Death of a Nobody

by J M Gregson

  Jackson glanced automatically from side to side, as if seeking the relief he knew could not possibly be there. His face was white, with the damp film of tension like oil upon it. ‘I’ve only tumbled to it today. Charlie was a grass, wasn’t he?’

  ‘Was he, Joey? And what was he doing talking to you, then?’

  Jackson licked grey lips. He was only realizing now how subtly Pegg had been probing him last night. His panic deepened; he could not remember how much he had told the insistent little man. He was trying to recall how much he had drunk. No wonder Charlie had been so generous! ‘He must have been trying to get information out of me, I suppose.’ Jackson dashed his lank hair away from his left eye in an automatic gesture, then found that there was no hair there. But he felt the wetness from his temple on his knuckles.

  Rushton eased forward now, until his face was no more than a foot from his prey. Now we’re getting somewhere, at last. What information, Joey?’

  ‘I don’t know. I can’t — you’re asking me to grass—’

  ‘I’m asking you nothing, Jackson. I’m telling you. You’re going to tell us what you told Pegg, however long it takes. This is a murder enquiry, and you’re right in the middle of it, mate!’

  ‘I — I want a lawyer.’

  It was said without conviction, and it brought only a harsh laugh from Rushton. ‘You can have one when you’re under arrest. Meantime, you’re merely helping us with our enquiries. As a good citizen should. Of course, you’re free to go at any time. We’ll drop you off: somewhere round the pub where you were talking to Charlie Pegg last night. With a prominent police escort, and very obvious and noisy thanks for all the help you’ve given us.’

  Jackson’s nostrils flared almost as wide as his eyes. He flung his head back as if he had been struck, then eased his thin buttocks back along the seat of his chair. He felt as if any touch from this awful detective inspector would brand him forever as an informer. ‘You can’t do that. I wouldn’t last five minutes if they even thought—’

  ‘There is an alternative, of course, Joey. You can tell us everything you told Charlie Pegg last night, and let us make our own deductions. And we can let you go quietly, at some place you might care to suggest as being safe for you. Because we are always anxious to help those who behave as good citizens should.’

  Joey Jackson looked from the face of his tormentor to the weatherbeaten countenance of the sergeant beside him who had hardly spoken. He was trying desperately to think, to spot the pitfalls, to discover any way out of the appalling situation in which he had landed himself for the sake of a few free drinks. Bert Hook was aware that this was his moment, though his face gave no sign of it. He said gently, ‘We need to know, Joey. And you need to tell us, you see. You don’t want to be here all day, with villains out there wondering what you’re doing.’

  Jackson wanted to bury his face in his hands, to shut out those experienced, expectant faces, to shut out the featureless green walls of the room behind them, to give himself time to think. But his maleness would not allow him such a gesture of despair and submission, even in this extremity. Instead, he looked at the scratched surface of the table and said, ‘Have you got a fag?’

  It was the acknowledgement that he was going to cooperate. Rushton said, ‘In a few minutes, when you’ve talked to us. If you talk properly, this could be all over in a few minutes.’

  Jackson said, ‘I can’t remember much that we said. He was clever, Charlie — I can see that now. And I was really pissed, by the time we finished talking.’ He was suddenly anxious that they should believe him.

  ‘I expect he didn’t say a lot. Kept you talking, most of the time.’ Hook had known Pegg, a little; more important, he was experienced in the ways of the snout, treading dangerous ground on the edge of the underworld.

  Jackson was grateful for the understanding. ‘Yes, he did. I run a little transport business, as you know, with my own Transit van. He asked me who I’d been working for, over the last few weeks.’

  ‘And where?’

  ‘Yes.’ Jackson, racking his brain for the recall, was surprised at the range of what Pegg had covered, making casual, apparently friendly enquiries about the welfare of his business while the drinks came faster and faster. ‘He must have picked up most of my calls over the last couple of months.’

  ‘And the next couple?’

