Death of a Nobody

by J M Gregson

  The prospect of having to trawl through the filthy pool of urban gangland had already occurred to Lambert. A contract killer who knew his business was the most difficult of all murderers to trap. And there were an increasing number of them operating in Britain, as the stakes in the rival drug and club empires grew ever higher. But they did not often act on a man’s home ground, especially in a semi-rural area like this, where the chances of anonymity were reduced. In the face of the widow’s coolness, he retreated behind statistics. ‘The overwhelming probability in a killing like this is that the victim was killed by someone who knew him well.’

  ‘I see.’ She looked interrogatively at Bert Hook, then leaned across to refill his Royal Worcester cup. The movement might have been designed to show off the suppleness of her body; her back arched gracefully and the cashmere sweater was pulled tight across firm, full breasts. She swung her torso effortlessly and effectively, refilling Lambert’s empty cup without troubling to consult him. This time her hand seemed steady, as if she had gathered strength from what had gone on thus far. ‘I’m afraid I still cannot offer any useful suggestions.’

  She seemed to him now to be taunting his skill as an interrogator with body language as well as her facial expressions. He said, ‘You were missing yesterday when we tried to contact you, Mrs Berridge. Where were you?’

  There was a spark of open aggression in her glance as she looked full into his face again. ‘I didn’t kill him, you know.’

  ‘No one has accused you of that. But you will surely understand that we need to know where you were at the time of the death.’

  She nodded, as if she was accepting a new line of argument rather than something which must always have been obvious to her. There was still no sign of emotion as she asked, ‘When was he killed?’

  He had no intention of telling her that, until she had released more of her own thoughts to him. ‘I saw him myself at about six o’clock on Tuesday evening. And we found him dead at eleven-fifty-two on Wednesday morning. He died at some time in those eighteen hours.’

  She looked at him, sizing him up, weighing him as an adversary. ‘But you know more accurately than that, by now. You just don’t intend to tell me what you know. Is that the usual police procedure?’

  He ignored her question and the taunt in its phrasing. ‘Where were you in those hours, Mrs Berridge?’

  The muscles around her mouth and nose tightened. Now that the moment for which she had prepared herself could be put off no longer, she seemed after all a little nervous. ‘I went out early on Tuesday evening. I was — visiting a friend.’

  Bert Hook had at last something to enter in his notebook. He looked at her over the top of it and said, ‘At what time would this be, Mrs Berridge?’

  ‘I left here at six o’clock.’ The answer had come a little too quickly, not just on the heels of his question but almost before he had completed it. ‘We met in Stratford, you see. We went to the evening performance at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre.’

  Lambert said, ‘And what was the play on Tuesday night?’

  She gave him a tiny smile, acknowledging the swiftness of his reaction, ready with her response. ‘It was The Winter’s Tale, Superintendent. We thoroughly enjoyed it.’

  ‘And you returned here afterwards?’

  ‘No.’ Again the answer came too quickly, swift and abrupt as a rifle shot behind his question. She made a visible effort to relax. ‘I stayed overnight in Stratford.’

  ‘That seems a little unusual. It can scarcely be more than fifty miles from here.’

  ‘I often spend the night away from here.’ Her pause invited them to diversify, but neither policeman took up the bait. ‘I — I wanted to see a little more of my friend. We’d scarcely had time to talk, you see. We had to get into the theatre as soon as we met.’

  Bert Hook said quietly, ‘We shall need the name of this friend, of course.’ They were a good pair, these two men, each understanding the moves the other required of him from long practice. He poised his ball-pen expectantly over the page.

  She looked from one to the other, finding only that the watchful faces were united against her. ‘Can I rely on your discretion?’

  Lambert tried to prevent his irritation with the woman coming out as truculence. ‘Only if this proves to have no bearing on the case. You must surely see that we need confirmation of your movements during this period, if we are to clear you of suspicion.’

  ‘Part of the routine again, I suppose.’ She tried to tease him with the repetition of his earlier phrase, but it fell flat against the seriousness of her position. ‘All right. I was with a man.’

