by Roy Lewis
Eric moved slowly, put one hand against the wall. The gun muzzle came up again, almost casually.
‘She never really recovered from her time in prison,’ Fraser continued. ‘She was released early, because she was pregnant, and because she was ill. In fact, my only vague memories of her are about how ill she always was. I was born and we lived in a tiny tenement room in Glasgow. It was damp, she had no money, and old George was long gone from the area. My mother had finally come around to the truth, of course, but at first her pride wouldn’t allow her to seek him out, even though we had no money. Until she heard her former lover had died. Even then, I don’t think she would have done anything about it, except for me, the conditions in which we were living, her illness. So finally, she wrote to George’s widow. The doughty Flora. The old bitch!’
Eric could guess what would have happened. The letter remaining in the file gave the clue to the sad end of the whole business. Flora Chivers refusing to accept the stigma of her husband’s behaviour, drawing a line under the whole matter. Denying the fact of her husband’s relationship with Sally Chalmers. Denying the existence of a child fathered out of wedlock by her husband. Threatening a lawsuit if Sally Chalmers persisted.
Denying everything.
There was a harsh bitterness in Fraser’s tone now. ‘She threatened to put the police on us. She refused to do anything for us. So we lived on in that bloody tenement, and within a year my mother was dead. Pneumonia, they said. I wouldn’t know. Because by then I’d been taken into care. And after that there was the so familiar, dreary history that seems to have happened so often in those days. Local authority institutions, uncaring foster parents, physical, verbal and even sexual abuse, running wild in the back streets, a bit of shoplifting. You must be aware, a lawyer like you, aware of the spiralling downwards that can occur.’ Fraser’s voice shook slightly, still scarred with the memories. ‘But it was during the three-year stretch that I did in prison that I finally saw sense. There were educational programmes. I decided I was going to change, pull myself out of the mud, find work as a journalist … and one day, get revenge.’
He laughed bitterly; the sound echoed into the passageway, bouncing off the damp stone walls of the farmhouse. ‘But you know, even then I was naïve. I tried for various jobs but they were all leading to a dead end. Until I ended up doing part-time work here in the north-east, still getting nowhere, just scraping by. But I did the research in the archives, did the genealogical bit, learned my half-siblings were both dead, found out about my two nieces. And I saw how Coleen Chivers was lording it around with money supplied by her father and grandfather, making a success of her life, living well, wealthy … and Sharon here, well, it was clear that she too was making her way in the world. A career at the bar. Something maybe I could have done if I’d had their background, if I’d had what was due to me; as I could have done if George had only recognized me, accepted me as his son, looked after my mother! As I could have done if that old bitch Flora hadn’t turned her stiff, hateful back on what her husband had been responsible for!’ The words came out in a vicious hiss. ‘Revenge, that’s what I decided upon. Revenge … and in addition, a great story to tell, maybe. Raymond Conroy. Inside the mind of a serial killer!’
Eric knew the man had almost talked himself out. Fraser had felt the need to explain, gloat over the successful achievement of his aims. ‘You’ll never get away with this, Fraser,’ he said quietly.
The man with the gun snickered. ‘Well, you won’t be around to know one way or the other!’
There had been a slight noise in the passageway. Eric knew it a moment before Fraser also caught the faint sound. The man was turning his head, the gun raised in his hand just as the bedroom door exploded inward, striking him on the shoulder, sending him staggering to one side. There was a snapping sound, an echoing roar from the pistol, but Eric was hurling himself at Fraser and the bullet was buried somewhere above them in the ceiling. Everything was suddenly a noisy, confused whirling blur, bodies tumbling to the dingy carpet, arms and legs twisting, a sharp pain in Eric’s forehead as an elbow struck him on the temple, a dizzying, wavering line of sight, until he felt himself pushed aside, lying on his back, dizzy, struggling hazily to get up.
He became aware of Fraser, features contorted with fury and panic, lying on his back, arms spread-eagled. Perched above him, knees bearing down upon the man’s biceps, Eric made out the hunched, familiar outline. The panting figure of Jackie Parton. The ex-jockey’s face was bloodied, dark streaks running from his mouth and nose, but he was grinning.
‘Always did enjoy a rough-house,’ he grunted happily, ‘ever since the time I got done over at Newcastle Races that day, after the fourth race.’
Then he looked down at the twisted features of the man underneath him, raised his right arm and smashed his closed fist into Tony Fraser’s face. The sound of the crunching of cartilage and the spray of blood brought a surge of bile to Eric Ward’s throat.
Jackie Parton was grinning. He was in his element.
4
‘When you bugger things up, you really do it in style, don’t you, Spate?’
Detective Chief Inspector Charlie Spate said nothing.
The afternoon sun sent a narrow beam of light across the patterned carpet of the ACC’s office. Charlie kept his eye fixed on that streak of light. He knew ACC Charteris was scowling at him, and Charlie had the impression there would be not just anger but a certain malicious pleasure lighting up the man’s eyes. ‘So,’ Charteris went on, ‘I’ve read your report and if I put it together with what we already had, things would seem to have proceeded something like this. Raymond Conroy got off his murder charge but didn’t like the heat we were putting on him so accepted an offer from this character Tony Fraser, the deal being Fraser would find him somewhere to hole up, and in return Conroy would give him his so-called life story, for Fraser to publish. Denying the murders, of course.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Charlie replied woodenly. He knew Charteris would spin this out, to dig in the knife, deeper and deeper.