  Jackson was becoming more uncomfortable by the moment as his recall of the conversation improved. ‘Yes. The next month or so, anyway.’

  Rushton said, ‘You operate for some pretty dodgy people, Joey.’

  ‘I take what business I can. I have to. But nothing illegal — not knowingly.’

  ‘Ignorance is no defence in law, Joey. But all we’re interested in at the moment is the names you talked about to Charlie. Especially any in which he seemed particularly interested.’

  Jackson was pathetically anxious to help now. Some interesting names tumbled out of his drink-fractured memory. The CID men did not prompt him. They had almost given up hope of hearing the name which interested them most when he eventually delivered it. ‘There was one job which was too big for me which Charlie seemed particularly interested in. I only have the one vehicle, you see, and this was going to need two or three.’

  ‘And who was the man who wanted to use you for that?’ Rushton’s professional indifference should have been recorded for an interrogation training tape.

  ‘It was for James Berridge. I don’t expect you know him.’

  9

  The name Berridge had several interesting entries in a file on DI Rushton’s computer, though there was no criminal record. Jim Berridge, as he boasted privately to the small circle of his favoured companions, had won hands down in his contests with the police: he had never even been taken to court.

  So far, said Chris Rushton grimly to himself, as he checked the file. So far.

  The entries on Berridge threw up other names, the names of men who might well have been involved in the killing of Charlie Pegg. Hard men, who took no prisoners and covered their tracks with automatic expertise. Rushton discussed these names with Lambert, agreed with him that they must be interviewed. Rushton had old scores to settle with them from his early days in CID; he asked that he might see them himself. And he asked if he might take Bert Hook with him.

  Lambert was both astonished and delighted, though he took care to reveal neither emotion. Rushton, despite his own promotion to detective inspector, had always resented the close relationship between Lambert and Hook. He knew that Bert had passed up the chance of becoming an inspector to remain a sergeant, and in a profession where the progress of one’s peers is jealously monitored, integrity is almost resented, as if it were in some way a comment on the ambitions of others.

  Lambert had long known the investigative skills which lay beneath Hook’s rubicund village-bobby exterior. To find the younger man now actively seeking Bert’s assistance could only be a strengthening of the team. And the unshakeable Hook would be a useful counterbalance to the new intensity he thought he saw rising in Rushton since the departure of his wife and daughter. A concentration on work could benefit both the man and the job after a woman had left, but it could sometimes tumble into disaster if a proper perspective disappeared with the increasing determination to succeed. Too many frustrated policemen were taking short cuts to get convictions these days.

  ***

  Rushton and Hook found the men they wanted in the Curvy Cats night club in Bristol. They made no attempt to evade police questioning, but they were a very different proposition from feeble Joey Jackson.

  At two-thirty in the afternoon, the place still smelt of stale drink and cigarette smoke from the night before. A peroxide blonde in a stained lurex dress was rehearsing with a pianist who looked as if he would rather be anywhere but here; the uncertainty of her vocal line echoed back from the midnight-blue walls which rose high above the sparse lighting to an invisible ceiling.

  Rushton said, ‘We have things to ask you two. We ca
n do it here, or at the station.’

  The men did not even look at each other. Perhaps they had expected this visit; if so, they were far too experienced to reveal the fact. The bigger of the two said, ‘Going to arrest us, are you?’ He did not even take the trouble to be contemptuous: his tone was almost polite, as if he was merely seeking information rather than asserting his rights.

  He was a large man, an inch taller than Rushton’s six feet, and probably three stones heavier. That weight was not fat, but muscle. He had black trousers, a black T-shirt, and a sleeveless black leather jerkin on top of it. Beside him, leaning back with him against the bar, his companion might well have been a slightly smaller reproduction; he wore the same clothes, which made them look like a uniform. Perhaps that was the effect they aimed at. They were a formidable pair, and the similarity contributed to their air of menace.

