Dusty Death

by J M Gregson

  ‘Of course I don’t. We were busying ourselves with more important things than squats, I can tell you, when I was in charge!’

  ‘More important than murder, sir?’

  Tucker glared at him, but, as was usual on occasions like this, he found his DCI was staring at the wall above his head. ‘I note your insolence, Peach. And I remind you that I am your senior officer.’

  ‘Quite, sir.’ Peach allowed himself a long sigh at this unhappy state of affairs. ‘Well, it seems that our eminent pianist was at this time a member of a squat in Sebastopol Terrace.’

  ‘An eminent soloist living in a squat?’ Tucker smiled his most patronising smile. ‘I really think this must be a case of mistaken identity, you know. You’d better check your—’

  ‘Admitted it to us last night, sir. Living in a squat thirteen years ago. Times change, sir.’

  Tucker shook his head reluctantly. He liked his VIPs to come from the right background, but you couldn’t be certain of anything, in the modern world. And this Bohemian world of music was a closed book to him; he’d heard that artists were strange people. He said vaguely, ‘But a pianist, Peach. He’d need to practise, you know.’

  ‘Don’t think he had a grand piano in the squat, sir. They’d likely have broken it up for fuel, wouldn’t they? But he says he was there, sir. And he’s been able to give us a clue about the victim. It seems she was probably a young woman who was in the squat with him at that time.’

  ‘You have an identification?’

  ‘Not yet, sir.’ I’d have told you if we had, wouldn’t I, you silly sod? ‘It seems she might have been Asian, sir.’

  ‘Asian?’ Peach might as well have said Martian, to judge by Tucker’s goldfish look of incomprehension.

  ‘I think I mentioned that possibility to you before, sir. Quite possibly Pakistani, Hayward thinks. And probably from Lancashire. Possibly the Bolton area. We’re following it up, sir. We’re pressing the dentists in that area for an urgent examination of their records. Let’s hope it produces a match with the dental chart from forensic.’

  ‘You could e-mail them, you know.’ In 2004, Tucker was floundering desperately into the new century.

  ‘Been done, sir.’

  Tucker was disappointed. Then his face brightened. ‘Do you think it might be worth my arranging a media conference? If you think we might have an announcement which would show them how much we’re on the ball, I’d be delighted to—’

  ‘Much too early for that, sir. We’ll need to contact the next of kin, if we think we have an identification. And I’ll need to get back to Matthew Hayward today, to see what else we can screw out of him about his dubious past.’

  It was a danger signal for Tucker. ‘This man seems to be a person of some importance, Peach. The media are always ready to listen to people like him, you know. Go carefully with him, please: we certainly don’t want any bad publicity at present.’

  ‘No, sir. I wasn’t planning any threats or violence: rather the reverse. I thought I’d take DS Blake along with me and try to distract him. Get her to flash a bit of gusset at him, get him off his guard and see what it produces.’ He moved his glance up the wall and licked his lips lasciviously, lost in a fantasy about the lubricious assets of his Detective Sergeant.

  Tucker blanched most pleasingly. ‘You’ll do no such thing, Peach!’

  ‘Maximizing the use of our assets, sir.’ Peach pronounced the word as ‘aaarsets’ and rolled his eyes at his chief in a manner suggesting a horrid complicity between them.

  ‘You will conduct this interview strictly by the book, Peach. There will be no miniskirts or flashing of thighs involved. Is that understood?’

  Peach looked deeply disappointed. ‘Not even the odd glimpse of blue lace knickers, sir? I’m told there are some very beguiling bra and pants sets available now, which have been known to make strong men surrender all control. But of course as a married man you’d be much more privy than me to that sort of knowledge.’ He surrendered himself to the image of Tucker’s formidable thirteen-stone wife, popularly known around the station as ‘Brünnhilde Barbara’, disporting herself around the Tucker bedroom in lace lingerie.

  Tucker was almost certain that he was being taken for a ride here. But not quite: he was never quite sure of his ground with this infuriating, inscrutable man. ‘If this is the way you go about acquiring information, I’m not sure that you should even be allowed to—’

  ‘You wouldn’t care to do the interview yourself, sir? I’m sure your grasp of protocol and vast experience would be much appreciated. Especially as you no doubt were familiar with this squat at the time.’

