Least of Evils

by J M Gregson

  Chung Lee came to them within two minutes. He was clad in his white kitchen overalls, which seemed to Clyde Northcott to make him more defenceless and vulnerable. Lee had grown used to being inscrutable; it had been a great help throughout his time in Britain. Even now, his pleasant, olive-skinned face and watchful brown eyes gave nothing away, though he plainly wondered what was in store for him.

  Peach examined him from head to toe, then said, ‘Sit down, please, Mr Lee. We are waiting for someone else.’

  With the mention of this unnamed other party, Chung Lee’s sphinx-like control showed its first cracks. He glanced at the door, then swiftly from one to the other of the two contrasting faces in front of him. He sat down very cautiously, as if he feared that the chair beneath him might explode if he treated it roughly.

  It was a full two minutes before their other suspect arrived. Peach continued to study Lee throughout this time, offering neither smile nor frown, uttering not a word to break the tension of a period which seemed to the man in whites to stretch interminably. When Janey Johnson knocked softly at the door and came wonderingly into the room, he leaped immediately to his feet, as much from shock as from natural courtesy it seemed.

  ‘Sit down, Mr Lee,’ said Peach calmly. He too had risen when the woman came into the room. He gave her the smallest of smiles, then said, ‘Sit here, please, Mrs Johnson,’ and installed her in the chair beside Lee. She seated herself watchfully on the edge of the chair, finding that she and the man from the kitchens could not look at each other without a deliberate turn of the head.

  It was to her that Peach addressed his first words. ‘A well-known fact, attested by you and by others, Mrs Johnson: Oliver Ketley was a womanizer. You realized that this could be useful to you.’

  ‘I couldn’t stand the man anywhere near me. I told you why yesterday.’

  ‘You also told us that he had your husband killed. That he had got away with that, for a variety of reasons. That you were determined on retribution for that crime.’

  ‘I don’t think I said I was determined on retribution. I believe I said that I was glad Ketley was dead and that I hoped you wouldn’t manage to arrest whoever killed him.’

  She was very cool, very determined. Defiance had given her colour and made her small, neat face even more attractive beneath her short-cut black hair. She had taken off her apron before she came here; she sat with knees together beneath her modest dark blue skirt. Her brown eyes bold and watchful. Peach said quietly, it seemed almost apologetically, ‘I believe you conquered your revulsion for Oliver Ketley long enough to sit in the passenger seat of his car and lure him to his death.’

  She gasped. ‘I couldn’t stand being near the man. And much as I’d like to have shot him to avenge Sam, I could never have done that. I hate guns of all kinds. I’ve never handled one in my life.’

  ‘We can accept all that. But you had assistance.’ He glanced at the man beside her.

  ‘Chung was here on Saturday night. I saw him coming out of his room to collect a book from the rest room by the kitchen. I told you that yesterday.’

  ‘You did indeed. And thus gave yourself an alibi for the time of the murder as well as Mr Lee. But it was rather a shaky story. The notion that you would leave your room at nine o’clock on a Saturday night to check on your flower arrangements in the hall seemed at best unlikely. So did the possibility that Mr Lee should emerge from his room to collect his book from the kitchen refreshment area at precisely the moment when you were returning to your room. Perhaps that is what set me thinking.’

  ‘This is preposterous. You’ve nothing to support your outrageous accusations.’

  Peach continued to study her face for a moment, then nodded to Northcott beside him. The dark-brown voice said quietly, almost melodically, ‘Are you willing to give us a DNA sample, Mrs Johnson?’

  A pause, whilst she considered the implications of this. Janey found herself desperately wanting to look at the man in whites beside her, to take his counsel in this. ‘What would be the purpose of that, when I know that I had nothing to do with this crime?’

  ‘The forensic examination of the Bentley has revealed hair from a human head, Mrs Johnson. Dark hair. If you have never been in that car as you claim, a DNA test could eliminate you from the enquiry.’

  ‘It’s tempting. But as I was never there, I see no need to account for myself.’

  Peach said softly, ‘When you are arrested, Mrs Johnson, we shall be able to take a DNA test with or without your permission.’

  Janey noticed that ‘when’. She said stubbornly, ‘I didn’t shoot Oliver Ketley. I’ve told you that. I wish I could have done it, but I didn’t.’

  ‘No. You made him think he could have sex with you.’ He watched the involuntary shudder shake her small, shapely body. ‘You distracted him so ably that Mr Lee was able to put the bullet through his head without resistance from the victim. I doubt whether Ketley ever knew he was there.’

  Her brown eyes stared fixedly ahead of her. ‘I’ve told you. Chung was here on Saturday night at the time of the murder. I saw him.’

