ‘Very unpleasant experience for you, this. We see bodies all the time, but we don’t—’
‘My name’s Ellen Hurst. I’ve never seen a body before. We could have seen my grandad in his coffin but I wanted to remember him as he had been when he was alive.’
She stared past him, as if it was necessary for her to recite these words, any words, to retain a tenuous grasp on herself and what was happening to her. She was a pretty blonde, the colouring which most naturally reflected shock. The blood had drained from cheeks normally rosy with health, strands of fair hair strayed unchecked across her face. She said, ‘I’ve got two kids at home, only six and four. I’m glad they didn’t have to see this.’
‘There wasn’t much danger of that, Ellen, was there?’ said Lucy Blake.
‘No, I suppose not.’ She looked at Blake for the first time and was apparently reassured, for she gave her a little, involuntary smile. It was the first relaxation her body had allowed her since she had found this awful thing.
Peach leaned forward towards her. ‘Tell me about it, in your own words, Ellen. Try not to leave anything out. That’s all we need from you.’
‘There were four of us. We all started work in the hospitality suite, vacuuming the floors and putting the chairs back. There used to be a lot more mess with ashtrays and stuff on the floor, when people could smoke, but it’s easier now.’ Perhaps she sensed a little impatience in her listeners, for she said without further prompting, ‘Mrs Green said the three of them could cope easily enough there, so I should go and clean the chairman’s office. I’ve cleaned it before, you see. Mrs Green likes the same person to do it every time, as far as we can.’
‘Do you remember the time when you did this, Ellen?’ asked Lucy Blake.
‘Everyone here calls me Ellie. It was twenty past eight. I know because I looked at the clock in the hospitality suite when Mrs Green spoke to me.’
‘I know this isn’t easy for you. But just tell us exactly what happened.’
‘I collected my damp cloth and my vac. And I went up the stairs to Mr Capstick’s suite. There was no one in the outer room that his secretary uses, but the door of the chairman’s room was shut. I wasn’t expecting anyone to be in there, but I knocked first, same as I always do.’ It seemed that it was suddenly important to her to convince them that she had observed the proper etiquette of her calling. ‘When I opened the door, he was – well, he was slumped over his desk.’ The phrase seemed very inadequate for the horror which had beset her in that moment.
When it seemed she was not going to speak again, Peach said gently. ‘Did you touch him, Ellie?’
‘No. I think I spoke to him, but I knew he was dead. He had – he had these marks, on his neck. I think I must have just stood there and screamed, because the next thing I remember is having people all round me.’
‘It’s good that you didn’t touch him, Ellie. You did the right thing. Did you touch anything else in the room? Anything on the
desk, for instance?’
‘No. I just screamed. I was no use to anyone, was I?’
‘You did what most other people would have done in your position, Ellie. And it’s good that you didn’t touch anything.’
She nodded, staring past him as if she could still see the scene in that other room somewhere above them. ‘They brought me down here, made me a cup of tea. I think Mrs Green rang Mr Pearson then.’
‘Just one other thing, Ellie. Did you see anyone else, on your way up the stairs and along the passages to get to Mr Capstick’s office?’
‘No.’
‘And you didn’t hear anything which suggested to you that there was anyone around up there? Anyone in the building apart from Mrs Green and the other cleaners?’
‘No.’ Her eyes filled with horror. ‘Do you mean that whoever did this was still . . .’ She couldn’t complete the question.
‘Almost certainly not, Ellie. But we have to ask the question. We don’t know anything, yet, you see. You’re the one who’s given us the first bits of information we’ve had about this. You can’t recall anything else that you think might be helpful for us, can you?’
She was silent for a moment as she thought. The glamour of the most serious of all crimes was gripping her, despite her shock, making her feel important through her connection with it. There was a tinge of regret that she was relinquishing her contact with murder as she said quietly, ‘No. Nothing else.’
‘Then I’m sure Mr Pearson will arrange for someone to take you home. Back to your husband and your children and the world outside here which has not changed.’
‘Thank you, sir. If I remember anything else, I’ll let you know.’
‘Thank you, Ellie. You’ve been very sensible.’
Darren Pearson, as they had expected, was still in the kitchen. He agreed that Mrs Hurst should now be sent home, said that he would make the necessary arrangements after he had led them to the scene of the crime. Peach noticed that no one at the football ground had assumed this was anything other than a crime from the outset.
It was easy to see why that was when Blake and he climbed the stairs to Capstick’s office. It was luxuriously furnished, with a huge leather-topped desk, a round-backed chair and excellent prints of modern art on the walls. There was a livid black-red mark on the neck of the man in the chair which left little room for doubt as to the cause of death.
Peach had seen many deaths now, but he was struck as always by how completely death diminished humanity. Capstick had been a powerful man, owner as well as chairman of the club and with other businesses as well, a man who had controlled the destiny of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people only yesterday. Now the thing in the chair seemed to have lost all connection with humanity and power, to be as finished and inconsequential as a cat in the gutter which had been hit by a passing vehicle.
The man who had years ago worked alongside Percy Peach as Sergeant Jack Chadwick had been a civilian for three months now, but he was still the best and most experienced scene of crime officer in the Brunton area. He knew Lucy Blake from previous cases; Chadwick was old-fashioned enough to think that her prettiness struck a jarring note in this grim arena with its macabre central figure at the desk. He nodded to the CID officers and said, ‘The pathologist’s on his way. It’s as obvious to me as it will be to you what’s happened. The only question is whether we can pick up any clues as to who did this.’