  ‘Name?’ Hook was impassive as an Oriental over his notebook.

  ‘Mr Faraday.’ The name sounded oddly in her ears; she thought it was the first time she had ever given him the title.

  ‘Mr Ian Faraday?’ Lambert tried not to reveal the clankings of his brain as various things about the attitude of Faraday before the killing fell into place for him.

  Gabrielle nodded. She found that it was after all a relief that it was out at last. They had known it must be so, when they had prepared together for this interview and the one he would have in turn. ‘Ian and I will be getting married, when all this is over.’

  Unless one of you is serving a life sentence, thought Lambert. He said only, ‘We shall need full details of your meeting with Mr Faraday, of course. When you met, how long you were together, whether either of you left the other for any substantial period. And the name of anyone who can witness that you were together for the time you claim.’

  ‘We met in Stratford at seven o’clock. Went to the theatre as I said. We’d booked into the River Crescent Hotel, but we went for a drink after the theatre. I suppose it must have been about half past eleven when we got into the hotel.’

  ‘The receptionist will be able to confirm that time?’

  ‘Yes. Well, Mr Allan, actually, the proprietor. It’s only a small place. We’ve stayed there before, so he knows us.’ The answers were coming quickly, with no hesitation between the phrases. This was information that had been ready for delivery. But that might have been no more than the prudence of the innocent.

  Lambert said, ‘You say you were at the theatre during the evening. Can you provide any evidence of that?’

  This time she paused, furrowed her brow, gave every evidence of cudgelling her brain. Perhaps, he thought sourly, she had noticed her earlier haste in delivery. Her face brightened. ‘I think I have the programme for The Winter’s Tale.’ She rose and went over to the corner of the room, where the top of a glossy cover protruded from a leather bag. ‘Yes. Here it is.’ She handed it across the table, trying not to produce the effect of a conjuror delivering back the card originally chosen.

  Lambert glanced at the cover, then put the programme down on the coffee table; with its elaborate cover design, detailing the rural delights of the play’s middle section, it sat there rather appropriately, as if it had become part of the design of this huge and elegant room. ‘And would anyone in the theatre be able to remember seeing you? The programme-seller? A barman at the interval?’ It sounded churlish, but at this moment courtesy was the least of his concerns.

  For an instant, she looked frightened. But her voice was even enough as she said, ‘I doubt it. The theatre was full, as usual. There was a queue for programmes, and you know what a crush there is in the bar at the interval.’

  He did indeed; he had given up all hope of a drink in the same theatre only a month ago. ‘So you spent the night at this hotel. And what did you do yesterday? We were trying to contact you from lunch-time onwards.’

  Was it imagination, or did she relax? Certainly she smiled, as if she felt that the important period was now accounted for, though he had refused to reveal to her when that was. ‘We spent the morning in Stratford, then drove out to Broadway for lunch. We called at the National Trust garden at Hidcote in the afternoon. I expect I may have the tickets in here.’ She fumbled in the bag and produced the ti
ckets. He looked at the edge and saw the previous day’s date clearly printed there.

  ‘And no doubt during all this time you knew nothing of your husband’s death?’

  ‘No. I drove back here in my own car at about six. I didn’t know there was anything wrong until I saw your plastic tapes cutting off access to my husband’s garage and the constable on duty there. George Lewis told me about Jim’s death.’

  It held together, as far as it went, better than many alibis offered by innocent people. He wondered a little about the theatre visit, but she had provided all they could reasonably expect. If it was true, the dead man’s widow and Faraday alibied each other. Two prime subjects eliminated immediately: he should have been pleased about that. Instead, he was reluctant to concede yet that it was so. He said, ‘How long have you and Mr Faraday had this association?’

  ‘Over a year now. My marriage to James was over long before this began. He has — had lots of women. I gave up worrying about them years ago. I thought at first that I was just having a fling with Ian — perhaps even just getting back at James. It developed into something deeper.’

  She was earnest about this, wanting to convince him of her seriousness, like a young lover. He knew suddenly that there had been very few affairs, perhaps none, for her before this one.

