[Inspector Peach 10] - Witch's Sabbath

by J M Gregson

  It had made her remember what she would otherwise surely have forgotten: that he had not wanted her to go into that ruined farmhouse at all.

  An hour later on that Monday morning, Chief Detective Inspector Percy Peach climbed the stairs to the top floor of Brunton police station with a heavy heart. He glanced through the wide windows of this new building at the view of the old cotton town, stretching away towards the moors and the clear winter sky above them. But his mood was nothing to do with the grim industrial landscape outside.

  It was a depression that normally settled upon him at the prospect of a meeting with his CID chief.

  Chief Superintendent Thomas Bulstrode Tucker looked every inch a senior policeman, as far as most of the public he was paid to serve could see. He was in his fifties now, but held himself erect at just under six feet. He was running just a little to fat, but not so much that you would notice it in the well-cut uniform he favoured for his public appearances. He still carried an excellent head of well-groomed hair, greying a little at the temples; his regular features were lined a little now, his brow habitually furrowed with the responsibilities he carried, but that only added to the air of gravitas he carried so impressively into his media pronouncements.

  His grey-blue eyes invariably looked straight into the television camera, his well-modulated voice enunciated his carefully chosen phrases perfectly into the radio microphone. He was the perfect figure to carry the police viewpoint into the world at large, the perfect man for the public relations which were now so important to the modern police image.

  He was also, in the view of Percy Peach and almost everyone who worked for him, a complete prat.

  That was one of the more moderate phrases Peach used to describe the man he invariably referred to as Tommy Bloody Tucker. His dislike of his chief was returned with interest by Tucker. But the senior man was shrewd enough to know that his image and reputation depended upon the odious Peach. Indeed, when Tucker had reluctantly engineered Peach’s promotion to Chief Inspector and put him back in uniform for a year, the clear-up rates in CID had dropped dramatically with his absence. Tucker himself had even been forced occasionally to return to the crime-face and try his hand at real detection rather than public relations, and the results had been disastrous. He had been glad to see Peach return to CID.

  Tucker depended heavily upon the younger man’s successes, and both of them knew it. It meant that Tucker had to preserve the appearances of politeness towards his execrable chief inspector whilst checking the worst of his insolence. And it meant that Percy Peach, who knew his own worth but had no aspirations towards further promotion, baited his superior mercilessly whenever the opportunity arose. A little innocent wordplay was, Peach maintained, the only thing that made life with Tommy Bloody Tucker bearable.

  He knocked on the door and watched the three panels which said ‘Engaged’, ‘Wait’ and ‘Come In’ light up in quick succession. Then he walked in and stood at attention before his chief’s desk, his eyes fastened rigidly upon the wall behind the man’s well-coiffured head. ‘Routine report on the weekend crime in the metropolis of Brunton and surrounding areas, sir,’ he said stiffly.

  ‘All right, Peach, I’ve a busy morning ahead of me, even if you haven’t. Cut the bullshit and talk normally, please,’ said Tucker irritably.

  Percy made a show of relaxing the tautness of his shoulders, then looked at the almost empty surface of his boss’s desk. ‘Golf go well at the weekend, sir?’

  Tucker frowned his most formidable frown at his chief inspector. He hadn’t meant him to take such liberties when he told him to cut out the bullshit; and he’d lost more than he cared to admit to whilst playing cards in the clubhouse of Brunton Golf Club on the previous afternoon. ‘There was no golf this weekend in view of the snow, as you well know,’ he said sternly. ‘I spent most of the weekend catching up on paperwork and preparing myself for the North-West Conference on Serious Crime.’ He rolled out the title as sonorously as he could in his mellow baritone.

  ‘Very necessary, I’m sure, sir.’ Percy nodded sagely, yet somehow managed to convey the message that he didn’t believe a word of it.

  Tucker peered at him suspiciously. ‘We’ve got to match the thinking of criminals, Peach. Some of them are quite intellectual, these days. We need to meet intelligence with intelligence. There is a need for original thinking and fine minds in the upper echelons of CID.’

  Indeed there is, thought Percy. And what do we get? Blockheads like Tommy Bloody Tucker. ‘I’m sure those contemplating serious crime will have second thoughts when they hear about your conference, sir.’

  ‘Fraud, Peach.’