  ‘I don’t interfere with my staff, as you well know, Peach,’ said Tucker stiffly. The thought of being thrust back into real policing quelled his opposition immediately, as always.

  ‘I’ll try to control the display of our aarsets, sir. I’ll report back in due course.’

  As he descended the stairs, Percy Peach reflected that it was a good thing Lucy Blake would never know the part she had played in his exchanges with his Superintendent.

  Billy Bedford, 62-year-old flasher and society reject, looked even more disreputable by day than by night.

  Percy Peach set down the two pints on the small, scratched table and slid on to the uncomfortable bench seat opposite him. At half past two in the afternoon, the seedy pub was almost empty. The barman viewed his few remaining customers with distaste, hoping they would not hang around much longer. He would be closing the doors in ten minutes: this was not one of those successful hostelries that found it worthwhile to stay open all day.

  Bedford took a cautious sip of his bitter; he looked as though he suspected it might be poisoned. Then, apparently finding it acceptable, despite the fact that it came from a policeman, he took a longer pull at it and said, ‘I shouldn’t be seen in’ere talking to the police. I’ve a reputation to think of.’ But he put both of his bony hands round the pint mug and pulled it towards him, as if he feared it might be removed after this show of resistance.

  Peach found the idea of Billy Bedford having a reputation to preserve a richly entertaining one. But all he said was, ‘We’d better get on with this, then. I haven’t got time to waste. Want to be out catching murderers, you see, Billy. And the odd flasher, of course, if there’s nothing better available.’

  Bedford dropped into his habitual whine of complaint. ‘I ain’t done any of that for years, Mr Peach. I don’t know why you keep bringing it up.’

  Peach gave him a grin which would have withered a stronger man than Billy. ‘Don’t believe it, Billy. Still, I’m not interested in your present activities, at the moment. I’m interested in the dim and distant past, when you were watching every window at night and flashing your limited manly equipment at the startled matrons of Brunton.’

  ‘You’re unfair to me, Mr Peach, really you are. I’ve never’ad a decent crack of the whip from—’

  ‘Fourteen or fifteen years ago, Billy. Sebastopol Terrace.’

  ‘It’s that body you’ve found, innit? I can be useful to you, if I—’

  ‘You’re going to be useful to me, Billy Bedford. Here and now. This is a murder investigation we’re talking about. I wouldn’t like to think there was any question of your obstructing the police in the course of their enquiries.’ Another, different grin appeared beneath the jet-black moustache; there was the look in Peach’s eye of a pike which has spied a juicy minnow.

  ‘I’m only too anxious to’elp, you know that, Mr Peach.’ Bedford took another, this time nervous, pull at his beer.

  ‘I want to know all about the squat you used to spy on, after those roads were cleared of the original tenants.’

  ‘There was more than one squat in those streets, in the years after the people was moved out to the new council estate.’ Despite his companion, Billy could not prevent a grin of lascivious recollection, his broken yellow teeth appearing like a horrid caricature in the leering mouth.

  ‘Twenty-six Sebastopol Terra
ce. That’s the one that interests us, Billy. Concentrate all the power of your filthy mind upon number twenty-six.’

  ‘I remember that. Remember it well. It was the only squat in Sebastopol Terrace, see? The other squats were further away from our’ouse, in the other streets that’ad been cleared earlier.’

  ‘You used to be up there every night, then. Passed it on your way out and on your way back, I expect.’

  ‘I’ad to walk the dog, Mr Peach. He were a good dog, were Spot!’

  ‘And very useful, I’m sure, to a flasher/wanker/waster like you, Billy Bedford. Stood around patiently whilst his master got an eyeful and a handful, did he?’

  ‘Mr Peach, you’re not fair to me, really you’re not. I don’t know why I put up with you going on about—’

  ‘Because I protect you, don’t I, Billy? Because I save your miserable skin from worse things.’ Peach took a long pull of his own beer, then looked into the glass, as if the thought of protecting this pathetic misfit had turned its contents sour. ‘I want to know exactly who was living in that house around the end of 1990 and the beginning of 1991. I’m not interested in the details of what you were doing in the shadows outside.’