‘But it now seems Fraser had an ulterior motive. For personal, family reasons, he intended killing Coleen Chivers but making it appear the crime had been committed by Conroy. He then intended moving on to murder his other niece, Sharon Owen, but things got a bit awkward when Conroy found out from television that the Chivers killing was being pinned on him, an innocent man even if he had killed in the Midlands, so Fraser had to get rid of him rather sooner than he’d intended.’
Charlie nodded grimly. ‘That’s right, sir. He drugged him, strangled him, kept him in a freezer for a short while, then strung him up to make it look like suicide. He—’
‘Yes, I’ve read your report,’ Charteris interrupted caustically. ‘He’d enticed Coleen Chivers to have a drink with him as she left the evening shindig in the Gosforth Park Hotel by revealing their relationship: in the bar he’d given her a dose of rohypnol, and then took her to his car, strangled her, stripped her, scarred her and dumped her in Tynemouth. All that’s in your report. So is the fact that he later rang Owen and this solicitor Ward, pretending to be Conroy – who was dead by now – to draw them to the farm.’
‘That’s right, sir,’ Charlie interrupted, determined to get in his own say. ‘He used chloroform on Sharon Owen before Ward arrived. He wanted Ward out of the way as well because he might ask some awkward questions. He—’
‘Never mind Ward,’ Charteris interrupted snappishly. ‘Let’s get to the point of all this. I think I’m right in assuming that if it hadn’t been for this shady character Jackie Parton arriving at Rowland’s Farm to spoil Fraser’s party, we wouldn’t have got our hands on any of this, would we?’
There was a short silence Charlie was unwilling to break. At last, he admitted, ‘No, sir.’
The thin smile on Charteris’s mouth held no hint of humour. ‘So how come an ex-jockey could find out where Conroy was holed up, when you couldn’t?’
Charlie straightened. They were now gettin
g down to brass tacks. He took a deep breath. ‘Parton’s a local man. He’s got contacts all along the river. He’s well known and trusted by people who would never talk to us. He made his enquiries, as I’d requested—’
‘Yes, I noted that you’d asked Ward to get Parton on the case,’ Charteris said, leaning back and narrowing his eyes reflectively. ‘But Parton didn’t come to you with the information.’
‘No, sir, as I said—’
‘He doesn’t like coppers,’ Charteris sneered. ‘Putting that on one side, you still haven’t explained how he discovered the farm.’
Charlie shrugged. ‘He’s kept pretty close about that, sir. It was a contact with an estate agency, as far as I can make out … that, and some reports that he received from his network about activity in outlying properties in Northumberland. His contacts keep an eye on such places. The gangs along the river use empty farms like that for storage from time to time. Stolen goods. That sort of thing.’ He saw the glare from Charteris, guessing the ACC thought this irrelevant. ‘And Fraser’s articles raised his suspicion.’
‘They didn’t raise yours!’ Charteris snapped.
Charlie ploughed on doggedly. ‘So Parton made some further enquiries and worked out it was Fraser who rented the farm. He took a look at the place, saw Conroy, realized the farm had been rented to hide Conroy there—’
‘Smart little fellow,’ Charteris observed. ‘Gets to the target while we’re still stumbling around in the dark.’
Charlie knew he didn’t really mean we. He opened his mouth to make an angry retort, then thought better of it.
ACC Charteris picked up a pencil and tapped it thoughtfully on the desk. ‘So Parton reported back to Ward’s office, discovered Ward had gone out to the farm, and Parton himself dashed back there. Just in time.’ He paused in reflection. ‘Right, let’s get all this in clear, straight language. It was you who was responsible for tracking Conroy, and you failed miserably. He vanished on your watch. You were responsible for finding Conroy, and you failed miserably. He died before you even discovered, through someone else, where he had been hiding.’
‘Saves the cost of another trial, sir,’ Charlie muttered irritably.
‘That isn’t the point, is it, DCI Spate?’ Charteris said icily. ‘I repeat. All this happened on your watch, and you failed. And then, finally, you took Fraser into custody, brought him into the cells and questioned him, and he sang like a free-as-the-air bird. And then … after that, well, although I’ve read your report, I’d like to hear about it, from your own lips. Indulge me, Spate … indulge me.’
Charlie braced himself. He took a deep breath, raising his chin defiantly. ‘We took Fraser to the magistrates court for the preliminary hearing. He was compliant, quiet, we had the cuffs on him. We were expecting no trouble. The hearing proceeded without a word from him. Then we took him out of the building, down the steps and it was then …’ Charlie swallowed hard. ‘It was then that he broke free.’
‘He was with you,’ Charteris murmured softly, ‘and two police constables. Manacled. But he broke free.’
Charlie licked his dry lips. ‘It was sudden. Unexpected. He kicked one constable on the leg, jerked free and ran out into the street. He didn’t get far.’