  Percy raised his eyebrows and said nothing. This surely couldn’t be a confession from his chief: Tucker had never been a man for self-knowledge, and still less for self-criticism.

  ‘That’s the crime that’s on the increase, Peach. Millions are being embezzled at this very moment.’ Tucker stopped, impressed by his own sense of immediacy.

  Percy brightened. ‘Yes, sir. Fraud features largely in my dissertation on crime in this area – the one which reveals that Freemasons are four times more likely to commit a serious crime in this part of Lancashire than ordinary citizens.’ He beamed his enthusiasm at Tucker. The statistic was based on the fact that a local accountant who happened to be a Mason had been convicted on seven different fraud charges; but Tucker was too lazy or too dense to have rumbled that one, so Percy kept quoting the statistic.

  Tommy Tucker’s mouth set in the thin, petulant line of a frustrated child, a sight that warmed Percy Peach’s heart. ‘I’ve had quite enough of that favourite fact of yours, Peach. I’m quite sure that there is no one in my own lodge who would ever be accused of serious crime. You cast a slur upon a fine body of people, who achieve a tremendous amount of—’

  ‘Yes, sir. Can’t change the facts, though. Much as I’d like to, of course.’ Somehow he was back in his ‘attention’ position, bolt upright, straining upwards in every fibre of his five feet eight inches, his dark eyes fixed again on a line three inches above Tucker’s head.

  Tucker looked with distaste at the man who stood so stiffly before him: he had a striking bald head above a very black fringe of hair and eyes that were almost as dark as the eyebrows above them and the neat moustache beneath his small nose. He scarcely looked like a thief-taker, but both of them knew that Peach was the policeman the local villains feared more than any other. ‘DCI Peach, you’d better give me your report and be off and do some work. Has anything else happened on our patch over the weekend which you think worthy of my attention?’

  ‘Usual violent exchanges on Saturday night in the town centre, sir. Some of it racially based. Only to be expected, with the local elections coming up and British National Party candidates canvassing enthusiastically.’

  Tucker sighed the sigh of a man who should not be troubled with such trifles. ‘You accept these situations far too easily, Peach. I expect you and your team to solve problems of racially motivated crime, not just to accept them.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Would you care to come and do a few interrogations yourself, sir? Show the lads and lasses who have to deal with these thugs exactly what they should be doing? Show the new uniformed girl who has seven stitches over her eye how she should have dealt with the knife that was pulled on her when she lay in the gutter? I’m sure the staff would be most receptive to your guidance.’ He kept his eyes upon the wall behind Tucker, aware that he had allowed passion to creep into his last phrases, a thing he normally eschewed with Tommy Bloody Tucker.

  Tucker was alarmed as usual by the suggestion that he should dirty his hands with the work of his section. ‘I would love to give a lead, as you well know, Peach. But I have to concern myself with the overview of crime in this area, not get involved with the detail, as I’ve told you often enough. I have to maintain a certain detachment from the everyday business of the station.’

  ‘Yes, sir. And you detach yourself very efficiently. It’s often been rema
rked upon.’

  Tucker glared at him but could not catch his eye. It was difficult to express distaste to a man who did not seem to be looking at you. ‘Is there anything else of note to report?’

  Peach pursed his lips, as if trying to determine what was worthy of this lofty overview. Then he became suddenly voluble. ‘Bishop urinating in the fountain on the Boulevard last night, sir. Mooned at the statue of Queen Victoria, then whipped up his robes and had a copious and prolonged pee, apparently. Then made certain advances to a woman dressed as Christine Keeler.’

  ‘Christine Keeler?’

  ‘You remember her, sir? Upper-class tart in the sixties, apparently. Helped to bring down a government. Harold Macmillan’s government, I think it was. Wasn’t he the bloke who said we’d never had it so good? Do you think he was perhaps thinking of Christine Keeler at the time? Long before my time, sir, but just about the beginning of your era, I should think. I bet as a young PC you wouldn’t have minded giving that Miss Keeler a right good—’

  ‘Peach!’ Tucker had paled as Peach knew he would at the mention of a bishop. Race and religion were areas of high danger for anyone concerned with police public relations. ‘I hope you’ve handled this matter sensitively, Peach. You know my views on matters connected with—’

  ‘Wasn’t there myself at the time, sir, more’s the pity. I’m noted for my sensitivity, as you know. But the lads seemed to have dealt with the bishop quite diplomatically. He was banged up in the cells for the night. He’s been charged with being drunk and disorderly and indecent exposure, sir.’