  Bedford could not keep relief off his thin-featured face. ‘They didn’t change as much in that squat as in the others. I can remember some of them quite well. They’ad bare light bulbs, in all the rooms. And they never’ad curtains up at the windows, downstairs or upstairs.’ His watery eyes opened wide with that detail, which had been so important to him.

  Peach leaned forward, sensing that if he could make this piteous man feel important, he might get more from him. ‘So tell me about them, Billy. Tell me anything at all that you can bring back. This one’s out of your league, so don’t try to hide anything. One of the people you saw in there could be a murderer.’

  ‘I know, Mr Peach. I’ve worked that out. I’m not stupid, you know.’ His puny frame seemed to swell a little with that assertion. The stench of his breath swept over the man on the other side of the two glasses as he said, ‘I’ve been thinking about it, since you came to the house the other night. There were six of them in there, as far as I can remember. Three men and three women.’

  This was much more definite than Peach had hoped for. He wondered how much he could rely on it, how much Bedford might be trying to inflate his own unaccustomed importance. ‘How certain are you of that, Billy? You’re not stupid, as you said. In which case, you’ll realize we’re going to be looking for these people.’

  ‘Passed that place twice every night for months, didn’t I? Walking Spot, you see.’

  ‘And you no doubt lingered outside for long periods around bed-time. No curtains, you said.’

  ‘There were three women.’ He took another good drink from his almost empty glass, but the lubricious remembrance brought a smile to his thin lips nonetheless when he had put the glass down.

  And thus three men, if his original figure of six in the squat was correct. Peach would have put money on the fact that Bedford’s memories of the women were going to be far more vivid than those he retained of the men. ‘You said you’d been thinking about this, Billy. So give me what you have.’

  ‘One was a Paki.’

  ‘An Asian woman. Not Indian?’

  Bedford’s face clouded. ‘I thought they were all Pakis, round here.’

  ‘How old was she?’

  ‘Young. I’d say the youngest of the three. Nice tits she had, small but shapely. I’m not prejudiced, you see, Mr Peach.’

  Percy wondered if this proof would be accepted by the Race Relations industry. ‘And the other women were older, you think?’

  ‘Not old, though. A bit older than the Paki, but still quite young.’

  Peach went and got them two more pints, quelling the reluctant barman with a single devastating look. Bedford looked at the beer as if he hoped to see the image of the woman he was recalling reflected in its surface. Then he took a quick drink and said, ‘One of them was tall and blonde, moved about well.’

  ‘Junoesque,’ said Percy appreciatively.

  A baffled Billy Bedford looked at him with his head on one side and his eyes glistening, like a bemused geriatric sparrow. ‘She were a looker all right. Nice face. Smashing tits and arse, when you saw her stripping.’ He realized he had admitted to being a peeping Tom, thrust his face momentarily in his beer, made a great play of wiping the froth from his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘You couldn’t help seeing, Mr Peach. They’ad no curtains, you see.’

  ‘I bet you couldn’t,’ said Peach dryly. ‘Natural blonde, was she?’

  ‘I couldn’t say, I’m sure. I didn’t ever see her in the buff, you know. I was just walking Spot. You mustn’t think—’

  ‘How old?’

  ‘Couldn’t say, not for sure. I’m not as good as you policemen at guessing ages.’

  ‘And it wasn’t her face that had your attention, was it? Was she over thirty?’

  ‘No. Definitely under. I told you, they were all quite young. I’d say about twenty-five, but I can’t be sure. It’s a long time ago now.’

  But the image is still sharply etched into your grubby little mind. Fortunately for us. ‘Anything else?’

  ‘No. Well, yes. She had a mark on the back of her leg, the blonde one did.’

  ‘Birthmark? Tattoo? Scar?’

  ‘Never got close enough to be sure, did I?’ Bedford sounded quite indignant about the injustice of life. ‘Not a scar, I don’t think.’

  ‘Back of her leg, you said. Whereabouts? On her calf?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Where, then?’

  Bedford was suddenly coy. It sat very ill upon his lamentable presence. ‘Higher up. Back of her leg, at the top. About where the stocking-top used to come, in the days when they wore suspenders.’ His small eyes misted with the memory of that golden age.