  Rushton looked round the place. A girl was cleaning the marble dancing floor with a mop and bucket, lethargically. Perhaps she was hoping to hear their conversation, but she gave no evidence that she could be interested by anything. Behind the bar against which the two large men lounged, a man was wiping glasses and stacking them on a shelf. Rushton would have liked to go to some smaller, more private room, where he could study the faces of these men as he spoke to them, but he was determined not to allow them the pleasure of refusing such a request.

  Instead, he said, ‘You work here?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘In what capacity?’

  The larger man allowed himself a small smile. ‘We maintain order in the evenings. You wouldn’t believe how stroppy some members of the public can get. And of course there’s never a policeman around when you want one. We also give a little help during the day, when things need moving around.’

  ‘You act as bouncers, in fact.’

  ‘We do indeed, Mr Rushton.’ He grinned at his companion, who returned the smile like a diabolic mirror.

  ‘Doing considerable physical damage on occasions, no doubt.’

  The two formidable pairs of shoulders shrugged in unison. ‘We do no more than is necessary. Some of the punters get quite obstreperous. It’s the drink, you know: it’s a terrible thing!’ He let his voice rise on this condemnation, mimicking one of the drag performers who occasionally pranced on the tiny raised podium five yards to his right. It was another way of mocking his questioner.

  Rushton found it frustrating that in this light he could not even see the colour of the man’s eyes. He was fighting not to show that he was ruffled. He said abruptly, ‘Where were you between ten and eleven o’clock last night?’

  The bigger man raised his eyebrows a fraction, turning to his companion with an elaborate show of earnest concern. ‘We must have been here, Walter, as usual, I suppose. Working our little socks off to earn an honest living.’ The other man nodded vigorously, allowing himself the smile his companion had eschewed. Sturley turned back to Rushton and said, ‘Why, did we miss something interesting elsewhere, Inspector?’

  His elocution was that of a public schoolboy, the words being enunciated as carefully as they were chosen. It was disconcerting, and again Rushton had to fight to conceal the fact. Hard men, who sold their violence to the highest bidder in an increasingly buoyant market, should speak like the dangerous morons they were, stringing sentences together with difficulty. Sometimes it was even possible to intimidate their fuddled minds with words. But this man seemed to enjoy them, taking advantage of a secure alibi to taunt them with the phrases of his confidence.

  The truth was that William Sturley had a predilection for violence which education had not been able to control. He had enjoyed being the school bully, the successful centre of flailing fisticuffs whenever he could provoke resistance in those weaker than himself. Nowadays, he realized that he had even enjoyed the punishment which his actions had occasionally brought upon himself. In adult life, he had never been able to skirt those situations which offered the possibilities of brutality with him in control. That had held him back from the subtler and richer villainies that his intelligence might have devised.

  But he made a lucrative living from providing the supporting violence for others who had pursued those paths. Lucrative, because he was swift, efficient and ruthless. And because he was prepared even to kill, when others, even among the hard men, shrank from this ultimate violence and the penalties detection might carry. Sturley enjoyed his work; he thought that was probably why he was so successful in it. And he was not about to be undermined now by any jumped-up Plod in plain clothes.

  Rushton said sourly, ‘No doubt there are people who will vouch for your presence here last night.’

  ‘No doubt. It wouldn’t be difficult to find them. Because that’s where we were, you see. We were on duty, together. We’re a good team, Walter and I.’ They did not even need to look at each other to coordinate their smiles as they lounged back against the bar, confident, full of menace.

  Hook, who had been surveying the inflated drink prices displayed on a tiny notice on the wall behind the bar, spoke for the first time. ‘Early in the evening, that would be, for this place.’ It seemed at first an inconsequential thought. He delivered it quietly, making it a statement rather than a question; his Gloucestershire accent, slight but without any attempt at disguise, struck an incongruously rustic note in this urban sink.