  ‘But – but …’ Tucker was so aghast that he was lost for words.

  Percy thought that a most welcome development. ‘Church of England bishop, sir. Just as well, that. With all this happy-clappy stuff going on, they’re allowed a lot more licence than the papists, I should think, but then in these ecumenical and liberated times—’

  ‘You say the man’s been charged. That it’s too late to prevent—’

  ‘In court this morning, sir.’ Percy looked at his watch and brightened visibly. ‘Should be getting his comeuppance at this very minute, sir, if my calculations are accurate. You all right, sir?’

  Tucker was gripping the edge of his big desk and looking very pale. ‘Have you any idea what this could do to our relationship with the Church in Brunton? Have you any notion—’

  ‘Oh, he wasn’t a real bishop, sir.’ Peach allowed himself a small chortle at such a ridiculous idea. His chortle was a rare and unnerving sound.

  ‘Not a real clergyman?’ Tucker spoke like one who did not fully comprehend the idea.

  ‘Didn’t I mention that, sir? Apparently he’s a drag artist from our local gay club. He’d been to a vicars-and-tarts party. Fancied the purple dress and the gaiters, he said. Apparently the woman dressed as Christine Keeler was quite disappointed in him. Said she’d have him under the trades descriptions act for waving a thing like that at her without malicious intent. The man couldn’t roger a woman bent over a barrel, according to her.’

  ‘I don’t want to know that, Peach!’

  Percy thought he had never seen a man’s face transformed from parchment-white to puce in so few seconds. It was a most pleasing effect. ‘Thought you might like a few of the juicier details, sir. Thought it might help to relieve the monotony of having to maintain a general overview of crime in the area.’

  ‘Is there anything of real moment, Peach?’

  Tucker’s tone was dangerously controlled. Percy’s expertise told him that this was a man near the edge. It was time to move on to the real reason why he had come up to Tucker’s penthouse office. He said, ‘A corpse was discovered on Saturday afternoon, sir. On the slopes of Pendle Hill. In a derelict farmhouse.’ Peach could be as concise as anyone, when he chose to be.

  ‘A woman?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Tucker nodded sagely, congratulating himself on this penetrating insight, trying to recover the equilibrium he had lost. ‘A youngish woman?’

  ‘It appears so, sir.’ Peach was intrigued to see where Tucker’s percipience would lead him.

  ‘Be a prostitute, I should think.’ Tucker nodded again with increasing confidence. ‘You mark my words, Peach, a prostitute. I’m right, aren’t I?’

  ‘Couldn’t say, sir.’

  ‘Couldn’t say, Peach? Surely you’ve visited the scene of the crime?’ Tucker found himself hoping heartily that the man hadn’t.

  ‘Yes, sir. Went out and talked to the SOCA team and the Home Office pathologist yesterday. When you couldn’t play golf because of the snow, sir.’

  ‘So who was she?’

  ‘Don’t know yet, sir. Waiting for more details from the forensic laboratory at Chorley, sir.’

  ‘Surely you could be getting on with something, Peach.’ Tucker waved his hands palm-uppermost in the air above his desk. ‘Instituting house-to-house enquiries, asking around the pubs and the knocking-shops, looking for—’

  ‘Be easier when we know when and how she died, sir. We’ve not even established that this wasn’t a suicide, yet. We need a detailed PM report to indicate where we should start.’

  ‘She didn’t die this weekend?’

  By Jove he’s got it, thought Percy. ‘Several months ago, we think, sir. That’s minimum: it could be longer ago than that.’

  Tucker breathed deeply, forcing himself to remain calm. ‘Then why didn’t you tell me this at the outset?’

  ‘Was about to, sir, when you came in with one of your penetrating insights.’

  ‘Insights?’ Tucker now had the look of a sorely perplexed goldfish.

  ‘Said she was a prostitute, sir. When you were maintaining that detachment you said was so necessary for a chief superintendent. Told me to mark your words. So I did, sir.’