  They were the only two left in the pub now. Peach wondered whether this tall blonde was still slim, fifteen years on. Or still blonde, for that matter. He said, ‘All right, Billy, you’re doing well. Let’s have your erotic reprint of the third of these women.’

  Bedford was so rarely praised for anything that it threw him for a moment. ‘Thank you, Mr Peach. I’m doing all right, aren’t I, for all these years on? She was dark-haired, the third woman. Not as tall as the blonde, but . . .’ He fumbled for the word, and produced only a low, involuntary growl of desire.

  ‘Buxom?’ suggested Peach. It was a word which came readily to mind, after his night of bliss with Lucy Blake.

  ‘That’s it, Mr Peach! Buxom!’ Bedford ran the two syllables around his mouth and savoured them. ‘Buxom! I like that. Not short, not tall, but well built. And buxom, very buxom!’ He seemed to be committing the word to his memory, as if it could conjure up the images he required at some later, more private time.

  ‘Do you recall anything else, beyond her curves?’

  Billy dragged himself reluctantly back from a contemplation of that bouncing bust and that ample, irresistibly desirable bottom. ‘She had a different kind of face from the blonde woman. More like the Paki, in a way.’

  ‘Strong-featured, you mean?’

  ‘That would be it, I suppose, yes. Strong-featured.’ Bedford nodded, pleased with the adjective he had never used before. ‘She had a bigger nose than the blonde woman. More – more definite.’ He raised his hand to his own thin, insignificant proboscis, as if that could confirm to him the features of the woman he had not seen for nigh on thirteen years.

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘No. Nothing I can remember.’ He waved his hands vaguely in the air, indicating voluptuous curves, then clapped them hard upon his beer mug, as if they might betray him if he allowed them free rein. ‘She was about the same age as the blonde bint, I think. I couldn’t say which of them was older.’

  Peach drank his beer and gave his man a grim smile. ‘You must have been in your grubby little element, Billy Bedford. Your own little harem to spy on. What do you remember a
bout the men?’

  Predictably, it was much less. They were all young, all under thirty, but Bedford couldn’t say what age within that band. He thought they were all fairly tall, but every policeman knows that people of diminutive stature tend to think that everyone is tall. Billy couldn’t even recall what colour of hair they had, though he thought two of them had worn it long. That wouldn’t mean much, fifteen years later.

  Peach pressed him as hard as he could for any detail he might recall, and Bedford said suddenly, ‘One of them had a beard. And’e were a big bugger. And’e had a tooth missing.’

  Peach knew suddenly why he was getting this unexpected series of personal details. ‘He came out and caught you, didn’t he, Billy? Came out and caught the dirty little sod who was spying on the women!’

  Bedford’s voice rose into its familiar, apprehensive whine. ‘They’d no curtains, had they? It wasn’t my fault, Mr Peach! And I told him, I’ad to walk Spot, didn’t I?’

  ‘Local bloke, was he?’

  ‘Don’t know, Mr Peach. He had me by the throat. Threatened to tear my’ead off,’e did. He had fierce eyes, nearly black I think, like yours. And a beard, like I said.’

  They finished their beers, whilst Peach probed earnestly but unsuccessfully for any more detail about these men, who were so much less vividly imprinted on Bedford’s memory than the women. The barman banged the double doors of the pub noisily shut behind them as they left.

  Percy Peach walked the short distance back to the Brunton police station ruminatively. It was still possible, of course, that someone had dumped this body in the empty house, that they might have to look for an outsider. But it seemed likely that the Asian girl Bedford had seen there was their victim.

  And it was possible, even probable, that one of the other five who had occupied the squat with her had been her killer.

  It was a detached nineteen-thirties house, one of a row of almost identical properties in a quiet suburban road.

  Expectations are conditioned by experience. DC Gordon Pickering met hundreds of Asians in the course of his work, but it was still a surprise to him to find them living in a house like this in a prosperous suburb of Bolton. The man who stood on the doorstep above him was dark-skinned and austere. Pickering said quickly, ‘Mr Akhtar? I’m Detective Constable Pickering and this is Police Constable Pat Rogers. I think someone rang you about this visit.’