  The unexpected accent, from a man they had never expected to speak, might have been what scratched for the first time at the veneer of urbanity the two gorillas had adopted. The shorter one, as if taking his cue to reply to the lower-ranked policeman, said, ‘Yeah, it’s quiet in here until after the pubs close. Most of our trouble comes after midnight, when we get it.’ He ground his massive right fist against his other palm, then looked down and hastily desisted, like a large schoolboy caught in a telltale gesture. He eased forward as he said aggressively, ‘What of it?’

  Bert took his time, catching the scent of pickled onions on the man’s breath, studying him dispassionately, as if he had given something vital away. This was the man to go for in the pair, he decided. It’s interesting, that’s all. It would have been quite possible to slip out for an hour, an hour and a half even, without being missed, and still be back for the peak-period for bouncing.’

  ‘We didn’t. Ask any of the people around here.’

  ‘We may do, if we have the time. But I’ve no doubt they’ll support you. We may in due course ask some of the punters, of course. And members of the public from the surrounding streets, who may have seen you moving out of the car park. And the local beat bobby. And the traffic police on the M5 and the A38. There are all kinds of possibilities, when a murder investigation allows us to cast a wide enough net.’

  ‘Murder?’ The word brought its reaction, even here. Sturley would have liked to prevent his companion speaking. He would even intervene to do so, if it got sticky, but he did not see how it could. He glanced at Rushton. The girl stopped singing, and somewhere to their left another light came on; Sturley and Rushton held each other’s eyes as the two shorter men at their elbows went on with their exchange.

  Hook said, ‘Murder. Of Charles Robert Pegg. Near the Star and Garter in Gloucester. But you know all about that.’

  Sturley decided it was time to intervene. ‘Prove it!’ he snapped. The urgency of it was as much a warning to his colleague to shut up as a response to Hook’s quietly voiced accusation.

  ‘Oh, we will,’ Hook said. He spoke a little more loudly now, and his voice was full of conviction. Lambert had noted years ago a capacity to sustain a role that came unexpectedly from this rubicund, slightly overweight figure. All coppers sometimes pretended to knowledge they did not have, but few of them were as convincing in producing bricks without straw as Bert Hook. Even Rushton believed for a moment that Hook had discovered some priceless piece of evidence that had escaped the rest of them. Bert was almost patronizing the men now as he explained himself. ‘The Scene-of-Crime team have already sent several interesting items to Forensic. Science moves
ahead of men like you two, fortunately.’

  ‘You’ll find nothing from us in that alley,’ said the man opposite him. His denial did not carry the note of conviction, and Sturley flung a restraining hand on to his forearm.

  Bert Hook studied the hand with interest, as if it were itself an admission. He noted that the man had known the location of Pegg’s death, but did not trouble to follow up a point which would be readily denied. ‘Every killer leaves something of himself behind at the scene of his crime.’ Now he reached unhurriedly forward, ignoring Sturley’s large hand, moving up to the point where the neck of the black T-shirt peeped out from beneath the leather waistcoat. He picked up a single hair between forefinger and thumb, held it speculatively against the light for an instant, then reached with his other hand into the pocket of his grey suit to produce a small polythene envelope. Three pairs of eyes followed his movements as he placed the hair within this container with infinite care, then returned it whence it had come.

  The process seemed to give him much satisfaction.

  He kept his eyes on the lesser man from whom he had gleaned the hair, not even bothering to watch the now more animated Sturley, as he addressed him. ‘Nasty little graze, that, on your forehead, Mr Sturley. Bit too high for shaving, so you’ll need to think of some other explanation. But it won’t be any more convincing.’

  Sturley’s hand darted from his companion’s arm to his own forehead, feeling the scab on the tiny scar as if he feared it was suddenly bleeding anew. ‘I banged that in here, on the corner of a filing cabinet.’ Ten minutes earlier, he would not even have offered an explanation. Now, it rang false and defensive, to him as well as to everyone else in that broad room. Every other sound had died with the piano at the end of the blowzy singer’s ballad. It seemed as though all the ears of those lesser employees who had retired to the recesses of that dimly defined room were listening to his words and finding them unsatisfactory.