  ‘Mr Faraday was an employee of Berridge Limited. Were you not afraid of your husband’s reaction if he found out about this liaison?’

  She nodded. Apparently she was as ready to talk about this as she had been reluctant to give them the information they needed earlier. ‘We were very frightened. James was both vindictive and vicious, as you no doubt know. He would have got rid of Ian and done his best to prevent him getting another job, for a start — and perhaps much worse. I don’t know how he’d have punished me, but he’d have found a way. But it wasn’t too difficult to deceive him. He was away a lot of the time, and he’d long since stopped caring much about what I did.’ She paused, then smiled a curious, elated smile. ‘I was about to set about getting a divorce from James. That won’t be necessary, now.’

  ‘You know how your husband was killed?’

  For a moment, she looked alarmed, as if he was accusing her of witnessing that violent moment. Then she understood him and nodded. ‘Yes. He was shot at close quarters. They explained that to me at the mortuary, before they let me see the body.’ ‘Do you know if your husband possessed a firearm?’

  ‘Yes, he did. He kept a gun in his desk.’ Like most non-users, she was unaware of the correct distinctions. ‘A pistol?’

  ‘Yes. He had it in the top drawer of his desk.’

  ‘Was it a Smith and Wesson .357?’

  ‘I think that was the name, yes. The number means nothing to me.’

  ‘A pistol was found by the body. Very probably the one we have just described. We may need to ask you to identify it, in due course.’ There was no record of Berridge having a licence for the pistol, but that was rather what he would have expected. ‘Where did he keep this pistol?’

  ‘I told you, in his desk. In the top right-hand drawer, I think. I haven’t seen it since we moved in here.’

  ‘Yet you knew of its existence.’

  ‘Yes. James showed it to me when he first got it. He was the kind of man who liked the trappings of violence. He wanted me to know that he had it. It only replaced another, less powerful gun.’

  ‘When?’

  She thought for a moment, completely at ease in discussing the instrument which had in all probability dispatched her husband from the world. ‘About two years ago, I think. I couldn’t be sure, but it was at about the time when we moved in here.’

  ‘And as far as you know it was in the desk until the time of your husband’s death?’

  ‘Yes. I certainly wouldn’t have touched it — I can’t stand the things. And he kept the drawer locked.’

  They left then, with instructions that she should not disappear again without letting them know of her whereabouts. ‘More of the routine, I expect,’ she said, teasing them a little now that it was over. The sergeant smiled at her, thanked her politely for the coffee.

  She watched the old Vauxhall turn out of the car park and convey them slowly down the drive. Once they were safely on their way, she would ring Ian and report. The very tall one, the superintendent, had been sticky at first. But on the whole, it had gone as well as could be expected, she thought. That would be a relief to Ian. She pictured his anxious, vulnerable face and wished she could be with him. But she knew they must be patient and careful for a while longer.

  She gathered up the coffee cups and took them into the kitchen. As she washed them, she reflected on how the one, very necessary, lie had led on to others.

  15

  The men who had killed Charlie Pegg were left in separate cells for three hours in the Oldford nick.

  They were hard men, who had endured this treatment and worse before, but it had its effect. Even men without much imagination find that uncertainty creeps in when they are left to sweat it out alone. They never admit it, of course, but the effects are there to see for their guardians, studying them at intervals like goldfish in a bowl. After three hours, Sturley and Jones were feeling more like rats in a trap.

  They were on a murder rap. That was what was new. They had killed before, more than once, but the pigs had never got close to pinning them down. This time it was all to be different, and over three hours that realization gradually sank in. Like most men who dish out physical violence from positions of strength, they were cowards at heart. That meant that they had scant resources to deal with this new situation.

  It was Sturley, the more intelligent of the two, who was brought up first. They let him stew for another ten minutes in the airless interview room with its single high light behind the wire cage. Then Rushton came to him with Hook, the two of them grimly confident, the memory of Sturley’s victim lying dead in the gutter as their stimulus.