  Tucker stared down at his desk, wishing he hadn’t committed himself so early. Then he glared at Peach and asked the question he should have framed at the outset: ‘Is that the sum total of your knowledge at this stage?’ He was pleased to hear that he had managed to make such ignorance sound like a deficiency in his DCI.

  ‘Yes, sir. Until I get some more gen from Chorley, sir. Probably later this morning, I’m told.’

  ‘Get on with it, then. Make it a priority.’

  Suspicious deaths were always a priority. Percy reflected that Tommy Bloody Tucker hadn’t lost his talent for the blindin’ bleedin’ obvious. He said, ‘There’s nothing you’d care to volunteer at this stage, sir. In confidence, of course.’

  The goldfish looked even more lost. ‘Volunteer?’ Tucker didn’t like that word at all.

  ‘We’re both men of the world, sir. Both long enough in the tooth to be shocked by nothing.’

  ‘What on earth are you talking about, Peach?’

  ‘Your view that this woman was a prostitute, sir. You seemed very certain about that.’

  ‘It was merely that I considered it a possibility that—’

  ‘Probability, I’d say, sir. You seemed pretty certain of it at the time.’ He leaned forwards confidentially, looked full into Tucker’s apprehensive face for the first time in minutes. ‘If you’ve been patronizing the ladies of the night, sir, if you have some special knowledge about this case, it would be far better to have it out in the open now. We all have our needs, and if it turns out that you’ve got yourself involved in a sordid murder case, it would be far better to place the facts in my understanding hands at this stage than to—’

  ‘PEACH! You misunderstand me wilfully! And completely. For your information, I do not patronize and have never patronized the prostitutes of Brunton!’

  ‘Yes, sir. Far better to keep it off your own doorstep, I agree, if you’re going to indulge your little male weaknesses and—’

  ‘Nor the prostitutes of anywhere else! Now get out and get on with your work.’

  ‘Yes, sir. If you have any more of your insights, I’m sure you’ll—’

  ‘GET OUT!’

  ‘Yes, sir. Right away, sir.’

/>   Percy Peach’s contrite expression did not change until he had shut the door behind him. He went back down the stairs feeling much more joyful than when he had climbed them.

  Four

  Eleanor Boyd was fully occupied with her work for the first hour and a half of Monday morning. The two different classes of lively fourteen-year-olds with which she began her teaching week were yet to be convinced of the central place that history should occupy in their lives and thoughts. Eleanor strove to acquaint them with the facts of life in Tudor England.

  It was not until she was stirring her coffee at break that her attention was recalled to the events of the weekend. It was Tracey, the bright, pneumatic, blonde girl, who taught media studies and was no doubt the subject of nightly pubescent fantasies, who said, ‘Someone found a body at the weekend. Out Clitheroe way, I think. It was on Radio Lancashire this morning.’

  ‘On Pendle Hill?’ The words were out before Ellie could check them.

  ‘Yes, that’s right. An unidentified female. In some derelict building, I think they said.’

  ‘That was me.’

  ‘You?’ The round blue eyes stared blankly at her.

  Ellie smiled. ‘Not the corpse. I meant that it was me who found it. Well, Dermot and me.’

  ‘I.’

  She looked interrogatively at the lean, balding, older man behind her. Graham Smith looked embarrassed and said, ‘“It was I,” not “It was me.” And “Dermot and I.” Sorry. It comes automatically to an English teacher. Now that they’ve decided we’re going all out for correct grammar again.’ Smith was already wishing that he hadn’t spoken to a colleague like that.

  ‘Never mind that!’ The blonde girl looked round the crowded staff room. ‘Hey, everyone, Ellie Boyd found a stiff at the weekend. And that means a body, not what you smutty PE boys think it is!’

  There were a few giggles, but also a stirring of excitement which was much more pronounced. Ellie was suddenly the centre of attention, with requests from several quarters to tell them more about it. She said as calmly as she could, ‘There isn’t much to tell really. Dermot wanted to climb Pendle Hill in the snow – well, we both did, really. When we were about halfway up, there was a blizzard. Didn’t last long, but you couldn’t see more than fifty or a hundred yards for a little while. And just in the worst of it, the lace broke on my boot. We went into this broken-down building to try to get a bit of shelter and do emergency repairs.’ She realized suddenly that she was rehearsing what she would tell the police. Dermot had made her nervous about it, with his silly caution.