  ‘Yes. It’s interesting that you were able to pinpoint the right time for that alibi when we spoke yesterday. The time of the death has never been revealed in our press releases.’ He switched his attention suddenly to the man beside her. ‘Our forensic laboratories have analysed fibres found in the rear of the car, Mr Lee. Green woollen fibres, which I believe in due course will be found to have come from the sweater you were wearing at the time of our first interview on Monday. That was when you told us a fabricated story about eating Thai green curry with a friend in Brunton at the time of Ketley’s death.’

  The detail of that lie, which he had admitted yesterday and which was thus irrelevant now, was what finally undid Chung. Suddenly everything seemed hopeless. They would arrest him, take his DNA, pin the crime on him once and for all. All this shabby deceit seemed suddenly unworthy of him, an insult to the brother he had worked for years in this foreign land to avenge. He glanced wildly at Janey, and each of them knew in that moment that it was over.

  Janey nodded at him, reached across and put her small hand on top of his, as if for those few seconds they were the only people in the room. Then she turned back to face the two CID men. She was silent for a moment, forcing herself to accept that the lying was over and the final brief act of confession was all that was left. She burst into a sudden smile which showed how near she was to hysteria.

  She said, dully, as if speaking only for herself, ‘I’m glad it was such a big car. Ketley tried to paw me for a moment when he got into it, but I told him to wait.’

  It was Northcott’s deep, reassuring voice which said, ‘Isn’t it time you told us all about it, Janey? That will make it easier for you, as well as for us.’

  She glanced again at Lee Chung, who nodded and gave her his own smile, resigned but fearful. She said, ‘Ketley had already made a couple of passes at me. It was only a question of time before he cornered me somewhere in the house. I saw the way Chung looked at him one night after we’d served a meal – with the same accumulated hatred I felt for the man.’

  She turned and grinned at Lee, who said, ‘Janey told me she could see how I hated him and told me how he had killed her Sam. I told her about my brother on the night of the cockle-pickers in 2004. I told her how I had been scheming to get near him for years. We saw that it was possible we could work together.’

  Janey took up the tale again, it seemed almost eagerly. ‘I let Ketley lure me to one of his Saturday night assignations. He offered me big money.’ Her mouth curled in contempt at the memory, at the thought that any amount of money could have induced her to sleep with that monster. ‘He specified an exact time. He told me to go to the Bentley in the garage and wait for him in the front passenger seat. He’d make sure the car was left open. What he didn’t realize was that I wouldn’t be the only one in that car.’

  Lee spoke up; he seemed quite determined to assert his part in this. ‘I am ver
y small man, when I need to be. I curled up very small behind the driving seat, on the floor of the car. Janey she very good. Very good indeed. She keep all his attention. She make sure Ketley don’t see me behind him.’ His normally near-perfect English was suffering a little, becoming jerky under the stress of confession.

  Janey said. ‘I had a short skirt. That was enough to get all of the man’s attention. He tried to stroke me, but I said I was nervous that someone would see us. He must wait for the hotel. He managed to paw my thigh just once as he started the engine.’

  She looked down at the offending limb as if she had washed it many times and still found it soiled. ‘I was glad when we moved out of the Grange and on to the roads. He had to give his attention to driving then. But he apparently still wanted a preliminary snog. He pulled up the car in a quiet place when I suggested it and reached out for me. He was trying to put my hand on his penis when Chung shot him.’ She stopped abruptly, still aghast at that final action of Ketley’s.

  Chung Lee asserted sturdily, ‘It was I who shot that man. Janey had nothing to do with it. Except that she gave me the opportunity to do what we both wanted to do.’

  Peach shook his head and smiled grimly. ‘You will both be charged with murder.’

  Janey had the fixed smile of the fanatic. ‘And I wouldn’t have it any other way.’

  Clyde Northcott stepped forward and delivered the formal words of the arrest. It might have been done much earlier, with its warning that anything said would be recorded and might be used in evidence, but all four people in the room knew that neither of the accused was going to go back on anything they’d said.

  Peach looked from one to the other of the two contrasting faces. ‘A second police car arrived here ten minutes ago. You will both be handcuffed until you are delivered to the station, where formal charges will be made. Mr Lee will ride with the two uniformed officers. Mrs Johnson will be in our vehicle.’

  As they followed the police car back to Brunton, Peach and Northcott could see the small figure of Chung Lee sitting very upright in the rear seat of the car ahead of them. Peach drove this time, leaving his large assistant beside the still composed woman on the back seat. They were within a mile of the station when he spoke over his shoulder, apparently to his DS. ‘I can’t condone murder and the law must take its course. But the punishment should take account of the character of the victim and the motives of his killers. I am glad that the world is rid of Oliver Ketley. It is already a much better place without him.’

  Many months later, a judge would utter more guarded but surprisingly similar sentiments as he prepared to deliver his sentences.