His voice died away, under Charteris’s stern eye. The assistant chief constable twisted his mouth unpleasantly. ‘I would disagree, DCI Spate. He got a considerable distance, I would say. All the way to hell!’
‘As I said before, sir,’ Charlie said, gritting his teeth, ‘saved the cost of a trial. Two, in fact.’
‘And as I said before, this happened on your watch, Spate! You were the officer responsible, you allowed this killer to escape and … what was it? A taxi?’
‘Fraser ran out in front of it, sir,’ Charlie said doggedly. ‘It was as though he didn’t see it, or maybe it was deliberate. But he got hit, he smashed his head on the kerb….’
‘On your watch….’
Charlie stood stiffly to attention. He’d been expecting this for some days, but Charteris had kept him dangling.
Charteris threw the pencil down, leaned forward, forearms on the desk as he stared at the man standing in front of him. ‘This whole thing, this farce, it’s been nothing less than a catalogue of disasters, Spate, a long trail of incompetence. You know, ever since you came up here from the Met, where you had already developed a certain reputation for careless and irresponsible behaviour, I’ve had my doubts. I’ve kept my eye on you. You’ve had some success, but in my view it’s all been down to blind luck, chance, not good police work. But this business tops the lot. You allowed a killer to escape, failed to find him, and then allowed his killer to escape from custody! How incompetent can a copper get? You must know there are other rumours circulating around the force now as well … some related to your experiences in the Met, others to your behaviour up here. But this tops the lot. You realize, of course, your suspension will be confirmed. And then there will be an internal enquiry.’ He paused, glaring at the man in front of him with a malicious gleam in his eye. ‘You’ve not got many friends up here, Spate.’
Suddenly, Charlie knew what he was going to do. He eased his stiff back and glared at Charteris in contempt. The assistant chief constable guessed what was in Charlie’s mind. He nodded, slowly. Perhaps he had even been hoping for it. ‘There is another way out of this, of course,’ he said quietly.
Charlie nodded in disgust. He’d had enough.
Charteris grimaced. ‘You could resign. Seek your fortunes elsewhere. No enquiry. No mud-slinging. No problem about accumulated pension rights.’ He paused. ‘We might even arrange a certain pay-off.’
‘And I’d be out of your hair.’
‘Not just mine, Spate. Not just mine.’
Charlie plunged his hand into his jacket pocket, threw his warrant card on the desk of the assistant chief constable. It was as simple as that.
*
Out in the car park Charlie Spate felt as though a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He sat in the car for a little while, thinking. After leaving Charteris he had cleared his desk rapidly: there was little there that he wanted to take with him. He had been tempted to call into Elaine’s office, have a word with her, but somehow there was nothing to say. Things had changed, they hadn’t spent time alone together since she had walked from his room that day, and now he was no longer able to gauge his feelings. He had never been able to weigh up hers. Perhaps things were best left as they were. For a while at least.
He drove into Newcastle and parked in Grey Street near the Theatre Royal. He walked down a side street to the King’s Head. The bar was almost empty. He ordered a pint of bitter, took it from the silent barman and retreated into a dark corner. There was a handsome, dark-skinned man near the window. Resembled the photograph of George Khan. The lover of Coleen Chivers, still under surveillance of MI5, but cleared of involvement in the death of the Chivers woman. False leads. Charlie shook his head.
As he sipped his beer he was reminded of the hard men who had come up from the Midlands: Nick Capaldi and Gary Lawson had gone back to Birmingham now, and although they’d had no hand in the final demise of Raymond Conroy, they would have been satisfied enough with the outcome. As for Fraser, the two thugs wouldn’t have cared about his death either way, Charlie guessed: though they might have applauded the way he’d turned off Conroy, swinging from that beam.
And now Charlie had to think of the future.
Returning south didn’t appeal to him. Seeking employment with another force wasn’t an option that appealed to him. He thought maybe he’d stick it out a bit longer in the north. Security work. Private enquiries. Office space was cheaper up here than in the Smoke. And villains maybe simpler … apart from some of the big ones.
He finished his pint and went back out into Grey Street, then strolled down to the Quayside. The Millennium Bridge was opening its eye to allow a freighter through to dock near the old Customs House. He watched it for a while, then looked back to the second
floor of the building where Eric Ward had his office. He turned, made his way to the door and climbed the stairs.
Susie Cartwright was putting on her coat, just about to leave. He caught her eye: she seemed to be about to say something in protest, at the fact he had no appointment, but then thought better of it. She brushed past him and left the office. There was a light on in Ward’s room. Charlie tapped on the door, opened it, then walked in without waiting for permission. Eric Ward looked up from the papers scattered on the desk in front of him. His face was still faintly bruised. He said nothing. He didn’t even seem surprised.
Charlie took a seat without invitation. The two men stared at each other silently for a little while. Then Charlie said, ‘How’s Miss Owen?’
‘She’s recovered well enough. She’s a resilient young woman.’
‘Nearly got killed.’
‘That’s right,’ Ward agreed solemnly. He seemed to be waiting for something.
‘You too.’
‘That’s right.’