  Rushton brought an excitement, a grim anticipation of pleasure, with him into the tiny room. Policemen are human, and the prospect of bullying a bully appealed to him. He looked at the big, raw-boned face opposite him and said, ‘So it’s come to this at last. A murder rap.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re trying to fit me up. I want my brief.’ There was a pause between each of the sentences, as Sturley waited for a reaction. He got none; the result was that his attempted truculence rang increasingly hollow. They heard him out with apparent interest, even looked surprised when he failed to offer more.

  Then Rushton said, ‘The one you asked for seems to be no longer available. We’re still trying, of course, but Jim Berridge’s empire seems to have collapsed with him.’ They would know about Berridge’s death by now, but all the media reports had implied it was a suicide by a man about to be arrested: the police press relations officer had done a good job.

  Sturley muttered, ‘I want Flynn. No one else.’ It was the formula they had been told to mouth, if they were ever arrested. He was not sure whether it still applied, now that Berridge had gone, but he did not know what other tactic to adopt.

  ‘And you shall have him. If he’s still in the country. If he still wishes to act for scum like you. If he thinks you will be able to pay him, now that the Berridge umbrella is removed.’ Rushton took an unopened packet of cigarettes out of his jacket pocket, watched Sturley’s eyes switch to it like a starving child’s, then returned it casually whence it had come. ‘You’re going to need a good brief this time, aren’t you, Sturley? But you’ll find he’ll have to confine himself to mitigating circumstances, and he’ll find precious few of those.’ He contemplated the bear of a man across the table, noting with satisfaction the damp beneath the arms of his T-shirt, savouring the scent of the sweat upon him as if it were an exotic perfume.

  Sturley, who had been determined three hours ago to say nothing, now said grudgingly, ‘If you’re still on about Charlie Pegg, you can go stuff yourself. You’ve got nothing on us for that one.’ />
  Even the mention of Pegg was a sign of weakness, and all three men in the room recognized it. It was Hook who now leaned forward and said, ‘Funny. That isn’t what your mate says.’ His smile was positively Machiavellian; it would have shocked those young colleagues of his who thought of him as an old-fashioned village bobby who had somehow strayed into CID work.

  Sturley glanced sharply at this new and unexpected source of torment. He said, ‘Jonesey wouldn’t talk.’ But where he had meant there to be confidence, there was anxiety in his tone. They caught that doubt, and smiled at him. He longed to leap forward, to smash his great fists into those smug faces, to feel the breaking skin and raw flesh beneath his knuckles, to shout his hatred and move in with the boot once they were down. But he knew he could not, and with the removal of that physical outlet he felt the weakness creeping through his limbs.

  Hook said, ‘Quite a little talker, your pal Jonesey, when he gets going. He surprised me: I didn’t think he had that many words in him. But he was scared, you see. You know how that makes men shout for mercy.’

  Sturley did. He had heard the pleas of desperate men often enough, as they had fallen under his blows. But he had never heeded them, and that realization filled him now with something like despair. These pigs had wanted to have him like this for a long time now, and they too would not show mercy. He was profoundly worried about what his companion might have said. Jones had always taken his lead from Sturley, had been contented to be a brutal and effective second string throughout the years of intimidation and violence which had been so lucrative for them as Berridge’s empire grew. Left on his own, he would be uncertain.

  Sturley searched wretchedly for some of his original defiance. ‘You can’t pin Charlie Pegg on to us. No weapon. No connection with us.’ He looked from one to the other of the officers, willing one of them, either of them, to give him some sort of response.

  Instead, they watched him in silence for a few moments, fancying that they could smell the fear now amidst the man’s sweat, knowing that they had the thing which would confound him. It was Rushton who said eventually, like one patiently offering instruction, ‘No. We do not have a weapon. You may choose to tell us at some later time just where it was that you dumped it. But there is at any murder scene what we like to call an “exchange” between the victim and his killers. With the benefits of modern science, we find that murderers leave something of themselves behind, however careful they think they have been. I’m delighted to tell you that you and Jonesey did that, Sturley.’