The photographer had already finished his work, but two of Chadwick’s assistants were on all fours, methodically gathering stray hairs, fibres of clothing, even indeterminate blobs of fluff which might just give some indication of an alien presence in the dead man’s office. Peach, looking like an alien himself in the white plastic bags he had slipped over his shoes and the plastic covering for his clothing, walked carefully over an area the woman on the floor had already searched to move close to the corpse in its chair.
‘When did he die?’
‘Last night,’ said Chadwick without hesitation. ‘The p.m. examination of stomach contents will give you a time of death, but I’d stake my reputation on the fact that this man’s been here overnight.’
Peach nodded. ‘Pity some bugger didn’t discover the poor sod last night, then. Would have made our job a bit easier if they had.’
‘They don’t pay you for doing easy jobs,’ said Jack Chadwick. His wry smile held no rancour. He might have had the CID career which his friend Percy had had if he hadn’t been wounded in a bank raid all those years ago, but he had long since thought himself out of bitterness about might-have-beens.
The scene of crime officer looked again at the lifeless hulk in the expensive chair. ‘I’ve never been this close to the celebrated Jim Capstick before. From what I’ve heard of him, I should think he had quite a lot of enemies.’
THIRTEEN
They passed the pathologist on their way back down the stairs. He promised them that they would have his report quickly. He had two road crash fatalities to deal with, but suspicious deaths still demanded a certain priority in the investigation of human remains.
Darren Pearson did not see them at first. They stood quietly outside the kitchen area whilst he issued guidance to the staff who had been cleaning all the areas used on the previous day. He warned the women that they would have tiresome contacts from the press, advised them to say as little as possible and preferably nothing. They listened to him carefully and asked a few questions about this situation which was new to all of them. He smiled. ‘I deal with journalists all the time. They have a job to do, but it probably won’t be in your interests to talk to them. I don’t think it will happen, but if they offer you money, you should ask yourself just what you are getting yourself into. If you want any advice, don’t be afraid to ring me. I’ll be here for another couple of hours today and from eight thirty tomorrow morning if you wish to speak to me.’
It was obvious that the cleaners not only respected the chief executive of Brunton Rovers but liked him. He connected easily with these part-time workers, who were at the other end of the working hierarchy from him, appreciating their very different problems and genuinely anxious to help. A likeable and a highly competent man, Lucy Blake decided. In her short CID career, she had already met a couple of murderers who had both of those qualities.
It was at this moment that Pearson saw them waiting and came over to speak to them. ‘I thought you might wish to talk to me when you’d finished upstairs, so I stayed on the premises.’
‘Thoughtful of you, Mr Pearson. We normally like to speak to the widow of the deceased as soon as possible in circumstances like this, but I think in this case it would be useful to have your views first.’ Peach studied him unashamedly, a CID habit which members of the public often found unnerving.
Despite his obvious abilities, Darren Pearson looked shaken beneath the outward composure, particularly now that he was about to become the man at the centre of the questioning rather than the director of affairs he normally was in this place. He looked older than his forty-five years, principally because of the lack of any colour in his cheeks and the worry lines around his eyes, which were grey and watchful. He had plentiful hair, cut fairly short and with a conventional parting. But a tuft on the crown of his head stood up obstinately, making the general effect unruly. He wore the dark tie and the suit appropriate for the death of his employer, but a missing button on his shirt destroyed the formal effect.
He took them into his own office and sat behind his desk. Then, as if recognizing that the set-up was wrong when he was to be the questioned rather than the questioner, he brought his chair round the desk and sat down awkwardly opposite them. He found that murder had altered his thinking and destroyed his normal control here.
Peach said, ‘When did you learn of this death, Mr Pearson?’
He glanced at his watch. ‘One hour and forty minutes ago. I was still in bed when I received a phone call at my home from the lady directing the cleaning operations, Mrs Green.’
‘We shall
await the report from the pathologist before making any formal declaration about this crime: until then it will remain a suspicious death.’
‘But you think Mr Capstick was murdered.’
Peach allowed himself a small, sad smile. ‘I have no doubt of it. Neither have DS Blake and the scene of crime officer.’
Pearson nodded. ‘That is what I supposed.’
‘Again we await formal confirmation, but I will tell you that we are privately certain that the victim died last night.’
‘That again is what I expected to hear.’
‘Had you any reason to think Mr Capstick was in danger?’
The man who was used to controlling things here sat awkwardly on the chair with his knees together and pursed his lips. Pearson was clearly anxious to pick his words carefully, but that was probably a usual trait for a man who dealt daily with questions from the media. Caution about what he said was probably a habit he had developed with his occupation. ‘Not in danger of his life, no. And yet I have to say that what has happened is not entirely a surprise to me.’
Peach would have preferred a man who was more emotional, less careful of his replies. Unguarded reactions were normally more useful to him at this stage. This man would eventually make a good witness in court, if he were needed. Of course, it was at this moment possible that he might be appearing in the dock rather than as a prosecution witness. ‘When did you last see Mr Capstick alive?’
‘At seven ten last night.’ It was a reply which had been waiting for the expected question. He watched Lucy Blake making a note of it with her gold ball-pen and then said, ‘That is also the last time when a whole gathering of people saw him. The exception will be the person who killed him. But I don’t expect that information will be volunteered to you.’
Peach felt more at ease now. He found to his surprise that he was almost enjoying the preliminary fencing with this man who had clearly prepared exactly what he was going to release to them. He said, ‘I think you had better put us in the picture about this. In other words, tell us exactly what went on before this time of seven ten about which you are so definite.’
